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“There is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

-- Frank Herbert

News and Opinion

UN human rights chief calls for reparations to make amends for slavery

The UN’s human rights chief has urged countries to confront the legacy of slavery and colonialism and to make amends for “centuries of violence and discrimination” through reparations. Addressing an urgent debate on racism and police brutality at the UN human rights council in Geneva, Michelle Bachelet called on countries to examine their pasts and to strive to better understand the scope of continuing “systemic discrimination”.

She pointed to the “gratuitous brutality” on display in the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died in Minneapolis in the US on 25 May after a white police officer – since charged with murder – kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. This symbol of “systemic racism … has become emblematic of the excessive use of disproportionate force by law enforcement, against people of African descent, against people of colour, and against indigenous peoples and racial and ethnic minorities in many countries across the globe,” Bachelet said.

“Behind today’s racial violence, systemic racism and discriminatory policing lies the failure to acknowledge and confront the legacy of the slave trade and colonialism,” she said. She stressed the need to “make amends for centuries of violence and discrimination, including through formal apologies, truth-telling processes, and reparations in various forms”.

Rayshard Brooks before his death: The system treats us "as if we are animals"

Revealed: officer who killed Rayshard Brooks accused of covering up 2015 shooting

The Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks was accused of covering up an earlier shooting he and other officers participated in, according to a judge who reviewed the case. Garrett Rolfe was fired by the Atlanta police department following what officials called the “unjustified” killing of Brooks on Friday. ...

In August 2015, Rolfe and two other officers opened fire on Jackie Jermaine Harris, who they chased after he was caught driving a stolen truck, the Guardian can reveal after reviewing court documents on the incident. However, the shooting was not reported by the police involved. Harris, like Brooks, is African American.

Harris rammed a police vehicle and officers shot at him several times inside the truck, striking Harris once and collapsing his lung. Harris survived and later pleaded guilty to charges including theft, property damage, fleeing arrest and damaging a police vehicle.

Judge Doris L Downs, during a 2016 court hearing, called the case a “disaster” and said “it’s the wildest case I’ve seen in my 34 years here.” Downs said she was so troubled by officers failing to report the shooting that she wanted the matter investigated. “None of the police put in the report that they shot the man – none of them. And they sent him to Grady [Memorial Hospital] with collapsed lungs and everything, and the report doesn’t mention it,” Downs said. ...

It is unclear if any action was taken. Downs could not be reached for comment. The Atlanta police department and Fulton county district attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it did not investigate the shooting, according to a spokesperson.

Murder Charge for Atlanta Cop Who Shot & Killed Rayshard Brooks Shows the “Power of a Movement”

100+ Racial Justice Groups Urge Congress to Defund 'Unconstitutional and Dangerous' Police Surveillance

More than 100 racial justice and civil liberties groups are calling on Congress to end all federal funding for surveillance technology being used by law enforcement to spy on activists and demonstrators taking part in the ongoing protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

In a letter (pdf) to House leaders on Wednesday, the groups said present-day police surveillance tactics and abuses evoke memories of "when civil rights protesters were savagely beaten for challenging Jim Crow, and illegal programs like COINTELPRO were established to disrupt the pursuit for civil rights and justice."

The groups demanded that Congress "take action to address the unconstitutional and dangerous use of surveillance by state, local, and federal police officers" by ceasing "federal funding for the surveillance technologies that are being used to militarize our communities and criminalize dissent."

"Black-led movements fighting for racial justice in America have always been met with violence and surveillance by police," the groups wrote. "We are seeing it now in cities and towns across the country as curfews and calls for 'law and order' by dog-whistle politicians encourage police to use aggressive tactics and 'dominate protesters."

The coalition—which includes the ACLU, Color of Change, RAICES, and Free Press Action—pointed specifically to U.S. law enforcement's use of surveillance drones and the Trump administration's deployment of Drug Enforcement Agency officials to protests as part of an alarming "pattern of criminalizing dissent."

To protect the constitutional rights of demonstrators and scale back law enforcement abuses, the groups called on Congress to:

• Cease any state and local grants that can be used to purchase surveillance technologies by police agencies, absent community consultation, state/local authorization, and safeguards to prevent abuse;
• Make clear that Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal agencies cannot use their intelligence assets for general policing, including surveillance of protests;
• Prohibit federal funds from being used for mass unwarranted surveillance programs, including the Patriot Act, and technologies that are antithetical to the First and Fourth Amendment; and
• Close loopholes in existing domestic terrorism and national security laws that are vulnerable to being exploited to target activists and communities of color.

"Millions of people in the streets are demanding dramatic changes to law enforcement, including defunding the surveillance infrastructure and technology that have contributed to the escalation of police brutality," Free Press Action government relations director Sandra Fulton said in a statement. "Use of these tools to monitor protesters is having a chilling effect against those exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and express their views."

In addition to calling for the defunding of police surveillance technology, the ACLU and MediaJustice—two of the letter's signatories—filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Wednesday demanding documents and information on how the FBI is currently surveilling and investigating Black activists.

"The government has a long, terrible history of using secret surveillance programs to target and surveil Black civil rights activists—a practice that still exists today," ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, said in a statement. "Through our FOIA litigation, we're aiming to learn more about the baseless investigations of Black people by our federal government that we know continues to this day."

The same people who bombed Libya into the slave trade now cheer for #BLM

Poll: Over 60 percent of voters believe George Floyd's death was part of a larger pattern in policing

Sixty-three percent of voters believe the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while in Minneapolis police custody, was part of a larger pattern of how the police interact with people of color, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds.

By contrast, 37 percent believed it was an isolated incident.

Eighty-six percent of black voters said Floyd's death was part of a larger pattern in policing, along with 71 percent of hispanic voters.

The poll found white voters less likely to believe Floyd's death was part of a systemic issue. However, a majority still agreed that it was not an isolated incident, at 57 percent.

“Movements Work”: As Activists Occupy Seattle’s Capitol Hill, City Bans Tear Gas, Expels Cop Union

Turkey begins offensive against Kurdish rebels in north Iraq

Turkey said Wednesday it has airlifted troops into northern Iraq for a cross-border ground operation against Turkey’s Kurdish rebels.

The airborne-and-land offensive into the border region of Haftanin, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Turkey-Iraq border, was launched following intense artillery fire into the area, said the Defense Ministry in Ankara.

The operation by commando forces is being supported by warplanes, attack helicopters, artillery and armed and unarmed drones, according to the ministry’s statement posted on Twitter. It did not say how many troops are involved. ...

Baghdad summoned Ankara’s ambassador to Iraq , Fatih Yildiz, on Tuesday to protest Turkey’s offensive against PKK targets in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Glenn Greenwald breaks down new STUNNING information on 'Bolivian coup'

Western Media Rehabilitate Brazil’s Criminal Ex-Justice Minister for Presidential Run

Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro resigned from his post in the far-right Bolsonaro government on April 24, accusing the president of “political interference” in the country’s police force.

Western corporate media apparently saw no irony in the allegations made by the former judge, who played an instrumental role in an “anti-corruption” witch hunt aimed at illegally jailing former President Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva and destroying his left-wing Workers’ Party.

Rather, they fawningly described Moro as an “anti-corruption crusader” (BBC, 4/25/20), “celebrity justice minister” (Guardian, 4/24/20) and “a figure who for many represented a new, better Brazil” (Washington Post, 4/24/20), cheering the “tantalizing” prospect of a 2022 presidential bid (Bloomberg, 5/6/20).

The majority of the press, including the BBC (4/25/20), Washington Post (4/24/20), Reuters (4/24/20) and Deutsche Welle (4/24/20) scandalously omitted any mention of the bombshell whistleblower revelations published by the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald (6/9/19). The thousands of hours of leaked conversations on the Telegram platform between Moro and prosecutors with the operation codenamed Lava Jato, or “Car Wash,” showed the former not only illegally giving instructions on how to improve the accusations he was responsible for impartially evaluating, but also advising the prosecutors on how to smear Lula in the media (FAIR.org, 11/14/19).

A few outlets did mention the revelations, but dismissed them as “claims [Moro] had improperly plotted to jail Lula” (Guardian, 4/24/20) or buried them in a single line in the 17th paragraph (Bloomberg, 5/6/20).

Time did the heavy lifting, however, in whitewashing Moro, whom it had extolled in their “100 Most Influential People” list of 2016 (4/21/16). London-based journalist Clara Nugent (Time, 5/21/20) penned a hagiographic profile of the former judge, headlined: “’I Didn’t Enter the Government to Serve a Master.’ Brazil’s Star Justice Minister on His Resignation and Clash With President Bolsonaro.” 

In the exclusive interview, Nugent—whom FAIR.org (5/20/19) previously exposed for spreading falsehoods about media “censorship” in Venezuela—dutifully labored to scrub Moro’s tarnished reputation of any trace of systematic US-sponsored lawlessness. Sympathetically describing him as a “somber bureaucrat” whose “scowl…tends to be a bad omen for Brazilian presidents,” the corporate journalist wrote off Moro’s well-documented criminality in the Lava Jato lawfare operation as “controversy”:

But Moro’s conduct during the investigation also attracted controversy. In March 2016, he shocked many Brazilians when he sent the audio of tapped phone conversations between Lula and then-President [Dilma] Rousseff to the media.

Nugent omitted the crucial detail that, as Brian Mier reported for FAIR.org (11/14/19), the wiretap on Rousseff was illegal, as was the leak to the press. Rather, she repeated the false claim that “Rousseff had appointed Lula as her chief of staff, allegedly in order to shield him from Car Wash prosecutors,” ignoring that Moro had edited the recording to make it appear incriminating. In fact, the real purpose of the appointment was to enlist Lula in resisting a parliamentary coup against Rousseff, and had nothing to do with Lava Jato.

The Time reporter did admit that the leak “was decisive in building the public outrage that underpinned Congress’ drive to impeach Rousseff four months later, on charges of manipulating government financial data.” But she declined to add that “manipulating government financial data” was actually a common budgetary infraction known as “fiscal pedaling,” which was legalized by the Brazilian Senate one week after Rousseff was removed from office (CounterSpin, 12/12/18).

Like her corporate colleagues, Nugent went on to dismiss the Intercept revelations exposing Moro’s rampant misconduct as mere allegations, despite later quoting the former minister confirming the veracity of their content:

In July 2019, investigative site the Intercept published a trove of messages which they said showed that, as a judge, Moro had inappropriately consulted with federal prosecutors on strategy to take down high-profile figures.

Nugent failed to mention that the “strategy” in question was to convict Lula—who was leading all polls for the 2018 presidential race—for “indeterminate acts of corruption,” with prosecutors secretly admitting just hours before the final trial that they had no evidence, but that Moro would deliver a conviction anyway. In a particularly egregious omission, she hid the fact Moro and Lava Jato prosecutors illegally spied on Lula’s defense team—a grave offense that would have had Moro disbarred in most countries.

She was also happy to indulge Moro’s mystifications that “it was never a personal issue with ex-president Lula,” suppressing the fact that Lava Jato prosecutors had conspired to muzzle Lula on the eve of the election, and that task force leader Delton Dallagnol had said he was literally “pray[ing]” that Bolsonaro would win.

Time joined the rest of the Western media in likewise concealing the public and notorious US hand in the lawfare operation (CounterSpin, 12/12/18). Neither Nugent nor her counterparts reported that Lava Jato was a joint investigation with the US’s Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission. The two agencies collected billions in fines from Brazilian companies that were considered strategic for national development, including construction giant Odebrecht, state aircraft manufacturer Embraer and state oil firm Petrobras. Meanwhile, Moro ordered Odebrecht and other implicated construction companies to paralyze their projects, causing 500,000 job losses and an estimated 2.5% fall in GDP in 2015 alone. The US-backed economic coup paved the way for the 2016 parliamentary coup and the fraudulent 2018 election, in which the baseless corruption accusations against Lula and Dilma were decisive (CounterSpin, 6/28/19).

Much of that coordination between the prosecution task force overseen by Moro and US agencies was informal and illegal, because it was not authorized by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. In one particularly damning Telegram message, Dallagnol told Moro that decisions regarding the investigations “depend[ed]… on the Americans.” During his tenure as “super-justice minister,” Moro further opened the door to US infiltration in legally dubious ways, expanding US cooperation with prosecutors and police, creating an intelligence “fusion” center with FBI participation in the Tri-Border Region, and sharing sensitive biometric data with the agency.

Time, along with the entirety of Western corporate media, unsurprisingly turned a blind eye to this grave breach of Brazilian sovereignty. More surprising was their total concealment of Moro’s far more flagrant acts of lawlessness while serving as top cop. Moro sought to obstruct an investigation in which he was a possible defendant, attempting to destroy evidence that he had interfered in the 2018 presidential election to thwart a Workers’ Party victory. In particular, he tried to prevent the release of the Intercept leaks, while also publicly ordering the illegal destruction of proof seized from hackers imprisoned by the Federal Police, which likewise implicated him in crimes committed during Lava Jato.

The Western press also censored any mention of the fact that Moro may be very likely implicated in the “explosive” allegations (Time, 5/21/20; Guardian, 4/24/20) he made against Bolsonaro, which has led the Supreme Court to open an inquiry. The probe will not only look into the eight alleged crimes committed by Bolsonaro, but will also examine whether Moro had prior knowledge of them and refused to go public until leaving the government, which would constitute a crime of “official misconduct” under Brazilian law.

In rehabilitating Moro as a “whistleblower,” corporate journalists hide their own role in shamelessly promoting the Washington-backed lawfare operation that ousted Brazil’s first female president, and installed a neo-fascist whom they now scapegoat as the posterboy for murderous coronavirus denialism (FAIR.org, 4/12/20).

Bolsonaro certainly has ample blood on his hands. But Moro, his US sponsors and the imperial media share full responsibility.

Fauci says US 'still in the first wave' as six states see record Covid-19 cases

America’s top public health expert has warned the nation it is “still in the first wave” of coronavirus infections and deaths, as six states report record numbers of new cases amid continued rapid easing of lockdown restrictions. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, expressed worry about new hotspots for infections in major US states, while also advising that “personally, I would not” attend Donald Trump’s first political rally in months, due on Saturday, in Oklahoma, where vast crowds are expected despite rising Covid-19 cases.

Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas reported record increases in coronavirus cases on Tuesday, while Nevada recorded its highest ever number of single-day cases. In recent days North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama have reportedly set new highs in seven-day rolling average of Covid-19 cases, as many states have allowed some businesses and public spaces to reopen after months of restrictions.

“As New York and other places are coming down, others are going up,” Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Boston Globe about different areas seeing decreases or increases in new cases. ...

Vice-President Mike Pence has claimed the US has “slowed the spread”, and both Pence and the president have claimed the worrying increase in coronavirus cases is due to more testing.

Fauci said this was not true. “When you look at the number of hospitalizations, and you see some of the states say, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m having more hospitalizations than I had before,’ that cannot be due to increase in testing. That has to be due to increase in real cases,” he told the Globe.

Fauci: why the public wasn't told to wear masks when the coronavirus pandemic began

Medical masks and cloth face coverings are now a common sight when venturing out in public amidst the coronavirus pandemic; most states require them as part of reopening plans, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advocates their use.

This wasn’t always the case. When the coronavirus pandemic hit stateside, face masks were strictly recommended as personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care professionals. According to Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, masks weren’t advised to the public from the start because of the anticipated PPE shortages.

Speaking on TheStreet, Fauci discusses how effective face masks are at preventing COVID-19 infection and why they weren’t recommended from the start. "Masks are not 100 percent protective. However, they certainly are better than not wearing a mask. Both to prevent you, if you happen to be a person who maybe feels well, but has an asymptomatic infection that you don't even know about, to prevent you from infecting someone else," Fauci said.

"But also, it can protect you a certain degree, not a hundred percent, in protecting you from getting infected from someone who, either is breathing, or coughing, or sneezing, or singing or whatever it is in which the droplets or the aerosols go out. So masks work,” Fauci added. “The important thing is actually physical separation,” Fauci said, adding that the combination of social distancing and face masks is the best way for the public to mitigate the spread and reduce transmission while maintaining some normalcy by venturing in public.

The world after Covid with journalist Glenn Greenwald

John Bolton Says Trump Tried to Get China to Help Him Win the 2020 Election

Portions of the upcoming book that were leaked to the press Wednesday include absolutely damning new details, from high-minded criticisms of Trump’s presidential conduct to schoolroom-level insults lobbed at Trump from behind his back by senior staff. ...

The book casts Trump as wheeling and dealing with foreign dictators while scheming to get himself reelected in 2020. And it recounts Trump essentially confessing to holding up vital military aid to Ukraine while hoping to score an investigation of his 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden, the core of Democrats’ impeachment case against him last winter, according to accounts published within minutes of each other on Wednesday in the Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

The passages revealed Wednesday suggest that Ukraine was just one instance where Trump tried to get a foreign power to interfere in U.S. politics in order to boost his own reelection prospects in 2020. In one passage, Bolton recounts Trump begging China’s Xi Jinping to purchase American agricultural products so Trump would benefit politically. The book says Trump blurted out, right there in front of China’s leader, that he wanted to curry favor in Midwestern farm states so he could win votes.

If that could be arranged, Trump offered to keep U.S. tariffs at 10%, instead of the 25% he’d threatened, Bolton writes.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”

Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations as 'favor' to dictators, Bolton book says

Donald Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations to “give personal favors to dictators he liked”, according to a new book written by his former national security adviser John Bolton. After excerpts from the memoir, which is due to be published later this month, were printed in various news outlets, the Trump administration applied for an emergency temporary restraining order against Bolton on Wednesday night in an attempt to block the book’s release.

Bolton alleges that Trump pleaded with China’s President Xi Jinping to help him get re-elected by buying more US agricultural products, according to accounts of his forthcoming memoir. In his pursuit of a good personal relationship with Xi, Trump is described as brushing aside human rights issues, even providing encouragement to the communist leader to continue to build concentration camps for China’s Muslim Uighur population. ...

Bolton accuses congressional Democrats of committing “impeachment malpractice” by limiting the inquiry to the Ukraine affair (making US military aid conditional on Kyiv handed over compromising information on Biden) and moving too quickly. Bolton argues that the inquiry should have looked into Trump’s intervention into US investigations into Turkey’s Halkbank to curry favour with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and into the China telecommunications manufacturer ZTE, with the aim of pleasing Xi.

Bolton’s book quotes Trump as saying that invading Venezuela would be “cool” and that it was “really part of the United States”. He recounts a meeting in New Jersey last summer at which Trump railed against journalists, declaring: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags”.

Jimmy Dore Show Prediction Of Social Unrest Comes True. w/ Dylan Ratigan

“Foreclosure Apocalypse” Is Coming & Way Worse Than ‘08. w/Dylan Ratigan

Democrat Facing Progressive Primary Challenge Signs Letter Supporting Cuts to Social Security — Then Quietly Walks It Back at Home

Washington Rep. Derek Kilmer, chair of the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition, was among the 30 House Democrats who joined Republicans in signing a letter calling for cuts to Social Security benefits earlier this month. In the letter, which was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, lawmakers argued that upcoming coronavirus relief legislation should include budget reforms to confront the economic fallout of the pandemic. The lawmakers also asked leadership to address the “pressing issue of the national debt.” One of their policy recommendations — Sen. Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act — has been described as “a plot to gut Social Security behind closed doors.” ...

But Kilmer, who’s facing a primary challenge in August from progressive Rebecca Parson in Washington’s 6th Congressional District, which covers most of Tacoma, has been trying to walk back his support for the letter and the attack on Social Security in letters to constituents who had contacted him with concerns about the policy recommendation. The congressman wrote that he has been and will continue to be a “vocal opponent of efforts to undermine existing Social Security benefits,” stressing that he’s not a co-sponsor of the TRUST Act and does not intend to co-sponsor it, according to a copy obtained by The Intercept. He also highlighted his support for the Social Security 2100 Act, which would strengthen and expand the program’s benefits.

The TRUST Act, which Romney introduced last October, would create congressional “Rescue Committees” tasked with writing legislation providing 75 years of solvency for federal trust funds, which subsidize programs like Social Security, Medicare, highways and mass transit, and government pensions. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare criticized the proposal at the time, saying it would “set up a process that puts benefits at risk, forcing millions of older Americans onto a pathway toward poverty.” Other advocacy groups, like Social Security Works and Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action, or PSARA, have also been fighting the Romney proposal, mounting an escalating pressure campaign on the lawmakers. Social Security Works has been reaching out to every member of Congress who signed onto the letter asking them to oppose cuts, and plans to run billboards against Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, said Alex Lawson, the executive director. The group celebrated Kilmer’s statement supporting the expansion of benefits, saying the other 59 members should follow his lead. ...

His primary opponent doesn’t buy it. “There are 3 options: Rep. Kilmer didn’t read the letter he signed, he doesn’t know about the history of bipartisan efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare, or he’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too: publicly praising Social Security while privately trying to cut it,” Parson told The Intercept. “Whether he signed the letter due to negligence, ignorance, or doublespeak, it’s clear he shouldn’t be representing Washington’s 6th District, where 20 percent of our residents are over 65.”

Devastating economic numbers, shocking video reveals scale of crisis

Krystal Ball BLASTS Dems, Black Caucus for propping up white corporatists

'Fight Like We're Down 10 Points,' Say Supporters as Poll Shows Bowman Up Double-Digits Over Engel in NY

New polling from New York's 16th congressional district shows progressuve primary challenger Jamaal Bowman 10 points ahead of 16-term incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel, a centrist Democrat, as the former middle school principal's insurgent campaign urged supporters to keep the pressure on to achieve victory in next week's primary.

The progressive think tank Data for Progress conducted the survey between June 11 and 15, polling 525 likely Democratic voters in the 16th district, which lies in the Northern Bronx and lower Westchester County.

Forty-one percent of voters reported they were planning to support Bowman, while 31% said they would support Engel. Just over a quarter of respondents said they were still undecided about the election, in which the last day to vote is June 23.

Bowman celebrated the poll results while urging supporters to continue fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts to counter the $600,000 Engel is spending on attack ads against his progressive challenger. Critics of Engel have recently highlighted $100,000 in funding that a Republican super PAC funneled to a group backing him.

Organizer Nikhil Goyal urged supporters to "fight like we're down ten points."

The poll showed Bowman—who supports Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a Reconstruction Agenda to shift funding for police departments and prisons to social services—with significant support from black voters in the 16th district, with 56% saying they would support him versus just 10% who backed Engel. A majority of undecided black voters also said they were leaning towards supporting Bowman.

The poll was conducted a week after Engel was heard on a hot mic at a Black Lives Matter event telling organizers that he wanted to speak to the crowd, but that if he "didn't have a primary, [he] wouldn't care."

Plan to release genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida gets go-ahead

A plan to release a horde of 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida and Texas is a step closer to fruition after a state regulator approved the idea, over the objections of many environmentalists. Oxitec, a British biotechnology company, has targeted the US as a test site for a special version of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The mosquitoes contain a protein that, when passed down to female offspring, will lessen their chances of survival and, it is hoped, prevent them from biting people and spreading diseases such as dengue fever and Zika.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the Florida department of agriculture and consumer services has given the green light to a plan to release the millions of mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, the string of picturesque islands that extend from the southern tip of the state, beginning this summer. Last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also approved the Florida plan, as well as a further trial next year that will take place in Harris county in Texas, which includes Houston.

Proponents of the trial say that as only modified male mosquitoes, which do not bite people, will be released, there will be no danger to the public. But the plan has caused uproar among conservation groups, which have sued the EPA for allegedly failing to ascertain the environmental impact of the scheme. Scientists have also expressed concerns about the oversight of the trial.

'It Was a Fake Meat Shortage': Reporting Suggests Industry Sacrificed Workers Lives During Pandemic to Keep Exports Moving

As workers in meat processing plants around the country earlier this year fell ill with the coronavirus, threatening production, industry leaders appealed to the government to allow the facilities to remain open, citing the threat of a catastrophic domestic food shortage.

It worked — President Donald Trump issued an executive order allowing the plants to stay open as essential businesses even as workers were getting sick and dying. However, according to new reporting from the New York Times and USA Today published Tuesday, the industry was lying about the threat of a shortage in order to maintain large exports to overseas markets.

"It was a fake meat shortage," tweeted labor journalist Steven Greenhouse.

Our country sacrificed the lives of meat workers to protect the business of meat companies. https://t.co/aT7XTsuDEB

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) June 16, 2020

"The meat companies were saying the sky was falling, and it really wasn't," Food & Water Watch senior lobbyist Tony Corbo told the Times. "It wasn't that there was not enough supply. It was that the supply was being sent abroad."

Numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that the industry exported a record amount of pork to China in April, 129,000 tons, even as the industry was wringing its hands over shortages and appealing to the federal government for exemptions to Covid-19 restrictions imposed on the plants at the state and local level.

As the Times reported:

After slaughterhouses in several states were closed when thousands of workers tested positive and dozens died, the industry publicly lobbied the Trump administration to intervene with state and local officials or risk major meat shortages across American grocery stores. Indeed, some retailers put limits on the amount of meat customers could buy, and the fast-food chain Wendy's, at one point, ran low on hamburger.

But the meatpackers, including Smithfield, which China's largest pork producer bought in 2013, did not emphasize, at least not publicly, that keeping the plants open would also protect their long-term investments in exporting to a country that is vital to their growth.

Ben Lilliston, a co-executive director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, which advocates for fair and sustainable food systems, told USA Today that the new data was unsurprising.

In that context, industry claims about shortages do not appear to have been about maintaining American food supplies, Lilliston said, but rather aimed at ensuring liability protections and avoidance of local regulations were contained in the executive order even as the industry continued to ship its product overseas.

"We've been very skeptical about these claims around shortages," said Lilliston. "I think they were able to use the idea of food shortages as leverage."

Also of Interest

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

Is Cruelty Required?

Police violence and class rule

Black and Brown Protesters in New York Were Jailed Longer and Punished More Harshly Than White, Data Indicates

The Coronavirus Pandemic and Police Violence Have Reignited the Fight Against Toxic Racism

Get on the Line: White Allies and Changing Tactics at Atlanta Rayshard Brooks Protests

These Cities Are Stopping Police From Responding to Homelessness, Drug Use, and Mental Health Issues

John Bolton Opines: "Quod licet bovi, non licet Iovi"

The Fed’s Paycheck Protection Program Gave a Tiny NJ Bank $5.3 Billion – 9 Percent of all the Money It’s Spent Thus Far

GEO Group’s Blundering Response to the Pandemic Helped Spread Coronavirus in Halfway Houses

'It's only important if you eat food': inside a film on the honeybee crisis

Democracy Now - “Tear Gas Is a Weapon”: Amnesty Report Reveals Police Use of Tear Gas Fuels Rights Abuses Worldwide

Keiser Report | Cantillon Monopoly

Saagar Enjeti: Resistance Libs gift MILLIONS to warmongering John Bolton

Krystal and Saagar: MASSIVE BACKLASH grows against big tech after attempt to censor media

Nina Turner blasts Senator Tim Scott's race comments

Zach Carter: Economic response has been TOTAL FAILURE, what we can learn from history

Supreme Court rules Trump can't end DACA for now

A Little Night Music

Young Jessie - Mary Lou

Young Jessie - Brown Eyes

Young Jessie - Pretty Soon

Young Jessie - Don't Happen No More

Young Jessie - Teacher Gimme Back

Young Jessie - You Were Meant For Me

Young Jessie - Lulla Belle

Young Jessie - I'm A Lovin´Man

Young Jessie - Well Baby

Young Jessie - Be-Bop Country Boy

Young Jessie - Hit Git & Split