Author: nick

[ad_1] After stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from taxpayers, insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program are going to face significant government action. And significant government action, in this case, means that the federal government is going to award an estimated $13 billion to the insurers in bonus payments. These bonuses are not officially a direct reward for insurance companies exploiting taxpayers, but they are emblematic of a completely broken system. Quality bonuses in the Medicare Advantage program are meant to reward insurers for providing high-quality plans to seniors and others who qualify for Medicare. The Centers for Medicare…

[ad_1] The U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and the direct U.S. war in Iran have made the world a more dangerous place, raising nuclear risks. Ukraine is the dam, we were repeatedly told, that would hold back the Russian invasion of Europe. We were told that by Ukraine, by the U.S., and by NATO. To keep the world safe from Russia, Russia needed to be fought in Ukraine. It was never true, as even Western officials sometimes admit. As early as two years ago, America’s then-Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said, “we do not have indicators or warnings right now…

[ad_1] President Donald Trump has decided not to renew the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was up for review this year. The agreement will remain in force until 2036, at which point it will expire unless all three signatory countries have agreed to renew it for another 16 years. The country’s largest trade agreement, the USMCA was originally negotiated and signed by Trump himself during his first term. It replaced the much-reviled North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump called “the worst trade deal in history” and a “job-killing failure” responsible for the loss of American industrial capacity. Although…

[ad_1] Photograph Source: Office of Joyce Beatty – Public DomainMy mom’s cooking is the best. I know everyone may say this, but truly — no one can compete. The flavorful meals I grew up with and that I often shared with friends and family are some of my fondest memories. Wanting to be a great cook like her, I would often watch closely as my mother went grocery shopping. Every item placed into the cart was intentional. I watched as she made precise price calculations and swapped between products. I quickly realized that every meal my mom whipped up came…

[ad_1] Much has been written about the socialist shooting star that was Maine Democrat Graham Platner’s Senate candidacy, which raises questions for anti-establishment political figures of all stripes.  Perhaps the biggest question is how Platner could so thoroughly rout his party’s governing class—he received nearly 72 percent of the vote against the state’s sitting governor, who was backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer yet stopped campaigning long before Election Day due to abysmal polling—while by his own admission remaining utterly dependent on party elites in the general election. How else are we to interpret his comments that he was…

[ad_1] It was hard to believe Jean-Michel Basquiat was a historically famous genius when we first met. At Andy Warhol’s studio, Jean-Michel was not what I anticipated—He was just an eager kid with zero artifice. The art dealer Leo Castelli had arranged the portrait session of Warhol. When I entered Warhol’s studio, Andy merely said to Jean-Michel, “He is here to shoot me”. Then Andy whispered to me, “Would it be ok to shoot the two of us together?”. For me, I knew I was being offered a bite into a slice of a delicious cake. I knew there was…

[ad_1] Smoke from the Riverside fire, Mt Hood National Forest. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. At the end of June, the deaths of three firefighters near the Colorado-Utah border put Trump’s new Wildland Fire Service into focus. The firefighters had been deployed by helicopter to a remote area to put out a brush fire and were overwhelmed. But among the tributes and reminders of how wildland firefighters put their lives on the line to protect communities was the question from Timothy Ingalsbee, a former federal firefighter and founder of the group Firefighters United For Safety, Ethics and Ecology:  “Why were they…

[ad_1] They make up fake monsters to protect us from because they themselves are the real monsters. Reading by Tim Foley: Western politics is mostly just empire managers making up fake problems to fight so they don’t have to address the real problems. Can’t stop waging wars or the western empire will collapse. So they make up fake threats from dictators and tyrants and take action to stop them. Can’t stop inflating the military budget and circling the planet with more and more war machinery or the military-industrial complex will stop reaping profits. So they tell you to be afraid…

[ad_1] We are currently in the longest period of inaction on the federal minimum wage since its inception in 1938. It was 17 years ago this month that it was increased to $7.25 — which leaves today’s wage floor at its lowest (inflation-adjusted) value in seven decades, and its purchasing power much less than its 1968 peak. In fact, today the federal wage floor is officially a poverty wage. Given that 30 states and D.C. have wage floors higher than the federal rate, does the federal minimum wage matter today? Yes, it does – because that still leaves 20 states…

[ad_1] Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis performing in San Diego on September 18, 2005. Photo: Will Fresch. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0 I am going to have to eat some of my words about the World Cup for this one. Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to youBy now, you should’ve somehow realised what you gotta do I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now England football fans just can’t stop singing Wonderwall. Noel Gallagher originally said it was inspired by the 1968 film soundtrack Wonderwall Music by George Harrison in which…