Ah, the land of the million-billionaires.

I fully expect the Democratic nominee to fall in line when the platform moves to a national stage.

Donald Trump made me chuckle the day he said, "Running for President is really hard / hard work." I don't remember whether he said work after hard. The politics of the office surprised him. I think he has gotten used to it now, but, when he first started he was a new world. 

That probably is true of most any candidate for the Presidency. They are running for President for the first time. There is only one USA President and a candidate only achieves the office twice, initially and re-election. I don't believe any candidate for the office is a Pro. 

In some cases the candidate has run many times, but, they aren't frequently elected. Obviously. But, the one candidate that has the most man hours in this category would be the Libertarian candidate, former Governor Gary Johnson (click here).

June 3, 2016

Washington - " A close friend of Donald Trump (click here) has helped start a super PAC to support him, potentially giving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee his first big-donor help for the general election.

Tom Barrack, a Los Angeles real estate investor, said in an interview with CNN on Thursday that the group has already received $32 million in financial commitments. The group is called Rebuilding America Now, according to documents filed with federal regulators.

Like other super PACs, the new group will be able to accept unlimited amounts of money from wealthy donors, but won't be permitted to take directions from the candidate or his campaign.

There already are several super PACs backing Trump, but none is seen as having the blessing of his campaign. That potentially could cause confusion for donors who want to be convinced that they're giving to a group that Trump himself sees as helpful to his cause.

Another complication: Trump has repeatedly condemned all super PACs as "corrupt."...

Who rescues the ejected pilots over domestic waters?

The scene the rescuers found was very dangerous. There was even fuel in the water and they were on jet skies. It takes more than guts to rescue our pilots. It takes bravery.

Supplied photo by D.J. Struntz. Wrightsville Beach fire chief Glen Rogers, far left, and Ocean Rescue director Dave Baker, far right, present EMT lifeguard Kyle Miess and Ocean Rescue captain Jeremy Owens with medals for meritorious conduct during a ceremony Monday, May 30.

On May 6,first responders (click here) charged into a dangerous scene, riding a Jet Ski more than one mile and through floating debris and fuel to be the first to reach the pilot of a Marine Corps jet that crashed off of Wrightsville Beach.  This week, the Wrightsville Beach Fire Department honored Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue Capt. Jeremy Owens and EMT, firefighter and lifeguard Kyle Miess with the department’s medal for meritorious conduct.

“Jeremy and Kyle were true to our motto: ‘always willing and always ready,’” said Glen Rogers, Wrightsville Beach fire chief.  “They jumped into action to respond to potentially fatal military aircraft crash. Our nation could have lost another military member. Fortunately circumstances worked out for the best for the pilot and his rescuers.”

After receiving the call at about 4:50 p.m. on Friday afternoon, Owens and Miess left from the station, launched a Jet Ski near Masons Inlet, and arrived at the downed pilot nearly two miles offshore in less than 20 minutes. The Marine Corps Harrier jet pilot ejected before the plane crashed and Miess said he was conscious when they arrived. The Marine Corps said the pilot recovered without serious injury.

Wrightsville Beach Town Manager Tim Owens said the scene must have been “surreal.”

“They went out there and didn’t know what to expect, but they came out with a good outcome,” Owens said. “I couldn’t imagine responding to a scene like that.”...                        

Life's meaning is not about money. 

It is about relationships.

I've never read an obituary that stated "...will be survived by his vast holdings..."

Why is it Wall Street likes to read tea leaves rather than living with the truth?

Oil is to Saudi Arabia like currency is to China. This isn't about money. It is about their national security strategy agenda.

Just because Saudi Arabia is growing economic diversity doesn't mean they are running out of oil.

Now, I know, Wall Street understand population growth. Why would any reasonable person not believe Saudi Arabia needed to grow a diversified economy since people continue to enter the Saudi population through birth alone?

This is where Dick Cheney's friends went completely wrong. They believed they could push OPEC off it's price and force them to give up their customers and then ultimately American oil with new export laws could take over the global oil market.

