Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Syria's war: Who is fighting and why | Vox | 04/08/17 | 6:45

*'Presidential' And Pointless
HP | Nick Robins-Early | 04/10/17

Four days after the U.S. launched missiles at a key Syrian air base in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, the Trump administration's first big military move is escalating diplomatic tensions.

Russia has doubled down on its support for its ally Bashar Assad, stepping up military aid and deploying a warship off the Syrian coast. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on the other hand, has harshly criticized Russia and says the country's failure to rein in Assad led to last week's chemical attack. Tillerson will arrive in Moscow this week to meet with Russian officials, as White House officials suggest the possibility of future U.S. engagement. ... Read more

*How to avoid getting ripped off at the hospital
Vox | Julia Belluz | 04/11/17

"The American healthcare system is rigged against you," journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in her new book, An American Sickness.

Rosenthal got a behind-the-scenes peek at the bamboozling when she was working full time as a doctor in the 1990s. She remembers one appendectomy patient, already in a hospital gown, pleading, "You guys [already] took my wallet ... I don't have a credit card." The hospital was hassling the patient for a credit card number before continuing with the procedure, and the patient had to scramble to recover a card number from a friend before the operation could begin. It was clear to Rosenthal that profit came way ahead of patient care. ... Read more

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal (04/11/17)

In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast?

Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries--the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw.

The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

*Why Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan could wind up in a ditch
Politico | Lauren Gardner | 04/10/17

His hopes for a 'very bipartisan' bill are running into the same kinds of political forces that torpedoed the Obamacare repeal.

President Donald Trump is counting on his $1 trillion infrastructure proposal to produce the kind of bipartisan legislative victory that has eluded him on health care and pretty much everything else. Instead, he's running into familiar roadblocks: suspicious Democrats, a divided GOP and questions about the math.

Trump's plan, expected to be released as early as May, has already faced months of skepticism from some conservative deficit hawks — even though it's likely to call for far less direct federal spending than its eye-popping price tag implies. Meanwhile, Democrats are crying foul at suggestions that the blueprint will include hefty tax breaks for private investors and a shredding of permit requirements. ... Read more

Putin: "Idlib Was A "False Flag" Attack And We Have Learned That More Are Coming"
ZeroHedge | author | 04/11/17

With Rex Tillerson on his way to Russia, moments ago Russian president Vladimir Putin shocked reporters when he said that Russia has received intelligence from "trusted sources" that more attacks using chemical weapons are being prepared on the Damascus region, meant to pin the blame on the Assad government.

"We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one -- and I cannot call it otherwise -- are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack," he said at a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow.

The Russian President announced that Russia will officially turn to the UN in the Hague for an investigation of the chemical weapons' use in Idlib. Moscow has dismissed suggestions that the Syrian government that it backs could be behind the attack in Idlib province.

"All incidents reminiscent of the 'chemical attacks' that took place in Idlib must be thoroughly investigated," Putin said. ... Read more