It is time Americans rise up against the corruption, inefficiency, and cruelty of our healthcare system and tell its corporate captors and Congress – Enough Already!

For decades other countries have guaranteed universal health insurance for all their people, at lower costs and better outcomes (President Truman proposed it 72 years ago in the US). When are we going to break out of this taxpayer-subsidized prison built by the giant insurance companies, drug goliaths and monopolizing hospital chains?

How long is Uncle Sucker going to pay through the nose for gouging drug prices, patient-denying health insurance companies and all the brutal fine print rules in consumer contracts whose trap doors are maddening tens of millions of Americans?

Deductibles, exclusions, waivers, co-pays, corporate immunities from injured patients, disqualifying changes in patients’ status and just plain stonewalling are just some examples of this cruel madness.

Not to mention the endless electronic bills with their inscrutable codes and unchallengeable charges – that is if you can get anyone on the phone to answer your questions. Billing fraud and abuses alone cost us up to $330 billion a year!

Why do we put up with “pay or die” drug prices? Why do we tolerate our fellow Americans dying in the tens of thousands each year because they cannot afford health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time?

Do we know that the profiteering drug companies regularly are given a slew of handouts, including huge tax breaks, free drugs developed by our National Institutes of Health, and few restraints on their high pressure sales of dangerous and addictive drugs (eg opioids) or, together with their corporate middlemen, return the favor by charging Americans the highest prices in the world? Other countries put limits on such blatant greed and exploitation.

Groping for ever more profits, the big drug companies offshore production to less regulated labs in China and India, which amount to 60% of the drugs we buy and 80% of the active ingredients in all medicines sold in the US. Unpatriotic in the extreme!

Compounding these inhumane practices is a supine Congress, with few exceptions like Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D, TX), and state legislatures, misusing the power we entrusted to them. These legislators see large pharmaceutical companies as honey pots for campaign cash that work as hush money paid by hordes of drug industry lobbyists. So craven was the majority in Congress in 2003 that, when the drug benefits bill was passed, it prohibited Medicare from negotiating volume discounts for this lucrative corporate sales bonanza (Past Congresses authorized the Pentagon and Veterans Administration to bargain and they get lower prices as a result).

Despite the fact that these healthcare challenges have been dealt with more humanely and economically by other Western countries in the world, Americans are consistently told to tolerate an aggravating status quo. Scores of books, articles and television exposés highlight all the ways we’re pushed around, denied, excluded, harmed, overcharged and  deceived, yet so many of these authors still maintain  that our system of health insurance/healthcare can’t be replaced with a much better one? So these writers continue to advise us how to duck, slide and swivel our escape from a few of these commercials chains and scams.

In all the fine articles written to help consumers navigate Obamacare, Medicare, and private health plans, the authors trap themselves in this vast corporate cul-de-sac by never mentioning the way out.

That way is Single Payer or Full Medicare for all, everybody in, nobody out, with free choice of doctors and hospitals – at far lower costs, mortality and morbidity. These narrow reformers can’t escape their “it ain’t going to happen here” syndrome.

Really? Don’t they know that the public has long viewed Single Payer favorably (including a majority of doctors and nurses), even without political leaders standing up for it or mass media reporting this proven safe path.

The surrender to corporate tyranny infects the 112 members of the House of Representatives who have co-signed HR 676 to create full Medicare for all. They signed, but then gave in to a silent resignation by not fighting for it in Congress and back home.

When the companies and their apologists argue for a “free market” approach to healthcare, you can retort – what free market? Half the money coming to these companies is from the federal, state and local governments. Taxpayers also pay tens of billions of dollars for much of the discovery and testing of drugs. Tax breaks and loopholes in patent laws block generic drugs and distort the free market.

Drug patents are by definition monopolies. Concentration by mergers and acquisitions of hospitals, clinics and physician practices (note dwindling independent cardiology practices) raise serious anti-trust issues. Fine print contract peonage takes away the consumers’ freedom of contract, as do the daily buy and sell equations, so often rendered by third parties for patients. Corporate billing and other crimes are endemic. What free market?

Each of you can help the Single Payer movement build momentum. Ask your members of Congress in writing if they support HR 676 and, if not, demand their appearance in person at a town meeting arranged by people like you to answer why. If they refuse, peacefully picket their local offices.

Ask the newspapers, radio and television stations, including the culpable public radio and public television, when are they going to cover the basic full Medicare reform supported by tens of millions of their listeners and viewers?

Finally, go to the website SinglePayerAction.org to find out what other people are doing and what more you can do with your friends and co-workers.

One percent of you, together with popular backing, can make it happen, through a persistent civic hobby. Remember, you only have to turn around less than 450 members of Congress.

Enough Already?

By Ryan McMaken*

By 1989, it had become apparent to all — everyone except the CIA, of course — that the Soviet economy, and thus the Soviet state was in very deep trouble.

In November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down in the face of Soviet impotence. And, with the Cold-War corpse not even cold yet, the US used the newly apparent Soviet weakness as an opportunity to begin invading a variety of foreign countries. These included Iraq, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia.

But first on the list was Panama in December 1989. At the time, the Panamanian state was an authoritarian regime that stayed in power largely due to US support, and functioned as an American puppet state in Central America where Communists were often successful in overthrowing right-wing dictatorships. The US regime’s man in Panama was Manuel Noriega, who just died at 83 years of age. After years in US, French, and Panamanian prisons, Noriega has been forgotten by nearly everyone. But, after he stopped taking orders from Washington, Noriega became the first in a long line of foreign politicians who were held up as the next “Hitler” by the American propaganda machine. This was done in order to justify what would become an endless policy of invading tiny foreign countries that are no threat to the US — all done in the name of “humanitarian” intervention.

Writing in April 1990, Murray Rothbard summed up the situation in Panama:

The U.S. invasion of Panama was the first act of military intervention in the new post-Cold War world — the first act of war since 1945 where the United States has not used Communism or “Marxism-Leninism” as the effective all-purpose alibi. Coming so soon after the end of the Cold War, the invasion was confused and chaotic — a hallmark of Bushian policy in general. Bush’s list of alleged reasons for the invasion were a grab-bag of haphazard and inconsistent arguments — none of which made much sense.

The positive vaunting was, of course, prominent: what was called, idiotically, the “restoration of democracy” in Panama. When in blazes did Panama ever have a democracy? Certainly not under Noriega’s beloved predecessor and mentor, the U.S.’s Panama Treaty partner, General Omar Torrijos. The alleged victory of the unappetizing Guillermo Endara in the abortive Panamanian election was totally unproven. The “democracy” the U.S. imposed was peculiar, to say the least: swearing in Endara and his “cabinet” in secrecy on a US army base.

It was difficult for our rulers to lay on the Noriega “threat” very heavily: Since Noriega, whatever his other sins, is obviously no Marxist-Leninist, and since the Cold War is over anyway it would have been tricky; even embarrassing, to try to paint Noriega and his tiny country as a grave threat to big, powerful United States. And so the Bush administration laid on the “drug” menace with a trowel, braving the common knowledge that Noriega himself was a longtime CIA creature and employee whose drug trafficking was at the very least condoned by the U.S. for many years.

The administration therefore kept stressing that Noriega was simply a “common criminal” who had been indicted in the US (for actions outside the US — so why not indict every other head of state as well — all of whom have undoubtedly committed crimes galore?) so that the invasion was simply a police action to apprehend an alleged fugitive. But what real police action — that is, police action over a territory over which the government has a virtual monopoly of force —involves total destruction of an entire working-class neighborhood, the murder of hundreds of Panamanian civilians as well as American soldiers, and the destruction of a half-billion dollars of civilian property?

The invasion also contained many bizarre elements of low comedy: There was the U.S. government’s attempt to justify the invasion retroactively by displaying Noriega’s plundered effects: porno in the desk drawer (well, gee, that sure justifies mass killing and destruction of property), the obligatory picture of Hitler in the closet (Aha! the Nazi threat again!), the fact that Noriega was stocking a lot of Soviet-made arms (a Commie as well as a Nazi, and “paranoid” too — the deluded fool was actually expecting an American invasion!)

It’s almost darkly comedic how easy it has been to convince the American people to go along with nearly any justification for invading a foreign country, no matter how flimsy. It may be hard for my younger readers to comprehend, but in the late 80s, the American public was so hysterical with fear over street drugs, that it struck many Americans as perfectly reasonable to invade a foreign country, burn down a neighborhood, and send the US Army to lay siege to Panama’s presidential headquarters to catch a single drug kingpin.

The US would perfect aspects of this routine as time went on. In 1991, Saddam Hussein was the next Hitler, with the media hinting that if left unchecked, Hussein would invade the entire Middle East. “He gassed his own people!” was the endless refrain. The other justification was that Saddam’s government had invaded another country. Rothbard, of course, noted the irony of this “justification”:

But, “he invaded a small country.” Yes, indeed he did. But, are we ungracious for bringing up the undoubted fact that none other than George Bush, not long ago, invaded a very small country: Panama? And to the unanimous huzzahs of the same U.S. media and politicians now denouncing Saddam?

By the Clinton years, Slobodan Milošević was the new next Hitler.

The downside of these new Hitlers, of course, was that any reasonable person could see that none of them were any threat whatsoever to the United States.

Even the call for “humanitarian” action rung a little untrue for more astute observers. After all, it struck many people as curious as to why Serbia required bombing for its human rights violations while the genocide in Rwanda — which was occurring right around the same time — was steadfastly ignored by Washington. If human rights were such a major concern for the US state in the 90s, why was there no invasion of North Korea in response to the horrors of the death camps there?

New life was breathed into the military-interventionist camp after 2001 by Osama bin Laden. But “humanitarian” missions and the search for the next Hitler continue to this day.

In 2011, the usual tactics were employed to justify the invasion of Libya — which only made the country a breeding ground for ISIS and Al Qaeda.

And today, of course, we hear the same things about Bashar Assad in Syria. Like Noriega, Hussein, Milošević, and Qaddafi before him, Assad is obviously no threat to the US or its residents. Indeed, Assad is fighting people who potentially are a threat to US residents. But, since the US military establishment wants Assad gone, some excuse must be manufactured for an invasion.

Assad is simply the latest iteration of Noriega: a foreign strongman whose every vice and misdeed — as with every political leader, there are plenty of them — must be magnified in an attempt to justify yet another foreign invasion.

Ultimately, Rothbard concluded that these methods can be employed against any regime on earth, and wrote sarcastically in 1994: “‘we cannot stand idly by’ while anyone anywhere starves, hits someone over the head, is undemocratic, or commits a Hate Crime.”:

We must face the fact that there is not a single country in the world that measures up to the lofty moral and social standards that are the hallmark of the U.S.A.: even Canada is delinquent and deserves a whiff of grape. There is not a single country in the world which, like the U.S., reeks of democracy and “human rights,” and is free of crime and murder and hate thoughts and undemocratic deeds. Very few other countries are as Politically Correct as the U.S., or have the wit to impose a massively statist program in the name of “freedom,” “free trade,” “multiculturalism,” and “expanding democracy.”

And so, since no other countries shape up to U.S. standards in a world of Sole Superpower they must be severely chastised by the U.S. I make a Modest Proposal for the only possible consistent and coherent foreign policy: the U.S. must, very soon, Invade the Entire World! Sanctions are peanuts; we must invade every country in the world, perhaps softening them up beforehand with a wonderful high-tech missile bombing show courtesy of CNN.

Thus the destruction of Manuel Noriega and his regime illustrated what was to come during the next 25 years of American foreign policy: target a foreign regime that poses no threat to the US, and manufacture a nice-sounding reason for doing so. The 1989 Panama invasion is a reminder of just how little has changed since the Cold War ended. The methods are the same, and only the names have changed.

About the author:
*Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Send him your article submissions, but read article guidelines first. (Contact: email; twitter.) Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

By Hunter Baker*

The Trump Administration and Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have submitted their attention-getting budget request.  Consistent with the credo of budget balancers, the proposed allocation reduces the current budget of $68.2 billion by about $9 billion.  In keeping with DeVos’s  career and reputation, the budget includes a relatively small allotment of $400 million to support school choice for low income children and charter schools.  The idea is that this amount would grow in succeeding years and perhaps supersede other approaches to improving education in the United States.

Both facts, the lower amount of funding and the dollars for school choice, highlight concerns raised by DeVos’s detractors.  When she was nominated, public education advocates complained that her status as a school choice advocate is at odds with the mission of the Department of Education.  If school choice effectively functions as a standing critique of public education as well as being a potential solution to problems evident in the current system, how can public school advocates ever approve of an appointee like Betsy DeVos?

That question leads to others. What is the mission of the Department of Education?  And if that mission is defined as advancing public education in the United States in a particular way, then does any elected president have the right to appoint a reformer who may alter the mission or bring a substantially new philosophy of how it might be achieved?  Unless we answer those questions in the negative, then we elevate a particular vision of public school education to the level of a substantive right required by the constitution.  Worse, we would foreclose any real chance of innovation and reform.

We tend to worry about interest group capture of various federal agencies.  For example, we hear about the farm lobby capturing the Department of Agriculture and defense contractors gaining excessive influence in the Pentagon.  The action of “iron triangles” made up of interest groups, government agencies, and congressional committees has long been observed and commented upon by political and economic scholars.  But it is rare to see similar analyses focused on the power that groups such as the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have over the department that was promised to the teachers’ unions (and delivered) by Jimmy Carter after his election to the White House in 1976.  The conflict is obvious.  A Department of Education run largely on the priorities of the public school teachers’ unions is unlikely to look kindly upon any attempt to break the monopoly, even on the fringes.  And that is exactly what we have seen.  The public school establishment has consistently fought for greater funding and against the expansion of school choice.

In addition to the rational self-interest of public education associations, we should also consider John Stuart Mill’s classic argument against public school monopolies.  Mill thought that it might be wise for governments to provide funding for education, but also that there is too much risk inherent in allowing the government to operate schools.  The temptation to use schools for purposes of indoctrination would be too great.  Mill was hardly in sympathy with conservative Christians.  Rather, he was simply realistic about incentives and institutions.

Betsy DeVos’s appointment as Secretary of Education represents an attempt by the White House to push back against the reigning paradigm in two ways.  First, the reduction of $9 billion in the proposal from last year’s appropriation runs against the idea that improving public education necessarily entails spending ever larger amounts.  Second, the roughly $400 million requested in the new budget for school choice for low income children and for charter schools (a tiny proportion of the discretionary budget), supports competition as a method of increasing quality in schools.

I predict that much of the commentary on the DeVos budget will follow the lines suggested by a recent U.S. News and World Report piece insisting that the department should “invest in public education” rather than “dismantling it” and “ensure that public money goes to public schools.”  But this kind of argument is of a piece with the idea that education can only be improved by ever increasing appropriations and funneling grants to government-owned, government-operated schools.  The mistake is to assume that school choice can’t be part of improving public education.  In order to escape the frozen outlines of establishment thinking, though, we have to realize that educating the public doesn’t have to mean blocking out competition.  Instead, competition can be part of how we make sure we have a republic of educated citizens and one that may better protect freedom of thought.

About the author:
*Hunter Baker, J.D., Ph.D. is an associate professor of political science at Union University and an Affiliate Scholar in Religion & Politics at the Acton Institute. He is the author of The End of Secularism and Political Thought: A Student’s Guide.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for its jaw-dropping snapshots of the cosmos. At first glance this Picture of the Week appears to be quite the opposite, showing just a blur of jagged spikes, speckled noise, and weird, clashing colors — but once you know what you are looking at, images like this one are no less breathtaking.

This shows a distant galaxy — visible as the smudge to the lower right — as it begins to align with and pass behind a star sitting nearer to us within the Milky Way. This is an event known as a transit. The star is called HD 107146, and it sits at the center of the frame. Its light has been blocked in this image to make its immediate surroundings and the faint galaxy visible — the position of the star is marked with a green circle.

