Skull of Death: Mass Media, Inauthentic Opposition, and Eco-Existential Reality in a Pre-Fascist Age of Appeasement
Paul Street | counterpunch.org | 2019-07-12
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair | Alongside and consistent with other privilege- and power-serving missions, so-called mainstream corporate media's role is to keep the populace focused as best it can on relatively trivial matters and diverted from the most urgent topics of our time. | Kamala Harris Wants to Kill Your Health Insurance | Two Sundays ago, in a fit of masochistic media research, I watched some cable news talking heads do their weekly news roundups. CNN had a panel of know-it-all neoliberals who reflected on the Democratic Party's first two presidential debates. Everyone agreed that Kamala Harris had…
counterpunch.org/2019/07/12/skull-of-dea…

Djokovic says 'plant-based' diet helps him to 'recover well' and defeat allergies
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2019-07-12
Tennis player Novak Djokovic puts his good health and swift injury recovery times down to his plant-based diet. | The world number one says: I do eat plant-based. I think that's one of the reasons why I recover well. I don't have allergies that I used to have any more. | And I like it. | Over the course of the championships, activists have repeatedly chalked the words "Novak Djokovic is vegan" on the pavement around Wimbledon station. | But the 32-year-old insists: | I don't like the labels, to be honest. I do eat plant-based (food), for quite a few years already. | But because of the misinterpretations of labels…
thecanary.co/discovery/news-discovery/2019/07/12/djokovic-says-plant-based-diet-helps-him-to-recover-well-and-defeat-allergies/

Biden Calls ACA a Breakthrough for Mental Health Parity. That's Not Quite True
Staff | truthout.org | 2019-07-12
In a sit-down interview with CNN, 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden touted the Obama administration's passage of the Affordable Care Act, asserting that this law evened out the playing field when it came to insurance coverage of mental and physical health. | "We made parity between mental health and physical health," Biden told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "It was a fundamental breakthrough in how we thought about how things should work." | This gets at a health care issue that — as a federal appeals court weighs Obamacare's constitutionality — is now particul…
truthout.org/articles/biden-calls-aca-a-…

New Ruling Jeopardizes Reproductive Care Access for Nearly 4 Million People
Staff | truthout.org | 2019-07-12
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled the Trump administration's domestic "gag rule," which bans federal family planning dollars from going to health-care providers who perform abortions or refer patients for abortion services, can take effect everywhere but the state of Maryland. | The ruling jeopardizes comprehensive reproductive health-care access for nearly 4 million people. | "This is devastating news for the millions of people who rely on Title X for cancer screenings, HIV tests, affordable birth control, and other critical primary and preventive care," Dr. Leana Wen, Planned Parenthood Fe…
truthout.org/articles/new-ruling-jeopard…

UN's Guterres condemns ongoing airstrikes on Syria's hospitals, medical workers
United Nations | un.org | 2019-07-12
Reports that airstrikes have hit several health facilities in north-west Syria have been strongly condemned by the UN Secretary-General.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2019/07/1…

Calif. mental health clinicians to Kaiser Permanente: Let us care for patients
Marilyn Bechtel | peoplesworld.org | 2019-07-12
After a three-week voting process, some 4,000 mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout California have rejected the health care giant's latest contract proposals by an overwhelming 88%, signaling a new phase in their long struggle to assure prompt and effective treatment for their patients. As they announced their decision June 11, the clinicians …
peoplesworld.org/article/calif-mental-he…

Pathologizing Kids, Pharma Style
Martha Rosenberg | counterpunch.org | 2019-07-12
Millions of kids today are on meds for conduct disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, mixed manias, social phobia and, of course, ADHD. But according to data from IMS health in a Wall Street Journal article, just as many kids are being treated for non-psychiatric conditions that were often considered…
counterpunch.org/2019/07/12/pathologizin…

"Strategic Extremism": How Republicans and Establishment Democrats Use Identity Politics to Divide and Rule
T.J. Coles | counterpunch.org | 2019-07-12
As we know, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are bought, sold, and paid for by big business. For that reason, both have a history of avoiding the issues that are common to Americans of all political persuasions. Addressing such issues would undermine the profits of big business. They include free healthcare, living…
counterpunch.org/2019/07/12/strategic-ex…

5G Threatens Weather Forecasting. Devastating Health Impacts
Renee Parsons | globalresearch.ca | 2019-07-12
It comes as no surprise that the American public remains oblivious to a not-so-slight glitch in the 5G Race with China as the US strives to be the first, the best and most technologically advanced country in the world with …
globalresearch.ca/5g-threatens-weather-forecasting-devastating-health-impacts/5683373

How to Pay for Major Progressive Programs: Add New Money to the System
Staff | truthout.org | 2019-07-12
The Democratic Party has clearly swung to the progressive left, with candidates in the first round of presidential debates coming up with one program after another to help the poor, the disadvantaged and the struggling middle class. Proposals ranged from a Universal Basic Income to Medicare for All to a Green New Deal to student debt forgiveness and free college tuition. The problem, as Stuart Varney observed on FOX Business, was that no one had a viable way to pay for it all without raising taxes or taking from other programs,…
truthout.org/articles/how-to-pay-for-it-…

Immigrant children sent to Chicago shelters are traumatized and sick, in some instances with chickenpox or tuberculosis
Melissa Sanchez, Duaa Eldeib and Jodi S Cohen | nationofchange.org | 2019-07-12
The Trump administration is sending immigrant children who are alone, afraid and sick with fever, chickenpox and even tuberculosis to shelters in Chicago, where they are further isolated to prevent the spread of disease, according to one of the nonprofit organizations caring for them. In yet another byproduct of the administration's immigration policy, many of …
nationofchange.org/2019/07/12/immigrant-…


How to fight off a bad case of "CHS" Flu
Jim Hightower | nationofchange.org | 2019-07-12
| Unfortunately, an exotic flu epidemic has broken out in Washington, DC. Dubbed the "Canadian Hot Sauce Flu," it uniquely afflicts a particular group of Democratic officeholders and operatives. CHS Flu renders its victims weaker than Canadian hot sauce, leaving them unable to stand boldly for the workaday majority they're supposed to represent. Instead, the afflicted — who are mostly old-line Party leaders — are reduced to don't-rock-the-boat corporatism and conservative appeasement when advancing…
nationofchange.org/2019/07/12/%e2%80%a8h…

North America's Opioid Addiction Problem and the Institutional Machinery Keeping It Alive
Julian Vigo | counterpunch.org | 2019-07-12
I recently watched the 2017 documentary, Heroin(e), directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon which focuses upon three women–a fire chief, a judge, and a missionary–battling West Virginia's opioid epidemic. Set in Appalachia's Cabell County, this film examines the financial and real-life costs of reviving addicts in what very much seems to be an endless cycle of IV…
counterpunch.org/2019/07/12/north-americ…

Melbourne's safe injecting facility under spotlight
pip.hinman | greenleft.org.au | 2019-07-12
Since its opening mid-last year, Melbourne's safe injecting room in North Richmond has received significant media attention. | The consensus is that the facility is saving lives and reducing substance use on the streets. | North Richmond Community Health, which is operating the facility as a two-year pilot project, has reported that 650 overdoses have been successfully reversed. | Yet community concern persists that the facility is centralising Melbourne's drug scene, with North Richmond being described as a "honey pot" for drug traffickers. | North Richmond Community Health medical director Nicholas Clark says t…
greenleft.org.au/content/melbournes-safe-injecting-facility-under-spotlight

US House Applauded for Approval of 'Sweeping' Provisions That Target Toxic 'Forever Chemicals'
Jessica Corbett, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2019-07-12
Public health and environmental advocates celebrated a victory Friday as the U.S. House approved an amendment in the annual defense spending bill that would designate a class of "forever chemicals" as "hazardous substances" under the federal Superfund law. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files… …
commondreams.org/news/2019/07/12/us-hous…

DP World workers take strike action over conditions
pip.hinman | greenleft.org.au | 2019-07-12
Up to 2000 waterfront workers at DP World container terminals across Australia went on strike to oppose the multinational company's attacks on working conditions. The strikes began on July 8 and continued through the week, with workers in Brisbane, Fremantle and Sydney striking for 48 hours and for 96 hours in Melbourne. | The industrial action by members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was taken in opposition to the use of automation, outsourcing, cuts to income protection insurance and dishonest bargaining by the company, which is using change provisions in existing agreements to secure outcomes it can…
greenleft.org.au/content/dp-world-workers-take-strike-action-over-conditions

"Unconscionable & Unacceptable": Rep. Barragán Decries Detention of Migrant Children in Prison Cells
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-07-11
Yazmin Juárez, the Guatemalan mother whose child died from a lung infection after being held in an ICE detention center, testified before members of a congressional panel Wednesday. She shared the story of her daughter, 19-month-old Mariee, who died last year shortly after being released from the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Juárez filed a $60 million lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services. The House subcommittee convened to examine the treatment of refugees in U.S.
www.democracynow.org/2019/7/11/nanette_b…

Mass measles vaccination campaign begins in Ebola-hit DR Congo province
United Nations | un.org | 2019-07-11
Health workers have started a massive measles vaccination campaign in north-east Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a region that's in the grip of the second deadliest Ebola virus outbreak on record.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2019/07/1…

Wednesday's Daily Brief: Guterres in Kenya, Prisoners sick in Iran, #GlobalGoals, Myanmar, Ukraine updates, and new space partnership
United Nations | un.org | 2019-07-10
This Wednesday's UN top stories are: latest global terror warnings; political prisoners denied health access in Iran; high-level discussions on Sustainable Development Goals; continued abuse of Rohingya in Myanmar; Odessa killings in Ukraine; and partnering with NASA.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2019/07/1…

Racism: Milwaukee's Public Health Emergency
Isiah Holmes | progressive.org | 2019-07-10
One of the most segregated cities in the United States takes on racism as a health issue.
progressive.org/dispatches/racism-milwau…

How to Pay for It All: An Option the Candidates Missed
Ellen Brown | dissidentvoice.org | 2019-07-10
The Democratic Party has clearly swung to the progressive left, with candidates in the first round of presidential debates coming up with one program after another to help the poor, the disadvantaged and the struggling middle class. Proposals ranged from a Universal Basic Income to Medicare for All to a Green New Deal to student …
dissidentvoice.org/2019/07/how-to-pay-fo…

How the Climate Crisis Is Pushing Central Americans Out of Their Homes Toward the U.S
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-07-10
As the U.S. continues to crack down on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, we look at one of the underreported driving factors leading people to flee their home countries: the climate crisis. John Carlos Frey, author of "Sand and Blood: America's Stealth War on the Mexico Border," spent time with Central American climate refugees traveling in a caravan toward the United States. He says, "If this drought continues, we're looking at all-out famine from Central America. …That's one of the major reasons why they're coming. … The government doesn't even acknowledge the fact that there is a climate c…
www.democracynow.org/2019/7/10/john_carl…

Groundbreaking cancer-fighting drugs now included in updated UN list of essential medicines
United Nations | un.org | 2019-07-09
The UN health agency, WHO, announced on Tuesday that dozens of new drugs have been added to the list of essential medicines that every country should have, including new cancer treatments that can be swallowed rather than injected.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2019/07/1…

Medicare for all means radical change, not just reforms
Esteban Guevara | liberationnews.org | 2019-07-06
Healthcare, along with education, jobs, and affordable housing, are essential human rights indispensable for everyone.
liberationnews.org/medicare-for-all-mean…

House Casts Historic Vote to Repeal Authorization for Endless War
Paul Kawika Martin | peaceaction.org | 2019-06-19
Washington, D.C. — June 19, 2019 — In response to the House of Representatives passing H.R. 2740 (Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Legislative Branch, Defense, State, Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2020), which includes language to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) eight months after …
peaceaction.org/2019/06/19/house-casts-h…