The Many Reasons Why Trump Should NEVER Get The Nobel Peace Prize

It's no secret that Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He's said it many times - and has even called a member of the Nobel Prize board to lobby for it. The problem is he doesn't seem to understand that the prize is not some political gift - it is an award that must be earned.

The way the prize is earned is by doing selfless work to promote peace, human rights, and democracy - work that makes the world a better place for everyone.  Most of Trump's actions have done just the opposite.

* Trump is a bully, and has tried to bully other countries into supporting his desires by putting tariffs on almost every nation in the world.

* He withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Accords, severely restricted the U.S. from advancing safe and renewable forms of energy, and promoted the increased use of fossil fuels - making it much more likely the world will not be able to avoid crucial tipping points on global climate change.

* He has given huge tax cuts to the rich, and partially paid for it by kicking millions of Medicaid roles and eliminating increased subsidies for private insurance causing millions more to be unable to afford the increase in insurance premiums - resulting in the increase of millions without any health insurance and increasing the likelihood that many rural hospitals will close their doors.

* He has sent troops into many large American cities to intimidate the citizens by claiming a fraudulent "state of emergency".

* He has perverted the Department of Justice - turning it into a vehicle for him to attack his critics and political opponents.

* After claiming he was going after immigrant criminals, he has used an enlarged and empowered ICE to arrest hard-working men and women (and children) with no criminal records.

* Without proof or due process, he has instructed the Defense department to attack and kill persons in boats in international waters. This was nothing short of murder!

* He has usurped the constitutional power of Congress to control the national budget.

* He has tried to "whitewash" American history, and destroyed rules designed to enhance the equality and opportunity of nonwhites.

* He has encouraged states to redistrict to give his party an unfair advantage in elections.

* He has used his office to make himself (and his family) much richer, while increasing inflation that makes life harder for most Americans.

* Even though he finally bullied Netanyahu into finally stopping the killing of Palestinians, he still supports the Israeli theft of Palestinian land, and refuses to support the Palestinians right to self-determination and a state of their own.

Trump's actions have done nothing to further peace, human (or political) rights, or democracy in the world. He has not earned consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is unlikely that he ever will.

Food Is A Universal Human Right!

The people of Gaza are starving. The World Central Kitchen and other aid organizations have been trying to meet that need against giant odds. That was made much more difficult when Israel bombed a clearly marked World Central Kitchen vehicle, killing 7 aid workers.

Here is part of what Jose Andres (the founder of World Central Kitchen) had to say in an article for The New York Times:

In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.

The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.

Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.

These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.

Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.

From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.

All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.

That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.

We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.

In the worst conditions, after the worst terrorist attack in its history, it’s time for the best of Israel to show up. You cannot save the hostages by bombing every building in Gaza. You cannot win this war by starving an entire population.

We welcome the government’s promise of an investigation into how and why members of our World Central Kitchen family were killed. That investigation needs to start at the top, not just the bottom.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said of the Israeli killings of our team, “It happens in war.” It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.

It was also the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels. . . .

It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like.

U.S./U.N./NATO Must Take Action To Defend Human Rights

This is what President Zelensky told the United Nations about the atrocities committed against Ukrainian citizens by Russian soldiers:

“They cut off limbs, slashed their throats, women raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because the aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them.”

“The Russian military … purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They shot and killed women outside their houses…They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies. I am addressing you on behalf of the people who honor the memory of the deceased every single day and the memory of the civilians who died, they were shot and killed in the back of their head after being tortured. Some of them were shot on the streets.” 

“There is not a single crime they would not commit there just for their pleasure.” 

“Where is the security that the Security Council is supposed to be guaranteed?” 

“Are you ready to close the U.N.? Do you think that the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.”

His words are powerful because he is right. War crimes are being committed against innocent civilians in Ukraine. Genocide is being committed against the Ukrainian people. And that's not all. Putin has ordered the bombing and missile strikes against civilian population centers.

One American general has declared that the war could go on for years. If true, that would be devastating for the Ukrainian population. The population would virtually be wiped out!

The United Nations is failing the Ukrainian people!

NATO is failing the Ukrainian people!

The United States is failing the Ukrainian people!

All of these organizations claim to be defenders of human rights. But they are failing in their duty to actually defend human rights. 

Applying and supporting economic sanctions does not stop the human rights violations. Supplying weapons to the Ukrainian army does not stop the human rights violations, since it could take years for them to win the war.

I am not usually in favor of any war. But there are times when it cannot be avoided, and failure to engage those committing human rights violations on a massive and continuing scale is cowardice -- not prudence.

The United Nations cannot act because of their structure (with Russia having a veto over any proposed action). But the United States and NATO could act. 

At the very least, a no-fly zone could be established over Ukraine (including the Eastern provinces). This, along with supplying missile defenses, could stop much of the carnage. And the West should stop saying troops would not engage the Russians in Ukraine. That should be an option that Russia has to consider when violating human rights, and may actually be needed in the future.

It's easy to mouth platitudes about human rights. But it's time for the West to live up to their words.

Most Republicans Think Voting Is A privilege - Not A Right

This chart is from the Pew Research Center. It shows that most Republicans (67%) don't consider voting to be a fundamental right of all Americans, but a privilege that comes with responsibilities. Most Democrats (78%) consider voting to be a fundamental right.

I found it shocking that most Republicans don't think voting is a fundamental right, but it explains why they find it OK to suppress the votes of those they think will vote against them.

Dictators Use Racism In U.S. To Justify Their Own Atrocities

Americans of both parties like to believe that this country is in the forefront of the fight for human rights around the world. And to a certain extent, that is true.

But we are not without our own human rights problems -- and one of the worst is the continuing racism throughout the country. Racism has been a part of America's culture since before it became a country -- so much so that it has been baked into our laws and social institutions.

And dictators around the world love to use this blight on America as justification for their even worse atrocities. When called to task on their human rights violations, they are quick to turn the conversation back to American racism.

If we are going to get serious about human rights throughout the world, we need to make sure those rights are respected here. In other words, we need to fix the race problem.

The following is much of an excellent column on this subject by Charles M. Blow in The New York Times:

Any Americans who believe that this country’s race problem stops at the water’s edge should disabuse themselves of the notion.

Our race problem is also an international problem in that dictators and authoritarian regimes use it as a way to point out American hypocrisy on human rights, as a means of deflecting from their horrible treatment of their own people and as a way to buck American chastisement.

Until America sufficiently deals with its own race problem, it will remain somewhat handicapped on the world stage.

On Wednesday, at a news conference after his meeting with President Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed aside criticism of how his government was treating a pro-democracy group in his country by comparing that group to Black Lives Matter:

“America just recently had very severe events, well-known events, after the killing of an African American. An entire movement developed, known as Black Lives Matter. I’m not going to comment on that, but here’s what I do want to say: What we saw was disorder, destruction, violations of the law, etc.”. . .

Russia has a long history of invoking our domestic race problem. As Julia Ioffe pointed out in The Atlantic in 2017, Russia and the Soviet Union have an 80-plus-year history of involvement and exploitation of America’s race problem. In fact, as Ioffe put it, “Whenever the Soviet Union was criticized for its human rights abuses, the rebuttal became, ‘And you lynch Negroes.’”. . .

Russia is not the only country, and Putin is not the only leader, to deflect to America’s treatment of Black people. In 1960, Fidel Castro stormed into Harlem to highlight the plight of Black people in America and to embarrass the American government. He checked into the Hotel Theresa and one of his first guests was Malcolm X.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met Castro there. As Smithsonian Magazine wrote last year, quoting from Khrushchev’s memoirs, “he understood that ‘by going to a Negro hotel in a Negro district, we would be making a double demonstration against the discriminatory policies of the United States of America toward Negroes, as well as toward Cuba.’”

