Last, I watched the Frontline Program, The Power of the Fed, When COVID-19 struck, the Federal Reserve stepped in to try to avert economic crisis. As the country’s central bank continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily, who is benefiting and at what cost.

The show centered on the Federal Banks’ Quantitative Easing program of low interest, almost not interests, rate loans.  loans to the banks and wall street.  Hower the program initially also bailout Mainstreet. FRED Effective Federal Funds Rate  (FRED Graphs Can Be found on the Staint Louis Federal Reserve website.

Part 1 The Working Class, Mainstreet, the 99% is not Recovering, Have Not Been Bailedout!

The show states that Mainstreet was initially benefitted from the program, that is wrong!  This was clearly explained by Paul Craig Roberts, Who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Ronald Reagan. He wrote:

The quantitative Easing program was designed to bailout the economy after the economic bubble burst 1n 2008.  Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy.  Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression.  However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities.  During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through June 2021, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 61.6percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)

FRED: Labor Force Participation Rate is 61.6

For Mainstreet Facts, My charts can be found  Shadow Government Statistics;

Employment has not improved, There has depression levels rates of overz20% employment since 2008!

Shadow Government Alternate Unemployment Charts.  The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.June 2021 Shadow Government Statsyics Alternate Unemployment is 25.8%

The bailout did nothing to improve the real weekly working earnings of the working class, that have been declining since the 70s!

I received this Chart in and email from John Williams, of Shadow Government Statistics

Inflation has been eating wages The working class has. for the past decades the purchasing power of the working class and retirees.

FRED Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average WWII-July 2021FRED Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average

Part II Wall Street and the Banks Have Gotten Richer as the Fed Gave Basically $Trillions to the Wall Street Banks etc..

Frontline does a good presentation on this point —  Banks, ‘Shadow Banks’, and Wall Street are booming!

Companies and stockbrokers  have been buying back their own stocks using these $Trilluon loans to buy back their own stock to inflate the value their own stock, even though there has not been any real valve produced by economic means!

The result has been a greater separation of wealth! A lot of the billionaires have become trillionaires! The Fed Has now given over $10 tillion to Wall Street!

Giving an illusion that the economy is boom!

The Theory was that the ‘Bailout Loans’ would trickle down to the 99%, but, in realtiy if has the greates trickle up the 1% in the history of the world!

Malcolm X 3/12/1964 Press Statement After He Broke From the NOI

Because 1964 threatens to be a very explosive year on the racial front, and because I myself intend to be very active in every phase of the American Negro struggle for human rights, I have called this press conference this morning in order to clarify my own position in the struggle—especially in regard to politics and nonviolence.

I am and always will be a Muslim. My religion is Islam. I still believe that Mr. Muhammad’s analysis of the problem is the most realistic, and that his solution is the best one.

This means that I too believe the best solution is complete separation, with our people going back home, to our own African homeland. But separation back to Africa is still a long-range program, and while it is yet to materialize, 22 million of our people who are still here in America need better food, clothing, housing, education and jobs right now. Mr.

Muhammad’s program does point us back homeward, but it also contains within it what we could and should be doing to help solve many of our own problems while we are still here.

Internal differences within the Nation of Islam forced me out of it. I did not leave of my own free will. But now that it has happened, I intend to make the most of it. Now that I have more independence of action, I intend to use a more flexible approach toward working with others to get a solution to this problem.

I do not pretend to be a divine man, but I do believe in divine guidance, divine power, and in the fulfillment of divine prophecy. I am not educated, nor am I an expert in any particular field—but I am sincere, and my sincerity is my credentials.

I’m not out to fight other Negro leaders or organizations. We must find a common approach, a common solution, to a common problem. As of this minute, I’ve forgotten everything bad that the other leaders have said about me, and I pray they can also forget the many bad things I’ve said about them.

The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences.

Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we seem to think we pose to each other’s personal prestige and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America. I am going to organize and head a new mosque in New York City, known as the Muslim Mosque, Inc. This gives us a religious base, and the spiritual force necessary to rid our people of the vices that destroy the moral fiber of our community.

• Our political philosophy will be black nationalism. Our economic and social philosophy will be black nationalism. Our cultural emphasis will be black nationalism.

• Many of our people aren’t religiously inclined, so the Muslim Mosque, Inc., will be organized in such manner to provide for the active participation of all Negroes in our political, economic, and social programs, despite their religious or non-religious beliefs.

• The political philosophy of black nationalism means: we must control the politics and the politicians of our community. They must no longer take orders from outside forces. We will organize, and sweep out of office all Negro politicians who are puppets for the outside forces.

• Our accent will be upon youth: we need new ideas, new methods, new approaches. We will call upon young students of political science throughout the nation to help us. We will encourage these young students to launch their own independent study, and then give us their analysis and their suggestions. We are completely disenchanted with the old, adult, established politicians. We want to see some new faces—more militant faces.

• Concerning the 1964 elections: we will keep our plans on this a secret until a later date—but we don’t intend for our people to be the victims of a political sellout again in 1964.

• The Muslim Mosque, Inc., will remain wide open for ideas and financial aid from all quarters. Whites can help us, but they can’t join us. There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity. There can be no workers’ solidarity until there is first some racial solidarity. We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves. One can’t unite bananas with scattered leaves.

• Concerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law.

• In areas where our people are the constant victims of brutality, and the government seems unable or unwilling to protect them, we should form rifle clubs that can be used to defend our lives and our property in times of emergency, such as happened last year in Birmingham; Plaquemine, Louisiana; Cambridge, Maryland; and Danville, Virginia. When our people are being bitten by dogs, they are within their rights to kill those dogs.

• We should be peaceful, law-abiding—but the time has come for the American Negro to fight back in self-defense whenever and wherever he is being unjustly and unlawfully attacked. If the government thinks I am wrong for saying this, then let the government start doing its job.

Daily News Digest June 29, 2021

Daily News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

The Orwellian Neaspeak History\Another Example of Capitalism as a Failed System: World CaAnpilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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: 

How many people know that, unlike Gandhi and King, she refused to rule out the righteous use of force? Not only did she admire Malcolm X, she flew down to Monroe, North Carolina, just a few years ago for the funeral of Robert Williams, the outspoken advocate of armed self-defense by the black community. — Diane McWhorter, Rosa Parks: The Story Behind Her Sitting Down

Videos of the Day:

On Contact: Judicial Lynching On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was removed from his post after he made public the widespread use of torture by the Uzbek government and the CIA.    Murray has since become one of Britain’s most important human rights campaigners, a fierce advocate for Julian Assange and a supporter of Scottish independence. His coverage of the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, saw him charged with contempt of court and sentenced to eight months in prison. The very dubious sentence, which upends most legal norms, was delivered, his supporters argue, to prevent him from testifying as a witness in the Spanish criminal case against UC Global Director David Morales. The company founder is being prosecuted for allegedly installing a surveillance system in the Ecuadorean Embassy when Julian Assange found refuge, that was used to record the privileged communications between Assange and his lawyers. Morales is alleged to have carried out this surveillance for the CIA.

“Summer of Soul”: Rescuing a Historic Harlem Music Festival 

Questlove talks De La Soul and real hip-hop | Red Bull Music Academy

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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

A Vote for the Republicrates is a Vote for More War and Austerity!: Fresh Demands for Immediate US Withdrawal as Biden Administration Bombs Iraq, Syria “The easiest way to protect U.S. forces in Iraq is… for there not to be any U.S. forces in Iraq.” The U.S. military’s latest bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria on Sunday was met with fresh demands for the immediate withdrawal of American forces from both Middle East countries, as the Biden administration attempted to justify the airstrikes as “defensive” in nature. By Jake Johnson

American Democracy Will Remain a Mirage Without a Dramatic Overhaul of the Political and Economic System The progressive forces fighting for a democratic future have a truly herculean task ahead of them. It is no longer an unknown fact or a view propounded by a handful of radical historians and political scientists: the American political system has such severe structural flaws that it is potentially antithetical to democracy and surely detrimental to the promotion of the common good. By C.J. Polychroniou

Shape-Shifting Birds in US Skies Surprise Science The seasons are changing: American avian migrants are now increasingly shape-shifting birds. Their corpses tell an odd story. America’s migratory birds are setting off for the breeding grounds ever earlier. That’s not the only change. As global temperatures creep ever higher, the birds’ bodies are getting smaller − but their wings are getting longer. And, a little unexpectedly, the changes producing these shape-shifting birds may not be connected, according to new research. By Ted Radford

Lethal Heat Hits the Planet  The news does not get much worse than a recent scientific report that the planet is trapping twice as much heat as it did only 14 years ago.     If this one report does not turn heads and create a sense of panic to get off fossil fuels, as soon as yesterday, then nothing will ever move the needle to fix the planet’s broken climate system. (Source: Norman G. Loeb, et al, Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate, Geophysical Research Letters – Advanced Earth and Space Science, June 15, 2021).   Scientists have been warning about the consequences of human-generated greenhouse gases ever since James Hansen testified before a Congressional committee 33 years ago: “The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”    In fact, the warnings have been coming for 44 years. Prior to James Hansen’s testimony before the Senate committee, the most publicized report came from the National Academy of Sciences in 1977 when it warned that burning coal would crank up global temperatures to intolerable levels by 2050. By Robert Hunziker

Toxic Corporations are Destroying the Planet’s Soil  A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health. By Colin Todhunter

Nuclear legacy is a Costly Headache for the Future How do you safely store spent nuclear waste? No-one knows. It’ll be a costly headache for our descendants. Many states are leaving future generations an unsolved and costly headache: how to deal with highly dangerous nuclear waste.  The decision to start closing down the United Kingdom’s second generation of nuclear power stations earlier than originally planned has highlighted the failure of governments to resolve the increasingly expensive problem of the waste they leave behind them. By Paul Brown

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

 Labor:

Econmy:

Capitalists Turn to Tricks and Illusions as Inflation Starts To Rise The pandemic has had the effect of intensifying the crisis of overproduction that began in 2008, further exacerbating the contradictions of the capitalist system. As a result, we are witnessing a sharp change in the policies being carried out by the ruling classes of the main imperialist countries. Austerity, the economic policy of the last few years, has been temporarily put to one side. It would have been economically and politically unsustainable to carry on with austerity policies under the current conditions. By Alessandro GiardielloIn general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living. — John Williams, Shadow Government Statistics

Inflation, Interest Rates and Debt Inflation of the prices of goods and services is good or bad news depending on your relation to the means of production.  For labour, with no ownership of the means of production and only making a living from selling its power to work, inflation is not good news, because it eats into real incomes by increasing the prices of necessaries.  Currently, as the major economies come out of the pandemic slump, employers are increasingly complaining that they cannot get staff to return to their low-paid jobs in the leisure, hospitality and other service industries.  They are being forced to bid up wage rates to attract people back into jobs with little satisfaction, poor conditions, no unions, no sick pay, no holiday pay etc.      The prospect of higher wages sounds like good news for layers of workers previously on minimum wage levels or even below.  But higher wages are a monetary or prices illusion if at the same time prices for food and other necessaries start to rise sharply.  And they are.  The official US inflation rate hit 5% yoy in May. This was the highest reading since August 2008.  It’s the same story in the UK and Europe. Even though the level of inflation is only about 2% a year there, that rate is the highest for over seven years. By Michael Roberts

Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Can ‘Figure’:  In recent Decades, the US Government Removes Items From the Methodology for Its  Estament (Underestimate) of the Official Rate of Inflation! This Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Graph Demonstrates This Fact!  FRED:  Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average

JPMorgan Chase Spent $59.5 Billion Buying Back Its Stock from 2017-2019 while Its Bank Tellers Didn’t Make Enough to Pay for Basic Living Expenses According to the 10-K (Annual Report) forms that JPMorgan Chase has filed with the SEC for years 2017, 2018, and 2019, it has bought back a total of $59.5 billion of its own common stock, thus inflating its share price by that sum of money. In 2019 the bank bought back a whopping 212,975,185 shares for $24.12 billion; 181,504,483 shares in 2018 for a total of $19.98 billion; and 166,557,198 shares in 2017 for $15.4 billion. Notice that the growth in the dollar amount of the buybacks grew by 56.6 percent from 2017 to 2019.    Who benefitted tremendously from this boosting of the share price?  Insiders!     According to the proxy JPMorgan Chase filed with the SEC on April 7, Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, owns 9,385,141 shares of the bank’s common stock – the bulk of which he obtained under “performance” awards given to him by his Board of Directors. (Never mind that Dimon’s “performance” has included racking up an unprecedented five felony counts against the bank and paying out more than $43 billion in fines and settlements for egregious financial abuses since 2014.) As of Friday’s closing price, Dimon’s shares had a market value of $1.44 billion, illustrating how handsomely crime pays on Wall Street. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Daily News Digest June 28, 2021

Daily News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

The Biggest ‘Big Lie’: As the Rober Baron Government Robs Social Security Funds, The Republicrats Claim That the Social Security Fund ‘Will Go Broke’! Our Pensions are un Daamger Because of the 1%’s Plundering! The Robber Barons of the 1880s Pale in Comparison to Todays Roberr Barrons!

Social Security ‘Debt’

Robber Baron Government: Congress Robbed Social Security And Doesn’t Want To Pay It BackAnother Example of Capitalism as a Failed System: World CaAnpilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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:

Sea level rise due to climate change eyed as contributing factor in Miami-area building collapse David Knowles David Knowles·Senior Editor Sat, June 26, 2021, 12:21 AM·3 min read As the search for survivors of the collapse of a 12-story beachfront condominium in Surfside, Fla., continued on Friday, building experts began looking at the possibility that sea level rise caused by climate change may have contributed to the disaster that has left at least four people dead and 159 missing. From a geological standpoint, the base of South Florida’s barrier islands is porous limestone. As the oceans encroach on land due to sea level rise and the worsening of so-called king tides, groundwater is pushed up through the limestone, causing flooding. That brackish water, which regularly inundates underground parking garages in South Florida, can potentially lead to the deterioration of building foundations over time. — The Danger Of Limestone Foundations Are Known … Sea Level Rise Due to Climate Change Eyed as Contributing Factor in Miami-Area Building Collapse

United States’s Private Secret/Semisecret — Legal/Extra-Legal— Semi-Regulated Military Armies/Contractors      From: Private Military Contractors and U.S. Grand Strategy;  The difficulty in obtaining adequate information to judge the cost and efficiency of PMCs stems from several sources. Because many PMC sell their services through the Foreign Military Sales program they should be regulated through the U.S. export control regime, under the jurisdiction of the Arms Export Control Act. While the AECA stipulates that the names of the client countries and the types of defense articles or services involved “shall not be withheld from public disclosure unless the President determines that the release of such information would be contrary to the national interest,” the State Department interpreted this narrowly, and in May 2002 the Justice Department issued new guidelines that allow companies to challenge the release of information to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.43 This lack of transparency and oversight makes it virtually impossible for the public to assess the practice of private military contracting.  . . . . A regulatory framework that guaranteed adequate executive supervision and congressional oversight would be an improvement. But the level of review and inquiry that either branch gives to licensing decisions under the AECA is unclear.  In short, despite ongoing or planned corrective actions, the contracting system for PMC remains deeply troubled. On June 10, 2009, the congressionally established Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan issued its interim report. It found that “a critical shortage of qualified contract-management personnel in theater and those that are there are stretched too thin. In particular, the process for designating and training contracting officer’s representatives to check contractor performance in theater is broken.” 54 With respect to management and accountability issues the commission found that: • Neither the military nor the federal civilian acquisition workforces have expanded to keep pace with recent years’ enormous growth in the number and value of contingency contracts. • Contract auditors are not employed effectively in contingency contracting [and that]

Videos of the Day:

As Biden Pledges Police Funding to Curb Gun Violence, Activists Call for Community Investment

Afghan President Ghani Visits White House as His Government Nears Collapse

A Big Fight In Small-Town Wisconsin Residents of three rural counties in Western Wisconsin are fighting the construction of two factory hog farms that will do irreparable damage to their communities. Throughout July, we will be covering their struggleUnited 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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

Who Owns the US National Debt? The Biggest Owner Is Not Foreign Entities, but U.S. Taxpayers Which agencies own the most Treasuries? Social Security, by a long shot. The U.S. Treasury publishes this in the Monthly Treasury Statement. Here’s the breakdown from the February 2021 data:

• Social Security trusts, including the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds: $2.90 trillio

• Office of Personnel Management Retirement: $955.1 billion
• Military Retirement Fund: $1.01 trillion. This has become a big issue in funding our nation’s defense and is only expected to grow.
• Medicare, which includes the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund: $304.4 billion

• Cash on hand to fund federal government operations: $723 billion²

Poll Finds Socialism Increasingly Seen as ‘Badge of Pride’ in US Two-thirds of U.S. adults want the federal government to implement policies to reduce the worsening gap between rich and poor. While a majority of U.S. adults still have more positive than negative perceptions of capitalism, less than half of the country’s 18 to 34-year-olds view the profit-maximizing market system favorably, and the attractiveness of socialism continues to increase among people over 35, according to a new poll released Friday. By Kenny Stancil

Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Could Cut Unemployment Benefits, Experts Warn

