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Images Of the Day:
“The Talk” is the Result of Centuries Of Police Terrorism of Black People! The ‘Talk” by John Darkow
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:
Cinco de Mayo Cinco de Mayo (pronounced [ˈsiŋko̞ ðe̞ ˈma̠ʝo̞] in Mexico, Spanish for “Fifth of May”) is an annual celebration held on May 5. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican Army‘s victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza.[1][2] The victory of the smaller Mexican force against a larger French force was a boost to morale for the Mexicans. Zaragoza died months after the battle due to illness. A year after the battle, a larger French force defeated the Mexican army at the Second Battle of Puebla, and Mexico City soon fell to the invaders.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called “alarmist” for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote “in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media”— controlling almost all of America’s newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world’s largest media corporation. — Media Reform Information Center
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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
A month before the vote on the federal budget, progressives in Congress declared, “We’ve studied President Biden’s proposed $753 billion military budget, an increase of $13 billion from Trump’s already inflated budget, and we can’t, in good conscience, support this.” Now that would be a show stopper, particularly if they added, “So we have decided to stand united, arm in arm, as a block of NO votes on any federal budget resolution that fails to reduce military spending by 10-30 percent. We stand united against a federal budget resolution that includes upwards of $30 billion for new nuclear weapons slated to ultimately cost nearly $2 trillion. We stand united in demanding the $50 billion earmarked to maintain all 800 overseas bases, including the new one under construction in Henoko, Okinawa, be reduced by a third because it’s time we scaled back on plans for global domination.” — Squad & Co: Unite as a Block to Downsize Biden’s Military Budget
On World Press Freedom Day, US Report Reveals ‘Startling Extent of Police Violence Against Journalists’ The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press found that as the country faced a wave of demonstrations last year, “journalists covering those protests were arrested and attacked in record numbers.” The new report (pdf), published on World Press Freedom Day, analyzes data from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Launched in 2017, the tracker is led by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) along with other organizations including Reporters Without Borders and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The importance of the tracker and its role documenting press freedoms in the U.S. came into sharp focus in 2020—only the fourth year of its existence—when the country faced a wave of protests, and journalists covering those protests were arrested and attacked in record numbers,” the report says. By Jessica Corbett
Tim Cook, Apple, and Runaway Limitless Corporate Greed David Gelles, the New York Times reporter, likes to report about corporate plutocrats raking it in while stifling or endangering their workers. We’ve all seen those large advertisements by big companies praising the sacrifices of their brave workers during this Covid-19 pandemic. When workers ask for living wages, most of these bosses say “No” but take plenty of dough for themselves. Gelles reports that Boeing, after its criminal negligence brought down two 737 MAX planes and killed 346 people, went into a corporate tailspin. The company laid off 30,000 workers and its sales and stocks plummeted as it reported a $12 billion loss. No matter, the new Boeing boss, David Calhoun, managed to pay himself about $10,500 an hour, forty hours a week, plus benefits and perks. “Executives are minting fortunes, while laid-off workers line up at food banks,” writes Gelles. Carefully chosen Boards of Directors rubberstamp lavish compensation packages, as they haul in big money themselves for attending a few Board meetings. By Ralph Nader
The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts For the measurement of income and wealth inequality, there is no equivalent to Gross Domestic Product statistics—that is, no government-run standardized, documented, continually updated, and broadly recognized methodology similar to the national accounts which are the basis for GDP. Starting in the mid2010s, we have worked along with our colleagues from the World Inequality Lab to address this shortcoming by developing “distributional national accounts”— statistics that provide consistent estimates of inequality capturing 100 percent of the amount of national income and household wealth recorded in the official national accounts By Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman
Court Rules That Epa’s Delay “Exposed A Generation Of American Children” To Brain-Damaging Pesticide Chlorpyrifos The ruling represents a stark repudiation of the Trump EPA’s refusal to ban chlorpyrifos. After 14 years of legal battles, a federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take actions that will likely force the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos off the market. The federal agency has for years been considering mounting evidence that links the pesticide to brain damage in children — including loss of IQ, learning difficulties, ADHD, and autism — but, as the court acknowledged, has repeatedly delayed taking action. “Rather than ban the pesticide or reduce the tolerances to levels that the EPA could find were reasonably certain to cause no harm, the EPA sought to evade through delay tactics its plain statutory duty,” Judge Jed S. Rakoff wrote in his decision, which was released today by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “During that time, the EPA’s egregious delay exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos,” he wrote, and ordered the EPA to issue a final regulation within 60 days. By Sharon Lerner
Environment:
UK Nuclear Plants Will Exact Heavy Fish Toll Environmental groups are alarmed at the heavy fish toll which two new British nuclear plants will inflict on stocks. The high fatality rate which the cooling systems of two British nuclear power stations may impose on marine life is worrying environmentalists, who describe the heavy fish toll they expect as “staggering”. The two stations, Hinkley Point C, under construction on England’s west coast, and Sizewell C, planned for the eastern side of the country, will, they say, kill more than 200 million fish a year and destroy millions more sea creatures. But the stations’ builders say their critics are exaggerating drastically. By Paul Brown
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Biden Is No FDR, Just a Business-As-Usual Democrat Far from the incarnation of Franklin Delana Roosevelt, Joe Biden is the usual corporate Democrat, said veteran activist Margaret Flowers, of Popular Resistance. Biden “throws more money at a failed healthcare system,” and on foreign policy he “continues the economic wars and expands military operations in the Middle East, and surrounding China and antagonizing Russia,” said Flowers.
