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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Clarence Garlow

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas/New Orleans blues/cajun guitarist Clarence Garlow. Enjoy!

^{Clarence Garlow - Bon Ton Roula}

"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."

-- Edmund Burke

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News and Opinion

Hedges: The Age of Self-Delusion

Blinded by what Barbara Tuchman calls “the bellicose frivolity of senile empires,” we are marching ominously towards war with Russia. How else might we explain Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s public declaration that the US goal is to “weaken Russia” and Joe Biden’s request for another $33 billion in “emergency” military and economic aid (half of what Russia spent on its military in 2021) for Ukraine? The same cabal of generals and politicians that drained the state of trillions of dollars in the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia and learned nothing from the nightmare of Vietnam, revel in the illusion of their omnipotence. They have no interest in a diplomatic solution. There are billions in profits to be made in arms sales. There is political posturing to be done. There are generals itching to pull the trigger. Why have all these high-priced and technologically advanced weapons systems if you can’t use them? Why not show the world this time around that the US still dominates the globe?

The masters of war require an enemy. When an enemy cannot be found, as George Orwell understood in Nineteen Eighty-Four, an enemy is manufactured. That enemy can become an ally overnight – we allied ourselves with Iran in the Middle East to fight the Taliban and later the Caliphate – before instantly reinstated Iran as the incarnation of evil. The enemy is not about logic or geopolitical necessity. It is about stoking the fear and hatred that fuels perpetual war. In 1989, I covered the revolutions that toppled the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe. President Mikhail Gorbachev, like his successor Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin in the early stages of his rule, hoped to integrate Russia into the western alliance. But the war industry places profits before national defense. It needed an antagonistic Russia to push the expansion of NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany in violation of a promise made to Moscow. There were billions of dollars to be made from a Russian enemy, as there are billions more to be made from the proxy war in Ukraine. There would be no “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War. The war industry was determined to continue to bleed the US dry and amass its obscene profits. They provoked and antagonized Russia until Russia filled its preordained role. ...

The war in Ukraine is intimately linked to the real existential crisis we face – the climate crisis. The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, and be nearly halved this decade, to thwart global catastrophe. UN Secretary General António Guterres characterized the report as “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” Triggered by war in Ukraine, soaring energy prices have pushed the US and other countries to call on domestic oil producers to increase fossil fuel extraction and exacerbate the climate crisis. Oil and gas lobbyists are demanding the Biden administration lift prohibitions on offshore drilling and on federal lands. Black and brown people, who suffered in the brutal wars in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria, without the western support and sympathy shown white Ukrainians, will again be targeted. The Indian subcontinent is currently plagued with temperatures as high as 116.6 degrees, power outages of 10 to 14 hours a day and dying fields of crops. An estimated 143 million people will be displaced over the next thirty years, nearly all from Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the IPCC writes.

These endless conflicts will inevitably militarize our response to the climate breakdown. Absent measures and resources to halt the rise in global temperatures, curtail our reliance on fossil fuels, foster a plant-based diet and curb profligate consumption, nations will increasingly use their militaries to hoard diminishing natural resources, including food and water. Russia and Ukraine account for 30 per cent of all wheat traded on world markets. Since the invasion, the price of wheat has gone up by between 50 and 65 per cent in commodities exchanges. This is a hint of what is to come. ...

War is a spectacular form of social control. It secures a blind, unquestioning mass consent propped up by what Pankaj Mishra calls an “infotainment media” that “works up citizens into a state of paranoid patriotism,” while “a service class of intellectuals talks up the American Revolution and the international liberal order.” This world of fantasy is sustained by myths – the myth that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq would welcome us as liberators, that Ukraine is not a real nation, that Ukrainians see themselves as pan-Russians, that all that stands between Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Somalis, Yemenis and Libyans and ourselves are terrorists, that all that stands between Putin and Ukrainians are neo-Nazis and their supporters in the West. Those that challenge these fantasies, whether in Russia or the US, are attacked, marginalized, and censored. Few notice. The dream is more appealing than reality. Step-by-step these blinded, bloodied cyclops of war stumble forward leaving mounds of corpses in their wake.

