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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bobby Marchan

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Bobby Marchan. Enjoy!

^{Bobby Marchan - Get Down With It}

"Aggression is simply another name for government."

-- Benjamin Tucker

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News and Opinion

Kinzinger Introduces Measure to Allow US Military Intervention in Ukraine

Amid global calls for focused diplomacy to end the Russian war on Ukraine, U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Sunday introduced a measure that would give congressional authorization for President Joe Biden to intervene militarily if Russia uses biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.

The outgoing Republican congressman from Illinois announced the Authorization for Use of Military Force to Defend America's Allies Resolution of 2022 on CBS's "Face the Nation," more than two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the long-anticipated invasion.

"I don't think we need to be using force in Ukraine right now. I just introduced an AUMF, an authorization for the use of military force, giving the president basically congressional leverage or permission to use it if WMDs, nuclear, biological, or chemical are used in Ukraine," he said on the show, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction.

Kinzinger added in a statement that "Putin must be stopped" and Biden, "the commander in chief to the world's greatest military, should have the authority and means to take the necessary actions to do so."

The Biden administration has significantly stepped up security aid to Ukraine since February but stopped short of taking any military action, even denying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request for a no-fly zone. While sending arms to Ukraine has been met with mixed responses—some anti-war voices warn it just escalates the conflict—peace advocates and foreign policy experts have praised the U.S. president for not getting involved militarily.

"The Biden administration has wisely ruled out such intervention, whether in the form of a 'no-fly zone' or some other military operation, recognizing that it would mean a war with Russia that could quite conceivably escalate into nuclear conflict," George Beebe and Anatol Lieven recently wrote for Responsible Statecraft.

"Crudely put," they continued, "mounting an intervention meant to save Ukrainians, only to see them and millions of others incinerated in a nuclear holocaust, would hardly amount to sound moral arithmetic."

Pelosi Meets Zelensky, Europe Worried US DRAGGING Allies Into Different War, $33B MORE For Ukraine?

US begins to train Ukrainian troops in Germany

The U.S. has started to train Ukrainian troops on howitzer artillery systems and radars at U.S. military installations in Germany, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said Friday.

The efforts will build on initial artillery training given to a small number of Ukrainian forces elsewhere, and will also include training on the radar systems and armored vehicles the U.S. recently pledged to Kyiv, press secretary John Kirby told reporters.

The Florida National Guard will provide “the bulk of the training,” as those forces had been training Ukrainian troops before being moved out of Ukraine ahead of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, Kirby said. ...

The U.S. is training 100 more Ukrainians on howitzer artillery systems in Europe in a five-day course, according to the Pentagon. Washington has said it will send 90 howitzers total to the embattled country as part of two security assistance packages worth $800 million each, announced earlier this month.

From The Guardian's propaganda mill:

‘Safe-passage operation’ evacuates 100 people from besieged Mariupol steelworks

Scores of people who had been sheltering under a steel plant that is the last redoubt for Ukrainian forces in Mariupol have managed to at last leave, after enduring weeks under brutal siege in the destroyed port city.

The UN confirmed on Sunday that a “safe-passage operation” to evacuate civilians had begun, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ukraine and Russia, but declined to give further details in order to protect people. ...

Earlier this weekend, a senior soldier with the Azov regiment at the steelworks said 20 women and children had managed to get out. “We are getting civilians out of the rubble with ropes – it’s the elderly, women and children,” Sviatoslav Palamar told Reuters. On his Telegram channel, Palamar called for the evacuation of the wounded: “We don’t know why they are not taken away and their evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine is not being discussed.”

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that 80 people, including women and children, had left the Azovstal works, according to the state news agency Ria Novosti.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Thursday when meeting Zelenskiy in Kyiv that intense discussions were under way to evacuate the Azovstal plant.

Biden Gifts $33 Billion More To Defense Contractors For Ukraine

Approval for Biden Ukraine aid request likely after Pelosi Kyiv visit, McCaul says

Joe Biden’s $33bn request to Congress for more aid for Ukraine is likely to receive swift approval from lawmakers, a senior Republican said on Sunday, as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, made a surprise visit to the war-riven country. ... Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House foreign affairs committee, went on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulous and said he expected the chamber would look favorably on the request in the coming weeks.

McCaul’s comments came while Pelosi led a congressional delegation to Kyiv to meet the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the House speaker promised on behalf of the US: “We are here until victory is won.”

McCaul was asked if he believed Congress would quickly pass Biden’s requested package, which includes $20bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief. “Yes, I do,” McCaul said. “Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste. I wish we had [Biden’s request] a little bit sooner, but we have it now.”

Meanwhile, Bob Menendez, the Democratic New Jersey senator who chairs the upper chamber’s foreign relations committee, echoed Pelosi’s pledge that the US would continue to support Ukraine financially. “We will do what it takes to see Ukraine win because it’s not just about Ukraine, it’s about the international order,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “If Ukraine does not win, if [Russia’s president Vladimir] Putin can ultimately not only succeed in the Donbas but then be emboldened to go further, if he strikes a country under our treaty obligations with Nato, then we would be directly engaged.

“So stopping Russia from getting to that point is of critical interest to us, as well as the world, so we don’t have to send our sons and daughters into battle. That ability not to have to send our sons and daughters into battle is priceless.”

Prof. Richard Wolff on War and Empire: Unintended Consequences

The American media is failing us on Ukraine

As U.S. leaders speak more openly about their geopolitical goals, and Russian leaders warn of the risk of nuclear war, there are essential questions that journalists should be raising in their coverage of the war in Ukraine that they are not. Chief among them:

Is escalating what has clearly emerged as a proxy war between the United States and Russia hastening or prolonging the carnage in Ukraine?

And: What’s the best way to minimize the risk of a nuclear conflict?

Thus far, most American news coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has reflected an unquestioned conviction that the more weapons the United States and the West send the Ukrainians the better.

It may well be that continuing and accelerating the arming of the Ukrainian military is, in fact, the best of bad options, the quickest way to peace, and doesn’t increase the likelihood of a nuclear strike. But that’s a hypothesis, which should be questioned and discussed, not blindly embraced as fact.

And in the meantime, Ukraine is being destroyed. Civilians are dying, refugees are fleeing for their lives, untold damage is being done to Ukraine’s infrastructure, and young men in arms are killing each other.

It’s time now for journalists to talk and write about at what point the goal of punishing Russia could diverge from the goal of bringing peace to the Ukrainian people as expediently as possible — and what the West should do if and when that happens.

From the AP:

Ukraine cracks down on ‘traitors’ helping Russian troops

Viktor was one of nearly 400 people in the Kharkiv region alone who have been detained under anti-collaboration laws enacted quickly by Ukraine’s parliament and signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. Offenders face up to 15 years in prison for collaborating with Russian forces, making public denials about Russian aggression or supporting Moscow. Anyone whose actions result in deaths could face life in prison. ...

Although the Zelenskyy government has broad support, even among many Russian speakers, not all Ukrainians oppose the invasion. Support for Moscow is more common among some Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas, an industrial region in the east. An eight-year conflict there between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces had killed over 14,000 people even before this year’s invasion.

Some businessmen, civic and state officials and members of the military are among those who have gone over to the Russian side, and Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations said more than 200 criminal cases on collaboration have been opened. Zelenskyy has even stripped two SBU generals of their rank, accusing them of treason. A “registry of collaborators” is being compiled and will be released to the public, said Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s Security Council. He refused to say how many people were targeted nationwide.

Under martial law, authorities have banned 11 pro-Russian political parties, including the largest one that had 25 seats in the 450-member parliament – the Opposition Platform For Life, which was founded by Viktor Medvedchuk, a jailed oligarch with close ties to Putin. ...

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, said her agency has documented “cases of arrests and detention allegedly made by Ukrainian law enforcement authorities, which may involve elements of human rights violations” and is following up with the Ukrainian government.

As Ukraine crumbles, Second and Third fronts in Europe crack open

Biden’s ‘Disinformation’ czar is latest assault on free speech

Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that his agency is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board.” Given the Biden record, it is unclear whether the new board will be fighting or promulgating “disinformation.” Nina Jankowicz, the head of the new board, is a Bryn Mawr graduate who worked for the National Democratic Institute, which is heavily funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which spurred perennial controversy for interfering in foreign elections.

In October 2020, after The New York Post exposed damning emails and other information in Hunter Biden’s laptop, Jankowicz scoffed at the laptop controversy: “We should view it as a Trump campaign product.” ...

Jankowicz never complained when Twitter suppressed all links to The Post articles before the 2020 election. But last week, when rumors circulated that Elon Musk might buy Twitter, she fretted to National Public Radio: “I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms.” That line is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the new Disinformation Governance Board. The goal is not “truth” — which could arise from the clash of competing opinions. Instead, political overlords need power to exert pressure and pull to shape Americans’ beliefs by discrediting, if not totally suppressing, disapproved opinions.

Homeland Security hailed Jankowicz as an “information warfare expert” but that honorific doesn’t indicate which side of the barricades she’ll take.

PayPal Blocks Payments To Anti-War Voices

Oh God It’s Going To Get SO Much Worse

Rightists have spent the last couple of days freaking out and invoking Orwell’s 1984 in response to something their political enemies are doing in America, and for once it’s for a pretty good reason. The Department of Homeland Security has secretly set up a “Disinformation Governance Board“, only informing the public about its plans for the institution after it had already been established.

The disinformation board, which critics have understandably been calling a “Ministry of Truth“, purportedly exists to fight disinformation coming out of Russia as well as misleading messages about the US-Mexico border. We may be certain that the emphasis in the board’s establishment has been on the Russia angle, however.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, in her patented “You’re such a crazy idiot for questioning me about the White House” manner, dismissed alarmed questions about what specific functions this strange new DHS entity was going to be performing and what its authority will look like.

“It sounds like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities,” Psaki said. “I’m not sure who opposes that effort.”

The answer to the question of “who opposes that effort” is of course “anyone with functioning gray matter between their ears.” No government entity has any business appointing itself the authority to sort information from disinformation on behalf of the public, because government entities are not impartial and omniscient deities who can be entrusted to serve the public as objective arbiters of absolute reality. They would with absolute certainty wind up drawing distinctions between information, misinformation and disinformation in whatever way serves their interests, regardless of what’s true, exactly as any authoritarian regime would do.

I mean, is anyone honestly more afraid of Russian disinformation than they are of their own government appointing itself the authority to decide what counts as disinformation?

This important point has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle due to the utterly hypnotic ridiculousness of the person who has been appointed to run the Disinformation Governance Board. Nina Jankowicz, a carefully groomed swamp creature who has worked in Kyiv as a communications advisor to the Ukrainian government as part of a Fulbright fellowship, is being widely criticized by pundits and social media users for her virulent Russiagating and whatever the hell this is:

You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation https://t.co/eGV9lpctYn pic.twitter.com/WVQFA2bPmq

— Nina Jankowicz (@wiczipedia) February 17, 2021

Because of this person’s embarrassing cartoonishness, a lot more commentary lately has been going into discussing the fact that the Department of Homeland Security’s Ministry of Truth is run by a kooky liberal than the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has a fucking Ministry of Truth.

Which is really to miss the forest for the trees, in my opinion. Would it really be any better if the “Disinformation Governance Board” was run by a chill dude you wouldn’t mind having a beer with? Especially when we know the ideological leanings of this department are going to bounce back and forth between elections and will always act in service of US empire narrative control regardless of who is in office? I don’t think so.

The real issue at hand is the fact that this new institution will almost certainly play a role in bridging the ever-narrowing gap between government censorship and Silicon Valley censorship. The creation of the DHS disinformation board is a far more shocking and frightening development than last year’s scandalous revelation that the White House was advising social media platforms about accounts it determined were circulating censorship-worthy Covid misinformation, which was itself a drastic leap in the direction toward direct government censorship from what had previously been considered normal.

We should probably talk more about how as soon as people accepted that it was fine for government, media and Silicon Valley institutions to work together to censor misinformation and rally public support around an Official Narrative about a virus, the ruling power establishment immediately took that as license to do that with a war and a foreign government as well.

