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This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist and singer James Davis. Enjoy!

“He turned away, and suddenly she thought about the old children's story, where the stupid girl opens the box that God gave her, and all the evils of the world fly out, except Hope, which stays at the bottom; and she wondered what Hope was doing in there in the first place, in with all the bad things. Then the answer came to her, and she wondered how she could've been so stupid. Hope was in there because it was evil too, probably the worst of them all, so heavy with malice and pain that it couldn't drag itself out of the opened box.”

-- K.J. Parker

News and Opinion

Climate Activists To SHUT DOWN D.C. On Sept. 23! w/Nick Brana

Chris Hedges: The Last Act of the Human Comedy

There is nothing new to our story. The flagrant lies and imbecilities of the inept and corrupt leader. The inability to halt the costly, endless wars and curb the gargantuan expenditures on the military. The looting of a beleaguered populace by the rich. The destruction of the ecosystem. The decay and abandonment of a once-efficient infrastructure. The implosion of the institutions, from education to diplomacy, that sustain a functioning state. The world has seen it before. It is the familiar disease of the end of a civilization. At first it is grimly entertaining, even amid the mounting suffering. But no one will be laughing at the end.

Human nature does not change. It follows its familiar and cyclical patterns. Yes, this time, when we go down the whole planet will go with us. But until then we will be mesmerized by fools and con artists. What are demagogues like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, positive psychologists and Candide-like prognosticators such as Steven Pinker other than charlatans who insist the tragedy facing us is not real? What are the technocrats and scientists arguing that education and Western civilization can turn us into rational beings other than shamans? What are the corporate titans who make their fortunes off the arms, chemical, fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries that are destroying the natural world other than high priests demanding human sacrifice?

There is one human story. Dressed in new clothing and using new tools, we endlessly relive it. ... Human beings have inhabited the planet for about 200,000 of its 4.5 billion years. For most of those 200,000 years, humans did not radically alter the ecosystem. But the Industrial Revolution, which began about two and a half centuries ago, saw human beings extract fossil fuels, tapping into a hundred million years of sunlight stored in the form of coal and petroleum. The energy from fossil fuels provided unparalleled wealth and military superiority to the planet’s industrialized north, which used its power to subjugate most of the rest of the globe to cheaply extract resources and abuse cheap labor. The human population rapidly climbed to over 7 billion. The air, water and ice have seriously degraded under the onslaught as the planet shifts from one climate to another, a climate that will no longer be hospitable to human habitation.

The only existential question left is how we will choose to wait out the finale. But to pose that question is to defy the cultural mania for hope, the yearning for collective self-delusion. If reality is grim, you banish it. You invent impossible scenarios of inevitable salvation. Which explains how we ended up where we are.

As the Grand Inquisitor pointed out in “The Brothers Karamazov,” those who possess the emotional and intellectual fortitude to face what lies before them will always be in the minority. There is a numbing comfort that comes with surrendering moral autonomy for abject servility and obedience, and this comfort is especially attractive in a crisis. ... And yet, no more than 3% to 5% of the population need be engaged to challenge despotic power. This means, first, naming and accepting reality. It will not be easy. It means grieving for what is to come, for there is certain to be mass death. It means acting, even if defeat is certain, to thwart those who would extinguish us. Extinction Rebellion plans to occupy and shut down major city centers around the globe in October. This is a good place to start. By defying the forces of death, we affirm life.

‘All of us are in danger’: John Pilger delivers warning from Julian Assange

Draconian Rules at Guantanamo Bay Violate Media’s First Amendment Rights, News Outlets Say

Military officials at Guantanamo Bay have drafted restrictive new rules for journalists visiting the naval base that require journalists to agree to have all their interviews vetted and supervised by public affairs officers. The policy was handed out this week to journalists, including one from The Intercept, who were asked to sign and return it within as little as 26 hours if they wanted to attend military commission proceedings in the coming weeks.

“[Journalists] may not participate in any activity related to their work, including any news or information gathering activity, if they are not accompanied by a designated public affairs escort and have that escort’s explicit consent,” the policy reads. It also requires reporters to submit audio recordings of interviews to be “screened prior to upload into any laptop and prior to release.”

The policy could significantly limit the public’s understanding of what goes on at Guantanamo Bay, which still houses 40 detainees, and where the military commissions system has struggled through years of pretrial motions for the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

A coalition of news organizations, including the New York Times, the Associated Press, and First Look Media — The Intercept’s parent company — sent a letter Friday objecting to the rules on First Amendment grounds and asking that their implementation be postponed. The letter was written by David McCraw, the deputy general counsel of the New York Times. “As part of their constitutionally protected news coverage of the Military Commissions, journalists will at times carry out interviews with defense lawyers, 9/11 victims, and others,” the letter says. “Now, by essentially authorizing government surveillance of those interactions, the new regulations impose an unacceptable restraint on press freedom.”

Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire at Lebanon border

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire along the Lebanese border after a week of rising tensions. Israel's military said it fired into southern Lebanon on Sunday after a number of anti-tank missiles fired by Hezbollah targeted its army base and vehicles near the border. Hezbollah was responding to an earlier drone attack by Israel.

The missiles hit several targets in Israel's border town of Avivim on Sunday, the Israeli army said, adding it responded by shelling 100 targets inside Lebanon.

According to Hezbollah, the missiles launched from Lebanon destroyed a tank, killing and wounding those inside it. Israel, however, said the attack did not lead to any casualties on its side.

The Israeli shelling following the missile strike has since died down with the Israeli military saying the latest round of fighting with Hezbollah appears to be over.

Following Sunday's cross-border fire, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said he called US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and France's top diplomat to discuss the events, to prevent the situation from escalating in to a full-fledged war.

Iran voices optimism over nuclear deal after talks with France

Iran and France have moved closer in their views on the future of Tehran’s nuclear deal with the west after talks between the countries’ presidents, the Iranian government has said. ...

“Fortunately the points of views have become closer on many issues and now technical discussions are being held on ways to carry out the Europeans’ commitments,” said the Iranian government spokesman, Ali Rabiei. ...

Macron has reportedly been trying to launch a $15bn credit line to pre-purchase Iran’s oil, but it is not clear if the US would allow such a move or sanction any company or country that sought to buy Iranian oil.

In pulling out of the nuclear deal last year, the US vowed to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero to pressure Tehran into renegotiating the deal struck with Barack Obama. Tehran is unlikely to settle for any deal that does not allow it to export a minimum 700,000 barrels a day. Current sales have fallen to 300,000 a day.

French diplomats are meeting the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in Paris on Monday to discuss outlines of the deal. France has said its objective is “to have a sequence where there are commitments on both sides”. The talks are being held against the backdrop of an Iranian threat to take a third as yet unspecified step away from the nuclear deal as early as Thursday or Friday.

Saudi-led coalition strike on Yemen prison kills 100 people – Red Cross

US 'Complicit in This Nightmare,' Says Sanders, After Trump-Backed Saudi Coalition Kills Over 100 in Bombing of Yemeni Prison

In what was described as its deadliest attack on Yemen this year, the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition on Sunday killed more than 100 people with airstrikes on a detention center in Dhamar city, forcing aid workers to divert medical supplies intended for the nation's cholera epidemic to treat victims of the bombing.

Franz Rauchenstein, head of the the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Yemen, which responded to the attack and searched for survivors under the rubble, called the bombing "disturbing" and a likely war crime.

"The location that was hit has been visited by ICRC before. It's a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while," Rauchenstein told AFP. "To hit such a building is shocking and saddening—prisoners are protected by international law."

According to ICRC, there were around 170 people in the detention facility when it was attacked by the Saudi-led coalition. At least 40 survivors are being treated, and the rest are presumed dead. "Witnessing this massive damage, seeing the bodies lying among the rubble was a real shock," said Rauchenstein. "People who are not taking active part in combat should not die in such a way."

Shortly following the bombing, United Nations special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths issued a statement demanding an investigation and accountability for the attack.

The Saudi-led coalition's latest air raid comes months after President Donald Trump vetoed a War Powers resolution that would have ended U.S. military cooperation with Saudi Arabia's years-long assault on Yemen, which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who led the War Powers effort in the Senate, said Sunday that "U.S. bombs, logistical support, and intelligence for the Saudi dictatorship's airstrikes make us complicit in this nightmare."

