Daily News Digest September 30, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

The US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply:  The Iron Heel!

Extreme Fires and Floods — We Are at the Global Waming ‘Tipping Point’ If It’s Not Here, Its Near!

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

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

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 very future of Humanity Is Now At stake! By Roland SheppardLaura 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!

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:

Bendib: Taxes Are for SuckersQuotes 0f the Day:

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns but there are few more reliable ways to predict what comes next than to examine the historical record because, most of the time, history really does repeat. What kind of president would Joe Biden be? His centrist supporters assure progressives that he will be one of them, pushing an aggressive legislative agenda reminiscent of FDR’s New Deal. His Republican opponents portray him as a socialist. But Biden hasn’t actually promised anything ambitious.  The last two Democratic presidencies provide a good indication of what a Biden Administration would look like. Like Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama hail from the centrist party establishment. If personnel is policy, the three men hang out with many of the same advisors, businesspeople and elected officials. They’re not identical: Clinton is a charismatic retail politician, Obama is aloof and professorial, and Biden is an LBJ-style buttonholer minus Johnson’s secret idealism. But they’re ideologically and temperamentally similar to a remarkable extent. — Joe Biden Will Be a Republican President

Videos Of the Day:

The Escalation of Policing: Slave Patrols, Privatization, and Predator Drones 

Disaster Capitalism: Coronavirus Capitalism — And How To Beat It

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!

Discredited Russian Bounty Story Exposes Media’s Role in Status Quo The military says they can’t find evidence to support it, yet the New York Times and others have not repudiated the reports or issued corrections. It is an old journalistic trope: no one reads the correction … or the retraction. No matter how serious the error or profound the implications of the misreporting. Like, let’s say the entire range of mainstream media took the word of unnamed intelligence sources as gospel and reported that the only other nuclear superpower – which supposedly rigged our last election, and runs our current president as an “asset” – had been offering Afghan militants bounties for the scalps of dead American soldiers. Then, for the sake of argument, imagine that just two months later, the top U.S. commander for the Greater Mid-East announced that his sizable intelligence staff hadn’t found a single shred of proof “that satisfies [him].” And that the general’s comments reflected a consensus view among military leaders. One might expect an immediate, and front-page corrective-retraction, right? Wrong. By Maj. (ret.) Danny Sjursen

Assange on Trial: Solitary Confinement and Parlous Health CareThroughout the sham process formally known as the Julian Assange extradition trial, prosecutors representing the United States have been adamant: the carceral conditions awaiting him in freedom’s land will be pleasant, accommodating and appropriate.  Confronting 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Assange and his defence team have been resolutely sceptical. By Binoy Kampmark

Trump’s Public Lands Chief Axed After Court Rules He Was Serving Unlawfully William Perry Pendley not confirmed by Senate to role as acting Bureau of Land Management director, as required by constitution A federal judge has ruled that a controversial Trump official who has overseen a vast weakening of public lands protections cannot continue in his position since he has not been approved by the Senate. Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that as a result, courts could potentially strike down every major BLM action in roughly the last three years. “They’ve never had a valid person running that agency,” said Hartl. “Even before Pendley there was just a never-ending list of rotating acting people, and that’s not what you’re

Trump Needs To Win The Election To Keep His ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ Card Trump’s tax returns highlight just how much he needs to stay in office to avoid possible prosecution and mountains of debt. The New York Times’ detailing of two decades of President Donald Trump’s federal tax returns Sunday didn’t just expose how little Trump has paid in taxes. It also further exposed Trump’s personal stakes in November’s election, making it even clearer that the president sees a second term as a way to avoid potential prosecution and the burden of the mountainous debts he has amassed. By Travis Waldron  and Paul Blumenthal

Environment:

‘Very Bad News’: Scientists Behind New Study Warn Warming Oceans ‘Contributing to Climate Breakdown’ New findings on human-caused global heating and ocean stability have “profound and troubling implications,” says co-author Michael Mann. In a rare calm moment during a historically active Atlantic hurricane season, an international team of climate scientists on Monday published a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change showing that human-caused global heating is making the world’s oceans more “stable”—which, as co-author Michael Mann explained, is “very bad news.” Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, detailed researchers’ findings about ocean stratification in a piece for Newsweek. Using “more comprehensive data and a more sophisticated method for estimating stratification changes” than past studies, the scientists found that “oceans are not only becoming more stable, but are doing so faster than was previously though.”  By Jessica Corbett‘Everything’s For Sale’: The Shocking Film on the Privatization ff American Public Lands Towards the middle of the new film Public Trust, about the continued push by zealous conservatives to privatize ownership of the United States’ federally-managed public lands, the stakes are laid bare: “If you don’t get engaged, you lose,” says Land Tawney, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “When you get complacent, things are done to you.” By Ryan Krogh Civil Rights/Black Liberation!

