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Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected to ‘transform’ Mexico. Can he do it?

by Mexico News Daily

Over 30 million Mexicans voted for Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the country’s July 1 presidential election, handing the former Mexico City mayor a landslide victory over three opponents with 53 percent of the vote.

López Obrador’s agenda – to root out corruption, reduce violence, rethink Mexico’s gas and energy policy, welcome migrants and spur growth in impoverished areas – is ambitious in this traditionally conservative Latin American nation.

López Obrador has run for president twice on a similar platform, in 2006 and 2012. He lost both times.

To win this year, López Obrador’s young Morena party joined forces with several smaller parties from both right and left to build a triumphant but strange electoral coalition called “Juntos Haremos Historia,” or Together We’ll Make History.

The people now charged with turning López Obrador’s promises into policy when he takes office in December will come from wildly disparate backgrounds, including social progressives, pragmatic business tycoons, evangelical Christians and committed Marxists. The coalition even made room for high-level defectors from all three mainstream Mexican political parties, including the Institutional Revolutionary Party of the outgoing current president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

López Obrador has promised to “transform” Mexico.

With such a wildly varied team behind him, can he actually deliver?
The PRI’s pragmatic legacy

Mexican voters punished Peña Nieto and his party, called “el PRI” for its Spanish acronym, for promoting corruption, allowing deep inequality to fester and turning a blind eye to the country’s ferocious violence. PRI candidate José Antonio Meade received just 16 percent of votes on July 1.

But, as a political analyst born and raised in Mexico, it’s hard not to notice that López Obrador’s new ideologically muddled Morena party looks an awful lot like the old PRI.

Until the disastrous presidency of Peña Nieto, who is finishing out his six-year term with a 21 percent approval rate, the PRI was an extraordinarily powerful, adaptable and resilient political machine. It ruled Mexico almost uncontested for nearly a century.

The PRI emerged from the unrest that followed the Mexican Revolution, which ended in 1920. Ten years of civil war left Mexico with a devastated countryside and perhaps 2 million dead. For years afterward, dozens of powerful militia-backed strongmen, or “caudillos,” vied for power.

To stabilize the country, President Plutarco Elías Calles in 1929 created a political party, the National Revolutionary Party, with the explicit aim of distributing power among the surviving revolutionary caudillos. It would later rebrand as the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI.

Calles wanted his party to be ideologically indeterminate, because he thought a broad-based political organization would discipline and unify the caudillos without threatening their personal political interests.

So he instructed aides drafting the new party’s platform and bylaws to synthesize fascism, communism and the ideological principles behind the American, English and French political systems.

Calles particularly admired how Benito Mussolini organized Italian workers and business owners into state-sponsored labor collectives to prevent class conflict and quash social unrest.

Versatile and authoritarian

This model allowed Calles to establish a versatile, hybrid governance system.

The PRI successfully incorporated, moderated and controlled different interest groups. The PRI was the party of workers and peasants, of professionals and bureaucrats.

When political conflicts occurred, such as two party members vying to lead the same state, party leaders would mandate internal arbitration. The “losing” party was rewarded for his loyalty with hard cash or a political favor. Backroom negotiations and corruption became the governing style of Mexico.

It was a winning strategy. The PRI ran Mexico uncontested from 1929 until 2000.

Political scientist Giovanni Sartori called the PRI a “pragmatic-hegemonic party” – a regime that dominates by being practical and operative. Its only ideology was power.
The PRI was also authoritarian, sometimes brutally so. During its nearly 80-year reign, dissidents “disappeared” and student protesters were gunned down. Journalists were bought off.

In 2000, Vicente Fox, of the center-right National Action Party, became modern Mexico’s first non-PRI president. The PRI soon returned to power, putting Peña Nieto in office in 2012.

Very strange bedfellows

Superficially, López Obrador’s Morena party looks nothing like the PRI.

Morena nominally has a clear ideology. According party literature, it is a “left-wing political organization.” The president-elect’s promises to govern “for the poor” and to respect human rights are classically leftist.

So it made sense when López Obrador recruited the Mexican Labor Party, a collection of Maoist activists who revere the Chinese Communist Party, to join his electoral coalition earlier this year.

More difficult to understand was his decision to appoint as advisers high-level defectors from Fox’s conservative National Action Party and from the PRI itself.
Those who thought of López Obrador as a leftist were most troubled by Morena’s alliance with another party, the Social Encounter Party.

This fundamentalist evangelical party opposes legalizing same-sex marriage and abortion in Mexico – both issues López Obrador says he supports.

When questioned about his alliances, López Obrador simply responds that Morena welcomes all “women and men of goodwill” who want to “transform” Mexico.

Mandate for change

Together, the parties in López Obrador’s coalition won 69 of 128 Senate seats, giving it a narrow majority. Seven of those seats belong to the Social Encounter Party.
Morena-affiliated candidates won 307 of 500 seats in Mexico’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. Of those, 55 went to the Social Encounter Party.

The Morena candidates for mayor of Mexico City and four state governors were also elected. Morena now dominates most state legislatures.

Constitutionally, López Obrador will have the power to replace up to two justices on Mexico’s Supreme Court and to pass Constitutional amendments almost unopposed.
Recently, aides to López Obrador suggested that truly transforming Mexico might require rewriting its Constitution. That requires a two-thirds legislative majority, which López Obrador could attain by winning over just a handful of deputies and senators outside his coalition.

Critics fear that López Obrador might seek to abolish the single six-year presidential term limit established in Mexico’s Constitution – a suggestion the president-elect denies.

But most Mexicans seem more excited than concerned about López Obrador’s strange bedfellows and substantial powers.

Back in April, 89 percent of Mexicans believed the country was on the wrong track, according to IPSOS polling. Post-election, a survey by the newspaper El Financiero found, 65 percent feel optimistic about Mexico’s future.

Is Morena the new PRI?

The president-elect ran as a political outsider, but he is a career politician.

Like most Mexican politicians of a certain age, López Obrador was once a member of the PRI, from 1976 to 1983. He ran for president as a candidate of another party, the Revolutionary Democratic Party.

He understands exactly how the PRI dominated Mexican politics for so long.

Like PRI founder Calles before him, López Obrador has built a hybrid political machine designed to unite powerful political elites regardless of ideology.

According to Morena’s declaration of principles, the party is “an open, plural and inclusive space for the participation of Mexicans from all social classes and diverse thought currents, religions and cultures.”

The only requirement for joining Morena, notes Mexican political theorist Jesús Silva-Herzog, is to obey López Obrador’s leadership.

Where will that leadership take Mexico?

Civil rights advocates urge public to comment on 2020 Census

by Marc Hedin

Civil rights leaders joined census policy experts July 17 in an urgent plea, particularly to communities of color, for a show of public activism and force to derail a fast-moving Trump administration effort to officially ignore them. The fight begins by taking full advantage of a narrow window of opportunity in which to speak out against it.

That window closes on Aug. 7, the deadline for public comment on the administration’s last-minute plan to, as part of the 2020 census, ask every single person in the United States if they’re legal citizens. The plan is being sold as an effort to ensure voting accuracy, but is widely seen as obvious discrimination against communities of color and the poor by discouraging their participation in the census.

Census data drives the allocation of political representation, business’ investment and funding decisions for transportation and hundreds of other government and private programs.

By adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census, along with cutting its funding and changing how the counting will be done, the government is on course to ensure that millions of people in the United States will not be counted.

“The 2020 census is one of the most urgent civil rights issues facing the country,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference Education Fund. “And right now, every person in America has the opportunity to help ensure the count is fair and accurate for all communities.”

Gupta, along with other representatives of Asian American, Latino, African American communities and census veteran Terri Ann Lowenthal, emphasized the importance of reaching out the Census Bureau either through the website censuscounts.org or by writing, and to do so by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 7 at the very latest.

“There will be no extensions for submitting public comments,” Lowenthal warned. “Historically, public comments, comments from stakeholders, has been influential,” she said. Lowenthal is policy advisor to the Leadership Conference Education Fund and former staff director for the House Census and Population Subcommittee.

“We need the American people’s help more than ever,” said Arturo Vargas, of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. “Census Bureau and NALEO research shows that the citizenship question in the 2020 census will significantly depress response rates. This will lead to an inaccurate and unfair count.”

The Census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. It’s mandated in the U.S. Constitution. Typically, changes in its questionnaire and collection method are carefully planned and field-tested for years before they’re implemented.

Not so during the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress of recent years. Gupta credited the idea of asking people about their citizenship to the hardline anti-immigrant positions of disgraced Trump advisor Steve Bannon and Kansas Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach.

Kobach has made a name for himself purging tens of thousands of mostly non-white voters from registration rolls with his Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program — not to be confused with ICE’s Operation Cross Check arrest sweeps — which targets people whose names can be confused with those of other voters, such as people named Lee, Jackson or Garcia, for instance. In more than 99 percent of those cases, the alleged fraud by the disenfranchised voters was unfounded.

“We have never witnessed a more systematic and thorough taking-down of the census,” said Jeri Green, of the National Urban League, a decades-long partner with the U.S. Census.

“From severe underfunding to de-scaled and terminated critical research to the still-vacant two top leadership positions at the Census Bureau and now the political foisting of an untested, unjust and unconstitutional citizenship question on the backs of already vulnerable, historically undercounted populations … the trickle down impact of an inaccurate 2020 census would be severe to the black population, whose inner city and rural communities risk losing the most in terms of federal funding, political representation and equal rights under the law.”

“Getting the census right is critical for Asian Americans,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “Inclusion of this untested question will lead to an inaccurate and unfair count of the American population and would be a derogation of the Constitution.

“We know the real motivation behind this decision,” said Yang, who also cited Kobach’s role. “We want to make clear that our community’s concerns will be heard, that our community will not be made invisible.”

“The American public must hold its government accountable,” Vargas said. “History is watching.”

There are currently seven federal lawsuits filed by an array of cities, counties, states, challenging plans for census 2020, particularly over the citizenship question, Yang noted.

But there will be other battles to come. Green also described “prison-based gerrymandering” whereby incarcerated people will be counted as residents of where they’re locked up, rather than of their communities, and the per-capita benefits will therefore accrue to the region of the jail or prison.

There are also plans to rely more than ever on online responses for data collection, and away from mailed questionnaires with follow-up by census staff for non-respondents, thus creating a “digital divide” whereby those for whom computer access is more difficult are more likely to be left out.

One strategy to help overcome that, Green said, is strengthening partnerships with libraries and librarians, “the most trusted institutions in grass-roots neighborhoods.”
But in the short term, the emphasis is on convincing the Census Bureau and its Commerce Department overseer of the importance of dropping plans to query people on their or their co-habitants’ citizenship status.

Censuscounts.org is sponsored by the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, NALEO and the Leadership Conference Education Fund. The census’ own web site claims to welcome comments, but the most recent news article posted there is from early March, before the citizenship question was proposed, and despite touting its presence on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and “other social media channels” there is no easily accessible channel for discussion of any census processes or decision.

Fleeing persecution, Nicaraguans flee to Costa Rica, putting pressure on the border

by the El Reportero’s wire services

The border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is beginning to feel the pressure of the protests against the Daniel Ortega regime, with 100 to 150 Nicaraguans arriving each day through the Peñas Blancas crossing, according to the Costa Rican foreign ministry.

William Spindler, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the number of Nicaraguans applying for asylum in Costa Rica has “increased exponentially.” At least 8,000 applications have been received since April, when the protests started, and another 15,000 are pending.

About 200 asylum requests are received each day, Spindler added. His agency has promised immigration officials assistance to increase their capacity to process at least 500 applications per day.

The peace talks between the Ortega government and the opposition, mediated by the Catholic Church, have stalled, sharpening a political crisis that has left more than 300 dead, thousands wounded and many displaced people in the Central American country.

Costa Rican Foreign Minister Epsy Campbell said recently that there had been “a significant increase” in Nicaraguan immigrant arrivals, but added that the exodus is not yet a crisis. Source: (El Nuevo Herald).

Venezuela’s Maduro admits socialist model has failed

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro admitted that his socialist economic model has “failed” amid food and medicine shortages as well as a failing infrastructure highlighted by Tuesday’s power failure to 80 percent of Caracas.

Compounding matters is the IMF’s Weimar-topping hyperinflation forecast of 1,000,000 percent by year end, and a GDP set to plummet 18 percent this year, as the government continues to simply print money to in hopes of filling the void of what was once the country’s economy.

“The production models we’ve tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours,” Maduro told his ruling PSUV party congress. “Enough with the whining… we need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power.”

“No more whining, I want solutions comrades!”

No word on whether he took a bite of an empanada during his speech while his country starves on the “Maduro diet” – a phrase coined after Venezuela’s notorious food shortages gave rise to mass starvation across the country. Not even the donkeys are safe.

Venezuela’s socialist government has nationalized a wide swath of industries across the country over the past several years, such as steel and cement plants, food processing, distribution and more. In order to try and control inflation, the country has fixed prices on various goods while imposing tight regulations surrounding foreign exchange.

“I estimate it will take about two years to reach a high level of stability and see the first symptoms of new and economic prosperity, without for one second affecting social security and protection,” added the president.

Maduro plans to increase oil production to “six million barrels a day by 2025 or before,” amid a crash in output from a high of 3.2 million barrels a day in 2008 to just 1.5 million this year, a 30-year low. Venezuela’s crude oil sales comprise approximately 96 percent of the country’s revenue.

The economic crisis has hit so hard that the public transport system has almost ground to a halt, with the government and local councils offering free rides in unsafe and uncomfortable pick-up trucks — branded “kennels” by users — after many bus service providers couldn’t afford to keep their vehicles on the road.

Maduro, who blames Venezuela’s woes on an “economic war” waged by the United States, called on PSUV supporters to help kick-start production and resist US “aggression.”

Washington, meanwhile, has imposed financial sanctions against Maduro’s government, along with state-owned oil company PDVSA.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s industrial sector is operating at just 30 percent capacity, as illustrated by the farming sector, which now provides just a quarter of national consumption, after providing 75 percent just a few years ago according to the National Farmers Federation.

This should all make for some interesting debate questions during the next US elections, as Democratic Socialists have become the “new face” of the left. Just don’t ask any questions about economics or logistics…

López Obrador seeks commercial agreements

Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel López Obrador today met Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Qiu Xiaoq to seek formulas to reduce the commercial deficit between Mexico and China Thursday.

This is the first Chinese ambassador who meets the Mexican president-elect, who is still waiting for the official notification from the Mexican Federation’s Judicial Power Electoral Court.

Before this, López Obrador separately received the Foreign Ministers from the U.S. and Canada. Both foreign officials took the topic of bilateral relations in their respective agendas, especially the future of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The future Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrart, told the press that the meeting with the Chinese Ambassador dealt with the trade balance between the two nations.

‘Our country behaves like an importer of multiple electronic equipment and only exports automotive material,’ said Ebrard noting that the exchange is eight to one, unfavorable for Mexico.

The OAS condemns the killings and calls for advancing elections in Nicaragua

by the El Reportero‘s wire services

On Wednesday, the permanent council of the OAS held an extraordinary session in which, with 21 votes in favor, three against, seven abstentions and three absentees, the States condemned the Ortega regime and urged it to dismantle the paramilitary and police groups that created to dismantle the barricades and barricades that have been part of the protests. In three months, the repression has caused more than 350 deaths and thousands of injuries, according to human rights organizations.

According to political analysts, the resolution condemning the Organization of American States (OAS) to the government of Daniel Ortega, for the violation of human rights during the citizen protests since April, left the president “as an international pariah” and exposed to suffer external sanctions, if he refuses to apply the actions to which he was urged related to curbing the violence and accept the electoral calendar proposed by the organization.

Meanwhile, three months after the violent events that took place on April 18, 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) verifies the increase in repression in Nicaragua.

In its third week of work, the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI) verified in the field the intensification of the repression and the operations deployed throughout the country by agents of the National Police and para-police groups with the objective of dismantling the dams located in different cities.

In Managua, on Thursday the FSLN celebrated on July 19 in the Plaza de la Fe John Paul II, with the presence of the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez and the Venezuelan Chancellor Jorge Arreaza.

Daniel Ortega, in his long speech, omitted to mention the hundreds of people killed by his irregular and masked paramilitary forces, accusing the opposition that he asks for his resignation, coup plotters and putting the victims of their state violence as the aggressors.

Ortega recounted the police who died in the Nicaraguan crisis during his attacks on the civilian population, but did not mention that the family of some dead policemen declared that the bullets that killed them came from the same police station, because of their same comrades in arms.

Trump sends two high emissaries to seek a cordial relationship with his administration

Recently four high level government representatives visited the virtual president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to express that President Donald Trump looks for a cordial and understanding relationship with the next administration.
The high-level delegation of the United States, headed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, includes Treasury secretaries, Steven Nmuchin, and National Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, as well as Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to the president Donald Trump, among other officials.

The delegation met with the presidential candidate-elect, at the headquarters of his campaign in Colonia Roma, south of the capital.
Obrador was accompanied by his future chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, and the next Secretaries of Finance, Carlos Urzúa, and Public Security, Alfonso Durazo; and also to those responsible for the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Jesús Sead, Graciela Márquez, nominated as Secretary of Economy, as well as Martha Bárcena, appointed Ambassador of Mexico in the United States of the Government incoming.

