The United States has become the new center of the global coronavirus pandemic, with over 80,000 cases, more than China or Italy. More than a thousand Americans have already died, but this is surely only the very beginning of this deadly collision between the U.S.’s exceptionally inadequate public healthcare system and a real pandemic. Continue reading
We’re all now party to the most critical election protection debate in U.S. history, one that has entered the coronavirus stimulus package to the tune of $400 million, which may be just a fraction of what’s really needed. Continue reading
The far right thrives on fear. It’s no surprise, then, that it would use the latest pandemic, which has generated widespread panic, to bolster its own agenda. Continue reading
A likely scenario that is to follow the ending of the COVID-19 is the incredible stress that people in large numbers might go through on a global scale, symptoms of which can already be seen in the lockdowns being observed in most parts of the world. Continue reading
The US is the world’s only developed country without some form of universal healthcare. Continue reading
The City of Destiny in Apopka, Florida [right] is a de facto entertainment complex for the weak-minded and gullible. It is neither a theme park nor a cinema multiplex. The City of Destiny is one of several megachurches across the United States that always takes advantage of people during a major threat like the COVID-19 pandemic to fleece their congregations and lure into their grips the fearful. Continue reading
You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Continue reading
The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead. Continue reading
Social distancing is hard, and it’s not fun. Continue reading
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has often declared that he considers himself to be a devout evangelical Christian, and in November 2019 told the New York Times Magazine that the Bible “informs everything I do.” Continue reading
As healthcare providers across the U.S. desperately attempt to treat a rapidly growing number of patients with the coronavirus, a pharmaceutical company with ties to the Trump administration has been granted exclusive status for a drug it is developing to treat the illness—a potential windfall for the company that could put the medication out of reach for many Americans. Continue reading
The genie has escaped from the bottle, revealing the deep injustices and cruelties that are embedded in US capitalism and its warped relationship to the peoples it rules, and the world. Continue reading
In a surprising move, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on February 29 that he will be re-opening his country’s border to Europe, thus allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries. Continue reading
Suddenly, “social distancing” is our new national etiquette, abruptly supplanting handshakes, hugs, gatherings, and other forms of ingrained communal behavior by us humans. Continue reading
WASHINGTON DC (The Last American Vagabond)—Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario. Continue reading
Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, told Fox News’ disproportionately older audience Monday night that he and other American seniors would be willing to risk dying from the coronavirus in order to ensure that the economy doesn’t slide into a serious recession. Continue reading
For decades, critics of single-payer health care have raised the menace of rationed care, long waits, and “death panels.” Continue reading
Every day now we’re waking up into an extreme real-life nightmare, while responses are still routinely lagging far behind what’s at stake. Urgency is reality. The horrific momentum of the coronavirus is personal, social and political. In those realms, a baseline formula is “passivity = death.” The imperative is to do vastly better. Continue reading
The politics surrounding the arrival of coronavirus is on the way to becoming heavily reactionary. Its chief articulators are primarily governments and the corporate media, both of which enjoy enormous clout, and will use it effectively to ensure that their own private agendas are royally served. Continue reading
The US airline companies have bankrupted themselves by buying back their stock in an enrichment scheme for CEOs and board members. With the impact of the virus on their revenues, Congress is handing them a $50 billion bailout. Instead of being bailed out they should be nationalized. Continue reading
Tucked inside Senate Republicans’ gargantuan coronavirus stimulus package is a provision that progressives are warning could significantly damage Social Security’s funding in the short-term and empower right-wing lawmakers to make even deeper cuts to the vital program in the future. Continue reading
Here we go again: Another financial bubble burst and another financial crisis threatening to disrupt the real economy! This time the trigger is the health pandemic of the coronavirus crisis, the most serious in a generation, which is paralyzing the real economy and triggering crashes in the financial sector. Continue reading
In a world where fear of the unknown hangs over the collective consciousness of entire populations the best and the worst of human nature is on display. In Britain small stores engaged in price gouging are being named and shamed on social media — one shop was selling single toilet rolls £10 — while the ‘I’m all right Jack’ brigade are stripping supermarket shelves bare without thought for the needs of the elderly or parents with newborns. Continue reading
The United States president, Donald Trump, is now proclaiming, stands at “war.” We are facing, in the novel coronavirus, “an invisible enemy” that could claim the lives of more Americans than every shooting war America has ever fought. Continue reading
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good. Continue reading
A crisis, according to self-help and leadership books, reveals much about a person’s character. The same can be said of a nation’s character. Continue reading
The Department of Justice is using the coronavirus outbreak to ask Congress for sweeping emergency powers including suspending habeas corpus during an emergency, a power grab that was denounced by civil liberties advocates. Continue reading
Leaning on sober-minded experts in infectious diseases at his daily news conferences, Trump is frantically trying to look good. But the old delusionary Trump keeps resurfacing. On Monday, he rated his coronavirus performance at a perfect ten. On Tuesday, he lied to the public about his knowing it was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.” The facts are just the opposite. On February 28, Trump called COVID-19 a Democratic hoax (See the March 18, 2020 article in the New York Times). Continue reading
A number of years ago, I wrote a documentary about John Gardner, the remarkable public servant who served as President Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of health, education and welfare. He later founded the citizen’s group Common Cause and was, by the way, a liberal Republican, if you can remember a time when such people existed. We can thank him for the implementation of many of LBJ’s Great Society programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. Continue reading
“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 elections. Continue reading
If you are a saver in a money market account or in a bank, you’ve already noticed your dwindling interest income as interest rates have been at their lowest in modern American history. Well, brace yourself. Your saving account has just become little more than a lock box, thanks to the supreme dictatorship of the Federal Reserve. Continue reading
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Phony Trump regime narco terrorism charges against Venezuelan officials
Posted on March 30, 2020 by Stephen Lendman
The US is the world’s leading narco-terrorist state—an indisputable fact! Continue reading →