Daily News Digest July 17, 2023

 Daily News Digest Archives

Image of the Day:

Hottest Day on Record, Climate Change DenialCapitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!

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 Capitalism 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:

..in [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.     “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’.      The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…” DwightEisenhower — Hiroshimawho Disagreed With the Atomic Bombing?Why They Did It.)

Tiny Crawford Lake covers just 2.4 hectares (6 acres) in a legally protected conservation area. Unusually, it is meromictic — the upper and lower layers of water do not intermix. As a result, centuries of sinking materials have combined with seasonal calcium deposits to form sharply defined annual layers of sediment — comparable to tree rings — a precise year-by-year record of local, regional and global environment change.     Studies of pollens found in Crawford sediments provide detailed information about indigenous communities that farmed corn (maize) near the lake 600 years ago, and about the environmental impacts of later land clearing and logging by European colonists.     In frozen cores pulled from the lake bottom (see video below) more recent layers contain materials that simply didn’t exist before the middle of the 20th century.      A multidisciplinary scientific working group that calls itself “Team Crawford” has found carbon particles from high energy power production, nitrates from massive application of chemical fertilizers, and other recent pollutants including indicators of decades of acid rain. Most important, the first layer to contain radioactive plutonium isotopes was formed in 1952 — that’s when the U.S. military began testing thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) in the Pacific Ocean.     In short, sediments in the bottom of Crawford Lake contain clear evidence of what scientists have dubbed the Great Acceleration of environmental change that began about 1950. — Scientists choose site to mark the start of the Anthropocene

Podcasts/Vidoes of the Day:

Stephen Wertheim: The West Cannot Ignore Role NATO Expansion Played in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

“Cobalt Red”: Smartphones & Electric Cars Rely on Toxic Mineral Mined in Congo by Children

Environment:

After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!

One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!

Biden, Stop Ignoring Climate-Fueled Extreme Weather It is a massive blindspot of this administration that the country can be pummeled by weather of biblical plague proportions, and our political leaders aren’t out there calling this what it is.     Extreme weather is the story of this summer so far, the hottest in 120,000 years. But you wouldn’t know it from following Beltway politics. (Yes, the president’s currently in Lithuania, but there happens to be a climate-fueled drought there too.).    As science journalist Hannah Waters observed, these new extremes we’re experiencing are “a taste of the future. An extreme El Niño summer today is a normal summer later on if we continue to burn fossil energy at unsustainable rates.” And it’s not just a forecast of what’s to come; it’s also evidence of how much the planet has already warmed. “Right now we are experiencing El Niño in a new way: under warmer conditions created by the build-up of fossil fuel gases in the atmosphere,” Waters wrote.

Farmers Insurance Quits Covering Florida Property as Climate Crisis Worsens “As Farmers Insurance exits Florida due to concerns over increasing risk from severe weather, the insurance industry continues to prop up the fossil fuel industry,” one expert noted.    In a move the will affect roughly 100,000 policyholders, Farmers Insurance announced Tuesday that it would stop covering property in Florida, a business decision the company said was taken to “effectively manage risk exposure” amid increasingly frequent extreme weather disasters fueled by human-caused global heating.     In a move the will affect roughly 100,000 policyholders, Farmers Insurance announced Tuesday that it would stop covering property in Florida, a business decision the company said was taken to “effectively manage risk exposure” amid increasingly frequent extreme weather disasters fueled by human-caused global heating.     Farmers informed Florida officials that it would no longer write new home, auto, or umbrella policies in the state, making the company the fourth insurance giant to quit the Florida market over the past year, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

2 Months of Rain Falls on Vermont Over 2 Days, Prompting State of Emergency “The devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic,” Gov. Phil Scott said.

India’s Monsoon Fury Shows the Time for Climate Action Is Now The rising land and sea temperatures have enhanced the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture, leading to heavier and prolonged rainfall. The consequences are devastating, with floods and landslides wreaking havoc in various parts of the country.     Let us seize this moment to make a difference, to take responsibility for our actions, and to pursue a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment. Climate change is no longer a distant threat lurking in the future. It is here, it is real, and it is staring us in the face. As extreme weather events become the new normal, it is high time we acknowledge the urgency of the situation and take immediate action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences. The recent monsoon fury in India, with its unprecedented rainfall, flash floods, and landslides, serves as a grim reminder of the impact of climate change on our lives.    The scientific community has been sounding the alarm for years, and now the evidence is undeniable. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events are all consequences of global warming. The very fabric of our environment is unraveling before our eyes, and it is our responsibility to act. Meteorologists and climate scientists attribute the current spell of heavy rains to a combination of factors, including the alignment of weather systems and changes in monsoon patterns. 

2 Months of Rain Falls on Vermont Over 2 Days, Prompting State of Emergency “The devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic,” Gov. Phil Scott said. 

Your Great-Great-Great-Grandchildren Officially Have Human Rights; We Must Protect Them The Maastricht Principles on the Human Rights of Future Generations, launching Thursday, clarify that human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, do not expire.     Like most people, I hope my children and grandchildren will enjoy the wonders of this beautiful planet, including wildlife like the killer whales living in the ocean near my home. But those orcas are endangered by short-sighted human actions, including pollution and over-fishing of salmon.

  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. Tax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)

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 D. Brandeis Quotes

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam 

A Vote for Trump or Biden is a Vote for Ecocide!

The damage caused by the September 11 plane bombings is] nothing compared to the knockout blow to our vanishing liberties — the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 combined with the recent requests to Congress for additional special powers to wiretap without judicial order; to deport lawful permanent residents, visitors, and undocumented immigrants without due process. — Gore Vida, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (4/2002)

Patrick Lawrence: The ‘Disinformation Industry’ Lands in Court What kind of a week was last week in the theater of war wherein battles rage over illegal censorship, illegal attacks on freedom of speech, illegal government infringements on our constitutional rights, and, amid it all, the complicity of our most powerful media in these illegalities? For a brief while it looked as though it was a very fine week. On July 4, an excellent day for this, a district court in Louisiana ruled that the White House and a long list of other federal agencies are barred from all contacts with social media companies if the intent is to intimidate or otherwise coerce Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other such platforms into deleting, suppressing, or in any way obscuring content protected as free speech, to paraphrase a key passage in the ruling.

Warren, Sanders Report Reveals Tax Prep Firms Are Sending Taxpayer Data to Meta. The data of millions of taxpayers has been shared with “stunning disregard for taxpayer privacy,” the report found.     Tax preparation companies have for years been freely sharing millions of taxpayers’ sensitive data, which is supposed to be closely guarded, with Meta to use in advertising and for other purposes with “stunning disregard” for user privacy, a new report by congressional Democrats has found.     The report, released Wednesday, found that TaxAct, TaxSlayer and H&R Block have been using a line of code on their websites known as Meta Pixel in order to gather data about users, largely to use for advertising purposes. This data is then sent to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, which uses it for its own advertising programs. 

Cluster Bomb Decision Puts Blood of Future Civilian Victims on Biden’s Hands For entrenched elites in Washington, using taxpayer money to shred the bodies of children and other civilians isn’t a big deal when there’s serious geopolitical work to be done. 

Civil Rights/Blackliberation:

Black Agenda Report

Labor:

Economy:

Senator Elizabeth Warren Slams Treasury Secretary Yellen and Bank Regulator Hsu for “Courting Disaster” on Bank Mergers Senator Elizabeth Warren is the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Policy. She is also the most knowledgeable member of Congress when it comes to the mega banks on Wall Street and the most willing to hold them accountable. (See related articles below.).    Yesterday, Warren’s Subcommittee held a hearing on “Bank Mergers and the Economic Impacts of Consolidation.” The urgency of this hearing was heightened by the fact that almost two years after President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order urging members of his administration to take a more aggressive investigation into the harmful impacts of consolidation and monopoly power before approving more mergers in a number of industries, including banking, bank regulators signed off on one of the most egregious mergers of this century. Senator Warren explained it this way:     “When First Republic Bank collapsed in April, the bank was ultimately sold to the biggest bank in America, JP Morgan Chase. That sweetheart deal cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund $13 billion. Meanwhile, overnight, the country’s biggest bank got $200 billion bigger. And what happened to the regulators? The Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Michael Hsu, rubber stamped the deal in record time. When I asked Mr. Hsu at a hearing in May to explain how this merger was approved, he was unable to provide a clear answer.

World:

An Accident Waiting to Happen: NATO Looks to Asia Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has distinctly strayed from its original purpose. It has become, almost shamelessly, the vessel and handmaiden of US power, while its burgeoning expansion eastwards has done wonders to upend the applecart of stability.     From that upending, the alliance started bungling. It engaged, without the authorisation of the UN Security Council, in a 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia – at least what was left of it – ostensibly to protect the lives of Kosovar Albanians. Far from dampening the tinderbox, the Kosovo affair continues to be an explosion in the making.

Health. Welfare, and Education:

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