Suspicious Angels – Page 2 – Suspicious Angels

U.S. Presidents Lying Their Way into Forever Wars

July 23, 2023July 23, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Indispensable Nation

Why do all U.S. Presidents lie? It seems to come with the oath of office. Like President Lyndon Johnson’s promise to the American people in July,1964 —”We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Eleven months later he sent 100,000 troops to Vietnam and authorized an additional 100,000 in 1966. In all 1.7 million troops were sent to Vietnam. 58,000 of them never came home. Who can ever forget President George W. Bush telling the American people with a straight face that Iraq had a “massive stockpile” of biological weapons. Vice President Cheney followed that whopper up with one of his own —”Simply stated, there’s no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” A pack of lies but they served their purpose — winning public buy-in for the Iraq war which was the next war on the empire’s to-do list. It doesn’t matter whether presidents are democrats or republicans. War is bipartisan. Even the now venerated human rights activist and ex-president Jimmy Carter deliberately propagated lies that led to America’s favorite pastime: war. His CIA bankrolled Muslim extremist groups (collectively known as the Mujahideen) which later came back to bite the U.S. in the form of terrorists with their sights set on America, including Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the “Butcher of Fallujah,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It’s an old story and the fallout is always further bloodshed. Americans are the ultimate losers. As lies become truth and truth goes the way of whalebone corsets, what is left is an empire ludicrously out of touch and out of time. Check out “U.S. Presidents Lying Their Way into Forever Wars.”

Prescription Drugs Prices Are Too Damn High

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Big Pharma Ripping Off American

The topic of today’s article is greed, the kind that U.S. industries are famous for. Making a killing off those least likely to afford it (and that’s includes more than one-half of Americans) is business as usual in America’s capitalist economy. Whether it’s the oil and gas industry making billions in profits by exploiting their monopoly status to raise prices far exceeding the cost of their products, the tech industry minting instant billionaires by trading on the gullibility of the public to pay for outrageously overpriced goods, or the financial crooks that underwrite virtually every new corporate swindle. Slimy as the business practices of these operators are, it is not until you reach the pharmaceutical industry that you have finally arrived at the bottom of the barrel. Big pharma profits to the tune of over half a trillion dollars on the misery and desperation of sick people. The worst place in the world to live if you have a life-threatening illness, particularly cancer, is the U.S. where cancer drugs are three to four times more expensive than any other place on earth. Even patients with insurance are forced to pony up an average of $16,500 every year out of their own pocket to stay alive. Imagine, living in the richest, most powerful country in the world and getting stiffed by big pharma on a scale that wouldn’t be tolerated in any other wealthy country. But in the U.S. the government is a silent partner in the swindle. Heard enough? There’s lots more that will make your blood boil. Check out “Prescription Drug Prices Are Too Damn High” and continue to take your overpriced blood pressure medicine.

Aggression Not Negotiation: The U.S. War Machine On the Hunt

May 29, 2023May 29, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

US Empire

“The “American way of war,” is to seek absolute annihilation and to treat the other side as subhuman monsters bent on world domination.” [Todd Greentree, Foreign Service officer, once stationed in Afghanistan] Whether it’s Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen…the list goes on and on, the U.S. “way of war” in these countries is unnervingly similar. From accusations of a Communist (lately updated to “terrorist) conspiracy to promises to bring American ”values” to the masses, the U.S. MO starts with an invasion, drones, bombs, a cadre of indigenous troops usually at the behest of a U.S. ‘fav’ autocrat doing the dirty work of the empire in-house. But what about the U.S. State Department? Isn’t the Secretary of State supposed to be America’s chief negotiator? Not so fast. The U.S. always starts an invasion convinced (by the generals) despite a history of failed interventions that it can beat the enemy du jour on the battlefield. Negotiating is for weak countries not the world’s sole super-power. Reality always proves them wrong. The latest candidate is this cavalcade of missteps is Ukraine. Here’s how it works. First the chest pounding and inflated promises. Here’s President Biden on March 26, 2022, predicting the imminent demise of Russia: “Russia’s ruble is reduced to rubble. Their economy will be cut to half. The ruble is crumbling now.” [President Biden, March 26, 2022] Two months later: “Russia’s ruble strengthens to 57.1 per US Dollar, its strongest in over four years.” Now with most of the world, including NATO “partners,” predicting the defeat of Ukraine, Biden digs in “America . . . will stand with you as long as it takes.” (State of the Union, Feb 7), How long do you think it will take before Biden and the rest of his war cabinet do their usual two-step out of Ukraine leaving the pain and suffering of its people in the rearview mirror? For more on the pernicious history of U.S. foreign policy disasters tune into “Aggression Not Negotiation: The U.S. War Machine On the Hunt”

Watch Out: There may be G-Men Under Your Bed

April 30, 2023May 1, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Surveilled Country

Time to face facts. The U.S. has shed the democratic principles that at its founding made it the envy of the rest of the world. It is now the world’s war machine, a pariah of violence and destruction spending more on war than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine — combined. Its foreign policy has devolved into regime change wars, invasion of sovereign countries and imposition of economic sanctions that bring starvation and death to the world’s people. Domestically, the birth of the national security state has made the American people the most surveilled among the world’s advanced nations. Censorship, the handmaiden of surveillance, has become a new cottage industry. The repression of speech too massive a task for the government alone has been subcontracted to powerful corporations, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon. The U.S. is a declining nation using its overwhelming military might to barely hold on to the title of the world’s hegemon. Rewinding the historical tape one hundred years, we are reminded that the U.S. has been treading this dangerous path for the last one hundred years. (if not since 1777). Want to see history repeating itself with disastrous consequences for the mass of Americans? Check out “Watch out. There may be G-Men Under Your Bed.”

Profiteers vs Patients: The Two Faces of US Healthcare

April 3, 2023April 6, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Hospital Bill

It’s a country where more than 355,000 people die every year from untreated health problems. 14% are regularly denied medical care because of an unpaid bill, often less than $100. 34 million have friends or family members who died because they could not afford medical care. Unbelievably, it also happens to be the richest country in the world. It’s the U.S. where life expectancy is the lowest of all the advanced economies of the world. Despite a $4.3 trillion price tag, the U.S. healthcare system never fails to disappoint. Unregulated and privatized, healthcare in the U.S. takes its toll on virtually every American. Who’s guarding the hen house?

Government regulators are rewarded with lucrative job offers if they look the other way and they do. It’s a system where the winners are few and handsomely rewarded and the losers are everybody else forced to make do with an industry that puts profits ahead of patients. Only those with a strong stomach should read “Profiteers vs Patients: The Two Faces of US Healthcare.”

A Battle for the Ages: Antiwar Protestors Meet the U.S. War Machine

March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

The Peace In Ukraine

Do antiwar protests prevent or stop U.S military actions all over the world? A hard question to answer. Although demonstrations and protests have accompanied every U.S. war in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, their success as a change agent is mixed. Demonstrations and rallies accompanied every phase of the Vietnam war. But it took over a decade of a losing war and a shattered presidency to make Congress turn off the money spigot financing the war. History repeated itself almost four decades later in 2003, when worldwide protests [between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests] against the Iraq war failed to stop the US and its European vassal states from invading Iraq. That wasn’t the end of the story. Ten years and another war hawk president later,

Congress finally showed a spark of gumption and refused to authorize President Obama’s war plans for Syria. History teaches us that the value of antiwar protests may lie in their power to finally get leaders to reject the myth of America as the rightful hegemon. Calling out the U.S. war machine in public protests may be only way to a saner, safer America. For all who hold out hope that the US will turn from its wanton ways, check out “A Battle for the Ages: Antiwar Protestors Meet the US War Machine.”

The Sky Isn’t Falling Henny-Penny, the Democrats Are

February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Falling Sky

Ever wonder where the progressive dems went? Here what one of their stalwart leaders proclaimed in 2020 —“In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.” [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. It didn’t take her long to recant. A few months later —”we are united behind Hakeem Jeffries” [Joe Biden’s soulmate]. There will be no defections…”. The progressive caucus had previously vowed that they would vigorously oppose Jeffries speakership bid. Of course, they didn’t. it turned out that all Speaker Pelosi had to do was raise an eyebrow and the chickens went obediently back to their cages. Should we be surprised that not one brave soul was willing to risk Nancy Pelosi’s ire by withholding votes on her Speakership unless she committed to bringing Medicare-for-All to a vote. It only needed five nay votes to set party leadership back on their heels. Although the gambit had a lot of popular support among progressive democratic voters, it was viewed as a personal career-killer by House Dems. The misnamed members of the House progressive caucus voted in a solid block of yeahs to elect Pelosi without getting anything in return. Contrast that with the MO of 20 right-leaning Republicans two years later when they played political hardball to accomplish their goals. They knew that threatening to withhold their votes for McCarthy’s Speakership bid was a powerful weapon. Did it work? It took fourteen rounds of voting but ultimately they prevailed. Just shows the power of leverage. How weak and spineless the party that promised the people solutions to the financial problems crushing them and delivered instead to the usual suspects, the party leadership and their stable of rich and soulless donors. Democratic progressives should ditch their whining and excuse-making and admit they missed a singular opportunity to make their presence felt. Time to get real and take a leaf from the Freedom Caucus playbook. Maybe the fly in the ointment is that Progressives are beholden to the same gang of rich backer as Pelosi and her hangers-on. Read The Sky Isn’t Falling Henny-Penny, the Democrats Are and draw your own conclusions.