Just this March, the Chinese government released a blistering report that criticized the United States for several things, among them: racism. . . .

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un issued a paper in early 2018 that said “racial discrimination and misanthropy are serious maladies inherent to the social system of the U.S., and they have been aggravated since Trump took office.” It continued by saying “the racial violence that took place in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12 is a typical example of the acme of the current administration’s policy of racism.”

The problem is that no matter how bad these dictators act on the world stage — and they are plenty bad — they are not completely wrong in their condemnation of American racism. The problem is that they are not sincerely interested parties, but rather are opportunistically seeking to exploit shortcoming and division.

That said, America needs to face up to the fact that it can’t sweep around someone else’s front door until it sweeps around its own. . . .

Slavery is no more, but American hypocrisy is still with us. American racial oppression is still with us. America’s poor treatment of its Black citizens is still with us. Until we fix that, or even address it, the world’s dictators will continue to see us and mock our hypocrisy.

More Democrats Are Now Supporting Palestinian Rights

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis has been the overwhelming support for Israel (no matter what they do) among the U.S. population, and the dismissal of Palestinian rights. This has been true regardless of other political beliefs, with even Democrats solidly in the Israeli camp.

That is starting to change. With Israel continuing to steal Palestinian land to set up illegal settlements, Israel denying human rights to Palestinians (both in Israel and among the Gaza/West Bank Palestinians), and Israeli refusal to negotiate a true two-state solution, many Americans are moving to support the Palestinian cause. This is especially true of Democrats.

The following is part of an op-ed written by Medhi Hasan for MSNBC.com:

On Thursday, at 7 p.m. ET, Israel and Hamas began a “mutual and simultaneous” cease-fire after 11 straight days of airstrikes and rocket attacks. In Gaza, more than 230 people were killed. In Israel, 12 people lost their lives. As of now, that fragile calm is holding. . . .

In many ways, the latest Gaza violence was a carbon copy of the wars of 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014: the lopsided death toll; the horrific destruction of infrastructure; the global outrage and condemnation.

This time, though, there was one major difference. This time we watched as the Democratic Party, which now controls both the executive and legislative branches of the United States government, seemed to shift its position on Israel before our eyes.

Progressives, of course, have led the charge. Last week, members of “the squad” lined up on the House floor to denounce Israel’s actions in the occupied territories. . . .

The next day, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., penned a blistering op-ed in The New York Times, insisting the United States “no longer be apologists for the right-wing Netanyahu government and its undemocratic and racist behavior” and concluding with the words: “Palestinian lives matter.”

But it wasn’t only “the squad” or the Senate’s only self-declared socialist who took Israel to task. For the first time in my life, pro-Israel Democratic Party hawks in Congress publicly criticized the Netanyahu government’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories — mildly and tentatively, yes, but criticism, nevertheless. . . .

So what happened? Well, for a start, former President Donald Trump’s embrace of the Netanyahu government happened. The Donald’s greenlighting of Israeli annexation and settlements, coupled with Bibi’s lavishing of praise on Trump and his alliance with "the Israeli Ku Klux Klan" at home, made support for Israel much more of a partisan issue. The Trump-Netanyahu axis effectively gave many Democrats permission to criticize Israel’s actions in ways they would have never dreamt of before.

Growing diversity in Congress helps: Nearly 1 in 4 members are people of color, compared to 1 in 10 just two decades ago. Do you think it’s a coincidence that some of the most critical voices of Israel right now are Black and brown Democrats in the House? More and more Black Democrats in particular, such as Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., are drawing a straight line between Black Lives Matter protestsagainst racial discrimination and police violence here in the United States and Palestinian protests against racial discrimination and police violence in the occupied territories.

The Democratic base has shifted too, moving to the left not just on taxes, health care and immigration. A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found “Democrats and younger voters are more likely to back the Palestinian cause” than Israel’s. In March, long before the latest flare-up, a Gallup poll found “support for emphasizing pressure on Israel is also at a new high of 34 percent, with a majority of Democrats taking this position for the first time.”

Don’t get me wrong. There is still a long way to go before the United States government takes a more even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians. . . .

Yes, the Democratic Party continues to be dominated by PEP — “progressive except Palestine” — politicians, from the president on down. Nevertheless, as countless news stories have documented in recent days, the party’s stance is changing.

“The shift is dramatic; it's tectonic," veteran pollster John Zogby, who himself is Arab American, told the BBC, explaining how support for the Palestinians has become “a major wedge issue, particularly among Democrats, driven by nonwhite voters and younger voters, by progressives in general.”

So this particular political genie is now out of the bottle. No matter how hard supporters of Israel’s airstrikes or occupation might try, it isn’t going back in.

Is Israel Really A "Jewish And Democratic" Country?

The United States has supported Israel since it became a country -- both diplomatically and financially. And most Americans agree with that support being provided.

But things have changed in that country in recent years, and I doubt that most Americans understand that. It may be time to reassess some of that support.

Consider the following thought-provoking article in The Washington Post by Hagai El-Ad (the executive director of B'Tselem --  a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization whose stated goals are to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, combat any denial of the existence of such violations, and help to create a human rights culture in Israel.)

Most Jewish Israelis spend their time pretending that Gaza and its 2 million Palestinians have fallen off the face of the Earth. The besieged civilian population, the polluted water, the denial of exit permitseven for essential medical care — the endless ways in which Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are humiliated by Israel day in and day out — all are largely invisible to the Jewish half of the population living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Invisible, until once every few years the sirens and the rockets serve as a terrible awakening.

Similarly, Israel would prefer if Palestinian families slated for forced eviction in Sheikh Jarrah — a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, in the one part of the West Bank that Israel bothered to formally annex — also remained invisible. That desire is reflected in official language: Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs referred to this process of gradual, state-sanctioned cleansing of the neighborhood of Palestinians, to be replaced by Jewish families, as “a real estate dispute between private parties.” That “dispute” is based on racist legislation (1950 and 1970 laws passed under “left wing” Labor governments) that allows Jews, but not Palestinians, to make ownership claims for property predating 1948. Palestinian activists this month succeeded in making sure that these abuses cannot be ignored.

Another fact that tends to be invisible: Palestinian homes are demolished because they are built without permits — in a system designed to deny Palestinians the ability to get those. Or this one: Palestinians are killed with impunity by Israeli security forces — in a system designed almost never to hold anyone accountable. Or the fact that settler organizations are moving into “mixed” cities within Israel proper — the very cities from which most Palestinians were made refugees 73 years ago and not allowed to return to — in a system designed to further Judaize this land.

These are but a few fragments of reality in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Apartheid is the organizing principle that connects all these forms of colonization and transfer, disenfranchisement and oppression, domination and supremacy. Palestinians can be second-class citizens, “permanent residents,” occupied subjects or refugees. The details vary, but the pattern is the same: All Palestinians living under Israeli rule are treated as inferior in rights and status to Jews who live in the same area. . . .

For decades, Israel managed to fence itself off from its supposedly separate and temporary occupation project. Many Palestinians have long seen right through it and called this regime of ethnic domination by its proper name. This diagnosis of apartheid is accurate not only because the occupation is inseparable from Israel (who, exactly, is running the military regime in the occupied territories?) but because policies of domination and supremacy of one group (Jews) over the other (Palestinians) are at the core of shaping reality between the river and the sea.

In this context, eruptions of violence — especially those, like this month’s, sufficiently horrific to break into the global news cycle — are not a bug but a feature of this system. State violence is a permanent tool for dispossession and control, demographic re-engineering and “deterrence.” The specific amount of violence applied is always changing, the fear it dictates never absent.

