The Evening Blues - 7-30-20



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bull Moose Jackson

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues saxophone player Bull Moose Jackson. Enjoy!

Bull Moose Jackson - Watch My Signals

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”

-- Lewis Carroll


News and Opinion

Op-Ed: The Exit Of 12,000 US Troops Is The Single Worst Event In German History

Today’s Caitlin Johnstone essay has been replaced with a National News Conglomerate op-ed by General Hank Hammerfist. NNC: Obey.

The Trump administration has begun slashing the US military presence in Germany from an almost satisfactory 36,000 troops to a practically microscopic 24,000. I think we can all agree that this is the single worst thing that has ever happened in the history of Germany, and arguably the universe.

While most Americans were until now unaware that their government had that many troops in a nation known predominantly for beer and bleak documentaries, pundits and politicians in the know have been rightly proclaiming their outrage at this catastrophic event which disrupts God’s natural plan of endless military expansionism until the entire planet is an undifferentiated sea of camouflage fatigues and tiny American flag patches.

“Trump’s decision to withdraw US Forces from Germany shows a broad lack of strategic understanding. It sends the wrong signal to our adversaries and leaves our allies vulnerable in the face of increasing global threats. It’s simply unacceptable,” tweeted former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who as we all know is always correct about military matters.

“Did Trump give Putin a heads up on the removal of 12,000 US troops from Germany? Was there an implication it was a kind of down payment for election help, a taste of what could follow in a second term?” asks super smart foreign policy expert Bill Kristol.

“US to withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from Germany in move that will cost billions and take years,” warns a CNN headline that is both helpful and totally sane.

NPR’s national security correspondent David Welna informs us that the move is “a slap at a longtime ally frequently reviled by President Trump.”

“There’s no strategy behind the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany,” says Slate foreign policy pundit Fred Kaplan. “It’s about the president’s anger and ego.”

“The plan outlined by the Administration today to remove thousands of U.S. troops from Germany is a grave error,” said Senator Mitt Romney in a statement. “It is a slap in the face at a friend and ally when we should instead be drawing closer in our mutual commitment to deter Russian and Chinese aggression. And it is a gift to Russia coming at a time when we just have learned of its support for the Taliban and reports of bounties on killing American troops.”

“A special gift to Putin and a blow to NATO,” tweeted former National Security Advisor Susan Rice. “Donald Trump is not playing on America’s team.”

So as you can see, this troop withdrawal is being met with righteous garment rending by all the best people. What more evidence do you need that we should regard endless military expansionism as the norm and treat even the slightest most peripheral deviation from that path as a freakish apocalyptic travesty?

I weep for the poor Germans, who are doubtless stricken with inconsolable terror at the loss of one third of their benevolent protectors. Who will protect Germany from being occupied by a violent and brutal regime without a robust occupying US military force?

I for one can’t wait until we get this evil, despotic monster out of the White House and replace him with someone who understands what America is really all about.

Police agencies withdraw from convention duty over tear gas rules

More than 100 United States police agencies are withdrawing from agreements to send personnel to bolster security at next month's Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in part because they are concerned about a recent directive ordering police in the city to stop using tear gas to control crowds.

A citizen oversight commission last week directed Milwaukee's police chief to publicly account for why the department used tear gas during protests in late May and early June after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and to change Milwaukee's police policies to ban the use of tear gas and pepper spray. The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission said in its order that Police Chief Alfonso Morales could be fired if he fails to comply. That order came amid intense scrutiny of police tactics at protests in Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere.

Since the Milwaukee order was issued, more than 100 law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin and across the US decided against coming to Milwaukee, Morales told WTMJ-TV on Tuesday. They were concerned with directives placed on the police department, including not allowing tear gas or pepper spray, he said.

Morales did not say which agencies would not be coming or how many officers were still expected. The original plan was to have 1,000 officers on hand from outside agencies to assist with security. Morales said utilizing the US National Guard or enlisting federal assistance was under consideration.

The convention, scheduled for August 17 to August 20 at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee, has been scaled down to a mostly virtual event, with only about 300 people expected to attend in person. Most of the speeches will be delivered online from other locations, though former Vice President Joe Biden has said he will be in Milwaukee to accept the nomination for the presidential race. Despite the event's smaller scale, police are preparing for potentially large protests in and around the venue.

Federal officers to pull out of Portland in a major reversal for Trump administration

The Trump administration is to pull federal paramilitaries out of Portland starting on Thursday in a major reversal after weeks of escalating protests and violence.

Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, said she agreed to the pullout in talks with Vice-President Mike Pence. Brown said state and city police officers will replace Department of Homeland Security agents in guarding the federal courthouse that has become the flashpoint for the protests.

“These federal officers have acted as an occupying force, refused accountability, and brought violence and strife to our community,” the governor said. The head of the US homeland security department said agents would stay near the courthouse until they were sure the plan was working.

Donald Trump said the pullout will not begin until the courthouse is protected. “We’re not leaving until they secure their city. We told the governor, we told the mayor: secure your city,” said the president.

But the announcement is a significant retreat by the administration after Trump sent federal forces to Portland at the beginning of July to end months of Black Lives Matter protests he described as having dragged the city into anarchy.


Outcry in New York after police force protester into unmarked van

Police officers in New York have been filmed arresting a female protester by forcing her into an unmarked minivan in east Manhattan. Footage of Tuesday’s arrest drew sharp criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the arrest “dangerous, abusive, and indefensible,” in a post on Twitter.


Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter: “There is no excuse for snatching women off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans,” calling on Americans to resist the slide into authoritarianism.

A video of the incident shows the woman, who Gothamist reported was 18-years-old, resisting before being carried into the van by police dressed in civilian clothes as uniformed police officers on bicycles surround the vehicle to allow the arrest to take place.

In a statement, the New York Police Department said that the woman, “was wanted for damaging police cameras during 5 separate criminal incidents in & around City Hall Park. The arresting officers were assaulted with rocks & bottles,” adding that unmarked police vehicles were used to “effectively locate wanted suspects.”

Right-Wing Dems Get Homeland Security Bill Yanked!

"Police Shouldn't Be in Schools": Omar, Pressley, Warren, and Murphy Introduce Bill to End Federal Funding for Officers on Campus

A quartet of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday introduced a pair of companion bills aimed at cutting federal funding for police officers in schools and diverting the money to social services resources that will help children rather than threaten them.

"Police shouldn't be in schools," the bill's Senate co-sponsor Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement. "There are plenty of better ways to ensure that our schools are safe places to learn, and Congress needs to understand how police in schools ends up with the wrong kids getting arrested for minor disciplinary actions and resources being drained from more effective programs."

The Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act (pdf) is co-sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and the House version is sponsored by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

"Schools should be places of learning, not law enforcement," Omar said in a statement. "As a mother of three beautiful Black children and a Minneapolis public schools graduate, I have seen firsthand how Black and brown children are disproportionately punished, reprimanded, suspended, and expelled in our schools."

"If we're going to tackle systemic racism, we need to start at childhood," Omar added. "That means getting police out of schools."

According to Murphy's office, the bill would:

Divert federal funding away from supporting the presence of police in schools and toward evidence-based services that address the needs of marginalized students and improve academic outcomes; and support local education agencies that want to terminate their contracts with local law enforcement agencies and invest public funding in personnel and services that create safe and inclusive schools for all students. 

"Counselors, nurses, social workers, and educators belong in schools," said Warren. "Police do not."

The legislation is backed by number of high-profile educational advoaccy groups, including the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association. 


Donald Trump stokes racial fears with appeal to white suburban voters

Donald Trump on Wednesday said Americans “living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream” will no longer be “bothered” by low-income housing in their communities, an explicit effort to stoke racial fears among affluent, white voters who are abandoning the Republican party under his leadership.

The remark is part of a pattern from the US president as he tries to rebuild his standing in the suburbs, which has cratered amid his administration’s failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the ensuing economic crisis, as well as the president’s aggressive response to the nationwide protests against systemic racism, which polls suggest most Americans support.

“I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood….,” Trump tweeted, as he traveled to Texas on Wednesday. “Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”

The tweet references the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, an Obama-era program designed to reduce racial segregation in American suburbs.

The rule, implemented in 2015, requires cities and towns that receive federal funding to identify patterns of racial bias and take corrective action to address disparities. It built on the Fair Housing Act, the 1968 civil rights legislation which prohibits residential discrimination but has yet to achieve its broader goal of fostering integration.

Noam Chomsky: Decades of "the Neoliberal Plague" Left U.S. Unprepared for COVID-19 Outbreak

Another grim milestone in the Failed States of America:

US passes 150,000 coronavirus deaths amid fresh surge in cases

The US has crossed the threshold of 150,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, just six months after the first cases were diagnosed in China and with the outbreak far from under control. The American death toll is the highest in the world by a significant margin and reached 150,034 on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University world coronavirus tracker.

More than 4.3 million people have been infected with Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2. As the summer has worn on, outbreaks have spread across America’s sun belt, the region from Florida to southern California, and look increasingly likely to spread into central states. ...

Meanwhile, many of the measures most fundamental to bringing the virus under control have continued to be challenges thanks to a fumbling and anemic federal response, led by the Trump administration.

Widespread outbreaks and week-long delays in test results have undermined contact tracing. Those fundamental failures have had knock-on effects, as outbreaks have reached nursing homes and continued to fill intensive care units with the most vulnerable, ill and resource-intensive patients.

New COVID-19 Research Has Stunning Findings!

Texas Republican Louis Gohmert Becomes Latest Anti-Mask Lawmaker to Test Positive for Covid-19

First it was the United Kingdom's Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Then it was Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Now, according to reports on Wednesday, it is Republican Congressman Louis Gohmert of Texas who has tested positive for Covid-19 after publicly posturing against the use of masks.

As Politico, citing multiple sources familiar with the situation, reports:

Gohmert was scheduled to fly to Texas on Wednesday morning with President Donald Trump and tested positive in a pre-screen at the White House. The eighth-term Republican told CNN last month that he was not wearing a mask because he was being tested regularly for the coronavirus.

Axios notes that "Gohmert, a fierce defender of President Trump and member of the House Freedom Caucus, has been walking around the Capitol without a mask and attended Tuesday's hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr."

Krystal Ball: Dems, GOP Should Be Fired For Feeding Workers To Wolves

Yale Study on $600 Unemployment Lifeline Championed by Democrats Destroys Favorite GOP Talking Point

A new study by Yale economists out this week debunks the repeated GOP talking point that the $600 federal expansion of unemployment benefits has disincentivized people from returning to work—findings published the same day Senate Republicans released a coronavirus relief proposal which critics condemned as an "utter disgrace" that will "unleash widespread suffering" on people nationwide. ...

The economists examined weekly data from Homebase—a firm that provides scheduling and time clock software to small businesses—and found "no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work either at the onset of the expansion or as firms looked to return to business over time."

"The data do not show a relationship between benefit generosity and employment paths after the CARES Act, which could be due to the collapse of labor demand during the Covid-19 crisis," said co-author and Yale economics professor Joseph Altonji.

Although the Homebase data does not represent the entire U.S. labor market, as it is primarily focused on hourly workers at businesses like bars, restaurants, and retail stores, the segment of the workforce studied by the researchers has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Additionally, as Yale News noted, "the researchers tested their results against employment outcomes in the federal government's Current Population Survey, a more representative sample of the labor market than the Homebase data, and obtained similar findings."

The Yale study found that people with expanded unemployment benefits actually resumed working at a similar or slightly quicker rate than others did. As MarketWatch reported Wednesday:

The Chicago Federal Reserve found a similar trend. "Those currently collecting benefits search more than twice as intensely as those who have exhausted their benefits," a recent study conducted by the Chicago Fed concluded. Typically, unemployment benefits last six months and on average pay individuals approximately 35% of their previous weekly salary, according to the Chicago Fed. People on unemployment benefits on average spend more than 14 hours a week job searching and send more than 12 applications a month.

The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act that House Democrats passed in May would extend the $600 boost to UI benefits through January—but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to put that measure to a vote.

Congress, Trump ABANDON Big Stimulus Plans As 30 Million Go Hungry

WaPo Reporter: Trump Getting DESPERATE For Economic Deal As Unemployment Set To Expire

California mulls continuing $600 boost for unemployed if Congress cuts funds

California state lawmakers are considering a plan to continue a $600 weekly unemployment benefit for state residents if Congress does not extend the emergency funding this month. “We have millions of Californians that are on a financial cliff,” said Phil Ting, a Democratic state lawmaker from San Francisco. “They really need that money to pay rent, to buy food, to pay for everyday living expenses.” ...

Democratic state lawmakers in California announced on Tuesday that they are discussing how to step in to continue the full $600 payments for California residents if Congress does not approve them, as part of state Democrats’ broader proposed $100bn economic stimulus plan. California must “do everything possible to keep people home and housed and keep them on their own feet”, Ting, the San Francisco state lawmaker, said. “If we don’t do that, people may end up on the street and then be homeless, and they’ll be using other state programs.”

California is “the fifth-largest economy in the world, and this is the time we need to be leveraging all of our financial resources to get people through this pandemic”, Ting said. The discussions are still preliminary, and the action California lawmakers might take depends on what Congress approves, he said. If the federal government provides $200 a week, for instance, California lawmakers might choose to fund an additional $400 a week to make up the gap.

The additional California pandemic unemployment payments would probably be paid for with a combination of loans from the federal government, and a tax voucher program, which is essentially “asking for a loan from taxpayers”, Ting said.


WORST Economic Contraction In American History, Unemployment Claims SPIKE, Congress Wavers

Operation Eternal Vengeance: We Pledge to Defeat Any Politician Who Uses Covid-19 to Attack Social Security

For most of us, Covid-19 is a devastating crisis. But for some politicians in Washington, D.C. and their Wall Street backers, it's an opportunity. They are trying to use the pandemic to cut our Social Security and Medicare benefits behind closed doors, using a bill with an Orwellian name—the TRUST Act.

The TRUST Act creates a closed-door committee to fast-track cuts to our earned benefits. And now, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have put the bill on a fast-track of its own by including it in the Republican Covid-19 package known as the HEALS Act.

These politicians, who are plotting to use this public health crisis as a vehicle to ram through cuts to our earned benefits, are scum. The American people will never forget that they used the worst global emergency of modern times to try and steal our Social Security and Medicare. We will never forgive them for this, and will dedicate our resources to defeating them wherever they are.

Most of the politicians pushing this evil plan are Republicans. ... But a small splinter group of Democrats, publicly led by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), supports the TRUST Act. They are the most reprehensible of all, for giving it bipartisan cover. ...

Attaching the TRUST Act to crisis legislation is the most evil part of this. Those pushing the TRUST Act understand that if their bill was simply given a normal up or down vote, supporters of Social Security and Medicare could easily defeat it. That's why they're trying to sneak it through in unrelated crisis legislation. ...

To be clear, what Mitt Romney and his ilk are doing is holding personal protective equipment for nurses and doctors hostage so they can cut our Social Security benefits. What Krysten Sinema is doing is holding financial relief for millions of Americans who lost their job through no fault of their own hostage in order to cut our Medicare benefits. It is sick, even by the gutter standards of the current reality.

Their justification for including the TRUST Act in the Covid-19 package is telling. They claim that with this coronavirus relief package adding to the deficit, we need the TRUST Act to "rein in the national debt." What they don't mention? Social Security doesn't add a single penny to the debt (even Ronald Reagan understood that), while Medicare is far more cost-effective than private insurance.

This isn't really about the deficit. It's about achieving a long-standing right-wing ideological goal to cut our earned benefits—and using the Covid-19 catastrophe to do it. That's why even AARP, which is studiously non-partisan and rarely takes a stance on Social Security legislation, has come out against including the TRUST Act in the next pandemic relief package.

