Intrepid Report: Week of October 9, 2017

Intrepid Report Newsletter
We cannot keep publishing without your help. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate Monday Trump’s latest warning By Stephen Lendman His rage for war makes any announced warnings sound especially ominous—even if they’re only bluster. Las Vegas massacre proves 2nd Amendment must be abolished By Eric Zuesse The Las Vegas gunman wasn’t operating merely as a gunman but as a sniper, and yet the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment makes no distinctions whatsoever regarding handguns versus snipers’ weapons—automatic (or semi-automatic) rifles which spew bullets so fast the Las Vegas shooter was able in the brief time span of only around ten minutes to murder at least 59 people and to injure another 527. Trump wants $1.6 billion for the border wall that spans just 74 miles All this for a boondoggle project most Americans continue to oppose. By Jim Hightower How much of your money does Donald Trump want to pour into his xenophobic fantasy of erecting an impenetrable wall on our Mexican border? Memo to Tillerson about the moron By Robert Reich I can understand why you feel Washington is a place of “petty nonsense,” as you said Wednesday when you called a news conference to rebut charges that you called Trump a moron last summer after a meeting of national security officials at the Pentagon. Wombward By Linh Dinh I’m back in Hanoi. Noi Bai Airport was sparkling after its recent upgrade, and I rode into town on a wide, well-landscaped freeway named after general Vo Nguyen Giap. On both sides were shops and restaurants. Tuesday House passes draconian budget By Stephen Lendman America already is thirdworldized. Majority House members deepened it. America’s biggest divide: Winners and losers America is deeply divided between those who are considered (and consider themselves) winners, and those who are considered by the winners to be losers. By Neal Gabler There are plenty of reasons to bristle at President Trump’s tweets on Puerto Rico, which is suffering horribly from Hurricane Maria, not least of which is the racist suggestion that Hispanics there don’t deserve the same treatment as mainland white Americans. But in all his fuming, Trump did make another point, and it is worth examining: The poor people of Puerto Rico, he said, should stop complaining and begin helping themselves rather than rely on government assistance, intimating that their misery was their own fault. He added for good measure, but with no comprehensible logic, that the island was wallowing in financial disaster, as if Maria were some divine retribution for profligacy. In short, they were losers. Palestinian unity is prerequisite to peace By Linda S. Heard The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could soon be deprived of his pretexts for shying away from serious peace negotiations with Palestinian leaders, which he may find discomforting. While he has paid lip service to a long defunct peace process, he has always maintained that the acrimonious split between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip translates to the absence of a single peace partner. Trump and Weinstein By Robert Reich Donald Trump weighed in on the scandal engulfing movie mogul and Democratic funder Harvey Weinstein, accused by multiple women of sexual harassment (Weinstein has been fired from his company). “I’ve know Harvey Weinstein a long time. I’m not at all surprised to see it,” Trump said. When we’re done By Missy Comley Beattie My dear friend E. emailed that she was carjacked at gunpoint and would phone when she was less shaken. A few days later, we talked. Wednesday Britain to criminalize reading online extremist content By Stephen Lendman Like America, Britain is unfit and unsafe to live in—both countries police states, serving privileged interests exclusively, allied in waging wars OF terror in multiple theaters, along with abolishing fundamental homeland freedoms. Bolstering case for impeachment, study concludes Trump ‘likely obstructed justice’ A detailed analysis finds ‘substantial’ evidence to support claims that Trump attempted to undermine an ongoing investigation by firing former FBI director James Comey By Jake Johnson In a new study aimed at collecting and analyzing all of the relevant facts surrounding President Donald Trump’s legally questionable conduct in office—particularly his firing of former FBI director James Comey—three lawyers conclude it is “likely” that Trump has obstructed justice, and that whether he is held accountable for his actions “will have significant consequences for the functioning of our democracy.” War culture-gun culture: They’re related By Lawrence Davidson If you go to the Wikipedia page that gives a timeline of U.S. foreign military operations between 1775 and 2010, you are likely to come away in shock. It seems that ever since the founding of the country, the United States has been at war. It is as if Americans just could not (and still cannot) sit still, but had to (and still have to) force themselves on others through military action. Often