America Is Ripe for Russian Interference This Election Season

Russians didn’t actually manipulate ballots in 2016, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen in 2020

Among the seemingly infinite controversies since President Trump took office in 2016, perhaps none have persisted as singularly as the concern of Russian interference in our elections. In his new book, Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference, reporter David Shimer assesses the history of election meddling between the two nations, from post–World War II to Vladimir Putin’s current shadow over U.S. elections.

While Russia didn’t manipulate actual ballots and voting systems in 2016, Shimer says pandemic conditions could make such interference possible this year. And there’s the continued threat of social media manipulation by the Moscow-backed Internet Research Agency, which has a history of playing on American racial tensions to divide voters.

GEN spoke with Shimer about Russia’s carefully orchestrated campaign of chaos and how current political flashpoints — especially the Black Lives Matter protests and the Covid-19 pandemic — may play a role in covert interference efforts come November.

GEN: What were the primary facets of Russia’s electoral interference campaign in 2016?

David Shimer: Russia did three things to manipulate America’s presidential election. First, Russian military intelligence covertly scanned, probed, and penetrated our electoral systems — inside our voter databases, inside our voting systems. All available evidence indicates they didn’t actually manipulate our systems. However, they were inside them, and that’s something the U.S. intelligence community was aware of at the time.

The second prong was the hack and release of the private correspondence, the emails, of John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee.

The third component was what is called an information warfare campaign across social media, where a Russian factory basically, with a monthly budget in the millions, had a bunch of Russian operatives sitting in a troll farm in Russia. The reach of those accounts ended up being over 100 million Americans.

While the Obama administration was intensely focused on the first facet going into the 2016 election, the Internet Research Agency’s information warfare campaign was largely unknown. What was the IRA’s objective, and why was its use of social media distinct?

What social media presented the IRA an opportunity to do was, you don’t have to work through actual people. You can just make fake accounts, and then suddenly you are an American. You had Russians in a factory in St. Petersburg in an organization that was run by a close ally of Vladimir Putin presenting themselves as Americans on a wide scale across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit—all over the social media landscape.

The first objective the IRA pursued was to sow discord in America. What does that mean? We are going to spread content that scares people — things about vaccines, about pandemics, about the sanctity of our voting systems. We’re going to target specific racial and religious groups. One of the IRA’s main focuses was on targeting Black Americans in order to suppress the Black vote, because Black voters typically tend to align with Democrats. And the other objective of the IRA, the secondary objective, was to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. The IRA also spread divisive racist content toward different audiences to try to turn out voters perceived to be more likely to vote the way it would want. But it went beyond just voting one way or another to the point of dividing Americans.

“What is happening today in America, Russia is probably pleased about.”

If a primary focus of the IRA was to suppress the Black vote and exacerbate racial tension, is the recent nationwide movement following George Floyd’s death something Russia is happy about?

What’s happening today is obviously not caused by Russia. It’s caused by systemic issues and failures in the United States over time. But it suits Russia’s interest, because the objective of Russian foreign policy is to degrade American democracy and to portray American democracy as a dysfunctional system to the rest of the world.

I spent about half a day with Oleg Kalugin, who was a KGB general, and he said to me just exactly that: “We spent all of the Cold War trying to show the world that America’s actually just a hotbed of racism or a hotbed of hatred in order to show that it’s not something to desire, that America should not be a leader in the international system, and that its democracy is just a dysfunctional mess.” What is happening today in America, Russia is probably pleased about.

In that sense, ironically, while many view these protests as a positive paradigm shift in American society, in Russia’s eyes it actually aligns with the country’s interest in making the United States seem weak and divided.

What Russia wouldn’t be pleased about is if we implemented effective policy reforms to make progress on these issues. Because if we do, if our democracy is functioning well, then Russia doesn’t have its propaganda, and if our democracy is functioning well, then it’s [easier] for us to lead abroad rather than get captivated by our own inequities at home. So it’s ironic in that we can do two things at once, which is we can vet our own democracy, and we can make progress in our competition with Russia.

So, in a sense, Russia is pleased with this national reckoning only to the extent that it doesn’t produce meaningful change. How would Russia then be responding to the moment to theoretically prevent that?

It’s hard to say for sure what they’re doing. The best indicator — that’s the whole point of my book — is the past. One example is a former employee at the IRA [who] said, “When there were Black people rioting about abuses in the United States, we would spread propaganda saying that policy toward Black Americans had failed and that America was just a racist mess.” So, it’s that kind of idea, which is spreading the propaganda around fissures, around divisions, around failures that already exist. That’s something Russia did in 2015 and 2016; that’s something Russia can be doing now.

But Russia could also go bigger than that, hypothetically. There’s a story that comes to mind — I talked to one of the KGB officers who helped orchestrate this. In 1960, there was a letter that arrived in the mailboxes of the UN delegates from a bunch of African and Asian countries that was signed by the Ku Klux Klan. This letter to these delegates said all these awful, racist things. It caused an international outrage, showing the world how Americans perceive all these people of these different counties. A delegate from Nigeria actually read the contents of the letter out loud in the UN General Assembly, saying that this is a letter we received from the KKK. But the truth was that that letter was actually a forgery. It was produced by the KGB in order to create just that kind of controversy — to showcase to the world that America is, in the words of one of the people who executed that operation, just a hotbed of hate.

How does the coronavirus play into this? How is Russia weaponizing the pandemic?

My concern about the pandemic is slightly different. Yes, I’m concerned about propaganda being spread around Covid-19 and around pandemic diseases.

But the thing that I am much more mindful of is that, in 2016, the leading if not exclusive concern of President Obama and his inner circle was that Russia was going to cause chaos on Election Day, was going to sabotage our voting systems. If we get to Election Day and there’s no actual plan for voting nationally — if you already have chaos at polling places, hours-long lines, people unsure how to cast their ballots safely without jeopardizing their health, uncertainty across the nation about whether this vote is actually legitimate — you have a real problem. Especially when the sitting president is saying that the vote’s going to be rigged.

How legitimate is the threat of Russia’s tampering in the voting process itself?

It’s extraordinarily legitimate. And the legitimacy of it is reflected in the actions that our governing officials took the last time around. What were President Obama, folks like John Brennan, Jim Clapper, Susan Rice doing in the fall of 2016? They were desperately seeking to stop Russia from taking advantage of its access into our election infrastructure and manipulating the tally and the voter data of the American people. On Election Day, there were crisis teams in the White House, in the Department of Homeland Security, bracing for that sort of attack.

Since then, we haven’t had a national response to the exposure of our voting systems in a mandated way. The way our election infrastructure works is that each state controls its voting system and controls its voting registration databases. So, the Department of Homeland Security can offer Georgia help with securing its voter databases, but Georgia could say to the Department of Homeland Security, “We’re not interested. Leave us alone.”

If, as I wish he would and hope he would, President Trump were to say, “If you interfere in our elections, you’ll pay a steep price,” Russia might actually reconsider how it was going to proceed.

If Trump has taken no action — and, in fact, has only invited interference in the past — where does that put the security of our electoral systems in 2020? Is anything being done?

I think the DHS is trying to make progress behind the scenes. Again, it can implement a nationwide response. Congress should pass mandatory cybersecurity requirements. Not to say to states that you need to hold your elections this or that way, but rather to just say, “You can’t have unencrypted voter databases that are easily accessible and manipulatable.” To do that sort of thing, that’s not on President Trump—that’s on Congress. They haven’t done that.

Many Americans still consider the notion of Russian interference in our elections as a partisan myth. How would you respond to them?

In 1960 and 1968, the Soviet Union interfered in our elections to try to destroy the candidacy of Richard Nixon, a Republican. In 1976, the Soviet Union again interfered in our election to destroy the candidacy of Ronald Reagan, a Republican. They did the same thing in 1984, trying to take down Ronald Reagan. In 2015, there’s evidence of Russian social media accounts spreading content that’s hostile to folks like Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham. So, it’s not partisan. What the Soviet Union did, what Russia is now doing, is helping candidates who align with its interests and trying to sow discord and destabilize our democracy as an end to itself.

The United States Is In A Time Of Great Danger-Do Nothing And You Will Make Sure Your Wife And Mother And Children Will Be Raped And Injured Beyond Belief!

Most Americans who have been around for a while know life is nothing like it used to be. When someone wanted a job one was found with a little bit of searching. Today jobs are difficult to find, especially in small communities.

When I was growing up in the 70’s, there were several car dealers in my community. There were three tractor dealers and too many mom and pop stores to count. Today there are two used car dealers and the nearest tractor dealer is twenty miles away. So how is it that we now have more people, but fewer businesses to employ them?

A nations wealth is derived from having a product to sell. That wealth needs to circulate in towns and cities to compound the wealth effect and create jobs and businesses. When wealth is not created or it is siphoned off to other places, the wealth effect can not happen, and in many cases goes into reverse. A community needs a certain amount of service related jobs to function but it also needs some type of production jobs to bring in money from the outside. This can be mining , agriculture or manufacturing type jobs, but they must exist to insure a healthy economy.

America has two major problems today. A large amount of our production is done outside the country eliminating production jobs in local communities and many of the small local businesses that kept wealth within communities have been supplanted by large corporations that siphon wealth out of communities and send it to wall street.

In the past when a small business made profit, that profit was kept in the local community because that is where the owner lived. Now, that profit leaves the community never to be seen again. With less money to circulate within the community the businesses that depend on people spending their extra dollars, have fewer customers and eventually go out of business. With fewer jobs there is that much less money circulating and the economic situation spirals down until nothing is left.

These days corporate businesses and government jobs make up the major part of many local communities. In many cases if it were not for the government jobs, many communities would no longer exist. So what do you think would happen if the government suddenly no longer had money to pay those workers? What would happen if corporate profits dropped to the point where corporate stores decided to close and cut their losses?

To some extent we are seeing this happen now in many places. Corporate stores moved in and drove small local businesses out. Then when the profits dried up the corporate stores closed leaving the community with no jobs or products to buy. With no capital in the local communities to rebuild small businesses, the people simply drive to other areas to do their shopping.

The corporate cronies and government laggards control most of the money flowing through communities now and they want to keep it that way. Any attempt to rebuild local businesses is met with luke warm results. Any business that might make a difference is either killed outright or regulated into oblivion before it can get off the ground. The county where I live has all but abandoned local businesses. The bulk of their income comes from property taxes generated by vacation homes and retirement homes of retired government employees. As long as the government pensions and paychecks continue, they see no reason to change the status quo. The result is that the younger people leave as soon as they can and the average age of the population continues to get older. As with many places today, this area has no future.

Where I live is a microcosm of the nation. Corporate and government entities continue to siphon what little money there is out of communities and just as small communities are dying, the nation will soon follow if current trends do not change. A return to small local economics is the only way to reverse some of the damage and keep our communities livable. But, do not be deceived. There is no way to undo all of the damage that has been done and even if we survive, we will only be a shadow of what we once were as a nation

Will Americans just let this happen? Will lazy Patriots just give a minimal effort?
For readiness, the hour glass has almost run out! In the absence of your local FEMA rep (that is, local spy) organize your neighbors into groups of three and four (so they can’t be infiltrated) and get ready! There is a Wild Ride just ahead! Let’s make a swift effort of taking the Red door, now opening, and painting it black! Death to all destroyers of America!

Otherwise, the death of America is at hand. And the greatest betrayer of the children and aging of America will be… You! You! Do nothing and you will make sure your wife and mother and children will be raped and injured beyond belief! Are we locked and loaded yet?

The “Corona Hoax”, The Proliferation of Racial Riots. Towards a Military Lockdown?

The “leak“– this time from the German Ministry of the Interior – shows a “secret” 93-page document, admitting basically how badly Germany reacted to the corona hoax – no, the paper doesn’t call it a ”hoax”, but you can taste it between the lines. In essence it says the economic and social collateral damage is much, but much larger than the impact of COVID-19- in terms of lives lost due to postponed treatment for cancer, heart and other life-threatening diseases, collapse of social infrastructure, despair, suicide, joblessness – no future in sight… for many the world just collapsed like a house of cards – no perspective nothing.

The paper also refers to other corona outbreaks from earlier years, and “regular” flu epidemics, which were much more serious than the 2020 one – the latter, COVID-19, denominated by WHO as a pandemic – under orders of the mighty behind the WEF -The World Economic Forum – the infamous Davos Club, to which also Bill Gates belongs, the vaccine tsar, who stated in a February 2010 Southern California TED Talk entitled “Innovating to Zero” –

“If we are doing a real good job [vaccinating], we can reduce the world population by 10% to 15%” (see this).

Please, for your own sake and for that of your children and children’s children, keep this always in mind, when you hear Bill Gates and vaccination. The one that we are all risking to be “forced” to get – is the one against COVID-19.

Would you trust Mr. Bill Gates – for any vaccine, actually for any health advice?

But, it gets better (or actually worse), he basically makes WHO’s health policies as far as vaccination goes, literally wiping out (excluding) any other medically and scientifically proven preventive and curative measures.

Why? Because The Gates Foundation is one of the key financiers of WHO’s budget, in addition to Big Pharma and other interest groups, especially GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) – another creation of Bill Gates. Telecoms are also among the contributors of the WHO’s budget.

The Telecoms are rolling out clandestinely the dangerous and untested and understated 5G (fifth generation technology) which cellular phone companies began deploying worldwide- to better control you – and about which WHO – the world’s foremost health agency – has not said a word, with regard to health impacts of 5G.

That’s the way it goes in our neoliberal-leaning-to neo-fascist – everything-goes world.

Back to the German Interior Minister, Mr. Horst Seehofer. His study team of experts finds that the Covid disease was of lesser importance than for example the flu of the 2017 / 2018 season. The study also looked at death statistics and found that the overall death rate in Germany from all causes is comparable to that of previous years and lower than that of the last big flu 2017/2018 season, which went virtually unnoticed. There are no extra deaths, as the German statistics and covid-accounting would indicate with the official 8,522 death toll as of 2 June 2020.This would be a significant spike as compared to previous years – which however, isn’t reflected in the statistics.

In essence the study concluded – politely – Covid-19 was a huge False Alarm. When the Minister’s spokesperson was confronted by journalists about the leaked paper, he said something to the effect – we are not discussing anything with conspiracy theorists. Total denial. – Why?

The team of scientists that elaborated the report for the Interior Ministry (Bundesministerium des Innern – BMI), was flabbergasted, when the Ministry distanced itself from their report. The research team issued a Press Release, triggered by the leaked document – even though it, the BMI, signed off on the scientists’ report. See this (from RT Deutsch [Germany], in German).

The Press Release basically said that the corona-virus was a treatable respiratory disease, not deadly, that it could be prevented and cured; that risk groups, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses, would need to get special attention and treatment; that there was no need to lockdown the entire country to overcome this corona virus, thereby destroying the economy and livelihood of millions of people – which would have a collateral damage way out-weighing the number of corona-victims. For example, postponed cancer and heart operations, due to keeping hospital beds empty for Covid-Patients, may account for between 5,000 and 125,000 early deaths. This does not account for the countless deaths from hopelessness, despair and suicide.

The Press Release concluded, expecting the BMI to respond and to enter a constructive debate with the report team. The Press Release was signed by a number of prominent signatories.

Prof. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Universitätsprofessor für Medizinische Mikrobiologie (im Ruhestand) Universität Mainz
Dr. med. Gunter Frank, Arzt für Allgemeinmedizin, Mitglied der ständigen Leitlinienkommission der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Familienmedizin und Allgemeinmedizin (DEGAM), Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. rer. pol. Dipl.-Soz. Dr. Gunnar Heinsohn, Emeritus der Sozialwissenschaften der Universität Bremen
Prof. Dr. Stefan W. Hockertz, tpi consult GmbH, ehem. Direktor des Instituts für Experimentelle Pharmakologie und Toxikologie am Universitätskrankenhaus Eppendorf
Prof. Dr. Dr. rer. nat. (USA) Andreas S. Lübbe, Ärztlicher Direktor des MZG-Westfalen, Chefarzt Cecilien-Klinik
Prof. Dr. Karina Reiß, Department of Dermatology and Allergology University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein
Prof. Dr. Peter Schirmacher, Professor der Pathologie, Heidelberg, Mitglied der Nationalen Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina
Prof. Dr. Andreas Sönnichsen, Stellv. Curriculumsdirektor der Medizinischen Universität Wien, Abteilung für Allgemeinmedizin und Familienmedizin.
Dr. med. Til Uebel, Niedergelassener Hausarzt, Facharzt für Allgemeinmedizin, Diabetologie, Notfallmedizin, Lehrarzt des Institutes für Allgemeinmedizin der Universität Würzburg, akademische Lehrpraxis der Universität Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. Dr. phil. Harald Walach, Prof. Med. Universität Poznan, Abt. Pädiatrische Gastroenterologie, Gastprof. Universität Witten-Herdecke, Abt. Psychologie 4

This list of highly reputed medical professionals is testimony of the seriousness of the report-which by the way came to very similar conclusions than did other studies in other countries, including in the US and in Russia.

For example, on 26 May, Dr. Alexander Myasnikov, Russia’s head of coronavirus information, gave an interview to former [Russian] Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, in which he apparently let slip his true feeling. Believing the interview over, and the camera turned off, Myasnikov said:

“It’s all bullshit […] It’s all exaggerated. It’s an acute respiratory disease with minimal mortality […] Why has the whole world been destroyed? That I don’t know,”

The Connection – Corona, Racial Riots towards a total Military Lockdown – Abrogation of Human and Civil Rights – Suspension of Constitutional Rights – Martial Law

This begs the question – the imminent question – is there a connection between the corona disaster with the world economy and people’s livelihoods destroyed and the racial riots triggered by the savage police killing of an African American – Mr. George Floyd – in Minneapolis. Riots that within days have spread to over 40 US cities, violence no end. On the weekend the riots have spread to London and Berlin, so far mostly peaceful.

Tuesday evening, 2 June – tens if not hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in French cities, including at least 20,000 in front of a ‘Palais de Justice’ – (a justice or tribunal building) in the north of Paris.

The protests were generally against police brutality, against racism and against the senseless and devastating lockdown – which in France and most of the rest of Europe, is still not totally over, despite all scientific reports and recommendations – let alone those from economists – that there is no danger – and that the economy should now be boosted, so it may pick up fast.

Already now – with only the tiny tip of the iceberg visible – the world is facing 2 billion people out of work in a few months (ILO up-date) – drifting towards famine despair – and death – from famine, suicide, neglect desolation- hopelessness…. Yes, Mr. Gates – so far, the crisis works in your favor. But justice will prevail. Whether with you or without you. People are waking up.

Is it coincidence that the German Interior Ministry does not accept the report established by its own team of experts? – Admitting the “false alarm” as the report calls it, admitting the over-reaction and immediately counter-act to revive the economy, to support laid-off people, to help grappling small- and medium size enterprises back on to their feet- to avoid the worst – that might have spared Germany from riots- and may have made example throughout Europe on how to react. But no.

It is as if riots were what is wanted throughout the US, where President Trump has threatened militarizing the country and has already sent troops into Washington DC, where riots are burning literally holes into entire neighborhoods of the city- violence is rampant in this predominantly colored capital city of the US of A. – And as if riots were also wanted throughout western Europe, with the same objective – chaos, that will require military intervention and eventually Martial Law.

Violence in Europe, is it gradually moving from country to country? Is it coincidence, or planned? And who finances these riots? – The organization Black Lives Matter which is involved in campaign and riots in the US (among others), is amply funded by Soros, Ford, Rockefeller and other One-World-Globalists, so was Occupy Wall Street – and so are most ‘protests’ at G-20 and G-7 meetings including the World Social Forum (WSF).

Vested-interest funding, foreign or domestic, is involved whenever ’Black Blocs’ – (image right) those men in black ransack and loot shops, break windows, destroy and burn cars.

The “Black Blocs” are people, who are actually either themselves policemen or hired by the police to justify the violent police interference. – Remember the Yellow Vests – more than a year of weekend-demos before corona put a halt to the movement?

What is being planned is sheer urban warfare. And Europe feels prepared for it. There is the European Corps (Eurocorps), an intergovernmental military corps with its headquarters of approximately 1,000 soldiers stationed in Strasbourg, Alsace, France.

The Eurocorps is operational since 1995.

They have been trained for urban warfare, along with other European special forces, mainly at a NATO-supported urban military training camp in Saxony-Anhalt, Northern Germany.

Is this planned move of riots throughout the Global North – maybe also spreading to specific countries of the Global South – Step One of the “Lock Step Scenario” – 2010 Rockefeller Report which starts with a corona pandemic in 2020 – towards total military control, towards Martial Law – towards suspension of all civil and human rights; suspension of our constitutional rights? – Who knows. It’s an evil plan.

Germany could have stopped it. This medical expert report provided the basis for an honest admission – for stepping out of the “Lock Step” – it might have still been time. Sticking to the people. Admitting the mistake – the rest of Europe would follow and the monster project of the deep dark evil state would falter. But Germany seems to have missed the boat – or the opportunity of being THE Peace maker. By coercion or free will? But what kind of coercion could force a Government like that of Germany into this diabolical submission?

Otherwise, will it again be the Germans like 75 years ago, after WWII, when the majority of Germans said “we didn’t know” – will we experience a “Déjà-Vu” – 20 or 30 years from now?

No chance.

We are waking up, with or without the German Government.

But the German people are with Us, the People.

And we shall overcome, the man-made corona crisis, and the purposefully man-fueled racial riots – as well as their “amalgamation”.

We want to live a free life.

We want to rebuild our willfully destroyed social- and physical infrastructure – we want to be free.

No more surveillance – and enslavements by the Gates, Rockefellers and Rothschilds of this world.

We do not accept force-vaccination. We want to be free to choose. We do not need, nor do we want a One World Order. And if it is a New World Order, it is We, The People, who are going to design and build it.

We are sovereign beings – and will create our sovereign states on the basis of new-found solidarity for a common future among mankind.

The Great US 2020 Wealth Transfer Heist. Deep Inequalities in US Society

In less than three-and-a-half years in office, Trump oversaw the Great GOP 2017 tax cut heist.

It handed corporate America and high-net-worth individuals a multi-billion dollar bonanza of enhanced wealth — followed this year by what I call 9/11 2.0, economic collapse triggered by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Along with letting dominant US corporate giants consolidate to greater size and market power, it includes an escalated great wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to privileged ones.

The scheme has been ongoing in the US (and West) for decades, notably since the neoliberal 90s — war on social justice, a plot to eliminate it altogether over time.

It aims to free up US wealth for escalated militarism, endless wars, corporate handouts, and greater enrichment of America’s super-rich.

The grand scheme is transforming the US (and other Western states) into ruler-serf societies — thirdworldized and controlled by police state power, unsafe and unfit to live in, privileged interests served exclusively at the expense of ordinary people.

Since US economic collapse began in February, millions of Americans applied for unemployment benefits — ongoing for 12 consecutive weeks in unprecedented numbers, greater than during the Great Depression, US unemployment today much higher than then.

Overall conditions today for ordinary Americans are far worse than in the 1930s.

Following Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 election, New Deal programs put millions of people back to work.

Virtually nothing is being done to create jobs today, Dems as culpable as Republicans.

Both right wings of the one-party state are indifferent toward public health and welfare, and it shows by their policies.

Official unemployment numbers way understate reality, the true number around 40% of working-age Americans.

Most US workers with jobs have part-time or temp employment for poverty-level wages with few or no benefits.

Countless numbers of US workers had their hours and pay cut. Growing millions have no health insurance.

Americans can have anything they want — depending on their ability to pay.

They’re increasingly on their own otherwise, notably at a time of unprecedented economic collapse that’s far more serious than COVID-19 outbreaks.

They’ll pass in time, even if increase substantially in the months ahead.

The wreckage from economic collapse will be long-lasting, millions of jobs permanently lost, the lives and welfare of countless numbers of Americans devastated — way too little help from Washington forthcoming.

A new Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report discussed a bonanza for US billionaires at a time of unprecedented job losses — “pandemic profiteers” benefitting from human misery.

Super-wealth of America’s billionaire class increased by around “half a trillion” dollars this year, according to IPS, an unprecedented heist over a short period of time.

According to Forbes magazine, the US has 614 billionaires, along with nine others, foreign nationals living in America.

IPS reported that the super-wealth of America’s billionaire class increased by 16.5% from March 18 to May 28 — while countless millions in the country “face suffering, hardship and loss of life.”

The US billionaire class added 14 more to its total in the last 10 weeks, 628 up from 614, IPS explained.

Two super-billionaires — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg — increased their wealth by “over $63 billion since March 18.”

IPS called today’s state of America “a grotesque indicator of the deep inequalities in US society.”

Before economic collapse began in February, over 20% of working-age Americans were unemployed, based on the pre-1990 calculation model.

They’re omitted from official Labor Department numbers, nonpersons according to Republicans and Dems.

In the past three months, around 41 million more Americans sought unemployment benefits.

Millions more haven’t had their applications processed, along with millions of out-of-work self-employed Americans — many, maybe most, not getting unemployment benefits.

Because health insurance is linked to employment, tens of millions of Americans lost coverage.

IPS: “While millions risk their lives and livelihoods as first responders and front line workers, these billionaires benefit from an economy and tax system that is wired to funnel wealth to the top.”

“Low-wage workers, people of color, and women have suffered disproportionately in the combined medical and economic crises.”

“Billionaires are overwhelmingly white men.”

As of mid-May, the combined super-wealth of the US billionaire class exceeded $3.3 trillion.

Two Americas exist — one for the vast majority of its people, ordinary ones struggling to get by, including unprecedented numbers out-of-work.

The other is for the nation’s super-rich and privileged class overall. Its members never had things better — their gain at the expense of most others.

Looking ahead, things most likely will worsen for ordinary Americans, the trend for decades.

They’re exploited by the nation’s privileged class in cahoots with Republicans, Dems, and the Wall Street owned Fed.

Together they comprise a conspiracy against peace, equity, justice, the rule of law, and government serving all its people.

The American way is polar opposite, the privileged few benefitting hugely at the expense of most others in a nation where democracy is pure fantasy, not real.

U.S. Debt Crisis Comes into View as Fed’s Balance Sheet Explodes Past $7 Trillion

On May 29, 2019, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet stood at $3.9 trillion. As of this past Wednesday, May 27, 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet had skyrocketed to $7.145 trillion, an increase of 83 percent in one year’s time.

But the explosion in the Fed’s balance sheet cannot be attributed solely to the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The math and the timeline simply do not support that argument. According to the timeline at the World Health Organization, on December 31, 2019, China first reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia which were identified in early January to be the coronavirus now known as COVID-19. These were the first known cases anywhere in the world.

But on December 31, 2019, the Federal Reserve was already deep into a debt crisis in the United States. We know that from the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee. The Fed minutes for the meetings on December 10-11, 2019 state that the Fed’s emergency repo loans (that it had started making on September 17, 2019 for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008) had “totaled roughly $215 billion per day” as of the date of that meeting.

Using the Fed’s own Excel spread sheet data for its emergency repo loans, Wall Street On Parade reported on January 27 that the Fed had made $6.6 trillion cumulatively in emergency revolving repo loans to Wall Street since September 17. The first death in the U.S. from COVID-19 did not come until February 28 and was reported by CNN one day later.

Repo loans (repurchase agreements) are typically routine overnight loans between banks, mutual funds and other financial institutions. The institution borrowing the money provides high quality bonds (typically Treasury securities) as collateral and signs an agreement to buy back the securities at a specified price. The difference in the price is effectively the interest charged on the loan.

The Fed started out on September 17 offering overnight loans of $75 billion daily. Three days later, on September 20, it added 14-day term loans. On October 23 the Fed announced that its daily repo loans would be increased from $75 billion to $120 billion while its term loans would continue. On December 12, the Fed announced that it would supplement its repo loans by adding a 32-day loan of $50 billion to its ongoing, twice per week term loans of 14-days and it would increase its overnight loans from $120 billion to $150 billion on December 31, 2019 and January 2, 2020. The Fed said it would also add an extra $75 billion overnight loan, thus bringing an extra $185 billion of liquidity over the turn of the year on top of its ongoing repo loans.

The Fed has subsequently added an alphabet soup listing of Wall Street bailout programs, many of which have been resurrected from the days of the 2008 crisis.

Today, the Fed’s balance sheet shows that its repo loan program is still ongoing with a $181 billion balance outstanding. Emergency lending from the Fed’s Discount Window stands at $18 billion. Emergency loans to the trading houses on Wall Street under its Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) stands at $6 billion. Buying up undesirable debt from money markets under the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMMFLF) shows a balance of $33 billion. Scooping up unwanted commercial paper under the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) stands at $12.79 billion. Making outright purchases of investment grade and junk-rated corporate bonds under its Corporate Credit Facilities (which is targeted to expand to $750 billion by September 30) was just launched three weeks ago and currently stands at $34.85 billion.

All of the above programs, which provide assistance to the Wall Street banks and their trading units, total $267.64 billion currently outstanding. But the assistance is far greater than that. The repo loans are currently being made at an interest rate of 0.10 percent – a tiny fraction of what Wall Street’s trading houses would pay for these loans in the open market. If the trading houses simply loaned that money out as margin loans to hedge funds and day traders, they could make astronomical profits. The Fed is making its Discount Window loans and Primary Dealer Credit Facility loans at 0.25 percent – again, a preposterously low rate with no relationship to where these trading firms could borrow in the open market.

Think of it in these terms: imagine if every American who is paying interest of 9 percent or higher on their credit cards to these same Wall Street banks (e.g. Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, etc.) were offered money from the Fed to pay off these credit cards at an interest rate of 0.10 or 0.25 percent. Americans could get their financial houses in order rather easily. But no such deal is being offered to struggling Americans – 40 million of whom are now unemployed.

In addition to the overt Wall Street bailout programs listed above, the Fed has more programs that are more subtle in how they bail out Wall Street. The Fed is buying staggering amounts of U.S. Treasury securities and Mortgage-Backed Securities each month. Those combined balances of securities currently stand at an astonishing $5.9 trillion on the Fed’s balance sheet. Before the onset of the crisis in 2008, securities held by the Fed as of December 26, 2007 stood at $755 billion and consisted solely of U.S. Treasuries. By scooping up all of this debt from Wall Street over the past 13 years, the Fed has artificially rigged interest rates lower for a decade while allowing Wall Street to underwrite trillions of dollars in additional corporate debt that should not have been issued because the markets were going to puke it back up (to use Wall Street jargon) at the onset of the next economic downturn. That puke is what you’re now seeing on the Fed’s balance sheet. The Fed has become both the lender and buyer of last resort.

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Before January of 2009, the Federal Reserve had never before purchased Mortgage-Backed Securities. Before September 14, 2008, the Fed had never in its history made loans against stocks as collateral. Before May 12, 2020, the Federal Reserve had never before purchased corporate bonds or junk bonds. Today, the Fed is doing all of these things and numerous aspects of what it is doing are likely illegal under its statutory legislation known as the Federal Reserve Act.

The Fed also has a new program called the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility (PPPLF). The Fed is not providing money directly to small businesses as is being done under the Small Business Administration’s PPP program. The Fed is reimbursing banks for the money they have already loaned under the PPP program in order to provide liquidity to the banks. That program currently has $49 billion outstanding on the Fed’s balance sheet.

Then there are the Central Bank Liquidity Swaps that stand at $449 billion on the Fed’s balance sheet. The Fed provides dollars to foreign central banks and takes their foreign currency in exchange. This allows foreign central banks to have adequate liquidity to buy U.S. dollar-denominated assets and help prop up markets. There could well be other uses for the dollar swap lines. According to the Government Accountability Office audit of the Fed that was conducted after the 2008 financial crisis, this is one additional use that was made of the swap lines:

“In October 2008, according to Federal Reserve Board staff, the Federal Reserve Board allowed the Swiss National Bank [the central bank of Switzerland] to use dollars under its swap line agreement to provide special assistance to UBS, a large Swiss banking organization. Specifically, on October 16, 2008, the Swiss National Bank announced that it would use dollars obtained through its swap line with FRBNY [Federal Reserve Bank of New York] to help fund an SPV [Special Purpose Vehicle] it would create to purchase up to $60 billion of illiquid assets from UBS.”

