Trump rolls back clean water protections

Daniel de Vries

The Trump Administration is removing environmental protections from a large portion of the nation's wetlands, rivers and streams, marking one of the most significant rollbacks to date.

The move is a giveaway to big industry, including property developers, oil and gas producers, and the agricultural industry, which have long criticized water permit requirements and restrictions on development. The action will open up vast stretches of the United States to uncontrolled pollution discharges and the decimation of wetlands.

It is the latest in an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations by Trump. Over the past three years, Administration officials have finalized approximately 60 environmental rollbacks to lift restrictions on fossil fuel and mineral extraction, weaken limits on air pollution and undermine other environmental safeguards.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers announced last week the water pollution rollback, finalizing new definitions of which water bodies are covered by federal rules. The rule scales back the applicability of virtually all sections the Clean Air Act, the legal foundation for much of the nation's water pollution controls.

In December the agencies rescinded the Obama Administration's definitions in the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, without offering a replacement until now. The new rule, however, goes well beyond a return to pre-2015 conditions. Some waterways covered for decades will now fall outside of the Clean Air Act's jurisdiction.

Small headwaters, streams that flow intermittently, and wetlands without surface connections to larger bodies of water are now excluded from the federal regulations. In some areas of the West, the vast majority of tributaries feeding into major rivers are intermittent, running dry at some point during the year. In all, more than half of the wetlands and nearly 20 percent of the rivers and streams around the country will be exempted from pollution controls.

“This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen,” Blan Holman, a lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Center told the New York Times. “This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution.”

The EPA's scientific advisory board, packed with Trump Administration appointees, took the unusual step of criticizing the proposed rule change on the verge of its release. The panel concluded in late December that the main components of the rule were “in conflict with established science... and the objectives of the Clean Water Act.” The scientists insisted that the limiting applicability to wetlands adjacent to major bodies of water while ignoring the connectivity of ground water is at odds with a basic scientific understanding of watershed systems and processes.

They also warned of substantial new risks to human and environmental health by removing controls on sources that are serious threats to public health. E. coli contamination of vegetables, for instance, is often traceable to polluted runoff in irrigation canals adjacent to animal feed lots.

Trump promoted the rollback at the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation on January 19, referring to the Obama-era rules as “one of the most ridiculous regulations of all.” He added, “That was a rule that basically took your property away from you.” Obama's 2015 Waters of the United States rule has been a key target of the agricultural industry, despite maintaining exemptions for many polluting farming practices, because it was broad enough to interpret sources like irrigation canals in the definition of US waters.

EPA chief Andrew Wheeler spoke before another key beneficiary of the rollback, the National Association of Home Builders, at their annual conference in Las Vegas last Thursday. He criticized the vagueness of Obama's clean water rule, which court rulings put on hold in 28 states, touting instead the “clarity and certainty” the new rule will afford real estate developers.

While industries favored by the Trump Administration stand to profit from the rollback, the consequences of removing vital environmental safeguards are potentially far-reaching. Wetlands not only serve as vital habitats for a wide range of species, they are also critical natural defenses to mitigate the impact of climate change. Wetlands reduce the impact of droughts and can provide flood and shoreline protection from extreme storms.

The additional pollution load from the use of previously restricted chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers reaching the country's rivers, lakes, and drinking water sources threatens to further undermine human and environmental health. According to EPA data, already more than half of all streams, 80 percent of estuaries and 90 percent of coastal waters in the US are categorized as impaired. Nearly one quarter of the US population lives in areas that failed to meet safe drinking water standards.

Royal Family deal over Harry and Meghan only exacerbates crisis of rule

Robert Stevens

The deal struck between the Queen and Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, that sees them ceasing to be “senior Royals” does nothing to draw a line under the ongoing crisis of a critical institution of bourgeois rule.

In what was described as the “hardest possible Megxit” from the Royal Family, the Queen tried to lay down the law to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex following their announcement that they would step back from frontline duties to become “financially independent.”

Harry and Meghan made the decision independently of any discussion with the Queen, with an eye on the millions to be made from exploiting their royal pedigree and celebrity status once free from the limitations of being members of “The Firm.”

After five days of talks, the Queen decreed that the couple would not be allowed to use their “Royal Highness” titles as “they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.” They would also not be involved in promoting “Her Majesty” in any official capacity, will no longer receive public funds for any Royal duties under the Sovereign Grant and would repay the £2.4 million of public money already spent on refurbishing of Frogmore Cottage—their property in the grounds of Windsor castle.

The deal comes into effect this spring, with Harry stepping back from all official military patronages and royal duties.

Security costs for the royals are paid by the state on top of the Sovereign Grant. The Telegraph reported that it is understood that Harry and Meghan “will pay towards their own security if they are commercially successful, in a model echoing [former Labour Party leader] Tony Blair’s own arrangements.” Blair has coined in tens of millions of pounds since he left office as prime minister in 2007.

According to reports, the annual security cost of the Sussexes while in Canada will be at least €1.8 million, which is currently being arranged by London’s Metropolitan Police.

While retaining their titles of Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the use of their proposed trademark brand, “Sussex Royal,” is still problematic because of the jealously guarded term “royal.” Telegraph Associate Editor Camilla Tominey commented, “Since the monarchy isn’t just a family but a business, what other option was there when two of its major shareholders had declared their intent to start a rival firm in North America?”

Whatever restrictions may be placed on their branding, a lucrative career now beckons for the Sussexes. For all the caveats placed, the couple have been able to secure the fundamentals they wanted. The Guardian wrote, “Royals for rent: will Harry and Meghan become the world’s biggest influencers?” It noted breathlessly that “@SussexRoyal broke Instagram’s record for the fastest one million followers (less than six hours). Now it has 11 million and is the couple’s platform of choice for personal announcements—including the one they made on 8 January, revealing their intention to step back from royal duties (1.85m likes).”

Harry and Meghan are expected to spend most of their time in North America. Meghan departed for Canada as soon as the crisis broke. She was joined by Harry, with the couple staying at a $14.1 million waterfront mansion on Vancouver Island owned by a friend.

Harry is presently worth more than £30 million, after he and William inherited nearly £16 million from Princess Diana upon her death and then millions more in inheritance from the Queen mother. He will still receive income from his father during the transition, either via his private “reserves” or from his vast Duchy of Cornwall estate and financial portfolio worth over £1 billion—from which Charles received an income of £21 million last year. Meghan is worth several millions from her acting career.

But from the perspective of the super-rich billionaires with whom Harry and Meghan rub shoulders, this is small potatoes. It is estimated that Meghan’s position as Hollywood “royalty” and Harry’s status will allow the couple to profit from deals worth tens of millions, if not billions.

Even as they were finalising their break with the Royal Family, the couple were busy securing future lucrative deals with Hollywood moguls.

In video footage from the London premiere of The Lion King last July, Harry and Meghan are seen speaking to Disney CEO Bob Iger. While Meghan was discussing with the music and product billionaires Beyoncé and Jay-Z a few feet away, Harry points at Meghan and is heard telling Iger, “You know she does voiceovers?” Iger responds, “Oh, really?” Harry replies, “She’s really interested.”

A few seconds later Harry tells Lion King director Jon Favreau, “Next time, anyone needs any extra voiceover work. We can make ourselves available.” Meghan then makes a “joke,” “That’s really why we’re here, it’s the pitch.”

Jonathan Shalit, a leading celebrity agent, predicts that the Sussexes could become a “billion-dollar brand”: “Never has a member of the British Royal family been available in the commercial marketplace.”

When asked if he would be open to offering Harry and Meghan deals, Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, said, “Who wouldn’t be interested?”

There is speculation that Oprah Winfrey could open the way to an interview with one or both that will pay out up to $25 million. Winfrey attended the Sussexes wedding in 2018 and was a guest at Meghan’s baby shower in New York last year. Last September, it was revealed that Winfrey was working with Harry on a series of documentaries for Apple focusing on mental illness.

The Times’ Clare Foges predicted, “The Sussexes will be wintering in Aspen and summering in Tuscany; wining with Oprah and dining with Gates; enjoying the glamour of international summitry without the drudgery of hospice openings in Carlisle.”

The media was anxious to conclude that little damage had been done to the institution of the monarchy, with the Telegraph editorialising that the Queen’s “acting in this swift yet compassionate way” supposedly demonstrated the institution’s “remarkable ability to adjust and evolve.”

Such confidence is out of place. The departure of Harry and Meghan demonstrates the continued unraveling of an institution that has helped keep the British bourgeoisie in the saddle for centuries.

Much effort has gone into recasting the Windsors as a thoroughly modern family, despite their continued respect for “tradition” and positions as chief representatives of hereditary privilege. This included the marriage of the second in line to the throne, William, to the “commoner” Kate Middleton and the reinvention of Harry from the “rabble-rousing youth”—who once wore a Nazi uniform at a fancy dress ball—to a “global charity ambassador” and advocate of identity politics alongside his wife.

Megxit, like Brexit itself, expresses the heightened contradiction between the nation state and its institutions and a globalised economy dominated by a fabulously rich oligarchy which the Sussexes want to plug into.

For all the talk about the response of an “astute” Queen, what is taking place is a desperate rescue operation that is doomed to failure.

Serious upheaval looms as the aging monarch, who will be 94 in a few months and who has seen 14 prime ministers serve under her, will soon depart the scene. Prince Charles himself is 71 years old and it is hoped by all concerned that his occupancy of the throne will be short, only keeping the seat warm for his son and heir, William.

Harry’s resignation has seen the already relentless promotion of William and Kate go into overdrive. This took on an obscene character when Britain’s slavish media shamelessly marked yesterday’s 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by focusing on photos taken by Kate of Holocaust survivors and their relatives. The Daily Mail explained that she “drew her inspiration from Dutch artist Vermeer.”

Moreover, the explosive material keeps building under the foundations of the House of Windsor.

Even as Harry departed to join Meghan, the Queen decided not to let a good crisis go to waste. Stupidly, she tried to bring Prince Andrew back in from the cold, inviting him to attend a church service to be photographed alongside her and be described as acting as “her rock.”

Andrew is accused of having sex with several underage women, procured for him by deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Within days of this PR stunt, the Daily Mirror reported statements of a former police protection officer that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s lover and Madam, had visited Andrew at Buckingham Palace up to four times a day, where they had “picnics together.”

Kremlin appoints new cabinet

Andrea Peters

With the unanimous support of the 432 deputies serving in Russia’s parliament, President Vladimir Putin installed a new cabinet last week to serve under recently appointed Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. In another possible shakeup, there were press reports over the weekend that Vladislav Surkov, the leading architect of the Kremlin’s Ukraine policy, has resigned and will be replaced by a figure known to support brokering a deal with Kiev. The changes to the composition of the government come as the Kremlin presses ahead with constitutional reforms, which were unanimously approved by the Duma several days ago after a brief reading.

In the cabinet reshuffle, the individuals occupying the very top positions remained the same, with Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Shoigu, Anton Siluanov, and Alexander Novak returning as the ministers of foreign affairs, defense, finance, and energy, respectively. Turnover was concentrated in the domestic portfolios, with the heads of culture, education, health, economic development, sports, justice, and emergency situations all being replaced. Press commentaries, which are highly divided over the implications of these changes, generally describe the new ministers as young, career technocrats. The new cabinet appears to be aimed at reaffirming Moscow’s overall geopolitical and macro-economic policies, while attempting to address popular discontent over the country’s domestic situation by removing figures associated with unpopular social measures.

The replacement of the government of former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev comes as Russia faces a combination of foreign and internal crises. Internationally, Moscow is under relentless pressure from the United States, where anti-Russian politics is a central feature of American foreign policy and the driving force of efforts to remove President Donald Trump from office. The recent American assassination of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani, one of the top military leaders of a country with whom Russia is allied in the war in Syria, underscored the fraught character of US-Russian relations and Moscow’s vulnerability on the world stage.

Domestically, the Kremlin confronts a population discontented with falling household incomes, rising consumer prices, poverty wages, attacks on pensions, and the cutting of funding for health, education, and other basic services. Despite the government’s ability to maintain its fiscal position in the face of US sanctions, Russia’s economy is stagnating, with growth rates hovering around just one to two percent since 2017. Another half million people entered the ranks of the officially poor as of mid-2019, in comparison to a year prior. Protests over social conditions have erupted regularly over the last several years. At the same time, a pro-Western liberal opposition, concentrated in Moscow and other major cities, continues its calls for the end of the Putin government.

The constitutional changes simultaneously being pursued by the Kremlin have provoked widespread criticism from this opposition and been denounced broadly in the Western press as a “power grab” by Putin, who is slated to leave office in 2024. Despite these vocal criticisms, there is little clarity as to the underlying aims and likely impact of the proposed reforms, with commentators unable to say definitively how the functioning of the Russian government will be affected or how Putin would use the changes to secure his position upon giving up the presidency.

