Restless Subjects,
Medicare For All has been presented to Congress every year since 2003. It has more support than ever. Bernie Sanders will introduce companion-legislation in the Senate. It will be blocked, but until when?
"This bill establishes the Medicare for All Program to provide all individuals residing in the United States and U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care," and "only public or nonprofit institutions may participate."
Human health is destroyed by our current neoliberal economic system, where we are all controlled from the top down, deprived of our group identities and relationships, which are the core of our nature, the foundation of all of our successes in the world. We need to be the animals we were born to be, or we will suffer in sickness, deprivation and addiction. This economy does not serve us. It enslaves us, dividing-and-conquering us...
"Back in the USSR"; Eleni sends this. It's about how supply and demand meet in command economies, like the USSR.
Long waiting lines become the new mediator. We have that with Obamacare, and it is just beginning. Bureaucracies raise as many hurdles/obstacles to access of care and services, as are necessary to match pay-outs with income and still turn the right profit.
Eventually, people have to find ways around a frozen system. What's the medical equivalent of buying turnips from somebody's garden?
Jean-Luc Melenchon is the "Communist" who is now in third place in French presidential election polling. He's really against neoliberal capitalism, and for independent French decision making. His social-left flavor distances him from the LePen support base, and likewise, his supporters might sooner abstain than vote for LePen in the second round. It's sad, and it's what the neoliberal elites are banking on.
Mike Pence warns North Korea (who never doubted the fact) "we're serious about bombing you if you don't do as we command". Seoul, South Korea, with millions of citizens, is a ready target for North Korean reprisals, and there is an urgent election next month to replace the president. (North Korea needs nukes and missiles to counter US threats. Only threat-reduction can change that. The US can easily reduce the threats, but that would go against habit. Perhaps the most important lesson of recent US attacks on Syria and Afghanistan is that they were based upon lies, and everybody accepts those lies without question.)
General HR McMaster says the same lies, that Russia is "destabilizing Europe" and supporting the "horrible" Assad regime, and it is time for tough negotiations with Russia. Russia, and the world know that this is threat-based-on-lies and upon evil false-flag attacks by American and Saudi backed mercenaries with chemical weapons. This is the head of the National Security Council, who tailors all the intelligence data from the various agencies for presentation to the President. (We are on our own in this world.)
Turkish President Erdogan really seemed to quiet down from my point of view over the past 10 days, yet I knew he was committed to becoming Sultan, and that the polls did not suggest any certainty that he would. I figured he needed some kind of "event" to get full support, or to rig the vote. Here's what he chose. His party unilaterally declared that paper ballots would not require the usual stamp of validation to be counted. 1.5 million "un-sealed" ballots have been counted, and Erdogan has a narrow "win", based on his party's count, but not on the other counts, which exclude those ballots.
No EU leader (not one) congratulates Erdogan on his "win", awaiting final word from the OECD, which will have to endorse or reject the vote count.
(High stakes for the Empire, and for the aspiring Sultan! What are the back-room negotiations like today? What is the empire offering the Erdogan? What are Russia, China and Iran offering him? How long will this twist in the wind? It could twist for awhile.)
At his victory speech late on Sunday, supporters chanted that he should bring back the death penalty -- a move that would finish off Turkey’s bid to join the European Union -- and Erdogan warned opponents not to bother challenging the legitimacy of his win. He told them to prepare for the biggest overhaul of Turkey’s system of governance ever, one that will result in him having even fewer checks on his already considerable power. “Today, Turkey has made a historic decision,” he said. “We will change gears and continue along our course more quickly.”
China, Russia and Iran are all working on an alternative newer-world-order, with India and Turkey keeping their options open. US intransigence, unwillingness to deal, other than with threats, gives the world no other long term solution than to develop alternatives to the current neoliberal/neoconservative world order. They are all being patient and working steadily. WE can consider that the SWIFT banking system has been compromised by the NSA, and hackers have released those bugs and hacks. Russia and China have an alternative in early beta testing. The US is threatening more sanctions against Russia, which has already dealt quite well with that assault. Threats from the center of the empire are not being openly met with any open debate by client states, but nobody can be fooled anymore... The emperor is obviously naked.
The fact that the empire is hardening all stances with military and financial threats, based upon lies, can really only end in the next reset, and it should come as a surprise to nobody. I predict a lot of surprise here in Texas, though...
China and Russia are watching the movements of the Carl Vinson carrier task force near Korea with great interest. Both have adjusted their border forces recently.
Russian submarines are to be layered with specialized 'masked' coatings, rendering them indistinguishable from whales and orcas.
Thanks Bill. (Man, North Korea is who really needs this stuff, but what could they have to pay for it?)
Syria remains the active theater of war-for-gas-pipeline-to-Europe. US troops in Jordan are worth watching. (Tahnks Eleni
(There can be a big ramp up there, which would then burst into Syria on some pretext. Training all those Syrians to fight the government has been an expensive and dismal failure, but we have to get the Saudi/Qatari pipeline through to Europe, or lose to Russian/Iranian interests!)
Potato-chip-bomber in Aleppo kills about 120 - 150 people, who were part of a human-hostage swap between civilian in government controlled areas and rebel controlled areas. hese mainly-Shiite civilians and aid workers were killed when their convoy was held up by rebel forces, and starving children were lured by potato chips, before the truck bomb was detonated. Nobody is taking credit or effectively casting blame, so this may not be a false flag attack, but really represent discord in rebel factions. Many were against the terms of this arrangement.
David Stockman presents the MOAD (mother of all debt) Crisis, on day 100 of the reign of Emperor Trump, April 28, 2017!
Sharp Dressed Man