Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans musician Dr. John. Enjoy!

"So there you have it. A mysterious stranger from the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic CIA was working in the White House, heroically provided the political/media class with politically powerful information out of the goodness of his heart, and then vanished off into Langley sunset. Clearly there is nothing suspicious about this story at all.

In all seriousness, even to call this spook a “whistleblower” is ridiculous on its face. You don’t get to call someone from the US intelligence community a whistleblower unless they are actually whistleblowing on the US intelligence community. That’s not a thing. A CIA officer who exposes information about government officials is an operative performing an operation unless proven otherwise, because that’s what the CIA does; it liberally leaks information wherever it’s convenient for CIA agendas while withholding all other information behind a veil of government secrecy.

A CIA officer who exposes information about CIA wrongdoings without the CIA’s permission is a whistleblower. A CIA officer who exposes information about someone else is just a spook doing spook things. You can recognize the latter by the way the mass media supports, applauds and employs them. You can recognize the former by the way they have been persecuted, imprisoned, and/or died under mysterious circumstances."

-- Caitlyn Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Problem With Impeachment

Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic. It would not magically restore democratic institutions. It would not return us to the rule of law. It would not curb the predatory appetites of the big banks, the war industry and corporations. It would not get corporate money out of politics or end our system of legalized bribery. It would not halt the wholesale surveillance and monitoring of the public by the security services. It would not end the reigns of terror practiced by paramilitary police in impoverished neighborhoods or the mass incarceration of 2.3 million citizens. It would not impede ICE from hunting down the undocumented and ripping children from their arms to pen them in cages. It would not halt the extraction of fossil fuels and the looming ecocide. It would not give us a press freed from the corporate mandate to turn news into burlesque for profit. It would not end our endless and futile wars. It would not ameliorate the hatred between the nation’s warring tribes—indeed would only exacerbate these hatreds. ...

Trump’s rhetoric, as the pressure mounts, will become ever more incendiary. He will, as he has in the past, openly incite violence against the Democratic leadership and a press he brands as “the enemy of the people.” There is no shortage of working-class Americans who feel, with justification, deeply betrayed and manipulated by ruling elites. Their ability to make a sustainable income has been destroyed. They are trapped in decaying and dead-end communities. They see no future for themselves or their children. They view the ruling elites who sold them out with deep hostility. Trump, however incompetent, at least expresses this rage. And he does so with a vulgarity that delights his base. I suspect they are not blind to his narcissism or even his corruption and incompetence. But he is the middle finger they flip up at all those oily politicians like the Clintons who lied to them in far more damaging ways than Trump. Trump was weaponized to stick it to the man. Polls in the 2016 presidential election showed that 53 percent of Trump supporters were motivated by dislike of Hillary Clinton and only 44 percent said they were motivated by support for Trump. ... “People no longer voted for candidates they liked or were excited by,” Matt Taibbi writes in “Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus.” “They voted against the candidates they hated. At protests and marches, the ruling emotions were disgust and rage." ...

Impeaching Trump would be seen by his supporters as an effort to take away this primal, if ineffectual, form of defiance. It is yet another message to the disenfranchised, especially those in the white working class, that their lives, their concerns, their hopes and their voices do not matter. This huge segment of the population, as Trump is aware, is heavily armed. ...

The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to remove Trump from office, as if our problems are embodied in him, will backfire. Our social, cultural, economic and political crisis created a demagogue like Trump. These forces will grow more virulent if Trump is impeached. The longer we fail to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for the misery of over half the U.S. population and our broken democracy, the more the disease of cultism will spread. It was the seizure of power by corporations that vomited up Trump. And it will be only by freeing ourselves from corporate rule, by rebuilding our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, that we can roll back from the abyss.

Worth a full read:

What Isn’t Mentioned About the Trump-Ukraine ‘Scandal’: The Routine Corruption of US Foreign Policy

We know from the leaked, early 2014 telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland, then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that then Vice President Biden played a role in “midwifing” the U.S.-backed overthrow of an elected Ukrainian government soon after that conversation. That’s the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.

