Skip to content
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 Those Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico!
Images of the Day:
The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock. — Chris Hedges
Videos of the Day:
Can the Spain-Catalan Crisis Be Resolved? The only way to diffuse the situation would be for Madrid and Catalonia to sit down and discuss a serious reform of Spain’s constitution–but current Spanish leadership is unlikely to take that step, says Oberlin professor Sebastian Faber
Trump Goes to Puerto Rico Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, President Trump came to the island with bizarre comments and paper towels.
U.S.:
The Trump-Goldman Sachs Tax Cut for the Rich Contradicting Trump, the independent Tax Policy Center has estimated in just the first year half of the $2 trillion plus Trump cuts will go to the wealthiest 1% households that annually earn more than $730,000. That’s an immediate income windfall to the wealthiest 1% households of 8.5%, according to the Tax Policy Center. But that’s only in the first of ten years the cuts will be in effect. It gets worse over time. According to the Tax Policy Center, “Taxpayers in the top one percent (incomes above $730,000), would receive about 50 percent of the total tax benefit [in 2018]”. However, “By 2027, the top one percent would get 80 percent of the plan’s tax cuts while the share for middle-income households would drop to about five percent.” By the last year of the cuts, 2027, on average the wealthiest 1% household would realize $207,000, and the even wealthier 0.1% would realize an income gain of $1,022,000. by Jack Rasmus
Puerto Rico Needs More Hurricane Aid and Debt Relief…Now! More than 40 percent of Puerto Rico is without clean water, and the vast majority has no electricity. Many hospitals and operating rooms are not functioning, and the threat of a public health crisis looms. On Wednesday, 145 members of Congress took the unusual step of writing to President Trump and asking for more Department of Defense resources to be immediately deployed. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and Puerto Rico is legally entitled to the same federal relief and reconstruction aid as Texas or Florida. But Puerto Rico is also an “unincorporated territory” of the United States ― or, as many would say, a colony. by Mark Weisbrot
As Trump Visits Puerto Rico, Let’s Remember (and Apply) the Real Lessons From Haiti On Tuesday, President Trump visited Puerto Rico. On Wednesday, it will be two weeks since Category 4 Hurricane Maria. It will also be a year since Category 4 Hurricane Matthew tore through the western peninsulas of Haiti. The situation in Puerto Rico remains quite urgent. Damage is still being assessed but there is no water, electricity is offline for at least a month, and hospitals are low on fuel (or already out) for their emergency generators. Despite the urgency, President Trump stuck by his wealthy friends making money controlling shipping instead of sending emergency aid. by Mark Schuller
The Great Communicator, Vietnam Syndrome and Another Mass Atrocity Empire equals militarism. In order to maintain an empire, a nation must make either threats of violence or violence to bear to bring outliers into the fold. Both forms of violence are banned by international law and the United Nations Charter, but almost no one pays attention to such niceties of law these days. Domestically, outliers are reined in through the same process. In the twentieth century, the U.S. took on the mantle of empire and “status” as the world’s superpower from England. It was after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, that the U.S. assumed sole status as the world’s only superpower. by Howard Lisnoff
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Freedom Rider: Russiagate Targets Black People “Every charge leveled against Vladimir Putin is a sinister projection of the American rap sheet.” There is no last refuge for the scoundrels intent on stoking cold and possibly hot war against Russia. Neocons in both parties and the corporate media have all spent years demonizing Russia’s president even as they commit and abet horrific crimes against humanity at home and abroad. Every charge leveled against Vladimir Putin is a sinister projection of the American rap sheet. That is just one reason the so-called Russiagate story won’t be allowed to die. By Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
Unstable Empire: Committee to Investigate Russia Beats the Drums of War “Trump’s reign is the most visible sign of that weakness.” The newly created Committee to Investigate Russia (CIR) released a video narrated by Morgan Freeman warning the US public about Russia. Freeman’s rant exposed the CIR as nothing but a CIA-front group seeking to beat the drums of war with Russia. By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
Ugandans Resist Museveni’s Bid for Life Presidency “Shouts and screams filled the chambers.”Uganda’s General Yoweri Museveni is trying to change the Ugandan constitution so that he can remain “president” for life. Ugandans are resisting, and Museveni’s military police have recently tear gassed and shot rubber bullets at students defying the ban on demonstrations, raided the offices of civil society organizations, and arrested Erias Lukwago, the hugely popular mayor of Kampala, the country’s capital, in the middle of a television interview. By Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
Puerto Rico: Shock and Awe Exposing Capitalism’s Criminality Water is life…and even saliva’s in short supply… For drum-tight mouths, sandpaper throats. Yodeling bellies cave in on spines, as evil scents of sewage and death float in, Refashioning an island into a spreadsheetBy Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
This Aint About Us: Whites Must Eradicate White Supremacy “The ‘distraction’ that’s being ignored is White supremacy, the greatest and most enduring obstacle to racial and class solidarity.”“The logic of “race as a social construct” must be tightened and the focus sharpened. Just as it is unhelpful, to say the least, to euphemize racial slavery in continental Anglo-America as “the Peculiar Institution,” instead of identifying the “White race,” itself, as the truly peculiar institution governing the life of the country after Emancipation as it did in slavery times; just as it is not “race” in general, that must be understood, but the “White race,” in particular; so the ‘White race’ must be understood, not simply as a social construct, but as a ruling class social control formation.” — Theodore Allen, author of The Invention of the White Race. By Edward Rhymes
What the Attack on Organized Labor Means for African-Americans “The public sector is the largest employer of African-Americans.” In an April 2016 document sent from Tracie Sharp to her powerful States Policy Network (SPN) — a right-wing alliance of 66 think tanks across the country and a sister organization to the notorious American Legislative and Exchange Council (ALEC) — the SPN president plotted a “mortal blow” to progressive causes and institutions in America through a well-funded effort to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions.” By D. Amari Jackson 
Environment:
Government Won’t Remove Thousands of Tons of Potentially Toxic Chemical Weapons Dumped Off US Coasts The Department of Defense has decided to leave in place the thousands of tons of chemical weapons, conventional munitions and radioactive wastes dumped off the US coastline by the military, claiming it would disrupt marine life and ocean waters. Experts say the decision is more economic than scientific and could have long-term lethal impacts on people and the environment. By Daniel Ross
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Labor:
Economy:
We Can Finally Identify One Of The Largest Holders Of Puerto Rican Debt For years, the identity of the owner of one of the largest holdings of Puerto Rican debts has been a mystery.That mystery has finally been solved, with the help of the The Baupost Group, who unmasked themselves to The Intercept. The Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund managed by billionaire Seth Klarman, owns nearly a billion dollars of Puerto Rican debt, purchased under a shell company subsidiary and hidden from public scrutiny. Baupost acquired the debt through an on-paper Delaware-based corporation named Decagon Holdings LLC, whose beneficial owner had been unknown until now. By David Dayen
Puerto Rico’s Debt Is Quietly Sitting in Mom and Pop Mutual Funds as Trump Says It Will Be Wiped Out There was likely a collective gasp at Oppenheimer Funds Inc. yesterday when President Donald Trump made another of those market-moving pronouncements, telling Fox News that Puerto Rico’s debt would have to be wiped out. The President’s remarks suggested he thought the losers would be Wall Street banks. The President stated: “You know they owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street. We’re gonna have to wipe that out. That’s gonna have to be — you know, you can say goodbye to that. I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is, you can wave good-bye to that.” The reality is that a large percentage of Puerto Rico’s debt is held in tax-free municipal bonds and municipal bond mutual funds, owned not by Wall Street banks or tycoons, but by mom and pop investors seeking tax-free income. (As a result of Congressional legislation, the interest on municipal bonds issued by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, its political subdivisions and public corporations, is not subject to Federal, state or local taxes. This has made the individual bonds and mutual funds particularly attractive in places like New York City and to residents of New York counties with high local taxes.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
South Africa: The KPMG scandal and the hypocrisy of big business Over the recent period sections of South African big business have been very vocal against corruption and have promised to “fight against” it. But all of this hue and cry is merely a cover for an ongoing clash between different wings of the ruling class. These are primarily between the traditional big business section and the upstart wing of the Gupta family, which has close ties with president Jacob Zuma and a big section of the ANC government. By Ben Morken 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Trump Economics 2
Quote of the Day: