Daily News Digest June 29, 2022
Images of the Day:
‘Defense’ Budget’: Never get cuts to the military budget…it get biggger this every year regardless which party is in office. 
Capitalism Used to Promise a Better Future Can it Still Do That?
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Ws Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 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 future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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”, is Still True for Today’s World!
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!
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!
Quotes of the Day:
Our nation’s wealthiest 10 percent now hold nearly 70 percent of our country’s wealth. — Tax Extreme Wealth to Save Planet Earth
The growing inflation, an imminent global recession, a festering refugee crisis, a deepening food shortage crisis and much more are the kinds of challenges that require open and transparent discussions regarding the situation in Ukraine, the NATO-Russia rivalry and the responsibility of the West in the ongoing war. To discuss these issues, along with the missing context of the Russia-Ukraine war, we spoke with Professor Noam Chomsky, believed to be the greatest living intellectual of our time. Chomsky told us that it “should be clear that the (Russian) invasion of Ukraine has no (moral) justification.” He compared it to the US invasion of Iraq, seeing it as an example of “supreme international crime.” With this moral question settled, Chomsky believes that the main ‘background’ of this war, a factor that is “NATO expansion”. — ‘Not a Justification but a Provocation’: Chomsky on the Root Causes of the Russia Ukraine War
Videos:
The Chris Hedges Report: Journalism and Argentina’s ‘Dirty War!’
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 th poor and gives to the Rich. Taxthe Rich! — They Can Afford to Pay!
Tax Extreme Wealth to Save Planet Earth Vast fortunes, inherited or otherwise, simply would not exist without the assaults now destroying our planet. Taxing those fortunes to fund climate action could give us a shot at survival. Vast fortunes, inherited or otherwise, simply would not exist without the assaults now destroying our planet. Taxing those fortunes to fund climate action could give us a shot at survival. On April 25, Twitter’s board of directors announced an agreement to sell the company to Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, for $44 billion. That sounds like a lot of money. But Musk can afford it. One recent estimate of the Musk fortune puts his wealth at $214 billion, a sum a bit down from the more than quarter trillion he held earlier this year. Our Institute for Policy Studies colleague Chuck Collins has documented that Musk’s personal wealth, over the first year and a half of the Covid pandemic, grew by an incredible 751 percent at the same time millions of American families were struggling to pay their rent and utility bills.
More Bloat For Bloated Defense Spending The Senate and House Armed Forces Committees are in a competition to see which house of Congress can add more money to our bloated defense spending. The Senate took the lead two weeks ago, when it provided an additional $45 billion to defense spending, blowing past the targets set by both the White House and the Department of Defense. The mainstream media has paid virtually no attention to this irresponsible dueling with .
‘Horrific’: 50 Migrants Found Dead in Abandoned Trailer Truck in Texas “We need to end Title 42 and fix our broken immigration system so these unimaginable tragedies stop happening,” said Rep. Chuy García. “People fleeing violence and poverty deserve a chance at a better life.”
This Country Is a Living Nightmare There is but one true thing to be said of a country whose highest court, from which there is no recourse and almost fully staffed by a fanatical majority appointed by two presidents who lost the popular vote, sweeps aside the hard-fought rights of half its residents in a day. There is one thing to be said of a country whose Congress permits the ongoing existence of the filibuster, a tool originally concocted to protect slave-owners that is now deployed daily to empower and continue the tyranny of the minority. There is one thing to say of a country whose Democratic Party leadership has become so ossified and bereft of ideas that all they can think to do after half that country lost their rights is to fundraise off the outrage.
U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B With the United States Supreme Court widely expected to turn its ideological wrecking ball on the country’s greenhouse gas emission controls, a group of climate scientists is pitching a new approach to regulating carbon as a toxic substance. With the United States Supreme Court widely expected to turn its ideological wrecking ball on the country’s greenhouse gas emission controls, a group of climate scientists is pitching a new approach to regulating carbon as a toxic substance. The nine-member court is believed to be just days away from handing down a decision “that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants,” the New York Times reported last week.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Profits First — Life : Last!: Looming US Supreme Court Climate Decision Could ‘Doom’ Hope for Livable Future “The immediate issue is the limits of the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases,” said one scientist. “The broader issue is the ability of federal agencies to regulate anything at all.”
TCE & PCE (Military Toxics) Camp Lejeune is a US Marine Corps base established in 1942 in Jacksonville, North Carolina. In 1982 the Marine Corps found that drinking water from distribution plants serving the majority of the base was contaminated with volatile organic compounds. This contamination came from leaking storage tanks, poor industrial waste disposal, and a dry cleaning firm. The main contaminants were trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE). TCE exposure is known to cause kidney cancer, lymphoma, and cardiac defects, and it is also linked to liver cancer, leukemia, and Parkinson’s disease. PCE exposure is known to cause bladder cancer and is linked to lymphoma and renal disease. Exposure to these chemicals may also be linked to infertility, miscarriage, and birth defects. At one of the water treatment plants in Camp Lejeune, TCE levels were 280 times higher than the current acceptable limit set by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). At another plant, PCE levels were 43 times higher than the current acceptable limit. While the most contaminated water wells were subsequently shut down, people living and working at Camp Lejeune were likely exposed to high levels of these toxins for decades. ATSDR estimates that residents were likely exposed to these toxins from 1957 to 1987. Even more concerning, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) says, “The exact duration and intensity of the exposure at Camp Lejeune are unknown. The geographic extent of contamination by specific chemicals also is unknown.” This means the number of people exposed at Camp Lejeune and the full extent of their health risks from this contamination are difficult to evaluate.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Louisiana Judge Blocks State’s Post-Roe Abortion Ban “Abortion care will resume in the state and a hearing has been set for July 8th,” said the Center for Reproductive Rights. A Louisiana judge on Monday temporarily blocked enforcement of the state’s trigger ban on abortion after rights groups took legal action, calling the law “unconstitutionally vague.” The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) told The Hill in an email that “abortion care will resume in the state and a hearing has been set for July 8th.”
