Daily News Digest April 16, 2024
Images of the Day:
Carlos Latuff: #Israel has seaked to attack #Iran for years. Countless attempts to show Iran as a “threat to world peace” and even claims that Iran wants a new holocaust. Netanyahu, a rabid dog without a leash, is literally dragging MENA into an unprecedented conflict, blessed by the White House. 
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:
Leaders in the fight for clean air from Louisiana’s Cancer Alley joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Michael Regan on April 9 in Washington, D.C., for the announcement of a new rule governing air toxics-spewing chemical plants. The rule is intended to prevent cancer in surrounding low-income and minority communities. The announcement represents a milestone for environmental justice in communities historically overburdened by air-toxics pollution. But a growing number of proposed industrial projects threaten to further pollute the mostly low-income Black neighborhoods along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — already home to a large number of petrochemical plants and refineries. — EPA’s New Rule Aims to Cut Toxic Emissions, But Cancer Alley Air Pollution Could Worsen
Pocasts/Videos of the Day:
During the Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Debate, Biden Lied About His Record on Social Security! Fact Check: Joe Biden has Advocated Cutting Social Security for 40 Years! “I tried with Senator Grassley back in the 1980s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security, including everything,” Biden said in 1995.
Glenn Greenwald: Rep. Warren Davidson on Militarism and Surveillance
Prof. Michael Hudson, The Truth About the Destruction of Gaza
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
US Declines Israel’s Invitation To Start WW3 (For Now) Biden could end all this with one phone call. The fact that he doesn’t means he’s a monster, and no amount of mass media reports about how “concerned” and “frustrated” he is regarding Israel’s actions will ever change that. Iran has carried out its long-promised retaliation for Israel’s attack on its consulate building in Damascus, launching a massive barrage of drones and missiles which it claims hit and destroyed Israeli military targets, while Israel says they dealt only superficial damage with a few injuries. The US and its allies reportedly helped shoot down a number of the Iranian projectiles. Just as we discussed in the lead-up to the strike, the western political-media class are acting as though this was a completely unprovoked attack launched against the innocent, Bambi-eyed victim Israel.
Israel Conflict Spreads to 16 Nations As Biden Admin Says There’s No War Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel highlight an America-led regional war spanning Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others. The regional war in the Middle East now involves at least 16 different countries and includes the first strikes from Iranian territory on Israel, but the United States continues to insist that there is no broader war, hiding the extent of American military involvement. And yet in response to Iran’s drone and missile attacks Saturday, the U.S. flew aircraft and launched air defense missiles from at least eight countries, while Iran and its proxies fired weapons from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The news media has been complicit in its portrayal of the regional war as nonexistent. “Biden Seeks to Head Off Escalation After Israel’s Successful Defense,” the New York Times blared this morning, ignoring that the conflict had already spread. “Iran attacks Israel, risking a full-blown regional war,” says The Economist. “Some top U.S. officials are worried that Israel may respond hastily to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attacks and provoke a wider regional conflict that the U.S. could get dragged into,” says NBC, parroting the White House’s deception.
Catastrophic’: Biden Admin Approves Largest Offshore Oil Export Terminal “Nothing about this project is in alignment with Biden’s climate and environmental justice goals,” said one campaigner. Climate action groups are vehemently rejecting the Biden administration’s claim that the approval of a new offshore oil terminal—planned to be the largest in the U.S.—is in the “national interest,” after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the project had met several federal requirements and could begin operations by 2027. The agency’s Maritime Administration said last week that Enterprise Product Partners, a Houston-based pipeline company, had been granted a deepwater port license to build the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) near Freeport, Texas following a five-year federal review process.
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
Why Did Israel Provoke a War with Hamas? Behind the Current Gaza War, the U.S. Oil Profiteers!: 2021 Article: Energean Selects Halliburton for Offshore Israel Drilling Campaign Integrated Services Contract To Deliver Five Wells in Eastern Mediterranean Through Halliburton Consulting And Project Management
Netanyahu, Empowered by Biden’s Grant of Impunity, Baits Iran into His Genocidal Gaza War Despite all the hype about Iran’s largely symbolic barrage of over 200 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles, unleashed on the thinly populated Negev Desert (where it was mainly Palestinian Bedouin who were put in danger), the military significance of this action was minimal. An Israeli base was hit at Dimona, which houses the country’s nuclear warheads, but the government said that the damage was minimal. Almost all of the projectiles were shot down, by the Jordanian and Israeli and American Air Forces, or by anti-missile missiles. The only casualty appears to be a 7-year-old Palestinian Bedouin girl, who was seriously injured by a falling missile.
