Opioid Crisis is a Health Emergency. Russia vs. Twitter. JFK Conspiracy.

The New York City trip was an incredible reminder of just how large, intense, and integral NYC is to the United States. Even coming from a city like San Francisco can make one feel like a country bumpkin upon arriving and walking in NYC. It is an incredible city to visit. And unlike San Francisco one can find many families living in the city. In comparison to SF the homelessness and drug problem is also significantly either less visible (better hidden) or hopefully less of a problem.

According to the NYC government: around 1 in every 38 people living in the United States resides in NYC. And NYC has more people than 40 of the 50 U.S. states. It is easy to see now why film directors, musicians, and artists devote movies, songs, and paintings to the city. It’s an impressive city and one’s now able to understand why the NYC mayoral position is so scrutinized.

Trump Declares Opioid Crisis A Public Health Emergency: President Trump spoke on Thursday about the nation’s opioid crisis. It was the administration’s first statement about how it intends to deal with what the president has called a national emergency. A White House commission on the drug crisis has urged Trump to declare a national emergency, and he said he would. But on Thursday he backed off, instead calling the crisis a “public health emergency” to which no new funds will be committed. The drug abuse and addiction epidemic kills over 140 people daily. Critics, advocates, and experts in the addiction fight agree the declaration is meaningless without additional funding.

Proponents of Trump’s announcement believe it will make treatment more accessible for abusers of prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl and ensure fewer delays in staffing the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump said he would discuss stopping the flow of fentanyl, a painkiller 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Asia next month.

Twitter Bans Russian Media Ads Ahead Of US Congressional Hearings:Russia’s foreign ministry vowed retaliation after Twitter banned two Russian media outlets from purchasing ads on the social network. Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik are accused by Twitter of interfering in the 2016 election. “We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter” read a statement. Estimates are that Twitter has earned almost $2 million from RT global advertising since 2011. The company said it would donate the money “to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections.”

Russia has denied interfering in the election and condemned Twitter’s decision saying it was the result of US government pressure. On November 1 Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, will testify before the Senate and House intelligence committees on the alleged Russian election meddling. Twitter can now tell the committees it has taken demonstrable steps to address the issues raised.

Kenya’s Election Redo Hits Obstacles: On Thursday, millions of Kenyans voted in a do-over of August’s presidential election, which the Kenyan Supreme Court annulled last month. But the rerun was marred by a boycott called for by opposition leader Raila Odinga, who withdrew from Thursday’s vote earlier this month and accused the electoral commission of stonewalling on reforms needed to hold a fair election. Four people died as opposition supporters and police clashed outside polling stations, forcing election officials to postpone voting in parts of the country until Saturday. President Uhuru Kenyatta has proposed negotiations with his opponent.

An Exciting Day For Conspiracy Theorists: On October 26, 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed a law requiring that all documents related to JFK’s 1963 assassination be released within 25 years, unless the president believed that doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations, or foreign relations. The drive for transparency was fueled in part by the American reaction to Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK.” The US government was required by Thursday to release the final batch of files related to Kennedy’s assassination, but President Trump will delay the release of some of the files, citing security concerns. “As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it’s going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination,” said Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at Boston College.

The last batch of assassination files include more than 3,100 documents (which altogether comprise hundreds of thousands of pages) that have never been viewed by the public. The National Archives released more than 2,800 documents on its website Thursday evening, but Trump delayed the release of the remaining files after last-minute appeals from the CIA and FBI. Trump cited “potentially irreversible harm” to national security if he were to allow all the records to be released now. Officials say Trump will make sure federal agencies understand that these remaining files should stay secret after their six-month review “only in the rarest cases.”

So, maybe after sifting through these final documents someone will be able to makethe magic-bullet theory sensical? You know, the bullet that struck both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. The bullet that took a trip through 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, approximately 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, shattered a radius bone, and came out nearly pristine? None of us here at the Pnut are ballistics experts, but call us skeptical on that one.

Bill Introduced In Congress Amid Concerns Over Inadvertent War:Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation to prevent President Trump from starting a war. The Conyers-Markey bill, named “No Unconstitutional Strike against North Korea,” specifically prevents Trump from executing a pre-emptive attack. There are growing concerns about the administration’s failure to pursue diplomatic talks with Pyongyang, and Trump’s continued bellicose language, erratic behavior, and frequent threats via Twitter against other nations. Earlier this year, a bill was introduced prohibiting the president from ordering a strike with nuclear weapons without a declaration of war from Congress.

The bill will not pass without Republican support, but it does focus attention on the presidential authority to order use of nuclear weapons. Former US defense secretary and veteran of the Cuban missile crisis, William Perry, said there was escalating danger of the US stumbling into a war with North Korea by making Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un think an American attack was imminent, thereby panicking Kim into launching his own nuclear weapons to “go out in a blaze of glory,” Perry added the Conyers-Markey legislation was the best thing Congress could do to halt the drift toward nuclear war.

More News Reads

• The liberal-left divide reshaping American politics. Trump’s opponents are bitterly split. You can’t understand US politics today unless you understand the rift between liberals and leftwingers (The Guardian)
• The world’s super-rich hold the greatest concentration of wealth since the US Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century, when families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled vast fortunes (The Guardian)
• Puerto Rico’s power outages are the largest in US history, report says (CNN)
• Catalan crisis: Regional MPs debate Spain takeover bid (BBC)  
• Syrian government to blame for April sarin attack: UN report (Reuters)
• Once Closed and Repressive, Uzbekistan Is Opening Up (NYT)
• MSNBC Suspends Mark Halperin After Sexual Harassment Claims (TIME)
• US groups pour millions into anti-abortion campaign in Latin America and Caribbean (The Guardian)
• US Defense Secretary visits Korean DMZ (CNN)

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