Like, immediately immediately. We went from a massive narrative control campaign about a virus, which people accepted because they wanted to contain a deadly pandemic, straight into a massive narrative control campaign about Russia and Ukraine. Without skipping a beat. Like openly manipulating everyone’s understanding of world events is just what we do now. Now we’re seeing increasingly brazen censorship of political dissent about a fucking war that could easily end up getting us all killed in a nuclear holocaust, and a portion of the Biden administration’s whopping $33 billion Ukraine package is going toward funding “independent media” (read: war propaganda).

White House fact-sheet says part of the mammoth $33 billion spending package it's requesting for Ukraine will be to "support independent media." Because nothing screams "independent" like being directly funded by the US Government as part of its "information warfare" initiative pic.twitter.com/O3JshV1Mg9

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 28, 2022

We should probably talk more about this. We should probably talk more about how insane it is that all mainstream western institutions immediately accepted it as a given that World War II levels of censorship and propaganda must be implemented over a faraway war that our governments are not even officially a part of.

It started as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine, without any public discussion whatsoever. Like the groundwork had already been laid and everyone had already agreed that that’s what would happen. The public had no say in whether we want to be propagandized and censored to help the US win some kind of weird infowar to ensure its continued unipolar domination of the planet. It just happened.

No reason was given to the public as to why this must occur, and there was no public debate as to whether it should. This was by design, because propaganda only works when you don’t know it’s happening to you.

The choice was made for us that information is too important to be left in the hands of the people. It became set in stone that we are to be a propaganda-based society rather than a truth-based society. No discussion was offered, and no debate was allowed.

And as bad as it is, it’s on track to get much, much worse. They’re already setting up “disinformation” regulation in the government which presides over Silicon Valley, the proxy war between the US and Ukraine is escalating by the day, and aggressions are ramping up against China over both the Solomon Islands and Taiwan. If you think imperial narrative management is intense now, wait until the US empire’s struggle to secure global hegemony really gets going.

Do you consent to this? Do you? It’s something you kind of have to take a position on, because its implications have a direct effect on our lives as individuals and on our trajectory as a society. How much are we willing to sacrifice to help the US win an infowar against Russia?

The question of whether we should abandon all hope of ever becoming a truth-based society and committing instead to winning propaganda wars for a globe-spanning empire is perhaps the most consequential decision we’ve ever had to make as a species. Which is why we weren’t given a choice. It’s just been foisted upon us.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. By taking our control of information out of our hands without asking our permission and determining for us that we are to be a propaganda-based civilization for the foreseeable future, they have stolen something sacred from us. Something they had no right to take.

Nothing about the state of the world tells us that the people who run things are doing a good job. Nothing about our current situation suggests they should be given more control, rather than having control taken away from them and given to the people. We are going in exactly the wrong direction.

FBI Conducted Potentially Millions of Searches of Americans’ Data Last Year, Report Says

The Federal Bureau of Investigation performed potentially millions of searches of American electronic data last year without a warrant, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday, a revelation likely to stoke longstanding concerns in Congress about government surveillance and privacy.

An annual report published Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed that the FBI conducted as many as 3.4 million searches of U.S. data that had been previously collected by the National Security Agency. ...

The disclosure of the searches marks the first time a U.S. intelligence agency has published an accounting, however imprecise, of the FBI’s grabs of American data through a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that governs some foreign intelligence gathering. The section of FISA that authorizes the FBI’s activity, known as Section 702, is due to expire next year.

Spain says PM Sanchez' phone targeted by Pegasus spyware

UN Chief Slams Fossil Fuel Sector for Trying to Use Ukraine War to 'Lock in a High Carbon Future'

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday slammed the fossil fuel industry for trying to use Russia's war on Ukraine to boost polluters' profits at the expense of the global climate and all life on Earth.

"Fossil fuel interests are now cynically using the war in Ukraine to try to lock in a high carbon future," Guterres tweeted. "A shift to renewables is crucial to mending our broken global energy mix and offering hope to millions suffering climate impacts today."

Climate action advocates welcomed the U.N. chief's message—including American author and activist Bill McKibben, who said that Guterres "may understand this moment better than any other official on the planet. And this may be the most important tweet of the spring."