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?
From How Capitalism is a Driving Force of Climate Change:
Global capitalism and economic expansion are driving forces for both income inequality and climate change. The global economy within New York 2140 reflects the same systems in place today, with the existence of global capitalism driving production and consumption. Most climate scientists have come to agree that the cause of climate change is the increased emission of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, which have increased rapidly since the Industrial Revolution (Baer 2). Progressive scholars recognize the serious damage that results from a global capitalist drive. Endless efforts of private owners to expand and increase their profits force a “perpetual treadmill of production and consumption” relying mainly on fossil fuels or alternative sources of greenhouse gas emissions (Baer 4). In 2010, the International Energy Agency projected that by 2030, global energy use would rise over 50%, with fossil fuels still the primary source of energy (Baer 64). Our continued dependence on the fossil fuel industry will continue to raise global temperatures as a direct result of global capitalism. The most profitable decisions will never be the most environmentally friendly, thus private owners of corporations will refrain from making environmentally conscious decisions without regulations.
The Climate/Global Warming Emergency:
Global Warming for the Last 12Month has been Above the 1.5°C ‘Tipping Point’: Copernicus: March 2024 is the Tenth Month in a Row to be the Hottest on Record! Surface Air Temperature and Sea Surface Temperature Highlights.:
- March 2024 was warmer globally than any previous March in the data record, with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 14.14°C, 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average for March and 0.10°C above the previous high set in March 2016.
- This is the tenth month in a row that is the warmest on record for the respective month of the year.
- The month was 1.68°C warmer than an estimate of the March average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.
- The global-average temperature for the past twelve months (April 2023 – March 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.58°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
- The average European temperature for March 2024 was 2.12°C above the 1991-2020 average for March, making the month the second warmest March on record for the continent, only a marginal 0.02°C cooler than March 2014. Temperatures were most above average in central and eastern regions.
- Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over eastern North America, Greenland, eastern Russia, Central America, parts of South America, many parts of Africa, southern Australia, and parts of Antarctica.
- The El Niño continued to weaken in the eastern equatorial Pacific, but marine air temperatures in general remained at an unusually high level.
- The global sea surface temperature averaged for March over 60°S–60°N was 21.07°C, the highest monthly value on record, marginally above the 21.06°C recorded for February.
Samantha Burgess Deputy Director of Copernicus Climate Service (C3S) emphasized the significance of the situation: “March 2024 continues the sequence of climate records toppling for both air temperature and ocean surface temperatures, with the 10th consecutive record-breaking month. The global average temperature is the highest on record, with the past 12 months being 1.58°C above pre-industrial levels. Stopping further warming requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.’’
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Week beginning on April 07, 2024:425.86 ppm. Weekly value from 1 year ago: 422.68 ppm. Weekly value from 10 years ago: 401.36 ppm. Last updated: April 14, 2024
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts: The Tepid Twenties The semi-annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank starts this week.The agencies and their invited guests will discuss the state of the world economy and the challenges ahead and present policy solutions. At least that’s the ostensible idea. Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, has just been re-appointed for another five-year term unopposed. In previewing the meeting, she outlined how the IMF sees the world economy in 2024 and through the rest of this third decade of the 21st century. She offered a dismal analysis. Ahead was a “sluggish and disappointing decade”. Indeed, “without a course correction, we are … heading for the Tepid Twenties”. Her comments prefaced the release of the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook including its long-term forecast for the world economy. It makes for sober reading. Let me quote: “Faced with several headwinds, future growth prospects have also soured. Global growth will slow to just above 3 percent by 2029, according to five-year ahead projections. Our analysis shows that growth could drop by about a percentage point below the pre-pandemic (2000-19) average by the end of the decade. This threatens to reverse improvements to living standards, and the unevenness of the slowdown between richer and poorer nations could limit the prospects for global income convergence.
Jamie Dimon Dumped $150 Million of His JPMorgan Stock in February; Now He Says His Regulators Want 25 Percent More Capital at his Bank On October 27 of last year, JPMorgan Chase filed an 8K form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) advising that, for the first time ever, its long-tenured Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, and his family, intended to “sell 1 million shares” of his common stock holdings in the bank in 2024. The news made headlines because an insider selling a large amount of stock in any company – and particularly a bank with JPMorgan Chase’s serial history of running afoul of the law – can be a harbinger of bad news ahead for other shareholders.
World:
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