Yesterday, a group of workers at Whole Foods sent an email to nearly every employee, entreating them to unionize. This is not the first time Whole Foods workers have tried to organize, but it is the first time under its new Amazon ownership. And, according to the letter that was sent yesterday, things aren’t going great with the new overlords.
Whole Foods workers, painting a grim future under Amazon, want to unionize Fast Company
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas late last month called for Europe to achieve financial independence from Washington as a prelude to restoring its freedom of maneuver in foreign policy, and other German officials are reportedly mulling ways to minimize U.S. dominance of the global financial system, which enables it to impose sanctions on banks and individuals almost anywhere in the world.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire echoed those sentiments in a speech of his own last month, calling for the creation of “totally independent financing instruments” outside U.S. control. “I want Europe to be a sovereign continent, not a vassal,” he said.
The Buck Stops Here: Europe Seeks Alternative to U.S.-Dominated Financial System Foreign Policy
What’s more troubling: That the grotesque liar and right-wing narcissist Donald Trump was elected by the American people to be President of the United States in 2016? Or that there is now apparently a secret cabal of unelected right-wing officials inside his White House—at least according to a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday afternoon—that is actively undermining his presidency from within and their own discretion?
While Trump Clearly Horrible President, Critics Denounce Right-Wing ‘Unelected Cabal’ Represented by Anonymous Op-Ed CommonDreams
According to the book, Trump told the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, that he wanted to have Assad assassinated … “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.
Mattis told Trump he would “get right on it” but instead developed a plan for a limited air strike that did not threaten Assad personally.
Trump ‘wanted Assad assassinated’: key claims in Bob Woodward’s book Guardian
U.S. President Donald Trump will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting on Iran this month to spotlight its “violations of international law” during the annual gathering of world leaders in New York, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Tuesday.
Trump to chair U.N. Security Council meeting on Iran Reuters
If wages were rising, why is it that labor’s share of total national income has continued to fall for nearly 20 years, including this past year? At about 64% of total national income in 2000, it has steadily plummeted to around 56% of today’s roughly $16 trillion national income. That decline has not just been a result of the 2008-09 great recession; half of it occurred between 2000 and 2008. So it is a long term secular trend, rooted in today’s 21st century US capitalist system and not a recent phenomenon.
A strong majority of Americans say teachers are underpaid—and even more support their right to strike for higher pay. Those results come from the annual PDK poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools.
Majority say teachers are underpaid and would support teacher strikes, poll finds Daily Kos
Spain’s imperialist banking system faces a new crisis from Argentina to Turkey and beyond. In the case of Turkey’s financial system, Spanish banks had total exposure of $82.3 billion in the first quarter of 2018. In Argentina, whose currency continues to collapse and whose economy is now spiraling down despite an IMF bailout, Spanish banks’ total combined investments amounted to $28 billion in the first quarter of 2018. Most worrisome of all is Spain’s banking exposure to Latin America’s two mega-economies, Brazil and Mexico, both of which face months of political uncertainty and are also at high risk of contagion from the fallout from Turkey and Argentina.
No Other Banks Are This Exposed to Turkey, Argentina, Brazil…. Emerging Markets Haunt Spanish Banks Wolf Street
September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession. …
Last year, about 40 percent of American families struggled to meet at least one basic need – food, health care, housing or utilities, according to an Urban Institute survey.
All of which suggests we’re careening toward the same sort of crash we had in 2008, and possibly as bad as 1929.
Several training recipients from Ukraine have documented, public connections to ultra-nationalist organizations and ideologies. In some cases, these recipients of training are currently members of ultra-nationalists organizations, and others have over the years publicly shared numerous photographs of themselves giving Nazi salutes, or have highly-visible tattoos suggesting support for white supremacist movements.
Ukrainian Far-Right Fighters, White Supremacists Trained by Major European Security Firm Bellingcat
The Old Mole 