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 MarketAt 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
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!
Voting 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 Palast
Evironment:
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
Economy:
There’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
Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:
