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“Joseph McCarthy, the Junior Republican Senator from Wisconsin, ruled America like devil king for four years. His purges were an American mirror image of Stalin's purges, an unnoticed similarity.”

-- Martha Gellhorn

News and Opinion

New York Times Helps Marco Rubio Push Persecution Of Antiwar Leftists

Citing a recent McCarthyite smear piece by The New York Times, Senator Marco Rubio published a letter on Wednesday that he’d sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the investigation of American leftist antiwar groups, claiming they are “tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operating with impunity in the United States.”

Rubio listed nine organizations that he said should be investigated “for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.” Included in Senator Rubio’s blacklist of suspected Chinese foreign agents is the renowned peace activism group Code Pink, which has been drawing attention to the destructiveness of US warmongering, militarism and economic warfare for decades.

“According to the New York Times, many progressive organizations have received funding from Neville Roy Singham, a leftist U.S. citizen who lives in Shanghai and has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” Rubio writes. “Yet, none of the entities tied to Singham have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The U.S. must enforce its laws more fiercely in the face of foreign adversaries who abuse our open system to advance their malign interests.”

Rubio’s letter is just the latest in the rapidly escalating push within the US government to use FARA to persecute antiwar activists, Chinese nationals in the United States, and those deemed insufficiently hostile toward China. As Amanda Yee recently observed with Liberation News:

“Under Biden, FARA has been invoked to target Black liberation activists like the African People’s Socialist Party for criticizing U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war and Chinese American hotel worker and organizer Li Tang ‘Henry’ Liang for advocating peaceful relations between the United States and China.”

McCarthyite NYT hit piece on leftist groups in the US including @codepink, suggesting they’re Chinese assets, prompts Marco Rubio to call for investigating them. Neocon attacks on dissenting voices are bipartisan. https://t.co/bMv1elTVFi

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 9, 2023

It’s worth taking a close look at the New York Times piece referenced by Rubio, because the ridiculousness of its arguments and the hypocrisy it accidentally exposes are worth drawing attention to.

First of all we should point out the irony of an outlet like The New York Times publishing an article accusing anyone of being involved in propaganda. The New York Times has supported every US war and has been run by the same wealthy family since the late 1800s, and it has an extensive history of peddling McCarthyite red scare propaganda throughout the years. It has been singled out consistently and aggressively by critics of US propaganda like Noam Chomsky for its unique role in setting the agenda for news reporting throughout the western world in a way that benefits the information interests of the US empire.

The article in question is titled “A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul,” and it ultimately amounts to nothing more than a report saying “uh, hey, there’s a rich guy who likes China.” Despite the complete emptiness of its claims, the article took no fewer than eleven people to write (Mara Hvistendahl, David A Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel and Ishaan Jhaveri are credited as authors, Joy Dong, Michael Forsythe, Flávia Milhorance, Liu Yi and Suhasini Raj contributed reporting, and Susan C Beachy and Michelle Lum contributed research). 

This platoon of journalists could have been out doing real investigative journalism on real issues like poverty in the United States or the victims of Washington’s drone wars, but instead they were put toward research on an American millionaire named Neville Roy Singham, whose sole offense appears to be throwing his wealth around in support of China and communism instead of the US empire and capitalism.

Despite the article’s ominous tone and the self-congratulatory grandiosity of its eleven co-reporters, the claim that Singham is actually an agent of the Chinese government is studiously avoided. The authors use sleazy phrases like “Singham’s ties to Chinese propaganda interests” and report that he has done communisty things like calling people “comrade” and writing in a notebook with a hammer and sickle on it, but at no time do they actually attempt to dispute Singham’s forceful assertion that he has no ties to the Chinese government. All they do is say he’s used his money to promote support for China and communism, and then try to frame that as a dark and suspicious thing using tone and insinuation.

“I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives,” Singham told the Times via email. “I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”

No attempt is made to refute Singham’s claim in the article. As far as the actual data in their reporting is concerned, Singham is just some rich American using his money to promote values he supports in the same way rich Americans do every single day. The only reason it’s framed as malevolent is because he’s doing it in support of a country the US government doesn’t like and an ideology the US government doesn’t approve of. Which only makes sense if you’re a propagandist for The New York Times or one of their brainwashed rabble of victims.

The Times notes that Singham is married to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, which you’d think would be taken as a very clear sign that Singham is sincere in his opposition to US imperialism rather than acting as a secret agent of the Chinese government. But this marriage is bizarrely framed as making Singham more suspicious instead, with lines like “Ms. Evans declined to answer questions about funding from her husband” appearing in the text as though receiving funding from one’s spouse would be some kind of damning revelation.

Contrary to Rubio’s insinuations, The New York Times was actually forced to admit in its own reporting that despite the ominous and conspiratorial tone of the article, no FARA violations could be found in Singham’s activities:

“None of Mr. Singham’s nonprofits have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as is required of groups that seek to influence public opinion on behalf of foreign powers. That usually applies to groups taking money or orders from foreign governments. Legal experts said Mr. Singham’s network was an unusual case.”

The reason legal experts said Singham’s case is unusual when it comes to the question of foreign agents registration is because Singham is not a foreign agent. He lives in China, but he’s a US citizen. He gives money to organizations which support China, but there are no laws against that. He shares an office with a Chinese media company and appears to give them money, but there’s no law against that either. The “legal experts” in question were probably New York Times lawyers telling reporters they can’t falsely accuse US citizens and their associates of being foreign agents on no basis whatsoever.

Rubio’s letter states that “many of the organizations Mr. Singham financially supports are linked directly or indirectly to the CCP,” but there’s no indication in the reporting that any Singham-funded organization is tied to the Chinese government and operating as a foreign agent in the United States. Rubio and his McCarthyite buddies at The New York Times use the fact that Singham funds both Chinese and American institutions to falsely insinuate that there are unregistered Singham-funded Chinese government agents operating in the US, but that claim isn’t actually put forward as a fact in the New York Times piece, because it isn’t a fact. What’s reported is that Singham funds Chinese organizations in China and American organizations in America, both of which are perfectly legal things to do.

The New York Times reports that Singham associates with Chinese people, promotes information that serves the interests of the Chinese government, supports communism, opposes US imperialism, and has an antiwar activist wife. What The New York Times does not report is one iota of information that Singham or the organizations he supports have broken any US laws.

While Marco Rubio and The New York Times frame Singham’s activities as something sinister and subversive, from all evidence presented he’s actually just playing by the same rules that wealthy Americans have been playing by for generations. They both criticize Singham’s funding of a think tank called Tricontinental which puts out commentary and analysis from a Marxist perspective, when other US plutocrats openly pour vast fortunes into think tanks all the time — the only difference is that US plutocrats tend to favor think tanks which support US imperialism and capitalist exploitation.

One of the most depraved things that happens in the US today is the way war profiteering corporations and plutocrats are allowed to fund immensely influential warmongering think tanks, which then go on to influence the thinking of government policymakers in support of war and militarism. Media outlets like The New York Times routinely cite these war profiteer-funded think tanks as experts on foreign policy and international affairs without ever disclosing this immense conflict of interest to their audiences; a recent study by the Quincy Institute found that 85 percent of the think tanks cited in the mainstream press when reporting on the war in Ukraine were funded by war profiteers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

That’s considered perfectly fine and normal in the United States, but a wealthy American funding organizations that want peace and economic justice is viewed by empire managers and the imperial media as an incendiary scandal. According to all facts in evidence Singham isn’t doing anything different from the rich Americans who buy up media outlets and fund think tanks in order to advance their personal agendas, but because his personal agendas involve opposing the US empire and spreading socialist ideas it’s seized on as evidence that gasoline needs to be poured onto the fire of McCarthyite hysteria in Washington.

If you look at the facts of this case you quickly see that they expose nothing nefarious about Code Pink or anyone else Singham supports, or indeed about Singham himself. What they expose is the fact that the entire mainstream political/media class is pointed at war, death and destruction across both sides of the pretend partisan divide, and will attack anyone who tries to stand in the way of the worst impulses of the imperial machine.

Russia Reaches Kupiansk Suburb, Denies Ukr Urozhaynoye; Bolton Escalation, Rus Unfazed Ruble Fall

Too bad Hawaii can't get a piece of that "accounting error" ...

