Daily News Digest June 27, 2024
Images of the Day:
Bendib: No-Evil Media Monkeys
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:
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Press Freedom Advocates Celebrate Julian Assange’s Release, But Warn of Impact of Plea Deal
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.
The Chris Hedges Report: You Saved Julian Assange After 14 years of persecution, Julian Assange will go free. We must honor the hundreds of thousands of people across the globe who made this happen. The dark machinery of empire, whose mendacity and savagery Julian Assange exposed to the world, spent 14 years trying to destroy him. They cut him off from his funding, canceling his bank accounts and credit cards. They invented bogus charges of sexual assault to get him extradited to Sweden, where he would then be shipped to the U.S. They trapped him in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for seven years after he was given political asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship by refusing him safe passage to Heathrow Airport. They orchestrated a change of government in Ecuador that saw him stripped of his asylum, harassed and humiliated by a pliant embassy staff. They contracted the Spanish security firm UC global in the embassy to record all his conversations, including those with his attorneys. The CIA discussed kidnapping or assassinating him. They arranged for London’s Metropolitan Police to raid the embassy – sovereign territory of Ecuador – and seize him. They held him for five years in the high security HM Prison Belmarsh, often in solitary confinement. And all the while they carried out a judicial farce in the British courts where due process was ignored so an Australian citizen, whose publication was not based in the U.S. and who, like all journalists, received documents from whistleblowers, could be charged under the Espionage Act. They tried over and over and over to destroy him. They failed. But Julian was not released because the courts defended the rule of law and exonerated a man who had not committed a crime. He was not released because the Biden White House and the intelligence community have a conscience. He was not released because the news organizations that published his revelations and then threw him under the bus, carrying out a vicious smear campaign, pressured the U.S. government. He was released — granted a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department, according to court documents — in spite of these institutions. He was released because day after day, week after week, year after year, hundreds of thousands of people around the globe mobilized to decry the imprisonment of the most important journalist of our generation. Without this mobilization, Julian would not be free.
The United States Censorship of Its War Crimes: Assange to Walk Free: But US Imperialism Takes Its Pound of Flesh In the early hours of this morning, it was announced that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will finally become a free man. This news will of course be celebrated by all those who campaigned for his release. Yet in a final injustice, Assange is currently on a plane bound for Saipan, in the American-controlled Mariana Islands, to plead guilty to an espionage charge. Thus US imperialism, which has never forgiven Assange for exposing its crimes, exacts a final measure of vengeance. A Scandalous Saga The long-running fiasco of Assange’s case – which has demolished all pretensions about the US and its allies upholding ‘free speech’ – began in June 2010. Assange’s website WikiLeaks released over 470,000 documents related to the US’ criminal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These included horrifying footage of an Apache helicopter murdering civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in 2007. The leaks also revealed that the US was violating the Geneva Convention in Guantanamo Bay by preventing prisoners from being attended to by Red Cross doctors. The leaks shattered illusions of America being a ‘guardian of human rights and democracy’. Instead, US imperialism was revealed in all its naked brutality. Their dirty laundry exposed, the US ruling class needed to make an example of Assange. They hid behind the demonstrable lie that Assange had placed American agents in harm’s way. James Clapper, former US director of national intelligence, even admitted that “a damage assessment at the time did not reveal any direct proof that assets in Afghanistan or Iraq who were helping the United States were exposed” by Wikileaks’ revelations.’
‘No Accountability’ = US Tacit Approval: No Accountability for Saudi Crimes as US Mulls New Defense Pact Less than a year after Human Rights Watch found Saudi border guards had committed widespread and systematic killings of Ethiopian migrants on its border with Yemen, the US appears poised to lift its years-long ban on the sale of offensive weapons to the country. The ban would be ended despite the lack of accountability for the Saudis’ years of war crimes in Yemen, possible crimes against humanity on the Yemen-Saudi border, and what a US intelligence report concluded was approval of killing the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler. This would prove to the Saudi leadership that they can get away with murder.
Property Law, Settler-Colonialism, and the Vatican Newsflash! Property law in the U.S. is not rooted in the Constitution. America’s legal foundation for property law (possession), “anti-Indian law,” and the concept of nation-states is religious, not secular. Where did this deep sense of entitlement, hierarchy, and dominion over unknown lands and its original sovereign peoples originate? How was this wilderness continent, upon which its people depended – for millennia – for survival, end up being converted into “real estate” by a bunch of European Christian princes and pirates? Most people who own real estate, work and live on this settler-colonized land we now call “America,” cannot answer the question. So, how can we discern a proper answer? U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall, the fourth, and longest-serving chief justice (1801-1835), told us so – over 200 years ago. The Doctrine of Christian Discovery originated in Europe in the 15th Century and is melded into the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedent case, Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). Careful decoding of the imaginative legal language in this seminal U.S. Supreme Court case reveals the fascinating history that informs present legal thinking and how we arrived at this place and time.
Chris Hedges: The Impending Collapse of American Empire The world as we know it is run by an exclusive class of American racketeers who operate with virtually unlimited weapons and money, Matt Kennard’s book reveals. The public perception of the American empire, at least to those within the United States who have never seen the empire dominate and exploit the “wretched of the earth,” is radically different from reality. These manufactured illusions, ones Joseph Conrad wrote so presciently about, posit that the empire is a force for good. The empire, we are told, fosters democracy and liberty. It spreads the benefits of ‘western civilization’. These are deceptions repeated ad nauseam by a compliant media and mouthed by politicians, academics and the powerful. But they are lies, as all of us who have spent years reporting overseas understand. Matt Kennard in his book The Racket – where he reports from Haiti, Bolivia, Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Mexico, Colombia, and many other countries – rips back the veil. He exposes the hidden machinery of empire. He details its brutality, mendacity, cruelty and its dangerous self-delusions.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
US Aiding the Murder of Palestinians: UNRWA Only Has Funding Through August, With Emergency Appeals Underfunded The US is one of only two countries still withholding funding to the UNRWA, the agency chief said.
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!
˚Fossil Fuel Inc. Fuel Production Keep Upturning, Profits Keep Churning, as the Earth is Burning!: Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: According to the Statistical Review of World Energy report released on Thursday, global fossil fuel consumption and energy emissions hit all-time highs in 2023 (even as fossil fuels’ share of the global energy mix decreased slightly on the year). “In a year where we have seen the contribution of renewables reaching a new record high, ever increasing global energy demand means the share coming from fossil fuels has remained virtually unchanged,” Simon Virley of consultancy KPMG said. “In advanced economies, we observe signs of demand for fossil fuels peaking, contrasting with economies in the Global South for whom economic development and improvements in quality of life continue to drive fossil growth,” Energy Institute Chief Executive Nick Wayth said. Emissions grew by 2% on the year to exceed 40 gigatonnes. Emissions rose despite the slight drop in fossil fuels’ share of the energy mix, because emissions within the fossil fuels category became more intense as oil and coal use rose and gas held steady. The report notes that since 2000, emissions from energy have increased by 50%. This is despite the record high in renewable generation driven by higher wind and solar capacity, with 67% more additions in those two categories in 2023 than 2022. As much as 74% of net growth in overall power generation came from renewables. China accounted for 5 
Colorado Judge Rejects Exxon, Suncor Attempt to Kill Landmark Climate Lawsuit “Courts across the country keep rejecting Big Oil’s attempts to escape justice for their climate deception,” said one advocate. Advocates celebrated Monday after a Boulder, Colorado judge rejected attempts by ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy subsidiaries to dismiss a landmark lawsuit that seeks damages for the harms the fossil fuel companies have inflicted on the climate and local communities. The lawsuit, brought in 2018 by the city and county of Boulder, argues that mounting climate costs “should be shared by the Suncor and Exxon defendants because they knowingly and substantially contributed to the climate crisis by producing, promoting, and selling a substantial portion of the fossil fuels that are causing and exacerbating climate change, while concealing and misrepresenting the dangers associated with their intended use.”
Longer and Longer Freight Trains Drive Up the Odds of Derailment Replacing two 50-car trains with a single 100-car train increases the odds of derailment by 11 percent, according to a new risk analysis. The U.S. has no federal limit on freight train length, leaving the cost-conscious rail industry free to experiment with giants like the 3.5-mile, nine-locomotive behemoth that chugged from Texas to California in a 2010 test run. But the question of capping length snapped sharply into focus last year with the fiery crash of a 150-car, 1.75-mile train carrying chemical cargo through East Palestine, Ohio. Can a train be too long? There are almost no data on any possible dangers posed by multiple-mile freight trains. Now, however, a new study published in Risk Analysis shows that the odds of a train jumping the tracks increases as the vehicle gets longer. Replacing two 50-car trains with one 100-car train raises the aggregate odds of derailment by 11 percent, the study concluded—even accounting for an overall decrease in the number of trains running. A 200-car train would have a 24 percent increase compared with four 50-car trains, according to the study team’s calculations.
The True Dangers of Long Trains Trains are getting longer. Railroads are getting richer. But these “monster trains” are jumping off of tracks across America and regulators are doing little to curb the risk … Rail safety grabbed headlines this February after a Norfolk Southern train passed sensors designed to flag mechanical issues and catastrophically derailed in East Palestine, Ohio; Republicans and Democrats alike are now calling for tighter regulations on company operations, especially in light of precision scheduled railroading. ProPublica’s reporting suggests they should start by looking at federal regulators’ ponderous response to the mounting warnings about the dangers of long freight trains.
Analysis Shows Climate-Fueled Flooding Threatens Millions in US “Even if their homes stay dry, disruptive flooding of vital infrastructure could leave people essentially stranded within their communities or enduring intolerable and even unlivable conditions.” As Americans endure extreme heat and wildfires exacerbated by fossil fuel-driven climate change, an analysis revealed Tuesday that rising seas threaten infrastructure critical for millions of people in hundreds of U.S. communities.The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report notes that “the nearly 90 million people living in U.S. coastal communities depend on an array of critical infrastructure,” which the group defined as “assets and facilities that provide functions necessary to sustain daily life,” including “schools, hospitals, public and affordable housing, energy infrastructure, and wastewater treatment plants.”
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
The Fed Posts Historic Operating Losses As It Pays Out 5.40 Percent Interest to Banks According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent monthly basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of June 19, 2024, those losses add up to a cumulative $176 billion. As the chart above using Fed data shows, the losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a monthly high of $11.076 billion in February to a low of $5.674 billion in May. These losses are separate and distinct from the unrealized losses the Fed is experiencing on the debt securities it holds on its balance sheet. It does not mark those losses to market since it intends to hold the securities to maturity and their principal is guaranteed at maturity by the U.S. government.
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