Daily News 08/02
Daily News 08/02 Daily News Archives Since I Got Blocked From Facebook
From Biden’s Potemkin Presidency to Trump’s Potemkin War
The Great Driving Right Show: Cars, Crisis, and the Rise of Fossil Fascism Apocalypse is in the air. And the far right knows it. Since the pandemic, it has successfully cultivated crises, conspiracy theories, and coalitions to fight a green energy transition. Mobilising online and in the streets, far-right actors cast decarbonisation measures as a ‘war on cars’ endangering individual liberty, the nuclear family, the nation, and western civilisation
Presto! — corporate profits have exploded, and their stock prices have soared. But American consumers are getting shafted. Both Trump’s war and his tariffs are pushing up prices for a vast range of goods and services. The result is a massive redistribution of income and wealth from American consumers to big American corporations. This is the story of the American political economy under Trump that’s rarely if ever told, but it’s critical to understanding why Trump has been getting away with his war in Iran and his tariffs without much political opposition. — Trump’s huge hidden upward redistribution The truth about Trump’s war, Trump’s tariffs, and Trumponomics
A year ago, I warned that a move to fund the government through tariffs would bring about a new era of crony capitalism. We are now neck-deep in the muck. It all resembles the Gilded Age, the era of gaudy corruption in the late 1800s — this time, with gold bars piling up on the Resolute Desk. —A New Era of Crony Capitalism
Washington hasn’t seen graft like this for at least a century.
Why? Trump is horrendous, but he isn’t causing all the failures of that system. He’s a consequence of that system. Think of him as a boil on its backside — an infected pustule on the giant ass of the American system. The boil would have become infected eventually because of deeper flaws in how the system has evolved. … The enshittification of America. Millions of Americans, whether on the left or right of the political spectrum, know something has gone profoundly wrong. The concentration of wealth in America has created a political system in which the super-rich can buy Congress and the presidency, an education system in which they can buy admission to college for their children, a healthcare system in which they can buy care others can’t, and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail. Almost everyone else has been hurled into a dystopia of bureaucratic arbitrariness, corporate greed, and the legal and financial sinkholes that have become hallmarks of modern American life. The term “enshittification” was coined in 2022 by novelist Cory Doctorow to describe the declining quality of almost everything. Monopolistic corporations are charging more for the products they sell and cutting back on services. Stuff breaks more often than it used to. Government is being starved of tax money to provide even the most basic of public services. The whole system seems to be collapsing in on itself. The word “enshittification” has been officially incorporated into major lexicons like the Merriam-Webster dictionary because of people’s increasingly common experience of being crapped on by big corporations, big hospitals, big energy, and big insurance, and of being bogged down in seemingly endless legal quagmires of corporate and government bureaucracies. As the New Yorker put it, we live in the “Age of Enshittification.”… The system is out of whack. It needs fundamental change. — A Realist’s Guide to the American System
In recent years, a growing number of elected officials have questionedor outright denied the results of elections, sought to underminefreedom of speech, and attempted to bend electoral rules to benefit themselves.
Only a sliver of Americans say they support these kinds of antidemocratic actions. For example, just 8% of Americans support making it harder for their political opponents to vote.—Why ‘democratic neutrality’ is an overlooked threat to American democracy
There are many parallels between the first McCarthy era, roughly 1946 to 1956, and Trump’s campaign of political repression, his own updated McCarthyism. Both regimes crafted a monster of quasi-facts and innuendo and fed it with fear: an enemy within, well-organized and financed, secretive and violent, allied with evil foreigners and bent on overthrowing capitalism, democracy and Christian morality. Both used flagrantly unconstitutional means to cleanse the nation of the spectral menace. — McCarthyism has returned to the United States – and this time it’s even more dangerous
Throughout the summer, inside a small, fluorescent-lit courtroom in Lower Manhattan, hundreds of migrant children, some as young as 3, faced deportation hearings. Most appeared virtually. Some sat around desks in a classroom, while others bounced on bunk beds or rocked in chairs inside small offices or storage closets. — ‘All-Out War on Due Process’: Detained Children Face Deportation Without Attorneys Around 20,000 unaccompanied minors nationwide are set to lose legal services today. One New York City immigration court shows us what that will look like.
‘Climate change is really here: We should seize this crisis moment to create a new momentum’ Oliver Farry is pleased to welcome Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Climate Scientist and Professor at the Universities of Louvain and Liège in Belgium. Europe’s latest heatwave is further evidence of a structural transformation of the continent’s climate, warns Professor van Ypersele. His central argument rejects both fatalism and complacency. While insisting that humanity has not yet reached “the point of no return,” he argues that the world has entered a period of exceptional urgency in which the costs of delaying climate action are escalating rapidly. He develops three interconnected themes: extreme heat, wildfires and public health crises as manifestations of a changing climate; he criticises the inadequacy of current political responses, suggesting that governments continue to underestimate the scale and immediacy of the challenge despite mounting scientific evidence; and he argues that adaptation and mitigation must proceed simultaneously: societies must become more resilient to unavoidable climate impacts while accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels to prevent even greater disruption.
Strong El Niño expected to intensify as much of the world faces above normal temperatures and major changes in rainfall patterns Geneva, Switzerland (WMO) – El Niño continues to intensify steadily and is expected to dominate global climate patterns in the August-October 2026 season, increasing the likelihood of above-normal temperatures across much of the world and driving significant shifts in rainfall patterns, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Combined with exceptionally warm global oceans and the likelihood of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, the developing El Niño is expected to shape weather patterns across many parts of the world in the months ahead.
Key messages
- A strong El Niño is developing and expected to strengthen during August–October 2026
- Above-normal temperatures are expected worldwide.
- Rainfall patterns show a classic El Niño footprint: Wetter conditions are expected in some regions, while drought risk increases in others
- A positive Indian Ocean Dipole is expected to develop
- Forecasts provide a window for early action and support decision making
- WMO community mobilizes to save lives and livelihoods
Democrats’ ‘climate hushing’ prompts activists to turn up the volumeNationwide actions seek to counter view that talking about climate crisis distracts from affordability messaging … Research makes clear that global warming is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe. Yet the climate crisis has largely disappeared from the political agenda, with many Democrats who once described it as an existential threat now shying away from talking about it.
Colorado declares town abandoned amid water and leadership crisis
India’s monsoon rains in danger as UN chief warns planet is ‘on fire’ António Guterres says strengthening El Niño will help push the world’s climate crisis into ‘uncharted territory’
Warfare Insted of the Peoples Welfare! One Trillion for the Pentagon, and Wanting More. Less Than Half of One Percent for Humanity
Trump says ‘complete disarmament’ of Hamas agreed in Gaza but Israel yet to accept
The United States Efforts to Restablish Pax American (After Hiroshima) to Make America Great Again! America’s War on an Independent World How the United States is using oil, technology, transportation and the dollar system to rebuild its declining global power. Michael Hudson. Well, there has been a long plan, and it’s very easy to dismiss Trump and say, well, Trump’s losing the war with Iran. The whole memorandum of understanding was, in effect, a capitulation to Iran. And you can see that it seems futile for Trump to try to get in deeper and deeper. So the assumption is, since he’s getting the U.S. in deeper and deeper, he must not have a plan because it’s not working. But there is a plan, and not only Trump, but especially his colleague, Secretary of the Treasury Besant, has been very openly expressing what this is. And Trump himself was outlining the plan already in his first administration, way back in 2018. He said that the number one aim was that he saw America’s military spending abroad, in an attempt to enforce a U.S.-centered world order— dollarization, U.S. financial markets—had been, since 1950, the main balance of payments drain on the United States. And it was foreign military spending that forced the United States off gold in 1971. Well, from 1971 until very recently, what took the place of gold? The U.S. spent money into foreign markets, and foreign markets were recycling this to the United States. At first, local recipients of dollars—companies, economies, governments—would turn over the dollars to the central bank. And what would the central bank do? Well, as we’ve discussed before, and as I discussed in my book *Superimperialism*, foreign central banks bought U.S. Treasury IOUs— Treasury bonds, securities, notes, short-term. And then, in the last few years, instead of this intergovernmental central bank recycling, you had foreign private investors buying U.S. stocks and U. S. bonds. All of this money was recycled into the U.S. stock market, which was mainly being driven up by debt. Well, all of this means of somehow maintaining America’s domination is now called into question
Email rom Robert Reich: Defend universal mail service before it’s too late — Video: Workers rallying nationwide with demands to “protect the Postal Service”
When Crony Capitalism Boomerangs:Reflecting pool damage was the result of botched work, not vandals, DOJ saysPresident Donald Trump’s botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of a “hasty” installation by the contractor (Tump’s Crony) and not vandalism, the Department of Justice revealed Friday afternoon.
Iran strikes tankers under US escort in Hormuz strait as Trump gathers cabinet to discuss war Energy prices have soared again since fighting between US and Iran resumed two weeks ago as conflict spreads across Middle East
China’s tech advances are causing chaos from Silicon Valley to the White HouseNew AI models, advanced robots and specialty computer chips are unsettling markets and the US tech industry
An Economy of Unearned Wealth Michael Hudson explains how finance, monopoly and economic rent have captured government, inflated asset prices and weakened the productive economy.
We Need Universal Healthcare or ar least medicare for all!: After Fauci Senate hearing, experts worry about ‘chilling effect’ on public health Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. Experts worry that the pursuit of Fauci is helping to create a “chilling effect” on public health staffing and infrastructure in the U.S.
The Attck on Fauci: From the National Institue of Health Document Primary Pandemic Prevention Abstract: “Over the last few decades, hundreds of human pathogens have emerged at a rate unprecedented in human history. Emerged from where? Mostly from animals. The AIDS virus is blamed on the butchering of primates in the African bushmeat trade, we created mad cow disease when we turned cows into carnivores and cannibals, and SARS and COVID-19 have been traced back to the exotic wild animal trade. Our last pandemic, swine flu in 2009, arose not from some backwater wet market in Asia, however. It was largely made-in-the-USA on pig production operations in the United States. In this new Age of Emerging Diseases, there are now billions of animals overcrowded and intensively confined in filthy factory farms for viruses to incubate and mutate within. Today’s industrial farming practices have given viruses billions more spins at pandemic roulette. How can we stop the emergence of pandemic viruses in the first place? Whenever possible, treat the cause. The largest and oldest association of public health professionals in the world, the American Public Health Association, has called for a moratorium on factory farming for nearly two decades. Indeed, factory farms are a public health menace. In addition to discontinuing the intensive confinement practices of animal agriculture, we should continue to research, develop, and invest in innovative plant-based and cultivated meat technologies to move away from raising billions of feathered and curly-tailed test tubes for viruses with pandemic potential to mutate within.” From: We Must Choose: Capital Or Life!: Abolish Vaccine Patents Now!: The corporate economy, blind faith in the market and the pursuit of profit have proven to be incompatible with the well-being of Humanity. Health is not a commodity. Economic recovery cannot be at the expense of health or the rights of the majority. We must choose: capital or life. We must act quickly and forcefully, create a global strategy of equal access and universal guarantee to high quality health care. For all these action we must Demand!:
- The suspension of private patents on all technologies, knowledge, treatments and vaccines related to Covid-19.
- The elimination of trade secrets and the publication of information on the production costs and public investments used, in a clear and publicly accessible manner.
- Transparency and public scrutiny at all stages of vaccine development.
- Universal, free and open access to vaccination and treatment.
- The expropriation and socialization under popular control of the private pharmaceutical industry as a basis for a universal public health system that promotes the production of generic treatments and medicines.
- Increased public investment and budgets for public health and community care policies, including more staff, higher salaries and improved working conditions in these sectors.
- The introduction of taxes on wealth (wealth and income of the richest 1%) to finance the effort against the pandemic and to ensure a socially just and ecologically sustainable exit from the various crises of global capitalism.
- The suspension of sovereign debtpayments for the duration of the pandemic and the cancellation of illegitimate debts and those contracted to finance the fight against the virus. — United States Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis: Lessons to be Learned