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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:
My view is that mass surveillance is not really about preventing terrorism, but is much more about social control,” Ratner writes. “It’s about stopping an uprising like the ones we had here in the US in the ’60s and ’70s. It shocks me that Americans are passively allowing this and that all three branches of government have done nothing about it. Despite mass surveillance, my message for people is the same one that Mother Jones delivered a century ago: organize, organize, organize. Yes, the surveillance state will try to scare you. They will be watching and listening. You won’t even know whether your best friend is an informant. Take whatever security precautions you can. But do not be intimidated. Whether you call it the sweep of history or the sweep of revolution, in the end, the surveillance state cannot stop people from moving toward the kind of change that will make their lives better. — Chris Hedges: The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange
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
When. 5 huge corporations, Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixth: can there be true freedom of the press?
Assange Wins. The Cost: The Crushing of Press Freedom The labeling of dissent as mental illness cannot be seen as a victory. The unexpected decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser to deny a US demand to extradite Julian Assange, foiling efforts to send him to a US super-max jail for the rest of his life, is a welcome legal victory, but one swamped by larger lessons that should disturb us deeply. Those who campaigned so vigorously to keep Assange’s case in the spotlight, even as the US and UK corporate media worked so strenuously to keep it in darkness, are the heroes of the day. They made the price too steep for Baraitser or the British establishment to agree to lock Assange away indefinitely in the US for exposing its war crimes and its crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we must not downplay the price being demanded of us for this victory. By Jonathan Cook
What is Not Reported by The Media Monopoly: “This Is Voter Suppression”: 198,000 Georgia Residents Were Illegally Purged from Voter Rolls As voters in Georgia cast their ballots in two key runoff races that will determine control of the U.S. Senate, voting rights activists fear many eligible voters will be turned away at the polls. Georgia has been called “ground zero” for Republican voter suppression efforts in the U.S., and in September the ACLU of Georgia revealed 198,000 voters had been wrongly purged from the voting rolls. We air a report into voting in Georgia by investigative journalist Greg Palast, narrated by the actress Debra Messing, and speak with voting rights activist LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund. “I think it’s quite interesting and coincidental … that many of them on that list are African American voters,” says Brown. “This is voter suppression.”
Chris Hedges: The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange As is clear from the memoir of one of his attorneys, Michael Ratner, the ends have always justified the means for those demanding his global persecution. Shortly after WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes — including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to US checkpoints — the towering civil rights attorneys Michael Ratner and Len Weinglass, who had defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case, met Julian Assange in a studio apartment in Central London, according to Ratner’s newly released memoir “Moving the Bar”.
Raffensperger Stood Up to Trump, But He Also Attacked Voting Rights Groups Days ahead of the Georgia runoff election, leaked audio of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has renewed praise for the embattled election administrator. Over the course of the hour-long call, Raffensperger along with his general counsel, Ryan Germany, explained to the outgoing president that his data and facts were wrong.The deference and patience shown during the exchange should not tempt us to overlook how Raffensperger has used his office in a partisan manner this election cycle. Raffensperger has taken stances that undermine values of fundamental fairness in the electoral process, from the formation of a criminal absentee ballot task force composed of primarily conservative, white Republican prosecutors, to siding with an out-of-state conservative group by claiming a federal judge disregarded the rule of law. By Anoa Changa
Environment:
EPA Rule Restricting Science Puts Agency’s Mission at Risk Statement by Dr. Andrew A. Rosenberg, Union of Concerned Scientists WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule that dramatically restricts the science the agency can consider in rulemaking. The broad-reaching rule would downweight studies that rely on any nonpublic data—including studies involving private medical records. That limitation would interfere with many key public-health studies the agency relies on to set safeguards, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Below is a statement by Dr. Andrew A. Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS.
Seven Years to Ground Zero for the Climate Crisis? The Earth could cross an ominous temperature threshold in just seven years. A new study cuts the time for drastic action. Within the next seven years, the world could undergo irretrievable change. It could emit enough greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion to cross the threshold for dangerous global heating in the year 2027. Or it could exceed what is supposed to be the globally-agreed target for containing catastrophic climate change − just 1.5°C above the average level for most of the last 10,000 years − a little later, in the year 2042. By Tim Radford
Biden Picks “Mr. Monsanto” Tom Vilsack to Head the USDA “No More Malarkey” Joe Biden just nominated one of Monsanto’s best friends to head the US Department of Agriculture. During his eight years under Obama, Tom Vilsack earned the nickname “Mr. Monsanto” for approving more new genetically modified organisms than any Agriculture Secretary in history, and for making gobs of money for every approval. The Organic Consumer’s Association has compiled a list of GMOs we have to thank him for:
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Roundup Ready sugar beets.
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Roundup Ready alfalfa
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Monsanto’s Drought
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Dicamba-tolerant Xtend soy and cotton
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Roundup Ready lawn grass
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Agrisure corn
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Ethanol-only corn
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2,4-D-tolerant corn, cotton and soy.
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Innate potatoes.