As booty from the coup, the sitting vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, soon got a seat on the board of Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma Holdings. This can only be seen as a transparently neocolonial maneuver to take over a country and install one’s own people. But Biden’s son wasn’t the only one. A family friend of then Secretary of State John Kerry also joined Burisma’s board. U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto got a Ukrainian contract soon after the overthrow. And the first, post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post. ...

[A]nother major part of this story not being told: the routine way the U.S. government conducts foreign policy: with bribes, threats and blackmail. Trump may have withheld military aid to seek a probe into Biden, but it is hypocritically being framed by Democrats as an abuse of power out of the ordinary. But it is very much ordinary. Examples abound. The threat of withholding foreign aid was wielded against nations on the UN Security Council in 1991 when the U.S. sought authorization for the First Gulf War. Yemen had the temerity to vote against. A member of the U.S. delegation told Yemen’s ambassador: “That’s the most expensive vote you ever cast.” The U.S. then cut $70 million in foreign aid to the Middle East’s poorest nation, and Saudi Arabia repatriated about a million Yemeni workers. ...

This is how the U.S. conducts “diplomacy.”

FULL Story: Trump/Biden-Ukraine Corruption & Impeachment Media Ignores w/Aaron Mate’

"Are Democrats preparing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?"

Really? Do you have to ask? C'mon, look at who we're talking about!

Democrats, Please Don’t Mess This Up. Impeach Trump for All His Crimes, Not Just for Ukraine.

Are Democrats preparing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement on Tuesday that the House of Representatives would hold an “official impeachment inquiry” over Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine, and his request for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, was a welcome one. But on Wednesday, according to several reports, “Pelosi and senior House Democrats agreed in a private meeting … that they should narrow their impeachment investigation of President Trump to his dealings with the president of Ukraine.” ...

So how then might this end up as a defeat, and not a victory? Think about it. For House Democrats to wait this long and then impeach a reckless, lawless, racist, tax-dodging president only over his interactions with the president of Ukraine would be to effectively give Trump a clean bill of health on everything else. Going into an election year, Democrats would be unilaterally disarming — unable to offer further substantive criticisms of Trump’s crimes and abuses of power across the board. “Why didn’t you impeach him for it?” Republicans will ask. ...

“We are going to focus on this particular matter,” announced House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, adding that it’s “not hard to understand.”

Do these Democrats take the public for fools? Few would dispute the uniqueness or seriousness of these Ukraine revelations. But are they really saying “everybody understands” Trump’s quid pro quo with the president of a foreign country, and the details of the specific case involving Hunter Biden, but not the illegal payment of hush money to a porn star? Or all of the corrupt behavior on display in front of their eyes? The brazen self-dealing? The daily violation of the emoluments clause? ...

The Democrats only get one chance at impeachment.

James Risen: Whistleblower Complaint Shows “Trump Is a Habitual Criminal” Abusing His Office

Progressives Say Democrats Have Duty to Inform Public About 'Potentially Explosive' Whistleblower Alleging Trump Effort to Corrupt IRS

House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal is reportedly sitting on a credible and "potentially explosive" whistleblower complaint alleging that President Donald Trump attempted to influence an IRS audit of his tax returns.

On Wednesday, as much of the public's attention focused on a whistleblower complaint regarding Trump and Ukraine, HuffPost reported that a federal employee in July approached the House Ways and Means Committee with evidence the president "tried to corrupt an Internal Revenue Service audit of his personal tax returns."

Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has refused to discuss the tax whistleblower's claims in public, opting instead to use the official's allegations to strengthen the Ways and Means Committee's legal effort to obtain Trump's tax returns.

But now that House Democrats are moving forward with a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump, progressives are demanding that Neal break his silence on the whistleblower complaint and give the public as much information as possible about another potential abuse of power by the president. ...

In a brief filed in a Washington, D.C. federal court last month, the House Ways and Means Committee said it received "unsolicited communication" from a federal employee on July 29 detailing "credible allegations of 'evidence of possible misconduct'—specifically, potential 'inappropriate efforts to influence' the mandatory audit program."

