Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features saxophone player Blue Lou Marini. Enjoy!

"We’re hurtling toward multiple armageddon-level events on multiple fronts in the near term and people are still like “We can vote strategically and begin organizing a gradual progressive takeover in the Democratic Party beginning at the local level so that after 30-40 years…”"

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Why The ‘Lesser Evil’ Is An Illusion

Joe Biden is a half-dead piece of beltway flotsam who is held together by nothing but Aricept and crazy glue, and it’s been his job to push for for wars, austerity and authoritarianism on behalf of his oligarchic donors since before most Bernie supporters were even born. Yet American progressives are being told to believe that they can push him to the left during his administration to help them stomach the idea of voting for him.

If he wins the imaginary US election, Biden’s most progressive achievement will be having the most diverse, inclusive and intersectional cabinet of mass murderers ever assembled. He will function in the same way a skin suit full of government agencies, war profiteers and rapacious corporations would function if it became president, because that’s essentially all he is as a person.

There are slightly different factions and agendas in the US oligarchy, and those can manifest as some of them backing one tentacle over the other in various puppet shows. But what all oligarchs have in common is the need to maintain the same basic status quo upon which their respective kingdoms have been built, which means that while there might be some sectarian power struggles at the top, none of them are going to improve upon the oppressive, exploitative, Orwellian, imperialist status quo that is crushing ordinary human beings to death every single day.

So as far as ordinary human beings are concerned, all you’re ever looking at is a giant bully telling you to beg him to punch you with his left fist or he’ll punch you a bit harder with his right.

What do you do in such a situation? What is the correct response when a powerful oligarchy is telling you that if you don’t consent to being ruled by one of its puppets, it will brutalize disadvantaged communities and take away people’s civil rights?

Is it to do as it says, hold your nose, and do everything you can to get the puppet on the left elected so that the oligarchic tentacle beast won’t devour disempowered members of the population? Is it to refuse to appease the beast and elect the right tentacle in a deluded act of defiance? Is it to pour all your energy into building a third party?

Or is it to actually fight?

What if everyone just completely ignored the frame of the comic strip panels? What if they completely ignored the puppet show stage, and just stared directly at their infernal tormenter who is holding the puppets? What if instead of talking about elections all the time, they started pointing at the real reason elections never change anything?

If you are an American who is dissatisfied with the presidential choices you are being offered in election after election, consider focusing your energy on the status quo itself. Consider taking the energy you might have put into talking about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting it into waking up your countrymen to the fact that the political class is there to rob them and the media class is there to deceive them on behalf of their oligarchic owners.

What prevents real change from coming to the most powerful nation in the world is not the fact that the “lesser evil” loses elections, it’s the fact that everyone’s being manipulated into buying into a fake performance that is wholly owned and operated a single oligarchic force which benefits directly from oppression, exploitation and mass murder. It’s that there is no “lesser evil”.

The conversation about the political system should be dragged kicking and screaming into these waters at every opportunity. Refuse to clap along with any aspect of the puppet show, and keep pointing to the oligarchy behind the stage. The naked emperor only has invisible clothes until someone points out that his balls are showing.

Something Remarkable Just Happened This August: How the Pandemic Has Sped Up the Passage to Postcapitalism

Protecting Food From the Hungry

Young children marvel at an obvious contradiction in capitalist societies: why do we have shops filled with food, and yet see hungry people on the streets? It is a question of enormous significance; but in time the question dissipates into the fog of moral ambivalence, as various explanations are used to obfuscate the clarity of the youthful mind.

The most bewildering explanation is that hungry people cannot eat because they have no money, and somehow this absence of money — the most mystical of all human creations — is enough reason to let people starve. Since there is ample food to eat, and since a lot of people do not have enough money to buy food, the food must be protected from the hungry people.

To that end, we — as human beings — allow for the creation of a police force and for the use of violence to defend food against the hungry. ...

You would think that amid a pandemic, when employment has collapsed and hunger has risen, social wealth would be diverted from the police to erase starvation, but that is not how the society of entrenched class hierarchy works.

Doctors warn plasma treatment still 'experimental'

Coronavirus: Trump authorizes plasma treatment amid attacks on FDA

After expressing frustration at the slow pace of approval for coronavirus treatments, and causing controversy by publicly linking the Food and Drug Administration to the “deep state” conspiracy theory, Donald Trump on Sunday announced the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma, a method which has been used to treat flu and measles, for Covid-19 patients. ...

