Daily News Digest February 15, 2024
Images of the Day: Latuff: Which Side are You on?!
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”
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: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, andThe 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:
Joe Biden 2023 ‘I am a Zionist’!: ‘I am a Zionist’: How Joe Biden’s lifelong bond with Israel shapes war Policy When Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet during his visit to Israel, the U.S. president assured them: “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.”
Adolf Eichmann ‘I am a Zionist’ 1937! In this New York Times review of “In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy From the Women of Terezin,” Lore Dickstein quotes the memory of a Terezin survivor who met Eichmann: “Anny Stern was one of the lucky ones. In 1939, after months of hassle with the Nazi bureaucracy, the occupying German Army at her heels, she fled Czechoslovakia with her young son and emigrated to Palestine. At the time of Anny’s departure, Nazi policy encouraged emigration. ‘Are you a Zionist?’ Adolph Eichmann, Hitler’s specialist on Jewish affairs, asked her. ‘Jawohl,’ she replied. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I am a Zionist, too. I want every Jew to leave for Palestine.’” — Zionism’s Uneasy Relationship With Antisemitism
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Cornel West “Biden’s A War Criminal”
Cornel West Defends His Campaign For President on BBC Hard Talk
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 ford 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
FBI Urged to Reopen Probe into 1985 Assassination of Arab-American Leader Alex Odeh in California The FBI and Justice Department are being urged to renew its investigation into one of the most shocking political murders in recent U.S. history. Twenty-eight years ago, on October 11, 1985, a prominent Palestinian-American leader named Alex Odeh was killed by a powerful pipe bomb planted at the Santa Ana, California, offices of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, where Odeh worked as the group’s western regional director. The FBI quickly named the militant Jewish Defense League, or JDL, as a focus of its investigations. But decades later, no one has been questioned or indicted for Odeh’s murder.
Former US Navy Pilot: The Day Israel Attacked the USA June 8, 1967, Another Date That Lives in Infamy Over the past several weeks, I have commented on articles related to the Israel/Palestine War, only to be called antisemitic and racist. Nothing could be further from the truth. My feelings about the nation of Israel were formed long ago when I was a 26 year-old U.S. Navy pilot. Since very few seem to remember the events of June 8, 1967, I am writing about them. Part One of a Two Part Essay — The Ugly Political Stuff is to Come in Part Two I follow the climate crisis closely and like most that do, I understand the term “tipping point”. A tipping point is a point where a process has proceeded so far along that it can’t be reversed or stopped. It h
Washington Promotes Opposition Candidate Setting the Stage for Delegitimizing the Venezuelan Presidential Election The US has been relegated to vetting candidates for the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election. While still egregiously interventionist, the imperial power has failed to achieve outright regime change. The appearance of Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado before a US congressional committee is the latest in the empire’s quest for a trustworthy confederate. Hopes are high among Republicans that she is the right collaborator. The Democrats may have another but complementary game plan.
as taken 56 years but I have finally reached my tipping point with Israel and so this article.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
South Africa Calls on ICJ to Stop Israel’s Rafah Assault An invasion of Rafah would be an “irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the court’s order,” the South African government said. Israel’s bombardment of Rafah in southern Gaza and its stated plan to expand its attack with a ground assault puts the country in breach of a clear directive from the International Court of Justice, said South African officials on Tuesday, less than three weeks after the court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal violence in Gaza.
Global Alarm as IDF Takes Aim at Nasser Hospital Full of Sheltering Civilians “Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected,” said the head of the World Health Organization. Israeli troops further closed in on the largest hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Wednesday, ordering thousands of Palestinians sheltering at the facility to evacuate amid reports that Israeli snipers have been shooting people trying to flee the compound.
IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report “This is beyond military occupation, apartheid, economic exploitation, and all the rest,” asserted one journalist. “There is something extremely sickening happening here.”
Environment:
Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%! After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!
Climate Experts Sound Alarm Over Thriving Plant Life at Greenland Ice Sheet Research shows there has been a near-quadrupling across Greenland of methane-producing wetlands Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels and instability of the landscape. Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels and instability of the landscape. A study has documented the change since the 1980s and shows that large areas of ice have been replaced with barren rock, wetlands and shrub growth, creating a change in environment. A study has documented the change since the 1980s and shows that large areas of ice have been replaced with barren rock, wetlands and shrub growth, creating a change in environment.
Seascape: the State of Our Oceans ‘You Lied to Us’: Did The Real-Life Zsaga Behind Free Willy Change the Story For Orcas In Captivity? Thirty years after a film highlighted their plight, thousands of whales and dolphins remain performing in entertainment parks Anyone who grew up in the 1990s may well remember this movie scene: a 3.6-tonne orca leaping to freedom over a harbour wall and swimming off into the sunset with his family. . . .It was 30 years ago this month that the film was released in the UK and it went on to spawn three sequels and a TV series. But it also helped to expose the dark side of orcas in captivity – not least the real-life story of Keiko, the whale who played Willy. Rescuing him took many years and millions of dollars – and even then the ending was not one that would have made the movie screens. After the film had become a box-office hit, viewers soon learned the real Willy was not free. He was performing in a marine entertainment park in Mexico City in poor conditions. A captive orca would have to do more than 1,000 loops of its enclosure to cover the daily distances it would swim in the wild, says Rob Lott, a campaign coordinator at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC).Polar Bears Risk Starvation as They Face Longer Ice-Free Periods in the Arctic Bears use ice to access food, but study of animals in Canada shows them struggling to adapt to more time on land amid climate crisis In the warmer months when the sea ice recedes, they would be expected to conserve their energy and even enter a hibernation-like state. But human-caused climate change is extending this ice-free period in parts of the Arctic – which is heating between two and four times faster than the rest of the world – and forcing the polar bears to spend more and more time on land.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Cashing in on Racist Bail Given how racist American policing is, the system of cash bail is intended to ensure that people of color who are disproportionately arrested are also disproportionately detained in jails without due process. A 2022 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights examined the impact of cash bail and found that between 1970 and 2015, the number of people jailed before trial increased by a whopping 433 percent, and there are currently about 500,000 such people stuck in jails across the nation who have not been tried or convicted of any crimes. Most Americans have not considered “cash bail” as critical to equality and freedom. The term is an esoteric one but is increasingly central to the ongoing battle over racial capitalism, policing, and mass incarceration, especially in an election year as critical as 2024.
Labor:
Economy:
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers
Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar
Shadow Government Statistics New Weekly Commentary February 13, 2024 Opening Headlines, Latest Numbers And Outlook
- Today’s January 2024 Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) Year-to-Year Inflation Softened to 3.09% from 3.35% in December 2023
- The January 2024 ShadowStats Alternate CPI Year-to-Year Inflation Eased in Parallel to 10.9% from 11.2% in December 2023
- Fourth-Quarter 2023 Real Merchandise Trade Deficit: Not the Worst of the Post-Pandemic Era, but Still Far Worse Than Anything Ever Seen Before the Pandemic
- As to the Headline Economic Numbers That Lie Ahead:
- Nothing Like Depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to Boost Flagging Quarterly GDP Growth in Latter 2022 and into 2023
- Where That Happened in 2022 and Had a Lingering Impact, Something Else Also Is Afoot, at Present, With the Headline Second-Half 2023 GDP Booming 3% Year-to-Year
- Consider, in Contrast to the Headline GDP, Full-Year and Second-Half 2023 Real Monthly Economic Data and Related Activity, Continued Flat-to-Negative on a Year-to-Year Basis, Aggregating into a Solid Picture of a Recessing-to-Stagnant U.S. Economy
- Some Clarification between the Clashing Quarterly and Monthly Economic Numbers Should Follow from This Week’s Heavy Release Schedule of a Variety of the Better-Quality Monthly Economic Data for January 2024
- Pending Releases Include the Index of Industrial Production (Manufacturing and Mining), (Real ) Retail Sales, Building Permits, Housing Starts plus the University
Citigroup Is Having a Very Bad Week; Regulators Are Breathing Down Its Neck At the exact moment that the stock market closed on Monday, Reuters dropped a bombshell in Warren Buffett’s lap with news that federal banking regulators are breathing down Citigroup’s neck. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns 55,244,797 shares of Citigroup, according to its last 13F filing with the SEC. The bulk of the stake was acquired in the first quarter of 2022. (See our report: Warren Buffett Is Taking a Flyer on $3 Billion of Citigroup’s Stoc — After It Loses 40 Percent in a Year.)
World:
There is No International Law and Order Imperialists Rob and Plunder!: Venezuela Loses UK Appeal in Long-Running Gold Reserves Battle (2023) The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) board controlled by the government of President Nicolas Maduro on Friday lost its latest appeal over $1.95 billion of the country’s gold reserves held in the Bank of England’s underground vaults. The BCV was challenging a previous ruling that certain decisions of Venezuela’s top court should not be recognised by English courts in
Venezuela Slams Argentina for ‘Colluding’ With US to Steal Cargo Jet Bought From Iran The Venezuelan government called the U.S. seizure of the aircraft a “shameful rapacious operation” and “blatant theft.” Venezuela’s government on Monday slammed Argentina for “colluding” with the U.S. to seize a cargo jet that an Iranian company allegedly sold to the Venezuelan state airline Emtrasur in 2021, a transaction that the U.S. claims violated export control laws and sanctions it has imposed on Tehran.
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 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