White House ‘lockdown’ of transcript would be highly unusual

The future of American politics may once again depend on the handling of classified information on computer servers. Only now, it’s not a secretary of state’s rogue email system at issue -- it’s the president’s own highly sensitive communications, and just what role White House officials may have played in trying to bury records of those conversations, and for what reason. ...

After 2017, when verbatim transcripts of his conversations with the leaders of Australian and Mexico were leaked to the press, the White House began to restrict the number of officials who had access to the transcripts. One former Trump administration official confirmed that the White House started placing transcripts into the codeword system after those leaks. “I don’t think the person who leaked those was ever really discovered,” said the former Trump administration official. “So there was a decision to tighten the restrictions for those who had access to those transcripts.”

April Doss, who served as senior minority counsel for the Russia investigation on the Senate Intelligence Committee and, prior to that, as a top attorney at the National Security Agency, said the S//OC//NF [SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN] designation of the memo “seems like a typical level of classification for that kind of call.” That classification indicates that the disclosure of the call would cause "serious damage" to national security, cannot be disseminated by anyone except the originator, and is prohibited from disclosure to foreign nationals. A code word classification, meanwhile, is top secret—a level higher than secret—and then further compartmentalized by adding a code word so that only those who have been cleared for each code word can see it.

Doss said it would be “highly unusual” for this kind of routine call between world leaders to be placed into a system that’s used for information about the nation’s most highly compartmented programs. “It risks undermining a whole host of important national security activities,” she said, noting that “most if not all” officials who would need to have access to call readouts as part of carrying out their regular duties in advising on foreign affairs and implementing the administration’s policies “would not have access” to the codeword system.

The president has ultimate classification authority and it’s an open legal question whether he’s bound by executive orders, including one signed by Obama in 2009 that says information can’t be classified in order to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.”

Devin Nunes Thinks Democrats Really Want Nude Pictures of Trump

According to California Rep. Devin Nunes, Democrats only want one thing from impeachment proceedings: nude photos of President Trump.

“Of course, Democrats on this very committee negotiated with people they thought were Ukrainians in order to obtain nude pictures of Trump,” the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence committee said Thursday morning at a hearing about the whistleblower complaint against the president.

Nunes' comments were a thinly-veiled dig at House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was pranked early last year by two Russian comedians claiming to possess naked photos of the president.

Here's Devin Nunes accusing Democrats of trying to obtain nude pictures of Trump pic.twitter.com/pRF7UHijpq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 26, 2019

At the time, Schiff directed the pranksters –– who posed as members of the Ukrainian Parliament –– to send their photos to the FBI.

Meanwhile in the real world:

Imran Khan warns UN of potential nuclear war in Kashmir

Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, has said he has been trying to raise the alarm at the United Nations this week about the danger of a nuclear war breaking out over Kashmir. India and Pakistan came close to a conflict in February when India bombed Pakistani territory for the first time in a half century and warplanes from both countries fought a dogfight over the divided region.

Tensions were defused when Pakistan returned a downed Indian pilot. But they have grown again since India revoked a constitutional clause that endowed semi-autonomous status on the part of Kashmir under its control in August. India moved hundreds of thousands of troops to the region and carried out thousands of arrests.

Khan said the move was driven by the Hindu nationalist ideology of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, whom he called a “fascist”.

The Muslim-majority territory is currently under heightened security, while mobile and internet services have been cut, but Khan predicted a popular backlash once such measures are lifted. “They’ll come out on the streets. What happens then?” Khan told journalists at the UN general assembly. He pointed to the presence of a 900,000-strong Indian force there currently enforcing security. “I fear there will be a massacre and things will start to go out of control,” the Pakistani leader said.

“My main reason for coming here was to meet world leaders at the UN and speak about this. We are heading for a potential disaster of proportions that no one here realises,” Khan said. “It is the only time since the Cuban crisis that two nuclear-armed countries are coming face to face. We did come to face to face in February.”

'We don't want any escalation' - Imran Khan to UNGA on tensions between India and Pakistan

EU may be forced to withdraw from nuclear deal, Iran told

The European Union has privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal.

Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.

The warning to Iran, pre-agreed by the three EU signatories to the 2015 deal, was made at a meeting on Wednesday, and makes clear that the agreement is now on life support. The EU told Iran that it would put the issue of Iranian non-compliance into the agreement’s formal dispute mechanism if the next Iranian move away from the deal is significant.

Iran says it has been taking advertised, reversible and calibrated steps away from the deal as a reprisal for US sanctions, including its ban on Iranian oil exports, and the failure of the EU to do more to build trade with Iran. Tehran is due to take a fourth step on 7 November.

US to Deploy Air, Missile Defense Soldiers to Saudi Arabia

The Pentagon has announced on Thursday that they have approved the deployment of substantial air and missile defenses to Saudi Arabia to protect the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. This included a Patriot missile battery, and radar systems.

This is only the beginning, as the initial deployment, according to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, will also come with a “prepare to deploy” order for more missile batteries and a THAAD missile defense system.

Saudi crown prince Mohamed Bin Salman takes 'all the responsibility' for Khashoggi murder

UN Human Rights Council votes to extend Yemen war crimes investigation

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted Thursday, September 26 to extend the mandate of war crimes investigators in Yemen, after the group found evidence of grave violations by all sides in the conflict.

The investigators, appointed by the council in 2017, reported earlier this month they had identified “individuals who may be responsible for international crimes,” perpetrated during the fighting.

A resolution renewing their mandate for a year faced opposition from several states, notably Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to bolster the internationally recognized government against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The Saudi envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, Abdulaziz Alwasil, accused the investigators of publishing “non-credible, unfounded information which hadn’t even been verified.”

But the renewal resolution passed with support from the European Union, along with Canada and several Latin American states.

Just as Digital Privacy Advocates Warned, Bezos Admits Amazon Writing Its Own Laws on Facial Recognition

A casual announcement made Wednesday by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that his company is writing facial recognition regulations for legislators to enact is exactly what "digital rights activists have been warning" would emerge from Silicon Valley unless lawmakers pass a full ban on facial recognition surveillance.

Bezos told reporters at a product launch event that the company's "public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations."

"It makes a lot of sense to regulate that," Bezos said. "It's a perfect example of something that has really positive uses so you don't want to put the brakes on it. At the same time there's lots of potential for abuses with that kind of technology and so you do want regulations."

For a form of technology that digital rights advocates call "uniquely dangerous," regulations—especially those that Amazon lobbyists have a hand in developing—are not sufficient to keep Americans safe from the privacy violations facial recognition can cause, said Fight for the Future. ...

"Amazon wants to write the laws governing facial recognition to make sure they're friendly to their surveillance driven business model," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a statement. "But this type of technology...poses a profound threat to the future of human liberty that can't be mitigated by industry-friendly regulations. We need to draw a line in the sand and ban governments from using this technology before it's too late."

Day After Trump Said 'Inequality Is Down,' Federal Data Shows US Income Inequality Highest Since Census Began Measuring

Federal data released Thursday showed U.S. income inequality in 2018 reached the highest level since the Census Bureau began measuring it five decades ago, a finding that comes less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump said "inequality is down."

The Census survey found that the nation's Gini Index—which measures inequality on a 0 to 1 scale, with 0 representing perfect equality—reached 0.485 in 2018. In 1967, the U.S. Gini Index was 0.397.

"The separation between rich and poor from 2017 and 2018 was greater than it has ever been," the Washington Post reported. "The gulf is starkest in wealthy coastal areas such as Washington, D.C., New York, Connecticut, and California, as well as in areas with widespread poverty, such as Puerto Rico and Louisiana."

The U.S. income inequality reached its highest level compared to the past 50 years while the Gini index grew from 0.4804 in 2017 to 0.4845 last year, according to Census Bureau data. A higher figure of the Gini index indicates greater inequality. pic.twitter.com/rygazf1iTz

— BING XIAO (@binghsiao1) September 26, 2019

The Census data contradicts Trump's claim Wednesday that inequality is declining under his administration after he pushed tax cuts and other policies that disproportionately rewarded the wealthiest Americans.

Sanders Rips 'Casual Cruelty That Motivates Trump and His Billionaire Friends' as White House Moves to Strip Free School Lunches From 500,000 Kids

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said Wednesday night that he "cannot begin to understand the casual cruelty that motivates Trump and his billionaire friends to harm vulnerable children like this" as the White House moved closer to implementing a rule that would end free school lunches for 500,000 school kids.

The Washington Post reported this week that President Donald Trump's proposal to strip food stamps from three million Americans could cause a half-million children to lose free school meals "since food stamp eligibility is one way students can qualify for the lunches."

"Trump is depriving 500,000 kids of their school lunches for no damn reason—even after 139 members of Congress warned him not to," Sanders tweeted, referring to a letter he sent along with House and Senate lawmakers last month condemning the food stamps rule as "unconscionable." ...

Congress last year approved a farm bill that excluded SNAP changes sought by the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers, so the president and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have worked to unilaterally slash eligibility for the program, which is widely recognized by policy experts as an effective way to reduce hunger.

Ending GM’s Two-Tiered Labor System Is UAW Members’ Top Demand — and Part of a Bigger Fight Against Worker Misclassification

Since last week, nearly 50,000 GM workers have been on strike, in part against a two-tiered system enforced by the auto giant that leaves “temporary” workers doing the same jobs as permanent staff for substantially less pay and fewer benefits. The striking workers, represented by the United Automobile Workers union, or UAW, are demanding a defined path to “permanent seniority” for GM’s temporary workers — who make up about 7 percent of GM’s U.S. workforce. GM has also entrenched inequality in its ranks by contracting out some jobs, like custodial work, that were traditionally staff roles.

“I work right across from a temporary employee who’s been there for two and a half years,” Chaz Akers, a Michigan-based autoworker who has worked at GM for 3 1/2 years told Reuters. “I install the passenger side headlight. He installs the driver side headlight. I make more money than he does. I have better health insurance than he does. It ain’t fair. It ain’t right. If you’re going to pay people to do a job, pay them all the same.” ...

Coming to an agreement on temporary workers has become the most difficult issue in the GM-UAW negotiations, according to the Detroit Free Press. Both sides are reportedly holding strong to their positions. The Free Press also reported that resolving questions around temp workers was union members’ top request when UAW leadership surveyed them last year. ...

GM, like Uber and Lyft, is pushing back against the workers’ demands by claiming that such “flexible” workers are necessary for its business model. Right now, GM is trying to convince permanent, full-time workers to accept raises and more job security in exchange for freedoms around temps. For example, GM has reportedly proposed a boost to the company’s profit-sharing formula, financial gains that would only go to permanent, full-time employees. GM workers typically earn about $1,000 for every billion in GM’s North American pretax profits. In 2018, eligible employees earned payments up to $10,750. ...

In 2007, under pressure from the financial crisis, UAW leaders agreed to a two-tiered contract, in which new GM hires would be paid at lower rates than workers hired before. To get out of this arrangement, widely deemed unfair, the union negotiated a new contract in 2015, in which new hires would still have lower starting salaries, at $15 an hour, but could “grow into” the full UAW hourly wage of roughly $30 an hour after eight years. Union leaders — citing GM’s clear improved financial position with billions of dollars in profit — now want to shorten that process, under the basic principle of equal pay for equal work. GM and the UAW did not return requests for comment.

Bernie Sanders and New Yorkers Praise Gov. Cuomo for Giving State's Voters More Time to Change Party Affiliation Before Primaries

New York residents, advocacy groups, and progressive politicians celebrated Thursday after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation extending the state's deadline for voters to change their political party affiliation ahead of next year's primary elections.