The concentric orange circle surrounding HD 107146 is a circumstellar disk — a disk of debris orbiting the star. In the case of HD 107146 we see the disk face-on. As this star very much resembles our sun, it is an interesting scientific target to study: its circumstellar disk could be analogous to the asteroids in our Solar System and the Kuiper belt.

A detailed study of this system is possible because of the much more distant galaxy — nicknamed the “Vermin Galaxy” by some to reflect their annoyance at its presence — as the star passes in front of it. The unusual pairing was first observed in 2004 by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, and again in 2011 by Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The latter image is shown here, as the Vermin Galaxy began its transit behind HD 107146. The galaxy will not be fully obscured until around 2020, but interesting science can be done even while the galaxy is only partly obscured. Light from the galaxy will pass through the star’s debris disks before reaching our telescopes, allowing us to study the properties of the light and how it changes, and thus infer the characteristics of the disk itself.

New teen drivers ages 16-17 years old are three times as likely as adults to be involved in a deadly crash, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. This alarming finding comes as the “100 Deadliest Days” begin, the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day when the average number of deadly teen driver crashes climbs 15 percent compared to the rest of the year. Over the past five years, more than 1,600 people were killed in crashes involving inexperienced teen drivers during this deadly period.

“Statistics show that teen crashes spike during the summer months because teens are out of school and on the road,” said Dr. David Yang, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety executive director. “The Foundation’s research found that inexperience paired with greater exposure on the road could create a deadly combination for teen drivers.”

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s latest study, Rates of Motor Vehicle Crashes, Injuries, and Deaths in Relation to Driver Age, analyzes crash rates per mile driven for all drivers and found that for every mile on the road, drivers ages 16-17 years old are:

• 3.9 times as likely as drivers 18 and older to be involved in a crash
• 2.6 times as likely as drivers 18 and older to be involved in a fatal crash
• 4.5 times as likely as drivers 30-59 to be involved in a crash
• 3.2 times as likely as drivers 30-59 to be involved in a fatal crash

Fatal teen crashes are on the rise. The number of teen drivers involved in fatal crashes increased more than 10 percent from the previous year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 2015 crash data, the latest data available. To reverse this alarming trend, AAA urges parents to help reduce the number of deadly crashes on the road by getting more involved and talking to their teens about the dangers of risky behavior behind the wheel.

“Parents are the front line of defense for keeping our roads safer this summer,” said Jennifer Ryan, AAA Director of State Relations. “It all starts with educating teens about safety on the road and modeling good behavior, like staying off the phone and buckling your safety belt.”

Three factors that commonly result in deadly crashes for teen drivers are:

• Distraction: Distraction plays a role in nearly six out of 10 teen crashes, four times as many as official estimates based on police reports. The top distractions for teens include talking to other passengers in the vehicle and interacting with a smart phone.
• Not Buckling Up: In 2015, the latest data available, 60 percent of teen drivers killed in a crash were not wearing a safety belt. Teens who buckle up significantly reduce their risk of dying or being seriously injured in a crash.
• Speeding: Speeding is a factor in nearly 30 percent of fatal crashes involving teen drivers. A recent AAA survey of driving instructors found that speeding is one of the top three mistakes teens make when learning to drive.

To keep roads safer this summer, AAA encourages parents to:

• Have conversations with their teens early and often about distraction and speeding.
• Teach by example and minimize risky behavior when driving.
• Make a parent-teen driving agreement that sets family rules for teen drivers.

Malaysia and Singapore have recently introduced new measures for submarine safety while China is reportedly contemplating restrictions on submarines operating in its waters. However, these measures are not without problems.

By Sam Bateman*

The Malaysian government has recently established three Permanent Submarine Exercise Areas off the coasts of Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia. These are aimed at providing a safe area for Malaysian submarines to conduct their operations.

To facilitate the safety of these operations, Malaysia requires certain activities in these areas, such as weapon firings, diving operations and surveying, be notified to Malaysian authorities. Failure to provide this notification means that the Malaysian government is not responsible for any damage or loss of ships, equipment, and life, caused as a result of an accident involving a Malaysian submarine.

Submarine Safety

Meanwhile, the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) has launched the world’s first Submarine Safety Information Portal (SSIP). This is intended to give all submarines, not just Singapore’s own submarines, real-time information about potential hazards, such as deep-sea oil rigs, vessels with deeper draughts, and larger trawlers actively fishing.

The portal will be housed at the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) at Changi Naval Base, and will build on existing databases at that centre. Feedback about the portal will be collected over the next year with a view to launching a final version of the SSIP in 2019. Other countries will be invited to contribute relevant information to the portal.

Reports earlier this year indicated that China was in the process of reviewing its 1984 Marine Traffic Safety Law. It was suggested that this review might lead to China introducing new regulations requiring foreign submarines operating in specific areas of China’s adjacent waters to travel on the surface, display their national flags and report to Chinese authorities when they were passing through the designated areas. However, the location of these areas was not clear.

These developments reflect the reality that submarines are inherently dangerous – both to themselves and to other vessels. Even a relatively minor accident onboard a submarine can have catastrophic consequences. Then there are navigational risks associated with having more submarines operating in relatively confined waters with a high level of fishing activity and dense shipping traffic. Regional submarines also operate in areas, such as parts of the South China Sea, which are poorly charted with a high possibility of uncharted features that, while not dangerous to surface navigation, are dangerous to submerged navigation.

Problem Areas

Even the most proficient operators of submarines, including the US Navy and the Indian Navy, suffer submarine accidents with depressing regularity. The US Navy has experienced several accidents over the years when submerged submarines have collided with deep draught surface vessels, while several years ago a British nuclear submarine had an underwater collision with a French nuclear submarine in the North Atlantic fortunately without serious damage to either vessel.

Fishing vessels are a particular problem that require vigilance by submarines. Several incidents have occurred in both Japanese and United Kingdom waters when submerged submarines have caught the nets of fishing vessels and dragged them under – in some cases with loss of life.

While Singapore’s SSIP is a commendable idea, it’s not clear how its data will be collected and what areas will be covered by it. Any obligation on ship operators to report activities to the portal outside of Singapore’s territorial sea would run into legal difficulties. Neighbouring countries will also be sensitive to Singapore collecting data on activities in their claimed waters, particularly those related to resource exploration and exploitation.

As most of the waters to which the portal could apply are the exclusive economic zones (EEZs), archipelagic waters or territorial sea of other countries, this could be a significant limitation on the portal’s effectiveness. Even making the provision of information to the portal voluntary may not overcome this sensitivity. No doubt these issues will be evaluated over the portal’s trial period.

Looking to the Future

Permanently established submarine exercise areas, such as those recently announced by Malaysia, are not unusual. Other submarine operating countries have similar arrangements. Australia, for example, has established the whole of its EEZ as a permanently established submarine exercise area. However, other countries do not go as far as Malaysia has by requiring prior notification of particular activities. This will be seen as Malaysia going beyond its legitimate rights in waters beyond its territorial sea.

The main problem with China’s possible new legislation is whether the restrictions on submarine activities apply outside of its territorial sea. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), submarines exercising the right of innocent passage in another country’s territorial sea are required to travel on the surface and show their flag. However any move by China to formally require prior notification of a submarine transiting its territorial sea, or to extend the requirement beyond its territorial sea would be regarded by the United States and others as beyond its legitimate rights.

As more and more submarines enter service in regional navies, countries may be expected to become increasingly concerned about the safety of their own submarines, as well as about the operations of foreign submarines in their adjacent waters. Arrangements similar to those announced by China, Malaysia and Singapore could become more common in the region in the future.

While Singapore’s SSIP is the most constructive of the recent measures with its clear focus on cooperative submarine safety arrangements, and not just on national interests, wider regional dialogue and cooperation is still required to reduce the risks of incidents involving submarines.

However, the sensitivity countries attach to their submarine operations is likely to continue to inhibit real progress with truly effective measures for greater submarine safety and to manage the consequences of incidents involving submarines.

*Sam Bateman is an adviser to the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a former Australian naval commodore who has worked in strategic policy areas of the Department of Defence in Canberra.

The Justice Department on Thursday night asked the US Supreme Court to immediately reinstate President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from six Muslim-majority countries.

In a filing, the nine justices were asked to consider the executive order’s legality in an appeal of a ruling by the 4th Circuit blocking the ban. The justices include Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee who was confirmed by the Senate in April.

The Trump administration wants justice to hear arguments on an expedited basis and to reinstate the executive order in the interim.

“We have asked the Supreme Court to hear this important case and are confident that President Trump’s executive order is well within his lawful authority to keep the Nation safe and protect our communities from terrorism,” said Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores. “The president is not required to admit people from countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism, until he determines that they can be properly vetted and do not pose a security risk to the United States.”

The lower court’s May 25 ruling had said the policy was “steeped in animus and directed at a single religious group.”

Trump’s executive order barred entry into the United States for 90 days for residents of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

“It’s an interesting procedural move, but the fact that it’s taken this long may undermine, at least to some extent, the Trump administration’s core argument that the entry ban, which has never gone into full effect, is essential to protect our national security,” Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas Law school professor and CNN analyst, said.

“Thus, while it seems likely that the court will eventually hear the government’s challenge, the real question now is what happens in the interim,” Vladeck added. “Are there five votes to grant a stay and allow the ban to go into effect, or will everything remain frozen until the Court has the last word.”

The Virginia-based federal appeals court voted 10-3 to uphold the nationwide halt to the policy on appeal from a circuit court judge, saying the travel ban was driven by unconstitutional religious motivations.

The majority noted Trump’s campaign pledge to bar Muslims from entering the country. The court also faulted the White House for rushing out the first version or the executive without consulting with the national security agencies and causing confusion at airports in the United States.

The executive order “speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination,” Circuit Judge Roger Gregory wrote.

The original ban also included Iraq and would have given Christians in affected countries the first chance to apply for visas and refugee status. The new order, signed on March 6, added language exempting existing green card and visa holders.

The first ban on Jan. 27 signed by Tump on was ruled unconstitutional by a circuit court judge in Seattle and 9th Circuit appeals court in San Francisco.

A circuit judge in Hawaii also ruled against the revised order.

Original source

By Youssef Khazem

A Libyan human rights group has linked the Manchester Arena bomber to an extremist Libyan group, and has called for transferring the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and to reveal “Qatar’s role as a financier of this group.”

British authorities earlier said that 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was born in Britain, had executed the bombing on May 22, resulting in the deaths of 22 concert-goers and 119 injuries.

The Libyan National Committee for Human Rights demanded from the office of the prosecutor of the ICC and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “to urgently open a comprehensive international investigation in the political intervention in the internal affairs of Libya and the financial and military support from Qatar to Islamist and extremist organizations in Libya,” namely support to groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist organization.

Libyan lawyer and politician Abdulhafith Ghouta said Friday in a telephone interview with Arab News from Cairo, where he resides, that Abedi “belongs to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyyah Al-Muqatilah bi-Libya), which is known for its ties to Qatar,” and that the extent of Qatari support to the organization is no secret.

Ghouta said recent confrontations in Tripoli led to the exit of the group’s base from the city, led by Khalid Al-Sharif, one of the leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

In a statement, the human rights committee said Qatar is at the forefront of countries meddling in Libyan affairs and exacerbating the armed conflict by supporting armed militant groups and political extremists.

Such intervention hindered the democratic process during the transition stage, said the human rights committee, as well as dragging Libya into a new civil war due to violence erupting at the end of 2014 between armed groups loyal to Al-Karama operation and the House of Representatives, and other extremist and Islamist groups named Fajr Libya.

The military, financial, and political support for such groups by Qatar also led to significant deaths and injuries of civilians and military personnel due to suicide terror operations and assassinations in Benghazi, Darna and Barak, the human rights committee said.

The committee went on to state that Qatari meddling and intervention since 2011 further propagates violence and humanitarian crises, a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning arms in Libya.

By Mohammed Nosseir

Citizens who have valuable ideas and a genuine desire to serve their country should have a legal and productive space in which to work. Smart governments should enable citizens to benefit their country by channelling their ideas and energy constructively. Preventing people from doing so runs the risk that they will release their thinking and energy destructively.

Political Islamists are Egypt’s clear and present enemy. By default, their strength lies in the underground work they have been doing for almost a century. After the Jan. 25, 2011 revolution, we were all shocked when these secret organizations managed to win both the presidential election and the majority of seats in Parliament.

These entities are not concerned with civil society laws; they know how to reach out to their target groups in gloomy settings, injecting their audiences with false beliefs and mobilizing them whenever the need arises, often in harmful ways.

Egypt’s true challenge is about mobilizing its masses. Millions of citizens with substantial spare time could easily be either constructively occupied or destructively engaged. Bringing citizens’ beliefs and activities to the surface is the only way to enable us to identify and fight the false beliefs of political Islamists.

The government has neither the capacity nor the means to argue with millions of misguided citizens; our best option is to rely on civil society to undertake this task and manage civil society activities.

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, a strong believer in the role of the state at the expense of its citizens, is confident that he can use the state apparatus to exert full control over civil society. But regardless of the strength of its apparatus, the stability of the Egyptian state can never be realized exclusively by statesmen.

It needs the endorsement of its citizens, accompanied by a functional rule of law that everyone complies with. Threatening members of civil society organizations with imprisonment is undermining state stability.

Political Islam is still the largest political force in Egypt. While barring political Islamists from politics may temporarily weaken their influence in that sphere, it does not eliminate their entities or change the beliefs of their members. Confronting political Islamists with an iron fist might intimidate people for a while, but it does not constitute a permanent and valid remedy for Egypt’s chronic disease.

The country has a very large population. Fragmenting and polarizing civil society may enable the state to better manipulate Egyptians, but if a crisis occurs, the state will need entities to talk to and rely upon to mobilize the people. Weakening civil society and reducing its activities strengthens political Islamists at the expense of the state. Egypt’s strength lies in its civil society, which carries out a large portion of development and charity work.

Our country needs a new civil society law that is formulated by people who have been voluntarily working in this field for many years, and that advises us on the best methods to engage their peers in civil society activities. The more we encourage Egyptians to work via proper, transparent channels, the better our country will be secured.

Restricting civil society by promulgating a law that threatens its members with imprisonment will discourage many sincere citizens from taking part in the country’s development, opening the way for Egyptians working underground to expand their secret activities.

• Mohammed Nosseir, a liberal politician from Egypt, is a strong advocate of political participation and economic freedom. He can be reached on Twitter @MohammedNosseir.

The 2016 Hurricane Season is the longest hurricane season since 1951, making the 2016 season the 2nd longest on record. That’s the conclusion drawn in a paper just published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Lead author Jennifer Collins, PhD, associate professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL, writes “Overall 2016 was notable for a series of extremes, some rarely and a few never before observed in the Atlantic basin, a potential harbinger of seasons to come in the face of ongoing global climate change.”

“The 2016 North Atlantic Hurricane Season: A season of Extremes” examines 15 tropical storms, seven hurricanes and three intense hurricanes. The season was slightly above average when considering Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE), which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses to measure cyclonic activity.

Hurricane Alex started the 2016 season in January, causing minor damage in the Azores. The season ended 318 days later in late November when Otto made landfall over southern Central America. Otto was record-breaking in location and intensity being a high-end Category 2 storm.

In October, Hurricane Matthew became a Category 5 at the southernmost latitude on record for the North Atlantic Ocean. It was the first Category 5 in almost a decade and ended the longest stretch without one since 1950. Matthew claimed more than 600 lives, mainly in Haiti, and caused $15 billion in damage.

Up until that point, conditions had been extremely dry. A dramatic change in relative humidity lead to the month generating more than 50% of the season’s ACE. It’s also the first October to have two Category 4 or stronger storms.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he believes former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was wrong to leak U.S. spy secrets, but is no traitor, Reuters said.

