Month: June 2018

Doctors Without Borders

Or as they are known by most of the world, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)……..that great charity where medical types go around the world helping people that need their help and the rest of the world ignores…..places like Mali, South Sudan, etc.

But first I need to report that my medical procedure was a success…at least for now will know more next week when I go in for a follow-up….as long as I am writing about doctors……

Disturbing news has come to light about this charity……

Aid workers at charity Medecins Sans Frontieres used local prostitutes while working in Africa, whistleblowers have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme.

Female former employees said the behaviour was widespread.

One said a senior colleague said it was possible to barter medication in exchange for sex.

The charity said it does not tolerate “abuse, harassment or exploitation”. The use of prostitutes is banned by MSF under its strict code of conduct.

The women spoke anonymously for fear of being blacklisted by foreign aid agencies, among which there can be a large crossover of staff.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44523086

This is sad news……the UN has been plagued with similar problems……just sad that those there to help eventually take advantage of the people they are there to help.

 

Out Of Pocket

Good Morning My friends I need to explain why I will be out of blogging for the day…..It seems that I must have yet another medical procedure, I will not bore you with the details, but it will keep me occupied for most of the day…..hopefully no longer.

What can I say….getting old SUCKS!

I promise to return Thursday with more strange and unusual stuff to keep you entertained, thinking and commenting…..I wish I could think of something entertaining about the hospital….too old to chase nurses….so where’s the fun?

Thanx for all your visits and your understanding….good blogging my friends……may your day be good and productive…….chuq

Closing Thought–26Jun18

So many people are wondering why the evangelicals are quiet over what the president is doing because they see that it flies in the face of the beliefs of Christianity…..there is an easy answer……they want Trump to appoint those judges that will do the bidding so they can have their way with abortions and forcing their Christian beliefs on the country……

Well the most recent ruling but SCOTUS shows the value of having activists judges on the court……the most recent ruling was on the Trump travel ban………

The Supreme Court has just delivered a major victory to President Trump by upholding his travel ban, reports Politico. The justices split 5-4 along the usual lines, with the conservative majority winning the day. The court actually upheld the president’s third version of his ban, this one issued last fall and originally barring travelers from eight countries, reports the Washington Post. The eight were Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, Venezuela, and North Korea, though Chad was later removed. Six of those countries have Muslim majorities, but the White House insisted to the court that it was not a “Muslim ban.” The state of Hawaii and other challengers disagreed and argued, unsuccessfully, that Trump had exceeded his executive authority with the move.

“SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!,” tweeted Trump after the news broke. The decision ends more than a year of legal arguments about a key component of the president’s immigration policy, notes NBC News. Trump put his first travel ban into effect soon after taking office, but it caused chaos in airports and met stiff resistance in courtrooms. The second iteration didn’t fare much better, but the third has now succeeded. The ban has been in effect since December, when the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect while the legal case played out.

Not to worry there is more……..

The Supreme Court delivered good news on Tuesday to faith-based pregnancy centers that oppose abortion. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices blocked key provisions of a California law requiring the clinics to inform patients about low-cost abortions provided elsewhere, reports the Los Angeles Times. While the court did not strike down all of the law, it returned the case to lower courts, with Clarence Thomas writing in his majority opinion that challengers were “likely to succeed.” He concluded that forcing the clinics to talk to patients about abortions probably violates their free-speech rights, reports the AP. “California cannot co-opt the licensed facilities to deliver its message for it,” Thomas wrote. Chief Justice John Roberts joined him, along with Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.

The law went into effect in 2016 after lawmakers raised concerns that the anti-abortion pregnancy centers were using “intentionally deceptive advertising and counseling practices,” per the LAT. The law was two-pronged, explains NPR. If a center was unlicensed, it had to make that fact prominently known, including in signs and advertising. If the center was licensed but did not provide abortions, it had to post signs saying that the procedures were provided by the state. While the law affects only California clinics, the court ruling could have ramifications in other states. However, as USA Today notes, that might actually be good news for those who support the right to have an abortion. For example, the ruling could possibly be used to strike down laws in conservative states requiring women to have ultrasounds before an abortion.

This is what you get when activist judges are the priority for appointment to the Supreme Court…..

I will be out of pocket tomorrow……I will explain in tomorrow’s post…..chuq

Mash Up To War

WE are celebrating World War One…..this year, 2018, will be the 100th year of the end of the “War To End War” in November.

This war is about like the War of 1812….Americans have erased it from their minds…..so keeping with my attempt to keep the memory of this war alive I would like to write about the events that lead to this world war…..

World War I was caused by a combination of several factors but above all, it was caused by the tensions between the European powers and crisis of the balance-of-power system that divided Europe into two camps. While one camp, joining Great Britain, France and Russia (Triple Entente) strove to preserve the fragile balance between the European great powers, the second camp that formed around German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Italy (Central Powers) was challenging it. Discussed below are specific events that led to one of the most devastating military conflicts in history.

http://historylists.org/events/10-events-that-led-to-world-war-i.html

Why did the US decide to enter into World War One after all it was fought in Europe and was no threat to mainland America?

And NO the sinking of the Lusitania was not the trigger that made America break its neutrality….

Then what was the reason?

The simple answer is a telegram……

After remaining neutral since the war’s start, the United States entered World War I because Germany continued to wage unrestricted submarine warfare, which resulted in the sinking of American ships. The interception of the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany petitioned Mexico to join against the US, was another major factor. On April 6, 1917, Congress decided to declare war on Germany.

Your history class is finished for the day……

The Moral High Ground Is Gone

For many years the US has been the champion of human rights…we have tried to help when there has been a refugee crisis…that is until about 25 years ago when we started pulling away from any responsibility for we were helping create the problem.

Misery has become a weapon of war these days……

From Syria to Yemen, from South Sudan to Venezuela, war and political crisis are causing human anguish on a scale unseen in a generation.

That conflict and crisis take a high human toll is hardly new, of course. Yet the scope of suffering today is striking. The number of people displaced globally by conflict and persecution stood at 65.6 million at the end of 2016, the greatest number since World War II. Figures released earlier this month show that there were 11.8 million new internal displacements in 2017, nearly double the 6.9 million in 2016. The number of people facing acute hunger globally due largely to conflict and instability reached almost 74 million across eighteen countries in 2017. The trend is clear: war and crisis are destroying more lives and livelihoods, pushing more people toward starvation and driving more people from their homes.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/misery-strategy-human-cost-conflict

In the last 10 years we, the US, has contributed to the Middle East refugee crisis…..and now that we have officially pulled out of the UN humanitarian efforts we can NO longer claim any moral high ground and need to keep our mouths shut.

The crisis in the Syrian desert is just such an example……there is lots of finger pointing and little effort to solve the problem…..

Looking at a map, nothing would seem easier than to drive a convoy of food and medical supplies to Rukban, a camp for refugees and displaced civilians on the Syrian–Jordanian border some 260 kilometers east of Damascus. Though the terrain is rough, the camp is located in an area of relative calm and stability, and it could be reached from Amman, Damascus, or both. But Syria’s seven-year civil war says otherwise.

All sides now blame each other for preventing aid deliveries to the tens of thousands of Syrians trapped in this desolate desert region, and Rukban has emerged as a cruel illustration of how civilians are snared in the tangled threads of sovereignty and proxy control that constitute current-day Syria.

https://tcf.org/content/report/blame-game-syrians-stranded-desert/

Many countries contributed to the creation of this problem, including the US, and few want to help solve the very problems they have created.

Personally, my thoughts are if you had a hand in creating the problem then it is on your shoulders to solve it…..but instead we are asking those countries least able to weather the refugee crisis to do the heavy lifting.

I say that every defense contract has a provision in it that “X” amount of the profits go to a fund to help refugees…administered by Switzerland through the UN.

It is time for Americans to re-claim the moral high ground in war…but that will not happen in this writers lifetime….sad but there is hope, a small glimmer but hope nonetheless.

Closing Thought–25Jun18

The past week the screaming and yelling on the news and in most so-called conserv blogs has been about the border situation….if I need to catch you up then try Google I will not waste my time…..but the news that the corporate Americans would be watching have very little to do with the border…..

Following tariffs recently imposed on steel and aluminum, U.S. businesses have been forced to pay more than $110 million in tariffs in just 13 days according to the Customs and Border Patrol. The U.S. took in $82.2 million in steel tariffs and $28.3 million in aluminum tariffs between June 1-14.

The unintended consequences of tariffs are vast, and have a harmful ripple effect throughout our economy. In just two weeks, U.S. businesses could have spent $110 million in a much different way. Consider the following:

$110 million is enough to hire 2,000 out of work Americans at $55k salaries for an entire year.

$110 million is enough to purchase 4,000 brand new, American made, Jeep Wranglers using the MSRP of $27,495.

https://freedompartners.org/press/report-tariffs-cost-u-s-businesses-more-than-100-million-in-just-two-weeks/

Apparently “Freedom Partners” is not here to cover the horrible policies to this man we call “president”….

I realize that economics is not something most conservs can get a grip on…but all the yelling about the border has done nothing to strengthen our economy and neither has the policies of the dude in the White House.  (Please do not taunt the stock market as proof….there is more to an economy than the markets….if you need a quick refresher course on economics…..https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics)

Time for a change…..period!

Coming Together In Peace

That is the feeling that we get from some of the news reports on the outcome of the Kim-Trump “summit”….and yet not everyone is on-board with this feeling…..

An implicit coalition of corporate media, Democratic partisans and others loyal to the national security state are actively hostile to any agreement that would endanger the continuation of the 70-year-old Cold War between the United States and North Korea.

The hostility toward Donald Trump on the part of both corporate media (except for Fox News) and the Democratic Party establishment is obviously a factor in the negative response to the summit. Trump’s dysfunctional persona, extremist domestic strategy and attacks on the press had already created a hyper-adversarial political atmosphere that surrounds everything Trump says or does.

https://original.antiwar.com/porter/2018/06/21/an-elite-coalition-emerges-against-a-trump-kim-agreement/

I think that the meeting was a good idea….since we are not privy to what was actually said in the meeting of the personas I will give them the benefit of the doubt….I think that the media is giving this “summit” too much credit…it was a meeting for two leaders and that is all….any progress toward peace will be made or not in the negotiations that are to come.

So was this meeting a success?  You betcha.  The photo ops were worth their weight in gold as they say…..and it gave enough speculation to the media to keep them going for awhile or until something new grabs their attention….and it has.