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This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Jimmy Rogers. Enjoy!

“Those who can make people believe absurdities, can make people commit atrocities.”

-- Voltaire

News and Opinion

It’s Only A ‘Conspiracy Theory’ When It Accuses The US Government

The western political/media class has been dismissing as “conspiracy theories” all claims that the US is likely responsible for last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, even while leveling the exact same accusations against Russia without ever using that term. Which probably says a lot about the way that label has been used over the years, if you think about it.

At a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, US envoy Richard Mills repeatedly accused Russia of promoting “conspiracy theories” in its Nord Stream accusations against the United States, saying that “our Russian colleagues have decided to instrumentalize the Security Council meeting to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation.”

“It’s important that we use this meeting not to foster conspiracy theories, but to focus our attention on Russia’s blatant violation of the Charter and its crimes in Ukraine,” Mills argues, after saying that “the United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident” and that there is no justification for “the Russian delegation raising conspiracy theories and mass disinformation in this Council.”

Mills then hilariously spends the remainder of his remarks insinuating that it is actually Russia who perpetrated the attacks, mentioning the word “infrastructure” no less than nine times in his arguments to establish that in Ukraine, Russia has a history of attacking critical civilian infrastructure similar to the pipelines.

“Sabotage of critical infrastructure should be of concern to us all,” Mills says. “In the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, we have seen numerous Russian attacks damaging civilian infrastructure. We witnessed Russia recklessly seize control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, risking a nuclear disaster in Europe. We saw countless attacks destroying civilian electricity infrastructure.”

“Despite efforts that we heard today to distract us from the truth, to distribute more disinformation and slightly wacky theories, the facts on the ground in Ukraine speak for themselves,” Mills concludes.

Business Insider has a new article out titled “The sabotage of gas pipelines were a ‘warning shot’ from Putin to the West, and should brace for more subterfuge, Russia experts warn.” The “experts” in question are as follows:

Former CIA director John Brennan, who was caught spying on US lawmakers and lying about it during the Senate’s investigation into CIA torture practices.

US intelligence veteran Andrea Kendall-Taylor, now a Senior Fellow at the warmongering think tank Center for a New American Security, whose top donors are the Pentagon and the arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

Cynthia Hooper, a history professor at the College of the Holy Cross.

That’s it; that’s all the experts. Two lying warmongers and a history professor.

Nowhere in the Business Insider article do the words “conspiracy” or “theory” appear. Contrast this with the recent Associated Press article titled “Russians push baseless theory blaming US for burst pipeline,” which was so frantic to spin accusations of US Nord Stream sabotage as a crazy conspiracy theory that it framed it as something only QAnon cultists believe.

“The suggestion that the U.S. caused the damage was circulating on online forums popular with American conservatives and followers of QAnon, a conspiracy theory movement which asserts that Trump is fighting a battle against a Satanic child-trafficking sect that controls world events,” AP wrote.

Over and over again we see the pejorative “conspiracy theory” applied to accusations against one nation but not the other, despite the fact that it’s the exact same accusation. They are both conspiracy theories per definition: they’re theories about an alleged conspiracy to sabotage Russian pipelines. But the western political/media class consistently applies that label to one and never the other.

Here’s a link to another Business Insider article applying the “conspiracy theory” label to accusations of US Nord Stream sabotage. Here’s one from The Independent doing the same. Here’s one from The Washington Post. Here’s one from Newsweek. Here’s one from Vox. Here’s one from The Atlantic Council think tank. Here’s one from the Brookings Institution think tank. Here’s one from Media Matters for America, founded by the Center for American Progress think tank.

Do you get the message? Are you receiving the messaging loud and clear? Accuse the US of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines and it’s called a conspiracy theory. Accuse Russia of doing the exact same thing and it’s called news.

And of course by pointing out this cartoonish double standard I do not mean to suggest that both theories are equally well-evidenced. One wouldn’t expect them to be in a contest in which one party had their own energy infrastructure sabotaged.

According to @SecBlinken, the Nord Stream pipeline bombing "offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come." Too bad that this tremendous opportunity for DC bureaucrats will come at the expense of everyone else, especially this coming winter. pic.twitter.com/T2eacQUuBF

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 1, 2022

For example, there’s the fact that Secretary of State Antony Blinken explicitly said that the sabotage of pipelines delivering Russian gas to Germany offers a “tremendous opportunity” to end Europe’s dependency on Russian energy. There’s also the fact that a 2019 Pentagon-commissioned study by the RAND Corporation on how to overextend and weaken Russia explicitly stated that the US would benefit from stopping Nord Stream 2. There’s also the fact that both President Biden and his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland explicitly said that Nord Stream 2 would be brought to an end if Russia invades Ukraine, the fact that the US sanctioned those who built Nord Stream 2, the fact that former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is on record saying the US wants Europeans to be more dependent on North American energy than on pipelines from Russia, the fact that Germans had just been angrily demanding an end to US-led sanctions on Russia and a reopening of Nord Stream gas, the fact that US naval forces were recently conducting unmanned underwater vehicle drills right where the pipelines were attacked, the fact that unmanned underwater vehicles have been found carrying explosive charges near Russian pipelines in the past, the fact that Poland literally just inaugurated a gas pipeline that will transport gas from Norway through Denmark and the Baltic Sea, the fact that US military helicopters were reportedly recorded traveling between the blast points and along the Nord Stream 2 pipeline shortly before the explosions, and the fact that the CIA has a known history of blowing up Russian gas pipelines.

But sure, if you think the United States could have any responsibility for this attack at all, you’re a crazy conspiracy theorist and no different from QAnoners who think pedophile Satan worshippers rule the world.

Okay, empire. Message received. Does make me wonder about some of those other “conspiracy theories” you’ve told us to ignore, though.

Guest FREAKS OUT News Hosts With TRUTH About Pipeline Attack!

In Nord Stream attack, US sees 'a tremendous opportunity'

The Baltic Sea bombing of the two Nord Stream gas pipelines “threatens to greatly expand the military theater” in Europe (Wall Street Journal), adding “yet another diffuse threat to a growing array of worries, from power blackouts all the way to nuclear war.” (New York Times).

In halls of power on the other side of the Atlantic, the outlook is much rosier.

The idling of Nord Stream, Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared in Washington, is “a tremendous opportunity.” So tremendous, in fact, that Blinken repeated it twice. With both Nord Stream 1 and 2 unable to ship Russian energy directly to Germany for the long-term, Europe has “a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy, and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs,” Blinken said. That “offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.”

As Europe enters winter in the weeks to come, now lacking its traditional Russian source of cheap natural gas, ordinary civilians might not appreciate the tremendous strategic opportunity that their predicament offers Washington bureaucrats. Western sanctions on Russia have already led to job losses, skyrocketing bills, and fears of energy rationing amid forecasts of exceptionally cold temperatures ahead. Just before the Nord Stream blasts, the head of German’s steel federation warned that without Russian energy, “a winter of de-industrialization threatens us in Germany.”

Ahead of this feared winter of de-industrialization, Blinken’s optimistic response to a now assured shut-off of Russian gas might seem odd for a top diplomat. But it is perfectly consistent with a longstanding US effort to kill Nord Stream for good.

In waging a multi-year campaign against Nord Stream, the US has sought to weaken Russia’s economy; undermine Russian integration with the rest of Europe; preserve lucrative transit fees for the US client state in Ukraine; and increase European dependence on US energy, in particular Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). In short, the “tremendous opportunity” that Blinken draws from the Nord Stream sabotage derives from the very goals that he imputed to Putin: “the weaponization of energy” for “imperial designs.”

Here’s Why The U.S. Blew Up Nord Stream Pipeline!

Russia Completes Annexation of Four Regions; UK German Gov Lose Control of Economies Crises Deepen

An interesting article worth a read through. Here are some snippets to give you a start:

Patrick Lawrence: The Strong, and the Merely Powerful

Vladimir Putin’s speech from the Kremlin last Friday, delivered to the nation and the world as four regions of Ukraine were reintegrated into Russia, was another stunner, in line with numerous others he’s made this year, demonstrating a fundamental turn in the Russian president’s thinking over the past eight months.

