Nationalizing Big Filthy Fossil Fuels

This is an idea that’s been around for a while. In any rational, real-world context, there are a great many things to be noted in its favor, versus zero against.

For that reason, probably the best way to defeat the fossil fuel companies, at least in the U.S., is for the federal government to buy them. That would bring the companies under public scrutiny and control, which should, in turn, create a clear path for giving them more than what they actually deserve — which is a well-thought-out plan for a relatively painless death over the next 20 years or so. - Truthout

BLM uses COVID-19 cover to assault public lands

Under Trump, these sorts of things were picking up before the pandemic. (They were hardly absent under previous presidents, of both parties.) But as with much else, despicable land-use policies seem to be accelerating.

The Bureau of Land Management has spent the pandemic churning out rapacious public land projects at breakneck speed. This includes egregious grazing decisions drastically increasing livestock numbers for powerful ranchers. After complaints, Idaho BLM Director John Ruhs responded that ranching was an essential service. At the same time, an avalanche of BLM deforestation projects hit. Ely BLM’s Long and Ruby Valley Watershed Restoration EA decision arrived by certified mail, authorizing more grotesque pinyon-juniper carnage and smashed roller-beaten sagebrush across 136,000 acres of public land. That’s 213 square miles laid to waste within a nearly half million-acre landscape, plus blanket tree removal around all springs. It’s the latest in a dismal series of cookie cutter projects tearing apart the Great Basin. - CounterPunch

Brutal education job losses

You’ve probably seen that many of the billionaires have become even more glutted beyond the dreams of avarice, during the pandemic. There is a long list of far better uses to which that money should be put. If you ask me, preventing this would be #1.

It has been well documented that fiscal austerity was a catastrophe for the recovery from the Great Recession. New estimates show that without sufficient aid to state and local governments, the COVID-19 shock could lead to a revenue shortfall of nearly $1 trillion by 2021 for state and local governments. In lieu of substantial federal investments, budget cuts are certain. But I, for one, did not expect to see the losses as soon as April. As of the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), state and local government employment fell by 981,000, with the vast majority of losses found in local government. And the majority of those local government losses are in the education sector, with a loss of 468,800 jobs in local public school employment alone. - EPI

Growing opposition to Israel annexation plans

Israel is the world’s 17th most crowded country. But Palestine ranks 7th, and unilateral, criminal seizure of another nation’s territory is not the way to deal with population/resource issues, or anything else, in any case.

There has been remarkable news in the last few days: much of the Israel lobby in the United States is in open revolt against the Israeli government to try and stop annexation of the West Bank.

The rightwing group AIPAC has for once given politicians a green light to criticize Israel over annexation; hardliners such as Robert Satloff, David Makovsky and Democratic Majority for Israel are urging Israel not to annex West Bank lands, and the Democratic group J Street is pushing a letter to Netanyahu signed by 28 Democratic senators saying it would “betray our shared democratic values” by denying the possibility of a Palestinian state, along with statements from nine Senate candidates. - Mondoweiss

Righteous, but at least for now it’s unlikely to be enough (read the whole Mondoweiss article). Among other things, the proposed record-sized package for Israel’s war machine probably won’t be significantly diminished, even in the U.S. House.

Meanwhile, a recent illegal settlement has been named "Trump Heights." No doubt a certain wretched, imbecilic buffoon is thrilled.

Private equity goons poised to strip-mine retirement funds

This is horrifying.

To the casual onlooker, the information letter from the Employee Benefits Security Administration reads like every other impenetrable passage of stereo instructions that fills the Federal Register -- but this was no routine piece of paperwork. The guidance to Switzerland-based investment firm Partners Group effectively changed the enforcement of federal law protecting workers’ retirement savings.

While longstanding worker-protection regulations have prevented 401k plans from investing in high-risk private equity firms, the letter now permits corporations to funnel that money to those firms, which charge notoriously giant fees. 

Trump’s administration argued that workers should feel fortunate and thankful that the administration will now let employers turn their savings over to private equity barons. - TMI 

The following is from a great overview article, about p. equity, that I read earlier this year. It’s aptly titled “Misery Makers.”

Many news outlets have published stories lately describing this destructive force, a force so powerful that it controls the livelihoods of 5.8 million employees. That’s how many people work in the thirty-five thousand companies private equity firms own in the United States. And some of those articles angrily mock what looks like the ineptness of executives, who buy a company, say they’re going to improve it, then ruin it instead. It seems like repetitious failure. But when private equity executives trot out the line that they are going to improve a company, understand that what they mean is: improve it for their own interests. And when ministrations result in the company’s collapse, understand that that’s private equity working as intended. - The Baffler

Party of Trump keeps its recession streak going

I hadn’t known, myself, off the top of my head, that the correct answer is “40 years.”

The slow and inadequate reaction to the COVID-19 crisis, and Donald Trump's continued total lack in intent in responding to it further, makes it likely it's only going to get worse. So, once again, a Democrat is going to have to clean up this mess starting in January 2021. Because fact: for the last 40 years, every recession has begun with a Republican president and ended under a Democrat's watch. - Daily Kos

The pending hunger crisis

In relative terms, that is. Given the vast quantities of overproduction and waste in our corrupt food system, any hunger, anywhere in the U.S., is a crisis that shouldn’t be happening.

A poll released by the U.S. Census Bureau (last) week revealed that at least nine million American households that include children are unsure whether they'll be able to access enough food in the next four weeks and millions more are experiencing housing insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bureau's weekly Household Pulse Survey, taken between May 14 and 19, asked respondents about their loss of employment, food security, overall health, and other issues they are facing during the pandemic. - Common Dreams