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Trump’s Psychopathy Now Clear
Eric Zuesse
What type of Presidential candidate, now become the President, would assert and (via his agents, do) all of the following things:
1: Pence presents new healthcare offer to Freedom Caucus The Hill, By Peter Sullivan - Mon. 3 April 2017, 04/03/17 09:33 PM EDT White House officials presented an offer to the conservative House Freedom Caucus on Monday night as they seek to revive the ObamaCare replacement bill.
Vice President Pence and other White House officials presented an idea at the Freedom Caucus meeting to allow states to choose to apply for waivers to repeal two ObamaCare regulations that conservatives argue are driving up premiums.
Those two regulations detail ObamaCare's essential health benefits, which mandate which health services insurers must cover, and "community rating," which prevents insurers from charging sick people higher premiums. ...
Russia Trying to Prevent Escalated War in Syria
Stephen Lendman
In response to Tuesday’s Khan Sheikhoun CW attack, Moscow rejected the US/UK/French draft resolution, calling it “unacceptable.”
No vote was taken, whether coming is unknown. It was introduced to wrongfully blame Assad for Tuesday’s attack, despite no evidence suggesting it - or any other CW incident throughout over six years of Obama’s war.
It’s now Trump’s, naked US-led aggression against a sovereign independent country, using imported terrorists as imperial foot soldiers, supported by terror-bombing, destroying vital infrastructure, massacring civilians - headed for escalation, not resolution.
Headed for Escalated War in Syria?
Stephen Lendman
Peace talks are on life-support - no breakthroughs achieved, none likely after Tuesday’s Kahn Sheikhoun chemical weapons (CW) attack.
It had all the earmarks of a false flag incident aimed at perpetuating war, likely escalating it for the same objective as earlier - destroying Syrian sovereign independence, replacing it with pro-Western puppet rule, isolating Iran ahead of a similar strategy against its government.
Imperialism is dirty business, Trump up to his neck in it, perhaps over his head by delegating warmaking issues to neocon generals.
They thrive on endless conflicts. So do hawkish extremists infesting Washington. Resolving wars diplomatically for a new era of world peace is considered heresy.
Horror, Fear, Anger and Disgust…
Gilad Atzmon
In her Forward article yesterday, self-identified “Jewish lesbian leftist” Donna Minkowitz admitted to feeling “horror, fear, anger and disgust” at an invitation to speak at a literary event. “Now, that’s quite a combination of sentiments to feel all at once,” I thought to myself, “How could an invitation to attend an intellectual gathering evoke such negative feelings?”
On 30 April human-rights lawyer Stanley Cohen, history professor Norton Mezvinsky, orthodox Jewish author and whistle-blower Michael Lesher and myself will, in light of my upcoming book Being in Time – A Post Political Manifesto, gather together in Theatre 80, Manhattan to reflect on the collapse of Identity politics, the crisis within new-Left thinking and the future of liberal and progressive thought. We invited Donna Minkowitz to participate in the panel discussion so she could present her Jewish LGBTQ outlook. For some reason Minkowitz got the impression that she was expected to “tout” my new book. On the contrary, Minkowitz was invited to oppose my argument.
Syria Falsely Blamed for Sarin Gas Attack in Idlib Province
Stephen Lendman
Numerous times before, Syria was falsely blamed for toxic chemical weapons attacks by US-supported terrorists.
On Tuesday, Reuters said “(a) suspected gas attack by Syrian government or Russian jets killed at least 35 people, including nine children, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday” - citing the pro-Western so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On April 4, it reported 58 deaths in Idlib province, including at least 11 children, saying:
A Khan Shaykhun city neighborhood “was bombed with material believed to be gases which caused suffocation and other symptoms, like intense breathing secretion, iris shrinkage, pail, general spasm, and other symptoms appeared on the injured people.”
The incident happened days after Syrian forces were falsely accused of using “toxic substances” in Hama province.
NYT v. Russia on Tuesday’s Syria CW Attack
Stephen Lendman
Who’s more credible? Simple to know for anyone paying attention to imperial war on Syria and in other US war theaters.
The Times claimed holes in Russia’s explanation of what happened in Khan Sheikhoun, substituting fiction for facts.
The attack occurred in territory controlled by US-supported terrorists. Anti-Assad witnesses reported what they want people to know, not what happened or who’s responsible - falsely blaming government forces, the Big Lie embedded in the public mind before evidence later refutes it.
It’s unclear precisely what happened, likely a sarin gas attack. Images of victims and emergency workers circulating online haven’t been verified.
Death on the Prescription Plan The ‘White Plague’ of the 21st Century
James Petras
Introduction
Over the past two decades hundreds of thousands of Americans have died prematurely because of irresponsibly prescribed narcotic ‘pain killers’ and other central nervous system depressants, like tranquillizers and their deadly interactions. The undeniable fact is that they have been mostly from the white working and lower middle class from rural and deindustrialized regions. The governing elite and oligarch macro-decision makers have quietly dismissed this sector of the country as ‘surplus’. The victims or their surviving family members have no chance of redress for the widespread malpractice and greed that led to their addiction or death. The government as a whole and the oligarch-controlled mass media have deliberately failed to document and investigate the deep causes for the epidemic, except to spout the usual superficial ‘clichéd explanations’.
We will proceed to discuss the scope and depth of the epidemic and to identify the primary causes. We will then proceed to offer alternatives.
Comparative Data
The US can claim the dubious distinction of having highest rate of growth of premature deaths among its young and middle age working and lower middle class citizens among the the advanced countries of Europe and Asia. Even most not-so-advanced countries have been spared such an increase in pre-mature mortality, outside of war. This uniquely American devastation is concentrated among the poorer, less educated whites living in small cities, towns and rural areas.
The trends are no longer deniable: Over the last sixteen years (2000-2016), the death rate among US workers between ages 50 – 54 doubled from 40 to 80 per 100,000[1]. In contrast, the mortality rate in Germany among a similar demographic declined from 60 to 42/100,000 and in France from 55 to 40 per 100,000[2]. Moreover within the US, the mortality rate for marginalized white workers has increased compared to that of African Americans and Hispanics. This upward shift in pre-mature death indicates significant deterioration in living standards for a huge slice of the US population. The main causes of death include a dramatic increase in suicide, complications of obesity and diabetes, and especially ‘poisoning’ – a broad term to include alcohol, illegal drugs, and, especially, prescribed opioid pain medications and an array of mixed drug interactions.
Nikki Haley’s Historical Revisionism
Stephen Lendman
In March 29 remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, Haley called America “the moral conscience of the world.”
Orwellian dystopia more accurately describes the horrors of US policies. Haley’s disinformation fell flat.
“(H)uman rights are at the heart of” America’s UN mission, she blustered, ignoring its rape, destruction and plunder of one nation after another, shifting blame for its high crimes on others.
US terror-bombing massacres civilians indiscriminately. It targets hospitals, schools, residential areas and other nonmilitary sites - flagrant international law violations.
Haley’s remarks ignored reality, blaming Assad for America’s crimes of war and against humanity.
US Phony War on Terror
Stephen Lendman
America seeks global conquest and dominance, a diabolical agenda threatening humanity’s survival.
Its so-called war on terror is a fabricated hoax - state-sponsored terror to advance its imperium by smashing one sovereign independent state after another.
Democracy and humanitarian intervention are Washington’s most destructive exports, aiming to be the world’s judge, jury, executioner and dominant power, a pure evil agenda.
Monied interests are served at the expense of popular ones. Washington rules replaced international laws, norms and standards.
Why Do Some Men Rape?
Robert J. Burrowes
A recent report from Equality Now titled 'The World's Shame: The Global Rape Epidemic' http://www.equalitynow.org/campaigns/rape-laws-report offered a series of recommendations for strengthened laws to deter and punish sexual violence against women and girls.
However, there is substantial evidence that legal approaches to dealing with violence in any context are ineffective. For example, the empirical evidence on threats of punishment (that is, violence) as deterrence and the infliction of punishment (that is, violence) as revenge reveals variable impact and context dependency, which is readily apparent through casual observation. There are simply too many different reasons why people break laws in different contexts. See, for example, 'Crime Despite Punishment'. https://undark.org/article/deterrence-punishments dont-reduce-crime/
Moreover, given the overwhelming evidence that violence is rampant in our world and that the violence of the legal system simply contributes to and reinforces this cycle of violence, it seems patently obvious that we would be better off identifying the cause of violence and then designing approaches to address this cause and its many symptoms effectively. And reallocating resources away from the legal and prison systems in support of approaches that actually work.
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