Images of the Day:
Crony Capitalism (Always Follow the Money Trail) 
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, and 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! 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 Still Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
The Majority of the World, Despite the Media Monopoly’s Lies, are Opposed to the Palestinian Genocide and Global Warming — The 1% Minority Funds Them! At, this Time in History, Capitalism is Exposing the Fact That it is Opposed to Majority Rule/Democracy!
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 focus by students on the Israeli-US military corporate nexus and its role in the destruction of Gaza has been sharp and vocal. Given the instinctive support of the US political and military establishment for Israel, this is far from surprising. But it should not be singular or peculiar to one state’s warring machine, or one relationship. The military-industrial complex is protean, spectacular in spread, with those in its service promiscuous to patrons. Fidelity is subordinated to the profit motive. The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat. Just as such a complex exercised “unwarranted influence” more broadly, “the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” The nation’s academics risked “domination … by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money”. This has yielded what can only be seen as a ghastly result: the military-industrial-academic complex, heavy with what has been described as “social autism” and protected by almost impenetrable walls of secrecy. The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. Focusing on Lockheed Martin’s recruitment process on US college campuses in his 2022 study for In These Times, Indigo Olivier found a vast, aggressive effort involving “TED-style talks, flight simulations, technology demos and on-the-spot interviews.” Much is on offer: scholarships, well-paid internships and a generous student repayment loan program. A dozen or so universities, at the very least, “participate in Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defense industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM”. — University Investments: Divesting from the Military-Industrial Complex
Podcasts’Videos of the Day:
Rowdy Students, Antisemitism Laws and Money for Everyone
Palestine Talks | Chris Hedges on The Moral Corruption O\of Israel and the “Savagery” of Violence
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
Biden Uses Fascist Rhetoric While Condemning “Lawless” Student Protests “Order must prevail,” Biden said in a veiled threat against the wave of pro-Palestine protests. In a move straight out of the fascist playbook, President Joe Biden delivered a speech on Thursday morning attacking the wave of pro-Palestine protests that have sprung up in college campuses across the country, smearing students for using tactics that have been employed by nearly every social movement in U.S. history to demand an end to Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide of Gaza. In his remarks, Biden falsely claimed — without citing a single instance of pro-Palestine demonstrators instigating violence — that the pro-Palestine protests have been violent and threatened the safety of their communities. He then condemned the supposed “lawless[ness]” of the protests, purposefully neglecting to acknowledge the U.S.’s role in Israel’s repeated violations of international law.
US Traffic of Guns Turns Productive Mexicans Into Desperate Refugees The crisis on the U.S. southern border continues to be a mainstay on the American political conscience and will likely be decisive to the November election as migrants from Mexico and other Latin American nations are consistently cast as the antagonists in a narrative of invasion. But refugee border crossers are primarily fleeing a tsunami of violence stoked by unregulated U.S. gun merchants. After 10 years of intrepid cross-border research, Brown University anthropology professor Ieva Jusionyte explains it all in her new book, “Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border.” Host Robert Scheer dissects the discrepancies in one of the biggest issues in U.S. politics on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast. In the U.S., according to Jusionyte, nearly 10,000 gun shops flourish along the border, whereas Mexico boasts a mere two nationwide. “There is no gun industry in Mexico, and the two gun stores are run by the military, because the Mexican military is the only one authorized to import and sell guns to Mexican civilians,” Jusionyte explained.
Opposing Every War But The Current One, Supporting Civil Rights But Never Right Now As Democrats get worse and worse the longer Biden’s genocide in Gaza continues, I find myself recalling a tweet that went viral back in November by an account with the handle @eyeballslicer, “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going… Google and Amazon War/Genocide Profiteering: Israeli Weapons Firms Required to Buy Cloud Services from Google and Amazon Google downplays its military work with Israel, but “Project Nimbus” documents tie the American tech giants to Israel’s deadly military capabilities. GOOGLE AND AMAZON are both loath to discuss security aspects of the cloud services they provide through their joint contract with the Israeli government, known as Project Nimbus. Though both the Ministry of Defense and Israel Defense Forces are Nimbus customers, Google routinely downplays the military elements while Amazon says little at all. According to a 63-page Israeli government procurement document, however, two of Israel’s leading state-owned weapons manufacturers are required to use Amazon and Google for cloud computing needs. Though details of Google and Amazon’s contractual work with the Israeli arms industry aren’t laid out in the tender document, which outlines how Israeli agencies will obtain software services through Nimbus, the firms are responsible for manufacturing drones, missiles, and other weapons Israel has used to bombard Gaza.
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
Netanyahu as Lord of the Flies: He has wounded, sickened or starved all 600K Palestinian Children in Rafah Catherine Russell, the head of UNICEF, said this week that of the 600,000 children in Rafah, southern Gaza, all of them are either injured, or sick, or malnourished. Much of the Gaza population has been forced south to Rafah by the Israeli military, which had promised them it was a safe zone. She added, “Over 200 days of war have already killed and maimed tens of thousands of children in Gaza.”
Pro-Israel Legislators Have Concocted a Dangerous Ruse to Shut Down Nonprofits Bipartisan legislation threatens the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that incur the disapproval of government officials. While campus demonstrators nationwide face police violence and repression for engaging in constitutionally protected speech and protest, nonprofit organizations that oppose Israel’s attack on Gaza are under a different kind of assault — a legislative one. In April, the House of Representatives passed HR 6408 by a vote of 382-11. This legislation would grant the secretary of the treasury broad power to designate any charity as a “terrorist supporting organization” and remove its tax-exempt status within 90 days. The Senate introduced its companion measure, S 4136, shortly after.
ICC Denounces Threats of Retaliation as Possible Netanyahu Arrest Warrant Looms GOP lawmakers have reportedly threatened to pass legislation against the ICC if it moves forward with arrest warrants. The office of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan issued a statement Friday denouncing threats of retaliation after Israel’s prime minister and U.S. lawmakers attacked the intergovernmental body over reports that it is preparing arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials related to the war on Gaza. The ICC statement, which does not mention any individual or country by name, says the court’s “independence and impartiality are undermined” when “individuals threaten to retaliate against the court or against court personnel should the office, in fulfillment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction.”
Judith Butler Will Not Co-Sign Israel’s Alibi for Genocide The famed scholar on why reducing Hamas to a terrorist label sanctions Israel’s war on Palestinians Last month, the famed American philosopher and gender studies scholar Judith Butler was thrust into the center of a controversy after remarks Butler made about the October 7 attacks in Israel. A longtime critic of Zionism and Israel’s war against the Palestinians, Butler had condemned the attacks in the immediate aftermath. But at a March roundtable in France, Butler offered a historical context for the Hamas-led operations and stated that the attacks constituted armed resistance. The blowback was swift, and Butler was criticized in media outlets across Europe and in Israel. This week on Intercepted, Butler discusses the controversy and their position on Hamas, Israel, and crackdowns on student protests.
The Chris Hedges Report: My Show on The Real News has been Canceled Because of My Critiques of the Democratic Party and Joe Biden I was just informed by Max Alvarez, the Editor-in-Chief at The Real News, that they will no longer run my show. The reason for the cancellation, he said, is that my critiques of Biden, especially for the genocide in Gaza, jeopardizes his nonprofit status. My last show with Dennis Kucinich, who is running as an independent for Congress in Ohio, was removed from the site. I will resurrect the show on an independent platform, although it may take me a few weeks to get this set up.
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?
As Biden the Administration Approved More LNG Exports to Europe in 2022: Natural Gas Is a Climate Scam — and Consumers Are Paying for It Despite the fracking boom, the price of natural gas for US households has skyrocketed by 52 percent since 2016. Despite the fracking boom that made the United States the world’s top fossil fuel producer, the price households pay for natural gas skyrocketed by 52 percent between 2016 and 2023. The increase in energy bills was fueled in part by a surge in liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to foreign markets that is enriching the domestic fossil fuel industry, according to a new report released by the watchdog group Public Citizen this week.
Plastic is Climate Change in a Bottle – So let’s put a Cap on It Plastic pollution and climate change have common culprits – and similar solutions. The penultimate round of negotiations for a global pact on plastic ended yesterday in Ottawa. Nearly 200 countries have agreed that a treaty must tackle plastic pollution at every stage of its existence, from oil rigs and refineries to factories, shops and homes. But when Rwanda and Peru proposed cutting the amount of plastic produced worldwide by 40% over the next 15 years, the UN talks faltered.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Documents Expose How DC Police Surveil Protest Activity, Social Media Profiles Numerous emails reflect how DC police deploy powerful tools to track individual organizers. Internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Brennan Center and Data for Black Lives reveal that for years, Washington, DC, police have used online surveillance tools to monitor people’s social media activity, collect data on individual users and their friend networks, and keep tabs on public protests. The documents provide a window into a secret world of social media surveillance that can chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights.
Labor:Biden Demonstrates He is Opposed to Workers Safety! There was No Betrayal: Biden Showed Which Side he was on When He Signed the Bill oo Block U.S. Railroad Strike in 2022! The Rail Union Officials who Supported Biden Just Lost!: ‘Betrayal of Labor’: Biden Nominates Ex-Trump Official to Amtrak Board “This appointment reads less like an oversight and more like a slap in the face to those who championed worker safety and stronger regulations,” said Railroad Workers United. Rail workers voiced outrage Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden quietly nominated a former Trump administration official with a history of supporting deregulation to Amtrak’s board of directors, a move that one alliance of unions called a “slap in the face.” Ronald Batory, who has ties to the rail industry, served as head of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) under former President Donald Trump, who aggressively slashed transport and rail safety regulations during his four years in office—laying the groundwork for disasters such as the East Palestine, Ohio crash.
The Illusion of a Recovering Economy!
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through April 2024, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.7 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
FRED Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.7% 
Economy:
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