Daily News Digest December 5, 2016

Daily News Digest Archives

As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not The 1% Who Profit From Austerity!

Daily News Digest December 5, 2016

Images of the Day:

The Sleeping Giant Awakes!Big Brother is Watching You! Quotes of the Day:

From Hooray for the new Patriotic police state Obama won’t veto law that turns military into domestic police force: It flew through the House today (December 14, 2011) and should pass the Senate shortly. Along with the usual gazillion dollars for the Pentagon to buy death machines from military contractors via lobbyists/former members of Congress, the NDAA will also allow the military to seize U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and throw them in Gitmo forever. Remember how the terror prison at Guantanamo Bay was originally filled, after 9/11? And remember how a fraction of the prisoners held and tortured there for years had anything to do with Al Qaeda, because they were just random goat herders or whatever, picked up because the military and the CIA paid a per-head bounty on “terrorists”? Yeah well same thing now, but in the United States! . . . .

For example, WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” in Southern California from 2009 to 2012. She also served on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or North Coast from 2004 to 2012. (www.dfg.ca.gov/…

While she oversaw the crafting of “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from pollution, fracking, oil drilling, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts other than sustainable fishing and gathering, her husband, James Boyd, served as vice chair of the California Energy Commission. (www.energy.ca.gov/…‎) Big Oil also gets its buddies in key positions in regulatory agencies. In November 2011, Governor Brown fired two regulators, Derek Chernow, acting director of Department of Conservation, and his deputy, Elena Miller. Brown replaced Chernow with Mark Nechodom to expedite permits in Kern County, Nechodom, in turn resigned the day after Central Valley farmers filed a RICO lawsuit in 2015 alleging that Governor Jerry Brown’s office ordered the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (“DOGGR”) to approve permits to inject contaminated water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Governor Brown last fall announced the appointment of Bill Bartling, 61, of Bakersfield, who has worked as an oil industry executive and consultant, as district deputy for Bakersfield in the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) at the embattled California Department of Conservation. (yubanet.com/…) —Dan Bacher, WSPA: The West’s Most Powerful Corporate Lobbying Group

Videos of the Day:

Trump’s Carrier Deal: Job Saver Or Photo Op? The closure of another plant in leaving some workers in other parts of Indiana feeling abandoned again, says Workers’ Project Executive Director Tom Lewandowski

Billionaire ‘King of Bankruptcies’ to Head Commerce Under Trump Despite promises to ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump chose a man for Deputy Secretary of Commerce who enriched himself at expense of labor and consumers and shipped jobs overseas, says University of Missouri-Kansas City professor Bill Black

U.S.

Worldwide Mass Outpouring of support for the Standing Rock Protesters, who ‘kept on a fightin’, wins the day!: Standing Rock: US denies key permit for Dakota Access pipeline, a win for tribe Army Corps of Engineers will not grant the permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the Missouri river, handing a major win to environmental activists The army corps will undertake an environmental impact statement and look for alternative routes. By Julia Carrie Wong Standing Rock Standing Rock: US Vets rescues stolen tribes’s canoes from authorities US vets set up several small tents and planted a U.S. and Marine Corps flag while sheriff’s deputies watched…Video by New York Times reporter shows just how massive the Standing Rock protest camp is The camp housing protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline have come to resemble a small city with “streets” crisscrossing the prairie between the tents, teepees, and quickly-erected shacks where the protestors have dug themselves in, according to photos and videos posted by reporters on the ground.Thousands of protesters have gathered in Cannon Ball, North Dakota since August to protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a proposed 1,172-mile pipeline enabling North Dakota-produced oil reach refining markets in Illinois. By Jeremy Berke

Capitalism Removes its Fig Leaf of Democracy: Is Trump’s Idea To Fix a ‘Rigged System’ by Appointing Crooks Who’ve Played It? Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are suggesting a governing philosophy along the lines of a corrupt municipal police force relying on gangsters to help it keep street crime held in check. Trump has been naming top Wall Street bankers and hedge fund owners to staff his Commerce Department (former Rothschild banker and billionaire Wilbur Ross), Treasury (former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund executive Steve Mnuchin), and more recently, as top “economic strategy advisors”, Blackstone Group CEO Steven Schwartzman and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, the bank chief who, together with Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and other too-big-to-fail bank leaders almost single-handedly cratered the US economy in 2008 with their casino betting on derivatives. By Dave Lindorff