Hong Kong: I would quit if I had choice, says leader in leaked audio

A leaked audio recording has emerged in which Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, can be heard saying she would quit if she had “a choice” but suggesting she was being prevented from doing so by authorities in Beijing. In the recording, obtained by Reuters, the Hong Kong chief executive told a group of businesspeople in a closed-door meeting last week she was “very, very limited” in how her government could respond to the mass protests that began in June over a proposal to allow extradition to mainland China.

“For a chief executive to have caused this huge havoc to Hong Kong is unforgivable. If I have a choice, the first thing [I would do] is to quit, having made a deep apology,” Lam said, her voice breaking with emotion. “So I make a plea to you for your forgiveness.” ...

In the leaked recording, Lam said she was constrained by the fact the situation had reached “a sort of sovereignty and security level” of concern to the Beijing leadership, especially in the midst of “unprecedented tension between the two big economies of the world” – a reference to deteriorating economic and diplomatic ties between the US and China.

“The political room for the chief executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution – that is, the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong – that political room for manoeuvring is very, very, very limited,” she said.

Hong Kong students boycott classes as Chinese media warns 'end is coming'

Thousands of students in Hong Kong have boycotted the first day of the new term in a fresh wave of protests, after a tense weekend of violent clashes between police and demonstrators.

On Monday, university and secondary students marked the end of their summer break by skipping classes and holding rallies to call on the government to withdraw a controversial extradition bill, among other demands. ...

On Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said in a regular news briefing that demonstrations in Hong Kong had “completely exceeded the scope of freedom of assembly”. “They have evolved into extreme and violent actions,” he said, reiterating Beijing’s support for the Hong Kong government and police.

In an English language editorial on Sunday, the Xinhua state news agency said “the end is coming for those attempting to disrupt Hong Kong and antagonise China”.

Boris Johnson faces parliamentary rebellion over no-deal Brexit

Snap election speculation mounts as No 10 calls emergency cabinet

Speculation is mounting that Boris Johnson could call a snap general election if backbench rebels succeed in passing a bill to delay Brexit, with a Downing Street source saying the issue would be treated as “an expression of confidence” in the government. Johnson’s cabinet ministers are being summoned for an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday afternoon, before the prime minister addresses Conservative MPs at a No 10 drinks reception.

Senior sources among the cross-party group of rebels say they believe Johnson could seek a snap general election as early as Wednesday, asking for the two-thirds majority needed in the Commons under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The sources suggested the vote would come with a commitment that polling day would be before 31 October, though the date would ultimately be in the control of the government.

The Downing Street source confirmed Johnson would see cabinet ministers before the MPs’ reception, saying they would “discuss the government’s response to MPs seeking to take control of legislative agenda away from the government and handing it to the opposition and Corbyn without the consent of the people”.

Tory whips are attempting to draw a distinction between MPs who are voting with conscience to stop no deal and those who will vote to hand control of the order paper to rebel MPs in order for a bill to pass. It is the latter group that No 10 says it believes are in effect voting against the government in a confidence vote – by taking the power to control parliamentary business away from a Conservative administration – and it is those MPs who will lose the whip.

The Guardian has spoken to at least 18 Conservative MPs who have said, privately or publicly, they have not been deterred from voting to stop no deal, despite threats of deselection and a possible early election.

Boris Johnson: "This bill would force me to go to Brussels and beg an extension"

Jeremy Corbyn: "It is a no-deal exit that would mean surrendering our industry, our jobs"

Boris Johnson’s ultimatum: back me or face 14 October election

Boris Johnson has issued a final Brexit ultimatum to rebel MPs by pledging to call a snap general election next month if the House of Commons pushes ahead with a bill tabled by a cross-party group of backbenchers seeking to block no deal. In a carefully choreographed sequence, Johnson held an emergency cabinet meeting, addressed Conservative MPs at a Downing Street reception and then made a live television address outside No 10 to say there were “no circumstances” under which departure from the EU would not happen on 31 October.

Johnson said in his televised address, which was punctuated by chants from protestors at the gates of Downing Street, that he did not want an election. But No 10 briefings openly threatened one on 14 October if rebels did not back down. Johnson said the backbench bill, signed by the former chancellor Philip Hammond, the ex-justice secretary David Gauke and others, would “chop the legs out” from the UK’s Brexit negotiations.

