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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:
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. — Maya Angelou
The Democrats Have Shown You Who They Are — They Are On Record For Cuts Social Cuts/Austerity! — Roland Shepprd
What’s more, the “old idea” of a Golden Age of American Liberalism did not take into account how much we know today—how much scholars, journalists and historians have uncovered about CIA coups, the effects of Jim Crow laws, etc. It is easy to see how Galbraith 1n 1964 would say “these are the years of the liberal.” The Civil Rights Act had just passed (over unanimous southern Democrat objections), Goldwater had been soundly defeated and Martin Luther King had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, in that same year three voter rights activists were murdered in Mississippi, congress escalated the war in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and race riots gripped America’s big cities. Today, 56 years on, America is still dealing with the same racial unrest, the same murderous white supremacists, while it tries to somehow find an exit strategy from the longest war in American history. The dawn of the Golden Age of American Liberalism will have to wait. — The Myth of a Golden Age of American Liberalism
Videos of the Day:
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
The Austerity of the Obama Years Austerity, both as a practice and as a metaphor, defined the landscape, culture, and politics of the Obama era. By Mike Konczal 
Biden Taps Bruce Reed, Deficit Hawk and Longtime Enemy of Social Security, for Deputy Chief of Staf “You cannot have Bruce Reed in your administration and pretend Social Security is safe.” President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has selected longtime adviser and notorious deficit hawk Bruce Reed to serve as deputy chief of staff, alarming progressives who have warned for weeks that the Democratic operative’s record of commitment to austerity and support for Social Security cuts should disqualify him for any role in the White House. 0riginally considered a leading contender to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before Biden selected Neera Tanden for that role, Reed is one of the architects of former President Bill Clinton’s disastrous “welfare reform” as well as the 1994 crime bill, which Biden helped craft. By Jake Johnson
‘No More Caving’ to Austerity Warns Sanders After Biden Lauds Paltry Covid-19 Relief Deal as ‘Model’ Legislation “If we allow Republicans to set the parameters of the debate going forward, like they did in this current Covid relief bill, the next two to four years are going to be a disaster.” Reflecting on the roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief package that he called “pathetic” for its obscene giveaways to the wealthy and meager assistance for the working class, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday warned of devastating consequences for the United States if Democrats continue capitulating to the GOP’s efforts to impose austerity in the midst of an ongoing public health emergency and massive economic crisis. By Kenny Stancil
Lee Camp: Ads All Tell Us To Kill Our Future. Worth Discussing? A Sustainable Future! Get it now before it’s TOO Late! Half-Off, For A Limited Time! That’s how it sounds, the entire holiday season, even during a pandemic. And we practically never hear criticism of this all-encompassing gush of consumerism painting over our mainstream airwaves because in order to get the career that allows someone to be on mainstream airwaves, they have to be a part of it, let it fill their veins and give it final edit on their thoughts. Even I am a small part of it. I’m not on the mainstream media, but I have a TV show and a touring comedy career (on non-pandemic years) and therefore at various points in the past I’ve sold books and mugs and CDs. I still sell my books. And when you’re a part of this system, you have to make a choice: Do I behave like a bit of a hypocrite and critique a system that absolutely needs critiquing? Should I be the fish critiquing the water he himself swims through? Or do I never criticize this consumerist system because I’m a part of it?
