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"The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights."

-- J. Paul Getty

News and Opinion

“Israel Has A Right To Exist” Is Psychopathic Bullshit

As soon as you accept that Israel must exist as a “Jewish state” no matter what, you are accepting that there will never be peace in the middle east. Because Israel cannot exist as it is without nonstop violence.

Show a Zionist a map where Israel does not exist as a Jewish state and a map where the entire middle east is on fire except for Israel, and then ask them to pick a future, and they’ll pick the second one every time.

That’s the worldview that’s baked into Zionism. The worldview you’re not supposed to bring up in mainstream discourse about the Zionist ideology. You’re not supposed to mention the demented murderousness inherent in the premise that Israel must exist as a Jewish ethnonationalist state no matter how many people need to be killed in order to make that happen.

But that’s the reality.

It’s a simple matter of historical record that Israel cannot exist without continuous violence and abuse. That’s not my opinion, that’s historical fact. There has never been a modern state of Israel which does not constantly kill and abuse its native population and the inhabitants of neighboring countries.

And of course the typical Zionist response to such criticisms is to blame everyone but themselves. It’s the fault of the Palestinians, the Arab nations, the Iranians etc, because they refused to tolerate the west’s imposition of a brand new ethnostate dropped on top of a pre-existing population who became victims of mass displacement and apartheid as soon as it was created.

But nobody has ever been able to provide me with a convincing argument why the original inhabitants of the region ever should have accepted this arrangement. They’ve never been able to put me in the shoes of a Palestinian in the 1940s and lay out a reason why I should have been fine with the things that were happening to me and my people. Nobody has ever been able to provide me with a convincing argument why the Muslims of west Asia should not have stood in solidarity with the Palestinians and their plight. The only solid argument they’ve ever given me is “They should have laid down and submitted, because that’s what was required in order for the Israelis to stop killing and abusing them.”

And that’s still the only argument they’ve got to this very day: that the Palestinians and their neighbors should lie down and submit to the existence of this genocidal apartheid state that was inserted into their homeland like a glass shard into a foot.

But the fact of the matter is that they did not lie down and submit. Many Arabs did out of sheer self-preservation, but many did not. You can tell me they should have given up and submitted, but that’s just arguing with reality. That’s not a solution, it’s just whining about the inevitable.

And this is where that leaves us today. Israel and its allies butchering human beings throughout the middle east, creating countless war orphans who are naturally going to grow up desiring violent retribution. Generation after generation Israel creates the violence it pretends to be defending itself from, all because it was decided that there must be a “Jewish state” in historic Palestine no matter what needs to be done in order to accomplish this.

And Zionists are fine with this. They don’t care if the entire middle east is turned into an ocean of fire so long as the Israelis are still dancing to their electronic music in the middle of it.

That’s what this slogan “Israel has a right to exist” really means. It means Israel and its allies have a right to keep the middle east in a nonstop state of war, and the strongest argument for why this must be the case is that some dead guys made some stuff up and put it in a book thousands of years ago.

At a certain point you need to admit that this is a psychopathic status quo which cannot be allowed to stand, and that anyone who supports it is complicit in the bloodshed.

The ethnonationalist apartheid state of Israel must be dismantled. People’s various religious objections to this statement must be disregarded as infantile tantrums made by adults who believe silly fairy tales. A wildly different status quo needs to be established from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Because the alternative is a middle east that exists in a permanent state of nonstop violence and chaos.

"Quagmire": Jeremy Scahill on Iran War, Strait of Hormuz, Market Manipulation

Trump extends deadline for Iran to open strait of Hormuz by 10 days

Donald Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz by 10 days to 6 April after saying talks are “going very well”. The president made the statement on Thursday in a social media post, saying: “As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well.” Later Trump told Fox News: “I gave them a 10-day period, they asked for seven.” He also continued to declare victory in the war, adding: “In a certain sense, we have already won.” Earlier, the US president had urged Iranian leaders to negotiate an end to the near-month-long war or face further assassinations of senior officials amid intensified action by the US and Israel.

That threat came as Israel said it had had “blown up and eliminated” the Revolutionary Guards’ naval commander, Alireza Tangsiri, and several senior officers in a strike on the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. Heavy strikes by Israeli or US warplanes were also reported around Isfahan, home to a major Iranian airbase and other military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the US during the 12-day war in June.

Iran has strenuously denied it is “begging to make a deal”, as Trump claimed, and continued its retaliatory strikes across a swathe of the Middle East on Thursday.

Iran’s Abbas Araghchi Exposes US-Israeli School Strike, Demands Global Justice at UNHRC

John Mearsheimer: "Iran Holds All the Cards" - The Strategic Defeat of the U.S.

Jesus better watch out if he comes back, Hegseth will probably try to kill him on "national security" grounds.

Hegseth prays at Pentagon service for ‘overwhelming violence’ against enemies

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, prayed during a religious service at the Pentagon that there be “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. The Christian worship service, held on Wednesday before military and civilian workers at the Pentagon, was Hegseth’s first since the Iran war began, the Associated Press reported.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” Hegseth said in the prayer service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

The remarks came a day after Hegseth announced changes to the military’s chaplain corps, which he said in a video message had been “infected by political correctness and secular humanism” until they were “watered down” to be “nothing more than therapists” who focused more on “self-help and self-care” than faith or virtue.

Hegseth instituted monthly prayer sessions at the Pentagon during his tenure, though all of the prayer meetings have been presided over by evangelicals, the AP reported. Hegseth is member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, founded by Doug Wilson, who self-identifies as a Christian nationalist and has himself led a session of the prayer service at the Pentagon.

Larry Johnson & Col. Wilkerson: US–Iran Ground Conflict Could DEVASTATE Israel & UAE

US Preparing Major Escalation Against Iran That Could Include Ground Troops and Intensified Bombing

The Pentagon is developing options for a potential major escalation against Iran that could involve ground troops and an intensified bombing campaign, Axios reported on Thursday.

US officials and other sources speaking to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a former IDF intelligence officer, described the potential escalation as a “final blow” that would give Trump more leverage and room to “declare victory,” though all indications are that Iran is ready to face ground forces and that any such operation would prolong the war.

The report said that President Trump hasn’t made a decision, but that a major escalation was likely if negotiations made no progress, and there’s no sign that real diplomacy is underway despite Trump’s claims. Iranian officials have rejected a 15-point proposal that the US passed through mediators and have set their own conditions to end the war.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt threatened on Wednesday that President Trump was ready to “unleash hell” on Iran.

New York Times ADMITS Iran Protests Were Engineered By MOSSAD!

Democrats drag their feet as the AIPAC money fills their wallets.

Top Democrats Face Rising Pressure to ‘Bring the Iran War Powers Resolution to the Floor Right Now’

Backlash is continuing to grow after US House Democratic leaders made the decision to push off a war powers vote on President Donald Trump’s Iran war for more than two weeks, even though they may have the votes to pass it immediately.

With Trump appearing poised to make the deathly unpopular decision to deploy ground troops into Iran within days, momentum around an act to restrict his warmaking capabilities only continues to grow.

Most of the Democrats who killed the last war powers resolution are now reportedly on board. So is Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who emerged from a closed-door House Armed Services Committee briefing on Wednesday saying she was “even more” opposed to boots on the ground than when she entered.

But despite having introduced the resolution himself, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared to get cold feet about bringing it to the floor for a vote before next week’s recess, a move which was met with anger and confusion from progressive critics.

A spokesperson for Democrats on the committee told Common Dreams on Wednesday that Meeks was very much committed to passing a bill to “hold President Trump accountable for his reckless war of choice,” but that one could not be pursued until April 13, after the recess, because some of the necessary “yes” votes had left Washington.

Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim described this as a “pathetic” excuse. “As Trump threatens a ground invasion, Democratic members of Congress are saying they won’t do the one thing they are elected to do: Show up and vote,” he wrote on social media.

Additionally, Grim reported on Thursday that Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) had since returned to town. The only Democrat not currently in DC, he said, was Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), who said on Wednesday that his wife was undergoing a routine surgery.

Axios reported on Thursday afternoon that Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) is also absent due to the recent death of his father, and Rep. Jared Golden (Maine), one of the Democrats who opposed the last war powers vote, was still wavering as of Wednesday.

Even with some absences, Republicans are also not at full strength. Assuming that Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Warren Davidson (Ohio) plan to vote yes, as they did in February, there may still be enough votes for the resolution to pass.

When asked by Drop Site reporter Lily Franks on Thursday whether there were enough votes to pass the resolution, Meeks insisted, “We can’t win the vote.”

“When you see me put the bill on the floor, that means we’re going to win,” Meeks said sharply. “I know how to count. I know how to do my job.”

