President Obama

In May, Police Chief Leonard Campanello of the Gloucester, Massachusetts Police Department announced via Facebook that his department would adopt the new policy of treatment over arrest. Five months since the program launched, Campanello reports positive results: over 260 addicts have been placed in treatment. This summer, shoplifting, breaking and entering, and larceny dropped 23% from the same period last year. “We are seeing real people get the lives back,” he said. “And if we see a reduction in crime and cost savings that is a great bonus.”

The self-inflicted wounds of Hillary Rodham Clinton just keep manifesting themselves. She has two serious issues that have arisen in the past week; one is political and the other is legal. Both have deception at their root.

After seven long years, and following the State Department's denial of TransCanada’s request to suspend its permit application, the Obama Administration, according to The Wall Street Journal, is set to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline (the controversial project to link oil sands in Alberta to U.S. Gulf of Mexico refineries). Speaking from The White House shortly, President Obama is expected to cite the urgency of climate change as a key reason behind his decision (though is unlikely to name the biggest winner from this decision..).

"People who have spoken truth to power get retired," raged McCain, "all you have to do is look at a map of the Middle East in 2009 and then compare it to a map of today," to see an utterly failed strategy..." adding - as perhaps a veiled threat - "there’s a level of dissatisfaction among the uniformed military that I’ve never seen in my time here."

It is now open season on "climate change deniers" everywhere.

In the next phase of the Obama administration's other war on drugs, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a letter to the CEOs of four large drug providers (AbbVie, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck), warning that "manufacturers have a role to play in ensuring access and affordability to these medications," asking for "value-based purchasing arrangements." While there is no "or else" in the letter, the focus on 'significance to many', 'costs', and 'accessible' suggest an overhang of government intervention as new specialty drugs account for nearly a third of overall costs, but represent less than 1% of prescriptions.

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership means that America will write the rules for 21st century trade," according to President Obama, but as Reuters reports, U.S. unions, lawmakers and interest groups questioned the long-awaited text of a landmark U.S.-backed Pacific trade deal on Thursday. "It's worse than we thought,” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, told members and U.S. labor representatives said the agreement contained weak, poorly worded or unenforceable provisions, concluding "we do not believe those improvements are significant or meaningful for workers." It appears, that ObamaTrade may be a boon for factory and export economies like Malaysia and Vietnam, but - as expected - will achieve little for the average joe in America.

President Obama has just unleashed a new executive order to remove admission of a criminal history from job applications, or in The White House's words, to reduce potential discrimination against former convicts in the hiring process for federal government employees. As NBC News reports, this is a further step towards what many criminal justice reformers call "ban the box" – the effort to eliminate requirements that job applicants check a box on their applications if they have a criminal record - and continues Obama’s emphasis on assisting criminals who want to re-enter society as part of his continuing agenda items from his "My Brother’s Keeper Task Force."

The Pentagon just won another small skirmish in its long war with Social Security and Medicare. That is the unstated message of the budget deal just announced gleefully by congressional leaders and the President.  To understand why, let’s take a quick trip down memory lane.

In an interview with Spanish newspapers that was published October 31st, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon condemned U.S. President Barack Obama’s demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be removed from office, and Moon said: “The future of Assad must be determined by the Syrian people." The U.N. Secretary General's detailed comments are implicitly blaming all of this - lots of blood and misery - on U.S. President Obama, and on the “many Western countries” who ally with him and have joined with him in demanding regime-change in Syria. Ban ki-Moon took a rare courageous position here: what he said was correct, though it’s virtually unmentionable in the West.

Having crushed all in front of them to win The World Cup, the US women's football soccer team met with President Obama at The White House this week who just could not resist but pose for another selfie... adding that "this team taught all of America's children that 'playing like a girl' means you're a badass."

It appears President Obama, not wanting to provide every alternative-media site with a perfect 'compare and contrast' from September 2014's "putting U.S. troops on the ground would be a profound mistake,"  has handed the responsibility for announcing American "boots on the ground" in Syria to his Press Secretary. "If you like your boots on the ground, well, you can keep them.. in Syria."

"This is not our war. I cannot condemn in strong enough terms this ill-advised US military escalation in the Middle East. Whoever concluded that it is a good idea to send US troops into an area already being bombed by Russian military forces should really be relieved of duty."

• Hilsenrath - The Fed Strives for a Clear Signal on Interest Rates (WSJ)
• Tentative Budget Deal Reached, Raising Debt Limit (WSJ)
• China Calls U.S. Challenge Over Island Threat to Regional Peace (BBG)
• UK economy slows more than expected in third quarter (Reuters)
• In China’s Alleyways, Underground Banks Move Money (WSJ)
• Inside the Secretive Circle That Rules a $14 Trillion Market (BBG)
• A Frustrated Koch Brother Decides It’s Time to ‘Spout Off’ (WSJ)

Having previously explained President Obama's recovery in charts, we thought words and pictures would be a better indicator of the dire situation facing so many Americans that get missed by the business media's spotlight. With 9.4 million more Americans below the poverty line than before the crisis, as The LA Times reports, it's disturbing to see so many people so destitute - even if they're working - that they've resorted to selling body fluids to make ends meet. The going rate for plasma donation, which can take a couple of hours, is about $25 or $30. But Octapharma is offering $50 for the first five visits, "when you get that $50, you feel good," one plasma 'seller' said, "I paid my gas bill."