Daily News Digest Archives
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!
Daily News Digest January 30, 2017
Images of the Day:
In Trump We Trust: He’s hoping America will turn a blind eye, instead. By Khalil Bendib
Steve Bell: Re: Trump Time Magazine
Quote of the Day:
Harsh realities have long mocked United States “elites’” ritual description of their nation state as a benevolent beacon and agent of freedom, democracy, and justice at home and abroad. The mythology doesn’t square with stark disparities and oppressions inflicted by the nation’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money, class, race, and empire. The many dark truths about America behind the nationally narcissistic fantasy include: Globally unmatched and hyper-racialized incarceration rates. The imposition of poverty or near-poverty on half the U.S. population while the top tenth of the upper U.S. One Percent possesses as much wealth as the nation’s bottom ninety percent. The U.S. ranks ahead of only Turkey, Chile, and Mexico among thirty-one “advanced industrial nations” belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in measures of economic equality, social mobility, and poverty prevention. Shocking levels of racial, ethnic, and gender inequality. — Paul Street, The Empire Has No Clothes
Videos of the Day
Executive Order on Pipelines Will Benefit Billionaire Trump Donor
Harold Hamm is the CEO of a major fracking company that would see its product flow through the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, says DeSmogBlog’s Steve Horn
Mexican President Faces Crisis of Legitimacy Following Trump Feud The end of NAFTA and the building of a wall along with a resurgent left movement in Mexico gives an opportunity for the nation to turn away from the neoliberal fantasy of North American integration, says Professor John Ackerman
Before Obama Left Office, He Gave Domestic Agencies Warrantless Access to NSA Surveillance By allowing access to NSA data, the FBI and other agencies can look for criminal activity without reasonable suspicion or going to a judge, says The Intercept’s Alex Emmons
Missing — The former CEO of the Clinton Foundation What happened to Eric Braverman? Haiti first, then they’re coming for us
US:
Trump Strategist Stephen Bannon Says Media Should ‘Keep Its Mouth Shut’ By Michael M. Grynbaum
Trump Fan Who Shot Anti-Fascist Protester Set Free While Journalists Face 10 Years in Prison for Doing Their Jobs The far right is already moving to violently suppress antifa demonstrators—with the police’s complicity. By Ben Norton 
The Empire Has No Clothes by Paul Street 
Lessor Evils Just Can’t Say No: ‘Resistance Means Resisting’: Dems Accused of Being Too Soft on Trump “Senate Dems’ response to millions taking to the streets is beyond disappointing. It is outright shameful,” says Shaunna Thomas of advocacy group UltraViolet by Deirdre Fulton
Environment:
Global Capitalism and the Global Police State: Crisis of Humanity and the Specter of 21st Century Fascism
Doomsday Clock Now Reads Two and a Half Minutes to Midnight
It is two and a half minutes to midnight 2017 Doomsday Clock Statement Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists By Rachel Bronson, PhD Executive Director and Publisher
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock, a graphic that appeared on the first cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as it transitioned from a six-page, black-and-white newsletter to a full-edged magazine. For its first cover, the editors sought an image that represented a seriousness of purpose and an urgent call for action. The Clock, and the countdown to midnight that it implied, fit the bill perfectly. The Doomsday Clock, as it came to be called, has served as a globally recognized arbiter of the planet’s health and safety ever since. Each year, the setting of the Doomsday Clock galvanizes a global debate about whether the planet is safer or more dangerous today than it was last year, and at key moments in recent history. Our founders would not be surprised to learn that the threats to the planet that the Science and Security Board now considers have expanded since 1947. In fact, the Bulletin’s first editor, Eugene Rabinowitch, noted that one of the purposes of the Bulletin was to respond and offer solutions to the “Pandora’s box of modern science,” recognizing the speed at which technological advancement was occurring, and the demanding questions it would present. In 1947 there was one technology with the potential to destroy the planet, and that was nuclear power. Today, rising temperatures, resulting from the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels, will change life on Earth as we know it, potentially destroying or displacing it from significant portions of the world, unless action is taken today, and in the immediate future. Future technological innovation in biology, artificial intelligence, and the cyber realm may pose similar global challenges. The knotty problems that innovations in these fields may present are not yet fully realized, but the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board tends to them with a watchful eye. This year’s Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual. On the big topics that concern the board, world leaders made too little progress in the face of continuing turbulence. In addition to the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, new global realities emerged, as trusted sources of information came under attack, fake news was on the rise, and words were used in cavalier and often reckless ways. As if to prove that words matter and fake news is dangerous, Pakistan’s foreign minister issued a blustery statement, a tweet actually, existing Pakistan’s nuclear muscle — in response to a fabricated “news” story about Israel. Today’s complex global environment is in need of deliberate and considered policy responses. It is ever more important that senior leaders across the globe calm rather than stoke tensions that could lead to war, either by accident or miscalculation. . . .
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
World:
