Author: rsheppard

Daily News Digest Archives

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Malcolm X

Quotes of the Day:

“Police departments have come to resemble military units, contributing to deadly violence disproportionately against black Americans.” — Philip McHarris, Yale University, — With Militarization of Cops on Full Display, Senator Plans Amendment to End Transfer of Military Equipment to Local Police

Videos of the Day:

Uprising in America: the School of Revolution The mass media is howling about the supposed violence of the protesters. But where is the real source of violence? Who is shooting at innocent and peaceful demonstrators? Who has been systematically carrying out violence against African Americans for centuries? Who maintains the highest incarceration rate in the world? It is the US state apparatus, which is far from a neutral arbiter that we are told it is. But like all capitalist states, it is in the last instance, nothing but armed bodies of men, organised to defend the interests of the capitalist class. These lessons are being drawn by thousands of American workers and youth these days. These are the first battles of the great revolutionary struggles of the future.

‘Autopsy’ Says George Floyd Died Of Natural Causes. w/Chris Hedges 

George Floyd Protests: Palast Reports from Downtown LA 

Trump’s Stormtroopers: 3 Young White Guys With a Machete Beat Up a Nonwhite Protester in Minneapolis

United States:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

It’s a Class War Now Too The scene along Melrose Avenue, one of L.A’s most renowned shopping districts, is now one of vengeance. Shards of glass litter the sidewalk. Storefronts are graffitied. The smell of smoke is still fresh in the early-morning air. Here was the epicenter of the looting that took place on Saturday night, shortly before Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a city-wide emergency and an 8 PM curfew. Garcetti later called on Governor Newsom to bring in the National Guard, marking the first time the Guard has roamed L.A.’s streets since 1992, when the Rodney King verdict was released. Today, Sunday, military humvees and troops protect what remains after the weekend’s display of mass anger and hurt. By Joshua Frank

Environment: 

Organic Farming — Cuba: “The Road Not Taken”: The Other Cuban Revolution The 38-year economic blockade of Cuba hampered the development of the Cuban economy.  To the credit of the Cuban Revolution they did not carry out any forced collectivizations.  They did copy the Soviet model of large chemically dependent state farms.  When the “Socialist Block” stopped all trade with Cuba, the Cuban economy was severely crippled.  They could no longer import the amount of oil, fertilizers, and pesticides to continue large-scale mechanized food production.   They had to move in the direction of the alternative model of agriculture that I previously described. In response to a huge drop in pesticide and fertilizer imports, Cuban agriculture is being transformed. Cuba is presently undertaking the  largest national conversion from conventional agriculture to large-scale alternative farming in history.Civil Rights/BlackLiberation:

Police Terrorism and Extra—Legal Terrorism Was Used to End the Gains Made During Black Reconstruction: The first civil and human rights movement by and for Black people started during the Civil War and the period of Black Reconstruction that followed. It was a time of radical hopes for many freed slaves. But it was also a time of betrayal. Then President Andrew Johnson and the non-radical Republicans, in collusion with the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, sold out the early post-war promises for full equality and “40 acres and a mule”. Instead, the promise of equality was soon replaced by the restoration of the property rights of the former slave owners in the South. This was accomplished by the Compromise of 1877 How did they accomplish this betrayal? —The answer is simple — terrorism. They used police and terroristic Ku Klux Klan violence. These extra-legal activities laid the basis for the overthrow of Black Reconstruction and the institutionalization of legal segregation (Jim Crow) in the former slave states. To enforce Jim Crow, Black people were, for decades, indiscriminately lynched and framed. —  The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement Since the Civil Right Movement of the 1960s, the 1%’s Government Has Passed laws to Resegregate society,  Laws to establish the Prison Industrial Complex (The New Jim Crow), and Laws to increase inequality between the 1% and the 99%. They are once again using Police Terrorism and Extra—Legal Terrorism to enforce inequality!

 Who Exactly Is Doing the Looting, and Who’s Being Looted? We live in an Orwellian era, in which working-class people pilfering convenience store goods is called “looting.” Rich people stealing hundreds of billions of dollars, on the other hand, is just well-functioning “public policy.” By David Sirota

Watch: This Is What It Looks Like When the Response to Protests Against Police Violence Is… More Police Violence Driving SUVs into demonstrators. Firing paint-ball rounds at people on their own front porch. Pushing an elderly man to the ground. These were just a few of the incidents witnessed as a militarized nation faced off against its own people on Saturday. By Jon Queally ‘I Took the Helmet Off and Laid the Batons Down’: Michigan Sheriff and Police Didn’t Disperse Their Town’s Protest—They Joined It “Do I think this has solved the issue between police and unarmed black, human beings? No. But I do believe that this type of leadership is a positive step in the right direction and gives me hope for black men and women around the world and for all of humanity.” By Common Dreams staff

Labor:

Protection for the Medical-Industrial Complex — No Protection for the Rontline Workers!

States Are Copying and Pasting Immunity Laws for Nursing Home Executives Lawmakers across the country are using identical legislative language to shield hospital and nursing home corporations from prosecution for COVID–19-related illness and deaths — after those companies pumped huge amounts of cash into state elections. New York Was Patient Zero In The Spread of The Immunity Provision Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the corporate immunity provision into New York law on April 3. Exactly two weeks later, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed the same corporate immunity provision into Massachusetts law. A week and a half after that, North Carolina Republican Senate leader Harry Brown introduced a bill that included the same corporate immunity provision — and in early May, North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed it into law. By David Sirota

Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update (June 1st to 2nd)

• April U.3 Unemployment Rate Really Was 19.5% per Bureau of Labor Statistics, Where the Reported “Headline” 14.7% U.3. Reflected 5 Million Unemployed Counted as “Employed” (Second Month of Misreporting)

• Headline 14.7% U.3 Still Was Highest in the History of Series (Since 1948)

• The Also-Understated April 2020 Payroll Employment Plunge of 20.5 (-20.5) Million Was Worst in the Series History (Since 1939) /

• May Money Supply Annual Growth Continued Surging to Record Highs (alternate data tab) // Extreme, Accommodative FOMC Policies to Continue for the Duration (systemic risk section) // As With the Retail Sales Benchmarking, the Benchmarked Durable Goods Orders Showed a Much Weaker Economy 2017 to Date

Financial Lynching Must Be Part of the National Debate As we watched the dangerous scenes of protesters interacting with riot police and the ransacking of banks and businesses in cities across the United States this past weekend, a warning from the 19^th century abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, came to mind: “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Thousands Around The World Protest George Floyd’s Death in Global Display of solidarity Over the weekend demonstrators gathered in London, Berlin and Auckland, among other cities, to protest against police brutality in solidarity with the US crowds.

• Britain:In London, protesters rallied in Trafalgar Squareon Sunday morning, in defiance of Britain’s lockdown rules which prohibit large gatherings. Some participants marched to the US embassy in the capital’s Nine Elms area.

• Germany: Crowds gathered in Berlin in front of the US embassy on Saturday and Sunday. Participants wore face masks and carried signs declaring “Black lives matter” and “Justice can’t wait”.

• Denmark: Chants of “no justice, no peace” were heard In the streets of Copenhagen on Sunday, as protesters marched over Floyd’s death. Some rallied outside the Danish capital’s US embassy.

• Italy: In Milan, crowds held a flashmob near the city’s US consulate on Thursday

• New Zealand: Protests over Floyd’s killing were held in multiple locations across New Zealand on Monday. Thousands held demonstrations and vigils in places including Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

• Canada: Several protests were also held in Canada during the weekend, as crowds rallied against alleged police brutality.

• Poland: Residents in Krakow, Poland gathered at the city’s US consulate on Sunday evening. Some lit candles in a tribute to Floyd.

• Australia: A large group gathered in Perth’s Central Business District (CBD) on Monday to hold a Black Lives Matter protest. As well as expressing solidarity with US protesters, those gathered were also demonstrating against the treatment of minority and indigenous groups in Australia.

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare

Why the Neoliberal Agenda is a Failure at Fighting CoronavirusThe utter failure of private capitalism to prepare for the coronavirus should have surprised no one. Private capitalism, as business school graduates repeat, focuses on profit. The “profit incentive,” they learn, makes private capitalism the superior, “most efficient” economic system available. That is its “bottom line” and “chief goal.” The problem is that to produce adequate numbers of testing components, masks, gloves, ventilators, hospital beds, etc., and then to store, secure, monitor, maintain and demographically stockpile them were not and are not privately profitable businesses. By Richard D. Wolff

Daily News Digest Archives

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

This Is Why!

Quotes of the Day:

Videos of the Day:

United States:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Bipartisn Attack Upon the Bill of Rights: New PEN America Report Warns Surge of Anti-Protest Laws in Trump Era Is ‘Danger to Expressive Rights of All’ “There has been a determined movement, occurring largely outside the public eye, to delegitimize public protest and paint demonstrators as dangerous or even criminal.” As protest movements against racist police violence, planet-destroying pipelines, and the policies of President Donald Trump have intensified and spread rapidly across the U.S. in recent years, so have efforts by state lawmakers from both major political parties to criminalize protest by hitting peaceful demonstrators with draconian jail sentences and financial penalties. By  Jake Johnson

Trump Encourages Extra-Legal Police Violence: Trump Tells Police Not to Worry About Injuring Suspects During Arrests  During a speech on Long Island on Friday, President Trump took a break from discussing gang violence and illegal immigration to give the law enforcement officers gathered for his remarks some advice on how to treat suspects. “When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?” Trump said, miming the physical motion of an officer shielding a suspect’s head to keep it from bumping against the squad car. “Like, don’t hit their head, and they just killed somebody — don’t hit their head,” Trump continued. “I said, you can take the hand away, okay?” By Mark Berman

Environment: 

Capitalism Has Decided to Commit Humanicide!: New Report Details How G20 Nations Spend $77 Billion a Year to Destroy Climate“Government money must instead support a just transition from fossil fuels that protects workers, communities, and the climate.” By Jessica Corbett

 Rachel Carson was the first scientist to come forward and explain the potential dangers of the new pesticides, fertilizers, and other toxic pollutants. Her first book, The Silent Spring, is credited with the beginning of the environmental movement. This book explained that cancer and other diseases have become part of the world’s food chain and even present in the air we breathe and the water we drink.  Predicting the coming catastrophe if the mode of production does not change, Rachel Carson wrote in The Sea Around Us: “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.” — Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism

Greenland’s Impact on the Rest of the World: What happens in Greenland could have important implications for the rest of the planet: Tedesco said that the Greenland Ice Sheet is currently the largest single contributor to global sea level rise.  And the impact of continued melting could be devastating. Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, not involved in the study, said that an enormous amount of the Greenland Ice Sheet is at high risk of melting. If this high-risk ice melted, he said, it would be enough to raise sea levels by 3 meters, or nearly 10 feet. In an even more severe scenario, if the entire ice sheet melted, sea level would rise by 7 meters, or nearly 23 feet, which would be catastrophic for many coastal cities and for the hundreds of millions of people who live close to sea level. — Unprecedented Clear Skies Drove Remarkable Melting in Greenland 

 It Hit 80 Degrees in the Arctic This Week This story will provide important context for the headline, and I encourage you to read it—but really, the headline tells you what you need to know: It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit above the Arctic Circle this week.  A little farther south, in Siberia—you know, the region of world we reference when we want to connote something cold—it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Arctic sea ice in the neighboring Kara Sea took the deepest May nose dive ever recorded. Oh, and random swaths of the region are on fire. Things are extremely wrong. By Brian Kahn

Civil Rights/BlackLiberation:

Over 70 percent of tested inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19 WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Fleming never got to say goodbye to his father. He didn’t know his dad was fading away on a ventilator, diagnosed with coronavirus at the federal prison where he was serving time for a drug charge. His father, also named Michael, was held at FCI Terminal Island in Los Angeles and died April 19. At least half the population there has tested positive, the largest known hot spot in the federal prison system. But the first word the family received of the father’s illness was the day he died, from a prison chaplain asking if the body should be cremated and where the ashes should be sent. By Michael Balsamo

A Disgusting Display’: Police Fire Rubber Bullets, Stun Grenades, and Tear Gas at Demonstrators Protesting Killing of George Floyd “What is happening tonight in our city is shameful,” Rep. Ilhan Omar said of police behavior. By Jake JohnsonWith Whom Are Many U.S. Police Departments Training? With A Chronic Human Rights Violator – Israel When the U.S. Department of Justice published a report Aug. 10 that documented “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation” within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), there was rightly a general reaction of outrage. But what hasn’t received as much attention is where Baltimore police received training on crowd control, use of force and surveillance: Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services. Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others  have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S.

Labor:

Protecting Workers From Coronavirus: OSHA Leaves It to Employers Critics say the federal agency charged with protecting worker safety has played a conspicuously small role during the pandemic.  By Noam Scheiber

(By Law the Employers are Responsible for Workers Safety— Not OSHA — What is OSHA Good For?:    In addition, under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace, free of recognized hazards. Because of this, employers must stay informed of the risks associated with COVID-19 and address any known hazards. OSHA recommends that employers develop an infectious disease preparedness and response plan considering risk factors of exposures. Employers should prepare to implement basic infection prevention measures such as promoting frequent handwashing, encouraging sick workers to stay home, encouraging respiratory etiquette (covering coughs and sneezes), considering alternative work schedules, maintaining regular housekeeping practices, limiting worksites to essential workers when possible and discouraging workers from sharing equipment. — OSHA Guidance Related to COVID-19 for Contractors)

 Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update (May 26th to 28th) – Pending Commentaries: Next Day or Two – Special Commentary, Issue No. 1438 / May 29th – Flash Commentary, Issue No. 1439 / Pending Data: May 28th – April 2020 Durable Goods Orders, Revised First-Quarter 2020 GDP  Headlines: Pandemic-Driven Recession/ Depression Has Had Its Initial Gdp Contraction AND UNEMPLOYMENT SURGE, BUT THE BOTTOM STILL IS AHEAD

• Latest New Claims for Unemployment Insurance Confirmed Continued Net Monthly Economic Decline in May 2020, Indicating Unemployment Rising to Around 27%-28%

• April Existing-Home Sales, Housing Starts and Building Permits All Plummeted Month-to-Month and Year-to-Year Unstable New-Home Sales Benchmarked Lower, Effectively Flat in the Month

• April Industrial Production Monthly Plunge of 11.2% (-11.2%) Was the Deepest in the 101-Year History of the Series / Capacity Utilization Also Collapsed to a Record Low, 1.8% (-1.8%) Below the Prior Record Trough in the Great Recession

• April Real Retail Sales Collapsed by 15.8% (-15.8%) in the Month, by 21.9% (-21.9%) Year-to-Year, Deepest in the 73-Year History of the Current and Prior Series, Post World War II

• April Cass Freight Index® Fell Year-to-Year by 22.7% (-22.7%), Plunging to Great Recession Levels Survey Quality of Plummeting Headline April PPI, CPI-U Inflation and Surging Real Earnings Data Was Heavily Disrupted by Coronavirus Impact

• Negative CPI and PPI Inflation Was Dominated by Collapsing Oil and Gasoline Prices, Despite Surging Food Costs

• April U.3 Unemployment Rate Really Was 19.5% per Bureau of Labor Statistics, Where the Reported “Headline” 14.7% U.3. Reflected 7.5 Million Unemployed Counted as “Employed” (Second Month of Misreporting)

• Headline 14.7% Still Was Highest in the History of Series (Since 1948)

• April 2020 Payroll Employment Plunge of 20.5 (-20.5) Million Was Worst in the History of the Series (Since 1939) April Money Supply Annual Growth Surged to Record Highs (ALTERNATE DATA TAB), March Trade Deficit Deepened, but First-Quarter Deficit Narrowed Due to Coronavirus in China Reducing February Exports to U.S.

• Extreme, Accommodative FOMC Policies to Continue for the Duration (SYSTEMIC RISK Section)

• As With the Retail Sales Benchmarking, the Benchmarked Durable Goods Orders Showed a Much Weaker Economy 2017 to Date

• PANDEMIC AND OIL-PRICE COLLAPSE ECONOMIC IMPACT: April Payroll Plunge and Unemployment Rate Surges Were Worst Ever, and May Activity Should Deteriorate Significantly Further, Barring Bureau of Labor Statistics Continued Misclassification of “Unemployed” as “Employed”

• First-Quarter 2020 GDP Plunged 4.8% (-4.8%), Worst Drop Since Depths of the Great Recession

• Confirmed by Initial April Economic Data, Second-Quarter 2020 GDP Collapse Should Be Worst Ever – Order of Magnitude Down by 50% (-50%) Annualized / Depending on Some “Reopening” of the Economy, Third-or Fourth-Quarter GDP Could Be Moving Off Bottom

Fed Admits Corporate Bond Buying Will Be at Least a 5-Year Debt Bailout On May 13 the House Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions held a virtual roundtable with federal regulators. One of the regulators in attendance was the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve, Randal Quarles. At the very end of what evolved into a roundtable beset with static and inaudible passages, it was Utah Congressman Ben McAdams’ turn to ask questions. McAdams’ voice was sharp and crisp. He politely said he had a question about the corporate bond buying program that the Fed was launching (for the first time in its 107-year history). The exchange went as follows: McAdams: “Do you anticipate holding these investments through the life of the purchased bond or do you anticipate selling them at a date TBD [to be determined]?Quarles: “Our intention is to buy and hold.” That answer from Quarles effectively means that the Fed plans to keep its corporate bond buying program alive for at least half a decade. Here’s how we know that. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Cuba Credits Two Drugs With Slashing Coronavirus Death Toll  Health authorities have reported just two virus-related deaths over the past nine days among more than 200 active cases on the Caribbean’s largest island, a sign they may have the worst of the outbreak under control. The government, which hopes to increase its biopharmaceutical exports, has touted various drugs it produces for helping prevent infection with the new coronavirus and treating the  disease it causes. By Sarah Marsh

Why Iran’s Fuel Tankers for Venezuela Are Sending Shudders Through Washington The first oil tanker that came from Iran’s Bandar Abbas port into the Caribbean is called Fortune. The tanker entered Venezuelan waters on May 24 and was then escorted by the Venezuelan Navy and Air Force to the Puerto Cabello oil terminal; the gasoline will supply the El Palito refinery. A second tanker entered Venezuelan waters on May 25, and three others are on their way. The Venezuelan government paid for the gasoline at market rates; in another world, it would be an ordinary commercial transaction. Not in this world. By Vijay Prashad

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare

Educators Must Use the Pandemic to Revolutionize Education for All Students It was 4:27 a.m. when Alejandra emailed a practice essay to me. In just a few hours, on May 15, the AP U.S. History exam would be administered, for the first time, online and at home for all students. Other students had completed extra practice essays at 10:00 p.m. the night before so I could advise whether they were ready for the exam the next day. The exam is now over and students have said time management and concerns about their grammatical and academic writing abilities were the biggest challenges of the exam. By Tussanee Reedboon

Daily News Digest Archives

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Signe Wilkinson: Testing Our Patience

Quotes of the Day:

Public indebtedness constitutes a system of plundering our wealth and subjecting our peoples to the global imperialist system. Debt services absorb every year the social budgets of our countries. Public health spending is significantly less than the minimum levels set by the World Health Organization. It is necessary to stop repaying public debts to provide the necessary financial liquidity in order to face the Corona epidemic and to confront the deepening social and economic crisis. Likewise, all forms of privatization of public services must be halted. Priority should be given to developing a public health sector and developing free and good health and medical care systems. The demand for cancellation of external debt has always been among the popular demands in our region since the debt crisis and the structural adjustment programmes that followed in the early eighties. Tunisia and Egypt campaigned to cancel the odious debts contracted by the dictators who were ousted by the revolutions. Initiatives have emerged in the recent Lebanese popular movement calling for stopping the payment of debts and enacting a program of social, food and health protection reforms for the population. In the context of the Corona crisis at the global level, calls for stopping the payment of public debts of countries from the Global South increased. Therefore, we must continue to mobilize at the level of our region to impose a unilateral and sovereign moratorium on debt repayments in our countries that are threatened by a humanitarian catastrophe due to the absence of conditions to cope with the Corona outbreak. Popular control must also be established over the funds that will be freed by stopping the payments, which must be spent first on health needs and support for the groups mostly affected by the Corona crisis. The moratorium on repayments must be coupled with the establishment of mechanisms for auditing public debts that would enable the majority of citizens to be involved in identifying the illegitimate, odious and illegal sections of these debts, which must be cancelled and entirely revoked. The freed up resources will be allocated to implement economic, social and environmental measures that derive their foundations from the basic needs of the working classes, small-scale producers and marginalized groups in general. — For the cancellation of debts and dropping of the “free trade” agreements

Videos of the Day:

This Happened In My Home Town. I Grew Up In Brunswick, Ga. It Hurts…Don’t Just Like Or Share. Act.

Trump Blames Everyone But Himself For Coronavirus

Can Public Education Survive COVID-19?

‘Students Have Fallen Off The Face Of The Planet’

Inside America’s Cash-Hungry Plainclothes Police Units

‘Children Are Infected, Inmates Are Dying’ https://therealnews.com/stories/larry-hogan-maryland-afscme-protest-ppe-testing-coronvirus

Crowded & Desperate: Rohingya in World’s Largest Refugee Camp Face Dual Crises of Cyclone & COVID-19

From Syria to U.S.-Mexico Border, Refugees Worldwide Face Hunger & Deprivation as COVID-19 Spreads

United States:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

The 1% Never Have Needed a Bailout!:‘Grotesque Nature of Unequal Sacrifice’: Since Pandemic Hit, Wealthiest Americans Now $434 Billion Richer “While millions risk their lives and livelihoods as first responders and frontline workers, these billionaires benefit from an economy and tax system that is wired to funnel wealth to the top.” By Jake Johnson

An Old Story Again: Capitalism vs. Health and Safety The U.S. president recently ordered meatpacking employees back into workplaces plagued by coronavirus. He did not order the employers to make their slaughterhouses safe. GOP-proposed legislation exempts employers from lawsuits by employees sickened or killed by coronavirus infections at workplaces. The GOP is mostly silent about requiring employers to maintain safe or healthy workplaces. Employers across the country threaten workers who refuse to return to jobs they find unsafe. They demand that employees return or risk being fired. Job loss likely means loss of health insurance for employees’ families. Being fired risks also losing eligibility for unemployment insurance. By Richard D. Wolff

Lancet Study on Hydroxychloroquine Shows Trump ‘As Usual, Is Dangerously Wrong’ on Covid-19 Guidance “If there was ever hope for this drug, this is the death of it.” A study published Friday in a prestigious medical journal found that the anti-malarial drug President Donald Trump claims he is currently taking—and has repeatedly urged others to take—is not effective for treating Covid-19 and could increase risk of heart problems and death in coronavirus patients. By Jake Johnson

Aiming Missiles at Viruses: a Plea for Sanity in a Time of Plague The point I am trying to make here is a simple and obvious one, or would be in a society not burdened with a two-pronged ideology of extreme militarism and extreme individualism. It is this: In feeding the military-industrial complex so richly at this time, we are starving ourselves of many vital things and weakening ourselves as a society, perhaps to the point of suicide. We are in effect sacrificing our future on the altar of American imperialism, which like some dark god of the past, is ever hungry and can be assuaged only by human life.  By Hugh Iglarsh

Environment:

With Covid-19 Raging, Warnings of Worse-Than-Usual Hurricane Season Point to Trouble Ahead “Hurricane season is about to start and its risks will only grow and potentially compound any impacts from the pandemic.” By Eoin Higgins

RayaltiesFor Pollution:  Oil Companies Can Set Their Own Rates for Royalties From Drilling on Public Lands Thanks to Trump: Report “Oil and gas corporations already pay pennies compared to what they make in profits from plundering public lands—land that belongs to the American people—and now they’ll pay even less.” By Julia ConleyFactory Farming on Hold Covid-19 has infected meat-packers, almost 12,000 of them. At least 48 have died and many plants have temporarily closed. So it seems like a good time to ask, would it be so terrible if slaughterhouses shut down for good? True, meat-packers would have to find other employment, but the end of factory farming and industrial slaughter of cows, pigs and chickens has many upsides. First, stopping animal torture. Chickens are so crowded together they have to be de-beaked. Cows spend their entire lives cramped in cells, barely able to turn around. The treatment of pigs – highly intelligent mammals and doubtless aware of the brutality they suffer and who causes it – is abominable. So the idling of slaughterhouses by the pandemic could be a lucky development, and not just for animals. By Eve Ottenberg

 Civil Rights/BlackLiberation:

History Discovered: For years, the ceremony was largely forgotten.  It had been mentioned in some history books, including Robert Rosen’s “Confederate Charleston,” but the story gained national attention when David W. Blight, a professor of American history at Yale, took interest. He discovered a mention of the first Decoration Day in the uncataloged writings of a Union soldier at a Harvard University library.  He contacted the Avery Research Center in Charleston, which helped him find the first newspaper account of the event. An article about the “Martyrs of the Race Course” had appeared in the Charleston Daily Courier the day after the ceremony. Blight was intrigued and did more research. He published an account of the day in his book, “Race and Reunion.” Soon he gave lectures on the event around the country. “What’s interesting to me is how the memory of this got lost,” Blight said. “It is, in effect, the first Memorial Day and it was primarily led by former slaves in Charleston.” Read More

The First Memorial Day  Charleston was in ruins. The peninsula was nearly deserted, the fine houses empty, the streets littered with the debris of fighting and the ash of fires that had burned out weeks before. The Southern gentility was long gone, their cause lost. In the weeks after the Civil War ended, it was, some said, “a city of the dead.” On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there. For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral. The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing “John Brown’s Body.” Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and — later — picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day. On that day, former Charleston slaves started a tradition that would come to be known as Memorial Day. By Brian Hicks

Labor:

Bernie Sanders Says It Is ‘Nauseating’ to See Corporations Praise Frontline Workers as ‘Heroes’ While Refusing to Pay Them More I personally get really sick and tired of turning on the TV and seeing these companies run these ads, ‘Thank you heroes and heroines, but of course we’re not going to pay you any more money.'” By Jake Johnson

 Economy:

Fed Chair Powell Promises “Transparency,” then Draws the Dark Curtain Tighter During his appearance before the Senate Banking Committee this past Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Senator Jon Tester that the Fed “has committed to disclose all of the borrowers and the amounts in a timely way.” Powell was referring to the alphabet soup of emergency bailout programs for Wall Street that the Fed has established under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Study Warns 1.1 Million Children Could Die as Pandemic Interrupts Access to Food & Medical Care A new report finds 1.1 million children under 5 could die the next six months from secondary impacts of the pandemic, like disruptions to health services and access to food. Mothers are also imperiled. We speak with Tim Roberton, lead author of the study and assistant scientist in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and with infectious diseases pediatrician Dr. Beate Kampmann.

60 Million People Could Be Driven Into Extreme Poverty Due to the Pandemic   A new report finds that as many as 60 million people could be reduced to living on less than $2 a day as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic and shutdown of advanced economies could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty — erasing much of the recent progress made in poverty alleviation,” World Bank Group President David Malpass explained in a statement Tuesday. By Matthew RozsaWorld War II: From War To Revolution The COVID-19 pandemic has frequently been compared to a war. The ruling class fear the radicalising impacts these events will have on the consciousness of the working class, just like in World War II. COVID-19 is bringing economic and social dislocation with no parallel since the Second World War. It is a huge burden on working-class people, and a real concern for the strategists of capital. By Ben GlinieckiHealth, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare

Coronavirus and Other US Health Threats? Fund Public Health Not Foreign Wars How is it that in the richest nation on Earth we don’t have enough masks, gowns, virus tests, and ventilators to serve our front-line healthcare providers in this coronavirus pandemic? Part of the answer is that the nation’s wealth has been mis-allocated between military and civilian needs over the past four decades By Heather Gray – Jonathan King

Daily News Digest Archives

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Incarceration Is Killing Us!Quotes of the Day:

President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled what the White House described as a “blueprint” for nationwide Covid-19 testing that public health experts say falls far short of the robust federal strategy needed to track and contain the deadly virus before states can safely begin reopening their economies. A senior Trump administration official told the Wall Street Journal that the White House testing plan would provide all 50 states in the U.S. with enough equipment to test at least 2% of their residents. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said that number is nowhere close to adequate. “It’s about 6 to 7 million [tests],” said Jha, “and if that’s one-time, that doesn’t do anything.”— “That Doesn’t Do Anything”: Experts Warn Trump Plan for States to Test Just 2% of Residents Is Completely Inadequate

Videos of the Day:

Millions of Americans Locked Out of Unemployment System, Survey FindsWhat’s Really Going On in NY? Hospital Staff Are KILLING Patients!

Former Obama Official: Trump Ignored The ‘Pandemic Playbook’ We Created | NowThis

How the Us Makes Countries Pay For Its Wars: Economics of American Imperialism With Michael Hudson The World Bank has one primary aim, and that’s to make other countries dependent on American agriculture. This is built into its articles of agreement. It can only make foreign-currency loans, so it will only make loans to countries for agricultural development, roads, if it is to promote exports.United States:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

COVID Deaths in US Will Soon Surpass Number of Americans Killed in Vietnam War Before the weekend, known U.S. COVID deaths will surpass 58,000 — the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War. Before the weekend comes, the number of known deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. will surpass roughly 58,000. This is the same number of Americans who died during the Vietnam War. It took five presidents — Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford — and more than 20 years to amass that body count overseas. By William Rivers PittDonald J. Trump is the Jim Jones of the U.S. Government,  Leader of the Coronavirus Death Cult  I recall the time I was 10 years old and watched the horrific TV footage of the 1978 Jonestown massacre. Jim Jones, a demented, unhinged and heavily medicated cult leader, presided over the murder-suicide of more than 900 people in the jungles of Guyana. Jones’ followers drank the Kool-aid, so to speak, a deadly cocktail of cyanide and drink mix. And those who were unwilling participants, including children, were forced to drink it as some perverted, demented act of “revolutionary suicide” or liberation through death. Who could have imagined that Jim Jones would rise from the dead and be reincarnated four decades later as Donald J. Trump, president of the United States? This time around, the cult leader peddles orange Kool-aid for his red state base of followers, a snake-oil elixir known as hydroxychloroquine which he touts as a cure for coronavirus, albeit a fake cure.

“That Doesn’t Do Anything”: Experts Warn Trump Plan for States to Test Just 2% of Residents Is Completely Inadequate “It’s totally in our control to fix this. We should be spending $100 billion on the testing. We should just get it going. It’s just not that hard.” By Jake Johnson

The Corporate Food System is Making the Coronavirus Crisis Worse The global food system has been very much front and center in the COVID-19 story. Everyone, of course, is aware that hunger is closely tracking the virus as its wreaks havoc in both the global North and global South. Indeed, one can say that, unlike in East Asia, Europe, and the U.S., in South Asia, the food calamity preceded the actual invasion by the virus, with relatively few infections registered in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as of late March of 2020 — but with millions already displaced by the lockdowns and other draconian measures taken by the region’s governments. By Walden Bello

USA: food scarcity and the “efficiency of the market” In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions tried to prepare for social isolation like they would for a blizzard—stocking up not just on toilet paper and sanitizer, but also on pantry basics like milk, eggs, flour, and beans. Faced with this sudden surge in demand, grocery stores across the country were completely overwhelmed. Not just shelves but entire stores were cleared out, so “one-per-customer” rules were established on select items and notices were posted detailing which were out of stock. As we have written elsewhere, the capitalists can’t efficiently sustain supply chains through a crisis such as this. By Erika Roedl

Environment:

 Sweden Shuts Down Its Last Coal Plant Two Years Early The last coal-fired plant in Sweden shut down two years early this month, bringing the tally of coal-free European countries up to three. Swedish utility Stockholm Exergi announced the closure April 16, a day before Austria also closed its last remaining coal plant, PV Magazine reported.

Without ‘Transformative Change’ to Global Economic Systems, Humans Risk Causing More Deadly Pandemics “There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic—us… We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid Sowing The Seeds Of Future Ones.” By Julia Conley

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 27, 2020 with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

• Group Demands Louisiana Prisons Be “Evacuated”“The coronavirus is a death sentence on Black people,” who make up two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners, said Belinda Parker Brown, head of Louisiana United International. In a Black Is Back Coalition zoom conference, Attorney Zena Crenshaw-Logalcalled for the “evacuation” of prisons in the state, which holds the distinction of incarcerating more of its citizens than any place else in the world. The first Louisiana inmate to die from Covid-19 “was a young man who was only in jail for a parole violation,” said Crenshaw-Logal.

• The Black “Progress Narrative” is Self-Defeating“When we think we’ve made progress, we are blinded to the ways we have not,” and wind up affirming our slave-like relationship to power, said Boston College Law School ProfessorAnthony Farley, author of a recent article titled “Perfecting Slavery.” Blacks must make demands, not requests, when confronting Power. “Requests requires you to recognize the authority of the person you are making the request of,” as if he is your legitimate master, said Farley. Demands affirm one’s dignity and determination to prevail.

• New Mexico Exalts “Three Peoples” – and Leaves Blacks Out Entirely  In a recent article, Dr Natasha Howard, a lecturer in Africana Studies at the University of New Mexico, cited the campus’s “Three Peoples” mural as exemplifying the state’s historical exclusion of Blacks. The mural celebrates Anglo whites, Hispanics, and Native Americans, but rejects Black people as components of the “Tricultural State.” At one point, said Dr. Howard, Hispanic elites, who once enslaved Native Americans, supported taking New Mexico into the Union as a slave state so that Blacks would constitute an “absolute bottom” beneath which no other group could fall.

Labor:

Let Cruise Workers Off the Death Ships Now! Crews Held Hostage as Virus Rages – Unionize Seafaring Workers! Solidarity with the Trapped Seamen: We Demand Testing, Treatment, Housing, Union-Scale Wages and the Right to Repatriation! The novel coronavirus pandemic has hit frontline workers around the world. First and foremost, many health and hospital workers who have heroically been treating patients with COVID-19 have themselves been stricken and more than 500 have died (Medscape, 21 April). Maritime workers, who are a key logistical link in the global capitalist economy, including the 1.2 million seamen in the shipping industry, as well as port workers, have also been hit hard. By Jack Heyman – Jan Norden

Economy:

Gundlach: Fed’s Corporate Bond Buying Program Is Illegal; Fed Says Program Isn’t Operational “The Fed has, effectively, become a hedge fund in drag as a central bank.” When the Fed published its weekly H.4.1 data last Thursday, there was no mention of its two, highly controversial, corporate bond buying programs: the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF). We sent an email to the New York Fed to find out if the two programs are operational and if they will be consolidated on the Fed’s balance sheet. A spokesman for the New York Fed replied that “the PMCCF and SMCCF are not yet operational. And, as we note on the websites for each, additional information will be published before the facilities are launched.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare!

Public Health and Private Profits Under COVID-19 Pandemic During an interview with Jonas Salk, the creator of the polio vaccine, CBS newsman Edward R. Morrow asked who owned the patent for the vaccine. “Well, the people, I would say,” said Salk. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” This is what drives science and scientists like Salk: that science must be for the public good and not the private profit of companies. By Prabir Purkayastha

Daily News Digest Archives

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Open Up And Say Coronavirus: Today’s Toon

Quotes of the Day:

Workers Produce the Wealth

One key issue in “The Decameron” is how wealth and advantage can impair people’s abilities to empathize with the hardships of others. Boccaccio begins the forward with the proverb, “It is inherently human to show pity to those who are afflicted.”   Yet in many of the tales he goes on to present characters who are sharply indifferent to the pain of others, blinded by their own drives and ambition.  In one fantasy story, a dead man returns from hell every Friday and ritually slaughters the same woman who had rejected him when he was alive. In another, a widow fends off a leering priest by tricking him into sleeping with her maid.   In a third, the narrator praises a character for his undying loyalty to his friend when, in fact, he has profoundly betrayed that friend over many years.Humans, Boccaccio seems to be saying, can think of themselves as upstanding and moral – but unawares, they may show indifference to others. We see this in the 10 storytellers themselves: They make a pact to live virtuously in their well-appointed retreats.    Yet while they pamper themselves, they indulge in some stories that illustrate brutality, betrayal and exploitation. Boccaccio wanted to challenge his readers, and make them think about their responsibilities to others.    “The Decameron” raises the questions: How do the rich relate to the poor during times of widespread suffering? What is the value of a life? In our own pandemic, with millions unemployed due to a virus that has killed thousands, these issues are strikingly relevant. —  How the Rich Reacted to the Bubonic Plague Has Eerie Similarities to Today’s Pandemic

Videos of the Day:

“Pure Baloney”: Zoologist Debunks Trump’s COVID-19 Origin Theory, Explains Animal-Human Transmission

Finding Hope During The COVID-19 PandemicDr. Gerald Horne says workers organizing and fighting for basic rights offer hope during the coronavirus pandemic, increasingly catastrophic government response, dire economic outlook, and two unappealing options at the ballot box in November.

Finding Hope During The COVID-19 Pandemic The American Prospect’s David Dayen says the feds allowed banks to seize customer’s coronavirus stimulus checks to payoff outstanding debt.

Climate Crisis: KXL Roadblock, BP Spill at 10, and Dems Stand Down on Green Stimulus

United States:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Part of the Case Against Donald Trump For Criminally Negligent Homicide

Trump also ignored multiple warnings that cutting pandemic defense would expose Americans to the “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic,” that that U.S. capacity wasn’t “sufficient to fight many types of infectious disease outbreaks,” and that unless he invested more in biodefense now, we’d pay much more in “human and economic costs” later.          Undeterred, Trump’s fiscal year 2019 White House budget proposal cut funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and a $30 million emergency response fund.                                  Trump fired Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert, who advocated strengthening our pandemic defenses. Trump’s National Security Council adviser disbanded our entire pandemic response team and never replaced it. When the World Health Organization (WHO) urged global testing and sent test kits to 120 countries, the CDC failed to request any.                                        The results were catastrophic. Large-scale testing needed to identify hot spots and implement early quarantines never materialized. The U.S. suffered acute shortages of test kits, and many of the kits the CDC did produce were unusable. The CDC briefly posted 472 test results on its website, then removed the figure because it paled in comparison to other countries.                      Ventilators and the drugs needed to use them, as well as nasal swabs for testing, are running out. Protective equipment is so scarce, health care professionals have to wash and reuse masks. States compete against one another and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for supplies, bidding up prices, because the federal government failed to centralize procurement and distribution.    In 2009, H1N1 influenza triggered the largest federal distribution ever, sending respirators, protective masks, gowns and gloves to the states. Yet Trump told governors that the federal government is “not a shipping clerk” and that states should procure their own supplies. That’s an unconscionable abdication of responsibility. The Defense Production Act authorizes the president to force production and distribution of materials needed in a crisis precisely because it’s a federal responsibility. — Could Trump Be Criminally Liable For His Deadly Mishandling Of Coronavirus? | Opinion

Trump ‘Is Encouraging People to Violate’ Their Governors to Downplay His Own Responsibility and Gin Up His Base: NYT Reporter Fox News has been disingenuously painting the recent far-right protests against social distancing and coronavirus shutdowns as organic, grass roots activity from concerned citizens who are fed up with the toll that shutdowns are taking on the U.S. economy. But at CNN and MSNBC, the coverage has been much more analytical and raised public health concerns. And when New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman appeared on CNN’s “New Day” on Monday morning, April 20, she stressed to hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman that the protests are a way for Trump to gin up his base — and encourage protestors to violate the orders of governors.By  Alex Henderson

‘Heroes’: Healthcare Workers Stand in Street to Block Right-Wing Protest Against Colorado Stay-at-Home Order “When they’re telling us not to contribute to what they’re seeing in the hospital every day, listen.” By Jake Johnson

CNN: Four Countries that Were Most Successful in Confronting Pandemic  CNN describes what four countries did to achieve control over coronavirus. The key to success, it appears, is to be prepared, to test extensively, and to act decisively. The four countries are Taiwan, Iceland, South Korea, and Germany. Their infection rates and death rates are well below those in the U.S., where states have had to compete for supplies and testing has been inaccessible for most people. By  dianeravitch

USDA’s $19 Billion in COVID-19 Relief for Farmers and Food Banks Sparks Questions About Who Will Benefit The new plan, says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, “lacks critical details to confirm whether it will actually reach all who need it.” By Jessica Corbett#GetUsPPE: Advocates Place 1,000 Signs on Capitol Lawn to Demand Safety Equipment for Frontline Workers “The United States is the richest country in the history of humanity. There’s absolutely no reason why our frontline healthcare workers shouldn’t have access to PPE.” By Julia ConleyEnvironment:

“We are Making Ourselves Sick By Making the Planet Sick.”

And the other key factor is land-use change, people moving into new areas, encroachment into wildlife habitat, building roads into a forest for a mine or for a logging camp. There are many, many examples of diseases, like Ebola, SARS and others, HIV itself, from this. And that’s a global trend that will drive the rise of future pandemics. Now, we’re not saying that we’ve got to stop every modern aspect of development. We can do these things, but we need to do them in a smarter way, a more sustainable way. And we need to start treating pandemics as a risk of doing these things around the planet. We’ve got to reassess our relationship with the environment and reduce our ecological footprint. It’s to the benefit of conservation. It’ll reduce climate change. It will also stop us getting sick. And I think that’s a really important point. For folks on the right who aren’t interested in conservation or climate change, what about your own health? You know, we are making ourselves sick by making the planet sick. And that’s really the message that needs to come through from this, because if we just treat this as another disease, wait for a vaccine and then think, “Great, it’s all over,” well, I’ve got news. There are 1.7 million more viruses out there that will be emerging in the future. We can either wait for them to emerge and get sick and have another global recession, or we can get out there and readdress our relationship with wildlife and make the planet a little bit healthier. — “Pure Baloney”: Zoologist Debunks Trump’s COVID-19 Origin Theory, Explains Animal-Human Transmission

Big Oil Foresaw Extreme Flooding Now Predicted to Hit US Coasts Almost Daily Oil companies have long been aware that their products cause global warming and the impacts, including from rising seas, could be catastrophic. From a scientist who warned executives in 1959 that New York could be submerged, to a confidential 1988 Shell report that raised the possibility of abandoning inundated low-lying areas, the industry has shown clear internal acknowledgement of the potential consequences of unabated fossil fuel burning. Those consequences are starting to play out, and studies continue to project alarming climatic trends for the future. One such study published April 16 in the journal Scientific Reports projects an exponential increase in the frequency of coastal flooding from rising seas. Extreme flooding will become an annual and eventually a practically daily hazard for many U.S. coastal cities, barring efforts to mitigate climate change and reduce sea level rise. By Dana DrugmandCivil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Child Sexual Abuse Is a Widespread Problem

• One in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult.³

• 82% of all victims under 18 are female.⁴

• Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.²

• About 4 times more likely to develop symptoms of drug abuse

• About 4 times more likely to experience PTSD as adults

• About 3 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as adults

Labor:

Economy:

Instead of Draining the Swamp, the Swamp Is Draining the U.S. Treasury via the New York Fed The Federal Reserve’s role under the U.S. law that governs it (the Federal Reserve Act) is to function as the nation’s central bank and lender of last resort to deposit-taking commercial banks in a crisis and to set monetary policy to achieve the dual objectives of stable prices (preventing deflation as well as runaway inflation) while maximizing employment. But since December 2007, the Federal Reserve has simply written its own playbook, independent of the law that governs it. The Fed has decided to outsource to one of its 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, the New York Fed, the role of propping up the swamp on Wall Street. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

The United States is Exporting Coronavirus, Under Threat of Sanctions, to Central America!

   75% of Migrants Deported to Guatemala on Single Flight Tested Positive For Coronavirus: Health Minister A single deportation flight to Guatemala by the U.S. government saw more than 75% of the migrants later test positive for novel coronavirus, the country’s health minister told reporters on Tuesday. Guatemala, along with El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, has urged the U.S. to halt removals and deportations or take other steps to stop the virus’ spread from the U.S., now the epicenter of the pandemic. But last Friday, President Donald Trump instead signed a memorandum to authorize sanctions against any country that doesn’t accept removals from the U.S., — A threat to all four countries, despite concerns about the ability of their fragile health systems to handle severe outbreaks. By Conor FinneganAs The US Spreads the Corona Virus, Cuba Exports Doctors to Fight the Coronavirus!

Cuba Will Send Medical Team to Honduras to Fight the Coronavirus: Health Minister Honduran Health Minister Alba Consuelo Flores said on Thursday that a Cuban medical brigade would join local medics in the fight against the novel coronavirus as it spreads in the poor Central American country. Communist-run Cuba has sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution. It also sent doctors to Italy to help the fight against the coronavirus.The Self-Centered Rich Country Response to Pandemics and Crises is Wrecking Poor Countries  I’m squatting on a round piece of concrete, and a 72-year-old man is sitting in the gutter, his walking stick beside him. He tells me that after being deported from the United States, he has been hiking the streets of Mexico City trying to find somewhere to stay. But all the refuges are closed due to the pandemic, including the one we’re sitting outside of, where I volunteer. He has run out of insulin for his diabetes and says he can’t walk any more. By Tamara Pearson

COVID-19 deaths on the streets of Ecuador: the fatal result of the capitalist crisis The Ecuadorian province of Guayas has become ground zero for the coronavirus in South America, which has intensified in recent weeks. Its capital, the city of Guayaquil, has a disproportionate number of cases with respect to its size. It is home to most of the country’s diagnosed cases and deaths. With funeral homes saying they are out of space and coffins, there are corpses in the streets and others in cardboard boxes distributed by the authorities. With the morgues filled beyond capacity, the government has organised refrigerated trucks as makeshift morgues. The responsibility for this disaster lies with the government’s neglect and the crisis of capitalism. BtSara Mondragón Britain: Capitalism’s Cold Calculus – Their Profits Or Your Life The real aim of the government’s measures is to make it easier for companies to quickly return to the making of profits / Image: Socialist Appeal

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare!

Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public HealthCare, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In  Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Sent to Me By Email: The Origins of the Species

Second Opinion Quote of the Day:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a million times, I must be a Democrat. ‑ David Hendrickson Re ‘Lesser Evil Voting’

Adding outrageous insult to injury, Congress saw fit in the CARES Act to provide $454 billion of taxpayers’ money to go into this alphabet soup of Wall Street programs to backstop any losses they suffer. Once again, just as in 2008, Wall Street has privatized the profits for the one percent and now the losses will be socialized to workers on Main Street, where 16 million job losses have occurred in just the past three weeks. Mainstream media has been negligent at informing the public of these outrages by Congress, the Federal Reserve and the New York Fed. Wall Street On Parade began in-depth coverage of this latest Wall Street looting on September 18, 2019 and has chronicled each new development in more than six dozen articles. You can access this free archive here. — American Workers Get a 4-Month Safety Net; Wall Street Gets a 4 to 5-Year Bailout

I went on to remind him that the other problem that we have faced over the years is that this society placed a stigma on the color of the Negro, on the color of his skin because he was black. Doors were closed to him that were not closed to other groups. And I finally said to him that it’s a nice thing to say to people that you ought to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.    And the fact is that millions of Negroes, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. And they find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs.    Now one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation. — Martin Luther King, The Other America Speech, Stanford University April 14, 1967

Videos of the Day:

“Coronavirus Capitalism”: Naomi Klein’s Case for Transformative Change Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Drug Dealers Practice Social Distancing; Police Cough On Residents

Climate Crisis: Bye Bye Bernie, Big Oil Secrecy, California Fracking and Wildfires

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Amid COVID-19, It’s Time to Nationalize Airlines and Other Industries he $2 trillion stimulus bill that Congress passed on March 27 gave billions to industries like the airlines, but it did not explicitly give money to the oil and gas industry. Senate Democrats negotiated out the $3 billion to oil and gas (and lost clean energy provisions in the meantime) that Trump wanted to fill oil reserves “to the top.” The omission was a tiny win for the climate — kind of — but not really. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry didn’t even want the money to begin with. Bailouts, as CEO of API Mark Sommers told CNN, explaining the industry’s rationale, can come with strings attached. For instance, in 2008, the banking and auto industry bailouts came with cuts to executive pay and plant closures. “They will never live that down,” said Sommers. Ironically, the oil and gas industry will probably end up getting money anyway, as Amy Westervelt of Drilled News points out. Sharon ZhangSanders Says Congress Must Stop Trump From Using Covid-19 Crisis to ‘Bankrupt and Privatize the Postal Service’ “Now, more than ever, we need a strong and vibrant postal system to deliver mail 6-days a week. Congress must act now to save it.” “Now, more than ever, we need a strong and vibrant postal system to deliver mail 6-days a week,” tweeted Sanders, a senator from Vermont. “Congress must act now to save it.” Sanders’ call comes as the Postal Service is warning that it will completely run out of cashwithin the next several months if Congress doesn’t act swiftly to provide relief. The USPS has been hit hard by the sharp decline in mail volume caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Postmaster General Megan Brennan told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a briefing Thursday. By Jake Johnson

Environment:

Agri-Business — Food For Profit Industry :Food is Not Produced if it is Not Profitable, Even if Millions are Hungry:      Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic With restaurants, hotels and schools closed, many of the nation’s largest farms are destroying millions of pounds of fresh goods that they can no longer sell. By David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Labor:

Rich Owners of Medical Staffing Companies Who Cut Doctor Pay Now Want a BailoutMedical Staffing Companies Owned by Rich Investors Cut Doctor Pay and Now Want Bailout Money Companies that employ emergency room medical personnel, many owned by private equity firms, say they are reeling from vanishing demand for non-coronavirus care. But critics worry that bailout money would be a windfall for rich“They’re Crooks”: Coal Industry Aims to Exploit Coronavirus Crisis to Cut Payments to Miners With Black LungCoal companies are “going to try to use this virus thing to stop paying benefits,” warned one retired miner suffering from black lung. By Jake Johnson

Attempting to Keep the Number of  Cornavirus Cases Down, the Trump Openly Anti-worker Adminisation Tells Employers not to Report the Cases!:    Former OSHA Officials Voice Alarm as Trump Tells Corporations They Don’t Have to Record Coronavirus Cases “If you work in a grocery store or factory then sorry, the coronavirus cases there probably aren’t being reported.”President Donald Trump’s Labor Department has quietly issued guidance informing most employers in the United States that they will not be required to record and report coronavirus cases among their workers because doing so would supposedly constitute an excessive burden on companies. The new rules, released Friday by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), were met with alarm by public health experts and former Labor Department  transparency that could further endanger frontline workers. By Jake Johnson

Resistance Growing to Covid-Capitalism Dr. Abdul Alkalimat, professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, compiled and circulated a list of grassroots labor and social activist actions in the time of plague across the nation and the world. (Followed By many websites of strinking workers.— R.S.) By Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor

Economy:

American Workers Get a 4-Month Safety Net; Wall Street Gets a 4 to 5-Year Bailout The stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in March, (the CARES Act), increases the miserly amount most states provide in unemployment benefits (an average of $378 weekly) by an additional $600 per week. But that extra $600 only lasts until July 31 — a period of four months. Millions of small businesses, such as restaurants and retail shops, will shut down permanently as a result of this business disruption, meaning that workers in places like Florida, the third most populous state in the U.S., will be back to their preposterously low weekly unemployment allotment of $275 per week in just four months.    Let that sink in for a moment. A worker in Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is in charge, is expected to live on $275 a week or $1100 per month, or the annualized amount of $13,200 per year. That $275 a week hasn’t increased in more than two decades, despite the cost of food and housing soaring over that period in Florida. And among the 50 states, Florida ranks dead last in terms of how long its Scrooge-esque unemployment benefit lasts: just 12 weeks versus 26 weeks for most other states. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Medical Colonialism in Africa is Not New Remarks about testing coronavirus drugs on Africans part of pattern where some bodies are dehumanised, others protected. . . . a French doctor caused controversy when he proposed that vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic be tried on Africans because they lack masks and other personal protective equipment. By Friday, after widespread accusations of racism, he was forced to apologise for what he then called his “clumsily expressed” remarks.  But the type of thinking exposed by his words is nothing new. Neither is it exceptional to this doctor. It is part of a trend that for generations has seen the dehumanising of some people because of the superiority complex of others.

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare!

Coronavirus Pandemic: Trump Was Forewarned By  His OwnMedical Experts And  He Did Nothing!:   The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus

Experts inside and outside the government identified the threat early on and sought to raise alarms even as President Trump was moving slowly. Read some of what they had to say among themselves at critical moments. As the coronavirus emerged and headed toward the United States, an extraordinary conversation was hatched among an elite group of infectious disease doctors and medical experts in the federal government and academic institutions around the nation.

Red Dawn — a nod to the 1984 film with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen — was the nickname for the email chain they built. Different threads in the chain were named Red Dawn Breaking, Red Dawn Rising, Red Dawn Breaking Bad and, as the situation grew more dire, Red Dawn Raging. It was hosted by the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, starting in January with a small core of medical experts and friends that gradually grew to dozens.

February was a tipping point for some experts. The concern these medical experts had been raising in late January and early February turned to alarm by the third week in February. That was when they effectively concluded that the United States had already lost the fight to contain the virus, and that it needed to switch to mitigation. One critical element in that shift was the realization that many people in the country were likely already infected and capable of spreading the virus, but not showing any symptoms. Here Dr. Lee discusses this conclusion with Dr. Robert Kadlec, the head of the virus response effort at the Department of Health and Human Services and a key White House adviser. By Eric Lipton

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

What Me Worry? Trump Re: The 99%!Feds Bailout

Quote of the Day:

The Greatness of a Nation  And Its Moral Progress Can Be Judged by the Way Its People and Animals Are Treated. — Mahatma Gandhi (Paraphrase)

Worker fatigue increases the risk for illnesses and injuries. Accident and injury rates¹ are 18% greater during evening shifts and 30% greater during night shifts when compared to day shifts. Reseach indicates that working 12 hours per day is associated with a 37% increased risk of injury². In a 2005 study reporting on a survey of 2737 medical residents, every extended shift scheduled in a month increased by 16.2 % monthly risk of a motor vehicle crash during their commute home from work. Decreased alertness from worker fatigue has been a contributing factor Industrial disasters such as the 2005 Texas City BP oil refinery explosion, the 2009 Colgan Air Crash, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. — Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Videos of the Day:

Sailors Cheer For Navy Commander Who Sounded Covid-19 Alarm

Paying the Price for Speaking Truth to Power – Arnie Gundersen on Nuclear HotseatWorking 12 Hours a Day and Staying in Place in a a Nuclear Power Plant: Dangers: Arnie & Maggie Gundersen Call Out Industry Refueling, Safety Lies

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Coronavirus Updates

The 1% Government Has Bailed Out  Itself, as It’s Plundering the Wealth of the 99%!

‘Pure Retaliation, Retribution, and Reprisal’: Trump Fires Inspector General Who Sounded Alarm About Ukraine Whistleblower Complaint “While the world is rightly distracted by COVID-19, we see leaders around the world with authoritarian tendencies subverting democracy. U.S. is no different.” By Julia Conley

Environment:

COVID-19/Nuclear Dangers: Arnie & Maggie Gundersen Call Out Industry Refueling, Safety Lies While we have your attention, this morning, we received an email with an eye-catching title: A nuclear meltdown during the corona crisis is the last thing we need from our friends over at Beyond Nuclear. We implore our viewers to read the article Out of Control? written by Linda Pentz Gunter. It is a timely article that delves into the issues we raise in our Nuclear Hotseat interview (featured above) and amplifies our own concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the safety and maintenance of nuclear facilities here and abroad.  “Regulations to ensure safety should be strengthened at a time like this — not weakened. It means operating nuclear plants without basic safety inspections.”— Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear Again, we hope you take the time to read Out of Control? and reflect on what we are currently facing as the atomic power and nuclear weapons industries seek to weaken regulations and safety protocols. You can read the whole article posted at Beyond Nuclear.

