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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:
Conclusions: Early transmission control is crucial to mitigate the risks of fast spreading of SARS-CoV-2. Certainly among healthcare workers who have an increased risk of high viral load exposure and a higher risk of infecting other patients at work. Considering that the viral loads in the upper respiratory tract are highest in the day prior but also the initial days of symptom onset, a more rapid clinical diagnosis could prevent further transmission of the virus by isolating the victim in an early stage of infection. Prior to the identification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA by rRT-PCR testing, the clinical assessment contributes to speed up the diagnostic process of COVID-19. Based on the type and combination of symptoms, an infection with SARS-CoV-2 can be predicted more accurately and allow for a rapid diagnostic appraisal of the disease in a high prevalence setting. The presence of cough, myalgia, loss of smell/taste in combination with fever more than 37.5 °C has a high positive predictive value for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further research is needed to support this type of early healthcare worker appraisal based on the prevalence of clinical manifestations and in a more automated preventative strategy, including future self-assessment and monitoring tools.— Diagnosis of COVID-19 Based on Symptomatic Analysis of Hospital Healthcare Workers in Belgium
Videos of the Day:
United States:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay
There is nothing colder thana landlord’s heart!: ‘Subsidizing the Spread of Covid’: Report Shows Corporate Landlords Received Public Funding Yet Still Kicked Out Tenants “Giving ‘Covid relief’ to those most likely to evict is like giving money to stop climate change to oil barons—it makes the problem worse.” Nearly 200 corporate landlords received $320 million in federal pandemic-related assistance only to turn around and file more than 5,380 evictions between mid-March and mid-October of last year, recklessly displacing thousands of impoverished Americans in the midst of a public health and economic emergency. By Kenny Stancil
The DeFazio Bill: Reducing the Financial Industry’s Tax on Retirement Savings Representative Peter DeFazio, along with seven House co-sponsors, introduced the “Wall Street Tax Act” today. This bill would impose a tax of 0.1 percent of sales of stocks, bonds, options, and other derivatives. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would raise almost $800 billion over the course of the next decade. This would be more than enough to cover the entire food stamp budget over this period. It would be almost enough to fully replace the annual research spending of the pharmaceutical industry, which would mean that all new drugs could be sold as cheap generics from the day they approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In short, this is real money. By Dean Baker
Don’t Let President Biden ‘Make Us the Dupes of Our Hopes’ More than being a time of hope—or fatalism—the inauguration of President Joe Biden should be a time of skeptical realism and determination. At inauguration time, journalist I. F. Stone wrote, incoming presidents “make us the dupes of our hopes.” That insight is worth pondering as Joe Biden ascends to the presidency. After four years of the real-life Trump nightmare, hope is overdue—but it’s hazardous. Stone astutely warned against taking heart from the lofty words that President Richard Nixon had just deployed in his inaugural address on January 20, 1969. With the Vietnam War raging, Stone pointed out: “It’s easier to make war when you talk peace.” At inauguration time, journalist I. F. Stone wrote, incoming presidents “make us the dupes of our hopes.” That insight is worth pondering as Joe Biden ascends to the presidency. After four years of the real-life Trump nightmare, hope is overdue—but it’s hazardous. By Norman Solomon
Destruction Enters into Force The new international law — which for the first time in weapons treaty law requires reparations and compensation to victims of H-bomb testing and production — is similar to earlier global prohibitions such as the Geneva Protocol (outlawing gas warfare), the Hague Conventions (forbidding poisoned weapons), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Ban the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the (land) Mine Ban. The difference here is that the world community has finally added to the list of despicable, loathsome, appalling and shunned weapons of war those devices whose effects contain and exceed beyond comprehension the accumulated evil of the all the rest—nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. By John Laforge
Environment:
Restoring Our Water Systems Should Be Top Priority for Biden Administration Let’s begin with COVID-19. More than 24.1 million Americans have contracted the coronavirus and, tragically, more than 400,000 have died due to the pandemic. While health officials encourage hand-washing to contain the pandemic, at least 2 million Americans are currently living without running water, indoor plumbing or wastewater treatment. Meanwhile, aging water infrastructure is growing increasingly costly for utilities to maintain. That cost is passed along to consumers. The upshot? More than 13 million U.S. households regularly face unaffordable water bills — and, thus, the threat of water shutoffs. Without basic access to clean water, families and entire communities are at a higher risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19. by Katy Neusteter
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
My Father, Martin Luther King Jr., Had Another Dream If he saw the issues of poverty and income inequality that exist today he would be greatly disappointed.“I have a dream.” “Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated as a champion for civil rights. But today, I want you to think about a different part of my dad’s legacy. Something that you may not know, but it‘s more relevant today than ever — his fight against poverty and income inequality.” “But if a man doesn‘t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty, and the possibility for the pursuit of happiness.” “When my father was shot in 1968 in Memphis, he was crusading for higher wages for black sanitation workers. Their work conditions were abysmal — low pay, no sick leave, and many were on welfare. In a speech to the workers, Dad said the issue is injustice. The issue is the — ” “Refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants.” “Today my dad is revered. But in 1968, he was deeply unpopular. Two-thirds of Americans disapproved of him.” “Oh, I’ve been hit so many times I‘m immune to it.” “The F.B.I. said he was a Communist. But he kept protesting anyway. I traveled with him as a kid throughout Georgia in preparation for the Poor People‘s Campaign. The idea was to rally people to Washington to press the federal government to provide jobs and income for the poor. This was his other dream but he did not live to see it come to fruition. I think if my father saw the issues of poverty and income inequality that exist today, he would be greatly disappointed. Back then, 25 million people were living in poverty. But today, it’s close to 40 million, and some say it’s much higher, while billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the working class. Americans who teach our kids, deliver our food, drive our buses are struggling.” “It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.” “If we really want to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the principles that my father stood for, our whole government needs to step up, from creating a cabinet position Focused On Fighting Poverty To Passing A Universal Basic Income.” “There’s nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. And the real question is whether we have the will.” By Martin Luther King, III
United States: What If Black Insurrectionists Said: ‘We’re Taking Over the Capitol to End Racism’? The question answers itself. African Americans would have been arrested at their homes, and if they made it to the Capitol would have been met by armed police and National Guard units. Blood would have flowed on the streets even without violence from the protesters. Everyone knows this truth — Blacks and the dominant oppressor group with white skin. It is the only way to understand what happened on January 6 and how the state has responded to white insurrectionists. It is the only way to see why, three days before Donald Trump’s mob arrived at the mostly Black city of Washington DC, authorities were told to prepare for what occurred and did nothing. The blood is not only Trump’s hands but on the hands of top law enforcement officials and Republican politicians. By Malik Miah
Labor:
Economy:
Fourth-Quarter 2020 Real Retail Sales contracted quarter-to-quarter / December 2020 Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Cass Freight Index®, PPI and Full-Month Money Supply all have been posted.
General Headlines: Pandemic-Driven U.S. Economic Collapse Continues in a Hardening, Protracted “L”-Shaped Non-Recovery
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Severe Systemic Structural Damage from the Shutdown Will Forestall Meaningful Economic Rebound into 2022 or Beyond, Irrespective of Coronavirus Treatments and Vaccines
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Panicked, Unlimited Federal Reserve Money Creation and Federal Government Deficit Spending Continue and Will Expand,
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Triggering Major Domestic Inflatio With Fundamental Dollar Debasement Intensifying, Holding Physical Gold and Silver Protects the Purchasing Power of One’s Assets
The Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads to Charles Koch and Koch Industries The FBI has asked the public for help in collecting evidence surrounding the siege at the Capitol on January 6 — an insurrection that left five people dead, dozens injured, and Congressional members’ offices ransacked and laptops stolen. The violent scenes at the Capitol played out live on TV, humiliating the United States around the world. The world will watch President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration today, surrounded by 25,000 National Guard Troops in Washington, D.C. These images will further undermine the standing of the United States among world leaders. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Indian Farmers on the Frontline Against Global Capitalism In a short video on the empirediaries.com YouTube channel, a protesting farmer camped near Delhi says that during lockdown and times of crisis farmers are treated like “gods”, but when they ask for their rights, they are smeared and labelled as “terrorists”.He, along with thousands of other farmers, are mobilising against three important pieces of farm legislation that were recently forced through parliament. To all intents and purposes, these laws sound a neoliberal death knell for most of India’s cultivators and its small farms, the backbone of the nation’s food production. By Colin Todhunter
El Salvador: Expropriate And Nationalise Florenzi Industries Under Workers’ Control! Workers of Florenzi Industries in El Salvador are battling their bosses and the state institutions over factory closures and non-payment of wages. Send your support to redaccionmilitantebpj@gmail.com and post declarations of solidarity on social media with the hashtag #Solidaridad ObrerasFlorenzi, along with images and videos. ByWorkers of Florenzi Industries in El Salvador are battling their bosses and the state institutions over factory closures and non-payment of wages. Send your support to redaccionmilitantebpj@gmail.com and post declarations of solidarity on social media with the hashtag #SolidaridadObrerasFlorenzi, along with images and videos. By Juan de la Cruz
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
Fixating on Pandemic “Learning Loss” Undermines the Need to Transform Education Systemic change requires that students, families and teachers collectively serve as designers of education. Nationally, COVID-19 is further exposing deep racial and economic inequities and long-ignored educational crises: the school-prison nexus, underfunding, and narrow, test-centric curriculum and teaching. Amid an unethical push to reopen schools, our approaches to learning continue to blame students, families, teachers, school leaders and staff for failed policies, and jeopardize everyone’s well-being. While the pandemic has presented cataclysmic challenges, our educational system has also responded in ways that exacerbate many of the same racial, economic and gender injustices that have always plagued it. By Maxine McKinney de Royston and Shirin Vossoughi
What Can We Expect From the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2021? We put this and other questions to a group of six global experts in infectious disease. As we enter a new year with a new president, facing the most severe stage of COVID-19 thus far and with highly effective vaccines being rolled out far too slowly, what can we expect from the pandemic in 2021? We consulted six global experts in infectious disease. They have led successful fights against other pandemics, including Ebola, AIDS, and Zika, and are currently battling COVID-19 in the United States and abroad. The consensus is that the next three months will be grim. After that, things will probably get better. Yet the rate of improvement will depend on whether vaccinations outpace the march of the virus, especially the increasing dominance of the more infectious mutant strains from Britain and South Africa. What happens to us between now and April also depends on whether Americans simultaneously maintain mask use, social distancing, and selective business restrictions — or relax these measures. By Robert Hecht and Shan Soe-Lin
On “True Democracy” On January 5, 2021, one day before Trump sparked his fascist Attack on the Capitol, the liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg called for Americans “to defend democracy” by “investigating” Trump and wrote these words: “True democracy in America is quite new; you can date it to the civil rights era. If Trump’s Republican Party isn’t checked, we could easily devolve into what political scientists call competitive authoritarianism, in which elections still take place but the system is skewed to entrench autocrats.” By Paul Street
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!
Quotes 0f the Day: