Op-ed by Scott Uehlinger @ TheHill.com, April 5

Author's bio is enough to make it worth a read:

Scott Uehlinger is a retired CIA station chief and naval officer. A Russian speaker, he spent 12 years working in the former Soviet Union for CIA. In addition to teaching at NYU, he is a frequent TV commentator on National Security and is co-host of the weekly podcast "The Station Chief," available on iTunes or at www.thestationchief.com

Economist Anne Case explains the health mystery that’s upending American politics.

By Katelyn Fosset @ Politico's Magazine, April 5

It’s a mystery with profound implications for American politics, not to mention public health: Why are so many white people dying?

When economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton released their first bombshell study in 2015, showing that mortality rates were rising for middle-aged white Americans after years of decline, the finding stunned the research world. This wasn’t a global trend—it was a distinctly American phenomenon, Case and Deaton had discovered. Among other races and age groups in Europe, mortality rates had continued to fall. But in the U.S. white people aged 45 to 54 without a college degree were dying sooner, and not from the usual suspects like heart disease and diabetes. For an advanced country where the notion of continuous progress is practically a national creed, the revelation was shocking [.....]

THIS IS NUTS?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-national-security-council_us_58e50efbe4b0917d347605ca?

By Brad Reed @ Raw Story, April 4

President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked with a room full of construction union members, and things got a little awkward for him when he started boasting about his big election victory.

Although much of Trump’s speech before the North America’s Building Trades Unions was well received, the president raised some hackles when he said that he and his campaign had “tremendous support” from “almost everybody in this room.” [.....]

Cue up Dostoevsky's The Possessed, Russia's inner Demon.

By Sian Cain @ The Guardian, April 3

Comics studio’s vice president of sales tells summit that some stores say people ‘have had enough’ of new female and ethnic minority characters

This article is not what the headline implies, it is interesting in the retorts to the VP.'s conclusion, how this suit is just clueless about wassup. With all the marketing tools out there, they still don't get teh nuances.

Stunning. Anyone in this administration *not* have connections with Moscow?

By Nicholas Casey & Ana Vanessa Herrero @ The New York Times, March 31

[....] Venezuela this week took its biggest plunge yet toward the one-man rule of Mr. Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court gutted the country’s opposition-controlled legislature, seizing the powers of the only body seen as a counter to the president’s growing authority.

But the move was just part of a slide from democracy that has been gaining steady momentum in the country over the past year — seen starkly in prison cells where the ranks of political prisoners are growing. Those cells are filled with well-known opponents of Mr. Maduro, like a former mayor of a wealthy section of Caracas who was sentenced to more than 13 years on charges of inciting violence; academics who have spoken out; and journalists like Mr. Jatar, whose family says he was simply doing his job when he was detained in September.

At least 114 political prisoners are behind bars in Venezuela, according to Penal Forum, a human rights organization that tracks political arrests in the country, a number that rose from 89 a year ago. The group says that since Mr. Maduro took power in 2013, the government has arrested 6,893 people and jailed 433 for political reasons [....]

The situation has become urgent for Venezuela’s neighbors, 14 of whom wrote a rare joint statement last week calling on Venezuela to release the prisoners as a step toward restoring democratic norms.

This week diplomats from the region met at the Organization of American States, a regional diplomacy group, to discuss steps to possibly expel the country from the group because of its political prisoners, among other accusations of violations of the bloc’s democratic charter [....]

 

@ Politico, March 31

Facing a skeptical crowd of fellow foreign ministers during his first visit to NATO, Rex Tillerson won applause for lunchtime remarks about the need for strength and unity in dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin, five diplomats who were in the room told POLITICO.

[....] Asked how Tillerson was received, one European NATO ambassador said: “With an ovation, I mean it literally. This is not metaphorically speaking. He actually got applause.” 

“I’ll be honest, we didn’t know what we were getting into,” the ambassador said, adding: “Boy, did he deliver: he was very, very clear about the United States standing by its allies. In fact, unlike Mattis, who if you remember conditioned his support for the alliance, Tillerson’s support was unconditional.” [....]

Including photos showing the guys all having a grand time, Boris Johnson doing his jokester thing, could almost be a Shriners meeting.

By Philip Rucker, John Wagner and Mike DeBonis @ The Washington Post, 1 hour ago

The president effectively declared war against the House Freedom Caucus, a powerful group of hard-line conservative Republicans who blocked the health-care bill, threatening to “fight them” and Democrats in the 2018 elections. Trump's threat comes as Republican leaders are bracing for a month of potential GOP infighting over spending priorities.