The transition to “America” came about the time the US became a bloody, brutal global empire, committing genocide in the Philippines and conquering Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
Cisco WebEx, Google and other companies are offering free videoconferencing to help restrict coronavirus (and encourage people to subscribe and pay when the emergency is over!)
Republican Darrell Issa moves on to face Democrat opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar in the November election for CA-50
Issa’s primary campaign against Republican Carl DeMaio was dirty. The campaign against Campa-Najjar is going to be dirtier.
ICE's New York office uses a rigged algorithm to keep virtually all arrestees in detention. The ACLU says it's unconstitutional
“… this ostensible problem-solving software was rigged to provide only one solution: detention,” writes Sam Biddle at The Intercept.
According to a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Bronx Defenders:
While waiting for those hearings, those detained suffer under harsh conditions of confinement akin to criminal incarceration. While incarcerated, they are separated from families, friends, and communities, and they risk losing their children, their jobs, and their homes. Because of inadequate medical care and conditions in the jails, unmet medical and mental-health needs often lead to serious and at times irreversible consequences.
Via Cory pluralistic.net
Why America is so vulnerable to coronavirus
Ryan Cooper:
America’s atrociously inadequate welfare state makes it by far the most vulnerable rich country to a viral pandemic, and the vicious, right-wing ideology of the Republican Party has wrecked the government’s ability to manage crises of any kind….
Indeed, U.S. health care is not only by far the worst system among rich countries, it is much worse than that of many middle-income or poorer countries when it comes to confronting a fast-moving epidemic.
The US has no national healthcare system for testing and treatment. Working people with symptoms like a cold (which is how the virus presents) can’t afford to go to the doctor. And the coup de grace is there’s no national policy mandating paid sick time off, which means infected workers in food service, retail, and personal healthcare have financial incentive to go out there and infect the public.
In healthcare policy, as with gun control and education, American Republicans are convinced of the impossibility of policies that work in every developed country in the world, and many undeveloped ones. The point of Sanders' comments about Cuba is not that Cuba is awesome, but rather that even Cuba, with its broken, awful, government, manages to get healthcare and education right.
Via Cory pluralistic.net
Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet
It is one of the few remaining places that retains the faintly utopian glow of the early World Wide Web.
Wonderful article.
American taxpayers have paid $152 million for Trump to play golf, making him the 10th highest paid American athlete.