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Gallup: Americans Want Socialized Healthcare
Eric Zuesse
Most Americans want Obamacare to be replaced by what Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposes and what both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump oppose: "Replacing the ACA [Affordable Care Act — Obamacare] with a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.” That’s 58% of Americans in the survey. Only 37% were opposed. 5% had “No opinion.”
Clinton proposes to build upon Obama’s ACA, but 51% in this Gallup survey say they want it repealed; only 45% want it to continue in any form (other than, presumably, socialized medicine, which, as was just noted, 58% of Americans want). Consequently, one of the, if not the, main, reason(s), why Americans want ACA repealed, is in order to obtain socialized healthcare (a possibility that candidate Obama had promised as a possibility in his ‘public option’, which he never even tried to include in his actual healthcare law, the ACA).
Donald Trump proposes to repeal ACA and simply go back to the old system, but in a form which enables all insurers to provide plans in all states
Jesus [Christ], Dorner and Bin Laden: Patsy, Terrorist, or Savior
By Robert Singer
[Originally published on 03/21/13 but Re-Moved from the Internet.]
A coincidental look into the lives of the 3 most wanted terrorists in history.
terrorists plural of ter·ror·ist, Noun
A terrorist is a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the definition of the term “terrorism.” Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of “terrorism.” These difficulties arise from the fact that the term “terrorism” is politically and emotionally charged. [From Wikipedia]
- Christopher Jordan Dorner [Why do so many assassins/terrorists have 3 names?] a violent domestic terrorist and author of numerous versions of a “manifesto,” in 2013 stars in the recent episode of rampage killing TV, at age 33. News Services Fake Dorner Manifesto, Quick-Shooting Police Mistake Little Women for a Big Man
Quoted in the LA Times: “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to clear my name.” Does this sound like something a violent domestic terrorist would say?
[Note the details in the wanted poster above. Build: Thin, Remarks: “He is left-handed and walks with a cane." Footnote [1] explains why the CIA would knowingly release a confession video with an overweight, fat nosed actor writing with his right hand.]
Criminal Injustice in America
Stephen Lendman
America has the world’s largest prison system, larger than China’s with four times its population.
Thousands are incarcerated for political reasons. They committed no crimes. Most prisoners were convicted of nonviolent offenses.
In 2012, “A Living Death” ACLU report indicated 3,278 prisoners in federal facilities and nine states providing data, serving life without parole (LWOP), mostly for nonviolent drug offenses.
Over 83% of LWOP sentences were mandatory, judges unable to offer leniency. A living death describes the fate of victims. Most never should have been imprisoned in the first place.
According to the ACLU, thousands in America got LWOP sentences for “possessing a bottle cap smeared with heroin residue,” shoplifting three belts, breaking into a parked car, or stealing a lunch bag - minor offenses and others like them warranting no more than misdemeanor punishment.
The Imperial Empire: The Sun Never Sets but the Mote remains in the Emperor’s Eye
James Petras
Post-colonial empires are complex organizations. They are organized on a multi-tiered basis, ranging from relative autonomous national and regional allies to subservient vassal states, with variations in between.
In the contemporary period, the idea of empire does not operate as a stable global structure, though it may aspire and strive for such. While the US is the major imperial power, it does not dominate some leading global political-economic and military powers, like Russia and China.
Imperial powers, like the US, have well-established regional satellites but have also suffered setbacks and retreats from independent local economic and political challengers.
Empire is not a fixed structure rigidly embedded in military or economic institutions. It contains sets of competing forces and relations, which can change over time and circumstances. Moreover, imperial allies and clients do not operate through fixed patterns of submission. While there is submission to general agreements on ideology, military doctrine and economic policy identified with imperial rulers, there are cases of vassal states pursuing their own links with non-imperial markets, investors and exporters.
Who Is the More Vicious Liar: Trump, or Obama?
Eric Zuesse
There was a drastic refocus by U.S. President Barack Obama away from being anti-jihadist and toward being anti-Russian, after his first Presidential term ended and as soon as his second Presidential term began; but the signs that Obama presented during his re-election campaign in 2012 were in exactly the opposite direction — that he was going to reduce, not increase, American armaments against Russia.
The Pernicious Myth of Perpetual Economic Growth Nothing grows forever. The myth the economy can is destroying the biosphere.
Dr. Glen Barry
Economic growth is destroying the biosphere The present human condition is predicated on one of the biggest lies ever – that the economy can grow indefinitely. In a self-serving logical contortion, economists in service to the oligarchy measure the well-being of a society by how fast the economy grows, with little regard to the state of natural capital, human inequity, the welfare of ecosystems and other species, or the extent to which people and society are happy. Natural capital is defined as Earth’s stocks of natural assets including ecosystem services which make all life possible, which is unmeasured and thus undervalued by indices of economic growth. Measures such as Gross Domestic Product utterly fail to tie increases in economic output to human and natural well-being. Spending on militaristic drone attacks and the rich’s conspicuous over-consumption are equated with social expenditures to meet basic human needs.
Clearcutting old-growth forests for toilet paper is of equal worth as providing homes and food for the poor. Ravaging Earth’s last natural ecosystems for every last drop of oil is deemed economically beneficial (despite being terribly inefficient as externalities remain unpriced), while we are told restoring natural ecosystems is unprofitable because of large discounting of future benefits.
How Obama Aims to Conquer Crimea
Eric Zuesse
When U.S. President Barack Obama perpetrated his coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014, and even had his agent Victoria Nuland select the person who was to rule Ukraine after the coup, it was with the expectation that the new government would renegotiate, and soon end, the Russian lease of the naval base at Sebastopol in Crimea, which wasn’t due to expire until 2042. (Up until 1954, that base had been in Russian territory because Crimea was part of Russia; but, after the Soviet dictator Khrushchev in 1954 arbitrarily transferred Crimea to Ukraine, and then the Soviet Union itself broke up in 1991, Russia was keeping its navy there by paying a lease on it from Ukraine.)
Nordic Vassal States Pledge Support for America’s Imperial Project
Stephen Lendman
Leaders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden arrived in Washington to kiss Obama’s ring.
In a joint statement with their host, they recited the deplorable script handed them, pledging support for US-dominated NATO’s killing machine, its endless wars of aggression, its provocations against Russia and China risking direct confrontation.
They stressed the importance of upholding international law, breaching it in partnership with America. They condemned nonexistent Russian “aggression” and attempts to destabilize Ukraine - ignoring Moscow’s leading peacemaking role.
They shamelessly called Crimeans’ self-determination right to rejoin Russia an “illegal occupation and attempted annexation.”They reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s US-installed, Nazi-infested putschist regime. They back maintaining illegal sanctions on Russia, blaming it irresponsibly for US/Ukrainian efforts to undermine Minsk conflict resolution principles.
Reactions to Brazil’s Coup
Stephen Lendman
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, himself threatened by Washington wanting him ousted, denounced what he called a “made in the USA” coup, part of Obama’s deplorable legacy. He withdrew his ambassador in protest.
In Havana on Cuban state television, a newscaster read the following statement:
“The revolutionary government of the Republic of Cuba has denounced the judicial-parliamentary coup d’etat, disguised with legality that has been underway for months in Brazil.”
Sanders’ W. VA Win Slows Clinton’s Near-Certain Nomination
Stephen Lendman
Sanders’ Tuesday win more reflects anti-Clinton hostility in one of America’s poorest states than support for him.
Polls show most voters hold negative views about both candidates expected to win their party nominations in July, as well as disdain for America’s political system, ignoring their interests and welfare entirely.
In November, voting Republican or Democrat comes down to choosing the perceived lesser of two evils.No meaningful choice for change exists. Widely despised continuity has no opposition. Sanders persists in enjoying his prolonged 15 minutes of fame going nowhere.
Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, Clinton virtually certain to be the Democrat standard bearer.
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