Bribes to get what Washington and giant multinational corporations want from fragile countries merit more reporting. How is it, for example, that Panama’s support was obtained for sanctions and for the use of Howard for overt military threats against Venezuela, which has never attacked Panama? What implicit or explicit promises or threats may have been made? Consider, for example, this gathering among public officials who are notorious for their transactional politics. White House photo of a 2017 dinner at the Trump Tower in New York, where the US president hosted President Varela and leaders at the time from Colombia, Brazil and Argentina to map out strategies to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Three major news stories that need to be exposed

by Ralph Nader – Common Dreams

The news is filled with stories about President Trump and his predecessors imposing sanctions on other countries, their officials, and other prominent persons. But the media rarely spells out exactly what these sanctions are, the intermediaries who enforce them, the impacts they have on innocent civilians – women, men and children – how they are countered or evaded, and whether they fulfill or undermine their diplomatic, military, or economic purposes.

For example, sanctions against Iran by Trump increase by the year. They force banks and other financial institutions to cut off all decreed transactions, such as exports from Iran or purchase by Iran of critical spare parts, raw materials, even medical devices. Years ago, sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein prohibited Iraq from purchasing chlorine to purify drinking water and children’s catheters. These sanctions produced deadly results for innocents. Iran’s economy is now in ruins and the brunt of the pain is suffered by innocent families. Under international law, disproportionate harm on civilians from sanctions is a serious violation.

Presently, from Trump there are sanctions on individuals in numerous countries, restricting their travel, their purchases and more. When banks like Citigroup and Bank of America are told by Washington to cut off any financial transactions from any companies doing business with a sanctioned country, do the banks receive payment for their trouble, or are there other quid pro quo rewards? We do not know. Secret government actions are pervasive, though sometimes a freedom of information request, followed by litigation, may pry open what is hidden.

Media alert! Sanctions are potential hotbeds for corruption and illegalities.

A little told story relates the tariffs Trump is imposing on imports from other countries, especially China. There are serious questions as to whether presidents have the constitutional authority or whether Congress must maintain authority on tariffs. Veteran constitutional law litigator Alan Morrison is now contesting sweeping executive tariff power in the federal courts. Reporting on this overreaching by the President is scarce.

Digging deeper, reporters should be asking what standards control presidential discretion or whims on imposing tariffs. The “national security flag” can’t just be waved arbitrarily.

Trump passes out many waivers for certain US companies. Why, for example, did Trump give Apple CEO Tim Cook a waiver on tens of billions of dollars in iPhones imported from China, but not provide waivers to any number of smaller US companies who buy products from China for their manufacturing or retail/wholesale sales?

Constitutional law specialist, Bruce Fein, says the absence of standards for giving waivers raises fundamental questions of unlawful delegation by Congress.

Media alert! Potential incentives for corruption and lawlessness in these burgeoning behind the scenes intrigues are huge.

The third hotbed of abuses relates to the charges by Washington that countries abroad tolerate “corruption,” and that security and economic relations with them are either jeopardized or unworkable. Such charges are regularly made against the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq – both militarily occupied by the United States.

Corruption involves more than high-level officials taking bribes. Low-level public servants, so woefully underpaid, take money under the table to survive. As it happens, Ashraf Ghani, the elected president of Afghanistan, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University, was a leading expert on the nuances and functions of bribery in third-world countries. He can be a worthy source of knowledge on corruption.

US agencies are a major generator of secret corruption in countries like Afghanistan. For example, cargo planes full of crisp one hundred dollar bills are shipped to Kabul and then trans-shipped to places like Kandahar. It doesn’t take much imagination to frame a reporter’s investigation—of what happens to cash in occupied, desperate societies.

Books and articles on the intelligence agencies note that cash handouts, big and small, are critical to achieve their purposes. There is so much bribery cash in Afghanistan that to stop the flow would seriously affect their shaky economy.

Bribery is a two way street – the briber and the bribee. Secret payments and bribes have often backfired against US foreign policies in many undesirable ways.

Bribes to get what Washington and giant multinational corporations want from fragile countries merits more reporting, if only to show that a good deal of the bribery is under our control and within our power to reverse.

Media Alert!

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The lie of health care “choice”

by Jim Hightower – OtherWords

Lyndon Johnson had a saying about special interests trying to get his support to pass some blatantly self-serving legislation: “They can’t make chicken salad out of chicken (bleep)!”

Yet chicken (bleep) is all that the corporate health complex has to work with as it frantically tries to defend its current system of mass malpractice. After all, as most Americans have learned the hard way, profiteering insurance giants, Big Pharma, and hospital chains grossly overcharge us while constantly trying to shortchange — or outright deny — care to millions of our families.

So, unable to win public support on their own merit, the corporatists and their hired political hacks are going all out to continue their gouging and keep control of America’s dysfunctional system. They’re now running a multimillion-dollar PR and lobbying campaign of lies to trash and kill all reforms that would deliver quality, comprehensive care to everyone, at far less cost than they can deliver.

Masquerading as a “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future,” the profiteers warn ominously that such reforms as Medicare for All or a public option for health insurance would take away people’s “choice” and our “control” over health care.

Hello: we presently have no choice or control.

Our “care” is managed by a handful of insurance, drug, and hospital monopolists whose primary objective is not improving our health, but feathering their own cushy nests. And the undeniable, ugly truth is that they can only continue ripping us off by killing real reform.

That’s one reason the American Medical Association and others are dropping out of the Partnership’s political front. Honest health care practitioners no longer believe it’s in their best interest — or the public’s — to be part of its chicken (bleep) PR campaign.

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Prism of a republic

by Miguel Antonio Bernal V.

Almost 40 years ago, Roberto Arosemena wrote in his work about Octavio Mendez Pereira: “some days men disappear just like the others, however, there is a general commotion indicative of suppressed national values.”

On this past February 9 the death of Roberto Arosemena Jaén deprived Panama of a selfless and committed patriot and citizen, one in favor of freedom and justice. The University and academia lost a distinguished and dedicated teacher who, for several decades, radiated light and knowledge from his chair. Penonome lost an illustrious and meritorious son. We, the men and women who love Panama, lost a combative champion who was faithful to his principles.

Throughout his existence, Roberto sowed principles and values, commitments, knowledge, examples, all palpable testimonies of a quest. A search with stumbles, but always looking for the best orientations, for the best situations. Roberto never limited himself to simply preaching. He always practiced what he preached and he was not just another philosopher or spectator.

For those who knew him and shared ideals, struggles, kilometers of antimilitarist street demonstrations, debates, discussions, concurrences and dissents, joys and frustrations, dreams and hope, his is an irreparable loss because he was, above all, a good man.

In a very concise synthesis, Roberto said that during the 1980s he was a passionate civilista activist. He faced the military who ruled the country between 1968 and 1989 without reservations. Arosema Jaén was a believer of peaceful resistance and did not hesitate to join political movements such as the Popular Nationalist Party (PNP) in the late 1970s and also noted his participation in the Popular Action Party (PAPO). In 1987, when the last great wave of protests against the military broke out with the Crusada Civilista, he was arrested and sent to the penal colony that then existed on Isla Coiba.

“Prism of a Republic” and “Witness of Freedom,” along with various essays and hundreds of articles, are parts of the legacy of this citizen, whose departure leaves a void.

So long, my friend!

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