“By June 2026 enrollment in Medicaid and the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program had declined by more than 6 million since January 2025; 2.5 million of those losing coverage were children. KFF estimates that enrollment in individual plans, mainly via the Affordable Care Act, was down almost 5 million by June. The redoubtable Charles Gaba, putting these numbers together with other information, estimates that around 12 million Americans have lost health insurance under Trump 2.0. That’s a lot of lost coverage, even in a nation as big as ours. And because many of the savage cuts Trump and his allies have imposed on healthcare have yet to kick in, the situation will get much worse in the years ahead. It’s worth noting thatkicking children off healthcare coverage is especially personally and socially destructive because it compromises their health and earnings potential for their entire lifetimes” (Paul Krugman). So how many deaths will this drastic cut in healthcare account for?

The Republicans literally have nothing to run on given the disaster in both foreign and domestic policy that the Trump administration is. The public tax dollars have gone to propping up an administration that has done nothing but steal from the public for its own profit. So the Democrats should have an easy mark this time around. But after the midterms the Democrats better start running on something besides an anti-Trump agenda. They need to follow the Democratic Socialists in putting forth a real agenda of affordability at the top of the list being universal healthcare.

“At least 74,396 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023. With thousands more under the rubble and many others missing, this is almost certainly a vast underestimate. Another 175,450 Palestinians have been maimed and injured. The majority of these casualties are civilians: women, children and the elderly. Since the Trump-branded ceasefire of last October, another 1500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and 5,161 injured” (Jeffrey St. Clair in Counterpunch). Our tax dollars at work in the culture of death.

“What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.  This is not hyperbole. Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.” Akela Lacy,The lntercept

“The president of Cornell, Michael I. Kotlikoff, whose university expels students who protest genocide and shields students who commit rape from criminal prosecution, issued the usual hour-of-reckoning statement that comes accompanied with a lot of vague promises of reform. He is no doubt busy doing damage control with his big donors, not a few of whom come out of the fraternity system. Kotlikoff and all administrators involved should be fired. Those accused of rape should be criminally charged. The disciplinary investigations of fraternities — which universities keep secret — should be made public. Fraternities found to have engaged in sexual assault — which will be most of them — should be closed. Those fraternity members who carried out sexual assaults — no matter how many years ago — should face trial. This is the minimum. But it is a minimum I am certain Cornell will never achieve” (Chris Hedges, “Some Thoughts on the Mass Rape at Cornell University “). As a just retired professor at Cornell, I know of no expulsions for protesting the genocide in Gaza but there certainly were suspensions without due process and in the case of Momodou Taal and Amandla Thomas-Johnson, two grad students on visas, suspensions that allowed the Trump administration to force self-deportation. I myself was suspended from teaching for circumstances surrounding my course “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” (for a full account of these circumstances see Gabriel Levin in The Nation). Except for my note on expulsions, I am in full agreement with Hedges.

“Universities in the United States have turned education upside down. They make war on scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and the search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression — in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas. They cater to the demands of rich alumni, who censor curriculum and purge professors and programs. They perpetuate the elitism, racism and rigid definition of gender roles in male fraternities. It is a culture of conformity and intolerance. Education in the U.S. is a mindless quest for collective euphoria. Students are taught that self-worth and self-fulfillment are found in crowds, in mass emotions, in status, rather than individual transcendence. Those who do not pay deference to the celebration of wealth, privilege and power are cast out as freaks. It is a war on knowledge in the name of knowledge” (Chris Hedges, “Some Thoughts on the Mass Rape at Cornell University”).

+ At least 1,439 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, and another 5,052 wounded, since the Trump-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza went into effect on October 11, 2025. That amounts to more than 18 total casualties and 4.2 deaths a day. In comparison, the US averaged 1.8 deaths per day during the “active” phase of the Iraq War. (Jeffrey St. Clair in CounterPunch) Cease-fire?

“In America, we rewrite history by erasing it” (quoted in the TV series The Changeling).

Here is Trump on social media:“This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” This is the voice of a man in freefall, but it is also the Voice of the US president. Who voted for this?

When Political Reality Collides With Ed Sheeran nytimes.com/2026/09/21/opini… via @NYTOpinion

The latest from Ed Sheeran. Is he seeking redemption? “Ed Sheeran Apologizes for Macklemore Controversy, Says Gaza Devastation Is 'Unjustifiable' The singer apologized for 'mistakes' and said he had been forced to make 'difficult decisions' over Macklemore's removal, while insisting he wants his concerts to focus on 'unity, joy, escapism, love' rather than his own political views.” Haaretz

All supporting acts withdraw from Ed Sheeran’s tour in solidarity with Macklemore All four supporting acts for upcoming dates of Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour of the US and Latin America have withdrawn in solidarity with fellow opening act Macklemore, as backlash grows against his removal from the tour over onstage comments in support of Palestine. Grammy-winning Macklemore had said on stage he wanted the people of Gaza and “the occupied West Bank” to know “we have not forgotten about them”, along with the words “free Palestine”. The remark prompted a petition calling for Macklemore’s removal from the tour from the Israeli-American Council and the opposition of some venue owners – including Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots and a prominent donor to Israel. • How has Ed Sheeran responded? In a lengthy Instagram post, the British singer said: “I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together … I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t care. Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine.”The Guardian This is a clear cop out by Ed Sheeran, who transfers his own responsibility for the artists on his tour to the promoter. His refusal to speak publicly about the genocide in Palestine is another copout, claiming he has the right to keep his personal political views private. Of course he does, but he is apparently keeping them private not out of a sense of personal integrity but out of a sense that he does not want to offend a segment of his audience, even when that segment is supporting a genocide. For what does it mean for a public figure to keep silent on a public event such as genocide, particularly when one of the artists on his tour and apparently a friend speaks out and is censored by monied interests for doing so?

Israel is working towards the systematic “elimination” of the conditions that sustain Palestinian collective life in the occupied West Bank, according to a report published by the human rights group B’Tselem. The Israeli organisation says Israel is “dramatically intensifying its attacks on every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank”. • How does the report say Israel is making life intolerable? “Palestinian communities are being pushed out in an accelerating process of ethnic cleansing, while an ever-expanding Israeli presence is being established … Elimination in this context means sustained harm to the conditions that enable Palestinians to exist as a people with land, institutions, language, culture, social ties, leadership, shared memory and history, and a social and political horizon. It is an ongoing political project.” The Guardian This constitutes genocide: the destruction or attempted destruction of a racial, ethnic or national community. The world stands by and watches.

“July 2026, Ari Daniel, David Augustine, Kazeem Olawale Nasiru, and Lameck Nyagudi of NPR reported on a study by Boston University infectious disease modeler Brooke Nichols that estimated more than 700,000 people had died from the sudden stop in USAID funding, including more than half a million children in developing countries” (Heather Cox Richardson). This is the new American foreign policy.

“Because always you want to bear in mind that Trump hates America. He hates the values on which America was built. He hates democracy. He hates rule of law. He hates all of the things that are what we’re supposed to be about as a nation. But increasingly it looks as if he just plain hates this country because it doesn’t love him. How much damage will he do? How much damage can he do? I don’t want to make a specific prediction, but I’m worried. And don’t say that he won’t do that or he can’t do that. Those have been famous last words again and again over the past decade. So this is going to be even worse, even uglier, I think than most people imagine” (Paul Krugman)

“Trump’s threat to destroy the Kennedy Center unless he gets to do what he wants to it seems to be a metaphor for the United States: ‘Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it’” (Heather Cox Richardson) It is of course already happening as Trump dismantles the US nationally and internationally.

American Omnipotence? A figment of Trump’s imagination: “On Sunday, in The Atlantic, Robert Kagan noted that the Iran war has reconfigured the Middle East. For years, Iran was on the ropes, with the U.S. dominating the region alongside countries aligned with the U.S., including Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Now Iran has withstood six months of attacks from the U.S. and Israel. Its survival has reconfigured the power structure of the region, with Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability to damage the oil and gas infrastructure of its neighbors” (Heather Cox Richardson)