NAFTA, migration and security were some of the topics discussed at that meeting, in which the next Mexican president offered visitors a proposal to begin a new stage in the relations between the two countries, and that will be done public once the president of the United States knows it.

Strong tremors hit Oaxaca, Mexico City

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, a preliminary figure, took place today in Oaxaca, the National Seismological Service reported.

Considered as strong, the telluric movement was located about 13 kms southwest of Huajuapan De León, south of this capital, at a depth of 63 kms.

Before, the earth had rock in the Magdalena Contreras delegation of the federal district of Mexico City, with a magnitude of 2.8 on the Richter scale.
The earth trembled three times in that place in the last 24 hours.

This is the third earthquake that occurred in the last 24 hours in the Mexican capital.

Up to now there are no reports of people injured or great damages.

In social media there were complaints in relation that the anti sismic alarms malfunction and were not activated.

Paraguayan film Las Herederas with possibilities for Oscar 2019

by the El Reportero’s news services

he prestigious U.S. digital film portal, The Playlist, considered the Paraguayan film Las Herederas (The Heiresses) among those who could arouse interest for the 2019 Oscar Prize, official sources announced today.

We are honored that some international media consider Las Herederas to be one of the films which could have an impact on the Hollywood Award Season,’ said Marcelo Martinessi, the film’s director.

The Playlist also mentioned the films Summer Birds (Colombia) by directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego and Rome-Mexico by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, as the films which could compete in the Best Foreign Language Film category in the Oscars of the coming year.

We are really very pleased with the way the film was received and awarded in several countries, connecting with very diverse people, awakening interest in our country and its cinema, Martinessi reflected.

However, the coming-out of the film to the nominations of the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences of Hollywood will depend on its Paraguayan counterpart who, as every year, makes an open call and a first selection.

That’s where the press promotion work comes in order to reach a nomination, said the Guaraní film director.

Fresno breakout show with Thee Latin Allstars

Fresno came alive Saturday night with Thee Latin Allstar, led by Ray Carrion at their debut show at Fulton 55. Ray’s historical introduction of the band members was worth the price of admission alone.

This Allstar group of musicians, mostly from the LA area brought the venue alive from the jump with one of my favorite songs from WAR, Me & Baby Brother with Tex Nakamura wailing on the harmonica. The band played one hit song after another as the crowd filled the dance floor throughout the night.

Viengsay Valdes to Premiere Russian Version of Spartacus in Panama

Cuban National Ballet (BNC) Prima Ballerina, Viengsay Valdes, described as a premiere her performance here along with her compatriot Osniel Gouneo, with whom she will dance for the first time the Russian version of Spartacus.

She commented that after her arrival in Panama, they made a couple of very intense rehearsals, because ‘I learned the Cuban version, it was only to agree on coordination, so I hope everything will come out well.’

After several years of absence in Panama, this will not be the only piece Valdes will dance along with Gouneo, as the program also includes the pas de deux of Don Quixote. Valdes said that after her return to Cuba on Sunday, she will dance Cinderella with Dani Hernandez at the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana, as part of the summer gala.

This is the third time Valdes visits Panama. Her previous performance was during the Stars of the 21st Century gala, which brought together artists from around the world.

This is the future of independent media if we do nothing

by Article by Matt Agorist

Alternative and independent media is under attack and needs your help to survive.

The Free Thought Project is going offline. We are doing so for 72 hours to demonstrate the inevitable effect of social media censorship, Google organic traffic throttling, and Facebook’s attack on freedom-minded independent media.

The Free Thought Project is being slowly snubbed out by the establishment-friendly social media giants as well as corporate players who refuse to advertise on sites who challenge the status quo.

Recently, the “arbiters of truth” at Snopes, the AP, and Politifact have joined in and ganged up on the Free Thought Project and determined that our entirely factual articles are “false.” As a result, our website’s organic traffic is currently being throttled from all sides. This throttling coupled with Google disabling ads on “controversial” content is the perfect storm which is primed to take us out.

We have confirmed through internal sources that Facebook has throttled our pages and we have zero recourse. This comes on the heels of a massive Facebook purge in which the social media giant unapologetically axed thousands of pages with no reason given. Independent media outlets who’ve spent years researching and building a following, quite literally watched their hard work get wiped from the face of the web.

As if going after pages wasn’t enough, Facebook is going after individual page owners as well. Last month, the co-founder of TFTP was banned from Facebook for posting a photo of ET — seriously. In the meantime, however, posts calling for killing Muslims, hating different races, and stoking divide are not only allowed, but they are promoted in the algorithm.

Make no mistake, under the guise of fighting “Fake News and “hate speech,” real independent media who put out facts that challenge the status quo is being bullied into silence. There is a concerted effort to keep the establishment narrative under control and we are witnessing it first hand.

Yes, Facebook is a private company and can operate however they want. However, if this attempt to silence independent media continues unchecked, the result will be an internet dominated by the likes of media giants at FOXSNBCNN. All media outlets who attempt to break outside of the divisive two-party paradigm will be throttled out of existence and ideas that promote peace and liberty and who challenge the police state will all but cease to exist online.

When the Free Thought Project came online in 2013, there was a void in the market for a freedom and liberty-minded media outlet who was also unafraid of reporting on the daily atrocities carried out by the police state. As a result, we quickly grew to an Alexa ranking in the top 500 websites in the country. The people had spoken and they wanted this information.

Over the next several years, TFTP grew to be the largest police accountability and liberty-minded website out there. Our work has been reprinted and republished on countless websites and hundreds of millions of people have benefited from this information.

But thanks to the establishment’s grip on the flow of information online, that is all about to come to a grinding halt.

Ten herbs that will annihilate cold and flu viruses naturally

by Lynn Griffith

Common colds are the main reason why children and adults miss school an work. Adults get an average of 2-3 colds per year and children often have more. Colds are commonly shared in the winter and the spring but are possible to get any time of year.

Four out of ten adults use alternative remedies to fight illness

For centuries, people have used natural remedies for fight colds and the trend continues. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that nearly 4 out of 10 adults have used some form of alternative remedies to fight illnesses.

Ten herbs that will help fight cold and flu viruses naturally

If you feel a cold coming on, consider the benefits of herbal medicine. The following herbs have been shown to be effective at battling the common cold.

1. Echinacea: Echinacea is known for its ability to enhance the immune system. It stimulates white blood cells, increases production of interferon and increases immune cells ability to destroy invading microbes. Six studies show that echinacea significantly reduces the risk of respiratory infection. A separate six studies show that echinacea shortens the duration of colds and flus.

2. Astragalus: Astragalus is a tonic and adaptogen. Studies show that it boosts immune system and fights viruses, bacteria, and inflammation.

3. Elderberry: Elderberry can inhibit the enzyme that the flu virus uses to penetrate cell membranes. In one study, elderberry juice mixed with raspberry extract, glucose, citric acid and honey inhibited both type A and type B influenza virus.

4. Garlic: Garlic boosts immune function and kills a broad range of microbes. Studies show that garlic is active against cold and flu viruses. Garlic also functions as an expectorate to help remove mucus from the body.

5. Licorice root: Licorice root contains glycyrrhizin, which has been shown in studies to inactivate and inhibit a wide range of viruses. It also contains a polysaccharide ingredient that increases the bodies production of interferon and activates while blood cells.

6. St. John’s wort: St. John’s wort can inhibit influenze A and parainfluenza viruses.

7. Lomatium: Lomatium has been used by Native Americans for bacteria and viral infections. Studies show that it is potent against viruses and bacteria.

8. Stinging Nettle: Studies show that this herb inhibits influenza A virus and is also packed with nutrients. Nettle contains high amounts of carotenoids and flavonoids that help ease allergies.

9. Lemon Balm: Test tube studies show that lemon balm or Melissa oil has antiviral effects against parainfluenza and other bacterial infections.

10. Peppermint: Peppermint oil helps relax the airways and open congested sinuses and nasal passages. One study shows that inhaling peppermint relieves respiratory discomfort.

Instead of purchasing over the counter medicines that often leave you feeling groggy and run down, consider herbs that will help boost your immune system, shorten your time of sickness and allow you to return back to your daily routine. (Natural News).

The Zombie Guest Worker Bill

Republican immigration reform proposals may be dead, but Republican guest worker proposals live on…

by David Bacon

On Wednesday, June 27, the Republican effort to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill went down in flames for the second time in a month, due to divisions within their own party. The Republican effort to create a vast new guest worker program, however, has not ended.

