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Daily News Digest February 23, 2024

Images of the Day:

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”

Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades 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!

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, andThe 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! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! 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 of the Day:

Malcolm X Quote

Podcasts/Videos of the Day:

U.S. Vetoes UNSC Gaza Ceasefire Resolution for Third (Works On Its Own Version)

Colonialism, Occupation & Apartheid: African Countries See “Shared Experiences” with Palestinians

Truth Defense: LIVE – On the Julian Assange Extradition Hearing Journalist Taylor Hudak chairs a panel discussing the Julian Assange extradition case at the end of the first day of the appeal hearing at the High Court. Guests were Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, Consortium News journalist Cathy Vogan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, activist Emmy Butlin from the Committee to Defend Julian Assange, Consortium News editor Joe Lauria and Truth Defence editor Mohamed Elmaazi

Black Agenda Radio February 16, 2024

Black and Brown Coalition for Palestine

Bipartisan Consensus for Punitive Immigration Policies Continues – Part 1

Peoples’ Senate Organizes the Community and Fights for Kamau Sadiki’s Freedom

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 Republicrats 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford ford To Pay! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. — Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam

Assange Extradition: DAY ONE: Assange Timeline Exposes US Motives On Day One of Julian Assange’s attempt to appeal Britain’s order to extradite him to the United States, his lawyers laid out a timeline that exposed U.S. motives to destroy the journalist who revealed their high-level state crimes. Before two High Court judges in the cramped, wood-paneled Courtroom 5 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Assange’s lawyers argued on Tuesday that two judges had seriously erred in the case on a number of grounds necessitating an appeal of the home secretary’s decision to extradite Assange to the United States. High to the left of the court, next to oak shelves with neat rows of law books, was an empty iron cage. The court said it had invited Assange to either attend in person or via video link from Belmarsh Prison, where he has been locked up on remand for nearly five years. But Assange said he was too ill take part in any capacity, his lawyers confirmed.

Administration, Books, Column, Commentary, Nato, Russia, U.S., Ukraine: Patrick Lawrence: Grand Delusions This year’s Munich Security Conference was predictably all about the imaginary danger that Russians intend to proceed westward into Europe as soon as they finish in Ukraine. Let’s listen for a moment to Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, in a mid–January interview he gave to Der Tagesspiegel, a small Berlin daily whose history dates to 1945, when the Allies set about democratizing the Nazi-era press in the capital’s western sector. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day, so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” Pistorius asserted with a display of confidence. “Our experts expect a period of five-to-eight years in which this could be possible.” Where to Begin With This Liar. No, neither the Germans nor anyone else in the West hears threats from “Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” as we must call the Russian Federation, either daily, weekly, monthly or in any other time frame you may choose. If you can manage to listen to the Russian president over the din of flabby-minded bureaucrats such as Pistorius, you hear quite the opposite.

US Accused of Killing Cuban Doctors in Somalia Airstrike Cuban and American officials are investigating the unverified claim that the doctors, who were kidnapped by al-Shabaab militants in 2019, died during a recent U.S. drone strike The United States military said Tuesday that it is investigating whether a drone strike on Somalia targeting al-Shabaab fighters killed two Cuban doctors being held hostage by the militant group. According to al-Shabaab, surgeon Landy Rodríguez Hernández and general medicine specialist Assel Herrera Correa were killed in a U.S. airstrike in Somalia’s southern state of Jubaland last Thursday—although there has been no confirmation of the deaths.

U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:

Leaders Condemn Israel’s War on Gaza at African Union Summit Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola explains the long history of African solidarity with Palestine. Leaders at this year’s African Union summit have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola explains the long history of African solidarity with Palestine, continuing with today’s efforts to end the destruction of Gaza. African countries “see really an identical experience between Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization,” says Nyabola. “It’s a question of history. It’s a question of solidarity. It’s a question of shared experiences of all of these systemic types of violence.”

UN Human Rights Experts Blast Israel over “credible” Reports of Rape, Sexual Abuse, Arbitrary Imprisonment of Palestinian Women The Israeli Newspaper Arab 48 reports that United Nations officials have expressed the utmost anxiety about information that has reached them concerning “rape and threats of sexual assault” by Israeli forces during their arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian women and girls. International rights experts called for an independent investigation into Israeli abuses. I am summarizing this article because it is important for us to realize that the Arabic-language press reports such developments in detail, even though they are not covered by US cable news. The human rights experts held a news conference on Monday to call for an impartial inquiry into the abuses apparently committed by Israeli troops against women and girls, including murder, rape, and sexual assault. They expressed extreme concern at the “horrifying reports” that had reached them.

US Plays Defense for Israeli Occupation at International Court of Justice A Cuban diplomat, meanwhile, slammed “those who for years have supported each and every one of the policies and practices of Israel, which denied the existence of the Palestinian people and their rights.” An attorney from the U.S. State Department told the International Court of Justice on Wednesday that it should not put its weight behind global calls for Israel to withdraw its forces from the occupied Palestinian territories. Richard Visek, the U.S. State Department’s acting legal adviser, argued that “it would not, as some participants suggest, be conducive to the achievement” of lasting peace for the United Nations’ highest court to “issue an opinion that calls for the unilateral, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal that does not account for Israel’s security needs.”

Environment:

Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%! After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!

Capitalism’s Wars for Oil: When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?

Over the 1,5°C Tipping Point!: Global Temperature Report for 2023 Berkeley Earth, a California-based non-profit research organization, has been preparing independent analyses of global mean temperature changes since 2013. The following is our report on global mean temperature during 2023. We conclude that 2023 was the warmest year on Earth since 1850, exceeding the previous record set in 2016 by a clear and definitive margin. The global annual average for 2023 in our dataset was estimated as 1.54 ± 0.06 °C (2.77 ± 0.11 °F) above the average during the period 1850 to 1900, which is traditionally used a reference for the preindustrial period. This is the first time that any year has exceeded the key (2.7 °F) threshold. The significance of this is discussed below. Also, please note that given the uncertainties and differences in methodologies, other groups are expected to report 2023 as slightly less than 1.5 °C above preindustrial. The differences between Berkeley Earth’s analysis and that of other groups is discussed at the end of this report. The last nine years have included all nine of the warmest years observed in the instrumental record. Will the ‘Supremes’ Decide in Favor of the Polluters or the Polluted? Will SCOTUS Decide in Favor of Polluters Over Public Health in Smog Case? More than 100 million people in the US live in counties that receive an “F” grade for unacceptable levels of smog. In an unusual hearing off the notorious “shadow docket,” the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case that threatens to freeze the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan for cracking down on harmful air pollution that crosses state lines and contributes to smog in communities across the country. The EPA updated federal smog standards in 2015 to ensure cleaner air nationwide, but eight years later, the agency is still wrangling with states over plans to reduce pollution and meet the standard. Now, industry groups, fossil fuel companies and three states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — are asking the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the EPA’s national smog control plan while legal challenges wind through lower courts.

California Takes on Big Oil in Super-Sized Lawsuit Multiple cases regarding climate deception litigation, led by the California attorney general, have merged into a super suit and will proceed in San Francisco Superior Court. Several California municipalities are merging their climate deception litigation with the state’s climate case, to jointly pursue a super-sized lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry, according to recent court filings. This development comes as Chicago joins the growing list of U.S. municipalities suing the fossil fuel industry. On February 5, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Charles S. Treat approved California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s petition to link the state’s climate accountability case with lawsuits brought by the counties of Marin, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz, and the cities of Imperial Beach, Richmond, and Santa Cruz.

Chicago Joins ‘Historic Wave of Lawsuits’ Against Big Oil The city alleges the industry “funded, conceived, planned, and carried out a sustained and widespread campaign of denial and disinformation about the existence of climate change and their products’ contribution to it.”

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

University of Florid Student Senate Passes ‘Green New Deal’ In a rebuke to Governor Ron DeSantis’s denialism, the student body calls for campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis This win by Florida students comes amid ongoing climate denialism in the state. Governor Ron DeSantis has cracked down on free speech at universities and shown support for the burning of fossil fuels. Additionally, the Florida legislature is advancing an energy resources bill that would delete mentions of climate change in the state law. Cameron Driggers, a first-year University of Florida business administration student and the executive director of Youth Action Fund, called the vote “a stunning rebuke of the ideology of climate denialism that DeSantis has championed”

Black Agenda Report

Labor:

Economy:

Artificial Intelligence: Capitalism’s Salvation, or Another Bubble? The capitalists are ploughing billions into artificial intelligence, salivating at the prospect of an AI-generated economic boost and keen to grab a slice of the new gold rush. But there is no technological solution for capitalism’s fundamental contradictions, and the investment party will inevitably be followed by a hangover.

Wall Street Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell Gets Sued Over Allegations It Aided and Abetted the FTX Crypto Fraud The 144-year old Wall Street go-to law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, may be getting rich on the FTX bankruptcy legal fees, but it’s also doing a helluva job destroying its reputation as a prudent law firm. Last Friday, a federal lawsuit was filed against the law firm alleging civil conspiracy, aiding and abetting fraud, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and violations of civil federal racketeering law in regard to its work for the collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, which looted customer funds to the tune of billions of dollars.

World:

Indian Dockworkers Mobilize Against Israel’s War Machine Thousands of Indian dockworkers are refusing to assist in the transporting of Israeli arms. This tremendous example of working-class solidarity must be repeated across the world to effectively resist Israel’s slaughter! On 14 February, the Water Transport Workers Federation of India (WTWFI) – representing 3,500 workers in 11 of India’s 12 major ports – published a statement in solidarity with Palestine, refusing to “load or unload weaponized cargoes from Israel or any other country which could handle military equipment and its allied cargo for war in Palestine”.

Education, 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