"W"rong! OPEC is not that stupid. What does that say about the Bush/Cheney Energy report which featured the Caspian Sea?

America's million-billionaires think with greed in their heart. The rest of the world thinks with national strategy, national security, how that is enforced through markets and their place in global markets.

June 2, 2016
By Stanley Reed

Vienna — The new oil minister in Saudi Arabia, (click here) the de facto leader of the OPEC countries, had a message for the global market: Don’t expect us to influence the price of crude oil by adjusting supplies.
“I think managing in the traditional way that we tried in the past may never come again,” the minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Thursday. “Certainly we will not go with certain price targets.”
The message — which came after the decision on Thursday by the 13-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain high levels of oil production — is central to the changing strategy of the Saudi crude-oil complex. And it could foreshadow a period of volatility for oil prices because OPEC’s policies and the Saudis’ sway have long helped guide the markets.
In a sweeping directive last month, Saudi Arabia set forth plans to diversify its economy, reduce its dependence on oil and pull back on its government handouts. And what Mr. Falih does with Saudi Arabia’s oil — how much the kingdom decides to pump and where the money goes — is the biggest piece of the puzzle....

Rye Hunt's reality changed after taking a drug of some kind. He became paranoid.

June 2, 2016
By Lexi Metherell

Bruno Mouta, the nightclub owner, (click here) said Mr Hunt and his friend stayed at the club until it closed, and then he and several bodyguards walked them back to their hostel.

Mr Hunt vanished after separating from his travelling companion Mitchell Sheppard, 22, at Rio International Airport on May 21.

Police say on the night before he went missing, Mr Hunt and Mr Sheppard took MDMA at their hostel before going to the nightclub Raizes da Lapa, in the Lapa district.

Mr Mouta said he helped translate for the two young men because the bartenders could not speak English.

"I talked to them, and I could see they were like, high and they were not thinking straight, you know.

"They were under effect of a kind of drug, I don't know which one.

"So, they started to see things and they thought everyone there was staring at them, that everyone there wanted to kill them.

"They were really terrified, especially the one who is missing."...

This isn't really a surprise, is it?

Prince's Death Certificate (click here)

Anyone with some kind of degree of wealth is open to predatory drug dealers. Prince was no different. He had dollars tattooed to his face just like every other celebrity that has succumbed to the temptation of needing less and less sleep to produce more and more music.

The trouble here is that the artists sincerely loved their work and no cost was too great. The entertainment industry needs to investigate itself and end the presence of drugs within reach of their people. There is no indication USA law enforcement can be effective, especially if their dogs are off limits to fentanyl laced heroine. Someone needs to do something, otherwise the industry is going to continue to lose their people. Urine drug tests for everyone along with contracts that demand sobriety and a drug free lifestyle.

It was admirable to realize the porn industry cleaned up the danger to their people when HIV started to threaten lives and careers. If the porn industry can defeat HIV/AIDS, the entertainment industry can do the same thing with opioids. (click here)

There is plenty of help to conquer this problem and there should never be drugs in concert halls. Such elements in a concert hall defeats the idea of predictable behavior of the crowd and their safety is compromised.

ACE insures entertainment venues. (click here)

Abu Zubaydah won't enter the court room and Hassan Guleed was stopped from talking about his treatment. Why? Why can't they talk about their treatment?

What is the military base hiding? There should not be any prisoner treatment the USA should have to hide.

Why aren't the defense attorneys standing up for their clients? The court is the only place these men can verbalize their complaints that have a somewhat neutral interest in those facts. What is affecting their behavior that would impact the hearings? I would think the judge would want to hear it.

The truth about the detainees treatment can only be a good way for Guantanamo to vent the truth. If the commander disagrees with the prisoner's edition of his treatment, the commander could easily refute it. I don't see that any of this should be a secret.

The USA has been through all this mess. There were changes made to the methods of treatment of detainees or prisoners. We have to go through it again?

June 2, 2016
By the AP

Guantanamo Bay Navel Base, Cuba — A Somali prisoner (click here) at Guantanamo Bay told a military judge Thursday that he has experienced what he believes are intentional noises and vibrations inside the high-security section of the prison known as Camp 7, echoing a defendant in the Sept. 11 war crimes case who has alleged he is the victim of deliberate attempts at sleep deprivation.
Hassan Guleed, an alleged member of East Africa al-Qaeda making his first appearance in a U.S. court since his 2004 capture, portrayed sounds and vibrations as well as chemical odors in testimony at the U.S. base in Cuba as "a kind or pressure" intended to make detainees cooperate with authorities. He contrasted it with other forms of abusive treatment that he and others experienced while held by the CIA in overseas prisons before being taken to Guantanamo.
"We have mental torture in the Camp 7. In the black site there was physical..." Guleed started to say when prosecutors and the judge cut him off to keep him from discussing details about his confinement that are classified as secret....

Hillary Clinton Foreign Policy

There are no real surprises. She is rock solid and reliable in her policies and positions. However, I think that are two weaknesses she needs to be ready for and one strength she needs to repeat often when appropriate.




Weaknesses:

The right wing will attack her on Daesh / ISIS in Libya.

The left wing will attack her on drones.

Strength:

The country needs to hear more about women in our military and sexual assault. That sexual assault doesn't end for women when they leave the military. They are open again to it when they use their GI Bill to educate themselves at colleges and universities to enter the rest of her life with a good job with good pay.

Minnesota believes the science.

They have to continue to fly. That pollen is vital to life.

March 20, 2016
By Josephine Marcotty

Investigators from the state Department of Agriculture (click here) confirmed, in effect, what beekeepers have been saying for years: Even when used according to law, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world are acutely toxic to honeybees under routine circumstances.
In the first test of a landmark environmental law, Minnesota has compensated two beekeepers whose hives were severely damaged last spring by toxic dust that drifted off the fields of a neighbor planting corn.
Investigators from the state Department of Agriculture confirmed, in effect, what beekeepers have been saying for years: Even when used according to law, the most widely used class of insecticides in the world are acutely toxic to honeybees under routine circumstances.
Even more importantly, said state Sen. Rick Hansen, the finding marks a precedent in the ongoing national fight over the controversial group of insecticides called neonicotinoids, which have been implicated in the decline of bees and other wild pollinating insects....

Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank made a very interesting observation.

The highest temperatures of Earth on record has now continued since November of last year. The heating of Earth is now record setting on a continual basis.

That is a climate crisis. 

It means the residual ability of Earth's ice structures can no longer overcome the solar radiation from Sol.

Maryland has a respected status in outlawing neonicotinoids.

April 8, 2016

By Natasha Geiling

Bonnie Raindrop (click here) has been beekeeping for just nine years, but that’s been more than enough time to see the precipitous decline in bee populations that has been plaguing Maryland. Last year, according to the USDA, Maryland beekeepers lost 61 percent of their honeybee populations, which is two times higher than the national average. Over the last five or so years, Raindrop herself has witnessed crushing losses in her own hives, fluctuating between 50 and 100 percent.

Which is why Raindrop is so happy that the Maryland legislature has started to take notice. Thursday night, the Maryland House and Senate agreed upon and jointly passed a final version of the Maryland Pollinator Protection Act, which would eliminate consumer use of neonicotinoids, a widely-used class of pesticides that has been shown to negatively impact honeybees. If the bill — which now goes to the desk of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) — is enacted into law, it would make Maryland the first state in the country to codify such protection for honeybees at a statewide level.

“Maryland’s [pollinator] losses are really staggering,” Tiffany Finck-Haynes, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, told ThinkProgress, noting that “sustainable” bee losses are considered to be around 10 to 15 percent of a colony — significantly less than what Maryland has been experiencing....

...Economic Value (click here)
Honey bees are the most economically valuable pollinator worldwide, and many high-value crops such as almonds and broccoli are entirely reliant upon pollination services by commercial beekeepers. Globally, 9.5% of the total economic value of agricultural production for human consumption comes from insect pollination – in 2005, this amounted to just under $200 billion.
The value of crops pollinated by bees in the U.S. alone was estimated at $14.6 billion in 2000 – that figure has since grown....

Another tasar death of an unarmed person, Ollie Lee Brooks.

I find it astounding that police can walk into a motel's office and search a guest register without a judges' warrant.

June 2, 2016

By Paighten Harkins

A 64-year-old man died (click here) at a hospital Saturday after officers pepper sprayed and Tased him during an arrest attempt at an east Tulsa motel.

Ollie Lee Brooks was pronounced dead at Oklahoma State University Medical Center after an ambulance transported him from the Super 8 Motel at 1011 S. Garnett Road, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Officers went to the motel at 6:19 p.m. to search the register for guests with outstanding warrants, police spokesman Leland Ashley said. They found that Brooks — who was wanted in Okmulgee County — was staying there....

Every American citizen can appreciate financial laws. The safe guards are not just for the middle class.

May 31, 2016

By SEC

Washington, DC  - 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (click here) today charged a Nashville, Tenn.-based investment advisory firm and its owner with scheming to collect extra monthly fees from a pair of hedge funds they managed.

Examiners in the SEC’s Atlanta office detected the misconduct during an examination of Hope Advisers Inc., which is owned by Karen Bruton.  The SEC alleges that in order to circumvent the funds’ fee structure under which the firm is entitled to fees only if the funds’ profits that month exceed past losses, Hope Advisers and Bruton have been orchestrating certain trades that enable the funds to realize a large gain near the end of the current month while basically guaranteeing a large loss to be realized early the following month.  Without the fraudulent trades, Hope Advisers would have received almost no incentive fees since October 2014. 

“We allege that Hope Advisers and Bruton disregarded investors by engaging in a pattern of deceptive trades so they could continue earning large incentive fees,” said Walter Jospin, Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office.

Hope Advisers and Bruton have consented to an interim order that restricts them from accessing $7 million of their own investments in the funds, prohibits them from collecting any further fees unless they satisfy the high water mark in the funds’ fee structure, and restricts them from taking additional investments in the fund.  Without admitting or denying the allegations, Hope Advisers and Bruton also are preliminarily enjoined from violating the antifraud statutes of the federal securities laws....

The fun just never stops.

May 31, 2016
By Jeff German

The administrator (click here) of two Las Vegas surgery centers pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to embezzling $1.3 million from physicians who invested in the clinics.
Robert Barnes, 50, who ran the Surgery Centers of Southern Nevada and other entities for the physicians, pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement in connection with health care.
He remains free and has agreed to pay restitution to the clinics. His sentencing is Sept. 1
According to his plea agreement, Barnes gambled away $515,000 in casino cash advances he obtained with company credit cards. He also bought a $38,000 diamond ring with company credit cards and spent another $45,000 on personal travel and entertainment.
The $1.3 million was stolen from the clinics between 2010 and 2013, the indictment alleges.

The clinics, one on West Twain Avenue and another on Burnham Avenue, began to struggle financially in 2010, the indictment states....

I just loved this "Google Doodle." Lotte Reiniger is among the Who's Who of animation art.

June 2, 2016
By Adam Boult

Lotte Reiniger (click here) the German film-maker who brought a European slant to the traditionally Asian art of silhouette puppetry, would have been 117 today.

Born in Charlottenburg district of Berlin in 1899, Reiniger started experimenting with shadow puppet productions while still at school, making her silhouettes act out scenes from Shakespeare to entertain her schoolmates...

Donald Trump's business supporters are leaving the family.

Yesterday the reality of "Cadillac" as a former golf advertiser was made clear. Major supporters of the Donald Trump Empire are getting nervous and moving to other venues, including Mexico.

This ad is from the NYT's front e-page. The reaction by Cadillac from yesterday is notable.

GM needs to provide new insight to the American public. There is more reason for GM to be proud and reassured in their place on the American landscape. Why?

It isn't because the company is supporting a golf outing in Mexico, it is because of the long and sustaining relationship with the American people.

