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.
The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. — Hubert Humphrey
You cannot be a moral person and support Israeli apartheid and colonialism — I’m sorry. We salute the Jewish survivors who strip away the phony moral justification for opposing BDS against Israel. —Ajamu Baraka
Let’s be clear: The Trump admin sent a drone into what Iran says was its sovereign airspace. The US knew Iran would shoot it down in self-defense—but the US gov also knew the corporate media would obediently portray this as Iranian “escalation,” helping justify Trump’s aggression. — Ben Norton
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.— The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace!
The Bi-Partisn Government Child Snachers:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Condemns Pelosi’s Move To Pass Senate Border Funding Bill Without Changes: ‘Hell No’ Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Thursday for deciding that the House should approve a Senate-passed border funding bill without first trying to make changes. “Under no circumstances should the House vote for a McConnell-only bill w/ no negotiation with Democrats. Hell no,” the 29-year-old congresswoman tweeted about the Senate version of the bill, which will provide $4.6 billion in funding for operations at the southern border but without aspects many House Democrats had hoped to include. “That’s an abdication of power we should refuse to accept. They will keep hurting kids if we do.” In an earlier tweet, Ocasio-Cortez noted that the bill was not negotiated with the House despite Democrats offering “crucial amendments to protect children and families.” “None are even being considered,” she added.
Trigger Happy Joint Chiefs of Staff Thin They can Win a Nuclears War: Don’t Leave Nukes on the Shelf. Use Them! On June 20, the London Guardian ran a curious headline: “Nuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon ‘War-Fighting Doctrine.” Last week, a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefly available to the public on the Pentagon’s website. Titled “Nuclear Operations,” the report describes nuclear war in such upbeat terms that you will almost look forward to it. By Charles PiersonSyrian Refugee Terror Plot or Latest in Pattern of FBI-Manufactured Terrorism Cases? On the surface, the story of 21-year-old Syrian refugee and Pittsburgh resident Mustafa Mousab Alowemer has the elements to strike fear in many Americans and give ammunition to the Trump administration for its war on immigrants and refugees, especially those who would dare to flee violence in countries like Syria. By Kris HermesJockpocalypse: From the Ballpark to Team TrumpA half-century ago, the sporting Cassandras predicted that the worst values and sensibilities of our increasingly corrupted civic society would eventually affect our sacred games: football would become a gladiatorial meat market, basketball a model of racism, college sports a paradigm of commercialization, and Olympic sports like swimming and gymnastics a hotbed of sexual predators. Mission accomplished! By Robert Lipsyte
Our ‘Crotch Grabbing President’: After Demanding ‘Human Decency, Plain and Simple,’ Highlights Magazine Commended for Powerful Rebuke of Trump’s Abuse of Children “When a 72-year-old, apolitical children’s magazine feels the need to speak out you know we are lost as a country.” The popular children’s magazine Highlights is receiving praise on Wednesday after issuing powerful condemnation of the Trump administration’s family separation policy at the border, with its CEO saying the U.S. government’s current behavior is an affront to both “moral courage” and the publication’s core belief that “children are the world’s most important people.” By Julia Conley
‘It is a Stain on Our Country’: Warren Joins Protest Outside Child Detention Facility in Florida“There are a lot of different ways that we get in the fight. And one of them is that you show up.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, joined a protest in front of a migrant detention center Wednesday morning—hours before she was expected to join nine other members of her party for the first primary debate. “There are a lot of different ways that we get in the fight,” Warren said to supporters on social media. “And one of them is that you show up.” By Eoin Higgins
The U.S.-Iran Imbroglio: Dangerous Lessons To Be Learned The bizarre decisions and events over a 48-hour period between the United States and Iran outlined the dangerous times that we are confronting and point to Donald Trump as the most dangerous aspect of all. Iran is a problem for U.S. interests, but not a genuine threat. The same cannot be said for Trump whose instability and unpredictability threaten not only the United States but the entire global community. The fact that his key advisers—National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—are bellicose and even irrational worsens the situation. The absence of a genuine national security process and the decline of U.S. diplomacy contributes to a situation that finds the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, without adult or even civilian supervision, playing an outsized role. By Melvin Goodman
Instigators of a Persian Gulf Crisis Recent weeks have seen tensions between the United States and Iran soar, initially after a May 2019 incident in which four commercial vessels were struck in the Gulf of Oman (two Saudi oil tankers, one Norwegian and an Emirati ship), ebb thereafter and escalate yet again when a similar attack took place a month later on the Japanese Kokuka Courageous and Norwegian Front Altair tankers, also in the Gulf of Oman. By Rannie Amiri
Fool Me Twice Yogi Berra experienced “deja vu, all over again”. Marx revised Hegel, saying history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. Bush the Lesser, riffing on who to blame for being fooled, got lost in his trope. Now unctuous, obtuse Pompeo is selling war on Iran, bringing all three to mind. You’d heard the one about the Gulf of Tonkin LBJ pitched? And the one about Iraqi WMD Step’nfetchit Powell sold, ominously shaking a vial of foot powder? And Obama’s somber rap about “Assad gassing his own people”? The question now is whether the American Public will do Charlie Brown to Lucy’s football trick again? By Paul EdwardsCivil Rights/Black Liberation:
Environmental Racism — Where They Built the Freeways: People Of Color Live With 66% More Air Pollution, US Study Finds African Americans in the north-east and mid-Atlantic are exposed to 61% more pollution particles from burning gasoline People of color live with 66% more air pollution, US study finds African Americans in the north-east and mid-Atlantic are exposed to 61% more pollution particles from burning gasoline. By Emily HoldenLabor:
With New ‘Imposed Contract,’ Trump’s EPA Tries to Neuter Worker Rights Agency announces new collective bargaining agreement—which was not agreed upon The Trump administration continued its attacks on federal workers this week with a new “agreement” that would kneecap the power of unions representing EPA employees. The development, as watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility PEER) noted Wednesday, is a new “Master Collective Bargaining Agreement” between the federal agency and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). Far from an agreement, said PEER, the document is really an “edict.” It was not the result of negotiations. “In the Trump world, there is no bargaining, only ultimatums,” said PEER executive director Tim Whitehouse, a former EPA enforcement attorney. By Andrea Germanos
At #WayfairWalkout Actions, Workers Denounce Company Profiting From Child Detention “The safety and well-being of immigrant children is always worth fighting for.”Protesters filled Boston’s Copley Square Wednesday afternoon as part of the “Wayfair Walkout,” where the company’s employees staged a work stoppage to protest the retailer profiting from President Donald Trump’s child detention policies. Hundreds of Wayfair workers and supporters took part in the Wednesday action both in Boston and in Brunswick, Maine. The Boston Globereported that management “indicated there will be no retaliation for employees who participate in the walkout.” By Eoin Higgins
Economy:
Terrorists? Titans Of Wall Street?Wall Street Banks, In Drag as Trade Associations, Fight Indictments for Manipulating Precious Metals MarketsOn July 18 of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two Merrill Lynch precious metals traders, Edward Bases and John Pacilio, charging them each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and one count of commodities fraud each. Pacilio was further charged with five counts of spoofing. (Spoofing is where a trader uses a high-speed computer to issue a rapid barrage of buy or sell orders, with no intention of executing the trades, in order to mislead the market and gain an advantage for his own position in the market.) On Tuesday of this week, a unit of Merrill Lynch was given a deferred prosecution agreement in the same matter by the Justice Department in exchange for an agreement to cooperate. Merrill also agreed to pay a measly $25 million in fines and disgorgement. (The amount of the fine and disgorgement is like a fly on the backside of an elephant. The parent of Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, had profits of $7.3 billion in just the first quarter of this year.) Merrill’s promise to “cooperate” is also looking quite specious. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
The Wolves Have Turned on Each Other on Wall Street Some decades back, the late MIT economist Lester Thurow wrote this: “Essentially, the economic problem is like that of the wolf and the caribou. If the wolves eat all the caribou, the wolves also vanish.” What Thurow did not take into consideration is that if the wolf pack is large enough, it can survive for quite a while by turning on other wolf packs. That’s what is happening right now on Wall Street. The wolves are at war with each other. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission and are slinging mud in court at a former, long-tenured JPMorgan Chase executive, Brett Redfearn, who now polices them at the SEC. We’ll get to all that in a moment, but first some background. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:
Venezuela Reveals Video, Audio Evidence Linked to April 30 CoupVenezuelan Minister of Communication, Tourism and Culture Jorge Rodríguez revealed Wednesday videos and evidence providing more details about the April 30 failed attempted coup, including division within the opposition forces that was a factor in the plan’s failure, while also the involvement of several foreign governments in the financing of the coup and its operatives. “What Guaido doesn’t know, is that we had people in all the meetings where they planned hits on members of the government; we have all the recordings, videos and information necessary to face down a coup,” Rodriguez told reporters.Holocaust survivors condemn ‘massacre’ of Palestinians, call for BDS against Israel A group of Holocaust survivors and descendants of those targeted by Nazi Germany have harshly criticized Israeli actions in Gaza and called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Following a letter from survivors of the Holocaust printed in the New York Times on Saturday, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which helped coordinate the letter, organized a press call Monday, where some of those who signed the letter spoke out against the assault on Gaza. By Alex Kane
When the puppet talks back to the puppeteer, the pepeteer is in trouble:Iraqi President: US Has No Right to Use Iraq as ‘Staging Post’ for Attack on Iran “There is no military solution to this problem.” Iraqi President Barham Salih said Tuesday that the United States has no right to use his country as a launchpad for a strike against Iran. Salih, in his interview with CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour, also talked about the adverse impacts his own country has felt as a result of U.S. imposed sanctions, stressed the need to prevent another war, and warned that tearing up the nuclear deal entirely “could be disastrous for the entire neighborhood as a whole.” By Andrea Germanos
Health, Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
Spain’s Revolution Against Franco: the Great Betrayal Under the most difficult and dangerous conditions, Spanish workers launched a strike movement that is unparalleled in history. Nothing remotely resembling it can be seen in Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy. Beginning with the heroic movement of the Asturian coalminers 1962, there was wave after wave of strikes, general strikes, demonstrations and protests. This was a genuine revolution, which could and should have gone far further than it did. The Spanish workers and youth did everything in their power to bring about a revolutionary transformation of society. If they did not finally succeed, that was no fault of theirs. The Spanish revolution of the 1970s was shamefully betrayed by the leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties, who entered into an agreement with former fascists like Adolfo Suarez in order halt the revolutionary movement in its tracks. The result of this betrayal was the so-called democratic transition, which was merely a fig leaf to conceal the continuation of the old regime under the guise of a “parliamentary monarchy”. By Alan Woods
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
Quotes of the Day:
Syrian Refugee Terror Plot or Latest in Pattern of FBI-Manufactured Terrorism Cases? On the surface, the story of 21-year-old Syrian refugee and Pittsburgh resident Mustafa Mousab Alowemer has the elements to strike fear in many Americans and give ammunition to the Trump administration for its war on immigrants and refugees, especially those who would dare to flee violence in countries like Syria. By Kris Hermes
Jockpocalypse: From the Ballpark to Team TrumpA half-century ago, the sporting Cassandras predicted that the worst values and sensibilities of our increasingly corrupted civic society would eventually affect our sacred games: football would become a gladiatorial meat market, basketball a model of racism, college sports a paradigm of commercialization, and Olympic sports like swimming and gymnastics a hotbed of sexual predators. Mission accomplished! By Robert Lipsyte
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Wall Street Banks, In Drag as Trade Associations, Fight Indictments for Manipulating Precious Metals MarketsOn July 18 of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two Merrill Lynch precious metals traders, Edward Bases and John Pacilio, charging them each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and one count of commodities fraud each. Pacilio was further charged with five counts of spoofing. (Spoofing is where a trader uses a high-speed computer to issue a rapid barrage of buy or sell orders, with no intention of executing the trades, in order to mislead the market and gain an advantage for his own position in the market.) On Tuesday of this week, a unit of Merrill Lynch was given a deferred prosecution agreement in the same matter by the Justice Department in exchange for an agreement to cooperate. Merrill also agreed to pay a measly $25 million in fines and disgorgement. (The amount of the fine and disgorgement is like a fly on the backside of an elephant. The parent of Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, had profits of $7.3 billion in just the first quarter of this year.) Merrill’s promise to “cooperate” is also looking quite specious. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Holocaust survivors condemn ‘massacre’ of Palestinians, call for BDS against Israel A group of Holocaust survivors and descendants of those targeted by Nazi Germany have harshly criticized Israeli actions in Gaza and called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Following a letter from survivors of the Holocaust printed in the New York Times on Saturday, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which helped coordinate the letter, organized a press call Monday, where some of those who signed the letter spoke out against the assault on Gaza. By Alex Kane