Making the announcement at a press conference, and with FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn standing with him, Trump added to days of White House officials suggesting politically motivated delays in approving a vaccine and therapeutics. “This is what I’ve been looking to do for a long time,” Trump told reporters on Sunday at the White House. “I’m pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the China virus that will save countless lives.”

Critics say that name for the virus, based on where it originated, is racist. Furthermore, though more than 64,000 Covid-19 patients in the US have already been given convalescent plasma, a go-to tactic for new diseases, there is no solid evidence that it fights the virus.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after 3 November. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” ...

The news site Axios, meanwhile, reported that trade adviser Peter Navarro was a driving force behind claims about the “deep state” and Covid treatments. Citing two sources in a meeting last Monday, Axios said Navarro aggressively confronted FDA officials, saying: “You are all deep state and you need to get on Trump Time.”

QAnon: Trump Embraces Far-Right “Deep State” Conspiracy Theory Deemed a Threat by FBI

After Spending Months Denying Need for Testing, Trump Moves to Gut FDA's Oversight Process for Coronavirus Tests

Public health experts on Friday raised alarm over a new policy unveiled by the Health and Human Services Department blocking the Food and Drug Administration from regulating a number of laboratory tests including those that test for Covid-19.

The administration announced on the HHS website that it wants many tests for the coronavirus and other diseases to reach the market without the regulatory process which ensures the tests are accurate and not fraudulent.

Erick Turner, a former FDA employee who reviewed psychiatric drugs, wondered whether the administration's next step would be to allow vaccines and treatments to reach the market without proper review.

As it has during other public health crises like the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 and the Zika outbreak of 2015 and 2016, the FDA is requiring emergency use authorizations (EUA) for coronavirus tests. The administration claims the FDA lacks the legal authority to regulate such tests—a claim vehemently denied by FDA commissioner Steven Hahn.

The decision comes seven months into the crisis, as the U.S. faces a shortage of chemicals and other supplies needed to test people for Covid-19 with the prompt and accurate results needed to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Supporters of the administration's move, including some lab experts, say it will allow more "innovative" tests to reach the market, but Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins University is among the critics saying the FDA's regulatory review process during public health emergencies is in place to protect the public.

Those cheering the heavy handed move by @HHSGov to stop @US_FDA from protecting Americans from false #COVID19 tests don’t realize how much can go wrong. A far better approach would be to let the FDA keep using the flexibility in the law to separate good tests from bad.

— Joshua Sharfstein (@drJoshS) August 21, 2020

Trump critics deny that EUAs for coronavirus tests are to blame for testing delays, pointing instead to the administration's failure to heed warnings about Covid-19 that came as early as January from public health experts including federal scientist Rick Bright.

The president has claimed numerous times throughout the crisis, including in March when the coronavirus spread was classified as a worldwide pandemic, that the disease would simply disappear. In June, as experts pushed for an increase in testing capacity, Trump countered that "slowing the testing down" would result in fewer positive tests and would improve the United States' coronavirus numbers.

Trump also has suggested the FDA's regulatory process for treatments is politically driven, complaining about the agency's refusal to approve untested treatments like convalescent plasma without first proving they are effective.

OBAMA Says "Nobody Is Above the Law"!

Ex-CIA chief John Brennan interviewed for 8 hours as part of Durham's review of Russia probe

Former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan was interviewed for eight hours Friday by a federal prosecutor leading the Justice Department's review of the Russia investigation.

Brennan, who was CIA director from 2013 to 2017, was interviewed by U.S. Attorney John Durham on issues related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Nick Shapiro, Brennan's former deputy chief of staff, said in a statement late Friday night. ...

Durham told Brennan he isn't under a criminal investigation and is, instead, a witness to the events under review, according to Shapiro. Brennan spoke with Durham and his team about the CIA's intelligence activities leading up to the November 2016 presidential election, as well as the intelligence community's findings about Russian threats to U.S. elections.

USPS chief says he won't restore mail-sorting machines ahead of election

House Democrats pass $25bn bill to fund US Postal Service

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to fund the US Postal Service, amid ongoing complaints by Democrats that the Trump administration is attempting to sabotage the delivery of mail-in ballots ahead of the presidential election in November.

The Democratic bill, which passed on Saturday despite opposition from Republicans, would provide $25bn in aid for the USPS and prioritize election mail as “first class”, to ensure ballots arrive in time to be counted in an election in which the coronavirus pandemic will cast a shadow over in-person voting.

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said the bill was necessary to “reject the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the critical mission of the postal service”. ...

The bill is unlikely to progress further, with the Republican-held Senate unwilling to pass it. After Saturday’s vote Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would “absolutely not pass” the stand-alone bill.

The White House has also signalled it would veto the bill, with Republicans claiming the postal service has plenty of cash on hand and is being used by Democrats for political purposes.

"The Damage Has Been Done": Historian Says Trump's Postmaster Has Undermined Faith in 2020 Election

New Documents Show Postal Delays Are 'Far Worse' Than Previously Known

As the House of Representatives prepares a Saturday vote on legislation to reverse recent changes in postal operations and send emergency funds to help the agency before the November election, the chair of the House Oversight Committee says that things are far worse than previously known.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), released new internal USPS documents Saturday with a warning for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about steep declines and increasing delays nationwide over the last two months.

Nearly 700 demonstrations were underway today—"Save the Post Office Saturday"—a national day of action in which people across the U.S. will demand that President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy end their assault on the U.S. Postal Service.

DeJoy testified before Congress Friday, where he said that the USPS has attempted to cut out extra trips by mail carriers, which employees have said have led to significant delays in mail delivery.

The documents released by Maloney show a 7 to 9% decline in mail delivery going back to July. including in First-Class, Marketing, Periodicals, and Priority Mail. DeJoy, a donor to President Trump and the first postmaster general to not be a career postal worker, took over USPS in June.

“After being confronted on Friday with first-hand reports of delays across the country, the Postmaster General finally acknowledged a ‘dip’ in service, but he has never publicly disclosed the full extent of the alarming nationwide delays caused by his actions and described in these new documents,” said Chairwoman Maloney.  “To those who still claim there are ‘no delays’ and that these reports are just ‘conspiracy theories,’ I hope this new data causes them to re-think their position and support our urgent legislation today.  We have all seen the headlines from every corner of our country, we have read the stories and seen pictures, we have heard directly from our constituents, and these new documents show that the delays are far worse than we were told.”

The Postmaster General and his top aides have never admitted to the sweeping delays and reductions in service caused by his actions and detailed in these new documents. 

On Friday, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, testified repeatedly before the House Rules Committee that there are “no delays” with the mail and “no data” proving the delays are real. Two days earlier, Comer and House Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise sent a letter to Chairwoman Maloney and Speaker Nancy Pelosi arguing that nationwide reports of delays are nothing but “conspiracy theories” being “manufactured” by Democrats to “undermine President Trump” and support “an unnecessary bailout plan.”

Working Class Near Economic Destruction, Both Parties & Media Ignore Them

Civil Rights Group Condemns Trump Threat to Put Law Enforcement at Polls as a Tactic 'Right From the Jim Crow Playbook'

A civil rights group Friday denounced President Donald Trump's threat to place law enforcement officers at polling places for the November election, calling it an effort suppress voter turnout.

"In no uncertain terms, we fully condemn any plans that President Trump has to deploy federal law enforcement, U.S. attorneys, or local sheriffs to our polling sites in November," Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committeee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement.

Federal law enforcement, sheriffs, U.S. Attorneys have NO place inside our polls on Election Day. This is a tactic intended to intimidate voters and chill voter turnout. We will fight this. https://t.co/yVSxGY8HZZ

— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) August 21, 2020

In an interview with Fox News Thursday evening, Trump continued his assault on universal mail-in ballots amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and suggested he'd deploy federal agents to assist in monitoring the election polling sites in November.

"This is an old and familiar tactic pulled right from the Jim Crow playbook and often specifically targeted at Black voters and voters of color," Clarke continued. "This voter suppression scheme is intended to intimidate voters and cause a chilling effect on the electorate."

"We're going to have everything," Trump said. "We're going to have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going to hopefully have U.S. attorneys and everybody—attorney generals [sic]. But it's very hard."

Louisiana shooting: police killing of Black man sparks outrage and protests

The mother of a man shot dead by Louisiana police on Friday night said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.

The shooting was captured on video, and the state American Civil Liberties Union condemned what it described as a “horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person”. Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) called for an investigation.

Protesters gathered on Saturday. Officers in riot gear fired smoke canisters to get the crowd to disperse, Trooper Derek Senegal said. No teargas was deployed, he said. At a news conference on Saturday, local officials said the protest began peacefully but violence erupted with fireworks shot at buildings and fires set in the median of the road.

On Friday night, Lafayette officers followed Pellerin, 31, on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife, Louisiana state police said. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.

Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told the Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said. “Instead of giving him a helping hand they gave him bullets,” national civil rights attorney Ben Crump told the paper. He and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley said they had begun their own investigation. Some witnesses said Pellerin was not armed, Haley said.

“Lafayette police shot Mr Pellerin several times as he walked away from them,” Margaret Huang, president and chief executive of the SPLC, said in a statement.

Despite Huge Number of Misconduct Complaints, Cops at NYPD’s 75th Precinct Keep Getting Promotions

On a cloudy night in mid-December 2015, Justin McClarin was asleep in his basement apartment when New York Police Department Officers David Grieco and Michael Ardolino broke into his room. Grieco and Ardolino put McClarin in painfully tight handcuffs. When McClarin complained, the officers ignored him. Instead, they took McClarin outside and slammed him down on the pavement so hard that his shoulder became dislocated. The officers had neither an arrest nor search warrant. In a pending lawsuit from which this account is gathered, McClarin claims that they refused to give him a reason for his arrest.

Instead of taking McClarin to the hospital to treat his dislocated shoulder, Grieco and Ardolino took him to the NYPD’s notorious 75th Precinct. While he was restrained, officers at the 75th allegedly shot McClarin with a BB gun five times. The lawsuit also claims that the two officers knowingly lied to the district attorney, accusing McClarin of committing an undisclosed felony, leading to charges that were ultimately dropped. McClarin was released, but not before he spent six days in police custody.

McClarin’s lawsuit is seeking to hold New York City responsible for the alleged constitutional violations in part because of a pattern of the failure to hold police officers — in particular, the cops involved in McClarin’s case — to account. According to a database that tracks lawsuits, between 2015 and 2018, Ardolino was sued seven times, with one case settled, three pending, and three with unknown outcomes. The same data set lists 32 lawsuits that name Grieco, with 15 settled with cash from the city, nine pending, six with unknown outcomes, one verdict in Grieco’s favor, and one case dismissed with prejudice. The officer with the second-highest number of cases in the precinct has been sued 15 times. The suits have been costly for the city: The resolved cases against Grieco alone have resulted in more than $400,000 in payouts from the city to plaintiffs. (The NYPD declined to comment about the McClarin case and the officers’ records of lawsuits.) ...

The lawsuits, though, are only part of the story. An Intercept analysis of newly available records from the files of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, known as the CCRB, shows that, in addition to the lawsuits, the 75th Precinct also leads the city in complaints of misconduct by the public. When it comes to serious allegations about police misconduct, the 75th Precinct has the worst record in New York. And the officers involved in the encounters rarely face consequences. Instead, in the years following substantiated complaints against them, officers in the 75th Precinct routinely got raises and promotions. ...

Like other cops in the 75th Precinct, all the lawsuits and CCRB complaints appear to have had little impediment to Grieco’s career. In the fiscal year 2017, after 11 years on the job and two years after the incident with McClarin, Grieco was promoted to detective third grade. His salary increased $10,000. A year later, in the 2018 fiscal year, Grieco was again promoted, this time to sergeant, and got another raise for $20,000 more. An Intercept analysis cross-referencing CAPstat salary data with CCRB complaints shows that this was a widespread pattern at the 75th Precinct. Rather than being punished when civilian complaints of misconduct against them were substantiated, police at the 75th routinely got promotions and raises.

Blue-Check HOLLYWOOD Won't Push BIDEN To Help People!

CNN producers was like “get her off Anderson, get her off”pic.twitter.com/QQtGyL3CUg

— Anti-Establishment (@ChrisFrancis54) August 22, 2020

Rahm Emanuel Advises Biden to Shun Medicare for All and Green New Deal

On the heels of a convention that featured prominent Republicans urging voters to support Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, centrist political operative Rahm Emanuel suggested two of the most popular progressive policies of this election cycle ought to be ignored by the party and its nominee.

"Two things I would say if I was advising an administration," Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, said during an interview with CNBC Friday. "One is there's no new Green Deal, there's no Medicare for All, probably the single two topics that were discussed the most. That's not even in the platform."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich countered with his own suggestion for Biden:

Two things I would say if I was advising a Biden administration, one is pay no attention to Rahm Emanuel and two is pay no attention to Rahm Emanuel. https://t.co/u7KIsSp1AG

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) August 24, 2020

Medicare for All and the Green New Deal are cornerstone priorities for the party's progressive wing, championed and elevated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during both of his presidential runs in 2016 and 2020. They're also popular with the American public, particularly with Democratic voters, yet the Democratic party has resisted adopting them into its platform.

Earlier this month, climate activists called the party's decision to drop support for ending fossil fuel handouts "immoral, criminal, inexcusable." Biden has made clear, even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, that he does not support single-payer healthcare. In 2019, he told a group of wealthy donors that if elected "nothing would fundamentally change" for them, referring to progressive policies aimed at making the wealthy pay more in taxes to fund social programs.

69% support providing Medicare to every American.

63% support the Green New Deal.

27% approved of Rahm Emanuel's job as Mayor. https://t.co/WkshBAn5lt

— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) August 24, 2020

Progressive activists have grown increasingly frustrated not only with the Democratic Party's refusal to embrace bold and popular policies, but also with its insistence that criticism of the party platform or, in particular, of Joe Biden ahead of the November election, is unwanted and should be suppressed.

"Just put on your big boy pants, they say, and find the impulse control to at least muzzle yourself for the next 72 days until the election happens," journalist and former Sanders campaign adviser David Sirota wrote for Too Much Information Sunday, characterizing the position of the Democratic establishment.

"After that, fine—then and only then will you maybe be permitted to speak your mind and politely ask the Democratic Party to match its rhetoric with its policy agenda," he wrote.

"This kind of hectoring has become a defining part of the Democratic Party's culture," Sirota wrote, urging disillusioned and demonized progressives to continue pushing.

"The best response to such an onslaught isn't to ignore it or succumb to dishonest unity-themed demands for silence and fealty," he wrote. "After all, the folks making those demands don't actually want unity—they are aiming for corporate victory at all costs, even if waging a war for that intraparty win could depress enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket."

Build Back...What?

Biden indicates he could run for second term if he beats Trump in November

Joe Biden, who will be the oldest US president ever inaugurated if he beats Donald Trump in November, has indicated he could run for a second term. Biden is 77 but he will be 78 on inauguration day in January. He is running against the oldest president to take power, who was 70 in January 2017 and is now 74.

Trump has faced questions about his own health and mental ability, but it hasn’t stopped him attacking his challenger on the same grounds.

Asked about such attacks in an ABC interview scheduled for broadcast on Sunday night, Biden said: “Watch me. Mr President, watch me. Look at us both. Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we’re in. ...

Biden has previously challenged Trump to a press-up competition and suggested he would have beaten him up in high school.

Krystal Ball: Rahm Emanuel REVEALS Dems Class War Against Its Own Voters

Culture

2009: 1st Black President
2010: 3 women in SCOTUS
2015: Same-sex marriage legal
2020: 1st WoC nom for VP

Federal Minimum Wage

2009: $7.25
2010: $7.25
2011: $7.25
2012: $7.25
2013: $7.25
2014: $7.25
2015: $7.25
2016: $7.25
2017: $7.25
2018: $7.25
2019: $7.25
2020: $7.25

— Aisha Ahmad (@aishaismad) August 23, 2020

In this period, we received 11,500 donations, 97% of which were less than $200. Just 1% of Neal’s donations total less than $200, showing the level of special-interest money and big-dollar donations in Neal’s coffers.

— Alex Morse (@AlexBMorse) August 21, 2020

How do we get liberals to care about war crimes and poverty like they do about Rose Gardens and mean tweets?

— Nancy Pelosi is a Margaret Thatcher Democrat (@SocialistMMA) August 23, 2020

Much more at the link:

California and Colorado Fires May Be Part of a Climate-Driven Transformation of Wildfires Around the Globe

The wildfires that exploded over the past few days in California and Colorado show clear influences of global warming, climate scientists say, and evidence of how a warming and drying climate is increasing the size and severity of fires from the California coast to the high Rocky Mountains. They may also be the latest examples of climate-driven wildfires around the world burning not only much bigger, hotter and faster, but exploding into landscapes and seasons in which they were previously rare. ...

The entire state and much of the rest of the West has been, for the last week, in the grip of a "heat dome" that has brought temperatures of 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit to Death Valley, perhaps the hottest temperatures ever recorded on the planet. On Saturday, Aug. 15, the National Weather Service issued its first ever warning for a tornado born of a wildfire, when radar detected at least five spinning vortices in a pyrocumulonimbus cloud rising from the Loyalton fire near the Nevada state line. Witnesses saw a "firenado" dropping from the smoky storm cloud to the ground.

That weekend, nearly 11,000 lightning strikes peppered Northern California and the Bay Area, where thunderstorms are rare, sparking more than 370 new wildfires. By Saturday morning, wildfires had burned more than a million acres in California—an area larger than the state of Rhode Island—and nearly 120,000 residents were evacuated. Colorado evacuated a tiny fraction of that number of people, but the state had nearly 200,000 acres burning in four large wildfires. The Grizzly Creek fire near Glenwood Springs closed I-70, the most critical artery crossing the state, for more than a week and was the highest priority wildfire in the nation until California exploded. The largest of the Colorado blazes, the Pine Gulch fire, is burning north of Grand Junction. On the night of Aug. 18 it grew by nearly 40,000 acres—42 percent—and created its own lightning storm during hours in which lower temperatures and increasing humidity used to calm wildfires in the state. By the morning of Aug. 19 it had become the state's second largest fire on record.

Despite what may look like a new world of wildfire, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of California, Los Angeles, said few climatologists and fire scientists have been surprised by the severity of the fires across the West this year. Federal wildfire forecasters predicted that it's "going to get bad really quickly, starting with Arizona, Utah and Colorado," Swain said. "And then the forecast was that Northern California would start getting bad in August and peak in the fall. Well, up through August, so far, that's looking like an awfully good prediction."

What's more, Swain said, the recent fires in the West fit into a trend of groundbreaking yet predictable wildfires around the world, as warming temperatures and diminishing moisture tip over fire regimes, the term fire scientists use to describe the typical timing, frequency, intensity and duration of wildfires on a given landscape.

California wildfires: more storms feared as huge blazes burn on

Firefighters in California prepared on Sunday for high winds and thunderstorms that threatened to spark new blazes and further spread existing fires, as officials warned capacity was stretched to levels “not seen in recent history”.

Progress was made against three massive and destructive wildfires during a calm stretch overnight on Saturday. However the The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a “red flag” warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken area, meaning extreme fire conditions including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65mph could result in “dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior”.

The “complexes”, or groups of fires, were burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area, and have destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and structures and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. Ignited by nearly 12,000 lightning strikes across the state in the past week, the fires have claimed six lives so far and have burned significantly more acres than all of the fire damage in 2019. Officials are now seeking assistance from states across the US, as well as Canada and Australia.

Shana Jones, chief for Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, said the state’s resources were “stretched to capacity that we have not seen in recent history”, and noted at a Sunday news conference that even with an influx of support, there were still huge challenges: “We are definitely far from getting these fires handled. We are not out of the woods by far.” ...

Since 15 August, state fire officials said, more than 500 fires of varying sizes have burned throughout California, scorching a million acres, or 1,562sq miles. Of those, about two dozen major fires are attracting much of the state’s resources.

Also of Interest

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

The Biden campaign and the attempt to “rescue” American hegemony

Media Show Little Interest in Israeli Bombing of Gaza

Border Wall Construction Set to Begin Near Historic Cemeteries in South Texas

At Washington Post, Defunding Police Is a Step Too Radical

Defund the police: can other cities learn from Seattle's stumbling blocks?

Her Former Colleagues Called in a “Wellness Check.” Then Police Shot Her to Death.

Sanders Anoints AOC His Heir

Aaron Coleman, the 19-Year-Old Progressive Who Won His Kansas Primary, Speaks About His Troubled Past and Promising Present

PFAS Contamination Divides an Alabama Town

Danbury, Connecticut will name sewage plant after John Oliver

Krystal and Saagar: Nina Turner STUNS CNN By Telling Truth About DNC

Zaid Jilani: Progressive Candidate RESIGNS After Media Obsession With 'Middle School' Era Misconduct

A Little Night Music

Aretha Franklin - Think

Chris Cain with Blue Lou Marini - The Big Blues Bender

Gov't Mule w/ Blue Lou Marini - Sco-Mule

Blue Lou Marini - Ain't Nobody's Business

AWB with "Blue Lou"Marini - Pick Up The Pieces

Lou Marini y @RedHouseMadrid - High on the Blues

'Blue' Lou Marini & Red House - She Caught The Katy

Blood, Sweat & Tears - Hip Pickles

Blues 4 People w/ "Blue Lou" Marini - Sweet Home Chicago