Previously, voters already registered in New York had only until Oct. 11 to change their party affiliation for the state's April 28, 2020 primary. The legislation extends that deadline to Feb. 14. New York's old rules garnered national criticism during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary race, which Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) lost by 16 points to the party's eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Sanders, now a 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate, urged the Democratic National Committee last week to sanction Cuomo if he declined to sign the bill into law before the state's rapidly approaching deadline. The White House hopeful welcomed the governor's decision Thursday.

"For too long, New York state has had one of the worst barriers to primary voter registration in the country, something I have long sought to rectify," Sanders said in a statement. "In 2016, countless voters across the state were disenfranchised due to the absurd deadline for voters to register their party affiliation more than six months in advance of the primary."

"At a time of rampant voter suppression by Republicans across the country, Democrats must do everything possible to make it easier, not harder, for Americans to vote and participate in democracy," Sanders continued. "Thank you to Gov. Cuomo for signing the legislation before the Oct. 11 deadline, to state legislators for taking this essential step forward, and to grassroots groups in the state who demanded real change and fought for it."

Rep. Gabbard: 'Haven't seen much' evidence that Sen. Warren qualified to be Commander in Chief

Tulsi Gabbard calls for foreign policy-focused debate

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), a 2020 Democratic White House hopeful, is calling for a debate centered exclusively on foreign policy, saying the current format doesn’t do voters justice.

“It would be very valuable for voters to have a foreign policy focused debate, period,” Gabbard told Hill.TV during an interview that aired on Thursday.

Gabbard, who served in Iraq as a member of the National Guard, said voters, including those in the military, “deserve more than just having one or two foreign policy-related questions in a two-hour long debate,” adding that not nearly time enough time is allotted to the complex issue.

“It does not do the issue justice, it does not do our service men and women justice, who have to live with the consequences of who are commander in chief is and it doesn’t do justice for the American people,” she said.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has faced growing calls to hold single-issue presidential debates, but so far it has rejected those efforts.

Krystal Ball: Wall Street 'Dems' have another hilarious meltdown

In Strike Talks, UAW Demands Green Jobs Stay in U.S.

As part of its contract talks, the United Automobile Workers labor union is demanding that General Motors Co. reopen two plants in Lordstown, Ohio, and Hamtramck, Michigan, as electric car factories. The demand underscores the tensions inherent in the coming shift to a green economy, as workers recognize the potential benefits of that new economy but have reasonable fears that they won’t be the ones enjoying those benefits. In order to reopen the Lordstown plant as an electric battery factory, as part of a co-venture with the electric truck startup Workhorse, GM is asking workers to take a pay cut equivalent to $6 an hour.

It’s unclear whether workers at GM will accept the deal.

Last year, to much fanfare, General Motors announced plans to introduce a mix of 20 new all-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, making a dramatic play for the green vehicle market. But union workers on strike have good reason to worry whether they’ll materialize domestically: Apart from providing cheap labor, China has also invested heavily in green technology, while the U.S. has largely neglected to do so. And many workers are scared that if they don’t accept the GM offer, the company will simply produce electric vehicles in China.

”We are about to have a green car revolution, but unfortunately, it looks like GM will produce most of the cars overseas in China and Mexico,” said Dan Maloney, UAW Local 1097 president. ...

“China is moving all in on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, they make no bones about it,” said Maloney. China is attempting to put a million hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles on the road by 2030, according to South China Morning Post. “We are making no effort to build the infrastructure and create the green jobs of the future.”

New Research Warns Severe Climate-Related Droughts Could Threaten 60% of Global Wheat Crop by 2100

Underscoring the necessity of aggressive action to combat human-caused global warming, research published Wednesday warns that the majority of the world's wheat fields are at risk of enduring "severe, prolonged, and near-simultaneous droughts" by the end of the century—raising serious concerns about future food insecurity and political instability.

"If only one country or region sees a drought there is less impact," said study co-author Song Feng of the University of Arkansas. "But if multiple regions are affected simultaneously, it can affect global production and food prices, and lead to food insecurity."

The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Science Advances, was conducted by team of researchers from the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Wheat accounts for about 20 percent of all calories consumed by humans worldwide and the global demand for wheat products such as cereal is expected to rise in the coming decades, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Recognizing humanity's reliance on the crop as a key food source, the study's researchers analyzed various climate models to assess the rising risk of drought in wheat-producing regions.

"Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe water scarcity (SWS) events, which negatively affect rain-fed crops such as wheat," the study says. "Our projections show that, without climate change mitigation... up to 60 percent of the current wheat-growing area will face simultaneous SWS events by the end of this century, compared to 15 percent today."

Clean-air scientists fired by EPA to reconvene in snub to Trump

An advisory panel of air pollution scientists disbanded by the Trump administration plans to continue their work with or without the US government. The researchers – from a group that reviewed the latest studies about how tiny particles of air pollution from fossil fuels make people sick – will assemble next month, a year from the day they were fired. They’ll gather in the same hotel in Washington DC and even have the same former staffer running the public meeting.

Christopher Frey, a scientist from North Carolina State University who chaired the group, said at least 21 million Americans live with air that is dirtier than what the government deems acceptable, according to one standard. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting reviews to determine whether those current standards should be tightened or loosened. Frey argued Trump’s EPA has significantly weakened its science review process.

“As a public service, we can still tap our expertise and develop advice which we will share with EPA,” he said. ... The 20-person panel with Frey will include experts in epidemiology and toxicology, as well as people experienced in clinical experiments with humans. One of the dismissed members, Doug Dockery of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, was lead author of the landmark Six Cities study that linked the particle pollution from fossil fuels, called “particulate matter”, to early deaths. ...

The air pollution experts follow in the footsteps of a separate group that reassembled to call for the government to better prepare for climate disasters. Their advice will come as EPA conducts a scheduled review of its standards for particle pollution, the tiny specks that enter the lungs and cause breathing and heart problems that can kill.

Trump’s EPA Is Very Concerned About Homeless People and Their Poop

The Trump administration just sent California an unusually strong message about its homelessness crisis: an environmental complaint that waste from people on the streets, like poop, endangers the environment and goes against federal water-quality standards. “The agency is aware of the growing homelessness crisis developing in major California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the impact of this crisis on the environment,” Andrew Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, according to the letter obtained by the Washington Post.

“The EPA is concerned about the potential water quality impacts from pathogens and other contaminants from untreated human waste entering nearby waters” Wheeler continued.

Newsom now has 30 days to respond with his plans to remedy the Trump administration’s concerns about failures to enforce drinking water quality laws, according to the letter. While infrastructural woes plague California’s municipal water systems (which sometimes fail to deliver potable water to low-income residents), nothing suggests homeless people are to blame. Trump’s concern, he told reporters last week, has less to do with regulations on water infrastructure and more to do with unfounded fears that syringes are flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

For its part, the EPA letter added the administration is also concerned about “piles of human feces on sidewalks and streets.” ... Trump’s comments came the same day his administration rejected any further financial aid to address affordable housing in California, which officials say has contributed to its outsized homelessness crisis.

Also of Interest

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

Trump Pushed Ukraine's President To Investigate Issues Of U.S. Public Interest

MSM Defends CIA’s “Whistleblower”, Ignores Actual Whistleblowers

NRA acted as 'foreign asset' to Russia before 2016 election, says Senate report

The Secret History of Fort Detrick, the CIA’s Base for Mind Control Experiments

High Drama in SEC House Hearing Ignored by Mainstream Media

Face masks to decoy t-shirts: The rise of anti-surveillance fashion

10 Ways That the Climate Crisis and Militarism Are Intertwined

'What they put on the fields contaminates our water': Iowa's pollution problem

Indigenous representative joins UN climate summit: 'They need us'

A Little Night Music

Dr John - Basin Street Blues

Dr John - Sweet Home New Orleans

Dr John - Blue Monday

Dr.John - Piano Blues (2003)

Dr. John & Eric Clapton - Right Place, Wrong Time

Dr John - Junko Partner

Dr. John - St. James Infirmary

Dr John - Tipitina

Dr John - There Must Be A Better World Somewhere

Dr. John & The Lower 911 - Manoovas

Etta James, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint - Live in Chicago, 1982