David Corn: Obama’s Hope-a-Dope Strategy

Progressives are furious that Obama, yet again, pulled his punches. The White House says it's all part of the master plan.

By David Corn | Tue Aug. 2, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/obama-tactics-liberal-anger

You may remember the moment when Barack Obama declared war on the Republican game plan—or so it seemed. Five days after negotiating a budget-cutting deal [1] that averted a government shutdown in April, Obama gave a speech [2] at George Washington University, slamming the GOP over the slash-and-burn budget proposal [3] of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Republicans, he declared, were pushing a "deeply pessimistic" vision [4] of America's future: "This is a vision that says even though Americans can't afford to invest in education at current levels or clean energy, even though we can't afford to maintain our commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy." Such a vision, Obama vowed, would not prevail "as long as I'm president."

Fighting words—and liberals were elated. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic cheered [9], "He beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp.…He expressed moral outrage in a way I've never heard him do before, and in a way I didn't think he was capable of."

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"Ed Silverman" - NIH Proposal On Conflicts Of Interest Is Gutted

By Ed Silverman // August 2nd, 2011 // 11:15 am

http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/08/nih-proposal-on-conflicts-of-interest-is-gutted/

One year after proposing to strengthen conflicts of interest rules for grant recipients, the National Institutes of Health has apparently gutted a key provision that would require universities to disclose financial ties between academic researchers and industry on publicly accessible web sites, according to Nature.

Specifically, the NIH proposal would require academic researchers who receive agency funding to more thoroughly report any financial conflicts of interest, and also require institutions - such as universities - to do a better job of gathering this information and then forwarding it to the NIH. This would include posting info on a web site.

At the time the proposal was made in May 2010, NIH director Francis Collins (see photo) told a media briefing that “the way in which science is moving forward, in order to be successful, partnerships between NIH funded researchers and industry are essential, they have been and will be, but we need to preserve the public trust” (read here).

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Stuart Jeanne Bramhall: Teenagers -- God's Answer to Psychological Oppression

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Teenagers-God-s-Answer-to-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-110802-151.html

August 2, 2011

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Much has been made of the role of youth in sparking the so-called "Arab Spring" revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. The historical significance of the mass insurrections in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria is yet to be determined -- given their failure to bring about genuine political reform. Even Egypt, which received the most media attention, remains under the firm control of the Egyptian military, which has banned strikes and continues to shoot, arrest and torture protestors.

Nevertheless, the willingness of Arab citizens to engage in public protest against some of the most oppressive regimes in the world is a new and significant phenomenon. It highlights the distinction between political and psychological oppression. Psychological repression is a state of wholesale resignation. A population makes no attempt to resist, owing to their belief they will be utterly crushed. Although the Arab populations in the Middle East and North Africa remain politically oppressed, they have made giant strides in overcoming their psychological oppression.

The Role of Youth in Sparking Revolutions

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Alliance for Natural Health: NDI Draft Guidance is a Big, Fat Gift to Big Pharma

Alliance for Natural Health,  August 2, 2011 @ 5:42 pm In Uncategorized | No Comments

http://www.anh-usa.org/ndi-draft-guidance-is-a-big-fat-gift-to-big-pharma/

Want to let the drug industry take your favorite supplements off the market, patent them, and sell them back to you—by doctor’s prescription only—for 10 or 100 (or even more) times what you’re paying now? A follow-up to our recent Action Alert ^[1].

As Big Pharma becomes more desperate to boost flagging profits, the industry will likely use this tactic to find new sources of revenue—and shame on the FDA for so blatantly aiding and abetting it!

This coming year, seven of the world’s twenty bestselling drugs will lose their patent protection and can be sold in generic forms. On this list are the top two money-makers ever created: cholesterol fighting (but overall health-threatening) Lipitor ^[2] and blood thinning (but bone-destroying) Plavix. This wave of expiring drugs patents will have unprecedented and devastating effects on the industry bottom line. One drug recently made available in generic form—Protonix, a medication for severe heartburn ^[3] (again, not a drug we would use, and especially dangerous when used with the blood-thinner mentioned above)—previously cost about $170 per month when it was still under patent; its generic version now costs $16. With seven of the top-selling drugs expected to see similarly drastic drops in prices, the drug industry is in a panic ^[4]—especially considering the fact that there are no new “blockbuster” drugs in the pharmaceutical industry pipeline. Under these circumstances, why not try to turn some supplements into drugs?

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"Finian Cunningham" - The US Dictatorship and its White House Servant ‘President’

If there is one thing that the office of President Barack Obama demonstrates it is that democracy does not exist in the United States. This may seem a rather outlandish statement. For many people, the fact that the 44th president is the first black man to preside over the White House – with its American colonial-style architecture – is a tribute to the triumph of US democracy.

But many other more telling facts indicate that Obama is but a figurehead of an unelected government in the US. This unelected power of corporate elites – commercial, financial, military – governs with the same core policies regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Whether these policies are on social, economic or foreign matters, the elected president must obey the direction ordained by the unelected elite. That kind of untrammeled power structure conforms more closely in practice to dictatorship, not democracy.

As Michael Hudson and Ellen Brown reveal in their analyses of the US budget debacle, Obama is pathetically doing the bidding of Wall Street – much like an errand boy [1] [2].

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"Tony Cartalucci" - Globalist Imperial Network

Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
July 30, 2011

The mechanics of world empire, in particular the current corporate-financier oligarchy has been examined in great detail. The US State Department, supporting NGOs funded directly by both US taxpayers’ money as well as funds from the Fortune 500 corporations they serve, alone constitute a global spanning, incessantly meddling homogeneous network working to undermine both personal and national sovereignty while replacing national governments around the world.

This is far from a conspiracy theory – it is stated fact admitted to by the US State Department itself who regularly announces its funding of subversive activities around the globe from training, equipping, and funding hordes of youth activists years before the “Arab Spring” unfolded, to helping dupes in China circumvent national cyber defenses, to forming brigades of youth fodder to take to the streets in Belarus and Malaysia, to propping up pro-globalist propaganda outlets like Prachatai in Thailand.

Perhaps sensing that the secrecy and public ignorance the global elite have been operating behind for decades is now fading, globalist footstool and degenerate warmonger Anne-Marie Slaughter has written a sweeping essay openly admitting “foreign policy” is moving beyond governments and being put into the hands of unelected organizations, corporations, NGOs, and “social movements.” By social movements, Slaughter cites and apparently is referring to the “Arab Spring” which is on record the result of US meddling and organizing, and nothing close to resembling true grassroots activism. It is merely the latest trick out of the social engineering, human exploitation, propagandist playbook.

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"Ethan A. Huff" - Scientists hyping 'universal' flu shot to perpetuate vaccine scam

by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

http://www.naturalnews.com/033206_universal_flu_shot_vaccinations.html

(NaturalNews) Influenza vaccination rates are on the decline as Americans increasingly learn not only that flu shots contain harmful additives like Thimerosal (mercury), but also that they do not even work as claimed (one of the "side effects" of getting a flu shot, after all, is the flu itself).

So in order to convince the public into believing that flu vaccines are useful and necessary, experts from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are now touting the advent of a "universal" flu vaccine currently in the works that will supposedly protect against all types of flu.

According to USA Today, scientists are currently working on a universal flu vaccine that targets certain unchanging characteristics of flu viruses that are common among many strains. Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the NIH, says that the viral coatings of every flu strain contain some of the same, universal characteristics. So it is theoretically possible, he says, to design a vaccine that targets these universal characteristics, and thus target virtually all flu strains.

"There are parts of the viral coat that don't change," said Collins concerning the vaccine concept. "If you designed a vaccine to go after the constant part of the virus, you'd be protected against all strains."

But is creating such a vaccine actually possible, or is the NIH announcement just a pipe dream based on wishful thinking? Or perhaps the idea of a universal flu vaccine is just a ploy to convince people that vaccine science is legitimate, and that vaccines actually work?

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Tom Engelhardt: Lowering America’s War Ceiling?

By Tom Engelhardt
Posted on August 2, 2011, Printed on August 2, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175425/

Imperial Psychosis on Display
By Tom Engelhardt

By now, it seems as if everybody and his brother has joined the debt-ceiling imbroglio in Washington, perhaps the strangest homespun drama of our time.  It’s as if Washington’s leading political players, aided and abetted by the media’s love of the horserace, had eaten LSD-laced brownies, then gone on stage before an audience of millions to enact a psychotic spectacle of American decline.

And yet, among the dramatis personae we’ve been watching, there are clearly missing actors.  They happen to be out of town, part of a traveling roadshow.  When it comes to their production, however, there has, of late, been little publicity, few reviewers, and only the most modest media attention.  Moreover, unlike the scenery-chewing divas in Washington, these actors have simply been going about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

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Annie Lowrey: The Coming Double Dip -- How DC Manufactures Recession

Published on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 by Slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2300560/

The debt-ceiling compromise will do nothing to prevent the economy from tumbling into a second recession.

by Annie Lowrey

About 14 million Americans are out of workWhat does the last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling do to aid the flagging, faltering economy? Nothing.

About 14 million Americans are out of work. (Slate) The economy is in appalling shape. Last week, the Commerce Department's latest estimate of economic growth left many economists agog. In the second quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent. In the first, it grew at an annual rate of just 0.4 percent, a figure revised down sharply from previous estimates. Based on the first six months of 2011, the economy is growing less than 1 percent per year, about one-third of the speed we would expect during a normal expansion. In short, the recovery has completely stalled and the economy is perilously close to double dipping back into recession.

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"Summer Harrison" - Obama's $1 trillion subsidy to big business insurers

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-1-trillion-subsid-by-Summer-Harrison-110731-758.html

August 1, 2011

By Summer Harrison

Federal hand-outs to the health insurance industry could top $1 trillion in the next five years. Between twenty and fifty percent of that will be saved off the top as net profit.

The handouts are not loans or grants or even tax breaks. They are the product of the Administration's policy supporting auctioning off state Medicaid and federal Medicare contracts to publicly traded, for profit health insurance corporations.

Based on SEC filings for the first three months of 2011, government payments to the top ten for-profit insurers were running around $10.9 billion a month, up ten percent just in the previous six months. Depending on how much fraud is going on, between $1.9 and $5.4 billion of that gets "saved" every month towards corporate profits by the company simply refusing to spend it.

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