The bipartisan infrastructure deal that President Joe Biden touted in front of the White House on Thursday contains a proposed funding mechanism that experts fear could unjustly strip unemployment benefits from jobless workers under the guise of combating fraud.A White House fact sheet on the new agreement lists “unemployment insurance program integrity” as one of the $579 billion plan’s pay-fors, alongside other funding sources that critics say amount to an infrastructure privatization scheme. The bipartisan group of senators that struck the deal with Biden reportedly believes $80 billion in revenue can be derived from a crackdown on unemployment fraud. By Jake Johnston 

Differed Maintenance Kills: Before Florida Building Collapse, $9 Million In Repairs Needed  An engineering firm in 2018 uncovered “abundant cracking and spalling” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage. Nearly three years before an oceanfront building collapsed near Miami, an engineering firm estimated that major repairs the building needed would cost more than $9 million, according to newly released emails. By Curt Anderson and Bernard Condon 

The $100 Billion U.S. Initiative to Deliver 16,128 Hiroshimas Reportedly, the U.S. is planning to spend something like $1.7 trillion over the coming three decades on “modernizing” our nuclear arsenal, including 12 submarines that could destroy the world several times over. By Frida Berrigan

Biden Will Enact Rule Proposed by Trump That Enables Big Pharma to Price Gouge The Biden administration is officially moving forward with a Trump rulemaking that would eliminate a key government power for driving down the costs of drugs and other inventions built from federal research.    The rulemaking was included in the administration’s “unified agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions” for spring 2021 that was published on June 11. The agenda, compiled by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, outlines the actions that the administration intends to pursue in the near and long term.     It is in “final rule stage,” which means its promulgating agency, in this case the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “plan[s] to publish a final rule or an interim final rule or to take other final action as the next step,” according to an accompanying document. The rule has been assigned a final action date of October 2021. By Donald Shaw 

U.S. Military Training Document Says Socialists Represent “Terrorist” Ideology A Navy training document asks, “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?” A Navy counterterrorism training document obtained exclusively by The Intercept appears to conflate socialists with terrorists and lists the left-wing ideology alongside “neo-nazis.” A section of the training document subtitled “Study Questions” includes the following: “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?” The correct answer is “political terrorists,” a military source briefed on the training told me. The document, titled “Introduction to Terrorism/Terrorist Operations,” is part of a longer training manual recently disseminated by the Naval Education Training and Command’s Navy Tactical Training Center in conjunction with the Center for Security Forces. The training is designed formasters-at-arms, the Navy’s internal police, the military source said. By Ken Klippenstein

Soldiers of Fortune: the Rise of Private Military Companies and their Consequences on America’s Wars War and conflict are synonymous with human history, and where there is conflict, there are often mercenaries who reap the profits. These “armies for hire” appeared as early as Ancient Egypt and Rome, with rulers deploying paid auxiliary forces to supplement imperial armies. In present-day America, mercenaries have consolidated into one of the strongest institutions in the United States: the corporation.    Mercenaries adapted to changing trends in statecraft and warfare by merging into corporate entities under the title of private military companies, or PMCs. America, the country with the strongest national military, is oddly the largest customer of PMCs. According to the Congressional Research Service, roughly 10% of America’s armed forces were privately contracted during WWII, but during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the proportion has grown to a staggering 50%. This past July, the Trump administration confirmed America’s affinity for PMCs when the president’s advisers recruited Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide security firm, and Stephen Feinberg, owner of the military contractor DynCorp International, to draft alternative military strategies in the Middle East that rely primarily on private contractors.

Military Contractors Quietly Boost Donations to GOP Backers of Trump’s Coup Attempt One critic of the weapons industry called it “another example of how our system for awarding money to contractors is often pay-to-play.” After a brief lull in political spending following the January 6 insurrection, military contractors are ramping up PAC donations to members of Congress on committees with influence over the distribution of Pentagon funds, including dozens of GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. By Kenny Stancil

Larissa Zimberoff: What Has Silicon Valley Done to Our Food? In a new book, the investigative journalist examines how companies have changed the way we eat in the name of climate change without always considering their products’ health impacts. Larissa Zimberoff’s new book, Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat, Zimberoff joins Robert Scheer on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence” to talk about how so many edible products are marketed as healthy when in fact they may be just the opposite. “We’ve had an obfuscated supermarket for a long time, filled with snack foods and junk foods and things we shouldn’t be eating,” the investigative journalist tells Scheer. “So the overhauling of the food system is mission-based. These companies purport to be wanting to save the planet from the climate crisis, wanting to end industrial animal agriculture, the death of animals, by creating these new foods. Now, I do think they believe that they can do that, but the thing is that once Silicon Valley’s in, once the investors are in, once Wall Street is in–then we’ve got people that expect to make money.”Environment:Earth System Research: Interacting Climate Tipping Points May Fall Like Dominoes Cascading changes could move Earth into a dangerous state for the future of humanity and nature  1)A new risk analysis has found that the tipping points of five of Earth’s subsystems — the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Amazon rainforest — could interact with each other in a destabilizing manner.     2) It suggests that these changes could occur even before temperatures reach 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels, which is the upper limit of the Paris Agreement.     3) The interactions between the different tipping elements could also lower critical temperature thresholds, essentially allowing tipping cascades to occur earlier than expected, according to the research.      And 4)Experts not involved in the study say the findis are a significant contribution to the field, but do not adequately address the timescales over which these changes could occur. By Elizabeth Claire AlbertsGAR Special Report on Drought 2021 Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies. They incur costs that are borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable people.  The extensive impacts of drought are consistently underreported even though they span large areas, cascade through systems and scales, and linger through time, affecting millions of people and contributing to food insecurity, poverty, and inequality. Climate change is increasing temperatures and disrupting rainfall patterns, increasing the frequency, severity, and duration of droughts in many regions across the globe.  As we move towards a 2˚C warmer world, urgent action is required to better understand and more effectively manage drought risk to reduce the devastating toll on human lives and livelihoods, and ecosystems.

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

 Labor:

The Labor Bureaucracy Betrayed the Entire Working Class During the 1980s. One Part in Their ‘Parnership With Boss’ Was the Implication of the Tow, Three, Many Waged Tiered System. This was Codified in 1985 and Labor Bureaucacys’ Lead Race to the Bottom for the  EntireWorkingClass.     (This ‘Partnership’ Became the Openly Declared Policy of the AFL-CIO When Sweeny Became President of the AFL-CIO)Economy:Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update (June 24th to 28th,   Money Supplr Surge Accelerated

• “Basic M1” Money Supply Growth Jumped to a Record 81.0% Above Its Pre-Pandemic Trough, with May M2, M3 and the Mid-June Monetary Base All at Record Levels of Activity; Money Supply Details Are Posted on the ALTERNATE DATA TAB (Above) and in the MONEY SUPPLY Paragraph (SYSTEMIC RISK)
• Fed Chairman Powell Acknowledged Some “Temporary” Near-Term Inflation Issues, as Headline Inflation Surged Amidst Faltering Economic Activity
• Both CPI and PPI Annual Inflation Continued to Set New Multi-Decade or Record Highs in May 2021
• Evolving Numbers Confirm an FOMC-Induced “Unrecognized” Recession Hit in August 2018 and Still Was Deepening at the Time of the March 2020 Pandemic Shutdown
• Specifically, Annual Benchmarkings Revised 2020 Industrial Production Activity Lower by 4.8% (-4.8%) and Deepened the 2020 Real Trade Deficit by 1.4% (-1.4%), on Top of Earlier, Negative Revisions to Payrolls and Retail Sales
• These Foreshadow a Downside GDP Benchmark Revision and Confirm a Slowdown Was in Place, Leading Into the Pandemic Shutdown May 2021 Employment Numbers Confirm the U.S. Economy Remains Far From Recovery

General Headlines Pandemic

• Driven U.S. Economic Collapse Continues to Harden in a Protracted “L”-Shaped Non-Recovery
• Revisions and Pending Revisions to Key Economic Numbers Show Not Only That the Collapse Was Worse Than Headlined, But Also That the Unfolding Recovery Has Been Much Weaker Than Indicated
• Severe Systemic Structural Damage from the Shutdown Is Forestalling Meaningful Economic Rebound into 2022 or Beyond, Irrespective of the Advances in Coronavirus Vaccines
• Panicked, Unlimited Federal Reserve Money Creation and Federal Government Deficit Spending Continue and Likely Will Expand, Triggering Major Domestic Inflation
• With Fundamental Dollar Debasement Intensifying, Holding Physical Gold and Silver Protects the Purchasing Power of One’s Assets, Irrespective of Any Near-Term Central Bank or Other Machinations to the Contrary.

Florida Condo Collapse: Nobody Told Homeowners that their Building Was Sinking “at an Alarming Rate” Surfside is a town just north of Miami Beach, Florida. It was incorporated in 1935. At approximately 1:23 a.m. yesterday, part of a 12-story high-rise collapsed in the town leaving 99 people missing and four confirmed deaths as of early this morning. The condo building is known as Champlain Towers South and is located at 8777 Collins Ave. in Surfside.   A report in USA Today has now left the whole town of Surfside on edge. According to the report, Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University, co-published a study with Simone Fiaschi in April of last year that found that the condo building “had some kind of unusual movement,” and had been sinking at the rate of 2 mm per year during the course of the study, which looked at satellite data from 1993 to 1999. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

Crumbling InfastructureAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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:

As Noam Chomsky stated in his interview on American History and Democracy:. . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . .To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” — there is no Democracy! It has been endemic to this society to expand westward which included the genocide of the Native Americans. —My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathershttps://rolandsheppard.com/?page_id=982

Federalist Paper 62 (generally thought to have been written by James Madison) argued for the need for a Senate in addition to a House of Representatives to prevent Congress from yielding “to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.” The Senate was specifically designed to wield more power that its House counterpart and to prevent (or at a minimum to deter) an ‘excess of democracy’ that (it was, and is, feared) might result if decisions (e.g., legislation, appointments of judges) \ were made solely by a more democratically elected and more representative body. Consequently, the ’Founding Fathers’ specifically gave Senators longer terms (6 years) than Representatives in the House (2 years). The Senate was also assigned a singular range of key responsibilities such as declaring war and approving judges and cabinet members, whereas the House has no such position, and both the House and the Senate are required to approve Federal budgets. — Why We Should Abolish the Senate

Videos 0f the Day:

Cops Told Him the First Amendment Doesn’t Apply, Then They Arrested Him to Prove It. The arrest of a cop watcher by Texas police raises serious questions about the rights of citizen journalists and the state of the First Amendment. We examine the unlawful detention of cop watcher David Boren within the context of the right to film police and to document the actions of public officials.

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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

‘Biggest Tax Story of the Year, If Not the Decade’: Analysis Shows Just How Little Richest .001% Pay in Taxes “The personal federal tax bill for the top 25 in 2018: $1.9 billion. The bill for the wage earners: $143 billion A first-of-its-kind analysis of newly disclosed Internal Revenue Service data shows that the richest 25 billionaires in the United States paid a true federal tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018—even as they added a staggering $401 billion to their collective wealth. By Jake Johnson

 Please Observe Two Minutes of Silence to Honor Memory of USS Liberty Sailors Today is June 8, 2021, a day to observe two minutes of silence to honor the memory of  the 36 US Navy sailors who were brutally killed by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats. On the same day, June 8, 1967, 167 sailors were wounded and strafed with napalm. Fifty-four (54) years later these brave soldiers have yet to be recognized for their valor. Since that shameful day, every US Administration, Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Brass, and a whole passel of corrupt politicians have refused to acknowledge this heinous act because Israel and her politicians are Washington’s darlings. And for this brazenly murderous assault, billions upon billions have been showered on a nation that thrives on hatred, racism, apartheid, religious fanaticism,  and war mongering. By Raouf Halaby

Environment: 

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Hits Highest Level in Over 4 Million Years “If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, the highest priority must be to reduce CO2 pollution to zero at the earliest possible date.” New data released Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate  easurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in over four million years. By Brett WilkinsEconomic Devastation From Climate Crisis Like Two Covid-19 Pandemics Per Year by 2050: Analysis New research by global insurance giant Swiss RE warns that the looming devastation of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis could result in economic retractions twice as potent as the global recession unleashed by  Covid-19—a calamity, unlike the pandemic, whic could go on for many years without end. By Jon Queally

Capitalists Proclaim That Profits More Important Than a  Habitat for Humanly!:    Amnesty Says Paltry G7 Climate Plans ‘A Devastating, Mass-Scale Assault on Human Rights’ “These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights.” Ahead of this week’s G7 summit, Amnesty International decried the inadequacy of wealthy nations’ climate action plans as a colossal human rights failure and delivered a blueprint for policymakers to urgently change course to avert “impending catastrophe” and uphold their international obligations.     “The unambitious climate plans submitted by G7 members represent a violation of the human rights of billions of people. These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights,” said Chiara Liguori, Amnesty International’s Human Rights and Environment policy advisor, in a statement Sunday. By Andrea Germanos

Ecosystem Sentinels Sound Alarm For The Oceans Sea birds are known as ecosystem sentinels, warning of marine loss. As their numbers fall, so could the riches of the ocean. “When seabirds aren’t doing well, this is a red flag that something bigger is happening below the ocean’s surface” For a tern in the northern hemisphere, life may be about to take a turn for the worse.      For murres or guillemots, as the temperature rises, the chance of survival takes a dive. Many of the world’s seabirds could be in trouble. And for a mix of reasons, the birds of the southern hemisphere could also be heading into difficulties, but at a slower pace.      A worldwide team of 40  ornithologists has looked at 50 years of breeding records for 67 seabird species to find that as global temperatures notch up, breeding rates are down.      That may be just an indicator of deteriorating conditions on and below the surface of the oceans: the researchers call their seabird subjects “ecosystem sentinels”.      The scientists report in the journal Science that they used their data to test a proposition: that seabird productivity − the numbers that survive each breeding season − would track “hemispheric asymmetry” in ocean climate change and human use. By Tim Radford‘Truly An Emergency’: How Drought Returned to California – And What Lies Ahead The state is facing another drought just two years after the last one ended. Here’s what you need to know Just two years after California celebrated the end of its last devastating drought, the state is facing another one. Snowpack has dwindled to nearly nothing, the state’s 1,500 reservoirs are at only 50% of their average levels, and federal and local agencies have begun to issue water restrictions. By  Gabrielle Canon

California Faces Another Drought as Lake Beds Turn to Dust – A Photo EssayCivil Rights/Black Liberation: 

Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 7, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

• Israel Aides Repression in Colombia The Zionist state is helping the government of Colombia violently suppress a national strike against austerity, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate. Speaking on Sputnik radio, Baraka said Israel “works hand in hand with the US” in providing “training and political support to the various rightwing governments throughout the region.” Israel has long trained US police departments in political suppression techniques.

• Bethesda, Maryland Desecrates Black Bodies and History “I’m describing crimes against humanity,” said Dr Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a leader of the fight to save Moses Macedonia African Cemetery from further destruction by developers. The older section of the cemetery was “looted” of artifacts, while the post-Emancipation section has been paved over for a parking lot. Bethesda, a suburb of Washington, DC, and one of the richest localities in the nation, wants to obliterate evidence of its past as a “slave breeding” state where young Black girls were subjected to “sexual torture,” said Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, a founder of the No Fear Coalition.

• The Democrat-Republican Symbiosis Like Democratic administrations before them, the Biden-Harris White House “needs the Republicans to give them cover” for failing to serve the needs of the people, said Dr. Johnny Williams, a professor of sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Joe Biden’s “moderation leans towards the right,” while Vice President Kamala Harris has “always been a cop,” said Williams.

Labor:

Economy:

From London to Los Angeles, News Outlets Go Dark Around the World this Morning; Fastly Takes Blame If you’re an early riser and like a cup of coffee with online news before officially starting your day, you got your coffee sans the news at numerous websites this morning. From approximately 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. ET this morning, major news sites like the New York Times, CNN, Financial Times and Guardian U.K. were dark or had error messages.The sites were not just dark in the U.S. but around the world. According to Fastly, which took the blame for the outages, the disruption impacted major cities across the U.S. and around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, London, Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Stockholm, Munich, Amsterdam, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro and dozens more. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Capitalist Politicians Claim Everything, Concede Nothing, When They Lose Hollar Foul!  ‘No Evidence Whatsoever’: Left Refutes Right-Wing Candidate’s Election Fraud Claims in Peru The allegations of fraud from a former dictator’s daughter came as voting results showed her leftist rival with a narrow lead. By Andrea Germanos

Even The New York Times Now Admits That It’s US Sanctions, Not Socialism, That’s Destroying Venezuela The facile right-wing talking point that the economic crisis facing Venezuela “proves” that “socialism always ends in failure” has become so hackneyed by overuse that it has attained its own tongue-in-cheek name. The ad Venezuelum, as it has come to be known, has slowly developed into such a tedious and predictable right-wing tactic that it seems to now serve as an all-purpose retort to try to discredit even the most modest of left-of-center proposals. In October 2018, for instance, then-President Trump responded to a plan by progressive Democrats in congress to introduce a bill to establish a system of universal public healthcare – something which every industrialized country other than the US already has – by stating: “It’s going to be a disaster for our country. It will turn our country into a Venezuela.” By Peter Bolton

Britain’s Crony Capitalist: Covid-19 Is a Boon for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Buds The British government’s latest “test to travel” scheme is providing yet another opportunity for Conservative officials’ friends—like Randox founder Peter FitzGerald—to profit from the crisis. Chumocracy. That’s what critics have been calling the British government during the pandemic—and not without reason. A report in the British Medical Journal found that over the past year, as Britain’s Covid-19 death toll mounted to nearly 130,000 deaths, one in five government Covid-19 contracts had signs of possible corruption. It seems that as soon as Covid-19 began to spread through the British Isles, Conservative officials and their high-ranking business buds were coming up with ways to reap financial benefits from the deadly crisis. Yet, despite ongoing controversy and increased public scrutiny, there seems to be no end in sight to this sort of pandemic profiteering, with new examples emerging even as the country begins to shed its stringent restrictions. By Natasha Hakimi ZapataEducation, 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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!

AuthorrsheppardPosted onJune 6, 2021

U.S. Crumbling Infrastructure Biden’s Bipartisan Budget Proposal is $5 Trillion Below What is Needed

Due to Over Fifty Years Oo Deferred Maintenance, The Coast to Repair the United States Infrastructure is $6Tiillion — Biden’s Bipartisan Budget Proposal is $5 Trillion Below What is Needed!

Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property (i.e. I e) and personal property (i.e. machinery) in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget monies. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment.)

From: OP-ED: A National Infrastructure Bank could solve the U.S.’s trillion-dollar infrastructure investment challenge The creation of a National Infrastructure Bank will cover project costs that federal, state and local governments are unable to cover. (06/08/21)

The need for such a bank was underscored yet again when the American Society of Civil Engineers issued its quadrennial Report Card for the United States and graded the nation’s overall infrastructure as a C-. ASCE estimated that the gap between what is currently funded and what is needed over the next 10 years has grown to $2.6 trillion. The country needs to spend nearly $6 trillion to bring the infrastructure to a state of good repair. Highlights of the Report Card include:

• Growing wear and tear on the nation’s roads have left 43 percent of public roadways in poor or mediocre condition, a number that has remained stagnant over the past several years.

• Currently, 42 percent of all bridges are at least 50-years old, and 46,154 are considered structurally deficient, meaning they are in “poor” condition, but still in use and waiting to collapse.

Biden’s proposed ‘bipartisan’ whittled down his infrastructure budget is $1 Trillion.  It will hardly do anything. And differed maintenance will continue to corrode the infrastructure.

To Make Matters worse the current proposal is to make the people pay for the insufficient repairs caused by capitalism’s deferred maintenance policy!

Who is forced to pay is a clear example that the government of the United States is of the republicrate representatives, by, and for the 1%, a Capitalist Government! What we need is a government of , by, and for the 99%, a Workers Government!   To begin this process we need to organize a political organziation, in opposition to the 1% that is of, by, and for the 99%, a mass Workers and or Socialist Party!

Daily News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

Crumbling InfastructureAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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:

As Noam Chomsky stated in his interview on American History and Democracy:. . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . .To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” — there is no Democracy! It has been endemic to this society to expand westward which included the genocide of the Native Americans. —My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathershttps://rolandsheppard.com/?page_id=982

Federalist Paper 62 (generally thought to have been written by James Madison) argued for the need for a Senate in addition to a House of Representatives to prevent Congress from yielding “to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.” The Senate was specifically designed to wield more power that its House counterpart and to prevent (or at a minimum to deter) an ‘excess of democracy’ that (it was, and is, feared) might result if decisions (e.g., legislation, appointments of judges) \ were made solely by a more democratically elected and more representative body. Consequently, the ’Founding Fathers’ specifically gave Senators longer terms (6 years) than Representatives in the House (2 years). The Senate was also assigned a singular range of key responsibilities such as declaring war and approving judges and cabinet members, whereas the House has no such position, and both the House and the Senate are required to approve Federal budgets. — Why We Should Abolish the Senate

Videos 0f the Day:

Cops Told Him the First Amendment Doesn’t Apply, Then They Arrested Him to Prove It. The arrest of a cop watcher by Texas police raises serious questions about the rights of citizen journalists and the state of the First Amendment. We examine the unlawful detention of cop watcher David Boren within the context of the right to film police and to document the actions of public officials.

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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

‘Biggest Tax Story of the Year, If Not the Decade’: Analysis Shows Just How Little Richest .001% Pay in Taxes “The personal federal tax bill for the top 25 in 2018: $1.9 billion. The bill for the wage earners: $143 billion A first-of-its-kind analysis of newly disclosed Internal Revenue Service data shows that the richest 25 billionaires in the United States paid a true federal tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018—even as they added a staggering $401 billion to their collective wealth. By Jake Johnson

 Please Observe Two Minutes of Silence to Honor Memory of USS Liberty Sailors Today is June 8, 2021, a day to observe two minutes of silence to honor the memory of  the 36 US Navy sailors who were brutally killed by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats. On the same day, June 8, 1967, 167 sailors were wounded and strafed with napalm. Fifty-four (54) years later these brave soldiers have yet to be recognized for their valor. Since that shameful day, every US Administration, Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Brass, and a whole passel of corrupt politicians have refused to acknowledge this heinous act because Israel and her politicians are Washington’s darlings. And for this brazenly murderous assault, billions upon billions have been showered on a nation that thrives on hatred, racism, apartheid, religious fanaticism,  and war mongering. By Raouf Halaby

Environment: 

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Hits Highest Level in Over 4 Million Years “If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, the highest priority must be to reduce CO2 pollution to zero at the earliest possible date.” New data released Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate  easurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in over four million years. By Brett WilkinsEconomic Devastation From Climate Crisis Like Two Covid-19 Pandemics Per Year by 2050: Analysis New research by global insurance giant Swiss RE warns that the looming devastation of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis could result in economic retractions twice as potent as the global recession unleashed by  Covid-19—a calamity, unlike the pandemic, whic could go on for many years without end. By Jon Queally

Capitalists Proclaim That Profits More Important Than a  Habitat for Humanly!:    Amnesty Says Paltry G7 Climate Plans ‘A Devastating, Mass-Scale Assault on Human Rights’ “These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights.” Ahead of this week’s G7 summit, Amnesty International decried the inadequacy of wealthy nations’ climate action plans as a colossal human rights failure and delivered a blueprint for policymakers to urgently change course to avert “impending catastrophe” and uphold their international obligations.     “The unambitious climate plans submitted by G7 members represent a violation of the human rights of billions of people. These are not administrative failures, they are a devastating, mass-scale assault on human rights,” said Chiara Liguori, Amnesty International’s Human Rights and Environment policy advisor, in a statement Sunday. By Andrea Germanos

Ecosystem Sentinels Sound Alarm For The Oceans Sea birds are known as ecosystem sentinels, warning of marine loss. As their numbers fall, so could the riches of the ocean. “When seabirds aren’t doing well, this is a red flag that something bigger is happening below the ocean’s surface” For a tern in the northern hemisphere, life may be about to take a turn for the worse.      For murres or guillemots, as the temperature rises, the chance of survival takes a dive. Many of the world’s seabirds could be in trouble. And for a mix of reasons, the birds of the southern hemisphere could also be heading into difficulties, but at a slower pace.      A worldwide team of 40  ornithologists has looked at 50 years of breeding records for 67 seabird species to find that as global temperatures notch up, breeding rates are down.      That may be just an indicator of deteriorating conditions on and below the surface of the oceans: the researchers call their seabird subjects “ecosystem sentinels”.      The scientists report in the journal Science that they used their data to test a proposition: that seabird productivity − the numbers that survive each breeding season − would track “hemispheric asymmetry” in ocean climate change and human use. By Tim Radford‘Truly An Emergency’: How Drought Returned to California – And What Lies Ahead The state is facing another drought just two years after the last one ended. Here’s what you need to know Just two years after California celebrated the end of its last devastating drought, the state is facing another one. Snowpack has dwindled to nearly nothing, the state’s 1,500 reservoirs are at only 50% of their average levels, and federal and local agencies have begun to issue water restrictions. By  Gabrielle Canon

California Faces Another Drought as Lake Beds Turn to Dust – A Photo EssayCivil Rights/Black Liberation: 

Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 7, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

• Israel Aides Repression in Colombia The Zionist state is helping the government of Colombia violently suppress a national strike against austerity, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate. Speaking on Sputnik radio, Baraka said Israel “works hand in hand with the US” in providing “training and political support to the various rightwing governments throughout the region.” Israel has long trained US police departments in political suppression techniques.
• Bethesda, Maryland Desecrates Black Bodies and History “I’m describing crimes against humanity,” said Dr Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a leader of the fight to save Moses Macedonia African Cemetery from further destruction by developers. The older section of the cemetery was “looted” of artifacts, while the post-Emancipation section has been paved over for a parking lot. Bethesda, a suburb of Washington, DC, and one of the richest localities in the nation, wants to obliterate evidence of its past as a “slave breeding” state where young Black girls were subjected to “sexual torture,” said Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, a founder of the No Fear Coalition.
• The Democrat-Republican Symbiosis Like Democratic administrations before them, the Biden-Harris White House “needs the Republicans to give them cover” for failing to serve the needs of the people, said Dr. Johnny Williams, a professor of sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Joe Biden’s “moderation leans towards the right,” while Vice President Kamala Harris has “always been a cop,” said Williams.

Labor:

Economy:

From London to Los Angeles, News Outlets Go Dark Around the World this Morning; Fastly Takes Blame If you’re an early riser and like a cup of coffee with online news before officially starting your day, you got your coffee sans the news at numerous websites this morning. From approximately 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. ET this morning, major news sites like the New York Times, CNN, Financial Times and Guardian U.K. were dark or had error messages.The sites were not just dark in the U.S. but around the world. According to Fastly, which took the blame for the outages, the disruption impacted major cities across the U.S. and around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, London, Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Stockholm, Munich, Amsterdam, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro and dozens more. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Capitalist Politicians Claim Everything, Concede Nothing, When They Lose Hollar Foul!  ‘No Evidence Whatsoever’: Left Refutes Right-Wing Candidate’s Election Fraud Claims in Peru The allegations of fraud from a former dictator’s daughter came as voting results showed her leftist rival with a narrow lead. By Andrea Germanos

Even The New York Times Now Admits That It’s US Sanctions, Not Socialism, That’s Destroying Venezuela The facile right-wing talking point that the economic crisis facing Venezuela “proves” that “socialism always ends in failure” has become so hackneyed by overuse that it has attained its own tongue-in-cheek name. The ad Venezuelum, as it has come to be known, has slowly developed into such a tedious and predictable right-wing tactic that it seems to now serve as an all-purpose retort to try to discredit even the most modest of left-of-center proposals. In October 2018, for instance, then-President Trump responded to a plan by progressive Democrats in congress to introduce a bill to establish a system of universal public healthcare – something which every industrialized country other than the US already has – by stating: “It’s going to be a disaster for our country. It will turn our country into a Venezuela.” By Peter Bolton

Britain’s Crony Capitalist: Covid-19 Is a Boon for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Buds The British government’s latest “test to travel” scheme is providing yet another opportunity for Conservative officials’ friends—like Randox founder Peter FitzGerald—to profit from the crisis. Chumocracy. That’s what critics have been calling the British government during the pandemic—and not without reason. A report in the British Medical Journal found that over the past year, as Britain’s Covid-19 death toll mounted to nearly 130,000 deaths, one in five government Covid-19 contracts had signs of possible corruption. It seems that as soon as Covid-19 began to spread through the British Isles, Conservative officials and their high-ranking business buds were coming up with ways to reap financial benefits from the deadly crisis. Yet, despite ongoing controversy and increased public scrutiny, there seems to be no end in sight to this sort of pandemic profiteering, with new examples emerging even as the country begins to shed its stringent restrictions. By Natasha Hakimi ZapataEducation, 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

Videos of the Day:

United States:

Environment:

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Labor:

Economy:

For mainstream economists, profit simply does not matter. But even among the left-wing Keynesians, profit hardly appears. For them it is all about ‘demand’, about ‘speculation’ or about ‘financialisation’. These things all play a major role, but profit is the key category for understanding the capitalist process of production and accumulation. And it is important to put it in relation to a company’s investments: the rate of profit is the key to understanding how healthy an economy is. And profitability has tended to fall over the last 50 years, not linearly, but in a wave-like movement.      The high profits of tech companies such as Amazon, Apple or Alphabet are hiding the problem of profitability across the whole capitalist economy.     There are a lot of unprofitable zombie companies and for most profit rates have fallen. We need to look at how this has affected investment. This is the central aspect that Marxian economic criticism can bring to the debate on the world economy.    Empirical evidence supports Marx’s law of the tendency to fall in the rate of profit. There are the counteracting factors to this law, but the law is the dominant factor. As far as we can measure the data, they suggest that there is a long-term trend towards falling rates of profit in the major economies. Every eight to ten years, capitalism plunges into crisis. We must continue to learn why these crises take place and what the political consequences.  — Michael Roberts, Some Notes On The World Economy Now

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Carlos Latuff:

 _{Pipeline Politics: From Afghanistan to Gaza}

Biden Defends Israel Evictions/Genocide: Biden Claims Israeli Attack on Gaza Is Not an ‘Overreaction’ as Onslaught Intensifies, Death Toll Mounts “With its unconditional financial, military, and diplomatic support of the Israeli apartheid regime, the U.S. bears responsibility for the everyday violence of Israeli oppression.” U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that he doesn’t believe Israel’s onslaught against the besieged Gaza Strip this week has been a “significant overreaction,” remarks that came shortly before the Israeli military escalated its assault on the densely populated territory with air and artillery attacks involving nearly 200 war planes, tanks, and brigades of ground troops. Biden is facing growing calls from U.S. lawmakers to speak out forcefully against Israel’s bombardment of residential buildings and killing of children with airstrikes, but the U.S. president has thus far refused to heed such demands, issuing broad statements stressing his “unwavering” support for Israel’s right to self-defense as the Palestinian death toll continues to climb. By Jake Johnson

‘Nothing Is More Beautiful Than Solidarity’: Hundreds Mobilize to Stop Arrest of Immigrant Neighbors in Glasgow “This is what we need to be prepared to do again and again as the Tories bring in their new immigration proposals and demonize asylum seekers and refugees,” said MP Kim Johnson. Progressive lawmakers and immigrant rights advocates in the United Kingdom on Thursday into Friday applauded an impromptu show of solidarity in Glasgow, Scotland which forced immigration enforcement agents to release two men after they attempted to detain them in a dawn raid during Eid al-Fitr. By Julia Conley

Daily News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

Capitalism’s Aparthide Terrorism!

Israel Raids Al-AqsaIt’ All The Same Police Saga, As Time Goes ByeAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

Richard Burgon MP Videos of the Day:

“Ethnic Cleansing”: Amid Protests of Palestinian Evictions in Jerusalem, Israel Raids Al-Aqsa Mosque

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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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.  Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

‘Where’s the Outrage, POTUS?’ Rashida Tlaib Demands US Action as Israeli Forces Assault Al-Aqsa “This is equivalent to attacking the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, or the Temple Mount for Jews. Israel attacks it during Ramadan.” \—Rep. Rashida Tlaib As Israeli police wounded more than 300 Palestinians, Tlaib said U.S. lawmakers “must condition the aid we send to Israel, and end it altogether if those conditions are not followed.” By Jake Johnson

‘Sends a Terrible, Terrible Message’: Sanders Rejects Top Dems’ Push for a Big Tax Break for the Rich “You can’t be on the side of the wealthy and the powerful if you’re going to really fight for working families.” Sen. Bernie Sanders made clear in an interview Sunday that he opposes the push by top Democrats to restore a tax deduction that overwhelmingly benefited the richest households in the U.S., saying such an effort “sends a terrible, terrible message” at a time of crippling economic pain for poor and working-class people. “You have got to make it clear which side you are on—and you can’t be on the side of the wealthy and powerful if you’re going to really fight for working families,” Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said in an appearance on “Axios on HBO.  By Jake Johnson

United States Withdraws From Afghanistan? Not Really The United States, it appears, is willing to allow the Taliban to return to power with two caveats: first, that the U.S. presence remains, and second, that the main rivals of the United States—namely China and Russia—have no role in Kabul. In 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in Chennai, India, where she proposed the creation of a New Silk Road Initiative that linked Central Asia through Afghanistan and via the ports of India; the purpose of this initiative was to cut off Russia from its links in Central Asia and to prevent the establishment of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, which now runs all the way to Turkey. By Noam Chomsky amd Vijay Prashad

The Greatness of a Nation And Its Moral Progress Can Be Judged by the Way Its Animals Are Treated?: These words are even more appropriate today in light of our animal factories and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals never see the sun and die in agony, piece by piece. One can only imagine what Gandhi’s reaction would be to seeing calves taken away from their mothers the day that they are born and immobilized in veal crates or chickens whose beaks are seared off with a hot blade to prevent them from fighting for space in tiny, cramped cages. One can only imagine his reaction to seeing fully conscious pigs screaming as they are dropped into tanks of boiling water and cows looking slaughterhouse workers in the eye as their hooves are cut off. Sadly, these are everyday occurrences: Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture used the Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to issue several waivers allowing meat processing plants to significantly speed up the process of slaughtering animals, despite the dozens of outbreaks that have occurred in slaughterhouses. This will likely lead to animals being skinned and dismembered before they are even dead

Infants and Toddlers Aren’t Spared the Impacts of Social and Economic Inequality America’s very youngest citizens are hardly immune from the inequities exposed — and, in some cases, worsened — by the pandemic. And for infants and toddlers, the consequences could be particularly long-lasting given how crucial this period of development is, according to a new report released by ZERO TO THREE, an early childhood nonprofit. Members of this age group have always faced drastically different opportunities to grow and flourish based on where they live and their demographics, but these disparities became more pronounced during the pandemic, according to The State of Babies Yearbook 2021, which looked at dozens of data sets spanning health, education and family welfare. Among the areas where gaps have widened: regular pediatrician visits, maternal mental health and food insecurity. By Jackie Mader

Environment:

As the World Burns: Funeral Smoke Adds to South Asia’s Woes With the sub-continent battling a vicious Covid onslaught, the worst fires in years are adding to South Asia’s woes. A thick pall of smoke hangs over much of northern India. For weeks residents of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, have not seen the sun. Smoke blankets areas of Bangladesh and the mountain kingdom of Bhutan. The pandemic has spread South Asia’s woes far and wide. Forest fires sweep across the north Indian states of Uttarakhand – the country’s most forested state – and Himachal Pradesh. Further north in Nepal, fire is destroying thousands of hectares of forest. The fires, most of them out of control, are blamed in part on farmers burning stubble in their fields in order to plant crops. By Kieran CookeInspector General Rebukes Epa For Failing To Protect Communities From Carcinogenic Air Pollution The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General issued a report today taking the agency to task for its failure to protect communities from chloroprene and ethylene oxide. Both chemicals are carcinogenic air pollutants and pose particular risks to people living near plants that emit them. “There are potentially unacceptable risks from chloroprene and ethylene oxide emissions in some areas of the country,” according to the report, which notes that over 464,000 people living in more than 100 census tracts have a risk of cancer from air pollution greater than 100 in 1 million due to chloroprene and ethylene oxide. The Intercept tallied these toxic hotspots in a 2019 investigation and in 2017 began calling attention to chloroprene pollution in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, which has the highest risk of cancer from air pollution in the U.S., according to the most recent National Air Toxics Assessment. By Sharon Lerner Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Economy:

Janet Yellen Is Attempting to Consolidate the Fed’s Power to “Supervise” Wall Street Banks You know there’s a problem when the media relations office at the Federal Reserve will not turn over the bio for one of its employees that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just tapped to be the acting head of a key Wall Street banking regulator. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

 

‘Death to the Arabs’: Racialized Violence Has Always Defined IsraelSunday 9 May; During the racist anti-Palestinian riots that ensued in Jerusalem last week, a protester was interviewed by a journalist concerning the approach, specifically, the language used by the enraged crowds.    The journalist asked the young protester if the phrases employed by the demonstrators, phrases like, “Burn the Arab’s villages” and “Death to Arabs”, represented them and their presence at the protest. In response, she said “I say it in a mannered and proper way. I don’t say ‘let’s burn their villages,’ I say that ‘they should get out and we take over their lands’,” she smirks “…exactly what we do in the Old City.”      There is a great deal to unpack in this telling response. Primarily, the colonial attitudes which exist within all sects of Israeli society, not simply the government or military.    But also, the ways in which settler communities have norm-alized racial violence and the perpetual ethnic cleansing – what some call the ongoing Nakba – that their ever-growing settlements have required.  *Settler Violence*   Settler violence is just as old as Israel and acts as an imminent threat to Palestinians on a daily basis, rooted in European settler entitlement to Palestinian land. In fact, during the Nakba, the original mass expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians to create room for the Jewish state, was materialized not only by the Zionist forces, but by settlers who promply replaced the native population, building homes on the ruins of the exiled and protected by the developing Zionist regime and the British government before them. By Zarefah Baroud

UAE, Bahrain Pan Israel’s ‘Storming’ of Al-Aqsa, Amid International Condemnation Gulf states say Israel has responsibility to de-escalate, blast its ‘provocations’; nations also warn against pending evictions of Sheikh Jarrah Palestinians from their homes  The international community, including Israel’s Arab allies, condemned the Jewish state Saturday for the violence in Jerusalem a day earlier that saw 200 Palestinians and 17 Israeli police officers wounded, as well as for pending evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel last year and has so far had warm ties with the country, expressed “deep concern over the violence” in Jerusalem. It condemned “Israeli authorities’ storming of the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque” as well as plans to evict East Jerusalem residents.By Toi Staff and Agencies

Colombia and the Red Thread of Rebellion in Latin America The rebellion in Colombia is part of a process of class struggle that has unfolded throughout Latin America, especially since 2019. It reinforces the need to build revolutionary parties and an international revolutionary leadership that will allow these struggles to be led to victory. “ f people go out to protest in the middle of a pandemic, it is because the government is more dangerous than the virus.” That phrase went viral in a video by Residente, the popular Puerto Rican rapper, in which he expressed his solidarity with the people of Colombia. But before that it had been read and seen on thousands of banners in the streets of Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, and dozens of cities throughout Colombia on the first day of the National Strike against President Iván Duque’s regressive tax reform, on April 28. Since then, Colombia has been in a state of rebellion. By Claudia Cinatti

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 News Digest Archives

Images Of the Day:

The Rapeof Nature: ‘Only 50 Years Left’ For Sea FishAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

Biden’s proposal to eliminate just $35 billion in tax credits and loopholes over a 10-year period is simply not good enough. — John Noël, Greenpeace USA

Robert Reich, Clinton’s Pied Piper for the Trade Union Bureaucracy and their partnership with the 1%, now complains that  “Corporate America Is Crushing the Working Class! — The Bitter Fruit of the Partnership: Lesson; Learned: When you ‘bed’ the boss you get screwed!

Videos of the Day:

GLOBALink | UK, Chinese Scientists Confirm Beijing’s Air Quality Has Improved Dramatically A team of over 150 British and Chinese scientists found that: Beijing’s #airquality improves dramatically in the last few years, owing to the emission reductions following the implementation of clean air actions.

The Economics of Imperialism in the 21st Century with Michael Roberts

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

Defend Kshama Sawant!Seattle’s lone socialist city councilor is again under attack. Kshama Sawant had the audacity to demand Mayor Jenny Durkan resign after unleashing the cops against Black Lives Matter protesters. In retaliation Durkan instigated a recall of Sawant.Seattle Councilwomen Under Attack for Aupporting Pandemic Windfall Tax on Amazon and Supporting George Floyd Black Lives Movement! Big Business Goes Up Against Democracy in Seattle Local corporate interests are trying to recall elected City Council member Kshama Sawant. In the last year, Sawant and her Socialist Alternative organization won a three-year battle to tax Amazon—headquartered in Seattle—and other big businesses to fund emer-gency Covid relief, affordable housing construct-ion, and local Green New Deal projects. And in the midst of nationwide street protests following the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, Sawant led organizing to win a first-in-the-nation ban on police use of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and other so-called “crowd control” weapons. (Full disclosure:      I’ve known and worked with Sawant since 2013 on issue and electoral campaigns, and currently work in her City Council office as a community organizer.).    These victories met a swift response from the political establishment. Democratic Mayor Jenny Durkan—elected in 2017 with help from a record $350,000 donation from Amazon—aligned with the Trump Justice Department in challenging Sawant’s weapons ban legislation in court.      The mayor also demanded that the City Council investigate and consider expelling Sawant from office for her leadership in the Tax Amazon campaign and her participation in Black Lives Matter protests. The council demurred, but Durkan’s bill of charges got picked up by pro-business forces and converted into a recall petition against Sawant.Please Stop Calling Humans Seeking Safety a ‘Border Crisis’ “Moving towards a better justice system isn’t possible if we continue to scapegoat immigrants instead of reckoning with our broken system. People approaching our borders deserve better. At the very least, our language should recognize their humanity.” People escaping violence have a right to seek safety. If they can’t, that’s the real crisis. By Rachel PakThe US War on Drugs is Driving the Displacement Crisis We are torn by images of unaccompanied minors and overcrowded facilities at our southern border, but few in the United States are asking why so many Central American families are so desperate to escape their own countries that they are willing to risk everything — including family separation.These migrants are not fleeing some Act of God — drought or hurricanes or the like — that could not be anticipated or prevented. Rather, they are fleeing cartel violence and governmental corruption. By Inge Fryklund

Lee Camp: How Corporate America Supports Racism, Hatred & Exploitation (in New & Fun Ways!) Corporations like General Mills and ExxonMobil aren’t going to save us from white supremacist violence or climate annihilation with their piddly tweets. If you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention to the world at large, you’ve noticed that white supremacists constitute a bit of a problem in America. They led an insurrection at our Capitol recently. They’ve been involved in many mass shootings. I, along with many others, was nearly killed by one a few years ago in Charlottesville, Va.after he tried to murder as many peaceful protesters as possible. Our police forces are brimming with white supremacist assholes. And I think they had a popular TV show about ducks and beards not too long ago.

Environment:

 Fairewinds Nuclear Spring Series: TMI (Three Mile Island) Archival Records Unearthed In this third installment we’ll share some newly discovered archival material about the 1979 meltdown at TMI. You may remember Fairewinds asserted that the meltdown at TMI was much worse than the NRC insistently portrays. These archival documents substantiate what we have always said… By Arnie GundersenFairewinds Nuclear Spring Series: Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown at 42: Never Forget In this fourth installment, the Fairewinds Crew listened in rapt attention to Nuclear Hot Seat founder Libbe HaLevy’s personal story woven into the many harrowing stories of community members who lived in the Three Mile Island area when the meltdown occurred. By The Fairewinds CrewCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist: Freedom Rider: The U.S. Can’t Control the World Slow-witted Joe Biden appears to think that we’re still in the age of the sole superpower, when in fact that era has come and gone.

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor: Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary Neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership, despite being elected for this exact purpose.

Editors, The Black Agenda Review: PAMPHLET: Africa Fights for Freedom, Alpheaus Hunton, 1950 A pamphlet written 70 years ago by an exiled Black American communist reveals an African continent seething to break free from European colonization.

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor: Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) 1990 to 1997, Where the US Blocked Real Humanitarian Intervention The real story of the Rwandan genocide begins in 1990, when exiled Tutsis from Uganda invaded northern Rwanda and uprooted, imprisoned or massacred a million Hutus.

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence: Testi-lyin’  Northeast, midwest, southwest, south, down south, up south, out south—south  of the Canadian border—Slouched down in his cruiser, slow-rollin’ the ‘hood; Or a-

Black Alliance For Peace: Biden-Harris Look Ready to Keep U.S. In Afghanistan—Say No! The new Democratic administration seems determined to sabotage an agreement to end the “longest war.”

Sylvie Laurent, interviewed by Arvind Dilawar: MLK Was a Radical Who Hated Not Only Racial Subordination But Class Exploitation King explicitly linked the value of human dignity to the material conditions necessary to enable people to live a decent life.

Mack: Remembering Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald   Having endured 50 years of incarceration, Fitzgerald was California’s longest-serving former Black Panther.

Todd Cronan: Fanon Can’t Save You Now: The great revolutionary foresaw the need to “rapidly switch from a national consciousness to a social and political consciousness” committed to the “distribution of wealth and social relations.”

Mack: Remembering Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald0 Having endured 50 years of incarceration, Fitzgerald was California’s longest-serving former Black Panther.

Thad Baltimore: Reporting on Anti-Asian Violence Sets Black People Up to be Harmed   The media focus on Black-Asian “tensions” promoted the misleading idea that Black people are the main perpetrators of anti-Asian attacks.

Amanuel Biedemariam: The Global Anti-Eritrea-Ethiopia Agenda It is not up to the US to demand or dictate that Eritrea withdraw from Ethiopia — it is Ethiopia’s and only Ethiopia’s call to make.

Jeremy Kuzmarov: Still Unsolved: the Great Crime that Triggered the 1994 Rwandan Genocide After 27 years, strong evidence implicates Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame and the CIA in the downing of Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana’s airplane.

keith harmon snow: “Hotel Rwanda” Hero Kidnapped: Another Victim of Rwanda’s Grinding Machine Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame is a mass murdered enabled by the US, and the Rwanda genocide story told by western governments and their media is the exact opposite of the truth.

Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor: Yellow Peril and Red Scare: Forum on Anti-Asian Racism Anti-Asian racism is on the rise in the United States and the West and has been discussed most frequently in the aftermath of the murder of six women of Asian descent in Atlanta on March 16th.

Economy:

The Economics of Modern Imperialism

World:

England the Leader of the Slave Trade, Now Claims that Its Skirts are Clean!  Britain: Racist Ruling Class Says ‘No Racism Here’ The government’s report into racism in Britain is a slap in the face to the BLM movement. The Tories are cynically attempting to play white and black workers off against one another. We need united class struggle to topple their racist system. By Fiona Lali

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Showering Big Pharma With Taxpayer Dollars Won’t Solve Vaccine Supply Issues Privatization has left us scrambling for vaccines in today’s pandemic—a dangerous situation that last week drove the desperate Trudeau government to announce a $415 million federal contribution to the expansion of vaccine production capacity at the old Connaught plant, now owned by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur. By Linda McQuaig

Daily News Digest Archives

Origin and History of April Fools’ Day in Netherlands:

During the Great War between Dutch and Spanish in the year 1572, the Dutch conquered the town of Den Briel from Spain which was led by the commander Lord Alva. This happened on the first of April. This led to the independence of the Netherlands from the hands of the Spanish. Hence there is an old saying connected to this incidence. Op 1 april Verloor Alva zijn Bril which means On April 1st Lord Alva lost his glasses. Bril means glasses in Dutch. This leads to the origin of the Netherlands celebrating this day for humiliation of Lord Alva for his loss and playing pranks all over on this day to celebrate the independence and also to celebrate Fools’ Day.

Image Of the Day:

George CarlinAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

Videos of the Day:

On Contact: Deep American Roots of the Atlanta Shootings

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

The Pandemic Revealed That if We Have the Will, the Money Is There The only debt problem our government has in this time of immense national need (and extremely low borrowing cost) is that we’re not incurring enough of it—for the right purposes. Usually, the Powers That Be swat away the kind of big-ticket reforms our country needs by haughtily asserting a few hoary economic fables they dress up as immutable “truths.” By  Jim HightowerThe Truth be Damned! The Shaping of Things to Come  “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false? – Harold Pinter, from Nobel Speech, December 7, 2005.    About a week ago, Glenn Greenwald published a piece on his new Substack platform, “Journalists Start Demanding Substack Censor its Writers: to Bar Critiques of Journalists.”  He’s upset that privileged, corporate-protected MSM journalists are calling for moderators to be installed on Substack to censor freelance journalists who criticize the work of MSM shills. Greenwald has been the leading critic of MSM news reporting for years, often noting their prostitution and stenography in support of the ever-tightening noose around our democracy — seemingly needing just a horse-haunch slap to end it all. By John Kendall Hawkins

Environment:

ToxicTuesdays — Methylene Mhloride: Methylene chloride (also known as dichloromethane) is a manmade chemical that is a clear liquid with a faintly sweet smell.      It is used as an industrial solvent and an ingredient in paint strippers, so it is often used in commercial and do-it-yourself home improvement projects. Methylene chloride dissolves into the air, so the primary way people can be exposed to it is by breathing contaminated air. Because methylene chloride-containing products, like paint strippers, are often used in indoor spaces with little ventilation, people can easily be exposed to high levels of it. Inhaling methylene chloride causes brain dysfunction – confusion, inattentiveness, dizziness, numbness in the extremities, and even death.     The World Health Organization, US Department of Health and Human Services, and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) all consider methylene chloride to likely cause cancer.     The EPA estimates that 32,000 workers and 1.3 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride every year.     Because of the dangers of methylene chloride, consumer advocacy groups like Mind the Store spent years fighting against its use.      They called on national hardware store chains to stop selling these products and for the EPA to ban use of methylene chloride.      In 2019 the EPA finally banned consumer use and sales of methylene chloride-containing products, but continued to allow them to be sold in commercial sales to professionals.  While this will surely protect some people from methylene chloride exposure, advocates point out that thousands of construction and home improvement workers remain unprotected by this regulation – they are unlikely to have any input into whether or not their employers buy methylene chloride-containing products, so they are unable to keep themselves safe if they want to keep their jobs.     Furthermore, many of these workers are Latinx or Asian Americans who may not be given training or warnings when using methylene chloride in languages they understand.      In fact, one of the workers who died from methylene chloride in 2017 and whose death galvanized the EPA to propose regulation was from El Salvador and spoke limited English.      When it comes to a chemical as dangerous and deadly as methylene chloride, much more must be done to ban its use and protect the health of workers who don’t have the power to protect themselves.

Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends. The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

Most Economists Agree: Benefits of ‘Drastic’ Climate Action Outweigh Costs of Status Quo  “People who spend their careers studying our economy are in widespread agreement that climate change will be expensive, potentially devastatingly so.” The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law invited 2,169 Ph.D. economists to take a 15-question online survey “focused on climate change risks, economic damage estimates, and emissions abatement,” according to a report (pdf) on the results. Nearly three-quarters of the 738 economists who participated in the survey say they agree that “immediate and drastic action is necessary.”     “In sharp contrast, less than 1% believe that climate change is ‘not a serious problem,'” the report says, noting a jump in support for bold climate action now compared with a 2015 survey.  By Jessica Corbett

Labor:

If the Minimum Wage Had Increased as Much as Wall Street Bonuses Since 1985, It Would Be Worth $44 Today The 2020 bonus pool for 182,100 securities industry employees could pay for more than 1 million jobs paying $15 per hour for a year. By Sarah Anderson

Economy:

Morgan Stanley Has Been Strangely Quiet on Its Exposure to Archegos Capital, the Hedge Fund that Blew Up Last Week. Here’s Why. On March 9 Morgan Stanley announced that it had been “recognized for industry-leading risk management technology.”  Three weeks later it has landed in the middle of one of the biggest hedge fund blowups since the financial crisis of 2008, raising serious questions about how it manages risk. Adding to the embarrassment for both Morgan Stanley and its bank holding company supervisor, the Federal Reserve, the Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, sits on the Board of Directors of the New York Fed, to whom the Fed has outsourced much of its oversight of the Wall Street banks. By Pam Martens

World:

Blockage in the Suez Canal: the week world trade stopped  At the time of writing this article, the Ever Given container ship, owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha and operated by Evergreen Marine, has finally been freed after running aground on the banks of the Suez Canal. The blockage had a major impact on the international economy: the price of crude oil rose, and there was a significant impact on the cost of transporting goods and their final prices. This event could have longer-term consequences, with a chain of effect that is difficult to calculate. , , ,  According to data from Bloomberg data, 12 percent of international trade and 30 percent of sea trade passes through the Suez Canal. All of this was brought to a halt by a single vessel! Until yesterday, more than 300 ships were blocked at both ends of the canal. They carry LPG, oil, cement, foodstuffs, live animals, various components, cars and other finished products.  By Emanuele Miraglia and  Roberto Sarti 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Big Parma No Risk Covid Vaccine Profiteering: The US government has poured an additional $10.5 billion into various vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of their products. The Moderna vaccine emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and the NIH laboratory.      The US government—and two agencies in particular, the NIH and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—has invested, heavily, in the vaccine’s development. BARDA is an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services formed in 2006 in response to—wait for it—SARS-CoV-1 (and other health threats). It provides direct investment in technologies to firms, but also engages in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and coordinates between agencies. A specific part of BARDA’s mission is taking technologies through the “valley of death” between creation and commercialization.        The German government ploughed funds into BioNTech to the tune of €375 million, with another €252 million has been made to support development by CureVac.  Germany also raised its contribution to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) by €140 million and plans to provide an additional €90 million next year.  CEPI was launched in Davos, Switzerland, in 2017 as an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organisations to develop vaccines to counter epidemics, and Germany pledged an annual €10 million over a four-year period to support the initiative. CureVac is one of nine institutes and companies commissioned by CEPI to conduct research into a COVID-19 vaccine. One of its shareholders is the government-owned Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) bank.    But it is big pharma that develops the vaccine from the scientific work of public institutes.  They call the shots. The drugs companies do the global clinical trials, then produce and market the result.  Then they sell the vaccines to governments at huge profits.  This is the way things were done before the pandemic – and now. In the US, in the 10-year period between 1988 and 1997, public-sector expenditures for vaccine purchases doubled from $100 to $200 per child through age 6. The cumulative public-sector cost doubled again in less than 5 years between 1997 and 2001, from $200 to almost $400 per child. — COVID Vaccines: Calling The Shot

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

Bendib:  Obscene!Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality, integrated education a reality. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality. —MLK: The Other America Speech

Videos of the Day:

Tracking An Invisible Killer Growing up, a group of eight friends in Groves, Texas, had never heard of ethylene oxide, the carcinogenic gas that poured out from a chemical plant in their neighborhood. Now three of them are fighting cancer. The Intercept obtained an air study of ethylene oxide emissions from that chemical plant, now owned by a Thai company called Indorama Ventures. It reveals that the plant’s emissions of the toxic gas pose a cancer risk that far exceeds Environmental Protection Agency safety standards and presents an elevated risk across an area of more than 1,000 square miles.

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

This Is Tax Evasion’: Richest 1% of US Households Don’t Report 21% of Their Income, Analysis Finds “We estimate that 36% of federal income taxes unpaid are owed by the top 1%.” A new analysis by IRS researchers and academics published Monday morning estimates that the richest 1% of U.S. households don’t report around 21% of their income, often using complex tax avoidance strategies that allow them to outmaneuver the federal government’s increasingly rare audits of the wealthy. By Jake JohnsonVoting Gangnam Style: The Rise of Kim Crow The Asian-American community is the fastest growing community in Atlanta and it’s the one that put Warnock and Ossoff over the top — and that scares the hell out of Georgia Republicans. So the Asian-American community is the prime target of their vote suppression attacks — it’s not just Jim Crow, now it’s Kim Crow. But the suppression of the Asian-American vote is not new. Obama’s Presidential Commission on Elections released a study that showed Black and Hispanic voters were more than twice as likely as other voters to get provisional ballots — and that the proportion of Asian-American voters that got shifted to provisional “placebo” ballots was even worse. And during my investigation of Kris Kobach’s flawed-by-design, common name matching Crosscheck voter purge program, I found that in the participating states, Crosscheck identified one in seven African-American voters for the purge — and one in eight Asian-American voters. by Greg PalastEvironment:Capitalism’ Killing Fields: Oil Firms Knew Decades Ago Fossil Fuels Posed Grave Health Risks, Files Reveal Exclusive: documents seen by Guardian show companies fought clean-air rules despite being aware of harm caused by air pollution The oil industry knew at least 50 years ago that air pollution from burning fossil fuels posed serious risks to human health, only to spend decades aggressively lobbying against clean air regulations, a trove of internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal. The documents, which include internal memos and reports, show the industry was long aware that it created large amounts of air pollution, that pollutants could lodge deep in the lungs and be “real villains in health effects”, and even that its own workers may be experiencing birth defects among their cildren. By Oliver Milman

Nature Left Alone Offers More Than If We Exploit It Save nature, save money. It’s a simple argument. Wilderness cleared and ploughed offers us less than nature left alone.  British scientists have once again made the commercial case for conserving wilderness. They have demonstrated that in its pristine state − mangrove swamps, wetlands, savannahs, forests and so on − nature left alone is of more value to humankind than as exploited real estate.     This argument has been made already, and more than once. But this time the researchers can provide the detail for their argument: they report in the journal Nature Sustainability that they had devised an accounting methodology to test such arguments, and then applied this in 24 selected sites around the planet.     Some of the value would be in intangibles such as providing a shelter for the wild things and wild plants; some of it would be measurable. For instance, if the damage inherent in carbon spilled into the atmosphere through habitat destruction or fossil fuel combustion presents an overall cost to society of $31 a tonne − and this is a conservative estimate − then almost three quarters of the sample sites have greater value simply as natural habitats. By Tim Radford

Marin County Posts, Then Removes, Bacteria Warning Signs at Point Reyes Beaches Last week, the Pacific Sun reported that rivers of dangerous E. coli bacteria are invading lagoons and beaches at the Point Reyes National Seashore. A lab toxicology report commissioned by two environmental groups in January found extremely high levels of fecal bacteria at Kehoe Lagoon, Abbott’s Lagoon, and Drakes Estero. The report traced the source of the disease-causing pollution to defecating cow herds on neighboring dairy ranches.    The park’s newly installed Superintendent, Craig Kenkel, said that the toxicology findings are consistent with high fecal bacteria levels at these sites measured by the Park Service in 2013. By Peter Byrne

Big Carbon Users Top Global Sports Sponsors’ League Big Tobacco used to be one of the principal sports sponsors. Now some major climate polluters have replaced it: Big Carbon. Who backs the world of sport with hard cash? The prosperous tobacco industry was till 2005 among the main sports sponsors, but that year the European Union banned the backing by tobacco of sporting events, although in other parts of the world the cash continues to pour from hand to hand unchecked. Now though there’s an even more formidable funder than smoking which is opening its wallet to the world’s athletes: Big Carbon. By Alex Kirby

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Nature Left Alone Offers More Than If We Exploit It Save nature, save money. It’s a simple argument. Wilderness cleared and ploughed offers us less than nature left alone.  British scientists have once again made the commercial case for conserving wilderness. They have demonstrated that in its pristine state − mangrove swamps, wetlands, savannahs, forests and so on − nature left alone is of more value to humankind than as exploited real estate.     This argument has been made already, and more than once. But this time the researchers can provide the detail for their argument: they report in the journal Nature Sustainability that they had devised an accounting methodology to test such arguments, and then applied this in 24 selected sites around the planet.     Some of the value would be in intangibles such as providing a shelter for the wild things and wild plants; some of it would be measurable. For instance, if the damage inherent in carbon spilled into the atmosphere through habitat destruction or fossil fuel combustion presents an overall cost to society of $31 a tonne − and this is a conservative estimate − then almost three quarters of the sample sites have greater value simply as natural habitats. By Tim Radfordz

Labor:

Prison Laborers Are Paid Pennies to Maintain the Prisons They’re Incarcerated In When Stephanie Foxworth was imprisoned at Albion Correctional Facility, she spent long days lifting heavy sheets of metal, which were used to make garbage cans for New York City sidewalks, lockers for public schools like SUNY Buffalo State College and barbecue grills for state parks.     Her employer was Corcraft, also known as the New York State (NYS) Division of Correctional Industries — a state-run prison labor corporation that operates a range of enterprises in 13 prisons across New York State. Foxworth’s starting wage was 16 cents an hour. At that rate, it would take her three-and-a-half hours of work to buy a 55-cent postage stamp. By Gus Fisher and Diana Kennedy Economy:

The Sugar Rush Economy Last week the US Federal Reserve raised its growth forecasts for the US economy for this year and next. Fed officials now reckon the US economy with expand in real terms by 6.5%, the fastest pace since 1984, a few years after the slump of 1980-2.  This is a significant rise from the Fed’s previous forecast.  Also, the unemployment rate is expected to drop to just 4.5% by year-end, while the inflation rate ticks up to 2.2%, above the official target rate set by the Fed. Driving this new optimism on growth is the fast roll-out of vaccines to protect Americans from COVID-19 plus the huge fiscal stimulus package put through Congress that most mainstream forecasters expect to add at least 1% point to economic growth and bring down unemployment. But Fed chair Jay Powell made it clear that the Fed had no intention of raising its target interest rate until 2023 at the earliest even if inflation accelerates.  He wants to see the unemployment rate drop to 3.5% and inflation averaging 2% or so.  He would tolerate the economy “running hot” until that happens because he reckons that any rise in inflation would be transitory.  By Michael RobertsThere’s a Plot to Suck in More Retail Traders at the Top of a Bubble Market  At both the March 9 Senate Banking Committee and March 17 House Financial Services Committee hearings on the conflicts with Robinhood and Citadel in trading small investors’ shares in GameStop and other meme stocks, the same witness was called by the Republican side of the Committees. His name is Michael Piwowar.In Piwowar’s opening statements to both Committees, he introduced himself as the Executive Director of the think tank, the Milken Institute, and a former Commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He apparently supplied this same information to the Chairs of both Committees because that is also how Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown and House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters introduced Piwowar. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Syria: United States Capitalism’s Killing Field: The War of Hunger is Taking Over From the War of Guns – And All Syrians are the Victims The US claims its sanctions protect civilians from Assad but they are, in fact, reducing Syria to a wasteland Great dollops of hypocrisy invariably accompany expressions of concern by outside powers for the wellbeing of the Syrian people. But even by these low standards, a new record for self-serving dishonesty is being set by the Caesar Civilian Protection Act, the new US law imposing the harshest sanctions in the world on Syria and bringing millions of Syrians to the brink of famine.     Supposedly aimed at safeguarding ordinary Syrians from violent repression by President Bashar al-Assad, the law is given a humanitarian garnish by naming it after the Syrian military photographer who filmed and smuggled out of the country pictures of thousands of Syrians killed by the government. But instead of protecting Syrians, as it claims, the Caesar Act is a measure of collective punishment that is impoverishing people in government and opposition-held areas alike.      Bad though the situation in Syria was after 10 years of warfare and a long-standing economic embargo, the crisis has got much worse in the nine months since the law was implemented on 17 June last year. It has raised the number of Syrians who are close to starvation to 12.4 million, or 60 per cent of the population, according to the UN.By Patrick Cockburn

Brazil in collapse: Down with the Bolsonaro government! The pandemic is out of control in Brazil. According to official data, at the time of writing (21 March) there have already been more than 294,000 people killed by COVID-19. Approximately 2,000 new deaths are registered on average every day. When underreporting is taken into account, these figures are likely to be significantly higher. In the state of Amazonas in January, dozens of patients died due to a lack of oxygen in hospitals. Now a country-die collapse is taking place. In practically all regions, ICUs are full and patients are dying waiting for beds, both in public and in private health networks. Hospitals are installing cold rooms to store bodies! By Alex Mino 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Drugmakers Promise Investors They’ll Soon Hike Covid-19 Vaccine Prices Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson pledged affordable vaccines — but only as long as there’s a “pandemic.” The U.S. pharmaceutical firms behind the approved coronavirus vaccines — Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer — have quietly touted plans to raise prices on coronavirus vaccines in the near future and to capitalize on the virus’s lasting presence. While the companies have enjoyed a boost in goodwill from the rush to develop vaccines, drug industry executives have noted, the public is still sensitive to drug pricing and the reputational risk has, so far, curtailed their ability to reap large financial rewards. By Lee Fang

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

Clay Bennett: The Compromise

Why a Minimum Wage Hike! Just Look!Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

Piggies

Whenever I envision the corporate Robber Barons of today’s capitalism, I am always reminded of  the Piggies, a Beatles song from The White Album. It was written by George Harrison as a social commentary on class and corporate greed. In my minds eye, I can just see these capitalist piggies wiggling their cute curly tails, with their snouts in the public trough, “clutching forks and knives to eat our bacon!” — Roland Sheppard, “A Ponzi Scheme” The Economy is Only A Paper Moon

Videos of the Day:

Texas Gov. Lifts Pandemic Restrictions, Defying Public Health Experts, and Blames Migrants for COVID

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

‘It Definitely Stinks’: Lawmaker Demands SEC  Pobe of Huge Stock Buy Just Before DeJoy Announced USPS Vehicle Contract  ‘It Definitely Stinks’: Lawmaker Demands SEC Probe of Huge Stock Buy Just Before DeJoy Announced USPS Vehicle Contract “If that is not suspicious, I don’t know what is. Somebody clearly knew something.” ‘It Definitely Stinks’: A Democratic congressman is demanding that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigate a shady $54 million purchase of Oshkosh Corporation stock just hours before scandal-ridden Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced the decision to award that company with a lucrative 10-year contract to produce a new, largely gasoline-powered fleet of U.S. Postal Service delivery trucks. “This contract was awarded to Oshkosh Corporation and is worth up to $6 billion,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) wrote in a letter to Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee on Monday. “I write to pass along reports of what might be unusual trading of Oshkosh stock that took place less than 24 hours before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy publicly announced the contract decision in front of a House panel on February 23rd.” By Jake Johnson

‘Jim Crow in a Suit and Tie’: Georgia Senate Approves Massive Assault on Voting Rights “One of the worst voter suppression bills in the country” just advanced in Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature. The Republican Party of Georgia advanced its sweeping assault on voting rights Monday by pushing through the state Senate legislation that would roll back no-excuse absentee voting and ramp up voter ID requirements, a move that drew outrage from activists who dubbed the measure “one of the worst voter suppression bills in the country.” As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explained, SB 241 would “reduce the availability of absentee voting, restricting it to those who are at least 65 years old, have a physical disability, or are out of town.” The bill, which now heads to the GOP-led state House of Representatives, would also require Georgians who wish to vote absentee to “provide a driver’s license number, state ID number, or other identification.” By Jake Johnson

A Cold War With China Is the Last Thing We Can Afford Right Now This country is in a crisis of the first order. More than half a million of us have died thanks to Covid-19. Food insecurity is on the rise, with nearly 24 million Americans going hungry, including 12 million children. Unemployment claims filed since the pandemic began have now reached  93 million. Given the level of damage to the less wealthy parts of this society, it’s little wonder that ¨Ωchose pandemic recovery (including the quick distribution of vaccines) as their top priority issue. . . . The Pentagon’s boosters and their allies in the defense industry respond to such fears by insisting that no such trim could possibly be in order, that competition with China must be the prime focus of this moment and of the budget to come. Assuming that China’s rise is, in fact, a genuine problem, it’s not one that’s likely to be solved either in the near future or in a military fashion (not, at least, without disaster for the world), and it’s certainly not one that should be prioritized during a catastrophic pandemic By By Mandy Smithberger

The Frantic Push to Reopen Schools Ignores Educational Inequality Before COVID Public K-12 schooling has long been intertwined with economic concerns in the United States, and the dysfunction of this relationship has never been clearer than in the educational fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. The complex relationship between federal, state and local control over schools — coupled with over two decades of neoliberal, corporate-driven education policies — has left the majority of schools and families in a complete tailspin in the wake of an unprecedented public health crisis. Communities are being fractured as people argue over the safety of opening schools. Local school board members are making potentially life-and-death decisions based on newly acquired knowledge of everything from HVAC metrics, to architectural blueprints, to public health codes. Misinformed tropes about powerful teachers’ unions and self-interested teachers are popping up in mainstream media,  and seeping onto social media platforms and public comment forums. Parents pushed to the brink by full-time parenting and at-home work are breaking down in front of hundreds of community members on late-night Zoom meetings. By Kate Way

Environment:

Wildfires Will Keep Getting Worse — Even in “Best Case” Climate Scenarios Massive wildfires have shattered records a across the world in recent years, including in the western United States, where deadly blazes forced mass evacuations in 2020 and filled the sky across entire regions with smoke. Globally, wildfires are becoming more frequent, destructive and burning more land — and this trend is set to continue. Even under a “best case” scenario where greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly reduced in the coming decades and global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, climate change will still drastically increase the size and likelihood of destructive wildfires globally, according to a new international study published in Environmental Research Letters. By Mike Ludwig Poorest People Will Suffer Worst From Cities’ Heat As ever, the poorest people will most feel the heat in a hotter world. But a green growth initiative could help them. As the summer thermometer soars, and the cities of the US Southwest are caught up in extremes of heat, the poorest people who live in the least prosperous districts may find their streets as much as 3°C hotter than those of the wealthiest 10%. And in Los Angeles, one of the richest cities in one of the richest states of the world’s richest nation, citizens in the most heavily Latin-American districts could be as much as 3.7°C hotter than their white, well-heeled neighbours. Excess heat is linked to heat stroke, exhaustion, respiratory and cardiovascular problems and of course death: one US group has identified 27 ways in which heat can kill, and several sets of researchers have independently established that potentially lethal heat waves are becoming more likely, more extreme and more widespread. By Tim RadfordCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 8, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen FordUS is Enemy of Haitian Democracy   “The US is responsible for the complete destabilization of Haitian democracy and the complete loss of Haitian sovereignty,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist in the African American Studies Department at UCLA.  Speaking on Dr Jared Ball’s influential podcast “I Mix What I Like,” Dr Pierre said the US imposed president Jovenel Moise on the Haitian people, and materially supports his police, who have slaughtered dozens of protesters in the streets in recent weeks. Pierre is an activist with the Black Alliance for Peace.

