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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 Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico!
Image of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
Under the slogan ‘To Cut Costs’, in the 1970s, Capitalists and their Governments started a policy of Deferred Maintenance and Repairs. To maintain this policy, Deregulation became the battle cry of capitalism to maintain the rate of profit. The ‘fruits’ of this policy has been the crumbling infrastructure and the crumbling habitat of humanity. — Roland Sheppard
Hersh’s Die Welt article comes out just as Trump is now again making up, or is believing, a “fake news” story that Assad is “planning another Sarin gas attack” from the same Shayrat Air Base that the US bombed earlier, with Trump vowing to retaliate more seriously this time if Assad goes ahead with another gas attack. Again, the military and the intelligence community are both saying they see no evidence of planning for a gas attack, and in any case they believe that Assad’s poison gas weapons were all eliminated in the 2013 agreement, as monitored and certified later by UN inspectors. What’s disturbing is that the US media, which credulously reported both the first alleged Assad Sarin … or was it chlorine gas? … attack in 2013, later shown to have been the work of ISIS (and which continue to call it an Assad crime), and that now call the April incident too a Sarin gas attack by Assad, are almost universally supporting Trump’s claim that Assad is planning another (sic) Sarin gas attack — even NPR! Obviously Trump’s threat to retaliate is an invitation for ISIS to manufacture another “gas attack,” in order to induce Trump to attack Assad. And if the US media are so credulous already, who’s going to stop this insanity from continuing until it spins out of control and a US attack ends up killing Russian soldiers, downing a Russian plane or leading the Russians to down a US plane, at any of which several points we’re on the cusp of a third and final world war? — Sy Hersh, Exposer of My Lai and Abu Ghraib, Strikes Again, Exposing US Lies About Alleged Assad Sarin ‘Attack’
Videos of the Day:
Trumpcare Would Make U.S. Healthcare Even More Dysfunctional Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy, discusses the fight over Trumpcare and the problems with the existing healthcare system that the GOP wants to gut even further
U.S.:
The Next World War Won’t Just Be “Over There” An assumption that wars are to be confined to foreign lands is even in our nationalistic military music. Yea, “The Yanks are coming!”, but for us it’s always supposed to be onto somebody else’s turf. It seems war is less objectionable in America’s public mind when the carnage is confined to the realm of news items and TV pictorials, and if there’s no prospect of our own home towns becoming smoldering bomb craters. After all, both coasts are distanced from all those overseas wars by oceanic barriers. Right? In July of 2016, with this new Cold War well underway, Sergey Karaganov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy advisor and honorary head of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, stated flatly that “Russia will never again fight on its own territory” . by Bill Willers
What Happened to America’s Wealth? The Rich Hid It Government officials will tell us “there’s no money” to repair or properly maintain our tired infrastructure. Nor do we want to raise taxes, they say. But what if billions of dollars in tax revenue have gone missing? New research suggests that the super-rich are hiding their money at alarming rates. A study by economists Annette Alstadsaeter, Niels Johannesen, and Gabriel Zucman reports that households with wealth over $40 million evade 25 to 30 percent of personal income and wealth taxes. By Chuck Collins
Wag the Dog? Offering No Proof, Trump Threatens New Attacks Against Syria It could be, suggested one Russian lawmaker, that “the US is trying to hoodwink the global public with another ‘test tube containing some white powder’ to justify its own acts of aggression.” By Jon Queally
Trumps ‘No Fly Zone’ Escalates U.S. War Against Syria The lie that the U.S. is fighting Islamic State (ISIS) terrorism in Syria was publicly exploded on June 18 when a U.S. F/A-18 “Super Hornet” fighter jet launched from the George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier shot down a Syrian government aircraft that had attacked ISIS and the Al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front forces in Raqqa. The last major “rebel”-held stronghold in Northern Syria and Syria’s sixth largest city, Raqqa is the capital of ISIS’s proclaimed caliphate. by Jeff Mackler
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Tide Is Turning on Single Payer, With or Without Bernie Sanders Obamacare, was such a huge favor to the insurance companies that Republicans can’t outdo it, they can only make it a little meaner. Liz Warren is telling Democrats that Medicare For All is the issue to campaign on for 2018. But where is Bernie Sanders? Why hasn’t he introduced his long promised Medicare For All bill in the senate? What’s he waiting for? More Democratic unity? By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Trump Competes With Hillary in U.S. War of Lies and Terror Against Syria Donald Trump is out to prove that he is as bloodthirsty as Hillary Clinton and better than anyone at brinksmanship. Has he gone “play-crazy,” or is it the real thing? “By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a ‘puppet’ and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.” by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
The love affair and marriage, between government and business, makes it clear that we have a capitalist government in a capitalist state — Not a ‘nation of the people and for the people!’: EPA’s New Water Safety Official Is a Lobbyist With Deep Ties to the Dakota Access Pipeline Dennis Lee Forsgren, a former lobbyist recently tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency office in charge of water safety, has deep ties to a fossil fuel advocacy group engaged in the promotion of the Dakota Access Pipeline as well as controversial offshore drilling efforts. By Lee Fang
Repeated radiation warnings go unheeded at sensitive Idaho nuclear plant. The inhalation of plutonium by 16 workers is preceded and followed by other contamination incidents but the private contractor in charge suffers only a light penalty by Patrick Malone, Peter Cary
Labor:
Economy:
After Passing Stress Tests, Wall Street Banks to Spend Like a Drunken Sailor – on their Own Stock Buybacks Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced the second leg of its 2017 stress tests for the nation’s most systemic financial institutions. Known as the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR), the Fed said it “did not object to the capital plans of all 34 bank holding companies” although Capital One Financial will be required to “submit a new capital plan within six months that addresses identified weaknesses in its capital planning process.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Britain: Tory-DUP deal exposes Establishment crisis After a thin Queen’s Speech and long negotiations, Theresa May and DUP leader Arlene Foster finally appeared outside Downing Street earlier this week to shake hands on the deal that will keep May in power – for now. By Ben Curry 
Venezuela: Helicopter attack as opposition steps up campaign to overthrow Maduro Things in Venezuela are changing by the day, sometimes by the hour. Yesterday, June 27, a police officer commandeered a helicopter and attacked the buildings of the Ministry of Interior and Justice and the Supreme Court of Justice, at the same time broadcasting an appeal for others to join in and overthrow the government of Maduro. By Jorge Martín 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Senate Health Bill Would Kill Essential Home Care Jobs The Senate Republicans’ “Better Care Reconciliation Act,” which would repeal the Affordable Care Act, would slash Medicaid in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy. The home care workforce, one of the country’s fastest-growing, would be hard hit by the plan. The passage of this bill would not only kill home care jobs but would also make home care workers sicker, while permanently destabilizing the industry. By Elly Kugler and Marzena Zukowska
. . .The final battle cry to organize the masses for a successful insurrection was Declaration of Independence. The opening lines of this declaration are/were:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
The declaration had declared that “All Men are created equal”, With “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” And that we have a right and a duty to overthrow an unjust government! What new concepts! . . . — Roland Sheppard, My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers
