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“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory.

The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control.

The world is rudderless.”

-- Alan Moore

News and Opinion

Edward Snowden, worth a click and a full read:

Why do conspiracy theories flourish? Because the truth is too hard to handle

The greatest conspiracies are open and notorious – not theories, but practices expressed through law and policy, technology and finance. Counterintuitively, these conspiracies are more often than not announced in public and with a modicum of pride. They’re dutifully reported in our newspapers; they’re bannered on to the covers of our magazines; updates on their progress are scrolled across our screens – all with such regularity as to render us unable to relate the banality of their methods to the rapacity of their ambitions. The party in power wants to redraw district lines. The prime interest rate has changed. A free service has been created to host our personal files. These conspiracies order, and disorder, our lives; and yet they can’t compete for attention with digital graffiti about pedophile satanists in the basement of a DC pizzeria.

This, in sum, is our problem: the truest conspiracies meet with the least opposition. Or to put it another way, conspiracy practices – the methods by which true conspiracies such as gerrymandering, or the debt industry, or mass surveillance are realized – are almost always overshadowed by conspiracy theories: those malevolent falsehoods that in aggregate can erode civic confidence in the existence of anything certain or verifiable. ... It took years – eight years and counting in exile – for me to realize that I was missing the point: we talk about conspiracy theories in order to avoid talking about conspiracy practices, which are often too daunting, too threatening, too total.

I’ll begin by offering a fundamental proposition: namely, that to believe in any conspiracy, whether true or false, is to believe in a system or sector run not by popular consent but by an elite, acting in its own self-interest. Call this elite the Deep State, or the Swamp; call it the Illuminati, or Opus Dei, or the Jews, or merely call it the major banking institutions and the Federal Reserve – the point is, a conspiracy is an inherently antidemocratic force.

The recognition of a conspiracy – again, whether true or false – entails accepting that not only are things other than what they seem, but they are systematized, regulated, intentional and even logical. It’s only by treating conspiracies not as “plans” or “schemes” but as mechanisms for ordering the disordered that we can hope to understand how they have so radically displaced the concepts of “rights” and “freedoms” as the fundamental signifiers of democratic citizenship. ...

Ultimately, the only truly honest taxonomical approach to conspiracy-thinking that I can come up with is something of an inversion: the idea that conspiracies themselves are a taxonomy, a method by which democracies especially sort themselves into parties and tribes, a typology through which people who lack definite or satisfactory narratives as citizens explain to themselves their immiseration, their disfranchisement, their lack of power, and even their lack of will.

Court rejects attempt to reopen investigation into Yasser Arafat’s death

The widow and daughter of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have lost an attempt to reopen an investigation into his death in 2004. Suha El Kodwa Arafat and Zahwa El Kodwa Arafat, who are both French nationals, filed a criminal complaint to the European court of human rights that claimed Arafat had been the victim of premeditated murder. They had appealed to the ECHR after unsuccessful lawsuits in French courts.

In a ruling issued on Thursday, the ECHR said there had been no infringement of the right to a fair hearing and the complaint was “manifestly ill-founded”. The court unanimously declared the complaint inadmissible.

Arafat died on 11 November 2004 in the Percy military hospital near Paris, to which he had been flown from the ruins of the Muqata, the presidential palace in Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territories. His cause of death was given as a stroke caused by a blood disorder, but the lack of a clear diagnosis fuelled speculation among his supporters that he had been poisoned by Israel. Israel has always denied any part in his death.

Arafat, who was the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, survivor of multiple assassination plots, and a hero to millions of Arabs for his support for armed struggle against Israel, died at the age of 75. ... In 2011, Suha handed over some of Arafat’s personal effects from his deathbed to a reporter from Al Jazeera who passed them to the Institute of Applied Radiophysics in Lausanne for tests. In March 2012, the Swiss institute concluded that there was evidence of polonium-210 poisoning.

The French authorities opened an investigation, and Arafat’s body – interred in the Muqata in Ramallah – was exhumed for tests by French, Swiss and Russian forensic experts. Their official report said exposure to polonium-210 could not be confirmed.

Nuclear Weapon Skeptics Face Turbulent Path to Rein In the Pentagon

The Pentagon is hell-bent on securing funds to develop a brand new suite of nuclear weapons to replace its Cold War-era arsenal, with the federal government projecting expenditures of $190 billion through 2030 to modernize powerful missiles, warheads, bombers, and submarines originally conceived at the height of a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. The few Democrats who stand opposed to the nuclear spending frenzy have so far struggled to drum up support with their colleagues on Capitol Hill.

