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This evening's music features blues lap steel guitarist Freddie Roulette. Enjoy!

"The US tortures journalists and whistleblowers, arms terrorists, kills children with starvation sanctions, wages endless wars, facilitates mass atrocities in Yemen, repeatedly used nuclear weapons on civilian populations, circles the entire planet with hundreds of military bases and bullies every nation on earth using military and economic force, but yeah we need to let them remain in charge of the world or else an evil government might take over."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Confirming Progressive Warnings, Social Security Actuary Says Trump Payroll Tax Cut Would Effectively Destroy Program by 2023

The Social Security Administration's chief actuary estimated late Monday that eliminating the payroll tax would fully deplete Social Security's disability and old-age trust funds by 2023, confirming the disastrous consequences progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers have been warning of since President Donald Trump threatened earlier this month to "terminate" the levy if reelected in November.

In a letter (pdf) to Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Senate Minority Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), SSA chief actuary Stephen Goss wrote that scrapping the payroll tax would "permanently" deplete the Disability Insurance trust fund by mid-2021 and the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund by mid-2023 "with no ability to pay" the benefits afterward.

The letter comes days after the group of Senate lawmakers asked (pdf) Goss to analyze "hypothetical legislation" that would zero out the payroll tax as Trump has repeatedly proposed in recent months.

"The law does not provide authority for the trust funds to borrow in order to pay benefits beyond the limited authority for 'advance tax transfers," explained Goss, a 30-year SSA veteran. "This limited authority allows all payroll tax income expected for a month to be advanced to the beginning of that month if needed to meet benefit obligations on a timely basis. Thus... benefit obligations could not be met after the depletion of the asset reserves and elimination of payroll taxes."

Nancy Altman, president of advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement that Goss' assessment further substantiates "what Democrats and Social Security advocates have been saying for weeks: Donald Trump's plan to 'terminate' Social Security's dedicated funding if he is reelected would destroy Social Security."

This is a pretty amazing story that I've posted a couple of bits about over the years. Hedges does a great job with it. It's absolutely worth a full read, but it may make your blood pressure rise. Here are some excerpts to get you started:

Chris Hedges: How Corporate Tyranny Works

The persecution of the attorney Steven Donziger is a grim illustration of what happens when we confront the real centers of power, masked and unacknowledged by the divisive cant from the Trump White House or the sentimental drivel of the Democratic Party. Those, like Donziger, who name and fight the corporate control of our society on behalf of the vulnerable see the judiciary, the press and the institutions of government unite to crucify them. “It’s been a long battle, 27 years,” Donziger said when I reached him by phone in his apartment in Manhattan. Donziger, who has been fighting polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador, has been under house arrest in Manhattan for a year. He will go to trial in federal court in New York on September 9 on contempt of court charges, which could see him jailed for six months. Ever since he won a multibillion-dollar judgment in 2011 against the oil giant Chevron, the multinational has come after him personally through litigation that threatens to destroy him economically, professionally and personally.

“Our L-T [long-term] strategy is to demonize Donziger,” Chevron wrote in an internal memo in 2009, as reviewed by Courthouse News.

“It started when Texaco went into Ecuador in the Amazon in the 1960s and cut a sweetheart deal with the military government then ruling Ecuador,” Donziger told me. “Over the next 25 years, Texaco was the exclusive operator of a very large area of the Amazon that had several oil fields within this area, 1500 square miles. They drilled hundreds of wells. They created thousands of open-air, unlined toxic waste pits where they dumped the heavy metals and toxins that came up from the ground when they drilled. They ran pipes from the pits into rivers and streams that local people relied on for their drinking water, their fishing and their sustenance. They poisoned this pristine ecosystem, in which lived five indigenous peoples, as well as a lot of other nonindigenous rural communities. There was a mass industrial poisoning.” ... “I, with other lawyers, filed a lawsuit in New York against Texaco. The reason we filed in New York was because Texaco’s headquarters were in New York in 1993. The decisions to pollute in Ecuador, to play God to the people of Ecuador, were made in New York. We sued in New York. Texaco tried to get the case back to Ecuador where they had never been held accountable, where they knew the indigenous peoples had no money or resources to find lawyers.”

“They thought it would just go away,” said Donziger. “Over a 10-year period, we battled to get a jury trial in the United States. Ultimately, they won that part of the battle. It went down to Ecuador.” ...

“The verdict came down, about $18 billion in favor of the affected communities, which is what it would take at a minimum to clean up the actual damage and compensate the people for some of their injuries. That eventually got reduced on appeal in Ecuador to $9.5 billion, but it was affirmed by three appellate courts, including the highest court of Ecuador. It was affirmed by the Canadian Supreme Court, where the Ecuadorians went to enforce their judgment in a unanimous opinion in 2015.” Chevron, as the evidence mounted against it, sold their assets in Ecuador and left the country. The corporation threatened the plaintiffs with a “lifetime of litigation” if they attempted to collect, and, according to internal Chevron memos, launched a legal and media campaign that has cost an estimated $2 billion to prevent payment of the settlement and to demonize and destroy Donziger.

Chevron, which had left Ecuador, went back to the New York court, where Donziger had originally filed the lawsuit before Chevron got a change of venue to Ecuador, and sued him, using a civil courts portion of the federal law famous for breaking the New York Mafia in the 1970s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Criminal Presidents are "a Protected Minority"!

UN security council rejects US attempt to extend Iran sanctions

The US has suffered another humiliating diplomatic setback after the president of the UN security council rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to extend economic sanctions on Iran. America was rebuffed last week when 13 countries on the security council argued that the US had no legal right to “snap back” sanctions because it had already walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

On Tuesday, Indonesia – which this month holds the security council’s rotating presidency – said that no further action could be taken on the US request, because there was no consensus on the 15-nation body.

The announcement prompted an angry response from Kelly Craft, the US envoy to the UN, who said: “Let me just make it really, really clear: the Trump administration has no fear in standing in limited company on this matter. I only regret that other members of this council have lost their way and now find themselves standing in the company of terrorists.”

The US claims it still has a right to intervene on the nuclear deal since the original Iran deal listed the US as a participant, and it requires only one signatory to the deal for the sanctions to be reimposed. Pompeo said on Thursday he had triggered a 30-day process to reimpose sanctions taking the crisis into the heart of the UN general assembly, the annual UN conference addressed by heads of state.

US Media Can’t Think How to Fight Fires Without $1-an-Hour Prison Labor

As a historic set of wildfires sweeps across California, sparked by lightning and stoked by record heat and drought resulting from climate change (Mercury News, 8/19/20; Scientific American, 4/3/20), many news outlets have drawn readers’ attention to an additional problem the state faces in fighting the fires: shortages of the prison labor that it normally relies on for firefighting crews.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — known as Cal Fire — “has roughly half as many inmate fire crews than it originally had to work during the most dangerous part of wildfire season,” thanks to prison quarantines and Covid-related early-release programs, reported CNBC (8/21/20), and “rotating out firefighters isn’t an easy option because there’s already a significant shortage of workers available.” Insider (8/20/20) wrote that “the coronavirus pandemic is creating a shortage of inmate fire crews to battle the wildfires,” noting that California has “relied on incarcerated firefighters as its primary ‘hand crews’ since the 1940s.” The New York Times (8/22/20) declared that losing inmate labor “has been the difference between having the manpower to save homes from wildfires — or not,” and that “hiring firefighters to replace them, especially given the difficult work involved, would challenge a state already strapped for cash.”

It’s a gripping story, certainly, of a state unable to respond sufficiently to one disaster because of steps taken to ward off another. But the coverage all danced around a key problem with framing this as a labor shortage: There are plenty of workers available in a state with 2.5 million people currently unemployed — no doubt including many of the fire-trained inmate workers who were released early by Gov. Gavin Newsom in order to free them from the threat of getting sick in California’s Covid-ravaged prisons. The main difference: Unlike prison laborers, regular citizens have to be paid more than pittance wages.

In California, inmates at state prisons are allowed to apply to work at “conservation camps” for a base rate of $5.12 per day, plus an additional $1 an hour when out fighting fires. As the Sacramento Bee (7/4/20) reports, most are assigned to hand crews that typically perform “the critically important and dangerous job of using chainsaws and hand tools to cut firelines around properties and neighborhoods during wildfires.”

Inmate fire crews have been the norm in California since the 1940s (LA Times, 8/19/20), part of a long history of local governments using prison labor to perform vital public services. Pacific Standard (8/22/18) recounted the practice’s origins:

When Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1865, ending slavery, it left open a loophole: Involuntary servitude could continue as “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This effectively legalized slavery among imprisoned populations, allowing former slaveholders in the South to implement a convict lease system, contracting prisoners out to private firms. Even abolitionists were willing to sign on, due to their reliance on prison labor. African-American inmates were “leased—literally, contracted out—to businessmen, planters, and corporations in one of the harshest and most exploitative labor systems known in American history,” writes Matthew Mancini in his book One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South.

Convict leasing was formally outlawed in 1941, but the principle of using inmate labor to save money continues to this day. The estimated cost savings to the state of California from inmate firefighting alone is as much as $100 million a year (Democracy Now!, 11/19/18).

And using workers who are paid only dollars a day drives down wages for the non-incarcerated as well. Factory owners have complained they can’t compete for government contracts against UNICOR (Vox, 9/7/15), the government-owned company that employs inmates for “everything from manufacturing extension cords to operating dairy farms to recycling electronics” (Wired, 5/19/20). 

While California wildfire coverage gave a nod toward the “debate” around such practices, it generally limited any discussion to a side note before getting on to the main question of Won’t anyone think of the fires? The New York Times (8/22/20), for instance, reported that the inmate labor shortage has “highlighted the state’s dependence on prisoners in its firefighting force,” which “to critics,” it said, is “a cheap and exploitative salve.”

But most of the Times story focused on the experiences of inmate firefighters (“We took special pride in being able to actually save people’s homes”) and the value they provide, quoting a former corrections office at a fire camp as saying, “How do you justify releasing all these inmates in prime fire season with all these fires going on?” A spokesperson for Cal Fire followed, declaring inmate fire crews to be “absolutely imperative to our ability to create hand line and do arduous work on our fires.” No prison labor advocates were cited, with the only “critic” a single firefighter union leader who complained that the state has been illegally expanding the inmate work program.

One expert critic they might have consulted is Rasheed Lockheart, a formerly incarcerated California resident who for the last two years before his release from San Quentin Prison worked for the San Quentin Fire Department as a lead engineer on a fire engine, and as the lead on an ambulance crew. Lockheart, who is a member of Re:Store Justice, an incarceration reform group founded at San Quentin, says using inmates to fight fires isn’t the problem — it’s not paying them a decent wage to do so.

“I don’t want to abolish the fire camps,” says Lockheart. But, he says, if prisoners are putting their lives on the line alongside fellow firefighters, “we should get equal pay, we shouldn’t be making a dollar an hour — I mean, there’s jobs inside the prison that get paid more than they get paid to be out there risking their lives.”

And when push came to shove, California was willing to pay to hire firefighters. A Cal Fire spokesperson tells FAIR that the department has recently hired more than 800 seasonal workers, nearly making up for the roughly 1,000 inmates who are missing from the normal complement. But while this might seem to present an easy solution — just hire back the recently released inmates who are already trained in firefighting — Lockheart explains that there’s another obstacle that makes this unlikely.

“I’m a city firefighter — my experience is mostly with municipal firefighting,” says Lockheart:

The problem with that is, in order to do that, you must have EMT certifications. But with a felony on our records, we can’t get EMT certifications. And with the wildland firefighting crews, with certain felonies, a lot of departments won’t take guys on. There are ways to get in, but it’s hard and it’s a long road.

Trained firefighters being good enough to work for nearly nothing, but ineligible to get real jobs, would seem to represent an even bigger irony — and a more important story — than California having to spend a few million dollars extra to fight two crises at once. But covering the wildfire story that way would require seeing it through the eyes of inmates, not of a government whose main concern is the inconvenience of having to pay people when you’re used to getting their work almost for free. That’s an argument we’ve heard before, of course — but one would have hoped it wouldn’t still be guiding news coverage nearly 200 years later.

Krystal Ball: Is A Massive Economic Crash Inevitable?

