Daily News Digest September 15, 2022
Images of the Day:
Bendib: Life Expectancy in The USA
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades 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!
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:
The U.S. criminal legal system is terrible by so many metrics: We lock up more people than anywhere else in the world, our penalties tend to be harsher, our arrest rates are many times higher than other democracies, and so on. Plea bargaining is not often at the top of the list when we think of all harm done by the system, but the U.S. is an outlier in this area as well. More than 95 percent of all American criminal cases end in a guilty plea, mostly due to bargained agreements, making our plea-deal rate much higher than that of any other country in the world. In my book Pleading Out: How Plea Bargaining Creates a Criminal Class, I argue that the widespread use of plea bargaining is a chief enabler of our criminal legal system’s ills. — The Plea Bargain Originated as a Means to Undermine Working-Class Solidarity
Videos of the Day:
Mark Fiore: Exceptions to American Exceptionalism A nation that can’t even provide safe drinking water for its people can’t fly the banner of “exceptionalism” for too long. Thanks to a dangerous mixture of systemic racism, tax cuts and bootstraps politics, Jackson, Mississippi is in the midst of a water crisis. Again.
Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda May Cut Ties to British Monarch; Renew Call for Reparations for Slavery
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!
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” ― Louis Brandeis
The Media Monopoly Aids the Implementation of the The Iron Heel!: New ‘Objective’ CNN Appears to be Making Itself Objectively Rightwing CNN wants to be the new Fox News and it’s not even trying to hide it. Earlier this year Chris Licht became the new CEO of the cable network and immediately made it clear that he was going to change the network’s direction. One of Licht’s first moves was to embark on what Axios described as a “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” and others described as a Republican boot-licking tour. Licht met with lawmakers who had become wary of cable news and promised them that CNN was moving away from “alarmist” program-ming towards more neutral, objective reporting. What does that mean in practice? Well, it appears to mean firing anyone who is critical of Donald Trump or Republicans. Last month CNN suddenly axed Brian Stelter’s Sunday show in a move many commentators considered politically motivated; Stelter had been an outspoken critic of Trump and was reviled by many on the right. Earlier this month White House correspondent John Harwood was fired shortly after calling Trump “a dishonest demagogue” on the air. … After purging progressive voices, Licht has just made his first big hire: announcing on Tuesday that John Miller would be joining CNN as the network’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. Miller isn’t exactly an obvious hire if you’re looking to brandish your new “neutrality” credentials. The former New York police department (NYPD) deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism is an extremely polarizing figure who made headlines in March when he testified to the New York city council that the NYPD did not, in his opinion, inappropriately spy on Muslims after the September 11 attacks. Which is a weird thing to say because Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has clearly shown that the NYPD used census data to spy on Muslims following September 11 and the department has settled a number of lawsuits related to the illegal spying.
Trump’s Legal Troubles Bare Secret Government Run Amok Ever since President Harry Truman, in 1947, turned the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) into the Orwellian-named Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and converted the Army’s code-breaking Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) into the National Security Agency (NSA), this country has been in the process of becoming not even a pseudo-democracy, but a National Security state. Today, our every phone call, email, tweet, Instagram post and letter is or can be monitored and without even a court warrant or order by myriad government agents, local police, and even private corporations that work hand-in-glove with the government.
Covid-19 and 9/11: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares Washington must address the ongoing Covid crisis now. Illness doesn’t make for dramatic television the way terrorism does. Sick people suffer and die alone, far from the lights and cameras. Illness doesn’t make for dramatic television the way terrorism does. Sick people suffer and die alone, far from the lights and cameras. On September 9, with virtually no press coverage, President Biden sent an official letter to Congress extending a state of emergency that was first declared in the aftermath of 9/11, more than two decades ago. “The terrorist threat … continues,” the letter declares. George W. Bush’s original declaration of emergency led to trillions of dollars in military spending and the transformation of American society. Thousands of young Americans, and well over a million people in the Middle East, lost their lives.
Contractors Cash in as Congress Adds Billions to the Pentagon Budget Congress has spoken when it comes to next year’s Pentagon budget and the results, if they weren’t so in line with past practices, should astonish us all. The House of Representatives voted to add $37 billion and the Senate $45 billion to the administration’s already humongous request for “national defense,” a staggering figure that includes both the Pentagon budget and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. If enacted, the Senate’s sum would push spending on the military to at least $850 billion annually, far more — adjusted for inflation — than at the height of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the peak years of the Cold War.
Robber Baron Government — Insider Trading: Nearly 100 Members of Congress Reported Stock Trades That Overlap With Committee Work “We need more action on legislation that would ban Congressional stock trading. And fewer members of Congress in violation of the rules already on the books.” A leading government ethics watchdog on Tuesday renewed calls to ban members of Congress from trading stocks during their terms in office after The New York Times published a major investigation revealing that nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers reported trades in companies influenced by their committees.
Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
New UN Report Shows Fossil Fuel Addiction Is a ‘Recipe for Permanent Climate Chaos’ “This year’s United in Science report shows climate impacts heading into uncharted territories of destruction,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. A multi-agency report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, released on Tuesday, says current global climate mitigation efforts are woefully inadequate and warns without more urgent action the physical and socioeconomic impacts will be increasingly devastating. “This year’s United in Science report shows climate impacts heading into uncharted territories of destruction,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message. “Yet each year we double down on this fossil fuel addiction, even as the symptoms get rapidly worse.
1.5°C Warming May Trigger Multiple Tipping Points Five of sixteen identified tipping points are already in the danger zone Multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a major new analysis published in the journal Science. Even at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of passing five dangerous climate tipping points, and risks increase with each tenth of a degree of further warming. 
During the Southwest Drought: Water for Fracking for Oil — Not Life!: ‘Water is Our Most Precious Resource’: Alfalfa Farmers Asked to Give Up Crop Amid Megadrought in US South-West Agriculture – mainly alfalfa – consumes 80% of the Colorado River’s dwindling water supply, prompting calls for conservation efforts. On an early August morning in California’s Imperial Valley, tractors rumble across verdant fields of alfalfa, mowing down the tall grass and leaving it to dry in shaggy heaps under the hot sun. Here, in one of the oldest farming communities in the Colorado River basin, the forage crop is king. One out of every three farmed acres in the valley is dedicated to growing alfalfa, which dries into a high-protein hay commonly used as food for livestock.
A Bigger Hammer Won’t Stop Large Fires In an Aug. 29 letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, lawmakers — mostly from California — said they’re worried about reports the Forest Service remains short-staffed on wildfire crews. They urged officials to attack fires rapidly. But unfortunately, these same politicians also support more logging of our forests to “reduce” fuels which they believe will stem fire spread. It is not surprising that many politicians still latch on to the idea that more firefighters and logging could modify the increase in wildfires around the West. There is a universal tendency to use a bigger hammer to pound a nail if a smaller one is failing. But sometimes, a bigger hammer isn’t the right solution.
‘David Beat Goliath’ as Line 3 Water Defenders Win Protective Ruling “Today’s ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law,” said Indigenous water protector Winona LaDuke.
‘David Beat Goliath’ as Line 3 Water Defenders Win Protective Ruling “Today’s ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law,” said Indigenous water protector Winona LaDuke.
Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:
Law-and-Order Policies Make Us Less Safe. The Trajectory of the ’90s Shows Why. Across the U.S., Democratic politicians are embracing playbooks that put mass incarceration into overdrive in the ‘90s. Across the United States, Democratic politicians are renewing their commitments to 1990s-era crime policies. From New York City Mayor Eric Adams instructing the NYPD to increase misdemeanor arrests, to the Detroit police cracking down on noise and “urban blight,” to Los Angeles’s City Council intensifying the criminalization of homeless people, the hallmarks of broken windows policing are heralded as solutions to the supposedly unprecedented national crime surge. At the national level, President Biden’s “Safer America Plan” promises to increase federal funding for local law enforcement and put 100,000 more cops on the streets in community policing programs — a direct repeat of President Bill Clinton’s notorious C.O.P.S program, which distributed millions of federal funds to law enforcement, escalating policing and arrests nationwide. While proponents pretend that such practices do not constitute broken windows policing tactics but “quality of life” or “community policing,” in fact, there has never been a division between these policing practices, logics or outcomes. While technocratic criminal justice practitioners advocate for these policies as simply following “evidence-based practices,” this is simply not the case. We are witnessing a liberal law-and-order backlash to anti-racist activism against policing. Through scapegoating abolitionist movements to defund the police and more moderate criminal justice reforms as the source of violent crime, Democrats are returning to the very playbooks that propelled mass incarceration.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
- Mississippi Goddam Jaribu Hill is Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights . She joins us to discuss a Mississippi political scandal involving a former governor who gave millions of dollars in funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to political cronies and even to a multi-millionaire former football star. In addition, the city of Jackson has been without clean water for more than a week. She joins us from Greenville to talk about Mississippi politics and how these two scandals came about.
- Let Cuba Live Steven Hardge works on mutual aid and community survival projects and programs as a community organizer with Endstate Atlanta . He joins us to discuss his recent trip to Cuba as part of a Community Movement Builders delegation. He joins us from Atlanta.
- Black Politics in San Francisco, Part I Jemma Decristo is a community organizer in San Francisco, where a Black mayor and other officials enact policies against the unhoused and the poor and where gentri-fication continues. She joins us from San Francisco. This is Part I of a two-part interview.
Labor:
U.K.: Labour Movement Declares Truce Over Lizzy’s Death Following the death of the Queen, trade union leaders have cancelled planned strike action ‘out of respect’ to the Royal Family. But the Tories and bosses have not paused their class war. The labour movement must mobilise to topple their system.
Economy:
The Market Is Freaking Out Over the Potential for a Perfect Storm: Fed Tightening, Shaky Mega Banks, and a Sharp Decline in Household Wealth The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,276 points yesterday for a decline of 3.94 percent. The Dow’s losses were outpaced by the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which gave up 632.8 points for a drop of 5.16 percent. The sharp selloff was triggered by the 8:30 a.m. report yesterday morning, an hour before the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange, that inflation had come in hotter than expected in August. Wall Street had been looking for a 0.1 percent decline in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Instead, the August reading showed an increase of 0.1 percent. The year-over-year rate slowed to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent in July.
World:
WHO Leads Global Health Coalition Demand for Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty “It is our duty to prioritize our patients’ safety, dignity, and comfort and we are duty-bound to speak out about the serious global health risks posed by the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels,” said nearly 200 global health groups. Citing the health and safety risks directly linked to fossil fuel pollution, nearly 200 global health groups Wednesday joined the World Health Organization in calling on international governments to agree to a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty—an agreement to rapidly end oil, gas, and coal production and exploration and ensure a just transition to a renewable energy economy
NATO’s “Death Wish” Will Destroy Not Only Europe But the Rest of the World as Well It is difficult to understand why Western politicians and the mainstream media fail to perceive the existential danger they have imposed on Russia and recklessly on the rest of us. NATO’s insistence on its so-called “open door” policy is solipsistic and blithely ignores Russia’s legitimate security interests. No country would put up with that kind of expansion. Certainly not the US if by comparison Mexico would be tempted to join a Chinese-led alliance. NATO has displayed what I would call culpable intransigence and its refusal to negotiate a Europe-wide or even worldwide security agreement constituted a form of provocation, directly triggering the current war in Ukraine. Moreover, it is easy to grasp that this war could very easily escalate to mutual nuclear annihilation.
Colombian Intelligence Operations, with US Backing, Are Bad for Peace Colombia’s new president Gustavo Petro wants peace. Colombia’s military, the largest in Latin America, except for that of Brazil, stands in the way. It benefits from U.S. largesse while attending to U.S. needs. Its intelligence branch, discussed here, is not about peace and reconciliation. The U.S. government, militarily involved in Colombia for decades is likewise an obstacle to peace. As explained recently by analyst Hernando Calvo Ospina, military cooperation has been central to the U.S.-Colombian alliance. He details how since World War II the United States has partnered with Colombia in dominating the entire region to maintain access to strategic resources, exclude Communism, and suppress left-wing movements.
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