June 1, 2016
By Edward A. Sanchez

During this election season, (click here) the topic of manufacturing and the gradual migration of manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. over the past 20-plus years the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been in effect has been a lightning-rod issue for voters and presidential candidates alike. However, the migration of jobs back to the U.S. appears to be happening on its own, regardless of which way the political winds are blowing -- or perhaps because of them. Automotive News reports that General Motors is planning on moving some production of the 1500-series Crew Cab trucks from its plant in Silao, Mexico, to its plant in Flint, Michigan. The Flint plant primarily builds the 2500 and 3500 HD series Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks.

If GM were to transfer all of 1500 truck production to Flint, that would leave Silao Assembly without a vehicle to build. GM also operates engine and transmission plants in Silao. That prospect is unlikely following an announcement from GM in 2014 that it was planning on investing $3.6 billion in its production facilities in Mexico through 2018. However, a specific plant-by-plant allocation of those investments was not given....

GM IS COMING HOME !!!!!!

US Senator Sanders has compelling funding.

I sincerely believe the funding Senator Sanders receives moves his campaign forward more than any poll. The funding is a poll all to itself.

The Sanders campaign funding is a rolling total of his support. I am quite sure there are many donors that have reached their limit over the past year. Realizing how the funding continues to build is to realize the growing grassroots support he has.

Senator Sanders' grows his funding with every state he enters to win delegates. He leaves maxed out donors behind on a time line that continues to defy any campaign funding ever witnessed before. These is not continual funding by the same donors. His funding is built on new supporters as time goes by.

It is incredible to realize what kind of funding will occur if he were a national candidate. All those maxed out donors could do it all over again. That is an incredible amount of national support for Senator Sanders. Part of the reason the campaign continues to believe the national election can be theirs is because of the growing donor class. Their donor class is unique and spans diversity and socio-economic dynamics of the country.

I think it is completely reasonable to believe Senator Sanders will continue to campaign up to the national convention and into the national election. He wants to change the way the USA conducts politics. He wants his agenda respected for the benefit of the American people. He won't be silenced for some time. He is dedicated to the values he has carried as his personal brand for the entire length of his political life. There is no other word to describe him, "Amazing."

June 1, 2016
By Yamiche Alcindor

Spreckels, Calif. — Bernie Sanders (click here) signaled Wednesday that he would continue his presidential campaign beyond the California primary next week, saying he had the money to keep running until the Democratic National Convention next month.

During a news conference while campaigning in California, the Vermont senator said he already had plans to host events in Washington next week and to lobby superdelegates to withdraw their support from Hillary Clinton and back him instead. He added that he felt confident he can win California’s primary on Tuesday and that Mrs. Clinton was campaigning in the state because of polls showing the two locked in a tight race there. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released on Wednesday shows the race in a statistical tie.

“We have absolutely the financial resources that we need to run a very, very strong campaign here in California and in the other states and in D.C. and Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands and throughout the rest of the campaign,” Mr. Sanders said....

The Paris Climate Summit is about reversing the effects of greenhouse gases and providing respite from assaulted land.

The Paris Climate Summit is a vital set of standards to protect people from devastating climate that is permanently driving people from their homeland. There are the issues of drought, flooding, severe cold and oppressive heat.

I am sorry to hear Donald Trump is making a decision to oppose the Paris Climate Summit.

The USA have climate crisis victims.

The "Climate Justice" movement:

Climate justice (click here) links human rights and development to achieve a human-centred approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable people and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its impacts equitably and fairly. Climate justice is informed by science, responds to science and acknowledges the need for equitable stewardship of the world’s resources.

Guided by core principles the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice dedicates itself to action in order to realise its vision of a world engaged in the advancing of climate justice.

The draft principles were developed and discussed by the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice based on the common understanding of key principles, concepts and opportunities identified at a meeting of a small group of people from all parts of the world who have been working on climate justice issues. The meeting was supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation in Pocantico in July 2011.

These principles are rooted in the frameworks of international and regional human rights law and do not require the breaking of any new ground on the part of those who ought, in the name of climate justice, to be willing to take them on....

I just finished writing to a group of scientists I regularly correspond with about this very issue. Oddly to me, Chris Hayes talked to Secretary Kerry on his program this evening. I am looking forward to the special on the topic.

But, the USA's minorities have rightfully identified with others in the international theater experiencing the impact, the very profound impact of the climate crisis. No different than other impoverished people they do not have resources to move away from or even find safety from the climate crisis.

American minorities are more susceptible to stifling heat, brittle cold, severe storms, rising water and lack of clean water and fresh air.

There is a video on C-Span of a panel discussion of the topic of "Climate Justice." (click here)

One aspect of this movement as articulated by qualified people to represent the minority populations in the USA, is the end of the climate denier Congressperson. They are sorry to hear elected members of Congress deny the existence of the climate crisis. In denying the subject they also deny the profound effects on these populations of Americans. 

NASA Hurricane Katrina (click here)

I fully agree there should have been a huge awareness of the impacts of the climate crisis on minorities populations after the profound loss of 1,836 Americans by Category Five Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There are 1577 people lost in Louisiana and 238 people in Mississippi. The profound negligence of the USA regarding the helplessness of these people is the fact over half lost were elderly. These people died before their time because of the negligence of the USA to identify the climate crisis and act to guard from it. 

NASA studies these storms to understand them an help develop policy to minimize the problems in the USA. Those studies unfortunately go unheeded by a Congress that continues these profound problems.

Katrina was the size of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a record setter.

May 30, 2016
By Marielle Mohs

Little Rock, Ark. (KTHV) -- Hurricane Katrina (click here) wrecked the coast of New Orleans in 2005. As a neighboring state, several Arkansans went down to help. While there, an Arkansas Army National Guardsman saved an evacuee’s family photos that he found. Almost 11 years later, he's still hoping to get them back to its owners.

Timothy and Larayna Honea have been posting the photos on social media all this time, but so far they have had no luck, which is why they reached out to THV11 for help.

“There's something in here that she wanted to keep,” said Honea. “She thought to grab these pictures.”...

It may be the person who might identify those pictures are no longer alive. There may be family that would appreciate them if indeed that is the case.

Heroine can be taken on a lark as part of a party culture.

So, very, very chic. Anorexia was difficult before, but, it is so much easier today.

Heroine addiction can be found with co-diagnosis, including alcoholism. Heroine addicts, from personal experience at the professional level, profoundly believes they are in control of their addiction.

There is a generational issue here as well. There are still heroine addicts from the sixties. No lie. Then there are the NEW users of current generations. When life deals a young person a bad deal without use of education and work they desire, they will give up to what is available to them.

There is an unwitting culture that fights the vulnerability of our young generation found within "TED Talks." (click here) There are young people that forged their way into gainful employment and they deserve recognition.

...Once heroin frightened people. (click here) More recently, some people have
tried to make heroin use “fashionable.”

In the past decade, the “heroin addict look”—blank expression, waxy complexion, dark circles under the eyes, sunken cheeks, excessive thinness, greasy hair—was promoted in popular magazines and fashion circles as “chic.”

Just as rock stars helped popularize LSD during the 1960s, so have some fashion designers, photographers and advertising people of today influenced an entire generation of youth, by portraying heroin use in magazines and music videos as fashionable and even desirable.

This is dated to 2011. (click here)  It validates what I stated here. More accurate statistics need to be quoted in official front line efforts. Senator Markey has an interesting approach to attack the immediate danger in identifying fentanyl as the prime driver to the deaths within the heroine addiction. Ending the fentanyl supply will stem the deaths while heroine addiction will be a longer term goal.

A rather interesting side effect of adding fentanyl to heroine is the FACT police departments don't want to expose their canine companions to the detection of heroine because they can die with one sniff. I strongly suggest this side effect might be the primary driver to the use of fentanyl in heroine. It is a drug cartel enhancement that ends police authority in ending the importation of heroine to the USA. When will the Americans finally learn their lesson?

The American opium addiction needs to be a part of the 2016 elections.