The bill, which the MPs hope to push through parliament at high speed if they seize control of the Commons timetable on Tuesday, would mandate Johnson to extend departure until 31 January, unless MPs backed a deal or approved no deal. Downing Street spelled out the consequences for rebel Conservative MPs, already threatened with losing the party whip, if they pushed ahead with the plan and took over the Commons timetable. ...

“MPs are effectively considering tomorrow whether to hand control of the negotiations to Jeremy Corbyn,” the source said.

The Guardian understands the plan has been under consideration for a number of days but was “crystallised” by the seeming determination of MPs to press on with the legislation despite threats of deselection. Senior rebel Tories and Labour MPs are sceptical Johnson would stick to his word and call an election before 31 October, though government sources ruled out any chance of changing the date after MPs had voted.

Pelosi Talks about “The Hood” On Jimmy Kimmel

"He's Opposed Every Increase in the Minimum Wage": AFL-CIO Chief Rips Trump's Anti-Worker Agenda

In an interview ahead of Labor Day, AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka said workers across the nation are suffering under President Donald Trump's supposedly "booming" economy and slammed the White House for refusing to raise the minimum wage, pushing for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and gutting workplace safety regulations.

"He came to our members and said, 'I'm going to change the rules of the economy,'and they believed him. And, quite frankly, I wish he would have changed the rules of the economy," Trumka told Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday.

"Unfortunately, the rules he's changing has hurt them," said Trumka. "He's opposed every increase in the minimum wage. He's changed the regulation to take overtime away from a couple of million people. He's proposed a trillion dollar cuts to Medicare and Medicaid... He's rolled back health and safety standards towards workers."

Trumka went on to note that, despite consistent economic growth and booming corporate profits thanks to the president's massive tax cuts, "real wages are down because of housing costs and healthcare."

The president's response to falling wages, Trumka said, has been "to propose a trillion-dollar cut to Medicare and Medicaid, to oppose increases into the minimum wage."

Trumka's comments came as union leaders are voicing outrage over the president's broad corporate-friendly economic agenda and, specifically, his reckless trade war with China, which has caused falling incomes and record bankruptcies among American farmers.

Greece sets out emergency plans to tackle surge of migrant arrivals

The Greek government has announced emergency measures to deal with what it calls “huge waves” of asylum seekers arriving from Turkey amid mounting fears of the 2015 migrant crisis being replayed on the country’s shores. With boatloads of men, women and children once again arriving on Aegean islands, the new centre-right administration vowed to bolster patrols along sea borders that are being targeted with renewed vigour by people-smugglers.

“We are seeing huge waves being brought in by traffickers using new methods and better and faster boats,” the country’s civil protection minister, Michalis Chrysochoidis, said after the measures were announced at the weekend. “If the situation were to continue we’d have a repeat of 2015. We are going to take measures to protect our borders and we are going to be much stricter, much faster in applying them.” ...

The sharp increase in migrant and refugee arrivals appears to have taken officials by surprise. Last week close to 650 people, including 240 children mostly of Afghan origin, landed in a matter of hours on Lesbos, the north Aegean island on the frontline of the refugee crisis four years ago.

A crackdown on migrants in Turkey, home to more than 3.6 million displaced Syrians, and renewed fighting in Syria appear to have spurred the jump. In August, Turkish authorities reported a sevenfold increase in those making the crossing into Greece. Nearly half of the 56,000 refugee and migrant arrivals in Europe this year have come through the Greek islands, according to the UN.

Molotov cocktail thrown into US Citizenship and Immigration office

A woman threw a lit Molotov cocktail into the lobby of a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Oakland Park, Florida, on Friday. No one was injured, according to a report sent to Trump administration officials and seen by the Associated Press.

The woman walked into the office on Friday afternoon and threw a bottle filled with gasoline. A lit fuse disconnected from the bottle and the device did not ignite, according to the report.

Law enforcement officials believe the woman intended to cause harm but the incident was not related to other recent instances in which homeland security agencies were targeted.

Earlier this month in San Antonio, Texas, at least one vehicle pulled up to a building that houses offices for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or Ice, and a gunman fired shots through a window, FBI officials said. No one was injured. Another building used by Ice was also fired on. ...

