Daily News Digest April 15, 2019

Daily News Digest April 15, 2019

Daily News Digest Archives

Since World War I ‘the war to end all wars’ there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace,” Could Still Be Published Today!

During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and  The Iron Heel.

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.

Images of the Day:

Wikileaks History

Assange and Zukkerburg and Private Information

Jamiol: The Embarrassment of Wikileaks Leaks

Videos of the Day:

History of the National Security State with Gore Vidal

Ecuadorian President’s Motives for Surrendering Assange/ Vengeance & IMF Loan$4.2 billion IMF loan, submission to the US, and vengeance appear to have been President Moreno’s true motives for revoking Assange’s asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy, says Ecuador’s former foreign minister Guillaume Long

Assange Arrested for Exposing U.S. War Crimes – Paul Jay Wikileaks released Manning’s leaked documents and exposed multiple crimes committed by the U.S. government and armed forces – Jay says this is getting lost in the corporate media coverage of Assange’s arrest;  when he was arrested, Assange carried a copy of TRNN’s book “Gore Vidal on the History of the National Security State” which was based on a series of interviews conducted by Paul Jay between 2005 to 2007; the premise of the book is the American state and its loyal media use patriotism to lie to the American people about U.S. foreign policy and militarism

“A Dark Day for Journalism”: WikiLeaks Vows to Fight Julian Assange’s Extradition to U.S.

Daniel Ellsberg On Assange Arrest: The Beginning of the End For Press Freedom

Quotes of the Day:

The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in  almost seven years. That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention. But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump’s Washington, in league with Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice. — John Pilger. The Assange Arrest is a Warning From History

 U.S.:

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!

Juliane Assange is ‘first and foremost a publisher’!:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be punished for embarrassing the DC establishmentThe key to the prosecution of Assange has always been to punish him without again embarrassing the powerful figures he made mockeries of. “He is our property.” Those celebratory words of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., came on CNN soon after the news of the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London It was a sentiment shared by virtually everyone in Washington from Congress to the intelligence services. Assange committed the unpardonable sins of embarrassing the establishment — from members of Congress to intelligence officials to the news media. And he will now be punished for our sins. Despite having significant constitutional arguments to be made, it is likely that he will be stripped of those defenses and even barred from raising the overall context of his actions in federal court. What could be the most important free speech and free press case in our history could well be reduced to the scope and substance of an unauthorized computer access case. For years, the public has debated what Assange is: journalist, whistleblower, foreign agent, dupe. The problem is that Assange is first and foremost a publisher. . By Jonathan Turley

Don’t extradite Assange!To the government of the UK: Julian Assange, through Wikileaks, has done the world a great service in documenting American war crimes, its spying on allies and other dirty secrets of the world’s most powerful regimes, organisations and corporations. This has not endeared him to the American deep state. Both Obama, Clinton and Trump have declared that arresting Julian Assange should be a priority. We have recently received confirmation [1] that he has been charged in secret so as to have him extradited to the USA as soon as he can be arrested.  Assange’s persecution, the persecution of a publisher for publishing information [2] that was truthful and clearly in the interest of the public – and which has been republished in major newspapers around the world – is a danger to freedom of the press everywhere, especially as the USA is asserting a right to arrest and try a non-American who neither is nor was then on American soil. The sentence is already clear: if not the death penalty then life in a supermax prison and ill treatment like Chelsea Manning. The very extradition of Julian Assange to the United States would at the same time mean the final death of freedom of the press in the West. Sign now!

Declassified documents show CIA knew Latin juntas killed dissidents abroadWith the broad blessing of a CIA bent on thwarting Soviet expansion, South American military juntas together formed a special unit charged with going to France and elsewhere abroad to exterminate leftist opposition leaders. While the cooperation of military dictatorships was widely known, details about this special unit, called Teseo, were not, until the release Friday of the final 7,500 declassified U.S. documents shared with Argentina and the world. By Kevin G. Hall

Is the U.S. Prepared to Accept a Defeat in Venezuela? The attack should have been short since the Nicolas Maduro Administration was not strong enough to resist. This was the conviction of the United States as they carried out a strategy to overthrow him: They built a President 2.0 Juan Guaido; they gave him a fictionalized government, international acknowledgement, a collective narrative among mass media companies, accelerated economic sanctions at different levels. Overlapping these variables, different results were expected to be achieved on their path of getting a forced negotiation or the overthrowing. Events did not take the planned course. First and most important, the breaking of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB): a crucial element that should have happened but did not succeed. A series of tactics were implemented for it, from internal conspiracy with the support of a lot of dollars, visas and guarantees of the strategy of a latent threat of a possible U.S. intervention. A combination of bluff -an unloaded weapon aimed at your face- with built up dates to try to achieve a break, as it was on February 23rd. By Marco TeruggiThe F-35 Fighter Jet Will Cost $1.5 Trillion. It’s Time for New Priorities.U.S. taxpayers are no strangers to getting saddled with monstrously expensive weapons programs at the expense of basic needs like food, shelter and education. The Pentagon paid $44 billion for 21 very fragile B-2 stealth bombers, few of which still fly in combat roles. The F-22 fighter, coming in at more than $350 million per plane, was built to combat Cold War adversaries who ceased to exist six years before the first jet rolled off the production line. The sticker price for Ronald Reagan’s harebrained “Star Wars” missile defense program stands at around $60 billion. Alas, there always seems to be more room at the Pentagon trough. Enter the F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft. By William Rivers Pitt

Requiem for the Fourth Estate The arrest of Julian Assange adds to the steady erosion of the rights we once took for granted, says Ray McGovern. It is a very sad day for the rule of law.  Today’s broad-daylight manhandling and kidnapping of Julian Assange from political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London demonstrates in bas-relief that in today’s Anglo-America, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights are now “quaint and obsolete,” to use the words of pseudo-lawyer, Alberto Gonzales.  By Ray McGovern

Research Study on Ongoing Crime Spree by Wall Street Mega Banks Gets News Blackout: Here’s Why One day before Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee held an historic grilling of the CEOs of the mega banks on Wall Street, the nonprofit watchdog, Better Markets, released an in-depth research report on “Wall Street’s Six Biggest Bailed-Out Banks: Their RAP Sheets & Their Ongoing Crime Spree.” The report detailed facts, figures and this inescapable conclusion: “[Six Wall Street mega banks] have engaged in—and continue to engage in—a crime spree that spans the violation of almost every law and rule imaginable. Taking the breadth and depth of their illegal conduct as a whole, the six biggest banks in the country look like criminal enterprises with RAP sheets that would make most career criminals green with envy. That was the case not just before the 2008 crash, but also during and after the crash and their lifesaving bailouts…In fact, the number of cases against the banks has actually increased relative to the pre-crash era.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Environment:

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Labor:

 World:

This Not Hiroshima—This is Gaza

Sudan: Uprising has ousted dictator but the regime tries to stay in powerAfter almost three decades in power, Omar al-Bashir has been ousted as president of Sudan by popular protests. The masses have come onto the streets in what can only be described as a revolutionary movement, although one without clear leadership or demands. Bashir himself has been arrested and is being “kept in a safe place” by the military. By Ben Gliniecki, Hasnaa Shaddad,  and Jean Duval

Economy:

Health, Education, 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 ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!

NYC: Faced with Charter Pressure, DeBlasio Backs Down When Joel Klein was chancellor of the NYC schools in 2006, he agreed to give the charter industry access to the names and addresses of public school students at the urging of his good friend Eva Moskowitz, who wanted to give the appearance of high demand for her schools. To this day, NYC is the only city that voluntarily turns over the names and addresses of its students to charters, which are the competition. In what other realm does one competitor give his “customer” list to his competitor, who will try to poach them and their funding too? Thanks to Arthur Camins, who made this point earlier in the comments. By Diane Ravitch