April 30, 2020

In 'terrifying' indictment of for-profit system, 12.7 million Americans have lost insurance due to

coronavirus

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/in-terrifying-indictment-of-for-profit-system-12-7-million-americans-have-lost-insurance-due-to-coronavirus/

“If we take anything away from this pandemic, it’s that health care should not be tied to employment.”

New research from the Economic Policy Institute reveals that the number of Americans who are losing their employer-based health insurance is growing rapidly, with more than 30 million people laid off or furloughed in the last six weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic.

EPI estimates that 12.7 million of the people who have lost their jobs since early March have lost their health insurance.

snip...

April 27, 2020

Millions of People Face Stimulus Check Delays for a Strange Reason: They Are Poor

https://www.propublica.org/article/millions-of-people-face-stimulus-check-delays-for-a-strange-reason-they-are-poor?utm_source=pocket-newtab

snip...

The stimulus problems are part of a constellation of pain faced by the poor in accessing CARES Act money, from the possibility that banks could seize the money to pay off debts to advocates’ fear that, when paper checks arrive, the check-cashing industry will snatch a hefty chunk.

The tax prep business is built on a complex infrastructure designed to extract fees that many customers cannot afford. When the government tried to navigate that system to speedily get cash to its citizens, it ran into big problems.

The IRS estimates that it will send the $292 billion in CARES Act money to 171 million Americans. The first wave of payments sent out last week was targeted to less than half of those eligible: 80 million Americans whose 2018 or 2019 tax refunds had been directly deposited. To disburse most of the remaining payments, the agency is planning to mail 81 million paper checks bearing the president’s name, according to an IRS budget document.

But for a large portion of the 80 million people the IRS tried to reach last week, “direct deposit” is a bit of a misnomer. Each year, the tax refunds of more than 20 million Americans, including many of Citi Tax’s customers, take a detour. These customers don’t pay their tax preparation fees upfront, instead opting to have the fee taken out of their refund. Because regulations prohibit tax prep companies from receiving refunds directly, a special, temporary account is created at a bank that plays the middleman. The bank takes out whatever fees are owed and then passes the remainder on to the customer.

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April 23, 2020

The Case for Professors of Stupidity

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-professors-of-stupidity

snip...

But what exactly is stupidity? David Krakauer, the President of the Santa Fe Institute, told interviewer Steve Paulson, for Nautilus, stupidity is not simply the opposite of intelligence. “Stupidity is using a rule where adding more data doesn’t improve your chances of getting [a problem] right,” Krakauer said. “In fact, it makes it more likely you’ll get it wrong.” Intelligence, on the other hand, is using a rule that allows you to solve complex problems with simple, elegant solutions. “Stupidity is a very interesting class of phenomena in human history, and it has to do with rule systems that have made it harder for us to arrive at the truth,” he said. “It’s an interesting fact that, whilst there are numerous individuals who study intelligence—there are whole departments that are interested in it—if you were to ask yourself what’s the greatest problem facing the world today, I would say it would be stupidity. So we should have professors of stupidity—it would just be embarrassing to be called the stupid professor.”

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Interesting article and so very relevant.

April 15, 2020

'Beyond Predatory': Trump Treasury Department Gives Banks Green Light to Seize $1,200 Stimulus Check

Source: Common Dreams

President Donald Trump's Treasury Department has given U.S. banks a green light to seize a portion or all of the one-time $1,200 coronavirus relief payments meant to help Americans cope with financial hardship and instead use the money to pay off individuals' outstanding debts—a move consumer advocates decried as cruel and unacceptable.

"The Treasury Department effectively blessed this activity on a webinar with banking officials last Friday," The American Prospect's David Dayen reported Tuesday.

In an audio recording from the webinar obtained exclusively by the Prospect, Ronda Kent, chief disbursing officer at the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, told bankers that "there's nothing in the law that precludes" financial institutions from seizing a person's payment and using it to pay off the individual's debts.

...

Read more: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/beyond-predatory-trump-treasury-department-gives-banks-green-light-seize-1200

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WTF????

April 1, 2020

A new DOJ report blows a huge hole in Trump's FBI conspiracy theories -- and exposes a much bigger

scandal.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/a-new-doj-report-blows-a-huge-hole-in-trumps-fbi-conspiracy-theories-and-exposes-a-much-bigger-scandal/

snip...

“While our review of these issues and follow-up with case agents is still ongoing—and we have not made materiality judgments for these or other errors or concerns we identified—at this time we have identified an average of about 20 issues per application reviewed, with a high of approximately 65 issues in one application and less than 5 issues in another application,” he wrote.

This suggests the Page application may not even be close to the most egregious misuse of the FISA process. And as Ben Wittes of Lawfare noted:

It’s worse even that that sounds. The reason is that Horowitz calls his “initial review . . . consisted solely of determining whether the contents of the FBI’s Woods File supported statements of fact in the associated FISA application; our review did not seek to determine whether support existed elsewhere for the factual assertion in the FISA application (such as in the case file), or if relevant information had been omitted from the application.” In other words, “our review was limited to assessing the FBI’s execution of its Woods Procedures, which are not focused on affirming the completeness of the information in the FISA applications.” In short, there are very likely errors that would not show up in this initial screen—including, for example, if the information in the Woods File were itself incorrect.

There were other problems too: “About half of the applications we reviewed contained facts attributed to CHSs [confidential human sources], and for many of them we found that the Woods File lacked documentation attesting to [key] requirements.”

As Wittes noted, it’s not clear yet how substantial these errors are to the case for surveillance. But given their ubiquity, there’s little reason yet for optimism. Sloppiness in law enforcement is rarely a sign of otherwise scrupulous actions. And FISA, in particular — given its encroachment on civil liberties and lack of transparency — is supposed to be the most pristine of all law enforcement work.

So while Republicans have been screaming for years about an anti-Trump cabal in the FBI, it appears they’ve been completely ignoring — along with the rest of the government — the potential of something much worse: A virtually unchecked federal surveillance authority running amok, regardless of the target.

March 28, 2020

45's latest imperial decree.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/trump-says-he-has-the-power-to-block-provision-of-stimulus-that-informs-congress-where-the-corporate-bailouts-go/

The passage of the $2 trillion stimulus bill to give Americans relief from coronavirus was good news for millions of people. But President Donald Trump is already laying the groundwork to ignore provisions of it that impose congressional oversight.

In a signing statement, Trump said that he intends to ignore the provision of the bill that requires the newly-created Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery to report to Congress “without delay” when any other agencies in his administration refuse to provide information about how the money is being spent.

“I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the SIGPR to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required by the Take Care Clause, Article II, section 3,” wrote Trump. In other words, he is granting himself authority to block the inspector general from reporting inter-agency obstruction to Congress — even though the bill does not provide for allowing him to do so.

snip...

March 25, 2020

We already paid for COVID-19 treatments, we shouldn't have to pay twice.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/we-already-paid-for-covid-19-treatments-we-cannot-let-big-pharma-make-us-pay-again/

There’s much we don’t yet know about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. We don’t know how long the pandemic will last, when a vaccine will be developed, or how many lives antiviral medications can save. But there’s one thing we know for sure: U.S. taxpayers have already paid for the research and testing of the most promising treatments.

These treatments should be available to everyone who needs them at no cost. But the Trump administration’s drug policy is led by two former pharmaceutical executives, and that is having devastating consequences for potential access to treatments and vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you’ve been watching Donald Trump’s daily press briefings, that might come as a surprise. During his 2016 campaign, Trump loved to talk tough on pharma and say he would fight for lower drug prices. But then he put Alex Azar, a big pharma CEO infamous for doubling the price of insulin, in charge of regulating health care. Several weeks ago, Azar refused to guarantee that a coronavirus vaccine will be affordable for all, citing the need to protect big pharma’s profits.

snip...

Trump fails to mention that taxpayers have spent nearly $700 million on coronavirus research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Nor does he mention that big pharma corporations spend more money enriching themselves through stock buybacks than they do on research and development.

snip...

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GD vultures

March 24, 2020

Trump FDA Grants Drug Company Exclusive Claim on Promising Coronavirus Drug

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/massive-scandal-trump-fda-grants-drug-company-exclusive-claim-promising-coronavirus

snip...

As The Intercept reported Monday, the Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead Sciences "orphan" drug status for remdesivir, one of several drugs being tested as potential treatments for the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. The designation is generally reserved for drugs that treat rare illnesses affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans—but companies can be eligible if the designation, as in this case of a rapidly spreading virus, is made before a disease spreads beyond that limit.

About 40,000 Americans had contracted COVID-19 when the orphan status was granted to remdesivir Monday, and the disease is spreading faster in the U.S. than in other countries. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 51,000 Americans had confirmed cases.

Having secured orphan drug status, Gilead Sciences can now profit exclusively off the drug for seven years and could block manufacturers from developing generic versions of the drug which might be more accessible to many patients. The company can set price controls on the drug as well as benefiting from grants and tax credits.

As The Intercept reported, the designation was given to a company where Joe Grogan, a member of President Donald Trump's "coronavirus task force," worked as a lobbyist from 2011 to 2017, often working on issues regarding drug pricing.

snip...

March 17, 2020

Sick leave compromise?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/many-lawmakers-out-town-democratic-house-quietly-weakens-paid-leave-provisions

snip...

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday morning that "Democratic aides were alarmed by the changes, which were passed with no objections because House lawmakers are away from Washington [on recess]. The changes weren't shown to most lawmakers before the vote."

The new version of the bill, according to the Journal, "would still provide two weeks of sick leave to a wide swath of workers affected by the pandemic, including those who are in quarantine, caring for family members with COVID-19, and those who have children whose schools or day-care centers have closed."

"But for the next 10 weeks," the Journal noted, "paid leave would be limited only to workers caring for a child whose school or day care had been shut. Healthcare providers and emergency responders, as well as workers who had been in quarantine or caring for a family member affected by the virus, wouldn't be eligible for the additional 10 weeks of leave."

snip...

The changes were negotiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The original version that passed the House early Saturday before lawmakers left Washington for recess sparked swift backlash from the business community, which chafed at the paid leave requirements.

March 17, 2020

Naomi Klein warns of 'coronavirus capitalism.'

author of "Shock Doctrine"

>9 minute video

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/

snip..

This crisis — like earlier ones — could well be the catalyst to shower aid on the wealthiest interests in society, including those most responsible for our current vulnerabilities, while offering next to nothing to the most workers, wiping out small family savings and shuttering small businesses. But as this video shows, many are already pushing back — and that story hasn’t been written yet.