The incident came amid federal investigators’ growing concerns about attacks on immigration agencies during a time of heightened emotion and scrutiny, as Donald Trump tries to move ahead with major changes and energize his base by delivering on campaign promises.

Supreme Court case could give families the right to sue U.S. border agents for cross-border killings

The Charleston Shooter Should Never Have Been Able to Get a Gun. Now, Victims' Families Can Sue the Government Over It.

Despite a prior drug offense, the Charleston church shooter was able to buy a gun a few months before the massacre because of a flaw in the background-check system. And now the families of his victims will be able to sue the federal government over it. A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the nine victims’ family members and survivors of the June 2015 shooting at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church can sue the federal government for the system flaws that made it possible for Dylann Roof to buy his weapon.

Friday’s decision reverses a lower court’s ruling that argued the government couldn’t be held responsible for those loopholes.

Roof purchased a handgun legally in April 2015 even though his admission to a drug offense earlier that year should have prevented that. Two months later, the avowed white supremacist used that gun to kill nine black parishioners who’d gathered for Bible study at Mother Emanuel.

Roof’s offense was entered incorrectly into the NICS database, which triggered a delay in the background check process. After three business days lapsed, Roof got his gun — despite the background check still pending. Under current law, a prospective gun buyer can receive their gun after three business days even if the federal background check is still pending. This loophole is known as the “default proceed.”

In Secretive Court Hearing, NYPD Cops Who Raped Brooklyn Teen in Custody Get No Jail Time

The young woman who goes by Anna Chambers on social media had just a few short words for the public on Thursday evening. “Fuck the criminal justice system,” she tweeted. Earlier that day, through a call from her lawyer, Chambers learned that the two former New York Police Department officers who had raped her while on duty would serve no jail time.

Eddie Martins and Richard Hall, the cops who resigned after the incident involving the then-18-year-old Chambers, were sentenced to five years of probation after they pleaded guilty to 11 charges, including bribery and misconduct. Both men admitted to having sex with the teenage girl while she was held in their custody in 2017, an act that, thanks to Chambers’s case, now constitutes rape under the law (and always constituted rape under any moral reading of the word).

The pleas and the light sentences — handed down in a secretive court hearing — come at the same moment that NYPD officers and their belligerent union are protesting the long-overdue firing of Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who choked Eric Garner to death. Together with the closure of the criminal case surrounding Chambers’s ordeal, it could not be more clear the extent to which police impunity continues to rein.

Chambers’s attorney, Michael David, told me that he and his client had not been made aware in advance of Thursday’s hearing, having expected the officers’ next court date to be on September 9. ... “They did it secretly, it wasn’t even on the court calendar.” David only learned about the officers’ plea deals when he was called by a New York Post court reporter, who in turn had been tipped off by a court clerk. ...

What’s more, Kings County Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun handed down a sentence more lenient than even the prosecution recommended. “For the record, your honor, we do oppose a non-jail sentence,” Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Frank DeGaetano stated during Thursday’s brief hearing, according to the court transcript. The district attorney’s office recommended one to three years in jail on a plea, for charges that could carry a seven-year sentence. In response, the judge accounted for his leniency in an abrupt monologue, peppered with victim-blaming.

Georgia Republicans use power of state to suppress minority vote

Top Georgia Republicans continue to use the power of the state to investigate political rivals, executing a strategy that voting rights activists say is designed to intimidate voting rights organizations and activists serving minority communities. Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, and David Emadi, executive secretary of the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, are investigating and issuing subpoenas to political opponents, without publicly showing evidence there was wrongdoing by those parties.

Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, pioneered the tactic as secretary of state, where he used his authority to investigate political opponents, liberal political groups and get out the vote (GOTV) organizers working in racial minority communities. To date, none of the investigations, subpoenas, arrests or prosecutions against political opponents and minority GOTV organizers have led to convictions, meaning that Kemp’s – and now Raffensperger and Emadi’s – political rivals remain innocent of charges brought against them.

But voting rights activists say there is a trend in Georgia of Republicans using the power of an elected office to investigate political opponents as a voter intimidation tactic.

Sanders Previews Plan to Cancel $81 Billion in Medical Debt and Tackle 'Barbaric' Number of Bankruptcies

At a healthcare-focused town hall in South Carolina Friday—followed by an official campaign statement Saturday—Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he is working on a plan to cancel Americans' existing past-due medical debt and address future medical debt.

According to CNN:

A woman at the town hall stood up and asked, "Is there anything in your plan that would actually work for people that are drowning right now for their medical debt?"

"We're looking at that right now," Sanders responded. "In another piece of legislation that we're going to be offering we will eliminate medical debt in this country. I mean, just stop and think for a second. Why should people be placed in financial duress? For what crime did you commit? You got a serious illness? That is not what this country should be about."

Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told CNN on Friday that "Sen. Sanders had previously asked us to pull together a plan to finally end the crisis of medical debt, and when asked directly about it tonight he was honest and candid in previewing his thinking on this important matter."

Sen. Bernie Sanders: "In another piece of legislation that we're going to be offering, we will eliminate medical debt in this country." pic.twitter.com/UEHUwiPzdF

— The Hill (@thehill) August 31, 2019

Sanders Campaign Demands Washington Post Retract 'Fact Check' of Medical Bankruptcies Remarks

As Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders teased a proposal to cancel all past due medical debt and address all future medical debt in the United States, his campaign sent a letter Saturday to Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, demanding that the newspaper retract a controversial "fact check."

Since Wednesday, the Post has come under fire for publishing a critical review of Sanders' citation of a peer-reviewed editorial that ran in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). Sanders had said earlier this month that "500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills" and "500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills."

The Post's Salvador Rizzo gave Sanders' recent remarks "three Pinocchios," a designation the newspaper uses for statements that have a "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." Despite handing down that rating, Rizzo noted that when Dr. David U. Himmelstein—the editorial's lead author and a public health professor at City University of New York's Hunter College—was asked by the Post "whether Sanders was quoting his study accurately, he said yes."

The Post's "fact check" elicited criticism from not only members of the Sanders presidential campaign but also other reporters and media outlets. Tim Dickinson wrote Thursday for Rolling Stone:

The process by which the Post fact checker transmogrified a basically true statement into a ruling of "mostly false" is a case study in the uselessness of the political fact check as it is often practiced.

Subjecting political speechmaking to this kind of nitpick is folly. The entire nature of the political enterprise is looser than that. Politicians speak to broad systemic problems. If they're sharp and persuasive, they have statistics at hand. And if their staff is any good, those statistics have reputable studies to back them up. By any meaningful measure what Sanders said is accurate for the purposes of the project. If citing a study accurately enough to satisfy its author still gets a "mostly false," it's hard to know what could possibly pass muster.

The Sanders campaign's letter to the Post's executive editor, signed by senior adviser Warren Gunnels and posted in full online, also highlighted other recent "fact checks" from the newspaper that have been scrutinized, and requested that the Post commit "to covering Senator Sanders in a fair, professional, and ethical manner that finally starts honoring the most basic standards of accuracy."

Much more at the link:

How Larry Fink, Joe Biden’s Wall Street Ally, Profits From Amazon Cattle Ranching, a Force Behind Deforestation

Larry Fink, the influential chief executive of BlackRock, which manages more than $6 trillion in investments, wants the public to know that he is using his enormous power to press companies to “serve a social purpose.” Fink — a Democratic donor who reportedly promised to help Joe Biden get elected president — wrote to businesses his firm invests in last year to urge them to consider their “impact on the environment” and the threat of climate change. ...

That desire to be seen as an ethical investor has not, however, stopped BlackRock from contributing to the climate crisis by providing significant financing to the world’s biggest meatpacker, JBS, which has been caught year after year buying cattle raised on illegally deforested Amazon land. ... Cattle ranching is “the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80 percent of current deforestation rates,” according to researchers at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

As Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post reported this week, cattle ranchers in Brazil “have been pushing their herds into the Amazon, clear-cutting and burning the forest as they go” to meet the surging demand for beef exported by Brazilian agribusiness firms to mainly China, Iran, Egypt, Russia, and the United States. About a third of that beef is exported by JBS, the spectacularly corrupt Brazilian meat-packing conglomerate BlackRock is heavily invested in. But even as Fink publicly urged business leaders to consider their environmental impact, BlackRock increased its stake in JBS by $41 million between 2016 and 2018, according to research conducted for Friends of the Earth.