UBS is a major investment bank and trading house and a major player on Wall Street. It purchased the large U.S. retail brokerage firm, PaineWebber, in 2000. The UBS Dark Pool, the equivalent of a thinly regulated stock exchange operating internally within UBS, has been one of the largest traders in Wall Street bank stocks.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, promised months ago to report to the American people on what caused the need for the Fed’s intervention in the repo loan market on September 17 and what necessitated it to remain as the lender of last resort in that market for all these past months. The Fed has failed to release any such report.

The Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Randal Quarles, has repeatedly promised to reveal the names of the Wall Street borrowers and the amounts they have borrowed under the Fed’s growing list of emergency loan facilities. The Fed has now filed three monthly reports to Congress on those facilities and there is not one name of a borrower or the individual amounts borrowed. All the public has been given are lump tallies – which paint a dystopian picture of the state of the debt markets in the United States but tell us nothing about which publicly traded banks are in trouble.

The Unfolding Catastrophe. What Can Hegel Teach Us Today?

This year marks 250 years since the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel was born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany. In light of this anniversary I reassess what Hegel’s philosophy of nature can contribute to our contemporary understanding – what it has to say to us as we face a time of unprecedented environmental degradation.

We are in the midst of a mass extinction; losing species – plants and animals – somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times the naturally occurring background rate of extinction. Clearly, estimates vary widely – but there is a general consensus that anthropogenic climate change “at least ranks alongside other recognized threats to global biodiversity,” and is in all likelihood the “greatest threat in many if not most regions.”

What can Hegel’s philosophy teach us given this unfolding catastrophe? For most philosophers and scholars (not to mention scientists), if there is any area of Hegel’s thought that is antiquated and irrelevant it is his Naturphilosophie. Indeed, even in Hegel’s own day this part of his philosophy was ridiculed if not ignored, mainly because of his reliance upon a priori (as opposed to empirical) reasoning in constructing an account of the natural world. Consequently, it receives relatively little scholarly attention compared to his other monumental contributions to modern thought. This is unfortunate; for Hegel’s approach to nature is anything but a mere curiosity in the museum of ideas, even if parts of it seem dated or worse. Rather, what he has to say is centrally relevant to environmental concerns today.

The root causes of anthropogenic climate change – which has led to the endangering of countless species across the globe – cannot be adequately grasped in isolation from the technological application of modern science. While Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was certainly justified in calling upon American legislators to “unite behind the science,” neither can we overlook the culpability of science in bringing about the environmental crisis.

Alison Stone’s Petrified Intelligence (2004) offers one of the few sustained and sympathetic studies of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. She points out that the problem with the scientific approach is that it rests on inadequate metaphysical assumptions: “Empirical scientists work from a metaphysical assumption according to which natural forms cannot in any sense be considered agents whose behavior has meaning, but rather are bare things whose behavior makes up a mass of intrinsically meaningless events.”

In the Introduction to the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel writes that “The wealth of natural forms, in all their infinitely manifold configuration, is impoverished by the all-pervading power of thought, their vernal life and glowing colours die and fade away.”

This draining of nature of its inherent richness, its intrinsic qualities occurs paradigmatically in René Descartes’ famous analysis of the piece of wax in his Mediations on First Philosophy. Descartes effectively dissolves the “sensuously resplendent piece of wax into properties (extension and malleability) graspable by the mind’s eye alone.” Qualitative distinctions are replaced by quantitative ones; so that what we witness is indeed nothing less than the dematerialization of nature and its reduction to a mechanical system which can be fully articulated through the immaterial forms of theoretical mathematics.

Scientific and classical enlightenment views of nature represent it as lacking the qualities – including value qualities – which we generally understand to be present within it. Sensibility embodies a basic understanding of nature as intrinsically valuable, as having its own right and its own voice. The metaphysics of empirical science, by contrast, assumes that the behavior of natural forms is inherently meaningless and exhaustively explained by external causal factors.

Hegel wants to reenchant nature, but not by retrieving an outdated and unacceptable medievalism – rather, the approach that he favors is distinctly modern; and involves reasserting nature’s interiority or inwardness: “Matter interiorizes itself to become life,” as Hegel puts it. In terms of ethics Hegel’s conception of nature is preferable to the rival scientific metaphysics because he recognizes and insists upon the intrinsic value of every natural form. Nature’s forms and entities are intrinsically good – which is to say, they are good regardless of any human interests in or feelings regarding them. Indeed, Hegel postulates goodness everywhere in nature – not only in sounds and colors, but in chemical and electrical processes, elemental qualities, and even the passage of time and the immensity of space.

While individual natural forms have intrinsic value, they do so to varying degrees: nature is structured hierarchically, according to Hegel – and the organic is privileged over the non-organic. Hegel is also prepared to say that this hierarchy culminates in the appearance of human beings; so that one criticism of Hegel that environmental thinkers are likely to make is that he adopts a narrowly anthropocentric viewpoint. What this charge fails to appreciate however is that while humanity may represent the highest realization of Spirit (Geist), spirit is already there implicitly in the animal organism.

Animal life is, for Hegel, the truth of the organic sphere: the plant is a subordinate organism whose destiny is to sacrifice itself to the higher organisms and be consumed by them. The animal organism is the microcosm which has achieved an existence for itself, and in which the whole of inorganic nature is ‘recapitulated and idealized.’ What distinguishes the animal organism is its subjectivity – the animal is ensouled, “having a feeling of itself, whereby it acquires enjoyment of itself as an individual.” The plant lacks precisely this feeling of itself, this soulfulness.

To consider this more concretely, look at what Hegel has to say about voice, which he describes as “a high privilege of the animal which can appear wonderful… The animal makes manifest that it is inwardly for-itself, and this manifestation is voice.” Hegel draws special attention, in fact, to birdsong – for “the voice of the bird when it launches forth in song is of a higher kind; and this must be reckoned as a special manifestation in birds over and above that of voice generally in animals… birds utter their self-feeling in their own particular element… Voice is the spiritualized mechanism which thus utters itself.”

It is noteworthy that what Hegel has to say about birdsong has in fact been reiterated by more recent ornitho-musicology. Charles Hartshorne – one of the twentieth century’s great philosopher-theologians – was also an expert in birdsong. In his book, Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Birdsong, he observes that the song “conveys no single crude emotion but something like what life is to that bird at that season.” In fact, birdsong expresses feeling, “according to principles partly common to the higher animals… That a bird sings because it is happy is not entirely foolish.”

As our knowledge of living Nature grows, we will likely find that those aspects of ourselves which we take to be most distinctly human – such as aesthetic appreciation – may be regarded as an extension and refinement of abilities already present among nonhuman animals. Hegel’s philosophy of nature may provide the basis for a more environmentally sustainable way of life, in part by helping us to see how it is our intellectual duty to view living things “within the widest of intellectual and spiritual horizons,” as the great Swiss zoologist Adolf Portmann put it.

To treat the natural world – and especially living beings – as a mere aggregate of things to be ruthlessly exploited according to our narrow interests cannot but entirely miss the deeper, genuine and philosophical comprehension which views Nature as “in itself, a living Whole.” This implies that we must view and treat the animal organism as an irreducible way of being in the world, which cannot be understood solely through the physio-chemical or molecular analysis of life.

The loss of biodiversity is not only an environmental crisis, but an ontological crisis as well – for with the extinction of a species the very interiority of Nature has been diminished, as the world is no longer experienced in the way specific to the life form in question. To avoid this catastrophe we must be prepared to draw on all the resources at our disposal, and that may well include the philosophy of nature.

Will Trump Wage More Wars to Distract From COVID-19 and Economic Collapse?

Trump is the latest in a long line of belligerent US presidents, throughout his tenure waging war on multiple fronts at home and abroad.

His priorities are self-enrichment, serving Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Military, and other corporate favorites, along with getting reelected.

War by the Trump regime and Congress rages domestically —SARS-Cov-2 (the virus producing COVID-19 illness) used as a weapon by power elites to consolidate to greater market dominance by eliminating competition.

An already begun unprecedented surge of bankruptcies approaches, mostly affecting hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses.

Weak larger ones are also vulnerable to be bought by strong competitors at fire sale prices.

The toll is an unacceptable new (ab)normal, the US more greatly resembling Guatemala, Somalia, or Bangladesh, millions of lost jobs not coming back.

Most employed Americans will work for poverty or sub-poverty wages with few or no benefits — a permanent state of war to exist abroad against multiple invented enemies, new ones perhaps to be attacked belligerently.

In early January, who could have imagined that most Americans would willingly accept house arrest, that major sports competition would cease for the interim, that real unemployment would approach 40%, that a protracted main street Greater Depression may have begun!

Worse still, dare I suggest that US dark forces planned what’s happening for their own self-interest and cronies —by unleashing SARS-Cov-2 on humanity with a diabolical follow-up plot in mind.

A relentless campaign is underway for Americans and others abroad to accept mass vaxxing ahead with toxic vaccines able to do far greater harm than good — including substances able to cause the disease they’re supposed to protect against.

Along with all of the above domestically, are DJT and Pompeo-led Trump regime hardliners spoiling for confrontation with China, Iran, Venezuela, and even Cuba.

A US war of words rages against these countries, Big Lies drowning out hard truths and reason.

On Thursday, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that “China-US diplomatic backchannels (are) dry(ing) up, making it harder to communicate…”

Sino-US relations are the most dismal in decades. Bilateral communications “ground to a halt as a result of the rising hostility and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic…”

Anti-China Trump regime and congressional actions threaten to rupture bilateral relations.

Trump’s reelection strategy includes falsely blaming China for his mishandled public health and economic policies.

Nothing positive can come for both countries from the hardline US approach.

Separately, the Trump regime may be heading toward confrontation with Iran and Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Pompeo slammed both countries, tweeting:

“The United States condemns (Iran’s) Supreme Leader Khamenei’s disgusting and hateful anti-Semitic remarks (sic)” — how US hardliners describe truth-telling rhetoric that touches the right nerves.

Pompeo targeted democratically elected and reelected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, turning truth on its head, tweeting:

“Two years ago today, Maduro showed the Venezuelan people and the world that there can be no free and fair election while he occupies Miraflores Palace (sic).”

“The Democratic Transition Framework provides a roadmap for peaceful democratic transition for Venezuela (sic).”

Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Maduro is the hemisphere’s model democracy, a notion increasingly totalitarian USA tolerates nowhere, especially not at home.

Cuba was also on Pompeo’s target list, falsely accusing its ruling authorities of “trampl(ing) (on) the rights of the Cuban people” — a longstanding US specialty at home and abroad.

Ahead of November elections, will the Trump regime instigate confrontation against one or all of the above countries on the US target list for regime change?

On Wednesday, Iranian Defense Minister General Amir Hatami warned the Trump regime that “(w)e will definitely give a firm and decisive response if harassments continue or escalate.”

His comments referred to possible Pentagon interdiction of Iranian tankers with gasoline en route to Venezuela — an act of high seas piracy if occurs.

“Our policies are crystal clear, and we announced explicitly that we will tolerate no act of harassment,” Hatami stressed.

By letter to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif slammed “the illegal, dangerous and provocative US threats” against Iranian tankers en route legally to Venezuela, warning of consequences if the Trump regime goes this far.

Scheduled to arrive in Venezuelan waters in late May or early June, Bolivarian Republic military vessels will meet them when entering the country’s economic zone to escort them to port to unload their cargo.

Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said the country’s navy and air force will welcome the Iranian tankers when reach the nation’s maritime territory.

During a Security Council session, Bolivarian Republic UN envoy Samuel Moncada slammed Trump regime hostility, saying actions it may undertake to block Iranian tankers “from reaching their destination would thus constitute a crime against humanity.”

Separately, Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela Hojjatollah Soltani defended the legal right of both nations to engage in international trade and other normal relations, adding:

“This relationship between Iran and Venezuela doesn’t threaten anybody. It’s not a danger to anyone.” It’s the legal right of all nations to deal with others politically, economically, and through trade.

Trump regime hardliners consider internationally recognized legal relations between countries on the US target list for regime change a threat to its national security.

It’s one of countless Big Lies and distortions used by both right wings of the US one-party state to advance its imperial agenda.

Wars by hot and other means, state terrorism, and other hostile actions are its favorite strategies — why the US remains humanity’s greatest threat.

This economic depression was always going to happen, the virus just accelerated the downfall

On Tuesday May 12th, it was announced that the stay at home order in Los Angeles County, California due to the coronavirus would be extended for another three months.

As the virus continues to spread and the economic downfall the likes of which the nation hasn’t seen since the Great Depression continues to touch lives all across the nation, countless people are undoubtedly reeling at the thought of not being able to generate an income for months longer. But as we continue to feel the widespread web of stress and trauma this virus has caused, I can’t help reflecting on how little it took for everything to crumble. It’s difficult not to come to the honest conclusion that coronavirus didn’t kill the American economy, it just sped up the dying process.

In an economic system with a staggering seventy four percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, forty percent unable to afford a $400 dollar emergency last year, and with many working multiple jobs to provide for themselves and their families, the American economy has been a ticking time bomb for years, just waiting to go off. But an economy as morally bankrupt as our own was never meant to weather a crisis like this. A system that would rather starve its citizens in to submission than supply them a small return of the wealth their labor generated so that they might find stability during this crisis will always crumble eventually.

In the midst of a pandemic where over thirty million people have been forced to file unemployment, many of them are losing healthcare, over 80 thousand people are dead, and small businesses all over the country are on the precipice of collapse, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos is apparently on track to potentially become the world’s first trillionaire. While even in normal times he is making more each second than a minimum wage worker can hope to earn in a month, his ex wife is worth 37 billion dollars simply for owning a 4 percent stake in the company.

If the coronavirus was truly what brought on the death of the American economy, it was the unparalleled, unsustainable greed of the Jeff Bezos’ of the country and the politicians who they’ve bought that allowed it to do so. In all honesty how can we really identify the coronavirus as the cause of all this economic devastation, when it was the instability lying beneath the surface for so long that truly prompted in all pain and trauma?

There’s no denying that web of trauma this virus continues to inflict on the American people grows more tangled and intricate by the day, and it’s difficult to even put in to words the difference that having a strong safety net would have made. It wasn’t the coronavirus that deprived Americans of universal healthcare, rent freezes, robust and responsive state unemployment offices and websites, or politicians willing to do what’s necessary with policies to protect them. Policies similar to Canada’s, where their citizens are being sent $2,000 a month for the duration of the crisis. Money — it’s worth noting — that came from and belongs to the citizens in the first place, just like it does here.

Above all else, this pandemic served as a mask off moment for the American economy more than anything else. With tens of thousands dead and more getting sick each day, watching our politicians and corporations slowly begin to pressure us to get back to work and in essence become sacrificial lambs for the stock market has been as surreal and barbaric as it is predictable. But of course, all that being said at the same time there has never been a better moment in recent history for the American people to become more conscious of the nation’s shortcomings, and how so much of what we deserve has been structurally deprived from us for so long. As we live the consequences of that deprivation, I’m all too mindful of the fact that history has taught us that the masses will only tolerate so much.

Day by day, we are rapidly approaching the breaking point. What happens when we get there, for better or worse, remains to be seen.

Donald Trump is Pushing to End Healthcare Coverage for Millions

Even Obamacare’s biggest haters wouldn’t end it during the largest global health crisis in a century

To get us out of the Depression, FDR’s New Deal created a safety net for Americans and got people working again. In 2020, 1 in 4 Americans will be out of work. By pushing to end health coverage for millions — and limit it for tens of millions more — Trump is creating a Reverse New Deal, taking away our safety net as we loss employment.

Last week Trump doubled down on a meritless Supreme Court case to nullify the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) due to be heard this Fall. If successful, it would end health care coverage for 20 million more people and pre-existing condition protection would disappear for all.

It would also raise drug costs on millions of seniors, allow lifetime limits, end Medicaid expansion, raise prices on older people and people with pre-existing conditions, end out of pocket cost limits, end the public health and prevention fund, and end required preventive benefits:

Public Health and Prevention Fund: GONE
Marketplace tax credits and coverage for ~10 million people: GONE
Medicaid expansion currently covering ~17 million people: GONE
Protections for 133 million people with preexisting conditions when they buy coverage on their own: GONE
Allowing kids to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26: GONE
Ban on annual and lifetime limits: GONE
Ban on insurance discrimination against women: GONE
Limit on out-of-pocket costs: GONE
Improvements to Medicare, including reduced costs for prescription drugs: GONE
Essential Health Benefits: GONE
Required improvements to employer-sponsored coverage: GONE
Rules to hold insurance companies accountable: GONE
Small business tax credits: GONE

At a time of a global pandemic, when tens of millions more will be added to the list of people with preexisting conditions — and many will lose their jobs and require preexisting protections — this is an assault on older, poorer, and sicker Americans when they are getting ravaged by Covid-19.

During a pandemic, what puts me at risk puts you at risk.

At a time when some Americans are worried about their rights being infringed upon, Trump is asking Americans to give up rights so insurance companies can label people and deny them care.

In a time of COVID-19, ‘Obamacare’ still part of the action

WASHINGTON (AP) – COVID-19 could have stamped a person “uninsurable” if not for the Affordable Care Act. The ban on…

Just as we’re trying to contain outbreaks in this pandemic, Trump’s actions will only add fuel to the fire when hot spots break out.

National, state, and city uninsured rates would skyrocket.

The national uninsured rate would increase by 65%
In Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, the number of uninsured people would climb by more than 133%
In Florida, an additional 1.5 million uninsured people would drive up the state’s uninsured rate by 67%
The uninsured populations in Baltimore, Cleveland, Louisville, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and San Francisco would swell by between 130 and more than 170 percent
The uninsured populations in Albuquerque, Denver, Detroit, Portland, Seattle, Washington DC, and several California cities, including Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, San Diego, and San Jose, would roughly double, expanding by about 100 to 120 percent

All while Americans are losing access to health care in droves. 27 million more Americans have lost health care coverage due to Coronavirus. Trump is trying to keep it that way by trying to overturn the ACA.

Trump’s decision would be a massive blow to health care providers. At a time when we are bailing hospitals out with hundreds of billions of dollars, uncompensated care costs would increase by $50 billion.

It’s not as if this Reverse New Deal doesn’t benefit anyone. The rich will receive billions in tax cuts if Obamacare is overturned.

As Nicholas Bagley and I wrote about the original case, the case itself is a baseless cynical ploy that counts on judges acting on their politics:

Health care will define the midterms. Donald Trump’s move to gut Obamacare guarantees it.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party just put America’s health care squarely on the November ballot. After a year of…

Today, friend of the court briefs opposing this effort were filed by nearly everybody in health care — patients, clinicians, scientists, public health experts, conservatives, liberals. Over 70 leading health organizations and 56 leading legal and health experts filed amicus briefs. This would “plunge millions of Americans into an abyss of prolonged uncertainty.”

What’s next: Throughout the summer more briefs will be filed. Prior to the Coronavirus outbreak, the case was scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court in October. Now it may be pushed off. We should know when in August.

Trump’s team of course is hoping for a delay. They don’t want this heard before the election. They would like to be able to pick more conservative Justices. It’s cynical.

I understand that the ACA has been a lightning rod issue for the last decade. As I came in to turn around and implement it, we had to spend nearly half our time defending it from attacks.

Trump has been no friend to Medicaid, Medicare or the ACA and his stance hasn’t been popular. Ripping out people’s health coverage and leaving them bare is hard to justify. But a global pandemic and manmade depression showed how much the ACA and more more are needed.

Still the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for Trump to back away from a fringe and radical effort to tear down the ACA. Who would end access to health care coverage during a time when 27 million new people have lost their coverage?

Even the greatest ACA haters wouldn’t get rid of it now. One would have to hate something far more than the ACA to pursue this now. The decision not only imperils the country, but Trump’s political future. The hatred and jealousy of Obama is all consuming.

Even in a global pandemic, some tribal habits run deeper: deeper than economic recovery, deeper than lives lost.

Those of us working across party lines to try to save lives know the favor would never be returned by this Administration if the roles were reversed. Yet we do it anyway. Too much is at stake. There is plenty of rhetoric that aims to divide the country right now. Most of it doesn’t amount to much. Some of it does but are natural tensions. Taking health care away in a pandemic rises to a special level.

Trump’s Reverse New Deal, taking health care coverage, liability shields for business, no front line protection, eliminated nursing home regulations, refusal to coordinate the Defense Production Act — they are all self-inflicted on top of the largest global health crisis of the century.

Why Crackpots, Lunatics, and Extremists Rule American Life — Even in a Lethal Pandemic

When I look around the world today, it strikes me that we’re living in the age of the sociopath. I don’t just mean that in the technical psychological sense of the word — a certain head of state and his goons come to mind — but first, in a deeper, truer, broader sense. Sociopathic: hostile to the idea, the notion, the purpose, of society. Not just “their” society or “mine” or “yours” — but the great and historic ideal of society itself. Sociopathy to the point that nations like Britain and America were simply unable to lock down in time, to protect society’s most vulnerable. Sociopathy to the point that Americans sunbathe on beaches while the death rate is the equivalent of a 9/11 every day. Sociopathy to the point that despite the fact that the infection hasn’t peaked yet, Trump is still trying to “reopen” the economy.

When you look at a generation of leaders failing ruinously to deal with any of the great challenges of the 21st century — inequality, climate change, mass extinction, stagnation, and now, a pandemic— it’s because most of them are profoundly, immovably hostile that there is such a thing as a society we should and must care for to begin with. When you look at fractured, riven countries, one after the other plunging into authoritarianism, it’s because large numbers of people have become deeply hostile to the notion of living in or being part of a society — not just theirs, but living beside anyone and caring for them, investing in them, nurturing them, period. When you see Americans protesting lockdown, armed with rifles— that, my friends, is textbook sociopathy, a kind of sneering contempt towards the idea that society exists, matters, counts, or is even necessary.

We are living in the age of the sociopath. Wherever I look, I see sociopathy at work. We often say that countries are divided today — but that’s not quite true, at least in the old sense of left versus right. What we should really see is that that many, many people have developed a deep enmity, hostility, antipathy to society itself. The idea of society. Its principles and values. Its founding notions, which I’ll come to. Its very essence. More and more people are simply rejecting “society” itself — not theirs, per se, but the concept itself.

The world is divided now into people that believe in society — and people that don’t, who believe in something more like tribalism, Darwinism, authoritarianism, hate, violence, and rage. That they should be supreme, above all others, that they are the center of the world, that nobody else and nothing else matters but them and their gratification. There is a kind of deep social nihilism at work in the world today — a kind of bitter disbelief that any kind of “we” exists. And from this hostility, this enmity, comes a surging aggression, bitterness, rage, animus — that’s tearing the world apart today, knocking back to turbo-charged regress. And it is this force at work in Britain and America’s responses to Coronavirus.

You don’t have to look much further than America — the world’s reigning champion of sociopathy — to see all this in action. America’s long championed the idea that, as Margaret Thatcher once famously said, “there’s no such thing as society.” You might not — but generations of American leaders advanced bizarre and strange notions that basically rested upon the idea of society not needing to exist. Hence, Americans privatized everything from energy grids to schools, hospitals and medicine, universities and roads. Generations of Americans came to be staunchly “conservative” — not genuinely interested in conserving anything, really, but only in tearing down whatever remained of a functioning society. They succeeded — to the point that today teachers are being armed in schools, suicide is skyrocketing, the average person’s life has fallen apart, all while billionaires are becoming trillionaires.

Of course, Americans didn’t believe in society because they couldn’t — America was founded on the notion that some people aren’t human at all, so society, in the modern sense, could never exist at all. Only something more like a caste system could, which is why the American elite and what’s left of the middle class (not much) still rejects the idea of society today. “I won’t stay home to save their lives! Those dirty, filthy people!” But much of the rest of the world doesn’t have this strange and grim history. And yet instead of having learned anything from all this, many nations are beginning to follow suit. What the…? And there’s Europe — slashing investment instead of spending.

America’s cautionary tale — its weird, foolish journey of sociopathy — contains many lessons for the future, for the world, even for Americans. Some of them are simple.