That effort has been headed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and is supported by many growers around the country, particularly on the west coast. Originally Goodlatte introduced a stand-alone bill in 2017, the Agricultural Guestworker Act. Although that bill didn’t get a vote in Congress, its main provisions were folded into a much larger, comprehensive bill Goodlatte tried to pass this spring, the Securing America’s Future Act. That bill failed by a vote of 193 to 231. Goodlatte then incorporated his guestworker provisions into the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act (H.R. 6136). That fared even worse, 121 to 301.

Nevertheless, House Speaker Paul Ryan made a promise to Congressman Dan Newhouse (R-WA) , a cosponsor of H.R. 6136, that he would hold a vote on agricultural worker issues before Congress adjourns at the end of July. After noting his minority votes for the two comprehensive immigration bills, and criticizing fellow Republicans for torpedoing them, Newhouse said in a statement, “the House has yet to address the crisis facing agriculture producers who cannot find enough workers, and I will not stop advocating for improvements to create a reliable legal guest-worker system. If our nation’s farmers are to continue providing food for America and the world, it is incumbent on Congress to act to address labor needs. I thank the Speaker for committing to hold a vote on this matter in July.”

Goodlatte’s guestworker bill has not yet been reintroduced, but when it is, the contents will undoubtedly be the same as in previous iterations. The latest guestworker provisions, in the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act, are a window into what’s to come. Those provisions would create a massive new guestworker program, based on a new visa category called H-2C. This would take the place of the current H-2A visas, whose numbers have increased from 44,619 workers in U.S. fields in 2004 to 200,049 last year – a growth of over 450 percent in a little over a decade.

Critics of H-2A visas have two chief complaints: first, that workers in the program are exploited and often cheated, and second, that resident farm workers are displaced by growers who see H-2A workers as easier to control, and potentially less expensive. The proposed H-2C program would put the H-2A program on steroids, according to Bruce Goldstein, director of the Washington DC-based farm worker advocacy group, Farmworker Justice.

“Over the last year,” Goldstein charges, “Rep. Goodlatte has made it his mission to create a massive new guestworker program of millions of captive workers who have even fewer labor rights than the current workers they would replace. His new guestworker program would convert an entire industry, from the farms and ranches to the packing houses and processing plants, from lettuce and grapes to dairy cows and poultry, into a labor force of exploitable temporary guest workers with virtually no workplace protections and with no opportunity to join the communities they are helping to feed.”

Goodlatte’s H-2C provisions might result in 2 million visas issued in the first two years, Farmworker Justice predicts, supplying contract labor to meatpacking and food processing in addition to agriculture. Growers would be able to employ workers year round, and continuously from one year to the next. Current H-2A workers have to return to their home countries within a year, and can come back the following year if they receive a new contract. In either program, workers have the same vulnerability. If they fail to meet grower production demands, if they complain or organize, or if they simply get on the wrong side of a foreman, they can be fired, and must leave the country immediately.

Today each state has to calculate a wage rate for H-2A workers that, in theory, doesn’t undermine local farm worker wages. H-2C worker wages, however, would be set at 115 percent of the federal $7.50/hour minimum wage, or applicable state or local minimums. This locks in farm labor wages at the minimum wage level, since local farm workers that demand more could be replaced with contract workers. Workers’ fear of replacement by H-2A labor is already affecting strawberry wages in Santa Maria, for instance.

(This article was cut to fit space. To read the entire article please visit https://capitalandmain.com/the-zombie-guest-worker-bill-0702).

Mexico’s next transportation secretary has breathed new life into the suspended

by Mexico News Daily

Mexico City-Querétaro train project, declaring that it forms part of the incoming government’s plan for a new national railroad network.

Javier Jiménez Espriú told the newspaper El Financiero that the transportation plan also includes building a new railroad between Cancún and Palenque, modernizing the existing line between Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz and starting the construction of Guadalajara-Tijuana and Querétaro-Nuevo Laredo routes.

The current federal administration awarded a US $3.75-billion contract to a Chinese-led consortium in 2014 to build a high-speed rail line between Mexico City and Querétaro but the project was later postponed as part of budget cuts announced in January 2015 and it hasn’t been revived since.

But following Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in the July 1 presidential election, it would appear that the project is back on the agenda.

“Our idea is to establish a national railroad network; the network has different important sections and within those we will determine which sections [deserve] the most urgent attention based on the impact they will have at both a social and economic level, because the [different] sections will trigger regional development projects,” Jiménez said.

