Daily News Digest August 14, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

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!

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 SheppardLaura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”

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!

Images of the Day:

Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems  Global distribution of 400-plus systems that have scientifically reported accounts of being eutrophication-associated dead zones. Their distribution matches the global human footprint [the normalized human influence is expressed as a percent (41)] in the Northern Hemisphere.

 Quotes of the Day:

As previously discussed in this series, all life requires nitrogen, but the naturally-available supply is limited, so organisms have had to evolve ways of using small amounts efficiently. Mass availability of cheap nitrogen fertilizer upset that balance after World War II, turning a natural shortage into a glut. A metabolic ceiling that had existed for millions of years was shattered in a few decades.  Between 1950 and 2000, worldwide use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer increased from 4 to 83 million tonnes a year. This was one of the most important features of a global shift to industrial agriculture, which remains dependent on fossil fuels, genetically modified seeds, monocropping, and heavy use of chemicals.   Nitrogen fertilizers have substantially increased crop yields, but they are far from efficient — less than 20% of the nitrogen in fertilizer actually ends up in human food. The rest remains in the environment.[12] A significant portion is carried by irrigation or rain into streams and rivers. By the beginning of this century, the amount of nitrogen in many rivers was far above pre-industrial levels: 400% higher in the Mississippi, 800% higher in rivers in the northeastern United States, and 1000% higher in rivers that drain into the North Sea.[13] The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that, “In most high-income countries and many emerging economies, agricultural pollution has … overtaken contamination from settlements and industries as the major factor in the degradation of inland and coastal waters.”[14] —   Dead Zones: Industrial Agriculture versus Ocean Life

 Videos of the Day:

As Kamala Harris Makes History as VP Pick, Her “Top Cop” Record Faces New Scrutiny Amid BLM Protests

What the Nazis Learned from Jim Crow: Author Isabel Wilkerson on the U.S. Racial Caste System

MLK: The Three Evils of Society War, Racism and Poverty

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

If the Democratic Party and/or Had Gore Stood Up For the Rights of Black Voters in Florida, In the 2000 Presidential Election. The Supreme Court Would Not Have Been Able to Elect George Bush as the President of the United States! The Democratic Party Could Not Stand Up  For Black  Rights Even To Win The Presidential Election!:

The rancor lingering from the bitterly contested presidential election spilled over during a joint session of Congress today, forcing Vice President Al Gore to gavel down black House members time and again in order to make official the election of his opponent, George W. Bush.   Congressional certification of the Electoral College vote is usually quick and routine. But nothing has been ordinary about the November election that will result in Mr. Bush being sworn in this month as the first president since Benjamin Harrison in 1888 to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote.  Today, for nearly 20 minutes in the cavernous House chamber, a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined by a few sympathizers, tried in vain to block the counting of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, protesting that black voters had been disenfranchised. Florida’s highly contested electoral votes were crucial in Mr. Bush’s victory after a prolonged legal and political battle following an inconclusive election. — Over Some Objections, Congress Certifies Electoral Vote

In reality, the number of CPD (Commission on Presidential Debates) presidential debates will, as usual, come to a grand total of zero. The purpose of CPD since its formation in 1987 has been to, as League of Women Voters president Nancy M. Neuman noted at the time, “steal the debates from the American voters.”  The events put on by CPD are not “debates.” Debates involve formal arguments over questions of substance. CPD events are theatrical productions — side-by-side candidate commercials, financed by millions of dollars in arguably illegal campaign contributions from corporate sponsors. You almost certainly won’t see the Constitution Party’s Don Blankenship, Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins, or Libertarian presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen on the CPD “debate” stage this year. These two-contestant, two-winner beauty pageants are run by the two “major” parties, and since 1992 (when independent candidate Ross Perot got onto the stage and took 19% of the vote) have been specifically designed to exclude third party and independent candidates. — America Doesn’t Have Real Presidential Debates, But It Should

Trump Plans to Sabotage Elections in Bid to Retain Power Trump and the Republicans are planning to sabotage the November election in order to throw it into chaos. They hope to use this to keep Trump in power and the Senate with a Republican majority.  They plan to do this by two campaigns. One is to undermine the post office to make counting of mail-in votes as difficult as possible. This will cause a delay in announcing the winner by days, weeks or longer. Trump has already stated that if there are such delays, he will not recognize the outcome if he loses. A possible outcome will be court challenges by the Republicans and Democrats over the results. An article on the front page of the August 9 New York Times was titled “Long Legal Fight May Follow Vote on Election Day – Trump Lays Groundwork to Discredit Result – Biden Gets Ready.”  The article refers to the disputed outcome in the 2000 presidential elections in Florida, where the Supreme Court intervened. In a divided vote, that intervention resulted in the election of George W. Bush as president over Al Gore. The Court’s decision gave Bush enough votes in the Electoral College to put him one vote more than a majority in the College, although Gore won the popular vote. By Barry Sheppard

‘Just Comes Out and Says It’: Trump Declares Postal Service Can’t Handle Mail-In Voting Because He’s Blocking Funding “This is crazy by any standard. The president of the United States is actively trying to sabotage the election.” President Donald Trump proclaimed Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t have the capacity to handle an unprecedented increase in mail-in ballots because it lacks funds that his administration is blocking, remarks that were immediately viewed as an open admission of election sabotage by a president who has previously called USPS “a joke.” By Jake Johnson

With Warren Sidestepped, Wall Street Execs Cheer Biden’s Pick of Harris for VP Biden’s selection of the California senator comes after Wall Street executives made clear that they would prefer “almost anyone” but Sen. Elizabeth Warren. With the prospect of longtime bank critic and progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren being chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate now officially dead, Wall Street executives are openly applauding the presumptive Democratic nominee’s selection of California Sen. Kamala Harris as a signal that the top of the party’s ticket in November will be sufficiently “moderate” for their liking.By Jake Johnson

Billionaire-Funded Think Tanks Call for Pandemic Deregulation to Be PermanentThe reactionary right-wing juggernaut has quickly seized upon the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate its anti-government agenda. Every citizen’s right to protest has been curtailed, massive amounts of industrial pollution have been deregulated and crucial rules governing Wall Street have been canceled. By Peter Montague

Nine Mile Ride: Why Police Reform Always Results in More Police Violence, Not Less The US Department of Justice sued the City of Albuquerque in 2014 after a lengthy investigation in which it found that the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) engaged in a widespread “pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing.” The DOJ wanted reforms to APD’s use of force policies, revamped training standards, stronger accountability mechanisms, and more crisis intervention training. The City reluctantly agreed to all of this and APD has been operating under a court-ordered, federally monitored reform process since. But nothing’s changed on the street. By David Correia, Justin Bendell, And Ernesto Longa

Environment:

Trump Rolls Back Methane Climate Standards For Oil snd Gas Industry Methane is a greenhouse gas that heats the planet far faster than CO2 and addressing it is critical to slowing global heating By Emily HoldenYellowstone Imperiled by Compromise From Ramshorn Peak on the Gallatin Crest, the Buffalo Horn Creek drainage stretched majestically before us. Two colleagues of the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance and I had hiked there to reflect from that vantage point on the threat of loss of Wilderness protections for this crucial part of the Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area. The magnitude of the meadows and forest lands below, interspersed across this lower-elevation valley, practically screamed wilderness to us. By Joseph Scalia Iii

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

The Dismantling Of Abortion Rights Has Already Begun Anti-abortion laws that provide zero benefits to patients have been saved by Chief Justice John Roberts. Earlier this summer, reproductive rights groups breathed a collective sigh of relief when Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Supreme Court’s liberal justices to find that a Louisiana law that would have left the state with a single abortion clinic was unconstitutional. But it wasn’t all good news. Roberts, who wrote a separate concurring opinion, left the door open for states to enact other onerous anti-abortion laws that could harm patients. And it’s already happening: On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled to allow four previously blocked abortion restrictions to go into effect in Arkansas, citing Roberts’ opinion in the Louisiana case. By Melissa Jeltsen

Reneging on George Floyd Promises: The Minneapolis Police Name-Change Con
When Black Lives Matter chapters demand “abolition” and “defunding” of the police, rather than community control of the cops, they play into the hands of charlatans and misleaders on city councils and in the halls of Congress. “The proposed charter amendment was at best a symbolic gesture and at worst lessened police accountability for past and future crimes.”  By Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor Freedom Rider: TikTok and the War on China Every charge that Trump and his minions make against Chinese companies is true for US corporations, which have been spying on Americans and the rest of the world for decades. “Dedollarization is well underway and will only accelerate with every attack.” The seemingly strange Trump administration attack on the TikTok and WeChat platforms are just the latest iterations of an economic, rhetorical and propaganda war against the People’s Republic of China. The United States has dispensed with any pretense of diplomatic niceties and resorted to theft and public bullying in a futile effort to undo China’s economic prowess. But the unipolar moment is over and China will remain a power player in the world. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist ESPN Tries to Draft NBA Players Into US Cold War Against China NBA players and fans alike have many reasons to oppose US provocations, lies and threats. “The corporate media that speculate about ‘concentration camps’ in China never condemn the very real concentration camps that exist in the U.S.A.” By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing EditorNBA Game Changer? “Black Homes Matter” Nothing as meticulous and self-contained as the NBA Bubble could be constructed for the rest of us. “There was no approved “Defund the Police” message, and I haven’t heard any of the players voice that either.”On July 30, the National Basketball Association (NBA) began scrimmages in the “NBA Bubble,” a self isolation resort inside Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. The Bubble has strict rules to protect players and other staff from the COVID-19 pandemic as they close out the 2019–20 season and playoffs in the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. The whole production is costing $150 million, but that’s a small price to pay given that the NBA playoffs generated $932 million in advertising in 2019 and hundreds of millions more in basketball apparel sales and endorsements. But it all goes down the drain if there’s a coronavirus outbreak; the season was suspended after one member of the Salt Lake City Jazz tested positive on March 11. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor

LA’s Gang-Infested Police are Deadly – and Costly Uniformed thugs calling themselves Vikings, Regulators and Banditos prey on the city’s Black and brown civilians, and even brutalize their fellow cops. “They pride themselves on having these violent cliques to show the public who’s the boss.” Los Angeles County has paid out roughly $55 million in settlements in cases in which sheriff’s deputies have been alleged to belong to a secret society, records obtained by the Los Angeles Times show, illuminating the entrenched nature of a subculture that has plagued the Sheriff’s Department for years. By Alene Tchekmedyian “Racial Capitalism” is the Kind We’ve Got Theorists of racial capitalism are not interested in the characteristics capitalism could have had in some imagined world, but in the world as it exists. “The point of theorizing about racial capitalism is to focus our attention on the broader forms of organization that are constitutive of social life under capitalism, beyond how it organizes work and production.” In a recent article for Dissent, editor emeritus Michael Walzer wonders aloud what “racial capitalism” means. Its conclusion stops graciously short of calling for a ban of the term, but does suggest that “the phrase should always be queried by the editors,” since he has failed to pin down a satisfactory definition of the term. But why was Walzer spitballing about what “racial capitalism” means in the first place? He could have just asked. By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and Liam Kofi BrighDispatch from PDX (Portland, Oregon); Black Lives Matter in a White Utopia  The temporal-spatial convergence of the largest white city in amerikka, with the most persistent “BLM” protests and exceedingly white subcultures should not be dismissed as coincidence. “The matrix of violence that defines Black life cannot be understood through the lens of fascism.” Portlanders have risen up against the fascist police state. Armed with ski goggles, saline solution, homemade shields, leaf blowers and lacrosse sticks for scooping up and throwing back tear gas canisters. The word gestapo is trending on twitter as videos circulate of the feds snatching protesters off the streets. Constitutional rights are invoked, amendments are cited, it’s an outrage.  By Kahlil M. Wall-JohnsonStudents of Color are Harmed Most by the “Broken Windows” Teaching “No excuses” teaching borrows from the “broken windows” theory of policing, which has been enacted in U.S. cities since the mid-1980s. “Students of color are more likely to be seen as perpetrators planning to “break windows” than beautiful multifaceted human beings.” In the fight for racial justice, teachers have a heavy job, for schools are both microcosms of, and preparation for, society. Because teachers serve as significant adult figures in children’s lives, their interactions with students can shape students’ sense of self and the world around them, as well as their engagement in school, personal efficacy, and academic achievement. Complex and difficult racial dynamics impact these relationships, and as calls for justice grow, it’s time to recognize this. By Victoria Theisen-HomerHow a Popular Medical Device Encodes Racial Bias Pulse oximeters give biased results for people with darker skin, and the consequences can be serious. “Oximeters remain another disturbing materialization of how white supremacy has been built into our systems and infrastructures of perception—even programmed into the very machines we rely on to quantify danger when someone can’t breathe.”COVID-19 care has brought the pulse oximeter  into many American homes. This compact medical device, costing as little as $20, clips onto a fingertip and helps gauge how much oxygen is making it to the blood. When COVID-19 fevers moved through my household earlier this year, everything suddenly revolved around the number on its tiny screen, which reports oxygen saturation as a percentage. Normal readings are in the range of 95 to 100 percent; my husband could only sleep if I stayed up to make sure his readings didn’t plummet into the 70s again. Our doctor said to go back to the hospital  if the device’s reading dropped to 92 and stayed there, but most nights it hovered along that edge. I began to wonder exactly what this object was telling us. By Amy Moran-Thomas

Bourgeoisie Cash is flowing in the Coffers of Black Lives Matter We must at every instance solve the question of how to fund the revolution without becoming subservient or dependent on our oppressors. “He who pays the piper calls the tune” The intensity of the spontaneous African resistance across the U.S. in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis impacted more than U.S. society. The whole world has enthusiastically expressed solidarity with Africans in the U.S. against police oppression. By African People’s Socialist PartyGreen Party Presidential Candidate Howie Hawkins Says ‘Real Solutions Can’t Wait’ The Green Party’s presidential pick discusses his foreign and domestic policy positions. “We support the defund and abolition demands, but we also call for community control of the police as an indispensable demand.” The 2020 national convention of the Green Party of the United States, held online, ratified the nomination of Howie Hawkins as its candidate for President, winning 205 out of 357 total votes cast in state primaries. Angela Walker is his running mate for Vice President. Barry Sheppard interviewed Hawkins last month for Green Left. By Barry SheppardLabor:

Economy:

Shadow Government Statics Flash Economic Commentary, Issue #445.  Jobs, GDP and Revisions, Faltering Economy, Money Supply, Fiscal Concerns, Gold and the U.S. Dollar

  • Mounting, Fundamental Risks for Hyperinflation and Systemic Instabilities Promise New Highs for Gold and Silver Prices, Irrespective of the August 11th Sell-Offs
  • Historic GDP Collapse Wiped Out the Last Five Years of Economic Growth
  • Second-Quarter 2020 Real GDP Plunged at an Unprecedented, Albeit Consensus, Annualized Quarterly Pace of 32.9% (-32.9%), Down Year-to-Year by 9.5% (-9.5%)
  • Given Limited-Quality Hard Data, Has Headline Reporting Turned to the Consensus?
  • Benchmarked GDP Received a Boost from New Trade-Deficit Reporting Gimmicks
  • Nonetheless, Rebound from the Pandemic-Driven Economic Collapse Is Faltering
  • L-Shaped Economic Recovery Has Begun to Take Form, as July Jobs and Unemployment Improvement Decelerated, Amidst Continuing Pandemic-Disrupted Surveying and Reporting Quality Issues
  • Labor-Market Stress Has Intensified as Unemployment Claims Gyrate Around Still-in-Depression Levels; Fed Sees Early Indications of Renewed Pullback in Consumer Activity
  • S. Sovereign Credit Rating Rumblings Mount as Congress and the White House Negotiate a Second Round of Massive, Expanded Deficit
  • Spending Stalled Recovery Will Generate Even Greater Spending and Monetary Excesses
  • Federal Reserve Record Money Supply Expansion Continues, Despite Benchmarked Money Numbers Showing Minimally Slower Growth
Revised Quarterly GDP, ShadowStats Alternate, GDI and GNP

Wall Street Banks Sell Off in Midst of Largest Treasury Auction in History The Federal Reserve has thrown everything just short of the kitchen sink at propping up the mega banks on Wall Street – the same ones that were never prosecuted for their fraudulent issuance of mortgage securities and causing the worse economic crash since the Great Depression in 2008. (The Fed bailed the same banks out back then also – to the tune of $29 trillion in cumulative loans.)    But yesterday’s market action suggests that something is definitely amiss. The S&P 500 index closed at 3380, just 7 points away from topping its all-time high of 3386 that it set on February 19 of this year. The Dow also gained 289.9 points on the day. But now look at the chart above. There was a sea of red in the Wall Street bank stocks. While the losses in Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo were all less than 1 percent, they stood out noticeably. For example, six of the Dow Jones Industrial Average components closed with gains of more than 2 percent. Those stock were Intel, United Health, Merck, Home Depot, Microsoft and Apple. (Apple actually gained 3.32 percent on the day. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Strike Wave Grows in Belarus As Regime Trembles The wave of strikes in Belarus is growing. Today we can already talk about the beginning of the general strike. The entry of the working class in the arena is extremely significant and can lay the basis for an independent position of the workers. However, this means shedding any illusions in the liberal bourgeois politicians. By Oleg Bulaev

Venezuela: the Peoples’ Revolutionary Alternative is Born. Let’s Rebuild Hope! After years of arduous and heated discussions, tactical rearrangements, and adjustments in the political activity of the organisations, the Alternativa Popular Revolucionaria (Peoples’ Revolutionary Alternative) has finally been born in Venezuela. It is an alliance of leftist parties and movements that are determined to mark a decisive break from the anti-worker policies of the national government and to offer the country a new working class, peasant, and peoples’ point of reference for a revolutionary solution to the crisis of capitalism. This initiative has been promoted by the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), Patria Para Todos (PPT), Izquierda Unida (IU), and Lucha de Clases: the Venezuelan section of the International Marxist Tendency. They are four of the six organisations that are part of the Frente Popular Anti-fascista y Anti-imperialista (FPAA: Anti-fascist and Anti-imperialist Peoples’ Front), but in order to promote this new initiative, they have determined to transcend it. To start with, this coalition has been joined by the National Network of Communards, the MB200, Somos Lina, the LGTI Movement, MPA, COMPA and the PRT.Portugal: crisis supplying “the ingredients to generate a revolution” Portugal’s ‘miracle’ economic recovery (based largely on tourism) has been shattered by the coronavirus pandemic. With unemployment rising and the economy nosediving, a revolutionary backlash is on the horizon.

Education, Health, Science, 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 ‘:’, 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