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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
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!
Image of the Day:
What We Do
OST is responsible for developing sound science-based standards, criteria, health advisories, test methods, and guidelines under the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Act. We work with partners and stake holders to develop the scientific and technological foundations to achieve clean water through national Programs that protect people and the aquatic environment.
Trump’s Mission Statement: Office of Science and Technology (ONT)
What We Do
OST works with states, tribes, and other stakeholders to develop recommend safe water quality levels for toxics, nutrients, pathogens to help ensure our nation’s waters can be used for fishing, swimming, and drinking water. OST also develops national economically and technologically achievable standards to address water pollution from industry. (The phrase ‘economically and technologically achievable standards’ means that there are no regulations for water that are beyond what Industry determines to be ‘achievable’. — R.S.)
Quote of the Day:
The country is held hostage by insurance companies, while politicians wrangle over what is the best system of predatory for-profit health care, as pharmaceutical companies receive near-unlimited patent extension and public funding for 84 percent of new drug research, yet price their products out of the reach of millions of Americans, while their stocks perform at twice the Standard and Poors stock index. The health-care industry is not the only institution casting Americans into poverty. The average family of four sees some $13,200 a year of its collective wealth deposited into America’s largest piggy bank, the Pentagon, which, according to noted economist Chalmers Johnson, now siphons off about a trillion dollars annually from all sources to prosecute several wars simultaneously, while managing nearly 800 military bases in 130 countries, this while never successfully completing an audit and having trillions in accounts that cannot be reconciled. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” The cost of the war against Iraq, alone, adds $3 trillion to the national debt while bolstering the bi-party line that there simply is not enough money to meet domestic needs. Families have no reserves. More and more people are tethered to low-paying jobs, with few, if any benefits. Jobs are not there for young people coming out of school. The burden of debt, its extractive nature, forces survivors to borrow and borrow and borrow, to go deeper in debt.In biblical times there was debt jubilee. Today we have not a jubilee but debt peonage for many, with a national debt compounded by environmental disasters, military misadventures, and Wall Street bailouts, and seldom suffered by those who helped to create it. The bailout of Wall Street, the utter neglect of Main Street, the collapse of the housing market, the obscene escalation of the cost of private health care, the metastatic cancerous military leviathan point to a massive ethical failure in a society where egalitarian principles have been discarded in favor of a warped, Darwinian, meritocratic society built by gamblers insured by the government, insurance companies subsidized by the government, defense contractors made extravagantly rich by the government, banks that forced people out of their homes and were then bailed out by the government. Growing poverty and inequality in America and other countries can be tied to a dismantling of the public sphere through the privatization of public services, which imposes the rentier’s premium on parking meters, toll booths, waste and sanitation services, water and sewer fees, and health care, to name a few. — Our Political Economy Is Designed to Create Poverty and Inequality Poverty is not an abstraction
Videos of the Day:
U.S.:
The Dance of Death Falling civilizations embrace what Freud calls the death instinct. They are dominated by oligarchic elites, imbeciles, narcissists and con artists who, on the way down, feed us fantasies and steal as much as they can. By Chris Hedges 
Trump’s War on Dangerous Memory and Critical Thought People living in the United States have entered into one of the most dangerous periods of the 21st century. Donald Trump, the president elect, is not only a twisted caricature of every variation of economic, political, educational, and social fundamentalism, he is the apogee of an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian culture committed to restraining free speech, civil rights, women’s reproductive freedoms, and all vestiges of economic justice and democracy. by Henry Giroux
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
There are 2.7 million miles of pipeline snaked across the US. Some of the pipes carry hazardous chemicals, others carry crude oil, and still others carry highly pressurized natural gas. And when it comes to safety, all of them are under the care of 528 government inspectors. That’s more than 5,000 miles of pipeline or more than twice the length of the United States, per inspector. The little-known and notoriously understaffed Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety administration, or PHMSA, has 188 federal inspectors. States have another 340 inspectors, all of whom go through PHMSA-certified training. According to the agency’s website, those two forces combined are “responsible for regulating nearly 3,000 companies that operate 2.7 million miles of pipelines, 148 liquefied natural gas plants, and 7,574 hazardous liquid breakout tanks.”. . . — The US has one inspector for every 5,000 miles of pipeline—or twice the length of the country, each
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
How the Bail System Really Screws You If You Are Poor A new short from Brave New Films on one of the criminal justice system’s most predatory features. By Robert Greenwald / Brave New Films
Missouri’s Underfunded Public Defender Office Forces the Poor to Languish in Jail By Jordan Smith
How the US Could Solve Its ‘Retirement Crisis’ Too many Americans are saving little to nothing for retirement. According to one study, 45 percent of working-age households “do not have any retirement account assets.” Congress could sharply improve the numbers by adopting dynamic scoring of retiree distributions. The move could lead to millions of new accounts, and a fairer sharing of the US’s retirement promise.
Labor:
Economy:
The ‘Wall Street Recovery’ is not Reflected by the Gross Nation Product Froom 1994-the the Present: Gross National Product Since 1994 
America Has Lost Its Guiding Light, Its Citizens’ Bill of Rights Two events conspired this past week to force us to reassess if America can ever find its way home; (home being a nation that honors its citizens’ Bill of Rights — the amendments to the U.S. constitution that preserve the individual’s freedoms and protect the individual from abuse of power.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens 
World:
Labour’s ‘Fifth Colum’ Keeps Loyal to the 1%: Labour’s “soft coup”: Corbyn must throw caution to the wind John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor and veteran of the Labour Left, has warned of a “soft coup” being orchestrated to undermine Corbyn’s Labour leadership. Owen Jones, meanwhile, has called on Corbyn to stand down and “do a deal” with the Blairites in order to pass on the baton to a left successor. The only way forward for the Left, however, is to boldly go on the offensive. By Adam Booth
Cambodia Outraged as US Demands Repayment of ‘Blood-Stained’ War Debt The US dropped more than 500,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War by Nika Knight
By Any Means Necessary Refugees Fleeing Violence in Central America Hope for Asylum in Mexico By Alice Proujansky and Cora Currier 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Original Mission Statement: Office of Science and Technology (ONT)
Rand Paul Is Right: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants By Glenn Greenwald 
When It Comes to Prosecuting Wall Street, Preet Bharara Is No Hero By Jesse Eisinger