Daily News Digest February 26, 2024
Images of the Day:
Latuff: Rafah Soon to be Renamed for Warsaw Ghetto! 
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! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! 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 difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans do evil things for evil reasons, whereas Democrats do evil things for noble humanitarian reasons. — The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats
I know Labour is trying to create as much distance as possible from the disaster of 2019. But Jeremy Corbyn’s policies were not the problem. They were highly popular, far more so than Corbyn himself. Labour was brought down by a lethal combination of the media’s ferocious assaults; sabotage by its own right wing; the party’s failure to deal quickly and efficiently with its antisemitism crisis; incoherence over Brexit; and conflicts and dysfunction within Corbyn’s own team. I saw something of the first and the last factors while working with his frontbenchers on the Land for the Many report. Shadow ministers pulled in opposite directions. When the report was published, the rightwing press published outright falsehoods about it. It is entirely possible for Labour to propose the policies that so many would like to see, without the attendant chaos. — George Monbiot, If Disillusionment is All Keir Starmer Delivers as Prime Minister, I Fear Labour Will Shrivel and Die
Pocasts/Videos of the Day:
Malcolm X Assassination: Former Security Guards Reveal New Details Pointing to FBI, NYPD Conspiracy On the 59th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, two former security guards are speaking out for the first time about how they were falsely arrested by the New York Police Department as part of a conspiracy to remove his protection before he was killed. We hear from Khaleel Sayyed, 81, who says he was detained on trumped-up charges just days before Malcolm X was fatally shot, and we speak with Ben Crump and Flint Taylor, two civil rights attorneys who are working with the family. They are calling on New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, to support the release of key evidence in the case. We are “trying to peel back the layers to finally, after 59 years, get some measure of justice for Malcolm X’s family,” says Crump. Taylor also places the assassination in the context of police and the FBI targeting Black civil rights leaders through COINTELPRO, such as Fred Hampton, which he helped expose in a landmark case in Chicago.
The Assassination of Malcolm X: Ex-Undercover Officer Admits Role in FBI & Police Conspiracy
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
The 1% Rulers’ Tax Policy: Childcare Crisis Grips US as IRS Chief Says Wealthy Tax Dodgers Cost $150 Billion a Year “If we can afford to spend over $1 trillion on tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations making record-breaking profits, we can afford to provide working class families with the childcare they desperately need.”
Gaza: Will Biden go Big on Diplomacy or on Military Destruction? On the horizon, shimmering like some heavenly ideal, is a grand bargain to end the war in Gaza, establish an independent Palestinian state, and stabilize the Middle East. Also on the horizon, blazing like an infernal nightmare, is the prospect of an escalation of the current war in Gaza and the spread of destabilizing violence to every corner of the Middle East.
Red Sea attacks in Sympathy with Gaza Escalate as Yemeni Houthis’ Resilience Surprises Biden The Helpers of God (Ansar Allah) or Houthis in Yemen are proving a bigger challenge for the Biden Administration’s attempt to run interference for the Israeli atrocities in Gaza than Washington had expected. Just Monday morning the Yemeni forces fired a ballistic missile at the US-owned and -operated M/V Torm Thor, an oil tanker, but it fell short. The leadership say they are hitting Red Sea traffic as a protest against Israel’s war against Gaza. Enormous crowds in the hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in Sanaa and other cities against the Israeli campaign against Gaza, which the International Criminal Court has ruled may be a genocide.
How the Adl’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws Long before 9/11, Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out Palestinians, a new report reveals. Last October, as protests against Israel’s war on Gaza swept U.S. campuses, two prominent pro-Israel groups wrote to nearly 200 university and college administrators urging them to investigate their students for possibly violating federal law by promoting pro-Hamas, anti-Israel messaging. The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law suggested that members of Students for Justice in Palestine, the largest Palestine solidarity campus organization in the country, may have been violating a law that prohibits people from providing “material support” — a broad category that includes money as well as services or other assistance — to U.S.-designated terror groups. “We certainly cannot sit idly by as a student organization provides vocal and potentially material support to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the ADL and the Brandeis Center wrote.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
With Netanyahu Threatening Rafah Invasion, Biden Prepares to Send Israel More Bombs While pushing its tired narrative about Biden “losing patience,” the White House remains dedicated to Israel’s war on Gaza. The most relevant fact about the Biden administration’s current position on the war against Gaza is this: There is no Israeli war crime too extreme for Joe Biden to consider pausing, to say nothing of cutting off, the flow of U.S. weapons and financial support for Israel’s war of annihilation. On Tuesday, the Senate passed an extraordinary $14 billion in additional military aid for Israel to continue its occupation and bombing of the Palestinians of Gaza. Biden remains defiant in rejecting global demands for an immediate cessation of Israel’s military assault on a starving, overwhelmingly defenseless population. Not only has Biden flatly rejected suggestions that he use the threat of halting military sales to Israel, his administration is currently preparing a new shipment of powerful munitions to Tel Aviv.
Thousands Protest in Israel, Demand Netanyahu Step Down, new Elections, Hostage Deal The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that the Israeli police dispersed a crowd of demonstrators from a major Tel Aviv thoroughfare, Kaplan Street, after they attempted to block it, and that the police used water cannons on the crowd. At least 21 persons were arrested. It is thought to be the biggest set of demonstrations since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Thousands gathered in Tel Aviv to demand that the extremist government of Binyamin Netanyahu strike a deal to exchange Palestinians held prisoner in Israel (many of them held without charge or trial) for hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Fascist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich appears to have spoken for the government last week when he said that rescuing the over 100 hostages “is not the most important thing.” 
UN-Appointed Human Rights Experts Demand Halt of Arms Shipments to Israel for Violations of Laws of War More than thirty independent experts appointed by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations said Friday that arms exports to Israel must cease immediately, given Israeli violations of the international laws of war and the government’s announced intention to invade Rafah in south Gaza, which would create a further humanitarian catastrophe.
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’!
Capitalism’s Wars for Oil: When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?
Climate Migration is Our New Reality and New Responsibility The U.S. is now experiencing, on average, a billion-dollar extreme weather event every three weeks — up considerably from one every four months in the 1980s. In 2023, the city of Phoenix experienced temperatures above 110 degrees for 54 consecutive days. The devastating wildfire in Maui was the country’s deadliest in modern history. Vermont experienced its worst floods in nearly a century. And last summer, New York topped the list of the world’s cities with the worst air pollution, caused by smoke from wildfires in Canada.
Weekly Average CO2 at Mauna Loa
Week beginning on February 18, 2024: 425.21 ppm Weekly value from 1 year ago:419.68 ppm. Weekly value from 10 years ago: 398.53 ppm. Last updated: February 25, 2024
Abandoned Pipelines Could Release Poisons Into North Sea, Scientists Warn Researchers say toxic chemicals pose a pollution risk as oil and gas companies are allowed to leave pipelines to rot Decaying oil and gas pipelines left to fall apart in the North Sea could release large volumes of poisons such as mercury, radioactive lead and polonium-210, notorious for its part in the poisoning of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, scientists are warning. Mercury, an extremely toxic element, occurs naturally in oil and gas. It sticks to the inside of pipelines and builds up over time, being released into the sea when the pipeline corrodes.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:Housing Is a Human Right, Not a Luxury Commodity The U.S. needs to prioritize making housing affordable, accessible, and habitable for everyone. “How we gonna pay last year’s rent?” the chorus implores in the song “Rent” from Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical of the same name. It’s the same refrain for many Americans today. A new Harvard study found that half of U.S. renter households now spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. And rent increases continue to outpace their income gains. With other studies confirming that homelessness grows alongside housing costs, this means many more people are vulnerable. Last year, homelessness hit an all-time national high of 653,100 people.