Snowden, 33, was given asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking classified information about U.S. spy operations. His lawyer said in January Snowden had the right to remain in Russia until 2020 and to apply for Russian citizenship next year.

Putin, a former KGB officer and ex-head of Russia’s FSB security service, made his comments about Snowden in an interview with U.S. film director Oliver Stone, excerpts of which were released ahead of its broadcast by U.S. TV network Showtime from June 12.

“Snowden is not a traitor,” said Putin. “He did not betray the interests of his country, nor did he transfer any information to any other country that would damage his own people,” said Putin.

However, the Russian leader said Snowden should have resigned from his job in the same way he once resigned from the KGB rather than leak secrets if he didn’t like what he was doing.

“He shouldn’t have done it (leaked secrets). My view is that what he did was wrong,” Putin told Stone.

Snowden had the right to act in the way he did however, said Putin, who said he agreed that U.S. surveillance had become too intrusive, while praising his own country’s intelligence services for operating within the law.

Putin also criticized U.S. eavesdropping on its own allies like Germany, saying such activity inevitably backfired.

“Trying to spy on your allies, if you really consider them allies and not vassals, is just indecent,” said Putin. “It undermines trust, and in the end damages your own national security.”

Snowden has used social media to criticize the Russian authorities over a law obliging communications companies to store phone calls and Internet activity for six months. The Russian authorities have not commented on those remarks.

The startling extent to which man-made pollution is devastating China’s vital ecosystem’s ability to offset damaging carbon emissions has been revealed.

A pioneering new international study, led by the University of Exeter, has looked at the true impact air pollutants have in impeding the local vegetation’s ability to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere.

The study looked at the combined effects that surface ozone and aerosol particles – two of the primary atmospheric pollutants linked to public health and climate change – have on China’s plant communities’ ability to act as a carbon sink.

It found that ozone vegetation damage – which weakens leaf photosynthesis by oxidizing plant cells – far outweighs any positive impact aerosol particles may have in promoting carbon uptake by scattering sunlight and cooling temperatures.

While the damage caused to these vital ecosystems in China is not irreversible, the team of experts has warned that only drastic action will offer protection against long-term global warming.

The study is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Professor Nadine Unger, from the University of Exeter’s Mathematics department and co-author of the paper said: “We know that China suffers from the highest levels of air pollution in the world, and the adverse effects this has on human health and climate change are well documented.

“What is less clearly understood, however, is the impact it has on the regional carbon balance. The land ecosystems in China are thought to provide a natural carbon sink, but we didn’t know whether air pollution inhibited or promoted carbon uptake.

“What is clear from this study is that the negative ozone vegetation damage far outstrips any benefits that an increase in aerosol particles may have. It is a stark warning that action needs to be taken now to tackle the effects man-made pollution is having on this part of the world before it is too late.”

The team used state-of-the-art Earth System computer models, together with a vast array of existing measurement datasets, to assess the separate and combined effects of man-made ozone and aerosol pollution in Eastern China.

The study found that the Net Primary Productivity (NPP) – or the amount of carbon plants in an ecosystem can take in – is significantly reduced when the amount of surface ozone increases.

Crucially, this reduction is significantly greater than the effect aerosol particles have in encouraging plants to increase carbon intake through reducing canopy temperatures and increasing the scattering of light.

Professor Unger added: “Essentially, our results reveal a strong ‘dampening effect’ of air pollution on the land carbon uptake in China today.

“This is significant for a number of reasons, not least because the increase in surface ozone produced by man-made pollution in the region will continue to grow over the next 15 years unless something is done.

“If – and it is of course a big ‘if’ – China reduce their pollution to the maximum levels, we could reduce the amount of damage to the ecosystems by up to 70 per cent – offering protection of this critical ecosystem service and the mitigation of long-term global warming.”

Greek police early Friday, June 2 began evacuating the last remaining migrants and refugees from a makeshift camp at Hellinikon, a disused former airport and ex-Olympic facility south of Athens, officials said, according to AFP.

“About 450-500 people are in the camp,” police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos told AFP.

“The operation is underway without incident as they had been informed beforehand,” he added.

The mainly Afghan refugees were living at the camp at Hellinikon — which until 2001 was the Athens airport — in crumbling flight lounges and abandoned sports facilities built for the 2004 Olympics.

Rights groups have repeatedly labelled the makeshift camp on Athens’ coastal front unsuitable for long-term accommodation and called on the government to find alternative arrangements for the refugees.

In February, some of the refugees went on hunger strike to protest the lack of hot water and suitable food.

Families will be relocated to another camp near the town of Thiva, and solitary adults will be taken to police headquarters for an identity check, Chronopoulos said.

The refugees were initially deposited at Hellinikon from late 2015 onwards as a temporary measure, as Greece’s leftist government scrambled to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people of all ages landing on Europe’s doorstep to escape war and poverty.

Many of them slept at the port of Piraeus, at Hellinikon and at another improvised camp on the northern Greek border for months before organised camps could be created with the help of volunteer groups and EU funds.

Overall, some 60,000 people including many young Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis, have been stuck in Greece for the past year after neighbouring countries along the migrant route into Europe shut their borders.

At the start of the 2015 influx, Afghans were originally viewed as refugees and allowed to continue their journey from Greece to other countries in Europe.

But many now face deportation — despite growing insecurity that saw civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit a record high in 2016 — after a disputed deal between EU and Kabul to send migrants back.

During the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue, which is being held from June 2-4 in Singapore, the South China Sea (SCS) conundrum will be one of the main topics to be discussed by top military professionals and defense ministers from more than 50 countries.

Vietnam is the second-biggest claimant country in the South China Sea, which it calls the East Sea, issue. To learn more about Vietnam’s views on the East Sea, Code of Conduct, regional peace and security and many other aspects, senior Indonesian journalist Veeramalla Anjaiah interviewed Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Public Security Bui Van Nam in Singapore.

The following are excerpts of the interview.

Question: ASEAN and China on May 18 reached their framework agreement on the Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea in the Chinese town of Guying. Though many details are not yet available, many analysts are already hailing it as a major step toward cooling down tensions. How do you see this framework agreement?

Bui Van Nam: Vietnam welcomes any activities that contribute to maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight in the East Sea in particular and in the region as a whole, including strict compliance with the DOC [Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea] document and pushing forward the conclusion of the CoC.
Over the past few years, much progress has been made in the process of building the CoC. Vietnam and other ASEAN members and China have been making efforts to speed up the finalization of a legally binding, comprehensive and substantive CoC.

It is the common interest of all countries to maintain peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight in the East Sea. Therefore, ASEAN always agrees to the early completion of a legally binding, comprehensive and effective CoC, which will contribute to ensuring peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight in the East Sea; creating a favorable environment to resolve the disputes by peaceful means and in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS].

Question: Mass construction that changes the status quo, as well as the militarization and the deployment of weapons systems in the South China Sea have been creating tensions and uneasiness in the region. What specific measures, according to you, should be taken to avoid conflict in the South China Sea?

Bui Van Nam: Mass construction changing the status quo, militarization and deploying weapons systems in the South China Sea may complicate the situation and escalate tensions, which seriously affect safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight and also threaten peace and stability in the region. These activities violate international law and the DOC.

Vietnam is a peace-loving country. We understand the consequences of conflict and wars; we believe that all progressive nations in the world love peace. So, to avoid conflict in the East Sea, I think we should focus on the following measures:

– First, all the countries must keep calm and exercise self-restraint; stop unilateral activities that lead to complex situations and changes in the status quo; demilitarize and not use or threaten to use force; strengthen dialogue to build up mutual trust and solve differences.

– Second, enhance cooperation and effectively implement existing preventive measures such as the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea [CUES], the ASEAN-China diplomatic hotline to address unexpected maritime incidents at sea and cooperation mechanisms between law-enforcement agencies.

– Third, ASEAN and China must finalize a legally binding, comprehensive and substantive CoC as soon as possible. As this will contribute to ensuring peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and over-flight in the East Sea; create a favorable environment to solve the disputes by peaceful means and in accordance with international law, including the UNCLOS. And, while waiting for the CoC, all countries must comply with the DOC.

– Fourth, promote maritime cooperation in such areas as scientific research, marine and environmental protection, natural-disaster management, rescue and response to terrorism, piracy, human trafficking and illegal migration and so on. These activities will enhance understanding and limit spontaneous actions that may cause misunderstandings and ultimately conflict.

Besides these comprehensive and long-term measures to avoid conflict at sea are complying with international law, especially the principles of the UN Charter, the UNCLOS, the TAC [Treaty of Amity and Cooperation] and the five principles of coexisting in peace.

Vietnam supports any initiatives or cooperation mechanisms that are conducive to the maintenance of peace, stability and the peaceful settlement of maritime disputes based on international law, including the UNCLOS.

Question: What should ASEAN do to reduce tensions on the issue of the South China Sea?

Bui Van Nam: ASEAN must play a key role in maintaining regional peace and should be in the driving seat at regional and global forums. In term of the East Sea, ASEAN must unite since unity is the power and success of the association. Besides, ASEAN members should regularly exchange information, share experience and coordinate stances; respect the spirit of the law, encourage the active implementation of the DOC and push forward the signing of the CoC with China.

Question: What is Vietnam’s approach toward the South China Sea and regional peace and security?

Bui Van Nam: Our position on the East Sea issues is consistent in that, while waiting for a long term and fundamental solution, all parties concerned must exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could complicate or expand disputes; solve all the disputes on territory and jurisdiction rights by peaceful means and refrain from the use or the threat of use of force in accordance with international law, including the UNCLOS.

With regard to regional peace, security and stability, Vietnam supports cooperation mechanisms and initiatives contributing to the maintenance of peace, stability and settlement of disputes, differences and security conflicts through peaceful measures in accordance with international law. The mechanisms, in which ASEAN plays a central role, such as the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM), the ADMM Plus and the ASEAN Regional Forum, have contributed greatly to the process of building confidence and minimizing the risk of collisions and conflicts at sea.
By these efforts, Vietnam has always committed to actively cooperating with other members of ASEAN and out-of-region countries to maintain security, peace and stability in the region. Vietnam is willing to exchange information, cooperate and participate in mechanisms for regional peace and stability.

Question: What is your impression of the Shangri-La Dialogue?

Bui Van Nam: Over 16 years the Shangri La Dialogue has not only attracted more and more attention from senior officials but also the international media.

The Shangri La Dialogue is a forum for participants to exchange views and share experiences for a common goal and contributes to the maintenance of security, peace and stability in the region and the world.

In recent years, the Shangri-La Dialogue has been discussing hotspot security issues and challenges in the region; many ideas and initiatives produced from the Dialogue have been put into implementation, contributing to strengthening security cooperation, maintaining stability and peace in the region.

The European Commission is allocating Euro 300,000 (LKR 51 million approx.) in humanitarian funding to Sri Lanka to bring emergency assistance to communities affected by the recent floods.

“This contribution from the EU will allow our partners on the ground to provide relief to the most-impacted families. This is an expression of solidarity from the European people to the people of Sri Lanka”, said Christos Stylianides, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

The EU-funded assistance will focus on the most pressing needs of the affected families in the immediate aftermath of the floods, including access to clean water and sanitation facilities, the provision of essential household items, as well as emergency shelter.

The EU funding is being made available via the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) through its Small Scale Response mechanism. Additionally, the Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre has activated its Copernicus mapping service upon request from the World Food Program. The Copernicus maps will focus on the Southern and Western areas of Sri Lanka that have been affected by the rains.

A suspected terrorist wanted by the Kingdom of Morocco was arrested in Madrid, Spain.

The 47 year-old man was born in Tetuan (Morocco) and was subject to an International Arrest Warrant issued in May. The detainee is suspected of being a member of a terrorist group preparing acts of terrorism, aimed at disrupting public order, as well as of obtaining funds allocated to finance said activities.

The man arrested, who is a resident of the town of Parla in Madrid, was subject to a police investigation in 2004 and subsequent criminal proceedings related to the Jihadi terrorist attacks carried out in Madrid on 11 March of that year.

This operation falls under the continuous efforts of the General Commissariat of Intelligence of the National Police developed under the framework of the fight against Jihadi terrorism, and specifically, the issue of the International Arrest Warrant by Morocco demonstrates the excellent collaborative relations with the counter-terrorism services of the Kingdom of Morocco (DGST), the Spanish government said.

Since June 2015, the date on which the Ministry of Home Affairs raised the Counter-Terrorism Alert Level to level 4 (Spanish acronym: NAA), the law enforcement agencies have arrested a total of 166 Jihadi terrorists in operations carried out in Spain and abroad, and a total of 214 since the start of 2015.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressed the government’s interest in working with social stakeholders and political groups to reach a State Pact for Industry. He also said that Spain and the European Union share the goal of the industrial sector making up 20% of GDP by 2020.

During the closing event of the workshop entitled “Industry in Spain. Reflections”, organized by the General Union of Workers (Spanish acronym: UGT) trade union in Burgos, Rajoy states that “committing to economic growth and job creation requires backing a strong and competitive industrial sector that must be capable of adapting to a changing and globalized environment and the challenges posed by the digital economy”.

Rajoy pointed out that the industrial sector “is rich in permanent employment, in productivity and in investment in R&D”. In fact, he highlighted, its temporary employment rate is lower than the average and, in the last year, permanent employment has risen by close on 16%, a higher figure than the national average by more than three points. He also remarked that since it is a leading sector in productivity, its average remuneration exceeds other sectors. Employment in industry, he specified, is growing by 3.6%, while the average of the Spanish economy as a whole stands at 2.27%, and 275,000 of those jobs shed have now been recovered.

In order to tackle the changes that the sector must undertake, Rajoy declared that it is necessary “to implement suitable economic policies”. In this regard, he argued that the government’s policy “is good for growth and job creation and for our industry to have the necessary elements to adapt and compete in an increasingly complex, more open and ever-changing world”.

According to Rajoy, industrial policy in Spain must continue down the line of “building” and not undoing what has already been done. “It would be good for us to do this in agreement with all those involved: the government, social stakeholders and political parties”.

Rajoy expressed the government’s interest in agreeing on a Social Pact for Industry or, and this is the same, “all working together in the same direction in order to achieve a strong industrial sector that creates jobs in the globalised economy”.

Rajoy reviewed four fundamental elements of industrial policy: the digital challenge, energy, the new strategic framework and SMEs.

The introduction of digital technologies, he declared, “is a critical element in competition today, and our companies, particularly in industry, must adapt”. To support this digital transformation, the government has approved the Connected Industry Plan 4.0. Furthermore, the government is boosting the rollout of new generation networks so that companies can have physical access to digital infrastructure, he pointed out. By way of example, he mentioned that the Council of Ministers, on 21 April, authorised the calls for proposals for the extension of new generation broadband for a sum of 100 million euros, 58% more than last year.

In relation to energy, Rajoy pointed out that this is a “key issue” for industry, which accounts for some 70% of all electricity consumption. “We must take responsible and balanced decisions”, he argued, “allowing us to meet our environmental targets and the goals for the implementation of new renewable technologies while helping our industry to be more competitive”. It is necessary, he added, for these decisions not to generate energy deficits again.

Students usually don’t think of themselves as a class. They seem “pre-class,” because they have not yet entered the labor force. They can only hope to become part of the middle class after they graduate. And that means becoming a wage earner – what impolitely is called the working class.

But as soon as they take out a student debt, they become part of the economy. They are in this sense a debtor class. But to be a debtor, one needs a means to pay – and the student’s means to pay is out of the wages and salaries they may earn after they graduate. And after all, the reason most students get an education is so that they can qualify for a middle-class job.

The middle class in America consists of the widening sector of the working class that qualifies for bank loans – not merely usurious short-term payday loans, but a lifetime of debt. So the middle class today is a debtor class.