“The support of the nuclear triad is embedded in the minds of Congress,” warned Rep. John Garamendi, a moderate Democrat from California who chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness. “Very, very few are willing to question, let alone vote to reduce, or to address, or to modify, or to even say, ‘Do we really need a nuclear triad?’ There are very few of us that would be willing to take up that argument. However, I believe we must.”

Resistance to the Pentagon’s current plans has been loudest in the House of Representatives, thanks to legislators like Garamendi and Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash.; Mark Pocan, D-Wis.; Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Of the myriad nuclear modernization programs underway, they have been most outspoken about the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD, intercontinental ballistic missile system and the Long-Range Standoff, or LRSO, nuclear-armed cruise missile. Garamendi and his colleagues have raised concerns about inflated prices for these weapons since the government is awarding contracts for both on a sole-sourced basis. ...

The nuclear weapon skeptics face an uphill battle to rein in these plans, as they diverge on whether to prioritize reducing quantities, pausing development of new weapons, or abandoning portions of the military’s nuclear deterrence forces altogether. They also have a shortened time span to rally votes after a delayed budget proposal from the White House expedited this year’s appropriations process, and their task is made only more difficult due to fearmongering about China. ...

The group publicly questioning the status quo of nuclear weapons development remains small, but Pocan is optimistic that they can attract more after 93 lawmakers voted in favor of his amendment to the annual defense authorization last year to reduce the military’s budget by 10 percent. He also noted that activism may have been muted in recent years due to a 10-year sequester on the federal budget that mandated equal reductions in spending levels and that has finally ended.

War Criminal Donald Rumsfeld Is Dead

The System Isn’t There To Protect Us From Criminals, It’s To Protect Criminals From Us

Iraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld has died. Not in a prison cell in The Hague, not murdered by bombs or bullets, but peacefully in his home, surrounded by loved ones, a week and a half shy of his 89th birthday.

The imperial media are giving their fallen master a king’s tribute, with headlines describing the psychopathic war criminal as “a cunning leader“, “a man of honor and conviction“, or simply as “Former defense secretary at helm of Iraq, Afghanistan wars“.

The cancerous Washington Post, who just the other day mocked the life of the late antiwar hero Mike Gravel with an obituary branding him the “gadfly senator from Alaska with flair for the theatrical,” describes the child killer Rumsfeld as the “influential but controversial Bush defense secretary” in its headline about his death.

The New York Times wasn’t much better. Take the headline “Mike Gravel, Unconventional Two-Term Alaska Senator, Dies at 91 — He made headlines by fighting for an oil pipeline and reading the Pentagon Papers aloud. After 25 years of obscurity, he re-emerged with a quixotic presidential campaign.” Compare this to the headline “Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary During Iraq War, Is Dead at 88 —& Mr. Rumsfeld, who served four presidents, oversaw a war that many said should never have been fought. But he said the removal of Saddam Hussein had ‘created a more stable and secure world.’”

There’s been criticism as well, of course; online sentiments about Rumsfeld’s death have not been nearly as worshipful and hagiographic as they’ve been toward other disgusting war whores like John McCain. But in the end all that matters is that he lived a long, full life, without ever having faced even the slightest single consequence for the horrors he unleashed upon our world; without even so much as sustaining any meaningful damage to his reputation.

This despite the fact that it’s been public knowledge for years that Rumsfeld began orchestrating the unforgivable invasion of Iraq within hours of the 9/11 attacks and told numerous lies in order to set that invasion in motion. He also oversaw the intervention in Afghanistan which he and his Bush administration cohorts had been planning before 9/11, beginning a decades-long occupation about which the public has been pervasively lied to from the very beginning by US officials in general and by Rumsfeld in particular. (But remember kids, only crazy conspiracy theorists question the official narrative about 9/11.)

When we are little, we are taught that we live in a nation of laws, where bad guys are thrown in prison by the good guys who are in charge of things. Because our mental programming continues for the rest of our lives in the form of mass-scale propaganda designed to manufacture consent for the status quo, most of us tend to hold onto this childish model of the world to some extent throughout adulthood.

In reality, exactly zero percent of the world’s worst people are in prison, but some of the best people are. The fact that Donald Rumsfeld lived a long life of freedom while Julian Assange wastes away in Belmarsh Prison proves the world doesn’t work the way we were taught in school. The very worst bad guys are not put in prison by the good guys who run things, because the very worst bad guys are the ones who run things.

The system isn’t designed to protect us from society’s worst, it’s designed to protect society’s worst from us. It’s designed to keep us turning the gears of industry without looking around and noticing that we’re all getting fucked in the ass by an alliance of plutocrats and security state insiders who only care about power and money. It’s designed to keep us too busy and propagandized to use the power of our numbers to take back what the bastards have stolen from us, and to make sure there’s enough guns on their side to kill us all dead if we try.

Donald Rumsfeld was all the worst things about our world. He perfectly embodied the corrupt, bloodthirsty, ecocidal, omnicidal, oppressive, exploitative, deceitful status quo that is driving humanity toward extinction. The US-centralized empire is Donald Rumsfeld. It might as well have his face and his name.

Don’t let his passing fool you: Donald Rumsfeld is dead, but he is also as alive as ever. He lives on in the continued violence he helped initiate in the Middle East. In the death and destruction rained down by the US and its allies in the name of preserving a unipolar world order that none of us ever asked for. In the dying gasps of starving children under imperial blockades in Yemen and Venezuela. In the thousands of US military bases encircling our planet like a noose. In the war ships and missiles pivoting toward China in preparation for a long-anticipated confrontation which should terrify us all.

Unless we can purge from our cells everything within us that resembles Donald Rumsfeld, there is no future for Homo sapiens on this planet. We must evolve beyond everything he stood for, as individuals, as a society, and as a species, and move into a peaceful and collaborative relationship with each other and with our ecosystem.

US state department names more than 50 corrupt officials in Central America

The US state department has named more than 50 current and former officials, including former presidents and active lawmakers, suspected of corruption or undermining democracy in three Central American countries. Among the most prominent figures on the list are former Honduras president José Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa and his wife Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobo. The State Department report alleges Lobo Sosa took bribes from a drug cartel and his wife was involved in fraud and misappropriation of funds. Both deny the allegations. Bonilla’s conviction on related charges was invalidated by the supreme court last year and she is awaiting a new trial.

Perhaps as significant as Lobo Sosa’s inclusion, was the omission of the current Honduras president, Juan Orlando Hernández. US prosecutors in New York have suspected Hernández funded his political ascent with bribes from drug traffickers, but he has not been formally charged. His brother, former federal lawmaker Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was sentenced in New York in March to life in prison after he was convicted over what prosecutors described as “state-sponsored drug trafficking”.

In El Salvador, former cabinet officials, a judge and the cabinet chief for President Nayib Bukele were placed on the list. Carolina Recinos, chief of staff, was named on a shorter state department list in May, but administration officials say she has maintained her presence in the presidential offices. Thursday’s list alleges she “engaged in significant corruption by misusing public funds for personal benefit” and participated in a money laundering scheme.

Many of the allegations were known in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but the list buoyed the hopes of anti-corruption crusaders. Its release comes at a time that the Biden administration has given new attention to endemic corruption in the region as one of the factors driving Central Americans to migrate to the US.

Significantly more detail at the link:

Pressure mounts on Bolsonaro amid rising anger over vaccine corruption scandal

Jair Bolsonaro has been plunged into arguably the most treacherous moment of his presidency, as the Brazilian leader faces a snowballing scandal over allegedly corrupt Covid vaccine deals and mounting public rage over his handling of an epidemic that has killed more than half a million people.

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to return to the streets on Saturday to demand Bolsonaro’s removal from office – the third such mass demonstration in just over a month. On Wednesday a curious coalition of left- and rightwing opponents submitted a fresh petition for Bolsonaro’s impeachment after the Brazilian media published incendiary claims about supposedly dodgy dealings to acquire coronavirus vaccines.

“Now is the time to bring down Bolsonaro,” said Guilherme Boulos, a prominent leftist who signed the impeachment request and is among the organizers of this weekend’s rallies which, unusually, some rightwingers have said they will join.

Claims of sleaze involving members of Bolsonaro’s administration and Covid vaccine negotiations surfaced last Friday during a sensational hearing of the congressional inquiry investigating the government’s reaction to one of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreaks.

Luis Miranda, a rightwing lawmaker whose brother works in the health ministry, claimed they had personally alerted Bolsonaro to concerns over a 1.6bn-real (£232m) deal to import India’s Covaxin shot. Miranda alleged Bolsonaro had promised to order the federal police to act over the apparent irregularities. But police have reportedly denied being contacted and three senators have accused Bolsonaro of the crime of malfeasance. Miranda told the Covid inquiry Brazil’s president had indicated the Covaxin deal was a “scheme” involving Bolsonaro’s chief whip, Ricardo Barros.

World Health Organization warns of new pandemic wave as cases surge in Europe and US

The number of daily new cases of COVID-19 has surged over the past week in the United States, as the government eliminates all remaining restrictions on the spread of the disease even as the dangerous Delta variant becomes prevalent. In the United States, where the Delta variant has been detected in all 50 states, daily cases have turned upwards, having risen 14.8 percent compared to the previous week.

In Europe, COVID-19 cases have surged 29 percent higher than the previous week. “There will be a new wave in the WHO European region unless we remain disciplined,” warned WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge. The Delta variant of the coronavirus (B.1.617.2), which ravaged India in May, has now rapidly swept across more than 85 countries, frustrating many countries that had planned to lift restrictions and reopen their economies before the summer tourist season. Only in South America has the Gamma variant, also known as P.1, remained dominant and is ravaging the continent.

In the United States, increases have been most prominent in Southern and Western states, where vaccination rates are below the national averages, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. ... The highest case rates were in Nevada and Arkansas, with a 55 percent increase over the past seven days. Missouri and Wyoming saw almost a 20 percent rise over a week. In all, the United States reported more than 14,000 new cases and 249 deaths yesterday. There have been more than 34.5 million COVID-19 cases and over 620,000 deaths during the pandemic.

Threat to vulnerable Americans rises as Delta variant spreads

Across the country, coronavirus death rates have plummeted as more and more Americans who are eligible for the vaccine get inoculated. And research from the UK indicates that the current vaccines are effective against new variants. But even in states like California, which has one of the highest rates of per capita vaccination in the world, those who don’t want to get vaccinated, those who can’t, and those for whom the vaccines don’t provide adequate protection – remain unprotected against Delta, which researchers believe to be the most infectious variant yet. Scientists are also studying whether the variant is deadlier than others, and causes more severe infections. Epidemiologists and other public health experts worry that state and federal policies are leaving the most vulnerable behind.

The vast majority of Americans now dying of Covid-19 are unvaccinated, public health officials say. And with most Americans eligible for the vaccine, “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to Covid-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. ...

As American society adjusts back to pre-pandemic normals, “you’re seeing the multiplication of vulnerabilities,” said Cecília Tomori, an anthropologist and a public-health scholar at Johns Hopkins. The issue, she said, is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local governments, have embraced a public health strategy centered on individual responsibility. ... Surveys have indicated that the majority of unvaccinated Black and Hispanic adults have issues accessing vaccines, or getting time off work to get inoculated. Many disabled Americans who are homebound haven’t been able to get themselves to vaccination centers. And millions of people on immunosuppressive treatments, including people living with Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory conditions, those undergoing chemotherapy and recent recipients of organ transplants – may not derive protection from Covid-19 vaccines even if they get them.

Announcements doing away with indoor mask requirements in grocery stores and pharmacies and lifting social distancing requirements in public places send the message that those who aren’t able to get vaccinated are expendable, Tomori added. The result, she said, is a “survival of the fittest” mentality. “We’re creating a situation where people who are immunocompromised, who are disabled, who are elderly, and who might not have mounted a strong immune response to the vaccine are unable to access public spaces out of fear,” said Rebecca Fielding-Miller, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego. “And I don’t think that’s really good public health."

Jordan Chariton: DEEP SEATED Hatred For Establishment REVEALED By Trip Through Rural Midwest

200+ Groups to Congress: 'No Water Privatization' in Any Infrastructure Deal

In a letter to congressional leaders on Thursday, 218 organizations urged against water privatization "in all its forms" and called on federal lawmakers to enact a "bold, uncompromising infrastructure package."

The letter (pdf), sent to top Democrats and Republicans, was organized by Food & Water Watch, which has repeatedly criticized privatization provisions that the White House and members of Congress are considering for a bipartisan infrastructure deal that Democrats plan to pass alongside a broader reconciliation package.

"The U.S. is long overdue for bold federal investment in our public water systems—but the proposal on the table will not get us there," said Neil Gupta, associate research director at letter signatory Corporate Accountability.

The bipartisan infrastructure framework announced last week by President Joe Biden and centrist lawmakers, Gupta explained, "promotes privatization schemes dressed up as 'public-private partnerships' and 'asset recycling,' which create dangerous, avoidable problems and ignore people's needs."

Water privatization has failed communities across the country and must be rejected in all its forms," Gupta continued. "We need an infrastructure plan that directly invests federal dollars in communities, keeps water systems in public hands, and equitably addresses our nation's infrastructure crisis for the long haul—not more corporate handouts."

As Food & Water Watch Public Water for All director Mary Grant put it: "This White House-approved infrastructure deal would lead to communities handing over public infrastructure to Wall Street profiteers."

The letter outlines key arguments against water privatization, including that it:

• Is an incredibly expensive financing option;
• Will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills;
• Is not a viable or just solution for rural, small, or disadvantaged communities;
• Can trap communities in expensive deals; and
• Is not a solution for our nation’s water needs.

"Water privatization can increase costs, worsen service quality and allow infrastructure assets to deteriorate," the letter says. "There is ample evidence that maintenance backlogs, wasted water, sewage spills, and worse service often follow privatization."

"In fact, poor performance is the primary reason that local governments reverse the decision to privatize and resume public operation of previously contracted services," the letter adds.

Amsterdam mayor apologises for city’s past role in slave trade

The mayor of Amsterdam has apologised for former governors’ extensive involvement in the global slave trade, saying the moment had come for the city to confront its grim history.

Debate about the city’s role in the slave trade has been going on for years but has gained more attention amid the global reckoning with racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“It is time to engrave the great injustice of colonial slavery into our city’s identity. With big-hearted and unconditional recognition,” said the mayor, Femke Halsema. “Because we want to be a government for those for whom the past is painful and its legacy a burden.”

She stressed that “not a single Amsterdammer alive today is to blame for the past”.

The Dutch government has in the past expressed deep regret for the nation’s historical role in slavery, but has stopped short of a formal apology. The prime minister, Mark Rutte, said last year that such an apology could polarise society.

Company Turns To Hiring PRISON WORKERS Instead of Raising Wages, Uncovering SYSTEM FAILURE

Secret Internal Report Slammed Warden For Freezing Jail Conditions — Then He Was Promoted Anyway

A newly public internal report from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons found widespread problems at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, and faulted the federal jail’s leadership for neglect leading up to a winter 2019 crisis. The report, conducted in the aftermath of the power and heating outages during a brutal winter cold, criticized the jail’s warden for the response to the circumstances as they unfolded.

The scathing report, the contents of which were secret until now, is the more striking because the investigation was conducted months before the Bureau of Prison’s decision to promote the warden, Herman Quay, who oversaw the fiasco, to a position with even more responsibility, overseeing twice as many people as a complex warden at Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

“It speaks for itself,” said Betsy Ginsberg, a professor at Cardozo School of Law and one of the lawyers representing the class in court. “They found that the warden who was overseeing this facility allowed this to go on, and instead of taking corrective action to safeguard the lives of the people in their care, they promoted him.”

The report, compiled by a dozen BOP officials from other offices and facilities, was shared with lawyers for people incarcerated at MDC Brooklyn, who are suing as part of a class action against the jail’s administration for conditions they endured during the crisis. The so-called after-action report was initially kept under seal, but lawyers for the class persuaded the judge overseeing the case to make the fact-finding and analysis sections available to the public. The recommendations section remains redacted and secret.

Rachel Maddow "Is Not News" Says Court Ruling!

US supreme court deals blow to voting rights by upholding Arizona restrictions

The US supreme court has upheld two Arizona voting restrictions in a ruling that dealt a major blow to the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law designed to prevent voting discrimination. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices upheld Arizona statutes that prohibit anyone other than a close family member or caregiver from collecting mail-in ballots, which are widely used in the state.

The court also upheld a statute that requires officials to wholly reject votes from people who show up to cast a ballot in the wrong precinct, even if the person is otherwise entitled to vote in the state.

“Neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct rule nor its ballot-collection law violates §2 of the VRA. Arizona’s out-of-precinct rule enforces the requirement that voters who choose to vote in person on election day must do so in their assigned precincts,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a majority that included the court’s five other conservative justices, referring to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

He added: “Having to identify one’s own polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the ‘usual burdens of voting’.”

The decision means that the Arizona statutes will remain in effect and make it harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws across the US at a time when a swath of Republican-run state legislatures are pushing a wave of new voting restrictions that voting rights advocates say are aimed at suppressing the vote and especially target communities of color.

Supreme Court “Hijacking” Democracy with Rulings That Gut Voting Rights & Allow More Dark Money

On January 8, the Supreme Court quietly took a small case on its docket, @AFPhq v. Becerra. This case gives The Court That Dark Money Built the chance to further protect & conceal dark money destroying our democracy. If you care about an honest government, this is an ALARM. pic.twitter.com/h5L306qhds

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) March 3, 2021

Supreme Court Ruling Delivers 'Dark, Dark Day for Democracy'

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority on Thursday further empowered moneyed interests to manipulate elections through untraceable campaign contributions—dark money—by ruling in favor of two right-wing nonprofit groups who argued that California's donor disclosure requirement violated their First Amendment rights.

The Thomas More Law Center, a Christian legal advocacy organization, and Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a libertarian group funded by billionaire Charles Koch, challenged a California requirement that nonprofits identify their contributors in their state tax filings. The groups asserted that forcing such disclosures restricted their freedom of association.

Writing for the court's conservative majority in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (pdf), Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that "California's blanket demand" for disclosure "is facially unconstitutional."

"When it comes to the freedom of association, the protections of the First Amendment are triggered not only by actual restrictions on an individual's ability to join with others to further shared goals," Roberts wrote. "The risk of a chilling effect on association is enough."

The nonprofits were supported by an unusual array of groups including the ACLU, the libertarian Cato Institute, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, the right-wing Institute for Justice, and the NAACP.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan dissented. "Today's analysis marks reporting and disclosure requirements with a bull's-eye," wrote Sotomayor. "Regulated entities who wish to avoid their obligations can do so by vaguely waving toward First Amendment 'privacy concerns.'"

Some observers asserted that Thursday's Supreme Court ruling was the latest in a chain of decisions favoring moneyed interests at the expense of democracy in the name of the First Amendment. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the court affirmed that money in the form of unlimited campaign donations is free speech; in Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, the justices ruled that dark money is free association.

As Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) president Noah Bookbinder noted Thursday, "even in Citizens United, the Supreme Court said all that money in politics was okay because it would all be disclosed."

"But the court now says there is a right to donor privacy which, make no mistake, will mean more dark money in politics," he added. "This is bad news."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) weighed in on the ruling, tweeting that "if Citizens United opened the floodgates to corrupting political spending, then this decision breaks the levees. Today's decision further entrenches dark money's hold on our political system and policy—making by dismissing decades of legal precedent—not to mention basic common sense."

Roll Call reports that Democratic lawmakers argued in a brief led by Rep. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that the ruling shields billionaires, fossil fuel corporations, and other wealthy interests seeking to conceal their secret spending.

"We are now on a clear path to enshrining a constitutional right to anonymous spending in our democracy, and securing an upper hand for dark-money influence in perpetuity," Whitehouse said in a statement.

David Sirota: Nina Turner Fundraising PROVES Candidates Can Back Wildly Popular Ideas Like M4A

French court orders government to act on climate in next nine months

France’s top administrative court has ordered the government to take “all necessary additional steps” within the next nine months to enable it to reach its climate crisis targets or face possible sanctions, including substantial fines.

The Council of State said in a final ruling published on Thursday, with no possibility for appeal by the government, that France was not on track to meet its goal of achieving a 40% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.

“The Council of State therefore instructs the government to take additional measures between now and 31 March 2022 to hit the target,” it said.

A spokesperson said it would assess the state’s actions after the deadline, which falls days before the first round of presidential polls in which Emmanuel Macron is expected to seek re-election, and could issue a fine if it considered it necessary.

“This ruling by the Council of State is historic: for the first time in France, the state has been ordered to act for the climate,” said Damien Carême, an MEP and former mayor of the northern coastal town of Grande-Synthe, which brought the case. “I hope this will bring an end to the lethargy, hypocrisy and cynicism ... Behind the government’s fancy speeches, there is a lack of action and ambition which is putting our joint futures in danger.”

Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada

Climate scientists have said nowhere is safe from the kind of extreme heat events that have hit the western US and Canada in recent days and urged governments to dramatically ramp up their efforts to tackle the escalating climate emergency.

The devastating “heat dome” has caused temperatures to rise to almost 50C in Canada and has been linked to hundreds of deaths, melted power lines, buckled roads and wildfires.

Experts say that as the climate crisis pushes global temperatures higher, all societies – from northern Siberia to Europe, Asia to Australia – must prepare for more extreme weather events.

Sir David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “Nowhere is safe … who would have predicted a temperature of 48/49C in British Columbia?” King, who along with other leading scientists set up the Climate Crisis Advisory Group earlier this month, said scientists had been warning about extreme weather events for decades and now time was running out to take action.

“The risks have been understood and known for so long and we have not acted, now we have a very narrow timeline for us to manage the problem,” he said.

Lethal Force Against Pipeline Protests? Documents Reveal Shocking S. Dakota Plans for National Guard

Wildfires grow in northern California with smoke plumes visible from space

Hundreds of firefighters are battling in high heat against several wildfires in the forests of far northern California, where the flames have already forced many communities to evacuate. Mount Shasta, the volcano that towers over the region, was shrouded on Thursday in a haze of smoke plumes so huge they could easily be seen in images from weather satellites in space.

The scene was ominously reminiscent of last year’s California wildfire season, which scorched more than 6,562 sq miles (17,000 sq km), the most in recorded history. ...

“It is very hot and dry,” said Suzi Johnson, a Shasta-Trinity national forest spokeswoman for the Salt fire, which broke out Wednesday and quickly grew to more than 4 sq miles (10 sq km), temporarily shutting down Interstate 5. ...

The fire was a threat to homes around Shasta Lake, north of the city of Redding, more than 200 miles (322km) north of San Francisco. The huge lake is popular with vacationers, but its water level is dramatically low because of the drought. Evacuation orders were in place for some areas, but there was no immediate information on how many people were forced to flee. To the north, the Lava fire, burning partly on the flanks of Mount Shasta, grew to nearly 31 sq miles (80 sq km) and was partially contained. Evacuation orders for communities near the city of Weed were still in effect.

“Defending the Sacred”: Indigenous Water Protectors Continue Resistance to Line 3 Pipeline in MN

‘Lytton is gone’: wildfire tears through village after record-breaking heat

After three days of unrelenting heat, the people in the British Columbia village of Lytton were hoping for a modest respite. Temperatures which had shattered longstanding national records – at one point reaching a blistering 49.6C (121.28F) – eased slightly on Wednesday, raising hopes that the worst was over.

But that same day, a wildfire tore through the settlement 153km (95 miles) north-east of Vancouver. It was moving so fast that officials didn’t even have time to issue evacuation orders. Residents saw the thick black smoke filling the valley, grabbed what they could, and escaped. Within hours, most of the buildings had been consumed by flames. ...

While the unprecedented heat has ebbed slightly, the people of Canada’s western provinces are now confronting the grim effects of the blistering temperatures – including a surge in heat-related deaths and the growing spectre of wildfires devouring bone-dry forests. ...

The “heat dome” that blanketed British Columbia – and is now moving eastward to Alberta – has produced a flurry of wildfires in recent days. Crews are grappling with more than 26 blazes across the province – a task complicated by the lingering effects of the record-breaking temperatures. Earlier this week, helicopters meant to fight the Sparks Lake fire, which has since grown to more than 200 sq km in size, were grounded because their engines had overheated.

Also of Interest

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

Freedom Rider: The Terrible Origins of July 4th

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US Censorship Is Increasingly Official

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Israeli troops use AP photographer as human shield during clashes

Scientific American Retracted Pro-Palestine Article Without Any Factual Errors

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The Empire Strikes Back at the Left in Buffalo and Cleveland

Witness Drops Bombshell at House Hearing: Hedge Funds Are Getting “100 Times” Leverage on Crypto

Bugs to the rescue: using insects as animal feed could cut deforestation – report

US cities are suffocating in the heat. Now they want retribution

Jacinda Ardern suggests opposition leader Judith Collins is a ‘Karen’

France mocks idea of 'food whiteness' as baguettes branded 'racist'

Rising: U.S. Officials COZIED Up To BlackRock During Market Madness, Now Millions In Housing CRISIS

A Little Night Music

Popa Chubby - Red House

Popa Chubby - Working Class Blues & Rock Me Baby

Popa Chubby - Same Old Blues

Popa Chubby - Somebody Let The Devil Out

Popa Chubby - Heart Attack And Vine

Popa Chubby - Sweet Goddess Of Love And Beer

Popa Chubby - Back Door Man

Popa Chubby - Hey Joe

Popa Chubby - Chubby's Boogie