The reforms include the institution of a two-term limit on the presidency, regardless of whether those terms are consecutive, an increased role for the Duma in the process of appointing the prime minister and cabinet, an elevation in the amount of influence held by the Security Council in the presidential administration, further federal control over regional government affairs, restrictions on citizenship and residency requirements for officeholders, the assertion of the primacy of Russian over international law, the regular indexing of pensions to inflation, and the establishment of a minimum wage that is not lower than the official poverty line.

The constitutional reforms, which the Kremlin is seeking to quickly implement, will be put to a popular vote in mid-April. This vote, however, appears to be largely consultative, as there is no legal requirement for the holding of a binding referendum on changes to the constitution. The pension and minimum wage measures included in the reform package appeared geared at securing a sizable turnout for the mid-April ballot. They are, however, face-saving moves that will have little real impact on living conditions in the country. The opposition is calling for a “no” vote against what it describes as a “constitutional coup.”

Mexican President López Obrador breaks up migrant caravan

Andrea Lobo

Last Thursday, the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) broke up the latest Central American caravan headed to the United States by using Mexican troops to attack and round up its rearguard of 2,000 migrants. After marching eight miles into Mexico and resisting countless threats by Guatemalan and Mexican authorities along the way, the migrants were blocked and arrested by over 200 National Guard troops using batons and tear gas.

It took the state forces less than two hours to capture virtually all of the exhausted migrants and pack them into buses, which drove them to the infamous Siglo XXI detention center. Shortly after, the Mexican government reported that it was loading airplanes and buses to deport them en masse.

The caravan left the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on January 15 with about 1,500 migrants. While remaining divided in large contingents, about 3,000 more migrants from Honduras and other smaller groups from El Salvador joined the caravan in a bid to escape desperate poverty and violence.

While the migrants were crossing Guatemala, the incoming administration of Alejandro Giammattei deployed the police to halt the caravan, using tear gas and detaining some 400 people. Far from providing them shelter while they applied for asylum in the United States, as stipulated under a recent agreement, the Guatemalan regime deported them back to Honduras.

Giammattei had expressed qualms about Guatemala’s anti-immigrant deal with the Trump administration, including the reception of third country migrants seeking asylum in the US, but he has quickly demonstrated his total subordination to Washington.

The caravan arrived at the border between Guatemala and Mexico on January 18 and the Mexican government immediately closed the international bridge at Ciudad Hidalgo. The National Migration Institute (INM) processed a thin stream of migrants for deportation.

Two days later, the Mexican government announced that it would not give “transit papers” for the caravan to reach the United States. This compelled the migrants to attempt to cross the Suchiate River into Mexico, but they were violently repelled by hundreds of national guardsmen and police, who threw tear gas and beat the defenseless workers.

Only some 200 migrants were able to make it through the blockade, and most sought refuge at shelters. However, La Jornada reports that many are already planning on returning home given the increased difficulties in reaching the United States. The handful of caravan members who were able to apply for asylum in Mexico were all part of the group that escaped the National Guard operation.

While López Obrador offered jobs for all of them and plainly said that migrants “didn’t want” to apply for asylum in Mexico, Animal Político reported that the institution in charge of processing asylum requests was not given access to the detention centers where the caravan members were being held until January 24. According to INM figures, at least 679 migrants had already been deported. The newspaper interviewed a migrant captured last Thursday and deported by bus on Friday, who said, “They never offered us asylum, just deportation.”

With human rights groups barred from access to the detention centers, Amnesty International released a statement raising concerns about “the efforts of the INM to limit the work of these organizations.” This follows a Human Rights Watch report citing “inhumane conditions” at detention centers and “human rights violations committed by security forces” against immigrants.

After the incident at the Suchiate River, López Obrador called the repression “an isolated incident,” but it occurred again on Thursday. And despite widespread pictures and videos showing the brutality of the soldiers against entire families, the president declared that the National Guard “resisted,” but “didn’t fall into responding with violence, which is probably what the leaders of these caravans wanted, as well as our adversaries, the conservatives.”

Last Wednesday, López Obrador again suggested that migrants were arriving with violent intentions, claiming that “we want peace, to resolve our differences through dialogue.” He went as far as declaring that the repression was aimed at “protecting” refugees from organized crime in northern Mexico.

On Friday, he said, “This movement is not spontaneous. Of course, there are needs, but there is a leadership, let’s say, political.”

By criminalizing migrants and portraying the caravans as pawns in a conspiracy hatched by his political opponents, López Obrador is taking a page from the fascistic playbook of the Trump White House. In both cases, the aim is to legitimize a further militarization of the country, attack basic democratic rights—beginning with asylum rights enshrined under international treaties signed by Mexico—and rally the most right-wing elements of the armed forces, while seeking to undermine the vast and growing sentiment of international solidarity in the working class.

Far from “protecting” migrants, while avoiding a political conflict with the Trump administration, as he claims, López Obrador is protecting the financial and political ties of the Mexican oligarchy to US imperialism. By demonstrating his government’s readiness to engage in repression by keeping migrants out, López Obrador hopes to attract investments into the country, ultimately preparing a militarized crackdown against opposition in the Mexican working class to revolting levels of social inequality.

According to Oxfam, six Mexican billionaires control eight times more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the population, or 62.5 million people, who live below the official poverty line. Topping the list is Carlos Slim, who has consistently backed López Obrador’s right-wing policies. Last November he said: “The foundations have been laid with the public finances, with lots of discipline by the public sector. The debt didn’t increase, inflation fell. The foundations have been laid; great confidence has been generated for financial investments.”

The American ruling class took the measure of López Obrador long ago, understanding that he would defend its interests. In a February 2006 cable published by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador dismissed the issues raised by a central bank official: “His concerns over a possible future AMLO presidency are not unique, but are not in line with mainstream expectations that the Mexican economy will survive an AMLO presidency relatively unscathed, even if unimproved.”

López Obrador’s emulation of Trump’s anti-immigrant agitation is a grave warning to the entire working class. He is heading up a rapid shift toward authoritarian forms of rule as demanded by the ruling class, which feels besieged by the international resurgence of working class militancy and a growing interest in socialism.

Trump called the first migrant caravan in October 2018 an “invasion,” claiming it included “Middle Easteners.” He blamed Democrats, Jewish billionaire George Soros and Venezuela for organizing it.