Olayemi Olurin: ‘If we can abolish slavery, the prison system is not untouchable’ New York public defender Olayemi Olurin Joins Marc Steiner to discuss the recall of Chesa Boudin, the slaughter in Uvalde, the right’s celebration of Kyle Rittenhouse, and what it will really take to end America’s epidemic of violence.
Labor:
Economy:
The Continuing Damages from Corporate-Managed So-Called Free Trade The great progressive Harvard economist and prolific best-selling author, John Kenneth Galbraith, wrote that “Ideas may be superior to vested interest. They are also very often the children of vested interest.” I wished he had written that assertion before I took Economic 101 at Princeton. One of the vested ideas taught as dogma then was the comparative advantage theory developed by the early 19th-century British economist, David Ricardo. He gave the example of trading Portuguese wine for British textiles with both countries coming out winners due to their superior efficiencies in producing their native products.
Michael Roberts Blog: Many airports in the UK, Europe and the US have been in chaos because of a lack of staff (pilots, ground staff, security etc) after COVID and in the case of the UK, with loss of EU workers after Brexit. But travel chaos and congestion has not stopped the chief executives of the major airports in the UK from getting huge pay increases, while they fight against any increases for their over-worked staff. The chief executive of Birmingham Airport’s pay has risen by 49%. The airport received £12.8bn of public money during COVID while laying off 43% of its staff. Heathrow’s chief executive received an annual salary increase of 85% to almost £1.5m a year in 2021, and the boss at Manchester Airport Group had a pay rise of 25% to £2.5m. Now that is a wage-price spiral!
The Glue that Connects Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, and the Guy Who Was Air-Dropped into the DOJ, Is Charles Koch’s Money In September 1999 the U.S. Department of Justice filed racketeering charges against the major tobacco companies and two of their front groups. The court filings in that case carefully pieced together a half century of conspiratorial conduct and lies that gravely harmed the health of the American people, while lining the pockets of the tobacco industry, its lawyers and its paid shills. The January 6 Select House Committee has that same, once-in-a-lifetime power in its hands. But that window of opportunity will close soon. The January 6 Committee can connect all the dots of the attempted coup leading to the doorstep of Charles Koch and expose his four decades of establishing front groups to shill for the fossil fuels industry and anti-climate change groups, or it can present a false and narrow view that this was all about the ego and narcissism of Donald Trump.
World:
Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster The main message of the neocons is that the US must predominate in military power in every region of the world, and must confront rising regional powers that could someday challenge US global or regional dominance, most important Russia and China.
China: Cracks at the Top As Regime Braces for Economic Turbulence In July 2021, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated the 90th anniversary of its founding with a blitz of propaganda boasting about how the party’s rule had led to a prosperous, confident and happy China. Yet a year later, the discontent among the Chinese masses towards the regime has reached unprecedented levels, while those at the top of the byzantine party-state bureaucracy are showing clear differences about how to proceed. What does this reveal, and what is its significance for Marxist revolutionaries?
Massacre at The Melilla Border Fence: The Spanish Government and Bourgeoisie are Responsible This is the greatest tragedy to occur at this border to date. Witnesses, journalists and videos that documented the event recounted how both the Moroccan gendarmes and members of the police and civil guard charged at and violently assaulted all the migrants who tried to cross the fence. A striking glimpse of this police intervention was provided by images of the Moroccan gendarmes beating, charging and carrying out immediate deportations with total impunity within the Spanish border. In the past, collaborations between the police and the gendarmes in this type of operation were common, but this is the first time that the gendarmes have acted within the Spanish border. The extent of this repression by the security forces caused numerous human avalanches, in which several people lost their lives due to suffocation or being crushed. In addition, many people fell from the top of the fence, which at some points is 10 meters high.
Education, Health, 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!
Polio’s Return to London I was jolted by the news that the poliovirus had been detected in sewage samples in London because I caught polio in one of the last polio epidemics in Europe, which took place in Cork in Ireland in 1956. For myself and others of my generation, the risk posed by polio carries an extra charge of fear because it primarily harmed young children and could inflict devastating injuries on them. Its symbol was not the coffin, as with the Covid-19 epidemic, but the wheelchair, callipers and the iron lung. The UK Health Securty Agency says that the poliovirus was probably brought to London by somebody who had recently been vaccinated overseas with the live virus. Polio was once close to erdication, but vaccination campaigns in countries like Nigeria and Pakistan were hampered by fear that they were a bid by the CIA to sterilise Muslim men.