Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer and guitarist John Hammond Jr.. Enjoy!

"One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace."

-- Jean Giraudoux

News and Opinion

Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse

Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.

The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.

Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level in the eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.

The complexity of the AMOC system and uncertainty over levels of future global heating make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now. It could be within a decade or two, or several centuries away. But the colossal impact it would have means it must never be allowed to happen, the scientists said. “The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary,” said Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who did the research. “It’s something you just can’t [allow to] happen.” ...

Boer’s research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is titled “Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the AMOC”. Ice-core and other data from the last 100,000 years show the AMOC has two states: a fast, strong one, as seen over recent millennia, and a slow, weak one. The data shows rising temperatures can make the AMOC switch abruptly between states over one to five decades.

The Pentagon Is Killing Us — and the Planet

The dog days of summer are upon us —and the record high temperatures killing hundreds in the Pacific Northwest and bringing 118 degree heat to Siberia serve as a harbinger of even hotter, more dangerous days unless we address the elephant in the room.

The Pentagon.

As the largest institutional consumer of oil and, therefore, the largest single U.S. emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s), the Pentagon must reduce its carbon footprint of wars and weapons production as well as its bootprint—including tens of thousands of troops deployed worldwide at 800 overseas military bases and one under construction on Okinawa.

To avoid the worst of the climate crisis, President Biden, Congress and the public can reject an interventionist foreign policy fueled by the drive for full-spectrum dominance of the air, land, sea and space. Otherwise, we brace ourselves for ever rising sea levels: extreme weather, drought, famine—all of which, according to the World Bank, could result in 143-million climate refugees by 2050.

Brown University's Cost of War Project reports the Pentagon's GHG's exceed those of many industrialized nations, such as Denmark, Sweden and Portugal, with the "War on Terror" alone producing 1,267 million metric tons of GHG's, the carbon equivalent of a 12-million pound mountain of coal.

One B-52 Stratofortress, Boeing's long range bomber, consumes as much fuel in an hour as the average car driver uses in seven years, according to the National Priorities Project.

President Biden’s proposed record-high FY-22 $753-billion military budget includes $12 billion for 85 problem-plagued F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. With $100 million price tag on each jet, the weapons system is an environmentalist’s nightmare that emits tons of earth-warming polluting compounds, from Carbon Monoxide to Nitrous Oxide to Sulfur Dioxide, chemicals that act as blankets trapping the heat.

Moreover, the F-35 has been plagued by maintenance issues and software glitches, raising additional environmental concerns. "If it crashes, its 10,000 pounds of combustible material would burn in the inferno created by 2, 700 pounds of jet fuel," according to the organization Safe Skies and Clean Water Wisconsin, which has filed lawsuits charging the federal government with failing to conduct adequate environmental assessments.

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee, led by Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Ok), claims Biden's military budget is too skinny and has voted to boost the top line by another $25 billion. This despite the fact that the Pentagon has failed three audits for failing to produce details reports on its assets and liabilities.

Defenders of record high near trillion-dollar military budgets counter that we must protect ourselves from enemies across the world. Ironically, the enemy we know, global warming, poses the most urgent existential threat: the wildfire, the flash flood, the heat wave.

Never mind, they say; solar-powered bases, electric Humvees and nuclear-powered warships will solve the Pentagon’s carbon emissions problem.

Not so.

The environmental impacts from manufacturing new weapons systems, shipping those weapons to other continents, bombing infrastructure in the Middle East and flying thousands of troops to the Asia Pacific comes with an unthinkable climate price tag.

Yes, climate champions must sound the alarm before Congress legislates increased troop deployments to the South China Sea and the Department of Defense expands its Pacific Deterrence Initiative to establish a network of precision-strike missiles surrounding China. To threaten a military confrontation with China would not only put the lives of millions at risk, push us to the brink of nuclear war and release a fury of GHG's with each missile launched, but also sabotage Climate Envoy John Kerry's efforts to collaborate with China on the U.S.-China Joint Statement Addressing the Climate Crisis.

One approach to educating Americans about the cost of U.S. militarism would be to support Veterans for Peace in their campaign to mandate the Pentagon monitor the carbon emissions of the military. This requires setting goals for GHG reduction and sharing detailed emission results—from overseas bases, new weapons production, troop deployments—with Congress, the White House and the press. Ideally, such reporting would be made public before Congress votes and the President signs budgets for the Department of Defense and Department of Energy, the overseer of ramped up radioactive plutonium pit production for new nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the U.S. has repeatedly insisted on excluding requirements to reduce military carbon emissions from international climate agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

Now, however, is our chance to choose a different path. If President Biden and Congress were to recognize the role Pentagon emissions play in warming the planet, the 197 countries participating in the UN Climate Change Conference, November 1st-12th in Glasgow, Scotland, might forge a new climate agreement in which participants agree to also monitor and reduce military GHG’s.

The COP26 Coalition, which includes activists from CODEPINK and 350.org, plans to protest in the streets outside the conference and support simultaneous protests in the United States. CODEPINK has developed a “Disarm for our Planet and Peace” web page to organize solidarity actions in the United States and abroad and demand the COP26 participants agree to reduce military greenhouse gas emissions.

Activists will demand climate justice for marginalized communities, and what better way to address the disproportionate climate impact of militarism on indigenous populations and communities of color located near US military bases or fleeing climate catastrophe than for conference countries to pledge to reduce their militaries’ earth warming emissions.

President Biden can begin with an executive order requiring the Pentagon make public its efforts to reduce earth warming emissions, meet specific goals and lighten our heavy carbon footprint in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific. Congress can begin by passing legislation to mandate the military report and reduce its emissions by closing bases and eliminating unnecessary weapons systems.

Ultimately, we must downsize our military budget to meet the climate crisis.

A Cycle of War Crimes: Today’s Crisis in Afghanistan Grew Out of 20 Years of U.S. War

GOP senators look to add $50B for defense into infrastructure bill

Top Senate Republicans are looking to add more than $50 billion in defense funding to bipartisan infrastructure legislation to tackle overdue repairs and upgrade efforts at shipyards, depots, test ranges and defense laboratories. Senate Appropriations ranking member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has filed an amendment to the infrastructure package to boost defense funding, which was obtained by POLITICO.

He's joined by Senate Armed Services ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). The Republican defense hawks' effort is the largest, and most detailed, proposal for defense money in an infrastructure bill so far.

The bulk of the funding would go toward Navy and Coast shipyard infrastructure, an effort members of both parties had contemplated for months ahead of the current floor debate. But the proposal also seeks to boost funding for military construction projects, depot upgrades, test ranges, national security labs and the installation of 5G technology. ...

Tacking on $50 billion in emergency defense spending, and thereby pushing the portion of the bill dedicated to new spending to more than $600 billion, would be a considerable shift in the price tag and focus of the bill, which was painstakingly hashed out by a bipartisan group of senators.

Republicans may line up behind an effort to boost spending on defense facilities, where there is wide agreement that funding has lagged. And while some Democrats endorsed specific efforts — such as including money to overhaul shipyards or defense industrial facilities such as depots and arsenals — others have railed against using an infrastructure bill as a backdoor to increasing defense spending.

Infrastructure Bill Could Enable Government to Track Drivers’ Travel Data

The Senate’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill proposes a national test program that would allow the government to collect drivers’ data in order to charge them per-mile travel fees. The new revenue would help finance the Highway Trust Fund, which currently depends mostly on fuel taxes to support roads and mass transit across the country.

Under the proposal, the government would collect information about the miles that drivers travel from smartphone apps, another on-board device, automakers, insurance companies, gas stations, or other means. For now, the initiative would only be a test effort — the government would solicit volunteers who drive commercial and passenger vehicles — but the idea still raises concerns about the government tracking people’s private data.

“It’s concerning to see the advancement of a plan that appears to depend on the government’s mass surveillance of vehicles’ location simply to function,” said Sean Vitka, policy counsel at Demand Progress. ...

The bill would establish an advisory board to guide the program that would include officials representing state transportation departments and the trucking industry as well as data security and consumer privacy experts. As the four-year pilot initiative goes on, the Transportation and Treasury departments would also have to keep Congress informed of how they maintain volunteers’ privacy and how the per-mile fee idea could affect low-income drivers.

Still, Vitka said the concept could put Americans’ private data at risk. “We already know the government is unable to keep data like this secure, which is another reason why the government maintaining a giant database of travel information about people in the United States is a bad idea.”

Israeli defense minister threatens Iran with military action

Israel’s defense minister warned Thursday that his country is prepared to strike Iran, issuing the threat against the Islamic Republic after a fatal drone strike on a oil tanker at sea that his nation blamed on Tehran. The comments by Benny Gantz come as Israel lobbies countries for action at the United Nations over last week’s attack on the oil tanker Mercer Street that killed two people. The tanker, struck off Oman in the Arabian Sea, is managed by a firm owned by an Israeli billionaire. ...

Speaking to the news website Ynet, Gantz responded to whether Israel was prepared to attack Iran with a blunt “yes.”

“We are at a point where we need to take military action against Iran,” Gantz said. “The world needs to take action against Iran now.”

From Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described Gantz’s threat as “another brazen violation of Int’l law” and “malign behavior” that allegedly stems from Israel’s blind support for the West. He tweeted: “We state this clearly: ANY foolish act against Iran will be met with a DECISIVE response. Don’t test us.”

On Wednesday, in a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations described Israel as “the main source of instability and insecurity in the Middle East and beyond for more than seven decades.”

“This regime has a long dark record in attacking commercial navigation and civilian ships,” Zahra Ershadi wrote. “In less than two years, this regime has attacked over 10 commercial vessels carrying oil and humanitarian goods destined to Syria.”

Israel launches airstrikes in Lebanon in response to rockets

Israel escalated its response to rocket attacks this week by launching airstrikes on Lebanon, the Israeli military has said.

The military said in a statement that jets struck the launch sites from which rockets had been fired over the previous day, as well as an additional target used to attack Israel in the past. Several militant groups operate in Lebanon but none claimed responsibility.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) alleged the state of Lebanon was responsible for the shelling and warned “against further attempts to harm Israeli civilians and Israel’s sovereignty”.

The overnight airstrikes were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition is maintaining a fragile ceasefire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas’s militant rulers in Gaza in May. Several incidents leading up to this week’s rocket fire from Lebanon have focused attention on Israel’s northern border, and the US swiftly condemned the attacks on Israel.

‘The Pied Piper leading us off a cliff’: Florida governor condemned as Covid surges

Florida governor Ron DeSantis earned a new moniker this week as the resurgent coronavirus continued to wreak havoc on his state: the “Pied Piper of Covid-19, leading everybody off a cliff”. Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, coined the term as Florida continued to set records for new cases and hospitalizations, recorded worrying increases in both deaths and rates of positivity, and led the nation in pediatric Covid admissions.

With the highly contagious Delta variant spreading, a state comprising little more than 6% of the US population was accounting for one in five of the country’s new cases, recording 50,997 in the three days to Tuesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

DeSantis says the spike is “seasonal” and opposes lockdowns or new restrictions. The Republican governor followed up his executive order banning mask mandates in schools by dismissed the burgeoning crisis in Florida’s hospitals as “media hysteria”. ...

The governor’s single minded desire to keep the state open despite the Delta variant-fuelled spike has drawn criticism from local political leaders to the White House, where Joe Biden said on Tuesday: “I say to these governors, ‘Please help’. But if you are not going to help, at least get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing.”

But Gelber said he thought DeSantis’s stance could backfire and end up hurting businesses. “I’m the mayor of a hospitality town. I think most people coming here would rather be in a place that they feel safer than a place that they feel like they may be getting the virus,” he told CNN. “He’s like the Pied Piper, just leading everybody off a cliff right now, letting them know that they don’t have to like the CDC, they don’t have to wear masks, they can do whatever they want in the midst of an enormous pandemic – and Florida, by wide margins, is easily the worst state in the country.”

US migrant detentions soar despite Biden’s campaign promise

Alexander Martinez says he fled from homophobia, government persecution and the notorious MS-13 gang in El Salvador only to run into abuse and harassment in America’s immigration detention system. Since crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully in April, the 28-year-old has bounced between six different facilities in three states. He said he contracted Covid-19, faced racist taunts and abuse from guards and was harassed by fellow detainees for being gay. ...

He’s among a growing number of people in immigration detention centers nationwide, many of whom, like Martinez, have cleared their initial screening to seek asylum in the US. The number of detainees has more than doubled since the end of February, to nearly 27,000 as of 22 July, according to the most recent data from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency.

That’s above the roughly 22,000 detained last July under Donald Trump, though it’s nowhere close to the record in August 2019, when the number of detainees exceeded 55,000, Ice data shows.

The rising detentions is a sore point for Joe Biden’s pro-immigration allies, who hoped he would reverse his predecessor’s hardline approach. Biden campaigned on ending “prolonged” detention and use of private prisons for immigration detention, which house the majority of those in Ice custody. ...

The number of detainees who have passed their initial asylum screening has leapt from about 1,700 in April to 3,400 in late July, making up about 13% of all detainees, according to the most recent Ice data. “By Ice’s own policy, these are people that shouldn’t be in detention any longer,” Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center campaign organization said, citing Ice’s process for paroling asylum-seekers until a judge decides their case.

Heh, shocking. Well not really.

US ranks last in healthcare among 11 wealthiest countries despite spending most

The US is last on a ranking of healthcare systems among 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, despite spending the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.

The country struggles with deep problems in affordability of healthcare, which affects access and equity, and it is the country that has the most administrative hurdles when dealing with healthcare. This is despite the US spending 17% of its gross domestic product on healthcare, “far above” the other 10 countries, according to the report.

The other countries analyzed in the report were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The ranking is based on 71 measures across five areas: access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity and healthcare outcomes.

The report notes that unlike the other countries in the study, the US does not provide universal healthcare coverage. Americans are more likely to have problems paying medical bills and have their insurance denied. A larger percentage of Americans say they spend a lot of time on paperwork for medical bills, and doctors report having more trouble prescribing medication for patients because of restrictive health insurance coverage.

Americans also deal with lackluster access to care, with more American adults going to the emergency room for non-emergency care. Doctors of the top-performing countries are usually readily available by phone or on nights and weekends. The US also has the largest disparity in care among income groups.

Democratic Cities RECKON With Housing Crisis, Why Isn’t Anything Being Done?

Nancy Pelosi’s Surprise Flip on Student Debt Cancellation Came After Urging From Billionaire Power Couple

The drive to persuade President Joe Biden to cancel student debt took a major hit last week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stunned Congress with a surprise statement in opposition. The move may put her at odds with much of the public and the Democratic Party, but it aligns her with Democratic megadonors Steven and Mary Swig, the billionaire scions of the Bay Area’s oldest real estate dynasty who have deep ties to the California representative. Steven Swig has also long served as a treasurer for Pelosi in her fundraising efforts.

In November, after Biden’s election, and amid increased pressure to cancel student debt, the Swigs quietly circulated a memo among key Capitol Hill figures, making the dubious case that debt cancellation at the executive level is illegal. The argument in the memo gets much of its weight by virtue of the wealthy couple who produced it, as the Swigs are not just major funders of progressive nonprofits, but also have significantly bankrolled Pelosi and her House Democratic caucus.

The memo, obtained by The Intercept, was distributed to members of Congress by Freedom to Prosper, an organization founded by and for the Swigs. The couple has in the past directly lobbied Pelosi, according to two sources with knowledge of the meetings, in which the Swigs would suggest rhetoric or policy proposals that Pelosi would agree to adopt in some form. The source, like several others interviewed by The Intercept for this story, would only speak on condition of anonymity, citing the Swigs’ financial sway in progressive circles. (They have also contributed millions of dollars to the Democratic Party over the years.) ...

The memo, which was designated for “INTERESTED PARTIES” and wasn’t disseminated to the general public, asserts that student debt cancellation via executive order is unlawful. “No, the President Cannot Cancel Student Loan Debt with a Pen Stroke,” a boldface title reads. The memo continues: “Recently, there has been heightened fervor around Senators Warren and Schumer’s proposal that President-elect Joe Biden could cancel student debt ‘with the pen as opposed to legislation.’ Unfortunately, that cannot happen. Attorneys on Capitol Hill say that the Executive Branch does not have congressional authority to cancel student debt.” Despite the memo’s certainty, it’s far from clear that such an executive order is unlawful, experts say. ...

Though Pelosi says she supports student debt cancellation via congressional legislation — a position shared by the Swigs — her statement last week represents a departure from her previous silence on the issue. “The president can’t do it — so that’s not even a discussion,” Pelosi said during a news conference, referring to a presidential executive order to cancel student debt. She continued: “Suppose … your child just decided they, at this time, [do] not want to go to college, but you’re paying taxes to forgive somebody else’s obligations. You may not be happy about that.”

New York lawmakers’ impeachment inquiry into Cuomo nearing an end

New York state lawmakers announced Thursday that their impeachment investigation of Governor Andrew Cuomo is nearing an end and have given him a 13 August deadline to provide any additional evidence over sexual harassment allegations.

The deadline came as liberal activists with ties to Cuomo were under scrutiny over attempts to discredit one of his accusers.

In a letter sent Thursday, Davis Polk & Wardwell, the law firm leading the investigation, reminded Cuomo’s legal team that it has requested certain documents by subpoena and expected “full compliance from the governor”.

“We write to inform you that the committee’s investigation is nearing completion and the assembly will soon consider potential articles of impeachment against your client,” they wrote.

The letter was released to the public by the assembly judiciary committeechair, Charles Lavine, a Long Island Democrat. The committee has been investigating whether to impeach the governor over sexual harassment allegations, misleading the public about Covid-19 outbreaks at nursing homes and using state resources and staff for his $5m book deal.

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott Calls Another Special Session to Attack Voting Rights

Just weeks after Texas Democrats defeated a sweeping voter suppression bill by fleeing the state to deny Republican lawmakers the quorum necessary to proceed to a vote, far-right Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday announced another special session, prompting pro-democracy advocates to denounce the Lone Star State GOP's relentless assault on voting rights.

"While a deadly pandemic and an energy crisis threaten our way of life in Texas, Gov. Abbott remains focused on stripping away the rights of thousands of Texans," Stephanie Gómez, associate director of Common Cause Texas, said in a statement.

"Texas is already the most difficult place to vote in the entire country, but the governor and partisan legislators want to make it even harder for us to cast a ballot and have our vote be counted," Gómez continued. "The decision to call a second special session is nothing more than a partisan power grab to distract us from the real challenges our communities face, like taking action to slow the spread of the Delta variant and address our failing energy grid."

The upcoming special session of the Texas state Legislature—this summer's second—is set to begin on Saturday, August 7. ...

Dozens of Texas Democrats, as well as more than a hundred lawmakers from other states, have gathered in Washington, D.C., where they are urging Democratic members of Congress to act immediately to protect U.S. democracy amid the GOP's nationwide attacks on the franchise.

Although state lawmakers and progressive advocates have not yet persuaded Senate Democrats to scrap the filibuster and pass the For the People Act, a trio of congressional Democrats did take one step toward advancing democracy this week by unveiling a bill described by its lead Senate sponsor as the "first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee for all U.S. citizens."

As Common Dreams reported, the Right to Vote Act—introduced Wednesday in the House by Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) and in the upper chamber by Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)—would for the first time establish a statutory right to vote in federal elections.

Indigenous Line 3 Opponents Seek Allies to Fight Tar Sands Pipeline

As state and local law enforcement in Minnesota intensify their violent repression of water protectors resisting Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline, Indigenous leaders on Thursday appealed for allies in their effort to pressure the U.S. government to honor Native American treaty rights and protect the environment and climate by stopping the toxic project.

At least 20 Indigenous-led water protectors were brutally arrested in northern Minnesota last weekend, with law enforcement using tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and pepper projectiles in an attempt to break resistance to the Canadian pipeline company's $9 billion Line 3 project.

Native American leaders pointed to recent events, including the violent repression of Stop Line 3 water protectors and the discovery of the remains of more than 1,000 Indigenous children at Indian boarding schools in Canada and the United States, as evidence of an ongoing "slow genocide."

"This is no accident," said Chase Iron Eyes, co-director and lead counsel for the Lakota People's Law Project, in a statement Thursday. "The drilling that Enbridge is being allowed to do here is a continuation of the same pattern of subjugation and genocide faced by Indigenous populations throughout history."

Iron Eyes continued:

Our treaties have been ignored, our children have been killed, and now our rivers are being poisoned. And when we stand up to the forces of extractive greed, we pay a heavy price. We are asking President [Joe] Biden to stop Line 3, and we need everyone who can to come to the frontlines in support. We need those who can't come here in person to amplify this message through every available channel.

"We are running out of time to do the right thing for future generations," said Iron Eyes.

If built as planned, Line 3 will carry up to 760,000 barrels of crude tar sands oil—the world's dirtiest fuel—from Alberta to the port of Superior, Wisconsin, crossing Anishinaabe treaty land without consent. The conduit's route is set to traverse more than 200 bodies of water and 800 wetlands, raising serious concerns not only about its climate impact, but also about accidents and leaks that plague pipelines.

"Eight hundred wetlands, that's what’s at stake here," Indigenous lawyer and Giniw Collective co-founder Tara Houska said Thursday. "Beautiful, untouched ecosystems, endangered by a corporation with no knowledge of or respect for this land. They have no idea what they're doing here. President Biden has the power to stop this, but he's not listening closely enough."

Houska was among the water protectors who were violently arrested while protesting Line 3 last weekend.

"The level of brutality that was unleashed on us was very extreme," Houska, who said she was shot by police with rubber-coated steel bullets before being hospitalized and jailed, told Democracy Now! Wednesday.

"People were shot in their faces, in their bodies, in their upper torsos," she said. "I saw a young woman's head get split open right in front of me. It was a really, really brutal scene. And the arrests in person were also quite brutal, throwing people face down in the dirt and being extremely violent."

Houska continued:

When I was sitting on the side of a police vehicle with several others waiting to be brought to jail, I overheard several of the police officers talking about how they were going to get bonus time for this brutality they had unleashed upon us... Police officers are reimbursed for any costs associated with Enbridge Line 3 protests, and it seems like they welcome the opportunity. One police officer was actually grinning and smiling and said he had a great time and couldn't wait for us to come again.

They've billed over $1.7 million to the Public Safety Escrow Trust, in which Enbridge is dumping millions of dollars to incentivize and encourage police officers to repress, suppress, surveil, and harass Indigenous people and our allies that are helping us try to stop this pipeline from happening in our treaty territory.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required the trust to reimburse law enforcement when approving the project in 2018.

Water protectors told Democracy Now! that they were denied medical care for injuries they suffered at the hands of police. Some of the activists also said they were denied proper food and held in solitary confinement.

Among others arrested in recent weeks were Lakota People's Law Project co-director Dan Nelson, Honor the Earth co-founder Winona LaDuke, and a journalist who goes by the camp name "River," who says he suffered a neck injury after being placed in a chokehold by police after recording officers arresting a water protector.

Houska called for allies to join water protectors on the frontlines of the fight against Line 3, saying that "we need our brothers and sisters to stand with us."

As part of the wider effort to stop Line 3, Honor the Earth and Indigenous Environmental Network, in partnership with over 200 artists and activists, on Thursday launched a six-figure ad buy, including full-page advertisements in the New York Times and Minneapolis Star Tribune, and a digital ad on the Washington Post website, calling on the Biden administration to stand with Anishinaabe people and stop Line 3.

The Lakota People's Law Project said that anyone who is interested in joining the fight against Line 3 should follow the organization and the Giniw Collective on social media, contact the group about going to the frontlines, and sign a petition urging Biden to stop the pipeline project like he rescinded the federal permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day of office following years of grassroots organizing.

LaDuke recently told Slate: "Biden's acting like he canceled one pipeline so he gets a gold star. But you don't get a gold star from Mother Earth to let Line 3 go ahead. You don't get a gold star from the planet."

Steven Donziger, Lawyer Who Sued Chevron over Amazon Oil Spills, Marks 2 Years Under House Arrest

Environmental impact of bottled water ‘up to 3,500 times greater than tap water’

The impact of bottled water on natural resources is 3,500 times higher than for tap water, scientists have found. The research is the first of its kind and examined the impact of bottled water in Barcelona, where it is becoming increasingly popular despite improvements to the quality of tap water in recent years.

Research led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found that if the city’s population were all to drink bottled water, this would result in a 3,500 times higher cost of resource extraction than if they all drank tap water, at $83.9m (£60.3m)a year. Researchers also found the impact of bottled water on ecosystems is 1,400 times higher than tap water. ...

In the US, 17m barrels of oil are needed to produce the plastic to meet annual bottled water demand. In addition, bottled water in the UK is at least 500 times more expensive than tap water.

Wildfires RAVAGE California, Oregon Destroying Land Nearly The Size Of NYC, LA, Chicago COMBINED

Biden sets goal for 50% of new US vehicles to be electric by 2030

Joe Biden is setting a goal for half of all new US vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 while also tightening pollution standards for cars and trucks, in a barrage of action aimed at reducing the largest source of planet-heating gases in America.

On Thursday, the White House outlined its plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions from vehicles, with Biden set to sign an executive order demanding that 50% of all new cars and trucks sold by the end of the decade be powered by electric batteries.

At the White House with car makers and unions on Thursday, Biden said the future of the car industry is “electric and there is no turning back.”

“The question is whether we will lead or fall behind in the race for the future,” said the president, who stood in front of two electric SUVs. “We used to lead in this technology and we can lead again, But we need to move fast. The rest of the world is moving ahead, we’ve just got to step up.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US department of transport, meanwhile, are unveiling new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles to bolster pollution rules that were weakened under Donald Trump’s presidency. From 2023, new cars will be required to emit 10% less greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous year, with further reductions of 5% a year mandated until 2026.

Also of Interest

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

How politics became a contest dominated by two kinds of elite

Official Secrets Act: UK Planned Reform Makes Criminals Out of Journalists

Belief in America as the "Indispensible Nation" Is Bullshit—And Always Has Been

Mexico President Confirms Plan to Host Venezuela Talks

Biotechnology Greed Is Prolonging the Pandemic. It’s Inexcusable.

To the Right, to the Right: Media’s Special Election Lesson

What happens when millions – or billions – of sea animals die on one day?

Champagne moment as supernova captured in detail for the first time

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts likely to miss US tour to recover from procedure

Jimmy Dore: War Monger Congressman Confronted By Reporter

A Little Night Music

John Hammond Jr - Gambling Blues

John Hammond - Drop Down Mama

John Hammond - Drifting Blues

John Hammond Jr. - I Can Tell

John Hammond Jr. - Guitar King

John Hammond - That's Alright

John Hammond Jr & The Nighthawks.- Howling For My Darling

John Hammond Jr. - Maybelline

Duane Allman & John Hammond - Tribute 1970