Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Netanyahu convenes Israeli Cabinet to discuss potential Gaza ceasefire
Axios | Barak Ravid | 05/20/21

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene Israel's Security Cabinet at 7pm local time (12pm ET) on Thursday to discuss the military operation in Gaza and the possibility of a ceasefire.

Why it matters: Any ceasefire would require the approval of the Security Cabinet, and senior Israeli officials expect an agreement by this weekend.

Yes, but: Netanyahu has resisted international pressure toward a ceasefire so far. In an apparent signal that he wouldn't be rushed, Netanyahu canceled a planned Cabinet meeting on Wednesday after President Biden urged him to move towards a ceasefire. ... Read more

How China Turned the Desert into Green Forests

The Chinese Automaker Changing the Market in Africa | China/Africa Big Business | ENDEVR Documentary

How Chinese Money is Changing Housing in Africa | China/Africa Big Business | ENDEVR Documentary

China’s Profitable Business of Enslaving Africa

The big picture: Renewable energy
Axios| staff | 05/10/21

Addressing climate change will require cutting fossil fuel emissions and using new technologies — from well-known solutions like renewable energy to futuristic ways of scrubbing carbon out of the air. Axios’ experts will dive into the technologies driving the news today, how they work, and where they stand in terms of research and deployment. ... Read more

What to know about the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack
Axios | Ben Geman | 05/10/21

Colonial Pipeline, a huge network that supplies eastern states with gasoline, diesel and other products, is shut down thanks to a major ransomware attack disclosed over the weekend.

Why it matters: Colonial is the largest refined products pipeline network in the country, transporting over 100 million gallons per day. The company provides roughly 45% of the fuel used on the East Coast, per its website and published reports.

What they're saying: Via Reuters, "While the U.S. government investigation is in the early stages, a former U.S. official and three industry sources said the hackers are suspected to be a professional cybercriminal group called DarkSide." ... Read more

A New Study Shows Us the Single Biggest Motivation for the Jan. 6 Rioters | Amanpour and Company | 05/06/21 | 17:45

A Climate Dystopia in Northern California
TheIntercept | Naomi Klein | 05/07/21

It's a ritual that has been repeated many times over the coldest months of Northern California's winter. The Chico police arrive between 9 a.m. and noon on a Thursday, perhaps in the hopes of catching people when they are home. Home, in this case, being flimsy tents, draped in tarps, many of them strung up between pine trees, secured to fences, or hidden beneath highway overpasses. The cops read out orders and sometimes hand out flyers: You have 72 hours to clear all of your belongings or they will be destroyed.

Federal Judge Calls Out Bill Barr For Lying | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC | 05/05/21 | 12:17

Neal Katyal Thinks Bill Barr Should Start Thinking About Retaining Legal Counsel | MSNBC | 05/05/21 | 9:40

Why Rudy Giuliani’s Cash Crunch Should Worry Donald Trump | MSNBC | 05/06/21 | 6:23

Secretary of State Antony Blinken | 60 Minutes | 05/02/21 | 13:27

The new housing bubble
Axios | Dion Rabouin | 05/05/21

Today's mortgage market is much more regulated and has much stronger fundamentals than during the housing bubble of the mid-aughts, but it's not a story that's as simple as rising demand and low supply.

What's happening: Unlike the environment ahead of the 2008 crash, housing prices are not being driven higher by a raft of underqualified borrowers getting mortgages they can't afford from unscrupulous banks.

They're being driven by government and central bank intervention — radically increased money supply, mortgage forbearance, stimulus checks, low taxes and low interest rates. Driving the news: Mortgage applications decreased for the second week in a row, down 0.9% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) for the week ending April 30, 2021. ... Read more

the meat you eat
Axios | Andrew Freedman | 05/04/21

The role of food in climate change is having its time in the spotlight, though advocates for eating less red meat probably weren't hoping for it to happen quite like this.

Why it matters: The food system, including raising cattle for consumption, accounts for greater than 30% of worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases. How to reduce those emissions is an increasingly urgent question as the world remains off track to meet the temperature targets set in the Paris agreement. ... Read more

FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE INFOGUIDE

Exterminate All The Brutes by Sven Lindqvist

The new four-part series by Raoul Peck, "Exterminate All the Brutes," that’s streaming on HBO Max belongs to an exceptional genre: it is, in effect, an illustrated lecture, or a cinematic podcast. Which is to say that it's an essay-film, a film of ideas, that are for the most part expressed by Peck himself, in his own voice-over, which nearly fills the movie's soundtrack from start to finish. The four-hour film is in the vein of Peck's previous essay-film, "I Am Not Your Negro," which focusses on James Baldwin's work. "Exterminate All the Brutes" is similarly an intellectual effort. And, like "I Am Not Your Negro," it introduces and distills, from Peck's own perspective, extant writings, this time by three historians who study colonialism and racism. Unlike the earlier film, though, the new one doesn't offer much in the way of film clips from the writers themselves, and doesn't (at least, doesn’t claim to) quote directly from their work. It is literally a film in Peck’s voice, and that strength, and that audacity, also gives rise to its artistic peculiarities.

To combat climate change, electric cars have to be cheaper
Axios | Amy Harder | 05/03/21

Most drivers of electric cars are wealthy, and most electric cars are luxury.

Why it matters: To effectively combat climate change, the opposite needs to happen: electric cars need to become affordable and broadly appealing so the masses can and want to buy them. Only with mass adoption will heat-trapping emissions steeply decline in America’s most polluting sector.

The big picture: The stereotype of rich Californians driving their Teslas isn't a bad thing—at least not yet. It's part of the cycle of new technology costs. Wealthy drivers are helping drive down the cost of new electric-car technologies by being able and willing (and subsidized by governments) to be early adopters of these vehicles.

But that is not what is happening:

How the Pandemic Made Lumber America's Hottest Commodity | WSJ | 04/19/21 | 4:53

Lumber Prices went Crazy in April 2021. When are they going back down? | 04/25/21 | 8:39

Covid Vaccines: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | 05/03/21 | 24:27