Boeing vs. Public Broadcasting

By Dean Baker via Common Dreams

The media have been engaged big time in the numbers without context game, throwing out really big numbers faster than anyone can catch them. (For the biggest, the overall size of the stimulus, given the time frame, we are looking at a stimulus that is about five times as large as the Obama stimulus.) While there are many great comparisons to be made on who got what, for now I just want to focus on one: the handout to Boeing compared with the money provided to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Posted on March 31, 2020

Paying The Price Of Science Denialism – Again

By David Michaels/Undark

The short but tragic history of the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis has been shaped by the same corporate-backed science denialism that has long been deployed by the tobacco, fossil fuel, chemical, and mining industries to fight public health and environmental regulation. That denialism has infected the body of the Republican party and now the Trump administration.
Experts in manufacturing scientific doubt on behalf of corporate polluters have been installed in influential posts, shaping the work of key government agencies. Hundreds of dedicated, career scientists have left the agencies, leaving huge gaps in expertise. World-renowned scientists were dismissed from advisory committees and important public health functions, like the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, have been shuttered.

Posted on March 28, 2020

Did The U.S. Commit Crimes In Afghanistan? International Prosecutors Want To Find Out

By Hurst Hannum/The Conversation

International prosecutors tasked with looking into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan have no shortage of potential targets.
Afghan soldiers and warlords have been accused of rape, murder and kidnap almost since fighting began in late 2001. The deliberate targeting of civilians by the Taliban and other groups continues to this day.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces and the CIA are alleged to have carried out unlawful killings and torture, both in Afghanistan and through the secret “rendition” of terrorist suspects to a number of European countries.

Posted on March 21, 2020

Coronavirus Pandemic Reveals Just How Devastating The Greed Of For-Profit Insurance Industry Has Become

By Wendell Potter/Common Dreams

A word to the wise: During this coronavirus crisis, keep an eye on every move of my old industry: health insurers. Behind the PR spin, they’ll be doing everything they can to deny care and maintain profits while making it look like they’re heroes.
Don’t be fooled by the industry’s campaign to make us think they’re good corporate citizens truly interested in your health and well-being. Take it from me, a former insider: what they truly care about are profits.

Posted on March 19, 2020

Stop Comparing The Coronavirus To The Flu

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

As a longtime health care reporter, the unfolding coronavirus pandemic represents everything I’ve read about – from the “early days of epidemiology” to the staggering toll of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic – but had not covered in my lifetime.
And still, I have been caught off-guard by the pushback from top elected officials and even some friends and acquaintances who keep comparing it to the flu.

Posted on March 14, 2020

Protecting Civil Liberties During A Public Health Crisis

By Matthew Guariglia and Adam Schwartz/Electronic Frontier Foundation

Across the world, public health authorities are working to contain the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019). In pursuit of this urgent and necessary task, many government agencies are collecting and analyzing personal information about large numbers of identifiable people, including their health, travel and personal relationships. As our society struggles with how best to minimize the spread of this disease, we must carefully consider the way that “big data” containment tools impact our digital liberties.
Special efforts by public health agencies to combat the spread of COVID-19 are warranted. In the digital world as in the physical world, public policy must reflect a balance between collective good and civil liberties in order to protect the health and safety of our society from communicable disease outbreaks. It is important, however, that any extraordinary measures used to manage a specific crisis must not become permanent fixtures in the landscape of government intrusions into daily life. There is historical precedent for life-saving programs such as these, and their intrusions on digital liberties, to outlive their urgency.
Thus, any data collection and digital monitoring of potential carriers of COVID-19 should take into consideration and commit to these principles:

Posted on March 11, 2020

Allstate’s Secret Suckers List

By Consumer Reports

A joint investigation by Consumer Reports and The Markup sheds light on how a controversial plan pushed by Northbrook, Illinois-based Allstate in Maryland could be functioning in other states that have allowed the company’s customer “retention model.” The groups found that Allstate would have saddled Maryland customers paying the most expensive premiums with big increases that it wasn’t willing to pass on to thriftier customers with similar risk profiles.
Maryland and a few other states have rejected these efforts, but 10 other states have allowed Allstate to use a customer retention model. The groups based their joint investigation on a statistical analysis of the documents Allstate submitted on its plan in Maryland. It offers a rare public window revealing details of Allstate’s pricing plan that have otherwise been kept secret.

Posted on March 9, 2020

Trump’s Banana Split Economy

By Steve Balkin

Prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the main commentary I heard about the economy was that the USA was rosy, would stay so in the future, and would help re-elect President Trump. The 10-year GDP expansion was the highest ever recorded and would continue with no end in sight. The standard unemployment rate, at 3.6%, was the lowest in 50 years.
Like a giant banana split, the economy looked full of sweetness, with whipped cream and cherries on the top. Eating it would give you a sugar rush and you would be grateful to the person who gave it to you.
But I couldn’t help but think of a childhood friend who tried to down a 50-scoop “I Bet You Can’t Sundae” at a local snack shop in Detroit, and ended up with a frozen tongue.

Posted on March 6, 2020

Report: One In Three Illinois Households Can’t Afford Basic Needs

By The United Way of Illinois

Thirty-six percent of Illinois households have incomes below the state’s cost of living, according to new data from the report “ALICE in Illinois: A Financial Hardship Study.”
ALICE households are those that are Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. These households earn more than the federal poverty level but less than the basic cost of living for the state (the ALICE Threshold). Of Illinois’ 4,817,547 households, 12 percent earn below the federal poverty level and another 24 percent are ALICE households.

Posted on March 5, 2020

Schools Are Spying On Students, But Students Can Fight Back

By The Electronic Freedom Foundation

Schools across the country are increasingly using technology to spy on students at home, at school, and on social media. On Monday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a new Surveillance Self-Defense guide for students and their parents, so they can learn more about how schools are watching them, and how they can fight back.
The surveillance technology currently in use includes software to scan students’ social media posts, cameras with facial recognition and other scanning capabilities, and microphones to “detect aggression.” Schools can even track you on devices that they don’t control: if you have to download a certain kind of security certificate to use the school Internet, they may be monitoring your browser history and messages you send.

Posted on March 3, 2020