Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) is looking at a Canadian style single payer system.
It’s the second time in a month that Manchin has told constituents that he’s looking at a Medicare for all system to replace an unraveling Obomneycare.
Manchin has been clear that he will vote against the emerging Trumpcare/Ryancare that will balloon the ranks of the uninsured from 30 million under Obomneycare to 50 million.
A single payer system would leave zero people uninsured.
Under single payer, every citizen gets a birth certificate and a Medicare card at birth.
The United States pays per capita more than two and a half times more than industrialized countries with single payer systems.
At a town hall meeting in Martinsburg, West Virginia today, more than 200 people jammed the Robert Byrd Science Center.
Almost a quarter of the twenty or so questioners called on Manchin to get behind single payer.
HR 676 – the single payer bill in the House – has 65 co-sponsors. No Senator has introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
And by their reactions to single payer questions, the majority in the room wanted Manchin to sponsor a single payer bill in the Senate.
“I’m studying the whole Canadian system,” Manchin told Dr. Catherine Feaga of Shepherdstown, West Virginia after Dr. Feaga asked Manchin a question about the single payer system. “The Canadian system has better results longevity-wise, more wellness. But boy I tell you one thing. They make you toe the line. They don’t give you everything you want. They don’t give it to you when you want it.”
“Neither does our system,” one person yelled.
“It’s much different what we have today,” Manchin said. “In Canada, if you abuse it, you lose it. They are not going to let you come every day to a doctor.”
“They don’t let you come every day to a doctor here,” yelled another attendee.
“We are open to all of these things,” Manchin responded.
When a citizen challenged Manchin about his corporate contributions affecting how he votes, Manchin said – “money doesn’t affect how I vote.”
“But you have taken close to $300,000 from the pharmaceutical industry and $200,000 from the insurance industry over your career in the Senate,” the questioner said. “Maybe that is the reason why you haven’t introduced a single payer bill in the Senate.”
“Bernie Sanders hasn’t introduced it in the Senate either – why hasn’t Bernie introduced it?” Manchin shot back.
“I don’t know enough about single payer,” Manchin said. “But I’ll say this – I want the same quality of life that Canada has. I want the same longevity.”
When Manchin questioned whether a single payer system would cost more than what we are paying now, Lynn Yellott responded that according to a Commonwealth Fund study, 95 percent of Americans would pay less money than they do now – in terms of co-pays, deductibles and insurance premiums.
“I provided your staff last week with a financial analysis of HR 676,” Yellott told Manchin after Manchin said – “I don’t know enough about single payer.”
“I hope that you will take a close look at it,” Yellott told Manchin.
The session ended with questions from two citizens who spoke in favor of a single payer system.
“The German health care system took me in everybody had coverage, no matter what their background, how much money they made,” said one man who identified himself as a veteran. “And it was effective. Everyone was in the system.”
“I’m open to everything and anything,” Manchin said.
The last questioner told Manchin that he should take some of the money he has taken from the pharmaceutical industry and “build us a long-term opiate treatment facility in Martinsburg.”
“We need some of that money you got from the pharmaceutical industry and build us a long term treatment facility,” the man said, who identified himself as a heroin survivor. “Write the check right now and build us a rehab facility. We know you’ve got the money. You took it from the pharmaceutical industry.”
Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.
The WikiLeaks exposure of thousands of documents relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) hacking program, which was expanded dramatically under President Barack Obama between 2013 and 2016, has created something of a panic in the users of cell phones, online computers and even for smart television viewers. The documents describe “more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses and other ‘weaponized’ malware” and one document even identifies attempts to enable CIA controllers to take control of automobiles that have “On Star” or similar satellite interactive features.
According to analysts who have gone through the documents, any electronic device that is connected to the internet is reported to be vulnerable to being taken over and “weaponized,” manipulated through its microphone or camera function even if it appears to be turned off. Apple, Google, Android and Microsoft products were among the technologies that were targeted, with the security systems being constantly probed for vulnerabilities. When a flaw was discovered it was described as “zero day” because the user would have zero time to react to the detection and exploitation of the vulnerability.
And they are indeed everywhere. Ron Paul has described a woman’s test on the Amazon marketed interactive voice controlled device called Alexa, asking it if it were reporting to the CIA. Alexa, which allegedly cannot tell a lie, refused to answer.
According to Wikipedia, “Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon Lab126, made popular by the Amazon Echo. It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, and other real time information.” One reviewer observed “In a good but scary feature, Amazon Echo can learn a person’s habits over time. It will get used to the way a person talks, his/her habits and routines and will save all the data in the cloud.”
Alexa demonstrates that CIA and NSA intrusion into the lives of ordinary people is not unique. In the cyber-sphere there are many predators. Amazon has apparently run special sales to get Alexa devices into as many homes as possible, presumably for commercial reasons, to have a machine in one’s home that will eventually replace the cookies on computers that collect information on what people are interested in buying. The company’s president Jeff Bezos also recently completed a deal worth $600 million for Amazon to provide cloud hosting services for the Agency. And there are, of course, two clear conflicts of interest in that deal as Bezos is selling a device that can be hacked by the government while he also owns The Washington Post newspaper, which, at least in theory, is supposed to be keeping an eye on the CIA.
But spying for profit and spying by the government are two different things and the WikiLeaks revelations suggest that the CIA has had a massive program of cyberespionage running for a number of years, even having created a major new division to support the effort called the Directorate for Digital Innovation, with an operation component called the Center for Cyber Intelligence. Media reports also suggest that a major hub for the operation was the American Consulate General in Frankfurt Germany, where the Agency established a base of operations.
First of all, it is necessary to make an attempt to understand why the CIA believes it needs to have the capability to get inside the operating systems of phones and other devices which rely on the internet. It should be pointed out that the United States government already has highly developed capabilities to get at phones and other electronics. It is indeed the principal raison d’etre of the National Security Agency (NSA) to do so and the FBI also does so when it initiates wiretaps during criminal and national security investigations.
Beyond that, since the NSA basically collects all electronic communications in the United States as well as more of the same fairly aggressively overseas, it would seem to be redundant for the CIA to be doing the same thing. The CIA rationale is that it has a different mission than the NSA. It exists to conduct espionage against foreign intelligence targets, which frequently requires being able to tap into their personal phones or other electronic devices by exploiting vulnerabilities in the operating systems. As the targets would be either sources or even prospective agents, the Agency would have to protect their identity in the highly compartmented world of intelligence, making outsourcing to NSA problematical.
This need to develop an independent capability led to the development of new technologies by the CIA working with its British counterparts. There were apparently successful efforts to target Samsung “smart” televisions, which would use their speakers to record conversations even when the set was turned off. The project was called “Weeping Angel,” and other hacking programs were called “Brutal Kangaroo,” “Assassin,” “Hammer Drill,” “Swindle,” “Fine Dining” and “Cutthroat,” demonstrating that government bureaucrats sometimes possess a dark sense of humor.
Being able to enter one’s home through a television would be considered a major success in the intelligence world. And the ability to access cell phones at source through obtaining full control of the operating system rather than through their transmissions means that any security system will be ineffective because the snoopers will be able to intrude and hear the conversation as it is spoken before any encryption is applied. CIA and its British allies were reportedly able to take control of either Android or i-Phones through vulnerabilities in their security systems by using their attack technologies.
WikiLeaks claims to have 8,761 documents detailing efforts to circumvent the security features on a broad range of electronic devices to enable them to be remotely tapped, the information having apparently been passed to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled government contractor, though the Russians are perhaps inevitably also being blamed. The U.S. government has apparently been aware of the theft of the information for the past year and one presumes it has both done damage control and is searching for the miscreant involved. Also, there have been security fixes on both Apple and Android phones in the past year that might well have rendered the attack technologies no longer effective.
So many will shrug and wonder what the big deal is. So the CIA is tapping into the electronics of suspected bad guys overseas. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do? That question has to be answered with another question: How do we know if that is all the CIA is doing? Technology that can attack and take control of a telephone or television or computer overseas can also do the same inside the United States. And the Agency can always plausibly claim that a connection with a suspect overseas leads back to the U.S. to enable working on related targets on this side of the Atlantic.
Another issue is the possibility to engage in mischief, with potentially serious consequences. The WikiLeaks documents suggest that the CIA program called UMBRAGE had been able to acquire malware signatures and attack codes from Russia, China, Iran and other places. It does that so it can confuse detection systems and preserve “plausible denial” if its intrusion gets caught, disguising its own efforts as Russian or Chinese to cast the blame on the intelligence services of those countries. It has been alleged that the hack of the Democratic National Committee computers was carried out by Moscow employed surrogates and part of the evidence produced was signature malware that had left “fingerprints” linked to Russian military intelligence in Ukraine. What if that hack was actually done by the CIA for domestic political reasons?
Critics have also pointed out that President Obama in 2014 had come to an agreement with major communications industry executives to share with manufacturers information regarding the vulnerabilities in their systems so they could be addressed and made secure. This would have benefited both the industry and the general public. The agreement was obviously ignored in the CIA case and is just another sign that one cannot trust the government.
However, the real downside regarding the CIA hacking is something that might not even have occurred yet. It is an unfortunate reality that government spying operations largely lack regulation, oversight or any effective supervision by Congress or anyone else outside the agencies themselves. Even if knowledge about communications vulnerabilities has not been employed illegally against American targets or to mislead regarding domestic hacks, the potential to use those capabilities once they are in place will likely prove too hard to resist. As such, no home or work environment will any more be considered a safe place and it is potentially, if not actually, the greatest existing threat to Americans’ few remaining liberties.
A former executive of an Israel-based defense contractor has pleaded guilty for his role in schemes to defraud a multi-billion dollar US program to finance foreign military purchases, the US Department of Justice announced in a press release on Monday.
Yuval Marshak entered his plea to one count of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud and one count of major fraud against the United States in US District Court in the state of Connecticut, the release explained.
“This conviction is the result of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s (DCIS) ongoing effort to identify and investigate fraudulent activity targeting the Department of Defense and its programs that support America’s national security and foreign policy objectives,” DCIS Northeast Field Office acting special agent in charge Leigh-Alistair Barzey stated in the release.
According to court documents, Marshak carried out three separate schemes between 2009 and 2013, in which he falsely certified that all items sent to Israel had been made in the United States, as required by law, the release noted.
Marshak also falsely claimed that no commissions had been paid, when a company in Connecticut that was controlled by a relative received undisclosed payments, according to the release.Two US companies have already settled charges with the Justice Department in connection with the FMF contracts.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey-based defense contractor Octal Group agreed to pay $460,000 in fines and restitution for covering up an agreement with Marshak.
A second company, Hale Products, Inc. paid more than $60,000 and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation.
In addition to fines, Marshak faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for wire and mail fraud charges, ten years for major fraud against the US government and 20 years for international money laundering.
The smartest people on the planet want to oppose Trump & the best they can come up with is a march in support of themselves? – Roger Pielke Jr
A mega March for Science has been planned for Earth Day (April 22) in Washington DC. The web site states:
The March for Science demonstrates our passion for science and sounds a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists.
The mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence, is a critical and urgent matter. It is time for people who support scientific research and evidence-based policies to take a public stand and be counted.
Of course, the poster child for partisan ‘mischaracterization of facts’ is statements by members of the Trump administration regarding uncertainty surrounding the causes of climate change. President Obama and his Call Out the Climate Deniers campaign apparently elicited no concerns about partisan mischaracterization of facts from the science establishment.
Scientists fear what ‘might’ happen under the Trump administration — they are working from rumors, leaks and a few public statements by individuals connected with Trump’s transition teams. These are the same scientists pushing for ‘evidence based’ policies — go figure.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) – which is joining the March – had a blog post describing the positions on climate change and science of important individuals in the Trump administration: Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Wilbur Ross, Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke. Read the blog post. To me, Trump’s team looks like it has a healthier attitude to science than did Obama’s team, who sought to scientize policy debates and politicize science debates.
The scientists’ big concern is ‘silencing of facts’. This concern apparently derives from their desire to have their negotiated ‘facts’ — such as the ‘consensus’ on climate change — dictate public policy. The scientists who are marching seem not very interested in science as a process based on continually evaluating evidence and reassessing conclusions through reasoning and impartial habits of mind.
The scientists are not just out to defend ‘facts’ — they fear funding cuts and limits to immigration. They also seem very attached to safeguarding the academic scientific community and the elite institutions that support it.
Some sentiments from scientists supporting the March:
Caroline Weinberg: “[I]t is not possible to ignore policy when it affects not just your jobs but the future of your field.” [link]
Dr Jacquelyn Gill: “A lot of scientists are realizing that the institutions that fund and support and science in this country . . .are under direct attack.” Trump, she said, “not only doesn’t value our institutions, he doesn’t seem to value evidence-based decision making at all. That is alarming to us.” [link]
Other scientists are very concerned about the March:
Professor Jim Gates, former adviser to Barack Obama, told journalists that the march appeared to lack an end goal – a prerequisite for political action – and would simply be perceived as “science against Trump”. “At least as far as I can detect, there is no theory of action behind this,” he said. “This bothers me tremendously. “To have science represented as this political force I think is just extraordinarily dangerous.” [link]
Robert Young wrote that the march would be perceived as a protest of President Trump and “trivialize and politicize the science we care so much about.” “Trying to recreate the pointedly political Women’s March will serve only to reinforce the narrative from skeptical conservatives that scientists are an interest group and politicize their data, research and findings for their own ends.” [link]
Tactics in want of a strategy
So, exactly what do scientists expect to accomplish with this March, and how do they plan to go about it? Well, I am still at a loss to understand what they expect to accomplish, but there have been some interesting suggestions on how they might go about it.
Jonathan Foley in the Scientific American on how to defeat those who are waging war on science: portray an inclusive vision; get political; don’t fall into the culture war trap; balance facts with meaningful stories; be forceful.
Roger Pielke Jr in the Guardian: To counter Trump’s administration, scientists need counter-propaganda, evidence-based alternative policies and political representation. The scientific community needs to eschew old habits that have manifested themselves in the march: calling for more funding and waging political battles through science.
Kristy Henschel in Science: hold webinar viewing parties; host science policy seminars; design a science advocacy workshop; organize a State Hill day; invite your government representatives for a lab tour; host a science cafe; share your voice on twitter.
The most provocative suggestion comes from an editorial in Nature : Researchers should reach beyond the science bubble. Excerpt: Scientists in the United States and elsewhere ought to address the needs and employment prospects of taxpayers who have seen little benefit from scientific advances. As they ponder their next move in response to the election of Trump, science organizations — universities, funders, supporters and the rest — should look harder at social problems and opportunities, and seek ways for science to help.
JC reflections
So far, the March for Science seems to be shaping up as a self-serving navel gazing exercise for scientists — sort of a ‘we don’t like Trump’ tantrum. The impression that this will have on policy makers and the public will be to cement scientists as a politicized special interest group, just like any other lobbying group. In short, I very much fear that this March will do more harm than good.
It’s not too late to turn this around. We need to rethink the contract between scientists and government, and develop a new model for the the 21st century. Here are some recommendations:
Embrace science as a process, not a collection of ‘facts’; invite the public to engage in the process of science.
The institutions of science need to reform themselves, and scientists need to get out of the ivory tower and engage with the real world [link]
Universities need a new business model and incentive structure for faculty members that doesn’t rely on massive federal research grants but rewards faculty for educating students at all levels and serving the needs of society.
Scientists need a much better understanding of the policy process, the role that science plays, and how complexity, pluralism and uncertainty in science is accommodated in the policy process. Evidence-based policy making is a good political slogan, but not a good description of the policy process. [link]
Scientists need to stop using science to support desired political outcomes.
Scientists need to do more than push back against flawed arguments and bad policy. We need to engage the public, and, even more, invite the public, across the political spectrum, to engage with science. [link]
An official at the Central Bank of Russia says the regulator will continue to revoke licenses of fraudulent or unstable banks for another two years. Since 2013, the number of banks in Russia has shrunk from 900 to 570.
Despite a large number of closed banks, crime is still popping up, and the regulator needs until 2019 to finish the crackdown, said Vasily Pozdyshev, a deputy governor at Russia’s central bank in an interview with Reuters.
It is likely Russia will end up with 400 lenders in two years, but there is no target number, according to the official.
“Our work to clean up the banking system is sometimes much more like the work of a financial investigator, an investigator of financial crimes, than the work of a modern banking regulator, which checks whether a bank is sufficiently capitalized or not,” said Pozdyshev.
“We are up against a whole business of creating fictitious borrowers. … This is a whole virtual world managed by IT programs and servers which very often aren’t located in the bank,” he said.
The current purge against fraudulent lenders began in 2013 with the appointment of Elvira Nabiullina as central bank governor. A previous attempt to sanitize the sector was slowed after the assassination of Andrey Kozlov in 2006, an official in charge of the crackdown. After the incident, Central Bank employees including Pozdyshev travel with protection and are heavily guarded.
The existing mechanisms don’t allow the Central Bank to stop unscrupulous bankers fleeing the country, and should be revised, Pozdyshev told Reuters.
“Banks often have influential backers, and this makes everything much more difficult. But we have launched this policy, and we need to carry it to its conclusion. If we stop, then the banking system will immediately slip back, into the shadows,” he said.
The regulator had to plug a $10 billion hole in the balance sheets of about 100 banks that had licenses revoked last year.
One of the biggest cases thus far was last week’s license revocation of top-50 lender Tatfondbank. According to various estimates, the bank was in a $2 billion hole.
While 90 percent of Tatfondbank’s depositors were compensated by Russia’s deposit insurance fund, corporate clients took a big hit. According to the Izvestia daily, they have about $750 million in the failed bank, which will be partly compensated through bankruptcy proceedings.
The Central Bank’s investigation has shown that 65 percent of Tatfondbank’s corporate clients were bankrupt or had no business activity.
Following apparent admission by IOC and WADA that there may not have been a state sponsored doping conspiracy in Russian sport, President in conciliatory comments suggests a way forward.
Russian President Putin, in comments made in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk where he oversaw preparation for the 2019 World Winter Universiade (a student sports meet), set out the Russian response to the admission – reported in a leaked IOC letter – that the claims in the McLaren report are insufficient as evidence against any individual athlete and that Professor McLaren seems to be retreating from his claim that there was a massive state sponsored conspiracy to carry out doping in Russian sport.
Putin’s words were firm but conciliatory, and were in line with what the Russians have been saying all along.
Firstly, it is important to stress that Putin admitted that there has been widespread doping in Russia. This is a point that some people have been resisting, or which they have been seeking to relativise by saying that doping is also widespread in other countries.
The second point is undoubtedly true, and there is no doubt the Russians have been treated differently from others. I question whether the picture would appear much better if the athletes of any other country were subjected to the same sort of relentless investigation to which Russian athletes have been.
The fact nonetheless remains that this is an illegal activity, and it is never an excuse for an illegal activity that there are others also guilty of committing it. Putin and the Russian authorities fully understand this, and they have been saying it all along, ever since the scandal first broke in the autumn of 2015. Putin said it again in his comments in Krasnoyarsk
… we need to acknowledge that there are established and identified cases of doping here, and this is a totally unacceptable situation.
What this means is that our existing anti-doping monitoring system has not worked effectively, and this is our fault, and is something we need to admit and address directly. I hope very much that the Investigative Committee will see the needed investigation through to its completion and will identify all those responsible for this situation.
However Putin’s most interesting comments were about some of the more sensational allegations in McLaren’s report.
First of all, Putin knocked on the head the very idea that there was a state sponsored conspiracy. In doing so he homed in on the words in the leaked IOC letter that appeared to concede the point
We know the latest assessments from the officials at WADA and our colleagues from the IOC, who note that the McLaren Commission had inaccurate translations or inadequate evidence. Let me say again, and we said it repeatedly, that Russia has never had, and I hope never will have, a state system supporting doping. On the contrary, Russia will only combat doping.
What is however by far the most interesting thing in the IOC’s letter is that it homes in on the growing doubts that the doping conspiracy in Russian sport which Professor McLaren claims to have uncovered was really state sponsored. Here is what the IOC says about that
The complexity of the Schmid Commission’s work is considerable since for instance, in his first interim report, Professor McLaren describes a “state sponsored system” whilst in the final full report in December he described an “institutional conspiracy.” The Commission will now have to consider what this change means and which individuals, organisations or government authorities may have been involved.
(bold italics added)
That looks to me like an implicit admission that the evidence points to the doping conspiracy being the work of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of RUSADA, Russia’s formerly WADA approved dope testing lab, rather than anyone in the government.
Putin also homed in on what is the weakest link in the chain of forensic evidence produced by Professor McLaren: the scratch marks on the sample bottles. Here is what he had to say about that
Of course, and naturally enough, there is this issue of claims regarding scratches of some kind on some of the test samples. We do not understand what kind of evidence can we talk about because when we provided the test samples there were no complaints. If there was a problem with scratches of whatever kind, this should have been noted in the relevant reports, but there was nothing of this sort.
In other words, these samples were stored somewhere, and we cannot be held responsible for the storage conditions.
I have previously discussed the problems with this evidence, if it is indeed evidence at all
… on the crucial question of the illicit opening of the sample bottles, Professor McLaren admits that he has no witness – significantly not even Dr. Rodchenkov – who claims to have seen it done, and therefore has no evidence for how it was supposedly done.The forensic evidence upon which he relies is purely inferential: the opinion of a single expert as to how it might have been done (not how it wasdone) based on an already pre-existing assumption that it was done.
As for the scratch marks on the bottles, to my mind they do not prove anything until it is shown that they can have no other cause than the illicit opening of the bottles. That is something that requires far more forensic testing than Professor McLaren has had done, and is an issue about which the opinion of more than one expert is required, and concerning which the opinion of the Swiss manufacturer certainly needs to be sought.
Of course none of this means that what Professor McLaren and the expert allege was done to the bottles didn’t happen, or that the bottles weren’t opened as they say they were. However it does leave their claims open to challenge, and the case nowhere near proved.
Nonetheless Putin wisely is looking forward, in order to close down the whole affair.
In my discussion of Professor McLaren’s second report I said that the best thing for the Russians to do would be to take on board those criticisms which have been made of them which are valid and to set up an anti-doping system in Russia which is not only as close to fool-proof as any such system can ever be, but which will establish the gold standard for such a system
The way forward now is to put all the damage done by this affair behind, and to concentrate on setting up in Russia the best and most full-proof possible system of testing, which will enable Russia to set the gold standard in this area, and which will make it possible for Russia to be fully reintegrated in world sport with a minimum of embarrassment.
That is exactly the wise course President Putin and the Russians are taking. Here is what he said
As you know, we are putting into place a new anti-doping system. It will be transferred from the Sports Ministry and Government oversight to an independent organisation, as many countries have done, and not in any figurative sense, but quite literally. The laboratory will be located on premises belonging to Moscow State University, and we will help them to obtain the modern equipment, technology and specialists they need. I hope that we will no longer have any swindlers, who organise doping programmes themselves and then flee abroad. I hope that our independent specialists and foreign specialists will help us to develop a strict and effective anti-doping system.
I hope too that Vitaly Smirnov’s commission as a public organisation will continue its work to supervise the anti-doping organisations’ work here in Russia. Of course, we must also work to ensure that doping does not arise in youth and student sport. These young people are just at the start of their sports careers. Let me say once more that we will do everything needed to organise positive, active and effective work with all our partners, including WADA and the International Olympic Committee.
Putin’s words about “swindlers, who organise doping programmes themselves and then flee abroad” refer to Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who the Russians accuse of being the mastermind behind the whole doping conspiracy. As I have discussed previously, the wording in the IOC letter suggests that the IOC may also be coming round to that view.
To be clear, the setting up of a new dope testing system does not mean that the Russians are going to abandon the legal claims they are bringing. The innocent athletes who were barred from the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the strength of what both the IOC and WADA now recognise was insufficient evidence are in a strong position to press their claims and will surely do so. I would however say that the IOC’s and WADA’s admission that the evidence against these athletes was insufficient almost certainly means these cases will settle out of court, with probably quite large sums of compensation being agreed. My guess is that there are already discussions underway to that effect, which may explain the conciliatory tone of Putin’s remarks.
This remains a deeply unsatisfactory and shameful affair. Regardless of what happens now, Professor McLaren and the Western media, aided and abetted by some irresponsible athletes in the West who ought to have known better, have created an image of Russian sports for the Western public which is probably indelible. I say this because I am sure that the Western media will give virtually no publicity to any formal retractions of Professor McLaren’s claims the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee, the IAAF or WADA might make, whilst if any legal proceedings are eventually brought against Dr. Rodchenkov I doubt these will be widely reported either. The Western public will therefore be left with the impression that the allegations against the Russians are true and have been proved.
Beyond that there is the grotesquely discriminatory way in which Russian athletes have been treated, and the indifference to the most basic principles of due process shown by people in the West when the campaign was launched against them. Despite my experience of the decades of negative stereotyping of Russians which takes place in the West, I am still shocked by it.
Nonetheless I suspect that the worst part of this affair is now drawing to a close, enabling Russians to compete on equal terms in international sport once more.
“The progressive democratic world order is at risk of collapse”, former Vice President Joe Biden spoke these words in his last speech to a waiting public. This is the same man whose son took up an executive role in Ukraine before the embers of revolution had stopped smoldering. In this same speech Biden also named Russia as the prime antagonist of this new global order. Here’s a look at one of the world’s top public enemies.
Joe Biden loves Bill and Hillary Clinton, he loves them so much he wants to be just like them. Why he’s already started his own money machine, The Biden Foundation, which looks like the spitting image of the Clinton Foundation. Like the Clinton Foundation, Biden’s new NGO is into all those things that people are most concerned about. It’s also into all those things people donate money for, like lobbying. The sparkling new Biden endeavor professes care for women’s issues, health, protecting little kids and equality too, just like Bill’s and Hillary’s altruism. The ex-Vice President’s new site drips with lovingkindness. It’s amazing, hopeful, and chock full of smiling faces to take your heart, breath, and money away. It’s even got “Pillars” like one of those ancient Greek temples of wisdom! And knowing what Joe Biden is really about, it makes my stomach churn.
Domestic Hypocrisy
The first thing Joe and Dr. Jill Biden did on launching their new foundation was to make a statement. It went something like this, with Joe quoting his father:
“My dad used to have an expression: “It’s a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.” Jill and I have been very lucky these past decades.”
Indeed. But for the lowest income people in America the Obama-Biden White House brought nothing but more misery. Despite the juggled numbers this Administration and the “new order” cooked up, poverty in America is far worse. In the richest country on Earth there are 36% more people on food stamps than when these “saviors” took office. The Federal debt in America has more than doubled too, as pork barrel and military spending that helped only the banks prevailed. Corporate profits under Obama and Biden rose to 144% over previous wins, while home ownership and other key metrics for most Americans fell dramatically. The America Donald Trump inherited is a socio-economic piñata with deadly candies tucked away inside now, and he has said as much.
A look at the division in attitudes shows one divide, but the deeper scars of this nation may soon be weighed in catastrophe. Biden, the poster boy of hypocrites in the swamp of Washington, represents a more clear and present danger to Americans now, than he did as VP. Biden and his wife are lucky, when many Americans feel blessed to have a bed to get up out of, or even a roof over their heads. As is the case with any set of statistics, how one slices the numbers determines the reality. For Biden and the elites, this new Democratic order has been a boom. But for those who are not elites, the distribution of wealth shows a different truth. Put in a nutshell, Biden and his ilk feathered the beds of the upper-middle class and the ultimate elites, with the proceeds of a lower class fleeced once again. Don’t take my word, do you own research starting here. The “have nots” paid for Joe and Jill’s beautiful American Dream, and for Joe’s Dad’s deep, deep vision too. And as to copy-cat NGOs, Biden Foundation is already on the pharma scene for an upcoming medical conference. I am reminded of Bill and Hillary and how they started the speaking bonanza we heard so much about. This from MedCity:
“Now that Biden has decided to set up shop — at least part-time — at the University of Pennsylvania as head of the new Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the Philadelphia health tech community sees him as a unique asset. Several health IT and digital health interests in Southeast Pennsylvania are trying to get the former VP down to HIMSS17 in Orlando, Florida.”
Foreign Policy Fun
It is interesting for me that the first category listed on the Biden Foundation website under “Our Pillars” is Foreign Policy. Cancer nor kids are not first in these people’s minds, the Freudian slip has hit them between their beady little eyes too. The ideas and endeavors of the Bidens is not thought out alphabetically even. If this were the case, then “Community Colleges and Military Families” would be first, even though I cannot figure out why those two are lumped together. So, it is foreign policy issues this spanking new NGO intends to address first! The dogma for Biden Foundation foreign policy is tough talking too! It goes something like this:
“The Biden Foundation will find new ways to build upon Joe Biden’s longstanding commitment to preserve the liberal international order.”
How does Joe Biden intend to accomplish his stated mission? One way will be through the longstanding strategy of integrating a man and a mission inside institutions worldwide. The first such institution the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where Biden will lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. This new center in Washington D.C. will focus on “diplomacy, foreign policy, and national security.” Like the malignancy that former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski has been, Biden follows the entrenchment path to foreign policy fame. Unfortunately for Biden, he has nowhere near the evil genius of Carter’s policy adviser.
However feeble his strategic mind might be, Biden has tentacles in other academic halls like the University of Delaware, and connections with a vast network of hyper-liberals from California to Florida. The Bidens have even secured a famous talent agency to get their show on the road. The scary thing about Biden and his feet in foreign policy is the fact he handled the Ukraine portfolio for the same White House that made a war zone where none existed. Who can forget when Biden’s son joined the biggest natural gas company in Ukraine only weeks after the Euromaidan set the country alight? The fact Ukraine’s ruler/oligarch Petro Poroshenko and Joe Biden are personal friends only adds further dismay alongside any idea the Biden Foundation will do more than make matters worse. Only if the price (or donation) were right, could any kind of sane détente come from such an NGO.
No Shame In the NWO
Finally, news Joe and Jill Biden have officially given their blessing to a controversial relationship (affair) between the widow of their deceased son Beau, and their son Hunter, it punctuates the hypocrisy and circus lunacy of the Biden circle. Even the announcement of this “blessing” oozes Biden drama, as it frames Joe Biden as the “president who never was”, owing continually to his love and devotion to family. Watching these people and Washington the last 8 years has been a continual soap opera. Joe Biden appears to those with open eyes, as the laughing hyena among jackals with no shame. This is Trump’s “Washington Swamp” at the utter bottom.
An article entitled, “Behind the Putin Fantasies” makes the rest of my argument for keeping away from anything Joe Biden is involved in. As we know, several Trump campaign advisers had business ties to Russia, and there’s been no end to the upheaval over this in Washington. However, the visits of Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama to Russia have gotten zero press these last few weeks. But Biden continuing to side with Poroshenko and Kiev muddles the mind. “The Donald Trump administration should be a strong supporter and partner of Ukraine”, Biden told Trump last month after a visit to see his pal Poroshenko. Strangely, the New York Times and CNN failed to accuse the former administration of regime change and under the table business deals on the suggested innuendo? This is the fantasy land that the Obama administration created! Or was it created by Bill and Hillary Clinton? I cannot say truthfully, for this New Democratic Order is an enigmatic and powerful beast – one we should all hope is in dire danger of collapsing!
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe.
European Union data protection authorities have expressed fresh concerns about the privacy of Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system, despite tweaks being made to the OS after questions were raised about its treatment of personal data last year.
In a letter, the Article 29 Working Group said it still has “significant concerns” about how Microsoft collects and processes users’ personal data, and whether it obtains fully informed consent from users to do so.
“There is an apparent lack of control for users to prevent collection or further processing of such data. As a result, the Working Party specifically requests further explanatory information from Microsoft, as to how the opt-outs, default settings and other available control mechanisms presented during the installation of Windows 10 operating system provide a valid legal basis for the processing of personal data under the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. This is especially of concern where Microsoft would rely on consent as a legal basis for the processing of personal data,” the statement said.
Windows 10 launched in July 2015, and almost immediately garnered criticism for the use of default settings to harvest voluminous amounts of user data, such as web browsing history, WIFI network names and passwords, in order to display personalized adverts as users browse the web or play games. User data is also fed in to train Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant.
While users were given the ability to opt-out of data collection, the process for doing so was criticized for being complex and opaque, comprising 45 pages of privacy policy documents, with opt-out settings spread across 13 different screens and housed on an external website.
In response, the Article 29 Working Party instigated an investigation, as did several national data protection authorities, including France’s CNIL. Their independent conclusions were much the same; the company must stop excessive data collection.
Among the breaches CNIL accused Microsoft of were failing to obtain notice for data transfers, breaking cookie law requirements, having inadequate security protections for personal data, failure to file an authorization request for processing personal data for fraud prevention purposes, and breach of cross-border data transfer restrictions.
CNIL set a deadline of January 31 for Microsoft to comply with their recommendations, although the Working Group’s warning suggests the tech giant is yet to fulfil their obligations, meaning it can be fined. In all, Microsoft could face fines of up to US$3.2 million for breaches of domestic privacy laws.
The EU General Data Protection Regulation, due to come into force May 2018, increases the potential penalties for companies breaching EU data protection law, with fines of up to four percent of annual turnover for enterprises found to be non-compliant.
The issue of informed consent in respect of data sharing has also seen Facebook and WhatsApp fall foul of European regulators; the companies were forced to suspend data sharing after making a change to WhatsApp’s privacy policy that pushed users to consent to sharing information such as their mobile phone number with the messaging app’s parent company.
In a statement, European Digital Rights said Microsoft “grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write” on Windows 10-equipped devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties.
“The company appears to be granting itself the right to share your data either with your consent “or as necessary.” Microsoft’s updated privacy policy is not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis,” the statement said.
Transparency International puts out what it calls the “Corruption Perceptions Index.” It is an annual index it claims “has been widely credited with putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda.”
These carefully selected words, taken at face value appear benign, even progressive. But upon digging deeper into this organisation’s background it becomes clear that these “perceptions” are politically motivated, and the “international policy agenda” clearly favours a very specific region of the globe, particularly that region occupied by Washington, London and Brussels.
Transparency International claims upon its “Who We Are” page of its website that (our emphasis):
From villages in rural India to the corridors of power in Brussels, Transparency International gives voice to the victims and witnesses of corruption. Wework together with governments, businesses and citizens to stop the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals.As a global movement with one vision, we want a world free of corruption. Through chapters in more than 100 countries and an international secretariat in Berlin, we are leading the fight against corruption to turn this vision into reality.
Before moving onto the organisation’s funding and financials, one would assume that above and beyond any other organisation in the world, Transparency International would carefully and diligently avoid any perceptions of conflicts of interest on its own part. Yet, not surprisingly, that isn’t the case.
An Anti-Corruption Org Swimming in Conflicts of Interest
Upon their page, “Who Supports Us,” Transparency International admits that it receives funding from government agencies including:
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID);
Federal Foreign Office, Germany and;
The US State Department.
Transparency International not only receives funding from the very governments it is tasked to investigate, hold accountable and “index” annually, constituting a major conflict of interest, it also receives money from the following:
The National Endowment for Democracy;
Open Society Institute Foundation and;
Shell Oil.
Other troubling sponsors dot Transparency International’s funding disclosure, but the inclusion of immense corporate interests like energy giant Shell, is particularly troubling.
So is the inclusion of the National Endowment for Democracy whose board of directors is chaired by representatives from other large corporations and financial institutions as well as partisan political figures involved heavily in not only influencing politics in their own respective nations, but who use the National Endowment for Democracy itself as a means to influence other nations.While these interests are transparently self-serving, the use of the National Endowment for Democracy allows them to predicate their involvement in the political affairs and elections of foreign nations upon “democracy promotion.” This seems to be the very essence of corruption, “abuse of power” and “secret deals,” yet they are funding Transparency International’s very existence.
Open Society in turn, is the sociopolitical fund employed by convicted financial criminal George Soros. The New York Times in its article, “French court upholds Soros conviction,” reported that:
The conviction of George Soros, the billionaire investor and former fund manager, on insider trading charges was upheld on Thursday by a French appeals court, which rejected his argument that his investment in a French bank in 1988 was not based on confidential information.
Soros, 74, now retired from money management but active as a philanthropist and author, was ordered to pay a fine of €2.2 million, or $2.9 million, representing the money made by funds he managed from an investment in Société Générale. He said the purchase had been part of a strategy to invest in a group of companies that had been privatized by the French government.
Were it not for the very serious impact Transparency International’s false perception globally as a reputable corruption watchdog has on nations targeted by its CPI reports, it would be almost comical that this so-called anti-corruption organisation is funded by not only the very governments it is supposed to be objectively detached from, but also funded by convicted criminals like Soros and organisations like the National Endowment for Democracy well known for their use of “democracy promotion” as cover in pursuit of their own self-serving interests.
Thus it is clear, that even at face value, Transparency International likewise serves as just such cover, but instead of hiding behind “democracy promotion” to advance what is a very specific, political agenda, it is hiding behind “fighting corruption.”
And even if impropriety wasn’t so blatant, Transparency International’s lack of better judgement regarding its funding and conflicts of interest discredit it as a legitimate corruption watchdog.
For nations around the world pressured by Transparency International and its CPI reports, dismissing them with this evidence in hand, as well as devising domestic (and credible) anti-corruption watchdogs as alternatives would be particularly useful.
Special interests using Transparency International to target and undermine nations and governments they seek to influence or coerce is not limited only to this organisation, but is a pattern repeated over and over again, from the National Endowment for Democracy’s Freedom House “Freedom in the World” index, to reports published by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, US-European special interests have honed this craft of using just causes as cover for corruption and coercion into a fine art.
The Times of Israel reports that Lord Jacob Rothschild recently revealed new details about the crucial role his ancestors played in obtaining the Balfour Declaration, which “helped pave the way for the creation of Israel.”
The 80-year-old Rothschild is the current head of the banking family and a strong supporter of Israel.
The Balfour Declaration (text below) was an official 1917 letter from the British Foreign Minister, Lord Balfour, addressed to Lord Rothschild, a Zionist leader in Britain at the time and the current Lord Rothschild’s uncle.
During a television interview, the Times of Israel reports that Balfour revealed for the first time the role of his cousin Dorothy de Rothschild.
Rothschild described Dorothy, who was in her teens at the time, as “devoted to Israel,” and said: ‘What she did, which was crucially important.’”
Rothschild said that Dorothy connected Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann to the British establishment. Dorothy “told Weizmann how to integrate, how to insert himself into British establishment life, which he learned very quickly.”
Rothschild said that the way the declaration was procured was extraordinary. “It was the most incredible piece of opportunism.”
“[Weizmann] gets to Balfour,” Rothschild described, “and unbelievably, he persuades Lord Balfour, and Lloyd George, the prime minister, and most of the ministers, that this idea of a national home for Jews should be allowed to take place. I mean it’s so, so unlikely.”
The interview was was conducted by former Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub as part of the Balfour 100 project. Taub interviewed Rothschild at Waddeston Manor in Buckinghamshire, a manor bequeathed to the nation by the Rothschild family in 1957, where the Declaration is kept.
According to Ambassador Taub, the declaration “changed the course of history for the Middle East.”
The Times reports that Rothschild said his family at the time was divided on the idea of Israel, noting that some members “didn’t think it was a good thing that this national home be established there”.
Dorothy’s letters are also stored at Waddeston. They describe her later dealings with diverse Zionist leaders and her advice on the organization of the Zionist Conference, according to the Times.
Rothschild said that the Declaration went through five drafts before finally being issued on November 2, 1917.
I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Last year, the Feds were accused of editing video evidence to protect the Bureau of Land Management. And they were also accused of editing press briefings about Iran’s nuclear technology.
Feds admit they edited videos
In 2016, the Obama Administration was forced to admit that questions about the government’s secret discussions with Iran were deliberately edited.
Police caught editing videos
Police in New Mexico, Colorado, Chicago and North Carolina have been caught deleting and editing videos. A 2015 article in the Huffington Post warned everyone about the dangers of police releasing copies of dashcam/bodycam footage.
“If courts and news outlets can’t access the original recording and digital record, there’s no way to check that what you’re seeing is unaltered video.”
The Huffington Post warns, that none of the so-called high tech security protocols can prevent law enforcement from editing video footage.
“There are no national regulations that force departments to release the raw footage — or any trail of data — to the public or press.Neither body cam nor dashcam footage is accessible by the Freedom of Information Act, so the policies are left up to individual police departments.”
This is American policing in a nutshell, police and prosecutor immunity, secret Stingray cellphone surveillance agreements etc.
Police secrecy is more important than our Bill of Rights.
Future of policing: Video manipulation
‘Face2Face‘ video manipulation technology will make you doubt everything you see on TV and every video you watch. Users of ‘Face2Face’s video manipulation technology can make anyone say pretty much anything they want.
Imagine a future where police and the Feds use this technology to make anyone appear guilty.
If a technology can be abused, it will be abused, soon we won’t be able to trust anything we see or hear.
It’s a new year and new administration, but the strong radioactive stench is the same out at Hanford in eastern Washington, home of the world’s costliest environmental cleanup. In January, adozen workersreported smelling a toxic odor outside the site’s tank farms, where nuclear waste is stored underground. From April to December 2016,70 people were exposedto chemical vapors emanating from the facility — and 2017 is off to the similar start.
Toxic odors at an old nuclear depot? This would be startling news anywhere else. But this is Hanford after all, where taxpayer money freely flows to contractors despite the snail-paced half-life of their work.Twenty years and $19 billion later, Hanford is still a nightmare — likely the most toxic site in the Western Hemisphere. Not one ounce of nuclear waste has ever been treated, and there are no indications Hanford will be nuke free anytime soon. To date, at least1 million gallonsof radioactive waste has leaked and is making its way to the Columbia River. It’s an environmental disaster of epic proportions — a disaster created by our government’s atomic obsession during the Cold War era.
No doubt, Hanford is a wreck in search of a remedy, yet the costs covered by American taxpayers appears to be growing exponentially. At the tail end of 2016, the estimated cost of turning the radioactive gunk into glass rodsbumped up a cool $4.5 billion(adding to the ultimate price tag for the remaining Hanford cleanup, which had already reached a whopping $107.7 billion). These sorts of increases are so common they hardly make news anymore.
Donald Trump’s pick for Department of Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, who infamously stated he’d like to do away with the DoE altogether [without a DoE there would be no nuclear weapons programs or US agency promoting nuclear energy], now admits that Hanford’s one of themost dangerous facilities in the nation. But his commitment to cleaning up the fiscal and nuclear boondoggle remains to be seen. The plant that is to turn the waste into glass rods is set to open in 2023, but it’s a safe bet that won’t be happening. It’s already two decades behind schedule.
Meanwhile, workers on the front lines of the cleanup are often put in situations that are poorly monitored and exceedingly unsafe. Over the past three years KING 5 News in Seattle has tracked dozens of employeeswho were exposed to chemical vaporsat Hanford and found their illnesses to include “toxic encephalopathy (dementia), reactive airway disease, COPD, and painful nerve damage.”
“The people running Hanford need to have a moral compass that directs them in the right way, as human beings, to do the right thing to protect these people,” retired Hanford employee Mike Geffre, who worked at Hanford for 26 years,told KING 5. “They’re trying to save money and save face. They’re standing behind their old position that there’s no problem. That’s absurd. They need to accept the fact that they made mistakes and get over it.”
Fortunately, there is a bit of good news in his heap of radioactivity. Last November, asettlement was reachedbetween the US Department of Justice, Bechtel Corp. and AECOM (formerly URS) for a whopping $125 million. The civil lawsuit alleged taxpayer funds were mismanaged and that both companies performed shoddy work. The lawsuit also claimed that government funds were illegally used to lobby members of Congress. Brought on by whistleblowers Gary Brunson, Donna Busche, and Walter Tamosaitis (Busche and Tamosaitis’s sagas were highlighted intwo Investigative Fund reportsI authored for Seattle Weekly in 2011 and 2012), the settlement was one of the largest in DoE history.
No doubt it was a substantial victory for whistleblowers and government accountability, despite the fact that the defendants did not admit guilt. Now, Washington State legislators are pushing HB 1723, a bill that would protect and treat Hanford workers for certain health problems that are a result of the work they’ve done at the facility, such as respiratory problems, heart issues, certain cancers like bone, breast, lung and thyroid, as well as neurological issues.
“Currently, many Hanford workers are not receiving necessary medical care because they are put in the impossible situation of being unable to specify the chemicals to which they have been exposed, and in what concentrations, making it difficult for their doctors to connect their disease with their exposures,” Randy Walli, Business Manager for the pipefitters union, Local 598,told King 5.
Compensation for whistleblowers and employees whose health is impacted by their work are steps in the right direction. But Hanford’s contractors and the DoE that oversees them still have much to do to make the increasingly expensive nuclear cleanup at Hanford, safe, effective and transparent.
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
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