(2019-11-27). Australian bushfire crisis spreads as PM denies climate change link. mronline.org 
Even before summer has begun, bushfires and toxic smoke have threatened the lives, health and homes of millions of people in nearly every Australian state and territory this week. The fire emergencies that first erupted two weeks ago in two states have spread across the country, worsened by dust storms, asthma alerts and electricity blackouts. | Source
(2019-11-27). Google Secretly Harvests the Health Data of Millions. truthdig.com 
Google has been harvesting the health data of tens of millions of U.S. patients since 2018, unbeknownst to those patients or their doctors, as revealed by a Nov. 11 investigation by the Wall Street Journal. According to the story, Ascension, a private network of some 2,600 hospitals and other health care facilities, had been systematically feeding the medical information to Google's cloud infrastructure in what amounts to the largest data transfer in the health care fiel…
(2019-11-27). Bearing Witness to the Costs of War. counterpunch.org 
There is some incongruity between my role as an editor of a book about the costs of America's wars and my identity as a military spouse. I'm deeply disturbed at the scale of human suffering caused by those conflicts and yet I've unintentionally contributed to the war effort through the life I've chosen. I am More
(2019-11-27). Nearly 700,000 apply to register to vote on deadline day. thecanary.co 
Nearly 700,000 people applied to register to vote on Tuesday, as the deadline to take part in next month's general election arrived.It is the largest volume of applications submitted in a single day since registration data was first published in June 2014.A total of 659,666 applications were submitted, according to government figures.This is higher than the 622,398 on deadline day for the 2017 general election, and 485,012 on the equivalent day for the 2015 poll.Overall some 3.85 million applications have been submitted since 29 October this year — the day that MPs voted to hold an election on December 12.(P…
(2019-11-27). PCHR: Fourth Case in 2019: Palestinian Prisoner Dies in Israeli Prison, Suspicions of Medical Neglect Arise. imemc.org On Tuesday morning, 26 November 2019, Palestinian prisoner, Sami Abu-Diak, 36, died at al-Ramla prison clinic. Abu-Diak, from Silat al-Dahr village near Jenin, had spent 17 years in Israeli prison, and was recently transferred to the clinic in Israel due to his deteriorating health condition, having cancer since 2015. The …
(2019-11-27). WHO working to save lives following powerful earthquake in Albania. news.un.org Staff from the World Health Organization (WHO) are assisting authorities in Albania following an earthquake which killed at least 25 people and left more than 650 injured.
(2019-11-27). The Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation. The Right to Know. Don't Put in Your Shirt Pocket. globalresearch.ca Of relevance to the ongoing debate on the health impacts of cell phones. First published on July 10, 2019 | A landmark Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the City of Berkeley's cell phone right to know ordinance rejecting industries argument …
(2019-11-27). If Medicare for All 'Too Risky,' How Would NYT Have Reported Push for Social Security, Abolition, or the Overthrow of King George III? commondreams.org A middle-aged man reading the 'New York Times' in an armchair in this archive image. (Photo: George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-11-27). Julian Assange will 'disappear for the rest of his life' inside 'inhumane' US prison, UN envoy warns… if he makes it that far. rt.com 
The UN rapporteur on torture has accused British and American authorities of waging a one-sided war against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "violating due process at every step," as Assange's condition in prison deteriorates. | Speaking at a demonstration in Berlin on Wednesday, rapporteur Nils Melzer told RT that if the judicial institutions prosecuting Assange were "doing their job according to the law," then they would take the WikiLeaks head's declining health into account in their extradition efforts. However, Melzer does not expect any reprieve for Assange. | The whole system is skewed against him. It'
(2019-11-27). At least 13 killed in new massacre near east DR Congo's Beni — officials. rt.com 
At least 13 people were killed in a new massacre near the eastern city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo blamed on a notorious militia, AFP reported, citing a local official and a UN source. | "We have the figure of 13 killed at dawn," a spokesman for the UN mission in the country, MONUSCO, told AFP, while local administrator Donat Kibwana said that 14 people were killed. | On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) evacuated dozens of their staff working on the Ebola epidemic from Beni due to the worsening security situation. | Rebels believed to belong to th…
(2019-11-27). 'Their Secret Agenda Today Is Exposed': Corbyn Says Leaked Trade Docs Show Tory Plan to Privatize NHS With Trump's Help. commondreams.org The U.K. Labour leader said the move, if successful, "could lead to runaway privatization of our health service." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-11-27). The 'Climate Crisis Is a Health Emergency': New Report Warns US Fracking Boom Making People and Planet Sick. commondreams.org "The actions we take now by extracting, transporting, and liquefying fracked gas will determine the health of generations to come." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
(2019-11-26). Riding Out for Medicare for All with a Back Full of Arrows. progressive.org The barrage of false narratives being fired from influential Democrats, including Barack Obama, is obscuring Medicare for All's unique programmatic strength and broad political support in rhetorical smoke.
(2019-11-26). Empowering people living with HIV 'will end the epidemic', says AIDS agency chief. news.un.org When people living with HIV actively participate in their own care, new infections decline and more affected people access treatment, according to a new report launched on Tuesday by UNAIDS, the United Nations agency leading the fight against the disease.
(2019-11-25). Headlines for November 25, 2019. democracynow.org Navy Secretary Ousted amid Dispute over Accused War Criminal Eddie Gallagher, Released State Dept. Emails Implicate Pompeo in Giuliani Ukraine Plot, Bloomberg Jumps into 2020 Race by Buying Millions in Campaign Ads, Sen. Graham Blocked Armenian Genocide Resolution at White House Request, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Released from Hospital in Good Health, Hong Kong: Pro-Democracy Candidates Win Nearly 90% Seats in Local Elections, Security Forces Raid Offices of Egypt's Last Independent Media Outlet, Iraqi Security Forces Kill 13 Protesters amid Anti-Government Demonstrations, Israel Deporting Head of Human Rights Watch's…
(2019-11-24). UN agencies ramp up Somalia measles and polio campaign. news.un.org A campaign to vaccinate some 1.7 million children in Somalia was launched on Sunday by the country's government, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
(2019-11-22). In WWII-Era Fashion, the Saudi-led Coalition is Weaponizing Disease in Yemen. mintpressnews.com 
TAIZ, YEMEN — Beyond the devastation it has caused on the back of tens of thousands of airstrikes, a crippling blockade and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure, the Saudi-led coalition supported by the United States has sparked an outbreak of disease and epidemics in Yemen in a manner not seen since World War II. | Yemeni activist Aseel Sweid told MintPress News how a young boy, Abdulkarim al-Ma'amari, "died of dengue fever after it spread with alarming speed in Taiz, threatening many innocents." Sweid added that three of his own brothers had been infected with dengue. "There are a huge amo…
(2019-11-21). Congress Just Temporarily Extended the Government's Spying Powers. aclu.org Congress today temporarily extended the NSA's spying powers that time and again have been used to violate our rights. Disturbingly, this three-month extension was snuck into a broader funding bill, forcing members of Congress to choose between extending this program and causing a government shutdown. The extension is an unnecessary lifeline to spying programs that are plagued with compliance violations, have no proven intelligence value, and violate our rights. | Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, one of the spying | powers extended, the government believes it has the right to collect our | personal inform…
(2019-11-20). Make Dental Care a Health Care Benefit. progressive.org Dental care is not a luxury—it is essential for overall health.
