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!
Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter 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 Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake! By Roland Sheppard
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:
Another skeptic is Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard, who released her own dissenting opinion on the Fed allowing these banks to continue making dividend payouts. Brainard wrote the following in that regard:“[The Fed] vote allows distributions to continue to be paid out, despite the material change in financial conditions. It implements a novel approach by authorizing third quarter dividends at a level equal to average net income over the prior four quarters—even though that past net income and more was already paid out in the prior quarters. The payouts will amount to a depletion of loss absorbing capital. This is inconsistent with the purpose of the stress tests, which is to be forward looking by preserving resilience, not backward looking by authorizing payouts based on net income from past quarters that had already been paid out.” — Fed’s Stress Tests Results Based on GDP Decline of 8.5 Percent; Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Forecast Says GDP Will Decline by 46.6 Percent
Noam Chomsky: This sounds strong, but it’s true: Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably. There has never been a figure in political history who was so passionately dedicated to destroying the projects for organized human life on earth in the near future.
That is not an exaggeration. People are focused now on the protests; the pandemic is serious enough that we will emerge from it at terrible cost. The cost is greatly amplified by the gangster in the White House, who has killed tens of thousands of Americans, making this the worst place in the world [for the coronavirus]. We will emerge [from the pandemic, but] we’re not going to emerge from another crime that Trump has committed, the heating of the globe. The worst of it is coming — we’re not going to emerge from that. — Noam Chomsky: “Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably”
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.
U.S. control of dollarized money and credit is critical to this hegemony. As Congressman Brad Sherman of Los Angeles told a House Financial Services Committee hearing on May 9, 2019: “An awful lot of our international power comes from the fact that the U.S. dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions. Clearing through the New York Fed is critical for major oil and other transactions. It is the announced purpose of the supporters of cryptocurrency to take that power away from us, to put us in a position where the most significant sanctions we have against Iran, for example, would become irrelevant.”[1] The U.S. aim is to keep the dollar as the transactions currency for world trade, savings, central bank reserves and international lending. This monopoly status enables the U.S. Treasury and State Department to disrupt the financial payments system and trade relations for countries with which the United States is at economic or outright military war. Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly responded by describing how “the degeneration of the universalist globalization model [is] turning into a parody, a caricature of itself, where common international rules are replaced with the laws… of one country.”[2] That is the trajectory on which this deterioration of formerly open international trade and finance is now moving. It has been building up for a decade. On June 5, 2009, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev cited this same disruptive U.S. dynamic at work in the wake of the U.S. junk mortgage and bank fraud crisis. — U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses
The Secretive Government Agency Planting ‘Cyanide Bombs’ Across the US Wildlife Services kills thousands of animals at ranchers and farmers’ behest. But it operates with little oversight – and critics describe it as out of control The call came over Tony Manu’s police radio one March day in 2017: some sort of pipe had exploded in the hills outside Pocatello, Idaho and the son of a well-known local doctor was hurt, or Manu, a long-time detective with the county sheriff’s office, was shocked. A pipe bomb in Pocatello? “We were like, ‘Holy shit,’” says Manu. He hit the gas and screeched up winding mountain roads outside of town. “I thought maybe [the victim] was missing a leg or something. That is what it sounded like.” At the home of Dr Mansfield and his family, he found a frightening scene. On the driveway, just outside the sprawling timbered house, the family’s dog, Kasey, was dead. Inside the home, Canyon Mansfield, 14 years old, the youngest of three children, was sobbing. His head was pounding and his eyes were burning – he needed to go to the emergency room. By Jimmy Tobias
‘No One Is Above the Law’: Federal Court Rules Trump Effort to Seize Pentagon Funds for Border Wall Is Illegal “This ruling is a win for the rule of law, the environment, and border communities.”By Jon Queally\The War That Time Forgot I hear it all the time. The most crucial decision of this century was the vote to go to war against Iraq. It’s meant to serve as a political line of demarcation, a sure-fire way to determine which politicians, celebrities and news personalities you can trust.But there’s little question, to my mind at least, that the impulsive decision to invade Afghanistan was the more consequential and enduring tragedy, a political bloodletting that nearly every political leader, left and right, fell for, even putative peaceniks like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul. This was the true moral test of our time and almost everyone failed, except Barbara Lee. She was the lone voice of conscience in the fall of 2001, a vote of dissent in a time of mass hysteria that has been vindicated time and again over the past 18 years. By Jeffrey St. Clair
Environment:
News From Cancer Alley: ‘Outrageous and Chilling’: Police Condemned for Charging Peaceful Environmentalists With ‘Terrorizing’ in Louisiana “It is outrageous and chilling to see people criminalized simply for speaking out and advocating against toxic pollution in their neighborhoods.—Liz Butler, FOE Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh, respectively the director and a program assistant for Louisiana Bucket Brigade, “turned themselves into the Baton Rouge Police Department Thursday,” according to NOLA.com. “Rolfes was booked with terrorizing, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. McIntosh was booked with principal to terrorizing. Each was released Thursday By Jessica Corbett
In response to the Thursday arrest of two local activists as “part of a coordinated attack on those who defend democracy and challenge the petrochemical industry,” environmentalists in Louisiana have launched the Defend Democracy Alliance. (Photo: Louisiana Bucket Brigade/Twitter)
It’s Time to Nationalize the Fossil Fuel Industry he COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy provides a golden opportunity for creating a fairer, more just and sustainable world as it shatters long-held assumptions about the economic and political order. Its impact on the energy industry in particular can boost support for tackling the existential threat of global warming by raising the prospect of nationalizing and eventually dismantling fossil fuel producing companies, a position argued passionately by one of the world’s leading progressive economists, Robert Pollin, distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. By C.J. Polychroniou
America’s Water Crisis: Key Findings: the Guardian’s Water Poverty Investigation in 12 US Cities For many Americans across the US, water bills are becoming unaffordable. That poses a threat to health, housing and families Water is essential to life. Yet running water is becoming unaffordable across the US, in cities large and small. Water bills weigh heavily on many Americans as utilities hike up prices to pay for environmental clean-ups, infrastructure upgrades and climate emergency defenses to deal with floods and droughts. Federal funding for America’s ageing water system has plummeted, and as a result a growing number of households are unable to afford to pay their bills; millions of homes are being disconnected or put into foreclosure every year. By Nina Lakhani and Juweek Adolphe
High Levels of Arsenic Found in US Whole Foods’ Bottled Water Brand Tests by Consumer Reports find toxic metal in Starkey Spring Water, which was previously recalled for exceeding federal limits, and is sold on Amazon Bottled water manufactured by Whole Foods and sold in most of its US stores and on Amazon contains potentially harmful levels of arsenic, according to new tests by Consumer Reports (CR).CR recently tested dozens of bottled water brands and found that Starkey Spring Water, introduced by Whole Foods in 2015, had concerning levels of arsenic, ranging from 9.49 to 9.56 parts per billion (PPB), at least three times the level of every other brand tested. Federal regulations require manufacturers to limit the amount of arsenic, a potentially dangerous heavy metal, in bottled water to 10 PPB. CR experts believe that level does not adequately protect public health. Ryan Felton
Pumping Up the Bubble Economy Again!: ‘Big Banks Couldn’t Be Happier’: Stocks Surge as Trump Regulators Gut Restrictions on Risky Wall St Gambling The rollback, noted the Wall Street Journal, hands “Wall Street one of its biggest wins of the Trump administration.” Bank stocks jumped and lobbyists rejoiced Thursday after U.S. regulators voted to gut the so-called Volcker Rule, a set of regulations imposed in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street collapse limiting the ability of financial institutions to engage in high-risk behavior that threatens the systemic health of the economy. By Jake Johnson
U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by a United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries. By Michael Hudson
Fed’s Stress Tests Results Based on GDP Decline of 8.5 Percent; Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Forecast Says GDP Will Decline by 46.6 Percent Yesterday the Federal Reserve released its highly awaited stress tests on the biggest and most dangerous banks in America. The stress test results fill an 83-page document with dozens of charts showing what would happen to the banks under a hypothetical “severely adverse scenario.” This scenario, unfortunately, was previously prepared and pales in comparison to the actual economic damage rendered by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the severely adverse scenario for this year’s stress tests imagined the U.S. unemployment rate climbing to a peak of 10 percent in the third quarter of 2021. The unemployment rate is currently 13.3 percent. But far more frightening, the Fed’s severely adverse scenario for GDP imagined a decline of “8½ percent from its pre-recession peak, reaching a trough in the third quarter of 2021.” By Pam Martens and Russ MartensDemocrats Drill Down at Hearing on When and How Clayton Got the Nod from President Trump for Federal Prosecutor Role The Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee convened a hearing today on capital markets with the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton. The hearing had been scheduled prior to last Friday evening’s abrupt and controversial sacking of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, by Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump. A statement released by Barr on Friday night stated that the President would be nominating Clayton to fill the post. Clayton has no prior experience as a prosecutor and would be taking over one of the most important federal prosecutor’s offices in the country. That office currently has ongoing investigations of Deutsche Bank, the President’s longstanding business lender; the President’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his associates; and potentially Wall Street cases being defended by Clayton’s former employer of two decades, the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. (See U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s Ouster: The Untold Story.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
‘World On Fire’: Capitalism n Meltdown As society begins to reopen, the ruling class is hoping for a return to ‘normality’. But the future will look nothing like the past. A deep depression looms, threatening to throw us back to the 1930s. We must fight for revolution. With the easing of the lockdown, we are in a period of apparent calm. But it is a calm before the storm.In the hurly-burly of events, especially at this time, it is possible to get bewildered. Events are moving so fast that there is hardly enough time to catch one’s breath. It is therefore important to occasionally take a step back in order to see the bigger picture. By Rob Sewell
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
Capitalism Kills! As Capitalist Push to Reopen COVID-19 — Coronavirus Cases Rise!: Florida Reports 9,000 New Coronavirus Cases In Biggest Daily Surge Florida officials announced on Friday the largest single-day increase of new coronavirus cases in the state, eclipsing the previous record set just one day prior by a count of several thousand.Out of 71,433 tests conducted within a 24-hour period in Florida, 8,942 cases came back positive for COVID-19, a rate of 13.05 percent. Both numbers were higher than the previous day’s announced findings, when 5,508 cases came back positive, representing a rate of 8.72 percent of all cases tested on that day. By Chris Walker
Why a Socialized System Like Medicare for All Beats For-Profit Healthcare in One Chart of Covid-19 Infection Rates
\The War That Time Forgot I hear it all the time. The most crucial decision of this century was the vote to go to war against Iraq. It’s meant to serve as a political line of demarcation, a sure-fire way to determine which politicians, celebrities and news personalities you can trust.But there’s little question, to my mind at least, that the impulsive decision to invade Afghanistan was the more consequential and enduring tragedy, a political bloodletting that nearly every political leader, left and right, fell for, even putative peaceniks like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul. This was the true moral test of our time and almost everyone failed, except Barbara Lee. She was the lone voice of conscience in the fall of 2001, a vote of dissent in a time of mass hysteria that has been vindicated time and again over the past 18 years. By Jeffrey St. Clair
High Levels of Arsenic Found in US Whole Foods’ Bottled Water Brand Tests by Consumer Reports find toxic metal in Starkey Spring Water, which was previously recalled for exceeding federal limits, and is sold on Amazon Bottled water manufactured by Whole Foods and sold in most of its US stores and on Amazon contains potentially harmful levels of arsenic, according to new tests by Consumer Reports (CR).CR recently tested dozens of bottled water brands and found that Starkey Spring Water, introduced by Whole Foods in 2015, had concerning levels of arsenic, ranging from 9.49 to 9.56 parts per billion (PPB), at least three times the level of every other brand tested. Federal regulations require manufacturers to limit the amount of arsenic, a potentially dangerous heavy metal, in bottled water to 10 PPB. CR experts believe that level does not adequately protect public health. Ryan Felton