Trump deployed over 5,000 US troops to the border. His sympathizers have carried out shootings against the Jewish population and immigrants, as well as threats against political opponents. This includes the El Paso shooting last August, which killed 22 people, with the attacker issuing a manifesto denouncing a migrant “invasion.”

Based on the Mexican government’s policies, anti-immigrant sentiments are being whipped up by corporate and local media across Mexico in an effort to undermine widespread support for migrants in a country where millions have lived in the US. A protest demanding that migrants leave has been scheduled in the border city of Matamoros, where tens of thousands of striking workers last year marched to the US border to appeal for international unity against the transnational corporations.

At the same time, in response to denunciations by migrants of the squalid conditions at the camp in Matamoros, several groups of Americans have crossed on foot from Brownsville, Texas with aid.

On Sunday, Alejandro Encinas, sub-secretary of human rights, population and migration, fed the chauvinist filth, insinuating a political plot based on the claim that there were more male adults in the latest caravan. He denounced a “radical group” that called on others to continue to challenge the blockade by Mexican troops. “We have to track that group… we’re investigating it in particular,” Encinas said.

The anti-immigrant policies to strengthen the capitalist state are aimed against the entire working class. The struggle to defend the Central American migrants and, more generally, the right of everyone to travel safely, enter and enjoy full citizenship rights in the place of his or her choosing, is a fundamental component of the fight for social equality and democratic rights.

Iraqi government cracks down on anti-US protests

Jean Shaoul

Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi ordered a brutal crackdown on peaceful mass demonstrations that erupted on Friday. Protesters chanted “get out, get out, occupier,” and called for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from the country.

For the last three days, security forces have fired teargas and live ammunition, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens more in the capital, Baghdad, and in the southern cities of Basra, Nasariyah, Dhi Qar and Diwaniya, in a bid to disperse the protests.

Demonstrators protest US actions in Iraq (Credit: AP Photo)

According to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, more than 500 people have been killed since the protests began on October 1 with several rights groups accusing security forces of using excessive force. There have been reports of kidnappings, torture, snipers on rooftops and armed gunmen in drive-by shooting of protesters.

The protests, sparked by unemployment, particularly among young people, the lack of electricity and water, poor services and rampant corruption, rapidly escalated, with calls for the government to resign, a new prime minister independent of the main political blocs, fresh elections, an end to the sectarian-based political system and the prosecution of those implicated in corruption and the killing of protesters.

While the protests have mainly taken place in Baghdad and nine predominantly Shia provinces, they have generally been supported by Sunni Iraqis. Most of the Sunni politicians, however, have remained silent over the protests.

Although Abdul Mahdi resigned last month, he remains in office until a new prime minister is appointed. Candidates nominated by the government have been rejected by the protesters as being too close to the old corrupt setup. But a new prime minister must have the support of the largest bloc, Sairoon, led by populist Shiite cleric Muqtadr al-Sadr, as well as Hadi al-Amiri’s Fatah bloc that is closely linked to the Hashd al-Shabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militia, that is aligned with Iran. These blocs fear that under a more politically independent politician, they will lose their own power and influence, not to say access to the country’s oil resources.

The crackdown came just hours after Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew his support for the “million strong march” he had called on Friday, amid fears that the protesters might attack the presidential palace or the heavily-fortified Green Zone that houses the US embassy and other foreign missions. He said he was ending his support—always qualified—for the anti-government demonstrations, as part of his bid to retain political control over the government and choice of prime minister and so avoid fresh elections.

Al-Sadr has millions of supporters in Baghdad’s poorest neighbourhoods and the south and heads the largest political bloc in Iraq’s parliament, which holds several ministerial posts. Al-Sadr, who has long sought to balance between Washington and Tehran, has found it increasingly difficult to contain his supporters’ hostility to the corrupt politicians that have ruled the country since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. His support for Friday’s demonstration was aimed at bolstering his own support, while keeping anti-US sentiment under control.

Anger was fueled by Iraqi President Barham Salih’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at Davos last week, a clear sign that Salih wants US troops to stay in the country. This flew in the face of a parliamentary vote taken in response to mass pressure for the expulsion of all US forces from Iraq in the wake of the US drone missile assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Suleimani, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a prominent member of the Iraqi government and leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the umbrella group of predominantly Shia militias funded by the Iraqi government.

The US murder of Suleimani, who had been invited to Baghdad by Abdul Mahdi to discuss attempts to ease regional tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and al-Muhandis, together with eight other Iraqis and Iranians, at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3 was an unprovoked act of war against Iran and Iraq. It provoked furious opposition from the Iraqi people across the sectarian divide to any outside interference in Iraq—whether by the US, Iran, Israel or Saudi Arabia.

Despite this, most of the leaders of the main political blocs, including the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiite leaders al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, supported Salih’s meeting with Trump, who has made clear that should Iraq insist on the US leaving Iraq, then Washington will impose punishing sanctions.

On Saturday, shortly after al-Sadr’s announcement, his supporters, the best-organised of the anti-government demonstrators, immediately began to dismantle their tents and leave the protests in recognition that the security forces, in the absence of al-Sadr’s political cover, would use it as a green light to crush their movement. Within hours, riot police tried to storm protest camps set up across the capital and in the south, removing concrete barriers near Tahrir Square where anti-government demonstrators have camped out for months, and used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the activists.

This served to fuel the protests, with thousands of university and school students taking to the streets in Baghdad, Basra and Nasariyah. In Basra, protesters issued a letter circulated on social media calling on al-Sadr to reconsider his decision to withdraw his support for the demonstrations. Al-Sadr’s move prompted one of his associates, Asaad Al-Nasiri, to split from the movement, announcing his support for the anti-government protesters, saying, “I will take off the turban for the love of Iraq and the city of Nasiriyah and the revolutionaries, and I am with the Iraqis.”

On Sunday evening, there were reports that three rockets had “directly hit the US embassy” in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, with one rocket hitting a cafeteria at dinner time, injuring at least three people. A further five rockets crashed into a riverbank near the embassy, without causing any injuries. This would, if confirmed, mark the third attack on the embassy or Iraqi military bases where American troops are deployed this month and the first direct hit. All the pro-Iranian militias have denied any role in this attack, claiming they did not target the embassy.

Abdul Mahdi condemned the attack, saying that if such acts continued, they could “drag Iraq into becoming a battlefield.” The US State Department said, “We call on the Government of Iraq to fulfill its obligations to protect our diplomatic facilities.” Washington wants the prime minister to curb the pro-Iran militias, but he, and any candidate to succeed him, is dependent upon their political support.

