Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest June 6, 2016

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!

End Wall Street’s Wars! Occupy Wall Street!Occupy Wall Street Identified The Enemy — The 1% That Own and Control The Wealth! Unlike The Trade Union Misleaders, Nor The Misleaders Of The Oppressed Who Strive To Be In ‘Partnership’ With The 1% . As They Also Strive To Hold Up The ‘Fig Leaf’To Cover Up The Naked Rule Of The 1%!

Images of the Day:

Pesticide Treadmill

Khalil Bendib: Bipartisan ClosetsQuotes of the Day:

The pesticide treadmill: Over time, pest populations evolve resistance to pesticides, requiring farmers to use higher doses or to develop new pesticides. — Pesticide Treadmill

Over the past 40 years, the US economy has boomed. But what does that mean for the “American dream”? While the top 1% has had enormous gains, average US households aren’t any better off today. In fact, they’re falling further behind. We crunched numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, adjusting them for inflation, and found that during the past 40 years, middle-income households have seen their income decrease 13 percent, and the number that really matters — discretionary income — has decreased even more, by almost 30 percent. This was true for all households, not just married households. — Despite Economic Growth, Middle-Income Americans Have Less Than They Did 40 Years Ago

Back in 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a startling announcement, shaking up the battle over fracking in one of the nation’s highest-profile cases where drillers were suspected to have caused water contamination. Water testing results were in for homeowners along Carter Road in Dimock, PA, where for years, homeowners reported their water had turned brown, became flammable, or started clogging their well with “black greasy feeling sediment” after Cabot Oil and Gas began drilling in the area. The EPA seemed to conclude the water wasn’t so bad after all. . . . Now, a newly published report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), puts EPA’s testing results into an entirely new light. — New Federal Report Shows Dimock, Pa. Water Unsafe:

The unemployment rate dropped because people unable to find jobs ceased looking and are no longer counted as being in the labor force. If you are unemployed but not considered part of the labor force, you are not included when unemployment is measured. The BLS says that in May there were 1.7 million Americans who “wanted and were available for work,” but “were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” —Employment Lies

Illicit financial behavior has been decriminalized in the United States  for all practical purposes. Despite the revelations of massive misconduct by banks and other financial services businesses, criminal investigations are rare, indictments exceptional and guilty judgments extraordinary. Michael Brenner, Crime or Punishment: Why Wall Street Elites Don’t Do Time

U.S.

Shadow Government Statics Unemployment Rate is 23%

Figures Don’t Lie, But ‘Liars Can Figure’ Dept.: Employment Lies By Paul Craig Roberts

Hard Time: The U.S. Is the Only Country That Routinely Sentences Children to Life in Prison Without Parole By Lisa ArmstrongNigeria next in line to invade! Nine Out of 10 Americans Tested Positive for Monsanto’s Cancer-Linked Weedkiller Glyphosate A probable human carcinogen is found in far too many foods. By Katherine Paul Nigeria next in line to invade!Nine Out of 10 Americans Tested Positive for Monsanto’s Cancer-Linked Weedkiller Glyphosate A probable human carcinogen is found in far too many foods. By Katherine PaulEnvironment:

These Four People Were Sued for $30 Million for Trying to Stop a Toxic Landfill ‘The Constitution prevents companies from using lawsuits to silence their critics,’ says ACLU by Deirdre Fulton

‘Overwhelming’ Evidence Shows Path is Clear: It’s Time to Ditch Industrial Agriculture for Good New report looks at why, given negative outputs, a massive shift to agroecological approaches hasn’t yet taken hold by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

We’ve been lied to about the safety of our water. It’s time to rise up: The Guardian has exposed the unreliability of water tests across the country. This goes far beyond Flint, and it’s time for all of us to demand answers By Erin BrockovichSudden appearance of  diameter crater dubbed ‘the Gateway to the Underworld’ in Siberia is a warning to our warming planet — Such slumps have been ‘increasing in extent and intensity’ in the frozen north, scientists say — For as the permafrost melts, the world’s biggest “megaslump” is expanding rapidly. Already about a kilometre long and 90m deep, it is widening by up to 20m a year, making walking near its precipitous edges a dangerous pursuit.  By Ian JohnstonOngoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

‘Bomb Train’ Hits Oregon Community as Feared Derailment Comes to Pass “Maybe this is why we don’t like moving oil via trains through the gorge…” by Jon QueallyNew Federal Report Shows Dimock, Pa. Water Unsafe: A newly published report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), puts EPA’s testing results into an entirely new light. By Sharon KellyBlack Liberation/Civil Rights:Labor:

During Labor Protests, French Airlines Asks European Union for Scab: Airlines call for EU-wide air traffic control to stop French strike disruption: Ryanair, easyJet and IAG will push EU to let controllers from neighboring countries manage French skies during strikes By Gwyn TophamFrench police clash with protesters over labor reforms (Photo Essay) By Quinn KelleyEconomy:

Despite Economic Growth, Middle-Income Americans Have Less Than They Did 40 Years Ago By Mark Paul and Emily Stephens World:

WWI – Part Fourteen: The Middle East and the Sykes-Picot treaty – A poisonous legacy: The frontiers of the Arab world today are the product of a secret plan drawn in pencil on a map of the Levant in May 1916 in a deal struck between British and French imperialism at the height of the First World War. Worked out one hundred years ago, the Sykes-Picot agreement is now synonymous with imperial deceit, cynicism and treachery. by Alan WoodsBelgium: spontaneous strikes shake the government: Belgium, the country where compromise and moderation seemed for a long time to be part of the genetic make-up of society, is experiencing a level of social confrontation rarely seen before. by Erik DemeesterOf course Germany refused to deny the Armenian genocide Notably Angela Merkel – who still prays that Erdogan will keep back the refugees from the EU – chose to stay absent from the vote By Robert Fisk Health, Education, and Welfare:

 Failing the Test: Charter Schools’ Winners and Losers Capital & Main documents how charter schools leave many students behind, including special needs kids. By Capital and Main Staff / Capital and Main

 

Book Review: ‘Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’ Review by Roger Hollander of the book by Roland Sheppard, just published by ReMarx Publishing

The question of who ordered the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. is a vital one, and thousands of pages have been written on the issue. Those who dismiss the notion that the United States government would engage in assassination — by characterizing those who believe this as “conspiracy nuts” — willfully ignore the 1975 Church Committee Report that exposed covert, illegal government activities and the many CIA-orchestrated assassinations and coups d’etat from Africa to Latin America.

The CIA’s experience with overseas assassinations has given it more than enough expertise to conduct domestic assassinations, with the added advantage of having control over investigating agencies at the local, state and national levels.

Deciding criminal guilt is largely based on proving means, motive and opportunity. When it comes to political assassination, the key question is motive.

Powerful government institutions possess, or can easily obtain, the means and the opportunity to conduct an assassination and divert attention to “a lone gunman” or a patsy like Lee Harvey Oswald. The mainstream media conveniently forget this fact as they rush to legitimize wacky theories that take the heat off the CIA, FBI, NSA and police.
In “Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Roland Sheppard exposes the U.S. government’s motive for assassinating Malcolm X in New York’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The fact that Sheppard is one of the few remaining eye witnesses to the assassination of Malcolm X adds a note of immediacy and authenticity to his analysis.

Sheppard describes the unusual absence of security on the day of Malcolm X’s assassination, and he recounts his personal observations of what happened in the crucial moments. He tells of a second suspect apprehended that day by the New York Police, a man whose existence later disappeared from the official version of events.

However, when Sheppard was interrogated at the Harlem Police Station, he saw this man walking freely into one of the offices. Sheppard recognized him as the assassin.

In 1999, the King family launched a civil suit to expose the facts surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The conclusion: “After considering all the evidence, a Memphis jury ruled that someone other than James Earl Ray had been the shooter … that the City of Memphis, the state of Tennessee and federal government agencies were all involved in the assassination.”

Motive

The heart of Sheppard’s work is his analysis of the motive for these two government assassinations.

There is nothing more threatening to the U.S. corporate elite, the government, the military and the mass media than the prospect of revolution. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were developing beyond their original Black liberation philosophies. They were emerging as powerful advocates and organizers for revolutionary change in the American economic and political system.

In his final years, Malcolm X expanded the fight against racism to include the fight against poverty and war. In 1962, he supported striking hospital workers in New York City. And he was the first mass leader in the United States to publically oppose America’s war against Vietnam.

In his speech at the Oxford Union in 1964, Malcolm X gives Shakespeare a revolutionary twist. He begins with the famous question:

Whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

His answer:

And I go for that. If you take up arms you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time.

There is nothing more threatening to the U.S. corporate elite, the government, the military and the mass media than the prospect of revolution. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were developing beyond their original Black liberation philosophies. They were emerging as powerful advocates and organizers for revolutionary change in the American economic and political system.

The U.S. government also feared Malcolm X’s growing international stature and the political connections he was making in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Sheppard reminds us that Malcolm X met with Che Guevara and the Cuban delegation to the United Nations in New York, in December of 1964. He was invited by Ahmed Ben Bella, the leader of the Algerian revolution, to participate along with Che and other independence movement leaders at a conference in Bandung beginning March 3, 1965.

He had also arranged for the issue of human rights violations against Afro-Americans to be considered on March 12, 1965, by the International Court of Justice at the Hague. His assassination put an end to all of this. Ben Bella had been assassinated just four months later.

Fighting Words

Martin Luther King Jr. was also beginning to challenge a political system that profits from racism. Sheppard cites King’s speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Convention in August 1967:
“Why are there 40 million poor people in America? … (W)hen you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth … (Y)ou begin to question the capitalist economy.”

King pointed out that the Northern liberals, who had given moral and financial support to end Jim Crow laws in the South, would not support the effort to eliminate economic segregation. As Sheppard states: “Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated to subvert the Poor People’s Campaign. King was building a mass movement against poverty, and those who profit from poverty were determined to stop him.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was also beginning to challenge a political system that profits from racism.

King’s opposition to the U.S. war against Vietnam sent shivers down the back of the military-industrial complex. In his historic sermon at the Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967, sometimes referred to as the greatest MLK speech you never heard of, King exclaimed:

Money that should have been spent on Johnson’s War on Poverty was being lost in Vietnam’s killing fields … A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death …We are taking the Black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.
King called for a coalition of labor, anti-racist, anti-poverty and anti-war activists; and a united movement poses the greatest threat to the status quo.\

King called for a coalition of labor, anti-racist, anti-poverty and anti-war activists; and a united movement poses the greatest threat to the status quo.
Marxists?

In his book on Malcolm X, George Breitman states, “Malcolm was not yet a Marxist.” A reviewer of Breitman’s work added, “Not yet! But it was only a matter of time.”

Malcolm X wrote:

It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, then capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.

Martin Luther King Jr. may not have been as far along the road of rejecting capitalism for socialism. Nevertheless, I believe that this was also a matter of time. In a 1966 speech to his staff, King explained: “(S)omething is wrong … with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

The U.S. government was determined that neither of these fighters should be allowed to have that time. However, before moving to assassinate them, it tried to “neutralize” them.

Sheppard describes the activities of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s program to infiltrate, disrupt and destroy the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War movement and any other threat to the status quo.
FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover called King “the most dangerous Negro” and tried to blackmail him into silence. To discredit Malcolm X, the FBI paid an informer inside the Nation of Islam. When these efforts failed, assassination was the final option.

The U.S. government assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. because they rightly came to understand and challenge the capitalist economic system, its social impact – war, poverty, injustice, environmental disaster – and its reliance on racism to divide and conquer.

Sheppard concludes with an appeal to action; we must learn the truth about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. so we can carry their vision forward and conclude the struggle they so bravely began.

Roland Sheppard describes himself as a retired business representative of Painters Local 4 in San Francisco, a lifelong social activist and socialist. Prior to being elected as a union official in 1994, he worked for 31 years as a house painter. Roland Sheppard’s Daily News is accessible at https://rolandsheppard.com/.

Roger Hollander can be reached via Twitter @rhollander.

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest June 3, 2016

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!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under the banner headline: “There Is No Peace”:The Only Victors In War: The War Profiteers! Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under the banner headline: “There Is No Peace”: Income inequality is not a concern of Wall Street’s money addicts: End Wall Street’s Wars! Occupy Wall Street!

Occupy Wall Street Identified The Enemy — The 1% That Own and Control The Wealth! Unlike The Trade Union Misleaders, Nor The Misleaders Of The Oppressed Who Strive To Be In ‘Partnership’ With The 1% . As They Also Strive To Hold Up The ‘Fig Leaf’To Cover Up The Naked Rule Of The 1%!

Images of the Day:

Imperialist  Wars: Made in the West:Quotes of the Day: 

The U.S. claim that it is waging a global “war on terror” is the biggest lie of the 21^st century, a mega-fiction on the same historical scale of evil as Hitler’s claim that he was defending Germany from an assault by world Jewry, or that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a Christianizing mission. In reality, the U.S. is the birth mother and chief nurturer of the global jihadist network – a truth recognized by most of the world’s people, including the 82 percent of Syrians that believe “the U.S. created the Islamic State.” (Even 62 percent of Syrians in Islamic State-controlled regions believe this to be true.) Only “exceptionalism”-addled Americans and colonial-minded Europeans give Washington’s insane cover story the slightest credibility. However, it is dangerous in the extreme for any country to state the fact clearly: that it is the United States that has inflicted Islamic jihadist terror on the world. Once the charade has been abandoned; once there is no longer the international pretense that Washington is not the Mother Of All Terror, what kind of dialogue is possible with the crazed and desperate perpetrator? What do you do with a superpower criminal, once you have accused him of such unspeakable evil? — Glen Ford, There is No U.S. War Against ISIS; Instead, Obama is Protecting His “Assets”

Tokyo Electric Power Company’s chief of decommissioning at Fukushima, Naohiro Masuda, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the company hoped to locate the fuel and start removing it by 2021. However, Masuda says the technology needed to remove the fuel has yet to be invented. “Once we can find out the condition of the melted fuel and identify its location, I believe we can develop the necessary tools to retrieve it,” Masuda told ABC. — Fukushima Nuclear Plant Operator Says 600 Tons of Melted Fuel Is Missing

Video the Day:

Scheer Intelligence: Nomi Prins and the Washington/Wall Street Connection

U.S.

The New Facade for Regime Change: a Brief History of Humanitarian Interventionism by Vijay Prashad

U.S. No. 1 Slaver:  How U.S. Invasions and War Have Exacerbated Slavery in 3 Countries Short-sighted wars have destabilized regions, creating fertile ground for illegal slavers. By Kali HollowayEnvironment:

Mass Murder — Deregulation: At least 33 US cities used water testing ‘cheats’ over lead concerns — Exclusive: Guardian investigation reveals testing regimes similar to that of Flint were in place in major cities including Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia By Oliver Milman and Jessica Glenza Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Passing Ban, Scottish Parliament Declares: ‘No Ifs, No Buts, No Fracking’ Non-binding fracking ban signals ‘growing consensus that stopping climate change means we have to say no to new fossil fuels like fracked gas.’ By Deirdre Fulton Why There Could Be More Blasts Like 2015 ExxonMobil Torrance Oil Refinery Explosion, Putting Millions At Risk By Larry BuhlFukushima: ‘Dancing in the Dark’: Fukushima Nuclear Plant Operator Says 600 Tons of Melted Fuel Is Missing By Denisse Moreno Energy News:

 01:18 AM EST on June 2nd, 2016 | TV: “Truly unsettling” discovery at Fukushima… problem “far greater than previously thought” — Boss reveals 600 tons of fuel melted, can’t find it — Top Official: “Nobody really knows where fuel is”… We may never be able to get it and just leave wherever — “Uncontrollable fission” is continuing under site (VIDEO)

 Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Late There is No U.S. War Against ISIS; Instead, Obama is Protecting His “Assets” : Washington has no substitute for the jihadists, who have been a tool of U.S. policy since the last days of President Jimmy Carter’s administration by BAR executive editor Glen Ford Labor:

Economy:

The Rich Can Relax: Barron’s Says “The Stock Market Won’t Crash – Yet” By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

This new wave of the revolution in the African continent comes at a time of global crisis of capitalism and the beginning of the revolutionary stirring of the masses of working people and the youth in the advanced capitalist countries. The weak, rotten, and dependent “national” bourgeoisie in the African continent has proven to be completely unable to develop any of these countries on a progressive basis. The lesson to be learnt is clear: only with the abolition of capitalism, led by the young working class which has developed in recent decades, and linking up with the revolutionary movement in advanced capitalist countries can any perspective for the future be offered. Armed with the ideas of revolutionary Marxism and the legacy of Amílcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara, and other revolutionaries, it is time to hoist the flag of the African revolution once again and to struggle until victory. A luta continua! — Amílcar Cabral and the African Revolution – Part Two

Amílcar Cabral and the African Revolution – Part Two by Arturo Rodríguez Health, Education, and Welfare:

The Highly Questionable Blueprint for Charter School Takeover in Your City or Region — Oakland, California, is the below-the-radar model to drain the public schools of their funding. By Bill Raden

 

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest June 2, 2016

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!

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under the banner headline: “There Is No Peace”:The Only Victors In War: The War Profiteers! Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under the banner headline: “There Is No Peace”: Income inequality is not a concern of Wall Street’s money addicts: End Wall Street’s Wars! Occupy Wall Street!

Occupy Wall Street Identified The Enemy — The 1% That Own and Control The Wealth! Unlike The Trade Union Misleaders, Nor The Misleaders Of The Oppressed Who Strive To Be In ‘Partnership’ With The 1% . As They Also Strive To Hold Up The ‘Fig Leaf’To Cover Up The Naked Rule Of The 1%!

Images of the Day:

Cuba No.1 Global Distribution of Physicians per 10,000 population: 64 Physicians  per 100,000 (U.S. 27 Physicans Per 100,000)Quotes of the Day: 

On two health-oriented trips to Cuba in the past year, what struck me was a systematically planned and organized primary care delivery system that captured the doctor-patient relationships of my father’s era of medical practice. Cuba treats healthcare as a human right, specifically stipulated in its constitution. Cuban nationals receive care for free, and have a neighborhood primary care physician who often knows them by name and sees them regularly. The doctors are paid paltry amounts, many having second jobs. But in my conversations with them, they reflect love for their work and a palpable passion about caring for their patients. In turn, the patients trust and respect their conveniently-located and easy-to-reach doctor, go to them early in the course of an illness without financial barrier, and are likely to follow their recommendations. — Cuba’s Most Valuable Export: Its Healthcare Expertise

Bernie Sanders, who has attracted numerous young, white, college-educated supporters in his bid for the presidency, says he is creating a movement and promises a political revolution. This rhetoric is an updated version of the “change” promised by the 2008 campaign of Barack Obama and by Jesse Jackson’s earlier National Rainbow Coalition. Such Democratic electoral campaigns, at best, raise political consciousness. But they do not become movements or engender revolutions. They exist as long as election campaigns endure and then they vanish. Sanders’ campaign will be no different. — Chris Hedges, Bernie Sanders’ Phantom Movement

Videos the Day:

Forgotten Rebellion: Black Seminoles and the Largest Slave Revolt in U.S. History

Nina Simone — Pirate Jenny Live 1964

U.S.

How Unchecked Capitalism and Massive Inequality Made America the Bully Nation A guide to the systemic origins of America’s bully culture. By  Charles Derber and Yale Magrass / University Press of Kansas How Many Trillion More Will the Pentagon Spend on Middle East Wars Before They Confront the Disaster They’ve Created? Things just keep getting worse. By Andrew Bacevich / TomDispatchPentagon: Special Ops Killing of Pregnant Afghan Women Was “Appropriate” Use of Force By Jeremy Scahill  Walmart, Gap, H&M Called Out for Global Worker Exploitation and Abuse Three years after Rana Plaza collapse, labor violations still rampant, reports find by Nadia Prupis and Deirdre Fulton Environment:

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Freedom Rider: Who’s the Fascist? by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

South Africa’s EFF: Julius Malema and the Struggle to Continue the Revolution by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo The Centrality of Africa in the Class Struggle to Come by Danny Haiphong Building a Socialist Movement in the Bernie Moment  by Ashton Rome Is There a Cure for Wrongful Convictions? by Lorenzo Johnson Silencing America as it Prepares for War  by John PilgerKenya Needs a People’s Revolution by Henry Makori Labor:

 Sick at Work: Staggering Number of Americans Go to Work With Bad Colds or Flu The epidemic of presenteeism is built into the way America does business. By Alex Henderson Economy:

After Empowering the 1% and Impoverishing Millions, IMF Admits Neoliberalism a Failure by Ben Dangl

Why Must Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing Remain a Quaint Fiction in America By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Cuban medical cooperation makes positive contribution in the Caribbean: More than 30,100 Cuban health care collaborators are currently working in 18 of the Association of Caribbean States’ 25 member nations By Fidel Rendón Matienzo We do not give up! French movement against labour counter-reform enters 3rd month by Jorge Martín Health, Education, and Welfare:

How Big Pharma Is Arm-Twisting U.S. Foreign Policy to Keep Cancer Drugs Prohibitively Expensive U.S. officials are accused of intimidating Colombian government at behest of pharmaceutical industry. By Sarah Lazare

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest June 1, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

Let the Capitalists Do Their Own Fighting!!The Known and The Known

Quotes of the Day:

The Zika virus is a direct byproduct of a system that is fueled by market anarchy and profit. In a world where scientists and engineers have developed extraordinary methods in purifying water, from dirty river water to seawater, providing access to clean water in these neighborhoods should not pose any problems. It is capitalism itself which is no longer able to properly handle such crises when they occur, as we can see with the garbage and water situation in areas like Recife and Tixtla. The solution to the Zika virus lies in first nationalizing the multinational pharmaceutical companies under workers’ control, which would then be able to provide the large quantities of medical supplies necessary to assist current Zika-infected patients, offer access to abortions for pregnant women, and distribute trained medical and sanitary staff able to protect and clean neighborhoods and install water systems capable of providing residents with more than enough water for their requirements, without the need for rationing. This is not on the ruling class’s agenda, however, as this would mean cutting their profits and attacking their own interests. Capitalism itself is unable to resolve this task — it is in a crisis from which it cannot extricate itself. The only solution is a socialist solution, which will unleash the tremendous latent human potential and creativity that exists within society. Not only will we then be able to eliminate this deadly virus but we will ensure the elimination of poverty, hunger, war and disease in general, which are at the heart of these problems. — Zika Virus: Capitalism’s Infectious Horror Without End

And who owns the patent on the virus? The Rockefeller Foundation! — Who Owns the Zika Virus?

The prescription opioid epidemic is not new. It began when Pharma rolled out and aggressively marketed time-released opioids like Oxycontin, driving “pill mills” that distributed as many as 9 million Oxys in a six-month span. What is new is the media finally calling Pharma out on the many cagey ways it got people hooked on opioids and heroin (and continues to do so), how the FDA unabashedly helps Pharma with shocking new approvals, and how people in real pain, especially the poor and African Americans, are some of the hidden victims of the epidemic. When all the reports are in, the Pharma-driven opioid epidemic may be one of the biggest and deadliest cons in recent history. — What Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Know About the Opioid Epidemic

Videos the Day:

Rat Race (live more!)  

The High Price of Materialism

Greed Song

U.S.

Congress Boosts Rehab, But Gives Opioid Pushers a Pass By Lee Fang  What Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Know About the Opioid Epidemic: The Pharma-driven opioid epidemic may be as big a con as the mortgage housing bubble collapse. By Martha Rosenberg Bitter ‘Fruit’ of the Trade Union Bureaucracy’s: ‘Race to the Bottom’:Once Middle Class, Millions Are Joining the Ranks of ‘Disposable’ Americans: Income, savings and life expectancy are in decline for broad swathes of society. By Paul BuchheitFrom Tehran to Atlanta: Social Justice Lawyer Azadeh Shahshahani’s Fight for Human Rights by Bill Quigley

Environment:

Mangroves in Crisis: Why One Man Works to Save the Plants That Fight Climate Disruption By Dahr Jamail

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Scientists Say Canada’s Proposed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Port Threatens Paris Climate Accord: The British Columbia project ‘will emit at least 11.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, not including downstream emissions when the gas is burned in Asia’by Nika Knight

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 30, 2016

• duopoly income inequality charter schools

Jill Stein: U.S. Electoral “House of Cards” Coming Down

Presidential candidate Jill Stein has an answer tor those Democrats that accuse the Greens of offering themselves as “spoilers” who would throw the election to Donald Trump. “I will be horrified if Donald Trump gets elected, and I will be horrified if Hillary Clinton gets elected,” Stein told a panel at the Left Forum conference, in New York City. “I’m most horrified by a political system that gives us two lethal choices and says, ‘Pick between them, and that’s it.’” The two-party duopoly electoral arrangement is in trouble because of the “inherent disfunction of the system, and the fact that the house of cards really is coming down.”

Blacks Will Be Slow to Abandon Democrats

Bernie Sanders has no interest in creating a new political party to the left of the Democrats, because he “wants to strengthen the leftish faction within the Democratic Party,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford, speaking at the same Left Forum panel as Jill Stein. However, Ford predicted that millions of Sanders’ followers will choose to join or help form such a party. Although Blacks are the most left-leaning constituency in the country, they will be slow to support any new, “social democratic” political formation, for fear of helping the “White Man’s Party” – the GOP. Blacks will only break out of the Democratic “trap” in large numbers, said Ford, when they perceive that the Republicans are no longer “a kind of monolithic threat” to Black America.

Charter Schools Take Chicanery Online

Charter school companies are now operating so-called “virtual schools” that have no physical classrooms, but only exist on the Internet. David Cohen, executive director of the advocacy group In The Public Interest, said California Virtual Academies, run by K-12 Inc., graduates less than half its students and is accused of counting pupils as “present” if they log online for as little as one minute a day. The charter’s teachers are paid only about $30,000, said Cohen. The company “needs to make a profit, they need to pay their CEOs, they also need to do whatever they need to do for their shareholders on the stock exchange,” he said. The profits are produced by paying teachers less, hiring fewer administration people, and squeezing every way they can,” he said.

Rich Countries Drain Trillions from Developing World

Global banking expert James Henry said rich countries siphon more than $12 trillion a year from China, Russia and other developing nations. “Collectively speaking, the world has to worry about this because it means that, oddly enough, the developing world is actually a net creditor of western Europe and the United States.” Much of the huge cash outflow is diverted to secretive offshore banking outlets, but soon finds it way back into rich western portfolios. The loss of wealth is disastrous for the developing world, said Henry. “It’s a tremendous opportunity cost for developing countries.” Listen, Read more

 Labor:

After Six-Week Strike, Verizon Workers Claim Major Victory as Deal Reached: “This proves that when we stand together we can raise up working families, improve our communities and protect the American middle class.” By Nadia Prupis

Economy:

Zurich Insurance Death: Reminder of Rash of Finance Deaths in 2013-15 By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World: 

The ‘Fruits’ of Permanent War — War Refugees: ‘Europe, This is Unbearable’: Deadly Crossings Drive Migrant Fatalities to New Heights: Record numbers of children are now making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, aid groups say by Lauren McCauley Chile’s Robocops By Robert Hunziker

Health, Education, and Welfare:

Beyond Awareness: Mental Illness and the Ableism of Capitalism: Capitalism values people based on their ability to produce, rather than their contributions to the lives of those around them. By Katie Klabusich

The Right to Be Lazy (The Right for Leisure Time etc.) by Paul Lafargue

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 31, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

From the Mouths of KidsQuote of the Day:

. . . Here’s what he(Obama) could have said to try to do so: Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, an American warplane unleashed the most horrific and inhuman weapon ever invented, immediately imperiling the survival of the entire human species. This act of terrorism was the ultimate crime: a crime of mass murder, a crime of war, and a crime against humanity.The victims, those who died incinerated in a flash, and those who died slowly and painfully over years from chemical poisoning, were never able to see justice served. Sadly, there is no way the criminals who carried out this heinous and barbaric act will ever face justice for their crimes. . . . — The speech Obama SHOULD have given in Hiroshima

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of allied forces in Europe and later president of the U.S., also called it “completely unnecessary” and later told an interviewer,” It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Fleet Admiral William Leahy, the president’s chief of staff, believed that Japan would fall without the necessity of a land invasion. Leahy later wrote that, in dropping the bomb, “we had adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the dark ages.” (Eisenhower and Leahy quotes found at: Hiroshima Who Disagreed With The Atomic Bombing? Why They Gid It.)

. . . We are the Dead. Short days ago  We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. . . .  — First World War Poems – In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

Today no one will hear about the Israeli June 8, 1967 assault on the USS Liberty, an attack so cowardly and so heinous that it exposes Israel’s penchant for manufacturing facts and its ability to manipulate American leadership and the media to gloss over its dastardly deeds. —  The Sailors of the USS Liberty: They, Too, Deserve to Be Honored

Videos the Day:

Young woman from Fukushima speaks out

This is How Corrupt The Political System Is

The Ugly American (1963) Full Movie

U.S.

As Our Past Wars Are Glorified This Memorial Day Weekend, Give Some Thought To Our Prospects Against The Russians And Chinese In World War III By Paul Craig Roberts

The Sailors of the USS Liberty: They, Too, Deserve to Be Honored: On this 2016 Memorial Day, much like all Memorial Day commemorations since 1968, no official recognition or memorial services  will be held to honor the 34 dead  and the 167 wounded US Navy Men. by Raouf Halaby

Lock Up the Men, Evict the Women and Children: Part of the daily reality of poverty in America, evictions—along with mass incarceration—are the mechanisms used to destroy communities and profit from the misery of the poor. By Chris Hedges The speech Obama SHOULD have given in Hiroshima By Matt Peppe Rogue Justice review: Bush, 9/11 and the assault on American liberty: Karen Greenberg’s new book explores the decade after the cataclysm of 9/11 and how the US came ‘perilously close’ to ‘losing the protections of the Bill of Rights’ By Charles KaiserRalph Nader: The funny business of farm creditMold-Infested Prisons Sicken Guards and Prisoners By Spencer Woodman Environment:

 . . . Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. . . .  — Friedrick Engles,  The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man

Water crisis not on presidential candidates’ radar: The 20th century dams and canals that gave birth to modern California — to San Francisco, to Los Angeles, to the San Joaquin Valley farms that feed the nation — are near the end of their engineered lives. The rivers and aquifers they tap are, simply, tapped out.  By Carolyn Lochhead

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

My father warned Exxon about climate change in the 1970s. They didn’t listen: Perhaps 2015 wouldn’t have broken all temperature records had they acted then — but it’s not too late to do something now By Claudia Black-Kalinsky Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

The End of Black Harlem Newcomers say gentrification is about wealth, not race. But that’s a distinction without a difference By Michael Henry Davis

1955                            2016Labor:

Economy:

World:

Britain: Heads they win, tails we lose: Kick out all the Tories! by Socialist Appeal 

In Oil-Soaked Niger Delta, ‘Avengers’ Bombing Pipelines in Struggle for Compensation: Niger Delta Avengers say they are behind a spate of recent attacks on fossil fuel infrastructure by Andrea GermanosHealth, Education, and Welfare:

 Study: Exposure to certain pesticides makes you 6 times more likely to develop ALS By David Gutierrez, staff writer Glyphosate ( Agent Orange. Roundup) Linked to Cancer of the Lymph Tissue in New Study  By Mike BarrettNon-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Occupational Exposure to Agricultural Pesticide Chemical Groups and Active Ingredients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis By Leah Schinasi^* and Maria E. Leon

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 30, 2016

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!

Memorial Day: By Roland Sheppard

I Morn Those That Died — The 1% Sing Praises To The Spoils Of War

Every Year I Honor the Casualties Of the Wars for Profit

Not Just The Americans Who Have/Will Died, but the People World Wide Who Have/Will Die, From the Exploits of US Capitalism:

• I honor The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm:

• I honor the victims of The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States (According to Lisa Cullen, the author of A Job To Die For, “Every day, 165 Americans die from occupational diseases and 18 more die from a work related injury. On the same day, more than 36,400 non-fatal injuries and 3,200 illnesses will occur in America’s workplaces.” Every year 60,225 Americans die from occupational diseases while 6,570 more die from work-related injuries. In that same year, more than 13,286,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,168,000 illnesses occur in America’s workplaces. Again: “Each year, this unknown workplace epidemic extends into nearby communities to claim the lives of 218 innocent bystanders and injure another 68,000.”)

• I honor the victims of Police Brutality.

• I honor the millions of victims of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, ‘The War on Drugs’ and Its Racist Drug Laws Which Incarcerates Millions, and The Prison Industrial Complex: Does It Create A New Form Of Slavery? How Much Labor Is Done By Prisoners In The System?

• I honor current and the future victims of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.

 The First Memorial Day By Brian Hicks

Charleston was in ruins.

The peninsula was nearly deserted, the fine houses empty, the streets littered with the debris of fighting and the ash of fires that had burned out weeks before. The Southern gentility was long gone, their cause lost.

In the weeks after the Civil War ended, it was, some said, “a city of the dead.”

On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.

For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral.

The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing “John Brown’s Body.”

Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and — later — picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day.

On that day, former Charleston slaves started a tradition that would come to be known as Memorial Day.

History discovered

For years, the ceremony was largely forgotten.

It had been mentioned in some history books, including Robert Rosen’s “Confederate Charleston,” but the story gained national attention when David W. Blight, a professor of American history at Yale, took interest. He discovered a mention of the first Decoration Day in the uncataloged writings of a Union soldier at a Harvard University library.

He contacted the Avery Research Center in Charleston, which helped him find the first newspaper account of the event. An article about the “Martyrs of the Race Course” had appeared in the Charleston Daily Courier the day after the ceremony. Blight was intrigued and did more research. He published an account of the day in his book, “Race and Reunion.” Soon he gave lectures on the event around the country.

“What’s interesting to me is how the memory of this got lost,” Blight said. “It is, in effect, the first Memorial Day and it was primarily led by former slaves in Charleston.”

While talking about the Decoration Day event on National Public Radio, Blight caught the attention of Judith Hines, a member of the Charleston Horticultural Society. She was amazed to hear a story about her hometown that she did not know. Read More

Images of the Day:

The ‘Killing Fields’ of CapitalismThe Hypocrisy of Churches Quotes of the Day:

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky And the affrighted steed ran on alone,

Do not weep. War is Kind
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom         
   A field where a thousand corpses lie.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind. . . . — War Is Kind

. . . The 2016 election campaign is remarkable not only for the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders but also for the resilience of an enduring silence about a murderous self-bestowed divinity. A third of the members of the United Nations have felt Washington’s boot, overturning governments, subverting democracy, imposing blockades and boycotts. Most of the presidents responsible have been liberal – Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama. . . . — Silencing America as It Prepares for War

 Videos the Day:

Young woman from Fukushima speaks out

This is How Corrupt The Political System Is

U.S.:

Silencing America as It Prepares for War by John Pilger The Native American Genocide Continues:  Congress Votes to Sell Apache Land to Foreign Corporation: Controversial congressional measure reportedly gave sacred Apache land to an environmentally harmful foreign corporation. By David Mikkelson Secret Text in Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access to Email Records: A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy. By Jenna McLaughlin What VA Secretary McDonald just said about veteran wait times proves why his agency is beyond reform and should be abolished What on Earth is Going on at  West Lake Landfill?When odors from the neighboring Bridgeton Landfill became so intense, residents began making calls. What they unearthed was shocking! They learned that the adjacent West Lake Landfill houses massive amounts of illegally dumped nuclear weapons waste from the Manhattan Project, the U.S. — the secret U.S. military program created in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb.

Environment:

Portland Now Generates Electricity From Turbines Installed In City Water Pipes by Rafi Schwartz 

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

‘Frack Baby Frack’: California Back in Big Oil’s Crosshairs as Feds Quietly OK Offshore Fracking: “This move paves the way for offshore fracking permits that were previously frozen and the dumping of toxic wastewater directly into the Pacific Ocean.” By Nadia Prupis

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Labor:

Economy:

Graph 8: “Corrected” Real GDP (1970-2016), First Revision to First-Quarter 2016 Shadow Government Statistics

World:

Sweden’s Assange Problem: The District Court Ruling by Binoy Kampmark Blatant Hypocrisy: the Latest Late-Night Bailout of Greece by Stavros Mavroudeas

Health, Education, and Welfare:

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 27, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

More Farmers Markets!

Quotes of the Day:

Where one lives has a significant effect on public health. Geographic location is not a matter of happenstance and ZIP codes matter. According to a new report from the Center for Effective Government, people of color make up nearly half the 11.4 million people living in zones adjacent to dangerous facilities, and have nearly double the risk whites face of living near those sites. A recent NAACP report also found that 78 percent of all African-Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, which is associated with serious health complications, such as heart and respiratory disease and lung cancer. The crisis in Flint is far from isolated. “The highest polluting industrial facilities, across a range of sectors from farming, mining to manufacturing, are more likely to be situated in poor and minority neighborhoods,” according to the U.N. experts. Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, an area with significant concentration of industrial pollutants near low income and minority neighborhoods so named because of its high rates of cancer, is another high profile example. And Detroit’s predominantly black Boynton neighborhood has been described as a “sacrifice zone,” where authorities continue to ignore complains by the area’s predominantly black residents about air pollution from a local oil refinery. US environmental injustice goes well beyond Flint

The media persists in calling the looting of Greece a “bailout.” To call the looting of a country and its people a “bailout” is Orwellian.  The brainwashing is so successful that even the media and politicians of looted Greece call the financial imperialism that Greece is suffering a “bailout.” — The Looting Stage of Capitalism: Germany’s Assault on the IMF

Video the Day:

What’s happening in the South China Sea?

U.S.:

A Big War Brewing?:  China to send nuclear-armed submarines into Pacific amid tensions with US: Beijing risks stoking new arms race with move although military says expansion of the US missile defence has left it with no choice By Julian Borger ‘Too Big to Fail’?:  Lawsuit accusing 16 big banks of Libor anipulation reinstated by US court: Judge warns case could ‘bankrupt 16 of the world’s most important financial institutions’ including Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and UBS By Jana KasperkevicAmerica’s Cosmic Tax Gap: The federal government can now spot a bug in space — so why can’t they spot rich tax cheats here on the ground? By Sam Pizzigati 

Environment:

Environmental Racism: UN watchdog denounces structural racism and calls for reparations, systemic reforms by Lauren Carasik North American Continent Begins CRACKING in Wyoming, East of Yellowstone Volcano: Over the weekend an ENORMOUS crack in the earth developed in the southern foothills of the Big Horn Mountains.  The mountain range lies east of the Yellowstone super-volcano. Estimates by some put the crack at 750 yards long by 50 yards wide by 50 feet DEEP — and growing!Farming’s Dirty Needs Have a Deadly Effect: Fertilisers are a major contributor to air pollution in the US, Europe, Russia and China.  By Tim Radford

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Top Obama Energy Official Says Administration Rejects “Keep It In The Ground” As Climate Strategy By Justin MikulkaExxon “Chose to Mislead”: Granddaughter of Former Exxon Climate Scientist: Anna Kalinsky, the granddaughter of former Exxon climate scientist James Black, has berated the company for bankrolling climate change denial despite her grandfather’s attempts to inform the company of the risks of burning fossil fuels for the global climate. By Steve Horn

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution: Environmental racism extends far beyond Flint.  By Bryce Covert

Seats on the 2016 Democratic Platform Committee Are NOT a “Political Revolution” by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The Sanders campaign named Cornel West, James Zogby and 3 others to the 15 member Democratic party 2016 platform committee. But platform promises to Democratic voters have always been worthless. Bill Clinton’s platform promised investment in inner city job programs, reinvestment of military spending and much else. Obama’s platform promised relief to homeowners in the middle of the foreclosure crisis and a lot more. The Democratic party has captured Brother West to leverage his credibility to make promises the neither the platform committee nor Democratic voters can enforce, promises which Hillary has no intention of keeping. Read more

Crime “Prediction”: The Algorithms of Racist Injustice by BAR executive editor Glen FordMass Black incarceration wound up ensnaring too many white people in the gulags, bringing forth calls from within the establishment for “reform” to spare those undeserving of imprisonment.  Digital science came to the rescue. “The U.S. criminal justice system now deploys algorithm-based technology to predict who will be criminalized in the future, and to systematically push whites out of the path of the New Jim Crow juggernaut.” Read more

Labor:

Riot police crack down on Paris protests against labour reforms: Thousands of protesters turn out on streets of French capital as refineries and nuclear power stations across the country come to a halt by Angelique Chrisafis Average CEO Raise Last Year Amounted to 10x What Most Workers Made in Total: Amid ‘disgraceful inequality,’ Associated Press analysis finds that median compensation for top executives in 2015 was $10.8 million by Andrea Germanos

Economy:

The Looting Stage of Capitalism: Germany’s Assault on the IMF: Having successfully used the EU to conquer the Greek people by turning the Greek “leftwing” government into a pawn of Germany’s banks, Germany now finds the IMF in the way of its plan to loot Greece into oblivion. by Paul Craig Roberts 

World:

When Will the World Be Free of the NATO Beast?: NATO is fighting for its Paleolithic life. A dying dinosaur from a place God and time may one day forget, the military equivalent of a mafia protection racket now swishes its tail one last time in the hopes a full scale war will rescue it. With militarism as a purpose, and bending European societies in the back of its fossil mind, this listless beast of war is more dangerous than ever. Here is a look at a rusty tool of American hegemony, one the world never really needed at all. By Phil ButlerSerbia: Election Fraud or Fraudulent Elections?: by Filip Sacirovic

Health, Education, and Welfare:

Students With Nowhere to Stay: Homelessness on College Campuses By  Eleanor J. Bader 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 26, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

Health Care for Profit — Not Care

The Great American Bailout of 2008

Quote of the Day:

I know that might sound really basic, but I want everyone to be on the same page as we proceed in this article.  Just because stock prices are artificially high right now does not mean that the U.S. economy is in good shape.  In fact, there was a stock rally at this exact time of the year in 2008 even though the underlying economic fundamentals were rapidly deteriorating.  We all remember what happened later that year, so we should not exactly be rejoicing that precisely the same pattern that we witnessed in 2008 is happening again right in front of our eyes. — It’s undeniable: Evidence shows that the REAL economy is in recession mode

U.S.:

Obama in Hiroshima: A Case Study in Hypocrisy by Eric Draitser Hiroshima and Nagasaki Never Again! By Roland Sheppard

August 6 and 9 are the 63rd anniversaries of the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs and the murder of hundreds of thousands of their citizens. Annual demonstrations take place at the nuclear weapons laboratories in Livermore, California and Los Alamos, New Mexico, at the nuclear weapons test site in Nevada and at the bomb factory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to demand nuclear disarmament now.

One of the long-standing myths of U.S. history is that atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to “save lives.” The story is that the bombings, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, were necessary to bring World War II to an end. In reality, the decision was purely political. Leading generals and admirals opposed the bombing. It was ordered to demonstrate the ruthlessness of the U.S. government. Ronald Takaki wrote, in his article on the subject in the July 31, 2005 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, “During the days before that fateful Aug. 6, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur learned that Japan had asked Russia to negotiate a surrender. ‘We expected acceptance of the Japanese surrender daily,’ one of his staff members recalled. When he was notified that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, the general was livid. MacArthur declared that the atomic attack on Hiroshima was ‘completely unnecessary from a military point of view.’” General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of allied forces in Europe and later president of the U.S., also called it “completely unnecessary” and later told an interviewer,” It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Fleet Admiral William Leahy, the president’s chief of staff, believed that Japan would fall without the necessity of a land invasion. Leahy later wrote that, in dropping the bomb, “we had adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the dark ages.” (Eisenhower and Leahy quotes found at: HIROSHIMAWHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?Why they did it.) Why then did the president make the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? In fact Truman gave an order not to bomb Nagasaki. A memo published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, (May/June 1998), states that Truman “had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids.’” Dirty Harry in San Francisco

So why was the bomb dropped? Why were Truman’s orders on the second bomb not obeyed? “Secretary of War Henry Stimson, for his part, regarded the atomic bomb as what he called the ‘master card’ of diplomacy towards Russia. However, he believed that sparring with the Soviet Union in the early spring, before the weapon was demonstrated, would be counterproductive. Before a mid-May meeting of a cabinet-level committee considering Far Eastern issues, Stimson observed that “the questions cut very deep and [were] powerfully connected with our success with S-1 [the atomic bomb Gar Alperovitz, in “Hiroshima: Historians Reassess” Foreign Policy (Summer 1995) No. 99: 15-34, where it is only available to subscribers; the section quoted is available online at page 4. A web version of the article on can be found at the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives website.

These new facts from history and Eisenhower’s memoirs show that the carnage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not to make Japan surrender and save American lives, but to warn the Soviet Union that the United States had the atomic bomb and its leaders were cold-blooded enough to use such a weapon of mass destruction. It was the opening salvo of the, “Cold War” and beginning of the process of “Pax Americana.”

August 2008

Under AG Loretta Lynch, the federal government allows police to unconstitutionally confiscate your possessions… Even if you HAVEN’T been arrested or charged by D. Samuelson

Environment:

VIDEO: Why Is America’s Water Infrastructure Failing?: From lead contamination to water main breaks, America’s water infrastructure is crumbling. So just how bad is the country’s water crisis?

Is this America’s next Flint? By Stuart Smith

America’s drinking water is under assault — from careless dumping of hazardous wastes to the lead pollution caused by our ancient infrastructure. Yet rarely do these tales of governmental neglect or industrial abuses make it onto the national radar screen. The Flint, Michigan, lead pollution story was different — a “perfect storm” that combined race, the poisoning of countless children, and gross negligence on the part of the state government. Yet even that story didn’t become a national cause celebre right away. The truth is that, as terrible as the Flint situation has been, there are other threats to water across the U.S. that are just as bad…or arguably worse. Read More

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Charter Schools Propping Up the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Charter schools are four times more likely to suspend black students than their white peers. By Lauren Camera

Freedom Rider: Georgetown Should Pay for Slavery by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyIf ever there was a clear path to reparations for the descendants of slaves, it is in compensation to the progeny of the 272 men and women sold South to save the Jesuit school that became Georgetown University. The institution’s $1.5 billion endowment is at least partially owed to an identifiable group of Black people. “If Georgetown pays up like it ought to they can go to any college or make whatever financial decisions they choose.” Read more

Freddie Gray Case Judge Rules it is Unreasonable to Expect Cops to Obey the Law A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen FordThe prosecution in Baltimore wanted the cop that arrested Freddie Gray to be convicted of assault, because Gray had done nothing illegal. But “the judge seemed to think it would be ridiculous to treat every arrest as criminal just because there were no grounds for arrest.” The officer was acquitted, affirming the American criminal justice principle that nothing is illegal – including murder – when the cops do it. Read more about Freddie Gray Case Judge Rules it is Unreasonable to Expect Cops to Obey the Law

On the Challenges of Building a Principled Left Movement in Our Timeby Danny HaiphongThese are exciting – and frustrating – times. “The crisis of US empire has created ripe conditions for a revolutionary movement, yet no such movement exists.” Social forces opposed to capitalism’s predations multiply, yet too often fail to unify. “The task from here is to engage those who have been propelled into action by the crisis of US Empire, whether it is the Sandernistas or Black Lives Matter activists.” Read more about On the Challenges of Building a Principled Left Movement in Our Time

Layers of Islamophobia: Rep. Keith Eillison Says He’s “Unaware” of Clinton Having Returned “Muslim Money” by Sam HusseiniThe only two Muslim members of Congress, Keith Ellison and André Carson, both Black, seem oblivious to Hillary Clinton’s history of distancing herself from Muslim Americans, and share her militaristic vision for the Middle East. U.S. discussions of Islamophobia “largely excludes discussion of U.S. foreign policy, the dehumanization of Muslim lives lost, especially in U.S. attacks.” The only good Muslim is one who supports U.S. imperial policy. Read more about Layers of Islamophobia: Rep. Keith Eillison Says He’s “Unaware” of Clinton Having Returned “Muslim Money”

Prisoners’ Voices Blocked and Censorship in U.S. Prisons by Jaan LaamanLike many political prisoners, the author’s freedom of speech rights are routinely curtailed. “While prisoners do have a legal right to express their thoughts and report on issues and abuses, actually getting your words out is often very hard or impossible.” U.S. prisons operate their own “kangaroo courts” that often shut down inmate communications “even if the prisoner ultimately wins appeal and has his or her communications restored.” Read more about Prisoners’ Voices Blocked and Censorship in U.S. Prisons

 Africa Liberation Day: Pentagon and CIA Continue to Destabilize the Continent by Abayomi AzikiweAfrican Liberation Day is always a cause for celebration – but also for sober assessment of how far off the goal of continental liberation remains. The great pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah warned that, if Africa did not unite, “imperialists would reverse the minimal gains made by the national liberation movements and political parties.” More than a half-century later, U.S. troops operate in the vast majority of African nations. Read more about Africa Liberation Day: Pentagon and CIA Continue to Destabilize the Continent

 Fidel Castro & Cuba: Thorns In Side of US Imperialism by Solomon ComissiongCuba is a hero nation, and “Commandant Fidel Castro’s legacy can never be undone; his internationalist and revolutionary history will serve as an inspiration forever.” The island nation and its leader confronted – and triumphed against – a giant neighbor whose wealth “comes directly from the plunder and theft.” However, “in the case of Cuba and Fidel Castro, their attempts to break the island nation failed miserably, time and time again.” Read more

Labor:

Striking Workers Shut Down France’s Oil Depots, Move to Blockade Nuclear Plant: Another May ’68? Workers, riot police clash as France protests labor law by Nika Knight

Economy:

It’s undeniable: Evidence shows that the REAL economy is in recession mode By Jon E. Dougherty

World:

Amílcar Cabral and the African Revolution – Part One: The winds of revolution are once again blowing over the African continent. From Burkina Faso to South Africa, from Burundi to Nigeria, we have seen a radicalisation of the workers and the youth and the rise of mass movements that have challenged corrupt capitalist regimes in one country after another. As part of this revolutionary reawakening, many radical anti-imperialist figures are being rediscovered, like Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Chris Hani, and, indeed, Amílcar Cabral. by Arturo Rodríguez

Greece: The Troika commands and Tsipras obeys… again by Roberto Sarti

Health, Education, and Welfare:

Federal government announces new plan to tackle American opioid epidemic that kills 44 people a day… yet won’t stop the FDA from approving such opioids by Daniel Barker

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 25, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

“Big Bill’ Haywood Lake Mead suffers record-breaking decline as the nation’s largest reservoir reaches the lowest level in history since it was filled 80 years ago

Quotes of the Day:

So the IMF says that we’re going to break the rules of that and we’re going to lend, essentially because the U.S. tells us to do that and Greece is going to have to pay so we can demonstrate that if Spain tries to stand up and pay its pensions to people, if France pays its labor, if Italy pays its labor, we’re going to smash their economies, we’re going to smash their labor unions, and we’re going to smash their labor just as we do to Greece. Greece is a demonstration very much like when the Nazis bombed Spain, in the Picasso drew the great drawing for. This is the IMF’s version of the Nazi bombing of Spain to say, this is what’s going to happen to labor throughout Europe if you don’t surrender. — The Financial Invasion of Greece

As I have previously written, pushing Russia to war means the demise of the US and Europe and, considering the destructive power of nuclear weapons, most likely of all life on earth. The main cause of this danger is the arrogance, hubris, and utter stupidity of the American neoconservatives who are ensconced in positions of power and influence and in Hillary’s presidential campaign. A secondary cause is Europe’s vassal status, which deprives Europe of a sensible foreign policy and forces Europe to enable Washington’s aggression. What this means is that no matter what you think of Trump, if you vote for Hillary you are definitely voting for the end of the world. ^— Will The November US Presidential Election Bring The End Of The World?

Video the Day:

Glen Ford at Left Forum Conference

U.S.:

Will The November US Presidential Election Bring The End Of The World? By Paul Craig Roberts

Whistleblower Revelations Expose ‘Lie’ that Snowden Had a Choice: Author Mark Hertsgaard tells Democracy Now! that Edward Snowden ‘had no choice’ but to go public with leaks by Nadia Prupis Vindication for Edward Snowden From a New Player in NSA Whistleblowing Saga: The Guardian published a stunning new chapter in the saga of NSA whistleblowers on Sunday, revealing a new key player: John Crane, a former assistant inspector general at the Pentagon who was responsible for protecting whistleblowers, then forced to become one himself when the process failed. By Jenna McLaughlin and Dan Froomkin Environment:

 

Lake Mead Drops to Lowest Level in History: Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir serving 20 million people, dropped to its lowest level on Friday since being built in 1936, according to the U.S Bureau of Reclamation.  By Ann Warburton EPA also covered up massive lead contamination of the water supply in Washington D.C. over a decade ago… justice was never served by J. D. HeyesBurned By Slow Government Response To A Polluter, Residents Mistrust Cleanup Efforts: When residents don’t trust the company who poisoned their water and soil, and they don’t trust the government agencies mandated to stop the company, they’ll either ignore everything and hope for the best, or they’ll take matters into their own hands. By Larry BuhlOld pesticide manufacturing company now deemed hazardous waste zone by the government… but the same chemicals are ‘safe’ enough for food crops? By Sarah LandersThe FDA finally starts to address baby rice’s arsenic problem: reduces amount of brain-damaging ingredient, but won’t ban it  By David GutierrezUnsafe at Any Dose: Chemical Safety Failures from DDT to Glyphosate to BPA by Jonathan Latham

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Energy News:

08:22 AM EST on May 24th, 2016 | Hospital: Fukushima radiation may be eating holes in people’s brains — Report: Military brought in to hide true radiation levels — Experts: Officials covering up dire consequences of crisis… Worry over high number of cancers being detected — Public suffering radioactive-related diseases (VIDEO)

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

There’s no justice for Freddie Gray in the Edward Nero verdict: Lack of accountability is not a one-off story, it is a trend. And when officers are allowed to act with impunity, the stage is set for more tragedy By Brittany Packnett

Labor:

Economy:

The Financial Invasion of Greece by Sharmini Peries and Michael Hudson Troika Heat-Seeking Missile Destroys Greece by Robert Hunziker

World:

Mass Civic-Military Mobilisations in Venezuela Warn Against Intervention: More than half a million soldiers and civilian militia members took to the streets of Venezuela over the weekend to defend their national sovereignty amidst rumours of international intervention and an unconventional coup.  By Rachael Boothroyd Rojas

Venezuela Strenghtens Civilian-Military Unity: Venezuela consolidated the civilian-military union as a main protective shield before increasing threats and plans participants in a coup of the right with support of the United States, they revealed authorities.Cheerleader for US Aggression, Pushing the World to the Nuclear Brink: Michael Fallon is British Defence Secretary. He is adept at making the types of statements that epitomise the pro-neoliberal, militaristic rhetoric that people in the UK have become tired of. by Colin TodhunterBritain: Blairite attacks backfire as Corbyn’s popularity increases by Adam Booth Denmark: Hundreds of green card workers demonstrate against L169 – time to fight by Jonas Foldager og Zeesean Afridi

Health, Education, and Welfare:

More Young Americans Live With Their Parents Than At Any Time Since The Great Depression: The trend of millennials returning home to live with their parents has even gotten to the point where one out of six home buyers have or plan to have a grown child at home, and home builders are building to accommodate that fact.

 

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 24, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

E.V. Debs Leon Trotsky

Quote of the Day:

But it doesn’t take a meltdown for a nuclear power plant to harm people who live nearby. Every day, a portion of the nuclear waste produced to make electricity are emitted from the plant into the air and water. It enters human bodies through breathing and the food chain. This waste, which consists of over 100 radioactive chemicals exactly the same as those when atomic bombs explode, all cause cancer, birth defects, and other diseases. Because producing uranium used in nuclear plants involves multiple steps that produce greenhouse gases, nuclear power is not just radioactive, it is also not carbon free. — Indian Point Nuclear Plant: It Doesn’t Take a Meltdown to Harm Local Residents

Brazil today awoke to stunning news of secret, genuinely shocking conversations involving a key minister in Brazil’s newly installed government, which shine a bright light on the actual motives and participants driving the impeachment of the country’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff. The transcripts were published by the country’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, and reveal secret conversations that took place in March, just weeks before the impeachment vote in the lower house took place. They show explicit plotting between the new planning minister (then-senator), Romero Jucá, and former oil executive Sergio Machado — both of whom are formal targets of the “Car Wash” corruption investigation — as they agree that removing Dilma is the only means for ending the corruption investigation. The conversations also include discussions of the important role played in Dilma’s removal by the most powerful national institutions, including — most importantly — Brazil’s military leaders. — New Political Earthquake in Brazil: Is It Now Time for Media Outlets to Call This a “Coup”?:

As readers know, I have seen some optimism in voters support for Trump and Sanders as neither are members of the corrupt Republican and Democratic political establishments. Members of both political establishments enrich themselves by betraying the American people and serving only the interest of the One Percent. The American people are being driven into the ground purely for the sake of more mega-billions for a handful of super-rich people. Neither political party is capable of doing anything whatsoever about it, and neither will. — Paul Craig Roberts

Videos the Day:

Après avoir tenue la 5ème et derniere barricade… Loin de reculer, Lorient se soulève! (After having held the 5th and Last Barricade… Far back, Lorient rises up!)

The Financial Invasion of Greece: Economist Michael Hudson says IMF’s concern about Greek debt is bogus, this is full scale financial war, forcing Greece give up ports, pensions, properties and much more

U.S.:

The Return of Democratic Socialism by Lawrence Wittner: The Myth of the Social Democracy. Theis article implies that the Social Democracy opposed imperialist war. Eugene Debs opposed the war, but the Social Democratic parties throughout the world supported every imperialist war since World War I, with the exception of the Russian party led by Trotsky and Lenin. — R.S.

Reform or Revolution: Rosa Luxemburg warned the left about becoming seduced by liberals who speak the language of reform but serve the interests of capitalism. And she understood that holding fast to revolutionary ideals was, especially in a moment of crisis, a moral imperative. By Chris HedgesThe Most Intriguing Spy Stories From 166 Internal NSA Reports : The Intercept today is releasing the first three months of SIDtoday, March 31 through the end of June 2003, using files provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In addition, we are releasing any subsequent 2003 installments of SIDtoday series that began during this period. The files are available for download here.  By Micah Lee and Margot WilliamsAmericans: A Conquered People: The New Serfs By Paul Craig Roberts

Environment:

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return By Dahr Jamail “Scientists know that a warming climate can be expected to gradually sap the ocean of oxygen.”

Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta – the ‘Big 3’ chemical agriculture giants killed nearly half of all U.S. bee colonies with their toxic ‘neonics’ in 2015 alone by: S. D. Wells

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Indian Point Nuclear Plant: It Doesn’t Take a Meltdown to Harm Local Residents by Joseph Mangano – Janette D. Sherman

 Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

To the 1%: Black Lives Don’t Matter:  Baltimore Officer Found Not Guilty on All Counts in Freddie Gray Case: Officer Edward Nero was the second of six city police officers charged in the case to stand trial by Deirdre Fulton

Labor:

Economy:

Retail Sales Through AprilConsumer Inflation

World:

Jeremy Corbyn preparing to call for Tony Blair to be investigated for war crimes By Laura Hughes 

French Labour Law: The decisive battle has begun! by Jerôme MetellusNew Political Earthquake in Brazil: Is It Now Time for Media Outlets to Call This a “Coup”?: By Glenn Greenwald , Andrew Fishman, and David Miranda100% of Portugal’s citizens have glyphosate in their urine… alarms sounding over the mass chemical poisoning of humanity with cancer-causing weed killer by Isabelle Z. Protesters Rally Against US Military in Okinawa: ‘Killer Go Home’: ‘It just keeps on happening.’ By Nadia Prupis

Health, Education, and Welfare:

 

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 23, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

Every ‘Lessor Evil Vote’ is a Vote For War!Thousands of large black plastic bags containing radioactive soil and debris removed from towns and villages near the Fukushima nuclear power plant Quotes of the Day:

Already, workers have accumulated enough one-ton black bags filled with irradiated soil and debris to stretch from Tokyo to LA. But, that only accounts for about one-half of the job yet to be done. Still, in the face of this commendable herculean effort, analysis of decontamination reveals serious missteps and problems. — Fukushima Flunks Decontamination

Two years ago, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Brown, I joined two of my colleagues in formally asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine racial and socioeconomic isolation in K-12 public schools and the resulting impact on educational equity. I did this because research consistently shows that our nation’s public schools remain segregated by both race and class, producing inequitable access to educational opportunity that has robbed our nation’s most vulnerable students of learning gains and later life success. In the face of many skeptics who denied that segregation was occurring, we asked the GAO to confirm what researchers claimed. The report resulting from this inquiry is staggering. The GAO has confirmed that our nation’s schools are, in fact, largely segregated by race and class. What’s more troubling in their findings is that segregation in public K-12 schools is not getting better, but it is rapidly getting worse. The report shows that more than 20 million students of color now attend racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools. That is up from under 14 million students in 2001. — America’s schools are still segregated by race and class. That has to end

Lawmakers have long been aware of the problem but have not made it any easier for veterans to have their records changed. Steps could be taken to streamline review of personality disorder discharges and strengthen due process rights for all veterans. It is time to restore the dignity and honor of veterans unfairly stigmatized by these improper discharges. — I was raped in the navy — and then discharged for a ‘personality disorder’

Videos the Day:

Fukushima: Living with a Disaster 

‘Invisible War’ Shines Light on Rape in the Military

Glenn Greenwald’s Interview with Dilma Rousseff: Her First Since Being Suspended 

U.S.:

America’s schools are still segregated by race and class. That has to end: I was one of the congressmen who asked the Government Accountability Office to examine racial and class integration in schools. The results were shocking  By Bobby ScottI was raped in the navy — and then discharged for a ‘personality disorder’: For many years this diagnosis was the fastest way for a commander to get someone out of service. It almost ruined my life  By Amy QuinnEmpire of Lies: How the US Continues to Deceive the World About Puerto Rico: Separated by an ocean and a language from the mainland, Puerto Ricans have watched the US government lie brazenly and repeatedly — to the American people and the world at large — about its actions and interests in the Caribbean.  By Nelson A. DenisThe West’s Needless Aggression by Jason Hirthler The 13 Most Evil U.S. Government Experiments on Humans by  Robert Wabash Big Brother Can Monitor You:  The Federal Government Is Helping Police Nationwide Secretly Exploit Intrusive Technologies By Matthew Harwood and Jay Stanley / TomDispatchChelsea Manning Files Appeal Against ‘Grossly Unfair and Unprecedented’ Conviction: ‘She believed the public had a right to know about the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan’ by Andrea Germanos Environment:

Activists, Farmers, Indigenous People Rise Up to March Against Monsanto: ‘The fight against corporate control of our food is global’: by Nika Knight

Right to Life? Corporate Profits Supersede Life: Monsanto has known for over 35 years that its glyphosate-soaked ‘food’ causes cancer By D. Samuelson

“Both Monsanto and the EPA knew full well, at least as early as 1981, that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, causes cancer in mammals. Earlier studies conducted during the late 1970s and early 1980s appear to have documented cancer-causing effects from glyphosate in rats, mice and dogs, though this information was buried by Monsanto with the blessing of the EPA… ‘The evidence shows that by 1981 both Monsanto and the EPA were aware of malignant tumours and pre-cancerous conditions in the test animals which were fed small doses of glyphosate in the secret feeding experiments,’ said Dr. Brian John for GM-Free Cymru, about the facts.”

New Report Finds Undisclosed Nanoparticles in Popular Baby Formulas: Friends of the Earth US, an environmental non-profit that NRDC often works with, recently commissioned a laboratory at Arizona State University (Tempe) to analyze six baby formula samples for the presence of engineered nanoparticles. The full report can be found here. By  Jennifer Sass and Nina Hwang. New Orleans is sinking just as the waters are rising: When it comes to climate, the latest news for my lifelong hometown of New Orleans is not very good at all. As many people know — and as Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed made quite clear in 2005 — much of the Crescent City sits below sea level, which is why the city’s levees and its other defense mechanisms such as flood pumping stations are so critical.  By Stuart Smith

How fast is New Orleans sinking? Faster and faster, says new study:Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

North Dakota’s murky situation: 1-in-3 fracking wells in the state has had a leak… 9,700 wells in total by Daniel Barker Fukushima Flunks Decontamination by Robert Hunziker

 

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

40 Acres and a Mule Would Be at Least $6.4 Trillion Today—What the U.S. Really Owes Black America: Slavery made America wealthy, and racist policies since have blocked African American wealth-building. Can we calculate the economic damage? By Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn and Jeff Neumann Labor:

Economy:

World:

Puerto Rico debt crisis comes to a head: Last year the governor of Puerto Rico announced that it didn’t have the money to repay $72 billion in debt on bonds owed in the main to US financiers. On 2 May, it defaulted on $400 million due. Another $2 billion is due on 1 June. By Barry Sheppard

‘Tony Blair lied on Iraq and will be exposed by Chilcot report’: “The Chilcot report will come out in a few weeks’ time and tell us what we need to know, what I think we already know: There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no ability to attack within 45 minutes and a deal had been done with Bush in advance.”

Health, Education, and Welfare:

Abandoning Doubt & Denial, School District Officially Embraces Climate Literacy Portland, Oregon schools call for climate justice and student activism by Bill Bigelow

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 20, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

CapitalismRobert Smalls Quote of the Day:

These are times of decisiveness, either you are revolutionary or you are capitalist, the ability of social-democracy of making fiery speeches and then acting as a firefighter to put them down is coming to an end.” This is correct. As we have explained, the attempt to regulate capitalism has failed. There are only two ways out: either to go back to “normal” capitalism (that is, to make the workers pay the price for the crisis), or to go forward to socialism (that is to make the capitalists pay). It it not too late. The hour is one of extreme danger. This can only be overcome by extreme measures and firmness. Enough with vacillations. Carry out the revolution to the end! — Venezuela – a last warning

… “If you wanted to medicate the masses to create mindless, slave-like prisoners who didn’t even know they were imprisoned, this is surely a good way to do it. Spraying lithium into our skies, along with countless other bacteria, viruses, prions, parasites, fungi, carcinogens, toxins, hormone-altering drugs, anti-flora and anti-fauna, as well as gene-altering micro-dust is nothing more than bio-warfare against the world’s citizenry.” — New evidence suggests the government is using NASA to air drop Lithium on the masses

Videos the Day:

The coming pension meltdown: Low interest rates destroying pensions

U.S.:

(Fifty Years Later) U.S. finally admits Agent Orange residue poisoned its own soldiers (Audio) Poll Finds Two-Thirds of Americans Teetering on Financial Edge: ‘The more we learn about the balance sheets of Americans, it becomes quite alarming.’ By Deirdre FultonNew evidence suggests the government is using NASA to air drop Lithium on the masses By D. Samuelson

Environment:

With New Drinking Water Advisory, Dozens of Communities Suddenly Have Dangerous Water: The EPA announced new drinking water health advisory levels today for the industrial chemicals PFOA and PFOS. The new levels — .07 parts per billion (ppb) for both chemicals — are significantly lower than standards the agency issued in 2009, which were .4 ppb for PFOA and .2 ppb for PFOS. In areas where both PFOA and PFOS are present, the advisory suggests a maximum combined level of .07 ppb. While the old levels were calculated based on the assumption that people were drinking the contaminants only for weeks or months, the new standards assume lifetime exposure and reflect more recent research.  By Sharon LernerGreenwashing, Welfarism, and Capitalism: The Humane Society and the Selling of the TPP by Richard Foster United Nations, in the Service of Monsanto, Greenwashing of Glyphosate: (Why the UN Hasn’t Give Glyphosate a Clean Bill of Health by Georgina Downs) No, the UN Has Not Given Glyphosate a ‘Clean Bill of Health’: News headlines today suggest that a UN report on glyphosate residues has given the controversial herbicide a clean bill of health, but that’s seriously misleading by Georgina Downs

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

“End the Circus”: Big Oil Group Plots to Exclude Public from Public Lands Bidding at IOGCC Meeting By Steve Horn

Energy News:

11:02 AM EST on May 19th, 2016 | Expert: Billions of pieces Fukushima nuclear fuel have spread pretty much everywhere — “It’s truly frightening… wherever there’s cesium, there’s plutonium” — Atomic bomb had one pound of uranium… Fukushima had hundreds of tons — TV: “Abundant quantities” of plutonium are being found (VIDEO)

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

The Day the Music Died — Malcolm X’s Assassination By Roland Sheppard (The below image is of William Bradley — the man that Talmadge Hayer identified as the one who shot the shotgun. Zak Kondo also identified William Bradley as the assassin with the shotgun.)

Down with the Duopoly: The Republicans Have Split; Now It’s the Democrat’s Turn by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Tyson Foods runs slave camp as workers are forced to wear diapers, denied bathroom breaks by Isabelle Z.

Economy:

Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership Turn Silicon Valley Into Detroit?: The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) like to describe it as a free-trade deal for the 21st century. That might be a good sales pitch, but it’s not accurate. The TPP has little to with reducing trade barriers, which in most cases were already low. The TPP can more accurately be described as a piñata that is chock full of special deals for the corporate interests who negotiated it. It will likely do more to impede trade than promote it, and in the process it creates rules that potentially override democratic decision-making at all levels of government.  By Dean Baker

World:

France begins a week of rolling strikes By Catherine HardyVenezuela – a last warning: The assault against the Bolivarian revolution has intensified in the recent days and weeks. Editorials and front pages in US and Spanish newspapers are screaming about hunger in Venezuela and demanding the removal of the “dictatorial regime”. by Jorge MartínIs China a House of Cards?: Let’s start by examining what the Dragon himself – President Xi Jinping – has to say about China being largely derided in influential Beltway circles as a House of Cards. by Pepe Escobar

Health, Education, and Welfare:

‘We Don’t Need Their Education — We Don’tNeed Their Thought Control’Why American healthcare would be better off without the Food and Drug Administration: it causes more harm than good! By Isabelle Z.

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 19, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

False Threats — Objective? — Iranian Oil Quote of the Day: 

Whilst the capitalist media attack Corbyn for standing up against austerity and corruption, more and more ordinary people are becoming increasingly disgusted with the Tories and those they represent – the bankers and super rich. As this anger grows, so does the bitterness towards those in the media who act as faithful apologists for the capitalists and their interests. As the crisis of capitalism deepens, so too does the legitimacy of the capitalist media break down. Ultimately, no amount of press lies and distortions will be able to hold back a movement of the working class that is conscious of its aims and prepared to struggle against the inequalities and injustices of this rotten system. — Corbyn, the BBC, and the bias of the Establishment

. . . Unfortunately, the hell-fires caused by global warming, as if in divine retribution, are threatening to expose Trudeau’s prioritizing of corporate and strategic allies over the working people of Canada. They are also threatening to put the lie to Trudeau’s dismissal of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s attempt to draw attention to the direct connections between the tar-sands, global warming, and wildfires of this dimension. That was “not helpful”, Trudeau scolded. No, certainly not when you are in the process of spinning another media web-of-deceit to justify the theft of aboriginal lands in order to build new pipelines, that will kill more forests and caribou, intensify global warming, and set other cities and towns ablaze. But Trudeau claims, the money we make from getting our dirty oil to market will be used to help us transition to a greener economy. Oh good, because Suncorp CEO Steven Williams is already making $ 13 million per year! —  Paul Bentley, Trial by Fire in Alberta

Videos the Day:

FBI discovers assassination plot against members of Occupy, does nothing: Occupy movement called ‘terrorists’ by FBI and Homeland Security — FBI sits on its hands after plot to kill Occupy members discovered

If White People Love Drugs So Much, Why are the Prisons Full of Blacks? (Audio)

U.S.:

‘Socialist’ Noam Chomsky — Also a ‘Judas Goat’ for the Democratic Party — He Always Has Been!: Chomsky on Supporting Sanders & Why He Would Vote for Clinton Against Trump in a Swing State 9/11 judge and prosecutors should step down over ‘destroyed evidence’, defense demands: Move throws case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into chaos as defense team says ‘fatally flawed’ Guantánamo military tribunal should be ended By Spencer AckermanEnvironment:

Massachusetts Court Sides with Teenagers in ‘Historic’ Climate Victory: ‘This is an historic victory for young generations advocating for changes to be made by government,’ said 17-year-old plaintiff Shamus Miller. By Deirdre FultonMonsanto and the Poisoning of Europe by Colin TodhunterTar Sands Operations Shut Down, Work Camps Evacuated as Fire Jumps North: The mandatory evacuation order was issued late Monday night to cover 8,000 people north of Fort McMurray by Deirdre Fulton Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

 Energy News:

  Black Liberation/Civil Rights: 

Dixiecrat Ballot Access Law Temporarily Overtuned: This is What a Voting Rights Breakthrough Looks Like A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by managing editor Bruce A. Dixon If White People Love Drugs So Much, Why are the Prisons Full of Blacks? A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

• Criminal Justice System Racism  Listen

Freedom Rider: Transgender Rights but No Rights for Black People by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

• Obama insults his base

A Glimpse of Justice for South Africa’s Gold Miners: High Court Allows Largest Class Action Suit in History by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

• South African miners

  The Crisis This Time: US Capitalism Continues to Decline with No End in Sight by Danny Haiphong

·     Crisis of capitalism

The Result of the Akai Gurley Case Reminds Us that New York State Needs a Permanent Special Prosecutor by Lurie Daniel Favors, Esq.

• Criminal Injustice System

Louisiana Number One in Incarceration by Bill Quigley

• mass black incarceration

US Foreign Policy in Africa and the 2016 Elections by Abayomi Azikiwe

• U.S. Military in Africa

25 Years of Struggle Building Socialism in Eritrea; Fighting the Cancer of Corruption by Thomas C. Mountain

• Eritrea

Labor:

Economy:

World:

France Rises Up Against Anti-Labor Reforms: Union members joined pro-democracy activists in widespread protests against new law that makes it easier to fire workers and move jobs offshore by Nika KnightCorbyn, the BBC, and the bias of the Establishment: Anyone who in general believed the news before the recent elections would have been in for a shock on the 6th May. Rather than the catastrophic defeat predicted for Labour, the reality was that the Labour Party received by far the most votes cast (38.5%), as against 27.1% for the Tories.  by James Kilby Pakistan: School teachers protest against privatization: Privatization is top of the government’s agenda in Pakistan. All public sector institutions are being privatized rapidly, leading to unemployment of millions of workers. As a result, millions of families in Pakistan are being deprived of their small incomes and pushed further into poverty and misery. Along with that, the already shabby and dilapidated social infrastructure is being handed over to the vultures of private capital, who are tearing it apart, leaving the whole fabric of society in tatters. Health, Education, and Welfare:

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 18, 2016

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!

Images of the Day:

To Hell With the New World Order!

Desire to Kill the Streetcar

Quote of the Day:

Jodie Foster  Videos the Day: 

The Life of Afeni Shakur: Mother, Revolutionary & Activist

Minneapolis Truck Strike of 1934 poem by David Smith

Fukushima The Coming Global Disaster

U.S.:

‘Stunning’: CIA Admits ‘Mistakenly’ Deleting Copy of Senate Torture Report: The CIA inspector general — the agency’s internal watchdog — admits to deleting its copy of the U.S. Senate’s torture report, as well as a backup by Nika Knight The Intercept Is Broadening Access to the Snowden Archive. Here’s Why By Glenn Greenwald The Mainstream Media and Its Discontents by CJ HopkinsDesire to Kill the Streetcar By MessyNessy Environment:

From Flint Michigan to Colorado — United States Genocide of Native Americans and African Americans by Poisoned Water: “Water Is Our Life”: How a Mining Disaster Affected the Navajo Nation By Paloma Beamer, Karletta Chief, Nathan Borrero and Benjamin Rivera Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

When Nuclear Plants Expire: Stick the Taxpayers With the Bill (and the Waste) by Linda Pentz Gunter Black Liberation/Civil Rights: 

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 16, 2016

• Brazil Green Party mass black incarceration

  Black Brazil Will Resist “Soft Coup” Against Workers Partya:Dilma Rousseff, of the Brazilian Workers Party, was removed from her office as president, last week, and put on trial by the nation’s Senate on charges of manipulating the budget. Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author and professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston, predicts the Workers Party will mount waves of protests, sit-ins and occupations against what they call a “soft coup” encouraged and abetted by the United States. “I think that during the Olympics, when the global spotlight will be on Brazil, there will be an exhibition by poor, working class folk to express their disapproval of what’s going on in their country,” said Dr. Horne.

Jill Stein: “I’m Not Holding My Breath” Waiting on Bernie: Kshama Sawant, of the Socialist Alternative Party, is circulating a petition asking Bernie Sanders to either run for president on the Green Party ticket, or pave the way for a “new party of the 99%.” The Greens Party are already a party of the 99%, and will be on the ballot in most states, said presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. She said the Greens have been “reaching out to Bernie Sanders since 2011, looking for ways that we might collaborate, and Bernie has always declined our invitation for dialogue by not responding. I’m not holding my breath,” said Stein. “He regards third parties as renegades and threats to political order.”

Alabama Prison Work Stoppages Wind Down: Inmates at prisons across the state of Alabama trickled back to work after officials filled their jobs with people on work-release and starved the protestors of needed calories. “They were getting bird-fed, meaning they were getting real low portions of food because of the peaceful strike,” said Pastor Kenneth Glascow, who negotiated with state officials on behalf of the inmates. Glascow is the half-brother of Rev. Al Sharpton, and a former inmate, himself, who heads the prison reform group TOPS, The Ordinary People Society. Prisoners earn as little as 17 cents an hour at for-profit prison enterprises, and are not paid at all for kitchen and laundry work. The strike was called by inmates of the Free Alabama Movement. “We already have a Free Mississippi Movement, there’s a Free California Movement, there’s a Free Pennsylvania Movement,” said inmate activist Bennu Hannibal, of the St. Clair prison. Brothers and sisters behind bars have to organize “because the system is organized, and the only way we’re going to have an impact against them is if we organize in a likewise manner. Listen, Read more

Labor:

Left Cover for Hoffa? The Rise and Fall of a Model Teamsters Local by Steve Early Economy:Jamie Dimon and Mike Bloomberg, Two New York Billionaires, Think They Know What Poor Kids Need By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

South Africa: The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) before the elections – necessary remarks on the manifestoHealth, Education, and Welfare:

Support Conn College Occupation: Students have been occupying the Administration Building for the past four days at Connecticut College in New London. Doing Harm: Medical Professionals and the Death Penalty By Jack ShulerA Revolutionary Art Form That Leads to Social Change (Multimedia) By Eric Ortiz

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 17, 2016

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:

Capitalist Political Language (Spin)  The Militarization of Local Police Departments Quotes of the Day:

It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom. — Emma Goldman

The Gulf of Mexico is a very resilient ecosystem, but there is only so much abuse that it can take. With energy prices low, crude oil supplies at high levels, and remarkable advances in alternative forms of power, there is no need for this high level of offshore drilling activity in the Gulf, nor the environmental damage that it causes. It’s past time to put a halt on any new drilling. — Just what the Gulf didn’t need: A new oil spill

If you’ve turned on a corporate 24-hour news network in the last couple of days, those are three things that you have definitely heard about. But what you didn’t hear from the mainstream media is that the wildfires in Alberta, and in Alaska, are directly related to climate change. The media and the fossil fuel industry’s shills won’t tell you this, but there is no doubt about the fact that we are witnessing one of the most rapid periods of climate disruption in Earth’s history. — Fossil Fuel Billionaires Kill Children

. . . “Broadcasting and cable companies fear that honest ads might lead to fewer ads and less money in their coffers. Corporate and dark money interests hide in the shadows of anonymous attacks. Even our major newspapers shy away from covering this issue, perhaps looking more toward their bottom-line interests than the public interest. Some of them own other media properties…” Apart from recent exertions on net neutrality, the FCC has been subservient to big media companies and their docile Congressional allies who don’t want to properly enforce the 1934 Communications Act, which stipulates that radio and television broadcasting companies adhere to the legal standard of the “public interest, convenience and necessity” in presenting programming. That standard implies a fair balance between serious content, entertainment and advertisements. The FCC, mercilessly harassed into slumber by members of Congress, has been AWOL from its legal duties. On the bigger picture Copps writes, “Big money is corrupting our electoral process, strangling our civic dialogue, and endangering American self-government. The agency, the FCC, should respond to the petitions and complaints that have been filed and indicate if it is going to live up to its obligations.” Law and Order anyone?. . . .  — Ralph Nader

Video the Day:

Journalist Eva Bartlett: “I’m Back From Syria. The Media Is Lying To You!”

Ende Gelände 2016: Germany

U.S.:

Preparing Iron Heal: The Pentagon Has Given Cops $2.2 BILLION in Military WeaponsNorth Korea, Following China and India, Pledges No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons–So Could Obama by John Laforge Welcome to 1984 — The artifice of corporate totalitarianism has been exposed.: The citizens, disgusted by the lies and manipulation, have turned on the political establishment. But the game is not over. Corporate power has within its arsenal potent forms of control. It will use them. As the pretense of democracy is unmasked, the naked fist of state repression takes its place. America is about—unless we act quickly—to get ugly.  By Chris HedgesNavy Allowed to Kill Nearly 12 Million Whales, Dolphins, Other Marine Mammals in the Pacific By Dahr Jamail How a digital divide leaves parts of rural America isolated: Low population density means phone and internet companies don’t upgrade services – but in the Navajo Nation vital infrastructure was never installed By Sam Thielman Environment: 

April breaks global temperature record, marking seven months of new highs: Latest monthly figures add to string of recent temperature records and all but assure 2016 will be hottest year on record By Michael Slezak‘Not a Symbol, A Signal’: Wave of Direct Actions Points to Fossil-Free Future: On final day of two-week Break Free mobilization, demonstrations take place in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Turkey, and beyond by Deirdre FultonFossil Fuel Billionaires Kill Children: They’ll say that the modeling is imperfect, that the science is imprecise and that there is still disagreement in the scientific community. By Thom HartmannOrganic, non-GMO agriculture and food prices can easily be made affordable… and it’s already being demonstrated in Peru By Sarah Landers Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Just what the Gulf didn’t need: A new oil spill By Stuart Smith

Energy News:

11:44 AM EST on May 16th, 2016 | Nuclear Expert: Largest amount of Fukushima radiation fell on US West Coast and Pacific — “Why don’t we hear complaints from US?”… Officials are criminals and trying to cover it up — Public must be aware even more radiation is coming… “People need to realize impact of contamination on them”

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Alabama Prison Strike Organizer Speaks from Behind Bars: We Are Engaged in a Struggle for Our Lives A voice from solitary confinement speaks out. By Amy GoodmanAnatomy of a Snitch Scandal: How Orange County Prosecutors Covered Up Rampant Misuse of Jailhouse Informants By Jordan Smith  Labor:

 Economy:

 World:

 Maduro Orders Shuttered Factories Seized and Given to Workers: “I’m ready to do it to radicalize the Revolution,” Said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “Those who don’t want to work can leave,”

Corrupt elites will fight to stop the dismantling of looting machines: States that get all their revenues from selling their oil, gas and minerals could easily turn into kleptocracies where the majority stay poor By Patrick Cockburn Brazil: #FORATEMER (Témer Out!) occupies the streets of Sao PauloHealth, Education, and Welfare:

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 16, 2016

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 May 16, 2016

Image of the Day:

Middle East Perpetual Bombing WheelQuotes of the Day:

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has yet to recognize, for scientific reasons, our current geological epoch as the Anthropocene, or “Age of Humans”. The term was coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 due to the fact that humans are changing the face of the planet, and are clearly responsible for the current 6th mass extinction event and climate disruption. Eco-radicals — black-red-green — might prefer the term Capitalocene, or the “Age of Capital”. — Anthropocene vs Capitalocene: a Reflection on the Question, “What Have I Done?”

History locates this want as a consequence of capitalist propaganda undertaken in the U.S. in the early twentieth century— it is no more ‘natural’ than a toaster oven. The aggregating logic of capitalist ‘efficiency’ produced the environmental aggregates of global warming and climate crisis. The capitalist logic of more capitalism to resolve the consequences of already existing capitalism proceeds from the premise that manufactured wants need to be met rather than simply not manufactured. Current ‘trade’ deals rely of these manufactured wants as a form of political control by the corporate class. The choice is ours to reject manufactured wants in favor of self-determination. As the capitalist class understands, doing so would end capitalism and the economic order it represents.— Trade Deals and the Environmental Crisis

The Romans left a legacy that is still evident in our life society today, from their road engineering to their communal baths, they left a lasting impact upon the civilized world. The Romans were an advanced race, far ahead of their time in many ways, and we can only thank our lucky stars that they did not invent Nuclear power, for if they had we would still be storing and guarding their Radioactive waste today. Let that sink in for a minute if you will, for we are doing exactly that, leaving our future generations with a huge, cancer causing problem that we do not know how to solve. Instead, we are forever indebting our children, and their children, and their children and their children with this immoral waste product of Nuclear energy production for generations to come. — If the Romans had Nuclear power, we would still be storing their Radioactive waste

Video the Day:

Rothschild Bank Now Under Criminal Investigation Over Missing $4 Billion in Global Corruption Probe

U.S.:

The Great Leap Backward: America’s Illegal Wars on the World by Luciana Bohne Former 9/11 Commissioner: ’28 Pages’ Clearly Expose Saudi Support: “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.” By Deirdre Fulton 

Declassified documents detail 9/11 commission’s inquiry into Saudi Arabia: Newly released files may show connections between low-level Saudi officials and a terrorist support network in southern California led to the 9/11 attacks By Philip Shenon Environment:

 The 1% are Profiting From their Flint Genocide: Flint Residents Told Their Poisoned Water Might Soon Cost Them Twice as Much: The lead-poisoned city’s rates are already among the highest in the nation by Deirdre Fulton, staff writerFlint water contamination cover-up PROVES that both local and federal governments actively conspire to poison the population by J. D. Heyes Billions of dollars found in EPA’s ‘slush fund’ bank accounts… same agency that poisoned the children of Flint and is building its own private paramilitary force By J. D. Heyes  In “Profound Loss for Maine’s Citizens,” Court OKs Sale of Town’s Water to Nestle: Decision “paves the way for a private corporation to profit from a vital public resource for decades to come.” By Andrea Germanos The 1%’s Favorite Lawyer (Hired Liar):  Exxon’s Lawyer in Climate Science Probe Has History Helping Big Tobacco and NFL Defend Against Health Claims by Steve HornTrade Deals and the Environmental Crisis by Rob Urie

‘Wholly Inadequate’: Environmentalists Decry EPA’s New Methane Rules: EPA released first rules to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas wells, but regs don’t apply to old facilities responsible for majority of toxic emissions by Nika Knight  Pesticides, GMOs and Corporate Control: The Poster Child is Monsanto but Neil Young is the Main Act 

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Shell Oil Spill Dumps Nearly 90,000 Gallons of Crude Into Gulf: “This latest offshore oil disaster once again demonstrates the inherent dangers of fossil fuels, and the irresponsibility of allowing new oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico even as these spills continue to happen,” Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance, said. By Lorraine Chow Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

George Zimmerman and the Long History of Selling “Souvenirs”: Former neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman’s decision, one he has apparently reconsidered, to sell, as he describes, “the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin” is just an another link in the long chain of America’s historical obsession with selling and owning memorabilia connected with the murder of African Americans. by Shawn Leigh Alexander Labor:

CWA union says it faced “SWAT team armed with automatic weapons” after uncovering “massive Verizon offshoring operation in Philippines”: Photos and videos show what union reps say are armed police and a SWAT team “intimidating” them in the Philippines By Ben Norton Economy: 

93,482,000 Americans Out of Labor Force in March  The Next Employment Crisis Is Here: Job Cuts At U.S. Companies Jump 35 Percent In April by Jon E. DoughertyShadow Government StatisticsWorld:

Populism, authoritarianism and constitutional crisis in Poland By Ben Gliniecki Saudi Vision 2030: the desperate plan of a regime in crisis: Last week Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud announced Saudi Vision 2030, an ambitious plan that would see Saudi Aramco, the state oil conglomerate, partially sold off in a move that is supposed to wean the kingdom off of oil revenues by the year 2030.  by Isa Al-Jaza’iri

WikiLeaks Reveal Brazil’s New Coup President Is ‘US Informant’: Senate-imposed President of Brazil Michel Temer met with U.S. Embassy staff on at least two occasions to brief them on the country’s politics.  Zionist Israel Hides Its Crimes Behind Its Smears of Truth-Tellers by Paul Craig Roberts Health, Education, and Welfare:

I am a Communist! by Andre Vltchek 

 

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 13, 2016

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:

Firefighters turn their hoses full force on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 15, 1963.The ‘Social Security is Bankrupt’ Fraud: Quotes of the Day:

 One year ago, at a conference held in Chicago on Independent Left Politics, the International Socialist Organization’s Lance Selfa observed that the United States’ corporate and imperial Democratic Party had recurrently demonstrated a remarkable capacity to seemingly “reinvent itself” by coopting once-insurgent social forces and identities. Selfa cited the party’s development of Black Democratic political machines across urban America in the wake of the Black Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. — Reinvention and Whiplash: Bernie, Hillary, and “Strange Bedfellows” in the Democratic Party

Video the Day:

Naomi Klein: Let them Drown — The Violence of Othering in a Warming World

What are the top 10 most secretive tax havens?

U.S.:

Obama Chugs Flint Water, Dodges Federal Responsibility, Delivers Another Cynical Lecture to Black Folks by BAR managing editor Bruce A. DixonTo the Next U.S. President, the Unlimited Power to Spy, Imprison and Kill  By David SwansonTo end corruption, start with the US and UK.: They allow it in broad daylight — Their support for shell companies, tax havens and impunity facilitate wrongdoing. Delegates at the Anti-Corruption summit should not forget that.   By Jeffrey Sachs Reinvention and Whiplash: Bernie, Hillary, and “Strange Bedfellows” in the Democratic Party by Paul Street  Amid Embrace of Endless War, Report Shows Epic US Failure to Assist Refugees: U.S. is on track to come up drastically short on its goal to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees by September by Nika Knight  Environment:

Naomi Klein: Radical Solutions Only Proper Response to ‘Unyielding Science-Based Deadline’: Climate crisis, argues author and activist, ‘might just be the catalyst we need to knit together the great many powerful movements bound together by the inherent worth and value of all people.’by Common Dreams staff Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Louisiana’s Green Army declares war on polluters By Stuart Smith

Fracking’s Air Pollution Puts Infants and Children at Risk of Developing Heart, Lung Problems: New Study By Sharon Kelly  Energy News:

01:44 PM EST on May 12th, 2016 | Reporter: Many experts now believe Fukushima’s melted fuel burned through the concrete floors and has gone down into the groundwater — “No one yet knows how deeply those 3 cores melted into the ground… No one knows where the cores are” (AUDIO)

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Louisiana is Number One… in Incarceration by Bill Quigley  In Alabama, a Landfill Operator Sues Its Black Critics Amid Civil Rights Complaints By Mike LudwigLabor:

Economy:

Beware the “Proven 15-Year Track Record” on Wall Street By Pam Martens and Russ Martens 

World:

Doctors Without Borders Pulls Out Of World Humanitarian Summit, Says It No Longer Has Hope: Doctors Without Borders announced that it will not be participating in the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit, calling it a mere “fig-leaf of good intentions” that will not actually hold states accountable for their failure to address the humanitarian crisis in the world today. by Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani Beware Israeli doublespeak: A Palestinian perspective on Britain’s ‘anti-Semitic’ controversy By Ramzy Baroud Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff – the Brazilian ruling class on the warpath by Fred Weston 

Health, Education, and Welfare:

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 12, 2016

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:

The New Jim CrowMoney For Prisons, But Not For Education:Quotes of the Day:

  . . . The planet is hurtling towards a disturbing milestone as researchers predict that the southern hemisphere “within days” will reach a new atmospheric baseline of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon, signifying that humanity has entered a new phase in our climate impact. “Once it’s over [400 ppm], it won’t go back,” Paul Fraser, a retired fellow with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), told the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday. “It could be within 10 days.” . . . — Dangerous New Normal as 400 ppm Carbon Baseline Expected Within Days

Video the Day:

More on the NY election fraud — The fine art of fixing elections: Looks like the Clintons were playing the real estate money laundering game

U.S.:

The Secret NSA Diary of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator: After working as an interrogator for a U.S. military contractor in Iraq, Eric Fair took a job as an analyst for the National Security Agency. When he went to the NSA, Fair was reckoning with the torture of Iraqi prisoners, torture he had witnessed and in which he had participated. By Cora Currier Obama’s (1%’s) TTIP Child: The Dangers of Free Trade Agreements: TTIP’s Threat to Europe’s Elderly by Michael Hudson Thank You Barack Obama for Showing Us That Peace is War by George Katsiaficas

Environment:

Dangerous New Normal as 400 ppm Carbon Baseline Expected Within Days: Australian Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters said the landmark ‘should act as a global wake-up call’ by Lauren McCauleyArctic Sea Ice Could Disappear This Summer  By Dahr JamailOngoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

California ‘Regulators’ Are Approving Fracking Permits Near Fault Lines By Mike Gaworecki Energy News:

10:36 AM EST on May 11th, 2016 | Cover-up of massive explosion at Fukushima Reactor 3 fueled with plutonium? US government’s “worst case” scenario likely a reality… Entire nuclear core ejected into environment — Experts: It seems blast wasn’t from hydrogen — “Ejection of fuel parts… Exploding vortices suggest a steam explosion” (PHOTO)

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Hillary May Win in November, but the Duopoly Electoral System is Doomed by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

• duopoly

Freedom Rider: Sanders Supporters Can Bring Down the Democrats by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

• Democratic Party

“Soft Coup” Finds Soft Target in BrazilA Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

• Brazil

40% of Detroit Will be Deprived of Life Sustaining Water: the UN Investigates Human Rights Violations by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

• Detroit Water Cut-Offs

There’s Nothing Fair About Detroit’s Massive Water Shut Offs  by Shea Howell

• Detroit Water Cut-Offs

Johanna Fernandez Speaks on the Revolution and Counter Revolution that Mumia Abu-Jamal Embodies  by Danny Haiphong

• Free All Political Prisoners

 

Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite Versus the Elite by Jeb Silgado-Sprague

• Dominican Republic

Zuma’s Denialism and Betrayal by Zwelinzima Vavi

• South African labor unrest

• African Liberation Struggle

“Our stomachs Will Make Themselves Heard”: What Sankara Can Teach Us About Food Justice Today by Amber Murrey

• African Liberation Struggle

  

  Economy:

 

401(k) Plan Has Been a Disaster for Black Workers (And a Wealth Transfer to Wall Street for Everyone Else): A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, shows that Black workers experienced devastating declines in their defined contribution plan balances (mostly 401(k) plans) between 2007 and 2013 – an experience not shared by White workers.  By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World: 

Spain: Podemos – United Left electoral agreement makes the right wing tremble By Jorge Martín

French “socialist” government uses emergency powers to impose Labour Law counter-reform By Jorge MartínHealth, Education, and Welfare:

 

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest May 11, 2016

Image of the Day:

The Results of the Wars on Drugs/Terrorism Quotes of the Day:

The release comes as more than 300 economic experts sent a letter to world leaders urging them to abolish the veil of secrecy that surrounds offshore banking and close loopholes that allow the wealthy to avoid paying taxes. It also follows the publication of a manifesto last week written by the whistleblower, who still goes by the anonymous name John Doe, which slammed “America’s broken campaign finance system” and denounced capitalism as “financial slavery.” “In this system—our system—the slaves are unaware both of their status and of their masters, who exist in a world apart where the intangible shackles are carefully hidden amongst reams of unreachable legalese,” Doe wrote. “When it takes a whistleblower to sound the alarm, it is cause for even greater concern. It signals that democracy’s checks and balances have all failed, that the breakdown is systemic, and that severe instability could be just around the corner.” “Income inequality is the defining issue of our time,” Doe wrote. — Panama Papers Goes Live with Searchable Database of Tax Evaders

. . . The presidential primaries offer a single choice for both Democrats and Republicans to vote for empire and permanent war. This year’s entertainment spectacle, what we call democratic elections, is a particularly gross circus of meaninglessness, misinformation, sound bites, and lies. Both parties are in support in the continuation of the US/NATO global empire of permanent war and the protection of the capital of the global 1%. Even Bernie Sanders calls for drone strikes and continued war on Isis and other evil terrorists. . . . —  Voting for Empire is the Sole Option for Democrats and Republicans

The “social contract” that was first initiated by the UFCW leadership during the P-9 strike is being implemented more and more widely. Basically, with few exceptions, the rights of union workers have been atomized to the point that they are prevented, by labor-management and government policy, from organizing against the class collaborationism of the trade union bureaucracy. The bureaucracy acts in place of the union as a whole. The membership just pays dues, through the dues check-off system, with no control over how the unions function. The union bureaucrats have been in the forefront of organizing the decline of the standard of living of the whole working class as part of their ‘partnership’ with capital, with the bureaucrats receiving regular payment through the dues check-off system. This is the “partnership” that the trade union bureaucracy has been creating to police the working class. We have to understand that this has been done behind the backs of the working class and that the working class has suffered the consequences of the decline in its standard of living without a fight due to its systematic atomization. — The Fall of the Trade Union Movement (2010 Update) Elections: The Default of The Trade Union Movement

Video the Day:

A Tale of Two Police Shootings

U.S.:

Panama Papers Goes Live with Searchable Database of Tax Evaders: More than 200,000 documents now available to the public as fallout from last month’s leak continues by Nadia Prupis Environment:

 Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters!:

Duke Study Finds A “Legacy of Radioactivity,” Contamination from Thousands of Fracking Wastewater Spills by Sharon Kelly

Rail Safety Report Card: Only 225 Of Over 100,000 Unsafe Tank Cars Were Retrofitted in First Year By Justin Mikulka

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 9, 2016

• Democrats  Black Liberation Movement  charter schoolsDetroit Teachers “Browbeaten” Back to Work by National Union: The two-day teachers sick-out that closed Detroit public schools last week was about much more than paycheck issues, said Steve Conn, the former elected local union president who, along with activists from BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), has been leading teacher sick-outs since November. “It’s about fighting the governor’s plan to destroy the schools. Gov. Snyder wants to replace public education in Detroit with a charter model,” said Conn. More than half of Detroit students already attend charter schools, second only to New Orleans. The sick-out was popular among teachers and the public, but ended prematurely when national union president Randi Weingarten “and her local flunkies browbeat the teachers into going back to work,” said Conn. “They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

  Towards a National Black Political Agenda: The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations plans to hold events in cities around the country in coming months to put together a National Black Political Agenda. The project grew out the Coalition’s national conference on the 2016 elections, convened in Harlem, New York, last month. “The timing is excellent,” given the turmoil in the duopoly parties, said Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela. “We don’t have to settle for an outcome that’s determined by these folks who are tied to the ruling establishment. We can speak for ourselves and have an agenda of our own that will influence the political direction of Black people.” Yeshitela hopes the agenda can be completed in time for the Coalition’s annual march on the White House and national conference, in November.

  Sawant Petitions for Sanders to Dump Democrats After Convention: Seattle city councilwoman and Socialist Alternative Party leader Kshama Sawant is circulating a petition that Bernie Sanders run as an independent to pave the way for a third electoral party. But, what about the Green Party, which expects to be on the ballot in most states in November? “If there is any possibility of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein running together on a Green Party ticket this year, I would support that wholeheartedly,” said Sawant. “Something like that could help build the basis of an independent party of the 99%, which is the most critical project we have to get started on.”

  With GOP Help, Hillary Will Move Democrats Further Right:“Get ready for the whiplash,” said historian, activist and author Paul Street, predicting that an influx of anti-Trump Republicans will assist Hillary Clinton in pushing the Democratic Party even further rightward, once Bernie Sanders’ supporters on the left have been pacified. “The Democratic Party is about to go from being the party that allowed a self-declared democratic socialist to go very far in the primary process, to becoming the objectively truer and more fully explicit ruling class party in the country,” now that Donald Trump has split from the Republican corporate establishment. Street’s latest book is titled They Rule: The 1% Versus Democracy. Click to hear Black Agenda Radio, Read more
  

Breaking News: ‘There Is No Migrant Crisis’: In fact, the world is facing ‘a crisis of global injustice caused by war, poverty, and inequality,’ says Global Justice Now by Deirdre FultonLabor:

The Fall of the Trade Union Movement (2010 Update) Elections: The Default of The Trade Union Movement By Roland Sheppard

The Results of Taft-Hartley ActEconomy:

New York Fed President Is Worrying About the Next Crash; He Should Be  By Pam Martens and Russ Martens:World:

Britain: Labour’s May elections – Not what the Right Wing wanted: The election results across England and Wales were a shock – a shock for Labour’s right wing, who had been prophesying of electoral Armageddon for the Labour Party under Corbyn. By Rob SewellThe Ugly Truth Behind the Greek Bailout: ‘Economists studied each loan separately to establish where the money ended up, and concluded that just 9.7 billion euros, or less than 5 percent, went to the Greek budget for the benefit of citizens’. by Robert HunzikerHealth, Education, and Welfare: