Daily News Digest July 22, 2024
Images of the Day:
Dark Money, Leonard Leo, and the Anachronistic Supreme Court
Carlos Latuff: Look Who’s Talking About Political Violence!
There Are No ‘Safe Radiation’ Levels!When you are told that a radioative substance is a small percentage of ‘Natural Background Radiation,’ remember that, before WWII, ‘Natural Background Radiation’ was close to zero.
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’s Gluttony is Demonstrated by It’s Quest for More and More Profits at the Expense of Humanity! 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:
Keep in mind, the news media are not independent; they are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class-the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn’t want you to know something, it won’t be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up. — George Carlin
As we continue to learn at such a huge cost, there can never be a “perfectly safe” nuclear reactor, any more than there can be a “perfectly harmless” dose of radiation. “Impossible” accidents continue to happen, one after the other, each of them successively worse. What we fear most about TMI, then Chernobyl and now Fukushima, is not what has happened—but what is yet to come, there, and at the next inevitable reactor disaster. We are a pro-life movement. — There’s No “Safe” Dose of Radiation
Before 1945, cancer mortality was very rare. Large increases in cancer mortality in the past 100 years begin with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. A Japanese government map of the major causes of death in Japan from 1899 to 2004 shows that cancer mortality increased rapidly after 1945. With the introduction of each new nuclear technology since 1945 — atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants, depleted uranium — it is obvious that ionizing radiation is a major cause of cancer globally, and uranium is a major radioactive component of nuclear weapons, including depleted uranium weapons systems introduced to the battlefield in 1991 in Gulf War I. This breast cancer map from Centers for Disease Control data (see below illustration) identifies that within a 100-mile radius of nuclear reactors is where two-thirds of all U.S. breast cancer deaths occurred between 1985 and 1989. The map (see below illustration) of nuclear power plants in the U.S. identifies them as the major cause of breast cancer in the U.S., as well as nuclear weapons labs in New Mexico, Idaho, Washington and California. This is further confirmed by the breast cancer clusters identified in Japan and California, which occurred where it rained the day the Chernobyl radiation cloud passed over and the rain deposited the fission products in the environment. — Leuren Moret
Vide0s of the Day:
“Justice for My Brother”: Sister of Samuel Sharpe Speaks Out After Police Killing During RNC
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.
To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” Democracy for white and wealthy men only! — Roland Sheppard, My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers.
Dark Money and the Courts The Far Right is pursuing an audacious effort to capture America’s courts. Fueled by $250 million in secret “dark money” contributions, they seek to enact a radical social and economic agenda they could never achieve legislatively. This page shares reporting on the secret donor network behind the Far Right’s attempt to turn the judiciary into a tool for partisan and corporate interests. Learn more, including what you can do to protect a fair judiciary.
Investigation: Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, and the Right’s Campaign to Remake the Nation’s Courts A new Washington Post exposé, building on research supported by ACS, documents how $250 million in dark money has allowed the far right to engage in an ongoing, multiyear effort to accomplish through the courts what they failed to do legislatively. Read the article to learn how the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo orchestrates these millions to get judges confirmed. In Trump, Leo saw someone to help accomplish his “long-held” goal: “A federal court system dominated by conservative judges who believe the Constitution must be interpreted literally.
US Funded Palestinian Genocide:
NATO/US Complicity in the Relentless Israeli Genocide of Gaza As Israel continued its relentless genocide on steroids of Palestinians in Gaza with over 140 killed in the past weekend, imprisonment without charges of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and destruction of the hospitals, universities, schools (8 UNRWA schools bombed in the past 10 days), cultural centers and indiscriminate bombing of markets, soccer fields and “safe area” residents of Gaza have been forced into, an assassination attempt was made on former President Trump and NATO finished its gala 75th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, DC. Biden Says “U.S. Politics Should Never Be A Killing Field,” While He is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza. As the genocide continued and a few days after the end of the NATO celebrations, an assassination attempt on former President Trump caused President Biden to address the nation and orate that “political violence has no place in America and U.S. politics should never be a killing field.” The statement of no political violence and no killing fields in America rings totally hollow as the Biden administration and NATO countries fuel the Israeli killing fields in Gaza with over 90 Palestinians killed and 300 wounded by multiple Israeli rocket attacks in Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 12, and 80 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours of July 13 in several refugee camps.
US Naval Efforts Falter as Yemen’s Blockade Bankrupts Israel’s Eilat Port The Port of Eilat’s bankruptcy reveals the shortcomings of U.S. military strategies against Yemen’s Ansar Allah, raising critical questions about future interventions. Despite the formation of a multinational naval coalition led by the United States, the Israeli-controlled Port of Eilat has reportedly gone bankrupt and is seeking a government bailout. The situation underscores the failure of U.S.-led efforts against Yemen’s Ansar Allah–known pejoratively as the Houthis–blockade in the Red Sea, enforced until Israel ends its war on Gaza. “It must be acknowledged that the port is in a state of bankruptcy,” said Gideon Golber, CEO of the Port of Eilat, who has been vocal about the port’s dire economic condition for months and is now appealing for financial support from the Israeli government. Speaking to the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee on July 7, Golber noted that economic activity ceased following Ansar Allah’s Red Sea blockade. On November 19, Yemen’s Ansar Allah seized the Israeli-linked shipping vessel ‘Galaxy Leader’ off the coast of Hodeidah, declaring the operation an act of solidarity with Gaza. Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, subsequently announced that no Israeli-linked ships would be allowed passage through the Red Sea. Although Ansar Allah began firing missiles and drones at Israel on October 19, the comprehensive blockade in the Red Sea to prevent ships from reaching the Israeli-operated Port of Eilat wasn’t fully enforced until late November. In December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the U.S. would lead a multinational naval coalition named Operation Prosperity Guardian to ensure the free passage of ships to Eilat. Within the first month of the blockade, economic activity at the Port of Eilat dropped by 85%, according to Reuters. Despite efforts from the U.S. and U.K. navies to combat the blockade, they remained confident they could restore the flow of ships to Israel.
Encironment:
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!
Fukushima Toxic Dumping Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is the world’s leading epicenter of toxic radioactive water released into the ocean. Yet, these activities are no longer closely monitored by mainstream media. As it happens, Tokyo Electric Power Company is the electric utility that manages the decommissioning of the collapsed nuclear reactors. This controversial ongoing release of radioactive water is mostly unopposed by the nations of the world. No problem, dump it! But there is another side to this story. “This is a time bomb.” (Robert Richmond, Ph.D. Kewalo Marine Laboratory) A nationwide symposium on Zoom entitled: Radioactive Contamination of US Food and Water and What Congress Can Do About It, August 15, 2024, discussed several aspects of Fukushima’s dumping scheme. The details are disturbing and maybe horrifying. Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”) with the blessing of the government of Japan commenced dumping treated radioactive water into the ocean August 24th, 2023. Since 2011, TEPCO has been wrestling with one of the most recognizable industrial accidents in human history, three nuclear power plants still in a difficult to define meltdown thirteen (13) years after the initial meltdown.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
La City Council Considers Paying Former IDF Soldiers io Patrol its Streets “We’re talking about essentially a private militia, that can use force and detain people and has no accountability.” Security group Magen Am’s staff also includes a former Navy SEAL who posted a video of waterboarding his own child =. The Los Angeles City Council is considering whether to give public funds to private, armed security patrols to protect its religious communities, following a protest against the marketing of West Bank settlement properties at an LA synagogue last month that turned violent.
Sister of Samuel Sharpe Jr. Demands Justice After Police Killing During RNC Angelique Sharpe says her brother had actually called the police for help before he was killed. As anger grows in Milwaukee over the police killing of 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe during the Republican National Convention, we speak with his sister, Angelique Sharpe, who says the family is fighting for transparency from the authorities and the full video of the fatal incident. “We really want justice for my brother,” says Angelique, who also explains that her brother’s life had been threatened by a “bully” and that he had actually called the police for help before he was killed. Samuel Sharpe was an unhoused Black man shot 27 times by police on Tuesday — but the officers were from Ohio, part of a deployment of thousands of outside law enforcement members in Wisconsin for the RNC. We are also joined by Wisconsin state Representative Darrin Madison, a Democratic Socialist, who says both Sharpe’s death and the killing of D’Vontaye Mitchell by hotel security guards weeks earlier point to a larger problem of anti-Black violence in Milwaukee.
Labor:
Chick-fil-A is Running a Child Labor Summer Camp “Summertime, and the living is easy, fish are jumping, and”… wait a minute, what is this? It’s a summer camp for kids — but with a disturbing corporate twist. Some outlets of Chick-fil-A, the fast food chicken chain, are now promoting a summer camp where children as young as 5 can learn “how to be a Chick-fil-A worker.” Isn’t this fun? The corporation says that while the chickadees won’t actually be doing the work of regular employees, they will learn how to “take orders, deliver orders, make drinks, and be a hostess.” Of course, the little campers don’t get paid — indeed their families must pay to let the company give them an early dose of the good ol’ American work ethic and a “behind-the-scenes look” inside the hierarchical corporate order. You can’t start ‘em too young on these life lessons! The kiddos do get compensated, sort of, with their very own Chick-fil-A nametag and t-shirt. Okay, this is not the Dickensian dystopia of 19th century England… but is that our modern standard? There is nothing wrong with kids working. But 5-year-olds?
Economy:
The Astonishing Success of the Wealthy at Accumulating More Wealth As of July 15, 2024, the latest figures from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows that the wealth of the 10 wealthiest U.S. citizens continues to surge ahead–by over 24.5% during the first part of the year, an increase of $336.9 billion, bringing their total wealth to $1.71 trillion or $1,710 billion. The increase in their wealth ranges from a low of $17.6 billion for Warren Buffet to a high of $48.5 billion for Mark Zuckerberg. The 11th wealthiest U.S. citizen, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has seen his wealth grow in 2024 by $68.7 billion to $113 billion, more than double what it was at the end of 2023. How have the current wealthiest ten fared during Biden’s presidency? In the beginning of 2021, shortly before Biden was sworn in, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the size of their wealth came to $1,046 billion. Since then, it has increased 63.4% or by $664 billion despite declining $460 billion in 2022. Here are the Bloomberg figures for those who are currently the 10 wealthiest.
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