Just Two States Have Begun Paying Out Boosted Unemployment Aid 15 Days After Mnuchin Promised Benefits in a 'Week or Two'

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin vowed on August 10 that "within the next week or two," most states would be able to set up and carry out President Donald Trump's makeshift program authorizing a $300-per-week federal boost to unemployment benefits.

As of Tuesday, more than two weeks after Mnuchin's comments, just Arizona and Texas have begun distributing the $300 weekly payments, leading Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) to declare that "Trump's smoke-and-mirrors executive orders are simply not good enough."

Earlier this month, after the White House and Democratic congressional leaders failed to reach a deal extending the federal unemployment supplement that lapsed at the end of July, Trump signed an order redirecting up to $44 billion in disaster funds into a new program that lawmakers and experts criticized as illegal, unworkable, and woefully inadequate. The president promised the benefits would be "rapidly distributed."

The Lost Wages Assistance program greenlights a $300-per-week federal supplement to existing state unemployment benefits, with cash-strapped states expected to kick in an additional $100 each week. The $300 weekly federal boost represents just half of the $600-per-week supplement that officially expired on July 31 thanks to opposition from congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.

As Bloomberg reported Tuesday, 30 states have been approved for the federal benefits but many are struggling to get the program up and running due to its design. Officials from Utah and New Mexico, two states that have been approved for the program, told Bloomberg that "they anticipate it will be a few weeks before payments reach residents."

Investigation into why National Guard helicopters buzzed protesters in D.C. stuck in limbo

The release of the District of Columbia National Guard’s investigation into whether any of its helicopters broke any safety procedures by flying low over protesters in Washington, D.C., continues to be delayed pending the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office review.

“Our oversight review is ongoing,” inspector general’s office spokeswoman Dwrena Allen told Task & Purpose on Monday. “I cannot give you a specific timeline for when it will be completed.”

Army National Guard helicopters flew what looked like show of force missions on the night of June 1 as defense officials were reportedly trying to convince President Donald Trump to let the National Guard deal with protests in the nation’s capital instead of deploying active-duty troops.

The following day, Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered an investigation into why one of the helicopters hovered just above the heads of protesters. The Washington Post estimated that the Army National Guard medical evacuation helicopter was just 45 feet above the crowd. The head of the District of Columbia National Guard told reporters in June that the helicopter had not been ordered to disperse the protesters by using its rotor wash.

Twice this summer, defense officials have indicated the investigation would be released soon. On June 5, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters that the investigation would be “coming to a close shortly.” And on July 9, Esper told the House Armed Services Committee that the investigation had been completed and the DoD OIG was expected to review it. ... More than a month later, that still has not happened.

Two Shot Dead in Kenosha as Armed Militias Confront BLM Protests over Police Shooting of Jacob Blake

'I don't want pity. I want change': Jacob Blake's family pleads for justice

Members of Jacob Blake’s family made impassioned statements about justice, anger and peaceful protest at an emotional press conference in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday afternoon, even as their lawyer said the young father was in emergency surgery and it would be “a miracle” if he walked again after being shot by police. ...

Jacob Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, wailed and had to be led aside as civil rights attorney Ben Crump spoke of the trauma caused to Blake Sr’s three young grandsons who were in the back of Jacob Jr’s car on Sunday evening, one of them celebrating his eighth birthday, when an encounter with police resulted in their father being shot in front of them. Blake Sr said: “They shot my son at least seven times like he doesn’t matter. But my son matters. He is a human being and he matters.”

Crump said the circumstances leading up to the encounter with police are not yet clear, prior to what he called “brutal, excessive force” that resulted in Blake being shot in the back “at point blank range”. He said Blake, 29, had been rushed into surgery “as we speak” and that his spinal cord had been severed by bullets and several vertebrae shattered. “It’s going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr to walk again,” Crump said, with another lawyer acting for the family, Patrick Salvi, saying Blake had holes in his stomach and had had much of his intestine removed, as well as suffering liver and kidney damage.

Jacob Blake Jr’s older sister, Letetra Widman, gave a solemn, quietly angry address and remained dry-eyed even as other family members wept.

Jacob Blake’s sister: ‘I’m not sad. I’m not sorry. I’m angry. And I’m tired. I haven’t cried one time. I stopped crying years ago. I am numb. I have been watching police murder people that look like me for years.’ (warning: distressing) pic.twitter.com/0Ot0FA7K0E

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 25, 2020

“I’m not sad, I’m not sorry, I’m angry and I’m tired. I have not cried one time, I stopped crying years ago. I’m numb – we have been watching police kill Black people for years,” she said, adding: “I don’t want your pity, I want change.”

Wisconsin police shooting reignites anger over George Floyd shooting

Wisconsin governor promises police reforms after Jacob Blake shooting

In the wake of protests over the shooting of a Black man by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the state governor, Tony Evers, has promised to move forward with reforms to curb law enforcement misconduct.

Evers has demanded state legislators meet on 31 August in a special session to consider a set of nine police reform bills which were floated more than two months ago. The proposals – which followed the 25 May killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police – include banning chokeholds and limiting other use-of-force methods. ...

Evers declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin on Tuesday after largely calm protests devolved on the fringes into outbreaks of arson and looting overnight, following the curfew imposed to try to keep order in the city. Evers said he would double the presence of national guard troops to 250 on Tuesday night.

Mass Demonstrations and Marches Erupt Nationwide to Protest Police Shooting of Jacob Blake

From Washington, D.C. to Denver to New York City to Minneapolis — where George Floyd was killed at the hands of police just three months ago — massive demonstrations and marches erupted Monday demanding justice for Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old father of six who was shot multiple times in the back at point-blank range by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer as three of his children watched from the back seat of his car.

Protesters in New York have taken over the Brooklyn Bridge, demanding justice for Jacob Blake. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/dGNG00sz9b

— Rose Movement (@Rosemvmt) August 25, 2020

New York is showing up for Jacob Blake. Marching south on Broadway right now. pic.twitter.com/JExjG0Aq6u

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) August 24, 2020

As Big Box Stores Thrive, 1 in 5 Small Businesses Expect to Close in Next 6 Months Without Urgent Federal Aid

One in five small businesses reported in a survey Monday that they will have to shut their doors permanently if economic conditions—and the federal government's efforts to improve them—don't change in the next six months. 

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) surveyed 561 small business owners on August 17 and 18 and found that half of the businesses have seen a 25% reduction in sales since the beginning of the pandemic, as consumers have grown less likely to venture into brick-and-mortar stores and are doing much of their shopping online, and have been increasingly likely to cut back on spending amid an unemployment crisis.

According to the survey, one in five respondents reported a 50% drop in sales, and nearly half of them said they would need more government help to stay afloat in the next year. Forty-four percent said if another round of federal small business loans is offered, they would take advantage of the program.

While small businesses struggle, big box stores with deep pockets and wealthy Wall Street investors have seen revenues that Target CEO Brian Cornell called "by virtually any measure, exceptional" last week in a statement to shareholders.

With Target reporting online sales in the second quarter of 2020 that were 24% higher than last year at the same time, Cornell applauded "the incredible resilience" of his business.

Walmart saw a 97% increase in online sales over the same period, while Lowes saw an 153% increase. Home Depot reported a 23% surge in business.

According to the NFIB, sales at small business across the country currently stand at negative-28%.

The NFIB survey was taken two weeks after the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) expired at the end of July. The government program was passed as part of the CARES Act in March and allowed businesses to apply for forgivable loans through banks. Nearly 85% of respondents to the NFIB survey said they had already used up their loans to keep their employees, rent, and other expenses paid. 

"Many of them still need more financial assistance just to keep their doors open and staff on payroll," Holly Wade, director of research for the NFIB, said in a statement.

The Trump administration and Congress are considering a second round of PPP loans, but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said last month that he favored a "revenue test" to ensure loans in the second round of funding only go to businesses that have suffered the biggest losses. In the first round of loans, many of the hardest-hit businesses, like Main Street independent stores and restaurants which had to shut down under public health guidance when the pandemic hit, received less funding than sectors that were able to continue operating.  

The crisis faced by small businesses across the country corresponds with concerns that many of the workers who were furloughed in March have now lost their jobs permanently. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that 33% of furloughed employees had been laid off by July, according to data from payroll firm Gusto. The Labor Department said last month that 3.7 million workers had permanently lost their jobs. That number is expected to reach at least 6.2 million and as high as 8.7 million by the end of this year, according to researchers at Harvard University and the Federal Reserve Board.

With more than half of the country's workforce employed by small businesses, jobless claims also spiked just after the PPP expired at the end of July. The Republican-led Senate ended its legislative session and went on its August recess as usual, even as lawmakers failed to reach an agreement to provide more aid to workers and businesses. 

"I think that most people expected that Congress would pass another relief package before heading off on recess and now, as many programs have expired with no clear timeline on renewal, there's a growing panic about the future—both for workers and for small-business owners who rely on consumer demand," Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the Main Street Alliance, told NBC News last week. 

"I think we'll see a dramatic rise in small business closure in the third quarter of this year," she added. "Many business owners were holding out from a summer bump in revenue and are now looking at mounting debt in an increasingly unstable economy."

Judge Blocks Florida School Reopening Order

Teachers unions on Monday welcomed "a victory for students and educators" in Florida after a judge temporarily blocked the state's order that schools open for in-person instruction five days a week in August or risk losing funding. ...

Judge Charles Dodson of Leon County Circuit Court wrote in his ruling that the "Florida constitution requires the state to ensure our schools operate safely. Defendants, however, through the order and its application, have essentially ignored the requirement of school safety by requiring the statewide opening of brick-and-mortar schools to receive already allocated funding."

"Because defendants cannot constitutionally directly force schools statewide to reopen without regard to safety during a global pandemic, they cannot do it indirectly by threatening loss of funding through the order," wrote Dodson, adding that "what has been clearly established is... opening schools will most likely increase Covid-19 cases in Florida."

Dodson called the order's allowance that opening decisions be up to local school boards, subject to local health officials' guidance, "essentially meaningless" because "plaintiffs presented convincing evidence that state health officials were instructed not to provide an opinion on the reopening of schools."

The decision comes as new coronavirus cases in the state appear to be trending downward. Florida health officials on Monday put the state's total cases at 602,829 and the death toll at over 10,000. And, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Florida has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the nation after California.

The ruling stems from two lawsuits filed last month. One filed by the Florida Education Association (FEA) sought to block the order from Gov. Ron DeSantis and his education officials, charging that state officials "cannot legally deny students, public school staff, their family members, and the public with whom they come in contact within the public-school system their basic human needs for health and safety." The NAACP and the NAACP Florida State Conference (NAACP-FL)  later joined that lawsuit as plaintiffs. Another filing came from a mother and teachers in Orange County.

In a statement welcoming the temporary injunction, FEA said that "districts' hands will not be tied as our lawsuit moves forward to examine the order's constitutionality."

"We appreciate that Judge Dodson acknowledged the crucial importance of protecting the health and wellbeing of kids and school employees," FEA President Fedrick Ingram said in a statement criticizing defendants Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, both Republicans.

They’re having an argument on CNN about whether Democrats or Republicans have done less to help poor people in America, and, yes.

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) August 25, 2020

Wait I’m super confused. The RNC is today? Then who were all the Republicans & war criminals talking on stage last week?

— Fiorella Isabel (@Fiorella_im) August 24, 2020

Trump selects the least sympathetic "victims" ever to stump for his re-election.

St Louis couple who threatened Black Lives Matter protesters speak at RNC

A white St Louis couple facing charges for brandishing guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters have baselessly accused Democrats of “protecting criminals from honest citizens” and trying to “abolish the suburbs”.

In a pre-recorded speech to the Republican national convention on Monday night, Mark and Patricia McCloskey said the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, would invite unchecked lawlessness into American suburbs if he wins the November election.

“It seems as if the Democrats no longer view the government’s job as protecting honest citizens from criminals, but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens,” Mark McCloskey said, in one of many of the evening’s speeches that broke with the optimistic vision Republican organizers had promised.

“Not a single person in the out-of-control mob you saw at our house was charged with a crime. But you know who was? We were.”

There is no evidence to support the claim the marchers were an “out-of-control mob”. Protesters filmed passing the couple were peaceful.

“If we let them, they’ll turn our country into a Socialist utopia.”

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) August 25, 2020

'Cori Bush Scares the Fascists?': Progressive Congressional Nominee Targeted in RNC Fearmongering

Progressive congressional Democratic nominee Cori Bush found herself in the spotlight at the Republican National Convention on Monday night, as a right-wing Missouri couple made infamous for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protestors outside their mansion earlier this year characterized the Ferguson organizer as a  "Marxist revolutionary" ready to overthrow the nation's power structure.

In their virtual remarks during the RNC's opening night, Mark and Patricia McCloskey appeared to be speaking from their home, and, according to Bush, "tried to villianize" the St. Louis Democrat.

In a tweeted response to their comments, Bush appeared to take issue with the characterization while also treating the claim as laughable:

I’m a what? pic.twitter.com/hhd46ysyFu

— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) August 25, 2020

"The radicals are not content just marching in the streets. They want to walk the halls of Congress. They want power," Mark McCloskey said. "This is Joe Biden's party. These are the people who will be in charge of your future and the future of your children," he said, after mentioning Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter activist who became a leader in the movement after the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. ...

"The Marxist, liberal activist leading the mob to our neighborhood stood outside our home with a bullhorn screaming, 'You can't stop the revolution.' Just weeks later, that same Marxist activist won the Democrat nomination to hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives," said Mark McCloskey. "That Marxist revolutionary is now going to be the congresswoman from the first district of Missouri."

Bush agreed, tweeting, "YOU can't stop the Revolution! I said what I said."

While much of the RNC convention was wrought with racist undertones, progressives took the McCloskey's focus on Bush as a win.

"Cori Bush scares the fascists?" Justice Democrats, who backed her bid for office, tweeted.

Basically nobody in liberal circles is taking seriously the consequences of the fact that the exiled cadre of the Republican Party are building a massive power base in the Democratic Party https://t.co/RoL7ElRjyG

— David Sessions (@davidsess) August 24, 2020

Krystal and Saagar: AOC Endorses Alex Morse In Stunning Rebuke Of Pelosi

Every debate between a leftist and a democrat on twitter pic.twitter.com/mpa6c8yCvE

— Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) August 25, 2020

Erin Brockovich: The US is in a water crisis far worse than most people imagine

My dad worked for many years as an engineer for Texaco and later for the Department of Transportation. Before he died, he told me that in my lifetime water would become a commodity more valuable than oil or gold, because there would be so little of it. Sadly, I believe he was right. Our water has become so toxic that towns are issuing emergency boil notices and shipping in bottled water to their residents. In 2016, as I started research for my new book Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It, members of our very own US Congress had their water shut down in Washington due to unsafe lead levels.

We are in a water crisis beyond anything you can imagine. Pollution and toxins are everywhere, stemming from the hazardous wastes of industry and agriculture. We’ve got more than 40,000 chemicals on the market today with only a few hundred regulated. We’ve had industrial byproducts discarded into the ground and into our water supply for years. This crisis affects everyone – rich or poor, black or white, Republican or Democrat. Communities everywhere think they are safe when they are not.

Each water system is unique, but some of the most toxic offenders include hexavalent chromium (an anticorrosive agent), PFOA (used to make Teflon pans), PFOS (a key ingredient in Scotchgard), TCE (used in dry cleaning and refrigeration), lead, fracking chemicals, chloramines (a water disinfectant) and more. Many of these chemicals are undetectable for those drinking the water. Many cause irreversible health problems and people in communities throughout the country are dealing with these repercussions.

Like a blood test for disease, you can only find what you test for. If you don’t order a specific test for one of these chemicals, you won’t know it’s there. And you can’t treat water unless you know what’s in it. ...

Superman is not coming. If you are waiting for someone to come save you and clean up your water, I’m here to tell you: no one is coming to save you. The time has come for us to save ourselves.

The first action that you can take is to become part of what I hope will be the first-ever national self-reporting registry. This crowd-sourced map allows individuals and community groups to report and review health issues (cancer being the most prevalent) and community environmental issues by geographic area and by health topic. The research is intended to connect the dots between clusters of illness and environmental hazards in specific communities and regions of the country. If you or someone you know is sick or suffering, please report it.

‘The forest is not gone’: California’s ancient redwoods survive wildfires

When a massive wildfire swept through California’s oldest state park last week it was feared many trees in a grove of old-growth redwoods, some of them 2,000 years old and among the tallest living things on Earth, may finally have succumbed. But an Associated Press reporter and photographer hiked the renowned Redwood Trail at Big Basin Redwoods state park on Monday and confirmed most of the ancient redwoods had withstood the blaze. Among the survivors is one dubbed Mother of the Forest. ...

The historic park headquarters is gone, as are many small buildings and campground infrastructure that went up in flames as fire swept through the park about 45 miles (72km) south of San Francisco. “But the forest is not gone,” McLendon said. “It will regrow. Every old growth redwood I’ve ever seen, in Big Basin and other parks, has fire scars on them. They’ve been through multiple fires, possibly worse than this.”

When forest fires, windstorms and lightning hit redwood trees, those that don’t topple can resprout. Mother of the Forest, for example, used to be 329ft tall (100 meters), the tallest tree in the park. After the top broke off in a storm, a new trunk sprouted where the old growth had been. Trees that fall feed the forest floor, and become nurse trees from which new redwoods grow. Forest critters, from banana slugs to insects, thrive under logs.

California: firefighters begin to turn tide but warn that 'mega-fire era' has arrived

Firefighters caught a slight break in efforts to contain the barrage of wildfire that has burned 1.4m acres across California, displacing tens of thousands amid the coronavirus pandemic. The dry lightning and winds that forecasters warned could stoke the blazes and spark more were less severe than expected, allowing crews – aided by reinforcements from neighboring states – to make progress in containing the fires. The blazes have killed seven and scorched more than 1,200 homes and other buildings. ...

Although fire crews are making progress, many of those displaced by the fires face an uncertain future. “Overall our hope is to get you back quickly,” said Mark Essick, the sheriff of Sonoma county, where the LNU Complex fire, the most deadly of the conflagrations that have overtaken the Bay Area, continues to burn. Officials are still assessing the damage. “This is a time when some people will realize that they do not have homes,” Essick said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Officials said on Tuesday the LNU Complex fire was 27% contained, having scorched more than 350,000 acres in California’s wine country.

Crews were also making some progress against the SCU Complex fire east of the San Francisco Bay, which, having scorched more than 363,000 acres is the second-largest wildfire in California history, followed by the LNU, which is the third-largest. A third major fire, the CZU complex to the south, was also heeling, thanks to calmer weather and some rain over the weekend, according to officials.

“We are essentially living in a mega-fire era,” said Jake Hess, a Cal Fire unit chief, told reporters on Monday. Large, catastrophic fires “have been outpacing themselves every year”, he said.

Also of Interest

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

Minnesota Paramedic Speaks Out Against Police Use of Ketamine Injections

Reminder: The US Empire Tortures Journalists And Whistleblowers

MSM Is Propaganda: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

On the History of US-Backed Coups—Consortium News Editor Speaks to George Galloway

Clashes between US, regime forces present new challenges for Russia in Syria

China: US Flew Spy Plane Into No-Fly Zone

Millions in the US face evictions amid looming crisis

Is this the end of the road for dollar dominance?

Over the Objections of the Navajo Nation, Trump Prepares to Execute Lezmond Mitchell

'Coming to a Town Near You.' Eviction Fears Mount as Grace Period for Federal Moratorium Expires

Hillary Clinton Gave State Dept. Job to Ghislaine Maxwell’s Nephew: Report

Laura strengthens into a hurricane and expected to slam Texas and Louisiana

'The aliens to watch': how the humble earthworm is altering the Arctic

'Underwhelming and Inadequate': Green Groups Slam New Senate Democrats' Climate Report

Jimmy Dore: The Simpsons Producer Tries To Bully Voters! Gets Immediately OWNED!

Krystal and Saagar: Hillary Says Biden SHOULD NOT Concede Election To Trump

A Little Night Music

Daphne Blue - Evil

Freddie Roulette - Smoked Fish

Freddie Roulette - Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven

Freddie Roulette Band - She Caught The Katy

Freddie Roulette - Mr. Roulette

Freddie Roulette - Sleep Walk

Freddie Roulette & Herb Kent - Hawaiian Punch, 10-2 Double Plus

Freddie Roulette - Traditional Blues Riff

Freddie Roulette - Killing Floor