And so, repeatedly, when one or more of these fragments rises, there is surprise, people are aghast at the violence, and efforts are undertaken to restore what is misleadingly called “the status quo.” But that never means the violence has truly ended. It means only that Israel’s violence against Palestinians has once again been made invisible — that once again, tension has been made absent (for some), with injustice omnipresent (for the rest).

It is a commonly accepted falsehood that Israel is a “Jewish and democratic” state. In fact, it is neither: It is a binational, inherently undemocratic entity governed through an apartheid regime. The fragmentation of Palestinians may serve to obfuscate the truth, but how can a reality of demographic parity — some 7 million Jews, some 7 million Palestinians — be considered only “Jewish”? And when most of those Palestinians are kept disenfranchised, how can it be considered “democratic”?

U.S. foreign policy has for decades been enabling, underwriting and shielding this regime from meaningful consequences. Not only through direct aid to Israel, but also through repeated U.S. vetoes at the United Nations Security Council and the propagation of the seemingly endless “peace process” illusion — instead of prioritizing the protection and realization of the human rights that are violated every single day. Israeli impunity comes with a large “Made in the USA” label, for Washington is where it is manufactured.

Trump Helps Human Rights Violators W/Sanctions On ICC

Trump seems determined to turn the United States into a rogue nation. This country was once a world leader in spreading democracy, protecting the environment, supporting world peace, and supporting human rights. 

Trump has done serious damage to that. He withdrew the country from the Paris Accords, dealing a blow to efforts to curb global climate change. He withdrew from the Iran Agreement, making the world a more dangerous place. Now he has moved to protect the world's most dangerous human rights violators.

His administration has imposed sanctions on members of the International Criminal Court -- members whose only "crime" is to hold human rights violators to account and further the cause of justice. This puts the United States on the side of other rogue nations -- the worst human rights violators. 

Here is some of what Max Boot has to say about Trump's move in The Washington Post:

Since its formation in 2002, the ICC has become known primarily for prosecuting African war criminals. In 2015, for example, the court issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, an enforcer for Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb when in 2012 those terrorist groups imposed a fundamentalist version of sharia law in Timbuktu, Mali. He was extradited by Niger and, after pleading guilty in 2016, sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for destroying religious and historical buildings.

The court’s record is far from perfect — far too many criminals have escaped its grasp, and prosecutions have dragged on too long. But at least it is trying to hold some of the worst human rights violators in the world to account. You would think that this would earn the approval of the United States, the driving force behind the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But you would be wrong. Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have chosen to taken their stand alongside notorious human rights violators such as Russia, China, North Korea and Sudan in opposition to the ICC. . . .

In June, Trump declared a “national emergency” because the ICC had announced an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Afghan government and, yes, U.S. military and intelligence personnel. Kabul has asked the ICC to suspend its investigation, pending legal action by Afghan authorities. Because of this request, and the covid-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch reports that the ICC is not actively investigating Afghanistan.

There is, in short, no reason to assume, as Trump and Pompeo seem to, that U.S. personnel are about to be hauled off to The Hague — or, in the unlikely event that they do end up in the dock, that they would fail to receive a fair trial. Just last year, two prominent defendants — one of them the former president of Ivory Coast — were acquitted on charges of crimes against humanity.

The Trump administration is also aggrieved that the ICC has been considering an investigation of possible war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories by Israel as well as its enemies. But the ICC has previously refused to open an investigation of Israel’s 2010 attack on a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, and it has not announced any decision to prosecute Israel. So this concern, too, is at best premature.

The ICC is a court of last resort; it acts only if national authorities refuse to do so. Trump could actually blunt any impetus for ICC action by taking serious steps to investigate and punish U.S. personnel guilty of misconduct in Afghanistan. But by pardoning alleged war criminals, he is doing the opposite — sending an arrogant message of impunity for U.S. misconduct.

