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As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not The 1% Who Profit From Austerity!
Images of the Day:
I usually don’t use social media to make a political stand but I feel overwhelmed with emotion. Finding out that it has been decided for us that Rockettes will be performing at the Presidential inauguration makes me feel embarrassed and disappointed. The women I work with are intelligent and are full of love and the decision of performing for a man that stands for everything we’re against is appalling. I am speaking for just myself but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts. We will not be forced! # nitmypresident — “Appalled” Rockettes’ Rants Go Viral After They Are Forced To Dance For Trump Inauguration Or Be Fired
Big Energy Companies/Corporations are the ‘Big Farmers’ of the Central Valley: From pages 133-135 of the book, Two Californias: the truth about the split-state movement by Michael DiLeo and Eleanor Smith: Cheap Water + New Land = Big Money
Some of these corporations bought up land in the Central Valley because of the vast oil deposits lying beneath many of the now-rich croplands. Since this oil is a thick and viscous crude that must be mined with steam, extractors need large volumes of water to develop it. Though they haven’t done so on a significant level yet, the petroleum giants of the Central Valley may soon be able to double their money by drilling and processing the black gold below their fields while they grow the highly profitable cash crops on the surface both with the aid of cheap state project water. Although it was designed to replenish the depleted underground aquifers in the Central Valley, the State Water Project actually served to bring new lands into production, A number of large corporations, foreseeing the enormous profits to be made once state water began flowing into previously unwatered areas of the valley, bought up huge tracts of land and installed irrigation systems. “The Tejon Ranch Company had its [irrigation) equipment in place when the first water came through because they had the capital to do so,” says Donald Villarejo of the California Institute for Rural Sludies. The institute conducted a study entitled “New Lands for Agriculture,” which found that on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, primarily in Kern County, which has no underground supplies, “about 250,000 acres have been placed in production as a direct result of State Water Project deliveries,” More than 227,000 acres in this part of the valley, known as the Westlands Water District, are owned by Chevron USA Inc., Tejon Ranch Company, Getty Oil Company, Shell Oil Company, McCarthy Joint Venture A, Blackwell Land Company, Tenneco West Inc., and Southern Pacific Land Company, ‘The big corporations grow permanent, high-cash crops: almonds, pistachios, olives, and grapes, not exactly dinner table fare,” stated Thomas Schroeter, a Bakersfield attorney and former member of the defunct Kern County Planning Commission. These corporations were attracted to the Central Valley not out of a love of farming but because of the tax benefits afforded to them if they grew the permanent crops. During the 1960s, the Internal Revenue Service allowed investors to immediately write off their entire share of development costs for growing almonds and other permanent crops. Some of these corporations bought up land in the Central Valley because of the vast oil deposits lying beneath many of the now-rich croplands. Since this oil is a thick and viscous crude that must be mined with steam, extractors need large volumes of water to develop it. Though they haven’t done so on a significant level yet, the petroleum giants of the Central Valley may soon be able to double their money by drilling and processing the black gold below their fields while they grow the highly profitable cash crops on the surface both with the aid of cheap state project water. . . .
Videos of the Day:
UK Fuels Carnage in Yemen Through Political and Military Support to Saudi Arabia Theresa May’s apologetics for arming Saudi Arabia reflects the arms industry’s role in shaping British foreign policy, says Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade
U.S.:
Arctic ice melt ‘already affecting weather patterns where you live right now’ Soaring Arctic temperatures ‘strongly linked’ to recent extreme weather events, say scientists at cutting edge of climate change research The dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia, leading climate scientists have told the Guardian. Severe “snowmageddon” winters are now strongly linked to soaring polar temperatures, say researchers, with deadly summer heatwaves and torrential floods also probably linked. The scientists now fear the Arctic meltdown has kickstarted abrupt changes in the planet’s swirling atmosphere, bringing extreme weather in heavily populated areas to the boil. By Damian Carrington 
George W. Bush EPA chief slams Trump’s pick Christine Todd Whitman is arguably the most prominent figure ever to lead the Environmental Protection Agency under a Republican president, and she has critical words for Donald Trump’s potentially disastrous pick Scott Pruitt. “I don’t recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does,” Whitman told Grist. The former governor of New Jersey led the EPA under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. By Rebecca Leber 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Diane Feinstein/Obama in the Service of California Big Ag/Frackers: President Obama Signs Water Bill With Big Ag ‘Poison Pill’ Rider In a slap in the face to fishermen, Tribes, environmental justice advocates, conservationists and family farmers, President Obama on December 16 signed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act into law with its environmentally destructive Big Ag rider sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The controversial rider in the bill, opposed by retiring Senator Barbara Boxer, taints an otherwise good bill that sponsors water projects across the nation. The last minute rider, requested by corporate agribusiness interests, allows San Joaquin Valley growers and Southern California water agencies to pump more water out of the Delta, driving Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species closer and closer to extinction, according to Delta advocates. by Dan Bacher
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
The ‘Pro Labor’ Myth of FDR: FDR and the Little Steel Strike In countless articles during the 2016 presidential election and reaching a crescendo after Trump’s victory, pundits such as Thomas Frank, Robert Reich and Katrina vanden Heuvel have urged the Democrats to return to their working class roots if they are to win the White House, frequently pointing to the Bernie Sanders campaign as model for future efforts. By Louis Proyect 
The local authorities in Youngstown supported the companies. On Monday night, June 21, the companies announced they were going to open the Youngstown plants the next day. From scores of miles away, all through the night of the 21st, thousands of workers began to pour into Youngstown to aid the Youngstown steel workers. By morning, they represented a huge army, determined to fight and prepared to fight. Rubber workers from Akron, men from Canton, miners from Pennsylvania, steel workers from Sharon, Newcastle, Pittsburgh, Aliquippa. The companies did not attempt to move as planned that morning. All day the strikers and sympathizers hoped for word from tbe mediation board or the government demanding that the companies obey the labor laws. None came. Armed deputies roamed the streets, terrorizing isolated workers, murdering several, wounding scores, including women. But they could not break the picket lines. A “back to work” movement was started, under an “independent’’ union label. The one paper in town, the Youngstown Vindicator, opened up a vicious propaganda barrage on the strikers. But the strikers would not break. In the midst of negotiations with a government-appointed mediation board, on June 19, a group of armed deputies opened fire on a group of pickets, including women with babes in arms. A number of workers were killed, 50 wounded.
Government – Strikebreaker
At midnight, the word came that Governor Davey, “New Deal” representative elected with the support of Labor’s Non-Partisan League, was sending in the National Guard to “prevent disorder” and “keep the plants shut.” In the councils of the strikers were a number of Stalinists who had supported Davey to office — those were the “Popular Front” days. These, together with several other leaders, urged the workers to disband and return home, assuring them that the National Guard was being sent in to protect the interests of— the workers! Trust in Davey and Roosevelt was being insisted upon throughout the strike by Philip Murray. John L. Lewis, and the other CIO leaders. And this time, the steel workers are bound to win, if they have mastered the lesson of the Little Steel defeat of 1937, the same lesson learned by their fathers in the 1919 strike and their grandfathers back in 1892 in Homestead. The steel workers can trust only in their own organized strength and power. The government is a bosses’ government, it is on the side of the steel corporations. To win, the steel workers must be prepared for militant resistance and bitter struggle. The workers of Lackawanna have just shown it can be done. The auto workers, the Minneapolis teamsters, the West Coast maritime workers, all have met the armed thugs of the bosses and government and come out victorious. United in fighting action, the workers can tear down the open-shop banner from the ramparts of Little Steel. They can make 1941 the year when the union banner began to fly over Little Steel!
Entertainers Balk at Performing for Trump Inauguration Uproar over the Rockettes’ performance highlights the Trump camp’s struggle to secure talent for presidential inauguration After at least one member of the Radio City Rockettes publicly voiced her “embarrassment” over being forced to perform at the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, the troupe’s owner on Friday appeared to back-pedal, saying participation is ‘voluntary’. By Lauren McCauley
Economy:
World:
Brazil clamps down on civil rights, doubles down on failed economics When Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in May and removed from office in August, many called it a coup. The president was not charged with anything that could legitimately be called a crime, and the leaders of the impeachment appeared, in taped conversations, to be getting rid of her in order to cut off a corruption investigation in which they and their political allies were implicated. Others warned that once starting down this road, further degradation of state institutions and the rule of law would follow. And that’s just what has happened, along with some of the political repression that generally accompanies this type of regime change. By Mark Weisbrot
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Trump As a Robber Baron
Quotes of the Day:
The New Age of the Robber Barons: Spineless DOJ Bestows ‘Early Christmas Present’ to Financial Giant Deutsche Bank ‘Some folks are going to prison, right? Oh wait, that’s just in the movies.’ By Deirdre Fulton
How I Came to Understand the CIA I’ve been researching the CIA for over 30 years and I’ve interviewed over 100 CIA officers. So naturally, people often wonder how I prepare myself. In one of the interviews that’s included in my new book, James Tracy asked me how I know where to look for information that’s pertinent to a given story. by Douglas Valentine 
Environment:
Labor:
