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Images Of the Day:
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:
New York Police COBRA Training Unit: The COBRA (Chemical Ordinance, Biological and Radiological Awareness) Training Unit plays a significant role in the Department’s mission to prepare first responders for the hazards of a weapons of mass destruction event. Through the use of realistic, goal-oriented training, COBRA training keeps officers in the field aware of the current threats in terrorist-related activity and weapons of mass destruction. Current courses include the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear/Hazardous Materials (CBRN/HazMat)
“We have to understand this is part of the fabric of how the NYPD has historically treated protests and has historically treated Black, Latinx, and other communities of color.” Despite initial reassurances to the contrary, the SRG ended up policing protests far more than it did any “counterterrorism” work — already the job of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau — but it brought its militarized mentality and tactics to the policing of civil unrest. The SRG engaged in what the unit’s guidelines refer to as “high visibility static deployment,” a show of force intended to “provide and enhance visibility at sensitive or other locations.” The unit dispatched officers donning military-style gas masks, ready for the “hazards of a weapons of mass destruction event” thanks to training in Chemical Ordinance, Biological and Radiological Awareness, or COBRA. — NYPD “Goon Squad” Manual Teaches Officers to Violate Protesters’ Rights
While these immediate relief efforts are essential, it is important to remember that housing insecurity was a major problem before the pandemic. As we have previously documented, just over half of all renters with incomes below $50,000 were housing-cost burdened — spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing — before the pandemic4. Over the last two decades, the percentage of households that rent has risen as has the percentage of renter households who are burdened by housing costs. Today, most low-income renters and low-income homeowners spend more than half of their income on housing. Large-scale, permanent solutions are needed to address these longstanding problems. These solutions include universal housing assistance, expanding public and social housing, strengthening tenants’ rights, creating community land trusts and land banks in disinvested communities, and combating exclusionary zoning and segregation. — Housing Insecurity by Race and Place During the Pandemic
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!
‘Shame’: Biden to Advance Trump-Era Sale of $23 Billion in F-35s and Armed Drones to UAE “These are not the actions of a president committed to upholding human rights in the United States and abroad.” —Philippe Nassif, Amnesty International USA “We have to stop choosing political expediency over human rights,” said Kate Kizer of Win Without War. By Jake Johnson 
Time, Not Cheap Political Theater, is of the Essence Thankfully, the disastrous and benighted Montana legislative session is limping towards its ignominious conclusion, which cannot come soon enough for many, many Montanans. Meanwhile, in Congress Democrat “centrists” like Sen. Joe Manchin threaten to hold up the major measures President Biden is seeking to address the tidal wave of very serious threats to the nation and our people unless Republicans go along — a futile and rather naive approach as the dregs of Trumpism continue to plague a once-serious political party. And over it all, a new report by the nation’s top intelligence officials tells us the unvarnished truth about the future — and it says the national and global crises are piling up and our chance to survive, let alone prosper, means taking real actions now, not just talking about it. And time, as they say, is of the essence. By George Ochenski
Jayapal Calls for Crackdown on Wealthiest After IRS Chief Says Tax Evasion Costs US $1 Trillion a Year “We don’t just need a wealth tax, we also need to give the IRS the tools it needs to make sure the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share.” Following IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig’s admission Tuesday that tax dodgers are depriving the federal government of as much as $1 trillion or more per year, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called for strengthening the agency’s ability to crack down on the rampant tax avoidance strategies used by America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. By Kenny Stancil
Mexico’s Cactuses Find Novel Path to Cooler Climate Rainforests are prized for storing carbon, but Mexico’s cactuses are also vital to climate cooling, and provide leather too. It may come as a surprise to realise that a plant struggling for survival in a harsh environment is also doing its bit to save the planet from the threats of the rapidly changing climate. But that’s what Mexico’s cactuses are managing to do. Research published in the journal The Science of Nature shows that desert soils supporting a high density of cactus contain large quantities of stored bio-minerals (minerals produced by living organisms), formed by the action of the plants in extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By Paul Brown
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Police Maunual Proves Real Nature of Police and Planned Violence!: NYPD “Goon Squad” Manual Teaches Officers to Violate Protesters’ Rights: Brooklyn Center Police Use Tear Gas on Crowd 15 Minutes After Its Use Was Banned On Monday night, the Brooklyn Center City Council passed a resolution banning the use of crowd control tactics like rubber bullets, protester kettling and tear gas. A mere 15 minutes later, the police were already breaking that rule, according to reports. Videos show the police launching canisters of tear gas on protesting crowds on Monday night shortly after the rule was passed. The crowd was protesting the police-perpetrated killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man shot and killed by a police officer in the Minneapolis suburb this weekend. Videos from later in the night show the police continuing to use the banned tear gas on protesters, spraying protesters with pepper spray and using stun guns to disperse the crowd. About 40 people were arrested at protests on Monday night, where crowds chanted Wright’s name and “no justice, no peace.” By Sharon Zhang
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Peru: Presidential Elections – Surprise Victory of Militant Union Leader Reflects Crisis of The Regime On Sunday 11 April, the first round of the presidential elections in Peru produced a major surprise: the victory, against all the odds, of Pedro Castillo, the leader of the 2017 teachers’ strike. In the second round, he will face the reactionary, right-wing candidate of Fuerza Popular, Keiko Fujimori, in a clear expression of enormous political polarisation in a country ravaged by the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. That Pedro Castillo, from Peru Libre, came first in the first round of the presidential elections is a very significant symptom of the crisis of legitimacy of the bourgeois institutions and parties, a central aspect of the crisis of the regime that Peru is experiencing. This was also expressed in the explosive mobilisations in November, when the eruption of the masses broke the fragile institutional balance. By Jorge Martin
The UK’s Northern Irish Brexit Blues Northern Ireland has now become the focal point of the UK’s post-Brexit crisis.While the connection between the more than a week of rioting by Protestant “Loyalists” and Brexit may not seem obvious, some, such as the Northern Ireland justice minister, Naomi Long, say the UK prime minister Boris “BoJo” Johnson’s “dishonesty” over the still-to-be-decided Brexit border has exacerbated the situation. The protocol agreed between the EU and the UK fudged the issue of the land border between the UK-member Northern Ireland (NI) and the EU-member Republic of Ireland to NI’s south. By Kenneth Surin
Turkey: Erdoğan – Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place For several weeks now, Turkey has been making international headlines for various reasons. Not the least of these were the back-to-back sackings of the governor of the Central Bank, Naci Ağbal, on 19 March, followed by his deputy. Erdoğan’s move was followed by a sharp 15% one-day collapse in the value of the lira. Mainstream, bourgeois economists were aghast at what they regarded as insane, erratic behaviour from Erdoğan. But there is method in the madness. Above all, Erdoğan is terrified of a social explosion. By Florian Keller
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
Communities Hardest Hit by COVID Are Also Harmed Most by Standardized Testing On behalf of our members, families and communities, we urge Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to free students nationwide from the federal demand for standardized testing for the remainder of this school year. Our kids and communities deserve a chance at real recovery from the devastation of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. While we appreciate the option to delay or shorten the tests, those choices will be insufficient for the hardest-hit communities and threaten to continue causing real harm. Anyone who says they want to help children recover from this pandemic must first stop hurting them now. We know that, at best, punitive standardized tests have no impact on student learning. At worst, they do damage to children’s motivation and opportunity to learn. These tests saddle students with labels, haunt them with stereotypes, make school dull and disengaging, put targets on kids’ backs for disinvestment, and create displacement when their schools are ultimately closed because charter operators use student academic performance or behavior to push students out in order to make their own academic portfolio look more attractive to school boards. Inflicting tests on students during a pandemic will only magnify the inequities these tests were designed to reflect, since eugenicists first engineered them to prove racial inferiority. By Jitu Brown and Beth Glenn
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 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!
Biden in Lock Step With Arms Manufacturers Profiteers: Background ” As Saudis Suck Up Weapons, US Accounts for Over 1/3 of All Global Arms Sales
Environment:
