Daily News Digest November 19, 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.

Always Remember That Obamba Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature, Started the United States Capitalist Austerity Program  — The Race to the Botom or the Pauperization of the 99%!

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.    Socialism Means True Democracy — The 99% Will Rule! — Not the Few!

Images of the Day:

Rare EarchMinning—Ocean Bottom Removal

Quotes of the Day:

The destructive 2018 season was not an isolated event either. Just one year prior, the Tubbs Fire burned nearly 37,000 acres and destroyed 5,643 structures. Of the 20 largest California wildfires listed on the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website, 15 have occurred since the year 2000. Now in 2019, homeowners — especially in high-risk wildfire areas — are feeling the effects on their insurance. The devastating wildfire seasons the previous two years have hit insurers hard, and as a result, many homeowners are now experiencing rate increases, non-renewals and even an inability to find a company that will cover them.  But before we dive into the 2019 impact on homeowners insurance rates in California, why have the number of catastrophic wildfires increased recently? While there are multiple factors that increase the risk of destructive wildfires that cause property losses, long stretches of hot, dry weather and the spread of development into wildland areas top the list.‑ How Have Wildfires Affected California’s Homeowners Insurance Rates?

Videos Of the Day: 

Why China’s Control Of Rare Earth Minerals Threatens The United States

Why The US Has No High-Speed Rail

After Texas Court Blocks Execution, Rodney Reed Has a Chance to Prove His Innocence in 1996 Murder

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 United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.

Did Obama Make a Mistake by Deporting 3 Million People? Bernie Sanders: ‘Yes’ “We’re not talking about tearing down the system—we’re fighting for justice,” said 2020 candidate in response to former president’s reported warning that some

The Baby Snachers: Leaked Memo Reveals Trump Administration’s “Immoral” Plan to “Traumatize” Migrant Children “It appears that they wanted to have it both ways—to separate children from their parents but deny them the full protections generally awarded to unaccompanied children.” By Jessica Corbett

Environment:

Mining From Mountaintop Removal To Sea Botton Removal:

Last Night, 60 Minuets Did a Pro Sea Botton Removal Infomerical  for Rare Elements Mining: Why The U.S. Is Missing Out On The Race To Mine Trillions Of Dollars Worth Of Metals From The Ocean Floor

Creating a New Market for Coal in the Push to Mine ‘Critical Minerals’ for National Security With the backing of the mining industry and anti-regulatory groups, the Trump administration has been seeking to expand mining on public lands and further loosen environmental rules under the banner of weaning the United States off importing minerals deemed “critical” to national security.  This move may have particular implications for the struggling U.S. coal industry and its promoters, which have begun rallying behind efforts to extract some of these so-called “critical minerals” from coal and its by-products.  In 2017, President Trump issued an executive order demanding “recom-mendations to streamline permitting and review processes” for “critical minerals.” The current government list of critical minerals includes a group of rare earth elements often abundant in the waste materials from mining coal and hardrock minerals like phosphate, as well as in the coal ash produced from burning coal. But while the technology to pull these elements from such mining waste is not yet economically viable and can generate its own toxic pollutants, some see the push for it as a guise for justifying further mining.  By Laura Peterson

Week 147: Trump Officials Stonewall Investigators . . . at the EPA. (What Did You Think We Were Talking About?) Plus, the EPA’s secret science rule is so “1984,” and Trump declares himself “very much into climate,” which is so “Pinocchio.” Stonewall Jackson Ryan Jackson, chief of staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, refuses to meet with the agency’s inspector general. His primary rationale? The IG, who is responsible for investigating waste, abuses of power, and other illegality inside the EPA, won’t tell Jackson exactly what the meeting is about. By Brian Palmer

Amid Blackout, a California Tribal Village Kept Lights On With Solar Energy October’s 383,000-gallon spill of the Keystone Pipeline in Edinburgh, North Dakota reveals the pipeline for what it is: a deal with the devil. For those of us who live in the land of lakes, just imagine what 383,000 gallons of oil will do to the Hay Creek, Fishhook Lake watershed, and what “clean up” will look like. There’s no way to clean up or protect that aquatic ecosystem. There are no fish, wild rice or life after an oil spill. That’s what a deal with the devil looks like. While Enbridge talks about the need for a new safe pipeline, the fact is that the Keystone pipeline is not even 10 years old. It is a new pipeline, and it still leaked. In fact, the October catastrophe was its second major leak; the 2017 pipeline rupture sent 407,000 gallons spewing into South Dakota groundwater.North Dakota has sold its water and soul to the oil companies. Three years ago, a study by Duke University found, Accidental wastewater spills from unconventional oil production in North Dakota … caused widespread water and soil contamination…. Researchers found high levels of contaminants and salt in surface waters polluted by the brine-laden wastewater, which primarily comes from fracked wells. Soil at spill sites was contaminated with radium. At one site, high levels of contaminants were detected in residual waters four years after the spill occurred.

The Gerry Brown ‘Cap and Trade’ Flim Flam: Oil and Gas Emissions Have Increased Under California’s Cap and Trade Program Experts are increasingly worried cap and trade is allowing California’s biggest polluters to conduct business as usual. By Lisa SongBooming Border Budgets Fund Human Rights Abuses and a Destructive Border Wall The southern border region is a place of hope and opportunity, where more than 15 million people live in peace and harmony with our southern neighbors, and work hard to provide for our families, just like countless communities across the country.  But our states have been subjected to decades of deadly border policies that have torn apart the very fabric of our communities. As leaders of environmental and human rights groups based in the southern border states, we are calling on Congress to reject the profit-driven, dangerous push for endless border militarization. During the 2020 budget negotiations in Congress, our elected officials must reject any funding that further militarizes the southern border. By Vicki B. Gaubeca, Todd Miller, and Dan Millis

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Another Death Penalty Horror: Stark Disparities in Media and Activist Attention On November 12, intrepid abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean tweeted to her legions of followers: “What do Sen. Ted Cruz, Gigi Hadid, Kim Kardashian, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and me all have in common? We’re among a growing local and national movement asking Texas @GovAbbott to stop the scheduled Nov. 20 execution of ” But for Twitter’s character limitation on tweets, Sister Helen’s impressive and growing list of famous people – to publicly throw their support behind Reed’s bid to stop his impending execution – could have also included: Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Busta Rhymes, Ayanna Pressley, Ava Duvernay, Oprah, Beyoncé, Rihanna, LL Cool J, Reggie Bush, Meek Mill, Dr. Phil, Chuck Woolery, Beto O’Rourke, Common, Questlove, Larry Krasner, Greta Van Sustren, the Dixie Chicks, and many, many more (far too many for me to likewise list here). By Stephen Cooper

Labor:

Economy:

 As Fed Pumps $3 Trillion into Repo Market, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Practice Borrowing from the Fed’s Discount Window Last week, Jim Grant, the Editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, was interviewed by CNBC’s Rick Santelli. Grant said that since September 17, the Fed has pumped “upwards of $3 trillion” in repo loans to Wall Street. Santelli asked if the Fed had effectively nationalized the repo market. Grant said “there is no more price discovery and we are dealing with administered rates.” For the first time since the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been pumping out hundreds of billions of dollars each week to trading houses on Wall Street in order to provide liquidity to the repo (repurchase agreement) market where financial institutions make collateralized, overnight loans to each other. Liquidity had dried up in this market to the point that on September 17 overnight lending rates spiked from the typical 2 percent to 10 percent. The Fed then turned on its money spigot and brought the rate back down. But even after the rate went back down, the New York Fed has continued making these massive loans, raising fears on Wall Street about what is really going on behind the scenes. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Even With a Wealth Tax, Economic Policy Ensures Billionaires Will Exist The Democratic presidential campaign has taken a strange twist in recent days, with candidates being asked whether we should have billionaires. While there may be some grand philosophical questions at stake here, I will stick to more mundane economic ones. The real question is: How do you want the economy to work? The basic story is that if we have a market economy, some people can get very rich. If we buy the right-wing story, the superrich got their money from their great contribution to society. If we look at it with clearer eyes, the superrich got their money because we structured the economy in a way that allowed them to get super rich. By Dean Baker

World:

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Macho Camacho: Jeffery R. Webber and Forrest Hylton on the Coup in Bolivia The stakes in labelling what happened in Bolivia a coup are nothing less than political legitimacy. Former presidents Dilma Rousseff and Luis Ignacio da Silva in Brazil; former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and president-elect Alberto Fernández in Argentina; and the governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Tabaré Vásquez in Uruguay labelled it a coup, while the governments of Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, to name only some of the countries in the US orbit, refused to do so. Brazil, perhaps the least legitimate government in the hemisphere today, was the first country to recognize the post-coup government. By Ashley Smith

Tory Campaign Shambles: Wheels Fall Off As Labour Give Boris A Scare The Tories have made a shambolic start to their election campaign. The contempt shown to the victims of Grenfell and of the recent floods, the widespread racism and the string of lies and fabrications have shown them for who they are. By Jack Tye Wilson and  Leeds West ClpFuel Price Hike Ignites Protests in Iran Protests broke out in Iran on November 15, 2019, after the government unexpectedly announced a major increase in fuel prices at midnight on Friday. Protesters took to the streets in many cities across the country, switching off their cars on the streets and blocking the roads. By Kaveh Chai ChiHealth, 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