2022-03-16: News Headlines

Dean Baker (2022-03-16). As the Fed Prepares to Raise Rates, the Inflation Hawks are Running Wild. cepr.net We are seeing higher inflation primarily because of factors that have nothing to do with Biden's stimulus package. We would not be better off if we faced slightly lower inflation with another 3 million people out of work.

Editor (2022-03-16). The ominous omnibus: Pentagon wins, workers lose. workers.org A $1.5 trillion "omnibus" spending bill, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign, passed the House and Senate March 10. Over half the money in the Consolidated Appropriations Act — $782 billion, a $42 billion increase over fiscal 2021 — is going for Pentagon spending. Of course NATO, the . . . |

WSWS (2022-03-16). Support strike action at Canadian Pacific! For a united movement of North American railroaders against wage cuts and brutal working hours! wsws.org What is needed is a united struggle, bringing together workers across the Class I railroads in North America independent of both the union bureaucracy and the Biden and Trudeau governments.

WSWS (2022-03-16). Australia launches legal action against Russia over MH17 downing. wsws.org The Dutch-Australian case, undoubtedly launched in close consultation with the Biden administration, further demonstrates the lengths to which the US and its allies are prepared to go in their reckless war drive against Russia.

teleSUR, SH (2022-03-16). Joe Biden anunciará 800 millones de dólares en ayuda militar a Ucrania. telesurtv.net Con la nueva ayuda se elevará a 1.000 millones de dólares la asistencia anunciada por Washington a Kiev en la última semana.

WSWS (2022-03-16). Silence in the media and Labour "left" on Assange's extradition danger. wsws.org The Biden administration intends to prosecute Assange for charges under the Espionage Act with a potential sentence of 175 years in prison. This would be served in barbaric conditions, that previous judgements acknowledged could drive him to suicide.

Ju-Hyun Park (2022-03-16). What does Yoon Seok-yeol's presidency mean for South Korea? peoplesdispatch.org Last week's presidential elections in South Korea saw 77% of the country's 44 million eligible voters mobilize to the polls. The race remained too close to call until 98% of votes had been counted early the next day. With a lead of less than one percent of the vote, the narrowest margin in Korean history, Yoon Seok-Yeol of the right-wing People Power Party Yoon's victory marks a return to power for the S…

WSWS (2022-03-16). Virginia Thomas, wife of right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, admits to participating in January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally. wsws.org "Ginni" Thomas played an active role in the fascist conspiracy headed by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

WSWS (2022-03-16). Right-wing candidate narrowly wins South Korean presidential election. wsws.org Yoon's election is the result above all of the deep unpopularity of the Moon administration, which is responsible for the social crisis produced by the COVID-19 pandemic…

Miko Peled (2022-03-16). Israel Apologists Hurl Familiar Antisemitism Charges in Post-Speech Ambush of Amnesty Director. mintpressnews.com WASHINGTON — A typical DC storm has been brewing since Paul O'Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, spoke last Wednesday at the Women's National Democratic Club (WNDC) in Washington. O'Brien gave an excellent talk about Amnesty International's The woman asking the question represented a Zionist organization and repeatedly claimed that cal…

WSWS (2022-03-16). Details of St. Paul teachers union deal reveal austerity agreement. wsws.org The St. Paul deal must be stated for what it is: a sellout agreement which is entirely within the framework of austerity demanded by the Democratic Party.

WSWS (2022-03-16). Passage of anti-democratic bill banning discussion of sexual orientation in Florida schools triggers student walkouts. wsws.org Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has pledged to sign the "Parental Rights in Education" bill, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by its opponents, following the bill's passage last week by the state Senate.

Akio Tanaka (2022-03-16). Pacifica Members Voted for the New Bylaws. indybay.org Pacifica should accept the democratic vote of its members.

WSWS (2022-03-16). An unoriginal hagiography of the Democratic Party: Michael Kazin's What it Took to Win. wsws.org Michael Kazin's book What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party is as unoriginal as it is wrong…

Katherine Woolf, Mayuri Gogoi, Christopher A. Martin, Padmasayee Papineni, Susie Lagrata, Laura B. Nellums, I.Chris McManus, Anna L. Guyatt, Carl Melbourne, Luke Bryant, Amit Gupta, Catherine John, Sue Carr, Martin D. Tobin, Sandra Simpson, Bindu Gregary, Avinash Aujayeb, Stephen Zingwe, Rubina Reza, Laura J. Gray, Kamlesh Khunti, Manish Pareek, UK-REACH Study Collaborative Group (2022-03-16). [Articles] Healthcare workers' views on mandatory SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in the UK: A cross-sectional, mixed-methods analysis from the UK-REACH study. thelancet.com Only one in six of the HCWs in this large, diverse, UK-wide sample favoured mandatory vaccination. Building trust, educating, and supporting HCWs who are hesitant about vaccination may be more acceptable, effective, and equitable.

SF015 (2022-03-16). Mass Grave In Mariupol. Who May Buried There And Why. southfront.org An official representative of the DPR said at an urgent briefing on the morning of 16 March that information had been received from various sources that another falsification had been carried out by the Ukrainian leadership in the city of Mariupol. | This time, the office of the Ukrainian President set the task for the Ukrainian armed forces' command to discredit the actions of the Russian forces by showing the Western public the mass graves of civilians allegedly killed as a result of artillery shellin…

Human Rights Watch (2022-03-16). Saudi Arabia: Mass Execution of 81 Men: Rampant Abuses in Criminal Justice System, lack of Fair Trials. juancole.com Human Rights Watch — (Beirut) — Saudi authorities' execution of 81 men on March 12, 2022 was its largest mass execution in years despite recent promises to curtail its use of the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. Rampant and systemic abuses in Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system suggest it is highly unlikely that …

Juan Cole (2022-03-16). Top 7 Ways Iran evaded US Sanctions that Putin could Follow. juancole.com Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) — The sorts of sanctions and boycotts the United States and its allies are placing on Russia resemble those applied by Washington to Iran off and on in the past decade, though so far the measures in place against Tehran are still far more severe than what has been done to …

Ramona Wadi (2022-03-16). Not all Refugees are Equal: Plight of Palestinians Displaced by Israel Worsening. juancole.com ( Middle East Monitor ) — Financial support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is dwindling, despite the renewed mandates and financial contribution pledges by world leaders. "The almost unanimous political support expressed by the UN General Assembly to the Agency is not translated into matching financial resources," UNRWA's Commissioner-General, …

Andy Kroll (2022-03-15). Arsenal of Democracy or Simply an Arsenal? tomdispatch.com In certain quarters in this country, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has generated enthusiasm for a new cold war. At the New York Times, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have been described as "children of the [old] Cold War" now involved in a "face off," an "eyeball to eyeball" confrontation harkening back to John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev contesting Berlin and Cuba in "dramatic fashion" 60 years ago. (Never mind that the "drama" over Cuba nearly led to nuclear war and the possible end of most life on Earth.) Such breathless accounts make me think of the role Slim Pickens played as Major Kong in Stanley…

_____ (2022-03-15). High-Level US-China Talks In Rome Focus On Russia-Ukraine. popularresistance.org On Monday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held seven-hour talks in Rome with Yang Jiechi, one of China's top foreign policy officials. According to the White House, the two officials had a "substantial discussion" on Russia and Ukraine. | In recent years, China and Russia have grown closer together as they both have faced similar pressure from the US and its allies. A Biden administration official told reporters that the US has "deep concerns about China's alignment with Russia at this time" and said Sullivan warned China of potential "consequences" for certain actions. | "What we have conveyed — a…

_____ (2022-03-15). 100+ Groups Urge Biden To Pardon Steven Donziger. popularresistance.org More than 100 environmental and human rights groups on Tuesday sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him to pardon Steven Donziger, the attorney under house arrest for refusing to hand over privileged client information in a high-profile environmental case. | In the letter, the groups decry the prosecution of Donziger—who has been jailed in his home and federal prison since 2019—as "retaliation for his work in defense of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Ecuador who were victims of Chevron Corporation's oil dumping." | Donziger represented tens of thousands of Ecuadorian farmers and Indig…

WSWS (2022-03-15). Former Democratic Party congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard attacked for demanding the US shut down Ukrainian biolabs. wsws.org Gabbard has come under attack for calling on the Biden administration to take action to destroy the pathogens held in US-sponsored Ukrainian biolabs.

WSWS (2022-03-15). Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and the hypocrisy of imperialism. wsws.org The Biden administration and the corporate media howl about alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine while turning a blind eye to the mass executions and saturation bombing carried out by Saudi Arabia.

WSWS (2022-03-15). Democrats to run as party of war and national unity in midterm election. wsws.org Facing mounting domestic crises and the prospect of losing both the House and Senate, leading Democratic Party officials laid out their midterm electoral strategy of attempting to unite the country behind Biden as a "wartime" president.

Morteza Ahmadi Al Hashem (2022-03-15). Russia sanctions Biden, other US officials. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Mar. 15 (MNA) — Russia said on Tuesday it had put US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top officials on a "stop list" that bars them from entering the country.

WSWS (2022-03-15). Citing the pandemic, Biden administration continues to deny asylum to immigrant families and adults. wsws.org By refusing to process asylum for all, aside from unaccompanied youth, the stage has been set for tens of thousands of parents to make a devastating sacrifice and consider separating from their children in the hopes that they will be able to enter the US.

Arturo Domínguez (2022-03-15). Biden, Democrats Not Interested in Defunding the Police (OPINION). latinorebels.com While using certain crime statistics as a rationale to "re-fund the police" is dishonest, so is the notion that Democrats are taking anything away from law enforcement. Under President Biden, police have received billions in funding with little to no accountability or transparency.

Mark Weisbrot (2022-03-15). Biden's Sanctions on Afghanistan. zcomm.org The economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies are causing widespread, severe hunger in this desperately poor country…

Editor2 (2022-03-15). Colombia's Left May Win Presidency in a Historic First. orinocotribune.com Colombia's Leftist candidate Gustavo Petro, the front-runner for Colombia's May presidential elections, has secured the nomination of the left-wing coalition | The front-runner for Colombia's presidential election has secured his nomination by the left-wing Historic Pact coalition, putting the country on a track that may mark a historic first. | Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla in the M-19 rebel group, may become Colombia's first leftist president. | Petro won more than 80% in the Historic Pact primary, while his main contenders for the presidency, right-winger Federico Gutierrez and Centrist Sergio Fajardo, won…

Tanya Wadhwa (2022-03-15). Gustavo Petro to run for president in Colombia. peoplesdispatch.org On Sunday, March 13, around 17.5 million Colombians went to the polls to elect 108 members of the Senate, 188 members of the House of Representatives, as well as choose candidates for the upcoming presidential elections for three political coalitions. | According to the results released by the National Registry, Gustavo Petro of the Colombia Humana political movement won the presidential primaries of the left-wing Historic Pact coalition. With 99.76% of the votes counted, Petro obtained over 4.48 million or

WSWS (2022-03-15). Colorado Republican election officials indicted. wsws.org Tina Peters, the county clerk of Mesa County, and her deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, face a litany of felony charges alleging their involvement in a conspiracy to breach the security of county election operations and leak secure information to far-right conspiracy theorists.

Pawar A, Gagne JJ, Gopalakrishnan C, et al. (2022-03-15). Association of Type of Oral Anticoagulant With Adverse Clinical Outcomes. jamanetwork.com This retrospective cohort study uses data from fee-for-service Medicare (2009-2017) and from 2 commercial health insurance (2004-2018) databases to compare extended prescription dispenses for apixaban, rivaroxaban, and warfarin after hospitalization for venous thromboembolism.

Joris Leverink (2022-03-15). Women and labor: key struggles in the MENA region. roarmag.org Woman holding signs against gender violence at a protest to denounce violence against women in Tunis, Tunisia. November 30, 2019. Photo: Mohamed Krit / Shutterstock. | This essay is published in collaboration with Public Services International | | How do women and gender equality measures advance in a context of conflict, climate change, high unemployment, low labor force participation, limited democratization and a pandemic? These are challenges facing the Arab region as many citizens, women's rights organizations, some governments and external…

_____ (2022-03-15). US, NATO, Russia, Ukraine And The Whiteness Of Empire. popularresistance.org The US has poured weapons, military advisors, and political operatives into Ukraine for years. It has long coveted Ukraine for NATO. So in 2014 the US arranged a coup, with neo-nazi help, against the democratically elected president. The people in the Donbas region in the east resisted that coup and formed the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics in self-defense. The illegitimate government in Kiev attacked them, aided by their neo-nazi militias and supported by the US. By the end of 2021 the war had cost 14,000 lives; 11,000 had been Ukrainians opposing the coup. | These Ukrainians resisted Kiev's ban on their…

Internationalist 360 ∞ (2022-03-15). Sudanese Resistance Committees Reject UN Calls to Negotiate with Coup Leaders. libya360.wordpress.com Pavan Kulkarni Youth in Khartoum protest the coup and stand up to the repression of security forces. Photo: Mohamed Mustafa UN's calls for negotiation with the coup leaders "is extremely disrespectful" of Sudan's struggle for democracy, says Resistance Committee spokesperson Dania Atabani "No negotiation, No compromise, No Partnership with the military" remains the main slogan…

WSWS (2022-03-15). Nation magazine, DSA seek to channel Minneapolis teachers strike behind Democratic Party. wsws.org With the eruption of the Minneapolis educators strike, a number of self-described "left" publications have published articles which attempt to present the struggle primarily in racial terms and provide cover for the Democratic Party.

Rick Rozoff (2022-03-15). China continues to resist U.S. demand to join "global web to strangle Russia" antibellum679354512.wordpress.com Global TimesMarch 15, 2022 US cannot expect China to cooperate under its suppression: Global Times editorial Edited On Monday, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Rome, Italy. They …

Chris Hedges (2022-03-15). Chris Hedges: Waltzing Toward Armageddon with the Merchants of Death. mintpressnews.com Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon.

_____ (2022-03-15). Waltzing Toward Armageddon With The Merchants Of Death. popularresistance.org The Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, was a wild Bacchanalia for arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, the CIA, the diplomats who played one country off another on the world's chess board, and the global corporations able to loot and pillage by equating predatory capitalism with freedom. In the name of national security, the Cold Warriors, many of them self-identified liberals, demonized labor, independent media, human rights organizations, and those who opposed the permanent war economy and the militarization of American society as soft on communism. | That is why they have resurrected it. | The decision to spurn the pos…

Joe DeManuelle-Hall (2022-03-15). Texas Union Activists Fight 'Microtransit' Privatization. zcomm.org When "microtransit," the new rage in transit privatization, showed up in Denton, Texas, union activists decided to fight back…

Noam Chomsky (2022-03-15). Peace Talks in Ukraine "Will Get Nowhere" If US Keeps Refusing to Join. zcomm.org The means are understood. If the will is there, it is possible to avert catastrophe and to move on to a much better world…

Eileen Flanagan (2022-03-15). When complex and ambitious demands undermine a good campaign. zcomm.org In trying to spur a green jobs program in Philadelphia, Earth Quaker Action Team learned valuable lessons about crafting effective demands…

Eric Zuesse (2022-03-15). Who actually CAUSED this war in Ukraine? moderndiplomacy.eu On 24 February 1990, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush secretly informed German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at Camp David, that though Bush and all of his agents such as Secretary of State James Baker had verbally promised the Soviet Union's leader Mikhail Gorbachev that (as Baker put it) NATO would not expand "one inch to …

Kate Aronoff (2022-03-15). Oil Companies Are Making a Fortune From Soaring Prices. zcomm.org ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and other oil companies are paying negative taxes on huge profits…

Amjed Jaaved (2022-03-15). "Accidental" launching of missile into Pakistan's air space. moderndiplomacy.eu A "supersonic flying object", believed to be a version of the Brahmos missile, flew into Pakistan's air space at debatable altitude near air corridors of airliners, before falling near Mian Chunu (Khanewal, Multan ), a strategic location. Pakistan expressed its ennui to the United Nations 'secretary general and the German chancellor. Pakistan's foreign minister alleged …

Hector Luis Alamo (2022-03-15). No Charges Against Chicago Cops in Shooting Deaths of Adam Toledo and Anthony Alvarez. latinorebels.com The Chicago Police officers involved in last year's shooting deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez will not face criminal charges, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said on Tuesday.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2022-03-15). Why Europe Needs to Take a Hard Look at Itself. zcomm.org They will go down in history as Europe's most mediocre leaders since the end of the Second World War…

Amy Westervelt (2022-03-15). The U.S. Government Doesn't Control Domestic Oil Production. But It Should. zcomm.org The oil and gas industry won't increase production because it's enjoying the profits from high prices…

Michael Sainato (2022-03-15). More than 1,000 Hershey's Workers Vote on Plan to Unionize. zcomm.org The Pennsylvania-based candy brand has hired union-busting consultants as workers fight for better pay and conditions…

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