The Amazon Killers (w/ Christian Poirier of Amazon Watch)

#Dorian is now one of the five strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic. And it's the 4th year in a row with a Category 5 storm, again breaking a record. #hotnewworldhttps://t.co/EBqhE28vNO

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 1, 2019

BACKGROUNDER: Dorian moved through very warm ocean waters (86°F/30°C) this week, meaning there was plenty of energy to fuel its intensification. Full climate change context here: https://t.co/u49EAFgxKs https://t.co/DHl0tLGzQK

— Climate Signals (@ClimateSignals) September 1, 2019

'It Is Pure Hell Here': Videos From Bahamas Show Devastation Left by Hurricane Dorian as Category 5 Storm Heads Toward US Coast

Videos posted online late Sunday and early Monday provided the first glimpse of the scale of destruction Hurricane Dorian—a historic Category 5 storm—left in its wake in the Bahamas as it slowly moves toward the southeastern coast of the United States, forcing nearly a million residents of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas to evacuate.

"I have seen utter devastation here... We are surrounded by water with no way out," said ABC News correspondent Marcus Moore, who was on the ground in Marsh Harbour.

"Absolute devastation, there really are no words," said Moore, surveying destroyed homes and buildings. "It is pure hell here on Marsh Harbour on Aboca Island in the northern part of the Bahamas."

The Guardian characterized Dorian as "the biggest storm to hit the Caribbean island chain in modern times," with wind gusts reaching as high as 220 mph.

Forecasters on Monday said the storm could get "dangerously close to the Florida east coast" as early as Monday night.

'It's scary': wildlife selfies harming animals, experts warn

At the International Penguin Conference in New Zealand, the experts were worried. Among sobering discussions about the perils of the climate crisis and habitat loss, the unlikely issue of wildlife selfies photobombed the agenda, with increasing concern that the celebrity-fuelled search for that perfect shot is affecting animal behaviour. Professor Philip Seddon, the director of Otago University’s wildlife management programme, said: ‘We’re losing respect for wildlife, we don’t understand the wild at all.”

Seddon told the global convention – held in Dunedin last week – that the normalisation of wildlife selfies was “scary” and was harming animals, including causing physical and emotional stress, interrupting feeding and breeding habits, and even potentially lowering birth rates. ...

“We have an increasingly urbanised population around the world who are alienated from the natural world and whose access to wildlife is commodified and sanitised and made safe. So we’re seeing these very strange behaviours that seem weird to us as biologists – such as posing your child on a wild animal.”

Platforms such as Instagram host hundreds of thousands of wildlife selfies. Researchers at World Animal Protection analysing wildlife selfies for a 2017 report discovered a 292% increase in the number of wildlife selfies posted on Instagram between 2014 and 2017, with 40% of the images posted described as “bad selfies” – meaning someone hugging, holding or inappropriately interacting with a wild animal.

A “good” wildlife selfie was described as a picture where there is no contact between an animal and a human, and the animal is not being restrained or held in captivity to be a used as a photo prop.

Also of Interest

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

"Scariest Thing You'll Read All Day": Report Sounds Alarm Over Brain-Reading Technology and Neurocapitalism

The Best Movie Ever Made About the Truth Behind the Iraq War Is “Official Secrets”

A Society Is Only As Free As Its Most Troublesome Political Dissident

NYT Presents Murder of a Palestinian Boy as ‘National Trauma’—for Jewish Israelis

Syrian 'Rebels' Feel Left Behind - Burn 'Traitor' Erdogan's Picture

BRICS was Created as a Tool of Attack, Says an Imprisoned Lula

DEA Agents Ambush Amtrak Passengers With Controversial Searches and Seizures

Hong Kong Rioters Wage Sabotage Campaign To Press Congress Into Punishing China

On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe

How Trump’s trade wars are fueling the Amazon fires

A Little Night Music

James Davis - Ain't it great

James Davis - Blue Monday

James "Thunderbird" Davis - Instrumental #4

James Davis - Your Turn To Cry

James "Thunderbird" Davis - A Case Of Love

James "Thunderbird" Davis - Further On Up The Road

James "Thunderbird" Davis - Hello Sundown

James "Thunderbird" Davis - Next Time You See Me

James "Thunderbird" Davis - Go Girl