Labor:
The Labor Bureaucracy in Partnership With Capitalist Wars!: The Anti-War Movement And The Working Class On October 16, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions called for a two-part strategy to stop Israel’s ruthless war against Gaza: they appealed to the world’s workers to refuse to build and transport weapons for Israel; and they appealed to the general public to a) pressure their governments to stop all military trade and funding for Israel’s war, and b) “take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege.” To date, unions of workers in the Canadian and U.S. weapons industry have not mobilized their members to stop sending weapons to Israel. Why not? The Unionized War Machine. More than two million workers in the U.S. produce over 80 percent of military exports to Israel. Many of these workers are unionized with the UAW (United Auto Workers) and the IAM (International Association of Machinists).In late October, 1,300 IAM workers at Raytheon and 1,100 UAW workers at General Dynamics (two of the largest U.S. military contractors) ratified new contracts at the same time that both companies were equipping the Israeli genocide. Workers at General Dynamics had voted overwhelmingly to strike on October 22, after the Palestinian Unions published their appeal, but UAW officials made a last-minute deal to keep workers on the job. Union officials claim they have a duty to protect workers’ jobs. However, far more jobs would be created by shifting Pentagon funding into medical care, education, infrastructure, and clean energy. What’s really going on?
30 Years After NAFTA, UAW Launches Solidarity Project for Mexican Autoworkers “For decades, corporations have taken advantage of inadequate trade laws to offshore thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico, where worker wages and conditions have long been suppressed.”
Economy:
War is Bad for you — And the Economy: Biden Touts the Alleged Benefits of the Arsenal of Democracy Joe Biden wants you to believe that spending money on weapons is good for the economy. That tired old myth — regularly repeated by the political leaders of both parties — could help create an even more militarized economy that could threaten our peace and prosperity for decades to come. Any short-term gains from pumping in more arms spending will be more than offset by the long-term damage caused by crowding out new industries and innovations, while vacuuming up funds needed to address other urgent national priorities.
Jamie Dimon and Nine of His Top Executives at JPMorgan Chase Have Dumped Over $150 Million of their JPMorgan Stock in Last Two Months According to Form 4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by corporate insiders, ten of the key executives at the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, have dumped more than $150 million in common stock in the bank this year. The sales come as the bank’s stock has been hitting all time highs while the scandals at the bank are also hitting unprecedented levels.
World:
Reflections on the Global Refugee Forum and the Road Ahead in 2024 The Global Refugee Forum drew to a close last month in Geneva, Switzerland. The Global Refugee Forum drew to a close last month in Geneva, Switzerland. . . . But the work toward fulfilling its lofty aspirations must only be beginning. At the GRF, the world’s largest gathering on refugee and displacement policy, more than $2.2 billion in financial commitments were pledged to support refugees and refugee-hosting communities around the world. Since pledges are non-binding commitments, the work lays ahead to ensure the momentum, connections, and platitudes made in Geneva deliver for refugee and refugee-hosting populations across the globe. Here are some reflections on the GRF from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), which sent a small delegation to Geneva.
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
Report: 70% of Health Workers in Black Communities Witnessed Discrimination A new survey of 3,000 employees shows just how pervasive discrimination is. Headlines hit last summer about Black nursing home residents being neglected and left unbathed, without clothing, and sometimes without the medications they needed at an Alabama nursing home after a lawsuit was filed. What it outlined was an allegedly discriminatory environment at a facility toward both patients and staff, who were called “n****,” “slave girls” and “little Black girls.” It’s one instance among many that have made national headlines, putting a spotlight on a trend that health care workers have been speaking up against for years — how the discrimination of Black patients within facilities is a serious problem that, ultimately, affects care delivery and outcomes. It’s adding stress for health care providers, and disproportionately burdening Black health care workers. The amount of research, anecdotes, and lawsuits noting everything from the dismissal of patients’ pain and mistreatment to overall lack of empathy for Black patients is piling up.