Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

At The Guardian, Tom Burgis writes—What $2 trillion in possible corrupt activity reveals about Kleptopia:

[…] This week we’ve caught a fresh glimpse of Kleptopia. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the FinCEN files, details of more than 2,000 leaked suspicious activity reports that banks had filed to the US Treasury.

In the spring of 2004, freelance adventurer Ben Saunders, then just 26 years old, had to give up his attempt to make a solo trip across the North Pole from Cape Artichevsky in Siberia to Canada. He set out on skis March 5 and reached the pole on May 11. But 72 days after starting out, he had to be rescued about 30 miles from Canada because open water blocked his way.

On Tuesday, consumer pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson announced that their vaccine for COVID-19 was entering phase 3 trials. It seems hard to get excited about yet another vaccine at this point, especially when others began their phase 3 trials weeks, or even months, ago.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is almost certainly doomed with the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Unless John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch are ready to buck conservatives this time around and find a way to split the baby—strike down the individual mandate but preserve the rest of the law—it’s probably over. Which would mean millions of people would lose their coverage entirely, and millions more could find it priced out of their reach.

Happy autumn!

… except nothing is happy and it feels like it never will be again.

But wallowing in our anguish is a luxury we can’t afford, and besides, as one of my favorite philosophers is known for saying, “Pain don’t hurt.”

What does hurt, though, is knowing that nearly a decade of Democratic down-ballot neglect could assist Donald Trump’s schemes to remain in the White House at any cost.