/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

100 days of DOGE: lots of chaos, not so much efficiency
Nearly 100 days into what Trump and tech billionaire Elon Muskhave called a mission to make the federal bureaucracy more efficient, Reuters found 20 instances where the staff and funding cuts led to purchasing bottlenecks and increased costs; paralysis in decision-making; longer public wait times; higher-paid civil servants filling in menial jobs, and a brain drain of scientific and technological talent.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/100-days-doge-lots-chaos-not-so-much-efficiency-2025-04-24/

Singer Kehlani dropped from Cornell concert for ‘antisemitic’ sentiments
Kehlani has used their position to publicly support Palestinians. She sings in front of a Palestinian flag in the “Next 2 U” music video, which features the phrase “long live the intifada” at its start. Intifada, an Arabic word for “uprising” or “resistance,” is seen by some as a call for violence against Jews.
https://apnews.com/article/kehlani-cornell-concert-israel-gaza-b7830784babce9322b8e7502f8183126

U.S. Texts Barnard Employees and Asks if They Are Jewish
The texts, which faculty members said appeared to have gone to nearly all Barnard staff members, appear to be part of an aggressive new tactic by the Trump administration to collect reports of alleged antisemitism at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University that has come under heavy criticism for pro-Palestinian demonstrations on its campus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/nyregion/barnard-faculty-eeoc-text-jewish.html
https://archive.ph/JkXOi

DOJ accidentally files document outlining flaws with Trump administration's plan to kill NYC congestion pricing
DOJ lawyers instead proposed an alternative justification to defend canceling the program, urging the Department of Justice to use regulations set by the Office of Management and Budget to say the program was canceled "as a matter of changed agency priorities."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-accidentally-files-document-nyc-congestion-pricing/story?id=121129852

AI helped write bar exam questions, California state bar admits
In February, the new exam led to complaints after many test-takers were unable to complete their bar exams. The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text, the Times reported earlier.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/24/california-bar-exam-ai

US at tipping point for return of endemic measles
The cases in the ongoing outbreak in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma have occurred among close-knit communities with low vaccination rates, according to the report. Overall, 96% of cases were in people who were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-tipping-point-return-endemic-measles-2025-04-24/

Uber threatens to cease operations in Colorado
The new regulations would: Require continuous audio and video recording of all rides with no opt-out provision. The company must pay for the equipment for drivers. Prohibit drivers from offering riders water or snacks. Mandate criminal history checks every six months, potentially forcing drivers off the road.
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2025/04/23/uber-threatens-cease-operations-colorado

As oligarch fortunes soar: The case for expropriating the billionaires
As the WSWS has explained, the second election of Trump represented “the violent realignment of the American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations that exist in the United States.” Trump, himself a billionaire, heads a government of, by and for the financial oligarchy, with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, overseeing measures to slash $1 trillion by firing federal workers and cutting the social benefits provided by the federal government. It would make far more sense, from the standpoint of the working class, to oppose the Trump-Musk cuts with demands to seize the $1 trillion in additional wealth accumulated by just 19 super-billionaires in 2024 alone. More fundamentally, the entire wealth of the capitalist class, the trillions produced by the labor of the working class, should be expropriated to provide the basis for the socialist reorganization of economic life under a workers’ government.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/24/mpeq-a24.html

Stellantis’s Tariff Plan: Cut Jobs and Reward Shareholders
The automaker behind Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles just announced a $2.26 billion payout to its shareholders — less than two weeks after the company used President Donald Trump’s new auto tariffs to lay off nearly a thousand American workers. On April 4, Stellantis, one of the country’s “Big Three” automakers, announced the temporary layoffs at five US factories and production pauses at facilities in Canada and Mexico. The Dutch conglomerate, which subsumed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2021, told its employees it had “decided to take some immediate actions” in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which included a 25 percent tax on auto imports. “With the current path of painful tariffs and overly rigid regulations, the American and European car industries are being put at risk,” said John Elkann, chairman of Stellantis’s board of directors, at the company’s April 15 general assembly meeting. But that risk wasn’t enough to stop shareholders at the meeting from voting to reward themselves with $2.26 billion in total dividend payments. Shareholders also voted to pause the company’s annual stock buyback program, which involved purchasing $3 billion in Stellantis stock last year to inflate asset prices for company investors and executives. This year’s dividend payout to investors alone accounts for roughly half of the company’s profits last year.
https://jacobin.com/2025/04/stellantis-tariffs-jobs-shareholders-automakers

Shoplifters of the world unite - Slavoj Žižek 2011
Repetition, according to Hegel, plays a crucial role in history: when something happens just once, it may be dismissed as an accident, something that might have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently; but when the same event repeats itself, it is a sign that a deeper historical process is unfolding. When Napoleon lost at Leipzig in 1813, it looked like bad luck; when he lost again at Waterloo, it was clear that his time was over. The same holds for the continuing financial crisis. In September 2008, it was presented by some as an anomaly that could be corrected through better regulations etc; now that signs of a repeated financial meltdown are gathering it is clear that we are dealing with a structural phenomenon. We are told again and again that we are living through a debt crisis, and that we all have to share the burden and tighten our belts. All, that is, except the (very) rich. The idea of taxing them more is taboo: if we did, the argument runs, the rich would have no incentive to invest, fewer jobs would be created and we would all suffer. The only way to save ourselves from hard times is for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. What should the poor do? What can they do?
https://libcom.org/article/shoplifters-world-unite-slavoj-zizek

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