While Industry Looks For Handouts, NRC Gives Nod to Reduced Safety Oversight It was no surprise really, when the first to line up with outstretched palms as Congress debated and formulated its now passed $2 trillion coronavirus-prompted emergency relief bill, were nuclear corporations. The sinking nuclear power industry spotted an economic lifeline and couldn’t wait to make a grab for it. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry, rushed off a letter to congressional leaders asking for a 30% tax credit and waivers for existing regulatory fees. By Linda Pentz Gunter Under Cover of Pandemic, Fossil Fuel Interests Unleash Lobbying Frenzy Thousands of Americans are dying, millions have filed for unemployment, and frontline health care workers are risking their lives as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the U.S. In the midst of this crisis, the fossil fuel industry, particularly the oil and gas sector, has been actively seeking both financial relief and deregulation or dismantling of environmental protection measures. A new briefing by U.K.-based think tank InfluenceMap summarizes this fossil fuel lobbying during the time of the pandemic, pointing to specific examples of how fossil fuel interests around the world are using the cover of the coronavirus crisis to advance heir agenda. By Dana Drugmand

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

I just Learned the 2^nd Malcolm X assassin, who was caught by police,at the Audubon Ballroom, but never brought to trial, was Raymond Woods, a BOSSI agent:

COINTELPRO often worked in conjunction with and received information from local law enforcement “red squads” such as the Bureau of Special Services (BOSS), a special division of the New York City Police department (NYPD). Also known as the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations, its job was to monitor and surveil political radicals. These divisions often relied on informants and undercover agents. Ray Wood, a.k.a. Ray Woodall, was one such informant who, as a police officer for BOSS, infiltrated the Bronx chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the early 1960s.  Some historians like Ward Churchill and Susan Brownmiller have written about Woodbut new information providesa clearer picture of how undercover agents contributed to COINTELPRO. . .. By the 1970’s, Wood’s name had faded into obscurity. Historian Garrett Felber’s 2015 Guardian article about Wood reignited interest in him. Felber argued Wood mighthave been the mysterious second man arrested at the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was assassinated. As part of the research team for Manning Marable’sbiography of Malcolm X, A Life Reinvented, Felber found notes from Yuri Kochiyama, a member of CORE and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) who witnessed the assassination. In OAAU meeting notes, Kochiyama, wrote that “Ray Woods” was “seen running out of (the) Audubon, was one of two picked up by police”. — Incognegro: How Law Enforcement Spies on Black Radical Groups

Labor:

Capitalism has Plundered Workers’ Pension and Unemployment Insurance Finds Based On the Premise That Catastrophe Would Not Happen!

Nearly Half of States Don’t Have Enough Funds to Pay All Those Unemployment Claims  “We’re talking about 10 million people filing for unemployment insurance in two weeks. Nobody is prepared for that,” said one finance expert. Even as states are struggling to process a record number of jobless claims, experts warn that even greater challenges loom: A Labor Department report found that, as recently as February, unemployment insurance trust funds in nearly half the states were underfunded. The staggering 6.6 million jobless claims filed last week call into question even the best-funded states’ ability to pay unemployment benefits over a sustained period, said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making it likelier than not that more federal intervention will be needed. By By Martha C. White ‘This Is Unacceptable’: Trump Administration Says Millions May Have to Wait 5 Months to Receive $1,200 Relief Check “That’s not even remotely fast enough for the millions of working people who have seen their hours slashed, their expenses rise, and their government refuse to take sufficient action.”More than 10 million Americans lost their jobs last month and are in desperate need of immediate financial assistance amid the coronavirus crisis, but the Trump administration said in a draft plan circulated internally Thursday that people who do not have direct deposit information on file with the IRS—a group that is disproportionately low-income—may have to wait until September to receive the one-time $1,200 payment authorized under the latest stimulus. By Jake Johnson

Economy:

Unmasking the Truth on Masks to Protect Against Coronavirus: Fire the Surgeon General On March 23 we wrote this: “For want of a mask the largest economy in the world has been gutted, with Goldman Sachs now projecting that U.S. GDP could contract by as much as 24 percent in the second quarter.” Now, in the past two weeks, 10 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment. Let that sink in, 10 million of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs in just a two-week period. In the same article linked above, we showed a photo dated March 4 from the Associated Press of people packed together on a subway in New York City with almost no one wearing a mask. And then we explained why: “On February 29, the Surgeon General Tweeted that the public should stop buying masks – despite scientific agreement that the virus is spread by sneezing, coughing and talking. The Surgeon General’s advice may have made sense for people living on a 10 acre farm in New Hampshire but it was dangerous advice for people who can’t afford taxis and are forced to ride a packed subway to work each day in Manhattan.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Britain: Starmer victory – prepare for battle Keir Starmer has won the Labour leadership contest. His Blairite backers are already baying for blood, calling for the Corbyn movement to be purged from the party. The left must rally around socialist policies and prepare to fight back. By Rob SewellHealth, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Right-Wing Austerity Set New Orleans Up to Be a Coronavirus Disaster Zone New Orleans — Back in 1997, when Steve Scalise was a Louisiana state representative, he joined other right-wing lawmakers in co-authoring and passing a “state preemption” law that prevents city governments from raising the minimum wage for their residents. Today, Rep. Scalise is one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, and Louisiana is one of only five states where the wage floor is frozen at the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. More than one in four children live in poverty in Louisiana, which remains one of the poorest states in the nation despite modest gains in recent years. While the minimum wage preemption law does not mention any city by name, activists say the Democratic stronghold of New Orleans — with its history of activism, bustling urban tourist economy and large numbers of Black voters — was clearly a target. Despite its cultural richness, New Orleans had the highest poverty rate among the nation’s 50 largest metro areas in 2017. After coming under pressure from activists, the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution last year urging the state legislature to end the state minimum wage preemption so the city could raise its wage floor. So far, lawmakers have failed to act. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, poverty is once again exacerbating an economic and public health crisis in Louisiana and New Orleans. By Mike Ludwig

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Trump and the Rest of the 1% are Guilty of  Social Murder

I Don’t Take Responsivity

Quote of the Day:

In a time of uncertainty, facts provide clarity. In a time of division, facts unite. In a time of crisis, facts matter most. — Push Aside the Finger-pointing, Politics and Noise About the Coronavirus. The Facts are all That Matter.

Videos of the Day:

Insurance Companies Already Know How They’ll Profit From COVID-19 40 million people may lose their jobs in the coronavirus crisis. Former Cigna VP Wendell Potter says tying health insurance to employment has made the outbreak devastating for people, but not for insurance companies.U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

There Are Less Than 2 Labs Per State Offering Testing.:

As of the evening of March 30, the total number of public health laboratories (PHL) that have completed verification and are offering testing is 94. This includes one or more PHL in 50 states plus DC, Guam and Puerto Rico.— CDC Testing in U.S.

­The main concern of all sections of the American ruling elite is to reestablish the process of extracting profits from the labor of tens of millions of American workers, regardless of the impact on their health. Trump Boasts Holding US Pandemic Deaths to 200,000 Would Be “A Good Job”

Update: United States  Coronavirus Cases:181,986; Deaths: 3,659; Serious Critical: 3,981

As Mnuchin Smirks:  ‘No More Spending’: After Securing $4.5 Trillion Corporate Bailout, Trump White House and GOP Cast Doubt on New Stimulus “Trillions for big business. Bare minimum for you.”  By Jake Johnson

Social Murder: Trump Risks the Live s of Millions to Save HimselfPeople are dying. Businesses are failing. Workers are losing jobs. But above all we as a nation must keep in mind the terrible cost borne by President Trump.“It cost me billions of dollars to become president,” he said at a White House briefing Sunday evening that was, ostensibly, about the coronavirus response. He felt so proud of the sacrifice he’d gladly and selflessly made that he repeated the sentiment four more times. “I will say that it cost me billions of dollars to be president and especially with all the money I could have made for the last three, four years.” By Dana Milbank

During this Pandemic the Vulture Capitalist are Swarming!: Cuomo Puts Private Equity Vulture in Charge of Coronavirus Economic RecoveryNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced at a press conference on Monday, March 23 that he was charging his former high-level aides William Mulrow and Steven M. Cohen with rebuilding New York’s economy in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Cuomo’s former aides have deep ties to Wall Street: Mulrow is a senior advisory director at the private equity giant Blackstone Group and Cohen is chief administrative officer of MacAndrews & Forbes, the conglomerate owned by billionaire Cuomo donor Ronald Perelman.

From the Wizard of Oz: Mnuchin Admits Trump’s Budget Cuts Social Security Even as President Claims He Is ‘Not Touching’ the Program“When Steve Mnuchin or any other politician says that a ‘reduction in the rate of increase’ is different than a benefit cut, they are shamelessly lying.” By Jake Johnson

Military Industrial Complex: Pentagon Asks to Keep Future Spending Secret The Department of Defense is quietly asking Congress to rescind the requirement to produce an unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) database. Preparation of the unclassified FYDP, which provides estimates of defense spending for the next five years, has been required by law since 1989 (10 USC 221) and has become an integral part of the defense budget process. But the Pentagon said that it should no longer have to offer such information in an unclassified format, according to a DoD legislative proposal for the pending FY 2021 national defense authorization act. “

Environment:

Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial Into Agency Reports Five years ago, the leading climate denial organization in the UK, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), published a pamphlet entitled: Carbon Dioxide, the good news. The paper reiterated many of the climate deniers’ favorite, but long discredited, arguments. In many ways, the GWPF’s claims on climate science would be laughable if the ramifications were not so serious. They boil down to two main arguments: firstly, that there has been no warming and secondly, even if there has been warming, carbon dioxide is good for you. By Andy Rowell

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for week of March 30, 2020

• Mumia: Things Fall Apart Citing the novel by Chinua Achebe, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamalnotes: “We see outside our doors, our windows, a world we did not know, that now exists. A silent, unseen disease gives vent to massive unease and unleashes unprecedented fear… A pandemic came to visit the world’s richest country – and things fall apart.”

• Can Black Marxists Imagine the Unimaginable? “There’s always something new that we couldn’t anticipate,” said Minkah Makalani, professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The unimaginable suddenly becomes a problem or opportunity to the confronted. He compares that crossroads to the advent of “dub music, and how it emerged almost accidentally.” Makalani authored an article titled “The Politically Unimaginable in Black Marxist Thought.”

• Bernie Sanders’ Socialism Isn’t the Real Thing “There’s always something new that we couldn’t anticipate,” said Minkah Makalani, professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The unimaginable suddenly becomes a problem or opportunity to the confronted. He compares that crossroads to the advent of “dub music, and how it emerged almost accidentally.” Makalani authored an article titled “The Politically Unimaginable in Black Marxist Thought.”

How 20,000 Blacks Died Through Starvation and Overwork in the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl’ Labour Camp in Mississippi In America’s chequered history, the South is regarded as the more villainous; on account of their treatment of enslaved blacks and great lengths it went to recapture slaves, who attempted running away to freedom. But the North proved that on its own account, it was as vile thanks to the fate that befell supposed free Blacks in Natchez, Mississippi in the 1860s. America, supposed land of the free and great opportunities, had its own concentration camp which some estimate claimed 20,000 Black lives. By Michael Eli Dokosi

Labor:

The Stagnation Over the Last Half Century of the Real Minimum Wage Is Even Worse Than It Looks ‘The Strike Wave Is in Full Swing’: Amazon, Whole Foods Workers Walk Off Job to Protest Unjust and Unsafe Labor Practices “One of the best ways to thank essential workers is to support the fight to improve their lives.” Labor rights advocates on Monday urged the public to show support and solidarity with Amazon employees who walked off the job at a Staten Island warehouse following what the workers said was an unacceptable response by the company to at least one case of coronavirus at the facility. By Julia Conley

New York AG Denounces ‘Immoral and Inhumane’ Firing of Amazon Worker Who Led Protest Over Lack of Coronavirus Protections “Taking action cost me my job,” said Chris Smalls. “Because I tried to stand up for something that’s right, the company decided to retaliate against me.”B y Jake Johnson

Economy:

The Dark Secrets in the Fed’s Last Wall Street Bailout Are Getting a Devious Makeover in Today’s Bailout From December 2007 to November 10, 2011, the Federal Reserve, secretly and without the awareness of Congress, funneled $19.6 trillion in cumulative loans to bail out the trading houses on Wall Street. Just 14 global financial institutions received 83.9 percent of those loans or $16.41 trillion. (See chart above.) A number of those banks were insolvent at the time and did not, under the law, qualify for these Fed loans. Significant amounts of these loans were collateralized with junk bonds and stocks, at a time when both markets were in freefall. Under the law, the Fed is only allowed to make loans against “good” collateral.  Six of the institutions receiving massive loans from the Fed were not even U.S. banks but global foreign banks that had to be saved because they were heavily interconnected to the Wall Street banks through unregulated derivatives. If one financial institution in this daisy chain of derivatives failed, it would set off a domino effect. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Republican Governor Slaps Down Trump Testing Claim: ‘That’s Just Not True’ Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said there remains a shortage of tests, personal protective equipment and ventilators in every state.

Capitalist Priorities Business First Health Last!: As Thousands of Las Vegas Hotel Rooms Sit Empty, City Paints ‘Social Distancing Boxes’ in Parking Lot for Homeless People “This is America.” By Julia Conley

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Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!  Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Is Bernie Sanders the Dempcratic Party’s Millennial Generation’s Pied Piper? Yes!Quote of the Day:

As Wall Street Gets Another Bailout:

200 Die From: Coronaivrus: The Senate unanimously passed a $2.2 trillion emergency relief package late Wednesday, concluding a grim day in which health departments around the United States reported more than 200 coronavirus-related deaths. — Live Updates

Videos of the Day:

Palestine Is Occupied, Segregated, And About To Face COVID-19

What’s Being Done To Prevent Deaths in Detention Centers, Prisons?

Sanitation Workers Strike Over Lack Of Protection From Coronavirus

Nurses Protest Lack Of Personal Protective Equipment In COVID-19 Pandemic

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Bailout Bill: $2 Trillion to the Struggling 99% — $4 Trillion for the 1%: (Since The United States Population Is Approximately 330,495,000, the Bailout  is $2,000,000,000,000 (Max)  for 227,0330,3100,5 00 (99%) of the people. And  @4,,000,000,000,000 for the other 330,4950 (.01%)  of the people.)

‘Socialist’ Senator Bernie Sanders voted for the Bailout! He voted for the Bill, which Wall Street on Parade in Stimulus Bill: The Fed and Treasury’s Slush Fund Is Actually $4 Trillion , described as “massive giveaway to Wall Street banks, just as happened from 2007 to 2010, when White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow appeared at the White House briefing yesterday evening. Kudlow revealed that the stimulus plan is actually a $6 trillion package — $2 trillion to struggling Americans and $4 trillion to dispense as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and the Federal Reserve see fit. Since the Federal Reserve has seen fit since September 17 of last year to flood the trading houses of Wall Street with $9 trillion cumulatively in revolving loans, one can reasonably expect that this is where the new $4 trillion will be going.” This proves that he is, in reality, the Democratic Party Pied Piper leading todays youth into the swamp of the Democratic Party! To paraphase Bruce Dixon, of Black Agenda Report, in his 2015 essay: “Vermont senator and ostensible socialist Bernie Sanders is playing the sheepdog candidate Joe Bidenfor this year. Bernie’s job is to warm up the crowd for Biden, herding activist energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2020 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils. . . . The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there’s no White House Democrat running for re-election.

‘Looting of America by Big Corporations’: Progressives Appalled as Senate Passes Largest Bailout Bill in US History “A transfer of wealth and power to the super rich from the rest of us, with the support of both political parties—a damning statement about the condition of American democracy.” By a vote of 96-0, the United States Senate Wednesday night passed an enormous coronavirus stimulus package that would provide some desperately needed economic relief to struggling workers and the unemployed while establishing a $4.5 trillion fund to bail out large corporations—with little to no enforceable restrictions. Progressives didn’t mince words in response to the unanimous vote, which sends the largest bailout legislation in U.S. history to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, where it could pass as early as Friday before heading to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. By Jake Johnson

Environment:

Superbugs In The Air:  Burned or Buried, Garbage Spreads Antibiotic Resistance In my recent Monthly Review article, Superbugs in the Anthropocene, I discussed the growth of the antibiotic resistome, the worldwide pool of genes that enable bacteria to resist antibiotics. Such genes can concentrate in environmental hot spots, where resistance can easily spread. “Hot spots, in soil and water as well as in hospitals, factories, sewage-treatment plants, and factory farms, provide excellent conditions for the spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria in local ecosystems and around the world.” Add municipal landfills to that list. By Ian Angus

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Time of Plague and Meltdown: Mass Murder by Corporate Duopoly The shrinking of the public health sector is a capitalist crime, abetted by the two corporate parties. “There is now no possibility of avoiding many tens of thousands of deaths due to a shortage of equipment, beds and health care personnel.” Tens of thousands of people, disproportionately Black and brown, are marked for death by coronavirus in the coming weeks and months because the United States political system allows only corporate parties to govern. By ensuring that the Dictatorship of Capital is immune to effective electoral challenge, the duopoly system has made the people of the United States less healthy than the rest of the developed world, and far more vulnerable to epidemics of all types. As dutiful servants of Capital, the Democratic and Republican parties have for more than 40 years facilitated a Race to the Bottom (austerity) that has steadily lowered working people’s living standards and slashed social service supports, including the number of hospital beds, which have declined by more than half a million since 1975 despite a population increase of 114 million. By Glen Ford, BAR Executive EditorFreedom Rider: Revolutionary Change and COVID-19  The genie has escaped from the bottle, revealing the deep injustices and cruelties that are embedded in US capitalism and its warped relationship to the peoples it rules, and the world. “COVID-19 is an opportunity to demand change while the people are paying attention to the crisis.” The coronavirus pandemic has upended the economy and the lives of millions of people. In so doing it has exposed the wreckage of a country living under the rule of billionaires and the military industrial complex. The health care system is controlled by corporations and therefore cannot meet human needs. The United States gave up its large scale manufacturing to China, the country which it both demonizes as the source of infection but also begs to produce more ventilators, masks and other medical equipment. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnistThe U.S. is a Failed State, and COVID-19 Proves it The United States’ capitalist and imperialist economy cannot provide a modicum of social welfare to its people and has been in perpetual war with Black Americans and Indigenous Peoples since its formation. “COVID-19 proves that the United States’ war on the world is a drag on humanity.” U.S. imperialism has a long-standing habit of imposing the most brutal forms of war and torture onto nations under the pretext of so-called humanitarian grounds. Humanitarian intervention and the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) have been used to destroy Libya, Syria, and Somalia and turn them into “failed states.” In many cases, however, these states were declared failures prior to U.S. intervention. Failure in the eyes of U.S. imperialism and its legion of profiteers is defined as any oppressed nation’s refusal to bow down to the economic and political dictates of a foreign imperial power. To be a “failed state” has always been a declaration of war by the U.S. and its imperial allies on the most oppressed and downtrodden nations of the world. What the hubris and racism of American exceptionalism and humanitarianism masks is that the U.S. is an actually existing failed state. COVID-19 has exposed this fact to the masses. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor

Can COVID-19 Take Down NATO? The Pentagon insisted on going ahead with provocative NATO war games near Russia’s borders, despite the coronavirus epidemic, but Germany pulled its forces out and closed its roads to troop movements.“The virus will spread on the more than 800 US bases strategically scattered around the globe, causing worry and fear in the local communities surrounding them.”  EFENDER  Europe 20 , NATO’s latest anti-Russian war games, began in February and was scheduled to continue into June. The games would have been the largest rehearsal for transferring US troops from the US to Europe since the mid-1990s. However, on March 13, the German army announced that it would not participate and withdrew its troops for fear of spreading the coronavirus.By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor

Coronavirus, Militarism and the End of an Illusion People are waking people up to the fact that the US state and government does not belong to them but to a capitalist class that is only looking out for itself. “The ‘sheltering in place’ order is starting to look like a convenient tool for the state to manage the growing frustration, fear and anger.” “The nation that considers itself to be the apex of capitalist achievement on planet Earth turns out to have no health care system worthy of the name – a testament to the sucking moral vacuum at America’s imperial, white settler colony core. A lowly virus – a form of being that exists at the very border between “life” and “not-life” – has revealed the world’s superpower as butt-naked and very much afraid. (Glen Ford) Coronavirus and second economic collapse in just ten years should finally put to rest the fairy-tale of U.S. Exceptionalism. By Black Alliance For PeaceBlack Politics, Class Struggle and the Illusion of Centrism Black Democratic Party operatives seek to camouflage class antagonisms among African Americans and to equate racial progress with the feeble policies of “diversity and inclusion.” “Black poor and laboring folk need to escape the clutches of Democratic Party hucksters while restoring their own agency and will to fight.” Anyone who knows [African Americans], who knows their history…must recognize that…the hatred of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it when the opportunity should present itself, rests among them to a degree greater than in any other section of the population in the United States. — C. L. R. James, 1948 Are African Americans still among the most progressive groups in the United States? By Russell Rickford

BAR Abolition  Mutual Aid Spotlight: Ujimaa Medics Chicago’s  Ujimaa Medics bring a racial justice and cultural specificity lens to community health care through mutual aid. “The western medical-industrial complex has often left out or been directly harmful to Black people.” In this feature, we ask organizers involved in mutual aid projects to share a little bit about their work. We understand mutual aid work as the part of social movement organizing that meets people’s direct needs. Unlike charity work, however, mutual aid is part of a broader strategy to address the root causes of injustice by mobilizing people to dismantle structures of domination and build the world we want. By Dean Spade and Roberto Sirvent, BAR ContributorsTrump Using Virus to Privatize Government, Increase Repression  Trump’s administration is more interested in saving Wall Street and boosting their profits than they are in saving lives and meeting the needs of the people. “Trump refuses to nationalize pertinent industries and be responsible for producing and distributing medical equipment.” Friends and Comrades: In Italy, military trucks are now being used to haul away dead bodies. Perhaps by the time U.S. cities and states get help from the military that is what they will be doing, hauling dead bodies. On Meet The Press this week when the head of FEMA was asked, “Is the federal government in charge of getting medical supplies and material to where it is needed?” — the answer was “No.” The message to the states was “if you need it buy it.” In other words, in this pandemic crisis the federal government is encouraging competition between the states thus allowing businesses to engage in profiteering while people are dying. By Frank Chapman

Joint Statement From Elected Prosecutors on COVID-19 and Addressing the Rights and Needs of Those in Custody Overcrowded jail, prison and immigration detention facilities force people together in close quarters without access to proper hygiene or medical care. “An outbreak of the coronavirus in these custodial facilities would not only move fast, it would potentially be catastrophic.” COVID-19 has the world on high alert. In recognition that the coronavirus is spreading quickly among high concentrations of people in close proximity, schools are being shut down, conferences rescheduled, international travel is being restricted, and cruise ships — the early incubators of the virus — are being quarantined. Those measures are all sensible, but they also drive home how little attention is being paid to the millions of people in the most overcrowded conditions that are ripe for the spread of this contagious and deadly virus: the people behind bars in America’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers. By Fair & Just ProsecutionHumanity Not Cages: Demanding a Just and Humane Response to Outbreak With 2.3 million people in the United States in prison or jail on any given day, an outbreak in these facilities poses a threat to the entire country. “At no point should any facility be on lockdown.“ It is not a matter of if but when  the coronavirus will enter prisons and jails, according to health experts. The consequences of that eventuality will be devastating. COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons and jails will spread “like wildfire ” due to close quarters, unsanitary conditions, a population that is more vulnerable to COVID-19, and the large number of people that cycle through the criminal justice system. The risk extends far beyond those who are incarcerated. By Human Outbreak ResponseEconomists Demand Trump Immediately Lift Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela Sanctions That Are ‘Feeding the Coronavirus Epidemic’ This policy is unconscionable and flagrantly against international law. It is imperative that the U.S. lift these immoral and illegal sanctions. “US sanctions against Venezuela and other nations have severely hindered their ability to respond to the pandemic.”A group of economists and policy experts called on  President Donald Trump to immediately lift the United States’ crippling sanctions against Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries, warning that the economic warfare—in addition to being cruel in itself—is “feeding the coronavirus epidemic” by hampering nations’ capacity to respond. By Jake JohnsonSanders’ “Miscreants”  From welfare queens and super predators to “Bernie brothers,” the democratic establishment is never short of boogeymen. “Bernie Sanders’ supporters have come to personify the repugnant behavior that has always been associated with those who benefit the least from capitalism.” When I was a kid, I hung out in the housing projects. If it was nice out, I would wrestle, skateboard, and shoot hoops. If it rained, I would post up at a friend’s and watch music videos. My friend Dez had the biggest television in the neighborhood. He also had one of those indoor basketball games, so we could make it rain inside even if it was raining outside. One night, my mom picked me from Dez’s on her way home from work. She had just finished a shift of taking orders and washing dishes and, as usual, she was looking to vent. When Dez opened the door, she saw me shooting hoops in the living room. She saw the big screen television bumping Limp Bizkit in the background. I saw the contempt on her face. In the car, she told me that she was sick of people taking advantage of the system. She was sick of welfare queens like Dez’s mom. By Adam SzetelaThe Dangers of Binary Politics for the African American Community We have traded our interests in for “electability” and “anybody but Trump.” “Remember ‘ending welfare as we know it’ under Clinton and Obama’s failed ‘Grand Bargain’”? “You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger…This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish…The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity…that you were a worthless human being…not expected to aspire to excellence…expected to make peace with mediocrity.” — James Baldwin My Dungeon Shook, 1963. America is recklessly muddling its way through perilous times.  The pandemic called Covid-19 is being mismanaged by an administration that ignores science. Trump lied to the nation, falsely asserting that major insurance companies will cover treatment for Covid-19 free of charge. He then contradicted health experts with his “hunch” that the death rate was lower than World Health Organization estimates, possibly down to a “fraction of 1 percent”. He also believes, “…we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work…” By Wilmer J. Leon IIILabor:

Economy:

Stimulus Bill Allows Federal Reserve to Conduct Meetings in Secret; Gives Fed $454 Billion Slush Fund for Wall Street Bailouts The U.S. Senate voted 96-0 late yesterday on a massive bailout of Wall Street banks versus a short-term survival plan for American workers thrown out of their jobs – and potentially their homes. The text of the final bill was breathtaking in the breadth of new powers it bestowed on the Federal Reserve, including the Fed’s ability to conduct secret meetings with no minutes provided to the American people. The House of Representatives has yet to vote on the bill. The bill provides specific sums that can be made as loans or loan guarantees to passenger airlines ($25 billion), cargo airlines ($4 billion), and loans and loan guarantees to businesses necessary to national security ($17 billion). But when it comes to the money going to the Federal Reserve and then out the door to Wall Street, the legislation says only this: “Not more than the sum of $454,000,000,000…shall be available to make loans and loan guarantees to, and other investments in, programs or facilities established by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the purpose of providing liquidity to the financial system….” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Technology of Death: The Not-So-Shocking Report on Israeli Weapons Exports The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry and diseased, is in urgent need for peace, security and reconstruction. Thanks to the US, Russian, French, Israeli and other weapons manufacturers, however, it is now the dumping ground for military hardware, an ominous sign for the years ahead. Data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on March 9, paints a grim picture of the world, in general, and the Middle East, in particular. According to the report, the demand for weapons in the warring region has increased by a whopping 61% between 2015 and 2019. By Ramzy Baroud

Business as Usual: Coronavirus, Iran and US Sanctions Never discount the importance of venality in international relations.  While pandemics should provide the glue for a unified front in response – we keep being told of fighting this horrendous “invisible enemy” – it’s business as usual in other respects.  The United States, with a disparate, confused medical system that risks being overwhelmed, remains committed against that other country floundering in efforts to combat COVID-19: Iran.  Instead of binding the nations, the virus, as with everything else, has served as a political obstacle.By Binoy Kampmark

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare!

USA: COVID-19 and NYC’s Sick Public School System NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio’s treatment of the NYC Public Schools is an indictment of capitalism’s prioritization of profits over the wellbeing and safety of its youth and workers.  On Friday, March 13, the last day before the country’s most extensive school system was finally closed, attendance in my classroom had plummeted. Hardly anyone could focus on the regular classwork as anxiety over the virus was at the forefront of everyone’s mind. I decided to ask my eighth-graders to prepare an argument about whether or not we should shut down the schools. By NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio’s treatment of the NYC Public Schools is an indictment of capitalism’s prioritization of profits over the wellbeing and safety of its youth and workers. Bi Hannah B. Beethoven: Man, Composer and Revolutionary Ludwig van Beethoven died today in 1827. If any composer deserves to be called a revolutionary, it is Beethoven. He carried through what was probably the greatest single revolution in modern music and changed the way music was composed and listened to. This is music that does not calm, but shocks and disturbs. Writing in 2006, Alan Woods describes how the world into which Beethoven was born was a world in turmoil, a world in transition, a world of wars, revolution and counter-revolution: a world like our own world. By Alan Woods

Another Example of a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel!

Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!

Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Quotes of the Day:

Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. — Frederic Jameson

Videos of the Day:

The Coronavirus and the Crisis of Capitalism

‘We Know This Script’: Naomi Klein Warns of ‘Coronavirus Capitalism’ in New Video Detailing Battle Before Us

Images of the Day:

Capitalism’s PrioritiesFactory Farms Caused The Coronavirus EpidemicU.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Trump Is Running a Pandemic Response like a Business — with Disastrous Results One of the most tired cliches in conservative politics is that we should run government like a business. Donald Trump’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic is a perfect demonstration of how pernicious that philosophy can be when applied to governance. Much has already been said about how Donald Trump’s personality flaws and questionable policy obsessions have hampered America’s response to the growing pandemic. His narcissism leaves him unable to consider anything but his own political fortunes; his racism makes him treat an international medical problem like a clash-of-civilizations and border control problem; his incuriosity makes him unable to digest new information and respond with flexibility, much less act with foresight to head off problems. Whole books could be—and likely will be—written about how the convergent moral failings of the president and his favorite conservative infotainment networks have contributed to a ruinously incompetent response to the burgeoning pandemic crisis. By David AtkinsRacist Attacks and Border Militarization Intensify as Coronavirus Spreads Three weeks ago – which, in coronavirus time seems an eternity – when many still thought the virus was mainly a problem in China, a group of Ukrainian villagers stoned a bus carrying Ukrainian evacuees from China to their place of quarantine. They were terrified that the evacuees would bring the new plague into their villages, and they responded with violence.The violence and intolerance unleashed by this new plague has only intensified since then. Increasingly, we are in the grip not just of a severe medical crisis, but also a social panic in which fears about the virus are activating racism and anti-immigrant sentiment and leading to oppressive violence. By Sasha AbramskyEnvironment:

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Economy:

Will Coronavirus Unleash the Next Great Recession? Most mainstream journalism tends to assume or report on the capitalist economy’s problems — and its politics — as emanating from “outside.” Be it the triumph of Brexit, Trump’s election, the U.S.-China “trade war,” the coronavirus pandemic, or the current stock market cataclysm, everything seems to emerge as if “lightning in a calm sky” or, in its most modern version, as a “black swan.”¹It is clear that there are contingent factors — not to mention multiple conspiracy theories — capable of catalyzing storms, which in this case must be understood as the particularly weak conditions of the post-Lehman economic recovery.² The current trends in the global economic crisis, which emerge as the most acute threat since the euro crisis of 2010–12,³ call for summarizing some of these weaknesses and of how specific phenomena can amplify or accelerate them by unleashing forces that linger beyond their duration. Here’s Why the Fed Hasn’t Yet Invoked Its 13(3) Emergency Powers to Stem a Stock Market Crash The U.S. stock market set new records yesterday – all of them bad. The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst point loss in history, closing down 2,997 points at 20,188.52, which effectively erases all of its gains in the last three years. On January 20, 2017, when Donald Trump was sworn in as President, the Dow closed at 19,827. It’s now grown by just 1.8 percent in total over that span of time. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

The OAS was the Offspring of  US Imperialism’s Monroe Doctrine!:

How the OAS Revived the Cold War in the Americas The OAS has never been a neutral forum. Since its founding in 1948, the United States government has always wielded power far beyond its vote. Each member state’s contribution is based on the relative size of its national economy and the US contributed 60% ($51 million) of the $81million 2019 OAS operating budget. As a result, the U.S. has historically had disproportionate power over the organization. By Laura Carlsen

Capitalism Uses Coronavirus As a Weapon of Mass Murder and Destruction: US Ramps Up Sanctions Devastating Venezuela’s Health Sector As Coronavirus Spreads Promising to “smash” Venezuela’s government during a “maximum pressure March,” Trump has imposed crushing sanctions that force Venezuela to spend three times as much as non-sanctioned countries on coronavirus testing kits. By Leonardo Flores

Cuba Gives Permission for Cruise Ship Carrying COVID-19 Patients to Dock Citing Solidarity and Health as a Human Right A British cruise ship carrying five passengers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is to dock in Cuba after being turned away by other countries. The MS Braemar, which is carrying six hundred passengers, most of whom are British, had been stranded at sea for two days while trying to find a country which would allow it to ock.Several other countries and refused permission, causing the British government to request help from Cuba. The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement today which said that “Given the urgency of the situation and the risk to the life of sick people, the Cuban government has decided to allow the docking of this ship”.The passengers will repatriated by air to the UK and their home countries. The Cuban government said: “These are times of solidarity, of understanding health as a human right, of reinforcing international cooperation to face our common challenges, values that are inherent in the humanistic practice of the Revolution and of our people.”

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Daily New Digest March 2020

Daily News Digest March 31, 2020

Daily News Digest March 30, 2020

Daily News Digest March 27, 2020

Daily News Digest March 26, 2020

Daily News Digest March 25, 2020

Daily News Digest March 24, 2020

Daily News Digest March 23, 2020

Daily News Digest March 20, 2020

Daily News Digest March 19, 2020

Daily News Digest March 18, 2020

Daily News Digest March 17, 2020

Daily News Digest March 16, 2020

Daily News Digest March 13, 2020

Daily News Digest March 12, 2020

Daily News Digest March 11, 2020

Daily News Digest March 10, 2020

Daily News Digest March 9, 2020

Daily News Digest March 6, 2020

Daily News Digest March 5, 2020

Daily News Digest March 4, 2020

Daily News Digest March 3, 2020

Daily News Digest March 2, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program:

1. Austerity,

2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and

3.  The Iron Heel!

Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!

Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Quotes of the Day:

The emergence of this new virus was predictable, even inevitable. To understand why requires looking back to an earlier virus that emerged in China, SARS. Like the new illness, SARS was caused by a coronavirus. In 2003, it exploded out of a “wet market” in Guangdong where civet cats, raccoon dogs and multitudes of other animals were caged together in tight, squalid conditions.   It appears the new virus has similar origins.    The initial victims were all connected to a huge wholesale market in Wuhan, where a thousand stalls housed untold numbers of live animals kept in crowded, filthy conditions. Such “wet markets” are widespread in China, providing a newly affluent upper class with status-enhancing exotic animals to serve at dinner. Some people also believe that eating wild animals has health benefits.   The problem with the markets is that the unsanitary and tightly packed conditions in which the animals are held create perfect environments for the evolution of viruses that can jump from one species to another. The Chinese government shut down wet markets after the SARS outbreak, but that ban was short-lived. — Op-Ed: This New Coronavirus Was Preventable. But We Never Seem to Learn the Lessons of Former Outbreaks

Videos of the Day:

Mark Fiore: This Is All So Very Normal

Images of the Day:

This Assange “Trial” Is A Self-Contradictory Kafkaesque NightmareU.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Bernie Sanders and the Socialism Question Wherever Bernie Sanders’ campaign goes from here, the left critique of establishment politics is getting empirical backing through popular support for his candidacy. The establishment’s response— incredulity that the little people have the temerity to question their betters, is combined with a posture of victimhood, that blameless elites are being demonized by neo-collectivist malcontents who are too stupid to appreciate the blessing that four decades of neoliberalism has bestowed on them. By Rob Urie

The So-Called Party of the People: From Nevada to South Carolina My thesis on the Democratic Party’s corporate-imperialist establishment had been consistent for years: it would rather lose to the right-wing party, even to an increasingly apocalyptic and fascistic right, than to the progressive, moderately social-democratic and environmentalist left wing of its own party. That was the basic story of 2016 – a tragedy the bourgeois Democratic Party leadership is trying to re-enact in 2020.  — “The Servants’ Entrance to the Republican Party”— The last week (I am writing on the morning of Thursday, February 27th) has provided yet more evidence for this thesis. On the Friday night (the 21^st) before the Nevada presidential caucus over at “liberal” Red Baiters’ Stop Sanders Central Broadcast Headquarters MSNBC, talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell insinuated that there was something nefarious about Bernie Sanders bragging that neither the Republican establishment nor the Democratic establishment could stop him. O’Donnell was offended by the elementarily obvious notion that there is such a thing as a Democratic Party establishment. He piled on with the nefarious and evidence-free Dem-establishment notion that Sanders is linked somehow to Russian interference in U.S. politics. By Paul Street

Environment:

Thousands Of Kids Skip School For Greta’s Address to a Huge Crowd, Amid Police Warnings and a Coronavirus Risk. What Can Go Wrong? Up to 30,000 people were estimated to have seen Greta Thunberg’s ‘School Strike for Climate’ in Bristol. But with police warnings and the shadow of coronavirus looming over Europe, should parents be condoning their kids’ activism? As sporting events around the world are canceled and schools across the UK weigh up the prospect of closing their doors for two months due to fears of coronavirus infection, the idea of 30,000 people, many of them schoolchildren, gathering in Bristol for a Greta Thunberg rally on Friday seems a bit irresponsible on behalf of the organizers. By Damian Wilson5 Modern Diseases Grown by Factory Farming By Monica Nickelsburg (2013)Industrial agriculture is making us sick. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), nutritional scientists, and medical professionals warn against the health risks of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). There is a near consensus among experts that overuse of antibiotics, crowded and unsanitary livestock conditions, unnatural feed diets, and a lack of diversification are responsible for some serious global health risks. . . . Here are five diseases that have been affected by CAFOs:

1. E. coli: The content of animal feed poses particular health risks. Traditionally, cattle subsisted on a grass-based diet, but government corn subsidies and demand for more fatty, marbled beef motivated farmers to switch over to grain-based feed. Enter E. coli.

2. MRSA: Methicillin-resistant Styphylococcus aureus(MRSA) is another bacteria that, thanks in part to factory farming, is popping up more than ever before. MRSA can be spread by human or animal carriers. It is abundant in our environment and its resistance to antibiotics can make it difficult to treat. More deaths in the U.S. are now attributed to MRSA infections than HIV/AIDS, according to a 2007 report published by the CDC.

3. Campylobacter and Salmonella: Campylobactor is a foodborne illness that can cause diarrhea, nausea, fever, and abdominal pain. The infectious intestinal disease afflicts over 1.3 million Americans every year. It is also becoming increasingly drug resistant, according to the CDC, growingto almost 25 percent drug resistant in 2011, from 13 percent in 1997.

4. Mad cow: While much rarer than the infectious bacteria listed above, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can also be attributed to modern farming practices. Mad cow disease first appeared in the 1980s as a result of offal, a mixture of the organs and entrails of butchered cattle, in feed. Farmers quickly learned that cannibalism can cause infectious neurodegenerative diseases in livestock.

5. Obesity: In June the American Medical Association officially recognizedobesity as a disease. Unsurprisingly, the nation with the largest industrial food industry also has the highest rates of obesity and diabetes. Every day factory farms in the United States grow 500 more calories per person than they did 25 years ago.

Landmark Win in ‘Fight for Habitable Future’ as Jury Refuses to Convict Climate Activists Who Presented Necessity Defense “When citizens are told the truth about the climate crisis—which is the first of Extinction Rebellion’s demands—they take appropriate and responsible action, as our jury did, and we thank them.” Environmentalists celebrated a landmark victory in the “fight for a habitable future” after a Portland, Oregon jury on Thursday refused to convict five Extinction Rebellion activists—including valve turner Ken Ward—who presented the climate necessity defense at their trial for blockading a train track used by Zenith Energy to transport crude oil. By Jake Johnson

‘No Time for Being Patronized,’ Say Youth Climate Leaders as UK Cops Warn Parents Over Fridays for Future Protest “Young people should not be underestimated—we have a voice and we are strong.” Youth organizers of a Friday climate protest in Bristol, United Kingdom said they have “no time for being patronized” after local police sent a letter to parents warning of inadequate safety measures for the upcoming demonstration, which teenage activist Greta Thunberg and thousands of others are expected to attend. “Social media has gone viral with interest, which leads me to believe it will be thousands of people,” wrote Bristol police commander Andy Bennett. “We have confirmation of people traveling from across the U.K. by car, bus, coach, and train. I am told in Hamburg approximately 60,000 came to see Greta speak. Whilst I am not suggesting it will be this big, you can see the scale of the potential attendance.” By Jake Johnson

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

. . .In 1968, having won landmark civil rights legislation, King strenuously urged racial justice advocates to shift from a civil rights to a human rights paradigm. A human rights approach, he believed, would offer far greater hope than the civil rights model had provided for those determined to create a thriving, multiracial democracy free from racial hierarchy. It would offer a positive vision of what we can strive for-a society in which people of all races are treated with dignity and have the right to food, shelter, health care, education, and security.“We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement,” he said. “We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. The Poor People’s Movement seemed poised to unite poor people of all colors in a bold challenge to the prevailing economic and political system. . . . — Michelle Alexander, Think Outside the Bars Why real justice means fewer prisons.

Towards A Black Agenda.  So when we turn to a Black Agenda for the seventies, we move in the truth of history, in the reality of the moment. We move recognizing that no one else is going to represent our interests but ourselves. The society we seek cannot come unless Black people organize to advance its coming. We lift up a Black Agenda recognizing that white America moves towards the abyss created by its own racist arrogance, misplaced priorities, rampant materialism, and ethical bankruptcy. Therefore, we are certain that the Agenda we now press for in Gary is not only for the future of Black humanity, but is probably the only way the rest of America can save itself from the harvest of its criminal past. So, Brothers and Sisters of our developing Black nation, we now stand at Gary as people whose time has come. From every corner of Black America, from all liberation movements of the Third World, from the graves of our fathers and the coming world of our children, we are faced with a challenge and a call: Though the moment is perilous we must not despair. We must seize the time, for the time is ours. We begin here and how in Gary. We begin with an independent Black political movement, an independent Black Political Agenda, and independent Black spirit. Nothing less will do. We must build for our people. We must build for our world. We stand on the edge of history. We cannot turn back. — The Black Agenda: The Gary Declaration: Black Politics at the Crossroads 

Labor:

Economy:

Shadow Government  Stistics Daily Update (February 28th to March 1st) – Next Postings: Data Release (Mar 2nd*), Commentaries (Feb 29th/Mar 2nd**)

• FOMC Needs to Cut Rates Now / Irrespective of Coronavirus

• Impact 2019/2020 Recession Continues to Unfold Rapidly Third-Quarter 2019 Gross Domestic Income (GDI) Just Revised Sharply Lower, from 2.1% to 1.3%

• Based on Weakening Employment/Wage Revisions / Beware a Meaningful, Downside July 2020 GDP Benchmarking! / Year-to-Year Plunge in Real New Orders for Durable Goods Deepened in January 2020 /

• Unfolding 2018/2019 Recession Is the Result of Overly Aggressive FOMC Tightening in 2018, and Lack of Adequate, Subsequent Easing / Yet the FOMC Now Looks to Ease, Using Coronavirus Concerns to Cover Its Own Policy Malfeasance (see FOMC) /

• January 2020 Freight Activity Continued Plunging Year-to-Year, As Last Seen at the Great Recession Onset / Indication There Is for Neither a “Booming” Economy, Nor “Sustainable Moderate Economic Growth”

• Quarterly Contraction in Fourth-Quarter 2019 “Holiday Season” Real Retail Sales Deepened in Revision / January Mining Activity Rose, but Weaker Manufacturing and Weather-Depressed Utilities Knocked Aggregate Industrial Production Lower by 0.3% (-0.3%)

• Capacity Utilization Dropped to Its Lowest Level Since Coming Out of the 2014-2016 Mini-Recession; Down 2.8 Percentage Points from Its November 2018 Peak

• Recession Signals Continued to Intensify for FOMC-Battered GDP Consumer Spending

• ON THE PLUS-SIDE, HOUSING: Absurd Volatility: Neither Respective Monthly Nor Annual Gains of 7.9% and 18.6% in January 2020 New-Home Sales Was Meaningful at the 90% Confidence Interval / Nonetheless, Six-Month Smoothed Activity in New-Residential Construction and New-Home Sales Have Pushed to Post-Recession Highs, Despite Holding Shy of Recovering Pre-Recession Peaks by 31% (-31%) to 45% (-45%)

Why Would Goldman Sachs and BofA Throw Gasoline on the Stock Market Fire Yesterday? Going into Thursday morning, February 27, this was the situation on Wall Street:

• The stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, had already lost a total of more than 2,000 points in the prior three days of trading;

• Stock futures were showing a big loss at the open of trading on Thursday;

• News reports had proliferated overnight of the coronavirus spreading around the globe as well as a case in California suggesting it was now loose in the community.

. . . All of these mega banks own their own Dark Pools, thinly regulated internal stock exchanges in which the Securities and Exchange Commission insanely allows them to trade in the shares of their own stock and that of their peer banks. One can only imagine how much greater their share price losses might have been without this handy perk. But the declines among the mega Wall Street banks pale in comparison to the losses of the life insurance companies that serve as counterparties to Wall Street banks’ derivative trades. Losses in shares of Lincoln National, Ameriprise Financial, Prudential Financial and Voya Financial have far exceeded the big banks’ losses. Lincoln National, for example, has lost 20.14 percent since last Friday’s close. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

The British Kangaroo Court:  Judge Rules Assange Cannot Sit With Lawyers During Extradition Hearing The first week of the extradition hearing in USA v Julian Assange ended yesterday at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court with Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejecting a submission from Assange’s lawyers that he be allowed to sit with them in court.  Baraitser ruled Assange must remain in a bullet-proof glass-encased dock when the hearing resumes in May for the evidence phase of the hearing. Assange is fighting multiple indictments under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes, amid fears the Trump administration may seek the death penalty. The first week of the extradition hearing in USA v Julian Assange ended yesterday at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court with Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejecting a submission from Assange’s lawyers that he be allowed to sit with them in court.  Baraitser ruled Assange must remain in a bullet-proof glass-encased dock when the hearing resumes in May for the evidence phase of the hearing. Assange is fighting multiple indictments under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes, amid fears the Trump administration may seek the death penalty.  The first week of the extradition hearing in USA v Julian Assange ended yesterday at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court with Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejecting a submission from Assange’s lawyers that he be allowed to sit with them in court.  Baraitser ruled Assange must remain in a bullet-proof glass-encased dock when the hearing resumes in May for the evidence phase of the hearing. Assange is fighting multiple indictments under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes, amid fears the Trump administration may seek the death penalty. By Thomas Scripps and Laura Tiernan

Witnessing the Hell a Migrant Can FaceAt Obock, Djibouti, 2,000 migrants gather each day along the waters of the Gulf of Aden; they look for boats to get them to Yemen. Over the past two years, more migrants from Africa have used the “Eastern Route” rather than go across the Mediterranean Sea; according to the UN’s migration agency—International Organization for Migration—this Eastern Route is now the “busiest maritime migration path on earth.” Roughly 11,500 people got on boats at places like Obock and Bosasso, Somalia, to go into Yemen, and then overland to Saudi Arabia, where they hope to get employment. By Vijay Prashad

 Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Looming Coronavirus Threat in US Bolsters Case for Medicare for All and Universal Paid Sick Leave “Doubters may claim that our nation can’t afford Medicare for All, but it’s increasingly likely that we are about to discover just how costly our current system really is.” By Julia Conley

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program:

1. Austerity,

2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and

3.  The Iron Heel!

Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!

Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Quotes of the Day:

Extradition hearings are not held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. They are always held at Westminster Magistrates Court as the application is deemed to be delivered to the government at Westminster. Now get your head around this. This hearing is at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is being held by the Westminster magistrates and Westminster court staff, but located at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. All of which weird convolution is precisely so they can use the “counter-terrorist court” to limit public access and to impose the fear of the power of the state.   One consequence is that, in the courtroom itself, Julian Assange is confined at the back of the court behind a bulletproof glass screen. He made the point several times during proceedings that this makes it very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings. The magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser, chose to interpret this with studied dishonesty as a problem caused by the very faint noise of demonstrators outside, as opposed to a problem caused by Assange being locked away from the court in a massive bulletproof glass box.    Now there is no reason at all for Assange to be in that box, designed to restrain extremely physically violent terrorists. He could sit, as a defendant at a hearing normally would, in the body of the court with his lawyers. But the cowardly and vicious Baraitser has refused repeated and persistent requests from the defence for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers. Baraitser of course is but a puppet, being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, a woman so enmeshed in the defence and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt.    It does not matter to Baraitser or Arbuthnot if there is any genuine need for Assange to be incarcerated in a bulletproof box, or whether it stops him from following proceedings in court. Baraitser’s intention is to humiliate Assange, and to instill in the rest of us horror at the vast crushing power of the state. The inexorable strength of the sentencing wing of the nightmarish Belmarsh Prison must be maintained. If you are here, you are guilty. — Your Man in the Public Gallery – Assange Hearing Day #1

Videos of the Day:

Images of the Day:

The Imperial PresidentWhy is the United States Occupying Afghanisitan? To Plunder  Afghanistan’s Vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas! The Pentagon’s Map of Afghanistan: An Eldorado of Mineral Wealth and Natural Resources

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

I.C.E. = Trump’s Rapers & Torturers: Doctors Have a Name for Separating Kids from Their Parents at the Border: It’s Torture. A 39-year-old Honduran mother had her 9-year-old child taken from her when she fled to the U.S. to seek asylum. It was three weeks before she was even able to speak to him, and though they were reunited two months later, she experienced depression and post-traumatic stress. She sometimes wondered whether she’d be better off dead.  Physicians for Human Rights has a name for what she endured. They say it’s torture. By Emma OckermanThe 1%’s Democratic Party Debate: ‘Audience Full of Rich People’? $1,750+ Ticket Prices for Democratic Debate Spark Disgust  “I think it speaks to the fundamental, endemic corruption of the Democratic Party establishment that you had to pay… multiple thousands of dollars to get into that room.” By Jake Johnson

The Military Idustrrrial Complex  Profiteers Must Keep Profits UP: Trump Extends Travel Ban To 6 Countries — But is OK With Selling Arms to Those Same Places If these places are so threatening, the U.S. shouldn’t continue to give their governments the very weapons that can make them even more unsafe. The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially the level of terrorism, raised the risk of allowing their citizens into the U.S. to an unacceptable level. The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially the level of terrorism, raised the risk of allowing their citizens into the U.S. to an unacceptable level.

With Wikileaks, Julian Assange Did What All Journalists Should Do I was in Kabul in 2010 when Julian Assange and WikiLeaks first released a vast archive of classified US government documents, revealing what Washington really knew about what was happening in the world. I was particularly interested in one of these disclosures which came in the shape of a video that the Pentagon had refused to release despite a Freedom of Information Act request. When WikiLeaks did release the video, it was obvious why the US generals had wanted to keep it secret. Three years earlier, I had been in Baghdad when a US helicopter machine-gunned and fired rockets at a group of civilians on the ground, who its pilots claimed were armed insurgents, killing or wounding many of them. Journalists in Iraq were disbelieving about the US military claim because the dead included two reporters from the Reuters news agency. Nor was it likely that insurgents would have been walking in the open with their weapons when a US Apache helicopter was overhead. by Patrick Cockburn Assange’s Extradition Hearing Reveals Trump’s War on Free Press Is Targeting WikiLeaks Publisher On Monday, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s one-week extradition hearing began at Woolwich Crown Court in SouthEast London. The judge heard the opening arguments for the prosecution and defense. The prosecution began, accusing the journalist who exposed the US government’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan of espionage charges that would carry 175 years in jail. The US-based investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola, who was at the media annex during the proceeding, reported that U.S. Government barrister, James Lewis QC, said that prosecutors “are not criminalizing the publication of classified materials but rather the publication of names of informants or dissidents who help the US and allies in military operations.” By Nozomi Hayase

Environment:

‘It Was Everywhere’: How Lead is Poisoning America’s Poorest Children The toxin has endangered hundreds of thousands of kids. But parents in the hardest-hit neighborhoods may never be warned of the threat Shanaya Ball did everything right during her pregnancy: she attended check-ups, ate well, and kitted out the nursery for her son Amari, who was born in March 2017.  But by his first birthday, Amari had failed to meet almost every developmental milestone, and was unable to play, communicate or move like other infants. By Nina Lakhani Former UN Climate Chief Calls For Civil Disobedience In her book , the woman who led the negotiations for the Paris Agreement calls for civil disobedience to force institutions to respond to the climate crisis. “It’s time to participate in non-violent political movements wherever possible,” Christiana Figueres writes in “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis,” which will be released tomorrow by Knopf.Figueres served as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010-16. She co-authored the book with her strategic advisor, Tom Rivett-Carnac. By Jeff McMahon

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

And I finally said to him that it’s a nice thing to say to people that you ought to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And the fact is that millions of Negroes, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. And they find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs.   Now one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation. The Other America Speech Stanford University. April 14, 1967

Labor:

Economy:

Fed’s Stress Tests on Banks Should Have Factored in a Pandemic Each year the Federal Reserve comes up with a hypothetical, severely adverse economic scenario against which it evaluates the ability of Wall Street’s mega banks to weather the storm. Called “stress tests,” this year’s severely adverse scenario features a severe global recession, unemployment of 10 percent, elevated stress in corporate debt markets and commercial real estate, along with a bank’s major counterparty defaulting if it has significant derivatives trading exposures. The stress test results are typically disclosed in June by the Fed with an immediate announcement by the banks (that get the green light from the Fed) about how many billions of dollars they plan to spend on stock buybacks and dividend increases to artificially boost their share prices. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Cuba’s Achievements

Britain: Keir Starmer – The Establishment’s Knight In Shining Armour  The ballot has opened for the Labour leadership contest. Keir Starmer is currently the favourite, based on an opportunistic campaign with hollow promises of ‘unity’ and ‘electability’. Members must not be fooled by this right-wing Trojan Horse.

Britain: Interview With Labour Deputy Candidate Richard Burgon – For Open Selection And A Socialist Clause IV! Richard Burgon, left-wing Labour MP for Leeds East, is standing to be deputy leader of the party. With the contest in full-swing, Burgon has already secured his place on the ballot, thanks to the support of dozens of CLPs, alongside the backing of unions such as Unite, the Fire Brigades Union, and the Bakers’ and Food Workers’ Union (BFAWU). We publish a recent interview with Burgon that appeared in the British Marxist newspaper, Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal is supporting Richard, due to his calls for open selection and party democracy; his opposition to establishment smears and attacks; and his demand for a new Clause IV (model motion below), enshrining a commitment to public ownership back into the heart of the Labour Party.

 Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

 

US Underprepared For Coronavirus Due to Trump Cuts, Say Health — Steps put in place after Ebola outbreak have been scrapped — Post of global health czar eliminated and CDC funding cut — What is coronavirus and how worried should we be?   —     US preparedness to deal with the threat of coronavirus has been hampered by the personnel and budget cuts made by the Trump administration over the past three years, according to health experts. There is no one in the White House tasked specifically to oversee a coordinated government-wide response in the event of a pandemic, since the post of senior director for global health security and biothreats on the national security council (NSC) was eliminated last May.  By Julian Borger

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program:

1. Austerity,

2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and

3.  The Iron Heel!

Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!

Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Quotes of the Day:

I am the very model of a public intellectual,
My op-eds in the New York Times are never ineffectual, I’m expert on all matters from political to sexual, I am the very model of a public intellectual. — David Brooks, Public Intellectual

 The enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has splintered them away from other Americans. This fracture comes with a steep price: in today’s toxic atmosphere, liberals are no less cynical, shortsighted, and parochial than anyone else, and they understand their fellow-Americans just as badly as they themselves are understood. When liberals look at red-state voters, they see either a mob of pious know-nothings or the insensible victims of militarism and class warfare. Yet…. [such people] defy fixed categories, which means that they have to be figured out the hard way–on their own terms. — George Packer

Videos of the Day:

Police Arrest Indigenous Land Defenders After Trudeau Demands an End to Blockades

Israel Harbors Alleged American Terrorists

How Trump Legally Undermines the Law

The Rwanda Genocide’s Origins Are in Resource Extraction and US Militarism

Images of the Day:

Because #NeverAgain Is Now, Japanese Americans, Allies Stage Rally Demanding Closure of Immigration Prison  U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

The Law According to King Trump: Even Supremr Court Justices Can’t Dissent: ‘This Is Outrageous’: Legal Experts Condemn Trump for Demanding Sotomayor and Ginsburg Recusals “Justice Sotomayor’s dissent is a call to action, and now Trump is attacking her for speaking the truth.” “Justice Sotomayor issued a reasoned dissent noting a pattern among the justices of allowing the Trump administration to ignore the appellate courts and skip to the SCOTUS to secure their desired outcome.”  —Kristen Clarke, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law President Donald Trump Monday night called on Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from any cases involving the president, a demand critics denounced as an “outrageous” attack on the nation’s highest legal body. By Jake Johnson The Non-Intervention Principle Anyone old enough to think about “America’s” role in the world ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. For example, one ought to be able to argue firmly against U.S. intervention in other countries without feeling obliged to downplay or deny the real crimes that the tyrant du jour has committed. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. By Sheldon Richman

Three Major News Stories That Need To Be Exposed The news is filled with stories about President Trump and his predecessors imposing sanctions on other countries, their officials, and other prominent persons. But the media rarely spells out exactly what these sanctions are, the intermediaries who enforce them, the impacts they have on innocent civilians – women, men and children – how they are countered or evaded, and whether they fulfill or undermine their diplomatic, military, or economic purposes. For example, sanctions against Iran by Trump increase by the year. They force banks and other financial institutions to cut off all decreed transactions, such as exports from Iran or purchase by Iran of critical spare parts, raw materials, even medical devices. Years ago, sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein prohibited Iraq from purchasing chlorine to purify drinking water and children’s catheters. These sanctions produced deadly results for innocents. Iran’s economy is now in ruins and the brunt of the pain is suffered by innocent families. Under international law, disproportionate harm on civilians from sanctions is a serious violation. By Ralph Nader

Environment:

And the Pro Big Oil Award goes to: Oil and Gas Industry Rewards US Lawmakers Who Oppose Environmental Protections – Study  Companies spent $84m on congressional campaigns in 2018, analysis of votes and political contributions shows The oil and gas industry substantially rewards US legislators with campaign donations when they oppose environmental protections, according to a new analysis of congressional votes and political contributions. Oil and gas companies spent $84m on congressional campaigns in 2018. Researchers found a correlation between an increase in anti-environment votes and an increase in contributions. They documented how lawmakers’ scores from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) dipped and then were followed by campaign funding from the industry. By Emily Holden

A Heat Wave in Antarctica Melted 20% of an Island’s Snow in 9 Days A nine-day heat wave scorched Antarctica’s northern tip earlier this month. New NASA images reveal that nearly a quarter of an Antarctic island’s snow cover melted in that time — an increasingly common symptom of the climate crisis. The images show Eagle Island on the northeastern peninsula of the icy continent at the start and end of this month’s Antarctic heat wave. By the end of the nine-day heat event, much of the land beneath the island’s ice cap was exposed, and pools of meltwater opened up on its surfaceCivil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of February 24, 2020  Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford

• Black Oppression is Environmental Injustice The definition of environmental racism must be broadened to include such phenomena as the ghettoization of Black people, which “deteriorates the landscape that Black children grow up in,” said Willie Wright, professor of geography and African American Studies at Florida State University. Prof. Wright wote an article for the radical geography journal Antipode, titled “As Above, So Below: Anti-Black Violence as Environmental Racism.

• Black Oppression is Environmental Injustice The definition of environmental racism must be broadened to include such phenomena as the ghettoization of Black people, which “deteriorates the landscape that Black children grow up in,” said Willie Wright, professor of geography and African American Studies at Florida State University. Prof. Wright wote an article for the radical geography journal Antipode, titled “As Above, So Below: Anti-Black Violence as Environmental Racism.”

• One Dollar Bail, But Still in Jail Despite the abolition of bail for many offenses in New York State, thousands of people remain lockup up because of hurdles created by bureaucracy and hostile jail personnel, said Amanda Lawson, co-founder of the Dollar Bail Brigade. “Something that was meant to keep track of time-served has led to people regularly being kept incarcerated for just one dollar bail,” said Lawson, whose volunteers have assisted hundreds of New Yorkers to gain their release.

• Blacks Continue to Die on the Alter of White Womanhood Although Emmet Till and Trayvon Martin were killed 57 years apart, both of the Black teenagers died for the same reasons, said Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a dean and professor at Boston University School of Law. Emmet Till was murdered by two white racists for alledgedly whistling at a white woman, in 1955. Onwuachi-Willig says George Zimmerman was portrayed as protecting a mostly white neighborhood from predation and molestation by young Blacks like Trayvon Martin, in 2012. She wrote a paper on the subject, titled “From Emmet Till to Trayvon Martin: The Persistence of White Womanhood and the Preservation of White Manhood.”

• Mumia Speaks on the Cops and Today’s Deadly Economy The nation’s best known political prisoner sees parallels between the plight of today’s low wage workers and conditions during the Great Depression, when workers were brutalized for seeking unionization and a living wage. “I though of that dismal history when I heard of cops breaking the bones of U-Cal graduate students who are only striking to get the ability to pay their rent,” Mumia Abu Jamaltold Prison Radio.

Deacons for Defense and JusticeThe Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed self-defense African-American civil rights organization in the U.S. Southern states during the 1960s. Historically, the organization practiced self-defense methods in the face of racist oppression that was carried out under the Jim Crow Laws by local/state government officials and racist vigilantes. Many times the Deacons are not written about or cited when speaking of the Civil Rights Movement because their agenda of self-defense – in this case, using violence, if necessary – did not fit the image of strict non-violence that leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused. Yet, there has been a recent debate over the crucial role the Deacons and other lesser known militant organizations played on local levels throughout much of the rural South. Many times in these areas the Federal government did not always have complete control over to enforce such laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Deacons were instrumental in many campaigns led by the Civil Rights Movement. A good example is the June 1966 March Against Fear, which went from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. The March Against Fear signified a shift in character and power in the southern civil rights movement and was an event in which the Deacons participated. . . Scholar Akinyele O. Umoja speaks about the group’s effort more specifically. According to Umoja it was the urging of Stokely Carmichael that the Deacons were to be used as security for the march. Many times,  protection from the federal or state government was either inadequate or not given, even while knowing that groups like the Klan would commit violent acts against civil rights workers. An example of this was the Freedom Ride where many non-violent activists became the targets of assault for angry White mobs. After some debate and discussion many of the civil rights leaders compromised their strict non-violent beliefs and allowed the Deacons to be used. One such person was Dr. King. Umoja states, “Finally, though expressing reservations, King conceded to Carmichael’s proposals to maintain unity in the march and the movement. The involvement and association of the Deacons with the march signified a shift in the civil rights movement, which had been popularly projected as a ‘nonviolent movement.”‘[7]— Wilkipedia

Labor:

Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Flash Update No. 24 Developing Pandemic Exacerbates Already Negative Economic Trends

Broad Outlook: Updated Alert: Briefly updated here, the ShadowStats ALERT predicts a pending U.S. economic downturn—a formal recession—accompanied by increasing flight from the U.S. Dollar and Stocks into Gold and Silver. The ALERT largely stands as it was before today’s (February 24th) acccelerated financial-market recognition of an unfolding Coronavirus Pandemic, which exacerbated the same economic and financial-market risk factors otherwise in play with the ShadowStats outlook. Although hard numbers on the pandemic are inconsistent and anything but hard, circumstances could be shaping up for the most serious respiratory-related contagion since the Spanish Flu of 1918.

• ShadowStats Recession Forecast Remains in Place, With U.S. Economic Reporting In a Deepening Downturn Watch for Accelerating Flight from the U.S. Dollar and Stocks into Gold ShadowStats Broad Economic Outlook Continues to Evolve, Yet It Is Little Changed.

• ShadowStats Recession Forecast has been in play—evolving in various forms—since October 2018 and forewarnings then of dangers from the rate-hiking FOMC.

• Economic activity remains in a deepening downturn, as detailed in Special Commentary No. 983-B, Special Commentary No. 985 and updated recently in Flash Update No. 21, Flash Update No. 22, and Flash Update No. 23.

• Expanded coverage will follow very shortly in Special Bullet Edition No. 19-B. The Developing Pandemic, Intensified by Unstable Domestic Politics, Has Exacerbated Downside Economic Risks.

• Beyond intensified near-term financial-market risks from negative economic, liquidity and political issues, now exacerbated by a developing pandemic tied to the Corona Virus, as reflected in today’s (February 24th) financial markets, the ShadowStats broad outlook in the weeks and months ahead remains in place for: A rapidly intensifying U.S. economic downturn, recession, reflected in Mounting selling pressure on the U.S. dollar, against currencies such as the Swiss Franc, · Continued flight to safety in precious metals, upside pressures on gold and silver prices, and · Increasingly high risk of extraordinarily heavy stock-market selling.

• The ShadowStats Outlook Has Not Changed. As the deepening U.S. economic contraction accelerates, the more negative will become the pressure on the U.S. Dollar against traditionally stronger currencies such as the Swiss Franc, the stronger will become the flight-to-safety in precious metals, and the more dangerous will become the situation for domestic equity prices and stock-market stability. A rapidly weakening U.S. Dollar and rallying Gold and Silver prices are solid signs of impaired systemic and market conditions that quickly can mutate investor concerns into actions in other markets.

Wall Street Banks, Insurers Sell Off — Dangerously Linked by Derivative Trades If the federal government wants to quarantine the most dangerous threat to the financial health of the United States, it will impose a lockdown and decontamination of the federally-insured banks that are holding tens of trillions of dollars in derivative trades. Yesterday, the stock market rout outed the worst of these actors. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a hefty 1,031.61 points, that was only a 3.56 percentage point loss. The S&P 500 was off by 3.35 percent. The decline in the broader averages looks tame compared to what happened to some of the biggest banks on Wall Street and their derivative counterparties. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

 Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Daily News Digest Archives 

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1, Austerity,2 Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel   Always Remember:  That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!

Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!

Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Image of the Day:

The USA Is Nothing More Than An Oil Company With An Army

The City Of Dresden Lies In Ruins After The Allied Campaign On 13-15 February 1945Quote of the Day:

The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I’m in.”  — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Videos of the Day:

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture on the Julian Assange Case

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

World War III Could Be Fought in the Arctic In early March, an estimated 7,500 American combat troops will travel to Norway to join thousands of soldiers from other NATO countries in a massive mock battle with imagined invading forces from Russia. In this futuristic simulated engagement — it goes by the name of Exercise Cold Response 2020 — allied forces will “conduct multinational joint exercises with a high-intensity combat scenario in demanding winter conditions,” or so claims the Norwegian military anyway. At first glance, this may look like any other NATO training exercise, but think again. There’s nothing ordinary about Cold Response 2020. As a start, it’s being staged above the Arctic Circle, far from any previous traditional NATO battlefield, and it raises to a new level the possibility of a great-power conflict that might end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation. Welcome, in other words, to World War III’s newest battlefield. By Michael Klare‘Language of Monarchy’: Trump Asserts He Has ‘Absolute Right’ to Tell Justice Department What to Do  “Barr has made clear that, first and foremost, he serves President Donald Trump’s personal and political interests and not the interests of the United States.” —Karen Hobert Flynn, Common Cause  “Presidents and attorneys general cannot put their thumbs on the scales of justice for any reason—including to aid friends associates—or we cease to be a nation of laws.” By Jake Johnson

Trump Budget Gives Top Priority to New Generation of Nuclear Weapons The most ominous feature of the new budget document issued Monday by the Trump administration is the prominent place given to the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including so-called low-yield weapons, smaller than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are widely regarded as more likely to actually be used in combat. By Patrick Martin

Environment:

Trump ‘Turns Back The Clock’ by Luring Drilling Companies to Pristine Landsn Energy companies have leased 9.9m acres from the administration – and the fossil fuels extracted could equal half a year of emissions from China The Trump administration has offered oil companies a chunk of the American west that’s four times the size of California – an expansive drilling plan that threatens to entrench the industry at the expense of other outdoor jobs, while locking in enough emissions to undermine global climate policy. Energy companies have leased 9.9m acres from the unprecedented 461m acres put up for rent by the Trump administration, according to a new analysis from the Wilderness Society.

Profit Versus Life: Blue Acceleration: Capitalism’s Growing Assault on the Oceans “A new phase in humanity’s relationship with the biosphere, where the ocean is not only crucial but is being fundamentally changed”  Capitalism’s inherent drive to expand went into overdrive in the mid-20th century. Long-term socioeconomic and Earth System trends, graphed fifteen years ago and updated in 2015, show nearly simultaneous hockey stick upturns in about 1950. Called the Great Acceleration, the speed-up is driving what Earth System scientists describe as “the most rapid transformation of the human relationship with the natural world in the history of humankind.”[1] It marks the beginning of a new historical and geological epoch, e Anthropocene — a time when “human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of nature and are pushing the Earth into planetary terra incognita.”[2] By Ian Angus

Largest Maker Of Pesticide Linked To Brain Damage In Kids To Stop Producing Chemical Announcement comes after Trump administration reversed plans to ban chlorpyrifos and rejected scientific conclusions of experts The world’s largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, an agricultural pesticidelinked to brain damage in children, has announced that it will stop producing the chemical by the end of the year.The announcement on Thursday by Corteva, the corporation formed from a Dow Chemical and DuPont merger, comes after the Trump administration reversed regulatory plans to ban the pesticide and rejected the scientific conclusions of US government experts.Chlorpyrifos has been widely used on corn, soybeans, almonds, citrus, cotton, grapes, walnuts and other crops, but research has repeatedly found serious health effects in children, including impaired brain development. Environmental groups have long advocated for its ban, and the state of California, which grows the majority of the nation’s fruits and nuts, defied Trump and banned the chemical last year. By Sam Levin

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:Black Agenda Report February 12, 2020

Free All Political Prisoners –- Including Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning Julian Assange and his protégés have made common cause with Black revolutionaries in their zeal to lay bare the dictatorial nature of the omni-pervasive national security state and the sheer, racist barbarity of the U.S. imperial project. “A huge struggle must be launched to claim the means human expression.” All of our fates are entwined with that of Julian Assange, a political prisoner of the global imperial state. Assange, an Australian currently held in solitary confinement in Britain’s Belmarsh prison, faces 175 years behind bars if extradited to the United States, the imperial power whose international crimes and domestic machinations have been severely compromised by Wikileaks, the journalism operation Assange founded. By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

Chuck Sims Africa Freed: Final Jailed Move 9 Member Released From Prison The last of Philadelphia’s most besieged, and heroic, Black political families is released, after a 42-year ordeal. “Now 59, he has been in custody since shortly after he urned 18.” One of the great open wounds of the black liberation struggle of the 1970s has finally been healed with the release of the last member of the Move 9, the group of radicals rounded up in a Philadelphia police siege in 1978 and held behind bars for more than four decades. By Ed PilkingtonFreedom Rider: Trump Has No Opposition The Bloomberg cash onslaught and the anti-Bernie conspiracy have laid bare the degree of collusion among the rulers. “The blatant war crimes committed against Venezuela elicit either nonchalance or outright support from the so-called resistance.” The Democratic Party is every bit as corrupt as its pretend rival, the Republican Party. The theatrics of phony opposition have been on full display in recent days but no one should be fooled by the cheap theatrics. The impeachment show, Iowa caucuses, and State of the Union address all put a spotlight on the fraud of democracy in this country.  By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist

Kobe, Impeachment and the Coronavirus: A Study on the Dangers of White Liberal Fragility White liberalism is not a kinder, gentler form of white supremacy, or a lesser evil to the more explicit racism of Trump and his base. “Racist panic over the disease has been stoked by the entire ruling class, with a special role being played by the so-called ‘liberal’ corporate media.” By  Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing EditorLives Over Luxury: The Poor People’s Army Plans to March on the DNC   By Prison Reform and the State: The Impending Confrontation The founder of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign invites everyone to join them in a march against the DNC if it steals the presidential nomination. “We are setting up a Trumpville in Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Milwaukee.” The Democratic National Convention will convene in Milwaukee from July 13 to 16, and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) plans to be there. I spoke to PPEHRC founder and organizer Cheri Honkala of Philadelphia. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing EditorAmerican Bottom One of the poorest towns in the nation, nearly all-Black Centreville, Illinois, floods with raw sewage every time it rains. “It’s like Mississippi in the 1930s.” South of East St. Louis, down in the broad flood plain of the Mississippi known as the American Bottom, there is a little town that is gradually sinking in a flood of human waste. There is just no other way to say it, no other way to begin to tell the story of Centreville, Illinois. If you drove through quickly and did not look very carefully, it might look like any other rural town in this part of the Midwest. Gravel roads lined by storm-torn trees, large lots, small one-story houses, bread-box shaped mailboxes with small red flags out at the ends of driveways. But there are signs of the floods everywhere: abandoned houses surrounded by swampy yards, drainage ditches filled with brackish water, little wads of toilet paper hanging waist-high from the bushes by the side of the road. By Walter Johnson

Prison Reform and the State: The Impending Confrontation The recent prison reform rallies at the Mississippi Capitol were more akin to being for a Middle Passage with more efficient plumbing.“The prison systems intentionally subordinates and degrades.” The prison-reform rallies held at the Mississippi Capitol on Jan. 24 and Feb. 1, 2020, at the Governor’s Mansion are evidence that dubious government-approved rallies don’t just happen in “communist” countries. Neither were these rallies like older gatherings where white folks took picture postcards in front of hanging and smoldering black bodies with the aid of the redneck sheriff. By Adofo Minka

Colombian Government Obstructs the Peace Agreement with the FARC Guerrilla Group BAR’s reporter in Colombia explores how the US-backed regime is grossly violating the peace agreement with former FARC guerillas.  Translated by María Angélica Martínez“Ninety percent of the prisoners’ requests to apply the amnesty law have been denied.”As incredible as it may seem, the ultimate manifestation of sabotage by both the current and former governments of the peace process, 451 former FARC ex-combatants out of a total of 3,041 reported at the time of the Final Peace Agreement, remain in prison. Official delays and precariousness in institutional articulation are part of the answers for a reality that only explains the absence of political will in the high government.By  Sebastián Navarrete Aldana How to Yellow-Cake a Tragedy: The New York Times Spreads the Virus of Hatred, Again The US corporate media, especially the Times, has turned a medical emergency into a racist campaign of ideological propaganda. “The New York Times has been avidly red-baiting.”“In the end, the plague touched us all…it was not confined….breeding in a compost of greed and uselessness and murder…promising life and delivering death…[serving] as furnished rooms for ideology.”—Peter Hamill, Liner notes to “Blood on the Tracks” By K.J. Noh Keep War, Environmental Degradation and Profit Out of Space   The US is escalating the arms race because it sees its hegemonic military and economic power weakening. “This will be the most expensive arms race in history.” The 21st Century nuclear arms and developing outer space arms races, which began under Obama and are increasing under Trump, are going to be something the world has never seen before. They are a bonanza for weapons makers, the Pentagon budget and capitalists in space. They will create a less secure world, a greater wealth divide, a tattered safety net and new, more dangerous forms of war. By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

The Democratic Party’s Theatrical Performances: Fooling Black Voters for Decades The Democrats are terrible at passing legislation that helps Black and poor people but fantastically talented at political theater. “The difference is that Republicans don’t pretend to be anything but white supremacists.” It is the time of the year in which the white-dominated, and historically white-biased, United States’ film industry doles out awards. The Democratic Party should win an Academy Award each year for the outstanding job they do in convincing Black voters that they care about their plight. The Democratic establishment is riddled with fraudulent “snake-oil” politicians hellbent on extending their careers. It is a political party that unapologetically champions imperialist war after war. The Party is no more a peacemaker than their Republican Party counterparts.  The Democrats are terrible at passing legislation that helps Black and poor people but fantastically talented at political theater.  “The difference is that Republicans don’t pretend to be anything but white supremacists.”It is the time of the year in which the white-dominated, and historically white-biased, United States’ film industry doles out awards. The Democratic Party should win an Academy Award each year for the outstanding job they do in convincing Black voters that they care about their plight. The Democratic establishment is riddled with fraudulent “snake-oil” politicians hellbent on extending their careers. It is a political party that unapologetically champions imperialist war after war. The Party is no more a peacemaker than their Republican Party counterparts. By Solomon ComissiongLabor:

$93.6 Million Verdict Threatens to Bankrupt One of America’s Most Powerful Unions What started as a dispute over two jobs in Portland, Ore., escalated to a jury verdict that could devastate the storied International Longshore and Warehouse Union. For decades, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has solidified its power with aggressive demonstrations of solidarity across its Pacific ports. That includes a series of actions beginning in 2012, when dockworkers in Portland, Ore., introduced a slowdown, at least in part to protest two positions they believed should be going to the union’s members. The company operating the port went to court, contending that the job actions that continued for years were illegal and financially destructive. Seven years later, a federal jury has agreed, awarding the company a stunning $93.6 million judgment. By By Mike BakerThe Survival of the ILWU at Stake! Coastwide Port Action Can Stop Union Busting! Labor Solidarity Must Prevail A recent federal court decision in Portland, Oregon poses an immediate existential threat to the strongest union in the U.S. today, the ILWU, and ultimately to the labor movement as a whole. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), arguably one of the most militant unions in the U.S., has been hit with a union-busting $93.6 million dollar court-imposed fine for a secondary boycott deemed illegal under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The plaintiff, International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) is owned by the third richest man in the Philippines, billionaire Enrique Razon Jr. and operates in 27 ports worldwide, mainly in poor, developing countries.The maritime company claims it was run out of business in Portland because of a secondary boycott by the longshore union during a long-running dispute over two mechanics jobs which are presently done by another union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). ICTSI argues the primary employer is the Port of Portland which hires the mechanics, so they claim the longshore union organized an “illegal” secondary boycott. For the ILWU’s part, it was a foolish top down campaign organized by the dubious Leal Sundet, then, an ILWU Coast Committeeman who had previously been an Oregon area executive for the employers group, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). By Jack Heyman

Economy:

World:

Brazil: 20,000 Oil Workers on Strike to Halt Privatization Plan Workers perceive the increasing deterioration of Petrobras since Bolsonaro became president in 2019. Over 20,000 workers of the Brazilian state-controlled company Petrobras are carrying out a national strike in protest against the dismissal of workers and the privatization of public assets.Shockwave Being Prepared as Tory Promises Turn to Dust The result of the last general election was an expression of the deep anger in society. The Tories will quickly find themselves unable to quell this anger as they continue to carry out cuts, laying the basis for major upheavals. “Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?” “It is certainly tense. People are upset. People are struggling looking for work. These are tough times,” replied the social worker. Although these lines come from the script of the film Joker, in many ways they are all too close to real life. These words reflect the current reality – not only in the United States, but in Britain too. By Rob Sewell

Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Daily News Digest Archives

Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace” Could Still Be Published Today!

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1, Austerity,2 Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel   Always Remember: That Obama

That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!   Democracy?:

As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Image of the Day:

Quotes of the Day:

 . . . Back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes – they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.  If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.  This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about “I’m the only Negro out here.” “I’m the only one on my job.” “I’m the only one in this school.” You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, “Let’s separate,” you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. “What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?” I mean, this is what you say. “I ain’t left nothing in Africa,” that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa. On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call ’em “chitt’lin’” nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were — a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters. The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone come [sic] to the field Negro and said, “Let’s separate, let’s run,” he didn’t say “Where we going?” He’d say, “Any place is better than here.” You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man’s house on fire, you don’t hear these little Negroes talking about “our government is in trouble.” They say, “The government is in trouble.” Imagine a Negro: “Our government”! I even heard one say “our astronauts.” They won’t even let him near the plant — and “our astronauts”! “Our Navy” — that’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. That’s a Negro that’s out of his mind.  Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent. That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they’re not doing anything to you. So you sit there and ’cause you’ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ’Cause someone has taught you to suffer — peacefully. —  Malcolm X, The House Negro and the Field Negro

Negro leaders suffer from this interplay of solidarity and divisiveness, being either exalted excessively or grossly abused. Some of these leaders suffer from an aloofness and absence of faith in their people. The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man’s contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man’s representative of the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him. — Martin Luther King Jr. 1967, The Black Power Defined

Videos of the Day:

Malcolm X: The House Negro and the Field Negro (1963)

The United States is in Afghanistan to Plunder That nation’s Wealth!: Gen David Petraeus We Can’t Leave Afghanistan Now, They Have Trillions of Dollars of Minerals

Michael Hudson On Bernie Sanders’s Chances For The 2020 Election

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

America: Land of Make-Believe If what happens in courtrooms across the country to poor people of color is justice, what is happening in the Senate is a trial. If the blood-drenched debacles and endless quagmires in the Middle East are victories in the war on terror, our military is the greatest on earth. If the wholesale government surveillance of the public, the revoking of due process and having the world’s largest prison population are liberty, we are the land of the free. If the president, an inept, vulgar and corrupt con artist, is the leader of the free world, we are a beacon for democracy and our enemies hate us for our values. If Jesus came to make us rich, bless the annihilation of Muslims by our war machine and condemn homosexuality and abortion, we are a Christian nation. If formalizing an apartheid state in Israel is a peace plan, we are an honest international mediator. If a meritocracy means that three American men have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, we are the land of opportunity. If the torture of kidnapped victims in black sites and the ripping of children from their parents’ arms and their detention in fetid, overcrowded warehouses, along with the gunning down of unarmed citizens by militarized police in the streets of our urban communities, are the rule of law, we are an exemplar of human rights.    The rhetoric we use to describe ourselves is so disconnected from reality that it has induced collective schizophrenia. America, as it is discussed in public forums by politicians, academics and the media, is a fantasy, a Disneyfied world of make-believe. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into illusions. The longer we fail to name and confront our physical and moral decay, the more dema-gogues who peddle illusions and fantasies become empowered. Those who acknowledge the truth—beginning with the stark fact that we are no longer a democracy—wander like ghosts around the edges of society, reviled as enemies of hope. The mania for hope works as an anesthetic. The hope that Donald Trump would moderate his extremism once he was in office, the hope that the “adults in the room” would manage the White House, the hope that the Mueller report would see Trump disgraced, impeached and removed from office, the hope that Trump’s December 2019 impeachment would lead to his Senate conviction and ouster, the hope that he will be defeated at the polls in November are psychological exits from the crisis—the collapse of democratic institutions, including the press, and the corporate corruption of laws, electoral politics and norms that once made our imperfect democracy possible.  By Chris Hedges

Environment:

The Hunt for Fugitive Emissions in the Permian’s Oilfields  Meaningful regulation of the fracking industry is a non sequitur to Sharon Wilson, organizer for Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project. She supports her employer’s efforts to encourage tougher industry regulations, but believes that humankind needs to keep oil and gas in the ground if there is any chance of meeting the benchmarks set by the Paris Climate Accord to limit global warming. After spending a couple days with Wilson as she monitored for methane leaks at oil and gas industry sites in the Permian oilfields of West Texas, it is easy to understand why she believes that talk of meaningful regulation of the industry lacks meaning itself.  By By Julie Dermansky

Toxic America: Pain, Cancer, Death: Michigan Families Devastated by Toxic Chemicals In Their Water Residents had for years been drinking water contaminated by dangerous PFAS chemicals – and the impact has been brutal  n the years before 2017, Sandy Wynn-Stelt and her husband had suspicions about the water they drew from a well on their House Street property in the Michigan town of Belmont. She attributed the bad taste to it being well water, but the “weird film” on their morning coffee was difficult to explain.By June 2017, state officials alerted her that PFAS from a nearby, decades-old dump belonging to Wolverine World Wide, a shoe giant best known for the Hush Puppy brand, had contaminated their well. By Tom Perkins 

The ‘Forever Chemicals’ Fueling A Public Health Crisis In Drinking WaterAbout 700 PFAS-contaminated sites have been identified across the US while those exposed to enough chemicals can face devastating health consequences n 2002, the French multinational Saint-Gobain boosted production of chemically weatherproofed fabrics that it produced in its Merrimack, New Hampshire, plant. Soon after, serious health problems began hitting residents living near the facility. The Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water (MCCW) advocacy group says people there suffer from high levels of cancer, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune disorders, kidney disease and developmental disorders. That includes an alarming number of children facing rare and aggressive cancers, said MCCW’s Laurene Allen, who lives in the city of about 30,000 that sits an hour north of Boston. By Tom Perkins

Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:

Labor:

Economy:

Powell is clearly not the mild-mannered public servant working for the interests of the average American. It’s long past the time for the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee, and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to open formal inquiries into the actions of Chairman Powell and the Federal Reserve that fly in the face of duly enacted legislation by Congress. — Fed Chair Powell Has Gone Rogue on Repo Loans and the Volcker Rule

Fed Chair Powell Has Gone Rogue on Repo Loans and the Volcker Rule The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome (Jay) Powell, regularly states at his press conferences that the Federal Reserve is there to serve the interests of the American people. But his actions regularly undermine the credibility of that statement in a manner not all that dissimilar to Alan Greenspan, whose Fed chairmanship oversaw the gutting of Wall Street banking regulations and ended just before the greatest Wall Street collapse since the GreatDepression.Powell goes out of his way to present himself at his press conferences as the quintessential public servant whose only mission is to perform the mandate set out by the elected representatives in Congress while his actions strongly suggest he is a wily rogue agent for Wall Street’s cartel of bank trading houses. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

 

Crisis Of The French Left Is A Crisis Of Reformism The bourgeois media never tire of repeating it: the French left is in crisis. Gone are the days in which the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF), between them, held a clear majority of the electorate. And when it comes to France Insoumise (FI), they haven’t consolidated the success of the 2017 presidential elections, when Mélenchon got 20 percent in the first round, as we saw in the European elections last year. Because of this, the growing opposition to Macron has not found an expression on the left at this stage. It has mainly expressed itself on the right: the Rassemblement National (RN, formerly Front national) got the most votes at the European elections and is hovering around 26 percent support in the polls. And so, the bosses’ mouthpieces in the media have already written the script for the next national elections. We know it all too well, for it is the same as last time. Macron (or a carbon copy of Macron) against Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential, whereby Macron (or his double) would win, with the masses mobilised to block the RN. Then, the legislative elections would give a big majority to the winner of the presidential. Nothing to see here!

As Jeremy Corbyn Predicted:

Boris Johnson Trade Talks With US Raising Fears in UK of ‘Shock Doctrine Brexit’ “This should particularly worry us because these trade talks are being conducted with excessive levels of secrecy.” Social justice advocates in the United Kingdom are raising concerns over a trade deal being negotiated with the United States by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after reports surfaced that American leaders are planning to use leverage provided by Brexit to force a scheme of privavitzation and the stripping of protections from British workers. “These trade talks are being conducted with excessive levels of secrecy,” Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said in a statement Sunday. By Eoin Higgins

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

February is Black History Month:

The Lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott By Roland Sheppard

Martin Luther King  at First Montgomery Improvement Association Meeting to Organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott Holt Street Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama 12/5/1955.

The boycott was successful, in my opinion, for several reasons:

1. It had mass support and it strength developed from the unity of the Black masses to boycott the buses.

2. In order to sustain the boycott, the MIA had organized an alternative transportation system, which gave the masses the ability to get to work for over a year, something that was crucial to the success of the boycott.

3. The democratically organized Montgomery Improvement Association had regular weekly mass meetings of thousands to decide the strategy and tactics of the movement. The people in the struggle had control and the final say — not the leaders from on high. This helped to insured the power of the movement, for the masses saw the MIA as their organization and were committed by their votes to implement their The tactics of both mass civil disobedience (the boycott) and self defense by the MIA was key to the success of the struggle.

4. The power of independent mass action, independent of the politicians, was demonstrated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This is the power that inspired and garnered support from throughout the nation and the world.

Daily News Digest Archives

Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace” Could Still Be Published Today!

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1, Austerity,2 Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3.  The Iron Heel   Always Remember: That Obama

That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing,  the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. —  The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!   Democracy?:

As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%,  Only the 1% Voted For Austerity!   The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!  Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.!   Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!

Image of the Day:

Stealing Capitalist StyleAssata Shakur

 Quote of the Day:

In the press release, Peter Rosset, executive director of Food First, said: “This award shows the enormous potential of sustainable agriculture, which is so under exploited in other countries. The whole world should learn from Cuba.” Dr. Rosset went on to say that “in Cuba, organic is for everyone, not just for those who can afford it. In past articles I have written on the importance of the Cuban developments in agriculture.  That the chemical dependent agriculture for profit in Capitalist society is making cancer part of our food chain based on an ever-increasing use of pesticides. — Organic Farming — Cuba: “The Road Not Taken”: The Other Cuban Revolution (1999)

Videos of the Day:

Modern Day Robber Barons: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner made more than $82 million while working at White House

In modern capitalism, governments routinely borrow money. They do this to finance budget deficits that occur when governments raise less in taxes than they spend. Governments also borrow to invest in long-term projects of economic development. The swindling occurs when the lenders and borrowers—usually private financiers and career politicians—negotiate loans that serve their own particular interests at the expense of the taxpayers who eventually cover the costs of repaying the government’s loans plus interest on them. — Richard Wolff: Global Capitalism Is Theft

Wealth Inequality: The Richest 1% Controls More Wealth Now Than At Any Time In More Than 50 Years. But What Does Wealth Inequality Really Look Like?

NFL’s Racism Runs Deep, All the Way to the Super Bowl For example: Teams with racist names; only three Black coaches when 70% of players are Black; players like Kaepernick are sidelined for life; billionaire owners who support Trump; and players who are treated like meat to be bought and sold.Dr. Rob Confronts Mike Pence About Medicaid Cuts

U.S.:

The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a  Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War!  Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Trump’s ‘Deal Of The Century’ is so Absurd and Banal, It’s Impossible to Take It Seriously When the two old political fraudsters emerged at the White House this week with the most deranged, farcical tragi-comedy in Middle East history, it was difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.The 80-page “peace” plan from the White House contained 56 references to “Vision” in its first 60 pages – and yes, with a capital V on each occasion to suggest, I guess, that this “deal of the century” was a supernatural revelation. It was not, though it might have been written by a super-Israeli. It said goodbye to Palestinian refugees – the famous/infamous “right of return” and all who now rot in the camps of the Middle East; farewell to the old city of Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital; adieu to UNRWA, the UN relief agency. But it welcomed a permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the total annexation of almost every Jewish colony built there against all international law. By Robert FiskBringing Back ‘Archaic and Gruesome Weapons,’ Trump Reverses US Restrictions on Landmines “The United States is doing a 180 on the near-global consensus to ban the abhorrent and inhumane use of landmines.” A picture taken on August 9, 2018 during a trip in Yemen organized by the UAE’s National Media Council (NMC) shows Yemeni children whose legs were amputated after they were injured by landmines playing in the country’s second city of Aden which is under control by the Saudi and UAE-backed government. (Photo: Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images) By Andrea Germanos Environment:

In Cuba, Greener Farming Means Cleaner Rivers Joint Cuba-U.S. study finds sustainable agriculture in Cuba keeps river pollution far below levels in U.S. waterways When the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, food production on the island of Cuba was reduced—as the supply of Russian fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, and oil dried up. Under the stress of an imminent food crisis, the island quickly rebuilt a new form of diversified farming—including many urban organic gardens—that depended less on imported synthetic chemicals. Over the last two decades, Cuba blossomed into a worldwide model for conservation agriculture, with improved soils and cleaner water.At least that’s been a popular story among journalists.Now—for the first time in more than fifty years—a team of Cuban and U.S. field scientists have worked together to rigorously test a key aspect of this story: the impacts of contemporary agriculture on water quality in Cuba’s rivers. Despite centuries of sugarcane plantations and other intensive farming, the international team discovered that none of the rivers they explored show deep damage. By Joshua A Brown

Why Were Whales Increasingly Caught In Crab Lines? Because Of The Climate Crisis New study shows marine heat wave was causing marine life to cluster in an area that made feeding dangerous When humpback whales began to appear in large numbers off the Californiacoast in 2015 and 2016, people celebrated the comeback of the whales after a near-miss with extinction. However, the excitement was quickly met with new worries – the whales increasingly got caught up in fishermen’s crab ropes. By 2016, there were more than 50 recorded entanglements that left whales injured or killed. Whales got ropes tangled around their mouths, making it difficult for them to eat. Crab lines cut through tissue and caused infections. By Katharine Gammon

Murder in Chief: Critics: Trump EPA’s Formal Assertion Glyphosate Poses No Risk to Human Health Indication of ‘Troubling Allegiance’ With Bayer/Monsanto “It’s open season on clean air, water, and soil.” President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday wrapped up a regulatory review of the safety of the weedkiller glyphosate and found the chemical poses no risk to human healh—a decision that was immediately decried by advocates as another indication of the closeness between the administration and private sector interests. “The Trump EPA’s assertion that glyphosate poses no risks to human health disregards independent science findings in favor of confidential industry research and industry profits,” said Lori Ann Burd, the Center for Biological Diversity’s director of environmental health. “This administration’s troubling allegiance to Bayer/Monsanto and the pesticide industry doesn’t change the trove of peer-reviewed research by leading scientists finding troubling links between glyphosate and cancer.” By Eoin Higgins

Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:

Labor:

Economy:

World:

Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:

The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

‘People, Poor Disabled People in Particular, Are Going to Die’: Trump Takes Axe to Medicaid “Trump wants to destroy Medicaid while claiming to save it. This fiendish scheme is an Orwellian fable conjured up by the most shameless pack of liars to ever occupy our government.” By Jake Johnson