New US Arms Package for Ukraine Uses Money Made Available by Pentagon ‘Accounting Error’

The Biden administration on Monday announced a $200 million arms package for Ukraine using funds made available by a Pentagon “accounting error” that includes munitions for Patriot air defense systems, HIMARS rocket systems, and other equipment.

In June, the Pentagon claimed it overvalued weapons sent to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the administration to send arms directly from US military stockpiles. The Pentagon said this “error” freed up an additional $6.2 billion for spending on military aid to Ukraine.

The arms package announced Monday marked the first time the administration dipped into these funds. “This security assistance package will utilize assistance previously authorized under [PDA] for Ukraine that remained after the PDA revaluation process concluded in June,” the Pentagon said.

Ukraine desperate for help clearing mines, says defence minister

Ukraine is now the most heavily mined country on Earth and its army is suffering from a critical shortage of men and equipment able to clear the frontlines, the country’s defence minister has said, as soldiers spoke of heavy casualties in the engineering brigades.

In an urgent appeal to allies, Oleksii Reznikov told the Guardian his soldiers were unearthing five mines for every square metre in places, laid by Russian troops to try to thwart Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

He said the vast minefields could be traversed, but that it was critically important that allies “expand and expedite” the training already being provided by some nations, including Britain.

The number of sappers in the Ukrainian armed forces was nowhere near enough to get through the complex Russian defences on the vast 600-mile (1,000km) front, with mine clearing units targeted with heavy fire.

Defence ministry officials in Kyiv suggested there was an opportunity for countries such as Japan that do not want to provide lethal aid to offer support in the form of mine clearing equipment and training.

RFK JR ON TUCKER: US Has Bio-Labs In Ukraine For Making 'Bio-Weapons'

A sphincter says what?

John Bolton Blasts Biden for Ukraine’s Failing Counteroffensive

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has blasted President Biden over Ukraine’s stalling counteroffensive in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that was published on Sunday.

While Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons from the US, a scale of aid not seen since the post-World War II Marshal Plan, the notoriously hawkish Bolton said Biden wasn’t doing enough and blamed the president’s “hesitancy” for Ukraine’s inability to break through Russia’s defenses. ...

Bolton said the administration was too concerned about the risk of escalation. “The serial debates over whether to supply this or that weapons system, the perpetual fear that Russia will escalate to war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and occasional Kremlin nuclear saber-rattling have instilled a paralyzing caution in Western capitals,” he wrote.

Niger Junta Refuses Negotiations Unless Coup Leader Is Recognized, ECOWAS Postpones Meeting on Potential Intervention

A delegation of Nigerian Islamic scholars traveled to Niamey for meetings with the leaders of the military junta who took power last month. The group says the coup leaders expressed an openness to diplomacy, Reuters reported on Sunday. However, this account has been sharply contradicted by a media spokesperson representing the junta who claimed negotiations with regional countries are impossible unless Niger’s new leadership is recognized.

These statements come after a meeting of defense chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was postponed indefinitely. The meeting was called to review the “best options” for a military intervention which ECOWAS has previously threatened may be necessary if the overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum is not reinstated.

On Thursday, ECOWAS activated and ordered the deployment of a “standby” force to “restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger.” Current ECOWAS chairman and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu approved the Islamic scholars’ mission to Niamey, in a sign that the bloc may also be holding out for a negotiated settlement. The mission led by Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau sat down for several hours of talks with coup leader General Abdourahamane Tiani. ...

The scholars’ account viscerally differs from statements made over the weekend by Insa Garba Saidou, a local activist who – though not as an official member of the junta – works as a liaison between Niger’s military rulers and claims he maintains direct communication with them. Saidou told the Associated Press on Friday that there will be no dialogue with regional countries unless Tiani is recognized.

Biden Administration BLACKMAILED Pakistan Into Removing Prime Minister!

Russia’s central bank to hold extraordinary meeting after rouble falls to 16-month low

Russia’s central bank has announced it will hold an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday to discuss the level of its key interest rate after the rouble fell to its weakest point in almost 17 months. The currency has been steadily losing value since the beginning of the year and slid past the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar on Monday morning.

It has weakened by 26% this year as a result of a collapse in export revenues and growing military spending, making it the third worst-performing global currency in 2023. The decline has led to calls from senior Kremlin officials for higher borrowing costs. On Monday morning, the central bank said it saw no threat to Russia’s financial stability from the rouble’s fall, blaming the currency’s slide in value on a drop in export volumes and growing internal demand for imports. ...

The rouble has had a period of turbulence since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, dropping to a record low of 150 to the dollar two weeks after the start of the war before sharply recovering after the Russian central bank imposed strict capital controls that limited the flow of money out of the country. By last summer the rouble had rebounded to a seven-year high as a rise in oil and gas prices, partly a result of the invasion, helped Russia raise export revenue while consumer imports fell.

Russian oil revenues have been drastically reduced since western price caps and embargos were imposed, while imports have recovered. The government has spent billions on the defence industry to continue the war in Ukraine, with many critical goods still coming from abroad.

Biden Plans VACATION, IGNORES Maui Fires

As 93 Confirmed Dead, Locals Fear Lahaina Rebuild Dominated by Rich Outsiders

Formerly the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Lahaina on island of Maui was ravaged by a wildfire that has killed 93 people as of Sunday, and locals now fear wealthy outsiders will dominate and further serve themselves with the multibillion-dollar rebuild from the recent devastation in the 50th U.S. state.

"Lahaina residents worry that rebuilt homes in their Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders seeking a tropical haven rather than homegrown residents who give the Hawaiian island its spirit and identity," The Associated Press wrote on social media Sunday, sharing new reporting from Hawaii.

After American expatriates and sugar planters backed by U.S. troops led the 1893 coup that deposed the Hawaiian Kingdom's Queen Lili'uokalani, the United States formally annexed the islands in 1898. Hawaii became a state in 1959.

Even before Tuesday's fire—which was enabled by climate-wrecking fossil fuel companies and land management decisions that have diverted water away from the area—"a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants have been displacing residents," the AP noted.

Richy Palalay, who had "Lahaina Grown" tattooed on his forearms when he was 16, told the outlet at a shelter on Saturday that "I'm more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild."

Condos and hotels "that we can't afford, that we can't afford to live in—that's what we're afraid of," said Palalay, who didn't yet know whether the house where he rents a room for $1,000 survived the fire, which destroyed the restaurant where he works.

The Pacific Disaster Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimate that 86% of the 2,719 structures in Maui County exposed to fire—the deadliest in the U.S. in over a century—were residential, 4,500 people may be in need of shelter, and rebuilding could cost $5.52 billion.

The AP's reporting on Sunday sparked warnings from Kanaka Maoli—a term Native Hawaiians use to refer to themselves—as well as campaigners and experts beyond the islands.

"Reports suggest 93 people are dead, 1,000 people missing still, and 2,700 structures destroyed," said Kahikea Maile, a Kanaka Maoli activist and scholar and assistant professor of Indigenous politics at the University of Toronto, St. George. "The colonial speculation of disaster capitalism is happening right now in Lahaina."

Former National Women's Soccer League player Mana Shim, who is also Kanaka Maoli, wrote on social media: "This is a major concern that needs our immediate attention. It's awful to have to discuss this before we know how many have lost their lives, but anyone who knows disaster capitalism knows the urgency of protecting our 'āina from developers and greedy malihini."

Malihini means a foreigner, newcomer, or stranger, while 'āina is a Hawaiian term for land or Earth.

Some users of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, pointed to past examples of such exploitation:

It happened after Northridge Earthquake, after Hurricane Katrina, after the Fire in Paradise (fyi PG&E @PGE4Me pled guilty to manslaughter of 84 people) - after most devastating "natural" disasters - the mega rich salivate at the thought of an opportunity for profiteering off it. https://t.co/3GFiVgJexI

— Angelica Dueñas for Congress (@Angelica4CA) August 13, 2023

Institute for Policy Studies fellow Sanho Tree said Sunday that "disaster capitalism will happen yet again unless they act proactively."

In an interview earlier this week with Heatmap, Kaniela Ing, a seventh-generation Native Hawaiian from Maui and national director of the Green New Deal Network, took aim at the fossil fuel companies that have heated the planet as well as mismanagement of land and water tied to "corporations that stem from the original Big Five oligarchy in Hawaii—which is the first five missionary families who control our government, rich, white, right-wing families."

"We want to make sure that as we recover, once the direct relief efforts are done, the cameras have left—we understand that recovery will take years. And as that recovery unfolds, we want to make sure that the people, the communities, are actually empowered to rebuild themselves, that we don't open the door for disaster capitalists," Ing said.

"Unfortunately, the institutions best poised to distribute direct aid are also the most likely to enable disaster capitalists to exploit this tragedy," he continued. "They're actively raising millions and once the spotlight moves from our island, what's to come of those monies, and who's really going to benefit? Those are questions that I think we need to be really proactive about answering on our own as community organizers."

"And maybe in this opportunity—like, we all understand that we're going to have to be lobbying for additional FEMA funds, federal funds, state and local funds," he added. "We want to make sure that the people, the forces that contributed to this problem in the first place, are pushed out of power for a more community, ground-up sort of infrastructure. So there's a lot of mutual aid and power building that needs to happen immediately."

Biden responds to devastating Maui fire death toll: “No comment”

After spending a weekend riding his bicycle and sitting on the beach in his home state of Delaware, Biden was asked by reporters Sunday if he had any comment on the rising death toll in Maui. “No. No comment,” Biden replied. The president then flashed a smile and gave a wave before leaving. This was not the first time Biden was asked by reporters over the weekend to speak on the ongoing catastrophe in Maui. While riding his bicycle Sunday morning, Biden was asked by multiple reporters to comment on Maui. Not even stopping to give his reply, Biden responded tersely, “We’re looking at it.”

Biden’s refusal to publicly comment on the ongoing disaster in Maui and his apparent indifference to the deaths of what is likely hundreds of people, including children, is not solely due to a personality defect or cognitive decline. It is a reflection of the class character of his administration and the US government as a whole. Biden’s callous comments join a long list of indifferent, cruel and lying responses offered by US presidents in response to the deaths of workers and their families.

In April 2020, as thousands of Americans were becoming infected and dying from the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Donald Trump infamously suggested Americans inject themselves with a disinfectant to kill COVID-19. ... In September 2017, after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, killing upwards of 5,000 people and leaving millions without electricity for months, Trump reluctantly flew to the island weeks later for a photo-op. ... In 2016, two years after the city of Flint, Michigan, was first poisoned with lead, then-President Barack Obama, after pretending to take sip of the poisoned water, told residents that their children will “be fine.”

The fact is the US government is not a neutral party that exists to serve and protect the lives and well-being of everyone. As multiple previous “natural disasters,” pandemics and other calamities have shown, the US government exists to serve the interests of the ruling financial oligarchy. This parasitic ruling class, and their bought-and-paid-for politicians in both big business parties, view workers and their families as expendable resources to be cultivated either for profits or to serve as soldiers to advance the interests of US imperialism at home and abroad.

While US presidents, Democratic and Republican alike, ignore or wave off the deaths of workers and their families, when it comes to protecting the interests of the financial oligarchy and Wall Street, no expense or delay is suffered. As the bodies are still being counted in Maui and as survivors struggle to find loved ones and shelter, on Monday, the US Department of Defense announced that another $200 million in military equipment and ammunition would be sent to Ukraine. The Pentagon noted that the “aid package,” the 44th since mid-2021 totaling nearly $44 billion, would include “air defense munitions, artillery and tank ammunition, anti-armor weapons, and other equipment.”

Former Mississippi officers plead guilty to state charges for torturing Black men

In late January, a group of six white Mississippi police officers raided a house in Rankin county, a suburb outside of Jackson, and tortured two Black men for an hour and a half. The following month, the justice department opened a civil rights investigation into the Rankin county sheriff’s department, and since then, the officers have either resigned or been fired. Activists have also called for the resignation of Rankin county sheriff Bryan Bailey.

On Monday, the former officers pleaded guilty to state charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy in the assault of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. The former sheriff’s deputies Brett McAlpin, Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, along with Joshua Hartfield, a former police officer in nearby Richland, had already pleaded guilty to federal charges on 3 August.

The January Rankin county raid started with a 911 call that harkened back to the days of Emmett Till, the young Black boy who was beaten to death in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. On 24 January, a white neighbor in the majority-white suburb complained that two Black men were living in a house with a white woman. Jenkins had taken care of the homeowner, Kristi Walley, a childhood friend who owned the house and was paralyzed.

Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi

A 13-year-old girl in Mississippi gave birth to a boy after she was raped as well as impregnated by a stranger – and then was unable to get an abortion, according to a Time magazine report published on Monday.

The mother of the girl, who uses the pseudonym Ashley in the report, was looking to get an abortion for her daughter but was told the closest abortion provider was in Chicago – a drive of more than nine hours from their home in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Ashley’s mother, referred to as Regina in the report, told Time that the cost of getting an abortion in Chicago was too expensive when considering the price of travel, taking time off work and getting the abortion for her daughter.

“I don’t have the funds for all this,” Regina told Time.

The report is the latest in a series of horrific personal accounts that have surfaced after the US supreme court overturned the nationwide abortion access rights which had been established by the Roe v Wade precedent. Since the decision, titled Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 14 state laws banning abortion have gone into effect, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Georgia Grand Jury Charges Trump & 18 Allies with Racketeering for 2020 Election Interference

Republicans rally to Donald Trump’s defense after Georgia indictment

Republicans rallied to Donald Trump’s defense after the former president was indicted on 13 criminal charges in Georgia over his attempt to overturn his defeat there by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, said: “Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election.” ...

On Monday night, after charges were filed in Georgia, an email soliciting donations bemoaned a “FOURTH ACT of Election Interference on behalf of the Democrats in an attempt to keep the White House under Crooked Joe’s control and JAIL his single greatest opponent of the 2024 election”.

ABC Newsman Pretends Democrats Never Denied Elections

Trump Indictments Backfiring Against Biden

Sam Bankman-Fried charged with using stolen funds for political donations

Sam Bankman-Fried used stolen customer funds to make more than $100m in campaign contributions ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections, federal prosecutors said on Monday in a new indictment filed against the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. The new indictment charges the 31-year-old former billionaire with seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over the collapse of the exchange. He has previously pleaded not guilty.

Bankman-Fried’s personal fortune was once estimated at $26bn and the cryptocurrency mogul was once one of the biggest political donors in Washington. The indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried concealed the fact that FTX customer deposits were a source of those donations by directing that money from FTX’s sister trading firm, Alameda, be wired to FTX executives’ personal bank accounts. Those executives then make donations in their own names, evading restrictions on certain types of political contributions, and “thereby maximize FTX’s political influence”.

Bankman-Fried “leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow, which would, in turn, allow the misappropriation scheme to continue. Bankman-Fried also used these connections with politicians and government officials to falsely burnish the public image of FTX as a legitimate exchange,” the indictment alleges.

Bankman-Fried made more than $40m in donations in 2022, according to a CBS News analysis. Most of those donations were to Democrats, but Bankman-Fried has said he donated equally to Republicans using undisclosed “dark” donations.

Merrick Garland's special counsel cover up

Alabama Republicans refuse to create second majority-Black district

Alabama Republicans on Monday defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps. State Republicans continue to resist court orders, including from the supreme court in June, to amend the congressional maps to give Black voters increased political power and representation.

Lawyers for voters called Alabama’s plan, which maintains one majority-Black district, discriminatory. Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, said Alabama chose “defiance over compliance”.

“Alabama has chosen instead to thumb its nose at this court and to thumb its nose at the nation’s highest court and to thumb its nose at its own Black citizens,” Khanna said.

The three-judge panel, which blocked the use of the state’s old map last year, will decide whether to let Alabama’s new districts go forward or step in and draw new congressional districts for the state. The results of the extended court battle could also determine whether Democrats pick up another seat in Congress, where Republicans currently hold a slim majority.

