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This evening's music features Memphis r&b singer and songwriter William Bell. Enjoy!

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

-- Frederick Douglass

News and Opinion

FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of this threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI does not specify which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to. ...

The new focus on conspiracy theorists appears to fall under the broader category of anti-government extremism. ... The new category is different in that it focuses not on racial motivations, but on violence based specifically on beliefs that, in the words of the FBI document, “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

Identifying conspiracy theories as a threat could be a political lightning rod, since President Trump has been accused of promulgating some of them, with his frequent references to a deep state and his praise in 2015 for Alex Jones, who runs the conspiracy site InfoWars. While the FBI intelligence bulletin does not mention Jones or InfoWars by name, it does mention some of the conspiracy theories frequently associated with the far-right radio host, in particular the concept of the New World Order.

Heh, if the FBI wants conspiracy theories, they could just go to MSNBC's ConspiraciesRUs outlet:

Progressives Say Kamala Harris Team 'Inventing Conspiracies' About Tulsi Gabbard Rather Than Addressing Critiques

Supporters of Sen. Kamala Harris' run for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary nomination suggested Thursday that criticisms of Harris' record as a prosecutor in California were being driven by a Russian disinformation plot, a theory that was met with ridicule from progressives. ...

Gabbard, in comment to The Hill on Thursday, called the California senator's remarks "pathetic."

"Honestly, it's pathetic that when confronted with the facts and the truth about her record that she claims to be proud of as a prosecutor, as attorney general of California, all she can do is lob cheap smears," said Gabbard.

It wasn't just Syria. On Wednesday night, Harris' campaign jumped to tie Gabbard and her campaign to a nebulously defined and unclear Russian conspiracy.

"Reporters writing their stories with eyes on the modern-day assignment desk of Twitter, read this," said Harris press secretary Ian Sams, sharing a February story from NBC News claiming that Russia is behind the Gabbard campaign. Multiple attempts using a variety of communication tools to reach Sams for comment were not returned.

Reporters writing their stories with eyes on the modern-day assignment desk of Twitter, read this:

"The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat"https://t.co/2kpKQqW3Ir

— Ian Sams (@IanSams) August 1, 2019

The NBC story was criticized at the time by The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who was skeptical of the sourcing:

The only "expert" cited by NBC in support of its key claim was the firm New Knowledge, which just got caught by The New York Times fabricating Russian troll accounts on behalf of the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to manufacture false accusations that the Kremlin was interfering in that election.

Irrespective of the story's validity, the idea that Gabbard's criticisms of Harris were based in Russian disinformation caught fire Thursday, with a number of prominent Democrats and analysts for news network MSNBC piling on the attacks. "And what's top story at RT (Russia Today) this morning after #DemDebate?" tweeted MSNBC contributor and senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University Clint Watts. "Of course, what everyone saw right? Social media going wild for Tulsi Gabbard, populist, after she went after establishment Dem Harris who happens to be on Senate Intel Committee (Russia Investigation)."

Not to be outdone, Richard Stengel, another MSNBC analyst who served as former President Barack Obama's under secretary of State, implied in a tweet that Gabbard's criticisms of Harris' record were part of a deep-cover attack on Harris, who could be an undefined "threat" to Russian interests. "This is a clear example of Russian disinformation happening in real time," claimed Stengel. "A hashtag created and promoted by Russia Today against Kamala Harris & supporting Rep. Gabbard, who is an apologist for another Putin puppet, Bashar Assad."

"This is a sign that Harris is seen as a threat," intoned Stengel.

'How is this not inciting violence?': gun shop billboard targets the Squad

A gun shop in North Carolina has erected an advertising billboard invoking an apocalyptic prophesy to mock the progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts in what anti-gun violence advocates call an incitement to violence.

The billboard, which went up over the weekend, puts images of the four progressive Democratic congresswomen under the phrase “The 4 Horsemen Cometh”, and goes on to describe them as “idiots”.

#Racist rhetoric from the occupant of the @WhiteHouse has made hate our new normal. We are still vulnerable. @RepMarkMeadows – Cherokee Guns is in your district & you and I serve on a committee together. Here’s your chance to finally do the right thing. https://t.co/IvR1eunFQt

— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) July 30, 2019

The Cherokee Guns’ owner, Doc Wacholz, has denied that the billboard on Route 64 outside Murphy is a deliberate provocation. “I’m not inciting any violence or being racist. It’s a statement. It’s an opinion,” he told the Asheville Citizen Times. However, he then made racist and incorrect statements about the four leftwing congresswomen of color. “They’re socialists, from my point of view. I also feel a couple of them, being Muslim, have ties to actual terrorists groups,” he said.

US withdraws from INF Nuclear Treaty: Who's to blame?

Senate Democrats approve Trump war budget

The US Senate passed a budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 that includes a record $738 billion for the military. The budget was the product of an agreement between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Trump White House, reflecting bipartisan support for the American war machine. Senate Democrats gave far more support to the Trump-Pelosi budget than Republicans, voting for it by 38-5, with four absent. Republicans divided much more closely, 30 for, 23 against, and one absent. Republicans were not opposed to the record spending on the military but objected to the level of spending for domestic social programs and the overall deficit.

If the Democrats had voted against the budget by any significant margin, it would have been defeated.

Of the seven Democratic senators running for president, four were absent from the vote, including Bernie Sanders, who declared during the Tuesday Democratic debate in Detroit that he would vote against the record military budget, but did not bother to return to Washington to cast his vote on Thursday. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker were also absent. Among the three Democratic presidential candidates who did return to the capital to vote, Kirsten Gillibrand backed the war budget, while Michael Bennet and Amy Klobuchar voted against.

The Senate result mirrored that in the House, where Democrats provided a huge majority for the budget deal, 219-16, while most Republicans actually voted against the budget backed by Trump, 132-65. Among the House Democrats voting for the record war budget were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, both members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The bipartisan legislation now goes to the White House for Trump’s signature. In a series of tweets over the past week, Trump has hailed the budget deal with Pelosi, singling out the record funding for the military as the principal gain made by the administration negotiating team, which was headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

'We Cannot Keep Handing Over Billions to Military-Industrial Complex,' Says Sanders as Senate Passes Massive Pentagon Budget

Sen. Bernie Sanders said the United States cannot continue pouring massive sums into the Pentagon at the expense of domestic priorities after the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping budget deal that includes $1.48 trillion in military spending over the next two years.

The Pentagon is set to grow by $90 billion and reach $738 billion next year. For $90 billion, we could double nutrition assistance or provide $7,000 to every child in poverty.

We cannot keep handing over billions to the military-industrial complex. https://t.co/8zIyQnlbfZ

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 1, 2019

The agreement passed the Democrat-controlled House last week.

President Donald Trump expressed his enthusiasm for the budget deal in a tweet before it passed the Senate Thursday, assuring Republicans who voiced concerns about the deficit that "there is always plenty of time to cut" domestic spending programs after the 2020 election. As the Washington Post reported last month, Trump has instructed his aides to "to prepare for sweeping budget cuts if he wins a second term in the White House."

We are marching to Dystopia, Dystopia hoorah!

'A Dystopian Surveillance State Being Built in Plain Sight': Pentagon Tests Radar-Equipped Balloons to Spy on Vehicles Across Midwest

Millions of Americans across the Midwest this summer are being subjected to surveillance from above as the Pentagon experiments with the use of surveillance radars attached to high-altitude balloons. As The Guardian reported Friday, the defense and aerospace contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation was authorized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to send up to 25 balloons across six states to track vehicles.

U.S. Southern Command commissioned the project for the stated purpose of creating a "persistence surveillance system" to deter drug traffickers and perceived "homeland security threats."

Civil liberties advocates were distressed at the newly-reported project on Friday, which the Sierra Nevada Corporation obtained a license to begin on July 12 and end on September 1. ...

Programs like the Pentagon's balloon experiment "pose a grave threat to basic human rights, freedom of expression, and civil liberties," Fight for the Future Deputy Director Evan Greer told Common Dreams. "These programs are not about stopping violence, they're about social control."

The balloons are being sent from South Dakota through portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. Their high-tech radars are able to simultaneously track many vehicles at once "on a 25-mile swath beneath the balloon," according to The Guardian. ...

The use of wide-area surveillance by the military opens up huge possibilities for privacy violations and for the targeting of any American who may be engaged in activity that the government deems dangerous in the present or the future, the ACLU said. "Even in tests, they're still collecting a lot of data on Americans: who's driving to the union house, the church, the mosque, the Alzheimer's clinic," Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the organization, told The Guardian. "We should not go down the road of allowing this to be used in the United States and it's disturbing to hear that these tests are being carried out, by the military no less."

Revealed: Boris Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network

The lobbying firm run by Boris Johnson’s close ally Sir Lynton Crosby has secretly built a network of unbranded “news” pages on Facebook for dozens of clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, a Guardian investigation has found. In the most complete account yet of CTF Partners’ outlook and strategy, current and former employees of the campaign consultancy have painted a picture of a business that appears to have professionalised online disinformation, taken on a series of controversial clients and faced incidents of misogynistic bullying in its headquarters. ...

The disclosures will raise pressure on the prime minister to distance himself from CTF, with former staff members warning that the company might wield substantial influence in the new administration. CTF gave Johnson an interest-free loan to cover office and staffing costs earlier this year, while Crosby’s partners in the business are Mark Textor and Mark Fullbrook, with Fullbrook taking a leave of absence to run Johnson’s campaign for the Tory party leadership along with David Canzini.

The news follows the Guardian’s April report that Crosby’s company was behind a series of hugely influential pro-Brexit Facebook groups, which spent as much as £1m seeding the idea of a no-deal exit from the EU in the minds of the British public. But the latest revelations reveal that the company has pursued that approach more broadly, in the service of previously unreported corporate interests and foreign governments.

And they expose a major flaw in Facebook’s political transparency tools, which make it possible for Crosby’s company – which boasts on its website that it deploys “the latest tools in digital engagement” – to use the social network to run professional-looking “news” pages reaching tens of millions of people on highly contentious topics, without apparently disclosing that they are being overseen by CTF Partners on behalf of paying clients.

Tory rebels vow to block Brexit deal even without backstop

A leading Tory rebel who voted down Theresa May’s Brexit deal has warned Boris Johnson that he and dozens of colleagues will block any attempt to pass the agreement again – even if the Irish backstop is removed. Mark Francois, one of 28 Tory MPs who repeatedly held out against May’s deal, said Johnson had been very clear at a meeting of European Research Group MPs that the withdrawal agreement in its entirety was “dead”. ...

Francois said any attempt to bring back the withdrawal bill would lead to very substantial parliamentary wrangling in the run-up to 31 October, with “weeks and weeks of people like [Dominic] Grieve and [Oliver] Letwin and co tabling wrecking amendments”. “You’d have a running parliamentary war probably for at least a month and I don’t think that any sensible government would want that in the run up to 31 October, so in practical terms I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said.

Johnson has said he wants to get a fresh withdrawal deal minus the backstop from the EU but he has not set out any details of how this could be expected to pass through parliament before the deadline of 31 October.

The Guy Tapped to Become Puerto Rico’s Next Governor Is “Throwing More Gasoline on the Fire”

After Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned in the wake of nearly two weeks of sustained protests, the person next in line didn’t want the job. Now, protesters don’t seem to want the new nominee either. Pedro Pierluisi, the former non-voting Puerto Rican representative to Congress, will seek confirmation from Puerto Rico’s House and Senate to take on the position of secretary of state before Rosselló officially resigns. If confirmed, he’ll step up as governor when Rosselló steps down on Friday.

But some Puerto Ricans already feel he’s not the guy for the job, particularly because of his cozy relationship with the unelected fiscal oversight board, known colloquially as “la junta,” that controls the island’s finances. Protesters have called for that body to be disbanded. ...

Since President Obama appointed the finance board in 2016, its members have tried to manage the island’s more than $70 billion in debt, largely by slashing education and healthcare spending. And Pierluisi and his family helped them do it. Pierluisi represented Puerto Rico in Congress when the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, was passed, which created the finance board and allowed the island to declare a form of bankruptcy. Pierluisi’s brother-in-law then became the chair of the board, and Pierluisi, after leaving office, started to work for the law firm that does consulting for the board. ...

“We’re talking about the governor of Puerto Rico and the fiscal control board being one and the same,” Puerto Rican Rep. Manuel Natal Albelo told VICE News. “That does not represent the best interests of Puerto Rico. That represents the best interests of bondholders.”

Roger Stone Will Get to Read Secret Parts of the Mueller Report Before You Do

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report may still be available only in redacted form to the general public, but one of Mueller’s key suspects will soon get an exclusive look: Roger Stone. ...

Stone, one of Trump’s oldest political advisors, was arrested in January and accused of lying under oath about his attempts to reach out to the renegade transparency group WikiLeaks, which published Democratic emails hacked from by Russian cyber-spies in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign. The seven-count indictment charges Stone with making false statements, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

Now, Stone will get to review the portions of the Mueller report that center around the Trump campaign’s ties to WikiLeaks, in some of the most-redacted pages in the document’s first volume. Among other selections, the judge will allow Stone to read seven pages that are almost completely covered up in the public version of the Mueller report, under the heading: “Contacts with the Campaign about WikiLeaks.” ...

Stone’s trial is set to begin in November in Washington DC.

While I am and will remain very grateful to the President for his intention to nominate me as Director of National Intelligence, I am withdrawing from consideration.

— John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) August 2, 2019

Trump's threat of new China tariffs sparks backlash from US retailers

US retailers were lining up on Thursday night against Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on a fresh $300bn of Chinese imports in September, if a US-China trade deal can’t be struck. Financial experts warned of an “economic drag” in the further escalation of trade tensions with China – after the president said that China had not stuck to various promises over trade that he had previously touted as signs of progress.

Within moments of Trump’s announcement of the threat of new tariffs, stocks and oil prices plunged.

Oil prices fell 7%, with the international benchmark Brent crude registering the biggest daily percentage drop since February 2016. On Wall Street the S&P 500, which had been in solidly positive territory on Thursday afternoon, closed down 0.9% while the Dow Jones industrial average shed 1%. ...

“We are disappointed the administration is doubling down on a flawed tariff strategy that is already slowing US economic growth, creating uncertainty and discouraging investment,” said David French, senior vice-president for government relations at the National Retail Federation. “These additional tariffs will only threaten US jobs and raise costs for American families on everyday goods,” he added. ...

Moody’s Investors Service swiftly warned that the extra tariffs would prove to be an economic burden amid “decelerating growth”.

“You’re Gonna Kill Me”: Bodycam Video Shows Dallas Officers Mocking Man as He Died Pinned to Ground

NYPD officer who put Eric Garner in chokehold should be fired, judge says

A judge has recommended that Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer implicated in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, be fired.

Garner died on 17 July 2014, after Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold and pulled him to the ground. Video footage showed Garner pleading with police officers, repeatedly saying: “I can’t breathe.” The phrase became a national rallying cry for activists protesting against police brutality.

The NYPD’s deputy commissioner of trials, Rosemarie Maldonado, said in a report to the police commissioner, James O’Neill, that Pantaleo should be fired. The decision is a recommendation, rather than a binding verdict. The final decision will be taken by O’Neill, who has two weeks to decide Pantaleo’s fate.

Garner’s daughter, Emerald Garner, said O’Neill must follow the recommendation.

“This has been a long battle. Five years too long, and finally somebody has said there is some information that this cop has done something wrong,” she said at a press conference. Garner’s family has called for congressional hearings on police misconduct and for a law that would ban police from using certain methods of restraint.

Lindsey Graham Breaks Senate Rules to Advance Sweeping Anti-Asylum Bill

Senate Democrats and progressive advocacy groups accused Sen. Lindsey Graham of breaking Judiciary Committee rules Thursday after the South Carolina Republican forced a vote to advance his "dangerous and immoral" anti-asylum legislation.

The bill, titled the Secure and Protect Act of 2019 (S.1494), is condemned by human rights organizations as a sweeping attack on asylum seekers and an effort to expand President Donald Trump's xenophobic deportation force.

Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, waived the panel's rules to force a vote on S.1494 before Democrats were permitted to speak on the legislation. "The clerk will call the roll," Graham said as Democrats protested. The South Carolina Republican ignored Democrats' objections and the legislation advanced out of the Judiciary Committee along party lines.

"Lindsey Graham is so desperate to attack asylum seekers that he just broke the rules of his own committee to advance his bill," tweeted progressive advocacy group Credo Action.

'Timely Action Is Critical': Doctors Call On Congress to Investigate Children's Deaths In Migrant Detention Centers

Physicians from two top universities called on Congress to promptly investigate the deaths of six migrant children in the Trump administration's custody, warning that the widely-reported poor conditions in detention centers could be putting thousands of children at risk for infectious diseases.

Three of the six children who died while in U.S. custody since last September died partially because they had contracted influenza, the doctors noted. Two died after spending twice the amount of time in a Border Patrol station than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) typically allows.

It's "necessary to better understand the conditions at the border to avoid more deaths," tweeted Paul Spiegel, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University.

The administration "may be overlooking the risks of outbreaks that are entirely preventable," Joshua Sharfstein, another Johns Hopkins professor, told the Washington Post. ...

The doctors urged lawmakers to probe how the widely-reported unsanitary conditions in the centers—detailed by children in a facility near El Paso in June—contributed to the deaths that have been recorded.

A good read, here's a taste:

Hacked Emails Show GOP Demands on Border Security Were Crafted by Industry Lobbyists

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann often strikes a Trumpian tone on border security, stoking fears during television appearances and on social media about a caravan of Central American migrants, and repeating the president’s pledge to build a wall to prevent unauthorized immigration.

In April 2018, during an appropriations committee hearing, the Tennessee Republican took a more subdued and technical approach to immigration issues when quizzing then-Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan. Fleischmann, looking down to read from a paper in front of him, wanted to know if McAleenan was on schedule to implement an upgrade of license plate reader technology at the border, as mandated by a previous appropriations bill.

McAleenan thanked the committee for its support and pledged continued work to upgrade LPR technology along the border.

A few days after the exchange, a lobbyist representing Perceptics, a tech company that sold state-of-the-art LPR cameras and technology to the government, emailed her team to confirm that Fleischmann had “asked about CBP’s plan to modernize its LPRs as we asked his office to do,” along with a link to a video clip of the hearing. The lobbyist’s email, along with several others in a cache of thousands of hacked documents from Perceptics dumped on the dark web in June, reveal that Fleischmann’s question — and the congressional demand that the agency spend millions of dollars to upgrade the cameras used to automatically read and identify license plates — had been orchestrated in part by a company that hoped to profit from the decision. Fleischmann’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Following the hack, the CBP suspended its contract with Perceptics. But the emails provide a rare inside view of how the border security industry plays a quiet role in shaping immigration policy — and, in this case, how private contractors maneuvered to benefit from heated debate over President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Candidates, Your Views on the Middle East? You Have 30 Seconds.

If you blinked, you might have missed it. Across the five hours of Democratic primary debates split between two nights this week, the presidential hopefuls discussed the future of U.S. foreign policy for no more than 25 minutes. ... Those 25 minutes did produce a handful of memorable moments. Former Vice President Joe Biden suggested that he wanted to renegotiate, rather than simply rejoin, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal the Obama administration negotiated with Pacific Rim countries to isolate China. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came prepared to make the case for a “no first use” nuclear weapons policy and to defend it.

But audiences mostly heard candidates who sounded alike. Sen. Bernie Sanders said he wants to stop “policing the world.” Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan said he wanted to “demilitarize foreign policy.” South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke both condemned “endless war.” New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, O’Rourke, and Buttigieg all said they want to withdraw from Afghanistan — Buttigeig and Gabbard in their first years in office.

Without hearing more about these plans, though, it’s impossible to gauge a candidate’s seriousness. How do they intend to end “endless wars” like the one in Afghanistan? Do they actually want an immediate withdrawal, including that of U.S. forces training the Afghan military? Or an expedited approach to talks with the Taliban or with Pakistan? Do any of these “withdrawal” plans involve leaving behind Special Forces or conducting drone strikes?

CNN’s format did not enable that level of detail. Candidates got one minute to answer a question and 30 seconds for a rebuttal, followed by several hours of pundits debating who “won” various exchanges. (The banner headline on CNN.com read “The Debate’s Winners and Losers.”). This was a format that rewarded quick, charismatic quips at other candidates’ expense.

Ex-Health Insurance Exec: Industry Is Using Decades-Old Scare Tactics to Fight Medicare for All

With 'Flailing' Debate on Half-Measures, Say Progressives, Biden and Harris Accidentally Made Case for Medicare for All

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris inadvertently highlighted one of the key virtues of Medicare for All with their jumbled, vague, and at times dishonest healthcare discussion during Wednesday night's Democratic presidential primary debate.

That was a major takeaway of progressives and health policy experts, who said Harris and Biden's difficulty in explaining the details and benefits their respective proposals showed by comparison the simplicity—and, single-payer proponents argued, the superiority—of Medicare for All in both messaging and policy.

"This flailing discussion is a good demonstration of why Medicare for All makes for great messaging," tweeted The Week's Ryan Cooper. "All these complicated-ass half-measures are impossible to explain."

Biden and Harris released their healthcare proposals in the days leading up to the second Democratic presidential debate, and both were criticized as inadequate to the task of overhauling America's deadly, profit-driven status quo. The former vice president's plan would create a public option and expand Affordable Care Act subsidies. Harris's proposal, which she misleadingly described as "Medicare for All," would expand Medicare and preserve a major role for private insurance.

Analysts said the inadequacies of both plans were on display on the debate stage Wednesday night, just 24 hours after Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) forcefully defended Medicare for All from attacks by right-wing Democratic candidates. "For all its other pros and cons, single-payer's not-so-secret weapon is its simplicity," tweeted the Washington Post's Jeff Stein. "So clear and easy to explain: Everybody in; nobody out; no healthcare costs."

BIG NEWS: Medicare for All is now the official Democratic Party position in the U.S. House, as the legislation now has 118 sponsors -- an official majority of the House Democratic Caucus. This is a huge landmark for @BernieSanders & @PramilaJayapal. https://t.co/XFDogZQM1z

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) August 1, 2019

Alarm over voter purges as 17m Americans removed from rolls in two years

US election jurisdictions with histories of egregious voter discrimination have been purging voter rolls at a rate 40% beyond the national average, according to a watchdog report released Thursday.

At least 17 million voters were purged nationwide between 2016 and 2018, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice. The number was basically unchanged from the previous two-year period.

While the rate of voter purges elsewhere has declined slowly, jurisdictions released from federal oversight by a watershed 2013 supreme court ruling had purge rates “significantly higher” than jurisdictions not previously subjected to oversight, the Brennan Center found in a previous report.

That trend has continued, the watchdog said, with the disproportionate purging of voters resulting in an estimated 1.1 million fewer voters between 2016 and 2018.

Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition'

Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.

Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.

Ending fossil fuel subsidies has long been seen as vital to tackling the climate emergency, with the G20 nations pledging in 2009 to phase them out, but progress has been limited. In May, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, attacked subsidies, saying: “What we are doing is using taxpayers’ money – which means our money – to boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals. In one word: to destroy the world.”

