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Midnight on Planet Lockdown: Dylan Strikes Again

By Pepe Escobar, March 30, 2020

What spectacular timing. Like a shot ricocheting at Heaven’s Door as a virus pandemic rages and Planet Lockdown is the new normal, Bob Dylan has produced a stunning 17-minute masterpiece dissecting the November 22, 1963, assassination of JFK – releasing it at midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Thursday.

For baby boomers, not to mention obsessive Dylanologists, this is the ultimate sucker punch. Countless eyes will be plunged into swimming pools revisiting all the memories swirling around “the day they blew out the brains of the king / Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.”  But that’s not all: the Dylanmobile takes us on a magical mystery tour of the 60s and 70s, complete with the Beatles, the Age of Aquarius and the Who’s “Tommy.”

U.S., Canada Side with Fanatical Coup Regime in Bolivia

By Asad Ismi, March 30, 2020

Washington has also been opposed to Morales’s remarkable achievements in the areas of poverty reduction, wealth generation and redistribution, the nationalization of mineral wealth and the enshrinement of Indigenous rights. All of these dramatically signified reduced U.S. control over Bolivia highlighted by the expulsion of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2013 and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2008, partly for “political interference.”

Netanyahu Uses Coronavirus to Lure Rival Gantz Into ‘Emergency’ Government

By Jonathan Cook, March 30, 2020

Benny Gantz, the former Israeli general turned party leader, agreed late last week to join his rival Benjamin Netanyahu in an “emergency government” to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. 

Two weeks ago he had won a wafer-thin majority vote in the parliament that gave him first shot at trying to put together a coalition government.

Instead he has conceded to Netanyahu, who will remain prime minister for the next 18 months. Gantz is supposed to take over in late 2021, though Netanyahu has a formidable reputation for double-dealing.

DOJ Seeks to Exploit Coronavirus Emergency to Detain People Indefinitely

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, March 30, 2020

In light of the national emergency Donald Trump declared on Friday, March 13, his Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking Congress to allow the attorney general to indefinitely detain people without trial in violation of the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The DOJ also seeks to hold hearings without the defendant’s consent and exclude anyone with COVID-19 from eligibility for asylum.

Cuba – An Example of Solidarity in a Time of Crisis

By Nino Pagliccia, March 30, 2020

In January 1959 something new arose in Cuba from the rebellion against the rotten US supported government that had condemned the majority of Cubans to poverty and ignorance. The new society that emerged has resisted a fierce blockade on its economy for the last 60 years, despite of which it has thrived and set the most valuable example to humanity: the value of solidarity.

It is quite striking that just few months into the new Cuban revolution Che Guevara stated in a speech on revolutionary medicine “[what] we have done is practising charity, and what we have to practice today is solidarity.” 

Putin Says ‘the Rich Must Pay’ for the Coronavirus

By Mike Whitney, March 30, 2020

Putin has settled on a more rational and compassionate plan. He’s going to launch a relief program that actually focuses on the people who need it the most. Then, he’s going to cover the costs by taxing the people who are most capable of shouldering the burden. His intention is not to “soak the rich” or to redistribute wealth. He simply wants to find the most equitable way to share the costs for this completely unexpected crisis.

Coronavirus Shutdown and the Worldwide Corporate Debt Crisis

By Christian Parenti and Dante Dallavalle, March 30, 2020

The coronavirus shutdown is hammering supply and demand across the globe. That has forced the real economy into a sharp recession and triggered a rolling financial crisis. Below is a primer on one key piece of this mess: the crisis in corporate debt markets. This branch of finance is vitally important because even healthy companies often need access to credit. If they do not get it, they go under.In 2008, the vector of crisis ran from mortgage-backed securities to the rest of the financial sector and then to the real economy. This time, the real economy is being hit directly, and the damage is reverberating back into financial markets.  The failing markets, in feedback-loop fashion, further threaten the real economy as corporations find it harder to borrow. As the corporate debt markets sour, major companies will go bankrupt. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Some analysts expect the economy to contract by an annualized rate of 30 percent during the second quarter of 2020.