(2019-11-19). All out for relaunching of the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. fightbacknews.org Fight Back! interviews Frank Chapman on the November 22-24 Chicago conference to refound the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. | Fight Back!: Could you say a few words about what the conference to relaunch the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression will look like? | Frank Chapman: The most powerful incentive for the relaunching of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is the national epidemic in police crimes and state violence being perpetrated against Black and brown people, LBGTQ and trans people. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than th…
(2019-11-17). Warren's Head Tax Is Not More Popular Than A Payroll Tax. peoplespolicyproject.org As we know by now, Elizabeth Warren's Medicare head tax proposal is a regressive mess ( I, II, III, IV). Warren's team knows this. The goal of the proposal i…
(2019-11-17). CAP's Topher Spiro Is Trying to Deceive Journalists By Lying. peoplespolicyproject.org 
It's been fun to see how the Center for American Progress (CAP) navigates this year's presidential election. For insider political reasons, they can't support Biden or Sanders. But for a long time, it was unclear who the alternative candidate they could support would be. | When Kamala Harris was rising, CAP's staff was doing overtime boosting her on Twitter and in the press, including boosting Harris's absurd health care proposal. But Harris's collapse put an end to that strategy. Recently Warren has risen as the alternative and so CAP has been working to promote her campaign, which puts CAP in the comical positi…
(2019-11-03). Warren's Medicare Head Tax Would Be About $9,500. peoplespolicyproject.org On Friday, I wrote a piece arguing that Elizabeth Warren's use of an employer head tax was not a good way to fund Medicare for All and that instead the more conventional choices of income and payroll taxes would be better. The reason they are better is because income and payroll taxes are based on how much income you receive while a head tax charges the same dollar amount for every worker regardless of their income, making it much more onerous on the lower and middle classes. | This point holds…
(2019-11-02). What Is a Middle Class Tax Hike? Am I Losing My Mind? peoplespolicyproject.org I have been swimming in the Medicare for All waters for over a decade now, going back to when I worked on the Ralph Nader presidential campaign that made Medicare for All its number one issue. And during this time, I developed a specific understanding of what we might call the M4A Financing Problem. | The Problem: | The M4A Financing Problem, in simple terms, is that even if you bring in existing federal spending on health care, existing state spending on health care, and a bunch of new rich-people taxes, you still fall short of financing the program. Thus to actually complete the financing, you have to u…
(2019-11-01). Warren's Perpetual Medicare Head Tax Is Unworkable and Bad. peoplespolicyproject.org 
Elizabeth Warren released her Medicare for All financing plan today. The main purpose of the proposal appears to be to find a plan that you can message as "not increasing middle class taxes," which is of course a nonsensical goal insofar, as Warren herself has said, what matters is middle class health care costs, not whether you categorize those costs as premiums, taxes, or out-of-pocket expenses. | Nonetheless, bowing to the stupid media discourse on this, Warren put forward a financing pro…
(2019-10-24). New Poll Finds Voters Strongly Oppose Employer Insurance. peoplespolicyproject.org Many centrist pundits have convinced themselves that Medicare for All (M4A) is unpopular because, when you include certain details about M4A in polling questions, support levels drop significantly. But in convincing themselves of this, centrist pundits seem remarkably incurious about whether this same thing occurs for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) when you include certain details about it in polling questions. | Earlier this week, Emerson Polling helped answer this question when it aske…
(2019-10-16). The Urban Institute Report Did Not Score Medicare for All. peoplespolicyproject.org The Urban Institute and The Commonwealth Fund put out a report today that provided cost estimates for 8 different health care reforms. One of those eight reforms, which is called "Single Payer Enhanced," describes a comprehensive, no-cost-sharing, national health plan similar to Medicare for All (M4A). However, the Urban plan uses hospital reimbursement rates that are 15 percent higher than the rates in the M4A legislation, meaning that its cost estimates are much…
(2019-06-19). House Casts Historic Vote to Repeal Authorization for Endless War. peaceaction.org Washington, D.C. — June 19, 2019 — In response to the House of Representatives passing H.R. 2740 (Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Legislative Branch, Defense, State, Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2020), which includes language to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) eight months after …