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This evening's music features Chicago blues piano player Jimmy Yancey. Enjoy!

"It’s not fine or normal for one of a nation’s only two political parties to pretend it lets the people choose their candidate and then turn around and coordinate to deliberately undermine the candidate with the most public support. Anyone who tells you this is okay is lying.

Coordinating to undermine the campaign with the most support is coordinating to undermine the will of the people. That’s never okay, under any circumstances. Ignore all attempts to spin this to the contrary."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Democratic Party rallies behind Biden

The consolidation of the Democratic Party behind Former Vice President Joe Biden is a damning exposure, not merely of the politically reactionary character of this organization, but of the contemptible falsification on which the Sanders campaign has been based: that it is possible to transform the Democratic Party, the oldest American capitalist party, into the spearhead of a “political revolution” that will bring about fundamental social change.

Former Vice President Biden is the personification of the decrepit and right-wing character of the Democratic Party. ... It is evident that the Democratic Party leadership in Congress, as well as the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee, aims to run the 2020 campaign on the exact model of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016: portraying Trump as personally unqualified to be president and as a Russian stooge, while opposing any significant social reform and delivering constant reassurances to the ruling financial aristocracy that a restored Democratic administration will follow in the footsteps of Obama, showering trillions on Wall Street and doing the bidding of the military-intelligence apparatus.

One could ask of the nine ex-candidates who have now endorsed Biden why they were candidates in the first place. Why did they bother to run against the former vice president, clearly the preferred candidate of the party establishment? None of them voices any significant political differences with Biden. All of them hail the right-wing political record of the Obama-Biden administration, even though that administration produced the social and economic devastation that made possible the election of Donald Trump.

Even more revolting, if that is possible, is the embrace of Biden by the black Democratic politicians. The former senator from Delaware is identified with some of the most repugnant episodes in the history of race relations in America: the abusive treatment of Anita Hill, when she testified against the nomination of Clarence Thomas before Biden’s Judiciary Committee; an alliance with segregationist James Eastland on school integration in the early 1970s, highlighted at a Democratic presidential debate by Kamala Harris eight months before she endorsed Biden; and the passage of a series of “law-and-order” bills that disproportionately jailed hundreds of thousands of African Americans, all of them pushed through the Senate by Biden. How did a politician who boasted of his close relationships with Eastland and Strom Thurmond become the beneficiary of a virtual racial bloc vote by African Americans in the Southern states? Because African American Democratic Party leaders, including Representative James Clyburn in South Carolina and hundreds of others, represent one of the most right-wing and politically corrupt sections of the party. ...

More than 13 million people, mainly workers and youth, voted for Sanders in 2016 in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, only to see him endorse the candidate of Wall Street and the CIA, Hillary Clinton. Millions more continue to support him this year, with the same result. Sanders will wrap up his campaign by embracing the right-wing nominee of the Democratic Party and telling his supporters that this is the only alternative to the election, and now re-election, of Trump. In appearances on several Sunday television interview programs, Sanders went out of his way to repeat, as he said on Fox News, “Joe Biden is a friend of mine. Joe Biden is a decent guy. What Joe has said is if I win the nomination, he’ll be there for me, and I have said if he wins the nomination, I’ll be there for him…”

'In a Dark Time, the Eye Begins to See': The 2020 Bernie Campaign Represents a Fight That Must Continue

“In a dark time,” poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “the eye begins to see.”

No matter who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, many millions of people will refuse to unsee what has become all too clear. On the verge of spring 2020, we can see what we’re up against:

•A crowing media establishment, eager to relegate the Bernie Sanders campaign to the political margins.

•A gloating Democratic Party establishment, glad to rally around Potemkin candidate Joe Biden and extol his carefully crafted façade.

•Overall, interlocking systems based on greed and corporate power instead of shared resources and genuine democracy.

On Tuesday night, there was no mistaking the smug joy of studio pundits and Democratic Party operatives on networks like AT&T-owned CNN and Comcast-owned MSNBC. Meanwhile, the New York Times rushed into print yet another all-out attack piece masquerading as a “news” article about Sanders.

Dominant media have routinely slanted coverage to make Sanders look bad, often bypassing context and skewing facts. It was just another day at the office last week when the Times front-paged a flagrant smear of Sanders as a supposed propaganda tool of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. A former U.S. ambassador to Moscow quickly denounced the story as a “distortion of history.”

Such regular deceptions from a range of corporate media shouldn’t surprise us, but they should never cease to outrage us. The same is true of the rampant corporate sleaziness in the upper reaches of the Democratic National Committee. ...

Candidates who rushed to endorse Biden after his big victory in South Carolina—Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker—each personify, in their own way, what’s so corrosive about standard-issue Democratic Party leaders. Their backgrounds and personalities vary widely, but they share a political space of opportunism and ultra-coziness with corporate power. (Meanwhile, during the crucial aftermath of her withdrawal from the race after Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren shed new light on her political character when she decided not to endorse Sanders.)

The antidote to anti-democratic poisons has nothing to do with cynicism, passivity or defeatism. The solutions will come from realism, activism and ongoing insistence that a better world is possible—if we’re willing to keep fighting for it.

Role of a Wall Street Law Firm in the Joe Biden Resurgence Raises Alarms

There has been the feeling of an invisible hand in the miraculous comeback of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden lost all three of the first races in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, then spiraled to a long series of state victories despite a lackluster and sometimes rambling performance in the presidential debates. Since the invisible hand in unlikely elections always has a money trail somewhere, we decided to pull back the dark curtain using campaign financing data at the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org). The name of the giant Wall Street law firm – Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP – emerges as a common denominator.

Paul Weiss has not only been a major donor to the Biden campaign but it was simultaneously a major donor to the campaigns of the four presidential candidates who dropped out of the race and then endorsed Biden at critical moments in his miraculous resuscitation. (As the Center for Responsive Politics notes on its website, the law firm itself is prohibited from making donations under federal law. The money came from the law firm’s partners, employees, their immediate family members or its PAC.)

Donors from Paul Weiss rank as the 12^th largest donor to the Joe Biden campaign with a tally of $168,412. Paul Weiss was the top donor to Senator Cory Booker’s presidential campaign, sluicing $151,102 into his campaign coffers. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who hails from Minnesota – pretty far from the law firm’s Wall Street focus – received $76,932 from Paul Weiss, making it her third largest donor in her presidential bid. Pete Buttigieg, who was the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana – about as far from Wall Street as one can get, received $133,261 from those generous folks at Paul Weiss, making it his seventh largest donor. And, finally, there was presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the junior Senator from California, who received the sizeable sum of $193,873 from the folks at Paul Weiss, ranking them her second largest campaign contributor.

Just how statistically likely is it that one law firm would show up in the campaigns of five different Democratic candidates for president without there being an agenda?

Chelsea Manning hospitalized after suicide attempt

The activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning attempted suicide on Wednesday, her legal team said in a news release.

The statement came only a few days before Manning was scheduled to appear at a court hearing on whether sanctions imposed on her after she refused to comply with a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should continue. ...

Manning’s lawyers announced on Wednesday that their client was in the hospital, recovering from the suicide attempt.

Afghanistan peace talks stall over planned prisoner exchange

Afghanistan’s political chaos has deepened with disputes over presidential election results and a planned prisoner exchange delaying peace talks with the Taliban even as the US starts its troop withdrawal. A US agreement with the Taliban, signed last month, on the departure of American forces was meant to set the stage for Afghans to reach a deal on their country’s political future after decades of civil war but those talks, expected to begin this week in Oslo, have been postponed indefinitely.

The Taliban say they will not sit down unless they get a mass prisoner release that was promised by the US government, but never cleared with the Afghan authorities who actually hold insurgent fighters. The withdrawal agreement with the US calls for 5,000 Taliban fighters to be released before negotiations start, in exchange for 1,000 government security forces. A proposed compromise has already been rejected by the insurgent group.

And with two competing presidents both claiming to have won last year’s vote it may prove hard to provide an official delegation for any talks, although the US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is on the ground in Kabul trying to broker an agreement between incumbent Ashraf Ghani and his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah. ... Ghani’s position was strengthened after the US, and other key allies, attended his swearing in and officially recognised his victory. In his inauguration speech, Ghani promised a compromise on the US-negotiated prisoner exchange, which he had initially furiously rejected as a violation of sovereignty.