The implications of this new perspective warrant careful consideration. Putin has taken to looking forward and seeing something new, and in this he is hardly alone.

“The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation,” Putin said while standing beside the leaders of the Luhansk and Donetsk republics and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Phrases such as this bear the weight of history. By way of magnitude, presidential speeches do not get any larger. Here is how the Russian leader expanded on the thought:

“New centers of power are emerging. They represent the majority — the majority! — of the international community. They are ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right to their own independent, creative, and distinctive forms of development, to a harmonious process.”

Putin has been speaking in this register since Feb. 4, 20 days before Russia launched its intervention in Ukraine and on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. In the Joint Declaration on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development, issued with Xi Jinping, Putin and the Chinese president declared, “Today the world is going through momentous changes,”

“and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation. There is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States; a trend has emerged toward redistribution of power in the world.”

Putin’s rhetoric has grown markedly sharper from February to last Friday. He has attacked the European Union for its “selfishness” and cowardice, the U.S. for its hegemonic aggression, including the genocide of Native Americans, and the West altogether for the “neocolonial” character of its relations with the non–West. Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, used to refer to Western nations as “our partners.” As of last Friday, yesterday’s partners are Russia’s “enemies.”

All very grim. Putin has made this turn toward confrontation reluctantly and out of frustration with the West’s obstinate refusal to negotiate the new security order that Europe so obviously needs. He is angry at the spectacle of wasteful violence and prolonged disorder. This is my read. But there is a certain brightness to his outlook that we must not miss amid the bleak, evident animosity. ...

In my read, the change that has come over the Russian leader dates to last December, when the U.S. threw sand in his face in response to his effort, via those two draft treaties Moscow sent to Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels, to fashion a new security order in Europe. That is when his anger arose. That is when he said in effect, To hell with them. We will have to build a new world order on our own. China, by that time, had already given up on the West, and it was then the Russians and Chinese took their great leap forward together.

I am sure they share large measures of bitterness and anger as they look back over their deteriorated relations with the West. It is what they see looking forward that interests me far more. They are not talking about power as the principal feature of the order they now appear fully committed to realizing. They are talking about a world built by strong nations with shared purposes.

These are all in the speeches: the freedom of nations one to the other, the right to choose “forms of development,” interdependence, the authority of international law.

Elon Musk Smeared As A PUTIN PUPPET For Proposing Ukraine PEACE PLAN

Ukraine Tells EU Delays in Delivering Billions in Aid ‘Not Acceptable’

Ukraine told the European Union on Monday that the EU needs to increase the pace at which it provides billions of euros in promised aid.

Kyiv has become incredibly reliant on Western aid to fund its government, but Ukrainian officials seem to have little patience when it comes to the timeline of deliveries. A Ukrainian official told Politico that delays were “not acceptable.”

Kiev Offers White House Targeting Control, Seeks Longer Range Weapons

The Ukrainian government is prepared to give the Joe Biden administration virtual control over its selection of Russian targets. Kiev made the proposal in a bid to receive longer-range weapons from the White House, according to multiple sources speaking with CNN.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will provide a full list of possible targets while allowing the White House to veto any of the potential sites. Kiev is hoping the increased transparency will pave the path to Biden authorizing more weapons transfers. Zelensky made the offer to Washington to alleviate concerns in the Biden administration that new weapons will be used to target Russian territory.

However, Kiev, Washington and Moscow currently have different views on what is Russian versus Ukrainian territory.

North Korea fires missile over Japan prompting warnings for residents to shelter

North Korea has reportedly launched a intermediate-range ballistic missile over northern Japan for the first time in five years, prompting the government to urge people to shelter from falling debris, in an apparent escalation of recent weapons tests by Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said the government had activated its J-Alert system on Tuesday morning for residents in the northernmost main island of Hokkaido and the country’s north-eastern Aomori prefecture. Train services were temporarily halted in the region, media reports said.

“North Korea appears to have launched a missile. Please evacuate into buildings or underground,” the alert read.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, called North Korea’s actions “outrageous”, and said the government would continue to gather and analyse information.

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, warned of “resolute” response after the launch, the Yonhap news agency reported. Yoon said the missile had flown about 4,000km, Yonhap added. That range puts the US Pacific territory of Guam within striking distance.

Brazilians shocked as Bolsonaro’s strong election showing defies expectations

Bolsonaristas trumpeted their movement’s stronger-than-forecast showing, which saw their trailblazer secure more than 51m votes despite his international notoriety as an authoritarian-minded zealot. Lula won the first round with 57m votes, or 48% of the total to Bolsonaro’s 43%. But Bolsonaro’s unexpectedly high share – pollsters had tipped him to claim 36% or 37% – has shattered predictions that re-election is beyond his reach in the 30 October runoff against Lula.

“After what happened yesterday, I rule nothing out – absolutely nothing at all,” said Maria Cristina Fernandes, a political commentator from the newspaper Valor Econômico. “Bolsonaro is not out of the picture.”

Bolsonaro celebrated what he declared “the greatest patriotic victory in the history of Brazil” while his senator son, Flávio, hailed “a victory over the mainstream media, which has been relentlessly anti-Bolsonaro”. The incumbent triumphed in two key south-eastern states, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, home to more than 47 million voters. Adding to the progressive pain, a wave of Bolsonarista hardliners were elected to congress, with Bolsonaro’s Liberal party claiming 99 of its 513 seats – the largest bloc in more than two decades. The winners include Eduardo Pazuello, the army general-turned-health minister accused of bungling Brazil’s Covid response, and Ricardo Salles, the controversial environment minister under whom Amazon deforestation soared.

Damares Alves, the evangelical preacher who was Bolsonaro’s human rights minister, won a senate seat, as did his vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, his former science minister Marcos Pontes, and his former security minister, the judge Sergio Moro.

“Bolsonarismo … has become a political project with a beginning, a middle and an end,” said Fernandes. “The degree of conservatism they have managed to insert into congress is something permanent and will take a very long time to reverse.” Fernandes believed the results revealed a troubling disconnect between how Brazil’s chattering classes and journalists viewed Bolsonaro, and how voters themselves felt. “The media and the whole world was outraged by Bolsonaro’s conduct and handling of the pandemic … [But] the people do not share our thoughts,” she said. “There’s a divorce between the press and the intellectual elites and the people.”

Forecaster: HISTORIC COLD To Sweep Europe Deepening Energy Crisis

Tory MPs plot to avert welfare squeeze after humiliating U-turns

Conservative MPs are plotting to avert a squeeze on welfare after Liz Truss was forced into two humiliating U-turns on plans to abolish the top rate of income tax and the date of a new mini-budget.

The Guardian understands Kwarteng will speed up plans for a new fiscal statement, expected to focus on spending and deregulation. It will now take place later this month, rather than on 23 November as previously scheduled, accompanied by new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility, in another move designed to restore market stability.

Senior MPs warned of further rebellions over reductions in public spending, especially on benefits, which the chancellor has declined to rule out.

The threat came as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation said there would need to be significant cuts in public spending unless there were further U-turns on policies announced in the mini-budget last month. ...

Truss and Kwarteng decided to ditch the cut to the 45% tax rate the night before the conference when the scale of rebellion by MPs made it clear it would not survive a parliamentary vote – with many other tough battles to come.

To 'Step Back From the Edge of Recession,' UN Urges Central Banks to Stop Rate Hikes

A United Nations organization on Monday joined critics of the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks across the globe hiking interest rates with the goal of reining in inflation.

With the world economy "in the midst of cascading and multiplying crises," a new U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report explains, "the attention of policymakers has become much too focused on dampening inflationary pressures through restrictive monetary policies, with the hope that central banks can pilot the economy to a soft landing, avoiding a full-blown recession."

"Not only is there a real danger that the policy remedy could prove worse than the economic disease, in terms of declining wages, employment, and government revenues, but the road taken would reverse the pandemic pledges to build a more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive world," the document warns.