When Movements Embrace Police Abolition, the Rich Resurrect “Reform” “The US is responsible for the complete destabilization of Haitian democracy and the complete loss of Haitian sovereignty,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist in the African American Studies Department at UCLA.  Speaking on Dr Jared Ball’s influential podcast “I Mix What I Like,” Dr Pierre said the US imposed president Jovenel Moise on the Haitian people, and materially supports his police, who have slaughtered dozens of protesters in the streets in recent weeks. Pierre is an activist with the Black Alliance for Peace.

Free All Political, Elderly and Covid-Infected Prisoners, Say Mumia Supporters “The US is responsible for the complete destabilization of Haitian democracy and the complete loss of Haitian sovereignty,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist in the African American Studies Department at UCLA.  Speaking on Dr Jared Ball’s influential podcast “I Mix What I Like,” Dr Pierre said the US imposed president Jovenel Moise on the Haitian people, and materially supports his police, who have slaughtered dozens of protesters in the streets in recent weeks. Pierre is an activist with the Black Alliance for Peace.

Labor:

Economy:

World:

Perhaps Lula has learned that if he compromises with the ruling class, he will lose!: Ruling Restores Right of Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva to Challenge Bolsonaro in 2022 “The election starts today,” said one prominent political reporter. “The decision today affirms the incompetence of the Curitiba federal court and recognizes that we have always been right.” —Attorneys’ statement  “It’s virtually impossible Lula won’t be a candidate. By Brett Wilkins

Thousands of Women Join Indian Farmers’ Protests Against New Laws Thousands of women joined protests by farmers on the outskirts of Delhi on Monday to mark International Women’s Day, demanding the scrapping of new laws that open up agriculture produce markets to private buyers. Since December, many farmers accompanied by their families have camped at three sites on the outskirts of the Indian capital to oppose the biggest farm reforms in decades, which they say hurt them.Wearing bright yellow scarves representing the colour of mustard fields, the women took centrestage at one key site, chanting slogans, holding small marches, and making speeches through loudspeakers to target the laws.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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

 UN Finds Soaring Poverty In Virus-Hit Latin America Region The U.N. economic agency for Latin America and the Caribbean says more than 20 million people across the region were pushed into poverty during pandemic-plagued 2020 More than 20 million people were pushed into poverty during pandemic-plagued 2020 across Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.N. economic agency for the region reported Thursday. Poverty as a whole rose to afflict a total of 208 million people — 33.7% from 30.5% of the population — in a year when the overall gross domestic product collapsed by 7.7%. By Eva Vergara

For Profit Healthcare Piggies: Hospital-Owning Frist Family ‘Made a Killing’ During Pandemic, With Wealth Soaring by $8.1 Billion “I make only $13 an hour despite working for the largest for-profit hospital corporation in the nation.” —Jemelle Brown, HCA employee As the Covid-19 crisis continues to widen the yawning chasm between the super-rich and everyone else in the United States, a new analysis published Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies reveals Tennessee’s billionaire Frist family—the leading shareholders in the nation’s largest private healthcare conglomorate—has seen its combined wealth more than double since last March.  As the Covid-19 crisis continues to widen the yawning chasm between the super-rich and everyone else in the United States, a new analysis published Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies reveals Tennessee’s billionaire Frist family—the leading shareholders in the nation’s largest private healthcare conglomorate—has seen its combined wealth more than double since last March. By Brett Wilkins

Daily News Digest Archives

Image of the Day:

If You AllowAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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 0f the Day:

From my 2002 Review of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace:  In his new book, Gore Vidal makes a scathing attack upon the bipartisan domestic and foreign policies of the US government. The introduction to this book sets its theme, that the bombings of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City on September 11, were used, respectively, to justify the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and the current “war on terrorism”.Vidal explains that these bombings were in response to the more than 200 acts of war and (ongoing) worldwide military incursions by the US government since 1945, and the concurrent erosion of the Bill of Rights. Vidal refers to Newton’s theory “that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. . . .  The absurdity of bombing Afghanistan, in retaliation for Osama bin Laden’s presence there, was curtly explained by Vidal in a November 24 interview with Reuters: What Osama did is not a war. It can’t be a war because Osama is not a nation. He is a gang. It is like being hit by the Mafia. You don’t declare war on Sicily because the Mafia happen to live in Sicily. You don’t bomb Palermo. You get the international police and you track him down. (And you don’t arrest everyone in New York City who looks Italian.) The following paragraphs exemplify Vidal’s concepts throughout the collection of essays.. . . The damage caused by the September 11 plane bombings is] nothing compared to the knockout blow to our vanishing liberties — the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 combined with the recent requests to Congress for additional special powers to wiretap without judicial order; to deport lawful permanent residents, visitors, and un-documented immigrants without due process. . . .

Videos of the Day:

Intercepted Podcast: The Democrats’ Long War on Immigrants Author Harsha Walia discusses the Democratic Party’s fundamental role in shaping the long arc of U.S. border policy. Activist and writer Harsha Walia joins Intercepted to discuss the Democratic Party’s fundamental role in shaping the long arc of U.S. border policy and why the practice of “prevention through deterrence” will continue to incur more suffering and preventable deaths. She also presents an abolitionist view of a world without borders. Walia’s most recent book is “Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism.”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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

Bendib: DeJoyPerpetual War for Perpetual Peace

Biden Is Following a Failed Blueprint for Forever War Bombing Syria and excusing the crimes of the Saudi crown prince won’t bring us any closer to a withdrawal from the Middle East. Last week, the U.S. military bombed a site near al-Hurri, along the Iraqi border inside Syria, where Iranian-backed Iraqi militias were allegedly stationed. Although the U.S. launched its missiles across an international border (and without the approval of Congress), White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki framed the strike as a ​“defensive” response to a series of rocket attacks that have killed one and wounded several Americans over the past two weeks. The American bombing left ​“up to a handful dead,” according to one U.S. official who spoke with CNN, and Tehran condemned the assault as ​“illegal and a violation of Syria’s sovereignty”—a perception gap certain to complicate President Joe Biden’s pronounced plans to reverse Donald Trump’s antagonistic Iran policies and rejoin the nuclear deal.  By Danny Sjursen

Trump & Biden’s Secret Bombing Wars Unbeknownst to many Americans, the U.S. military and its allies are engaged in bombing and killing people in other countries on a daily basis.  On February 25th, President Biden ordered U.S. air forces to drop seven 500-pound bombs on Iraqi forces in Syria, reportedly killing 22 people. The U.S. airstrike has predictably failed to halt rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago.  The Western media reported the U.S. airstrike as an isolated and exceptional incident, and there has been significant blowback from the U.S. public, Congress and the world community, condemning the strikes as illegal and a dangerous escalation of yet another Middle East conflict. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. DaviesDemocrats Earn Their 1% Stripes: House Rejects Cori Bush’s Amendment on Voting Rights for Incarcerated People House Rejects Cori Bush’s Amendment on Voting Rights for Incarcerated People In a vote that exposed a deep rift among Democrats over how far to push their agenda on racial justice and voting rights, the House on Tuesday rejected an amendment offered by progressive Democrats to  a sweeping elections reform package that would have restored voting rights for people who are currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons. The amendment was rejected by a vote of 97-328, indicating uncertainty among moderate Democrats about serious reforms to the criminal legal system as Republicans work to restrict ballot access. By Mike Ludwig

Environment:Antarctic Warming Speed-Up Alarms Researchers By The world’s largest reservoir of snow and ice could be melting faster than ever. Two new studies highlight Antarctic warming. Antarctic warming is accelerating: at least one of the southern continent’s ice shelves has been melting faster than ever. The polar summer of 2019-20 set a new record for temperatures above freezing point over the George VI ice shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula. The finding is ominous: the ice shelves form a natural buttress that slows the rate of glacier flow from the continental bedrock. The faster the glaciers flow into the sea, the higher the hazard of sea level rise. And a second study confirms that this is already happening in West Antarctica: researchers looked at 25 years of satellite observation of 14 glaciers in the Getz sector to find that meltwater is flowing into the Amundsen Sea ever faster. Between 1994 and 2018, these glaciers lost 315 billion tonnes of ice, enough to raise global sea levels by almost 1mm. By Tim Radford

Toxic Tuesdays: 1,4-Dioxane   1,4-dioxane is a clear liquid used in chemical manufacturing for industrial, consumer, and military purposes. During manufacturing or improper waste disposal 1,4-dioxane can be released into the environment. While it breaks down in air and doesn’t stick to soil, 1,4-dioxane is stable in water and can remain there for a long time. It can even accumulate in fish and plants that live in contaminated water. Eating these contaminated foods and drinking contaminated water are common ways people are exposed to 1,4-dioxane. Bathing in contaminated water can also cause 1,4-dioxane to evaporate into the air and be inhaled.      Through its use in the manufacturing process, 1,4-dioxane often ends up being present in trace amounts in consumer products such as detergents, shampoos, and cosmetics. 1,4-dioxane present in these products can be absorbed through the skin.   Exposure to low levels of 1,4-dioxane can cause mild irritation to the eyes, nose, throat, or skin. Regardless of the route of exposure, high levels can cause kidney and liver damage as well as death. While there is little information about if 1,4-dioxane causes cancer in humans, animal studies have found that long-term exposure results in cancer, especially liver cancer. For this reason, the US Department of Health and Human Services believes that 1,4-dioxane likely causes cancer in humans.

 Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

 Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist: Freedom Rider: The Minimal Minimum Wage Most Democrats either don’t want a minimum wage increase or are too afraid of bucking their party’s donor class.

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor: Joe Biden: The Expect Nothing Presidency Biden’s brand of American exceptionalism has run up against the general crisis of the U.S. imperialist order.

Editors, The Black Agenda Review:
MANIFESTO: “The Crime of Being Born Black on American Soil”: Claudia Jones’s Statement Before Being Sentenced, February 2, 1953 Claudia Jones’s arrests and eventual deportation were part of the expansion of the US government’s Cold War attacks on immigrants—Black immigrants included—who were affiliated with the Communist Party.

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor: Against Big Tech’s Algorithmic Cancel Culture  Project Censored Host Mickey Huff predicted that #CancelCulture warriors would be calling stations to complain about his opposition to Big Tech censorship, writes Ann Garrison.

Long Live the Legacy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti! B Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Ferlinghetti might have been
God ‘cause he almost lived forever;
and Jersey Boys—Allen and Amiri—

Cornel West: Palestine Is a “Taboo Issue Among Certain Circles in High Places” Azad Essa West, considered one of America’s foremost intellectuals, said he is confident that it is his criticism of Israel that cost him tenure at Harvard.

Pan-African Community Action: The Radical Practicality of Community Control Over Policing: A Reply to Our Critics Once we are able to secure Community Control over Police and ensure that entire communities are empowered to exercise such control, we will be free to re-imagine and re-envision the very nature of policing itself.

Labor:

 

Economy:

The Tech Wreck of Zero-Dividend Stocks Arrives on the Wings of Rising Treasury Yields Pull up a chair and get comfy. You’re about to watch the first act in what is likely to be a long-running show called “The Great Tech Wreck of Zero-Dividend Stocks.” The show’s sponsor is rising yields on U.S. Treasury notes which make tech stocks that have ballooned in price (as the Fed held interest rates artificially low) and pay no cash dividends to compete with the rising yields, particularly unattractive.     As the chart above indicates, yields on the 5-year and 10-year U.S. Treasury Notes have been rising sharply since early August, with the yield more than tripling on both. The 10-year Note has moved from 0.50 percent since early August to 1.46 percent early this morning. In the same span of time, the yield on the 5-year note has spiked from 0.20 percent to 0.72 percent. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Imperialist Powers Refuse Money To Feed Yemen Six years of war in Yemen have brought the country to the brink of an absolute humanitarian disaster. The Saudi-led alliance, backed by the UK and the US, has imposed tremendous suffering on the Yemeni people. With 16 million suffering hunger and 400,000 children at risk of death from starvation, the situation is getting worse by the day. And the imperialists are unwilling to assist the victims. E.eThe United Nations held a donor conference on Monday. They were hoping to raise $3.85 billion dollars from over 100 national governments to avert widespread famine. In the end they only raised $1.7 billion, $1 billion less than was pledged at the 2019 aid conference. By Niklas Albin Svensson

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Drug Lobby Asks Biden to Punish Foreign Countries Pushing For Low-Cost Vaccines Big Pharma is fighting for tight control over Covid-19 vaccine production, limiting availability worldwide while reaping billions. President joe biden’s administration is being asked to punish Hungary, Colombia, Chile, and other countries for seeking to ramp up the production of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics without express permission from pharmaceutical companies.    The sanctions are being urged by the drug industry, which has filed hundreds of pages of documents to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative outlining the alleged threat posed by any effort to challenge “basic intellectual property protections” in the response to the coronavirus pandemic. By Lee FangAmazon Strain Can Reinfect and Has Spread Across Brazil: Study The study reveals that between 25 percent and 61 percent of people who survived the virus could get reinfected as the variant can trick the immune system. A SARS-CoV-2 mutation identified in the Brazilian Amazon can reinfect former COVID-19 patients and is likely spread already across the country since travelers involuntarily transported it via airliners used by some 92,000 people until February, the latest study by the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Oxford revealed on Tuesday.

Daily News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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!

Image  of the Day:

Cartoon by Drew Sheneman

Quotes 0f the Day:

Deacons for Defense Quotes Ossie Davis as Rev. Gregory (Ossie Davis) “I have been living in fear of the Klan all my life. Was bred in me as a child, and it made me less than a man. But all of that has changed because of you. You freed me, son. You woke up something in me, so don’t you stop. Don’t you dare stop. And tomorrow, I’m gonna be marching with you, and I’m gonna march every day to change what’s happening down here. And there ain’t gonna be no change in leadership. Ain’t gonna be no steppin’ down. Marcus is still in charge.”

Videos of the Day:

Failed State: Texas Power Grid Collapse Impacts Millions. Black & Brown Communities Are Worst Hit

“Not Doing This Is a Choice”: Biden Drags His Feet on Canceling Student Debt Despite Campaign Pledge

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

Texas Mayor Who Told Residents to “Sink or Swim” During Winter Crisis Resigns A mayor of a western Texas city resigned from his position on Tuesday after posting disturbing and insensitive remarks on a Facebook group, telling residents they should fend for themselves amid rolling energy blackouts in the area while temperatures were well below freezing. Tim Boyd, who earlier this week was the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, a city with a population of around 4,000 residents, had posted a response in the group to questions from individuals in his jurisdiction (as well as throughout Mitchell County, Texas) over where they could go to warm up if their power was knocked out, or where they could get drinkable water if their pipes failed to work. Instead of offering solutions, Boyd expressed outrage over people’s questions on what to do. By Chris Walker

‘Blood Is on Abbott’s Hands’: Anger at GOP Leaders Surges as Food, Water Shortages Compound Texas Power Crisis” Abbott has failed and passed off blame to somebody else. Texas is in dire straits. Texans are dying. Homes are being destroyed, people are cold and hungry, and we have no idea when things will begin to return to

Environment:

Big Oil Spent $10 million Lobbying California Officials in 2020 The powerful oil industry lobby in California in 2020 spent less on lobbying in California than it did in 2019, but still managed to defeat legislation it opposed and getting CalGEM, the state’s gas and oil regulatory agency, to double the number of new oil production well permits approved in the state. The top four oil industry lobbyist employers — the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), Chevron, Aera Energy and California Resources Corporation — spent $10,192,047 lobbying the Governor’s Office, Legislature and regulatory agencies to advance Big Oil’s agenda in 2020, according to data posted on the California Secretary of State’s website by February 1. By Dan Bacher

You Cannot Change the Heat and Soul of A Capitalist — But Can Make Him Wish He Had!: Making America’s Rivers Blue Again: Connecting the Dots Between Regenerative Agriculture and Healthy Waterways Building a regenerative food system where bees buzz, dragonflies hover, and fish and frogs thrive will begin when we change the necessary hearts and minds across this nation. By John W. RoulacGlobal Ice Melt: Much Faster Than Predicted Glaciers are disappearing up to twice as fast as previous studies estimated, with disastrous effects on many communities Two new studies suggest that recent estimates of global ice melt are conservative. In other words, ice is melting much more rapidly than experts thought. As a result, sea levels are rising faster as well. The first study combines various observations from satellites, on-the-ground measurements, and model-based estimates to create a clearer picture of the state of Earth’s ice between 1994 and 2017. Essentially, it captures a global tally of change in ice mass over that time period. The resulting measurements of ice loss and sea level rise fall in the upper range of scenarios forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body within the United Nations meant to provide objective science related to climate change. The IPCC’s scenarios were laid out in their 2019 special report on oceans and the cryosphere, itself a recent overview of assessment work. by Evan Lim

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

The Day the Music Died: Malcolm X’s Assassination, Feb. 21, 1965 by Roland Sheppard (First Published by the San Francisco Bayview )In the afternoon of Feb. 21, 1965, I went to the Audubon Ballroom to hear Malcolm X speak. I also went to sell the newspaper, The Militant, a radical newspaper that printed the truth about Malcolm X, published his speeches and publicly defended him.   When I got to the ballroom, things were radically different – there were no cops. Normally, Malcolm’s meetings in Harlem were crawling with cops. As I was selling papers, Malcolm X approached the Audubon Ballroom. I offered to sell him the latest issue, but he told me, “Not today, Roland. I am alone and in a hurry.”     A while later as I entered the meeting room, again I did not see any cops. I went in to sit down where I normally sat along with the rest of the press in the front and the left side of the room. On the way to my seat, Gene Roberts, who later surfaced as a police agent member of the Black Panther Party, told me that I could not sit at my regular place but that on that day I had to sit in the front row on the right side of the hall, facing the stage.Jemima Pierre: Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers The horror story in Haiti since 2004 is not really about despotic Black government, but is the consequence and crime of global white rule.

Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist: Freedom Rider: Impeachment Theater Democracy is hanging on by a thread — not due to marauding Trumpsters – but because of bipartisan support for neoliberal policies.

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor: Hollywood is big, mostly white, capitalist business, so it’s no surprise that its new film on Fred Hampton provides little information on Black Panther politics and history

Editors, The Black Agenda Review: MANIFESTO: Ten Commandments of Democracy in Haiti, September 25, 1991 Almost 20 years ago, the president elected by Haiti’s poor majority gave the United Nations a lesson in the meaning of democracy for historically oppressed people

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence: What did low Barr know? Liars, liars your loaded dice/tilted table theater’s on fire— But prosecutors and gas-lighting lawyers concur on  Empire…

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor: Kizito Mihigo and the Struggle for Rwandan Truth and Reconciliation Rwandans around the world celebrate the life of the nation’s most popular singer, apparently killed for opposing Paul Kagame’s ethnic and military dictatorship, writes Ann Garrison

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies: Is Biden Committing Diplomatic Suicide Over the Iran Nuclear Agreement?
Biden is taking the position that the US will not rejoin the agreement or drop its unilateral sanctions until Iran first comes back into compliance.

Margaret Flowers: Urgent Solidarity With Haiti Is Needed “President” Jovenel Moïse has dismantled the democratic institutions of the state and rules unilaterally with the support of the police, military and western allies.

Black Alliance For Peace: For Biden Administration, Black Lives Don’t Matter in Haiti!—A BAP Statement on Haiti The new US administration has already shown its support for paramilitary terror and political suppression in Haiti.

Sundiata Acoli: Black Liberation in Context: Political Prisoner Speaks on Torture at 2005 Human Rights Conference
Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army political/prisoner of war Sundiata Acoli told human rights activists “torture is nothing new” in U.S.

Deirdre Cooper Owens: Medical Racism Has Shaped U.S. Policies for Centuries A Black medical truth-teller traces the link between a 1793 yellow fever epidemic and today’s coronavirus racial disparities.

Duana Fullwiley: DNA and Our Twenty-First-Century Ancestors
Home DNA ancestry kits include no ancestors, instead comparing customers to other present-day people based on assumptions about race and ethnicity.

Labor:

Demanding ‘Dignified Work and a Living Wage’ as Legal Rights, Ayanna Pressley Unveils Jobs Guarantee Resolution “It’s time to establish a legal right to a job for all people in America.” By Jake Johnson

Economy:

GameStop Hearing: Citadel’s Ken Griffin Doesn’t Let the Brutal Facts Get in the Way of His Testimony The billionaire hedge fund titan of Citadel LLC and its market-making/trade execution arm, Citadel Securities, delivered a load of horse pukky in his written testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. Griffin is slated to appear as one of six witnesses at the hearing scheduled at noon today to examine the trading in shares of GameStop in January.GameStop is the brick-and-mortar video game retailer whose stock soared from $18.84 on December 31 of last year to an intraday high of $483 on January 28 – an unprecedented run of 2,465 percent in four weeks by a struggling retail outlet. The stock price then quickly plunged back to earth. It closed yesterday at $45.94. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Canada: More Than 1,150 at Groundbreaking Montreal Marxist School! The 2021 Montreal Marxist Winter School was truly an unprecedented event. More than 1,150 people registered to participate in the school, which had ten presentations over three days, making this by far the largest Canadian Marxist meeting in recent memory. With big class battles on the horizon, the forces of Marxism are growing in preparation.

Britain: biggest-ever Marxist Student Federation Conference – Join the Revolution! The MSF recently held its largest ever national conference, with hundreds of young people from schools and universities across the country taking part. There has never been a better time to get involved and join the revolution!

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Rising Inequality: the ‘Pre-Existing Condition’ That Doomed the U.S. COVID Response Back in April 2017, only a few months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, one of world’s most prestigious medical journals, the London-based Lancet, established a special commission to keep tabs on “Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era.” The panel’s 33 commissioners — medical professionals of all sorts, along with assorted notables in legal and economic circles — have just delivered their final report, and media outlets worldwide are taking notice. They’re headlining the commission’s most stunning stat: that some 200,000 fewer Americans would have diedfrom the coronavirus if the United States had treated Covid with the same level of public health competence that its peer developed nations have demonstrated. By Sam PizzigatiWhy Politicians and Doctors Keep Ignoring the Medical Research on Vitamin D and Covid It is probably not a good idea to write while in the grip of anger. But I am struggling to suppress my emotions about a wasted year, during which politicians and many doctors have ignored a growing body of evidence suggesting that Vitamin D can play a critically important role in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.  It is time to speak out forcefully now that a new, large-scale Spanish study demonstrates not a just a correlation but a causal relationship between high-dose Vitamin D treatment of hospitalised Covid patients and significantly improved outcomes for their health. The pre-print paper in the Lancet shows there was an 80 per cent reduction in admission to intensive care units among hospitalised patients who were treated with large doses of Vitamin D, and a 64 per cent reduction in death. By Jonathan Cook

Daily News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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!

Image  of the Day:

Cartoon by Joe HellerQuotes 0f the Day: 

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China’s wet markets, just like SARS before it. Unsurprisingly, many people are furious that the markets, which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China, have already reopened.      It’s easy to point the finger at these “foreign” places and blame them for generating pandemics. But doing that ignores one crucial fact: The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a major risk factor for pandemics, too.     That’s because we eat a ton of meat, and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms. In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America’s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions.     “When we overcrowd animals by the thousands, in cramped football-field-size sheds, to lie beak to beak or snout to snout, and there’s stress crippling their immune systems, and there’s ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, and there’s a lack of fresh air and sunlight — put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease,“ said Michael Greger, the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching. — The Meat We Eat Is a Pandemic Risk, Too

Videos of the Day:

Andrés Arauz: Ecuador’s Presidential Front-Runner on COVID, Austerity & Ending U.S. Interference

If Democrats Don’t Deliver Now, Voters Will Turn On Them

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

Texas Teen Was Forced to Use College Savings to Prevent Mom’s Eviction After Alondra Carmona, a high school senior in Houston, recently exhausted all of her college savings to prevent her unemployed mother from being evicted, one media outlet on Tuesday tried to portray it as an “act of kindness,” but progressives are emphasizing that the all-too-common story is an indictment of a deeply unequal society reliant on private charity as a result of policymakers’ failure to guarantee livable incomes, affordable housing and higher education, and more. By Kenny Stancil

Students Arrested for Sharing Copies of U.S. Constitution  Sometimes I think we must be living in an Alice-in-Wonderland world. At least, it sure seems like it if we judge from the number of times we’re forced to cry “Curiouser and curiouser!” because of the cognitive dissonance which abounds around us.     Take the incident at Kellogg Community College in Michigan which recently came to light via Campus Reform. According to Campus Reform, three students were giving out copies of the U.S. Constitution to passing students when they encountered an obstacle: “They were first stopped by Drew Hutchinson, the manager of Student Life at KCC, who told them they couldn’t approach students outside or engage them in conversation because it could ‘obstruct the student’s ability to get an education.’; ‘We ask that you don’t do it in the middle of everything, and part of that is because if we obstruct the student’s ability to get an education then it kind of becomes counterintuitive to the whole, um, right to speak, kind of Second Amendment rights [sic],’ Hutchinson explained, intending to cite the First Amendment.”  By By Annie Holmquist

USA: the CIVIL WAR in the Republican Party Yesterday, the Senate acquitted Donald Trump of inciting the Capitol riot on 6 Jan. Although seven Republicans joined the Democrats to vote ‘guilty’, this was short of the two-thirds majority required to find Trump guilty. Despite a furious speech attacking the ex-president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also voted to acquit. As explained in this article (published last month by our US comrades), the GOP is divided from top to bottom between MAGA true believers, opportunists looking to ride Trump’s coattails, and career politicians intimidated by his reactionary voter base. The future of a cornerstone of the bourgeois political system hangs in the balance. By  Bryce Gordon

We Need to Talk About Judas The new film, Judas and the Black Messiah, is worth seeing, talking about and analyzing with a variety of historical lenses. The historical lenses include the history of Black Cinema, revolutionary cinema, African American history and the history of political repression in the US in general.   Every once in a while, an important political film gets released by a major Hollywood company, even though the company’s owners don’t fully grasp how the message of the film might detract from their usual class interests.  By Bernard Nicolas Envoronment:

‘The Fire This Tme!: Millions Will Die If World Fails On Climate Promises Action to keep climate promises could prevent millions of deaths each year. Unless nations try harder, that won’t happen. Action to keep climate promises could prevent millions of deaths each year. Unless nations try harder, that won’t happen. By Tim Radford

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Deacons for Defense (Full Movie) The 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.Black Agenda Radio for Week of February 15, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

Christian Theology Still Useful to Black Movement The US State “is using the so-called insurrection at the Capitol…to impose an ideological conformity that supports and sustains the neoliberal project” at home and abroad, said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace.  Speaking on a Dissenters webinar, Baraka warned that Democrats, especially, are “setting us up” to “usher in a form of neofascism” that could win liberal and even progressive support because it is ostensibly aimed at Trump’s older brand of fascism.

Anti-Police Activists are Doing Post-Slavery “Wake Work” Today’s Black Americans are l ng in “the wake” of centuries of slavery, said Dr Corey Miles, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Morgan State University. Thus, contemporary Black activists are doing “wake work.” Dr Miles said the South, as the center of US slavery, presents special problems, but the whole country is hostile to Black lives. “We are trying to see how we can forge emotional belonging to a space that surveils and polices us,” he said.

Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism A progressive, liberationist theology can be useful to movements against both domestic politic repression and US imperial wars, said Dr Vincent Lloyd, professor of theology and Africana Studies at Villanova University. “Christianity has resources within it to think about prison abolition and police abolition,” said Lloyd.

Labor:

While 44%of the workimg class struggles to stay alive: “Even as the U.S. economy hums along at a favorable pace, there is a vast segment of workers today earning wages low enough to leave their livelihood and families extremely vulnerable. That’s one of the main takeaways from our new analysis, in which we found that 53 million Americans between the ages of 18 to 64—accounting for 44% of all workers—qualify as “low-wage.” Their median hourly wages are $10.22, and median annual earnings are about $18,000. Brookings Institution study/”

‘Sounds Like a Passing Grade’: CBO Says $15 Wage Would Have Bigger Budget Impact Than GOP Tax Cut Provisions “I’m gonna fight as hard as I can, and I believe that we will succeed in including the minimum wage in the reconciliation bill,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. By Jake Johnson

Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Flash Commentary No. 1457

• Pandemic-Driven Unemployment Soared to an April 2020 Peak of About 32%,
  Worse Than in the Great Depression; Such Was Against a January 2020
  Pre-Pandemic U.3 Unemployment Rate of 3.5%

• In the Latest Four Months, Pandemic-Driven Unemployment Has Leveled Off
  Around 12%, Worst Since Before World War II, Other than for the Pandemic

• Payroll-Employment Benchmark Revisions Showed a Deepening, Accelerating
  Decline into an April 2020 Trough, With Renewed Deterioration at Present;
  Recovery from the Pandemic Shutdown Has Stalled and/or Is Regressing

• January 2021 Annual Growth in Money Supply M1 and M2 Surged to Respective
  Record Highs of 69.7% and 25.8%, Despite Some Downside Benchmark Revisions

• Near Record Growth of Currency in Circulation Foreshadows Inflation Risk

• Nonetheless, January 2021 CPI-U Annual Inflation Hit a Soft, Ten-Month High of 1.4%,
  Boosted by Gasoline Prices, but Constrained by Mixed Food and Core Inflation

• Stock Indices Are At or Near All-Time Highs, Coming into the
  First Anniversary of the Pre-Pandemic Stock-Market Peaks and Subsequent Crashes

• Near-Term Financial-Market Turmoil Likely Is Far from Over,
  Given Renewed Deterioration in Economic Conditions

What Did Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat Do to Get a $5 Million Pay Cut? Rewarding bad behavior with obscene pay is the sine qua non of Wall Street. Thus it’s a remarkable event to see a CEO of a mega Wall Street bank get punished with a 21 percent pay cut.Michael Corbat is slated to retire this month as Citigroup’s CEO and be replaced by Jane Fraser, the first woman CEO of any major Wall Street bank. (The news would be more welcome if the areas that Fraser previously supervised at the bank did not have all those fines and sanctions.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

‘More Challenging This Year Than Last’: UN Envoy Warns Global Food Crisis Getting Worse, Not Better “We need to look at how we as human beings manage the planet,” says Agnes Kalibata, who is leading efforts to convene a food systems summit. By Jessica Corbett

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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!

Image  of the Day:

Chomsky Sanders QuoteQuotes 0f the Day:

Systemic Racism: Capitalism Arose From Plunder of the Colonized World.  Ideologically it Justified By Racism — ‘The White Mans Burden’!  In “Capital”, Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31, (the) Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist Karl Marx wrote: “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement, and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.  … If money … comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”  Racism has been an integral part of Capitalism since it came into existence — its systemic!

None of them are adopting the capitalistic system because they realize they can’t. You can’t operate a capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic; you have to have someone else’s blood to suck to be a capitalist. You show me a capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker. He cannot be anything but a bloodsucker if he’s going to be a capitalist. He’s got to get it from somewhere other than himself, and that’s where he gets it–from somewhere or someone other than himself. So, when we look at the African continent, when we look at the trouble that’s going on between East and West, we find that the nations in Africa are developing socialistic systems to solve their problems. — Malcolx X

Videos of the Day:

Israel’s Vaccine Apartheid Is Killing Palestinians

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

“While the wealthy have thrived, most Americans have lost ground, both economically and medically,” said Steffie Woolhandler, who co-chairs The Lancet’s commission and lectures at Hunter College and Harvard. “The Biden administration must reboot democracy and implement the progressive social and health policies needed to put the country on the road to better health.” — New Lancet Report: 40 Percent of US COVID Deaths Could Have Been Avoided

Taxes on the Rich: One-Sixth of What They Used to Be A new IPS briefing paper highlights the unique role of tax policy in wealth concentration. By Chuck Collins

Roland Sheppard for San Franciso Mayor 1975  My 25 word voter handbook statement:The Biden Administration’s Continued Push for Julian Assange’s Extradition Is Bad News for Journalism A successful prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder could empower the government to go after journalists for publishing classified information. By James RisenWe Must Fight the System, Not Each Other Once I saw the connection between domestic and international injustices of our societies and capitalism, I found myself awoken after years of sleeping in the belly of the beast. Once a year on our immigration anniversary, my mother and I reflect on our journey from Iran to the United States. In the past, we would celebrate the freedoms we were given in America, embrace the struggles we endured as immigrants to settle in a new home, and learn not only a new language, but also a new way of living, a new culture, a new dream. But if you ask me to celebrate this immigration today, I would tell you how bittersweet it is to be an American, how disappointing it feels, and how my heart aches with disappointment and rage. Sometime in late 2019, I began learning about the destructiveness of capitalism: its ravaging of our planet earth, imperialism—its disastrous twin—fighting to keep it from collapsing. Once I saw the connection between domestic and international injustices of our societies and capitalism, I found myself awoken after years of sleeping in the belly of the beast. By Elaheh FarmandThe Impeachment Fiasco/ ‘Cave’ Is  the Result of Systemic Racism! The Democrats Disagreed With the Timing — Not the The Iron Heel Coup Attempt!

Democrats’ Shameful Cave Trials without witnesses are not genuine trials. Democrats’ Shameful Cave Trials without witnesses are not genuine trials. Donald J. Trump has once again circumvented justice, but not because of a want of facts or law. His life preserver was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to refrain from calling critical witnesses possessing “smoking gun” incriminating evidence at Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial. Her plan to abandon an Ace of Spades for a Two of Clubs to prove Mr. Trump’s guilt was upset by Republican freshman Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.) who gave the Democrats an opportunity to subpoenas witnesses to testify under oath to fortify the video evidence introduced during the House Managers’ case in chief. By Ralph Nader

Vaccine Apartheid/Genocide/Plunder: An Outrage’: AstraZeneca Told to Justify Unequal Vaccine Pricing Amid Soaring Profits “Why is the global south paying more than rich countries for your #Covid19 vaccine?” Global Justice Now asks the pharmaceutical giant, which has pledged not to profit from the vaccine during the pandemic. By Jessica CorbettHealthcare for Scabs: In ‘Particularly Cruel’ Act, Maine Hospital Vaccinates Out-of-State Union-Busters as Vulnerable Residents Forced to Wait “It’s concerning that MaineHealth would put their own anti-union agenda, and their own bottom line, ahead of the health and well-being of Maine people.” By Kenny StancilEnvoronment:Appalachian Fracking Boom Was a Jobs Bust, Finds New Report The decade-long fracking boom in Appalachia has not led to significant job growth, and despite the region’s extraordinary levels of natural gas production, the industry’s promise of prosperity has “turned into almost nothing,” according to a new report.  The fracking boom has received broad support from politicians across the aisle in Appalachia due to dreams of enormous job creation, but a report released on February 10 from Pennsylvania-based economic and sustainability think tank, the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), sheds new light on the reality of this hype. By Nick CunninghamCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

Smart surveillance is usually included in these huge packages of American money handed off to another nation that, in turn, monitors its “enemies” just as the US spends so many tax-paying dollars monitoring Black Lives activists or any Black who advocates for social justice and democratic values. Somehow, red flags are flying all over the Internet, held up by white Americans proclaiming their allegiance to “Hitler,” to Trump, to “Q,” to anything that smacks of violence, particularly violence against people of color.     The law enforcement agencies aren’t only to blame; American indifference has become the easy out for many who don’t want to acknowledge their role in the white supremacist history of this nation. Just say, “no politics,” and free oneself from responsibility.     Pretty sad state of being in the world among the living!     I can’t afford to wear blinders and talk nonsense about not wanting to talk about “politics” given that my ancestors were kidnapped, sold, and owned as property, allowable and enforced by laws legislated in the US. The violence used against those ancestors and against Blacks ever since is the result of political indifference toward Black lives.     The personal is political and the political is personal. — BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Dr. Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD

Police Deployed Potentially Lethal Chemical During Black Lives Matter Protests The hexachloroethane smoke that police used against protesters can cause vomiting, respiratory distress and even death. By Laura Jedeed

Police Terrorism Runs Rampant in ‘The Home of The Free’: Outrage and Disgust as Charges Dropped for Buffalo Police Officers Who Fractured Skull of 75-Year-Old Peaceful Protester “Despite the video evidence of the officers’ misconduct, a grand jury has dismissed the charges.” By Kenny StancilLabor:

Economy:

Figures Don’t Lie—But Liars Can ‘Firgue’!Shadow Government Statistics Inflation Measurement And The Chained-Cpi (C-Cpi) Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience

• CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.

• CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.

• With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.

• Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplementat end of this document).

• Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.

• Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP

World:

UK Suffers Biggest Drop in Economic Output in 300 Years Gloomy outlook for early 2021 after pandemic savages economy but hopes raised for spring recoveryThe UK economy recorded its worst economic performance for more than 300 years in 2020 as it reeled from the initial shock of the coronavirus crisis before staging a better than expected recovery later in the year. 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Covid-19 and the Need for Health Care Reform The Covid-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the need for health care reforms that promote universal access to affordable care. Although all aspects of U.S. health care will face incredible challenges in the coming months, the patchwork way we govern and pay for health care is unraveling in this time of crisis, leaving millions of people vulnerable and requiring swift, coordinated political action to ensure access to affordable care.     About half of Americans receive health coverage through their employer, and with record numbers filing for unemployment insurance, millions find themselves without health insurance in the midst of the largest pandemic in a century. Even those who maintain insurance coverage may find care unaffordable. Before the pandemic, research showed that more than half of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance had delayed or postponed recommended treatment for themselves or a family member in the previous year because of cost.¹ The loss of jobs, income, and health insurance associated with the pandemic will greatly exacerbate existing health care cost challenges for all Americans. For instance, in a recent poll, 68% of adults said the out-of-pocket costs they might have to pay would be very or somewhat important to their decision to seek care if they had symptoms of Covid-19.² Failure to receive testing and treatment because of cost harms everyone by prolonging the pandemic, increasing its morbidity and mortality, and exacerbating its economic impact. By Jaime S. King, J.D., Ph.D.

Daily News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!:  Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter  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  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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 the 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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:

Regeneration InternationalQuotes 0f the Day:

The Cuban government will produce 100 million doses of its vaccine, Soberana 02, against the new coronavirus this year in order to respond to its own demand and those of other countries. The 100 million doses planned would be only from Soverana 02 and there are already several countries interested in acquiring it, such as Vietnam, Iran and Venezuela, among others, and with those which the island has collaboration agreements, including Pakistan and India.   In the coming weeks, vaccination will be extended to 150,000 people on the island, on the way to mass immunization, and a test will be carried out in February to protect children with Soverana 02. Despite being a small country, Cuba has a developed scientific center that produces almost all the vaccines it needs and state-of-the-art medicines.  Cuba’s strategy to commercialize the vaccine has a combination of humanity and health impact and the need for our system to support, financially, the production of vaccine and drugs for the country. The antigen is safe since it does not contain the live virus but parts of it, so its placement generates immunity, but it does not cause major reactions and, therefore, it does not require extra refrigeration, like other candidates in the world.    Cuba is going to be one of the first countries in the world to vaccinate all its inhabitants if not the first; during this year we will all be vaccinated. — Rapid Response: Production of the Caccine Soberana 02 in Cuba

Videos of the Day:

Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $15/Hr No Longer Undoes Rising Inequality — Richard Wolff

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay

Biden Is Rejecting Trump’s Border Wall — But Favors His Own Technological Wall President Joe Biden will sign a number of immigration-related executive actions today continuing his reversals of former President Donald Trump’s harsh policies toward undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees as part the new administration’s effort to pursue a more humanitarian approach to immigration and border enforcement. However, at least one of Biden’s proposals suggests that while he rejects Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” approach, he favors a different kind of “wall”: a ramping up of technology-driven surveillance at the border. By Chris Walker

You Can’t Hurt the Gangsters at the Capitalist Casino by Shuffling the Chips Around To Different Bets. You Take Their Chips off the Table. Pumping up GameStop will do nothing to change what people hate about Wall Street. There’s a better way. The spectacle of watching the entire professional investing class and the financial media descend into a panicked frenzy thanks to a bunch of Reddit-fueled waves of stock-pumping has certainly been entertaining. If its goal is to laugh at a particular hedge fund momentarily losing a ton of money for the weirdest imaginable reason, it is a success. As a populist uprising trying to change Wall Street, though, it is a big waste of time. You can’t fix Wall Street by becoming it.  By.Hamilton Nolan

The Real Winners of Pandemic Super Bowl 2021? The Sports Owners Raking in Billions Even in a pandemic, 64 billionaires have seen incredible gains from the major league sports teams they own. We won’t know the winner of this year’s Super Bowl till Sunday, but we already know the big winners in our COVID-ravaged economy include dozens of billionaire sports barons.On the eve of the big game, and after 10-plus months of the pandemic, 64 billionaire owners of major league sports franchises—including the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs’ Hunt family and the NFC champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Glazer family—have enjoyed a $98.5 billion rise in their collective net worth, a 30 percent increase, even as millions of fans have fallen ill, lost jobs, neared eviction, gone hungry and died due to the coronavirus. The 64 billionaires, who together own or co-own 68 professional sports franchises, had a combined wealth of $426 billion on January 29, 2021, up from $325 billion on March 18, 2020, roughly since the start of the pandemic lockdowns, according to “Pandemic Super Bowl 2021: Billionaires Win, We Lose,” a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) analyzing data from Forbes and Wealth-X. [Note: The increase in total billionaire wealth from March to January was $101 billion, but has been adjusted to $98.5 billion because two billionaires only reached that status in January 2021. By Chuck Collins and Omar Ocampo

Environment:

Toxic Tuedays CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm. — Manganese

Manganese is a naturally occurring metal found in the environment. It is present in most foods (especially grains and beans), and our bodies need small amounts of it to function. Manganese is also used in manufacturing, most commonly to improve the strength of steel. Manufacturing use and improper disposal can release manganese into the air, water, and soil. Once in the environment manganese does not break down, so people can be exposed to high levels of manganese by breathing contaminated air, drinking contaminated water, or eating foods grown in contaminated soil.  Exposure to high levels of manganese has devastating effects on the nervous system. This includes movement defects, behavioral changes, psychiatric episodes, and death of brain cells. In the long term, symptoms are similar to those of Parkinson’s Disease. While little is known about how manganese exposure affects children, a 2011 study found that high levels of manganese in drinking water was associated with intellectual impairment in children ages 6-13.  For over a decade the residents of East Liverpool, Ohio have been exposed to dangerous levels of manganese from the SH Bell manufacturing plant. In 2010, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) conducted air sampling and found that manganese levels were 30 times higher than the concentration US EPA deems safe. The facility was required to reduce manganese emissions, but in 2012, US EPA air sampling at a local elementary school still found dangerous levels of manganese, raising questions about damage to children. Despite this evidence, residents were still unprotected – according to the US EPA a 2016 evaluation “found that the exposures in this community represent a public health hazard.”

Camp: It’s Now or Never — We Stare Into the Abyss Despite millions of years of finding ways to survive, these species failed to outlast that most destructive force — unfettered capitalism. The northern white rhinoceros is now functionally extinct. Sudan — the last male of his kind — passed away recently. There are two females remaining but obviously they can produce no more of their species without a male — and mating with nearby giraffes is not something in which they seem interested.Mysterious California Sea Lion Deaths Linked to Toxic Synthetic Chemicals SSea lions in California had been dying of a mysterious cancer for decades. Now, scientists say they have finally uncovered the likely cause: toxic chemicals from industrial trash, pesticides and oil refinery waste. A team of mammal pathologists, virologists, chemists and geneticists have concluded that sea lions with higher concentrations of DDT, PCBs and other chemicals in their blubber are more prone to cancer triggered by a herpes virus. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, are the result of 20 years of research, gleaned from tissue samples collected from 394 sea lions. ea lions in California had been dying of a mysterious cancer for decades. Now, scientists say they have finally uncovered the likely cause: toxic chemicals from industrial trash, pesticides and oil refinery waste.A team of mammal pathologists, virologists, chemists and geneticists have concluded that sea lions with higher concentrations of DDT, PCBs and other chemicals in their blubber are more prone to cancer triggered by a herpes virus. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, are the result of 20 years of research, gleaned from tissue samples collected from 394 sea lions.The War On Ocean Life: Intensive Fishing and the Birth of Capitalism Beginning a series on the role of fishing in the birth and spread of capitalism, and the role of capitalism in today’s mass extinction of ocean life. Fishing is as old as humanity itself.[1] Indeed, it is older — paleontologists have found evidence that our ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus caught lake and river fish in east Africa a million years ago. Large shell deposits show that our Neanderthal cousins in what is now Portugal were eating shellfish over one hundred thousand years ago, as were Homo sapiens in South Africa. Island people have been fishing in the southwestern Pacific for at least thirty-five millennia. For most of our species’ existence, fish were caught to be eaten by the fishers themselves. “They may have traded dried or smoked fish to neighbors, but this trade was not commerce in any modern sense. People donated food to those who needed it, in the certain knowledge that the donors would someday need the same charity.”[2] by Ian AngusCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

A human rights movement, King believed, held revolutionary potential. Speaking at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference staff retreat in May 1967, he told SCLC staff, who were concerned that the Civil Rights Movement had lost its steam and its direction, “It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights.” Political reform efforts were no longer adequate to the task at hand, he said. “For the last 12 years, we have been in a reform movement…. [But] after Selma and the voting rights bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution. We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.” 63.  More than forty years later, civil rights advocacy is stuck in a model of advocacy King was determined to leave behind. Rather than challenging the basic structure of society and doing the hard work of movement building —the work to which King was still committed at the end of his life — we have been tempted too often by the opportunity for people of color to be included within the political and economic structure as-is, even if it means alienating those who are necessary allies. We have allowed ourselves to be willfully blind to the emergence of a new caste system—a system of social excommunication that has denied millions of African Americans basic human dignity. The significance of this cannot be overstated, for the failure to acknowledge the humanity and dignity of all persons has lurked at the root of every racial caste system. This common thread explains why, in the 1780s, the British Society for the Abolition of Slavery adopted as its official seal a woodcut of a kneeling slave above a banner that read, “AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?” That symbol was followed more than a hundred years later by signs worn around the necks of black sanitation workers during the Poor People’s Campaign answering the slave’s question with the simple statement, I AM A MAN.— Chapter 5, The New Jim Crow: Obama—the Promise and the Peril By Michelle Alexander

Labor:

New Bill Aims to Scrap ‘Ludicrous’ Mandate Forcing Postal Service to Prefund Retiree Benefits Decades in Advance “The unreasonable prefunding mandate has threatened the survival of the USPS and placed at risk vital services for the millions who rely on it.” A bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would scrap an onerous 2006 mandate requiring the U.S. Postal Service to prefund retiree benefits decades in advance, an obligation that’s been blamed for the beloved mail agency’s financial woes—which Republicans have readily used to justify recent attacks on the institution. By Jake Johnson

Economy:

The Mainstream: Meeting the Historic Challenges? Recently, newly confirmed US Treasury secretary and former Fed chief, Janet Yellen, spelt out the challenges facing US capitalism in a letter to her new staff. She said: “the current crisis is very different from 2008. But the scale is as big, if not bigger. The pandemic has wrought wholesale devastation on the economy. Entire industries have paused their work. Sixteen million Americans are still relying on unemployment insurance. Food bank shelves are going empty.” That’s now; but ahead, Yellen says that there were “four historic crises: COVID-19 is one. But in addition to the pandemic, the country is also facing a climate crisis, a crisis of systemic racism, and an economic crisis that has been building for fifty years. “ She did not spell out what this 50-year crisis was. But she was confident that mainstream economics can find the solutions to these crises. “Economics isn’t just something you find in textbook. Nor is it simply a collection of theories. Indeed, the reason I went from academia to government is because I believe economic policy can be a potent tool to improve society. We can – and should – use it to address inequality, racism, and climate change. I still try to see my science – the science of economics – the way my father saw his: as a means to help people.” These are fine words. But is mainstream economics really designed to ‘help people’ improve their lives and livelihoods? Indeed, is mainstream economics really offering a scientific analysis of modern economies that can lead to policies that can solve the ‘four historic challenges’ that Yellen outlines? By Michael RobertsSevere Dysfunction in Washington and Wall Street Put the U.S. at Risk of Capital Flight There is recent evidence that the U.S. is already seeing capital flight. According to a January 24 report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, China beat out the U.S. in foreign direct investment inflows last year, receiving $163 billion versus $134 billion for the U.S. That was a radical change from 2019 when the U.S. received $251 billion in foreign direct investment versus $140 billion for China. Capital flight could accelerate this year if the craziness in Congress and Wall Street continues. Just ask yourself this, would you want to invest in a country that had scenes of a bloody attempted coup of the government featured on the front pages of newspapers around the world? Would you want to risk your savings in a stock market that has ceased to perform its two key functions: a pricing mechanism for the value of companies and efficient allocation of capital to worthy businesses and industries. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Viral Inequality and the Farmers’ Struggle in India  According to a new report by Oxfam, ‘The Inequality Virus’, the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn (trillion) between 18 March and 31 December 2020. Their total wealth now stands at $11.95tn. The world’s 10 richest billionaires have collectively seen their wealth increase by $540bn over this period. In September 2020, Jeff Bezos could have paid all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus and still be as wealthy as he was before COVID. By Colin Todhunter

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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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 

Covid-19: WHO Warns Against “Vaccine Nationalism” Or Face Further Virus Mutations World Health Organization officials have voiced concerns at “vaccine nationalism” which could increase the risk of the coronavirus mutating further, after a week long row over a shortfall in EU supplies of covid-19 vaccines. Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to WHO’s director general, said, “Anything that restricts the ability to get these products out will affect our ability to control this disease and prevent variants emerging. The world is going to have to collaborate to get out of this,” he said. Vaccines alone were not the solution, however, said WHO technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove. Test and trace measures, social distancing, mask wearing, and personal protective equipment will still be essential to control the virus, she said.