Officer Points To Unarmed White Man He Once Killed To Prove He’s Not Racist

https://www.theonion.com/officer-points-to-unarmed-white-man-he-once-killed-to-p-1844828750




SAGINAW, MI—Recalling the time he and his partner fired dozens of rounds into the shoplifting suspect’s body, local police officer Bradley Denney reportedly pointed Monday to the unarmed white man he killed once to prove he’s not racist.

“Look at all the people I’ve brutally beaten and killed before judging me, alright?” said Denney, who pointed to his pristine disciplinary record as further evidence of his lack of bias. 

“It doesn’t matter if you’re white, Black, Asian, or Hispanic; I’ll shoot you. I approach every civilian with the same number of bullets in my chamber, regardless of skin color. I mean, I shot that guy nine times in the back. Would a racist do that? And he was definitely white. Well, we found that out afterward. The lighting wasn’t very good at the time.” 

At press time, Denney admitted he initially thought the man he had gunned down was biracial.

Democrats ALREADY Signaling Their Willingness to Fold on a Public Option

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq1k7zpNGpY

Capitalism is anti-democratic by definition - Richard D. Wolff

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdsDnPtwFD0

Wolff Responds: The US Healthcare Crisis

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NjKIoRYLts

Nathan J. Robinson: Should Socialists Vote for Biden?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tioacgotb2U

The Fox is Still in the Henhouse at the Post Office

Sarah Anderson August 20, 2020

https://citizentruth.org/the-fox-is-still-in-the-henhouse-at-the-post-office/

In the face of a historic public outcry, the postmaster general has promised to stop sabotaging essential services—temporarily.

(Common Dreams) Skyleigh Heinen, a U.S. Army veteran who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and anxiety, relies on the Postal Service for timely delivery of her meds to be able to function. She was one of thousands of Americans from all walks of life who spoke out recently to demand an end to a forced slowdown in mail delivery.

The level of public outcry in defense of the public Postal Service is historic—and it’s having an impact.

Shortly after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took the helm in June, it became clear that the fox had entered the henhouse. President Trump had gained a powerful ally in his efforts to decimate the public Postal Service.

Instead of supporting his frontline workforce, DeJoy has made it harder for them to do their job.

For example, he banned overtime, ordering employees to leave mail and packages behind if they could not deliver it during their regular schedule. Until this point, postal workers had been putting in extra hours to fill in for sick colleagues and handle a dramatic increase in package shipments.

As the mail delays worsened, more than 600 high-volume mail sorting machines disappeared from postal facilities. Blue collection boxes vanished from neighborhoods across the country. Postal managers faced a hiring freeze.

President Trump threw gas on the fire by gloating that without the emergency relief he opposes, USPS couldn’t handle the crisis-level demand for mail-in voting.


Outraged protestors converged outside DeJoy’s ornate Washington, D.C. condo building and North Carolina mansion, and they flooded congressional phone lines and social media. Political candidates held pop-up press conferences outside post offices.

At least 21 states filed lawsuits to block DeJoy’s actions, while Taylor Swift charged that Trump has “chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”

After all this, DeJoy announced he’s suspending his “initiatives” until after the election.

This is a victory. But it’s not enough.

DeJoy’s temporary move does not address concerns about the threats to the essential, affordable delivery services that USPS provides to every U.S. home and business, or the decent postal jobs that support families in every U.S. community. These needs will continue long past November 3.

Second, DeJoy has made no commitment to undo the damage he’s already done. And he promised only to restore overtime “as needed.” Will he replace all the missing mail-sorting machines and blue boxes? Will he expand staff capacity to handle the backlog he’s created and restore delivery standards?

Third, DeJoy makes no mention of the need for pandemic-related financial relief. USPS has not received one dime of the type of emergency cash assistance that Congress has awarded the airlines, Amtrak, and thousands of other private corporations.

While the pandemic has been a temporary boon to USPS package business, the recession has caused a serious drop in first-class mail, their most profitable product. Postal economic forecasters predict that COVID-related losses could amount to $50 billion over the next decade.


DeJoy has proved he cannot be trusted to do the right thing on his own. Congress must step in and approve at least $25 billion in postal relief—and legally block actions that undercut the ability of the Postal Service to serve all Americans, both today and beyond the election.

For the American people, this is not a partisan fight. We will all be stronger if we can continue to rely on our public Postal Service for essential services, family-supporting jobs, and a fair and safe election.

“A Disturbing Milestone”: America’s Top 12 Plutocrats Now Own $1 Trillion in Wealth

https://citizentruth.org/a-disturbing-milestone-americas-top-12-plutocrats-now-own-1-trillion-in-wealth/

New figures from the Institute for Policy Studies show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March.

(By: Alan Macleod, Mintpress News) For the first time in history, the 12 richest individuals in the United States collectively hold over $1 trillion in wealth. New figures from the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March, now holding $1.015 trillion. Speaking with MintPress today, the IPS’ Chuck Collins described his findings as a “disturbing milestone in the history of extreme inequality in the U.S.” adding:


This despotic dozen has tremendous power and wealth related to their control of the technological platforms and digital commons that we all depend on.”

Included on the list are figures like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest living individual, who has nearly doubled his fortune to an estimated $189 billion, and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, who saw his personal net worth triple to $73 billion in the last six months.

The news of these billionaires’ growing fortunes comes amid record stock market gains. Yesterday, the S&P 500, an index measuring the performance of America’s 500 largest corporations, reached an all time high, closing at 3,389.78, breaking the previous record set in February.

Few Americans, however, are feeling any benefits. The coronavirus pandemic has wrought a terrible economic and social cost on the country, with an estimated 26 million going hungry in the last week, 40 million facing eviction from their homes, and around 55 million filing for unemployment benefits since March. Food banks across the country have seen great increases in demand and, in some cases, are struggling to meet it.

Wages fall as profits soar

President Trump has many times touted the surging stock market as a reflection of his administration’s competence, mirroring the 1950s slogan “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” However, few appear to accept Trump’s word on it. Dean Baker, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington, D.C., told MintPress that, “Stocks measure the expected value of future corporate profits. With the labor market weak and likely to remain so for a while, wages are likely to lag productivity, which will be good for profits. Also, continued low interest rates mean there are not good alternatives to stock” — something that raises the question of for whom is the economy currently working. “It is a societal failure when so much wealth and power are in so few hands,” said Collins.

The full list of 12 plutocrats and their quickly rising net worth are as follows:

Jeff Bezos ($189.4 billion)
Bill Gates ($114 billion)
Mark Zuckerberg ($95 billion)
Warren Buffett ($80 billion)
Elon Musk ($73 billion)
Steve Ballmer ($71 billion)
Larrry Ellison ($71 billion)
Larry Page ($67 billion)
Sergey Brin ($66 billion)
Alice Walton ($62 billion)
Jim Walton ($62 billion)
Rob Walton ($62 billion)


Of the twelve, five have taken a pledge to give away at least half of their wealth during their lifetimes. But only one of those on the list, business tycoon and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, has actually seen his net worth decrease in the past six months. Bezos, whom some are predicting will be the world’s first trillionaire, has not, and is asking the public for donations to help his 800,000 employees through the pandemic. One-third of Amazon employees in Arizona are on food stamps, with other states not faring that much better.

While working-class Americans have had to make do with one $1,200 government check, the country’s billionaires have been most carefully looked after. A report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan congressional body, found that 82 percent of the tax breaks from the Trump administrations Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act went to those making over $1 million annually, with the super-wealthy feeling the most benefits. And as the government has gone on vacation until September, it is unlikely that any relief will arrive in the near future.

Nevertheless, serious changes are necessary, both over the short and long terms. “Without any significant reforms — which include an excess profits tax, a wealth tax and a progressive estate tax — wealth will continue to concentrate in the hands of a small minority and worsen inequality in the future,” said Collins’ colleague at the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, Omar Ocampo. With Trump promising another large tax cut, the problem of wealth inequality is likely to get worse rather than better.