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How Obama’s ‘Trade’ Deals Are Designed to End Democracy
Eric Zuesse
U.S. President Barack Obama has for years been negotiating with European and Asian nations — but excluding Russia and China, since he is aiming to defeat them in his war to extend the American empire (i.e, to extend the global control by America’s aristocracy) — three international ‘trade’ deals (TTP, TTIP, & TISA), each one of which contains a section (called ISDS) that would end important aspects of the sovereignty of each signatory nation, by setting up an international panel composed solely of corporate lawyers to serve as ‘arbitrators’ deciding cases brought before this panel to hear lawsuits by international corporations accusing a given signatory nation of violating that corporation’s ‘rights’ by its trying to legislate regulations that are prohibited under the ’trade’ agreement, such as by increasing the given nation’s penalties for fraud, or by lowering the amount of a given toxic substance that the nation allows in its foods, or by increasing the percentage of the nation’s energy that comes from renewable sources, or by penalizing corporations for hiring people to kill labor union organizers — i.e., by any regulatory change that benefits the public at the expense of the given corporations' profits. (No similar and countervailing power for nations to sue international corporations is included in this: the ‘rights’ of ‘investors’ — but really of only the top stockholders in international corporations — are placed higher than the rights of any signatory nation.)
Dirty Fast Track Authority Politics
by Stephen Lendman
On June 12, House members rejected fast track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) by a convoluted process explained in a previous article.
It involves combining TPA with Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) authorizing funding programs for workers displaced by jobs-killing imports. Voting down one measure defeats them both - at least that's how it's supposed to work.
House members overwhelmingly defeated TAA by a 176 vote margin rendering their separate earlier approval of TPA meaningless. Obama and corporate lobbyists don't quit easily.
On June 18, House members narrowly approved TPA separately in a second vote. Global Trade Watch director Lori Wallach explained a "procedural gimmick to punt Fast Track…back to the Senate."
Uncivilized Western Civilization
by Stephen Lendman
So-called Western civilization should terrify everyone. It’s a monster threatening life on earth.
Policy agendas pursue destructive objectives benefitting monied interests at the expense of all others - no matter how much human suffering is caused.
Endless wars of aggression target independent countries threatening no one - glorified in the name of peace, supported by echo chamber media scoundrels profiting by spreading Big Lies.
Mass murder is called humanitarian intervention. Western-style democracy is code language for control, plunder and exploitation.
We the people ain't ordinary folks. Powerful, corrupted elites in charge want whole continents carved up for profit. They want their resources stolen, their people exploited, fundamental freedoms eliminated to crush dissent.
Cellphones, Flouride and Your Brain ... Connect the Dots
Disclaimer: This article is really sketchy. I'm posting it despite my reservations because aspects of it are fascinating and may encourage further investigation. Please trust your own judgment and do more research.
I question most everything in this article: the references to Andrija Puharich, the "pendulum expert", the "extraterrestrials", and also the "vaccine implants", nature of GWEN etc.
It's hard to find answers about these things!
But, here are a few things I have learned:
Andrija Puharich was a brilliant but questionable (even sinister) character. I include him in a special category with other shadowy types such as Steven Greer, Ingo Swann, Courtney Brown, Timothy Leary, and Thomas Bearden and many, many more. You really can't trust these guys.
Some are probably aware that they spread disinformation, while others naively let themselves be used as "assets". Maybe they were just really brilliant guys and going down the rabbit hole screwed them up too much. Often they are sort-of in-the-military, but also sort-of not-in-the-military. They may dabble in drugs or the occult. They may be interested in mind control. They may seem to work for the government and also against the government.
Sometimes they are being duped and used by nonhuman entities. Andrija Puharich was influenced by such entities. These beings have had many names: aliens, spirits, Etherians, Extraterrestrials, etc. I prefer to identify them as Jinn.
In modern times we naively assume that these beings come from other planets, but they've always visited us and they come from another "dimension" or "space" that is a part of this world we call Earth.
The entities may pretend that they come from another planet. Or they may refer to themselves as Space beings. "Space" doesn't necessarily mean the "Outer Space" of NASA. "Space" is also defined as: "the unlimited expanse in which everything is located", or "the boundless regions of the infinite". Well, that pretty much includes everything -- including those realms and dimensions which modernized western society is amazingly ignorant about. Seems like those jinn are having another big laugh at our expense. They do that all the time.
The jinn are quite often tricksters and liars. Some are demonic and like to frighten or debase and corrupt. They have free will like humans, so they can range from good to bad. However, the ones who confuse and mess around with us aren't likely to be good. The best approach is to avoid them. They love to pose as gods or masters-of-the-universe and create followings. They often make predictions (which don't come true). They are channeled by people who are willing to go into a trance and let strange, unknown entities take over their bodies and minds.
In the case of Andrija Puharich the entities were called "The Nine".
The extraterrestrials mentioned in this article were undoubtedly jinn.
There really is no such thing as a "pendulum expert". Pendulums can't be trusted for consistent, truthful or scientific responses.
I'm posting this article despite serious reservations. Please trust your better judgment and do more research!! ~~Lydia http://www.bariumblues.com/index.htm
Senator Lindsey Graham is an Idiot
Michael Collins
CNN interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham (R ) of South Carolina on the propriety of continuing to fly the Confederate flag in front of the state capitol. Many have called on the state to take down the flag as a show of respect for the nine victims of alleged killer Dylann Storm Roof, the 22 year old killer with a clear affinity for the flag and other racist symbols. Graham’s responses are telling. (Image: AK Rockefeller)
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN: Is it time to stop flying the Confederate flag?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, at the end of the day, it’s time for the people of South Carolina to revisit that decision, would be fine with me but this is part of who we are.” CNN, June 20
What could Graham mean by “this is part of who we are”? Is he referring to the people of South Carolina. Blacks comprise 30% of the state’s population. The Confederate flag is hardly who they are. Is he referring to the state’s white majority? Do all white South Carolinians think of the flag as who they are?
Syriza: Plunder, Pillage and Prostration (How the ‘Hard Left’ embraces the policies of the Hard Right)
James Petras
Introduction
Greece has been in the headlines of the world’s financial press for the past five months, as a newly elected leftist party, ‘Syriza’, which ostensibly opposes so-called ‘austerity measures’, faces off against the “Troika” (International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and European Central Bank).
Early on, the Syriza leadership, headed by Alexis Tsipras, adopted several strategic positions with fatal consequences - in terms of implementing their electoral promises to raise living standards, end vassalage to the ‘Troika’ and pursue an independent foreign policy.
We will proceed by outlining the initial systemic failures of Syriza and the subsequent concessions further eroding Greek living standards and deepening Greece’s role as an active collaborator of US and Israeli imperialism.
Irresponsible US Iran Bashing
by Stephen Lendman
Continuing P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran don't suggest Washington wants normalized relations after 36 years of hostility.
The State Department's just released 2014 Country Reports on Terrorism offers more proof. It excludes the world's two most egregious state sponsors of terrorism above all others - America and Israel.
Instead, it absurdly calls the Jewish state "a committed counterterrorism partner" and lists nonexistent threats to its security - including from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon's Hezbollah. It features Cuba (no longer wrongfully designated since May 29, 2015), North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Iran. It blames Syria's Bashar al-Assad for defending his nation against US-imported Islamic State and other takfiri terrorist groups.
It unjustly accuses him of their mass murder, chemical weapons attacks and other atrocities. It ignores Washington's longstanding regime change plans - ongoing belligerently since Obama launched proxy war in March 2011, naked aggression against an independent country threatening no one.
Thousands in Britain Rally Against Austerity
by Stephen Lendman
Force-fed austerity in Britain, America and elsewhere is a thinly veiled wealth transference scheme - from ordinary people to super-rich ones already with too much, including benefitting war profiteers by waging endless conflicts.
The dirty scheme is grand theft by other means - robbing poor Peter to pay rich Paul, corrupt politicians profiting at the same time they betray their constituents.
The People's Assembly sponsored Saturday's mass protest. It calls itself "a broad united national campaign against austerity" decimating social justice in Britain. It's slogan is "END AUSTERITY NOW." It's Manifesto states: "There is no need for ANY cuts to public spending; no need to decimate public services; no need for unemployment or pay and pension cuts; no need for Austerity and privatisation. There IS an alternative."
"We need a government to reverse damaging austerity, and replace it with a new set of policies providing us with a fair, sustainable and secure future."
Thousands in St. Petersburg Defy US Sanctions
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed the opening of the 19th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) - an annual three-day event attracting thousands of participants.
They include world political and business leaders, journalists and others from dozens of countries worldwide - including from China, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, South Korea and America.
They came despite US sanctions and ones Washington bullied EU countries to impose. Around 1,000 companies confirmed their participation - including 440 from Europe, Asia and America. They came to finalize deals worth hundreds of billions of rubles.
Top executives from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase International, Societe Generale, Siemens, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Philip Morris International, McKinsey & Company, Enel, Pirelli, Schlumberger, Amsted Rail, Austria's UniCredit Bank, and TPG capital arrived among others - despite Washington pressuring Western companies not to attend.
Hillary Clinton Backs Fast-Track on Obama’s Trade Deals
Eric Zuesse
On Sunday, June 14th, Hillary Clinton came out publicly for the first time in support of President Obama’s trade-deals — TPP with Asia, TTIP with Europe, and on TISA with all nations to lower the standards on banking and insurance and to privatize government services.
What’s at issue in Congress right now — and thus what she was responding to — is whether or not to grant U.S. President Barack Obama the “Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority,” which will produce expedited passage for his trade-deals; the trade-deals themselves are not even before Congress yet, and have not even been made public, though the first one up for consideration will be TPP with Asia; but that deal, like the others, will virtually certainly go down to defeat unless the President first wins “Fast Track,” which is the issue now.
The reason “Fast Track” is the issue now before Congress, is that it's actually the only feasible way for Obama to be able to win congressional passage of TPP or of any of his big-three trade-deals. It’s crucial because it reduces the Constitutionally required two-thirds of Senators voting for a given trade-deal, down to merely 50% of Senators (plus VP Joe Biden) needed to vote for it, in order for the deal to become U.S. law — and there is no way possible for this Senate to vote two-thirds for either TPP with Asia, TTIP with Europe, or TISA for “Services.” But 50% can safely be assured (especially with the gargantuan political-campaign donations that are pouring into Congress to back it).
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