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Images of the Day:
Tomorrow it will be too late to do what we should have done a long time ago. — Fidel Castro at Earth Summit 1992
The Yemen war uniquely combines tragedy, hypocrisy and farce. First come the casualties: around 10,000, almost 4,000 of them civilians. Then come those anonymous British and American advisers who seem quite content to go on “helping” the Saudi onslaughts on funerals, markets and other obviously (to the Brits, I suppose) military targets. Then come the Saudi costs: more than $250m (£200m) a month, according to Standard Chartered Bank — and this for a country that cannot pay its debts to construction companies. But now comes the dark comedy bit: the Saudis have included in their bombing targets cows, farms and sorghum — which can be used for bread or animal fodder — as well as numerous agricultural facilities. In fact, there is substantial evidence emerging that the Saudis and their “coalition” allies — and, I suppose, those horrid British “advisers” — are deliberately targeting Yemen’s tiny agricultural sector in a campaign which, if successful, would lead a post-war Yemeni nation not just into starvation but total reliance on food imports for survival. Much of this would no doubt come from the Gulf states which are currently bombing the poor country to bits. — Saudi Arabia ‘deliberately targeting impoverished Yemen’s farms and agricultural industry’
It’s hard to believe that the Deepwater Horizon incident, which discharged over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, happened six years ago. What’s not hard to believe is that the environmental health implications of the spill are stubbornly lingering. Gulf residents of variety of species are paying a high price for it — so high that litigation against BP for its role in the spill, officially deemed “negligent,” is likely to continue for decades as people fight to get help with ongoing medical expenses. Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the spill was linked to an uptick in dolphin deaths, illustrating that this unprecedented release of petroleum products in the Gulf had a lasting health impact for animals. — Deepwater Horizon Continues to Impact Public Health
Videos of the Day:
U.S.
Rigging of Elections: 13% of black men are disenfranchised — New Jim Crow Fact Sheet
Malcolm X on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump When astute political commentary from a half century ago eloquently describes the current political conundrum it means we’ve been stuck in a bad place for a long time. Do we really want Malcolm’s observation to apply four or eight or twenty years further into the future? A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
Labor:
Economy:
Here’s How Wall Street Is Ripping You Off, and What You Can Do About It Members of Congress were absolutely shocked – shocked! – that the employees of the commercial bank of Wells Fargo had created several million accounts and credit cards that their customers had never asked for simply to meet sales quotas set by the bank and/or to obtain bonuses. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Saudi Arabia ‘deliberately targeting impoverished Yemen’s farms and agricultural industry’ Increasing evidence suggests Kingdom is not merely bombing civilians in neighbouring country, but systematically targeting infrastructure survivors will need to avoid starvation when the war is over By Robert Fisk
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare
Who Controls Our Schools? How Billionaire-Sponsored Privatization is Destroying Democracy and Enriching The Charter School Industry A report/e-book on the corporate takeover of K-12 schools By Don Hazen, Elizabeth Hines, Steven Rosenfeld, and 
The Trotskyists in Stalin’s concentration camps – An eyewitness account of the strike at Vorkuta As the year draws to an end we would like to remember all those thousands of genuine Communists who perished in Stalin’s camps, butchered simply for defending the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. Old Bolsheviks like Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin were forced to confess to crimes they had not committed. These famous victims were only the tip of the iceberg. Not remembered are the thousands of Trotskyists who languished in brutal concentration camps. They were brave and defiant to the end. The difference with the Trotskyists was that Stalin’s agents could not get them to confess to false crimes, so they were never brought to trial but just callously executed and buried in the wastes. By MB
Trotskyists at Vorkuta As the 45th anniversary of the October Revolution draws near, the Soviet government has proceeded to “rehabilitate” Bukharin, Radek, Piatakov, etc. To be sure, this is a juridical rehabilitation — but it is certainly not a political rehabilitation. However, juridical rehabilitation is already a dangerous step for the representatives of the Soviet bureaucracy, to which they resign themselves in view of the exigencies of Soviet society today, which sees in the condemnation of Stalin’s methods a guarantee that they will never return An Eyewitness Report, International Socialist Review, Vol.24 No.3, Summer 1963, pp.94-97. Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
300 Tons of Fukushima Radioactve Waste Hits the West Coast Every Day! 
Quotes of the Day: 
U.S. Navy Admits to Having Released Chemicals Known to Injure Infants’ Brains War games in U.S. waters release toxic chemicals that are harmful to both humans and wildlife. By Dahr Jamail
Snowden: ‘Journalists Are a Threatened Class’ in Era of Mass Surveillance “Things are pretty bad for our side. For the government’s side, it’s never been easier” by Nika Knight
After Cancer Diagnosis, Vet Refutes Government’s Agent Orange Expert—and Wins By Charles Ornstein
Environment:
Boom in Urban Population Will Make Climate Change Worse By Tim Radford 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Deepwater Horizon Continues to Impact Public Health By: s.e. smith
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights: