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Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United States are Over 20% of the Total Death in the Entire World!
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!
Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel! Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/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, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Quotes of the Day:
Effective quarantine is essential for tackling the coronavirus and this cannot happen without extensive testing for covid-19, says World Health Organization assistant director general Bruce Aylward. “To actually stop the virus, China] had to do rapid testing of any suspect case, immediate isolation of anyone who was a confirmed or suspected case, and then quarantine the close contacts for 14 days so that they could figure out if any of them were infected,” Aylward told New Scientistin an exclusive interview. “Those were the measures that stopped transmission in China, not the big travel restrictions and lockdowns.” — WHO Expert: We Need More Testing to Beat Coronavirus (March 16, 2020)
The South and Brazil had long held slavery in common. In fact, by the mid-19th century, more than 40 percent of the victims of the Atlantic slave trade had ended up in the vast sugarcane fields of Brazil, where the fruit of their labors was gathered to sweeten coffee and tea in houses and cafés across Europe and North America. — Meet The Confederados, The Confederate Loyalists Who Fled To Brazil After The Civil War
The U.S. on Tuesday reported 34,700 new cases of the virus, bringing its total to more than 2.3 million and over 121,000 dead — the most anywhere in the world. The virus outbreaks in Brazil, India and Russia are remarkably high too, and it’s also unlikely that the EU will let their citizens in. In contrast, aside from a notable new outbreak tied to a slaughterhouse in western Germany, the virus’ spread has slowed notably across the EU and particularly in the 26 nations that make up Europe’s visa-free travel zone known as the Schengen area, which more than 15 million Americans visit each year. — EU May Bar Americans When Borders Reopen Over Coronavirus Worries
Image of the Day:
Videos of the Day:
United States:
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 Reublicrats 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.
Ethics expert warns ‘America is on the brink of total destruction’ over DOJ ‘corruption’ bombshellWalter Shaub, the former head of the Office of Government Ethics, issued a dire warning Tuesday on the allegation that officials at the “highest levels” of the Dept. of Justice pressured prosecutors to ask for an extremely light sentence for Roger Stone, a good friend and former associate of President Donald Trump. “America is on the brink of total destruction,” Shaub warned on Twitter. By by David Badash
United States: Cracks Widen For Trump As Tulsa Rally FlopsThe New York Times reported that Trump’s attempt to revive his reelection campaign had “sputtered badly”. “[Trump] delivered a disjointed speech that did not address the multiple crises facing the nation or scandals battering him in Washington.” Trump took credit for the recovery of the US stock market, but failed to take up the suffering of the millions of unemployed, underemployed and small family businesses, which have been hit hard by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the NYT, Trump’s “rambling, grievance-filled remarks” made no mention of the Tulsa “Black Wall Street” massacre of 1921, nor George Floyd’s death at the hands of white cops in Minneapolis, which “sparked global demands for racial justice”. By Barry Sheppard
Masters of Space: Deep Space Strategy in the Age of Trump The United States “must be capable of winning wars that extend into space,” asserts a just-released “Defense Space Strategy” report. It is the first space strategy document issued by the U.S. since President Donald Trump, after declaring that the U.S. must achieve “dominance in space,” signed a measure this past December authorizing establishment of a Space Force. By Karl Grossman
Environment:
Amazon Rainforest Hit By Killer Droughts Over the past 20 years, like clockwork, severe droughts have hit the Amazon every five years with regularity 2005, 2010, 2015. Of course, droughts have hit the Amazon rainforest throughout paleoclimate history, but this time it’s different. The frequency and severity is off the charts. Recent data is starting to show 2020 as another dire year. “The old paradigm was that whatever carbon dioxide we put up in [human-caused] emissions, the Amazon would help absorb a major part of it,” according to Sassan Saatchi of NASA’s JPL. (Source: NASA Finds Amazon Drought Leaves Long Legacy of Damage, NASA Earth Science, Aug. 9, 2018) By Robert Hunziker
States Overwhelmed by Coronavirus Pandemic Face Another Health Hazard as Massive Dust Plume Heads Toward Southern US People with respiratory ailments in Texas and Florida, where hospitals are nearing capacity with Covid-19 patients, may find little healthcare support if the dust plume exacerbates their conditions. By Julia Conley