Trump’s war against the ICC places the Trump administration once again at odds with America’s closest allies. Sixty-seven nations — including Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — have condemned Trump’s sanctions and expressed support for the ICC. “We remain committed to an international rules-based order,” they wrote in June. “The ICC is an integral part of this order and a central institution in the fight against impunity and the pursuit of justice, which are essential components of sustainable peace, security and reconciliation.”

The United States, too, used to be committed to an “international rules-based order.” No longer. Trump has turned America into a rogue regime that is hostile to laws and norms, whether at home or abroad.

U.N. Report Condemns All Sides In Yemen War (includes U.S.)

(Photo from Yemen, by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters, was found at aljazeera.com.)

A new report, put out by the United Nations Human Rights Council, condemns the actions of both sides in the Yemen War -- both the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition. It also blames outside parties that are providing both sides with weapons (Iran, United States, France, and United Kingdom). The report finds all parties guilty of numerous human rights violations.

Here is some of that report:

A UN report on Yemen released on Tuesday details a host of possible war crimes committed by various parties to the conflict over the past five years, including through airstrikes, indiscriminate shelling, snipers, landmines, as well as arbitrary killings and detention, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and the impeding of access to humanitarian aid in the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

The Group of International and Regional Eminent Experts on Yemen, created by the UN Human Rights Council, found that the governments of Yemen and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Houthis and affiliated popular committees have enjoyed a “pervasive lack of accountability” for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The report calls for the immediate cessation of all acts of violence committed against civilians in violation of applicable international human rights and international humanitarian law, and demands that the parties take action to protect civilians and ensure justice for all victims. 

It urges other States to refrain from providing arms that could be used in the conflict, and reminds them of their obligation to take all reasonable measures to ensure respect for international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict. . . .

Despite a lack of cooperation by the Coalition and Government of Yemen, the Group of Experts was able during the short time available this year to conduct more than 600 interviews with victims and witnesses, to examine documentary and open-source material,  and to carry out investigations into emblematic cases to establish patterns of conduct indicative of alleged violations in Yemen since September 2014. 

The Experts found reasonable grounds to believe that the conduct of hostilities by the parties to the conflict, including by airstrikes and shelling, continued to have an extreme impact on civilians and many of these attacks may amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law. The Experts further found reasonable grounds to believe that, in addition to violations related to the conduct of hostilities, the parties to the armed conflict in Yemen are responsible for arbitrary deprivation of the right to life, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, torture, ill-treatment, child recruitment, violations of fundamental freedoms, and violations of economic, social and cultural rights. These amount to violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as applicable. Subject to determination by an independent and competent court, many of these violations may result in individuals being held responsible for war crimes. . . .

The Group of Experts attributed direct responsibility to the parties to the conflict regarding the humanitarian situation in Yemen. The continued extreme impact of attacks against civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, water facilities, food transport, farms and market places, as well as the use of blockades and siege-like warfare, impeding humanitarian access, and other such measures have exacerbated the disastrous humanitarian situation. . . .

The Group expressed strong concern that the parties to the conflict may have used starvation as a method of warfare, as these acts contributed to depriving the population of objects indispensable to its survival. 

The Experts’ report calls on all States and international organizations to promote and support all efforts, notably those of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen to achieve a sustainable political solution including accountability.

Monsters Are In Our Congress (& Their Policies Kill People)

The preamble to the Declaration of Independence made it clear that our forefathers considered the people of this country to have rights. And the right they considered most important, the one they listed first, was the right to life.

The right to life supersedes all our other rights. While all our rights are important, none of the others matter without the right to life.

Sadly, we now have monsters roaming the halls of our Congress. They are elected officials (mainly Republican) who don't believe in the right to life for Americans.

In April, Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said that about one out of four diabetes patients cannot afford their insulin. That's a shocking statement, but it is true. A reasonable person would think this is a problem that Congress should be addressing. Unfortunately, they are not.

Why? Insulin is not a luxury for diabetes patients. It is a requirement to prolong their lives. One would have to be a monster to not make sure they can get that life-saving drug.

But it doesn't stop there. Many other Americans cannot afford other life-saving drugs. Too many have to choose between food or rent and buying the drugs they need. And then there's preventative care. About 17,000 Americans die every year unnecessarily -- simply because they could not afford the preventative care that would have saved their lives. And that preventative care is currently denied to millions of Americans that don't have health insurance.

Democrats partially solved the problem with Obamacare, but that law needs to be strengthened. It doesn't cover everyone with health insurance, and doesn't control the costs of health care. Democrats now want to make Obamacare better -- by either creating a public option or going to a Medicare-for-All system. They understand that decent health care should be a right of all citizens, because without it the right to life is denied.

Republicans don't believe health care is a right of all Americans. They view health care as a product to be sold to those who can afford to buy it (or afford to buy insurance that can help them pay for it). And they don't seem to care that poor and working class Americans can't afford the drugs or preventative care they need to sustain their lives.

Republicans are currently in court try to abolish Obamacare. Do they have a plan to replace it and cover all Americans with health insurance. NO! They have been trying for over 9 years now to come up with a plan, and they have been unable to do it. They are perfectly willing to take health insurance away from millions more people, and they have blocked all attempts to let the government negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma.

The simple fact is that for Republicans, corporate profits are more important than American lives. And their policies kill thousands of Americans every year. THEY ARE MONSTERS -- and so are the people who keep electing them.

A Public Insurance Option Is The Path To Universal Coverage

(This graphic image is from phsi.org.)

The United States is the only developed nation that doesn't recognize the right of every human to decent health care. In this country, health care has always been a product sold only to those who can afford it, and because of that many thousands die every year unnecessarily because they cannot afford the insurance that would save their lives.

The Republicans in our government think that's the way it should be. They talk about universal coverage, but vote against every effort to actually initiate it. They still believe health care is a product -- not a right.

Democrats believe differently. They believe health care is a right, and every citizen should have decent and affordable health care available to them. They want universal health care in this country, but aren't sure how to achieve it.

Some are calling for a single-payer, government-run insurance system (something like Medicare For All). This is not a bad idea, and I believe it will finally be the solution. The problem is that it still scares many Americans (because it would be a radical change, and they aren't sure how it would be paid for). Until a significantly bigger portion of the public wants it, our politicians are unlikely to even seriously discuss it.

What should we do then? It's obvious that our current system is broken. It doesn't cover everyone and it does nothing to control the sharply rising costs of health care. How can we fix it?

I believe the answer is the creation of a Public Option for health insurance.

* Medicaid should be eliminated, and the new Public Option should cover everything that the current Medicare program covers. This new program should be available to all citizens under the age of 65.

* This Public Option should be available to all Americans. Families and individuals making less than 100% to 150% of the poverty level should be immediately covered by the Public Option at no cost. The Public Option should be available to everyone else on a sliding scale of cost.

* The Public Option would be less expensive than private insurance, because by law it should be allowed to negotiate prices with drug companies and health care providers. It also would not have any profits to inflate the price (or enormous executive salaries, like private companies do).

* Open enrollment in the Public Option to businesses to cover their employees. Once many businesses and corporations understand they will save a significant amount of money by enrolling employees in the Public Option, they will do so (because it will increase their profits). We could even debate requiring businesses to cover all employees with insurance or pay a penalty (which will go to help fund the Public Option).

* Require all citizens to have health insurance, or pay a penalty equal to the cost of the Public Option.

Once a significant portion of individuals and businesses are participating in the Public Option, it will then be a small step to instituting a single-payer system for everyone.

I don't believe Medicare For All is achievable right now, but a Public Option is -- and that is the path we must take to universal health care.

A "Clueless Clown" Caring Nothing For Human Rights

(Cartoon image is by Signe Wilkinson at philly.com.)

With his reaction (or non-reaction) to the brutal murder of a journalist working for an American newspaper, Donald Trump shows himself to be a "clueless clown" who cares nothing for human rights. His non-action damages the reputation of the United States, and gives aid and comfort to the dictators of the world.

Here's how Eugene Robinson puts it in The Washington Post:

In Riyadh, they must be laughing at President Trump. In Pyongyang, too, and in Tehran. In Beijing and, of course, in Moscow, they must be laughing until it hurts. They look at Washington and they don’t see a champion of freedom and human rights. They see a preening, clueless clown.

Trump’s reaction — or non-reaction — to the Saudi regime’s brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a holiday-season gift to autocrats around the globe. It shows them that if you just shower Trump with over-the-top flattery, feed him some geopolitical mumbo jumbo and make vague promises to perhaps buy some American-made goods in the future, he will literally let you get away with murder.

Recall what happened: The Saudi government lured Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for The Post, to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where a team of assassins lay in wait. Khashoggi was killed and his body dismembered. The CIA has reportedly concluded with “high confidence” — as close to certainty as the agency gets — that the assassination was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto ruler.

After weeks of hemming and hawing, the White House put out a statement Tuesday from Trump making clear that for the murder of Khashoggi — who lived in Virginia, was a permanent U.S. resident and had children who are U.S. citizens — the Saudi regime will face no consequences. Zero. Not even a slap on the wrist.

Despite the CIA’s assessment that the crown prince ordered the killing, the White House statement waffles on whether he even knew about it in advance: “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said the same thing later to reporters, adding, “We are with Saudi Arabia. We’re staying with Saudi Arabia.”

Even more appalling, the statement — which is littered with exclamation points, suggesting Trump himself had a hand in writing it — attacks and defames the victim. Khashoggi was a respected journalist who sometimes criticized the Saudi government. The president of the United States suggests he deserved to die.

“Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an ‘enemy of the state’ and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that,” the statement says. That is a rhetorical device known as paraleipsis — saying something by professing not to say it — and its use to suggest the Saudis were somehow justified in killing Khashoggi makes me want to throw up.

In the statement — which is headlined “America First!” — Trump emphasizes what he calls the “record amount of money” that Saudi Arabia is supposedly prepared to spend in the United States. Trump goes on to make a series of false claims. No, there is no agreement for the Saudis to spend $450 billion on U.S. goods, despite Trump’s assertion. No, there is no firm agreement for $110 billion in arms sales; the actual figure is $14.5 billion. No, what Trump reckons as “hundreds of thousands of jobs” are not at stake. And no, the Saudis could not simply decide to buy Chinese or Russian arms, instead.

The truth is that in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, the United States holds all the cards. We don’t need the Saudis’ oil and can easily do without their arms purchases. By contrast, without U.S. military assistance and American-made spare parts, the Saudi armed forces could not function.

But leave aside Trump’s inability to calculate the power equation here — perhaps he should read “The Art of the Deal” — and consider the factors that are absent from his thinking. There is no mention in his statement of human rights, no mention of freedom of the press. There is no notion of the United States as an advocate for liberty or a foe of despotism. There is only the amoral pursuit of what Trump sees — not very clearly — as U.S. national interests.

The Saudi royals got on Trump’s good side by hosting his first foreign visit and fawning over him as if he, too, were an absolute monarch. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was gracious and deferential to Trump at their summit — and now continues his nuclear and ballistic missile programs unmolested. Russia’s Vladimir Putin complimented Trump’s political skill — and escaped any meaningful punishment for meddling in the 2016 election. There cannot be a strongman ruler in the world who fails to see the pattern — and the opportunity.

Lavish Trump with praise. Treat him like a king. Wave a fistful of money in front of his face. And if you want to, say, kill an inconvenient journalist, he’ll look the other way.