“The rapid turnaround of President Ghani’s position on prisoner exchange, which up until his ceremony had been quite hardline … suggested a stark quid pro quo to many observers here in Kabul: US attendance and recognition for a softened stance on this early hurdle in the peace process,” said Andrew Watkins, senior Afghanistan analyst with International Crisis Group.

US Congress votes to limit Trump's war powers against Iran

The United States House of Representatives approved on Wednesday a War Powers Resolution aimed at limiting President Donald Trump's ability to wage war against Iran.

The passage of the resolution was yet another rebuke of the president over his decision to order the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January amid escalating tensions with Tehran.

The Senate voted 55 to 45 - with eight Republicans joining Democrats on February 13 - to approve the resolution. The House action sends the measure to Trump, who has threatened to veto it. A two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate would be needed to override a veto.

The measure requires that Trump get congressional approval before engaging in further military action against Iran. ...

The Democratic-led US House of Representatives previously voted on January 30 to approve two measures aimed at constraining Trump's ability to direct military action in the Middle East.

A bill that would block funding for any use of offensive force against Iran passed by a 228-175 vote. A second measure, repealing Congress's 2002 authorisation of the US invasion of Iraq, passed 236-166. The House also voted 224-194 on January 9 to rebuke Trump for the killing of Soleimani.

Two US Soldiers, 1 British Soldier Killed After Rockets Hit Iraq Base

Two American soldiers and one British soldier were killed Wednesday evening when 15 small Katyusha rockets hit Iraq’s Camp Taji. The Pentagon reported 10 other people of various nationalities were wounded.

Details are still emerging, with the US quickly dismissing the idea that this was an ISIS attack by doubting they had the capability, even though Katyusha rockets are virtually ubiquitous among Middle Eastern armed factions.

Erdogan likens Greek border crackdown to Nazi atrocities

Turkey’s president has likened Greece’s treatment of refugees and migrants at its borders to Nazi atrocities, reigniting tensions between Athens and Ankara before a visit by EU officials to the Greek capital. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said alleged abuses against people who had amassed at the two nations’ land frontier were comparable to tactics employed by Hitler’s troops during the second world war.

“There is no difference with what the Nazis did and the images from the border,” he told his AKP parliamentary group, repeating unproven claims that Greek forces had killed at least four people and wounded around 1,000.

“To open fire, fire teargas and use boiling water on innocent people whose only aim is to save their lives and build a better future for their children is barbaric in the true meaning of the word.”

The Turkish leader, who has been widely accused of weaponising the migration issue in pursuit of domestic political aims, said Ankara would maintain its open border policy despite international condemnation. ... Turkey, which dispatched 1,000 heavily armed special police to the frontier last week, has faced charges of ordering teargas to be fired at Greek guards and migrants. ...

Greek government officials say Erdogan’s deployment of elite forces to Evros further escalated what has become an extremely worrying situation. The unprecedented sight of Turkish fighter jets flying over the region late Wednesday prompted speculation that the strongman leader was actively spoiling for a fight with Athens.

Coronavirus pandemic in the US: Nurses stage protests to call for better protection against virus

WHO declares coronavirus pandemic

The world is now in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic, the director general of the World Health Organization has said, as he expressed deep concern about “alarming levels of inaction” in the fight against the spread of the disease.

In the past two weeks, the number of cases outside China has increased 13-fold, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the number of affected countries has tripled. There are 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 people have lost their lives.

“Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospital,” Tedros said at a briefing in Geneva. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the many cases, the many deaths and the number of affected countries climb even higher.

“We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.” ...

This pandemic was unlike any others in that it could be controlled, he said. The experience in China and South Korea, where the numbers of cases are falling, showed it was possible to turn things around. But many countries were not doing what was necessary.

Donald Trump announces suspension of all travel from Europe to the US for 30 days

In the US, Donald Trump says, “To keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the US for the next 30 days.”

Saagar Enjeti: With coronavirus, Washington poised to sell out American workers

Wall Street ends 11-year ‘bull market’ as coronavirus fears spread

Wall Street’s record-breaking 11-year “bull market” came to an end on Wednesday as fears about the spreading Covid-19 pandemic hit stock markets again.

US stock markets have been on an unprecedented streak since 2009, a bull market of gains. On Wednesday investors sold off shares across all sectors after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic for the first time and criticized “alarming levels of inaction” by governments in corralling the virus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down over 1,400 points, 5.8%. After days of wild fluctuations, the Dow has now fallen 20% from its most recent highs – finally signaling a bear market. The S&P 500 also fell and is now 19% below its recent high.

The fall came as Donald Trump met with Wall Street’s most senior executives at the White House. It was the latest in a series of meetings the Trump administration has held as it works on a strategy to shore up the US economy. ...

Economists predict more falls to come. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s, predicted more sell-offs. “I can’t see people buying when the tornado is still in the backyard,” he said. Zandi now thinks a US recession is more likely than not.

Business reporter: Prepare for massive job losses this month

Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak

Like hundreds of thousands of people across the world, the super-rich are preparing to self-isolate in the face of an escalation in the coronavirus crisis. But their plans extend far beyond stocking up on hand sanitiser and TV boxsets. The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Many are understood to be taking personal doctors or nurses on their flights to treat them and their families in the event that they become infected. The wealthy are also besieging doctors in private clinics in Harley Street, London, and across the world, demanding private coronavirus tests.

To avoid overwhelming limited testing facilities, the NHS said it would test only people with a “high chance” of having the illness – meaning people who had had close contact with a confirmed case or who had recently gone to a high-risk country. Mark Ali, chief executive and medical director of the Private Harley Street Clinic, said: “This has led to huge demand from very wealthy people asking if they can pay for private testing. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer testing, as the NHS has said all tests should be done centrally.” The Department of Health and Social Care has mandated that all tests must be carried out by the NHS and Public Health England (PHE).

However, an employee at another Harley Street practice, who declined to be named, said their clinic had arranged for concerned clients to be tested in other countries, or for samples to be sent abroad for testing.

Lack of Paid Sick Leave Makes It Difficult for Many Workers to Comply with CDC Advice to Stay Home

Senate Republicans Block Emergency Paid Sick Leave Bill as Experts Declare Coronavirus Outbreak a Pandemic

Critics lambasted Senate Republicans on Wednesday after Sen. Lamar Alexander blocked a vote on an emergency paid sick leave bill hours after the World Health Organization officially declared the global coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) moved to speed the proposal through the legislative process so senators could quickly vote to guarantee all American workers 14 days of paid sick leave in the event of a public health emergency.

"For many of our workers-restaurant workers, truck drivers, service industry workers-they may not have an option to take a day off without losing their pay or losing their job," Murray said. "That's not a choice we should be asking anyone to make in the United States in the 21st century."

Claiming the bill would be an "expensive" and burdensome mandate for employers, Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, blocked the Senate from voting on the bill, saying it must be voted on first by the GOP-controlled Health Committee.

"This is unconscionable. Every last one of them should lose their jobs," said Alex Wall of CAP Action, of the Republican senators.

Trump Calls COVID-19 “Foreign Virus” as Lack of Universal Healthcare Makes the Pandemic Worse

20 Top Economists Endorse Medicare for All as Best Plan to Cut Costs, Save Tens of Thousands of Lives Each Year

Rejecting "loose talk" from corporate Democrats, the media, and insurance industry that a single-payer system would be unaffordable, twenty leading U.S. economists on Tuesday released an open letter endorsing Medicare for All as the best way to reduce soaring national healthcare costs, significantly cut expenses for most U.S. households, and save countless lives.

"We believe the available research supports the conclusion that a program of Medicare for All (M4A) could be considerably less expensive than the current system, reducing waste and profiteering inherent in the current system, and could be financed in a way to ensure significant financial savings for the vast majority of American households," reads the letter, whose signatories include Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor Robert Pollin.

"Most important," the economists write, "Medicare for All will reduce morbidity and save tens of thousands of lives each year."

The letter was provided to Business Insider by Business for Medicare for All, an advocacy group led by former insurance executive Wendell Potter, who is now a vocal supporter of single-payer healthcare.

"By eliminating insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, and lowering overall healthcare costs, Medicare for All will result in enormous savings for almost all households, all except the richest households who will pay more in taxes," the letter states.

Dr. Gerald Friedman, economics professor at the University of Massachussetts at Amherst and one of the letter's signatories, told Business Insider that "what's really unaffordable" is not Medicare for All, but the current for-profit system in which price-gouging is rampant and the costs of private insurance plans are skyrocketing.

"We spend about twice the average for affluent countries in the OECD on healthcare," Friedman said.

[See full letter at link. - js]

US supreme court upholds policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico

The US supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to continue enforcing a policy that makes asylum seekers wait in Mexico for US court hearings, despite lower court rulings that the policy is probably illegal.

The justices’ order, over a dissenting vote by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, overturns a lower court order that would have blocked the policy, at least for people arriving at the border crossings in Arizona and California. The lower court order was to have taken effect on Thursday.

Instead, the “Remain in Mexico” policy will remain in force while a lawsuit challenging it plays out in the courts, probably at least through the end of Donald Trump’s term in January.

The next step for the administration is to file a formal appeal with the supreme court. But the justices may not even consider the appeal until the fall and, if the case is granted full review, arguments would not be held until early 2021.

The supreme court action is the latest instance of the justices siding with the administration to allow Trump’s immigration policies to continue after lower courts had moved to halt them. Other cases include the travel ban on visitors from some largely Muslim countries, construction of the border wall, and the “wealth test” for people seeking green cards.

Krystal Ball: New York Times clownishly misunderstands the left

Young Voters Did Show Up for Bernie — But a Lot of Gen Xers and Boomers Voted Too

Young people were told if they’d only show up to vote, they could change America. Well, they did show up at the polls on Tuesday — but so did a lot of Boomers and Gen Xers. In a Democratic presidential primary election that saw turnout up across the board, the voices of young people were drowned out by higher voter participation among older Americans, even as young people did vote in greater numbers than they did in prior years.

That helps tell the story of why, even though young voters overwhelmingly chose Sen. Bernie Sanders, it wasn’t enough to carry the Vermont Independent to victory over former Vice President Joe Biden in Tuesday’s critical elections. ... A look at college towns across the country begins to paint the picture. A good example is Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located.

Michigan saw one of the highest turnouts for a presidential primary in the state’s history, on the strength of expanded same-day and absentee voter rules — especially notable since only one party held a competitive primary this year. In just the Democratic primary, nearly 1.6 million people voted on Tuesday, as opposed to just under 1.2 million votes in the 2016 primary.

In Washtenaw County alone, turnout increased by almost 50% from about 69,000 voters in 2016 to more than 102,000. Conventional wisdom would hold this high turnout in a college town is good news for Sanders, but he lost every county in the state, including this one, where in 2016 he beat Hillary Clinton 55.4% to 43.7%. This year, Washtenaw swung to Biden, who won the region with 47.6% of the vote compared to Sanders’ 45%.

“There just wasn't enough turnout in young people,” said Branden Snyder, executive director of a community organization called Detroit Action, which endorsed Sanders. “White and black and Latinx went out overwhelmingly, 40 [years old] and under, for Sanders, but just not enough of them to slow down the progress of Boomers.”

Bernie Sanders: We Are Winning “Ideological” & “Generational” Debate, Now Need to Win “Electability”

Sanders stays, so his movement can live on by dragging Biden leftward

From his hometown of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders got up to speak on Wednesday afternoon, after a disappointing night of watching the results from Tuesday’s primaries roll in.

Would he stay or would he go? For now, he stays, determined to fight on and try to drag the Democratic frontrunner, Joe Biden, to the left, so that even as Sanders’ race effectively peters out, his movement goes on.

Although Sanders said he was winning the “ideological debate” against the moderate Biden, and the “generational debate” in terms of older voters pouring to the polls for his rival, he acknowledged he was losing the “electability debate” for the party nomination to fight Donald Trump in the November election.

Sanders said he had spoken to a number of voters who supported his policy proposals but backed Biden because they feared Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, could not defeat the president.

So as voters waited with bated breath to see if he would quit after crushing defeats in primaries in the last 10 days, he vowed to attend the scheduled debate against Biden in Arizona on Sunday night, effectively confirming his campaign goes on. ...

It was a diehard move, which may give his fervent supporters solace even as it dismays the Democratic party leadership, which is keen to unite and gear up to face Trump together.

Bernie Asked About Biden’s Dementia At Town Hall

I, for one, am extremely excited about this debate all the moderates are panicking about.

The delegate count difference is only about 150 points out of 4051 total.

America finally gets to see Biden defend his ideas, or lack there of, on Sunday. #NotMeUs #Bernie2020 https://t.co/g4CYsQIfs6

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) March 11, 2020

The real reason Bernie Sanders gave Joe Biden a pass

DCCC-Linked Firm Briefly Worked for Challenger to Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, and Left Behind Its Email List

When Keith Ellison resigned from Congress to run for Minnesota attorney general in 2018, a crowded Democratic primary field quickly developed. The establishment favorite for the seat was Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. One of her consultants that cycle was New Blue Interactive, run by the former managing director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Ilhan Omar beat Kelliher and the rest of the field, but in 2020 will again face primary challengers. One of those candidates is Antone Melton-Meaux, and New Blue Interactive once again signed up to work against Omar. Except this year, that wasn’t allowed.

Melton-Meaux, an attorney and volunteer minister, paid New Blue Interactive $13,875 to do digital consulting for his campaign, according to financial disclosures. But last year, the House Democrats’ campaign arm formalized a controversial policy cutting off firms that work with candidates running primary challenges against incumbent Democrats. So, after just a week, the DCCC-linked firm terminated the contract with the campaign and refunded the payment, according to an FEC memo.

But the campaign kept the valuable contact list that came with the contract, according to the FEC. Email lists are still one of the most important fundraising tools a campaign can have, and can be worth thousands of dollars. ...

Taryn Rosenkranz, the founder and CEO of New Blue Interactive, previously served as managing director at the DCCC, where she oversaw digital communications for seven years, according to her bio on the firm’s website. In April 2019, she told Roll Call that building an email list was crucial to standing out in a crowded field of competitors. ...

The House Democrats’ campaign arm has faced backlash over its vendor blacklist which, critics argue, keeps centrist Democrats in power while discouraging women and people of color to run for office. “It looks like the DCCC’s blacklist is just for one side: progressives. The hypocrisy is stunning,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid told The Intercept.

Sanders Senior Advisor: This is how we win

Greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, committing us to more #climatechange. No sign so far of slowdown in 2020. #StateofClimate pic.twitter.com/r6H1JGJNcA

— WMO | OMM (@WMO) March 10, 2020

The Sunrise Movement is setting itself up for failure. Robert Mackey subtly assures the Corporate Democrat Death Cult that it has nothing to fear.

Activists Who Disrupted Biden in Detroit Back Sanders, But Dread Trump Most of All

The young activists who disrupted Joe Biden’s rally in Detroit on Monday night - chanting “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Joe Biden has got to go!” - struck terror in the hearts of some Democrats, who fear that supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders might abandon the party, and electoral politics, if he fails to win its presidential nomination, as seemed likely after Tuesday’s contests.

The nightmare for Biden supporters, who are terrified of handing Donald Trump any advantage, would be to see their candidate regularly protested by young Sanders supporters, who even managed, in 2016, to shut down a Trump rally in Chicago.

But a spokesperson for one of the groups that took part in the anti-Biden protest, Sofie Karasek of the Sunrise Movement, told The Intercept that, despite “the deep anger and frustration young people feel at Vice President Biden’s campaign,” the climate activists are committed to defeating Donald Trump in November no matter who the Democrats nominate.

“The establishment Vice President Biden has been a part of his entire career has done almost nothing meaningful to combat the climate crisis, and brought our society to the brink of climate catastrophe, which is why so many young people prefer the candidacy of Senator Sanders and his vision for a transformative Green New Deal,” Karasek wrote in an email.

“That said, the thing we dread most is four more years of Donald Trump,” she added, so the activists “will do everything we can to prevent that.”

PLEASE don’t make us vote for joe biden @SunriseMvmtDC https://t.co/m971OBDDiU pic.twitter.com/XQ1qB6KHTc

— Sunrise Movement (@sunrisemvmt) March 8, 2020

Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s

The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date.

The ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica is tracking the worst-case climate warming scenario set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists say. Without rapid cuts to carbon emissions the analysis indicates there could be a rise in sea levels that would leave 400 million people exposed to coastal flooding each year by the end of the century.

Rising sea levels are the one of the most damaging long-term impacts of the climate crisis, and the contribution of Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating. The new analysis updates and combines recent studies of the ice masses and predicts that 2019 will prove to have been a record-breaking year when the most recent data is processed.

The previous peak year for Greenland and Antarctic ice melting was 2010, after a natural climate cycle led to a run of very hot summers. But the Arctic heatwave of 2019 means it is nearly certain that more ice was lost last year.

UN Chief Warns World 'Way Off Track' on Tackling Climate Crisis as New Report Underscores Need for Bold Global Action

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a stark warning about the necessity of ambitious global climate action Tuesday with the release of an annual report detailing the latest science on rising greenhouse gas emissions that drive up air and ocean temperatures, leading to devastating sea level rise and more severe extreme weather.

"Time is fast running out for us to avert the worst impacts of climate disruption and protect our societies from the inevitable impacts to come," Guterres wrote in a statement included in the new World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, which concluded that 2019 was 1.1°C warmer than the pre-industrial era and concluded the hottest decade on record.

"We are currently way off track to meeting either the 1.5°C or 2°C targets that the Paris Agreement calls for. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050," Guterres continued in the WMO report. "And for that, we need political will and urgent action to set a different path."

Let us have no illusions: the climate crisis is already causing calamity & more is to come.

I call on all countries to show more #ClimateAction ambition - and on individuals to hold your governments to account.

This is a battle we can - and must - win. pic.twitter.com/zYtRPyZnbC

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 11, 2020

Guterres reiterated his warnings and demands for bold action during a Tuesday event to unveil the WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019 (pdf) at U.N. headquarters in New York City.

"The indications are crystal clear. Global heating is accelerating," Guterres said. "We count the cost in human lives and livelihoods as droughts, wildfires, floods, and extreme storms take their deadly toll. We have no time to lose if we are to avert climate catastrophe. This is a pivotal year for how we address the climate emergency."

Also of Interest

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

Wall Street Is High on Government Supply

Keiser Report | Thinking Exponentially

CNBC Host Recommends Giving Coronavirus “To Everyone”!

Can the US learn from China's determined response to Coronavirus?

Krystal and Saagar: React to coronavirus fallout, will elections be moved?

Democratic Voters Played Pundit in Picking Joe Biden. History Suggests They Are Bad at That Game.

“The Waters Parted for Joe Biden”

Elite Political Journalists Are Eager to Kick Bernie Sanders on His Way Out the Door

Biden Lies About Iraq Vote On MSNBC

Bernie Declares "Biden Can Beat Trump!" WTF!?!?

Ken Klippenstein details how Bloomberg lied to staffers, compromised jobs

Millions of Democratic votes were lost in the primaries. Is this the fix?

The Great Unpatterning Continues. Make Sure You Take Advantage Of It.

Lockerbie bomber conviction 'may have been miscarriage of justice'

Coronavirus - The Hidden Cases - Why We Must Shut Everything Down And Do It Now

Stegosaurus footprints found on Isle of Skye

A Little Night Music

Jimmy & Mama Yancey - Santa Fe Blues

Jimmy Yancey - The Rocks

Jimmy & Mama Yancey - How Long Blues

Jimmy Yancey - Steady Rock Blues

Jimmy Yancey - I Love To Hear My Baby Call My Name

Jimmy & Mama Yancey - Monkey Woman Blues

Jimmy Yancey - Beezum Blues

Jimmy Yancey - Sweet Patootie

Jimmy & Mama Yancey - Pallet On The Floor

Jimmy Yancey - Yancey Stomp