Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer and songwriter Ervin Rucker aka Ervin Groves, Big Boy Groves and Big Daddy Rucker. Enjoy!

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

-- Bertrand Russell

News and Opinion

US and Iran aim for final round of talks on reviving nuclear deal

US and Iranian negotiators are are aiming for a final round of talks in Vienna next week on the terms for Washington’s re-entry to the nuclear deal, the Iranian chief negotiator has said, implying a deal is possible before the Iranian presidential election in June. The delegations, meeting in Vienna in a fourth round of talks, agreed on Wednesday to return to national capitals to receive final instructions on the remaining red lines before a definitive round of talks starting on Tuesday.

“I think good headway has been made with the talks over the past two weeks. A few key issues have remained, and they need further consideration, and decisions should be made about those issues in the capitals,” said Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s chief negotiator. The EU negotiator Enrique Mora said he was confident a deal would be reached, but diplomats deeply involved in the talks cautioned that some heavy lifting remained.

The talks are focused on three main issues: the precise sanctions the US is prepared to lift; the time Iran is allowed to reverse its steps away from the deal; and how to handle the knowledge Iran has acquired in the many months in which it has not been in full compliance with the deal, including its enrichment of uranium to 60% purity.

The US is prepared to lift some sanctions on Iranian government entities but says those imposed on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) do not relate to nuclear non-proliferation, predate the 2015 nuclear deal and therefore must remain. Continued sanctions on the IRGC would be hard for Tehran to swallow, even if they did not in themselves slow the recovery of the Iranian economy. ...

The talks are playing into a fevered political atmosphere in Tehran before the 18 June elections, with conservative candidates – always sceptical of the 2015 deal with the US – accused by Rouhani of being keen to see the talks fail. Reformists, anxious to vindicate their original decision to sign the deal, are eager to see it revived and to possibly boost their thin election chances.

Gideon Levy & Noura Erakat on Israel’s Gaza Assault, U.S. Complicity and Ending the Occupation

US calls on Israel to ‘de-escalate’ Gaza violence in push for ceasefire

Joe Biden has told Benjamin Netanyahu that he expects “a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire” between Israel and militants in Gaza, in a notable toughening of the US president’s language on the conflict.

The White House said that in a phone call on Wednesday, “the two leaders had a detailed discussion on the state of events in Gaza, Israel’s progress in degrading the capabilities of Hamas and other terrorist elements, and ongoing diplomatic efforts by regional governments and the United States.”

It added: “The president conveyed to the prime minister that he expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire.”

But in a statement issued swiftly after the White House disclosed the call, Netanyahu said he was “determined to continue this operation until its objective is achieved: to restore quiet and security to you, citizens of Israel”.

He added that he “appreciate[d] the support of our friend, US President Joe Biden, for the state of Israel’s right to self-defence”.

Angela Davis & Noura Erakat on Palestinian Solidarity, Gaza & Israel’s Killing of Ahmad Erekat

Blocking 'Destructive' GOP Resolution on Israel, Sanders Offers Alternative Measure Urging Cease-Fire

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that he is "determined" to continue an assault of the besieged Gaza Strip that has left over 200 Palestinians dead, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blocked what he called a "destructive" Republican resolution affirming support for Israel—then offered an alternative.

Echoing his recent opinion piece for the New York Times, the resolution (pdf) from Sanders (I-Vt.) says that "every Palestinian life matters" and "every Israeli life matters."

The resolution goes on to say that the Senate "urges an immediate cease-fire" to prevent additional deaths and "further escalation of conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories."

Sanders' resolution adds that the Senate supports diplomatic efforts "to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," uphold international law, and protect human rights.

Unlike the GOP resolution, Sanders said on the Senate floor, "mine is short and to the point." He read the full resolution and named his 10 Democratic co-sponsors.

Sanders noted that leaders around the world have called for a cease-fire, from the United Nations secretary-general to the pope. He also pointed out that Gaza has endured a devastating blockade by Israel and Egypt since 2007 and the current Israeli assault "has only made a bad situation much, much worse." ...

The proposal from Sanders stands in stark contrast to the GOP resolution (pdf) led by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), which says that the "United States supports Israel, our greatest ally in the region, and its right to defend itself against terrorist attacks."

Though Israel's air defenses have blocked the majority of rockets that Palestinian militant groups have fired from Gaza since last week, some Israelis have been killed. Reuters reports that "Israeli authorities put the death toll at 12 in Israel."

The Republican resolution notes the U.S. government designated the Palestinian group Hamas a terrorist organization over two decades ago, adding that "since Israel's founding in 1948, Congress has repeatedly expressed our nation's unwavering commitment to the security of Israel."

Sanders highlighted that Scott's resolution only "mourns" the loss of Israeli lives, ignoring the scores of recent Palestinians deaths. The loss of 12 Israeli lives, said Sanders, "is in fact a tragedy—but what about the loss of 227 Palestinian lives, including 64 children and 38 women?"

"Does Sen. Scott not believe that the loss of those Palestinian lives... [is] a tragedy?" he asked. "I believe that we should be mourning the loss of Israeli life but we should also be mourning the loss of Palestinian lives—or perhaps some people think Palestinian lives don't matter. I would hope not."

Scott objected to the adoption of Sanders' resolution by unanimous consent but claimed that "no one in this body supports the loss of innocent life." He also declared that "today is a sad day" for the Senate and accused Democrats—with whom Sanders caucuses—of abandoning Israel to support a terrorist organization.

Pressure for MidEast CEASEFIRE amid CHAOS In Congress Over Bernie-Israel Standoff

Ocasio-Cortez Unveils Resolution to Block Biden's $735 Million Weapons Sale to Israel

With time running out to act, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday introduced a resolution aimed at blocking the Biden administration's proposed sale of $735 million in advanced weaponry to the Israeli government as it continues its deadly assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.

The new resolution (pdf)—which Ocasio-Cortez introduced alongside Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.)—came just ahead of the May 20 deadline for congressional action on a weapons deal that would send Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs to the government of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"For decades, the U.S. has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Israel without ever requiring them to respect basic Palestinian rights," Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. "In so doing, we have directly contributed to the death, displacement, and disenfranchisement of millions."

"At a time when so many, including President [Joe] Biden, support a cease-fire, we should not be sending 'direct attack' weaponry to Prime Minister Netanyahu to prolong this violence," the New York Democrat added.

The Biden administration first notified Congress of the proposed weapons sale on May 5, just days before Israel began its latest deadly bombardment of Gaza. Under current law, the House has just 15 days to object to the weapons sale with a resolution of disapproval.

But in a press release on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez's office noted that "after that time period has lapsed, Congress can still block or modify any sale up to the point of delivery."

Additionally, as Jewish Currents contributing writer Alex Kane pointed out, "if a senator introduced a resolution [of disapproval] before the end of May 20th, the bill would be required to get a vote in the Senate."

Former NYTimes Journo Approves Killing Children

Glenn Greenwald - worth a click and a full read.

Biden, Reversing Trump, Permits a Key Putin Goal: a New Russian Natural Gas Pipeline to Germany

That the Kremlin had taken over American political institutions through its blackmail control of former President Donald Trump was a media conspiracy theory as pervasive as it was deranged. This once-exciting script was excavated from the CIA’s Cold War basement, dusted off by their operatives, and then kicked off by the intelligence community’s purposeful dissemination of the now-debunked Steele Dossier. And once this fairy tale was launched, there were seemingly no limits on the depths to which media figures would sink to promote it.

Journalists published best-selling books and column after column hyping this melodrama of international intrigue. In what was just one of many low points, MSNBC’s host Chris Hayes earnestly interviewed New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait about the latter’s 2018 cover story speculating that Trump may have been groomed as a Russian intelligence asset since 1987. “Unlikely but possible” declared the on-screen cable graphic as Hayes spoke, summarizing the media’s Trump-era renunciation of all standards of rationality and evidence for disseminating unhinged conspiracies to their audience, at great profit for themselves but great harm to everything and everyone else.

In the world of reality, the exact opposite was happening. When it came to actual vital Russian interests — as opposed to the symbolic gestures hyped by the liberal cable and op-ed page circus — Trump and his administration were confronting and undermining the Kremlin in ways Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had, to his credit, steadfastly refused to do. ... Trump found one thing even more threatening to the Kremlin’s vital interests than arming Ukrainians: namely, doing everything possible to destroy Russia’s ability to complete construction of its new underwater natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2. That new pipeline is designed to double Russian sales capacity to an EU addicted to cheap Russian natural gas, producing massive revenue for the Russian economy and giving Moscow greater leverage when dealing with its European neighbors. But it provides an even more important benefit: it allows Russia to bypass Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, thus avoiding costly transit fees and the risks of political instability or anti-Russian manipulation by outside forces, including the U.S. government.

For all those reasons, few priorities were more important to Putin and the Russian economy than this new pipeline. Yet for at least the last two years of his presidency, Trump — even as he was shrilly depicted as an agent of the Kremlin — was obsessed with stopping the Russian pipeline and thus sabotaging Putin’s key geopolitical project. ... Any minimally rational or honest media would have taken note of these events and instantly realized that their years-long conspiracy theory about Trump being controlled by Putin was sophomoric nonsense, the opposite of the truth. That a Putin-controlled Russian asset would send lethal arms to Ukraine and do everything possible to sabotage Nord Stream 2 is so blatantly absurd that it could be ratified only by a media aggressively committed to spreading disinformation and lies.

All of this became even clearer on Tuesday when President Biden reversed Trump’s blockage of the Russian natural gas pipeline. Axios' Jonathan Swan reported that “the Biden administration will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO overseeing the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany,” which “indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline.” Swan wrote what is clearly true: “the completion of Nord Stream 2 would be a huge geopolitical win for Putin and give him substantial new leverage in Europe.” This “huge geopolitical win for Putin” is exactly what the Kremlin’s alleged asset in the White House spent years preventing and which Biden is now handing over. ...

Just imagine what would be happening right now if it were Trump, rather than Biden, who just handed Putin his underwater natural gas pipeline just days after Russian hackers allegedly caused serious gas shortages in the U.S. Jingoistic op-eds would fill the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post warning of Kremlin control of the U.S.; CNN and MSNBC would convene panel after panel of their former FBI and CIA operatives to accuse Trump of treason for subordinating U.S. interests to Russian interests; Rachel Maddow would be on the verge of righteous and indignant tears as she devoted her 20-minute monologue to decrying the tragedy that we were all living under Putin’s rule; and Nancy Pelosi would be holding a press conference to spread more innuendo about Putin’s blackmail control over Trump while demanding a DOJ investigation. None of that, needless to say, will happen now. Indeed, just hours after Swan reported this sanctions waiver, reporters giggled and swooned after Biden joked about running them all over in his car as a condition to answering their questions about the war in Gaza, then giggled and swooned even more when he floored the car and drove away from them.

Ex-Farc leader killed in Venezuela by Colombian troops, rebel group says

One of the most prominent commanders of a group of Colombia’s former Farc rebels who reject a 2016 peace accord, has been killed in Venezuela in an operation by Colombia’s military, according to his new armed group. Seuxis Hernández, known by his nom de guerre of Jesús Santrich, was one of the chief negotiators for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in peace talks with the Colombian government. But he gave up on the peace deal less than two years following its signing after he was indicted in the US for alleged cocaine trafficking.

In a statement posted on its website, Santrich’s new rebel group, the Second Marquetalia Movement, said the 53-year-old insurgent was killed on Monday by a Colombian commando unit that illegally entered Venezuelan territory. After the ambush in the western Venezuelan state of Zulia, the troops cut off Santrich’s little finger before returning to Colombia, the statement said.

Colombia’s government did not immediately comment on the group’s claim, which would constitute a major breach of Venezuela’s sovereignty and heighten tensions with Nicolás Maduro’s government. There also was no comment from the Venezuelan government. Colombia’s defense minister, Diego Molano, said the government was trying to confirm reports that Santrich had been killed in a battle between dissident factions.

Several other versions of Santrich’s death were published by Colombian media, including one account that said he was killed by mercenaries trying to claim a $10m reward offered by the US.

Sanders Introduces Bill to Audit the Pentagon

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders on Wednesday introduced the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2021, which would require the Department of Defense to do starting in 2022 something unprecedented in its history: pass a full independent audit.

"The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable," the Vermont Independent said Wednesday in a statement.

"If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively, we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has not passed an independent audit," he added. "The time is long overdue for Congress to hold the Defense Department to the same level of accountability as the rest of the government. That is the very least we can do."

Federal agencies have been mandated by Congress to comply with annual audits by the Government Accountability Office since 1990.

Under the bill (pdf)—which is co-sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) and comes one week after Sanders led a hearing on waste and fraud at the Pentagon—each branch of the military and office of the DOD that fails an independent audit would return 1% of its annual budget to the Treasury.

That could amount to a substantial sum of money, given that the Pentagon receives hundreds of billions of dollars in funding each year despite ample evidence of its widespread accounting abuses. Last month, President Joe Biden proposed a $715 billion budget for the Pentagon for fiscal year 2021—an increase from the current $704 billion level approved by Congress under former President Donald Trump.

Since then, Biden has faced backlash from progressives who have called for reallocating a portion of those funds in order to better meet social needs rather than further pad defense contractors' bottom lines.

As Sanders' office noted, the Defense Department remains the only federal agency in the U.S. that has been unable to pass an independent audit, despite the fact that the Pentagon gobbles up more than half of the nation's discretionary budget and controls assets in excess of $3.1 trillion, or roughly 78% of the entire federal government.

New York attorney general opens criminal investigation into Trump Organization

Donald Trump is facing growing legal danger after the attorney general’s office in New York said it had opened a criminal investigation into his business activities and those of other Trump family members.

The attorney general, Letitia James, had been conducting a civil inquiry into the Trump Organization. On Tuesday night, her office said it was joining a sweeping criminal investigation being conducted in parallel by Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance.

The move – communicated in a recent letter from James to the Trump Organization – significantly raises the stakes for the former Republican president, who now faces three separate criminal investigations.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation … is no longer purely civil in nature,” James’s office said. “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA. We have no additional comment at this time.”

Trump is accused of falsely manipulating the value of Trump Organization properties in order to secure bank loans and lucrative tax breaks.

It turns out that when restaurants say, "Nobody wants to work," what they actually mean is, "Nobody wants to work for the starvation wages we are willing to pay them.”

Here's why workers are demanding more than just enough to scrape by. pic.twitter.com/d2xBvQfDna

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 19, 2021

Texas governor signs extreme six-week abortion ban into law

The Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott has signed into law one of the most extreme six-week abortion bans in the US, despite strong opposition from the medical and legal communities, who warn the legislation could topple the state’s court system and already fragile reproductive healthcare network.

“This bill ensures that every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion,” said Abbott, flanked by several members of the Texas legislature this morning.

Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), passed by both chambers of the Republican-dominated Texas legislature, bars abortion at six weeks of pregnancy with no exception for rape or incest, amounting to a near-total ban as most women are not aware they are pregnant at this stage. While a dozen states have passed similar so-called “heartbeat” bills – bans on abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected – none have yet been enforced due to court challenges.

Unlike those measures, the Texas version absolves the state from enforcing the law. Instead it allows any private citizen the extraordinary authority to sue an abortion provider – they do not need to be connected to the patient or even reside in the same state, opening up the floodgates to harassing and frivolous civil lawsuits that could shut down clinics statewide.

In fact, any individual can sue anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care or someone who “intends” to help an abortion patient, a breathtakingly wide range of possible people and groups. While those who sue can collect a minimum of $10,000 if they are successful, those unjustly sued cannot recover legal fees. The anti-abortion law’s private enforcement provision is the first of its kind in the country.

Citizen: crime app falsely accused a homeless man of starting a wildfire

The vigilante crime app Citizen falsely accused a California man of starting a wildfire, offering a $30,000 reward to track him down before retracting the post the next day, in a move that has been condemned by criminal justice experts.

The app – which gives users local crime information via police scanners and other sources – shared an alert on Saturday about an alleged arsonist behind a large brush fire that broke out in Los Angeles over the weekend. The suspect, who is homeless, was briefly detained by officials who ultimately found there was not enough evidence to tie him to the crime, the Los Angeles fire department confirmed to the Guardian. A different suspect has since been arrested.

But that was not before the falsely accused man had his name and image widely shared. The alert sent by Citizen contained a photo and was seen by more than 861,000 people. It read: “Citizen is offering a $30,000 reward to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of the arson suspect.”

Jim Braden, a sheriff who questioned the falsely-accused man, called Citizen’s actions “potentially disastrous”. The photo of the falsely accused suspect remained on Citizen for more than 15 hours. Apps like Citizen have been accused by privacy advocates of inciting mob mentalities and exacerbating existing biases in communities. Experts say Monday’s incident underscores the risk of false accusations going viral when justice is taken into the hands of private companies.

‘I’m scared!’: body-cam video shows deadly arrest of Black man in Louisiana

Louisiana state troopers were captured on body-camera video stunning, punching and dragging a Black man as he apologized for leading them on a high-speed chase – footage of the man’s last moments alive that the Associated Press obtained after authorities refused to release it for two years. “I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Ronald Greene can be heard telling the white troopers as the unarmed man is jolted repeatedly with a stun gun before he even gets out of his car along a dark, rural road.

The 2019 arrest outside Monroe, Louisiana, is the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. But unlike other in-custody deaths across the nation where body-camera video was released almost immediately, Greene’s case has been shrouded in secrecy and accusations of a cover-up. Louisiana officials have rebuffed repeated calls to release footage and details about what caused the 49-year-old’s death. Troopers initially told Greene’s family he died on impact after crashing into a tree during the chase. Later, state police released a one-page statement acknowledging only that Greene struggled with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.

The 46-minute clip shows one trooper wrestling Greene to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face while another can be heard calling him a “stupid motherfucker”. Greene wails “I’m sorry!” as another trooper delivers another stun gun shock to his backside. Another trooper can be seen briefly dragging the man face down after his legs had been shackled and his hands cuffed behind him.

Instead of rendering aid, the troopers leave the man unattended, face down and moaning for more than nine minutes, as they use sanitizer wipes to wash blood off their hands and faces.

After a several-minute stretch in which Greene is not seen on camera, he appears again, limp, unresponsive and bleeding from his head and face. He is then loaded on to an ambulance gurney, his arm cuffed to the bedrail. “They murdered him. It was set out, it was planned,“ Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, said on Wednesday. “He didn’t have a chance. Ronnie didn’t have a chance. He wasn’t going to live to tell about it.”

‘I am seeking justice’: Tulsa massacre survivor, 107, testifies to US Congress

For nearly a century she was denied a voice by a culture of silence. Finally, at the age of 107, Viola Fletcher got a national stage on Wednesday to bear witness to America’s deep history of racial violence. Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of a massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921 when a white mob attacked the city’s “Black Wall Street”, killing an estimated 300 African Americans while robbing and burning more than 1,200 businesses, homes and churches. She was just seven years old at the time.

For decades the atrocity was actively covered up and wished away. But Fletcher and her 100-year-old brother are seeking reparations and, ahead of the massacre’s centenary, appeared before a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies. ...

“I am here seeking justice,” Fletcher said. “I am here asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921.” She recalled how the Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa had once been a thriving and affluent African American community where she could have lived her own American dream. But this bright future was suddenly taken away. “The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family. My parents and five siblings were there. I was told we had to leave and that was it.

“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day.” ...

Fletcher continued: “Our country may forget this history but I cannot. I will not and other survivors do not and our descendants do not. When my family was forced to leave Tulsa, I lost my chance of an education. I never finished school past the fourth grade. I have never made much money. My country, state and city took a lot from me. Despite this, I spent time supporting the war effort in the shipyards of California. But most of my life, I was a domestic worker serving white families. I never made much money. To this day, I can barely afford my everyday needs.” ...

Fletcher asked that the country acknowledge her experience and give the survivors a chance to seek justice. “I believe we must acknowledge America’s sins,” she said. “It is the least we can do.”

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner Trounces Police-Backed Primary Challenger

Four years into his experiment with reforming Philadelphia’s criminal justice system, Larry Krasner overwhelmingly won his primary race for reelection to the office of district attorney on Tuesday. With 74 percent of votes counted, Krasner led his Democratic primary challenger Carlos Vega 65 percent to 35 percent, according to the Associated Press. Vega conceded the race shortly before midnight on Tuesday, and Krasner is all but assured victory in the November general election.

“We in this movement for criminal justice reform just won a big one,” Krasner said in a victory speech. “Four years ago, we promised reform, and a focus on serious crime. People believed what were, at that point, ideas. Promises. And they voted us into office with a mandate. We kept those promises. They saw what we did. And they put us back in office because of what we’ve done.”

Vega, a former homicide prosecutor who was one of 31 staffers Krasner fired during his first week as district attorney, had run a campaign attacking Krasner’s policies as soft on crime and was boosted by one of the largest expenditures from the city’s police union in more than a decade.

Though he said his campaign was not pro-police, Vega campaigned with Philadelphia’s FOP Lodge 5, a local chapter of the Fraternal Order of the Police, the largest police union in the country. The police union gave more than $100,000 to Protect Our Police PAC, a political action committee that launched last year to push Krasner out of office. Vega and POP PAC tried to distance themselves from each other throughout the race: POP PAC claimed it wasn’t supporting Vega but ran a video encouraging Republican voters to switch their registration to vote in the Democratic primary against Krasner. Vega renounced POP PAC after the group sent a fundraising email blaming George Floyd for his own death. The group spent $45,000 on TV ads attacking Krasner in the final month of the race.

INSIDE Super PAC War Against Nina Turner

Chuck Schumer Rejects Joe Manchin’s Voting Rights Strategy

Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin are locked in a voting rights standoff. Senate Majority Leader Schumer, D-N.Y., shot down an effort from Sens. Manchin, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to focus narrowly on reauthorizing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, instead championing the For the People Act as the more immediate fix for systemic problems in the U.S. electoral system.

For the uninitiated: The For the People Act, also known as H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate, would amount to a sweeping overhaul of election and campaign finance law; the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, or H.R. 4, would work to re-implement Justice Department oversight of voting laws in states that have a history of voter suppression and discrimination.

Schumer dismissed the Manchin gambit in unusually blunt terms. “Here’s the bottom line: … The Voting Rights Act is actually authorized until 2032, so their letter to us saying authorize it, well, it’s pretty much done,” Schumer told reporters during a press conference Tuesday. ... Schumer’s argument against concentrating on reauthorization is that, while good, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is in no way a substitute for H.R. 1. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act’s long and legally circuitous timeline would also mean that it would do nothing about the voting rights laws being pushed in Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and Florida. H.R. 1, however, would directly override those new laws, along with the others implemented since Roberts cleared the way.

Is Yang DROPPING In Polls Because Of Israel Comments?

The numbers are grim. Republicans are winning at normalizing voter suppression

Voter suppression has been around for as long as the republic. Stories of subterfuge and ballot box-stuffing schemes are such a part of American political folklore, there’s an entire book about them. So in one sense, there is nothing particularly novel about Republican politicians’ efforts to rig the vote, or the important revelations that rightwing groups and corporate officials are coordinating state-level campaigns to make it harder to vote.

However, a new nugget of polling data illustrates that something more fundamental has happened: voter suppression is no longer a plot engineered in the shadows and denied in public, for fear of criticism by a population that considers such measures grotesque. Instead, voter suppression is having its coming-out party – because more and more Americans now consider it to be a perfectly legitimate and even laudable campaign tactic.

The data point comes in a new CBS/YouGov survey, buried under the topline finding that almost two-thirds of Republican voters do not consider Joe Biden the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, despite Biden’s electoral college and popular vote victories. Further down in the survey, pollsters asked GOP voters whether in advance of the 2022 election, they would advise Republican leaders to “tell the public about popular policies and ideas” or instead “push for changes to voting rules”, on the basis that Republicans “will win once those changes are in place”.

Nearly half of Republicans surveyed supported the latter move, with the strongest demographics in support being female Republicans, non-white Republicans and white Republicans with no college degree. This wouldn’t be so profound if this were a survey only of cynical, campaign-hardened GOP consultants. But here we see that a near-majority of rank-and-file Republican voters have internalized the soulless cynicism of their party’s political class.

In the same way so many Democratic voters have become calculated TV pundits who decide whether something is good policy based only on how they perceive it will supposedly play with moderate voters, many Republican voters have become dead-eyed operatives who actively support voter suppression regardless of how it might conflict with their party’s bromides about freedom and democracy.

Climate change could make overwinter ‘zombie’ fires more common

In the boreal forests of the far northern hemisphere, where the climate is warming faster than almost anywhere else, some wildfires are surviving winter snows and picking up again in spring. Now scientists from the Netherlands and Alaska have figured out how to calculate the scope of those “zombie fires” that smoulder year-round in the peaty soil.

The study, published in the journal Nature, found that overwintering fires are still relatively rare in boreal forests: between 2002 and 2018 they were responsible for just 0.8% of the total burned area. But this varied dramatically depending on the warmth of the summers, the authors found, with the number rising to 38% of burn area one year.

This suggests potentially more overwintering fires as the climate warms, landscapes dry out and summertime blazes become increasingly ferocious, the researchers said. “We know that fires can start in the fire season by lightning and humans. Now we can have another cause of burned area. If it happens near a fire scar from the year before, early in the season, and there’s no lightning and it’s not human, then it’s an overwinter fire,” said Sander Veraverbeke, a landscape ecologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and co-author of the study.

“I think a general perception of people when they think about forest fires, they think about trees burning,” he said. “But in these areas in the high north, in the boreal forest, about 90% of the carbon that is emitted comes from the soil.”

Biden EPA Admits Faulty Glyphosate Review Under Trump But Still Won't Take It Off US Market

The Center for Food Safety on Wednesday denounced the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency for arguing that Roundup should remain on U.S. shelves for an undisclosed period of time even after admitting that the Trump-era review of glyphosate—the key ingredient found in Roundup, the world's most widely used herbicide—was flawed and requires a do-over.

In its federal court filing (pdf) requesting to redo the Trump administration's faulty assessment of glyphosate, the EPA failed to provide a deadline for a new decision; instead, the agency maintained that Roundup—created by agrochemical giant Monsanto, which was acquired in 2018 by the German pharmaceutical and biotech company Bayer—should stay on the market in the meantime.

The EPA's request comes as it faces two lawsuits, including one brought by a coalition of farmworkers and environmentalists represented by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), that seek to reverse the Trump EPA's approval of glyphosate, a decision that was made despite evidence that the substance—described by the World Health Organization as "probably carcinogenic"—poses threats to human health and to pollinators such as bumblebees and monarch butterflies. 

"Rather than defend its prior decision, at the 11th hour EPA is asking for a mulligan and indefinite delay, despite having previously spent far too long, over a decade, in re-assessing it," CFS legal director George Kimbrell said Wednesday in a statement. "Worse, EPA admits its approval risks harms to farmers and endangered species, but makes no effort to halt it."

Wow, worse than covid for cicadas:

Some cicadas infected with psychedelic fungus that causes mating frenzy

As billions of Brood X cicadas emerge from the dirt for the first time in 17 years, a fungus is making these bugs want to mate more than usual. The Massospora cicadina, laced with the same chemical as psychedelic mushrooms, infects a small number of the periodical cicadas and takes over their bodies. Besides making the bugs eat away their insides, the fungus also increases their sex drives.

“The fungus lies dormant in the soil until the cicada comes up,” Matt Kasson, an associate professor of forest pathology and mycology at West Virginia University, said. “It recognizes a hormonal signal from the cicada itself.”

The male Brood X cicadas usually attract a mate by singing loud songs, which is the buzzing sound usually heard in the spring. Meanwhile, the female cicadas flick their wings as a response to these songs. However, if the Massospora is ingested, the male cicada will both sing and flick his wings, pretending to be a female, making it easier to attract more partners and spread the fungus. Since the fungus causes castration in male cicadas and replaces their abdomen with fungal mass, there’s no successful mating.

Also of Interest

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

Israel Is Wiping Out Entire Palestinian Families on Purpose

Google Employees Call on Company to Cut Ties to Israeli Military

Israel’s War Against Press Turns More Literal

Israel-Gaza conflict: Israeli security cabinet meets to discuss ceasefire

Colombia’s class war turns hot on the streets of Cali - Poor and indigenous protesters have been met with deadly force by armed civilians and police representing interests of the wealthy

State Campaigns to Outlaw Abortion Barely Mentioned by Major Outlets

PRO Act Holdout Mark Kelly Served on Gig and Restaurant Company Boards

Keiser Report | Send Gasoline!

An Indictment of US Covid Policy

Scientists launch tool to detect bleaching of coral reefs in near real time

Acid test: scientists show how LSD opens doors of perception

Rising: Cuomo CAUGHT Getting Special COVID Tests For Lobbyists

A Little Night Music

Ervin Rucker - She's Alright

Ervin Rucker - Done Done The Slop

Ervin Rucker - So Good

Ervin Rucker and His Blues Nighthawks - Two People In Love

Ervin Rucker - Hideout

Ervin Rucker and His Blues Nighthawks - I Want To Do It

Ervin Rucker - Kids Together

Ervin Rucker & His Blue Nighthawk Orchestra - No More Rivers To Cross

Ervin "Big Boy" Groves - Big Boy's Bounce

Ervin "Big Boy" Groves - You Can't Beat The Horses

Big Daddy Rucker - Just Do Your Thing