Sorry for the delay. I had a health scare but am back in action now.
Money for War
The Senate passed a $886 billion military spending bill. The Pentagon just failed their sixth audit in a row, so no worries giving them loads more cash! This comes as votes for Israel and Ukraine military aid are withheld by Republicans in exchange for stricter border policies.
The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (the official name for military spending authorized by Congress), or NDAA, includes an extension of domestic surveillance authority—Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Members of the alphabet soup of national security organizations often read emails between suspected foreign threats and US citizens. Are we to believe that if the four month extension was not granted, security personnel would just ignore the emails by US citizens? Of course not. I presume ending FISA will do little to change the pervasive nature of surveillance.
Company Towns
Google, Meta, and SpaceX, have purchased swaths of land, and are building towns where employees will live and work. Yes, company towns. Google has constructed 9,000 residences for workers, Meta with 1,700, and Tesla laying the groundwork for 6,000 acres where SpaceX factories and facilities will be. Workers would live and labor in a corporate-run, corporate-controlled community. What could possibly go wrong?
UN Veto
Again, the United States delegation to the United Nations vetoed an Israel-Palestine ceasefire resolution during a Security Council vote on Friday 12/8. This is the second resolution for a humanitarian pause vetoed by the United States since October 7.
The Security Council consists of five permanent members with veto power: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members—elected by the General Assembly in two-year terms.
Autopilot
After pressure from regulators Tesla has voluntarily recalled 2 million vehicles over concerns with the autopilot feature. Elon Musk has not responded to requests for comment.
Who is Katie Cox?
The Republican-controlled Texas State Legislature is one of many to ban abortion following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Katie Cox, a 31 year old with two children was denied abortion access by the Texas Supreme Court, despite seemingly meeting the medical requirements under the restrictive state laws. According to the Associated Press, tests showed the baby Katie was carrying had an extra chromosome that made it very likely the baby would die before or shortly after birth—a condition called trisomy 18.
Carrying the baby for nine months would put her at risk for uterine rupture, endangering her health and future pregnancies. The high court ruled her situation did not constitute a medical emergency under which abortions are allowed in Texas. According to her attorneys, she left the state to receive the healthcare she needed. This is merely the latest test of extremely restrictive abortion bans.
No Place Like Hedge-funds
Some good news. A new bill proposed by US Senator Jeff Merkely (Oregon) and US Representative Adam Smith (Washington), would stop institutional investors from buying singly family homes and force them to sell their residential real-estate over the next ten years. Aptly named, the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act, is a long overdue regulation that should have followed the 2008 financial crisis. Many homes foreclosed on during the Great Recession were purchased by large private equity firms and hedge funds. This is a bill worth calling your Representative and Senators to express support.
Israel-Palestine War
Israeli troops are currently forcing Gazans to evacuate again and relocate south, to a strip of land half the size of Heathrow airport. There are 1.8 million people expected to fit on 2.56 square miles of land that Al-Jazeera describes as desolate, sandy terrain. Israel calls this a “safe space” yet there is no shelter, no food, nor are there agency tents.
The death toll in Gaza reached 20,000. The UN-backed IPC reports that the proportion of households experiencing crisis-level hunger in Gaza is the highest ever recorded globally. Humanitarian groups warn that widespread acute illness is expected to follow. The Gaza Strip is without electricity, fuel, water, and essential supplies.
In the occupied West-Bank, over 4,500 people have been arrested by Israeli forces since October 7. Towns, cities, and refugee camps are stormed on a weekly basis, despite Hamas not operating in the West Bank. Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported Ramallah (a West Bank city) is now occupied by Israeli forces following a raid by 15 military vehicles. Soldiers fired tear gas on civilians who resisted the raid.
Congo
With more than 2,700 killed and 6.9 million civilians displaced, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is still being largely ignored by mainstream media and western leaders. The DRC has become integral to the global economy, with the largest deposits of cobalt—necessary for batteries that power popular technology like iPhones. The extraction of cobalt, copper, and zinc, has again complicated the geopolitics of the long-colonized region.
Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically elected leader of the DRC. The rubber extraction in the Katanga region was largely controlled by Belgium prior to his election. Lumumba fought colonial rule, and declared independence. The US auto-manufacturing industry enjoyed cheap rubber, thanks to the exploitation of Congolese labor and extraction without payment, made possible by brutal colonial rule. Lumumba faced the same fate as many leaders of the global south who resisted imperialism during the Cold War, he was assassinated by the CIA in 1961.
Again, imperial influence destabilized the region, guaranteeing the political conditions necessary for the continued exploitation of labor and extraction of resources—all to the benefit of western enterprise and at the expense of many human lives and livelihoods.
“Israel is ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages,” Herzog told a gathering of ambassadors on Tuesday.