Daily News Digest July 10, 2019

Daily News Digest July 10, 2019

Daily News Digest Achives

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 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:

Warning: How Wall Street Takes Your Money – Legally!Quotes of the Day:

If the corporations have their way, the Earth will be killed, and that’s in your lifetime. It’s revolting to me that students are being trained to work in corporations. It’s obscene to me that the corporations are running the world. We’ve got to get cross. Anger is an appropriate emotion. — Helen Caldicott

Americans collectively are losing billions of dollars a year out of their retirement accounts because they’re paying excessive fees, according to researchers studying thousands of employer-sponsored retirement plans across the country.  The rearchers say part of the trouble is that many employers that offer 401(k) plans to their workers are outgunned by financial firms that sell them bad plans loaded with hefty fees. That’s especially true, they say, for small and midsize employers that don’t have much financial expertise in-house. — Is Wall Street Eating Your 401(k) Nest Egg?

However, although the overall total number of deportations under Obama is hard to compare to other administrations, the number of internal non-citizen removals did increase significantly thanks in large part to Obama’s expansion of the Secure Communities program originally created under the Bush administration. Under Obama, internal non-citizen removals totalled almost 3.1 million, more than a 50% increase over the eight years of the Bush administration and more than three times the number removed by Clinton. Playing the law-and-order card, Obama and his supporters have argued that these were not families but criminals that were being removed. However, as immigration activists have consistently shown, the Secure Communities program resulted in the removal of significant numbers of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who were guilty of little more than minor traffic or immigration violations, and many who had been convicted of no crimes whatsoever. Furthermore, huge numbers of those deported were never given legal representation of any kind. nd now, after years of supporting the Democratic Party and/or voting to fund ICE, the 2020 Democratic Primary candidates want you to believe that the outrages perpetrated by the current administration can be solved by voting for yet another Democrat. But history has shown that even the most well-intentioned politicians have found themselves incapable of addressing the fundamental problems of immigration, not because they don’t have the right ideas or because they lack the political support of their constituents, but precisely because they are, by virtue of their relationship to the state, unable to challenge the logic of closed national borders, which inescapably leads to the creation of legal and illegal human beings. — The Democratic Party Doesn’t Care About Immigrants

Videos of the Day:

US Violates Nuclear Non-Proliferation Obligations, Undermining Credibility With Iran and N. Korea 

Economic Update: Is U.S. Capitalism In Decline

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!

The problem with addicted people, communities, corporations, or countries is that they tend to lie, cheat, or steal to get their ‘fix.’ Corporations are addicted to profit and governments to power.  — Helen Caldicott

‘Never Again Means Close the Camps!’: Hundreds of Jewish Activists Surround ICE Office to Protest Trump Detention Centers  Hundreds of Jewish activists and allies took to the streets in Chicago and surrounded a local ICE office on Monday to demand the closure of President Donald Trump’s detention camps, where immigrants have been forced to endure inhumane conditions and abuse from Border Patrol guards. “Never again means close the camps!” demonstrators chanted as they marched down the streets of Chicago. By Jake JohnsonWar, Memory and Gettysburg. . .An estimated 750,000 soldiers were killed by combat, accident, starvation and disease in the Civil War, more than in all other American wars combined, according to a 2012 study. Rifled muskets and rifled artillery vastly increased the range and accuracy of fire over the 18th century’s smoothbore muskets and cannons, but the advance in weaponry did nothing to perturb the generals who clung to outdated and now suicidal tactics. They sent their soldiers marching forward in parade-ground lines into murderous volleys as if they were on a Napoleonic battlefield. The inability of most generals to adapt, as Allen C. Guelzo writes in “Gettysburg: The Last Invasion,” “makes the Civil War look like an exercise in raw stupidity equivalent to the slaughters on the Western Front [of World War I].” By Chris HedgesKamala Harris Has a Distinguished Career of Serving InjusticeHarris, who served as San Francisco District Attorney from 2004 to 2011 and California Attorney General from 2011 to 2017, describes herself as a “progressive prosecutor­­­­.” Harris’s prosecutorial record, however, is far from progressive. Through her apologia for egregious prosecutorial misconduct, her refusal to allow DNA testing for a probably innocent death row inmate, her opposition to legislation requiring the attorney general’s office to independently investigate police shootings and more, she has made a significant contribution to the sordid history of injustice she decries. By Marjorie Cohn

Thousands of U.S. Citizens Have Been Mistakenly Detained or DeportedWe are law professors who have studied civil litigation involving citizenship disputes and thousands of cases involving citizens caught up in immigration cases. That includes the U.S. citizens who have been accidentally swept up in the government’s immigration enforcement efforts since the mid-19th century. In many cases, they have been detained and even deported In fact, more than 1,500 U.S. citizens spent time in immigration detention between 2007 and 2015 before the government acknowledged the mistake, federal records indicate. Northwestern University political scientist Jacqueline Stevens estimated that approximately 1% of all immigration detainees from more than 8,000 cases between 2006 and 2008 that she studied were U.S. citizens.By Cassandra Burke Robertson and Irina D. Manta

Socialists On Chicago City Council Fight For Affordable Housing, Immigrant Rights By Socialists On Chicago City Council Fight For Affordable Housing, Immigrant Rights In an interview with CNN that aired Friday morning, former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden slammed progressive Democrats and their “way left” policies, suggesting that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, isn’t representative of the Democratic Party’s base or its path to victory in 2020. Meanwhile, in Chicago, where thousands of socialists from all over the world gathered for the four-day Socialism Conference, there was plenty to celebrate. Over the past two years, there’s been a resurgence of socialist politics across the U.S., from Ocasio-Cortez’s toppling of 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley — the most consequential political upset in recent times — to the six democratic socialists elected to Chicago City Council — a repudiation of ex-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago machine. And most recently, Tiffany Cabán, a public defender backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, challenged the establishment-backed candidate in the Queens, New York, district attorney race. While the outcome of the race is now disputed, Cabán’s insurgent campaign stunned Queens leadership. By Aída ChávezEnvironment:

        In the March 26, 2002, issue of the New York Times in an article titled “U.S. Orders Checks for Corrosion at Nuclear Reactors,” by Matthew I. Wald, states that:

Nuclear reactor operators have been ordered to check their reactor vessels after the discovery that acid in cooling water had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the six-inch-thick lid of a reactor at a plant in Ohio. The corrosion left only a stainless-steel liner less than a half-inch thick to hold in cooling water under more than 2,200 pounds of pressure per square inch.” At the 25-year-old Ohio plant, Davis-Besse, near Toledo, the stainless steel was bent by the pressure and would have broken if corrosion had continued, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where officials were surprised by the discovery. They said they had never seen so much corrosion in a reactor vessel. The commission, which has warned plants for years to watch for any corrosion, has ordered all 68 other plants of similar design—pressurized-water reactors—to check their lids. The commission is particularly worried about a dozen of the oldest plants and ordered them to report by early April whether they were safe enough to keep in service. The commission told these plants to demonstrate that technicians there would have noticed such corrosion in their normal inspections, had it occurred. If the liner had given way in the Ohio reactor, experts say, there would have been an immediate release of thousands of gallons of slightly radioactive and extremely hot water inside the reactor’s containment building. [Possibly leading to a meltdown] … It could be something unique to Davis-Besse,” said Alexander Marion, director of engineering at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association. A goal for the investigation at the plant, he said, would be to find out not only why the corrosion occurred but also why it was not noticed sooner. ‘The plants are getting older and we’re starting to see these kinds of problems,’ Mr. Marion said.

The massive quantities of radiation that would be released in a war fought with nuclear weapons might, over time, cause such great changes in the human gene pool that following generations might not be recognizable as human beings.— The massive quantities of radiation that would be released in a war fought with nuclear weapons might, over time, cause such great changes in the human gene pool that following generations might not be recognizable as human beings.—Helen Caldicott

AOC, Bernie Sanders to Introduce Resolution Calling ‘Existential Threat’ of the Climate Crisis an ‘Emergency’ “We are facing a climate emergency that requires a massive and immediate federal mobilization.” By Eoin Higgins, staff writer

Nuclear Plants are Shutting Now, But radioactive Waste from these Plants Will Never Shutdiwn!:  High Cost of Nukes Even Higher If Medical Expenses IncludedNuclear reactors are shutting in the U.S, and across the world. Reactors have always been dangerous, but over time they have also become more expensive than ever. A 2017 report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates U.S. reactors lose $2.9 billion per year in operations overall. Eight American reactors have closed permanently since 2013, and most of the remaining 97 units are very old and costly. By Joseph Mangano

Going Nuclear in the Antipodes: Australia’s Megadeath Complex  The antipodes has had a fraught relationship with the nuclear option. At the distant ends of the earth, New Zealand took a stand against the death complex, assuming the forefront of restricting the deployment of nuclear assets in its proximity. This drove Australia bonkers with moral envy and strategic fury. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 made the country a nuclear and biological weapons-free area. It was a thumbing, defiant gesture against the United States, but what is sometimes forgotten is that it was also a statement to other powers – including France – who might venture to experiment and test their weapons in the Pacific environs.By Binoy Kampmark

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

‘This Is a Scandal’: Documents Show ICE and FBI Using Facial Recognition to Mine Millions of Driver’s License Photos “ICE is running facial recognition searches against millions of photos. You. Your family. Your friends. This is a major violation of privacy.” By Jake JohnsonLabor:

The 1%’s Politicians have not raised the meager minimum wages for over Ten years! It is one part in the puaperization of the U.S.!:   CBO Analysis Shows $15 Federal Minimum Wage Would Raise Pay for 27 Million Workers and Lift 1.3 Million Out of Poverty  “It has been more than 10 years since congress raised the minimum wage—the longest stretch in history. This is a shameful benchmark. Congress should immediately pass the Raise the Wage Act.” “We have a responsibility as a people whose history included these kinds of atrocities to identify the signs and prevent them from happening.” By Jake JohnsonEconomy:

The Financial Industry Preys on 401(k) Fees. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way.There are two reasons why 401(k)s have not filled the gap created by the loss of traditional pensions. The first is simply that many workers don’t have them at their workplace. Either employers don’t enroll workers until they are employed for a year or two, or businesses find the paperwork associated with a 401(k) to be too big of a headache. As a result, only 50 percent of workers currently contribute to a 401(k). The second big problem is that financial industry fees eat up much of what gets contributed to these accounts. Average expenses of 401(k)s run over 1.0 percent of holdings and in some companies as much as 2.0 percent. This is a huge deal. By Dean BakerWorld:

The Seizure of an Iranian Tanker and the Lethal Toll of SanctionsThe seizure of an Iranian oil tanker allegedly bound for Syria by British Royal Marine commandos off Gibraltar is the latest episode in the long and disastrous history of economic sanctions in the Middle East. The UK claims that it is implementing EU sanctions on Syria, but the act will be seen by Tehran – and most other states – as the British enforcing US sanctions on Iran that the EU said it opposes. An Iranian official said a British tanker should be seized in retaliation. By Patrick CockburnHong Kong protesters appeal to mainland Chinese for supportAnother massive protest took place in Hong Kong on Sunday, the latest since anger sparked by a controversial extradition bill that brought one million people into the streets a month ago. This time, protesters marched in Kowloon, which is connected to the mainland. Organizers estimated 230,000 people took part in the march that had the express goal of reaching out to mainland Chinese visiting the city. Police estimated the turnout at 56,000.  Hong Kong protesters have been motivated by fear over the erosion of democratic rights and general disillusionment in the future in a city where 20 percent of the population lives in poverty. Sunday’s march began in Tsim Sha Tsui, an area popular with mainland Chinese tourists, and ended at the West Kowloon Railway Station where the high-speed train arrives from Guangzhou and Shenzhen. By Ben McGrath 

 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!