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A Progressive’s View: Obama Doesn’t Much Care About the Public’s Welfare
Eric Zuesse
Barack Obama has proven, throughout his Presidency, that he cares little about the public’s welfare.
For example, Allen Frances noted, on April 12th, that Obama’s new federal budget devotes $235 million to creating a program hiring expensive mental health professionals to go into our schools so as to identify children who are likely to do crazy Adam-Lanza-type things, even though all scientific studies show that such a goal isn’t even nearly possible to achieve, given the present too-crude state of our current scientific knowledge of the actual precursors of such crazy behaviors as Lanza’s Newtown shootings. Clearly, Obama is proposing that $235 million waste in order to appeal to the NRA, which claims that guns aren’t the problem in such shootings, and that crazy people who need to be quarantined in advance are the problem – no matter that it simply cannot be done. In other words, Obama is attempting here to appeal to ignorant extremist right-wing gun-lovers, and he’s even proposing to use our tax-dollars for his futile political appeal to the far-right. He thereby signals that he accepts the NRA’s framing of the problem of these homicidal gun-outbursts. He not only weakens his own case, he uses our taxpayer money to do it. This is the type of “leader” he is: he confuses the public on important issues, by pandering to false conservative premises, and he thereby encourages the general public to accept those false premises, even while he also proposes some policies (such as reasonable gun-controls) that are based upon opposite (and scientifically sound) premises. So, even when he talks liberalism, he actually encourages conservatism, at a deeper level: the level of underlying assumptions.
Chavismo Wins
by Stephen Lendman
Venezuela's spirit of democracy lives. Celebratory fireworks followed Maduro's win. They were more subdued than last October. Chavez won then by 11 points.
Sunday's results were much closer than expected. Polls had Maduro way ahead. With 99.2% of the vote counted, his victory margin was 1.6%.
He'll be inaugurated on April 19. His term runs six years. He'll serve until January 2019. More on that below.
After his 2006 reelection, Chavez told supporters: "Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists. It is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger."
"Another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again."
New York Times v. North Korea
by Stephen Lendman
The Times is America's unofficial ministry of information and propaganda. Daily managed news misinformation is featured.
Articles, commentaries and editorials are brazenly one-sided. Readers are systematically lied to. Fiction substitutes for facts. Information is carefully filtered. Dissent is marginalized.
When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors, correspondents and contributors march in lockstep. Independent leaders are denigrated. Democrats are called despots.
Rule of law principles don't matter. Democratic values are ignored. Imperial wars are called liberating ones. Mass murder, destruction and human misery go unreported. What's most important isn't explained.
Wealth, power and privilege alone matter. Wrong over right is endorsed. Patriotism means supporting what demands condemnation. America uber alles matters most.
The Times features hostile North Korean coverage. It's done so for decades. It's biased and irresponsible. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were vilified. So is Kim Jong Un. An April 13 report called him "young and defiant."
Imperial Partners Showcase Their Ruthlessness
by Stephen Lendman
America and Israel partner in injustice. They prioritize it. Imperial lawlessness is policy. So is state terror. Many examples explain. They're commonplace daily.
In the week ending April 10 alone, Israel conducted 78 West Bank incursions. Peaceful protesters were attacked. Fifty-five Palestinians, including eight children, were abducted. Another 11 Palestinians, including three children and one woman, were wounded.
Gaza border areas were attacked. So were fishing boats within two nautical miles from shore.
Israel mistreats Palestinian children like adults. Some aged 10 or younger are terrorized. On April 5, a 14-year-old Palestinian-American boy was arrested.
Eight assault-rifle wielding soldiers accosted him. They broke into his home pre-dawn. The entire family was terrorized. Stone-throwing was alleged. True or false hardly matters.
New York Times Anti-Palestinian Bias
by Stephen Lendman
On April 4, The New York Times headlined "Palestinian Defiance on Display at West Bank Funerals."
It discussed their anger in response to Israeli murder by torture and medical neglect. The Times didn't explain. More on that below.
According to New York TimesThink, Palestine isn't occupied. Gaza isn't besieged. The Nakba never happened. Israeli settlements are legitimate. Israel's more victim than aggressor.
Venezuelans Vote
by Stephen Lendman
On Sunday, April 14, PSUV's Nicolas Maduro (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) faces opposition Rountable of Democratic Unity (MUD) candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski.
Most Venezuelans deplore him. They do so for good reason. He represents oligarch power, ties to Washington, and returning Venezuela to its ugly past.
Polls show Maduro way ahead. On average, he leads by 16 points - 53% to 37%.
Creating a North Korean Threat
by Stephen Lendman
Washington needs enemies. When none exist, they're invented. A previous article said North Korea's straight from central casting.
Pyongyang threatens no one. Media scoundrels say otherwise. So does Obama. On the one hand, he claims no one wants war on the Korean peninsula. He urges Pyongyang "to pursue peace."
On the other, he's heightening tensions. He accused its leaders of "bad behavior," "threats," and "provocations." He's creating crisis conditions that didn't exist. He's spoiling for trouble doing so.
On Friday, John Kerry warned Kim Jong Un. Test-launching its Musudan missile threatens to inflame "an already volatile, potentially dangerous situation," he said.
He claimed Washington's open to negotiations. Denuclearizing the North comes first. Since Korean War hostilities ended, America never negotiated in good faith. Promises made were broken. North Koreans remember. Efforts to normalize relations were spurned. A longstanding uneasy armistice continues.
Controlled Opposition – From Goldstein to Soros and Beyond
By Gilad Atzmon
Jewish power is the unique capacity to stop us from discussing or even contemplating Jewish power. It is the capacity to determine the boundaries of the political discourse and criticism in particular.
In his new book, “The Invention Of The Land of Israel”, Israeli academic Shlomo Sand, manages to present conclusive evidence of the far fetched nature of the Zionist historical narrative - that the Jewish Exile is a myth as is the Jewish people and even the Land of Israel.
Yet, Sand and many others fail to address the most important question: If Zionism is based on myth, how do the Zionists manage to get a way with their lies, and for so long?
If the Jewish ‘homecoming’ and the demand for a Jewish national homeland cannot be historically substantiated, why has it been supported by both Jews and the West for so long? How does the Jewish state manage for so long to celebrate its racist expansionist ideology and at the expense of the Palestinian and Arab peoples?
Globalized Torture
by Stephen Lendman
America's the world's leading human rights abuser. State terror is official policy. So is waging war on humanity.
Guantanamo operates lawlessly. It's America's public face. It's the tip of the iceberg. More on that below.
Gitmo detainees gave few ways to resist. Refusing food challenges injustice. Around 130 haven't eaten in over two months. They're hunger striking for justice.
Russia Today reports regularly on what's happening. On April 12, it headlined "Day of Action to Close Guantanamo: US Cities protest Obama's inaction."
Greater Grand Theft Cyprus
by Stephen Lendman
Hit 'em again harder is policy. Cyprus is Exhibit A. It's pound of flesh demanded got greater. "Could it possibly get any worse," headlined Cyprus Mail?"
Weeks after agreeing to Eurocrat terms, six billion more euros are demanded. A leaked European Commission "Assessment of the public debt sustainability of Cyprus" report revealed it.
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