May 27, 2016
By Melanie Hunter

An official (click here) with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee Thursday that the number of deaths involving heroin  increased 340 percent from 2007 to 2014, the latest year of available data....

...“The threat posed by heroin has continued to grow dramatically over the past several years, and since 2007, deaths involving heroin have risen 340 percent--from 2,402 in 2007 to 10,574 in 2014. Heroin use is spreading to suburban and rural communities and is growing among most socio-economic classes, age groups and races,” he told the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues....

...“Poppy cultivation in Mexico has increased substantially in recent years, rising from 17,000 hectares in 2014 to 28,000 hectares in 2015, which could yield potential production of 70 metric tons of pure heroin,” he said....

...“Illicit fentanyl is sometimes mixed with powder heroin to increase its effects or mixed with dilutants and sold as synthetic heroin. Increasingly fentanyl is being pressed into pill form and sold as counterfeit prescription opioid pills,” Chester said. “The majority of the elicit fentanyl in the U.S. is clandestinely produced in Mexico or in China. Fentanyl is extremely dangerous and deadly.”

According to Chester, “In 2014, there were more than 5,544 drug overdose deaths involving synthetic narcotics other than methadone – a category that includes fentanyl. This number has more than doubled from two years earlier.”...

Heroine is the product of opium. China's opium culture has been long standing. When adding the illegal trafficking of opium and fentanyl through China to the USA, China's GDP takes an interesting uptick.

Afghanistan's opium ECONOMY is coming directly into the USA and killing Americans. Afghanistan goes unchallenged as the largest producer globally of opium/heroine/fentanyl.

17 September 2015

...The opium (click here) is refined into heroin inside the country and then exported to its neighbours. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Undoc) estimates the market value of last year's total production to be around $340m (£220m).
As a result Myanmar can now lay claim to the dubious honour, after Afghanistan, of being the second largest producer of opium in the world. It now accounts for almost 25% of the world's total production.
Right up until the end of the 20th century, the mountains of Myanmar, which was part of the so-called "Golden Triangle" with neighbouring Laos and Thailand, was the largest supplier of opium. The region was then overtaken by Afghanistan.
Demand from China, but also Australia and Japan, is one factor behind the rise in production in Myanmar over the last decade.
The single biggest driver in this turnaround is the growth of demand in China where Undoc estimates that 70% of the heroin produced in Asia is consumed by more than a million users....

Bill Kristol should just stay home on election day.

Bill Kristol is part of the problem and not part of the solution. Also, Donald Trump does not hypnotize his supporters.
The people electing Donald Trump to the Republican nomination for President isn't interested in this mess. I am sure they don't read Bill Kristol either. They have been kicked around enough by the Republican establishment and Donald Trump presented himself as an answer to their PROBLEMS that never are solved by the establishment Republicans who do nothing but kiss Wall Street's ring.
According to U.S. Census figures released Thursday, Mississippi had a poverty rate of 22.6 percent in 2011, while its median household income came in at $36,919.
The people are stuck with Republicans because they believe the social conservatism is their savior. While the average Republican wallowing in poverty seeks improvement in their daily live through religious graces the elected official plays with Wall Street at gold courses they can only dream about. The people are sick of it and now they have an alternative and it is not some Superman dreamed up by a journalist these Republicans never read because their stretched income can never afford it.
I cannot believe the arrogance required to disrespect the people that are seeking to find the American Dream for DECADES and not since 2008. Bill Kristol epitomizes the establishment Republican who acts in patriarchal idiocy. Bill Kristol wants to be the latest shiny object to draw attention from Donald Trump. That median income is $36,919 in Mississippi, not per capita income. An establishment Republican is simply more of the same without real answers for these Americans.

May 31, 2016

By Mark Halpren and John Heilman

Two Republicans (click here) intimately familiar with Bill Kristol’s efforts to recruit an independent presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have told Bloomberg Politics that the person Kristol has in mind is David French -- whose name the editor of the Weekly Standard floated in the current issue of the magazine.

French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children.