Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!
Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%, Only the 1% Voted For Austerity! The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!!
Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.! Socialism Means True Democracy , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Quotes of the Day:
Extradition hearings are not held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. They are always held at Westminster Magistrates Court as the application is deemed to be delivered to the government at Westminster. Now get your head around this. This hearing is at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is being held by the Westminster magistrates and Westminster court staff, but located at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. All of which weird convolution is precisely so they can use the “counter-terrorist court” to limit public access and to impose the fear of the power of the state. One consequence is that, in the courtroom itself, Julian Assange is confined at the back of the court behind a bulletproof glass screen. He made the point several times during proceedings that this makes it very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings. The magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser, chose to interpret this with studied dishonesty as a problem caused by the very faint noise of demonstrators outside, as opposed to a problem caused by Assange being locked away from the court in a massive bulletproof glass box. Now there is no reason at all for Assange to be in that box, designed to restrain extremely physically violent terrorists. He could sit, as a defendant at a hearing normally would, in the body of the court with his lawyers. But the cowardly and vicious Baraitser has refused repeated and persistent requests from the defence for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers. Baraitser of course is but a puppet, being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, a woman so enmeshed in the defence and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt. It does not matter to Baraitser or Arbuthnot if there is any genuine need for Assange to be incarcerated in a bulletproof box, or whether it stops him from following proceedings in court. Baraitser’s intention is to humiliate Assange, and to instill in the rest of us horror at the vast crushing power of the state. The inexorable strength of the sentencing wing of the nightmarish Belmarsh Prison must be maintained. If you are here, you are guilty. — Your Man in the Public Gallery – Assange Hearing Day #1
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.
I.C.E. = Trump’s Rapers & Torturers: Doctors Have a Name for Separating Kids from Their Parents at the Border: It’s Torture. A 39-year-old Honduran mother had her 9-year-old child taken from her when she fled to the U.S. to seek asylum. It was three weeks before she was even able to speak to him, and though they were reunited two months later, she experienced depression and post-traumatic stress. She sometimes wondered whether she’d be better off dead. Physicians for Human Rights has a name for what she endured. They say it’s torture. By Emma OckermanThe 1%’s Democratic Party Debate: ‘Audience Full of Rich People’? $1,750+ Ticket Prices for Democratic Debate Spark Disgust “I think it speaks to the fundamental, endemic corruption of the Democratic Party establishment that you had to pay… multiple thousands of dollars to get into that room.” By Jake Johnson
The Military Idustrrrial Complex Profiteers Must Keep Profits UP: Trump Extends Travel Ban To 6 Countries — But is OK With Selling Arms to Those Same Places If these places are so threatening, the U.S. shouldn’t continue to give their governments the very weapons that can make them even more unsafe. The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially the level of terrorism, raised the risk of allowing their citizens into the U.S. to an unacceptable level. The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially the level of terrorism, raised the risk of allowing their citizens into the U.S. to an unacceptable level.
With Wikileaks, Julian Assange Did What All Journalists Should Do I was in Kabul in 2010 when Julian Assange and WikiLeaks first released a vast archive of classified US government documents, revealing what Washington really knew about what was happening in the world. I was particularly interested in one of these disclosures which came in the shape of a video that the Pentagon had refused to release despite a Freedom of Information Act request. When WikiLeaks did release the video, it was obvious why the US generals had wanted to keep it secret. Three years earlier, I had been in Baghdad when a US helicopter machine-gunned and fired rockets at a group of civilians on the ground, who its pilots claimed were armed insurgents, killing or wounding many of them. Journalists in Iraq were disbelieving about the US military claim because the dead included two reporters from the Reuters news agency. Nor was it likely that insurgents would have been walking in the open with their weapons when a US Apache helicopter was overhead. by Patrick CockburnAssange’s Extradition Hearing Reveals Trump’s War on Free Press Is Targeting WikiLeaks Publisher On Monday, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s one-week extradition hearing began at Woolwich Crown Court in SouthEast London. The judge heard the opening arguments for the prosecution and defense. The prosecution began, accusing the journalist who exposed the US government’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan of espionage charges that would carry 175 years in jail. The US-based investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola, who was at the media annex during the proceeding, reported that U.S. Government barrister, James Lewis QC, said that prosecutors “are not criminalizing the publication of classified materials but rather the publication of names of informants or dissidents who help the US and allies in military operations.” By Nozomi Hayase
Environment:
