Welcome to The Now

 

 Among other topics covered in this Economic Update:

 

 

 

 

 

Via the Atlantic : Nearly 20 million people gained health-insurance coverage between 2010 and 2016 under the Affordable Care Act. But about half of insured adults worry about affording their monthly premiums, while roughly the same number worry about affording their deductibles. At least six states don’t include dental coverage in Medicaid, and 10 still refuse to expand Medicaid to low-income adults under the ACA. Many people with addiction never get treatment. Religious groups have stepped in to offer help—food, community support, medical and dental care—to the desperate. Over nine months last year, the photographer Matt Eich documented the efforts of five such organizations in his home state of Virginia. These groups operate out of trailers and formerly abandoned buildings; they are led by pastors, nuns, reverends and imams. In many cases, they are the most trusted members of their communities, and they fill care gaps others can’t or won’t.

 

 Picking up on this post , there's a Scheerpost story about the Four Corners documentary " The Forever War ," which includes testimony and statements from Israeli insiders. 

 

 

 

 

 

 The "Gaza Effect" is causing the Labour Party to lose seats while Conservative Party leader and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is forced to hold an early July vote . 

Lee Camp covers how the State Department's hilariously baffling attempt to try to protect the Israeli government at the expense of US is fairing:

 

 

  Via CNN : Nineteen families of the students and teachers killed or injured at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, announced Wednesday they have settled a lawsuit with the city for $2 million and are suing 92 officers with Texas Department of Public Safety, the school district and individual employees. “For two long years, we have languished in pain and without any accountability from the law enforcement agencies and officers who allowed our families to be destroyed that day. This settlement reflects a first good faith effort by the City of Uvalde to begin rebuilding trust in the systems that failed to protect us,” Veronica Luevanos, whose daughter Jailah and nephew Jayce were killed, said in a statement. “But it wasn’t just Uvalde officers who failed us that day. Nearly 100 officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety have yet to face a shred of accountability for cowering in fear while my daughter and nephew bled to death in their classroom.” As part of the settlemen...

  Full version here:

 It doesn't seem to be clear:

 Add business like Oberweis Dairy, Cracker Barrel, Boston Market and Applebee's to that list. Also note (and I'm quoting someone else here):  "A hedge fund [Golden Gate Capital] bought the company [for $2.1 billion], sold off all the land Red Lobster restaurants are located on, leased the land back to Red Lobster, and jacked the rent."  Here's the tweet I got the quote from (I found the name of the hedge fund and the price sold elsewhere):

  Not good : Slovenia and Venezuela are the first two countries to lose their last-standing glaciers in a period of climate change induced by people — but they won’t be the last. Some news outlets reported this month that Venezuela might be the first country in modern times to lose all of its glaciers. However, researchers told E&E News that Slovenia likely claimed the solemn title more than three decades ago. “The two glacial remnants have not moved, [and] there were no glacial crevasses observed in the last few decades — these characteristics define real glaciers,” Miha Pavšek, who leads ice measurements at Slovenia’s Triglav mountain and Skuta peak with the Anton Melik Geographical Institute, told E&E News.

  Promising , considering there's been so few:  London’s High Court has ruled that Julian Assange has the right to appeal in his final challenge against extradition to the United States. The legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder was cheered by dozens of his supporters as they rallied outside the court in the British capital. Some beat drums, some shouted “drop the case,” while other supporters held placards reading “Let him go Joe,” in reference to US President Joe Biden. Assange’s legal team argued in Monday’s hearing that the judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, should not accept the assurances given by US prosecutors that he could seek to rely on the rights and protections under the US First Amendment. His team made the case that, if extradited, Assange could be discriminated against on the basis of his nationality, as an Australian-born foreign national. In a short ruling, the judges said the US submissions were not sufficient, granting Assange permission to a full...

  Interesting : Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson has launched his own show on a Russian state television channel. The former Fox News anchor is presenting the program Tucker on the rolling news channel Russia 24, with the first episode now available online, Russian state newspaper Rossiskya Gazyeta reported. The paper said that the show is part of a joint project with Carlson TV, in which he will interview figures and politicians who have "alternative views to the mainstream." (5/23/24) UPDATE: via the Hill : Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson’s media company says a Russian state television agency that is airing portions of his show is doing so without legal permission. Newsweek initially reported on Tuesday that Carlson was launching his show on Russian state TV. It later updated its story to reflect pushback from Carlson’s team, which denied any involvement in the program, in which segments of his show are dubbed into Russian. Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta i...

On the heals of closing down Al Jazeera , the Israeli government strikes again : The Associated Press on Tuesday said Israeli authorities had shut down its live camera feed showing Gaza and seized its equipment in what it decried as an “abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcasters law.” “The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government,” the non-profit news collective said in a statement. “We urge the Israeli authorities to return our equipment and enable us to reinstate our live feed immediately so we can continue to provide this important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world.” The Israeli military regularly classifies areas around Gaza as “closed military zones,” restricting movement there. The AP’s live feed provided a view of actions in Gaza, where no independent journalists are able to operate because of Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on entry to the strip. The Associated Pre...

 

 So thank to this (the story, not Hard Lens Media): We can now be distracting by enjoy these:

 

 Via ScheerPost (by way of Common Dreams ): Advisers for U.S. President Biden reportedly saw Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s college in Atlanta where he gave the commencement address Sunday, as a school where the president was unlikely to face protests over his continued support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has been the subject of mass demonstrations led by students at universities across the country over the past month. But students and faculty made clear at the ceremony that many of them, like others in higher education, are intent on sending Biden a strong message of disapproval over his Israel policy. A number of faculty members and students wore keffiyehs, the traditional scarves worn in parts of the Middle East including Palestine, and by some supporters of Palestinian rights to show solidarity with civilians in Gaza. Others displayed the Palestinian flag on their graduation gowns. ABC News White House correspondent Selina Wang reported that while most o...

 

  Countries (mostly allies/friends of Iran) have expressed their condolences .

 

 Mind you, this video dropped in Sept. 2023 so it has no "Oct 7th" bias, but it does gloss over the whole "Imperial Britain made a deal with Zionists" thing:  

 

 

 

 According to this video CNN has , when it comes to his ex Cassie Ventura , the answer is: "yes."

Case In Point : Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who had neither filed papers creating a reelection committee, nor announced an intention to retire, was a no-show Wednesday night at her district nominating convention. Democrats in the 94th House District of New Haven and Hamden endorsed Steve Winter, a former city alder and longtime political activist, for the Democratic nomination without opposition. The assumption is Porter is retiring, though not giving notice. Aware that she had yet to file for reelection, House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said he tried without success to reach Porter prior to the convention to inquire about her plans. She did not return calls or texts to Rojas, House Speaker Matt Ritter or others, nor she did return calls or a text from The Connecticut Mirror. Winter, 35, who lives in the same Newhallville neighborhood as Porter, said he expressed interest in running if Porter was retiring, but he arrived at the convention unsure if he would be a ...

 Via Katie Halper:

 These types tend to advocate for wars they'd never actively participate in:

 This is what INN was referring to, BTW. And hey, t only took him almost 90% of the election cycle:

 

 From INN's Substack : Krystal and Kyle largely cover the US political horse race on their individual shows, inadvertently helping the Democrats define the policies that their base might want, but everyone on the inside knows the corporate donors will never allow them to enact. They still want to play within this system and win personally, but don’t appear to be as concerned about the financial health of the rest of the country. They get called “the far left” by people like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, completely marginalizing everyone who think Krystal and Kyle are centrists at best (like me and LOTS more independents). They are definitely corporate apologists - Krystal even more than Kyle. Kyle’s subscriber base is largely progressive lefty Democrats (amazing there are any remaining at this point!) - holdouts from the Bernie Sanders days who are still blind to how much the party loathes them. Somehow, these people still believe in the viability of federal electoral politics to...

 He actually calls it an "industry" but to be fair it's a grift in all but name:

  More often than not, the Powers That Be will censor, block or ban opinions that they cannot effectively argue against. Young people have learned things without the filter of mainstream media, and they are not happy. But instead of actually having a dialogue, the older generation has decided to dismiss (or vilify) people they claim are being "misinformed."

 Lee Camp explains:

  Here's a story about the "U.N.-marked vehicle": TEL AVIV, Israel — The United Nations said one of its workers was killed and another injured when their U.N.-marked vehicle was struck in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Monday. It was on its way to assess the situation at the European Hospital there. The Israeli military said in a statement that it had received a report from the U.N. Department of Safety and Security that two of its workers were injured. It also said that in an initial investigation, the vehicle hit was traveling in what the military declared an active combat zone. The Israeli military also said that it didn't receive notice of the vehicle's route.

 

It's hard for people to accept claims that Palestinians and/or Hamas are vicious characters when you turn around and destroy food and medical supplies: Apparently there have been arrests since this video came out. Keep in mind that these are also supplies that could have been given to the Israeli hostages that Hamas still have. Oh and this is worth noting: The White House condemned the destruction of the aid, calling it “completely and utterly unacceptable behavior.” “It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” said National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a press briefing on Monday. “We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this and we are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government. One "tool" is "stop selling weapons that are being used to kill civilians" but hey, keep looking.

Funny considering he was all over TV not too long ago:   Arizona prosecutors have tried for weeks – and so far failed – to serve Rudy Giuliani with notice of his indictment related to an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in that state. Giuliani is among a group of former President Donald Trump’s allies indicted last month in Arizona alongside the 11 individuals who acted as fake GOP electors from the state in the last presidential election. But the former New York City mayor and one-time attorney for Trump is the only defendant prosecutors have been unable to serve with a summons, according to Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general’s office. The summons is a formal notice that Giuliani has been criminally charged and must appear before a judge on May 21. CNN has reached out to a spokesman for Giuliani for comment. FYI: Guiliani recently lost his radio show because he can't get past the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

 

and there's a lot to cover .

  Very encouraging news : The Slovenian government on Thursday initiated the procedure for the recognition of a Palestinian state as a form of leverage to end the conflict in Gaza, a move it announced in March, Prime Minister Robert Golob said. "The horrors we see every day in Gaza are inadmissible and must stop," Golob was quoted as saying on the government X platform. "I call on Israel to put an immediate end to its attacks on Gaza and to use the negotiating table." Golob said he would like his country´s recognition to be "an incentive for these negotiations to proceed more quickly" and speed up the dialogue in the United Nations on an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and the security and existence of Israel through a two-state solution. The announcement came as Ireland, Spain and a number of other European Union member states are reportedly considering recognising a Palestinian state on May 21, according to a report by Ireland's national...

 

 

 

  Via Al-Jazeera : The growing protest efforts against Israel’s war on Gaza have now spawned a cyberspace movement that has erupted in the past few days, targeting celebrities who are seen as being insensitive towards, or even supportive of, the death and destruction in the Palestinian enclave. The campaign that took off after the Met Gala on May 6 has earned the names: Blockout 2024, celebrity block list and digitine. The idea is to  block famous celebrities on social media networks such as Instagram, X and TikTok. But what’s it all about, why are parallels to the French Revolution coming up, does blocking a celebrity hurt them, and is the campaign seeing any impact? [SNIP] The Blockout 2024 is an online movement where social media users are carrying out a digital boycott of famous celebrities ranging from Hollywood actors to social media influencers for their silence on Israel’s war on Gaza, or in some cases, their purported support for the war. Various TikTok, Instagram and...

 It's not that old, but this three-parter explains why two of the planet's self-proclaimed "best" democracies seem to have little guilt or concern about the loss of innocent life under the guise of fighting a terrorist group:

  Via Reuters : Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed for Gaza on Monday, strewing food packages on the road in the latest in a series of incidents that have come as Israel has pledged to allow uninterrupted humanitarian supplies into the besieged enclave. Four protesters, including a minor, were arrested at the protest, at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli occupied West Bank, according to a statement from lawyers representing the protesters. According to Jordan's foreign ministry, this isn't the first time . Sadly it probably won't be the last. 

 Will this happen? We'll see: I can only imagine how the Republicans would react to this rather cowardly move. Also, what's the odds that there will be glitches and technical issues the whole time? 

 

 

  Some things just aren't easy to explain : An armed man gave no warning as he walked toward the front of Jesus’ Dwelling Place Church in Pennsylvania on Sunday, raised a gun toward the pastor’s face and pulled the trigger. What happened next may have been divine intervention, Pastor Glenn Germany said. “I’m thankful to God that I’m still here, because he definitely pulled the trigger,” Germany told CNN affiliate WTAE. The gunman “attempted to shoot, but the firearm failed to discharge,” Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement. The incident in North Braddock was captured on the church’s livestreamed video. Immediately after the gunman pulled the trigger, a church member tackled the suspect to the ground. State police identified the suspect as 26-year-old Bernard Junior Polite. It’s not clear why the suspect tried to shoot the pastor. Germany said he had never seen the gunman before Sunday, WTAE reported. “All of a sudden, I just seen a gun pointing right at me,” the pastor to...

 Rachel Blevins covers this question:

 

 Well...

 

 

 

 After nation-wide protests on college campuses we mostly met with heavy-handed police push-back, The Democrats are trying to regroup : President Joe Biden’s support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza mixed with student anger over police crackdowns on anti-war campus protests is complicating the work of Democratic youth groups trying to engage classmates and other Generation Z voters ahead of this year’s election. “If I’m talking about electric vehicles and climate change, and then (a student) asks me, ‘What about all the emissions caused by the bombing of Gaza?’ I’m like, ‘Well, you know, can’t help you there,’” said Hasan Pyarali, the president of the College Democrats chapter at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and the national group’s Muslim caucus chair. “Same thing with abortion access. And as an organizer, going in with those set of facts is so difficult that a lot of the times I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re right,’” he said. In his most pointed remarks to date, Bid...

 After realizing that sending boatloads of money and weapons to one of the world's most corrupt nations isn't helping to win a proxy war with Russia isn't panning out as planned, the West (US, NATO) are threatening direct action. That's not a good idea:

 There is a reason "The American Dream" seems more unachievable with each passing month year: How much does it cost to live the American Dream? More than most of us can afford, according to two recent studies. A household would have to spend more than $150,000 a year to live the dream in 29 of the 50 states, according to an analysis published in April by the personal finance site GOBankingRates. According to the report, the optimal American lifestyle would cost $137,842 a year in Ohio, $147,535 in Texas, $159,932 in Florida, $194,067 in New York and $245,723 in California. And how, exactly, does one quantify the American Dream? GOBankingRates defines the dream as getting married, raising two children and owning a home, a car and a pet. (You can almost imagine them tooling around in one of those little plastic cars from the Game of Life.) The site ran the numbers for every state, factoring in a mortgage, annual healthcare costs, utilities, education, groceries, pets and chil...

 

 Quite a few, actually: 

 The lawyer who uncovered the conspiracy behind the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. was 86:

According to Mint Press News, it's complicated . 

CNN has a video where Dr. Gupta discusses the hows and frequency of this, but one can't help to ask about the timing...especially considering that RFK Jr. is running as an independent (and as the ending suggests, the nature of his competition). 