US EXPANSIONIST Goal To 'Weaken Russia' Mirrors DANGEROUS Tactics In Afghanistan: Dr. Trita Parsi

Western Civilization Is Being Organized Around Winning US Infowars

The US-centralized empire’s use of propaganda, censorship and Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation is the single most urgent issue of our time, because it’s what prevents attention from being drawn to all other issues. And all signs indicate it’s set to get much, much worse.

I feel the need to reiterate once again that the censorship we’re seeing about Ukraine is of a whole new kind than anything we’ve seen before. There’s no pretense that it’s done to save lives or protect democracy this time around, it’s just “We need to control the thoughts that people think about this war.”

Once it was accepted that disinformation and misinformation must be curtailed from above, government and tech institutions took that as license to decide what’s true and false on our behalf. We know this because now they’re just openly propagandizing and censoring us about a war.

When Russia does it it's lies and disinformation. When Ukraine does it it's folklore. pic.twitter.com/XbXuceePdc

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 1, 2022

You didn’t know that you were granting government and tech institutions authority to decide what’s true and false on your behalf when you agreed that it’s fine for them to work together to censor and sanctify Official Narratives about Covid, but it turns out that’s what was happening.

It looks pretty obvious in retrospect now though, doesn’t it? You can’t regulate “disinformation” and “misinformation” without first determining what it is, and you can’t determine what it is without assigning someone the authority to make those distinctions. There are no benefecent, impartial and omniscient entities who can be trusted to become objective arbiters of absolute reality on our behalf. There are only flawed human beings who act in their own interest, which is why we’re now being censored and propagandized about a war.

In literally the very next instant after being given the authority to decide what’s true and false on our behalf regarding Covid, those same government, media and tech institutions launched into World War II levels of propaganda and censorship over a war we’re not even officially in. It was like they all said “Oh good, we get to do that now, finally.” The consensus that it was fine to launch into a shocking information lockdown about Ukraine was already formed and prepped for roll-out the day Russia invaded. It was taken as a given that they had that authority.

Over the last two years you’d get called an “anti-vaxxer” and worse if you said you didn’t think government-tied monopolistic megacorporations should be restricting speech about Covid measures that affect everyone, but it turns out those who issued these warnings were 100 percent correct.

It is clear now, as we see what we are becoming, that granting these powerful institutions authority to sort out fact from fiction on our behalf is far more dangerous than misinformation about a virus ever was. Now here we are, with the empire setting up “disinformation” boards while it escalates aggressions with Russia by the day and prepares to do the same with China in the not-too distant future. Our whole civilization is being organized around winning US propaganda wars.

PayPal is just openly conducting politically motivated financial censorship of indie media now. First @MintPressNews and @calebmaupin, now Consortium News. Silicon Valley is the censorship arm of the US empire. https://t.co/LAMEG029DW

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 1, 2022

Censorship is bad because free speech is how society orients itself toward truth, course-corrects when it’s going astray, and holds power to account. This is true whether censorship is by the government or by tech oligarchs. Only morons act like this is some weird right wing thing.

People say, “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach!”

And the answer to this is always, yes it does you idiot. If people who support status quo power have access to all the largest voice amplification platforms while critics of status quo power don’t, this kills the very purpose of free speech protections. Free speech protections are enshrined exactly because unrestricted speech puts a check on power. If critics of status quo power structures are being banned from the platforms where people get their voices heard, this function has been nullified.

You can’t say your society has free speech if critics of status quo orthodoxies aren’t free to speak where they will be heard, for exactly the same reason you can’t say people have free speech in Saudi Arabia as long as nobody hears their criticisms of the government.

Because free speech is designed to put a check on status quo power, it is exactly the voices who criticize the status quo that must be protected. Some of these voices will be unpalatable, but the alternative is permitting a Ministry of Truth to decide what dissent is permissible, an authority that’s certain to be abused.

Speech isn’t free if it isn’t free in all the areas where people congregate to speak. If only mainstream supporters of the status quo have free access to all platforms, then free speech isn’t happening, and power has a lot more ability to do what it likes unchecked by the public. Saying it’s fine because people are still free to go to Gab or Truth Social to voice their criticisms of establishment Ukraine narratives or whatever is the same as saying it’s fine because people can still speak their criticisms of the government into a hole in the ground. Free speech is not happening.

Consent for this was given when we allowed these powers to assume complete narrative authority over what constitutes “misinformation”. It’s never too late to revoke consent, though. It just means the fight to pry our voices out of the hands of our rulers is going to be a tough slog.

Ukrainian military confirms ‘The Ghost of Kyiv’ is made up

The viral tale of the so-called “Ghost of Kyiv” — a lone Ukrainian ace fighter pilot credited with at least six kills in the skies, with some claims putting the number up to 40 — has been officially denounced by the Ukrainian military after a pilot who died in March was identified as the Ghost by multiple media outlets, including The Times of London.

“The Ghost of Kyiv is alive and embodies a collective image of the highly qualified pilots of the tactical aviation brigade successfully defending Kyiv and the surrounding region,” Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, told The London Times, after the paper, citing “Ukrainian sources,” identified the pilot as Maj. Stepan Tarabalka and reported he had been shot down on March 13 while fighting “overwhelming” enemy forces.

The Ukrainian military denied those claims.

“A Very Dangerous Moment”: Russian & U.S. Escalation Raises Risk of Direct Military Clash in Ukraine

Russia Strikes U.S. Weapons at Airfield Near Odesa, Defence Ministry Says

Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday it had struck at weapons supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries and destroyed a runway at a military airfield near the Ukrainian city of Odesa.

The ministry said it used high-precision Onyx missiles to strike the airfield, after Ukraine accused Russia of knocking out a newly-constructed runway at the main airport of Odesa. ...

Russia's defence ministry also said its air defence systems had shot down two Ukrainian Su-24m bombers over the Kharkiv region overnight.

As Russia Advances in Donbass West 'Seeks Victory' in Ukraine, Inviting Disaster Instead

Ukrainian government continues campaign of domestic oppression

As the NATO proxy war against Russia rages in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government is carrying out a campaign of domestic repression against alleged “collaborators” and “traitors” in order to bolster its pro-war agenda and eliminate any opposition that may favor a negotiated peace with Moscow to end the war. Last week the Kyiv Independent reported that “a hunt for alleged collaborators is underway in recaptured parts of the country.” The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) along with the national and local police, territorial defense units and the State Emergency Service, are leading the hunt for suspects.

According to the Kyiv Independent, the SBU had already arrested 33 suspects in Kiev by April 7, and by April 15, over 300 alleged collaborators had been arrested. It is unclear how the SBU is able to deduce exactly who collaborated with the Russian forces other than relying on the testimony of neighbors. ... The report comes on the heels of the revelation that Kiev was supplied with advanced face-scanning technology by the American firm Clearview AI and that such technology was already being used to identify dead Russian soldiers and scan the faces of Ukrainian citizens in order to find “traitors.” ...

A street-level campaign of vigilante lynchings is already being carried out with the support of Ukraine’s Armed Forces who are either direct participants or observers in the attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

The Kyiv Independent also reported approvingly on the arrest of leading pro-Russian political figure Viktor Medvedchuk, who was apprehended on April 12. He had attempted to disguise himself as a member of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and has now been charged with treason. ... Western capitalist press outlets such as Newsweek reported on Medvedchuk’s capture simply as the justified arrest of a “pro-Putin ally,” purposely obscuring the fact that Medvedchuk led Ukraine's second largest political party by parliamentary seats that had begun to poll close to or was even ahead of Zelensky’s ruling Servant of the People party in pre-invasion political polls.

Moreover, no evidence has been published, indicating how exactly Medvedchuk supposedly collaborated with the Russians. Nor has it been explained why he remained in Kiev days after the attack, putting his life in certain danger, if he really did know of the impending invasion beforehand. Medvedchuk’s party, the Opposition Platform—For Life, was banned in March by Zelensky along with 10 other opposition and left-wing parties. These parties had denounced the Russian attack but were also calling for immediate negotiations to end the war.

Canadian General in Azovstal? Russian media warns UK. Ukraine warns Orban.

EU comes to the crunch over Russia’s demands to pay roubles for gas

Europe is facing a crunch point in mid-May when EU member states will have to reject Moscow’s demands for fuel payments to be made in roubles – despite being without alternative gas supply, Brussels has warned. Kadri Simson, the European commissioner for energy, said on Monday that the Kremlin’s demands had to be rebuffed despite the risks of an interruption to supply at a time that the shortfall cannot be made good.

Last week, Gazprom suspended its gas flow to Poland and Bulgaria and threatened the supply of others if they should follow Warsaw and Sofia in failing to pay for fuel in the Russian currency. After a meeting of EU energy ministers, Simson said that all the energy ministers had accepted that paying in roubles through the mechanism set out by Russia would breach sanctions imposed by the bloc after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It is understood that the next major date for payments for gas by European energy companies is 20 May.

The potential standoff comes as the EU considers phasing in a ban on Russian oil, a move that Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Monday would lead to a major economic hit and higher prices for consumers. Habeck said Germany was not opposed to such a ban but he warned that Europeans needed to be prepared for the consequences and that some countries would be hit harder than others. He said: “We will be harming ourselves, that much is clear. It’s inconceivable that sanctions won’t have consequences for our own economy and for prices in our countries.

MSNBC Host: “Higher Gas Prices Save Ukrainian Lives!”

Cost of the Ukraine War Felt in Africa, Global South

While international news headlines remain largely focused on the war in Ukraine, little attention is given to the horrific consequences of the war which are felt in many regions around the world. Even when these repercussions are discussed, disproportionate coverage is allocated to European countries, like Germany and Austria, due to their heavy reliance on Russian energy sources.

The horrific scenario, however, awaits countries in the Global South which, unlike Germany, will not be able to eventually substitute Russian raw material from elsewhere. Countries like Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Ghana and numerous others, are facing serious food shortages in the short, medium and long term.

The World Bank is warning of a "human catastrophe" as a result of a burgeoning food crisis, itself resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war. The World Bank President, David Malpass, told the BBC that his institution estimates a "huge" jump in food prices, reaching as high as 37%, which would mean that the poorest of people would be forced to "eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling."

This foreboding crisis is now compounding an existing global food crisis, resulting from major disruptions in the global supply chains, as a direct outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as pre-existing problems, resulting from wars and civil unrest, corruption, economic mismanagement, social inequality and more.

Even prior to the war in Ukraine, the world was already getting hungrier. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 811 million people in the world "faced hunger in 2020", with a massive jump of 118 million compared to the previous year. Considering the continued deterioration of global economies, especially in the developing world, and the subsequent and unprecedented inflation worldwide, the number must have made several large jumps since the publishing of FAO's report in July 2021, reporting on the previous year.

Indeed, inflation is now a global phenomenon. The consumer price index in the United States has increased by 8.5% from a year earlier, according to the financial media company, Bloomberg. In Europe, "inflation (reached) record 7.5%", according to the latest data released by Eurostat. As troubling as these numbers are, western societies with relatively healthy economies and potential room for government subsidies, are more likely to weather the inflation storm, if compared to countries in Africa, South America, the Middle East and many parts of Asia.

The war in Ukraine has immediately impacted food supplies to many parts of the world. Russia and Ukraine combined contribute 30% of global wheat exports. Millions of tons of these exports find their way to food-import-dependent countries in the Global South - mainly the regions of South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Considering that some of these regions, comprising some of the poorest countries in the world, have already been struggling under the weight of pre-existing food crises, it is safe to say that tens of millions of people already are, or are likely to go, hungry in the coming months and years.

Another factor resulting from the war is the severe US-led western sanctions on Russia. The harm of these sanctions is likely to be felt more in other countries than in Russia itself, due to the fact that the latter is largely food and energy independent.

Although the overall size of the Russian economy is comparatively smaller than that of leading global economic powers like the US and China, its contributions to the world economy makes it absolutely critical. For example, Russia accountsfor a quarter of the world's natural gas exports, according to the World Bank, and 18% of coal and wheat exports, 14% of fertilizers and platinum shipments, and 11% of crude oil. Cutting off the world from such a massive wealth of natural resources while it is desperately trying to recover from the horrendous impact of the pandemic is equivalent to an act of economic self-mutilation.

Of course, some are likely to suffer more than others. While economic growth is estimated to shrink by a large margin - up to 50% in some cases - in countries that fuel regional and international growth such as Turkey, South Africa and Indonesia, the crisis is expected to be much more severe in countries that aim for mere economic subsistence, including many African countries.

An April report published by the humanitarian group, Oxfam, citing an alert issued by 11 international humanitarian organizations, warned that "West Africa is hit by its worst food crisis in a decade." Currently, there are 27 million people going hungry in that region, a number that may rise to 38 million in June if nothing is done to stave off the crisis. According to the report, this number would represent "a new historic level", as it would be an increase by more than a third compared to last year. Like other struggling regions, the massive food shortage is a result of the war in Ukraine, in addition to pre-existing problems, lead amongst them the pandemic and climate change.

While the thousands of sanctions imposed on Russia are yet to achieve any of their intended purpose, it is poor countries that are already feeling the burden of the war, sanctions and geopolitical tussle between great powers. As the west is busy dealing with its own economic woes, little heed is being paid to those suffering most. And as the world is forced to transition to a new global economic order, it will take years for small economies to successfully make that adjustment.

While it is important that we acknowledge the vast changes to the world's geopolitical map, let us not forget that millions of people are going hungry, paying the price for a global conflict of which they are not part.

The End of Roe v. Wade: Leaked Opinion Shows Supreme Court Is Set to Overturn Abortion Rights

Leaked Draft Opinion Shows Supreme Court Set to Strike Down Roe v. Wade

A leaked draft opinion published Monday by Politico strongly suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority will soon strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling enshrining the constitutional right to abortion.

"This is the most alarming sign yet that our nation's highest court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion as we know it and ripping away our freedom to decide if, when, and how to raise our families," NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju said in a statement.

In a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who has supported anti-choice Democrats and in 2017 opined that focusing on reproductive rights helped elect former President Donald Trump—said that "if the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years—not just on women but on all Americans."

"The Republican-appointed justices' reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history," they added.

Asserting that "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito wrote in the draft opinion—in which he is reportedly joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—that "we hold that Roe and Casey must be overturned," a reference to the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion while allowing states to regulate the procedure.

"We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly," Alito contended, referring to the legal principle of deference to precedent. Abortion has been a constitutionally enshrined right since 1973—or for a fifth of the nation's history.

"We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion," Alito added, "...and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives."

Reproductive rights advocates say that if Roe is struck down, more than 20 states are certain or likely to outlaw abortion, many via so-called "trigger laws."

"While this is a draft opinion and abortion is still legal, we need to brace for a future where more and more people are punished and criminalized for seeking and providing abortion care," said Timmaraju. "Now more than ever, we must support those working to provide abortion care and elect champions who will relentlessly fight for reproductive freedom and take bold action to safeguard abortion rights."

Following the draft opinion's publication, hundreds of reproductive rights advocates staged a demonstration outside the Supreme Court, where barriers had already been erected in anticipation of protests.

The Politico article's authors, Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward, noted that "no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending."

Gerstein and Ward said Politico received a copy of the draft from "a person familiar with the court's proceedings" in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case challenging Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban that reproductive rights advocates have warned could prove Roe's "death knell."

In addition to Roe, Alito also takes aim at Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 ruling overturning the state's sodomy ban, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, sparking fears that this could be but the beginning of a wider rollback of civil rights won in recent decades.

Advocates stressed the imperative for Congress to act immediately to shield reproductive freedom at the federal level—and for people to stand up and fight for their rights.

"If SCOTUS is going to legislate from the bench and turn back the clock 50 years on Roe v. Wade, then the Senate needs to pass my Women's Health Protection Act," tweeted Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), referring to legislation that would codify the right to abortion nationwide.

The House of Representatives approved the WHPA last September, but the measure failed to pass in the upper chamber after right-wing West Virgina Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin voted with Republicans to filibuster it.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted: "Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country now. And if there aren't 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asserted that "it's time for the millions who support the Constitution and abortion rights to stand up and make their voices heard. We're not going back—not ever."

Will Abortion UPEND American Politics?

Utilities Cut Power to Millions of Homes as Profits and Pay Soared: Report

Private utilities have shut off electricity to U.S. households more than 3.5 million times since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, even as the power companies have reaped windfall profits and their executives' compensation has skyrocketed, a report published Monday revealed.

The research—entitled Powerless in the Pandemic 2.0—was produced by the advocacy groups Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Bailout Watch as a follow-up to a September 2021 publication that showed how utilities took $1.25 billion in pandemic aid and then disconnected households' electricity nearly a million times.

"Utility companies are deliberately prolonging their dependence on fossil fuels and passing volatile fuel prices on to consumers," Chris Kuveke, data analyst at BailoutWatch, said in a statement. "Our research shows that millions of Americans are disconnected when they can't pay their monthly electric bills, while these utilities pass windfall profits to shareholders and executives through dividends and bonuses."

Among the report's key findings:

• Utility shutoffs soared 79% from 2020 to 2021;
• Seven companies—Nextera Energy, Duke Energy, The Southern Co., Exelon Corp., American Electric Power Co., Ameren, and AES Corp.—accounted for 78% of all identified disconnections;
• Only 33 states and the District of Columbia have made disconnection data public, while 17 states and Puerto Rico do not require private utilities to disclose information about shutoffs; and
• More than 40% of the disconnections in the report occurred in Florida, while nearly 70% of the shutoffs were in just five states—Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.

The alarming rate of utility disconnections, coupled with soaring energy prices resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and fossil fuel industry greed, have created a crisis for low-income households.

"It's appalling that millions of families in the United States have lost electricity while utility oligarchs reap huge windfall payouts," said Jean Su, director of CBD's energy justice program. "Russia's war on Ukraine has only heightened household energy fragility and put more folks at risk. This moment is a clarion call to the federal government to reform the broken utility power sector, which relentlessly puts profits over people and the planet."

The report's authors offer a set of policy recommendations, including recognizing household utility services as a basic human right, creating a federal shutoff database, imposing meaningful oversight on utilities, and transitioning to a renewable energy system.

"The system is failing," the report concludes. "Until it is changed fundamentally, these companies will continue pursuing these same perverse incentives to arrive at the same inhumane conclusions."

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On The Ground: Ohio Primaries DEFINE Dem, GOP Future

AOC Endorses Nina Turner TWELVE HOURS Before Election

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‘We are living in hell’: Pakistan and India suffer extreme spring heatwaves

For the past few weeks, Nazeer Ahmed has been living in one of the hottest places on Earth. As a brutal heatwave has swept across India and Pakistan, his home in Turbat, in Pakistan’s Balochistan region, has been suffering through weeks of temperatures that have repeatedly hit almost 50C (122F), unprecedented for this time of year. Locals have been driven into their homes, unable to work except during the cooler night hours, and are facing critical shortages of water and power.

Ahmed fears that things are only about to get worse. It was here, in 2021, that the world’s highest temperature for May was recorded, a staggering 54C. This year, he said, feels even hotter. “Last week was insanely hot in Turbat. It did not feel like April,” he said.

As the heatwave has exacerbated massive energy shortages across India and Pakistan, Turbat, a city of about 200,000 residents, now barely receives any electricity, with up to nine hours of load shedding every day, meaning that air conditioners and refrigerators cannot function. “We are living in hell,” said Ahmed.

It has been a similar story across the subcontinent, where the realities of climate change are being felt by more than 1.5 billion people as the scorching summer temperatures have arrived two months early and the relief of the monsoons are months away. North-west and central India experienced the hottest April in 122 years, while Jacobabad, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province, hit 49C on Saturday, one of the highest April temperatures ever recorded in the world.

The heatwave has already had a devastating impact on crops, including wheat and various fruits and vegetables. In India, the yield from wheat crops has dropped by up to 50% in some of the areas worst hit by the extreme temperatures, worsening fears of global shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has already had a devastating impact on supplies.

Thousands flee New Mexico wildfire as blaze breaches containment lines

The largest active wildfire in the US has forced thousands from their homes in New Mexico, as unusually fast-spreading blazes dot the drought-stricken south-west. The blaze, dubbed the Calf Canyon fire, has consumed more than 121,000 acres (49,000 hectares), or more than half the area of New York City, tearing through centuries-old settlements and vacation homes in forested mountains 30 miles (48km) north-east of Santa Fe.

The blaze is burning in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near the small city of Las Vegas, where evacuation orders have been issued, along with several other New Mexican villages. Fire officials said they expect the blaze to keep growing, putting the fire on track to be one of the most destructive in the state’s recorded history. Fierce winds have blown embers beyond the fire, allowing it to breach containment lines set by about 1,000 firefighters backed by aircraft and bulldozers. ...

The Calf Canyon fire is the largest of about a dozen major fires in the south-west spurred by strong winds and parched conditions.

Scientists say the climate crisis is turning wildfires into a year-round risk for much of the US west, with high temperatures drying out soils and turning vegetation into kindling. More than a million acres have already burned across the US since the start of this year, more than double the total for the same period last year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).

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Also of Interest

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

Pelosi pledges “victory” in Kiev, Republicans back dispatch of troops, hint use of nuclear weapons

Ukraine's Army Is In Very Bad Shape - More Fighting Will Only Destroy It

NATO: Sweden Navigates Dangerous Waters

Investing in Guns or People?

The Coming EU Embargo of Russian Oil, Russia’s Economic Challenges, and the Question of Operational Capacity

Nuclear Weapons Cannot Be Un-Invented

On Venezuela, Only Hawkish ‘Dissent’ Allowed

New Mexico Pilot Program Makes Child Care Free for Majority of Families

The Means-Test Con

Your leaders are culling you. Deliberately.

Kathy Boudin, former Weather Underground radical, dies at 78

Amazon Labor Union DEFIANT After Election Loss

Krystal Ball: SCREWED College Educated Workers EXACT REVENGE

Saagar Enjeti: WH Press ADMITS Being Soft On Biden

Will the French left unite? France Unbowed and Communists close to a union

Trevor Noah Gives Tongue Bath To The Powerful At White House Correspondents Dinner

Kim Iversen: PayPal BANS Independent Anti-War Journalists

Tulsi Gabbard SLAMS Biden's 'Ministry Of Truth' As A PROPAGANDA Board

Shontel Brown, Nina Turner Face REMATCH After Biden, Progressive Caucus ENDORSE Brown

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A Little Night Music

Clarence Garlow - No No Baby

Clarence Garlow - Sound The Bell

Clarence Garlow - I'm In A Boogie Mood

Clarence Garlow - She's So Fine

Clarence Garlow - Blues As You Like It

Clarence Garlow - Jumpin' For Joy

Clarence Garlow - Route 90

Clarence Garlow - Dreaming

Clarence Garlow - Crawfishin´

Clarence 'Bon-Ton' Garlow - New Bon Ton Roulay

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