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CIA Director Pompeo Sees Nonexistent Threats Everywhere
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Interviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, CIA director Mike Pompeo mentioned lots of nonexistent threats, ignoring a real one in Washington - the greatest menace to everyone everywhere.
He lied saying whether Russians or Soviets, they threaten America, “trying to shape world public opinion through a whole host of means - some overt, some less so.”
“That threat is going to be constant. We have an obligation to push back, defeat it, to work to make it painful for them so that they’ll reduce the magnitude of what they’re doing.”
Fact: Most important is challenging US aggression, its rage for global dominance, its support for ISIS and other terrorist groups, its CIA, FBI, NSA Big Brother spying and imperial menace to everyone.
John McCain: Neocon War Criminal
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
What Arizona voters failed to do for decades, serious illness did instead, likely ending McCain’s political career straightaway or in the months ahead.
It’s hard feeling sympathy for someone supporting decades of high crimes of war and against humanity - along with likeminded extremists in Washington.
Perhaps brain cancer at age 80 is payback time, hardly compensation for imperial lawlessness he supported throughout his political career - mindless of the enormous harm to millions. Instead of denouncing his ruthlessness, the neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post disgracefully called him “a hero…a maverick and a man of courage throughout his life.”
Senate Rejects Repealing, Not Replacing, Obamacare
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
GOP efforts to make America’s dysfunctional healthcare system worse continues.
On Tuesday, an amended Trumpcare without CBO scoring was defeated by a 57 - 43 margin - nine GOP senators joining all undemocratic Dems, gutting Medicaid the most contentious issue.
On Wednesday, legislation to repeal, not replace, Obamacare was defeated by a 55 - 45 margin, seven Republicans joining all Dems - even though Congress passed identical legislation in 2015, vetoed by Obama. What’s next is likely trying to get a so-called “skinny bill” passed, eliminating only parts of Obamacare, including unpopular provisions.
As long as three GOP senators defect, passage won’t happen. Enough Republican House support for this type legislation is uncertain.
Trillions of Dollars in U.S. Military Spending Is Unaccounted-For
Eric Zuesse
Now, and for many decades past, the American public has displayed far higher confidence and trust in “The Military” than in any other “Institution” (including than churches, schools, the Presidency, the police, courts — any).
And yet — according to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense — many billions, and sometimes even trillions, of dollars, in the Department’s periodic financial reports, are not documented. What has happened to the taxpayers’ money is unknown — it’s missing (alleged to have been spent, but to payees unidentified).
According to the DOD’s IG, this goes on year-after-year (yet without at all reducing Americans’ trust in “The Military”). Apparently, Americans, as a lot, are gluttons for punishment — or else our ’news’media haven’t sufficiently reported the “waste, fraud, and abuse” that “The Military” are doing to the American public. Either way, there is this extraordinarily high public confidence in the military ongoing year-after-year though the U.S. DOD continues to be the only unauditable federal Department, and expenditures amounting (over the years) into trillions of dollars remain unaccounted-for. But here will now be the American ‘news’media’s chance to call to the public’s attention this discrepancy between the military’s reality and the public’s perceptions of that reality, by publishing this documentation:
Democratic Party ‘Better Deal’ Puts Lipstick on Its Pig
Eric Zuesse
I write this as a Democrat who rejects the Party as it has become — controlled by and representing the Party’s billionaire donors, against the American public.
That Party — the Clintonite Democratic Party, which deregulated Wall Street and allowed no regulation at all of financial derivatives, and ended FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act, and invaded Serbia, and increased the size of NATO (which should have ended when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance did, in 1991) — served superbly well the interests of America’s billionaires, but not of the American people, whose wages flatlined as Wall Street’s bonuses soared, and as that Democratic-Republican orgy of deregulation paved the way for the reckless lending that produced the 2008 crash, from which we’re still recovering. (America’s billionaires, however, did just fine from it all — and is that any wonder?)
The era of endless war didn’t really begin only with George W. Bush; the Clintons too were and are part of it and support every measure to ratchet-up military spending and turn America into the weapons-exporter to all of the world in order (not just to fatten the bottom lines of firms such as Lockheed Martin but) to “regime-change” every head-of-state that our billionaires or their ‘allies’ want removed from power and replaced by their chosen stooges.
