Cheney dies with the blood of so many workers on his hands
Al Jazeera, 11/5–And so another member of the old “war on terror” team has left the world. Dick Cheney, who served as the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States during the two-term administration of George W Bush (2001-2009), died on Monday at the age of 84…As the chief architect of the “global war on terror” – which was launched in 2001 and enabled the US to terrorise various locations worldwide under the guise of fighting “terrorists” – Cheney died with untold quantities of blood on his hands, particularly in Iraq…Until his dying day, Cheney espoused a no-regrets approach to the illegal perpetration of mass slaughter and attendant suffering...
COP 2025 convenes to a warming world…again
France24, 10/26–Each COP summit picks a primary theme for the talks to focus on…in 2023, the contentious subject was fossil fuels…the attendees…finally reached an agreement calling for “reducing” the use of oil and coal after dropping an initial pledge to “phase out” their use…Under the [2015] accord, each country pledged to submit a climate roadmap every five years detailing its strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The collective goal is to keep global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels…Since 2015, the curve has flattened and we are now heading for warming of between +2.6° and +2.8°C”...
World war rarely ends in anything less than vast destruction
Foreign Affairs, 11/6–In recent years, many in Washington have focused on deterring China from invading Taiwan...But rebuffing an invasion might not end the war…“There is no scenario in which China, following an unsuccessful invasion, accepts responsibility, acknowledges that military solutions are impractical, or pivots to a fundamentally different set of political objectives toward Taiwan”...“war over Taiwan likely would become protracted, as nearly all great power wars have since the Industrial Revolution.” World War II ended only when Allied forces captured Germany’s capital and the United States dropped nuclear weapons on Japan.
Biden Supreme Court appointee Brown gives OK to cut off workers from food
Politico, 11/7–The Trump administration scored a temporary victory at the Supreme Court Friday as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed to lift a deadline for the federal government to fully fund SNAP payments that flow to millions of Americans…In an order issued after 9 p.m. Friday, Jackson granted the Trump administration’s request for relief from a lower court order that would have required officials to tap into a separate nutrition account at USDA to deliver the usual SNAP payments for November…Jackson’s move came after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals declined to grant the administration an immediate reprieve from the district court judge’s order…
Workers slaughtered in Sudan in one of several genocides
PBS, 10/31–Sudan’s civil war has entered a new, horrific phase. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have gone on a killing rampage after taking over the key city of El Fasher in Western Darfur after over a year-and-a-half of siege. Hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring Tawila, escaping famine and mass executions…This week, the people of El Fasher, beaten and threatened, attacked and hunted, fled for their lives from a murderous militia that films itself unleashing ferocious violence. A fighter shows off his work. “We have burned them,” he says. “We have burned them.” They show off their horror and document their own war crimes with videos too graphic to show.
Healthcare workers strike as bosses rake in profits
10/14–More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care workers across three Pacific states started a five-day strike on Tuesday, calling for better wages and more time for patient care as negotiations between union heads and Kaiser executives remain unresolved. Members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), along with members of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, picketed outside 22 Kaiser hospitals in California, Oregon and Hawaii….Union leaders claim recent layoffs, stagnant wages, unsafe working conditions, excessive workloads and Kaiser’s prioritization of profit over care — the company holds almost $64 billion in reserves acquired mostly during the Covid-19 pandemic…
