Daily News Digest July 2, 2024
Images of the Day”Presidential Debate
Royal Court
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”
The Rise of Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now There is Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity! Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 6 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 Five Horsemen of the the Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, and Misinformation! 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:
Cornel West On Presidential Candidates Not Addressing Injustice “I don’t see any presidential candidates who are coming anywhere near the truth and highlight justice for poor and working people, no matter what color!”
The U.S./Israel empire marches on with some successes and some setbacks. Zionist-picked Conman Trump faced off against Zionist-picked Genocide Joe in a presidential debate with no public moderator by two committed Zionist Jews, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash…. It gives the U.S. public a distraction to keep the delusion that they still have democracy instead of dealing with real challenges like climate change, rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, the madness of war, etc.… Israel as an apartheid regime must end or the US/Israel killing machine goes on and will lead us to global catastrophic war thanks to the lobby/special interests. We need to focus efforts on stopping the addiction to war (and genocide) for profit and to work to build a sustainable future. — Patrick Lawrence: 90 Minutes That Shook the Liberals Awake
From: Extinction Rebellion: No Pipelines! No Prisons! No Genocide!: The Israeli government says it is acting in self-defence after Hamas militants committed their own mass slaughter of innocents. But a massacre of civilians cannot justify an even greater massacre of civilians. And such a response will only fuel further extremism and conflict. Instead, it resembles the brutal mindset of the old colonial powers. They also subjected their rebellious indigenous subjects to dehumanisation, dispossession, and destruction, as they rapidly extracted resources from their lands and seeded the climate catastrophe that we are now desperately trying to avert. Today those old colonial powers, so instrumental in creating and sustaining this long and bloody conflict in the Middle East, have chosen to endorse the slaughter, even exacerbate it, while criminalizing those who peacefully protest against it. It is for all these reasons and more that our movement must unite in calling for a ceasefire, and pressure our governments to seek a diplomatic solution that ensures peace, dignity, and justice for everyone living on these lands, irrespective of race or religion.
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
This Obvious Genocide Is Not What It Looks Like
Scary Thought: Biden has His Hand on the Nuclear War Button: Glenn Greenwald: Debate Forces Corporate Media to Admit Biden’s Impairment After Months of Lies
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 : My own Government, I cannot be Silent. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Democracy Exposed as a Fraud!: All Presidents are Now Above the Law!: Right-Wing Supreme Court Rules Trump Has ‘Absolute Immunity’ for Official Acts “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” warned Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines on Monday that former President Donald Trump is entitled to “absolute immunity” for “official acts” taken while he was in office, a decision that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned makes any occupant of the Oval Office “a king above the law.”
JOHNSTONE June 24: The Emperor Has No Brain DURING the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Americans got a harsh reminder that their nation is run not by their official elected leaders but by unelected empire managers from behind the scenes. Biden spent much of the debate staring vacantly, reaching for words, spouting gibberish, and even catching a quick power nap, proving everyone right who’s been saying for years that this man is suffering from a degenerative neurological condition. This issue of JOHNSTONE is titled “The Emperor Has No Brain”, because the elected official who supposedly runs the globe-spanning power structure that is loosely centralized around Washington cannot possibly have enough functioning gray matter to be the one calling the shots.
Patrick Lawrence: 90 Minutes That Shook the Liberals Awake Give me a sec to think. I need to make a list. Two. The genocide in Gaza, the Middle East tinderbox, Bezalel Smotrich, the lost proxy war in Ukraine, relations with Russia, the danger of nuclear war, the fate of NATO, China, the threat of war with Iran, the emergence of a new world order, Europe’s turn toward populism, third world debt, global inequality, the sharply worsening climate crisis: It is a start on the foreign side, in no particular order. Inter the endless alia in these United States, I’ve got social and economic inequality, money in politics, our drift toward late-imperial bankruptcy, the corruption of the judiciary, the housing crisis from hell, Julian Assange and press freedom, the creeping censorship regime, widespread drug addiction, immigration, the price of eggs, the Pentagon budget: I will leave out Taylor Swift and stop here.So, a brief précis of the imposing problems defining the tasks of all world leaders in 2024, and then another atop the first for the man or woman who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, as every president since Kennedy has. I settled last night at 8 Central time thinking I might hear a little something about, maybe, one or two items on each of these lists as Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off—I decline the term “debate”—in a studio at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta. Nothing. Not a usefully coherent thought to any of this. Nero should have been up there as an honorary third candidate—with his fiddle for the background music, of course.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
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’!
We Must Hold These Monsters to Account!
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Week beginning on June 23, 2024: 426.47 ppm Weekly value from 1 year ago: 422.33 ppm Weekly value from 10 years ago: 400.95 ppm. Last updated: June 30, 2024 
Potentially Catastrophic’ Hurricane Beryl Strengthens to Cat 4: Live Updates Hurricane Beryl strengthened to a fierce Category 4 storm Monday and was poised to make landfall and bring devastation to the Windward Islands in the eastern Caribbean. Beryl is expected to remain an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” as its core slams through the eastern Caribbean, National Weather Service forecaster Eric Blake said in an advisory early Monday. Some weakening is expected in the central Caribbean by midweek, but Beryl is forecast to remain a hurricane.
Toxic PFAS Absorbed Through Skin at Levels Higher Than Previously Thought Absorption through skin could be ‘significant source of exposure’ to toxic forever chemicals, study shows New research “for the first time proves” toxic PFAS forever chemicals are absorbed through human skin, and at levels much higher than previously thought. Though modeling and research has suggested the dangerous chemicals are absorbed through skin, University of Birmingham researchers say they used lab-grown tissue that mimics human skin to determine how much of a dose of PFAS compounds can be absorbed.
‘War Zone Stuff’: Women 14 Times More Likely to Die in Natural Disasters Women should be at centre of climate policies as they face increased rates of violence and homelessness after disasters, researchers say It has been more than a decade since these stories about domestic abuse in the wake of Victoria’s 2009 black Saturday bushfires were shared in a landmark study showing gendered violence escalates after disaster. Research has since revealed dramatic spikes in domestic violence during the millennium drought, throughout Covid-19 lockdowns and after the 2022 NSW Northern Rivers flood catastrophe.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Florida Ban on Protections for Outdoor Workers Goes Into Effect Amid Record Heat The same interests lobbying against heat protection for workers also pushed to roll back child labor protections. Florida just saw the hottest May ever recorded in Miami — the heat index was “off the charts” according to the Miami Herald. The water temperature at Virginia Key set record temperatures for 12 consecutive days, and in late May it was as warm as it would normally be in late July. It seems like it will be a long summer in Florida. By May 30, there were already 12 daily heat index records set in 2024, according to meteorologist Brian McNoldy. It’s “business as usual” for the state’s outdoor workers, though. Crops need to be harvested and construction projects need to be built despite the oppressive and potentially deadly heat, which has killed farmworkers like Efraín López García, a 29-year-old who complained while on the job of having a headache and experiencing dehydration symptoms. The situation can be tolerable for workers who toil within enclosed spaces blessed by air conditioning. But for those who labor outdoors, the Florida legislature guaranteed that their misery would continue and worsen. Lawmakers recently passed HB 433, a broad preemption law that blocks local municipalities from enacting predictive scheduling laws, which require employers to provide work schedules to employees in advance; living wage standards; and, perhaps most shockingly, prohibits any heat stress protections for outdoor workers.
Economy:
The Debate Disaster and the Supreme Court’s “Chevron” Repeal Have a Money Trail Leading to Charles Koch It took the New York Times Editorial Board less than 24 hours to assess the political landscape after the disastrous presidential debate last Thursday evening and call for President Joe Biden “to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.” The Times called President Biden’s view that he is the only candidate that can beat Donald Trump “a reckless gamble.” But the New York Times is itself engaging in a reckless gamble with its unmoored bet that the Democratic Party would be able to amicably transition to a different presidential candidate who could win over the American people in the short span of four months left before the election. The Times is also gambling that this major disruption within the Democratic Party would not negatively impact down-ballot races and end up costing Democrats both the White House and control of the Senate, thus enabling Trump’s egregiously Swampy cabinet picks to sail through Senate confirmation. There is also the possibility that an open Democratic convention could be a bigger embarrassment to Democrats than Biden’s performance on the debate stage. As The Atlantic’s David Frum contemplated in an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN yesterday:
World:
Education, Health, 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
Christian Nationalists Accelerate Their Plan to Dismantle Public Education State legislatures are passing bills to erode church-state separation in public education programs throughout the US. When Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz attended the 2023 Turning Point USA convention, he gave the Christian nationalists in attendance a preview of the National Prayer in School Act, a bill he introduced into the House of Representatives shortly after the convention. His speech electrified the crowd: “The beautiful new Supreme Court that President Trump gave us just might uphold a constitutional law based on the values that the country was built on,” he began.
Gaetz later became more explicit, posting a speech on Instagram in support of the legislation: “Our country’s educational policy forbids students and faculty from praying while endlessly promoting degenerate LGBT and anti-white propaganda,” he said. “My legislation unlocks religious freedom.” As written, the Act would erode church-state separation, giving students, faculty and staff the right to pray on school grounds — something that has been barred for more than 50 years.