Daily News Digest June 25, 2024
Images of the Day:
Photos: Thousands March in London In ‘Britain Is Broken’ Protest Thousands protest, calling for a general election amid the worsening cost-of-living crisis in the UK. 
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”
The Rise of Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now There is Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity! Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 6 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 Five Horsemen of the the Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, and Misinformation! 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, and 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! 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 Still Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
The Majority of the World, Despite the Media Monopoly’s Lies, are Opposed to the Palestinian Genocide and Global Warming — The 1% Minority Funds Them! At, this Time in History, Capitalism is Exposing the Fact That it is Opposed to Majority Rule/Democracy!
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:
The long-feared era of disastrous climate change has arrived. For the first time, the planet’s top scientists said in a monumental report released on Monday they have definitively linked greenhouse gas emissions to the type of disasters driven by a warmer climate that have touched every corner of the globe this year: extreme rainfall in Germany and China, brutal droughts in the western U.S., a record cyclone in the Philippines and compound events like the wildfires and heat waves from the Pacific Northwest to Siberia to Greece and Turkey. — ‘Get Scared’: World’s Scientists Say Disastrous Climate Change is Here!
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Growing up in Cuba under the US blockade w/Liz Oliva Fernández For the past six years on this show, we’ve talked to working people from across the United States, from virtually every walk of life, about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles. But today, we’re going to talk about what it’s like to live and work in a country that has been designated a political enemy of US empire, a country that sits only 90 miles away from the US, a country that American politicians have resolved to strangle into oblivion for the past 60 years. In this episode, we speak with Liz Oliva Fernández from Cuba. Liz is an award-winning Cuban journalist with Belly of the Beast, an independent outlet covering Cuba and US-Cuba relations, and she is the presenter of two new documentaries, Hardliner on the Hudson and Uphill on the Hill. In addition to exposing the sinister interests behind, and the devastating real-world impacts of, the Cold War Cuban policy of Joe Biden’s administration, pushed by powerful hardliners like Senator Bob Menendez, former Chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the films also document Liz’s experience as a Black journalist from the Global South coming to the US to confront the predominantly white politicians and interests waging economic war on her country. We talk about Liz’s new films, and we talk about growing up in Cuba, becoming a journalist, and life for woking people in Cuba under the US-imposed blockade and designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism .
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 : My own Government, I cannot be Silent. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Biden is Arming Nazis for Pax Americana:The U.S. Says a Far-Right Ukrainian Army Unit Can Now Get Aid. A Photo Shows Training was Already Happening. The administration says the “Azov Brigade” is separate from the old, Nazi-linked “Azov Battalion.” The unit itself says they’re the same. Last week, the Biden administration said it would allow the Azov Brigade, a Ukrainian military unit, to receive U.S. weaponry and training, freeing it from a purported ban imposed in response to concerns that it committed human rights violations and had neo-Nazi ties. A photo posted by the unit itself, however, seems to suggest that the U.S. was providing support as far back as December of last year.
Our Rulers Are Literally Driving Us Crazy Our minds are being squeezed and squeezed harder and harder by the people who rule over us, our consciousness punched and kicked this way and that by a nonstop barrage of manipulation and abuse, and it’s costing us everything, and it’s costing them nothing. In fact, they actually benefit from our becoming more crazy. It’s probably worth noting that the empire doesn’t actually lose anything from our society’s increasing mental health problems, and in fact actually benefits from them. Which is probably why everything in this dystopia is pointed at making everyone crazier and crazier. In a society that is guided not by the pursuit of human thriving but by the pursuit of profit, there is no downside to all the underlings being depressed, anxious and overwhelmed all the time, so long as they’re still showing up to work and still consuming products. As long as the gears of capitalism are still being turned, it doesn’t matter whether the people turning them are enjoying their lives. 
Patrick Lawrence: “Falling Gently Away:” The G–7 in Italy That Group of 7 gathering on the coast of the Adriatic June 13–15 was truly a doozy, I have to say. Readers might think it a waste of column inches to devote any linage to it, as many will surely have forgotten about it by now—not to mention those many others who did not know of it in the first place and so could not get as far as forgetting it. But this just is my point: The seven people claiming to be the world’s most powerful assemble for a summit and it is not worth our attention? Say whaaa? The significance of this year’s G–7, I mean to say, lies in its insignificance. Considering the mess these very folk have made of the world, this bears consideration.
If Gaza Opened Your Eyes To The Empire’s Depravity, Make Sure They Stay Open Forever Please please please don’t let Gaza be a one-off in terms of your opposition to the imperial machine. Keep your eyes fiercely trained on its actions after this is over, and help bring as much attention to its crimes as possible. One of the most important things to understand about the US-backed atrocities in Gaza is that the US-centralized empire isn’t normally this obvious about its criminality. The relatively undisguised nature of the sadism and savagery in this particular case has been a gift to opponents of the US war machine, because the empire has made it much easier for us to open people’s eyes to its depravity.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Does Israel (US) Really Want to Open a Two-Front War by attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon? Among the many sayings attributed to Winston Churchill is, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This sentiment seems appropriate as Israel potentially appears ready to embark on a war against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said this week a decision on an all-out war against Hezbollah was “coming soon” and that senior commanders of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had signed off on a plan for the operation.
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’!
We Must Hold These Monsters to Account!
Floods Drive People From Homes in Iowa as Much of US Swelters in Extreme Heat Residents rescued by boat as Governor Kim Reynolds declares disaster in 21 counties in north of state Floodwaters forced people out of their homes in parts of Iowa, the result of weeks of rain, while much of the US longed for relief on Saturday from yet another round of extraordinary heat. Sirens blared at 2am in Rock Valley, Iowa, population 4,200, where people in hundreds of homes were told to get out as the Rock River could no longer take rain that has slammed the region. The city lacked running water because wells were unusable.
Wherever the Petrochemical Industry Exists a Cancer Alley Exists!: Real-Time Data Show the Air in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ is Even Worse Than Expected A new study finds levels of the carcinogen ethylene oxide that are nine times higher than those estimated by the EPA’s models. Since the 1980s, the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been known as “Cancer Alley.” The name stems from the fact that the area’s residents have a 95 percent greater chance of developing cancer than the average American. A big reason for this is the concentration of industrial facilities along the corridor — particularly petrochemical manufacturing plants, many of which emit ethylene oxide, an extremely potent toxin that is considered a carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency and has been linked to breast and lung cancers. But even though the general risks of living in the region have been clear for decades, the exact dangers are still coming into focus — and the latest data show that the EPA’s modeling has dramatically underestimated the levels of ethylene oxide in southeastern Louisiana. On average, according to a new study published on Tuesday, ethylene oxide levels in the heart of Cancer Alley are more than double the threshold above which the EPA considers cancer risk to be unacceptable. To gather the new data, researchers from Johns Hopkins University drove highly sensitive air monitors along a planned route where a concentration of industrial facilities known to emit ethylene oxide are situated. The monitors detected levels that were as many as 10 times higher than EPA thresholds, and the researchers were able to detect plumes of the toxin spewing from the facilities from as many as seven miles away. The resulting measurements were significantly higher than the EPA and state environmental agency’s modeled emissions values for the area.
Research Reveals Toxic PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Accumulate in Testes Study suggests exposure to chemicals manufactured to resist water and heat likely to affect health of offspring. New research has found for the first time that PFAS “forever chemicals” accumulate in the testes, and the exposure probably affects children’s health. The toxic chemicals can damage sperm during a sensitive developmental period, potentially leading to liver disease and higher cholesterol, especially in male offspring, the paper, which looked at the chemicals in mice, noted.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Federal Prosecutors Attacked Me for my Reporting — And They’re Doing It to Hide Info From the Public If the Biden administration is serious about protecting press freedoms, officials from Washington might want to have a stern talk with federal prosecutors in Detroit. This is A story about a story — one that I haven’t finished reporting.Federal prosecutors are so consumed by my efforts to report on a terrorism court case that they accused me in a recent filing of having “improper motives.” They said that, by doing routine reporting, I was somehow colluding with a terrorism defendant to “taint the jury pool and undermine the fairness of the trial. These dangerous claims are the subject of an evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday. The attack by the Justice Department should be seen for what it is: a breathtaking assault against journalism by the Biden administration.
Labor:
Economy:
Kleptocracy is Us The Wall Street Journal ran a revealing op-ed today (June 14, 2024) by Paul D. Ryan, “Crypto Could Stave off a U.S. Debt Crisis.” Mr. Ryan, libertarian Republican House Speaker 2015-2019 and now at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, writes that: “Stablecoins backed by dollars provide demand for U.S. public debt and a way to keep up with China.” He reports that “According to the Treasury Department and DeFi Llama, a cryptocurrency analytics site, dollar-based stablecoins are becoming an important net purchaser of U.S. government debt.” If the stablecoin fund was a country, it would be in “the top ten of countries holding Treasuries – smaller than Hong Kong but larger than Saudi Arabia.” So the result of officially promoting them “would be an immediate, durable increase in demand for U.S. debt.” Ryan says that “bipartisan support in Congress … would help dramatically expand the use of digital dollars at a given critical time.” Here’s the real logic. I’ve written before about how c. 1966 or ’67, I was Chase Manhattan’s balance-of-payments economist, and a bank officer, apparently having joined from the State Dept., asked me to review a memo proposing to make the United States “the new Switzerland.” That is, a haven for the world’s drug money and other criminal money laundering, for kleptocrats and tax evaders in order to help stem the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit that resulted entirely from foreign military spending in Southeast Asia and elsewhere around the world.
The Fed and FDIC Wake Up Suddenly to the Threat of Derivatives, Flunking the Four Largest Derivative Banks on their Wind-Down Plans Since the financial crash of 2008 and the Fed’s multi-trillion dollar bank bailouts that followed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has been waving a giant red flag every quarter in its “Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities” reports. For sixteen years the OCC has been reporting that just four megabanks are responsible for more than 80 percent of the trillions of dollars in bank derivatives. As the chart above shows, as of December 31, 2023, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Citigroup’s Citibank and Bank of America held a staggering total of $168.26 trillion in derivatives out of a total of $192.46 trillion at all U.S. banks, savings associations and trust companies. That’s four banks holding 87 percent of all derivatives at all 4,587 federally-insured institutions in the U.S. that existed as of December 31, 2023.
World:
Education, Health, 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