The Iron Heel at Home: Force Matters I’ve long been taken aback by the readiness of some leading left intellectuals to downplay the role of state violence in the enforcement of social hierarchy and class rule inside the United States. byPaul Street As Rule 41 Quietly Passes, Trump to Inherit Expanded Hacking Powers Changes to rule allow FBI agents to remotely hack into computers that are outside of the judicial district where warrant was issued by Nadia Prupis Bernie Sanders: Big Business ‘Took Trump Hostage and Won’ ‘In essence, United Technologies took Trump hostage and won. And that should send a shock wave of fear through all workers across the country.’ By Nika Knight Warren Refuses to Let Trump’s Luxury Hotel Conflict Slide If nothing changes, Trump will effectively be “landlord and tenant” of the International Hotel, violating numerous statutes by Lauren McCauley Timberg’s Tale: Washington Post Reporter Spreads Blacklist of Independent Journalist Sites Craig Timberg, a Washington Post reporter with an interesting history (which we’ll get to shortly), doubled down last night with a new article suggesting that Congressional legislation may be coming to further crack down on independent journalists not properly adhering to the dogma of Washington. by Pam Martens – Russ Martens CounterPunch as Russian Propagandists: the Washington Post’s Shallow Smear This past week CounterPunch and other reputable independent media outlets were accused of spreading fake news during the presidential election – stories allegedly fabricated by the Ruskies. The baseless accusations originated from an obscure new anonymous outfit called PropOrNot, which claims that the “overall Russian effort is at least semi-centralized, with multiple Russian projects and influence operations working in parallel to manage the direct and outsourced production of propaganda across a wide range of outlets.” by Joshua Frank Senate Responds to Post-Trump Anti-Semitism By Targeting Students Who Criticize Israel After Donald Trump’s election emboldened white supremacists and inspired a wave of anti-Semitic hate incidents across the country, the Senate on Thursday took action by passing a bill aimed at limiting the free-speech rights of college students who express support for Palestinians. By Alex Emmons Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:

Hundreds of Students Report Bullying, Threats and Attacks in Weeks After the Election By Victoria Law Environment:

WSPA: The West’s Most Powerful Corporate Lobbying Group The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) is not a household name in California and the West, but it should be. WSPA is the trade association for the oil industry and the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying organization in California. It represents a who’s who of oil companies including Aera Energy, Chevron, California Resources Corporation (formerly Occidental Petroleum), Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, Shell, Valero and many others. Yet most people I talk to — even many environmental activists — have never heard of the organization and the enormous influence it wields over politicians and regulators in the western states. by Dan Bacher Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:

Labor:

Economy:

Behind GE’s Takeover of Alstom Energy In late 2015, General Electric swallowed the energy division of the French multinational Alstom. The issue was highlighted mid-battle by Tom Gill on Counterpunch in May 2014. by Evan Jones

World:

Cuba-Trained Doctors Head to Standing Rock: A delegation of doctors trained at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba announced they will head to Standing Rock to “serve in solidarity.” Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

Sanders Single Payer and Death by Democrat by Russell Mokhiber 75 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies Pearl Harbor Day today is like Columbus Day 50 years ago. That is to say: most people still believe the hype. The myths are still maintained in their blissful unquestioned state. “New Pearl Harbors” are longed for by war makers, claimed, and exploited. Yet the original Pearl Harbor remains the most popular U.S. argument for all things military, including the long-delayed remilitarization of Japan — not to mention the WWII internment of Japanese Americans as a model for targeting other groups today. Believers in Pearl Harbor imagine for their mythical event, in contrast to today, a greater U.S. innocence, a purer victimhood, a higher contrast of good and evil, and a total necessity of defensive war making. by David Swanson