Stephan: What amazes me is that the Trump community and the Congressional Republicans don't seem to understand, or may it's just that they don't care, that as a result of the incompetence of Trump and the orcs who served him at minimum tens of thousands of men, women, and children died. They seem to have no interest in holding any of them accountable for this mass death, just as they have no interest in holding any of the planners and instigators of the 6th January insurrection accountable. I find it unbelievable.
The US was ranked 94th out of 98 countries according to the Lowry Institute
New Zealand was ranked as the world’s most effective handler, with 25 deaths
The worst performing country was Brazil, with more than 8.9million infections
Donald Trump was criticized for his slow reaction and dismissal of the virus
The US has had the fifth worst response to the Covid pandemic in the world, a think tank has claimed.
The Lowy Institute ranked nearly 100 countries on their management of the global crisis after their hundredth confirmed case.
The US came 94th out of 98, followed only by Iran, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil in last place in the study by the Lowy Institute.
To date, the US has recorded 25.6million cases and 429,125 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Institute.
Both figures are the highest of any country in the world, with India registering the next highest total infections with 10.7million, and Brazil the second most deaths with 220,000. Measured per million, the US has the eighth highest death toll in the world.
New Zealand was ranked as the world’s most effective handler, recording only 25 deaths […]
Stephan: In a way, Trump has done the country a service. His myriad faults just as climate change is altering the earth have brought the country into a confrontation with all its weaknesses. He is no longer in power but the cancers he and his administration revealed challenge us to decide who we are as individuals, who we are as a culture. Trumpism is far from over and it is going to be up to each of us to create the wellbeing that is our only stable future.
Proud Boys members at a pro-Confederate demonstration . Credit: Anthony Crider
The attempted Republican coup against our democracy is not over. It is changing form, now that Joe Biden has been formally sworn in as the nation’s new president, but not abating. State Republican parties, in particular, are continuing to aggressively embrace the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and cult notions justifying the attempted violent insurrection to reinstall Donald Trump as an illegitimate leader. They are also retaliating against those Republicans who refused to abet those efforts.
Long a extremist hub, the Arizona Republican Party has been moving the swiftest to dole out consequences to anti-fascist Republicans. The party voted yesterday to censure Cindy McCain, Gov. Doug Ducey and ex-Sen. Jeff Flake, while reelecting far-right crackpot Kelli Ward as their state party leader. (All three censured Arizonans attended Joe Biden’s inauguration just days before in a show of support for our continuing democracy, which may or may not be coincidental.)
Ducey was condemned for his imposition of pandemic-battling restrictions, as the party continues its obsessions with anti-science, anti-book-learning contrarianism even […]
Christian Davenport, Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: You were laid off from your job, and have been out of work for 8 months. You're worried about losing the home you and your wife bought three years ago, and your daughter’s ninth birthday is coming up and she wants a bicycle, and you are trying to figure out where the money to buy it is going to come from. You are in other words a typical American family, one of millions of families in similar circumstances. Meanwhile, the uber-rich are living in another world. What do I mean by that? Read this. This is what wealth inequality looks like, and it pervades American society.
From left, Axiom crew members Eytan Stibbe, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Mark Pathy and Larry Connor. Credit: Axiom Space
Two are grandfathers, the other has three young children. All three are extremely wealthy, with the means to pay the $55 million ticket price for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station. They are the first would-be spaceflight crew comprised entirely of private citizens in a mission to the station.
Sometime early next year, if all goes according to plan, the trio — Larry Connor, the managing partner of the Connor Group, a real estate investment firm based in Ohio; Mark Pathy, the chief executive of Mavrik Corp., a Canadian investment firm; and Eytan Stibbe, a businessman and former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot — will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for what is scheduled to be an eight-day stay on the International Space Station.
Accompanying them will be Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who flew to space four times and is now a vice president of […]
Stephan: For the last four years America has been notable for the corruption at the top of the government. But did that lead to a correlation with the fact that American also handled the Coronavirus pandemic worse than any other developed nation? Here is the first research I have seen addressing the corruption and failure to deal with the pandemic correlation.
Virus Outbreak Global Corruption Credit: The Associated Press.
Countries with the least corruption have been best positioned to weather the health and economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic according to a closely-watched annual study released Thursday by an anti-graft organization.
Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perception of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, concluded that countries that performed well invested more in health care, were “better able to provide universal health coverage and are less likely to violate democratic norms.”
“COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis,” said Transparency head Delia Ferreira Rubio. “It is a corruption crisis – and one that we are currently failing to manage.”
This year’s index showed the United States hitting a new low amid a steady decline under the presidency of Donald Trump, with a score of 67 on a scale where 0 is “highly corrupt” and 100 is “very clean.”
That still put the U.S. 25th on the list in a tie with Chile, but behind many other western democracies. It dropped from scores of 69 in 2019, 71 in 2018 […]
Neal E. Boudette and Coral Davenport, - The New York Times
Stephan: Here is more excellent good news about the end of the carbon era. In spite of everything Trump and his orcs and their corporate masters tried to do, it is becoming very clear that carbon powered vehicles are doomed in the same way that sailing ships were doomed as steamships came online, and the carbon era began.
General Motors plans an electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in showrooms this fall. Credit: General Motors Company/Associated Press
The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.
General Motors said Thursday that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.
G.M.’s move is sure to roil the auto industry, which, between car and parts makers, employed about one million people in the United States […]