Tom Vilsack for Agriculture Secretary Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party Our planet and rural communities cannot afford four more years of Vilsack’s aggressive corporatism. On tuesday, after some public tokenizing and horse trading, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team crowned dairy industry lobbyist and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture. Vilsack won out over House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s pick, Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was also backed by progressives. Whereas Fudge represented an opportunity to unite the USDA’s rural and urban constituents and address the agency’s long history of racial discrimination, Vilsack is a rerun of pro-corporate policies that continue to drive rural communities away from the Democratic Party. By Claire
Environment:
2020 Gulf Coast Hurricane Season in Photos: From the Front Lines of Climate Change The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season had a record-breaking 30 named storms, so many that the National Hurricane Center ran through the standard list of names and moved on to the Greek alphabet with over two months of the season left. In all, 12 storms made landfall in the continental United States, with five hitting the Gulf Coast. I photographed the aftermath — the destroyed homes, damaged oil and gas sites, and contaminated wetlands — from four of those Gulf Coast storms, including Hurricanes Laura, Sally, Delta, and Zeta. This selection of photos shows the devastating impact hurricanes have had primarily in Louisiana but also in Alabama and Florida, in an already difficult year beset by a pandemic and subsequent economic downturn. By Julie Dermansky
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Powerful Mobile Phone Surveillance Tool Operates in Obscurity Across the Country CellHawk helps law enforcement visualize large quantities of information collected by cellular towers and providers. UNTIL NOW, the Bartonville, Texas, company Hawk Analytics and its product CellHawk have largely escaped public scrutiny. CellHawk has been in wide use by law enforcement; the software is helping police departments, the FBI, and private investigators around the United States convert information collected by cellular providers into maps of people’s locations, movements, and relationships. Police records obtained by The Intercept reveal a troublingly powerful surveillance tool operated in obscurity, with scant oversight. CellHawk’s maker says it can process a year’s worth of cellphone records in 20 minutes, automating a process that used to require painstaking work by investigators, including hand-drawn paper plots. The web-based product can ingest call detail records, or CDRs, which track cellular contact between devices on behalf of mobile service providers, showing who is talking to whom. It can also handle cellular location records, created when phones connect to various towers as their owners move around. By Sam Richards
Labor:
Economy:
Stimulus Bill’s “Pathetic” $600 Checks and Pork Giveaways Are Savaged on Social Media; Trump, Belatedly, Demands Bigger Checks Millions of Americans will remember this Christmas as the bleakest moment in their lives. They lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic; they can’t pay their rent or adequately feed their families. They are stressing out over the possibility of getting sick from the virus because their health insurance was attached to their job – both of which are now gone. The $600 weekly unemployment insurance supplement that was part of the CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, lasted only four months and ended on July 31. Likewise, the one-time payment of $1200 under the CARES Act has long been exhausted by struggling families living in high-cost America. The response to the worst pandemic since 1918 from the U.S. Congress stands in ugly contrast to what America’s neighbor to the north has done for workers and families. The Canadian government provided their workers that were impacted with layoffs or reduced hours because of the pandemic $2,000 per month for seven months, ending September 27. Canada’s more recent relief announcement includes $1200 in 2021 for each child under age six. Families with income of less than $120,000 per year will also receive four tax-free payments of $300 in 2021. Families earning more than $120,000 will receive four tax-free payments of $150. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
A Tale of Two Elections: U.S. and Bolivia In recent weeks, Donald Trump has been ridiculed, slathered with contempt, and repeatedly branded a “liar,” as well as an existential threat to democracy in the United States, by the biggest media outlets in the country. This is in response to his attempts to reverse the results of the U.S. presidential election, and claiming—without evidence—that it was stolen. He still clings to these allegations, but he will be leaving the White House on January 20. But just over a year ago, a similar effort was launched in Bolivia, and it actually prevailed. The country’s democratically elected president, Evo Morales, was toppled three weeks after the October 20 vote, before his term was finished. He left the country after the military “asked” him to resign. The similarities are remarkable. Leaders of the Bolivian opposition indicated before the votes were counted, as Trump did, that they would not accept the result if they lost. Like Trump, they had no evidence for their allegations of fraud when the votes were counted. And as with Trump, the falseness of their charges was obvious from day one. By Mark Weisbrot
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
US Airports Are Portals for Disease Spread. Venezuela Shows Another Way. I recently traveled to Venezuela to be an observer for its National Assembly election and was struck by a stark difference between the ways Venezuela and the United States are handling the COVID-19 pandemic. . . . My travels provided a window into the widespread availability of protective equipment and sanitizing supplies in Venezuela. Flight attendants wearing disposable coveralls over their uniforms handed out packets of masks and hand sanitizer as people boarded the airplane. Similar packets were found in the hotel rooms. People were sprayed with sanitizing mist and had their temperature checked before entering hotels. As election observers, we were also given a packet of N95 masks, eye protection and sanitizing spray on arrival in Caracas. By Margaret Flowers
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!
Quotes 0f the Day:
“Worse Than Being in Iraq”: Veteran & ER Doctor Says Pandemic Is Pushing Hospitals to Breaking Point
United States: