SAR #16179

It's not a health care system, it's a profitable disease system.

Fading Fast: Now that Sanders has been neutered, the Clintonites have killed the Democratic Platform Plank opposing the TPP and TTIP. That's how deep Hilary's convictions went on the trade issue. Stay tuned.

Been There, Done That: Back in March BofA, in collaboration with Freddie Mac, began offering 3% down mortgages with no mortgage insurance required – because the US taxpayer was going to make good the losses. Now Quicken, in cooperation with Freddie Mac, is offering mortgages requiring only1% - once more putting the US taxpayer on the hook. With only 1% down, as soon as the housing market gets a mild chill, thousands of homeowners [sic] will be underwater. A few days later those with only 3% equity will be in the same fix. After which it quickly becomes 2007.

Hand, Slapped: Merrill Lynch got caught “misusing” its customers' cash and has to pay a $415 million fine, while acknowledging no wrongdoing. No one goes to jail, of course. If you do the same thing, it is embezzlement or 'conversion' or, more colloquially, 'playing fast and loose with other people's money' and is a felony. But not if you're a banker.

Purity: Behind closed doors last week, Republicans killed a portion of the annual VA budget bill that would have allowed the VA to prescribe medical marijuana to injured soldiers and those suffering from PTSD. Because maintaining their 'political integrity' (itself an oxymoron) is far more important than the health of veterans who can no longer be deployed to protect other parts of their political idiotology.

The Future Is Now: TransCanada, the folks behind the Keystone XL pipeline, are using the investor-state-dispute-settlement clause of NAFTA to seek $15billion from the US taxpayer to compensate them for the “costs and lost profits” they suffered when the US blocked their pipeline. Globalization does not let citizens to protect themselves or the environment from the greed of corporations.

Healthy Profits: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota is going to stop selling health insurance to individuals and families, claiming significant losses when actual sick people have to be covered. Under slightly different names it will offer more expensive and far more profitable coverage to those who are most unlikely to use it..

Drip, Drip, Drip: A US district judge has ruled that Texas must stop giving its prisoners arsenic-laced drinking water, which means that Texas inmates will be getting better treatment than children in Detroit.
 
Who Is This Guy? Pope Francis says that the Roman Catholic Church and all Christians everywhere should seek forgiveness from gay people for the way they have been treated, to the poor, as well as to women for marginalizing them and to all the children who have been and are being exploited. He also offered apologies for “having blessed so many weapons.”

A Parting Shot: