America

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group … death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.”

The big new killers of middle-aged white folks? Alcoholic liver disease, overdoses of heroin and opioids, and suicides. So wrote Gina Kolata in The New York Times of a stunning study by the husband-wife team of Nobel laureate Angus Deaton and Anne Case.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

There has never been a more destructive central banking policy than the Fed’s current maniacal quest to stimulate more inflation and more debt. That’s what is killing real wages and economic vitality in flyover America - even as it showers prodigious windfalls of unearned wealth on Wall Street and the bicoastal elites who draft on the nation’s vastly inflated finances.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Here, a Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clinton’s (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trump’s strengths, whereas every one of Trump’s (few) weaknesses plays to every one of Sanders’s strengths. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.

 

Ealier today, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit the memorial of the American atomic bombings of Japan in Hiroshima, however without offering no apology for the attacks. The trip comes amid Japanese protests over alleged crimes committed by US troops stationed in Japan.

"We have a shared responsibility to look directly in the eye of history. We must ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again," Obama said in a speech at the memorial. Some of the speech highlights:

• Oil prices ease from seven-month high to below $49 (Reuters)
• Wall Street Waits for Yellen Before Taking Off for a Long Weekend (BBG)
• Donald Trump Celebrates Clinching GOP Delegate Race (WSJ)
• Trump vows to undo Obama's climate agenda in appeal to oil sector (Reuters)
• Japan Fails in Bid to Have G-7 Warn of Global Crisis Risk (BBG)
• Valeant Rejected Joint Takeover Approach From Takeda, TPG (WSJ)
• Activist William Ackman, Valeant Investor, Tries Life as an Inside Man (WSJ)