There’s a certain kind of American, now legendary the world over, who thinks that carrying a gun to Starbucks, not vaccinating their kids, denying their neighbors retirement, and denying their own families decent healthcare, is the pinnacle of intelligence, civilization, decency, and progress. The rest of the world, and the rest of America, has come to know such people as the American Idiot. The American Idiot, it seems, knows no bounds. Today, for example, their latest and greatest cause is to protest against lockdown, reopen a pandemic-ridden society where the infection rate hasn’t even fallen yet, thus ensuring that death on a mass scale becomes death on an historic one. The question therefore arises: are such people (for whom the idea of a society of equals, who people are to respect, care for, nourish, and protect) simply… sociopaths?

I mean that in this sense: to the American Idiot, society doesn’t really exist. Everyone is an enemy, a rival, an adversary, cannon fodder. Come down with a deadly pandemic? Too bad for you. You must have been weak, and only the strong survive. This kind of attitude, which betrays a stunning indifference to everyone else’s life or death, is surely the essence of sociopathy. So: are we living in the age of the sociopath? And isn’t that one of the things the pandemic proves, despite all the feel-good stories of doctors and nurses? That many of us have become hardened to the point of indiffierence about life and death? But can you have a functioning society made of sociopaths — and if you can’t, what percentage of sociopaths does it take to destabilize a functioning society for everyone else?

One of the things that has gone badly wrong in America is that the idea of freedom itself seems to have turned sociopathic. I carry a gun to Starbucks, so kids have to do “active shooter drills,” and pretend to die, traumatizing them for life. I deny everyone else decent healthcare, access to medicine, a visit to the doctor. I withhold retirement and safety nets, and supports from everyone else. I’m “free” of obligations and responsibilities to care for, protect, and invest in anyone — including myself. But is that really freedom? Or is it something more like irresponsibility, negligence, and self-destruction? In America, freedom now means the right to inflict serious and injurious harm on a whole society. In the rest of the world, these actions are considered uncivilized. But when a society consists of people fighting for freedom as the right to injure everyone else, where can it really go except backwards and downwards, like America has?

If a people believe “society doesn’t need to exist,” they are also going to end up going without all the things that a society provides. Public goods will never develop — like public healthcare, affordable education, safety nets, and so on. As a result, inequality will skyrocket, because people will have to pay capitalists monopoly prices for the things they should have simply given each other. Because there’s little social investment in such a society, it will soon enough grow impoverished — after all, capitalists are hardly interested in sharing the wealth, and the gains they accumulate will simply go to yachts, mansions, and shares. All that describes America perfectly, doesn’t it?

Those economic effects are also accompanied by equally damaging sociocultural effects. No notion of a common wealth, a public interest, shared values can emerge if people don’t believe in society to begin with.That’s exactly what happened in America, too — there is literally no functioning notion of public interest or common good at work left in its institutions, which is why, for example, hedge funds are allowed to “raid pensions” (or, put in plain English, steal your money.)

In the end, these three effects — runaway inequality, growing poverty, which means the collapse of a middle class, and the erosion, the disappearance, of the notion of a public interest — what do they culminate in? They culminate, quite naturally, in the corrosion and eventual collapse of a democracy. After all, a democracy can hardly function when people don’t have anything left in common — when they are at each others’ throats, for the simple stuff of survival, whether money, food, healthcare, or education. Bang! You can see that lesson illustrated in the last catastrophic three years of America, during which democracy essentially imploded into fascist-authoritarianism (and if you think I’m kidding, go ahead and tell me who else puts kids in camps.)

But I think these basic lessons still don’t go nearly deep enough to really come to the heart of the matter. Why does “society” matter? Why should we believe in this thing, this project, this great ideal, this historic endeavour, called “society”?

One of the greatest lessons we’ve forgotten is what a “society” really is. The word “society” comes from “societas,” which means a kind of companionship, a certain association with others, or at least the hunger, the willingness to. But companionship also implies things which are crucial. It says we don’t act in bad faith. It says we regard others as our equals. It says we don’t try to stab them in the back. It says we aren’t just playing games with them, toying with them, for our own advantage — grinning, but only hoping to get one over on them.

All of these things seem to be vanishing, don’t they? And in fact, it’s exactly these things which seem to have vanished in our dislocated, zombified, post-modern age. We aren’t companions any more. We’re something more like adversaries, enemies, opponents. We are constantly battling one another, aren’t we? Our lives have become more and more defined by combat, by opposition, by difference.

But in what? For what are we constantly battling one another? Just the stuff of survival. In America, you are made to battle everyone else for…everything. Nothing is your right, really. You must fight bitterly for education, for healthcare, for a little bit of money, for food to eat, for a roof over your head. How can such people really be “companions” — when they are busy being enemies, opponents, adversaries? And when you look at the world this way, why would you want to stay home to keep others safe? And yet if a society is an organization of companions, of fellow travellers, of pilgrims all wearing humble cloth walking the same road — how can such a thing made of competition ever be a society?

And yet that is what the growth of capitalism to global proportions did. A few brave nations fought it — Canada, Europe, and so on — but in the end, even their resistance is crumbling. They too are slowly giving up on the idea of society as an organization of companions, of genuine equals. People in them too are becoming Americanized — being made to fight each other for the basics.

This kind of gladiatorial mode of organization isn’t a society, in the true sense. It’s just something more like a jungle, an arena, take your pick. I think the most accurate term is Social Darwinism — only the strong survive! Capitalism’s fundamental principle. But it’s profoundly incompatible with the essence of a what a society is. Capitalism says that we’re all greedy, stupid individuals, who have nothing but self-interest, after all, and that our only purpose in life is to blindly obey it, every nanosecond, so that we can maximize our own profits. But this starkly and absolutely incompatible with the following ideas: a public interest, a common interest, shared values, joint investment, public goods, me caring about you, virtue in any sense whatsoever. If the only person I am allowed, encouraged, rewarded to care about is me — then what room is there for a society to exist? If a million such people exist, do they make a society — or something more like its opposite, a ruthless Darwinist machine?

But isn’t that just what our institutions, from companies to schools to thinking itself do — reward people, train them, indoctrinate them, to only care about themselves, or at least care about themselves first and most? It’s no surprise, then, that every single kind of social institution you can imagine, from unions to marriage to friendship is in severe and ruinous decline. If we don’t believe in society, what need is there for any social bonds, really? Ah, but that’s exactly what capitalism wants. What do you call a group of people without social bonds? Prey.

We are going to have to rediscover — and reimagine — this great and beautiful idea of society if we want to survive the 21st century as societies. One of the biggest reasons that our societies are collapsing now is also one of the most obvious, hiding in plain sight — many of us don’t believe in society anymore. Not just in “ours” — but in the idea that there is anything beyond ourselves, our own appetites, our own advantage, our own aggressive, naked self-interest at all. That’s hardly a surprise. This century, middle classes are growing poorer — and people growing people struggle just to subsist.

And yet this sharp turn away from society, and towards narrow self-interest, is having catastrophic effects. It has corroded the idea of the public interest, of the common good, of shared values. It has breaking the back of democracy. It is causing a volcanic surge of white-hot rage to explode around the globe, as little entitled self-interesteers don’t win the power and control and status they need to feel secure. It is legitimating the worst of us, all over again, everything from the supremacism and fascism of Trumpism to the extreme nationalism of Brexit. It is causing the dislocation of technologically depressed generations, who, unable to form real bonds with one another anymore, are turning to drugs and suicide. The turn towards self-interest is especially ruinous in an age in which humanity needs to pull together if it wants to survive in any real sense of the word.

We are not going to make it as little groups of competitive, antagonistic individuals, battling for dwindling resources — playing out games of pointless, meaningless status competition for little capitalist baubles — while the capitalists laugh at our folly, stupidity, weakness, and powerlessness. The fascists and authoritarians that fill their pockets will pick us off one by one — after the tides and seasons have famished and starved us. We are only going to make it through this century as societies. In the end, as a society of the human race for the first time — as one band of companions, walking beside one another, not climbing atop one another, not dragging one another down, all on the same difficult and strange and beautiful road home. The one that leads us through the valleys of stardust and midnight, to our truest and deepest selves.