  Apparently , the United States government have realized that all of these bombs being sold to Israel is mysteriously being used on all Palestinians, and not just the "threat of Hamas:" The US last week paused a bomb shipment for Israel over concerns it was going ahead with a major ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior US administration official said. The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000lb (907kg) bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs, the official told the BBC. Israel has not "fully addressed" US concerns over humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, the official said. An Israeli military official appeared to play down the US move. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari told a news conference that the US had provided "unprecedented" security assistance since the beginning of the war, adding that disputes between the allies were resolved "behind closed doors in a matter-of-fact way". "We are responsible for the securi...

Via Gizmodo : On Tuesday, TikTok fired back against the U.S. government over a law that could put an end to the social video platform. TikTok and its parent company Bytedance’s lawsuit against the federal government claims the legislation circumvents the First Amendment. The company says the law’s requirement for TikTok to be divested is “not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally.” “There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” TikTok said in the petition filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act targeted TikTok, labeling it as a “foreign adversary controlled application.” TikTok has 270 days from when the act was signed by President Biden to either sell the app to an entity in the U.S. or face a shutdown....

  Not ideal, but still progress : Chad deployed dozens of security forces in the capital amid rising tensions on Monday as polls closed and vote counting began in the first presidential election in Africa's Sahel region since a wave of coups. Soldiers and riot police patrolled the streets alongside at least 30 armoured and other military vehicles in the opposition-friendly southern neighbourhoods of the capital N'Djamena, according to Reuters reporters. The streets, normally bustling in the final hours of voting, were quiet. At least one voter was killed in the Central African country's second-largest city Moundou, south N'Djamena, after unidentified gunmen opened fire at a polling station, Chadian media reported. Nomads, who make up around 7% of Chad's population, were meant to begin early voting on Sunday. But by Monday afternoon, they were still unable to vote due to logistical problems, leaving many frustrated, according to the Reuters reporters. "No one br...

 While at the same time exposing the weaknesses of the Iron Dome:

 

  Update : Scheerpost also has a take on this .

 

 

 

 Due Dissidence covers:

 Hedges also acknowledges his supporters in his message/warning about the rich and wealthy controlling media : I cannot answer you all individually, but each message, each new subscription, means I can go on. I write and broadcast for you. I see myself in you. I refuse to dumb down anything to reach a wider audience. I do not try to be entertaining. I assume, like me, you love books and the world of ideas, the nuances and complexities that make up the human condition. I assume you care about the truth. I assume you seek to create a world that is just, a world where our primary concern is for the vulnerable and the oppressed, a world where exploitation, including of the planet and animals, is a sin. I assume you refuse to march to the cant of the crowd. I assume you are willing to sacrifice for what is right, even at the cost of your comfort and career. Bless you all.  

 Rachel Blevins and Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro discuss: Imagine if any criticism of the United States would be legally interpreted as anti-Christian or anti-Woman or anti-Black. Well...Jimmy Dore breaks this down some more, and it doesn't look like that comparison is that far off:

“White Christian nationalism has cut out of their Bibles all of the Scriptures that lead faith to justice,” Wallis writes in a passage that recounts his youthful episode with the scissors. “When is the last time you heard a white Christian nationalist MAGA pastor talk about justice from the pulpit — justice for the poor, for the immigrants, for those being discriminated against? The only words that relate to ‘justice’ are predictions of punishment for all those who oppose their political agenda.” -- Jim Wallis, describing how White supremacy has infected Christianity throughout American history , creating a group who follow a " Bible that's full of holes ." 

 

 

 If not, then watch:

 

 From Chris Hedges' Substack :  I was just informed by Max Alvarez, the Editor-in-Chief at The Real News, that they will no longer run my show. The reason for the cancellation, he said, is that my critiques of Biden, especially for the genocide in Gaza, jeopardizes his nonprofit status. My last show with Dennis Kucinich, who is running as an independent for Congress in Ohio, was removed from the site. I will resurrect the show on an independent platform, although it may take me a few weeks to get this set up. Very disappointing move by TRNN. Thankfully, place  Breakthrough News is around and (currently) has no trouble talking about the topics Hedges discusses; maybe his show can also find a home there.