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Ukrainian News Service Says Standard of Living Is Plummeting
Eric Zuesse
The plunging economy of Ukraine has evidently become so bad that Ukrainians now can even feel safe to call publicly for stopping the war against the separatist Donbass region of the country, and for reallocationg those military expenditures so that Ukrainians in the non-rebelling part of the country won’t starve to death.
On July 23rd, Dmitriy Gordon, a leading Ukrainian journalist, is thus, for the first time, publicly urging that the separatist region, Donbass (consisting of the Donetsk and Luhansk districts), be officially acknowledged to be no longer part of Ukraine. He says that "It is better to dissociate Ukraine from the occupied territories of Donbass, to spend that money on housing and financial aid for immigrants [refugees from Donbass] than to keep the people [the vast majority of residents in Donbass] who hate Ukraine [though they actually didn’t hate Ukraine until Ukraine’s government was violently overthrown in February 2014 and the new government bombed them for not accepting that new government]. … I will tell an unfashionable view. Many people think it, but not everyone will dare to say it out loud. Ukraine does not need Donbass. It shackles the country. … It is like a lizard that lays aside its tail. … We need to get away from Donbass, and move into Europe without this tail.”
BRICS Bank Opens for Business
by Stephen Lendman
Its Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) represents the beginning of a significant challenge to predatory Western financial institutions - the IMF, World Bank and other loan shark lenders of last resort.
The IMF was established to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank's mandate was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. Both bodies proved hugely exploitive - using debt entrapment to transfer public wealth to Western bankers and other major creditors.
Former IMF Chief Blasts Greek Bailout Deal
by Stephen Lendman
In 2011, corporate shill Christine Lagarde replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn as IMF managing director - forced from office by spurious rape charges later dropped.
He was targeted for being France's most popular potential left wing presidential candidate (he still is) and for supporting more responsible IMF policies - ones monied interests don't tolerate.
Lagarde straightaway showed why she was selected - supporting harsh austerity measures bankers demand, including debt entrapment, predatory capital rules and social injustice. In an open letter "To my German Friends," Strauss-Kahn called Troika Greek bailout terms "profoundly damaging…a "crippling situation."
Concentration Camps in America?
by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11 repressive laws transformed America into a police state. US prisons already overflow with political and other unjustly incarcerated victims.
It's a short leap to filling concentration camps with dissidents - anyone publicly opposing America run by monied interests and warlords, governed lawlessly, waging endless wars of aggression abroad, persecuting its own people, leaving anyone potentially vulnerable to abuse.
FEMA detention camps were established years ago. Perhaps many more are planned. They're used to incarcerate undocumented immigrants before deportations to countries of origin. In 2002, Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft called for Americans designated "enemy combatants" to be detained indefinitely - extrajudicially, uncharged and untried unless ordered otherwise.
Unaccountable Killer Cops in America
by Stephen Lendman
US streets in minority communities are battlegrounds. The good news is more police killings make headlines though nowhere near as many warranted. Justifiable public anger is noticeably more visible.
The bad news is cops in America kill innocent (mostly Black) victims hundreds of times annually with impunity.
Activist police brutality critic Sandra Bland was lawlessly arrested after being stopped for a dubious traffic violation. Waller County, TX police lied claiming she assaulted arresting state trooper Brian Encinia. Video evidence showed him harassing, threatening and abusing her. He opened her car door, aggressively demanded she "(s)tep out of the car." She justifiably hesitated saying "(y)ou do not have the right to do that. Don't touch me. I'm not under arrest."
Encinia threatened her with his taser, saying "(g)et out of the car. I will light you up. Get out. Now. Get out of the car." Bland was pinned to the ground, assaulted, handcuffed, arrested and jailed. She was found hanged to death in her cell.
Jon Stewart Blew Last Chance to Ask Obama a Question
By David Swanson
Jon Stewart interviewed President Obama for the last time and told jokes instead of asking questions.
If Stewart retires, where will we find someone willing to let Obama spew nonsense at such length unchallenged?
I discussed Obama's interview on RT on Wednesday, and someone asked me to post the Youtube, but RT has to do that, not me. So here's the gist of what I think.
Stewart said to Obama: you've tried bombing and overthrowing leaders and arming rebels and ... what's that new thing ... oh yeah, diplomacy.
OPINION: Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End of Democracy
Eric Zuesse
Today’s America is not a democracy:
“Dark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money Groups That Fund…"
That terrific investigative news report by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post, on 9 November 2013, penetrated beyond what the U.S. oligarchy — or more traditionally called aristocracy — requires its dark-money groups to disclose to the Federal Election Commission; and so Blumenthal researched also into what dark-money groups are required to report to the IRS (America’s tax-authorities).
This way, Blumenthal was able to discover, for example, that a "dark-money shell game allowed the Wisconsin Club for Growth to influence the elections with both its own ads and those of seemingly unrelated conservative groups with different public agendas. … The trail of cash moving from dark money nonprofit to dark money nonprofit can be traced, in part, through public records of the groups contributing it,” but only by accessing both FEC and IRS public records. And, even then, the picture was incomplete, because the 5-Republican bare majority, on the infamous pro-aristocracy 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision, by five traitors to the U.S. Constitution (which all judges are sworn to protect), prohibits public access to a complete picture of how (like in that Wisconsin election) a few psychopathic billionaires, plus millions of faith-driven fools they sucker with myth-affirming lies, can destroy government of the people, by the people, for the people, and turn it instead into government of the people, by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy. Blumenthal also showed the same billionaires+suckers system replacing democracy in other states. (Today’s Greece is a more extreme case of the same thing. Perhaps what’s today in Greece will be tomorrow in America.)
Agency to Enslave Greeks Is Established
Eric Zuesse
Late on Thursday, July 16th, German Economic News headlined “Greece: Debt Restructuring Through the Back Door,” and reported that, “The majority of Greece’s national debt is to be moved in the next three years gradually to the euro bailout fund ESM [European Stability Mechanism], so that the IMF will continue to remain as a lender. The euro zone countries will thereby provide Athens a longer grace period [a temporary postponement of payments, while the 18% annual interest-rate soars Greece’s debt even higher], and longer repayment periods.”The super-secretive European Stability Mechanism was set up in 2012, in order to handle Greece’s anticipated virtual receivership, which it now will do.
US and Cuban Embassies Open for Business
By Stephen Lendman
On January 3, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower severed relations with Cuba - two years after Fidel Castro replaced dictator Fulgencio Batista with governance serving all Cubans, not just its privileged few.
Two months later, Kennedy's failed Bay of Pigs invasion followed. He refused another. US relations with Cuba remained frozen until Obama began talks two years ago to change things.
On Monday, the Havana Times published Democracy Now's report on restoring diplomatic ties, saying:"History is being made in Washington today when Cuba raises its flag and officially reopens its US Embassy after 54 years."
Victoria Nuland Threatens Russia
by Stephen Lendman
She's one of many neocon lunatics infesting Washington. She was Hillary Clinton's hand-picked choice for Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
She wrecked Ukraine. Maybe she has starting WW III in mind. In an interview on Ukrainian TV, she said if war on its territory escalates, "the costs will go up" for Russia - economically and militarily.
"As you know, the sanctions that the international community has put in place - that the US and the EU have in place - are there to change the policy of Russia, to encourage it to fulfill its obligations." "We’ve made clear that they will stay in place until Minsk is fully implemented, including an end to the violence, including a return of hostages, a return of the border."
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