‘It Was Everywhere’: How Lead is Poisoning America’s Poorest Children The toxin has endangered hundreds of thousands of kids. But parents in the hardest-hit neighborhoods may never be warned of the threat Shanaya Ball did everything right during her pregnancy: she attended check-ups, ate well, and kitted out the nursery for her son Amari, who was born in March 2017. But by his first birthday, Amari had failed to meet almost every developmental milestone, and was unable to play, communicate or move like other infants. By Nina Lakhani Former UN Climate Chief Calls For Civil Disobedience In her book , the woman who led the negotiations for the Paris Agreement calls for civil disobedience to force institutions to respond to the climate crisis. “It’s time to participate in non-violent political movements wherever possible,” Christiana Figueres writes in “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis,” which will be released tomorrow by Knopf.Figueres served as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010-16. She co-authored the book with her strategic advisor, Tom Rivett-Carnac. By Jeff McMahon
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
And I finally said to him that it’s a nice thing to say to people that you ought to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And the fact is that millions of Negroes, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. And they find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs. Now one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation. The Other America Speech Stanford University. April 14, 1967
Labor:
Economy:
Fed’s Stress Tests on Banks Should Have Factored in a Pandemic Each year the Federal Reserve comes up with a hypothetical, severely adverse economic scenario against which it evaluates the ability of Wall Street’s mega banks to weather the storm. Called “stress tests,” this year’s severely adverse scenario features a severe global recession, unemployment of 10 percent, elevated stress in corporate debt markets and commercial real estate, along with a bank’s major counterparty defaulting if it has significant derivatives trading exposures. The stress test results are typically disclosed in June by the Fed with an immediate announcement by the banks (that get the green light from the Fed) about how many billions of dollars they plan to spend on stock buybacks and dividend increases to artificially boost their share prices. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Britain: Keir Starmer – The Establishment’s Knight In Shining Armour The ballot has opened for the Labour leadership contest. Keir Starmer is currently the favourite, based on an opportunistic campaign with hollow promises of ‘unity’ and ‘electability’. Members must not be fooled by this right-wing Trojan Horse.
Britain: Interview With Labour Deputy Candidate Richard Burgon – For Open Selection And A Socialist Clause IV! Richard Burgon, left-wing Labour MP for Leeds East, is standing to be deputy leader of the party. With the contest in full-swing, Burgon has already secured his place on the ballot, thanks to the support of dozens of CLPs, alongside the backing of unions such as Unite, the Fire Brigades Union, and the Bakers’ and Food Workers’ Union (BFAWU). We publish a recent interview with Burgon that appeared in the British Marxist newspaper, Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal is supporting Richard, due to his calls for open selection and party democracy; his opposition to establishment smears and attacks; and his demand for a new Clause IV (model motion below), enshrining a commitment to public ownership back into the heart of the Labour Party.
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare!
US Underprepared For Coronavirus Due to Trump Cuts, Say Health — Steps put in place after Ebola outbreak have been scrapped — Post of global health czar eliminated and CDC funding cut — What is coronavirus and how worried should we be? — US preparedness to deal with the threat of coronavirus has been hampered by the personnel and budget cuts made by the Trump administration over the past three years, according to health experts. There is no one in the White House tasked specifically to oversee a coordinated government-wide response in the event of a pandemic, since the post of senior director for global health security and biothreats on the national security council (NSC) was eliminated last May. By Julian Borger
Why is the United States Occupying Afghanisitan? To Plunder Afghanistan’s Vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas! The Pentagon’s Map of Afghanistan: An Eldorado of Mineral Wealth and Natural Resources
The 1%’s Democratic Party Debate: ‘Audience Full of Rich People’? $1,750+ Ticket Prices for Democratic Debate Spark Disgust “I think it speaks to the fundamental, endemic corruption of the Democratic Party establishment that you had to pay… multiple thousands of dollars to get into that room.” By Jake Johnson
Assange’s Extradition Hearing Reveals Trump’s War on Free Press Is Targeting WikiLeaks Publisher On Monday, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s one-week extradition hearing began at Woolwich Crown Court in SouthEast London. The judge heard the opening arguments for the prosecution and defense. The prosecution began, accusing the journalist who exposed the US government’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan of espionage charges that would carry 175 years in jail. The US-based investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola, who was at the media annex during the proceeding, reported that U.S. Government barrister, James Lewis QC, said that prosecutors “are not criminalizing the publication of classified materials but rather the publication of names of informants or dissidents who help the US and allies in military operations.” By Nozomi Hayase
Former UN Climate Chief Calls For Civil Disobedience In her book , the woman who led the negotiations for the Paris Agreement calls for civil disobedience to force institutions to respond to the climate crisis. “It’s time to participate in non-violent political movements wherever possible,” Christiana Figueres writes in “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis,” which will be released tomorrow by Knopf.Figueres served as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010-16. She co-authored the book with her strategic advisor, Tom Rivett-Carnac. By Jeff McMahon