NYT Hypocrisy on Healthcare
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
The Times notoriously supports wealth, power and privileged interests at the expense of progressive ones.
Its opposition to Trumpcare is more about hostility toward the president and support for abominable Obamacare than concern about House and Senate healthcare measures gutting Medicaid and leaving millions more uninsured than already.
The Times blasted House and Senate versions of Trumpcare, saying “Senate Republicans voted on Tuesday to begin repealing that law without having any workable plan to replace it.”Fact: GOP hardliners have lots of unacceptable ideas, polar opposite what all Americans need.
The Times: GOP “proposals vary in severity, but all of them would leave millions more people without health insurance and make medical care unaffordable for many low-income and middle-class families. “
Senate Debates Trumpcare
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
On Tuesday, a vote to debate the measure passed by a 51 - 50 margin, Vice President Pence breaking the evenly divided Senate in favor.
All undemocratic Democrats opposed the measure, along with GOP Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkoswki.
Hours after clearing the procedural hurdle, amended Trumpcare without CBO scoring was defeated by a 57 - 43 margin - nine GOP senators joining all Dems, showing a clear majority wants significant changes in the legislation, gutting Medicaid the most contentious issue.
The measure is on life support short of defeat. Debate continues on other amendments, a final vote not planned unless Republicans have enough support for passage.
Which do you trust: CNN, or Tass?
Eric Zuesse
On Tuesday July 25th, Russia’s official Tass News Agency bannered "Diplomat blasts US media reports on Russia's alleged arms supplies to Taliban: The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says a misinformation campaign is underway in the US media.” Tass reported:
CNN has become a propaganda instrument in a US misinformation campaign about Russia’s alleged weapons supplies to the Taliban in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.
Foreign Ministry slams accusations over Russia's alleged support for Taliban as absurd
"We have repeatedly said that a misinformation campaign is underway in the US media alleging that Russia is supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan and so forth. CNN is a reliable propaganda instrument used by relevant American structures in this game," she told the Govorit Moskva radio station commenting on CNN’s allegations that it has evidence proving arms supplies to the Taliban from Russia.
Chuck Schumer’s Phony Call for Social Justice
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Undemocratic Democrat Senate Minority Leader Schumer has been involved in state and federal politics since 1975.
He’s ideologically hard right, pretending otherwise, fooling no one familiar with his deplorable record.
Like most others in Congress, he’s anti-progressive, anti-labor, anti-welfare for the nation’s most vulnerable, pro-Wall Street, pro-business, pro-war, pro-US imperial dominance, and one-sidedly pro-Israel.
In deference to its regime, he opposed the Iran nuclear deal, turning truth on its head, claiming Tehran would be free to develop nuclear weapons years later - ones it doesn’t want, strongly advocating for a nuclear-free Middle East.
Schumer is just another self-serving dirty politician. The New York Times gave him feature op-ed space to lie, claiming he wants “a better deal for American workers” he’s done nothing for throughout his years in politics.
Imperial Power Centers: Divisions, Indecisions and Civil War
James Petras
Introduction
One of the most important outcomes of the Trump Presidency are the revelations describing the complex competing forces and relations engaged in retaining and expanding US global power (‘the empire’).
The commonplace reference to ‘the empire’ fails to specify the interface and conflict among institutions engaged in projecting different aspects of US political power.
In this essay, we will outline the current divisions of power, interests and direction of the competing configurations of influence.
The Making of Empire: Countervailing Forces
‘The empire’ is a highly misleading concept insofar as it presumes to discuss a homogeneous, coherent and cohesive set of institutions pursuing similar interests. ‘The empire’ is a simplistic general phrase, which covers a vast field contested by institutions, personalities and centers of power, some allied, others in growing opposition.
While ‘the empire’ may describe the general notion that all pursue a common general goal of dominating and exploiting targeted countries, regions, markets, resources and labor, the dynamics (the timing and focus of action) are determined by countervailing forces.
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