Featured

Contributed article from Dave Lindorff, Founding Editor of ThisCantBeHappening.net   The US is about to move towards a far more likely first use of nuclear weapons, with word that the Air Force has “completed flight testing” of the cost-and-performance-plagued F35A Lightning fighter, all units of which are being “upgraded” to carry...

By Kimberly J. Soenen   I grew up amongst the Shock Doctrine generation, Generation X. We were raised in between the sentences of the book by Naomi Klein that has been referenced frequently as of late. The book supports the theory that exploitation of national crises...

The only reason you’re reading this essay by me is because of a man named Stan Brock,  – whose work inspired me to leave my old job as an insurance executive. Few people in my life have been as consequential as Stan. And he’s been even more...

As the COVID-19 pandemic exposes another area of vulnerability — the U.S. food supply, Americans find innovative ways to keep themselves and their communities fed. With 40 million Americans unemployed and poverty on the rise, Feeding America expressed concerns on their website in April that the...

By Brent Korson   When we read about “spreading misinformation”, the connotation typically defaults to bad actors. But most of us who’ve ever had a social media account has likely, unknowingly, shared misinformation. While disinformation is the ill-intent kind, (false information deliberately and often covertly in order to influence...

By Brent Korson   With the arrival of the novel coronavirus, we’re watching each country experience its own Rorschach test. We’re seeing how each nation responds based on its site specific differences: culture, population, citizen proximity, infection rate, seasonality, geography, topography. Then there’s the human element of how each...

There’s been a lot of talk this week about big corporations such as Amazon, Verizon and Comcast deciding to stop giving money to House and Senate Republicans who voted to overturn last year’s election.  Guess which giants aren't on that list? America's big for-profit health insurers. 

Dear Tarbell Community: I started this nonprofit news outlet three years ago with the dream of changing the conversation about America and the powers that shape all our lives. The past few years have been an incredible learning experience for the entire team at Tarbell.

By Brent Korson   As the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) shortage crisis strikes the country, New York remains the hardest hit. To convey the scale, Mayor Bill De Blasio’s team wrote us last week, “To give a sense of the sheer magnitude, The City of New...

When Wendell Potter founded Tarbell, there was one overriding theme guiding the organization – better, cheaper and more accessible healthcare for all Americans.  That mandate has not changed, nor will it change.  Another mandate for our journalism was a commitment to be apolitical.  Tarbell...

By Brent Korson   At a time when this administration’s lies have been honed and weaponized to the point of functioning as the single most potent source of their ammunition, it’s been long overdue for the kind of reckoning that gets captured behind closed doors and on tape. Three...

By Kimberly J. Soenen    Recent and ongoing world events demand attention, thought and a critical reTHINK about health, healthcare and Public Health. There is a common denominator between what's unfolding in Afghanistan, the ongoing mass shootings in Chicago, the lack of infrastructure in Haiti, the...

As millions of Americans celebrated President Biden’s inauguration, some of my former colleagues in the health insurance industry were quietly celebrating some news of their own: their most profitable year ever.  That’s right: insurance companies made a fortune during a pandemic. 

Here’s an interesting irony: Everyone around Trump who gets COVID-19 may be in big trouble if they get their wish and gut the Affordable Care Act. Why? In the future, COVID will likely be classified by private insurers as a pre-existing condition.  I'd know...

By Brent Korson   If ever there were a time for journalists, news outlets and the media at large to not parse words, this is it. Election Day has finally arrived and the gravity and urgency of the situation seems to have fully landed across the media landscape, as...

By Brent Korson   The last few weeks have, unsurprisingly, only grown more jarring and chaotic in the run-up to Election Day. While there was no way to know how the specifics would play out, (President contracts deadly virus, President covers up what he knew and when he knew...

Both American political parties recently concluded their national conventions on the eve of an election that may be one of the most critical in history, not just for the United States, but for the world.  In normal times – meaning the good ole days when only a...

Could President Donald Trump singlehandedly destroy Social Security, the New Deal retirement program that for 85 years has provided critical support to old or disabled Americans — currently numbering 65 million? At first blush, the idea that a president could singlehandedly destroy a program...

I’m not in the habit of wishing bad things to happen to anybody, but yesterday, when I was at the pharmacy counter, I was wishing every member of Congress would have to experience the same insanity I was experiencing. If they did, they just might do something to fix...

When you want to know if the US government, or the political party in charge, is pulling a fast one on the public, look at the name they give a new program or law. The USA PATRIOT Act is a classic example. An acronym for Uniting and...