EU punishes Palestinian cancer patients to please Israel
H/T: usefulidiots (Substack)
The largest-ever Medicare premium increase will pad the pockets of insurance executives who donated millions to the president’s election campaign.
Biden Hikes Medicare Prices And Funnels Profits to Private Insurers
Related:
Medicare limits coverage of controversial Alzheimer’s drug to those in clinical trials
by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | June 01, 2022
America, meet your new dictator-in-chief.
As the New York Times reports, “Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios—like the aftermath of a nuclear attack—when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.”< The problem, of course, is that we have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency. Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. The seeds of this present madness were sown almost two decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
Missing Links/Links Behind Paywalls:
Secret Emergency Orders May Include Focus on Internet, New Files Show
Report: Military may have to quell domestic violence from economic collapse
Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development (PDF)
End the Imperial Presidency Before It’s Too Late
Too Much Presidential Power — We’ve Got to Address the ‘Unitary Executive’ Question
Part of that, as the above stories illustrate, is just plain ole price gouging. But the big picture is more complicated than that. According to the EIA, in addition to the 61 percent of the price of a gallon of gas that comes from the cost of crude oil, the other 39 percent shakes out as follows: the costs of refinement (14 percent), distribution and marketing (11 percent), and taxes (14 percent).
And refining* looks to be a particular problem right now. The EIA reports that as of January 1, 1982, the U.S. had 301 refineries in operation. That compares to just 129 in operation as of January 1, 2021.
Related:
*Chevron CEO says there may never be another oil refinery built in the U.S.
Previously:
More Oil From U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Heads To Europe
Scott Ritter
Chinese officials have made it clear that their “One China” policy regarding Taiwan is founded on a constitutionally mandated principle of so-called “peaceful reunification.” War, Chinese officials say, is a measure of last resort, only to be employed to prevent the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China, or when possibilities for peaceful reunification have been completely exhausted. But current US policies on Taiwan appear designed to push China to the brink, raising the prospect of armed conflict.
US, China on Collision Course Over Taiwan
By Kahlil Wall-Johnson | Jun 6, 2022
A recent interview with former Spanish politician José Manuel Otero has revealed further details regarding his country’s entry into NATO and attests to the double-dealing politics of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
‘Either you Join NATO or We will Make the Canaries Independent’
A pet husky named Lucky in China has managed to cook a meal of rice for his owner who used a home surveillance system to remotely instruct the dog.
The husky’s remarkable cooking effort was recorded in a video uploaded to mainland Chinese social media last week.
Pet husky dog in China learns how to cook a meal for owner after figuring out how to turn on an electric rice cooker

The US has expanded the smuggling of Syrian wheat from illegally occupied regions amid an unfolding food crisis, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia revealed on 25 May. Washington now plans to ship over 20 million tonnes of grain out of Ukraine also.
Biden’s Famine: US Robbery Depriving Syrians and Ukrainians of Wheat, Syrian Scholars Say
The U.S. empire’s social stability can no longer rely on buying off the workers within its own borders. When Che Guevara observed that international worker solidarity gets undermined by the proletarians in the core imperialist countries receiving special benefits compared to the proletarians in the exploited countries, he was right. But with the contraction of capital, and the consequential introduction of neoliberalism to keep capital afloat, this has changed. Every year, the masses within the United States face conditions that are more like the ones in the Global South. The global wealth gap is still the primary wealth gap in a macro sense, but this widening of the U.S. empire’s internal inequality represents a contradiction which can bring about the empire’s defeat from within. And therefore a major step towards eliminating the global gap.
By endangering the petrodollar, Ukraine conflict brings multipolar world & U.S. revolution far closer
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