Special US Punishment Reserved for Haitian Immigrants
In his first 60 days in office, Biden “had already deported more people to Haiti than Donald Trump deported in all of 2020, said Daoud Andre, a Brooklyn-based radio host and organizer with the Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti. Haitian dictator Jovenel Moise is as much a lackey for Biden as he was for Trump, said Andre, because Jovenel answers to whoever is in charge in the US.
African Servant of Empire Dies in Chad Fighting The death of Chad president Idris Deby in fighting with rebels last week is a loss for the US and France, the top imperial powers in Africa, said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. “Idris Deby’s army has been essential to France’s neocolonial pretensions, and those of the United States, as well,” said Horne. US military “trainers” serve with the Chadian military and France maintains a permanent base in the country.
Left Lens Live: Justice Not Served by Verdict in George Floyd’s Murder Derek Chauvin was convicted on all charges in the murder of George Floyd last year. Just two hours before the verdict, Ohio police killed Ma’Khia Bryant. Margaret and Danny discuss why justice has not been served as liberals and Democrats have so enthusiastically proclaimed.
Labor:
Economy:
Here’s the $47.6 Billion Stock Portfolio Bill Gates Will Keep to Himself after His Divorce from Melinda It was just 11 days ago that we wrote the following about family office hedge funds like Archegos that are failing to publicly file a list of their stock positions along with the market values, as the SEC requires for entities managing more than $100 million: “Another example is billionaire Bill Gates’ family office, Cascade Investment LLC. According to CaproAsia it ranks number 3 among the world’s largest family offices with $51 billion in assets. Cascade Investment LLC hasn’t filed a 13F form with the SEC since the quarter ending September 30, 2008 (coincidentally, the same quarter that Wall Street blew itself up, taking the stock market along with it). At that point in time, Cascade Investment showed $4.32 billion in stock positions. Its only filings since that time simply show what stocks it’s acquired and sold, but not the 13F which would show the full positions in its portfolio and their value.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
As Long as Capitalism and Big Pharma Keep Profiting From the Vaccines, The Global Capitalist Pandemic Crisis Will Not End!
Government Report Documents US Responsibility for Venezuela’s Humanitarian Dilemma Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. The popular classes enjoyed major advances from the Bolivarian Revolution initiated by Hugo Chávez. Today Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis with severe humanitarian consequences. The US government blames the crisis on the mismanagement and corruption of the Venezuelan government headed by Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelan government faults the US and its allies for imposing sanctions, unilateral coercive measures illegal under international law. An official US Congressional Research Service report issued April 28, Venezuela: Background and US Relations, suggests the Venezuelan government has valid arguments that it is being strangulated by US sanctions. According to the report: By Roger Harris
Britain Risks Cementing in Power a Corrupt and Incompetent Government in Undeserved Gratitude for the Vaccine “No more f**king lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands,” Boris Johnson is reported as saying last October as the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic got underway. Many will view his callous words, which he vehemently denies uttering, as an ill-chosen figure of speech, but they may fail to realise the grim truth that what he said was a largely accurate forecast of the consequence of his misjudgements. His only inaccuracy was in saying that the bodies would pile up in their thousands, while the correct number turned out to be in the tens of thousands. By Patrick Cockburn
India and Brazil’s COVID Crises Show We Must End the Fiction of Borders The fictions of borders and “rugged individualism” must be dismissed out of hand to confront this moment. Anew poll says that most of us are optimistic about the country’s future (with a margin of error of plus or minus eleventy billion, of course). According to ABC News/Ipsos, a full 64 percent of the country believes we are on the right track. It makes sense: The president of the United States is no longer screaming 20 hours a day about whatever happens to pass his screen. New COVID-19 infections are down by almost a quarter, and the number of COVID deaths has also dropped. Close to half the country has been at least partially vaccinated. The weather is turning, and opportunities for outdoor activities are expanding. By William Rivers Pitt
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
Media Reform Information Center
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!