Daily News Digest December 15, 2022
Editorial: The 1%’s Supreme Court’s Coup D’etat
There has been a silent coup d’etat, in the United States — The Increasing Executive. Legislative, Assertions by the Supreme Court Since 2001, When It Elected George Bush President of the United States!
Images of the Day:
Bendib: Peace Lovin’
Jeff Danziger
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!
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 new fashion among government officials, economists, think tank inhabitants, bankers, investors, multilateral bureaucrats, and the journalists who faithfully copy down what they say is to forecast what kind of place Ukraine will be once the war is over. And here’s the thing: Ukraine has oligarchs, and the postwar Ukraine these people have in mind cannot have oligarchs. Highly successful business executives and entrepreneurs with vast holdings, the same holdings from which they now profit, O.K. But they have to be executives and entrepreneurs, not oligarchs. — Patrick Lawrence: In Ukraine, the Autumn of Oligarchs
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
War’s Chokehold On Culture w/ Matt Hoh: How Does the War Industry Control Us?
Slash the Pentagon Budget in Half & Abolish ICBMs: Dan Ellsberg on How to Avoid Nuclear Armageddon
Mumia Should Be Freed: A Sitting Trial Judge in Arkansas Appeals to Philly Judge to Drop Charges
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 Republicrats 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
Patrick Lawrence: In Ukraine, the Autumn of Oligarchs The nice thing about being an oligarch is that you are so wealthy it doesn’t matter that you are looked upon as a predatory pariah. The nice thing about being an American oligarch, such as Jeff Bezos, is that America does not have oligarchs: It has highly successful business executives and entrepreneurs. Jeff Bezos can build Amazon into something that looks very like a monopoly, he can own The Washington Post and sign contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency, he can have a net worth of $114 billion. But he is still a highly successful businessman, not an oligarch. He is a “job-creator,” a phrase of which I have long been fond. The new fashion among government officials, economists, think tank inhabitants, bankers, investors, multilateral bureaucrats, and the journalists who faithfully copy down what they say is to forecast what kind of place Ukraine will be once the war is over. And here’s the thing: Ukraine has oligarchs, and the postwar Ukraine these people have in mind cannot have oligarchs. Highly successful business executives and entrepreneurs with vast holdings, the same holdings from which they now profit, O.K. But they have to be executives and entrepreneurs, not oligarchs.
After the Rail Fiasco We are still in the early days of assessing the potential long-term political implications of the Biden administration’s decision to impose a highly unpopular contract on rail workers with the active support of “The Squad” (with the exception of Rashida Tlaib) in Congress. A line has certainly been crossed, however, and it’s hard to see a way back for those on the Left and in the labor movement who’ve engaged in mind-boggling intellectual summersaults to justify it as a good thing. It should be noted that even Tlaib’s dissent was well within the boundaries of Democratic Party politics.
In a Dark Time, the Eye Begins to See: Sandy Hook 10 Years Later Let’s review what happened 10 years ago, on December 14: A 20-year-old white Connecticut man murdered his mother, then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown to shoot to death 20 first graders, six educators, and himself. On that black Friday, one of the darkest days in US history, Adam Lanza fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes: 154 from a Bushmaster .223-model assault rifle. The final bullet, from a Glock 10mm handgun, he used on himself. Those are “just the facts, ma’am,” as Det. Joe Friday used to say on the 1950s TV police drama, Dragnet. Ten years since the Sandy Hook massacre, and hundreds of mass shootings later, there are no Det. Fridays to investigate why these mass shootings keep happening. At least none flagging the murderer’s predictable profile: white, male, under 30.
Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide:
‘When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?’
New Fossil Investment Far Exceeds Paris Climate Goals: Carbon Tracker The world’s biggest fossil companies, many of them operating in Canada, approved new oil and gas projects in 2021 and early 2022 that will blow through a 1.5°C limit on average global warming, according to new analysis released late last week by the Carbon Tracker Initiative. The results show that investors “cannot credibly own financial interests in companies that continue to invest in new conventional oil and gas projects” if they want their holdings to align with a 1.5°C climate future, the London, UK-based think tank concludes in its 43-page report, titled Paris Maligned. The world’s biggest fossil companies, many of them operating in Canada, approved new oil and gas projects in 2021 and early 2022 that will blow through a 1.5°C limit on average global warming, according to new analysis released late last week by the Carbon Tracker Initiative. The results show that investors “cannot credibly own financial interests in companies that continue to invest in new conventional oil and gas projects” if they want their holdings to align with a 1.5°C climate future, the London, UK-based think tank concludes in its 43-page report, titled Paris Maligned.
‘Outrageous Betrayal’: Pennsylvania Lifts Fracking Ban in Polluted Town of Dimock “This unconscionable action is a betrayal of suffering communities that are still years away from a permanent solution that will restore their access to clean water,” said one advocate. Environmental justice advocates cried foul Tuesday after it was reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is allowing a fracking giant to resume drilling operations in Dimock just two weeks after it accepted responsibility for poisoning the small rural town’s drinking water.
BLM No Better Under Biden Than Under Trump It’s incredibly disappointing, but the Bureau of Land Management is no better under Tracy Stone-Manning’s leadership than under Trump. While the examples pile up nationally, here in Stone-Manning’s home state the agency is attempting to dodge required public review and comment for a massive 16,066-acre clearcutting and burning project that will bulldoze 22 miles of new roads in the Garnet Mountains in grizzly, bull trout, and lynx critical habitat.
Gas and Oil Corporation Deception? What a Surprise! The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a trove of documents last week that show while gas and oil mega-corporations have been mouthing their commitment to clean energy “transition,” they’ve actually been peddling what, in the West, would be called “bull pucky.” In the common vernacular of our time, it’s a practice known as “greenwashing,” which amounts to putting lipstick on the pig of their planet-killing pollution.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Marjorie Cohn: After 41 Years in Prison, Mumia Abu-Jamal May Finally Get a Chance for New Trial Evidence suggests the prosecutor in Mumia’s trial bribed star witnesses to testify and wrongly excluded Black jurors. Award-winning journalist and author Mumia Abu-Jamal has been in prison for 41 years in a case infused with racism. The 68-year-old is a former Black Panther and the author of a dozen books, including the celebrated Live from Death Row. After his 1982 conviction in the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death. In 2011, his sentence was reduced to life without the possibility of parole. Abu-Jamal has a serious heart condition and other life-threatening health problems.
Labor:
Economy:
An Insider Blows the Whistle on How the Fed Has Allowed Crypto to Invade Federally-Insured Banks Katie Cox worked for the Federal Reserve for 32 years, the last two decades of which were spent overseeing complex proposals for bank mergers. She left the Fed in 2020. Last Wednesday Katie Cox penned a shocker of a column for American Banker. She opened with this: “Suppose you’re a crypto company that wants to own a bank approved to engage in digital-asset activities. Here’s the fast-track way you might achieve that, while complying with rules in place since August: Go buy a bank, any bank. Convert your bank to a Federal Reserve member bank, meaning that your bank’s federal supervisor will now be the Fed, not the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Wait a little bit, maybe six months. Then send the Fed a letter notifying it that your bank is going to engage in digital-asset activities and that you have determined the activities your bank will conduct are permissible. Promise that you will soon establish a risk management framework to manage this complex new business. If you’re lucky, your bank won’t be examined for a year or two. By then, you might have cranked up quite a dumpster fire.”
World:
Italy: the Square Belongs to Everyone – For a Broad, Democratic Movement As reported on previously, comrades of the IMT in Italy were attacked by right-wingers for raising slogans against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a demonstration against violence against women. Subsequently, basing themselves on the poisonous ideas of identity politics, the protest organisers have used intimidation to try and push our comrades out of the movement. In the following open letter, our comrades appeal to all class-conscious workers and activists from the women’s and LGBT movements to reject these methods.
Health Education 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
Robber Baron for Profit Healthcare: How Medicare Advantage Plans Dodged Auditors and Overcharged Taxpayers by Millions 
As Scandals Mount, So Do Calls to Abolish Private Medicare Advantage Plans Problems with Medicare Advantage are systemic and widespread,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “Not only do they too often deny care—they’re ripping off taxpayers.” As yet another scandal involving Medicare Advantage made headlines this week, progressive U.S. lawmakers and advocates renewed calls to abolish the private health insurance program that a recent Senate report said is “running amok” with “fraudsters and scam artists.” In a new Nation article written with health insurance reform advocate Wendell Potter, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) contend that one of the most confusing things facing elders while choosing their Medicare plans “is a scheme by private insurance companies to prey on seniors and profit off of the Medicare brand, all in the name of padding their corporate profits and shareholder returns.”
Insurance Industry-Backed Alternative to Medicare “Is Stealing Our Tax Dollars” New audits show that Medicare Advantage has collected millions in overcharges from patients over a three-year period. In April 2016, government auditors asked a Blue Cross Medicare Advantage health plan in Minnesota to turn over medical records of patients treated by a podiatry practice whose owner had been indicted for fraud. Medicare had paid the Blue Cross plan more than $20,000 to cover the care of 11 patients seen by Aggeus Healthcare, a chain of podiatry clinics, in 2011. Blue Cross said it couldn’t locate any records to justify the payments because Aggeus shut down in the wake of the indictment, which included charges of falsifying patient medical files. So Blue Cross asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a “hardship” exemption to a strict requirement that health plans retain these files in the event of an audit.
An Obscure Agency Is Threatening to Hand Medicare Over to Wall Street 30 million seniors who thought they were free of insurance companies may find their health care managed by corporations. A review of 90 government audits, released exclusively to KHN in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, reveals that health insurers that issue Medicare Advantage plans have repeatedly tried to sidestep regulations requiring them to document medical conditions the government paid them to treat. The audits, the most recent ones the agency has completed, sought to validate payments to Medicare Advantage health plans for 2011 through 2013. As KHN reported late last month, auditors uncovered millions of dollars in improper payments — citing overcharges of more than $1,000 per patient a year on average — by nearly two dozen health plans.
COVID Tragedy at Nursing Home Underscores the Deadly Risks of For-Profit Care The owners of a New York-based nursing home pocketed millions in taxpayer dollars as patients suffered and died. New York Attorney General Letitia James recently filed a lawsuit against The Villages, a nursing home in Albion, New York, for years of financial fraud that resulted in the abandonment of the “most basic functions of care” for the nursing home’s residents. An investigation conducted by the Office of the Attorney General found that from 2015 to 2021, the facility’s owners received $86.4 million in funding, “including millions in taxpayer dollars from Medicare and Medicaid, intended to provide quality healthcare.” Instead, the owners used those funds to cut staffing and to divert more than $18.6 million in payments to themselves — in all, more than 20 percent of the facility’s entire operating budget.