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Arctic Apples
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Cloned animals.
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Synbio dairy substitutes
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Lab-made meat.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
What is Not Reported by The Media Monopoly: The Base of Trump’s Armed Support is the Armed Militarized Police Forces of the United States! 2016 Article FBI Warned of White Supremacists in Law Enforcement 10 Years Ago. Has Anything Changed? Increased attention toward the killing of black men and women by police throughout the past year has ignited national conversations on racism and law enforcement. From Freddie Gray in April 2015 to Deborah Danner — an “emotionally disturbed” woman fatally shot this week by an NYPD officer — protests around the country have forced many Americans to reassess how police engage with communities of color. (2016)
White Supremacists And Militias Have Infiltrated Police Across US, Report Says A former FBI agent has documented links between serving officers and racist militant activities in more than a dozen states White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups.The images on the news of police wearing helmets and masks, toting assault rifles, and riding in mine-resistant armored vehicles are not isolated incidents—they represent a nationwide trend of police militarization. Federal programs providing surplus military equipment, along with departments’ own purchases, have outfitted officers with firepower that is often far beyond what is necessary for their jobs as protectors of their communities. Sending a heavily armed team of officers to perform “normal” police work can dangerously escalate situations that need never have involved violence. Yet the ACLU’s recent report on police militarization, “War Comes Home,” found that SWAT teams, which were originally devised as special responders for emergency situations, are deployed for drug searches more than they are for all other purposes combined. — Police Militarization
Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 4, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
AFRICOM Causes Humanitarian Crises on Two ContinentsUnder the guise of helping fight the Boko Haram, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has helped the French-speaking West African government of Cameroon wage war against its English-speaking population, causing thousands to flee to Mexico in hopes of emigrating to the United States, said Joe Penny, a reporter for The Intercept. “There are now camps of people living at the [US] border with next to no resources,” including large numbers of Cameroonians, as well as Haitians, said Penny, author of an article titled “Cameroonian Asylum-Seekers at the Border are Fleeing a US-Backed Military.”
Only a “Transformational” Electoral Politics is Useful is Useful Ajamu Baraka, national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate, said electoral politics should be treated as a “strategic question” for the Black liberation movement, depending on its usefulness in putting forward “transitional demands.” The larger mission is to build “independent political formations” that “ultimately will arrive at a socialist transformation.” Baraka said organizers should avoid “bourgeois” electoral politics that fails to confront capitalism and “colonial” rule.
Pandemic Reveals Crisis of US Imperialism “I think what we are looking at is a severely wounded, crippled US imperialism as the chief hegemon of world capitalism,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. The coronavirus epidemic “brought the crisis of this economy into bold relief,” said Yeshitela, while China continued its rise “as a major contending force that was rapidly overtaking the US economy – and most of Europe,” as well.
Labor:
Economy:
Pull Back the Curtain on Trump’s Call to Georgia Election Officials and Out Pops the Kochtopus Last Saturday, the sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump, called the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him this: “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” The Washington Post has posted the audio of the call. That phone call has come under withering criticism as an attempt to coerce votes from a state Trump lost in the November 3 election. Among those on the call as an apparent advisor to Trump was attorney Cleta Mitchell, who at no point suggested to Trump that what he was saying might be illegal. Mitchell is a long-time law partner at Foley & Lardner, which is now attempting to distance itself from the mess. The law firm released a statement which coyly stated: “We are aware of, and are concerned by, Ms. Mitchell’s participation in the January 2 conference call and are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly.” Seriously? By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Peru: Rising Up Against Corruption An Intervew with Andrea Palacios The dramatic recent events in Peru, barely covered by mainstream U.S. media, have seen a popular uprising of massive self-organized protests. In November the student-led demonstrations in Lima and other large cities were met by riot police equipped with water cannons, tanks, and helicopters. Corruption has tainted the political elite for years. Elected president in 2016, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, was forced to resign two years later over his failure to disclose ties to the corrupt Brazilian construction company, Odebrecht. Martín Vizcarra replaced him and attempted to carry out reforms. He tried to get rid of the prosecutorial immunity granted to lawmakers, alter how judges are chosen and even dissolved Congress in 2019. Popular for his reform plans, he had no party backing him in Congress, which for its part blocked his moves and finally, on November 9 impeached him based on an accusation of corruption when he was a provincial governor years ago.
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
The Racism That Undergirds Global Public Health With his thin volume (143 pages of text, with 46 pages of notes) Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health, Eugene Richardson takes to task the discipline of epidemiology, and with it, global public health. Utilizing the West Africa Ebola epidemic of 2013-2016 as his canvas, Richardson paints a picture that highlights the racism that undergirds the conventional medical and public health perspectives. By Seiji Yamada 
COVID-19 Vaccines: Big Pharma Profits Trump Human Lives The COVID-19 vaccines are the only road out of this pandemic. But despite receiving huge sums from the state, Big Pharma expect to generate handsome profits. Meanwhile, stockpiling by the west will prevent access in the poorest countries. By Joe Attard
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:
United States: