Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz singer Jimmy Rushing. Enjoy!

"The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized."

-- Tom Robbins

News and Opinion

Boo!

Nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to stay in DC over concerns of potential violence in March

Thousands of National Guard troops will remain in Washington, D.C., in early March amid concerns over followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, some of whom hold out hope former President Trump will be returned to office March 4.

“Some of these people have figured out that apparently 75 years ago, the president used to be inaugurated on March 4. OK, now why that's relevant, God knows, at any rate, now they are thinking maybe we should gather again and storm the Capitol on March 4. ... That is circulating online," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said during a Wednesday hearing, according to CNN.

Smith added that there would not necessarily be specific unrest on March 4 but that there were concerns around the date.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security Robert Salesses said Wednesday that the Capitol Police requested the 4,900 troops through March 12, according to CNN.

After Vowing 'No More Blank Checks for Trump's Favorite Dictator,' Biden Seeks $200 Million Arms Sale to Egypt

On the same day that the Biden administration published a statement supporting a declaration against arbitrary detention—and days after relatives of a prominent Egyptian American activist were arrested and jailed—the U.S. State Department on Wednesday announced the proposed sale of nearly $200 million worth of shipborne surface-to-air missiles to Egypt's authoritarian regime.

In boilerplate language, the State Department said the $197 million sale of up to 168 Raytheon Rolling Airframe missiles "will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a major non-NATO ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East."

The State Department further explained that the sale, which is subject to congressional approval, "will support the Egyptian Navy's Fast Missile Craft ships and provide significantly enhanced area defense capabilities over Egypt's coastal areas and approaches to the Suez Canal."

For decades, successive U.S. administrations have supported authoritarian governments in Cairo. Former President Donald Trump reportedly called the country's current leader, former army general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, "my favorite dictator."

President Joe Biden, however, has vowed to hold Egypt's rulers accountable for their security forces' human rights violations—which, according to a 2019 State Department report, include arbitrary extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention.

After relatives of Virginia-based Egyptian American human rights activist and regime critic Mohamed Soltan were arrested last year, then-candidate Biden called the move "unacceptable" and vowed, "no more blank checks for Trump's 'favorite dictator.'"

Days after Biden's election, Egyptian authorities released five of Soltan's relatives who were imprisoned when the exiled dissident—who is a former prisoner of the Egyptian regime—sued former Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi in a U.S. court. However, on Sunday, security forces raided the homes of six of Soltan's family members, arresting two cousins in what critics of Egypt's regime are calling an act of open defiance of Biden's calls to respect human rights.

The arrests of Soltan's cousins are part of a wider pattern of Egyptian authorities targeting relatives of exiled regime critics. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that at least three family members of Chicago-based activist Aly Mahdy were arrested after he tweeted support for the 2011 Arab Spring revolution that ousted longtime former Egyptian military dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Security forces also recently raided the home of Taqadum al-Khatib's parents after the academic—who now lives in Germany—tweeted that el-Sisi's regime "will be seen on the wrong side of history."

At a Tuesday press briefing, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the administration was "looking into" the arrests and that it takes "seriously all allegations of arbitrary arrest or detention."

"We will bring our values with us into every relationship that we have across the globe," Price said, according to Al Jazeera. "That includes with our close security partners. That includes with Egypt."

“The US approved an arms sale worth nearly $200m to Egypt but vowed to press human rights issues after an American activist reported his family had been harassed.”

Here’s some missiles. Please stop abusing human rights, please?

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 17, 2021

Myanmar: more than 100,000 protest in streets against coup

More than a hundred thousand people have poured on to the streets in Myanmar to voice their anger against the coup and reject an army claim that it has majority support.

At a demonstration in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon – the largest there since the deployment of troops on Sunday – protesters marched with red flags signalling their loyalty to the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and carried signs denouncing the military.

Major junctions were blocked by a “broken down” rally, where drivers left their cars parked across the roads, with bonnets open, and by sit-down protests.

Mass demonstrations were also held in the second-largest city of Mandalay, where students, engineers and farmers were among thousands who took to the streets, and in the capital, Naypyidaw.

The demonstrations followed claims from a military spokesperson on Tuesday that protests would dwindle and that 40 million of the country’s 53 million population backed its power grab.

'No to Dictatorship': Why Haitians are protesting US-backed Moïse

Biden Official Blasts US-Style Law in Nicaragua

Since Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista Front returned to power through democratic elections in 2006, the United States government has poured many millions of dollars into right-wing opposition groups in the Central American country. hese U.S.-funded NGOs have aimed to destabilize the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and played a central role in a brutally violent coup attempt in 2018.

Nicaragua’s National Assembly responded to the Washington-sponsored violence and destabilization efforts by passing a law in October 2020 that requires organizations funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents. The legislation is very similar to a law passed by the United States in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In recent years, Washington has exploited FARA to force Russian and Chinese media outlets and journalists working in the United States to register as foreign agents — in a bipartisan, Cold War-style political escalation against both countries. Though Washington has had this legislation on the books for more than eight decades, and still utilizes it regularly, the Joe Biden administration has lashed out at Nicaragua for its decision to pass a similar law.

On Feb. 8, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price, a former CIA agent, published a statement condemning the elected Sandinista government. Price claimed that President “Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship,” because the new foreign agent law led to the voluntary suspension of operations of a major U.S. government-funded opposition organization in the country. Price demonized Nicaragua’s democratically elected government as a “regime,” while stressing that the U.S. government is “focused on empowering civil society.”

If you want to know why the US is intervening in the Ecuadorian elections, it's to stop this from happening https://t.co/FDJ7fyHyMY

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) February 18, 2021

New York sues Amazon over claims it failed to protect workers from pandemic

New York is suing Amazon, claiming the company failed to provide workers with a safe environment at two warehouses in the state as Covid-19 infections surged nationwide. The suit from Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, landed just days after Amazon pre-emptively sued to block the suit over its coronavirus safety protocols and the firing of one of its employees who objected to working conditions.

In the suit filed late on Tuesday, New York claims Amazon showed a “flagrant disregard for health and safety requirements” and retaliated illegally against employees who raised alarms.

James opened an investigation into Amazon in March following complaints about the lack of precautions taken to protect employees at New York facilities amid the pandemic. The investigation concentrated on two facilities, one in Staten Island and one in Queens, with a combined workforce of more than 5,000 individuals. At the time of the complaints, New York City was the center of the US pandemic.

The investigation found evidence showing that Amazon’s health and safety response violated state law with respect to cleaning and disinfection protocols, contact tracing and allowing employees to take precautions to protect themselves from the risk of infection.

Pfizer says vaccine offers two thirds less protection against South African variant

A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies said on Wednesday.

Reuters: The study found the vaccine was still able to neutralise the virus and there is not yet evidence from trials in people that the variant reduces vaccine protection, the companies said.

Still, they are making investments and talking to regulators about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine or a booster shot, if needed. ...

Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world.

Krystal Ball: Police Guard Dumpster Of Food, Protecting Profits Over People

US mayor quits after telling residents it's 'sink or swim' amid deadly snowstorm

A Texas mayor has resigned after telling residents of his city to “Get off your ass and take care of your own family!” in the face of a devastating once-in-a-generation winter storm that has killed more than 20 people across the country and left millions without power in the state.

Colorado City mayor Tom Boyd told the 4,000 or so of his fellow citizens in his town that he was “sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout” and blamed “a socialist government” for the dire situation.

“No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!,” Boyd continued in the career-ending rant he posted on a local community Facebook group.

Instead he suggested that people look to inspiration from their churches. “Only the strong will survive and the weak will perish. Folks, God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this,” he said.

Failed State: Texas Power Grid Collapse Impacts Millions. Black & Brown Communities Are Worst Hit

Anger mounts over Texas power blackouts as icy cold maintains its grip

Anger over Texas’s power grid failing in the face of a record winter freeze is mounting, as millions of residents remained shivering, with no assurances that their electricity and heat – out for 36 hours or longer in many homes – would return. “I know people are angry and frustrated,” said Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, who woke up to more than 1 million people still without power in his city on Wednesday. “So am I.”

Between 2 and 3 million customers in Texas still had no power, nearly two full days after historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge in demand for electricity to warm up homes unaccustomed to such extreme lows, buckling the state’s power grid and causing widespread blackouts. Meanwhile, people’s water pipes are bursting and hours long lines have been wrapping around grocery stores as people search for food. ...

The winter weather that has overwhelmed power grids is keeping its grip on the nation’s midsection as well. At least 20 people have died across the country, some while struggling to find warmth inside their homes. ... More than 100 million people live in areas covered on Wednesday by some type of winter weather warning, watch or advisory, as yet another winter storm hits Texas and parts of the southern plains, the National Weather Service said.

The weather has also threatened to impede the nation’s Covid-19 vaccination effort, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying on Wednesday that states will face serious delays in receiving doses due to dangerous road conditions and power outages.

“Shipping partners are working to deliver vaccine where possible, contingent on local conditions, but the adverse weather is expected to continue to impact shipments out of the FedEx facility in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as the UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky, which serve as vaccine shipping hubs for multiple states,” the CDC said in a statement.

"Not Doing This Is a Choice": Biden Drags His Feet on Canceling Student Debt Despite Campaign Pledge

'Keep Pushing!' Says AOC After Biden Tells Nation 'I Will Not' Cancel $50,000 in Student Loan Debt

After President Joe Biden told the nation during a CNN town hall Tuesday night that he "will not" cancel $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the many progressives who pushed back against the president's false narrative about who would benefit from the move and urged advocates to keep up the pressure.

When a town hall attendee said during Tuesday's event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin student loan debt is "crushing" her family, friends, and millions of Americans and urged Biden to unilaterally forgive a minimum of $50,000 per borrower, Biden responded, "I will not make that happen."

The president went on to say that he doesn't want to forgive "billions of dollars of debt for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn" instead of using "that money to provide money for early education for young children who... come from disadvantaged circumstances."

But Ocasio-Cortez and others argued there is no reason the wealthiest nation on the planet can't both fund early childhood education and forgive some of the combined $1.8 trillion in student loan debt saddling more than 40 million Americans.

"Nowhere does it say we must trade-off early childhood education for student loan forgiveness," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted late Tuesday. "We can have both."

The New York Democrat also rejected the notion that attendees of Harvard, Yale, and other elite universities should categorically be denied student loan relief, noting that many people from working-class families attended such prestigious schools and are now saddled with debt due to their inability to afford the sky-high costs.

"Who cares what school someone went to? Entire generations of working-class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism. This is wrong," Ocasio-Cortez said. "The case against student loan forgiveness is looking shakier by the day... Biden's holding back, but many of the arguments against it just don't hold water on close inspection. We can and should do it. Keep pushing!"

In lieu of canceling $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower—a proposal backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and other prominent Democratic lawmakers—Biden said he is "prepared to write off" $10,000 a person, make community college free, and eliminate state school tuition for students whose families earn less than $125,000 a year.

While Biden presented his higher-education proposals as sensible and pragmatic alternatives to unilateral debt cancellation—which he falsely insisted he doesn't have the authority to carry out—racial justice activist Bree Newsome argued that "there's nothing practical about Biden's stance on student loan forgiveness."

"It's just an ideological stance on being moderate that isn't informed by what makes sense from either an economic, gender, or racial justice standpoint," Newsome wrote. "That's why he's out of step with other Dems on this."

"Why do we have to choose between student loan debt forgiveness and funding childhood education?" Newsome asked. "What does the $10K cap have to do with borrowers from elite schools? Why are we excluding elite schools? There are a bunch of first generation students of color at elite schools."

Vanessa A. Bee, an editor at Current Affairs, offered a similar—albeit more sharply worded—critique on Twitter:

if you came from a working class family, fought your way into brown, but couldn’t secure enough grants to avoid borrowing, biden’s got a foot to shove up your ass https://t.co/DQx2JZEepF

— vanessa a. bee (@Vanessa_ABee) February 17, 2021

Stephanie Kelton: How Deficit Hawk Mindset Is LIMITING Dem COVID Relief Ambitions

Keiser Report | The Global Semiconductor Chip Shortage

Hedge fund reaches $630m deal to buy remaining Tribune Publishing newspapers

The Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and other newspapers across the US are set to be sold to a hedge fund notorious for cutting newsrooms, in the latest blow to American journalism. Alden Global Capital already had a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing, which owns famous names like the Tribune, Daily News, the Hartford Courant and others, and on Tuesday announced it would pay $630m to acquire the entire company.

News of the deal, expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2021, prompted dismay from journalists online – including those employed by Tribune Publishing. Alden’s track record of newspaper ownership has seen it become reviled across the journalism industry. The Denver Post has infamously suffered at the hands of the New York-based hedge fund, and the newspaper’s newsroom shrank by 70% over a seven-year period. ...

Alden already owns some 200 publications through its operating company, MediaNews Group, and many of those newspapers have seen punishing financial restrictions. “Media observers note that they make cuts almost from day one. Pens and notebooks disappear from newsrooms. One newsroom was missing hot water. Then newspaper buildings are sold, and staff is consolidated and cut,” Savannah Jacobson, a contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review, wrote in a profile of Alden last year.

“Despite earning higher profits than is typical in the industry, the NewsGuild says that between 2012 and 2019, Alden cut 71% of jobs in the hedge fund’s Guild-represented newsrooms.”

Misinformation fears after Facebook 'unfriends' Australia

Facebook blocks all news content in Australia

In an extraordinary attack on democratic rights and the freedom of information online, Facebook this morning blocked the sharing and posting of all news content in Australia. The indefinite ban also prevents Australians from accessing international news on the platform. Because of the corporation’s monopolistic share of the social media market, Facebook has effectively shut down a considerable portion of the Australian internet, with major consequences not only for publishers, but virtually every facet of civil society and the country’s 25 million citizens and residents.

The move is in response to the passage yesterday of a news media bargaining code by the Australian House of Representatives. With bipartisan support from the Liberal-National Coalition government and the Labor Party opposition, the legislation was set to be ratified by the Senate, the upper house of Australia’s parliament, and to become law. Facebook and Google have bitterly opposed the code, which would require them to divert a portion of their advertising revenue to Australian news corporations. Google last month threatened to block access to its search engine in Australia if the bill was passed. It has since rescinded the ultimatum and entered into talks with the media companies over revenue-sharing arrangements. ...

According to figures last December, more than 50 percent of the Australian population receives its news from social media, primarily through Facebook. ...

The federal government and the media conglomerates have expressed their “shock” and “outrage” at the ban. Their concern is not over the assault that it represents on the rights of ordinary people. The media bargaining code has always been aimed at augmenting the profits of the largest media companies and shoring up their market dominance. The code is based on the dubious premise that the social media companies should provide vast sums to the media conglomerates, for the privilege of indexing their content in search results and having their users post links to articles.

The code explicitly stipulates that only “registered news business corporations” accepted by federal authorities and with a revenue of more than $150,000 a year are covered. The primary beneficiaries will likely be News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, along with Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment Corporation. In addition to shaking down the social media companies for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, the aim of the media conglomerates is to entrench their position as semi-official sources of news.

Big Tech Monopolies -- Controlling Speech!? with Matt Stoller

GameStop: US lawmakers to quiz key players from Robinhood, Reddit and finance

Frenzied trading in the shares of GameStop and other companies will be the subject of what is expected to be a fiery hearing in Congress on Thursday, when US politicians get their first chance to quiz executives from the trading app Robinhood, Reddit and other players in the saga.

The House financial services committee will hold a hearing at noon in a first step to untangling the furore surrounding trading in GameStop, AMC cinemas and other companies whose share values soared to astronomical levels as small investors piled into the stocks.

The hearing, titled Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide, is expected to be fractious. ...

Among those testifying are:

Robinhood’s CEO, Vlad Tenev.

Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman.

Gabe Plotkin, founder of the Melvin Capital Management hedge fund, which was forced into a rescue after retail traders crushed its bets against GameStop.

Ken Griffin, billionaire CEO of Citadel, an investment firm that executes Robinhood clients’ trades and also helped to bail out Melvin.

Keith Gill, a trader variously known online as Roaring Kitty and DeepFuckingValue and a longtime GameStop booster.

The hearing marks the first time the major players in the GameStop controversy have all been forced to publicly reckon with the anger the episode provoked among small investors and across the political spectrum.

WallStreetBets Roaring Kitty DRAGGED Before Congress, Sued For Stock Surge

40+ Rights Groups Urge Biden to Halt Federal Use of 'Dangerous' Facial Recognition Technology

A coalition of more than 40 advocacy groups is calling on President Joe Biden to take executive action imposing a moratorium on U.S. government use of facial recognition and other biometric technology, block state and local governments from using federal funds for such tools, and support related legislation introduced in Congress last year.

The organizations—including the ACLU, Access Now, Amnesty International USA, Center for Constitutional Rights, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press Action, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—sent Biden a lengthy letter Tuesday laying out how the use facial recognition technology (FRT) "in policing, public housing, schools, and other areas of public life poses profound and unprecedented threats to core civil rights and civil liberties."

"Facial recognition technology is a threat to civil rights and civil liberties when it works, and when it doesn't. It disproportionately misidentifies people of color, women, trans people, and other marginalized groups, but its ability to track our movements across space and time would be dangerous even if it worked perfectly," said Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, in a statement Wednesday.

"Multiple Black men have been arrested and incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit after facial recognition technology falsely identified them, and its use will continue to disproportionately harm marginalized communities, especially Black and Brown people," Ruane added. "In keeping with President Biden's commitment to racial equity, he must immediately take this important first step."

The letter notes that study after study has shown facial recognition technology "exhibits particularly disturbing accuracy and bias issues against people with darker skin, LGBTQ people, women—especially women of color—and youth." It also highlights the impact of such flaws by pointing to some specific stories of people who have been harmed by misidentification.

Krystal and Saagar: Cuomo Enters NIXON Territory Threatening To DESTROY Lawmaker In Cover-Up

Worth a full read:

Cuomo-gate: A Nixonian Scandal Is Engulfing New York

The biggest political scandal in America right now is playing out in New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in a lot of trouble — and rightly so. The Democratic governor did not merely wildly mismanage his state’s response to the COVID emergency, while netting himself a lucrative book deal and an Emmy. He did something worse. In the middle of a public health emergency, he used his office to help one of his largest political donors shield itself from legal consequences as 15,000 nursing home residents died from COVID — and then he and his administration underreported that death toll, helping the same donor. ...

Now we are about to see whether a blue state’s democratic institutions can hold wrongdoers accountable, or whether America’s culture of impunity can once again protect the powerful from facing any consequences at all.

Amid a cacophony of demands for Cuomo to resign, the governor and his aides are frantically trying to cover up the basic facts of what happened, and that includes launching a Nixonian campaign of intimidation and retribution against Democratic lawmakers who have for months been sounding the alarm.

Two national news outlets today detailed Cuomo’s new campaign of retribution against one lawmaker in his own party who dared to ask questions about constituents and family members who died under Cuomo’s nursing home policies. Cuomo held a press conference to publicly berate the same Democrat, while another New York news outlet reported that other lawmakers are now facing threats.

For months, these legislators’ questions were ignored by a national media that has seemed far more interested in valorizing Cuomo than in reporting inconvenient facts.

Wind turbines in Antarctica.

Spoiler: they work in the cold. pic.twitter.com/Ws2nItJLhF

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) February 17, 2021

Fossil Fuel Apologists Crafted Lies Now Heard on Fox, Blaming Wind Power for Texas Blackouts

Millions of Texans, trying to survive a winter storm without heat or electricity following the catastrophic failure of the state’s power grid, were at least spared immediate exposure to the torrent of lies about what went wrong in their state being pumped out by Fox News. As the widespread blackouts continued, so too did the all-out campaign of lying on behalf of the fossil fuel industry from Fox News hosts and Republican elected officials in Texas, who repeated the false claim that frozen wind turbines were to blame, hour after hour, even though wind energy is expected to power just 7 percent of the state’s grid in winter. ...

In fact, despite what Faulkner and Carlson and Texas Republicans like Rep. Dan Crenshaw claimed, the drop in energy produced by wind was the least significant factor in the Texas blackouts, according to Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at ERCOT, the organization that manages the state’s power supply. Frozen instruments at thermal power plants, which burn natural gas or coal or rely on nuclear reactors, erased nearly half of the power needed to keep the lights on, according to a detailed analysis of the grid operator’s data by Jesse Jenkins, a macro-scale energy systems engineer who teaches at Princeton.

As Jenkins explained on Twitter, even though wind turbines were operating at about two-thirds of their capacity, wind was expected to provide less than 10 percent of the energy needed to power the state’s grid during the peak of a winter storm, while natural gas plants were supposed to provide 66 percent of the power. “Those of you who have heard that frozen wind turbines are to blame for this, think again,” the engineer added. “Texans were counting on natural gas and coal plants to be there when they needed them,” Jenkins observed. “Only 50-60% of that capacity has been able to produce during the past three days. If a student in my course got a <60% on the midterm, we'd call it an F. Fossil generators deserve an F here too.”

“The failure to plan for and weatherize against this extreme cold,” Jenkins wrote earlier in the week, “extends from the grid operator (ERCOT), individual power plant owners of almost all types (gas, coal, nuclear, wind), pipeline utilities (which froze up) and even building design and construction practices (limited insulation for cold weather) which makes Texas gas and electricity demand extremely sensitive to cold weather events.”

Ed Hirs, who teaches energy economics at the University of Houston, told the Houston Chronicle that the underlying cause of the failure was the state’s deregulated power grid, which offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” Hirs said. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”

Same thing in Denmark. It's cold enough here that the ocean is frozen and yet look at those reliable windmills just chugging along. pic.twitter.com/1NTljk7hk9

— Elizabeth Gummere (@BethGummere) February 17, 2021

'No time to waste': California bill would ban fracking in state by 2027

A new bill introduced in the California state senate on Wednesday would ban all fracking near schools and homes by 1 January 2022 and in the entire state by 2027. ...

The bill introduced by the senators Scott Wiener and Monique Limón would halt new fracking permits and the renewal of current ones on 1 January 2022, in addition to banning new oil and gas production within 2,500ft (762 meters) of any home, school, healthcare facility or long-term care institution, such as dormitories or prisons. It would outlaw all fracking in the state by 1 January 2027, along with three other oil extraction methods: acid well stimulation treatments, cyclic steaming and water and steam flooding.

In 2019, Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, halted new fracking permits and fired the state’s top oil and gas regulator after a report showed a 35% increase in new wells. That moratorium ended last April after an independent, scientific review of California’s permitting process.

The Democratic governor in September called on lawmakers to ban fracking by 2024 as he ordered regulators to begin preparations to prohibit the sale of all new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles by 2035.

People are rescuing thousands of 'cold-stunned' sea turtles in Texas

Residents, some of whom lack heat or basic amenities in their own homes due to the unusually chilly weather, have been rescuing cold-stunned sea turtles and taking them to a convention center in a south Texas resort town. ...

The South Padre Island convention center started pitching in Monday when its neighbor, Sea Turtle Inc, could no longer handle the number of sea turtles being dropped off, and their mostly outdoor operation had lost power. He said the convention center itself didn’t have power or water till early Wednesday morning.

He says they have “collected” more than 3,500 sea turtles so far. He said he hesitates to use the word rescued because “we know we’re going to lose some”.

Caum said that with another cold front approaching, they don’t know when they will be able to return the sea turtles to the water.

Also of Interest

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

Assange defence mulls cross-appeal of January verdict, partner says

Newly released documents shed light on 1983 nuclear war scare with Soviets

Iran’s Khamenei Wants to See ‘Action’ From Biden to Revive Nuclear Deal

Biden makes long-awaited call to Israel's Netanyahu

Global Coup d’État: Mapping the Corporate Takeover of Global Governance

Taxes on the Rich: One-Sixth of What They Used to Be

Prisons Are Skimming Big Chunks of CARES Act Stimulus Checks

GameStop Hearing Gets a Surprise Witness from Deeply Conflicted Cato Institute

Humour over rumour? The world can learn a lot from Taiwan’s approach to fake news

Revealed: chemicals giant sold Louisiana plant amid fears over cost of offsetting toxic emissions

Music and Black America’s Continuous Struggle for Freedom

Pharaoh killed in 'execution ceremony', hi-tech study concludes

Million-year-old mammoth genomes set record for ancient DNA

Saagar Enjeti: NYT FREAKS About 'Unfettered Conversations' They CANNOT Control

Keith Gill delivers his testimony at GameStop hearing: 'I like the stock'

Pedro Gonzalez: The CONSERVATIVE case for 15 dollar minimum wage

Rising: How Will Dems Deal With Filibuster On Infrastructure Package?

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Rushing - Sent For You Yesterday

Count Basie w Jimmy Rushing - Harvard Blues

Count Basie w Jimmy Rushing - Blue Skies

Johnny Otis Orchestra with Jimmy Rushing - Jimmy's Round the Clock Blues

Jimmy Rushing - Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You?

Jimmy Rushing and Billy Taylor - Boogie Woogie

Count Basie w Jimmy Rushing - Rusty Dusty Blues

Jimmy Rushing - I Left My Baby

Jimmy Rushing & Count Basie - Don't You Want A Man Like Me?

Muddy Waters & Jimmy Rushing - Mean Mistreater/Going to Chicago