WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Step The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization” to confront the climate crisis

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Step

The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization” to confront the climate crisis.The plan envisions the creation of millions of “good, high-wage jobs” and will serve to “counteract systemic injustices.”  The resolution sets a framework for legislation to be hashed out over the next two years, and gives Ocasio-Cortez, Markey, and climate groups something to organize around. Their goal is to meet 100 percent of the demand for power in the U.S. with “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” in line with the scientific consensus on climate change, as well as to provide “all people of the United States” with clean air and water, “healthy and affordable food,” high-quality health care, “affordable, safe, and adequate housing,” and economic security.   More

ABOLISH BILLIONAIRES!

At some level of extreme wealth, money inevitably corrupts. On the left and the right, it buys political power, it silences dissent, it serves primarily to perpetuate ever-greater wealth, often unrelated to any reciprocal social good…  Billionaire abolishment could take many forms. It could mean preventing people from keeping more than a billion in booty, but more likely it would mean higher marginal taxes on income, wealth and estates for billionaires and people on the way to becoming billionaires. These policy ideas turn out to poll very well, even if they’re probably not actually redistributive enough to turn most billionaires into sub-billionaires…  But if we tolerate the supposedly “good” billionaires in politics, we inevitably leave open the door for the bad ones. And the bad ones will overrun us. When American capitalism sends us its billionaires, it’s not sending its best. It’s sending us people who have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing inequality. They’re bringing injustice. They’re buying politicians.    More

Voters Aren’t Moving Left on Taxes. Democrats Are Moving Toward Voters.

Last week, Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultzargued that the Democratic Party’s radical tax ideas had opened up space for a centrist presidential candidate to unite Republicans and Democrats around common-sense, bipartisan solutions; days later, polls revealed that Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to annually expropriate 2 percent of Schultz’s wealth was a common-sense, bipartisan solution.

But the fact that pundits deemed these findings surprising tells us less about American opinion than it does about American pundits. The U.S. public has (just about) always been eager to soak the rich. In April 2018, Gallup found 62 percent of Americans saying that upper-income people pay too little in taxes…  Similarly, the Democratic Party didn’t triangulate on economic policy in the 1990s in response to mass popular support for financial deregulation or capital gains tax cuts. Rather, they did so because organized labor was in decline, while the financial industry was ascendant — and thus, so too was the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.   More

A CRUEL WAR ON IMMIGRANTS

"Make America Cruel Again." That's how journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Shipler has reformulated Donald Trump's trademark slogan. Shipler's version is particularly apt when you think about the president's record over the last two years on refugee resettlement and other humanitarian-related immigration issues.  President Trump's border-wall obsession and the political uproar over it have dominated the news, while the alleged dangers of illegal immigrants -- whose numbers he wildly exaggerates -- have dominated his rhetoric. But the way he’s altered immigration policy affects many more people than just the migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border who are at the center of the wall debate. Many of those currently or potentially harmed by his actions are not outside the law, but are in the United States legally, some with permanent residence status and others on a temporary or provisional basis.  More

Trump Admin Says It’s Too Hard To Reunite Thousands Of Separated Families

Last month, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services released a report stating that “thousands” more immigrant families had been separated than the government had previously disclosed. In the declaration submitted Friday, HHS officials said they don’t know the exact number of children who were taken from their parents before “zero tolerance” and that finding them would be too much of a “burden” since there was no formal tracking system in place. “The Trump administration’s response is a shocking concession that it can’t easily find thousands of children it ripped from parents and doesn’t even think it’s worth the time to locate each of them,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in the ACLU’s ongoing lawsuit against ICE, in a statement. “The administration also doesn’t dispute that separations are ongoing in significant numbers.”   More

Whatever You Paid to Watch Netflix Last Month Was More Than It Paid in Income Taxes

Whether you paid $8.99 for basic, $12.99 for standard, or splurged for the $15.99 premium package so you would have the privilege of watching endless streaming shows and movies on Netflix last month, a new analysis shows you still paid much, much more than the company paid in federal and local income taxes for the entire year. "When hugely profitable corporations avoid tax, that means smaller businesses and working families must make up the difference." —Matthew Gardner, ITEP senior fellowAccording to Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), "The popular video streaming service Netflix posted its largest-ever U.S. profit in 2018­­—$845 million—on which it didn't pay a dime in federal or state income taxes." Not a dime. Not one penny.   More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

“Friends of the Pentagon” push for even higher Military Spending. . .

Intel Chiefs Use "Global Threat" Report to Uphold US War Machine

The corporate media’s reporting on the testimonies of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and the directors of CIA, NSA and FBI on their annual assessment of “worldwide threats” emphasized the fact that theycontradicted President Donald Trump’s views on Iran, North Korea and Russia…  The 2019 “Worldwide Threats Assessment,” like its annual predecessors, approaches central policy issues in ways that protect the interests of the powerful institutions served by intelligence agencies. The result is that the line between intelligence assessment and propaganda is often impossible to discern…  The elevation of Russia and China to the leading position among global threats reflects the primordial interests of the Pentagon, which announced a major shift in January 2018 from fighting terrorism to competing with Russia and China as the primary basis for planning — and justifying more spending.   More 

(Russia has exactly two overseas bases: one on the coast of Syria and one on the coast of Vietnam)

DON’T LET DEMOCRATS BECOME THE PARTY OF WAR

This month, the president of the United States will meet for a second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Either the path toward peace for 75 million Koreans will advance, or it will reverse into recriminations and nuclear threats. In the coming months, too, the president may act on his desire to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from ill-conceived, open-ended missions in Syria and Afghanistan—or he will continue to keep them in harm’s way, with no strategy for victory in sight.  If the president taking these actions were not Trump, many of his domestic detractors would likely welcome progress toward diplomacy and peace. Yet over the past six months, politicians and experts have repeatedly done the opposite.  They have urged this most impulsive and unprincipled of presidents to undertake more international conflict, not less…  The gambit to out-hawk Trump is a dangerous one. More

On Venezuela and NATO, the Democratic Party is the “Assistance” Not the “Resistance” The so-called Democratic Party “resistance” to Trump has largely been silent on the issue of Venezuela…  Just days before Washington set the attempted coup into motion, the Democratic-controlled House voted for the NATO Support Act. The Act declares that the U.S. President cannot use federal funds to withdraw from NATO. It also ensures that the U.S. will remain a “member in good standing” until further notice. Only twenty-two members of the House voted “no” and all of them were Republicans . Presidential hopeful and anti-regime change representative Tulsi Gabbard abstained from the vote while Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the “progressive” Democrats voted “yes” to NATO.  As of this writing, only Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, and Ilhan Omar have voiced any kind of opposition to the Trump Administration’s coup against Venezuela from the Democratic wing of the ruling class. None of them have mounted a challenge to the power of NATO over U.S. imperial policy.   More

VENEZUELA:

The U.S.’s 68th Regime Change Disaster

While Venezuelans face poverty, preventable diseases, malnutrition and open threats of war by U.S. officials, those same U.S. officials and their corporate sponsors are looking at an almost irresistible gold mine if they can bring Venezuela to its knees: a fire sale of its oil industry to foreign oil companies and the privatization of many other sectors of its economy, from hydroelectric power plants to iron, aluminum and, yes, actual gold mines.  This is not speculation. It is what the U.S.’s new puppet, Juan Guaido, has reportedly promised his American backers if they can overthrow Venezuela’s elected government and install him in the presidential palace…  The U.S. government claims to be acting in the best interests of the Venezuelan people, but over 80 percent of Venezuelans, including many who don’t support Maduro, are opposed to the crippling economic sanctions, while 86% oppose U.S. or international military intervention.   More

US Media Ignore—and Applaud—Economic War on Venezuela

The US media chorus supporting a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years pointed to the country’s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy…  Sanctions have kept the Venezuelan government from accessing financing and dealing with its debt while hamstringing its most important industry. Given that US media are writing for a principally US audience, the damage done by Washington and its partners’ sanctions should be front and center in their coverage. Exactly the opposite is the case…  Weaponizing hunger in Venezuela in this manner is dishonest and misleading…  Thus, the US government acknowledges that it is knowingly, consciously driving the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but US media make no such acknowledgment, which sends the message that the problems in Venezuela are entirely the fault of the government, and that the US is a neutral arbiter that wants to help Venezuelans.  Call this elision what it is: war propaganda.   More

For Trump’s Regime Changers, Venezuela Is Just the First Step

The crisis in Venezuela has provided the “low-hanging fruit,” in the words of journalist Jon Lee Anderson, for the resurrection of a bygone era of gunboat diplomacy, when Washington could dictate the fate of regional governments…  But from the start of his presidency, Trump has had regime change in Venezuela on his policy agenda—as a step toward fulfilling his campaign promise to “end the deal” that President Obama made with Raúl Castro for a historic peaceful coexistence with Cuba. On only his second day in the White House, Trump “asked for a Venezuela briefing,” one former administration official recently told The Wall Street Journal, “to explore how to reverse Obama-era policies toward Cuba.” Options for getting rid of Maduro and ending Venezuela’s alliance with Cuba included cutting off the billions of dollars that the United States pays for Venezuelan oil imports—a major sanction that the administration has now imposed.  More

IRAN: THE DRIFT TOWARD WAR

Late last year, National Security Advisor John Bolton pressed the Pentagon to produce options for attacking Iran, and he has long advocated for military strikes and regime change in Teheran. And now, because of a recent internal policy review on the effect of US sanctions, Washington may be is drifting closer to war.  According to “On Thin Ice,” a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), the Trump administration has concluded that its “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has largely failed to meet any of the White House’s “goals” of forcing Iran to re-negotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement or alter its policies in the Middle East.  While the sanctions have damaged Iran’s economy, the Iranians have proved to be far more nimble in dodging them than Washington allowed for. And because the sanctions were unilaterally imposed, there are countries willing to look for ways to avoid them…  But the failure of the White House’s sanctions creates its own dangers because this is not an American administration that easily accepts defeat. On top of that, there is a window of opportunity for striking Iran that will close in a year, making an attack more complicated.  More

US arms sold to Saudi Arabia and UAE end up in wrong hands

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found…  Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN…  The revelations raise fresh questions about whether the US has lost control over a key ally presiding over one of the most horrific wars of the past decade, and whether Saudi Arabia is responsible enough to be allowed to continue buying the sophisticated arms and fighting hardware.   More