this is aimed at controlling foreign resources, thus forcing upon others the consequences of their own capitalist avarice. At other times the violence is spurred on by an ideology that confuses U.S. interests with civilization and freedom. Only very rarely is Washington out there on the side of the angels. Regardless, the bottom line seems to be that peace has never been a deeply ingrained cultural value for the citizens of the United States. As pertains to foreign policy, America’s national culture is a war culture. The evil that guns do The firearms lobby suggests that because morality can't be legislated, the evil of gun violence can only be controlled by . . . more guns. By Michael Winship In the United States, you will hear madmen insist that: 59 dead and 500 injured in Las Vegas are the price of freedom; 49 dead and 58 wounded in Orlando, Florida, are the price of freedom; 27 dead and 2 injured in Newtown, Connecticut, are the price of freedom. How offensive ads sell drugs for pharma By Martha Rosenberg How did pharma become the third most lucrative U.S. industry? In addition to millions doled out to federal lawmakers and medical groups, it uses the world’s best ad agencies and public relations firms to “move product.” Thursday Power corrupts: A culture of compliance breeds despots and predators By John W. Whitehead Power corrupts. Putin, Jimmy Carter, Trump and Mattis on North Korea By Stephen Lendman Avoiding conflict on the Korean peninsula is an urgent priority of our time. Possible nuclear war would be too catastrophic to risk. The Balfour Declaration destroyed Palestine, not the Palestinian people By Ramzy Baroud Some promises are made and kept; others disavowed. But the ‘promise’ made by Arthur James Balfour in what became known as the ‘Balfour Declaration’ to the leaders of the Zionist Jewish community in Britain one hundred years ago, was only honored in part: it established a state for the Jews and attempted to destroy the Palestinian nation. Why the Republican tax plan is more failed trickle-down economics* By Robert Reich Trump and conservatives in Congress are planning a big tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. To justify it they’re using the oldest song in their playbook, claiming tax cuts on the rich will trickle down to working families in the form of stronger economic growth. What happened to Trump’s pledge to close this billionaire loophole? The president's pledge to roll back a hedge fund loophole has mysteriously vanished from his tax plan. By Jim Hightower These are hard times for America’s gold miners. They’re scrambling to get ahead, but seeing their pay dropping. Friday Thugs take advantage of America’s foreign policy dysfunctionality By Wayne Madsen Thuggish world leaders are using the dysfunctionality of U.S. foreign policy to push the envelope while America is preoccupied with a moron and man-child as president. Giving authoritarian leaders like Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Saudi King Salman, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, and Moroccan King Mohammed VI leeway in the absence of U.S. leadership and influence is what was partially behind Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s description of Donald Trump as a “fucking moron” and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker’s Twitter reference to Trump as an impetuous man-child in need of day care supervision. Trump the entertainer The media continue to view Trump through a political lens when an entertainment lens would be more appropriate. By Neal Gabler It is becoming increasingly clear that to speak of a “Trump presidency” is a misnomer. There is no presidency, at least not by traditional standards. There is a “Trump show,” and that makes all the difference in the world. Freedom Rider: True conspiracies By Margaret Kimberley American history has many examples of governmental and corporate plots that deceive, kill, create wars, and ruin lives. United States covert operations destroyed movements domestically and overthrew governments overseas. No one has to prove the existence of high level conspiracies that furthered the interests of the state and or its corporate partners. Do you have hep C? Pharma hopes so The sicker you get, the richer they become. By Martha Rosenberg The campaigns are everywhere. On ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, Animal Planet, the Game Show Network and Syfy. In People, Popular Mechanics and Better Homes and Gardens magazines. On the radio and along subway lines. If you were born between 1945 and 1965, you could have hep C, screams Gilead Sciences, which makes the hep C drug Harvoni. What is behind the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation? By Ramzy Baroud Egypt’s enthusiasm to arbitrate between feuding Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, is not the outcome of a sudden awakening of conscience. Cairo has, in fact, played a destructive role in manipulating Palestinian division to its favor, while keeping the Rafah border crossing under lock and key.
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