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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 Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.
Image of the Day:
Trump caught most of his aidesand the Pentagon off-guard on Wednesday by declaring on Twitter that “nice and new and ‘smart'” missiles would soon be fired toward Syria — an announcement that came before an agreeme — US destroyers, subs, jets could answer Trump’s Syria strike call
The Cambridge Analyticascandal is just the tip of the Iceberg — Big Brother iswatching us! — Roland Sheppard
Videos of the Day:
#ShellKnew: Green Group Sues Oil Giant Over Climate ImpactInternal documents show the oil giant has known for decades that fossil fuel activities would lead to catastrophic climate change, and that it deliberately mislead the public. Friends of the Earth Netherlands says it will take Shell to court if it doesn’t do more to cut its climate impact. We speak to campaign leader Freek Bersch
Why is Israel so Threatened by Unarmed Gaza Protesters? (Part 1/2)Despite the mounting Palestinian death toll, mass protests continue in the Gaza Strip. Why is Israel using lethal force on unarmed protesters? TRNN’s Shir Hever explains why nonviolent protest is infuriating the Israeli government
U.S.:
What ‘Betrayal’? On War, Trump Has Delivered as Promised The toddler is drunk, tired and angry. It is also stupid. It is a stupid, drunk, tired, angry toddler, and about 49 percent of the adult population wanted to give this diaper-rashed monster a couple thousand nuclear warheads to play with. Donald Trump is the septuagenarian child in this analogy, and while he we can’t say for sure that he will kill us all in a 5:30 am temper tantrum, the latest Trump hire has some of those who dabbled in apologism for his brand of militarism feeling hurt and scared. by Charles Davis
More Mexicans are leaving the US than coming here — and it’s not because of deportationYou’ll never believe why While President Trump plans to spend gobs of tax dollars to send soldiers to the border in a bid to convince his most loyal supporters that he’s making an effort to honor his promise to build a wall on the border, Maria Elena Dueñas is making plans for a better life—in Mexico. By Martin Cizmar
The Justice Department’s Explanation for Ending a Program That Helps Detained Immigrants Know Their Rights Makes No SenseThe Department of Justice will be temporarily ending a know-your-rights program for detained immigrants so that it can assess the program’s cost-effectiveness, according to reports from Tuesday night. But the assessment, if the Justice Department is serious about its rationale, should be a quick one: The study has already been done. The government’s own analysis has shown that the Legal Orientation Program is a significant cost-saving measure — returning $17.8 million in the most recent year studied By Maryam Saleh
Detained, Then Violated: 1,224 Complaints Reveal a Staggering Pattern of Sexual Abuse in Immigration Detention. Half of Those Accused Worked for ICE.A woman held at an immigration detention center in Washington state said she was raped by a medical worker and a private facility contractor as she sought help in the center’s medical unit. Another woman said officers cuffed and maced her following an argument with a fellow detainee at an immigration detention center in Florida. Then, as she lay on the ground, an officer sat on her “like a person would sit on a horse,” his “erect penis on her butt.” Officers then filmed her as she showered to wash off the mace, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. By Alice Speri 
Environment:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Restrain Trump? Time to Abandon Mere Hope For Action The only good thing I can think to say about the Obama presidency is really kind of negative too, a monstrous crime he almost committed, but backed away from at the last minute. It was the only time in Obama’s political career that I’ve seen him take what might remotely be described as a risk. It was the the aftermath of the August 2013 chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus which killed 1,300 people. While all the TV talking heads and publicly visible admirals and generals blamed the nerve gas attack on the Syrian government, Obama bucked the warmongering tide which he himself had helped raise, opting NOT to escalate the US war in Syria with carpet bombings of its infrastructure and a no-fly zone, the prelude to an inevitable invasion. By Bruce A. Dixon, BAR managing editor
Ocher shadow bearing sculls and crossbones,
ruby river draining from pyramid’s base
an endless death rattle of bombs and drones
Threatening to drown the whole human race
with its weaponized Ponzi Scheme plus pomp—
Nightmare rebranded, ‘American Dream’
Bad Hombre bubbling from the draining swamp:
Poster boy, 1%’s pyramid scheme!
Mussolini mascot—walking-war crime—
dumb warhead, with homicidal hard-on
Oozing up from rot of capitalist slime
pussy grabbin’, paper towel tossin’ pawn
Another useful idiot—warlord and moron—
Silly Putty handled by the Pentagon…
Low Black Employment Rates and Tariffs Not the Answer “Capitalism is the problem, not less or more tariffs.” The Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the black unemployment reached record lows in January at 6.9%. For whites, it was 3.7%. Currently, the Black rate is still hovering near 7.7%. President Trump quickly took credit for its drop. Together with Trump’s increasing tariffs and with his promise to create more jobs, do blacks need to jump for joy? By Ken Morgan
Racial Divide Snapshot: Single Black Women Wealth, $200 – White Women, $15,640 “While women of all races and ethnicities have higher educational levels and suffer lower pay than men overall, their socio-economic status is much closer to men within their racial or ethnic group than with women across racial or ethnic groups.” As Women’s History Month ends, we at the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative think it is important to reflect upon how racial economic inequality intersects with gender economic inequality. Overall, women earn lower wages and experience higher levels of poverty than men. This holds for Black and Latina women, who also earn lower wages and experience higher poverty rates than White and Asian women. Most women of color face a double disparity: having lower socio-economic outcomes than men, compounded by affiliation with a racial or ethnic group that—whether male or female—has much lower socio-economic indicators than their White counterparts. By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad
Labor:
Economy:
Hearings Show Facebook as a Media Company Using Deceptive Technology to Gain Unfair Advertising AdvantageFacebook wants Congress, shareholders and Wall Street analysts to think of it as a sexy, high-growth-potential technologycompany, not a mediacompany, but after 10 hours of Congressional probing this week, Facebook has been revealed to be a media company that is simply using advanced technology and deceptive practices to gain an unfair advertising advantage over other media companies. (Another reason Facebook does not want to admit to being a media company is that it would then have to take responsibility for the fake news and propaganda it is spreading through Russian bots and trolls of every stripe.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
France: the railway workers’ strike and the ‘convergence of struggles’The railway workers’ strike has encouraged other sections of the working class (and also the students) to mobilise. Refuse collectors, Air France workers, civil servants, lawyers, postal workers, hospital workers and care workers assisting the elderly (among others) are gearing up for action, and every day new layers are joining the fight. The ‘convergence of struggles’ is no longer just a slogan; it has become a fact.
Deir Yassin: The Massacre that Sparked the Nakba April 9 marked the 70th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, in which Jewish militias murdered over 100 Palestinian men, women and children as part of a self-described “cleansing” campaign to expel indigenous Arabs to make way for the nascent Jewish state of Israel. One of the key ideological elements of Zionism — the movement for the re-establishment of a Jewish nation in Palestine — is the premise of what literary theorist Edward Said called “the excluded presence”of the indigenous population of Palestine. From its earliest days, Zionism, which is at its core a settler colonial movement of white, mostly European people usurping Arabs they often viewed as inferior or backwards, propagated the myth of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Theodore Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, arguedthat a Jewish state in Palestine would “form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” by Brett Wilkins
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
Quotes of the Day:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis: