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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!
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:
The time is right to harness the power of international criminal law to protect our global environment … My hope is that this group will be able to … forge a definition that is practical, effective and sustainable, and that might attract support to allow an amendment to the ICC statute to be made. — Prof Philippe Sands, International Lawyers Draft Plan to Criminalize Ecosystem Destruction
Senator Jeff Merkley, also of Oregon, said this: “Donald Trump’s choice of Mnuchin is not only a fundamental betrayal of his promise to stand up to Wall Street — it is a punch in the gut to the thousands of American families who were thrown out of their homes by Mnuchin’s bank. The voices of these Americans should be heard loud and clear as the Senate examines his record and considers his nomination.” — Trump Issued an Executive Memorandum Giving Mnuchin a $50 Billion Slush Fund; Mnuchin Gave Himself $386 Billion More
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. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
In the United States Over 275,000 People Have Now Died From Coronavirus 
‘Housing Is Healthcare’: Evictions Have Exacerbated Covid-19 Pandemic, Research Shows “This is a time where it’s not an overstatement to say that for many people, eviction can lead to death.” That’s how housing justice advocate Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University, put it when describing her co-authored research, which found that the premature expiration of state eviction bans led to more than 433,000 excess Covid-19 cases and 10,700 preventable deaths in the United States between March and September. By Kenny Stancil
Trump the Grifter: ‘All About the Grift’: Trump Reportedly Raises Over $150 Million for Non-Existent ‘Election Defense Fund’ “The average donor who gives in response to Trump’s appeal for funds to ‘stop the fraud’ likely doesn’t realize that their money is actually retiring Trump’s debt or funding his leadership PAC.” —Brendan Fischer, Campaign Legal Center “Small donors who give to Trump thinking they are financing an ‘official election defense fund’ are in fact helping pay down the Trump campaign’s debt or funding his post-presidential political operation.” By Jake Johnson
Trump’s Worst Crime Must Not be Forgotten It was the worst crime of Donald Trump’s years in the White House. In October 2019 he ordered US troops to stand aside, greenlighting Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria that led to the murder, rape and expulsion of its Kurdish inhabitants. By Patrick Cockburn 
We Know Joe We know this man Joe Biden. We know the politics he champions. We know his corporate and financial backers. We know what we’re up against. Barack Obama and the Clintons operated in the same neoliberal and essentially reactionary sphere. The faces in power may be female, Black, Latino and gay, but the policies are designed to keep the power from the people, the money from the vast numbers of working people, and the war machine’s troops around the globe. We cannot afford to get fooled again. By Ron Jacobs
Joe Biden: The Fossil Fuel President Joe Biden: The Fossil Fuel President For months, the bourgeois press has gushed over Joe Biden’s supposedly progressive climate plans. A headline in the New York Times tells us, “Biden Plans to Move Fast with a ‘Climate Administration.’” The article goes on to paint a glowing picture of a visionary “Climate President” boldly changing course after four years of Trump’s climate denial and environmental rollbacks. Taking the Biden campaign at face value, many climate scientists and activists have also expressed hope that this administration will be a step forward. At first glance, their “lesser-evil” reasoning might seem like common sense, at least regarding the climate crisis. Considering that Trump placed the EPA in the hands of a professional climate denier, isn’t a Biden administration a sound case of harm reduction? By Antonio Balmer
Environment:
Federal Grazing Fees: the Hidden Subsidy I’m writing in response to Greta Anderson’s recent post titled What does coexistence with large carnivores actually mean? Greta highlights the fallacy that “coexistence” between public lands ranchers and wolves is fair to both wolves and ranchers. Whereas, in actual practice the long-term “existence” of ranchers is favored over the existence of wolves, and is supported by a variety of sources of monetary compensation. One source she mentions but elects to not elaborate on is the “artificially low grazing fee.” Few people realize the magnitude this subsidy. Public lands ranchers pay an “almost free” grazing rate of $1.35 per month for a cow and her calf (animal unit). I have heard the analogy made that “you can’t feed a hamster for that,” but I don’t own a hamster and haven’t actually verified the truth of that statement. I do know that it costs more than that to feed my chickens. By David Parsons
To End Impunity for ‘Deliberate Destruction’ of Planet, International Lawyers Drafting Plan to Criminalize Ecocide The effort aims to hold governments and corporations accountable for the “mass, systematic, or widespread destruction” of the world’s ecosystems. An expert panel of top international and environmental lawyers have begun working this month on a legal definition of “ecocide” with the goal of making mass ecological damage an enforceable international crime on par with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Assembled by the Stop Ecocide Foundation at the request of several Swedish parliamentarians, the initiative to criminalize the destruction of ecosystems at the global level has already garnered support from European countries as well as small island nations highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. By Kenny Stancil
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Half of Brazil’s Black “Quilombos” Denied State Recognition The autonomous settlements established by Black and indigenous Brazilians to escape slavery and ongoing oppression number between 3,000 and 5,000, “but the Brazilian government only recognizes about half of them in terms of cultural rights” and even less in terms of land rights, said Carla Guerron Montero, an anthropologist at the University of Delaware. Professor Montero has done an extensive study of quilombos, whose residents’ are best described as an ethnic, rather than a racial, group
Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US Critical Race Theory holds that racism is endemic to US society, while Afropessimism and Social Death “suggests that, regardless of what Black bodies do, [they] will experience gratuitous violence,” said Shameka Powell, co-director of Educational Studies at Tufts University. Powell is co-author of a paper titled, “Kissing Cousins: Critical Race Theory’s Racial Realism and Afropessimism’s Social Death.”
Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo “More than 5.4 million died in the DRC as a direct or indirect consequence of the ongoing racist, neocolonial policy imposed on the Congolese population in an attempt to dismantle the Congo,” said Marie Claire Faray, a Congolese member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Faray and others will appear on a global webinar on human rights and AFRICOM , the US military command in Africa, December 4.
Labor:
‘Utterly Arbitrary and Unlawful’: Farmworker Groups Sue to Block Trump Wage Freeze An attorney for Farmworker Justice warned that, if allowed to take effect, the wage freeze would cause “grave harm to some of the most vulnerable workers in the nation.”After bombarding supporters daily with emails blaring lies about the election and soliciting donations to overcome virtually non-existent voter fraud, President Donald Trump’s political operation has reportedly raised more than $150 million since November 3, a staggering windfall that is being funneled into a Republican joint fundraising committee and a Trump PAC established to fuel his post-White House activities. By Jake Johnson
The Clapping Stopped, but the Risks to Health Care Workers Didn’t Hospital laundry workers and other nonmedical staff are facing the same dangers during the pandemic, with little recognition. It’s been a radicalizing experience. At 50 years old, and with three kids, Brígida Vidal struggles to keep up with the mountains of dirty linen she is expected to sort through each day at the industrial laundry plant where she works in New Jersey. Unitex, where Vidal is employed, is responsible for disinfecting patient bedsheets, gowns, and other linens for New York City area hospitals, including NYC Health + Hospitals, by far the largest municipal health care system in the United States. The stress of the job—and urgency of the work—has only increased as the pandemic has taken hold. According to Vidal, the soil room where she spends most of her time is poorly ventilated and social distancing is seldom enforced. In April, as New York emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic, with nearly 220,000 people in the tristate area having been infected and more than 9,000 recorded.
Economy:
The Mnuchin-Powell Affair over the Fed’s “Special Purpose Vehicles” in Dollars & Effects Why do bondholders and leveraged speculators have to be enriched, instead of providing fiscal relief to the unemployed and small businesses? That’s the question. Fed Chair Jerome Powell replied on Friday afternoon with his own “Dear Mr. Secretary” letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s “Dear Chair Powell” letter on Thursday. Both letters were full of compliments for the other and for their cooperation and for their success in inflating asset prices. But with regards to asset prices in the credit markets, Mnuchin’s letter gave specific metrics and said enough is enough. And Powell’s letter said, OK, the Treasury can have the taxpayer money back that it sent us, by Wolf Richter
Trump Issued an Executive Memorandum Giving Mnuchin a $50 Billion Slush Fund; Mnuchin Gave Himself $386 Billion More On November 25, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon Tweeted this: “The Trump administration is working harder to sabotage the economy and tie the Biden administration’s hands than it is to help working families survive a pandemic.” Wyden’s Tweet included a clip from a Bloomberg News article about how U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was planning to move $455 billion of CARES Act money to the General Fund of the Treasury so that the next Treasury Secretary in the Biden administration wouldn’t be able to use it to help bolster the economy. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Dispossession and Imperialism Repackaged as “Feeding the World” The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations. Smallholder farmers are being criminalised and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion. By Colin Todhunter
India: Farmers strike – Shut Down the Government Arsalan GhaniHundreds and thousands of farmers and members from different supporting organisations from different part of India are marching towards Delhi to stage an indefinite sit-in strike. The march ‘Delhi Chalo’ started on 26 November 2020 towards Delhi. Their major demands include the repealing of three Farmers Bills passed by Modi’s government. Currently, farmers blocked five entry points to Delhi and paralysed the highway traffic to the city. It is reported that farmers partially besieged the city. Police and paramilitary forces brutally attacked the marching farmers with baton charge, tear gas and water cannons due to which many farmers were severely injured. By Arsalan Ghan 
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 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
Unfettered By Military Spending, China is Infrastructure Spending!: China Transport: What Kind of Transportation You Can Get in China? The transportation system in China has improved dramatically since 1949. Nowadays, China has a comprehensive transportation network of airports, trains, highways, subways, ports, and waterways. Among these, high-speed rail lines, highways, and many new subways, have perhaps improved the daily lives of local people most dramatically.
8 Ways China is ‘Winning’ on Transportation As Donald Trump likes to say, “China is beating us on everything.” While that’s a debatable proposition, there is one area where China is far ahead of the United States, and that’s in resilient transportation systems. This is a big deal: Transportation systems represent a huge portion of public and private spending — to the tune of $1.2 to $1.4 trillion globally each year. And, in an era rocked by climate change and other disruptions, those systems must be able to weather all kinds of shocks — from fuel shortages to flooding. They must be, in a word, resilient. What does a resilient transportation system look like? First, it offers a diverse range of choices: If the train isn’t running, there are easily-available alternatives, like biking or taking a bus. Resilient transportation can be fueled by multiple energy sources, for the same reason: If oil prices spike, the system can run on electricity powered by the sun or the wind. Resilient transportation systems use fossil fuels sparingly, which helps mitigate climate change, reducing the likelihood of future disasters that may threaten transportation infrastructure or fuel sources. Finally, the most resilient systems are seamlessly connected to one another — offering maximum mobility at every scale, and for every mile of the journey. So, here are eight ways China is taking the lead on resilient transportation: 1. Electric cars, 2. Electric buses, 3. Bus Rapid Transit, 4. Bike-sharing programs, 5. Electric bikes,6. Underground metro systems, 7. High-speed rail, and 7. High-speed rail. By CC Huang and Hallie Kennan
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 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! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
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