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This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player Carey Bell. Enjoy!

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

-- Mark Twain

News and Opinion

U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul

American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country’s government and ever wants to receive foreign aid, three American officials said.

The effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off a full evacuation of the embassy as they rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan. On Thursday, the State Department announced it was sending home an unspecified number of the 1,400 Americans stationed at the embassy and drawing down to what the agency’s spokesman, Ned Price, described as a “core diplomatic presence” in Kabul. ...

Mr. Khalilzad is hoping to convince Taliban leaders that the embassy must remain open, and secure, if the group hopes to receive American financial aid and other assistance as part of a future Afghan government. The Taliban leadership has said it wants to be seen as a legitimate steward of the country, and is seeking relations with other global powers, including Russia and China, in part to receive economic support.

Two officials confirmed Mr. Khalilzad’s efforts, which have not been previously reported, on the condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate negotiations. A third official said on Thursday that the Taliban would forfeit any legitimacy — and, in turn, foreign aid — if it attacked Kabul or took over Afghanistan’s government by force.

Other governments are also warning the Taliban that they will not receive aid if they overrun the Afghan government, given the rampage its fighters have waged across the country in recent days. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of Germany said Berlin would not give the Taliban any financial support if they ultimately rule Afghanistan with a hard-line Islamic law.

Afghan Journalist: Only a Political Compromise Can Stop Taliban’s Military Takeover of Afghanistan

UK and US send troops to aid evacuation from Afghanistan as Taliban advance

The US and UK are scrambling reinforcements to Kabul to help evacuate their diplomats, soldiers and citizens as well as thousands of Afghans who have worked with them, as the Taliban advance towards the capital.

The Pentagon announced it would send three battalions, about 3,000 soldiers, to Kabul’s international airport within 24 to 48 hours of the announcement on Thursday. The defence department spokesman, John Kirby, said the reinforcements would help the “safe and orderly reduction” of US nationals and Afghans who worked with the Americans and consequently had been granted special immigrant visas.

“We have been watching very closely with concern the security situation on the ground – and far better to be prudent about it and be responsible and watching the trends to make the best decisions you can for safety and security of our people than to wait until it’s too late,” Kirby said.

Senior US officials spoke to Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani on Thursday and told him the US “remains invested in the security and stability of Afghanistan” in the face of Taliban violence, the state department said.

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, defence secretary, told Ghani Washington was reducing its civilian footprint in Kabul given the “evolving security situation” and would increase the tempo of special immigration visa flights for Afghans who helped the US effort in the country, the statement said.

Afghanistan is heading towards civil war, British defence minister says

US deserves big share of blame for Afghanistan military disaster

As one provincial capital after another has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that their survival is in their own hands. ... But despite more than $80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is collapsing with greater speed than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks. ...

In the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loath to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention. Later, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding.

Out in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised. “We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” Douglas Lute, a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war czar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.”

Vali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani. “He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.”

AIPAC Accused of 'Putting Rep. Omar's Life at Risk' With New Islamophobic Ads

A spokesperson for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar warned Wednesday that AIPAC is endangering the Minnesota Democrat's life by running a fresh round of ads falsely accusing her of sympathizing with terrorist organizations, a claim the pro-Israel lobbying group has made and amplified repeatedly in recent years.

"The language AIPAC uses in paid ads to smear and vilify Ilhan Omar is virtually identical to the language used in death threats she gets," Jeremy Slevin, Omar's senior communications director, tweeted in response to AIPAC's latest ads targeting the congresswoman.

"Make no mistake: AIPAC is putting Rep. Omar's life at risk with repeated Islamophobic attack ads," Slevin added.

One of the Facebook ads in question declares that "for Ilhan Omar, there is no difference between America and the Taliban," an apparent reference to comments the Minnesota Democrat made during and after a June hearing with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In a tweet containing a clip of the hearing, Omar wrote that "we must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity."

"We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban," Omar added. "I asked Secretary Blinken where people are supposed to go for justice."

While progressives viewed Omar's comments as an uncontroversial demand for equal justice under international law, Republican lawmakers and prominent Democrats—including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—falsely accused the Minnesota congresswoman of equating the U.S. to terrorist organizations. In a joint statement, a dozen House Democrats went as far as suggesting that Omar was giving "cover to terrorist groups" and evincing "deep-seated prejudice" against the United States and Israel, an absurd interpretation of her remarks.

A statement later issued by the House Democratic leadership echoed that sentiment, saying that "drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice."

Such language aligns with AIPAC's latest social media ads, which blare the claim that Omar sees no distinction "between Israel and Hamas" or "between democracies and terrorists."

"It shouldn't have to be stated, but baselessly linking Muslim-Americans to terrorism is the textbook example of Islamophobia and is routinely used to silence advocacy for Palestinian human rights," said Slevin.

Omar, the first Somali-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, was not the only lawmaker targeted by AIPAC's latest barrage of ads, which began running on Facebook earlier this month.

The ads also attack Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), accusing them of "inciting hate" by using the terms "apartheid," "ethnic cleansing," and "fascist" to describe the Israeli government's brutal treatment of Palestinians.

"I am so sick of this shit," Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman to win a seat in Congress, tweeted in response to the ads.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Wednesday that "AIPAC's rhetoric is placing Ilhan Omar's life at risk and other visibly Muslim women as well."

"Facebook should immediately take down these vile ads and congressional leaders must condemn AIPAC for continuing to incite Islamophobic hatred against Rep. Omar and Muslim women," Hussein added.

Israel preparing to resume settlement building in West Bank

Israel is preparing to resume settlement building in the occupied West Bank after a hiatus of almost a year, the country’s defence minister has said.

A planning council committee is expected to meet next week to approve 2,000 new housing units for Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories, Benny Gantz said on Wednesday, as well as about 1,000 units for Palestinians living in the West Bank’s Area C, which is under Israeli military control.

The anticipated approval of new settlement homes would be the first issued by the government of the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, since his cross-partisan coalition ousted Benjamin Netanyahu two months ago. It comes after a 10-month unofficial pause in settlement building believed to be related to the change of administration in the US.

The plan to allow Palestinian construction in Area C is also the largest in years, after several other Israeli-promoted projects stalled.

The unusual combination of settlement approvals, together with Palestinian permits, appears to be aimed at bolstering the deeply unpopular Palestinian Authority and avoiding friction during Bennett’s first state visit to Washington DC later this month.

Press Freedom Under Attack in Mexico as TV Anchor Gets Death Threat from Cartel over Reporting

Covid booster shot to be recommended for immune-compromised people – Fauci

Dr Anthony Fauci says an additional Covid-19 booster shot will be recommended for previously vaccinated people with weakened immune systems. ... People have compromised immune systems for a variety of reasons, including organ transplants, cancer or other conditions. Any authorization for an additional booster shot would come from the Federal Drug Administration.

Fauci said for other vaccinated groups, such as the elderly, data was being collected to determine if or when their protection goes “below a critical level” and “that’s when you’re going to be hearing about the implementation of boosters” for others.

Children born during pandemic have lower IQs, US study finds

Children born during the coronavirus pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor and overall cognitive performance compared with children born before, a US study suggests.

The first few years of a child’s life are critical to their cognitive development. But with Covid-19 triggering the closure of businesses, nurseries, schools and playgrounds, life for infants changed considerably, with parents stressed and stretched as they tried to balance work and childcare.

With limited stimulation at home and less interaction with the world outside, pandemic-era children appear to have scored shockingly low on tests designed to assess cognitive development, said lead study author Sean Deoni, associate professor of paediatrics (research) at Brown University.

In the decade preceding the pandemic, the mean IQ score on standardised tests for children aged between three months and three years of age hovered around 100, but for children born during the pandemic that number tumbled to 78, according to the analysis, which is yet to be peer-reviewed.

‘We’re going to see a lot of deaths’: Covid leaves Mississippi hospitals at brink of failure

Health officials in Mississippi have warned the state’s hospital system is on the brink of failure due to a surge in Covid-19 hospitalizations in the US south as the Delta variant rips through the country.

The deep south state, where only 35.6% of residents are fully vaccinated, is opening a 50-bed field hospital at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) car park with the assistance of the federal government as officials brace for a climbing death toll and ICU units reach capacity.

There were 1,378 people hospitalized in Mississippi, as of Wednesday, close to the highest number of Covid patients in the state since the pandemic began. A total of 388 were in intensive care, with 249 requiring ventilators.

At a press conference on Wednesday the state health officer, Dr Thomas Dobbs, expressed frustrations at those ignoring recommendations to get vaccinated and wear masks. “I kind of personally feel like I’m an air traffic controller, and every day I’m watching two airliners collide,” Dobbs told reporters. “We’re going to see a lot of deaths in coming days, it’s just inevitable,” he added.

Bizarre: Squad Refuses Questions From Regular People. WHY?!?

House moderates threaten to block budget vote over infrastructure funding

A group of House moderates is threatening to blow up Democrats' plans of passing a $3.5 trillion budget resolution when the chamber is set to return the week of Aug. 23 unless the chamber also votes on the $1.1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

House Democrats intended to vote on the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint in late August after the Senate approved the measure this week. The budget blueprint allows both the House and the Senate to craft a reconciliation bill, filled with progressive priorities, that can be passed with a simple majority and without Republican support.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the House will not vote on the $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill until the larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill has also cleared the Senate, a condition which is wholeheartedly approved by progressives in her party. ...

In the letter sent to Pelosi on Friday, moderate lawmakers insisted on a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and have said their districts can't afford "months of unnecessary delays." ... The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, and endorsed by eight other moderate Democrats: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jim Costa of California, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Filemon Vela of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ed Case of Hawaii and Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia.

Lots more info and some impressive graphics at the link:

Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental

Nearly half of American workers do not earn enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment, according to new data. Rents in the US continued to increase through the pandemic, and a worker now needs to earn about $20.40 an hour to afford a modest one-bedroom rental. The median wage in the US is about $21 an hour.

The data, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, shows that millions of Americans – from Amazon warehouse workers to cab drivers to public school teachers – are struggling to pay rent. For the poorest Americans, market-rate housing is out of reach in virtually all of the country. ...

The federal government has long used 30% of income as a threshold for affordable rent. For affluent households, this still leaves plenty of money for essential purchases, but research has found that low-income families begin to cut back on necessities when housing costs exceed the 30% threshold.

“The kind of tight budgets that especially low-income renters face when they’re cost-burdened can lead to serious harms,” said Daniel Threet, a research analyst at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Threet pointed to a recent door-to-door survey in South and Central Los Angeles that found that low-income families were forced to cut spending on things like food, healthcare and education in order to cover their rent. Given current housing costs, the lowest earning 10% of Americans would need to spend about 55% of their income to pay for a one-bedroom rental.

US’s white population declines for first time ever, 2020 census finds

America’s white population declined for the first time while US metro areas were responsible for almost all of the country’s population growth, according to groundbreaking new data released on Thursday by the US census bureau.

Overall, the white-alone population fell by 8.6% since 2010, the bureau said on Thursday. Non-hispanic whites now account for around 58% of America’s population, a drop from 2010 when they made up 63.7% of the population. It was the first time that the non-Hispanic white population has fallen below 60% since the census began.

Meanwhile, there was significant growth among minority groups over the last decade. The Hispanic or Latino population grew by 23%, while the Asian alone population surged by over 35%. The Black population also increased by more than 5.6%. ...

Overall, America’s population grew 7.4% over the last decade, the second slowest growth in US history. By comparison, the US population grew 9.7% between 2000 and 2010. Metro areas across the country were responsible for nearly all of that growth, said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the bureau. “On average, smaller counties tended to lose population and the more populous counties tended to grow,” he said. Americans continued to migrate to the south and west at the expense of the midwest and north-east, the figures showed.

ACLU Sues DC, Cops Over Attacks on Journalists at 2020 Racial Justice Protests

Noting that Washington, D.C. police violently attacked reporters whose job was covering officer brutality during last summer's racial justice protests, the ACLU on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Police on behalf of two photojournalists who were accosted with "less-lethal" weapons during the demonstrations.

"On August 29, 2020 and August 31, 2020, people gathered near Black Lives Matter Plaza, near the White House, to protest racism and brutality in policing. On both nights, the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) responded to these demonstrations with the very sorts of tactics people were protesting," alleges the lawsuit (pdf), which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

"MPD officers, some clad in riot gear and wielding batons, deployed chemical irritants and stun grenades against demonstrators, even though, just two weeks earlier, the D.C. Council had unanimously banned officers from using these weapons to disperse demonstrations," the complaint states.

"Plaintiffs Oyoma Asinor and Bryan Dozier, independent photojournalists seeking to document demonstrations in D.C., were victims of the attack on August 29," the document continues, "and Mr. Asinor was similarly attacked on August 31. Both endured searing pain and emotional distress as a result."

The suit further states:

Following the attack on August 31, MPD officers carried out a mass arrest of people near the plaza, including Mr. Asinor. The officers did not have probable cause to arrest Mr. Asinor: [He] was not involved in any conduct that was unlawful or that could reasonably have been viewed as unlawful.

Nonetheless, officers detained Mr. Asinor overnight. The next day, when Mr. Asinor was released without charges, MPD refused to return his cellphone, camera, and goggles—items officers had seized upon his arrest. MPD did not return these items for almost a full year, even though he requested them multiple times, and MPD had no lawful basis to keep them.

"MPD's use of chemical irritants and less-lethal projectiles on August 29 and 31 violated the D.C. First Amendment Assemblies Act and D.C. common law," the lawsuit argues. "Additionally, MPD's baseless arrest of Mr. Asinor and unreasonable retention of his property were also unlawful. Both plaintiffs now seek compensation for the injuries they sustained due to the officers' illegal conduct."

In a statement announcing the lawsuit, ACLU attorney Megan Yan said that "MPD flagrantly used tactics that D.C. laws explicitly ban."

Asinor said in the statement that "last summer, police turned D.C.'s streets into a war zone. I found a voice photographing protests against police brutality but ended up fleeing it myself. The fact that MPD attacked, arrested me, and then held my camera for nearly a year for no reason sends a chilling message to everyone of what is at risk when they attend these demonstrations."

In June 2020, Common Dreams reported that 18 groups—including the National Press Club, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and PEN America—published an open letter calling for an end to police violence against journalists covering protests in the wake George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis officer on May 25 of that year.

The letter noted that "police have opened fire with rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, pepper balls, and have used nightsticks and shields to attack the working press as never before in this nation. This must stop. When you silence the press with rubber bullets, you silence the voice of the public."

Texas senate passes voting restrictions bill after 15-hour filibuster by Democrat

The Texas senate has passed a bill that would impose voting restrictions in the state, shortly after a Democratic legislator concluded a 15-hour filibuster of the proposal. Carol Alvarado, a state senator, had continued her filibuster into Thursday morning in the latest tactic to extend the nation’s most visible standoff over voting rights. The vote was eventually carried 18-11, falling along party lines.

Shortly before ending her filibuster, Alvarado asked her colleagues to consider the severe ramifications of making it harder to vote in Texas. “As we draw this discussion to an end, it is my sincere hope that civil acts by everyday Texans, from the senate floor to the ballot box, can help to shed the light on all important issues,” Alvarado said. “What do we want our democracy to look like?”

The bill still needs to pass the Texas house, where Republicans do not currently have a quorum to advance legislation. Dozens of Democratic legislators remain out of the state to block the voting bill from going into effect.

But the Texas house speaker, Dade Phelan, this week signed 52 civil arrest warrants for the absent Democrats, who have given no indication that they plan to return to Austin anytime soon.

Family of John Lewis Joins Demand That Biden Kill Filibuster to Defend Voting Rights

As U.S. census data was released Thursday that critics fear Republicans will exploit to gerrymander their way to a decade or more of minority rule, the family of former congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis was among those demanding President Joe Biden use his power to help end the filibuster to achieve passage of crucial voting rights legislation.

Lewis's family members gathered with civil rights groups including Black Voters Matter, Common Cause, Fix Our Senate, and Stand Up America outside the White House, where they delivered a petition to President Joe Biden, urging him to help "protect our democracy." ...

"My late brother used to tell me there are times in our lives when our conscience is going to be put on display," Henry Lewis, the late lawmaker's youngest brother, said Thursday. "I think with these two bills, each senator is going to have to let their conscience be their guide."

The petition delivered by the voting rights advocates was signed by 400,000 people and came a day after a poll by several progressive groups showed a majority of Americans want Biden to convince the Senate to pass voting rights legislation.

Biden-backed ‘blue’ hydrogen may pollute more than coal, study finds

The large infrastructure bill passed by the US Senate and hailed by Joe Biden as a key tool to tackle the climate crisis includes billions of dollars to support a supposedly clean fuel that is potentially even more polluting than coal, new research has found.

The $1tn infrastructure package, which passed with bipartisan support on Tuesday, includes $8bn to develop “clean hydrogen” via the creation of four new regional hubs. The White House has said the bill advances Biden’s climate agenda and proponents of hydrogen have touted it as a low-emissions alternative to fuel shipping, trucking, aviation and even home heating.

But a new study has found surprisingly large emissions from the production of so-called “blue” hydrogen, a variant being enthusiastically pushed by the fossil fuel industry and probably falling under the definition of clean hydrogen in the Senate bill.

Blue hydrogen involves splitting gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide and then capturing and storing the CO2 to ensure it doesn’t heat the planet. But this process involves the incidental release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and uses a huge amount of energy to separate and then store the carbon dioxide, some of which escapes anyway.

This means that the production of this hydrogen actually creates 20% more greenhouse gases than coal, commonly regarded the most polluting fossil fuel, when being burned for heat, and 60% more than burning diesel, according to the new paper, published in the Energy Science & Engineering journal. ...

There is a form of “green” hydrogen that involves producing hydrogen from water using only renewable energy, but this option isn’t explicitly chosen for funding by the infrastructure bill, which still needs to pass the Democrat-held House of Representatives.

Is Biden serious about climate? His 2,000 drilling and fracking permits suggest not

The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints a stark and sobering picture: a global future of extreme weather events that are guaranteed to become more frequent and more intense over coming decades. The horrific flooding that has recently shocked Europe will become more common. The unrelenting fires that have engulfed the western United States and Canada will intensify and widen. And some island nations, it seems, may already be doomed to eradication by inevitable sea level rise. ...

In order to stand a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst, science overwhelmingly dictates that Earth must cut all greenhouse gas emissions in half in just nine years, and essentially zero them out by 2050. Like other world leaders, President Biden has publicly adopted this target. But his actions show something very different. Since Biden took office, Food & Water Watch has been diligently tracking notable comments and commitments on climate and energy issued by Biden and administration officials. The results are clear: they apparently have no intention of taking up this existential fight.

Simply put, a serious commitment to aggressively curtailing climate emissions must involve rapidly halting new fossil fuel development (while at the same time making robust investments in clean energy production and distribution, to facilitate the decommissioning of existing fossil fuel networks). Some signs from Biden the candidate last year were encouraging. His promise to ban new drilling and fracking on federal lands – an action that would be a simple, decisive first step in curtailing new fossil fuel extraction – was unequivocal: “No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.”

The administration claims to be in the midst of a formal review of its policies on land resource extraction. Yet since taking office, Biden’s interior department has approved more than 2,000 new permits for drilling and fracking on federal land. In May, it appealed a federal court order that had paused fracking in Wayne national forest. In June, it advanced a proposal for new oil and gas exploration at Dinosaur national monument – a proposal the Trump administration had actually suspended under immense pressure from activists.

There are other similar disappointments – from the shocking approval of Trump’s plan to open Alaska’s North Slope to new oil drilling to the approval of the infamous Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. At precisely the moment when we must be forcefully rejecting new drilling, fracking and pipeline infrastructure, Biden isn’t just tolerating fossil fuels – he’s uplifting them.

David Sirota: Senate Budget Vote Suggests We’re FRACKED, Dems Took MILLIONS From Fossil Fuel Lobby

Worth a full read:

Senate Budget Vote Suggests We’re Fracked

One day after the release of a landmark scientific report on climate change, the U.S. Senate faced its first test vote on whether scientists’ grave new warnings are being heeded. In response, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers used the moment to try to prevent America from halting a fossil fuel extraction process linked to one of the most dangerous greenhouse gas emissions — and to rampant ozone pollution choking the American West.

Fifty Republicans and seven Democrats voted Tuesday in favor of a GOP amendment designed to prohibit the executive branch from banning hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The measure’s supporters included Colorado’s Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, whose constituents have been warned in recent days to remain inside because of a mix of smoke from climate-intensified wildfires as well as ozone — the latter of which is driven in part by fracking emissions. New Mexico Democrats Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján also voted yes. Their state has been plagued with unhealthy air too, with local officials telling people on Monday to stay inside as much as possible. The other Democratic yes votes were Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, and Maine Independent Angus King, whose states have all seen poor air quality at times this summer from wildfires in the west.

Five of the seven Democrats voting for the measure hail from blue states won by President Joe Biden, who declared unequivocally during the 2020 campaign: "I am not banning fracking.” Over the course of their careers, the seven Democratic lawmakers who backed the GOP amendment have raked in nearly $1.7 million from donors in the oil and gas industry, according to data from OpenSecrets.

The vote Tuesday suggests the entire Republican Party in Congress and some Democrats are either still climate deniers who insist fossil fuels can be part of an environmentally sustainable future, or ecocidal sociopaths who are too corrupt and soulless to care what happens. The Biden administration’s call Wednesday for OPEC members to boost oil production offered additional evidence that for all of their rhetoric about the climate emergency, many Democratic leaders appear ready to let the world burn.

Thunderstorms could worsen California’s giant Dixie fire, officials warn

Northern California’s raging Dixie fire, the largest wildfire burning in the US, could be spread further and faster by potential thunderstorms, officials warned on Thursday. The possibility of strong winds of up to 40mph and the chance of lightning threatened to swell the huge blaze and potentially spark new fires.

The Dixie fire, which has become one of the most destructive in California history, has all but leveled the town of Greenville and is still threatening a dozen small towns in the Sierra Nevada, even though its southern end was mostly corralled by fire lines. It has burned more than 790 sq miles (2,046 sq km) and has destroyed more than 1,000 single-family homes since erupting in mid-July. It is 30% contained.

Meteorologist Joe Goudsward said on Thursday morning: “Today we are looking at a change in the pattern. The high pressure is still going to be over us, but we’ve gotten mid-level moisture that we have gone in and put in some thunderstorms into the forecast. We’re warm, we’re dry, we’re unstable. It could be an active afternoon.”

The fire is one of 11 burning across California. Its cause remains under investigation. The utility Pacific Gas & Electric has said the blaze may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines. ...

Meanwhile, a judge on Wednesday denied bail to a former professor from California who authorities accuse of starting the smaller Ranch fire in Lassen county. The man denies setting the fire, according to court documents.

Also of Interest

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

Environmental Demonstrators vs Militarized Police

Citing Corrupt Think Tanks For News Reports Is Blatant Propaganda

‘Rise Up, Patriots!’ Rand Paul Calls To Intubated Patients Lying Unconscious In Hospital ICU

The Labor Shortage And the New Criminalization

The Fed Just Published 36 Years of Its Money Data. It Shows a Spike in Repo Loans Is an Early Warning of an Impending Market Crash

There Is No Will To Fight Climate Change

By pushing for more oil production, the US is killing its climate pledges

Oregon’s Bootleg fire has offered new evidence that Indigenous techniques can change how megafires behave

Temperatures soar as Washington and Oregon baked by another major heatwave

Wisconsin on Track for Another 'Wolf Slaughter,' Sparking Calls for Federal Protections

Rising: Corp America Sets $15/Hr Min Wage To Attract Workers After Dems, Restaurant Lobby RAILED Against It

Rising: What The U.S. Embassy Knows About Haitian President’s Assassination, 44 Arrested For Involvement

Lynn Parramore: Ecofeminism Meets the Space Tycoons

A Little Night Music

Carey Bell - Lonesome Stranger

Carey Bell - Hard Working Woman

Lovie Lee with Carey Bell - Nobody Knows My Troubles

Carey Bell- Everything's Gonna Be All Right

Carey Bell - Pretty Baby

Carey Bell Blues Band - Brought Up The Hard Way

Carey Bell - Delta Time

Carey & Lurrie Bell-What My Mama Told Me

Carey Bell - Bell Hop

Carey Bell Band - 5/4/1996 - Beale Street Music Festival