In a separate interview with the newspaper Milenio, Jiménez said that the next federal government will continue practically all the infrastructure projects that have already been started but added that the development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region in Oaxaca and the Maya area of Calakmul in Campeche would be priorities.

In the former region, the future cabinet secretary said, in addition to modernizing the train line between Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, work will also be undertaken to improve the highway network.

In addition, the ports in the respective cities and the airport at Ixtepec, Oaxaca, will be modernized, Jiménez said.

There are also plans to establish an extensive fiber optic network in the Isthmus region and López Obrador said yesterday that the possibility of establishing a free zone with a lower value-added tax rate is also being analyzed.

The projects planned for the region, which took the brunt of the powerful September 7 earthquake, will complement the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz that were established by the current government.

“The other big project is the passenger train from Cancún to Bacalar and Palenque to develop the Maya area, mainly Calakmul…” Jiménez said.

He added that during its six-year term, the López Obrador-led administration would prioritize the construction of paved roads in 250 municipalities that currently only have dirt-road access to their main towns.

The projects will create employment in rural areas and prevent communities from being cut off due to heavy rains that can make the dirt roads impassable, Jiménez said.

He also said that by the end of the next government’s term, the aim is for all Mexicans to have access to broadband internet services.

With regard to the new Mexico City International Airport project, the future communications and transportation secretary said the López Obrador transition team would first analyze its technical aspects — such as the suitability of the ground it is being built on — as well as environmental considerations to determine whether it is feasible in an operational sense.

The president-elect has previously threatened to scrap the project, charging that it is too expensive, corrupt, not needed and unfeasible due to its construction on an ancient lakebed.

Jiménez said that if it is determined that the project is technically feasible, the incoming administration would turn its attention to analyzing whether the contracts are in order and if it adds up financially.

If it doesn’t, “there is the solution of the other airport,” he added, referring to the proposal to adapt an existing air force base in México state for commercial use.

He also said the public consultation process that López Obrador floated at a rally in Texcoco, México state — the municipality where the new airport is being built — would take place after the incoming government has completed its analysis.

Whether the new government decides to continue with the current project or instead develop the Santa Lucía air base — located about 50 kilometers northeast of the capital — Jiménez said that a new airport must be ready by 2023 to alleviate pressure on the existing facility.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp)

Nicaragua: State repression has reached deplorable levels

by Amnesty International reports

July 9, 2018 – The repressive actions of the Nicaraguan government have reached deplorable levels, Amnesty International said today, after one of the bloodiest weekends since the repression of protests began almost three months ago.

“Heavily armed pro-government groups remain at large, accompanied by police forces, committing joint attacks against the civilian population,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“The message sent by the highest ranking Nicaraguan authorities is that they are willing to do anything to silence the voices of those who demonstrate against this violent repression. This situation is extremely serious and deserves strong condemnation from the international community.”

At least 17 people were killed in Matagalpa, Jinotepe and Diriamba during the weekend, most of them by police and pro-government armed groups. In addition, the arbitrary detention of dozens of people was reported.

Today, bishops of the Catholic Church, including Monsignor Silvio Báez, who has played a central role in the national dialogue process, were attacked by pro-government armed groups at the Basilica of San Sebastián in Diriamba. Several journalists also reported assaults and the theft and destruction of their equipment in the same location.

“The direct attack on figures who publicly denounce the attacks of agents of the government of President Ortega is without a doubt a form of retaliation and an attempt to silence those dissident voices,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“The serious human rights violations committed or permitted by the authorities are turning the country into a pressure cooker about to explode. Nicaragua’s tragic history must not be repeated.”

Nicaragua: Shoot to kill: Nicaragua’s strategy to repress protest

In response to social protests since April 18, the Nicaraguan government has adopted a strategy of violent repression not seen in the country for years.
More than 300 people have been killed by the state and thousands injured, and this has been continuing to take place in the country as of today.

Nicaragua: Government’s shameful denial of human rights violations is part of its strategy of repression

In response to the government of President Daniel Ortega’s outright rejection of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ report on grave human rights violations committed in the context of the recent protests in Nicaragua, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said:

“It’s shameful that the government of President Ortega is denying the undeniable. There is a wealth of evidence, including thousands of testimonies, to show that the Nicaraguan state has committed terrible human rights violations and continues to do so on a daily basis. This has to stop before more lives are lost.”

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