‘Game-changer’: judge rules in favor of young activists in US climate trial

The judge who heard the US’s first constitutional climate trial earlier this year has ruled in favor of a group of young plaintiffs who had accused state officials in Montana of violating their right to a healthy environment. ...

The challengers’ lawyers described the first-of-its-kind ruling as a “game-changer” and a “sweeping win” which campaigners hope will give a boost to similar cases tackling the climate crisis.

In a case that made headlines around the US and internationally, 16 plaintiffs, aged five to 22, had alleged the state government’s pro-fossil fuel policies contributed to climate change. In trial hearings in June, they testified that that these policies therefore violated provisions in the state constitution that guarantee a “clean and healthful environment,” among other constitutional protections.

On Monday, Judge Kathy Seeley said that by prohibiting government agencies from considering climate impacts when deciding whether or not to permit energy projects, Montana is contributing to the climate crisis and stopping the state from addressing that crisis. The 103-page order came several weeks after the closely watched trial came to a close on 20 June. ...

Julia Olson, who founded Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that brought the suit alongside Western Environmental Law Center and McGarvey Law, said the case marks the first time in US history that the merits of a case led a court to rule that a government violated young people’s constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuels.

Expert Warns US Nuclear Agency's 'Reckless' New Rule Will Weaken Emergency Safety

A physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists on Monday condemned a proposed U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule allowing the licensing of new nuclear reactors without requiring them to have offsite emergency plans, a policy experts argue could adversely affect disaster safety.

Proponents contend that the NRC's Part 53 rule—which would provide regulatory relief for advanced nuclear reactors—makes sense because those types of power plants are much safer than currently operating units.

However, Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said in a statement that "past natural and human-made disasters have taught us that having a robust and workable emergency plan in place is the key to minimizing human suffering and loss of life if the unthinkable happens."

"NRC's reckless decision today flies in the face of that experience," he added.

For over 50 years, the NRC and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, sought to build nuclear power plants away from densely populated areas due to the threat of accidents. However, under the new rule, construction of advanced nuclear reactors would be allowed in areas with high population densities.

"The central issue," Lyman explained last year, "is that the NRC is accepting on faith that these new reactors are going to be safer and wants to adjust its regulations accordingly, to make them less stringent—on faith."

Lyman said Monday that "concerns with the rule expressed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other authorities demonstrate how out-of-step the NRC is with experts on this issue. Coupled with other troubling regulatory changes that the NRC has already made or is considering, this new rule will only increase dangers for the public from the next generation of nuclear plants."

"Additionally, the absence of offsite emergency planning will create burdens in the aftermath of a nuclear plant accident, extreme weather event, or terrorist attack that will fall disproportionately on those people and communities with the fewest resources," he said.

"The cost of preparing for emergencies is relatively modest. And yet nuclear industry proponents have pushed to change the rules to facilitate constructing new nuclear reactors anywhere, even in densely populated areas where timely emergency evacuations might be extremely difficult or even impossible," Lyman added. "People everywhere need to be aware of the NRC's dangerous decision and its implications for their health and safety."

Dead flies could be used to make biodegradable plastic, scientists say

Dead flies could be turned into biodegradable plastic, researchers have said. The finding, presented at the autumn meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), could be useful as it is difficult to find sources for biodegradable polymers that do not have other competing uses.

“For 20 years, my group has been developing methods to transform natural products – such as glucose obtained from sugar cane or trees – into degradable, digestible polymers that don’t persist in the environment,” said the principal investigator, Karen Wooley, from Texas A&M University. “But those natural products are harvested from resources that are also used for food, fuel, construction and transportation.”

A colleague suggested she could use waste products left over from farming black soldier flies. The larvae of the flies contain proteins and other nutritious compounds so are being raised for animal feed, and they break down waste so are being bred for that, too. However, adult flies are less useful and are discarded after their short life span. Wooley’s team has been trying to use these carcasses to make useful materials from a waste product.

The researchers found that chitin, a sugar-based polymer, is a major component of the flies and it strengthens the shell, or exoskeleton, of insects and crustaceans. Shrimp and crab shells are already used for chitin extraction. Researchers said the fly-sourced chitin powder seemed purer than that from crustaceans and obtaining chitin from flies could avoid concerns over some seafood allergies.

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