According to Middle East Eye, it is this mounting impatience with the Iraqi government, along with the calls for the expulsion of US troops from the country, that is behind Washington’s discussions with Sunni and Kurdish leaders about creating an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, similar to the Kurdish autonomous region in the north of the country. It would include Anbar province as well as the provinces of Nineveh and Salah al-Din, and part of Diyala.

Its purpose would be to sever Iran’s land bridge through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean, a proposal was first mooted by Joe Biden, who is seeking to become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, in 2007, as a means of limiting Iran’s influence in the region. It is believed to have the support of the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Australian prime minister’s role in sports pork-barrelling intensifies political crisis

Mike Head

Reports that Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s own office orchestrated the use of a sports grant program to illegally hand out cash to try to secure key seats in last May’s election have deepened the crisis engulfing the Liberal-National Coalition government and the entire political establishment.

Less than nine months after barely surviving the May 2019 poll, Morrison’s government is widely reviled and beset by internal rifts. Corporate media editorials and commentators are calling into question its ability to remain in office or Morrison’s survival as prime minister, let alone to carry through the brutal agenda required by the financial elite.

Far from calling for the government’s ousting, however, the official opposition Labor Party is urging Morrison to sack the minister selected as a scapegoat for the affair—deputy National Party leader Senator Bridget McKenzie.

It is now clear that Morrison’s staff and the Liberal Party headquarters ran the pork-barreling operation—not McKenzie, who was then the sports minister—and that Morrison’s cabinet ticked off on the unlawful handouts. The revelations, made by “sources” within the government itself, have made a mockery of any move to force McKenzie to resign in order to save the government.

“Two of Scott Morrison’s senior staffers were involved in handling funding appli­cations under the $100 million community sports grants program and engaging with embattled Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie,” the Weekend Australian reported.

This places the scandal, and widespread public outrage it has caused, directly at the feet of Morrison and the government as a whole, which is already hated, not least because of its contemptuous response to the country’s bushfire catastrophe and underlying climate change disaster.

The “sports rorts” affair first erupted on January 15 when the Australian National Audit Office issued a detailed 72-page report documenting the extraordinary and blatant extent to which the government devised and exploited the $100 million program to allocate money to electorates it designated as “marginal” and “targeted” as last May’s election loomed.

The audit office, traditionally regarded as the authoritative monitor of government spending, declared that the entire scheme was tainted by “distributional bias.” It said McKenzie’s office handed out much-publicised grants to local sports clubs, overturning official Sports Australia recommendations in hundreds of cases, and without any legal authority.

Often-affluent clubs in seats targeted by the Liberal Party received maximum grants of $500,000, while seriously under-resourced clubs in working-class areas—classified as “safe” Labor Party seats—received nothing after their volunteer members spent long hours working on applications.

The Weekend Australian’s contributing editor Peter Van Onselen, a former Coalition staff member himself, reported: “The decisions of where and how to allocate the sports grants in the way the Auditor-General said was against the guidelines (not to mention deeply political) were made from within the political office of the Prime Minister. Not by the sports minister.

“That’s right; Morrison’s senior adviser for infrastructure and sport, a former Nationals staff member, no less, was point man on the political divvying up of the grants. He was working closely with campaign strategists inside the Prime Minister’s office and the federal Liberal Party secretariat before presenting the allocations to McKenzie as a neatly wrapped-up final product. After which cabinet ticked and flicked the winning applications through to the implementation stage.”

Van Onselen added ominously: “Maybe the Prime Minister wasn’t personally involved. We can’t be sure. My sources haven’t divulged that. Perhaps, even though Morrison is a former state party director who ran campaigns, he stayed out of this pork-barreling process.”

This suggested that if Morrison—as had been urged, and confidently predicted, by some corporate media platforms—forced McKenzie to quit, there could be retaliation from her and the National Party. That could entail further leaks and revelations about Morrison’s personal hand in desperately trying to essentially buy votes to enable his unpopular government to scrape back into office.

After initially defiantly backing McKenzie and the “successful” sports grants scheme, Morrison suddenly shifted his ground last week. He announced that, several days earlier, he had asked Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Philip Gaetjens—Morrison’s former personal chief of staff—to investigate and determine whether McKenzie’s actions breached “ministerial standards.”

The purported investigation was a transparent bid, entrusted to a reliable insider, to find a means to remove McKenzie in order to rescue the government. Editorials in the Australian Financial Review and various Murdoch newspapers had declared that McKenzie “had to go” for the sake of the government’s survival.

Morrison seized on media revelations that McKenzie had given money to a shooting club that had granted her free membership. Ludicrously, he claimed that this issue was “very, very different” to the broader controversy surrounding the grants scheme.

In reality, the apparent ministerial conflict of interest over the $36,000 given to the Wangaratta Clay Target Club was just one of a constant drip feed of stories published in the media about the extent of the political manipulation of the scheme.

Among the examples was a $500,000 grant, just weeks before the election, to Adelaide’s Old Collegians Rugby Union Club, in a government-held “marginal” seat. The grant was for facilities including new female change rooms, despite the club not fielding a women’s team since 2018—when its whole female team quit the club accusing it of sexism.

Another report showed that the minister’s office insisted that nine new or amended grant applications be permitted well after the application deadline had passed, despite Sports Australia warning that this was “not appropriate.” All nine applications secured funding, even though Sports Australia also objected that eight lacked the “high merit” required by the official criteria.

Photos have appeared showing scores of beaming Coalition ministers, members of parliament or election candidates posing for media photos handing over giant-sized novelty cheques to local clubs.

It has also emerged that Morrison’s cabinet twice approved an expansion of the scheme as the election neared. The May 2018 budget announced $30 million for the program but after Morrison ousted Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, the mid-year economic review in December 2018 allocated another $30.3 million for a second round of grants. The April 2019 budget, just a month before the election, set aside another $42.5 million for a third round.

In that third round, the “bias” was even more blatant. Sports Australia’s recommendations were overturned in 73 percent of the decisions. Its warnings about the potential “risk” of these actions, undertaken without any rules or criteria, were dismissed.

A virtual civil war has broken out in the government. National Party leader Michael McCormack and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have continued to stridently defend McKenzie. McCormack said she followed all the required processes and is doing an “outstanding job.” Dutton, a leader of the Liberal Party’s most right-wing faction, said: “We all make decisions in our portfolios. That is exactly what she has done.”

But other unnamed government members, including National Party parliamentarians, have told media outlets they back a cabinet reshuffle to dump her.

Whichever way Morrison moves—either to sacrifice McKenzie or close ranks around her—the government’s situation will only worsen. Already numbers of media commentators are drawing the conclusion that his government has lost any sense of legitimacy or capacity to rule.

The pork-barreling affair has multiplied the popular hostility to the government over the ongoing bushfire calamity, which is intensifying an economic slump driven by trade war. The government also faces growing public opposition over its complicity in the US bid to extradite WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange.

The Labor Party is doing everything it can to shore up the parliamentary order and appeal for big business support. Party leader Anthony Albanese has said McKenzie needs to resign or be sacked. With the Greens and other parties, Labor is planning to send the affair off to a Senate committee once parliament resumes next week.

Despite thousands of job cuts, General Motors will receive $2.28 billion in Michigan tax credits

Jessica Goldstein

General Motors (GM), which cut the jobs of 8,000 white-collar workers last year and recently closed an assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and Baltimore, Maryland, is continuing to receive billions in tax cuts and public subsidies.

In a move announced last week, the state of Michigan agreed to extend a decades-long tax credit arrangement with GM, slightly lowering the maximum credit the giant automaker can obtain to $2.28 billion through the end of 2029. The tax credit reduction amounts to $325 million over the next decade, or $32.5 million a year, a pittance for the company that made $7 billion in profits in the first three quarters of 2019 alone.

According to the Michigan Strategic Fund board, GM agreed to invest $3.5 billion in the state over the next 10 years, including at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, where the bulk of the investment is expected to be focused.

The tax credit agreement is part of an amendment to the 2009 Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) agreement, signed by former Michigan Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm in 2009. Through the MEGA agreement, the state of Michigan awarded billions of dollars in tax breaks to the Detroit “Big” Three auto corporations—former Chrysler Group (now FCA), Ford Motor Company and GM—in order to keep them in the state after the 2008 financial meltdown and the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler.

In May 2019, GM also won up to $50 million in tax credits from the state of Missouri over 10 years, signed by Republican Governor Mike Parson. GM agreed to invest $750 million in its Wentzville, Missouri, plant, which assembles trucks and vans.

Tax credits affect the amount of actual tax owed to the government and can affect the amount of a tax rebate the corporation is eligible for. In 2018, GM recorded $4.32 billion in profits and received a $104 million tax rebate, an effective tax rate of -2.4 percent.

At the same time, the tax deal struck with Michigan frees GM to further cut jobs and reduce labor costs. In return for the modest cutback on tax credits, GM can be “more flexible with staffing,” according to the Detroit News.

Under the amendment, GM is required to maintain a total Michigan workforce of 34,750 to qualify for 100 percent of the tax credits granted by the agreement. GM currently employs 48,000 in the state, meaning that over 13,000 jobs could be slashed and GM will still qualify for the full credit. Furthermore, if GM employment in Michigan falls below the 34,750 threshold but stays above 27,875, it will qualify for 75 percent of the total tax credits offered.

The amendment also requires GM to pay a minimal weekly wage of $1,300 per week per employee, double the 2009 requirement of $650 per week. However, it is likely that GM is already meeting and exceeding this threshold because the “weekly wage” includes health care, overtime, pensions and other employee compensation costs.

While CEO Mary Barra pocketed just under $22 million last year and the company’s board continued to shower Wall Street investors with lucrative dividends and stock buybacks, the state of Michigan has slashed social spending to finance tax cuts for GM and other corporate giants, which have shut hundreds of plants, leaving economic and environmental disaster behind in Detroit, Flint and other Michigan cities.

In addition to GM, Ford is set to receive a maximum $2.3 billion in tax credits through the end of 2029, while FCA will get $1.7 billion during the remaining life of the MEGA tax credit program.

Meanwhile, the state’s Democrats and Republicans continue to shift the cost of social spending onto the backs of working class families. Over a billion dollars in public school spending is funded through the lottery, a regressive tax on the poor, and Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer wants a 45-cent tax increase on gasoline to finance the repair of roads, largely destroyed by heavy trucks delivering parts and complete vehicles for the auto industry.

The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant was slated for closure by GM in November 2018, months before the 2019 contract negotiations began with the United Auto Workers union (UAW). In October, the UAW rammed through another concessions contract after isolating the 40-day strike by 48,000 GM workers and starving them back to work with poverty-level strike benefits. Industry analysts have hailed the deal for maintaining “flexibility” to reduce staffing levels and allowing the companies to “cull” their workforces of higher paid workers through so-called voluntary retirements, and replace them with low-paid temporary part-time workers.

As part of the sellout deal, the UAW “negotiated” to keep the Detroit-Hamtramck plant open with a $3 billion investment to produce a still-unnamed electric pickup truck and van model. These may include an electric Hummer pickup under the GMC brand and an electric Cadillac SUV. It will also most likely produce the self-driving all-electric Cruise Origin shuttle at the plant, a model to be used in a ride-sharing fleet.

In order to gain a competitive advantage in the world auto market since sales have begun to slump, particularly in China where corporations have relied on increased demand, GM and other auto corporations are scrambling to reduce labor costs and enter the electric vehicle market, where demand is growing globally, especially in China. Production of EVs, however, require fewer parts and fewer workers.

Originally, the plant was projected to employ up to 2,225 workers after it reopens some time in 2021, according to reports. Over 800 hourly workers and a small number of salaried employees will be laid off when the plant begins retooling on February 28. Far from opposing the layoffs, the UAW has endorsed company plans to force workers to uproot their families and transfer them to either Fort Wayne Assembly Plant in Indiana or Flint Assembly in Michigan. The transferred workers will bump out part-time workers who were supposedly in line to be rolled over to full-time positions.

According to sources who spoke to MSN News, UAW Local 22 “has started preparing for a disruption at the plant,” and union leaders have been holding meetings with hourly workers at the ends of shifts beginning last Tuesday and expected to last through Monday.

The anger of workers over the impending layoffs is well-grounded. It is very possible the majority of workers hired on to Detroit-Hamtramck after the retooling will be TPTs, with a fixed wage of around $16 an hour. GM has sold the Lordstown plant to a company that will hire a few hundred workers at lower wages, and plans a joint venture with South Korean firm LG Chem to build electric batteries nearby, also with a lower-paid workforce.

