/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

US House defeats bids to rein in Trump Venezuela campaign
The Republican-majority House voted 216 to 210 against a resolution sponsored by Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that would remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with "any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere" unless authorized by Congress.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-defeats-bids-rein-trump-venezuela-campaign-2025-12-17/

Top Rail Unions Denounce Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern Megamerger as ‘De Facto Monopoly’
The US Surface Transportation Board (STB) is expected to receive a formal proposal from the two companies on Friday. President Donald Trump said in September that the deal “sounds good” to him. If approved, it would allow the two firms to merge into the largest railroad company in US history, controlling more than 50,000 miles of track across 43 states. According to the Associated Press, such a railroad would likely control over 40% of the nation’s freight.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/unions-oppose-rail-merger

FCC deletes reference to agency independence during US Senate hearing
"The FCC is not an independent agency, formally speaking," Carr said, saying President Donald Trump could remove commissioners without cause. Shortly after that exchange, the language on the website was changed. An FCC spokesperson said "with the change in Administration earlier this year, the FCC’s website and materials required updating. That work continues to ensure that they reflect the positions of the agency’s new leadership.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/fcc-deletes-reference-agency-independence-during-us-senate-hearing-2025-12-17/

Majority of Democrats Join Senate GOP to Pass Trump’s $900 Billion Pentagon Wish List
Among many other items on Trump’s wish list, the bill provides funds for weapons meant to counter China, full funding for Trump’s National Guard deployments to support the US immigration agents, and more funds for what are described as “counternarcotics operations.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/majority-of-democrats-join-senate-gop-to-pass-trump-s-900-billion-pentagon-wish-list

Dan Bongino announces FBI exit
Rumors about Bongino's resignation first surfaced in July, after he took a day off following a dispute with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. He previously received backlash from top Trump allies and other prominent conservatives after the FBI and Justice Department walked back claims that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was murdered or kept a "client list." Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel in August appointed Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to serve as bureau co-deputy director alongside Bongino, fueling speculation that his time at the bureau was nearing an end.
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/17/dan-bongino-tenure-fbi-trump-show
https://archive.ph/GdzFq

Postal se=rvice plans to open last-mile delivery network to more shippers in money-raising move
The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it intends to open its “last-mile” delivery network, the most expensive part of the shipping process, to large and small shippers, expanding beyond current arrangements with giants such as Amazon and UPS. The goal is to diversify and boost revenue through the postal carriers’ final leg of delivery to millions of individual homes and businesses.
https://apnews.com/article/usps-postal-service-shipping-last-mile-delivery-0dafa5ae03ec4ced1666876363c132e9

DHS fast-tracked $1 billion contract to pro-Trump donor’s company
The larger contract involves a DHS program called Project Homecoming that offers cash bonuses, free flights and a “concierge service” at airports for departing migrants. The program arose from an executive order on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term directing DHS to develop policies to encourage immigrants to leave the country voluntarily, a process the administration calls “self-deportation.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/17/dhs-contract-trump-donor/
https://archive.ph/QVOJv

UnitedHealth reduced hospitalizations for nursing home seniors. Now it faces wrongful death claims
The three cases involve a UnitedHealth partnership initiative that places medical staff from the company’s direct care unit, Optum, inside nursing homes to care for residents insured by the company’s insurance arm. UnitedHealth says one of the initiative’s goals is to protect patients by reducing unnecessary hospital admissions. Those are admissions the insurance giant would otherwise have to pay for.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/17/unitedhealth-nursing-homes

Modest gains dressed up as a historic win for workers
THE TUC has been relentlessly upbeat about the Employment Rights Bill — now finally promulgated after weeks of filibustering by peers — saying that it marks a historic day for working people. From April next year millions of workers will get sick pay from day one of their employment. However, a worker starting a new job on the first of April will be without protection from unfair dismissal for six months, after the government gave in to pressure from employers and capital, given force by that concentration of ruling-class power that is the House of Lords. The way in which the TUC frames its position in the never-ending battle to resist the power of capital gives us an insight into the way in which the unavoidable contradiction between workers and the employers is managed in Britain’s peculiar capitalist society. The TUC reminds us that one in 10 workers are stuck in insecure work, including one million on zero-hours contracts. And it is true that the banning of exploitative zero-hours contracts means many of these workers can now expect greater job security with an automatic right to a new guaranteed hours contracts.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/modest-gains-dressed-historic-win-workers

Farmworker fury – Inquiries about organic agriculture – Ch.5 The Collective Cooperative
In 2020, we read Class Power on Zero Hours by the AngryWorkers. It left us buzzing. After some time of not knowing what to do with our inspiration, we decided to write this book about our work experiences. Leftists often either romanticize (organic) agriculture, or they want it to be fully automated and industrialised. Beyond capitalism, we will have to learn to work the land in a truly sustainable way. Therefore, we think it’s important to have a workers-based analysis of (organic) agriculture. We are writing this book to contribute to such an analysis and we are hoping to receive feedback, comments and critiques from fellow workers and comrades.
https://www.angryworkers.org/2025/12/05/farmworker-fury-inquiries-about-organic-agriculture-ch-5-the-collective-cooperative/

Democracy and fascism: Antonio Gramsci
It became clear after the War that it was impossible for the Italian bourgeoisie to go on ruling with a democratic system. Yet before the War, Italian democracy had already been a fairly singular system. It was a system which knew neither economic freedom nor substantial political freedoms; which strove through corruption and violence to prevent any free development of new forces, whether they committed themselves in advance to the existing framework of the State or not; and which restricted the ruling class to a minority incapable of maintaining its position without the active assistance of the policeman and the carabiniere. In the Italian democratic system, before the War, each year several dozen workers fell in the streets; and peasants were sent to pick grapes in some places with muzzles on, for fear they might taste the fruit. Democracy, for the peasants and workers, consisted only in the fact that at the base they had the possibility of creating a network of organizations and developing these, strand by strand, to the point where they included the majority of decisive elements of the working class. Even this very simple fact implied a death-sentence for the democratic system. The post-war crisis made it explicit. The existence and development of a class organization of the workers create a state of affairs which cannot be remedied, either through the State violence which every democratic order permits itself, or with a systematic use of the method of political corruption of leaders. This could be seen in Italy after the first elections held under universal suffrage and with proportional representation. 117 After these, the democratic bourgeoisie felt impotent to solve the problem of how to prevent power slipping from its grasp. Despite the wishes of the leaders, and notwithstanding the absence of conscious guidance, the workers' movement could not fail to advance and achieve decisive developments. The handclasps for Filippo Turati, the winks at D'Aragona, and the favours done on the sly for the mandarins of the cooperative movement, were no longer sufficient to contain a movement which was impelled by the pressure of millions of men integrated, in however illogical and elementary a manner, in an organization: millions of men moved by the stimulus of elementary needs which had increased and been left unsatisfied. At this juncture, those democrats who wanted to remain consistent posed themselves the problem of how to "make the masses loyal to the State". An insoluble problem, so long as there did not exist a State for which the masses would be flesh and blood; a State which had emerged from the masses through an organic process of creation, and which was bound to them. In reality, at this juncture democracy understood that it must draw aside, leaving the field to a different force. Fascism's hour had come.
https://marxistleninists.org/Reference/Antonio%20Gramsci/democracy_fascism.htm

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