Guterres' tweet followed his Thursday trip to sites of alleged war crimes in Ukraine. During the tour, he said that "the war is evil," emphasized the need for "a thorough investigation and accountability," and urged Russia to cooperate with the International Criminal Court—which opened a probe after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February.

Putin's war has not only impacted Russians and Ukrainians; it has also disrupted the global supply of food and fuel. Western governments have responded to the invasion by arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia—a key exporter of oil and gas.

U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last month announced a joint task force intended "to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian fossil fuels and strengthen European energy security." In a letter to the pair earlier this month, over 200 groups called for ramping up the clean energy transition rather than boosting fossil fuel shipments from the United States to Europe.

"Any expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure will further reliance on fossil fuels, which is incompatible with climate science, justice, as well as U.S. and E.U. commitments to climate leadership," the groups wrote. "We must also stress that new fossil fuel infrastructure will harm communities near fracking wells, pipelines, power plants, and LNG infrastructure."

"LNG infrastructure can take three years or more to come online, diverting resources away from the infrastructure investments that will actually help rapidly reduce demand for gas," they noted. "Redirecting existing LNG exports, combined with energy efficiency measures and an all-out mobilization to renewable energy, could immediately address Europe's current reliance on Russian gas."

The ongoing war coincides with the early April release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report—which led Guterres to declare that the world, but particularly rich nations most responsible for pollution, "must triple the speed of the shift to renewable energy."

"That means moving investments and subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables—now," he said at the time. "In most cases, renewables are already far cheaper. It means governments ending the funding of coal, not just abroad, but at home."

Climate campaigners and progressive U.S. lawmakers have accused fossil fuel giants of using the war to price gouge consumers while filling the pockets of top executives and shareholders. Members of Congress are weighing a windfall profits tax intended to prevent such behavior by companies while providing relief via rebates to people facing high prices at the pump.

French Greens, Melenchon strike deal ahead of legislative election

May Day marches across France send pensions message to Macron

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in French street demonstrations as May Day marches sent a “message” to Emmanuel Macron that he must consult citizens more during his second term, and reverse plans to raise the retirement age or face protests.

“There will be a fight over pensions, that’s clear – battle has been declared,” said the leftwing CGT trade union in Toulouse. Trade unionists, environmentalists and parties on the left, as well as yellow-vest anti-government protesters, marched in cities across the country – on what is also known as fête du Travail (Labour Day) in France – demanding a rise in pensions and salaries and an end to Macron’s plan to gradually raise the pension age to 65. ...

“This is a very political May Day, where workers intend to weigh heavily on all the big issues,” said Benoît Teste, head of the FSU teachers’ union. “It’s a crucial moment to feel the mood on the ground and set the tone.”

“I want to calm things,” Macron had told locals in a walkabout in south-west France on Friday, after vowing to take into account everyone who voted for him, including those on the left who chose him only to keep out Le Pen. But no details have filtered out on how Macron would consult with citizens or whether he will undertake a reform of France’s political system, including introducing an element of proportional representation in parliament. ...

Macron has spent recent days still in campaign mode, wading into crowds in town squares in order to listen to voters’ concerns, sometimes for hours at a time, to counter his image as haughty and aloof and to show he has understood the current cost-of-living crisis, which is voters’ number one concern. This is seen as crucial if he is to secure a broad centrist majority in the parliamentary elections in June that would give him a free hand to implement his policies of overhauling the welfare state and pensions system. The parliament vote has been seized upon by both the far-right Le Pen and the radical-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who are seeking to greatly increase their seats in a France where voters are divided and disappointed with politics.

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Joe Manchin CAUGHT Red Handed In New Corruption Scandal

Democratic senator Joe Manchin cuts ad for West Virginia Republican

Joe Manchin has recorded an ad for a Republican in a West Virginia US House election, in which the Democratic senator trumpets his opposition to Joe Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending plan. ...

In the ad, Manchin says: “I’ve always said, ‘If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it. And that is why I opposed Build Back Better. For Alex Mooney and his out-of-state supporters to suggest David McKinley supported Build Back Better is an outright lie.”

Many observers have said Build Back Better would have benefited West Virginians, who live in one of the poorest states in the union, prey to the fossil fuel industry in which Manchin prospered. Manchin has suggested parts of the plan could win his support. No visible progress has been made.

58% Of Voters Want Third Party Candidate For President In 2024

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‘Deep-sea gold rush’ for rare metals could cause irreversible harm

In a windowless conference room in Canary Wharf, dozens of mining executives, bankers and government officials are being promised unique insights into how to profit from “the deep-sea gold rush”. The hoped-for gold rush lies thousands of miles away on the bed of the Pacific Ocean, where trillions of potato-sized nodules of rare earth elements vital to power the next generation of electric cars have been discovered 4,000m below the surface.

Mining companies are hoping that global rules to allow industrial scale deep-sea mining to collect the haul could be set in place as early as July 2023. However, environmental campaigners warned that mining for the metals would be “dangerous”, “reckless” and cause “irreversible harm” to little-known ecosystems. One estimate suggests that 90% of the deep-sea species that researchers encounter are new to science.

Louisa Casson, a Greenpeace campaigner, criticised the industry for running the conference and banks for considering investing in the “dangerous and unnecessary” projects to “make a quick profit”.

“This destructive new industry wants to rip up an ecosystem we are only just starting to understand,” she said. “[They are] aiming to make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions of people relying on them bear the costs.”

The nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Mexico were first discovered by the crew of HMS Challenger in 1875, but only recent developments in underwater robotics have made large-scale mining of the metals possible. The UN-affiliated organisation that oversees the controversial new industry has granted licenses for companies to explore the area, but full-scale mining has yet to start.

World Risks Losing 1 in 5 Reptile Species as Human Activity Destroys Ecosystems, Says Report Author

Arizona Slammed for Permitting Uranium Mine That Imperils Grand Canyon Tribe's Water

Indigenous and environmental activists on Friday condemned an Arizona agency's approval of a key permit for a uranium mine near the Grand Canyon that opponents say threatens the land, water, wildlife—and Native Americans' ancestral obligation to safeguard a place they've called home for centuries.

The Arizona Republic reports the state's Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday issued an aquifer protection plan permit for Canada-based Energy Fuels Resources' Pinyon Plain Mine, located about 10 miles south of the Grand Canyon's South Rim in Kaibab National Forest.

Conservationists and tribes have long opposed the mine, which has been in various stages of planning and preparation since 1984 but from which no uranium has yet been extracted. The Havasupai people, some of whom live in a nearby canyon, say the project imperils their sole source of drinking water.

"Mining uranium in the Grand Canyon watershed threatens the enduring legacy of this landscape and jeopardizes the entire water supply of the Havasupai people," Michè Lozano, Arizona program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), said in a statement, warning of the "incredible threats that uranium mining poses to the limited underground sources that feed the canyon's creeks and waterways."

According to NPCA:

The mine... has a history of flooding as it depletes shallow groundwater aquifers that express at South Rim springs. It also threatens to permanently contaminate deep aquifers that feed Havasu Creek and other springs. The approval comes despite calls by the Havasupai Tribe and conservation groups to close the Pinyon Plain Mine given its risks to water and tribal cultural resources...

In late 2016 mineshaft drilling pierced shallow aquifers, causing water pumped from the mine to spike from 151,000 gallons in 2015 to 1.4 million gallons in 2016. In the years since then, inflow has ranged from 8.8 million gallons in 2017 to 10.76 million gallons in 2019; most recently, the mine took on 8,261,406 gallons of groundwater in 2021.

Since 2016, dissolved uranium in that water has consistently exceeded federal toxicity limits by more than 300% and arsenic levels by more than 2,800%.

"Neither regulators nor the uranium industry can ensure that mining won't permanently damage the Grand Canyon's precious aquifers and springs," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "This permit strenuously ignores science showing the potential for deep aquifer pollution, and in a region still plagued by seven decades of uranium industry pollution, risking more, as this permit does, is dangerous."

Asserting that "uranium mines do not belong among the complex groundwater systems that surround the Grand Canyon," Amber Reimondo, energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, said that "uranium contamination in a system like this is forever and while the mining company can walk away, the Havasupai tribe can't. This is, and always has been, their home."

Havasupai tribal leaders have long argued against uranium mining on lands from which their ancestors were ethnically cleansed to make way for white tourists before being pressed into dehumanizing railroad labor.

One of the staunchest Havasupai mining opponents, the late Tribal Chairman Rex Tilousi, believed that his people "were given a responsibility to protect and preserve this land and water for those yet to come."

"The ancient rock writing in our canyon tells us to protect this place," Tilousi said at a 2018 prayer gathering. "The canyon doesn't belong to us. We belong to the canyon, to the Earth, to the water. It created us and gave us life. We are fighting for our lives and for those who are yet to come."

Carletta Tilousi, Rex's niece and a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, spoke against uranium mining at an Earth Day rally in Phoenix last week.

"Native Americans, we have struggled so far and so long, and we don't need it anymore," she said. "We want to make sure our future generations have clean air, clean water, and a happy life. That's all we ask for."

Climate Injustice: Those Who Face Record Heat Wave in India & Pakistan Did Not Create the Crisis

‘Turning the dial up’: US south-west braces for extended wildfire season amid drastic drought

Hot, dry winds will continue to spur flames burning through the drought-stricken landscapes in the south-west and the American plains, complicating efforts to extinguish roughly a dozen destructive wildfires that have already driven thousands from their homes.

Risks are usually higher in the region during this time of year and fire conditions typically ramp up in the months sandwiched between winter and summer rain seasons. But experts say the explosive start is an indication of what’s to come in the warming months. Spiking temperatures threaten to bake more moisture out of the thirsty environments, setting the stage for ignitions to turn into infernos.

“Climate change is taking a situation that would be bad for us normally,” says Gregg Garffin, a climatologist at the University of Arizona, “and turning the dial up.” Once confined to specific times of year, wildfire conditions are stretching across more months, and will likely continue until the region gets additional rain.

More than a million acres have already burned across the country since the start of this year, an amount more than double last year for this date, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). The agency’s accounting also shows that more fires have ignited this year than any other in the last decade and burn totals are more than 71% higher than the ten-year average.

Last year’s exceptionally strong summer monsoon in the south-west – which delivered record rainfall in some areas – led to a lush landscape that has now begun to brown. With temperatures rising, the parched plants have turned to fuel for flames, driven faster by gusty winds. The conditions aren’t expected to abate anytime soon. Roughly 90% of the American west remains mired in drought with many areas desperately missing the winter rains they rely on to refill water-starved systems.

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Also of Interest

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

Curfew for Anniversary of Odessa Massacre That Sparked Rebellion

Blasts Reported in Moldova Breakaway State Bordering Ukraine

Ukraine - Doubling Down

Putting Biden’s new whopping $33B Ukraine package into context

Democrats announce bills to hold Pentagon accountable for civilian deaths in US military operations

Kim Repeatedly Signals North Korea Could 'Preemptively' Use Nuclear Weapons

The Manchin Family’s Short-Lived Cannabis Dream

Climate Emergency: India's Unprecedented Heatwave Adds to Global Bread Shortages

Catch a failing star: the tense wait for a supernova

Biden-EU economic policy, 'Lunacy taken to a greater level'

Biden Fumbles Badly With Basic English Words

DeSantis Vows To Fight Biden’s “Ministry Of Truth”

Biden’s New DISINFORMATION Board Leader Thought Hunter Laptop Story Was Russian Misinfo: Robby Soave

Chomsky: TRUMP Is The Only Western Politician Who's Correct On Russia-Ukraine

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A Little Night Music

Bobby Marchan - Chickee Wah-Wah

Bobby Marchan - What Can I Do

Bobby Marchan - There is Something On Your Mind (Parts 1 & 2)

Bobby Marchan - Loberta

Bobby Marchan - I've Got A Thing Going On

Bobby Marchan - Don't Take Your Love From Me

Bobby Marchan - Sad Sack

Bobby Marchan - Quit My Job

Bobby Marchan - (Ain't No Reason) For Girls to Be Lonely

Bobby Marchan - Rockin Pneumonia

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