In November, GM filed a lawsuit against competitor FCA, alleging that it gained unfair business advantages through the bribing of UAW officials to push through contracts that allowed FCA to greatly expand its use of temporary and part-time labor. While that is no doubt the case, GM has long profited from the collusion of the UAW, to which it has transferred billions in joint-training funds.

TPT workers are typically paid about half the hourly wage of older “legacy” workers and have few benefits. Although they pay union dues, they have no rights and can be hired and fired at will. The so-called “path to full-time employment” proclaimed by the UAW and GM is a giant loophole, and not actually a path to full-time work.

TPTs will be hired in at full-time positions only after three “consecutive” years of employment, and if they are laid off for 30 days or more and then re-hired, they must start again from the beginning. This bogus “pathway” has been exposed at two plants in Indiana, Marion Metals Center and Fort Wayne Assembly, where over 280 TPT workers have been laid off since the contracts were passed.

Murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak reveals close ties between political establishment, corporate elite and criminal underworld

Markus Salzmann

One out of the four accused in the trial for the murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak has pleaded guilty. Miroslav Marsek, a 37-year-old military veteran, admitted to fatally shooting Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in February 2018. By contrast, the alleged mastermind behind the murders, businessman Marian Kocner, has pleaded not guilty, and is currently on trial for contracting the hit.

The murder of the journalist and subsequent trial which began in December has shed light on the close ties between rich businessmen, corrupt politicians, and criminals that have emerged since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the reintroduction of capitalism three decades ago. Following the murder, mass protests broke out against Prime Minister Robert Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak, which forced them to resign. This will have a major impact on the upcoming parliamentary elections in February.

Slovakia is a member of the European Union and used by the major automakers as a cheap production center. Around 80,000 of the country’s 5.5 million people are directly employed in the auto industry.

Kuciak conducted research into ties between the Italian mafia and Slovakian politicians, uncovering the dubious activities of Kocner and his various business operations in the process. Kocner was suspected of ordering Kuciak’s murder shortly after the journalist’s death.

Kocner initially had a successful career as a pro-government journalist in the 1980s with close ties to the Stalinist bureaucracy as well as some right-wing opposition elements. With these relations, his unscrupulousness, and considerable criminal activity, he emerged as one of Slovakia’s most influential men.

The close ties between all political parties and organised crime were laid bare during the investigation into Kuciak’s killing. Kocner was involved in almost every national corruption scandal over recent years. He is even now on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list. He was only able to act with impunity because he enjoyed protection from high places.

“It is clear that he conducted all manner of economic crimes over years,” said Daniel Lipsic, a lawyer for the Kuciak family and a former justice minister. “Tax evasion, fraud, and the like. And nothing happened, as if he had immunity from prosecution.”

Vast quantities of audio recordings, videos, and card transactions acquired secretly by Kocner in order to blackmail politicians and representatives of the judiciary were secured during the investigations. Former attorney general Dobroslav Trnka was recently arrested—he allegedly protected Kocner from prosecution for years.

Furthermore, Kocner had contacts within every political party. “He referred to a female state secretary in the Justice Ministry as ‘my little monkey.’ He was kept up to date with police investigations against him, demanded biographical information about state prosecutors who threatened him, and urged judges to decide cases in his favour,” Der Spiegel reported last year.

To date, only a tiny portion of the material found by the criminal investigation has been made public. “It includes hundreds of pages we are continuing to review and from which we have released only a small portion,” said Matus Kostolny, editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily newspaper Denník N.

However, the material made public makes clear the scale of the criminal operations. Along with plans to murder state prosecutors, the material also contains evidence of Kocner’s huge influence on the current political setup. According to the documents, Kocner spoke extensively with former prime minister Robert Fico of the social democratic Smer Party in the Maldives and the leader of the right-wing liberal Most–Híd Party.

Slovakian political scientist Grigorij Meseznikov told Der Spiegel that Kocner wanted not only “to influence the judiciary, but all political developments in Slovakia.” In this, Kocner was not alone he noted, “We should not be naive and think that these structures no longer exist. People of Kocner’s type are still there, even though they’ve gone underground for the time being.”

The criminal ties involving all political parties are no secret to the population. This was shown by the mass protests that erupted after the brutal double murder.

Fico was replaced following his resignation by Peter Pellegrini, who is seen as a front man for Fico. Despite the change in Prime Minister government in Bratislava is still made up of a coalition of Fico’s Smer, Most–Híd, which is essentially a mouthpiece for the small but wealthy upper middle class, and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS). The government is characterized by a vicious anti-refugee and anti-Roma agenda. At the same time, it has pursued a strict austerity regime and strengthened the apparatus of state repression.

Fico has committed the Smer, which remains a member of the European social democrats, to a hard-right political line. There is much to suggest that he will seek to establish a governing alliance with the neo-fascist Kotlebists–People’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) after next month’s parliamentary election. Current polls project the neo-Nazis, led by Marian Kotleba, in second place.

Kotleba and his party explicitly consider themselves the successors of the Hlinka Party.

The clerical leader Andrej Hlinka—and later Josef Tiso—established a fascist dictatorship modelled on Germany after Slovakia gained independence as a result of the Munich accord in 1938. They immediately banned the social democratic and communist parties. The military arm of the government, the Hlinka Guard, committed a series of crimes against Jews, Roma, and communists. In 1942, the government deported Slovakia’s Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Guard was officially integrated into the German SS in 1944. Only the invasion of the Red Army in May 1945 ended the rule of terror.

A LSNS parliamentary deputy, Milan Mazurek, was fined €10,000 after making racist statements about Roma in a 2016 interview, which prompted an intervention by Fico to defend the fascist. In a Facebook video, he stated, “Milan Mazurek simply said what virtually the entire nation thinks.” In typical racist fashion, he went on, “If you execute someone for telling the truth, you transform him into a national hero. Should we not be allowed to say that parts of the Roma population abuse the social welfare system?”

A charge of inciting racial hatred was subsequently launched against Fico in December. However, the special state prosecutor has since dropped the charge without providing any explanation. During the trial, the Smer demonstratively backed Fico.

The possible entry of the fascists into the government is not based on any mass support. On the contrary, the country’s political elite is widely despised.

This finds expression in the disintegration of support for all the established parties. According to the latest poll by AKO, Smer would win 17 percent of the vote, the LSNS 11 percent, and the liberal party alliance 9 percent. All other parties have much less support, and many could fail to surpass the 5 percent hurdle for parliamentary representation, including the SNS (5 percent) and Most-Hid (4 percent). Voter turnout could also be just as low as at the European elections last May when turnout was less than 23 percent.

The rise of Kocner and criminal networks in Slovakia is a textbook case of how the reintroduction of capitalism did not bring democracy, freedom, and prosperity, but the opposite. A small privileged layer, which enriched itself shamelessly through legal and illegal means at the expense of the population, is responsible for creating precarious social conditions and paving the way for fascism.

At Davos, Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government shows the banks its credentials

Alejandro López

Recently installed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez flew to Davos to show his government’s credentials to the hundreds of bankers, corporate executives, celebrities, heads of state and cabinet members who participated in the Swiss city’s 50th annual World Economic Forum (WEF).

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addresses the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019 (Photo Credit: Markus Schreiber/AP)

In his speech, Sánchez stressed that his new Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos coalition government is committed to austerity: “We maintain our commitment to reducing the deficit and public debt levels, which will undoubtedly generate greater confidence among economic agents and enable us to have a government with greater possibilities for action and future investment.”

His speech was well received, obtaining endorsements from international finance capital. In a closed-door meeting on Spain with investors, Sánchez was told by Franck Petitgas, Head of International Operations at Morgan Stanley that “in the markets we ‘buy’ your arguments, Mr. President. We believe you will lead a responsible government in economic matters and we are not worried.”

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Secretary-General Ángel Gurría introduced Sánchez to the forum as “one of the great champions of multilateralism.” Gurría said in an interview with EURACTIV that Sánchez “was very clear yesterday, when I introduced him here in the forum, about the reforms and about his programme. We are going to be supporting him, and we’re going to be working with him and for him so that he succeeds.”

The PSOE-Podemos accord, brokered with Spanish business federations and trade unions, lifting the minimum wage 5.5 percent or €59.8 euros to €1,108 euros ($1,230) gross a month, was not discussed. Those attending shared the opinion of the president of the Confederation of Employers’ Organizations, Antonio Garamendi, who said that “we would have liked [the raise] to be a little lower,” but was satisfied that figure agreed was below the initially proposed €1,167.

The banks understand so well the reactionary role of the pseudo-left Podemos party that after a meeting with investors at Davos, Sánchez smiled and told journalists: “They didn’t even ask me about Podemos, I was the one who had to raise the issue.”

Just five years ago, representatives of the Spanish financial aristocracy like Ana Botín (CEO of Santander Group, Europe’s fifth-largest bank), Francisco González (former CEO of BBVA, Spain’s second largest bank) and Ignacio Sánchez Galán (CEO of Iberdrola, one of the world’s biggest electricity utilities) had to fly to Davos to calm investors about a possible Podemos government. US billionaire and hedge fund manager Raymond Dalio warned: “In Europe, parties are surging like Podemos in Spain.”

Podemos had been founded the year before, becoming the undeserving benefactor of rising social opposition to austerity, militarism and attacks on democratic rights. It had risen significantly from 1.2 million (8 percent of the vote) in the 2014 European elections, to 3 million (12 percent) in the 2015 general elections. It’s leader, Pablo Iglesias, spouted phrases about the “caste,” comprising the Popular Party and the PSOE, and made demagogic promises to reverse austerity.

Five years later, El Confidencial Digital cited sources around Davos who said the main conclusion on Spain is “Pedro Sánchez has deactivated Podemos. This is the message that the CEOs of Santander and Iberdrola have received. They have also been congratulated from some prominent executives from various sectors.”

The fact is that Podemos has not been “deactivated.” Podemos was never created to threaten Spanish or European capitalism. A receptacle for Stalinist or Pabloite petty bourgeois forces whose forebears negotiated the 1978 Transition to parliamentary democracy with the previous Francoite fascist regime, it was always an integral part of the Spanish ruling establishment.

Podemos, as the WSWS warned weeks after its foundation in January 2014, was a “political fraud” seeking “above all to politically disarm the working class.” It was based on postmodernist theories of “left populism” rejecting the revolutionary role of the working class, class struggle, and socialism. The WSWS wrote that Podemos aimed to prevent “a rebellion by the working class against the social democratic parties and the trade union bureaucracy and channeling discontent into supposedly radical, but pro-capitalist, formations.”

Terrified at the growing international upsurge of the working class and reflecting the fears of the ruling class about Spanish imperialism’s international position amid neo-colonial wars, trade wars and deepening divisions in the European Union, Podemos backed a PSOE-led government in 2018. After the elections in 2019, it formed a coalition government. The pseudo-left party calculated this would be the best way to suppress growing social opposition to austerity and militarism, and feather the nests of a layer of affluent middle class youth for which it spoke.

These reactionary policies predictably strengthen far-right tendencies in Spanish bourgeois politics that doubtless also have substantial support among the oligarchs assembled at Davos.

The judiciary is moving to stop the PSOE’s attempts to suspend temporarily the crackdown on the Catalan nationalists to garner their support for the PSOE’s austerity budget. The PSOE and Podemos have overseen Madrid’s anti-Catalan campaign for years, including support for violent crackdowns on protestors, judicial frame ups, the show trial and incarceration of Catalan nationalist leaders and passing anti-democratic laws, like the Digital ‘Gag’ Law.

On Thursday, the Spanish Supreme Court stripped Catalan regional premier Quim Torra of his seat in the regional parliament until a final sentence is reached on his ban from public office. In December, the Catalan Regional High Court found Torra guilty of disobedience for refusing to remove banners in support of jailed pro-independence leaders.

Torra has refused to stand down. Catalan parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent, who has publicly opposed removing Torra from his seat, is now being threatened by the Supreme Court. He could be charged with disobedience.

The public debate is increasingly dictated by the fascistic Vox party, whose resolutions, policies and speeches are widely promoted by the media and the political establishment.

Last week, the plans of the region of Murcia—ruled by the right-wing parties—to force schools to ask for parents’ permission to give “talks, workshops or activities with an ideological or moral leaning against their convictions,” became headline news across Spain. For now, these plans target primarily talks on sex education and LGBTQ+ rights. The measure, which has no popular support, aims at mobilising Vox’s far-right Catholic base.

Days later, Vox again dominated the debate by proposing in parliament to ban Catalan and Basque nationalist parties. The measure would affect six parties represented in the Spanish parliament.

The week ended with right-wing opposition parties calling on Transportation Minister José Luis Ábalos to resign after it emerged that he had secretly met with the Venezuelan vice-president Delcy Rodríguez early Monday morning at the Madrid airport. European Union sanctions, supported and designed by the previous PSOE government, ban Rodríguez from entering European Union airspace.