Let me be very clear, we will defeat every attack on our Social Security, every single time. But we will add a special emphasis on defeating anyone who supports using the deaths of 150,000 Americans as justification for cutting earned benefits for millions more.

Matt Stoller: Breaking Down The Many LIES Big Tech CEOs Told Congress

'Too much power': Congress grills top tech CEOs in combative antitrust hearing

The US’s top tech bosses were told they have “too much power”, are censoring political speech, spreading fake news and “killing” the engines of the American economy, at a combative congressional hearing on Wednesday. The historic hearing in Washington saw Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent Alphabet appear before members of the House judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee and face intense questioning from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

The subcommittee has been investigating the companies’ dominance of the online world for over a year, collecting 1.3 million documents and conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. Already in the opening minutes, the subcommittee chairman, David Cicilline, struck a combative tone, pointing out that the companies dominate their respective spheres and accusing them of stifling competition. The complaints against the tech giants are varied but the overarching criticisms are that they have used their dominant position to quash rivals and overcharge the people and businesses reliant on their services. ...

Republican lawmakers at different times in the hearing directed the conversation away from antitrust to allegations of anti-conservative bias on the platforms, accusing the companies of silencing conservative voices and working to undo Donald Trump’s 2016 election win.

Google and Facebook took intense heat for their business practices. Cicilline opened the round of questions with allegations from small businesses that Google took over their content and listing on its own pages. CEO Pichai struggled to answer when Cicilline brought up Google taking reviews from Yelp and cross-posting them to its own pages. When Yelp asked Google to stop, Google reportedly threatened to remove Yelp from its search listings entirely. Cicilline called the behavior “economically catastrophic” for other companies online. “The evidence seems very clear to me that as Google became the gateway to the internet, it began to abuse its power,” he said. ...

Bezos faced few questions following his opening statement, perhaps because of a technical difficulty with his video feed. Representative Pramila Jayapal pressed Bezos on whether the company used data from third-party sellers in making sales decisions. In a previous hearing, an Amazon executive denied this under oath and was contradicted by a later news report. Bezos was also asked whether the online giant favored its own products when prioritizing certain shipments during the pandemic.



the horse race



Trump floats idea of delaying November election

Progressive J.D. Scholten Rejects DCCC Help in Close Iowa Race

J.D. Scholten, the progressive populist who nearly defeated Steve King in Iowa’s deep-red 4th Congressional District in 2018, wants the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to know that his campaign doesn’t want or need their help. The falling out comes as the House Democrats’ campaign arm, which encouraged him to run against King a second time, has de-prioritized the race; King, a white supremacist, lost his primary, and the district was downgraded from “tilt Republican” to “solid Republican.” But it’s still competitive: Scholten is currently leading his new Republican rival in fundraising by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and his campaign’s internal polling shows the two in a statistical dead heat.

Now, Scholten is rejecting the possibility of support and funds from the House Democrats’ campaign arm, saying he is determined to run the campaign his way. The DCCC, for its part, told Scholten he must meet its requirements, which would involve changing his campaign strategy, to receive funding — a very different message than in 2019 when DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos told Scholten it would go “all in” on his race against King. “We have an authentic campaign that reflects who I am and my vision for this district,” Scholten said in a statement announcing the decision. “We won’t be beholden to special interests or the DCCC; instead, we’re reaching out to folks across the political spectrum to earn votes.”

Scholten is especially frustrated by the DCCC’s approach to supporting moderate candidates who focus on traditional fundraising from big-dollar donors. “The DCCC-type of campaign where you sit at home and fundraise all day doesn’t win respect, trust, or elections in these parts and wouldn’t be a good start to addressing the serious challenges facing rural America,” Scholten wrote.

AOC Puts Biden & Party Ahead of People!



the evening greens


Loss of bees causes shortage of key food crops, study finds

A lack of bees in agricultural areas is limiting the supply of some food crops, a new US-based study has found, suggesting that declines in the pollinators may have serious ramifications for global food security. Species of wild bees, such as bumblebees, are suffering from a loss of flowering habitat, the use of toxic pesticides and, increasingly, the climate crisis. Managed honeybees, meanwhile, are tended to by beekeepers, but have still been assailed by disease, leading to concerns that the three-quarters of the world’s food crops dependent upon pollinators could falter due to a lack of bees.

The new research appears to confirm some of these fears.

Of seven studied crops grown in 13 states across America, five showed evidence that a lack of bees is hampering the amount of food that can be grown, including apples, blueberries and cherries. A total of 131 crop fields were surveyed for bee activity and crop abundance by a coalition of scientists from the US, Canada and Sweden. “The crops that got more bees got significantly more crop production,” said Rachael Winfree, an ecologist and pollination expert at Rutgers University who was a senior author of the paper, published by the Royal Society. “I was surprised, I didn’t expect they would be limited to this extent.”

The researchers found that wild native bees contributed a surprisingly large portion of the pollination despite operating in intensively farmed areas largely denuded of the vegetation that supports them. Wild bees are often more effective pollinators than honeybees but research has shown several species are in sharp decline. The rusty patched bumblebee, for example, was the first bee to be placed on the US endangered species list in 2017 after suffering an 87% slump in the previous two decades.

Swaths of American agriculture is propped up by honeybees, frantically replicated and shifted around the country in hives in order to meet a growing need for crop pollination.

Global Witness Reveals 2019 Was 'Deadliest Year on Record' for Eco-Defenders, With 212 Murdered Worldwide

"In 2019, Global Witness recorded 212 murdered land and environmental defenders—making it the deadliest year on record for people defending their homes, forests, and rivers against climate-destructive industries."

That's according to Defending Tomorrow: The climate crisis and threats against land and environmental defenders (pdf), an annual report released Wednesday by the watchdog group, which has published data on the topic since 2012. The 2019 figure shows a notable jump from the 167 people killed in 2018.

While the number of murders last year set a new record, Global Witness notes that its data "will never accurately capture the true scale of the problem" because of reporting challenges in some countries, including "restrictions on a free press and the absence of documented abuses by governments and NGOs."

The two countries with the most known killings of eco-activists last year—Colombia with 64 and the Philippines with 43—collectively accounted for over half of all murders documented by the group. Honduras, which ranked fifth behind those two nations as well as Brazil and Mexico, had the most killings per capita.

Following a trend that Global Witness has reported on since 2012, Latin America was the worst-affected region, with over two-thirds of all the murders. More than half of all the activists killed were from mining-affected communities in the region—though the Philippines, in Asia, had the most mining-related deaths.

"Agribusiness and oil, gas, and mining have been consistently the biggest drivers of attacks against land and environmental defenders—and they are also the industries pushing us further into runaway climate change through deforestation and increasing carbon emissions," Global Witness campaigner Rachel Cox said in a statement. ...

The report emphasizes a pattern of Indigenous people being attacked for defending their rights and territories. At least 33 activists were killed in the Amazon region last year, and nearly 90% of murders in Brazil—whose president, Jair Bolsonaro, has often clashed with Indigenous groups and environmentalists—were in the Amazon. Although the rainforest spans nine nations, the majority of it is located within Brazil.

Across the globe last year, "40% of murdered defenders belonged to Indigenous communities," the report says. "Between 2015 and 2019 over a third of all fatal attacks have targeted Indigenous people—even though Indigenous communities make up only 5% of the world's population."

Eco-defenders who aren't killed still face attacks that include criminalization and smear campaigns. The report explains that both individuals and advocacy groups face "stigmatization from government figures and local media, using labels like 'anti-development,' 'criminals,' or 'terrorists.'"


Also of Interest

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

Freedom Rider: Let the Movement Be Radical

USPS Workers Concerned New Policies Will Pave the Way to Privatization

Joe Biden’s climate bet: putting jobs first will bring historic change

Bellicose anti-China and anti-Russian Rhetoric is Meant for Us, Not Them

U.S. Officials Disseminate Disinformation About 'Virus Disinformation'

The feds say they won't leave Portland until the violence stops. Privately, they concede they're fueling that violence.

Thomas Frank: Corporate Democrats Idolize FDR, but Hate His Policies and the Populists That Supported Him

One in three children have dangerous levels of lead in their blood

New Analysis Details How Electrifying the US Economy by 2035 Could Create 25 Million Green Jobs

This US river is so beautiful there's a lottery to raft it. Could it be ruined by a new mine?

Archaeologists discover likely source of Stonehenge's giant sarsen stones

Keiser Report | When Life Imitates Money Printer Go Brrr Art

Republicans EMBARRASS Themselves In Big Tech Hearings, Let Bezos Off Scot Free

Bush Family CORRUPTION Revealed, Is Trump Getting Outplayed On China?


A Little Night Music

Bull Moose Jackson - Big Fat Mamas Are Back in Style Again

Bull Moose Jackson - Moosey

Bull Moose Jackson - I Want A Bowlegged Woman

Bull Moose Jackson - Nosey Joe

Benjamin "Bullmoose" Jackson - Cleveland Ohio Blues

Bull Moose Jackson - Keep Your Big Mouth

Bull Moose Jackson & the Flashcats - Get Off The Table, Mable

Bull Moose Jackson - Meet Me With Your Black Dress On

Bull Moose Jackson - Big Ten Inch


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14 users have voted.

Comments

lotlizard's picture

her torturer, rapist, and disfigurer was Black and she wasn’t. But that’s not how media and politics and mass movements work, so there won’t be any murals painted anywhere depicting her as a martyr and an angel. In 2020 woke world, 8 minutes count — her 19 hours don’t.

https://gothamist.com/news/horrifying-details-recounted-as-hamilton-heig...

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/nyregion/06rape.html

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6 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@lotlizard

is it really just a matter of timing? if this had happened, say, in 1955, there would be talk of little else and mobs of white people would likely have sought revenge involving lampposts and rope.

surely the unnamed victim's life matters just as much today as it would have in 1955?

what we find remarkable at any given point in history (it seems to me) depends upon a broader social narrative that provides context and determines what we find remarkable.

that said, her experience sounds horrific and i'm glad that the system is working to create the limited sort of justice that courts and legal systems can create.

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8 users have voted.
mimi's picture

"Ami go home" being pissed about the Vietnam war, That was in Berlin's streets. I mean it took them fifty years to consider it, but now "they got it". What can I say?
[video:https://youtu.be/rblYSKz_VnI]
As long as their songs don't go ... I am ok.
(referring to US troops leaving Germany).

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7 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

heh, i can't imagine why a country in peacetime would want u.s. troops garrisoned there. surely they have no deterrent value against the potential neighborhood agressor, which is more interested in selling them energy products than bombing them.

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6 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@joe shikspack
with dictatorships like these ... it feels like a necessity.

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3 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

but they are replacing them with private contractors. So close.

This sums up how I feel.

This story has taken an interesting twist.

Yep. This. Except that we did not choose it. This was forced on us by a degenerate party.

We are in for a week of 100 temps but hey it’s still a dry heat. 11% around noon. Logan is North of Ogden and in the foothills and they got slammed with a hail storm that caused lots of damage and piled up over a foot. Lots of damage. Nary a cloud in the sky that day here.

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12 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Azazello's picture

@snoopydawg
S'posed to be even hotter tomorrow.
Gets hotter and drier every year.
Global warming sucks.

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9 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello but my sister lives near Paris Texas in east Texas and it was in the low 90's and if I had to choose I'd rather be in the dry heat of Vernon Tx than the humidity of Paris Tx.

I also lived many years in Nacogdoches which is about 180 miles closer to the Gulf of Mexico and the humidity sometimes feels suffocating in hot weather.

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5 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh, i guess some school administrators haven't figured it out that the people want them to figure out a way to deal with students without involving brutes with armaments.

yeah, it's hard to know what to make of the complaints about buttar. i just don't know, but something smells funny about it and the timing of this particular campaign against him seems odd. i guess we'll see, because it seems inevitable that more stuff will be headed for the fan.

that's a great cartoon.

it's hot as hell here. mid 90's and humid. yuk.

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8 users have voted.

@snoopydawg allegations against Shahid Buttar because Croydon's story didn't ring true to me and figured that knowledgeable others would come forward to confirm or deny her allegations.

Many faces Elizabeth Croydon - Part I

Part 4

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8 users have voted.
mimi's picture

I sense deep desperation is in the air and my heart goes out to those who suffer to the point they have no income and no money left to feed and shelter themselves and their families.

Something huge has to happen. May be an international Marshall Plan to help people survive.

I wish you all luck, peace, love, food, shelter, income.

Good NIght.

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10 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@mimi @mimi

This is what it’s going to take to stop the mass evictions that congress is not doing anything about. People were being evicted even though there were stops on doing it. Courts are saying that they are going to start hearing cases soon. F’ck this government.

Especially since they aren’t even trying to look like they care what we want.

Sideways and hard!

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

@snoopydawg
occupy the courts and cityhalls. I hope the 99 percenters will be brave and do big things.
It can't go on like this. How much more can the police state fail than shooting on its own people.

I am far away but I do have nightmares.

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2 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@snoopydawg
I won't forgive it, nor do I forgive what they did to his mind in basic training. Never.

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2 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

i suspect that big things are going to happen because the government has utterly failed a basic test of legitimacy - and it's about to get worse on a grand scale.

thanks for your kind wishes.

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

leaving millions in the lurch and not knowing what life is going to bring them. Even though I expected congress to do nothing this week I’m still surprised that they can be this callous and cruel. People are well aware that they transferred trillions to their friends, but did nothing for us starting way back during Obama’s tenure.

Look for a story next week about Clinton sticking his foot in his mouth at Lewis' funeral. Something about Stoley Carmichael. Oh yeah and folks are saying that Bush deserved a standing O for what he said. Oh yeah again and people are upset that Trump didn’t go to the funeral. They gave him hell for tweeting something nice about him. Doh!

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9 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

perhaps we should start calling americans "yoyo people." (yoyo = you're on your own)

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8 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Yo yo works too.

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7 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

<clinton translator> "in the end, thank goodness, the leader amenable to very little incremental change prevailed." </clinton translator>

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12 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

Does this count as a means of production?
Nationalize All The Nice Places
Will the UK do the right thing ?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-0HOHWoXjk width:500 height:300]

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9 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello

in all the wrong places...

kinda rhymes

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6 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

heh, land reform and conservation both sound like great ideas to me. nationalizing all of the "nice" places, sounds like a less than complete proposal. i mean, there are a lot of not very nice places that have been made not very nice by generations of resource extraction and other capitalist occupations that have been allowed by bought-and-paid-for public institutions and politicians. we ought to make them clean them up, perhaps they might have to sell off a ski resort or two to pay for the clean up, eh?

good to see that the bank of england has decided that it doesn't want foreign deposits.

oh well, enough ranting. have a good one.

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8 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

some stuff done that has been long deferred by the pandemic, some other stuff is still on hold. Simple stuff seems to take forever, but it ain't no use to whine, and I prefer wine anyway. Thanks for the news and blues.

be well and have a good one.

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6 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

wine does sound preferable to whine. make mine a nice piesporter riesling.

have a great evening!

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3 users have voted.
Lily O Lady's picture

@joe shikspack

Even Trader Joe’s has much less than they used to.

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3 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

It turns out jared kushner is not good at his job and is a sociopath as well...who would have guessed.

From Katherine Eban at vanity fair on Jared's covid-testing task force:

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4 users have voted.
travelerxxx's picture

@peachcreek

Here's the link to Katherine Eban's Vanity Fair article: How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

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4 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@peachcreek

commondreams had a piece about it which i ran across just before posting today's eb. thanks for the heads-up!

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1 user has voted.