uawchild
uawchild's JournalHow The TPP Jeopardizes Canadian Health
"Picture this: a patient returns to the office for a follow-up visit with their physician. When asked how the prescribed treatment is working out, they answer: "I don't know, I couldn't afford to fill the prescription."
It's a story to which a growing number of Canadians, and nearly every Canadian doctor, can relate.
Canadians value our Medicare system, a system that allows us to see doctors without paying up-front costs. Unfortunately, according to a recent Angus Reid survey, 23 per cent of Canadians are unable to take their drugs as prescribed and this leads to worse health, missed work, unnecessary hospitalizations, and even death.
According to leaked drafts of the secretly negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the deal could increase the price of prescription drugs putting life saving drugs out of reach of even more Canadians.
The proposed intellectual property rules will excessively boost patent and data protections for brand name drug companies while preventing price-lowering generic competition. Based on this information, it appears the TPP will undermine the ability of governments to bulk purchase drugs, thus preventing governments from negotiating better drug prices from large pharmaceutical companies.
Through the TPP, drug companies intend to protect their absurd profit margins. Lipitor, a popular cholesterol-lowering drug, costs $800 per year for a Canadian but only $15 per year in New Zealand $800 per year for a Canadian but only $15 per year in New Zealnd where bulk purchases and price negotiations have dramatically lowered the price.
Why did the Harper government agree to force cash-strapped Canadians to fork out for brand name drugs? Perhaps it is because the drug companies, through organizations like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufactures of America (PhRMA), have spent over $110 million lobbying the U.S. Congress to support the TPP."
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sarah-giles/the-trouble-with-tpp_b_8309052.html
Plenty of room to raise taxes on Canada’s richest, study says
"Raising taxes on the richest 1 per cent would still leave their tax rates lower than they were 40 years ago, says Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives."
OTTAWA—A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says there is plenty of room to raise taxes on the richest 1 per cent of the population and still leave their tax rates lower than they were 40 years ago.
The incoming Liberal government has proposed raising the top marginal income tax rate on those earning $200,000 or more.
That’s easily doable, the study says.
It says Canada, on average, has become a low-tax jurisdiction for the affluent compared with the U.S.
Even with provincial income tax added to federal income tax, the average total top marginal tax rate on labour income was 45.7 per cent in 2013.
That compares with an average top marginal income tax rate of 47.9 per cent across American states.
“The top marginal income tax rate has been well over 50 per cent for most of the time Canada has had an income tax,” said Lars Osberg, a research associate with the policy think tank.
“In fact, during Canada’s high growth years between 1940 and 1980, the top marginal income tax rate was well over 70 per cent. Now the top federal income tax rate is 29 per cent.
“Our federal government used to ask more of Canada’s richest 1 per cent. There are plenty of reasons to do so again.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/10/29/plenty-of-room-to-raise-taxes-on-canadas-richest-study-says.html
Racist violence reveals Sweden’s xenophobic underbelly
"Despite its self-image as a tolerant society, migrants often find racism and closed doors in Sweden"
By: Debra Black Immigration Reporter, Toronto Star (Canada)
"For thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe there is only one goal — to get to Sweden, a country known for its acceptance and tolerance of those escaping war and persecution.
But Sweden may not be as welcoming as they had hoped. A recent stabbing at a school in the small industrial city of Trollhattan, which killed a 20-year-old teacher and a 17-year-old student from Somalia, was described by police as an attack against “people with immigrant backgrounds.” There have also been 20 fires at refugee asylum centers.
The Scandinavian country has an underbelly of racism and xenophobia that could make life difficult for newcomers, says Daniel Poohl, managing director of Expo Foundation, an organization designed to shed light on racist ideas and organizations in Sweden.
Known for its civility and social cohesion, Sweden has seen an influx of immigrants, from the Balkans in the 1990s and more recently from Iraq and Afghanistan. But the latest wave of Syrian refugees — 190,000 are expected this year alone — has triggered an “agonizing” debate both politically and culturally, says Marie Demker, a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
One outspoken anti-refugee and anti-immigrant group is the Swedish Democrats — a right-wing party that won 13 per cent of the vote in the September 2014 election. Now the third most powerful party in parliament, it is calling for a referendum on whether Sweden should close its borders to refugees and immigrants.