The warning comes after the Fed late last month announced another widely anticipated 75-basis-point interest rate increase—a move that led some experts to accuse the U.S. institution of not only disregarding the negative impacts that such a policy has on the nation's poor but also ignoring a key driver of inflation: corporate greed.

As the UNCTAD document details, "Today, inflation is caused by a mixture of disruptions in global supply chains, high (container) shipping costs, the impact of war on key sectors, higher mark-ups, commodity-market speculators, and the ongoing uncertainty of an evolving pandemic."

"In this situation, central banks cannot bring inflation down at a socially acceptable cost," it continues. "Instead, supply-chain disruptions and labor shortages require appropriate industrial policies to increase the supply of key items in the medium term; this must be accompanied by sustained global policy coordination and (liquidity) support to help countries fund and manage these changes."

The report adds that "in the meantime, policymakers should seriously consider alternative paths of action to lower inflation in socially desirable ways, including strategic price controls, better regulation to reduce speculative trades in key markets, targeted income support for vulnerable groups, and debt relief."

"If monetary tightening in the advanced economies continues over the coming year, however, a global recession is more likely, and, even if it is looser than the 1980s, it will almost unavoidably harm potential growth rate in the developing economies," the document states. "The permanent damage to economic development in these countries will not only be substantial but will also leave the ambition to achieve a better world by 2030 dangling by the most precarious of threads."

The report's recommendations include windfall profits taxes targeting industries that are cashing in on the current economic conditions. Fossil fuel giants, for example, have been repeatedly accused of price gouging throughout this year.

"Do you try to solve a supply-side problem with a demand-side solution?" asked Richard Kozul-Wright, who led the team in charge of the report, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We think that's a very dangerous approach."

UNCTAD noted in a Monday statement that the U.S. interest rate hikes "are set to cut an estimated $360 billion of future income for developing countries (excluding China) and signal even more trouble ahead."

The Journal highlighted that the Fed is not alone in hiking interest rates.

"The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also raising their key interest rates more rapidly than during recent decades," the newspaper reported. "According to the World Bank, more central banks raised borrowing costs in July than at any time since records began in the early 1970s."

UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan stressed Monday that "there's still time to step back from the edge of recession."

"We have the tools to calm inflation and support all vulnerable groups. This is a matter of policy choices and political will," she said. "But the current course of action is hurting the most vulnerable, especially in developing countries, and risks tipping the world into a global recession."

'Their Greed Knows No Bounds': Analysis Shows Ongoing Price Gouging by Oil Giants

A government watchdog group on Monday published a new briefing analyzing fossil fuel corporations' continued price gouging—even as crude oil prices fall to their lowest levels since January.

Accountable.US noted in its analysis that although crude oil prices have fallen below $80 per barrel, "prices for consumers are still 13% higher than they were last time oil was this cheap."

"Why are gas prices still failing to match lower oil prices? Corporate greed," the group asserted. "Big Oil is boasting record profits and dragging their feet to pass any lower costs onto consumers in order to keep padding investors' pockets."

Jordan Schreiber, director of energy and environment at Accountable.US, said in a statement that "as crude oil prices plummet, Big Oil's thinly veiled excuses for price gouging break down."

"Instead of passing the savings down to consumers trying to financially recover from the industry's unprecedentedly high prices at the pump this summer, Big Oil decided to further line the pockets of its wealthy shareholders and executives with more of everyday consumers' hard-earned money," Schreiber added. "Given this is all after Big Oil raked in a record-shattering $138 billion profits last quarter, it's clear their greed knows no bounds."

Mobile abortion clinic in Illinois to offer services on borders of states with bans

Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic – a 37ft recreational vehicle that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade earlier this year. ...

Both existing abortion clinics on the Illinois side of the St Louis region, on the Illinois-Missouri state border, including one operated by Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights, have been inundated with extra patients. Leaders of the St Louis Planned Parenthood office said that since June, the Fairview Heights clinic has seen a 30% increase in abortion patients – a rate officials said was higher than they anticipated.

The number of patients from outside Missouri and Illinois have increased by more than 340%. ...

The mobile clinic will travel near the borders of Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. ... The vehicle will house two exam rooms, a lab and a waiting room. Initially, it will provide medication abortions up to 11 weeks of gestation. It will provide surgical abortions after the first few months.

Biden: I WILL Run In 2024. Bill Maher Says KAMALA HARRIS Could Sink Dem Ticket

Trump sues CNN for defamation and seeks $475m in punitive damages

Donald Trump has sued cable TV network CNN, claiming defamation and seeking punitive damages of $475m, according to a Florida court filing on Monday. The US cable news station has attempted to smear the former US president “with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler’,” Trump’s lawyers claimed. The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

“Beyond simply highlighting any negative information about the plaintiff and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence, purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source, to defame the plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically,” the filing states.

Trump claimed that CNN had used its considerable influence as a leading news organization to defeat him politically. CNN declined to comment on the case.

Trump, a Republican, claims in the 29-page lawsuit that CNN had a long track record of criticizing him but had ramped up its attacks in recent months because the network feared that he would run again for president in 2024. “As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the plaintiff,” the suit said.

The lawsuit lists several instances in which CNN appeared to compare Trump to Hitler, including a January 2022 special report by host Fareed Zakaria that included footage of the 20th-century German dictator.

Supreme Court Gives Biden DOJ a Chance to Prove Its Commitment to Climate Justice

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday invited the Biden Justice Department to offer its position on a hugely consequential case in which oil giants are attempting to move climate liability lawsuits from state to federal courts, where they believe they would be more likely to prevail against efforts to make them pay for damaging the environment.

In Suncor Energy Inc. v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County, Suncor and ExxonMobil are urging the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to intervene after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the fossil fuel companies' argument that such climate liability cases belong in federal court.

As it mulls whether to take up the fossil fuel corporations' attempt to overturn the 10th Circuit decision, the Supreme Court released an order Monday asking the Justice Department to offer its view of the case.

In a statement, the Center for Climate Integrity argued that the high court's invite offers the DOJ a chance to openly break with the Trump Justice Department, which took the side of Big Oil and helped the industry fight climate liability cases in several cities and states.

The Justice Department's silence on the issue has allowed fossil fuel companies to continue citing the Trump DOJ's arguments in support of their attempts to quash the liability suits.

"After years of ignoring pleas from state, federal, and local officials for the Justice Department to heed President Biden's campaign pledge to support climate lawsuits against polluters, the administration will finally have to take a stand on these cases," said Richard Wiles, CCI's president. "It's time for Attorney General Garland and the Justice Department to get off the sidelines, make good on President Biden's pledges, and support communities in their efforts to hold polluters accountable."

The Supreme Court's request for DOJ input comes as the campaign to hold major polluters financially liable for climate destruction continue to gain steam nationwide.

As the Revolving Door Project's Hannah Story Brown wrote for Washington Monthly in August, "It started with Boulder in early February," a reference to the 10th Circuit ruling that Colorado municipalities' climate liability lawsuit against oil giants should proceed in state court.

"Then came Baltimore and San Mateo in April. Now Honolulu and Maui are the latest municipalities to overcome a crucial legal hurdle in their fight to make fossil fuel companies pay for their role in climate change," Brown continued. "The stakes are massive: requiring fossil fuel companies to foot the bill for climate change-related damages to U.S. cities and states could easily run into the tens of billions."

Since early 2021, state attorneys general, state-level lawmakers, and some U.S. senators have been pushing Garland to formally reverse the Trump Justice Department's pro-industry stance and support climate liability lawsuits against oil giants—as Biden pledged to do on the campaign trail.

"We respectfully urge you to review and reverse the positions previously taken by DOJ in the various climate deception lawsuits during the prior administration. The urgency and importance of DOJ reversing these positions cannot be overstated," the attorneys general of Minnesota, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. wrote in a letter to Garland in April of last year.

But Brown noted that despite such entreaties, "Garland has taken no action," frustrating plaintiffs who have been battling fossil fuel companies in court for years.

"This fight over venue is essential, because if the plaintiffs' claims were governed by federal law, they could swiftly be dismissed," Brown noted. "That resulted from a 2011 Supreme Court decision, AEP v. Connecticut, which barred federal common law claims about climate change liability. The court ruled that they were 'displaced' by the Clean Air Act. But the decision left claims under state common law as an option. After AEP, cities and states turned to state courts to seek damages from the big energy companies."

Wiles of CCI, which is providing support for climate liability lawsuits across the U.S., said Monday that "doubling down on the department's Trump-era support of Big Oil would constitute a betrayal of A.G. Garland's pledges to support environmental justice and contravene a string of unanimous rulings from five separate circuit courts, which agreed that these cases should proceed in state court."

---

LA restricts water flow to wasteful celebrity mansions

Los Angeles is living through a historic drought, but that hasn’t stopped some of its most famous residents from keeping their mega mansion lawns and ornate gardens well watered. In response, local authorities have turned to a surprisingly simple trick for keeping the wealthiest in check.

That solution is a tiny metal disc known as a “flow restrictor”. The restrictor can be installed in minutes over the pipes of chronic wasters, dramatically slowing down a home’s water flow.

Restrictors have already been placed on homes owned by multiple celebrities –including the comedian Kevin Hart, rapper The Game, and Kourtney Kardashian’s ex, Scott Disick, according to water district records reviewed by the Guardian. Other famous names could be next – addresses linked to Kim Kardashian, Sylvester Stallone and Madonna have all been included on lists of violators who were eligible for flow restrictors.

For water authorities, it’s an experiment in holding the super-rich accountable to the same standards as everyone else.

As California’s decades-long megadrought deepened this year, water authorities across the state have issued mandatory cutbacks, enforceable with fines. But the Las Virgenes water district had a particular challenge, Mike McNutt, a spokesperson for the Las Virgenes water district, said: their customers are so rich that monetary penalties are unlikely to change their behavior, even as the district mandated a 50% reduction in outdoor watering.

Hurricane Orlene strikes Mexico’s Pacific coast with 80mph winds

Hurricane Orlene has made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast near the tourist town of Mazatlán, with winds of more than 80mph (130km/h). Electrical cables swayed and sent off showers of sparks in the town of El Rosario, about 40 miles (65km) south of Mazatlán, close to where the hurricane hit.

Orlene lost some strength after roaring over the Islas Marías, a former prison colony being developed as a tourist draw. The main island is sparsely populated, mainly by government employees, and most buildings there are made of brick or concrete.

The hurricane’s winds slipped back to 85mph as it hit land about 45 miles (75km) south-east of Mazatlán on Monday morning, according to the US National Hurricane Center. ...

Orlene could bring flood-inducing rainfall of up to 10in (25cm) in some places, as well as coastal flooding and dangerous surf. ...

Mexico’s National Water Commission said Orlene could cause “mudslides, rising river and stream levels and flooding in low-lying areas”.

Also of Interest

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

Hedges: ‘The Greatest Evil is War’ Excerpt Details the Horrors of a Post-War Life

Zelenskiy hits back as Elon Musk sets up Twitter poll on annexed areas of Ukraine

Rights Groups Implored EU Leaders to Denounce Israeli Apartheid at Summit

Israel Blocks Award to Renowned Rights Leader

UK crisis fuels warnings on the stability of global financial system

The Inevitable Financial Crisis

The Expected Financial Crash Is Finally Here

Green Groups Say Ruptured Oil Pipeline Should Be Scrapped—Not Repaired

Slavery traders tried to cheat Africans with impure Cornish copper, says study

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes History; SCOTUS Poised to Roll Back Voting Rights & Aff. Action

GAS CRISIS: Prices Rise Across US As OPEC Considers Cut

Home Prices Have BIGGEST DROP Since 2009 Crash

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Rogers - Ludella

Jimmy Rogers - Act Like You Love Me

Jimmy Rogers - Money Marbles and Chalk

Jimmy Rogers - Going Away Baby

Jimmy Rogers - Chicago Bound

Jimmy Rogers - What Have I Done

Jimmy Rogers - Walking by myself

Jimmy Rogers - Rock This House

Jimmy Rogers with Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters - Why Did You Do It