Shedding crocodile tears for the slow growth of U.S. employment in the post-2008 doldrums (the “permanent Obama economy” in which only the banks were bailed out, not the economy), the financial class views the role industry and the economy at large as being to pay its employees enough so that they can take on an exponentially rising volume of debt. Interest and fees (late fees and penalties now yield credit card companies more than they receive in interest charges) are soaring, leaving the economy of goods and services languishing.

Although money and banking textbooks say that all interest (and fees) are a compensation for risk, any banker who actually takes a risk is quickly fired. Banks don’t take risks. That’s what the governments are for. (Socializing the risk, privatizing the profits.) Anticipating that the U.S. economy may be unable to recover under the weight of the junk mortgages and other bad debts that the Obama administration left on the books in 2008, banks insisted that the government guarantee all student debt. They also insisted that the government guarantees the financial gold-mine buried in such indebtedness: the late fees that accumulate. So whether students actually succeed in becoming wage-earners or not, the banks will receive payments in today’s emerging fictitious “as if” economy. The government will pay the banks “as if” there is actually a recovery.

And if there were to be a recovery, then it would mean that the banks were taking a risk – a big enough risk to justify the high interest rates charge on student loans.

This is simply a replay of what banks have negotiated for real estate mortgage lending. Students who do succeed in getting a job hope to start a family, or at least joining the middle class. The most typical criterion of middle-class life in today’s world (apart from having a college education) is to own a home. But almost nobody can buy a home without getting a mortgage. And the price of such a mortgage is to pay up to 43 percent of one’s income for thirty years, that is, one’s prospective working life (in today’s as-if world that assumes full employment, not just a gig economy).

Banks know how unlikely it is that workers actually will be able to earn enough to carry the costs of their education and real estate debt. The costs of housing are so high, the price of education is so high, the amount of debt that workers must pay off the top of every paycheck is so high that American labor is priced out of world markets (except for military hardware sold to the Saudis and other U.S. protectorates). So the banks insist that the government pretends that housing as well as education loans not involve any risk for bankers.

The Federal Housing Authority guarantees mortgages that absorb up to the afore-mentioned 43 percent of the applicant’s income. Income is not growing these days, but job-loss is. Formerly middle-class labor is being downsized to minimum-wage labor (MacDonald’s and other fast foods) or “gig” labor (Uber). Here too, the fees mount up rapidly when there are defaults – all covered by the government, as if it is this compensates the banks for risks that the government itself bears.

From debt peons to wage slaves

In view of the fact that a college education is a precondition for joining the working class (except for billionaire dropouts), the middle class is a debtor class – so deep in debt that once they manage to get a job, they have no leeway to go on strike, much less to protest against bad working conditions. This is what Alan Greenspan described as the “traumatized worker effect” of debt.

Do students think about their future in these terms? How do they think of their place in the world?

Students are the new NINJAs: No Income, No Jobs, No Assets. But their parents have assets, and these are now being grabbed, even from retirees. Most of all, the government has assets – the power to tax (mainly labor these days), and something even better: the power to simply print money (mainly Quantitative Easing to try and re-inflate housing, stock and bond prices these days). Most students hope to become independent of their parents. But burdened by debt and facing a tough job market, they are left even more dependent. That’s why so many have to keep living at home.

The problem is that as they do get a job and become independent, they remain dependent on the banks. And to pay the banks, they must be even more abjectly dependent on their employers.

It may be enlightening to view matters from the vantage point of bankers. After all, they have $1.3 trillion in student loan claims. In fact, despite the fact that college tuitions are soaring throughout the United States even more than health care (financialized health care, not socialized health care), the banks often end up with more education expense than the colleges. That is because any interest rate is a doubling time, and student loan rates of, say, 7 percent mean that the interest payments double the original loan value in just 10 years. (The Rule of 72 provides an easy way to calculate doubling times of interest-bearing debt. Just divide 72 by the interest rate, and you get the doubling time.)

A fatal symbiosis has emerged between banking and higher education in America. Bankers sit on the boards of the leading universities – not simply by buying their way in as donors, but because they finance the transformation of universities into real estate companies. Columbia and New York University are major real estate holders in New York City. Like the churches, they pay no property or income tax, being considered to play a vital social role. But from the bankers’ vantage point, their role is to provide a market for debt whose magnitude now outstrips even that of credit card debt!

Citibank in New York City made what has been accused of being a sweetheart deal with New York University, which steers incoming students to it to finance their studies with loans. In today’s world a school can charge as much for an education as banks are willing to lend students – and banks are willing to lend as much as governments will guarantee to cover, no questions asked. So the bankers on the school boards endorse bloated costs of education, knowing that however much more universities make, the bankers will receive just as much in interest and penalties.

It is the same thing with housing, of course. However much the owner of a home receives when he sells it, the bank will make an even larger sum of money on the interest charges on the mortgage. That is why all the growth in the U.S. economy is going to the FIRE sector, owned mainly by the One Percent.

Under these terms, a “more educated society” does not mean a more employable labor force. It means a less employable society, because more and more wage and consumer income is used not to buy goods and services, not to eat out in restaurants or buy the products of labor, but to pay the financial sector and its allied rentier class. A more educated society under these rules is simply a more indebted society, an economy succumbing to debt deflation, austerity and unemployment except at minimum-wage levels.

For half a century Americans imagined themselves getting richer and richer by going into debt to buy their own homes and educate their children. Their riches have turned out to be riches for the banks, bondholders and other creditors, not for the debtors. What used to be applauded as “the middle class” turns out to be simply an indebted working class.

The massacre of striking Novocherkassk workers by Soviet military units 55 years ago this week initially spread fear throughout the USSR but then helped power the rise of the dissident movement and thus played a key role in the collapse of the communist system and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, according to Russian historians.

The Novocherkassk massacre as the events of June 1-3, 1962, have come to be known, began with workers at the Budyonny Locomotive Factory protesting against conditions in the factory and food shortages in the southern Russian city. The situation there was exacerbated by Nikita Khrushchev’s June 1 decision to raise food prices across the country.

Local police lost control of the situation, and Moscow sent in military units and KGB detachments as well. They shot and killed at least 26 of the strikers and wounded 87 others. The Soviet forces imposed a curfew but people continued to assemble, and more than 100 were arrested. To hide their crimes, the authorities dispersed the bodies across the USSR.

There was no coverage of this event in the Soviet media at the time, and Moscow did not acknowledge it until the glasnost period. But stories about it continued to circulate, both because of the way in which this showed that any close ties between the people and the powers had been shattered and because of the lessons this event had for the future.

On the one hand, such heavy-handed and brutal use of force by the Soviet siloviki worked to spread fear and thus gave Moscow some breathing room after any outburst of dissent. But on the other hand, actions like the one in Novocherkassk showed the limits of force and how it could prove counter-productive.

At least to a certain extent, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin learned that lesson and used force more selectively than did their predecessors. But Vladimir Putin seems to believe as did Stalin and Khrushchev that he can employ force without such blowback. Given that, current discussions of Novocherkassk are especially important.

On this anniversary, journalists from the Kavkaz-Uzel news agency spoke with three Russian historians about the meaning and continuing importance of the Novocherkassk massacre (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/303642/).

Aleksey Makarov of the Association of Researchers on Russian Society says that the Novocherkassk protests reflected “the general dissatisfaction of citizens” about Khrushchev’s policies. Those policies were breaking down “many fundamental links both political and economic” between the regime and the population.

The protest and subsequent shootings not only showed the lack of appreciation among those in power of what was occurring in society but they “destroyed the balance of forces among various structures of the state which led not only to a reduction in the growth of production but to the sharpening of struggle behind the scenes.”

And consequently, Makarov says, “the protest in Novocherkassk bore an exclusively anti-government character.” Indeed, he says, there may very well have been “among the strikers those who wanted to discredit Khrushchev.”

Aleksandr Daniel, a historian at the Memorial Society, points out that the Novocherkassk events were not as isolated as many think. In 1961, there had been strikes in Murom and Krasnodar, and a little earlier there had been serious protests at the metallurgical factory in Temirtau in Kazakhstan.

“As a result of the mass protests,” he continues, “the authorities developed a more careful policy toward the working class,” making concessions rather than using force as they had done in Novocherkassk. But in contrast to what they were doing with the workers, the authorities stepped up their crackdown on the intelligentsia.

According to Daniel, “the events in Novocherkassk gave the party and state elite an understanding of the volcano on which they were sitting. The fear of the elites that massive worker hatred of the authorities might combine with the intelligentsia dissents did not leave them until the disintegration of the USSR.”

And Pavel Kudyukin of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, agrees. He says that Novocherkassk “frightened the leadership of the country and sharply intensified the attention of the KGB to major industrial enterprises and student dormitories. The government recognized that the working class … is no less dangerous for a communist regime than for a capitalist one.”

The massacre also contributed to the growth in unhappiness with Khrushchev among the nomenklatura and thus played a role in his ouster in 1964. But importantly it also meant that Moscow did not increase prices or cut wages from that date “until the end of the 1980s.” These became, thanks to the strike, “’holy cows’” that could not be touched.

“The events in Novocherkassk [also] led to the beginning of a strong dissident movement” because other Russians began to reflect that “’if the workers are striking, this is a good thing,” and those who send tanks against them are “bastards” – and that those bastards “are in the Kremlin” and nowhere else.

If an EMP is detonated at or around an altitude of 40 kilometers (24 miles) above Earth’s surface, it could over most of continental North America.

By Adelle Nazarian

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon detonated mid-orbit over North America’s atmosphere takes out that region’s electric grid, leaving the Western hemisphere vulnerable to cyber and physical attacks and threatening the very lives of large swaths of the population.

If an EMP were to hit the Earth’s surface, it would strike everything within its line of vision and the currents would overheat transformers causing them to fail. As a result, appliances, electronics, water and food distribution systems, telecom centers and transportation mechanisms that are critical to society’s existence would be incapacitated. The results of such an attack would be devastating.

Respected experts advise prudent protective measures to prevent such a scenario, the subject of which was only recently declassified for public consumption.

According to some calculations, in less than one year, nine out of 10 Americans (hundreds of millions) would be left dead due to starvation, disease, civil unrest and eventual societal collapse. Further, key electrical infrastructure would be fried. This includes large power transformers that would potentially take years to replace. This is in part because authorities responsible for maintaining North America’s electrical grid would themselves be incapacitated from an attack, and in part because the parts for these transformers are mostly created abroad in Germany and South Korea.

While much of the media reported North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests as “failures”, upon examining the mode of delivery for an EMP attack, it’s possible these tests were actually successes.

North Korea has threatened to wipe out the United States on several occasions.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, recently suggested that North Korea’s so-called [failed] “missile launch looks suspiciously like practice for an EMP attack. The missile was fired on a lofted trajectory, to maximise, not range, but climbing to high-altitude as quickly as possible, where it was successfully fused and detonated — testing everything but an actual nuclear warhead.”

Pry further noted:

According to South Korean officials, “It’s believed the explosion was a test to develop a nuclear weapon different from existing ones.” Japan’s Tetsuro Kosaka writes in Nikkei, “Pyongyang could be saying, ‘We could launch an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack if things get really ugly.’”

Pry has also suggested that North Korea could have derived its idea for an EMP attack on the US from a Soviet plan during the Cold War to do the same. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union performed multiple documented EMP tests over Kazakhstan, in a series known as “Soviet Project K nuclear tests” or the “K Project.”

Three years ago, the Panamanian government seized a North Korean ship carrying undeclared, Soviet-era Cuban weapons and fighter jets that it hid under sacks of sugar. The ship departed from Russia. At the time, the North Korean government reportedly insisted the weapons were simply being transferred to North Korea to be repaired, before returning them to Cuba.

Two North Korean satellites currently orbit the globe at trajectories optimal for a surprise EMP attack on the United States.

Iran, the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, has openly written about militarily defeating the United States with an EMP attack and has even conducted live missile launches simulating EMP attacks.

In 2015, it was reported that American defence experts discovered and translated a secret Iranian military handbook that indicated Iran has considered carrying out or endorsing an EMPT attack on the United States in approximately 20 different places.

This week, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency will make its first attempt to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a a test. In 2004, The federal Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse concluded that a “high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold our society seriously at risk and might result in defeat of our military forces.”

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director James Woolsey has warned that the US is not prepared to guard against an EMP attack.

Protecting North America’s electricity grid against the threat of an EMP is a necessity even if the North Korean regime is pacified. Aside from the threat of a man-made EMP attack, the Sun also has the capacity to inflict EMP damage on the Earth’s surface. In fact, the Sun’s powerful solar activities could have the same impact as a nuclear bomb.

Several documented solar events attest to the threat from nature. In September 1859, a solar coronal mass ejection (also known as a  solar flare) hit the Earth’s surface and resulted  in severe storms and disruptions in the Earth’s atmosphere. The geomagnetic superstorm became known as the Carrington Event, after an English scientist, Richard C. Carrington, who made the discovery through his observations of flashes of light and active Sun spots.

While the Carrington Event occurred during pre-electricity days — the telephone was invented 17 years later in 1876 — it had a major impact on the day’s primary communication network: telegraphs. The solar flare caused telegraph poles to burst into flames around the world and the Atlantic Cable, which had just been laid on the ocean floor, was destroyed by the solar flare.

At that time, the event was hardly catastrophic. The majority of the world’s  population, after all, lived in rural areas and telegraphs were not necessary for society’s survival. Today, however, society has been shaped around the use of electronic devices; all of which would be incapacitated in an EMP attack.

Even with the Sun’s solar cycle at possibly the lowest frequency in the past 100 years, the potential exists for a damaging storm. And this lull is only temporary. North America, and leader’s around the world, must be prepared for such a threat — whether natural or man-made.

And without a security system or mechanism in place to guard North America’s electric grid, the damage could last for weeks, months or even years. Although it would be difficult, if not impossible, for North America to shield itself from such an attack, it could shield its electrical grid without much effort.

Protecting the North American electrical grid  against the most devastating consequences of an EMP disruption would  require  resources. But the costs incurred would obviously  be much less than human and financial loss in the wake of an EMP disaster. In fact, as little as 8 cents per month (less than $1 dollar per year ) charged to each residential electricity consumer over the course of four to five years could provide the basic national safeguards for our electric grid. Unfortunately,  powerful special interest groups have lobbied against this funding solution.

Texas has so far taken some steps to protect its grid against a potential EMP attack and could be the test grounds for protecting North America from such an event. Texas is optimal because it’s both America’s largest energy producer and operates on its own grid, which is state-run.

Shielding the planet from the Sun’s solar flares is impossible, but it’s certainly possible  to improve the integrity of the electrical grid — considered the “center of gravity” by the United States military — and protect it from repercussions of an EMP.

For instance, the SHIELD Act (Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act), also known as House Resolution 2147, could provide much-need protection. Former CIA Director James Woolsey and Dr. Peter Pry explained in an op-ed that the bill would enable the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to require the electric power industry to protect the national grid from EMP through “selective ‘hardening’ of vital components by using surge arresters, blocking devices, faraday cages, and other proven technologies that the Department of Defense has known for fifty years can reliably protect military systems from EMP.”

One year later, the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense (GRID) Act was introduced in both the House and Senate. The bill would provide the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with new authority to address emergencies and vulnerabilities in America’s electric grid, including the issuance of emergency order to protect the grid from potential threats.

The looming threat of an EMP attack, either by North Korea, Iran or another rogue actor, is cause for lawmakers to take action. In his soon-to-be-released book, Pulse Attack: The Real Story Behind The Secret Weapon That Can Destroy North America, Canadian author and columnist Anthony Furey outlines the threat an EMP attack poses against the United States and Canada, and shines a light on the measures both countries can take to protect their interconnected electrical grids.

If the entire grid goes down, it can not be replaced. It must be built anew. That would result in what is known as a “black start.” Unfortunately, it could take years to  rebuild. By the time they’re completed, 90% of North America’s population could be gone.

The only question is, will we protect ourselves before it’s too late?