This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The post A Coinkydink? first appeared on Dissident Voice.
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1999: Hurricane Mitch Aftermath
The image is forever seared in my mind: Francisco was two years old, his thin legs and swollen feet were covered in sores. Straw blond hair stuck to his head as he listlessly nursed from his teenage mother’s breast. He weighed 13 ½ pounds.
It was the summer of 1999, and I was weighing babies in Nueva Vida. I’d come to Nicaragua in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch to help in any way I could through the Jubilee House Community and its project in Nicaragua, the Center for Development in Central America (JHC-CDCA).
With its main office located just a mile down the road from the largest Hurricane Mitch resettlement camp in the country, the folks at the JHC-CDCA were busy. Nine months after the hurricane, the 12,000 people in Nueva Vida – who had been moved from Managua’s flooded lakeshore – were still sleeping on the ground in black plastic tents. There were water spigots throughout the camp where families could haul water for cooking and washing and electricity was connected to the tents via a spiderweb of pieced-together barbed wire.
Mitch’s Malnutrition
Families had lost their sources of income – many had been fishermen in the lake, or dug through Managua’s trash to find recyclables to sell. In Nueva Vida, there was no lake and no dump.
Without work, there was never enough to eat. Aid trucks from the big humanitarian organizations had stopped coming – undoubtedly moved on to the next disaster – and families were left struggling to put food in their kids’ mouths.
We’d been meeting with the leadership emerging from the chaos that was Nueva Vida in the early days, and a list of priorities for the community had been drawn up. Top on that list was a health clinic – at that time, Nicaragua’s neoliberal government had essentially privatized health care, and the people of Nueva Vida had no access to doctors or medicine. Although we were still a few months away from setting up what would become the permanent Nueva Vida Clinic, nurse Linda Mashburn came down to Nicaragua that summer and led a nutritional census of the children to get a better idea of the scope of the malnutrition.
That was how I came to be in the tent with Francisco and his mother in a gut-wrenchingly intimate moment where I knew that a child’s life hung in the balance as he suffered from starvation in front of my eyes. That image, and that feeling, has haunted me for 26 years, and will be with me for the rest of my life.
2025: Nicaragua’s New Generation
What was Francisco’s fate? We don’t know. We brought immediate food aid to the family, but they soon moved on, and we lost track of Francisco as we lost track of so many others in that refugee camp.
Fortunately, I can tell you the fate of Nicaragua’s new generation. Earlier this year, our clinic participated in a nation-wide nutritional census, helping to weigh and measure children in Nueva Vida and the rural areas where we work. Our health promoters registered 185 children to receive micronutrients from the Ministry of Health every month to help with their growth and development.Last week, as we handed out the first packets to our tiny patients, the results of the nutritional census came back:
46.6% reduction in acute malnutrition, from 5.8% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2025.
56.9% reduction in chronic malnutrition, from 13.7% in 2016 to 5.9% in 2025.
In 2025, Nicaragua has free universal health care, free education with a hot meal daily for 1.2 million school children, and a host of poverty reduction and income generation programs. This integral approach by the Sandinista government and its herculean efforts to ensure that these programs reach every corner of the country help guarantee that Nicaraguan children today won’t know the type of hunger that Francisco suffered in 1999.
1990-2006: Hunger in Neoliberal Nicaragua
There is no stronger fear than hunger. Hunger has been used historically to control people: if your children are hungry, you will be willing to work for little and accept bad working conditions just to feed them. During the 16 years of Nicaragua’s neoliberal government rule, big business required a cheap, docile workforce in order to further enrich the wealthy. The government’s complete abandonment of the poor led to chronic malnutrition in children under 5 years old, which had reached 21.7% by 2006.
1970s: Hunger in Nicaragua Under Somoza
Further back, under the cruel Somoza dictatorship, malnutrition rates were even higher. Keeping the Nicaraguan people hungry was essential to quell uprisings and ensure Somoza’s continued reign. In 1970s, a group of poor peasants met to discuss and interpret the gospel, and these conversations were recorded in The Gospel in Solentiname. During a discussion of the Slaughter of the Innocents from the Book of Matthew 2:16-18, an astute young observer said, “[In Nicaragua] there is so much infant mortality, and so many stunted, undernourished children. I think that is persecuting children. I think the same thing is happening here as happened to Christ when he was persecuted as a kid.”
Today: Gaza’s Slow Starvation
The persecution of children through forced hunger continues today.
As I celebrate the victory of historically low malnutrition rates and feel joy for Nicaragua’s children, I simultaneously feel anguish for the children of Gaza: in the past 10 days, the daily death toll from forced starvation has increased alarmingly.
With Palestinians unable to leave Gaza, no farming due to constant attacks, and fishing banned by Israel, all food must be brought in to Gaza from outside. These food shipments are controlled by Israel, and carefully calculated to allow people to slowly starve, designed to control the Palestinian people through hunger.
Right now, it feels as if the whole world is standing inside a black plastic tent, watching all of Gaza’s children desperately trying to latch on their mother’s breast. We are all in a a gut-wrenchingly intimate moment where we know that the lives of these children hang in the balance as they suffer from starvation in front of our eyes. This genocide will surely haunt the world forever. The question is, will we move to stop it?
The post Celebrating Nicaragua’s Gains and Feeling Anguish for Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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“Those people … ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” — Donald TRUMP
Trump’s buddy:
This figure corresponds to the number of inmate deaths since the “State of Emergency” was implemented in March 2022. “These were people awaiting trial who had not been convicted,” said the Salvadoran NGO, which provides legal assistance to the families of detainees.
According to SJH, 94% of those who died “had no gang affiliation,” and the organization warned that the total number of deaths in state custody “could surpass 1,000,” noting that “there is information being concealed in mass trials.”
A criminal justice reform passed in 2023 by the Legislative Assembly—controlled by President Nayib Bukele’s party—eliminated individual criminal proceedings and authorized the implementation of mass and collective trials based on gang affiliation. To date, no verdicts have been issued under this procedure, which human rights defenders have repeatedly denounced as violating the right to due process.
[El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, sitting next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, said on Monday he will not return Kilmar Abrego García, a migrant from Maryland who was wrongfully deported.
“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said when a reporter asked.
“How could I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he added, repeating the Trump administration’s claim that Abrego García is a “terrorist” gang member of MS-13 — which it has not claimed in the court battle over his fate.
Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” who has become a key partner in Trump’s controversial deportations, called it a “preposterous question,” saying “of course, I’m not going to do it,” as Trump nodded in agreement.]
Tax all these fucking continuing criminal enterprises? Check it out: UN Special Rapporteur Issues Report Detailing Corporate Machinery that Profits Off Immiseration of Palestinians
Italians Call for Nobel Peace Prize for Francisca Albanese
The Italian attorney, who has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has directly and explicitly accused Israel of committing war crimes and genocide in the Gaza Strip.
During his weekly television show Con Maduro +, the Bolivarian leader said that Albanese “produced a report with conclusive and reliable evidence of the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people.”
“The criminals and the accomplices of the genocide will pay,” Maduro said, emphasizing that human rights defenders like Albanese “will be remembered in the future for their bravery.”
[Caterpillar bulldozer destroying Palestinian home in West Bank. ]
[I.G. Farben executives on trial at 1947 Nuremberg trials. I.G. Farben was a chemical company that manufactured the Zyklon B gas used at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.]
[IDF helicopter at Tel Nof air base that is being upgraded by the U.S.]
[Glastonbury is far from perfect. Tickets are increasingly unaffordable making it largely inaccessible for many working class people. Its demographics remain overwhelmingly white. Its insurer—Allianz—invests in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. The contradictions are real.]
Shit dawg, the outsized number of Chosen People at this Utah fun fun fun felony camp:
A full guest list of the Allen and Co. gathering is below:
Big Tech
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Eddy Cue, senior vice president of services at Apple
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber
Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb
Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir
Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify
Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap
Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision BlizzardMedia and entertainment
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery
Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer of Warner Bros. Discovery
Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company
Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment
Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment
Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences
Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN
Michael Eisner, former CEO of The Walt Disney Company
Rupert Murdoch, former chairman of News Corp
Lachlan Murdoch, chairman of News Corp
Robert Thompson, CEO of News Corp
Barry Diller, chairman of IAC
Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix
Greg Peters, co-CEO of Netflix
Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix
Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube
Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast
Jason Blum, CEO of Blumhouse Productions
Brian Grazer, film and television producer
Bryan Lourd, CEO of Creative Artists Agency
Michael Ovitz, co-founder of Creative Artists Agency
Ynon Keri, CEO of Mattel
Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association
Ravi Ahuja, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment
John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media
Derek Chang, CEO of Liberty Media
Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global
Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks
Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation Entertainment
Casey Wasserman, CEO of Wasserman Media GroupCorporate media
Michael Bloomberg, majority owner of Bloomberg L.P.
Diane Sawyer, anchor for ABC News
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360
Erin Burnett, anchor of CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront
Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial columnist for The New York Times and co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box
Becky Quick, co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box
Bari Weiss, editor of The Free Press
Bret Baier, chief political anchor for FOX News
Evan Osnos, staff writer for The New Yorker
David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post
Gayle King, co-host of CBS Mornings
David Begnaud, contributor for CBS News
Bill Cowher, analyst for CBS SportsPolitics
Glenn Youngkin, governor of Virginia
Wes Moore, governor of Maryland
Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader
Gina Raimondo, former commerce secretaryOthers
Ivanka Trump
Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer
Ruth Rogers, owner of The River Café[Summer camp for billionaires’ begins in Sun Valley with the arrival of 165 private jets]
Look at the degradation in AmeriKKKa, the headlines for this Mafia Meet-Up:
- Sun Valley 2025: Billionaire brawls and AI powerplays set to take centre stage –
- Sun Valley moguls compete for ‘best dressed’ with odd outfits
- Photos show Altman, Iger and Cook arrive at ‘summer camp for billionaires’ in Sun Valley
- Inside The Annual Summer Camp For Billionaires In Sun Valley, Idaho
- Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez show up hand-in-hand for ‘summer camp for billionaires’
- Oprah Winfrey stuns in monochromatic ensemble at billionaires summer camp
- Oprah dazzles in all-white outfit as she joins close friend Gayle King and billionaire masters of the universe at Sun Valley summit
I will belabor the point — AmeriKKKa, AKA LaLaLandia, AKA, UnUnited Snake$ of Israel First, that fucking parasitic country, that ONE, is a tale of five bloody cities:
- Top earners across the United States earn at least six figures, with an average income of over $160,000 for those in the top 10% in 2021.
- Earners in the top 1% need to make $1 million annually in states like California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington.
- In West Virginia, the top 1% earners need only $435,302.
- Historically, the wealthiest Americans have grown richer much faster than the rest of the population.
- Trends in income and wealth disparities are most pronounced among the top and lowest earners.
Annual Incomes of Top Earners
Data from tax year 2021 (as reported on Americans’ 2022 tax returns) shows that taxpayers in the top 1% had adjusted gross income (AGIs) of at least $682,577, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation. Those in the top 5% had AGIs of at least $252,840, while breaking into the top 10% required an income of at least $169,800.1
Those numbers are averages and can vary widely across the country. According to GoBankingRates, also using 2021 data but adjusting it for inflation, qualifying for the top 1% now requires an AGI of over $1 million in five states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington), with Connecticut having the highest threshold, of $1,192,947.
Meanwhile, residents of Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia could qualify with less than $500,000 in AGI, with West Virginia setting the lowest bar at $435,302.
Oh, those house negroes: Malcolm describes the difference between the “house Negro” and the “field Negro.”
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.
So you have two types of Negro. The old type and the new type. Most of you know the old type. When you read about him in history during slavery he was called “Uncle Tom.” He was the house Negro. And during slavery you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro.
The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master. He wore his master’s second-hand clothes. He ate food that his master left on the table. And he lived in his master’s house–probably in the basement or the attic–but he still lived in the master’s house.
So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his master said, “We have good food,” the house Negro would say, “Yes, we have plenty of good food.” “We” have plenty of good food. When the master said that “we have a fine home here,” the house Negro said, “Yes, we have a fine home here.” When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he’d say, “What’s the matter boss, we sick?” His master’s pain was his pain. And it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the master’s house out than the master himself would.
But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The masses–the field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he’d die. [Laughter] If his house caught on fire, they’d pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze.
If someone came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s go, let’s separate,” naturally that Uncle Tom would say, “Go where? What could I do without boss? Where would I live? How would I dress? Who would look out for me?” That’s the house Negro. But if you went to the field Negro and said, “Let’s go, let’s separate,” he wouldn’t even ask you where or how. He’d say, “Yes, let’s go.” And that one ended right there.
So now you have a twentieth-century-type of house Negro. A twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He’s just as much an Uncle Tom today as Uncle Tom was 100 and 200 years ago. Only he’s a modern Uncle Tom. That Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around his head. This Uncle Tom wears a top hat. He’s sharp. He dresses just like you do. He speaks the same phraseology, the same language. He tries to speak it better than you do. He speaks with the same accents, same diction. And when you say, “your army,” he says, “our army.” He hasn’t got anybody to defend him, but anytime you say “we” he says “we.” “Our president,” “our government,” “our Senate,” “our congressmen,” “our this and our that.” And he hasn’t even got a seat in that “our” even at the end of the line. So this is the twentieth-century Negro. Whenever you say “you,” the personal pronoun in the singular or in the plural, he uses it right along with you. When you say you’re in trouble, he says, “Yes, we’re in trouble.”
But there’s another kind of Black man on the scene. If you say you’re in trouble, he says, “Yes, you’re in trouble.” [Laughter] He doesn’t identify himself with your plight whatsoever. — SOURCE: X, Malcolm. “The Race Problem.” African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.
Look, I am taking adults with low income lives, adults with Medicaid lives, adults living with intellectual and developmental disabilities lives, adults who need to take in those 10 cents a pop beer and soda cans just to make ends meet lives, adults on food (SNAP) stamps lives, adults with no transportation options lives … taking them on road trips so they can have some sort of activities of daily living that go beyond watching the TV and playing on Smart/Dumb phones.
Intellectual disability1 starts any time before a child turns 18 and is characterized by differences with both:
- Intellectual functioning or intelligence, which include the ability to learn, reason, problem solve, and other skills; and
- Adaptive behavior, which includes everyday social and life skills.
The term “developmental disabilities” is a broader category of often lifelong challenges that can be intellectual, physical, or both.2
“IDD” is the term often used to describe situations in which intellectual disability and other disabilities are present.3
It might be helpful to think about IDDs in terms of the body parts or systems they affect or how they occur. For example4:
- Nervous system
These disorders affect how the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system function, which can affect intelligence and learning. These conditions can also cause other issues, such as behavioral disorders, speech or language difficulties, seizures, and trouble with movement. Cerebral palsy,5 Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are examples of IDDs related to problems with the nervous system. - Sensory system
These disorders affect the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) or how the brain processes or interprets information from the senses. Preterm infants and infants exposed to infections, such as cytomegalovirus, may have reduced function with their eyesight and/or hearing. In addition, being touched or held can be difficult for people with ASDs. - Metabolism
These disorders affect how the body uses food and other materials for energy and growth. For example, how the body breaks down food during digestion is a metabolic process. Problems with these processes can upset the balance of materials available for the body to function properly. Too much of one thing, or too little of another can disrupt overall body and brain functions. Phenylketonuria (PKU) and congenital hypothyroidism are examples of metabolic conditions that can lead to IDDs. - Degenerative
Individuals with degenerative disorders may seem or be typical at birth and may meet usual developmental milestones for a time, but then they experience disruptions in skills, abilities, and functions because of the condition. In some cases, the disorder may not be detected until the child is an adolescent or adult and starts to show symptoms or lose abilities. Some degenerative disorders result from other conditions, such as untreated problems of metabolism.
The exact definition of IDD, as well as the different types or categories of IDD, may vary depending on the source of the information.
For example, within the context of education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a law that aims to ensure educational services to children with disabilities throughout the nation, the definition of IDD and the types of conditions that are considered IDD might be different from the definitions and categories used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide services and support for those with disabilities. These definitions and categories might also be different from those used by healthcare providers and researchers.
***** But it gets worse, no? This Jewish Calorie Trap:Jewish elite values. More room temperature IQ’s:
Oz began by saying that programs like Medicare and Medicaid “were a promise to the American people to take care of you if you’re having problems financially or you’re having an issue because you’re older and need health care.”
But he also told Fox host Stuart Varney that Americans should also do the most they can to stay healthy.
“We’ll be there for you, the American people, when you need help with Medicare and Medicaid, but you’ve got to stay healthy as well,” Oz said. “Be vital. Do the most that you can do to really live up to the potential, the God-given potential, to live a full and healthy life.”
It was his next piece of advice, however, that inspired waves of social media mockery.
“You know, don’t eat carrot cake. Eat real food,” he said.
And, yes, Oz had brought a whole carrot cake for Varney.
“I couldn’t find a healthy cake, so I brought the closest thing, a carrot cake,” Oz said.
These people DO NOT care about you, me, my clients, those I write about, none of us.
Forget about FDR’s legacy: November 12, 2013/ How Franklin D. Roosevelt Botched Social Security/ Alan Nasser
My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’
Do you know how many MAGA maggots receiving Medicaid, VA benefits, SNAP, DD/ID services, and those getting bedpans changed via the public offers.
The barriers are everywhere, even in communities that are generally supportive, like ours. There are still doorways that can’t accommodate wheelchairs. It is still hard to find meaningful day programs that foster independence with learning, socialization, and assistive technology. The whole narrative still needs to change.
I knew that acceptance and tolerance would only come with public education and awareness. Donald might never understand this, but at least he had been open to our advocating through the White House. That was something. If we couldn’t change his feelings about William, that was his loss. He would never feel the love and connection that William offered us daily. By Fred C. Trump III/ July 24, 2024
And it was this that got me going just now: THE PARASITE TAX: The Central Element of Any Tax Code by Emanuel Pastreich
You red Pastreich’s piece and you be the judge. My comments?
Taxing a continuing criminal enterprises? Taxing the Mafia? Taxing a few million hitmen? Contract killers, tax them? Oh, tax the polluters and the toxin producers? Tax the pedophiles? Tax the manslaughter queens and kings? Tax the AI guys and AGI LGBTQA folk? Tax the mining companies? Tax Boeing and Raytheon? Oh, tax tax tax?
Sure, that is the peaceful revolution, no, the monsters still in charge. Oh, that’s right, where to start with the taxation? Hmm, I do a kilo of coke in my house, selling grams to dentists and doctors and professionals, but, alas, a Good Little German with Loose Lips lets the Nazis of the DEA kind know, and, bam, my house, my guns, my bank accounts, my investments, my retirement, my SS, gone gone gone. Forfeited?
But we will tax these mother fuckers? Nah, you need some training with AK-47’s and Molotovs and Claymore mines and, well, Anarchist Cookbook revised.
You digging this headline? Trump’s BBB busts the budget to benefit arms makers, AI warlords
Yeah.