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Martin Luther King’s Giant Triplets: Racism, Yes, But What About Militarism and Materialism? In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans are finally — or is it once again? — confronting the racism that afflicts this country and extends into just about every corner of our national life. Something fundamental just might be happening. By Andrew Bacevich
The Two-Headed Hydra of Racism and Imperialism Black Lives Matter (BLM) has raised mass consciousness against the institution of police violence and the brutality it inflicts on Black communities around the country. The movement has placed the question of police brutality at the top of the political and juridical reform agenda. The naked display of the oppressive state apparatus has now forced everyone, from the fascist residents of the White House to the liberal democrats of the House, politicians speak of the need to reform policing–more training, more screening, more record-keepings, judicial vigilance, and other haphazard sutures for the centuries old wounds. Many observers have pointed out the depth of this chronic pain and different ways it might be remedied. By Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi
Movement to Remove Police From Schools Gains Momentum as Seattle and Oakland Boards Sever Ties With Departments“Something has really shifted here. These are material gains.” By Eoin Higgins
Yes, Defund the Cops – And Put Them Under Community Control Community control of the police means empowering the people to shape and oversee the mechanisms of their own security and end forever the armed occupation of our communities by hostile forces. By Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Freedom Rider: Democrats Move Right and Towards Defeat Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing, but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma or any platform positions that would attract more voters. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
The Movement to Abolish the Police Must Place Politics in Command Community control of the police offers a concrete vision for what the beginnings of police abolition might look like. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
The Responsibility to Protect? Bipartisan Crimes Against Humanity in the U.S. The US committed crimes against humanity by creating the conditions that led to sickness and death for vulnerable sectors of the U.S. population. By Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, 1964—2020 Burundi is Africa’s Syria and Venezuela, a developing nation that dared to defy US dictates under Nkurunziza’s leadership. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Notes on the Coloniality of Peace The “peace” our enemies want is mounted on brutal war and in its continuation in modern/colonial law and order. By Nelson Maldonado-Torres
Who’s a Worker? (for Leo, Clarence, Jack, Trent and ILWU Local 10 Brothers and Sisters) I’ve prepped produce; bagged bread; stocked shelves; pulled products for- ward on shelves of several stores. So I bring nothing but love for frontline By Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence 
Hold Prosecutors Accountable, Too Police violence is tied to other agents in criminal law enforcement, including and especially prosecutors. By Kate Levine and Joanna Schwartz
A Moment or a Movement? The Blowback Will Tell You cannot separate the racist police aggression in the streets of the US and the racist US aggression against Venezuela, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Libya and Syria. By Wilmer J. Leon III
Ungentrifying International News Reporting from Brazil to Ecuador and Beyond So-called “racial democracy” has systematically excluded and kept black people at the dirt end of the socioeconomic totem pole in Brazil, as reflected in its media. By Julian Cola
Food, Land and Power: Revisiting Black Cooperative Movements Land loss has plagued black America since emancipation – is it time to look again at ‘black commons’ and collective ownership? By Julian Agyeman and Kofi Boone
Seize the Time or Face Fascism Either we seize the time and bring power to the people, or we must be prepared to face overt fascism. By Riva Enteen
Labor:
“The American economy has become more ruthless, as declining unionization, increasingly demanding and empowered shareholders, decreasing real minimum wages, reduced worker protections, and the increases in outsourcing domestically and abroad have disempowered workers — with profound consequences for the labor market and the broader economy.” It ain’t gonna’ change without a fight to the finish. And a state-by-state survey conducted by Business.org found that “Nationwide, essential employees earn an average of 18.2 percent less than employees in other industries.” Interestingly, the largest disparities between the pay of essential workers and all other workers were in Democratic jurisdictions, including Massachusetts at 25.4 percent; Rhode Island, 26 percent; Virginia, 27.6 percent; Maryland, 28.6 percent; Connecticut, 29.2 percent; and the District of Columbia, at 47.2 percent. — Why Do We Pay So Many People So Little Money?
Economy:
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S. Economic Activity Was Faltering Before the Pandemic-Driven Collapse
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Pre-Pandemic Economic Troubles Were Driven Primarily by Intensifying Federal Reserve Policy Malfeasance
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March 2020 Economic Numbers Took the Initial Hit of the Pandemic Shutdown, Pulling First-Quarter 2020 GDP into an Annualized 5.0% (-5.0%) Contraction
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April 2020 Saw the Worst-Ever Monthly Collapses in Industrial Production, Nonresidential Construction, Payrolls, and Retail Sales
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May 2020 Saw Dead-Cat Bounces in Monthly Production and Construction, Some Bottom-Bouncing in Payrolls and Rebounding Retail Sales; the Latter Two Series of Questionable Reporting Quality
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In Its 18th Straight Month of Annual Decline, the May 2020 Cass Freight Index® Notched Lower, Closing in on Its Record Trough of the Great Recession
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Second Year of Federal Reserve Reporting Delays Look to Exclude Long Overdue, Pre-Pandemic Downside Revisions to Industrial Production from the July 30th Second-Quarter 2020 GDP Estimate and Annual Benchmark Revisions
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All Considered, Initial Second-Quarter 2020 Real GDP Holds on Track for the Deepest-Ever Annualized Quarterly Contraction, Down by Roughly 50% (-50%)
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Protracted Recovery Likely Will Be L-Shaped, Not V-Shaped
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Protracted Recovery Likely Will Be L-Shaped, Not V-Shaped
Industrial Production – Manufacturing (SIC) (2012 = 100) Level to May 2020, Seasonally-Adjusted [ShadowStats, FRB]
Bloomberg Drops a Bombshell on the Fed’s Big Bank Stress Tests Set for Release Today The Federal Reserve will release the results of its stress tests on the biggest and most dangerous banks at 4:30 p.m. today. But the potential results of those tests played a negative role in the stock market’s performance yesterday. The Dow’s drop of 710 points yesterday can be ascribed to two things: the alarming news reports that COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing in the second and third most populous states in the U.S. – Texas and Florida; and a bombshell report from Bloomberg News released at 7:00 a.m. yesterday morning. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Meet The Confederados, The Confederate Loyalists Who Fled To Brazil After The Civil War Rather than accept defeat, up to 20,000 die-hard Confederates moved to the slaveholding Empire of Brazil to establish colonies of Confederados. Their descendents still honor them today. By Morgan Dunn
Health, Science, 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 ‘governn’, 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 to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
The federal government is ending funding for coronavirus test sites in 5 states as Trump claims the US is testing too much The US federal government plans to stop funding and support for 13 coronavirus testing sites in five states on June 30, according to reports from Talking Points Memo and CNN. The 13 affected sites are located in Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. They were set up early on in the outbreak by the federal government to amp up testing capabilities and take some of the burden off local and state governments. By Ashley Collman
Ken Burns: Coronavirus pandemic is crisis “on the level” of Civil War and Great Depression By Ken Burns: Coronavirus pandemic is crisis “on the level” of Civil War and Great Depression The state of play: Filmmaker Ken Burns and historian Geoffrey Ward, who have collaborated since 1984 on documentaries that include “The Civil War” and “The Roosevelts,” shared stories about leadership in crisis. Burns called the coronavirus pandemic “as great a crisis as we’ve had.” More from Burns: “This [pandemic] crisis is on the level of the Second World War, but particularly the Depression and the Civil War. As Lincoln predicted, the danger didn’t come from without, but from within, and now that’s literally medically, epidemiologically true, but also politically and socially true as well.” By Mike Allen
Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 22, 2020
Shadow Government Statostic s Economic Commentary, Issue No. 1441 ShadowStats Economic Commentary, Issue No. 1441