The new analysis shows how redirecting some of the fossil fuel subsidies could decisively tip the balance in favour of green energy, making it the cheapest electricity available and instigating a rapid global rollout. “Almost everywhere, renewables are so close to being competitive that [a 10-30% subsidy swap] tips the balance, and turns them from a technology that is slowly growing to one that is instantly the most viable and can replace really large amounts of generation,” said Richard Bridle of the IISD. “It goes from being marginal to an absolute no-brainer.”

Climate System “Getting Unhinged” as Massive Heat Wave Causes Record Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet

Sucking carbon out of the air is no magic fix for the climate emergency

The Arctic is on fire, hot on the heels of the latest scorching European heatwave. As the impact of the climate crisis mounts, more and more people are asking: how can we control this beast we have created? The scientific answer is fairly straightforward: reduce the amount of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere to zero. The sooner that’s done, the lower the stabilised temperature and the fewer devastating climate impacts we must face. ...

How can it be done? The UK is betting on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, BECCS, where carbon is removed from the atmosphere by crops or trees as they grow. This biomass is then burned in a power station to generate electricity, and the waste carbon dioxide is pumped far underground into old oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers. A second approach is to restore or enhance processes that naturally remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forest restoration removes carbon by storing it in trees, and soils can also take up carbon, for example, if crushed silicate rocks are spread on to them, enhancing a natural chemical process.

With a range of options, we might think that negative emissions means that climate change can be tackled, and tackled fast. But evidence that these technologies can work at a small demonstration scale is causing the opposite. Negative emissions are treated as a “get out of jail free” card – a licence to keep emitting and clean up the mess later with new technologies. Politicians and their advisers love them, because they can announce a target such as 1.5C while planning to exceed it, with temperatures hopefully clawed back later in the century through negative emissions. ...

Scrutinise the pathways in the recent IPCC report consistent with the 1.5C target and the stated amount of negative emissions envisaged is incredible. Most scenarios have more than 730bn tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestered as negative emissions this century. That is equivalent to all the carbon dioxide emitted since the industrial revolution by the US, the UK, Germany and China combined. There just isn’t enough land to suck up that much carbon into new forests. And using BECCS to remove this much carbon, as most scenarios assume, would require an area of new cropland larger than India, plus building a facility to store 1m tonnes of carbon a year every single day from 2025 until 2050. Negative emissions at this scale are the stuff of fantasy.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

U.N. chief says world will lose brake on nuclear war with end of INF treaty

Propagandists Are Freaking Out Over Gabbard’s Destruction Of Harris

Protesters Target Joe Biden on Deportation and Bill De Blasio on Eric Garner During Democratic Debate

CNN Caught Blocking Bernie Supporters From Camera

Taibbi: The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller

'The selling of an election': how private firms compromised midterms security

Grave Warnings as McConnell Accelerates Right-Wing Takeover of US Courts

Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire

UK less able to cope with hard Brexit than it was in spring, say officials

A Guide for the Perplexed Progressive in 2020 is 2016

Alarm over North Atlantic right whale's survival after recent deaths

Maori land rights leader calls on Jacinda Ardern to recognise Indigenous 'crisis'

If you act now you can maybe avoid the worst of climate change. But you know you're not going to

The uncomfortable truth? Baltimore has problems. And Democrats are to blame

Most detailed ever 3D map of Milky Way shows 'warped' shape

Epstein reportedly hoped to develop super-race of humans with his DNA

Court of a-peel: nasty split over banana costume leads to legal monkey business

A Little Night Music

William Bell - You Don't Miss Your Water

William Bell - I Told You So

William Bell - Poison In The Well

William Bell - I Got A Sure Thing

William Bell - Never Like This Before

William Bell & Mavis Staples - I Ain't Particular

William Bell & Judy Clay - Love-Eye-Tis

William Bell Mavis Staples - Hold on this time

William Bell - Eloise Hang on in There

William Bell - Just As I Thought

William Bell - Born Under a Bad Sign