Daily News Digest September 9, 2016

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest September 9, 2016

Image of the Day:

Dangerous Day for Americans — 6 Corporations Own 95% of the Media!

Quotes of the Day:

As reported by Democracy Now “Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and other financial institutions have, combined, extended a $3.75 billion credit line to Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access.” With such a significant investment from banks already designated “too big to fail” would a member of the monied class ever rule against his own? — Pipelines, Poverty and Privilege: the Finances of Judge James Boasberg

All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man” And: The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think — that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it’s not America. And: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. — Edward R Murrow

A useful analysis undertaken by the Grantham Institute in 2015 concluded that if the same amount of heat that has gone into the top 2000m of the ocean between 1955-2010 had gone into the lower 10km of the atmosphere, then the Earth would have seen a warming of 36°C. — The Sick Ocean

Mindful of his (Obama’s) solemn obligation to keeping the American people safe, he clearly values his title of Commander-in-Chief as much as he does POTUS. Together that gives him unquestioned license to expand Executive Authority, carrying into such areas as massive surveillance of the people, employment of the Espionage Act to ferret out dissent, and assemble a Cabinet fully subscribing to his geopolitical aims of disproportionate world influence in a framework of unilateral military-commercial-financial-ideological dominance. One proud achievement, symbolizing the whole, is the retention of Guantanamo, validating the principle of indefinite detention. Again, solicitous of Americans’ well-being, not wanting to harm moral sensibilities, Guantanamo, for him, is a shining example of conducting torture with impunity, out of the limelight so that no-one is disturbed at home. This is part of a larger grasp of what constitutes ethical policy making, — The American Way: Indefinite Detention

Videos of the Day:

U.S.

U.S.9-11 World Trade Center Dust Cloud: How Many Will Die! The “dustification” and the implosion of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers sent clouds of carcinogenic dust across New York City. These towers were built in the late 1970s and asbestos was one of many carcinogenic materials that were used in their construction. Everyone familiar with construction and the carcinogens that are contained in high rise structures, immediately knew that there was a grave risk for all who were downwind from the dust cloud which was formed from the burning and crumbling of the building.Despite the obvious, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman said a week after the attacks: “I am glad to reassure the people of New York … that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.” By Roland Sheppard The Tyranny of 9/11: The Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police state. In doing so, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” by John W. Whitehead Naked 1% Rule! Prominent Scholars Decry TPP’s “Frontal Attack” on Law and Democracy “Today’s letter from top legal experts makes clear: ISDS undermines the American judicial system and tilts the playing field further in favor of big multinational corporations” More than 200 legal and economic scholars — including President Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School mentor Laurence Tribe — have penned a letter to Congress warning that the pro-corporate Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) regime enshrined in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) “threatens the rule of law and undermines our nation’s democratic institutions.” by Deirdre Fulton ‘The Bombs Bursting in Air’ We bring the Flag There! The Great Leap Backward: America’s Illegal Wars on the World Can we face it in this election season? America is a weapons factory, the White House a war room, and the president the manager of the neoliberal conspiracy to recolonize the planet. It exports war and mass poverty. On the economic front, usurious neoliberalism; on the military front, illegal wars. These are the trenches of America’s battle for world domination in the 21^st century. by Luciana Bohne Pipelines, Poverty and Privilege: the Finances of Judge James Boasberg DC District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, 53, is set to rule on the fate of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Friday. The clean drinking water of 20,000,000 of his countrymen hangs in the balance–an historic responsibility. But if history tells us anything, it’s that class allegiance is rarely, if ever, bucked. by Frances Madeson

With Arrest Warrants Issued, Jill Stein Says Campaign ‘Proud’ of Pipeline Protest “Of course I approve the action of ordinary people standing up to the destruction of our climate and sacred sites,” says Green Party presidential candidate by Jon Queally The American Way: Indefinite Detention Recent reports state that President Obama upon leaving the White House will have a multimillion dollar mansion in Washington. I delight in his good fortune. It is only appropriate that one who has devoted his presidency to serving the wealthy (and the military, for such assistance is ideologically conjoined) should live closely to, and in the manner keeping with, his clientage. In that way, he can summon, or be summoned (less likely), on the spot. by Norman Pollack

Environment: Global Warming Likely Doubled Chances of Historic Louisiana Rainfall, Study Finds “We found that the mostly likely impact of climate change is a near doubling of the odds of such a storm” by Andrea Germanos The Sick Ocean A major new scientific report, “Explaining Ocean Warming” was released on September 5th. It is grim. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Hawaii, the findings are based upon peer-reviewed research compiled by 80 scientists from 12 countries. It is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on the subject of warming of the ocean. by Robert HunzikerOngoing/Big Energy Disasters:

Oklahoma Orders Shutdown of Wells After Record-Tying Earthquake By NIRAJ CHOKSHI and HENRY FOUNTAIN Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Black to School: The Rising Struggle to Make Black Education Matter The struggle for equitable education went to summer school, and the new school year is getting underway with leading Black organizations bolstering the movement against the central components of the corporate education reform agenda. In an earthmoving decision for the education landscape, the NAACP — the nation’s oldest civil rights organization — voted at its July national gathering to call for “a moratorium on privately managed charter schools,” saying charter schools: do not represent the public yet make decisions about how public funds are spent [and have] contributed to the increased segregation rather than diverse integration of our public school system…. Researchers have warned that charter school expansions in low-income communities mirror predatory lending practices that led to the sub-prime mortgage disaster, putting schools and communities impacted by these practices at great risk of loss and harm. Labor:

Economy:

Looking at 9/11 in the Context of the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 This Sunday will mark the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy — one of those seminal events in human memory that is seared forever on the brain. Because of the emotional toll 9/11 took on the human psyche — watching U.S. commercial airline planes converted to killing machines on U.S. soil — America’s collective memory of exactly what happened on 9/11 has more to do with repetitive TV clips of the Twin Towers collapsing and a rush to war than specific details of the actions of those pulling the monetary levers on Wall Street. By Pam Martens World:

Jeremy Corbyn Pledges Fracking Ban, Energy Co-ops in Green Labour Agenda ‘We want Britain to be the world’s leading producer of renewables technology,’ he said in Nottingham, a proposed fracking site by Nadia Prupis Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:

Childhood, Family, and the Decline of Capitalism Childhood is supposed to be a simple, happy time, the ascendant years of a human’s life when, according to the traditional bourgeois world view, the possibilities for the future are wide open. Having lived through the relative prosperity of the postwar boom themselves, Baby Boomer parents confidently assured their children that they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up. This heartfelt desire for a better future for your children has been reduced to dust by the crisis of capitalism. We now live in an epoch of protracted decline in which, for the first time since the Great Depression, the new generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents. by Antonio Balmer Toxic air pollution particles found in human brains Detection of ‘abundant’ magnetite particles raises concerns because of suggested links to Alzheimer’s disease By Damian Carrington The US Superbug Crisis Growing as National Tracking Efforts Fall Far Short ‘No one at the state or federal level knows how many people are dying from drug-resistant infections,’ Reuters investigation finds by Deirdre Fulton People Are Getting Fired for Medical Marijuana in States Where It’s Legal…and Many Judges Are Siding with the Employers A recent case in California is not an outlier. By Michael Arria Canonising Mother Teresa: the Selling of the Catholic Church “The question is: was a woman who preached virtue in suffering rather than trying to alleviate it and took money from dictators really that saintly at all?” — Douglas Robertson, The Independent, Sep 5, 2016 by Binoy Kampmark