The “Gift” that Never Stops Taking —U.S. Healthcare Profiteers Racking in the Dough

January 5, 2023January 5, 2023 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

US Medical Costs

Hope may spring eternal but some things are guaranteed never to change. Add to the list of inevitables like death and taxes, the one-of-a-kind American corporate, profit-obsessed healthcare industry. Did I say industry? Right, that’s what it has become. Gone are the trappings of what used to be called the healing profession that came complete with the committed doctor who made house calls. In its place, the U.S. government has allowed a cabal of profit and non-profit operators to make healthcare a colossus rivaling in power and profit other industrial behemoths in defense, tech and energy. Which brings us to the heart of the dilemma confronting the American people. What do you do when you live in a rich country that can afford to lavish oodles of dough on one of the most corrupt countries in Europe but can’t afford a national health care system that would restore healthcare to its original calling and provide a cost-effective solution to the millions without insurance or healthcare, others who go bankrupt even with insurance from sky-high medical bills and saddest of all the women and their infants who die in childbirth because they cannot afford medical care. The answer of the American public is a general sense of apathy and disinterest. A recent effort to “force the vote” which in 2020 called on what passes for democratic progressives in the House of Representatives to withhold their vote on Nancy Pelosi’s bid for the Speakership (the speaker is second line to replace the president) until she agreed to bring a Medicare-for-all proposal up for a floor vote. They didn’t and she didn’t. Business as usual in the swamp that U.S. politics has become. Has people power become obsolete in a corporate controlled oligarchy? The answer may be found in a little-noticed but powerful signal coming out of the election results in Oregon. Check out The Gift That Never Stops Taking — U.S. Healthcare Profiteers Racking in the Dough and you decide.

Big Pharma’s Latest Get Rich Quicker Scheme

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

Vaccine Capitalism

Who among us can forget the last two years as we cowered in our homes shunning contact with friends, neighbors, even relatives. When we dared open our doors, we were sheathed in masks, many of us went the final mile and donned gloves. “Social distancing” kept us isolated. What happened to our kids was equally damaging to their psyche. Their schools were shut down and education became a haphazard system of “remote” learning, which is to say very remote and very little learning. The usually docile servant of the establishment finally spoke out — “The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading” [NYT, 9/1/2022] even though of the over one million Americans who died of Covid, an infinitesimal percentage were children (1,332) and less than 2% of them needed to be hospitalized. Yet despite being the least likely to suffer serious illness or die, children were subject to the same restrictions as the elderly who were the most likely to die. Fast forward one year and the chickens are coming home to roost. The pandemic lockdown, including mask mandates, social distancing and lack of exposure to germs, a guaranteed immune booster, have left millions of children unusually vulnerable to early-onset RSV. “Where these infections might have been spread out over time, they’re happening all at once now,” [Céline Gounder, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation and infectious-disease specialist]. If you’re finding it hard to believe such stupidity (and cupidity), read “Big Pharma’s Latest Get Rich Quicker Scheme” and see up close and personal how greed rules the healthcare system of the exceptional nation.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t: The Biden Student Debt Forgiveness Scam

September 18, 2022September 18, 2022 Suspicious Angels Leave a comment

1.5 Trillion Hole

Let’s say you’re a high school senior looking forward to beginning your college career.

Warning: the caution lights are flashing red. The American post-secondary education system is in shambles extracting what often turns out to be a lifetime of indentured servitude for more than half (55%) of bachelor’s degree recipients (2020). Don’t believe me? At this very moment, 15% of all American adults report they still have outstanding undergraduate student debt. Student loans now outpace auto loans by close to half a trillion dollars ($412 billion). In fact, student loan debt is second only to mortgage debt. Why so much debt? It’s not just our own government, add in the private sector, the financial community getting rich off the misery of young Americans and then there’s rapacious colleges both public and private. Over the past twenty years the average tuition at public colleges and universities has risen 144%, many times greater than the rate of inflation. The easy availability of student loans has sparked a veritable gold rush— college presidents being paid like corporate CEOs, senior administrators living high off the hog, expensive vanity building projects, and football and basketball coaches making off with multi-million-dollar salaries. Like the football coach at the University of Alabama who will make $10 million this year. The worst obscenity of all — forgiving student debt won’t cost the average American one cent in extra taxes. The same can’t be said for the $64 billion dollars going to Ukraine, most of which will land in the coffers of U.S. defense contractors and Ukraine oligarchs. Don’t think students deserve a debt jubilee? Read Now You See It, Now You Don’t: The Biden Student Debt Forgiveness Scam and maybe you’ll change your mind.

Author: Suspicious Angels