United States News Digest

Shinseki: Vets' Suicides Due to Wars and Economy

Nov. 13 (EIRNS)—In remarks made on Veterans Day this year, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki admitted that, indeed, the suicide rate among veterans is very high, and that suicides are on the rise among the new veterans produced by the long wasting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's compounded by the stress, the trauma that goes with the current operations, where we have a much smaller military being asked to do so much and then repeat it tour after tour," Shinseki told National Public Radio (NPR).

According to AFP, Shinseki had indicated that suicides by veterans account for about 20% of the 30,000 suicides that take place in the U.S. every year, almost three times the suicide rate of the U.S. population as a whole. A great number of those 30,000 suicides are actually of Vietnam War veterans, showing that the country is still suffering the effects of that long, wasting war, as well.

Shinseki also told NPR that the backlog of disability claims has jumped up to 700,000 from between 400,000 and 500,000 in 2009, and a great portion of those claims are from younger veterans suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Congress Plans To Fiddle While the U.S.A. Burns

Nov. 13 (EIRNS)—The House Democratic "leadership" has decided to do nothing during the first week of the lame-duck session. According to the schedule released by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), last night, the Democrats have no plans to bring up any legislation that could not be passed with less than two-thirds vote of the House. The plight of millions of Americans threatened with, or suffering from joblessness, homelessness, lack of medical care, collapsing communities, and so on, is nowhere to be found on an agenda that, among other things, includes the naming of several post offices and a resolution that calls for bringing the World Cup soccer tournament to the U.S.

The immediate measures that the Congress must take, without hesitation, are the restoration of Glass-Steagall, the extension of unemployment benefits that are about to expire for 2 million Americans, and the necessary adjustment to Medicare, so that doctors taking care of Medicare patients will receive fair reimbursements.

Shocking News: California Faces 'New' Devastating Budget Crisis

Nov. 12 (EIRNS)—Just over one month after the fascist Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced that he had, once again, solved California's ongoing budget crisis, the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) announced new figures, showing an even bigger crisis looming for fiscal year 2011-12.

The warning from the LAO included the news that $6.1 billion of the $25.4 billion shortfall will occur in the present year's budget, which ends on June 30, 2011. This news prompted Schwarzenegger, who has been engaging, successfully, in the "creative destruction" of the state government, to call a special session, to begin on Dec. 6. The lying Schwarzenegger told reporters, "While California's economy appears to be showing signs of stabilizing, our job creation and revenues are still lagging."

Arnie has repeated virtually the same phrase each year since he assumed the office of Governor—yet revenues and job creation continue to "lag," or rather, collapse, as California leads the way in the complete unravelling of the U.S. physical economy, which is then reflected in the decline in revenues, and increased expenses to cover the costs of those who have lost jobs, homes, health insurance, pensions, etc.

The budget "deal" which Arnie rammed through last month included expectations that there would be at least $5.4 billion in Federal aid for the state. In fact, Obama's so-called stimulus plan provided only $1.9 billion.

It was further revealed that, as LaRouchePAC correctly pointed out when the "deal" was signed, nearly one-third of the expected revenues and "savings" which were incorporated in the new budget never materialized, thus adding to the "new" crisis.

In fact, Schwarzenegger has never, once, attempted to "solve" the budget crisis.

He was put in office by senior Austrian School fascist George Shultz, for the explicit purpose of the enacting the "creative destruction" of the state government of California. Each successive budget crisis has been "solved" by more cuts, each time more draconian, and more deadly, while ripping away chunks of the protective elements of the state's social service sector.

The state and local governments have, in the last year, been forced to enact savage cuts in police and fire protection, education, social welfare, infrastructure, and health-care expenditures, while waiting for the "recovery" to kick in.

Thus far, newly-elected Gov. Jerry Brown—a Democrat, who was voted in as a repudiation of Schwarzenegger—has offered no program, or ideas, for dealing with the continued crumbling of the state.

Glenn Beck Takes a Page from LPAC Exposé of George Soros

Nov. 12 (EIRNS)—Despite a fatal flaw within it (see below), Glenn Beck's recent three-part exposé of George Soros is wreaking havoc among that Golem's numerous paid lackeys.

Beck ran the original Dec. 20, 1998 video of Steve Kroft's 60 Minutes interview, in which Soros voiced his "happiness" and "exhilaration" when he helped round up Jews for the Nazis in 1944, as a youth of 14, and viewers can see Soros's broad smile as he says this, and as he confirms he has "no regrets" for anything he did. Beck quotes from an old New Yorker profile in which the atheist Soros confesses what he calls his "Messianic," delusions: that he is "omniscient, omnipotent, and invisible."

There is more that is good and useful in Beck's onslaught against Soros.

The fatal flaw, the tragic (also comic) aspect comes when Beck covers Soros's student days at the Fabian London School of Economics. "Was he part of the freedom-fighters at LSE," Beck asks, those allied with Beck's idol, the anti-American Hapsburg fascist Friederich von Hayek? "No, alas," Beck answers his own question. Rather, he concludes, Soros was with the Fabian Society of (the actually Satanic) Tony Blair.

But in reality, von Hayek was also affiliated with the Fabian Society, just as LSE as a whole is a Fabian Society project. Just as comically, Beck properly demonizes another Vienna LSE denizen, Sir Karl Popper, presumably because Soros modelled himself on Popper. But the Vienna Aristotelean Popper was again no different from Beck's (and Rand Paul's) hero von Hayek.

State Courts Hold Foreclosure Fraudsters Accountable

Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—State courts across the country have issued dozens of rulings to hold banks and their lawyers accountable for the massive fraud in foreclosure filings over the past two years. The Maryland state appeals court ruled that judges can "hire experts to scrutinize paperwork filed in foreclosures, and make lawyers swear that the documents are accurate." New York has threatened to use "penalties of perjury" against lawyers filing bad documents, even if they didn't know they were bad (i.e., the Nazi excuse that they were just "following orders" won't work).

Ohio's Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) court ordered last week that servicers of foreclosures have 30 days to ensure paperwork, or the cases will be dismissed. Dozens of other state courts have taken related actions, making things difficult for Wall Street to push the mess under the rug.