“Sweden is a country that is divided by the idea of us being a multicultural society,” says Poohl. Those who oppose the acceptance of refugees and immigrants are mobilizing and making their voices heard, he says.
Sweden is “very schizophrenic” when it comes to attitudes about racism and xenophobia, he says. “If you look at the majority of Swedes and their attitudes, Sweden stands out as an open and accepting country and people.” But, he adds, it is also clear people with “another skin colour” do not have the same opportunities. We’re very good at opening the first door for people, but very good at closing the next doors.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/10/30/racist-violence-reveals-swedens-xenophobic-underbelly.html
We still think we’re heroes: The sad denialism that plagues American foreign policy
"World War II convinced us we were righteous liberators, but we've always been imperialists driven by self-interest"
by WILLIAM J. ASTORE, TOMDISPATCH.COM
"The United States is a peculiar sort of empire. As a start, Americans have been in what might be called imperial denial since the Spanish-American War of 1898, if not before. Empire — us? We denied its existence even while our soldiers were administering “water cures” (aka waterboarding) to recalcitrant Filipinos more than a century ago. Heck, we even told ourselves we were liberating those same Filipinos, which leads to a second point: the U.S. not only denies its imperial ambitions, but shrouds them in a curiously American brand of Christianized liberation theology. In it, American troops are never seen as conquerors or oppressors, always as liberators and freedom-bringers, or at least helpers and trainers. There’s just enough substance to this myth (World War II and the Marshall Plan, for example) to hide uglier imperial realities.
Denying that we’re an empire while cloaking its ugly side in missionary-speak are two enduring aspects of the American brand of imperialism, and there’s a third as well, even if it’s seldom noted. As the U.S. military garrisons the planet and its special operations forces alone visit more than 140 countries a year, American troops have effectively become the imperial equivalent of globetrotting tourists. Overloaded with technical gear and gadgets (deadly weapons, intrusive sensors), largely ignorant of foreign cultures, they arrive eager to help and spoiling for action, but never (individually) staying long. Think of them as the twenty-first-century version of the ugly American of Vietnam-era fame.
The ugliest of Americans these days may no longer be the meddling CIA operative of yesteryear; “he” may not even be human but a “made in America” drone. Think of such drones as especially unwelcome American tourists, cruising the exotic and picturesque backlands of the planet loaded with cameras and weaponry, ready to intervene in deadly ways in matters its operators, possibly thousands of miles away, don’t fully understand. Like normal flesh-and-blood tourists, the drone “sees” the local terrain, “senses” local activity, “detects” patterns among the inhabitants that appear threatening, and then blasts away. The drone and its operators, of course, don’t live in the land or grasp the nuances of local life, just as real tourists don’t. They are literally above it all, detached from it all, and even as they kill, often wrongfully, they’re winging their way back home to safety.
Imperial Tourism Syndrome
Call it Imperial Tourist Syndrome, a bizarre American affliction that creates its own self-sustaining dynamic. To a local, it might look something like this: U.S. forces come to your country, shoot some stuff up (liberation!), take some selfies, and then, if you’re lucky, leave (at least for a while). If you’re unlucky, they overstay their “welcome,” surge around a bit and generate chaos until, sooner or later (in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, much, much later), they exit, not always gracefully (witness Saigon 1975 or Iraq 2011).
And here’s the weirdest thing about this distinctly American version of the imperial: a persistent short-time mentality seems only to feed its opposite, wars that persist without end. In those wars, many of the country’s heavily armed imperial tourists find themselves sent back again and again for one abbreviated tour of duty after another, until it seems less like an adventure and more like a jail sentence."
Kensington Market man doles out bad advice for $1
(Some background: "Kensington Market is a distinctive multicultural neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Market is an older neighbourhood and one of the city's most well-known. In November 2006, it was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.[1][2] Robert Fulford wrote in 1999 that "Kensington today is as much a legend as a district. The (partly) outdoor market has probably been photographed more often than any other site in Toronto."" Wikipedia)
Ryan Sadler frequents Kensington Market with a sign offering bad advice for $1.
By: Tara Deschamps Staff Reporter, Published on Thu Oct 29 2015
If you’re looking for some good advice, don’t bothering asking Ryan Sadler.
He’ll sell you bad advice for $1 if you spot him around Kensington Market, where he’s been catching attention with his kooky sales pitch for the past few weeks.
The Star caught up with Sadler, who has a background in finance, to find out why he’s flogging crummy advice.
In case you don’t heed Sadler’s warning not to follow his recommendations, take ours — his advice is really bad!
Where did the idea to give bad advice come from?
I ... was sitting on the couch, watching YouTube clips. I’m a huge Ronda Rousey fan and I was just listening to her give this quote. ... Her basic critique was a person doesn’t get to be an active participant in society, you don’t actually get to be a critic of situations around you, unless you are actively doing something. It occurred to me I was doing absolutely nothing, so I whipped up a chalkboard sign, came outside and that’s been it.
Ryan Sadler frequents Kensington Market with a sign offering bad advice for $1. Most customers find they get exactly what they paid for.
What are some of the pieces of advice you’ve given out?
I will say anything, from ‘Get a tattoo of Stephen Harper on your butt’ — it’s a topical tattoo, people like topical tattoos. I’ll tell people to interact in strange, but very friendly and non-aggressive ways with police. I’ll suggest that people ruin their lives in obscene decadence by consuming everything that is put around them. … "
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/10/29/kensington-market-man-doles-out-bad-advice-for-1.html
Lesbian Couple Files Lawsuit After Hawaii Cop Arrested Them For Kissing
"The lawsuit states that the officer was motivated by his hostility towards gay people.
HONOLULU (AP) - The Honolulu Police Department opened an internal investigationWednesday into allegations that an officer wrongfully arrested a vacationing lesbian couple after seeing them kissing in a grocery store.
Courtney Wilson and Taylor Guerrero, who were visiting Hawaii from Los Angeles in March, said in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that they were harassed and arrested because the officer didn't like their public displays of affection in a Foodland store on Oahu's North Shore.
They were walking through the aisles holding hands and at one point hugged and kissed, the lawsuit said: Officer Bobby Harrison, who was shopping in uniform, "observed their consensual romantic contact and, in a loud voice, ordered plaintiffs to stop and 'take it somewhere else.'"
The women complied and continued shopping, the lawsuit said. When Harrison again saw them being affectionate with each other, he threatened to have them thrown out of the store.
"We're used to people making remarks here and there," Wilson said of their two-year relationship.
While the women were in the check-out line, Harrison grabbed Wilson by the wrist, and she started to call 911, she said.
"He was bumping his belly against Courtney," Guerrero said. "He said, 'you girls don't know how to act. You don't know the difference between a motel and a grocery store.'"
When Guerrero tried to get in between her girlfriend and the officer, he shoved her. She kicked him as she was falling, she said.
"The whole situation got physical," Wilson said. "I got punched in the face by him."
Because Harrison didn't have any handcuffs on him, store employees helped restrain the women, as customers watched. "You can't really blame them for not getting involved," Wilson said of the bystanders."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lesbian-couple-arrested-after-kissing-in-hawaii-grocery-store_5631369ee4b0c66bae5ad2c2
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Unreal. In Hawaii, in 2015? We have to start psychological screening of police candidates -- wait, never mind, the police unions will just hand out cheat sheets on how to lie your way thru that too like they do for shootings by police.
Check out the link to see how unthreatening, (nonthreatening?), this couple is.
"Obama's Gotten The U.S. Stuck In Yemen. Is He Looking For A Way Out?"
By: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
"More than 2,500 civilian deaths later, the White House is being asked to account for the war it's supporting.
WASHINGTON -- Over the past six months, the Obama administration has quietly embroiled the U.S. in a Middle Eastern war that has left more than 20 million people in need of humanitarian aid and killed at least 5,000.
U.S.-backed Sunni Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, have bombed weddings, left families to starve and looked the other way as an al Qaeda affiliate has used the confusion to seize significant territory. Civilian casualties are growing daily.
The White House won't admit that the U.S. is even "in" Yemen. But it's refueling the planes bombing the country and providing intelligence to the Sunni states running the Yemen campaign. Now lawmakers, dissenters within the administration and human rights activists are ramping up their criticisms of the Obama policy. They argue that the U.S. is callously backing the Saudi-led coalition -- in part to reassure America's Sunni allies in the wake of the nuclear deal with Shiite Iran -- without concern for the consequences. By supporting the Saudi effort, they say, President Barack Obama risks empowering al Qaeda and implicating the U.S. and its allies in war crimes -- not to mention further tarnishing America's already damaged image in the Middle East.
"It's time for Congress to ask some serious questions about whether the United States’ current participation in this civil war is advancing our nation's national security interests," Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement Thursday."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-yemen-war_562a9ac0e4b0443bb5640b85?cps=gravity_5059_-3355713360074853460
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Honestly, our country's fixation on trying to find military "solutions" to religious and ethnic conflicts in the middle east is dismaying, to say the least. What ever happened to soft power, brokered peace arrangements, financial aid incentives?
Turkish President thinks Obama campaign ‘master minds’ behind HDP
Source: hurriyet daily news (Turkey)
An ongoing tussle between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has reached Washington after the former suggested that a company that once managed U.S. President Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign has now been hired by the Kurdish problem-focused party to run its campaign for the Nov. 1 snap elections.
“In these elections, the campaign management of a certain party is run by the team that managed Mr. Obama’s campaign,” Erdoğan responded when asked about assumptions that a bomb attack which killed four people at an HDP rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on June 5, two days before the parliamentary elections, had actually increased the HDP’s votes by two percent.
“This team had meetings with leading figures [of this party] in Istanbul. And at those meetings, they also gathered with certain media groups,” Erdoğan said late Oct. 28 during a live interview with Kanal 24 news channel.
Accusing the HDP executive of constantly lying to people, particularly about their alleged link to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Erdoğan said, “The team that runs that campaign tells [the HDP] ‘Always use lies, always use insults because when a lie is constantly used, it eventually turns to truth.’ This is the campaigning mind, the master mind. We have all of this information. When you look, they are implementing this exactly.”
Read more: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-president-thinks-obama-campaign-master-minds-behind-hdp.aspx?pageID=238&nID=90482&NewsCatID=338
Wow. The Turkish government is making it quite clear what THEY think the main threat in the region is -- Kurdish autonomy and eventually an independent Kurdish state. Ethnic Kurdish political parties and politicians are heavily criticized as here, peace demonstrations by Kurdish Turkish citizens are getting bombed in Turkey, and ISIS is getting resupplied to fight against Kurdish resistance inside Syria.
The Turkish government is certainly being consistent about THEIR geo-political goals, which are not at all parallel to the US's.
China allows two children for all couples, making decades old one-child policy history
Source: SCMP (Hong Kong)
China’s ruling Communist Party said on Thursday it will ease family planning restrictions to allow two children for all couples.
The rules are a major liberalisation of the country’s family planning restrictions, which were eased in late 2013 when Beijing said it would allow millions of families to have two children after decades of the strict one-child policy.
The party also said it would target medium to high growth for the next five years, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua said on its microblog that the decision to allow all couples to have two children was “to improve the balanced development of population” and to deal with an aging population.
The decision does away with an unpopular policy that was long considered one of the party's most onerous intrusions into family life.
Read more: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1873843/china-ditches-one-child-policy-allowing-two-children
China has finally lifted its decades-old one-child policy.
Hillary Clinton Comes Out Against Abolishing The Death Penalty
Source: Huffington Post
This is the Democratic front-runner's first mention of the contentious issue on the 2016 campaign trail.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came out against abolishing the death penalty -- the first time she has addressed the issue during the current presidential campaign.
"I do not favor abolishing" the death penalty, she said, qualifying her position by adding that its use should be "very limited and rare," according to press reports.
Clinton has previously acknowledged how the plight of mass incarceration and police brutality affect communities of color disproportionately, and on Wednesday she conceded the death penalty is often administered in a discriminatory way, according to a reporter who attended.
Her view on state-sanctioned executions has remained consistent over the years. During her Senate campaign in 2000, she offered support for the death penalty -- in a seeming attempt to appear moderate on some social issues.
But her position is a marked break from her Democratic primary opponents Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, both of whom oppose capital punishment. O'Malley, for his part, signed a bill in 2013 abolishing the death penalty in Maryland and commuted the death sentences of four death-row inmates as he stepped down from the governorship.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-death-penalty_56310eb4e4b00aa54a4c48c9
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