Albuquerque Police Surveillance Linked to Companies Who Work with Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, CIA, Documents Show The Albuquerque Police Department (APD), with the help of private companies, built a large and sophisticated intelligence gathering operation. One company is slowly building a database of every license plate in the United States. Another has clients that include neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites, and more than a half dozen groups listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State. A third sells its surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes that use it as part of investigations that include torture. A fourth is partly owned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). And a fifth, as we previously reported, is linked to a company investigated by the New Mexico Attorney General for hosting child pornography on its servers. By David Correia, Matteo Macdermant, And Ernesto Longa

Black Agenda Radio for Week of September 28, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

The People Will Establish a Green New Deal With corporate Democrats no more receptive than Republicans to Green New Deal legislation, it will be up to “the movement” to combat the climate crisis, said Yolian Ogbu, and activist with This Is Zero Hour. “The Green New Deal is the bare minimum in addressing climate justice,” said Ogbu. “We’re building this movement outside the walls of Congress, because that’s where real change will be made.”

US Dominates Africa through AFRICOM The US doesn’t hide its desire to rule the planet through a military policy of “full spectrum dominance” of all the regions of the world. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) last weekend held a webinar on countering the US imperialist hold on Africa. Political scientist Aziz Fallsaid it will be difficult to dislodge AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, because most of the continent’s governments “are subordinate to imperialism.”

This Movement Has “Reach and Longevity” Calls for defunding and abolition of the police are no longer fringe demands due to the “remarkable” growth of the mass movement, said Asha Noor, a racial justice and human rights activist with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. ”We are seeing a really big shift towards transformation that’s rooted in the Black Radical Tradition,” said Noor. “I don’t think anybody expected the longevity or the reach of the movement.”

Labor:

Economy:

Now that Indictments Have Outed Gold Manipulations at JPMorgan, UBS Says “Buy Gold”  On December 6 of last year, Bloomberg News reported that Goldman Sachs and the Justice Department were in discussions to settle criminal charges related to the 1MDB Malaysia sovereign wealth fund bribery and kickback scheme for possibly $1.5 to $2 billion. Bloomberg reporters wrote that “a settlement could be announced as soon as next month.” It’s 10 months later and there has been no such settlement with the Justice Department. So you might want to factor that into your reading of the latest reporting at Bloomberg News predicting an imminent settlement between the Justice Department and JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s role in rigging precious metals markets. (Although JPMorgan might, indeed, be eager to settle the case with this Justice Department rather than gamble on a new Justice Department under a different president.) By Pam Martens and Russ Marten

World:

Iran: Islamic Republic Backed Into a Corner by Strikes A wave of protests is sweeping Iran. There were 331 strikes and demonstrations reported in August involving all sectors: from the oil-and-gas sector, to students in the municipalities, farmers and more. In the oil-and-gas sector, the workers spontaneously coordinated a strike with common demands, which at its height at the beginning of September involved 25,000 across the whole country. By Esaias Yavari

Armenia and Azerbaijan: On the Brink of War Again? The clashes in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan could turn into a full-scale conflict involving other regional powers. With economic, health, and ecological crises rising worldwide, geopolitical conflicts and capitalist aggression will also increase. On Sunday, violent clashes took place between the Azeri army and the armed forces of the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Armenia. At least 23 people died and over 100 were wounded, including civilians. Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said that in response to Azeri aggression, the Armenian army destroyed two helicopters, three tanks, and several drones. The Azeri government claims to have dismantled 12 Armenian antiaircraft batteries and taken control of several villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and the region controlled by the Armenian armed forces. By Philippe Alcoy

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 they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare

White House Pressured CDC to Produce Data Backing Trump’s Push to Reopen Schools One former White House aide said the administration was “exchanging votes for lives” in pressuring the CDC. Officials within the Trump administration sought to pressure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to downplay the risks associated with coronavirus in children in order to bolster the narrative that it was safe for schools to resume in-person instruction across the United States, according to The New York Times.  By Chris Walker

Jet Suit Paramedic Takes Lake District Test Flight Inventor Richard Browning puts potentially life-saving suit through its paces in ‘groundbreaking exercise’ Defying gravity as they hover over water before zipping across mountainous landscapes and landing with pinpoint accuracy, the jet suit paramedic could soon form part of what could become an extraordinary new service being trialled in the Lake District. If given the green light by ambulance service chiefs, the paramedic powered by lightweight jet-packs would flit across treacherous terrain within minutes to reach stranded causalities. In an awe-inspiring test flight, the inventor Richard Browning, looking distinctly like Marvel’s Iron Man, put the suit through its paces on Langdale Pike. By Nazia Parveen

Climate Scientists Feel Your Pain, Dr. Fauci Those of us on the front lines of the climate wars know how it feels. For decades, we’ve been under assault by politicians and fossil fuel attack dogs because of the inconvenient nature of our science—science that demonstrates the reality of climate change. I have received death threats, and endured a multitude of attacks from conservative media outlets, Republican congressmen and attorneys general, all because of the “Hockey Stick” graph my co-authors and I published more than two decades ago. The Hockey Stick demonstrated the devastating effect burning fossil fuels has on our planet—and therefore threatened those profiting off them. So they sought to discredit my science and me personally, while orchestrating a campaign of vilification against climate scientists like me. By Michael E. Mann