When Franks pointed out that enough Republicans appeared to be on board, Meeks—continuing to interrupt—told her to “go find out” herself if there were enough votes.

“If only there were some mechanism on the House floor to find out how somebody might vote,” Grim quipped in response.

The Democratic spokesperson could not be reached for comment when asked by Common Dreams whether Meeks was now planning to push for a resolution vote before the recess, given that some Democrats have returned to Washington.

Nathan Thompson, a senior policy adviser for Just Foreign Policy, argues that even if Democrats do not have the votes to pass the resolution now, there is no reason not to bring it to a vote.

“Forcing a vote will make House Republicans own an increasingly likely ground invasion,” he said in a letter sent to House Democrats on Thursday morning, which was shared with Common Dreams. “Even a vote that falls short will be painful for House Republicans and put real pressure on the Trump administration.”

“The attendance excuse doesn’t hold,” he said. “Members can return by tomorrow to vote, and Republicans aren’t at full strength either... An unfortunate scheduling error should not prevent Congress from weighing in at a critical moment in history.”

Calls for a war powers resolution on Capitol Hill continued to grow after reports that the Trump administration is mulling several potential ground operations in Iran, potentially as early as Friday.

Axios reported on Thursday that the Pentagon is considering “invading or blockading” Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub—and sending American forces “deep inside the interior of Iran” in an effort to seize the country’s enriched uranium. ...

Meanwhile, critics are increasingly raising suspicion that Meeks—whom The Lever noted received more than $2.2 million from pro-Israel lobbying groups according to the watchdog group TrackAIPAC—is intentionally dragging out the vote.

Independent journalist Aída Chávez has emphasized that Meeks held up the previous war powers vote by overinflating the number of Democrats likely to defect, and may have attempted to do so again.

But with Democratic stragglers on board and more Republicans “starting to break,” Chávez said: “Democratic leadership can’t keep hiding behind process.

IDF Chief: Israeli Military COLLAPSING After Endless War

Oh lookee, the AIPAC Dems have recognized that the genocidal state of Israel is toxic to their re-election prospects and are now pretending to have a conscience.

Pro-Israel Democrats decry settler violence in West Bank amid attacks on Palestinians

As Israeli settlers ramp up violent attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, often as Israeli forces stand by, denunciations are mounting in the US, even from Democratic legislators and public figures who are typically staunch defenders of Israel. In recent days, dozens of settlers have torched homes and vehicles and attacked Palestinians in apparently coordinated attacks. Since the start of the month, Israeli settlers and police have killed at least 10 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including two young brothers and their parents as they returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.

Ritchie Torres, a New York Democratic representative and one of Israel’s staunchest advocates in Congress, wrote in a statement this week that “the crisis of extremist settler violence in the West Bank must be confronted, and the perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”. He called for “zero tolerance for violent extremism, no matter what form it takes”. Torres is facing re-election, and his opponents have made his support for Israel a central part of their campaigns.

Daniel Goldman, another pro-Israel Democratic representative seeking re-election in New York, also condemned the violence, which he called an “outrage”. He urged Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, to bring to a vote proposed legislation seeking to impose sanctions against those “undermining prospects for a two-state solution by committing illegal violent acts”, and criticized the Trump administration for rescinding sanctions against a number of violent settlers that the US government issued under Joe Biden. “This violence is anti-democratic and unacceptable,” Goldman wrote. “The Israeli government must hold those responsible accountable, as the rule of law requires.”

Torres and Goldman have received millions in campaign support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac. But voters have become increasingly critical of the Israel lobby, with several candidates distancing themselves from it and pledging not to accept its contributions. Other Aipac-backed politicians to condemn settler violence this week included Ruben Gallego, an Arizona senator who called on the Israeli government to “stop being complicit”, and Greg Stanton, an Arizona congressman who called the attacks “acts of terrorism”. Shontel Brown, a Democratic congresswoman of Ohio, accused Trump of “green-lighting settler violence”.

No Republicans appear to have commented on the latest string of settler attacks. “Israel’s backers in the United States, especially among liberals and Democrats, understand how much of a political liability supporting Israel has become,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at Arab Center DC. He added that politicians backed by pro-Israel donors but facing an increasingly pro-Palestinian electorate are “trapped between the money they’ve relied on to make their campaigns work and the voters they actually need to win”. He believes that condemning blatant settler violence is an easy way for them to express some discontent with Israel without rattling donors. “It ostensibly offers these Democrats a way to condemn the actions of Israelis against Palestinians without challenging the Israeli state itself.”

Rania Khalek on Piers Morgan: Why I Refuse to Condemn the Lebanese Resistance

Israel Sends More Ground Troops Into Lebanon as Occupation Destruction Mounts

srael has announced that they are sending another division of ground troops into southern Lebanon as part of an invasion that began earlier this month and which earlier this week Defense Minister Israel Katz said would include the occupation of the entire area south of the Litani River.

This is the fifth division to be sent into Lebanon since the invasion began, and a sixth division, the 98th Division, is reportedly being prepared to be deployed as well. Occupying such a large amount of territory is no small task, despite efforts to depopulate the area ahead of time.

Human rights groups are expressing growing disquiet about how much of Israel’s focus inside southern Lebanon is about wiping out towns and villages and setting the stage for open-ended displacement of the hundreds of thousands of civilians that live there.

Energy collapse, supply chains WRECKED w/ Stanislav Krapivnik

US markets see biggest slump since start of US-Israel war on Iran

US markets saw their biggest slump since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran on Thursday as Donald Trump said the conflict’s impact on oil prices had not been as bad as he expected. The Dow closed 450 points down, while the S&P 500 dipped 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.3%, plunging into correction territory, which happens when an index falls at least 10% below its most recent peak.

Oil prices have surged since the start of the conflict, reaching levels not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up global oil prices in 2022 and 2023. At the end of day on Thursday, Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, was about $107 a barrel while US crude hit $93 a barrel. Average US gas prices at the pump reached $3.98 a gallon, according to AAA.

Despite the soaring prices, Trump said that oil prices “have not gone up as much as I thought” during a cabinet meeting on Thursday, “It’s all going to come back down to where it was, and probably lower,” he added. The president also predicted the impact on the stock market would reverse once the conflict ends.

Markets have been growing weary of Trump as he has continued to give an extremely mixed picture of where the US stands in negotiations with Iran.Stocks dipped on Thursday morning after Trump posted a warning to Iranian negotiators that they “better get serious, before it’s too late”.

But later in the morning, Trump said that there were “very substantial talks” happening with Iran and that the country allowed 10 oil tankers to pass the blocked strait of Hormuz. Trump said the passage was a “present” from Iran to the US amid the conflict. Right after markets closed, the White House announced it will extend a pause on Iranian energy infrastructure strikes by 10 days, until 6 April.

Venezuelans deported by US detail fresh claims of torture and abuse at El Salvador mega-prison

A group of 18 Venezuelan men whom the US expelled [to] a notorious Salvadorian mega-prison are demanding that Salvadorian authorities be held internationally accountable for violation of human rights – detailing new allegations of torture, sexual assault and medical neglect. A new petition, filed on Thursday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleges that El Salvador violated the human rights of these men, who were expelled to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) last year without charge.

Human rights groups filed the petition on behalf of the 18 men, who were among 288 Venezuelans and Salvadorians that the US transferred to Cecot in March 2025. The detainees detail a “pattern of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, and sexual assault” while they were incarcerated.

In new testimony, the men, who were released from Cecot and returned to Venezuela in July last year, also recount the lasting mental and physical toll of their incarceration. One man testified that he still has scars from the shackles that the detainees were forced to wear for extended periods of time, writing that they “are a constant reminder of the horror I lived”. The former detainee said he is also triggered by loud noises, including the clanking of keys – “because the officials used to bang their keys on the cells to torture us and keep us awake at all hours. The sound of keys puts me into a panic state.”

Another of the men said that officials beat him from the moment he disembarked from the flight to El Salvador. “When I got off the plane, I fell, and two riot police from El Salvador picked me up with blows to the ribs,” he said. “They lifted me up by the handcuffs. This was an unimaginable pain.” He was beaten dozens of times during his four months of incarceration. “After each beating I was in severe pain for about seven days, to the point where I couldn’t move or walk properly,” he said. But in neighboring cells, he said, detainees were beaten more than 100 out of the 125 days that they were incarcerated. “We could hear them screaming in pain.

The petition was filed to the IACHR, a regional body within the Organization for American States tasked with protecting and promoting human rights across the region. It asks the commission to declare that the agreement between the United States and the Republic of El Salvador for the transfer of deportees to Cecot violates El Salvador’s obligations under the American convention on human rights. It also asks the commission to require El Salvador to make reparations to the former detainees, make a public apology and provide resources for psychiatric and psychological rehabilitation. It includes testimony not only by men incarcerated at Cecot, but also from medical workers who corroborated their accounts, from former US officials who attest that the Trump administration knowingly sent deportees to a country with a record of human rights abuses and from former UN special rapporteurs on the human rights of migrants.

Lawyers for ICE gave false information to justify detaining thousands, filings reveal

Lawyers for ICE provided false information to justify arresting and detaining thousands of people who had attended immigration courts, according to newly filed court documents. Federal prosecutors said that lawyers for ICE acknowledged that an agency memo from May of last year gave no authorization for the arrests, court documents show, despite previously citing it to justify the arrests.

The revelation was included in filings by the office of Jay Clayton, a US federal attorney, in a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups, first reported on by the New York Daily News. The lawsuit is challenging ICE’s practice of targeting people seeking to gain legal status in the US as they leave immigration courts. Agents have arrested thousands of people after they attended hearings, preventing them from further pursuing their cases.

The NYCLU said that ICE had not provided any legal justification for the arrests, which have been part of Donald Trump’s wide-ranging, and sometimes deadly, effort to ramp up detentions and deportations.

US Senate fails for seventh time to advance bill to partly fund DHS

The Senate again failed to advance a bill to fund part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has now been shut down for almost six weeks.

The latest vote came just hours after Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order instructing Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents during the shutdown, a move that could ease the immediate urgency for Congress to reach a deal as it heads into a scheduled two‑week recess.

By a vote of 53-47, mostly along party lines, the upper chamber fell short of the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward – the seventh failed attempt. Only Democratic senator John Fetterman broke with his party to vote in favor of the bill. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, filed a motion to reconsider, allowing the bill to be brought up again.

Lawmakers remain deadlocked as they try to reach an agreement to fund affected parts of the DHS, including the TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), the coast guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

Thune cast the latest proposal from Republicans as the party’s “last and final” offer, but it was ultimately rejected by Democrats, who have consistently demanded stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement after Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by officers during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January.

EPA approves sale of higher-ethanol fuel in bid to lower gas prices

The US Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday that it would temporarily allow widespread sales of a higher-ethanol gas blend in a move that it hopes will tamp down consumer prices that have soared since the Iran war began.

The higher-ethanol blend has been prohibited in warm weather because of concerns it could worsen smog.

“President Trump is unleashing American Energy Dominance, and today’s action will directly lower prices at the pump and gives a clear demand signal to our domestic biofuels producers,” the US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said in a statement.

The summer waiver for E15 has become commonplace in recent years, and both Republicans and Democrats have called for it to become year-round and permanent to lower prices at the pump. It’s already allowed in some states: Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Wisconsin and most of South Dakota, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group. The association said it’s also legal in cities that require reformulated gasoline, or gasoline blended with the intent to burn more cleanly. ...

More corn used for ethanol also means less can be used for animal feed, said Jason Hill, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies food, energy markets and environmental consequences. That means consumers could be trading lower costs at the pump for higher costs at the grocery store. “I think it’s difficult to see when the ledger’s settled how this is a benefit for US consumers,” Hill said.

Rise of the shrubs: what happened when scientists heated a Rocky Mountain wildlife meadow by 2C

Every summer, people descend on the wildflower capital of Colorado to see grasslands flush with corn lilies, aspen sunflowers and sub-alpine larkspur. In January 1991, scientists set up a unique experiment in these Rocky Mountain meadows. It was one of the first (and longest running) to work out how the changing climate would affect an ecosystem. At the time, it was believed a temperature increase could lead to longer, lusher grasses. But instead of flourishing, the grasses and wildflowers started to disappear, replaced by sage brush. The experimental meadows morphed into a desert-like scrubland. Even the fungi in the soils were transformed by heat.

The experiment provided a window into the future. These meadows will disappear in the coming decades if warming reaches 2C above preindustrial levels, according to the resulting article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings are alarming, not just for Colorado, but for mountains across the planet as “shrubification” takes over.

Electric infrared radiators warmed five experimental plots of 30 sq metres year-round. Head-height heaters were on day and night over a patch of meadow, keeping it 2C above normal temperatures with an annual electricity bill of $6,000 (£4,450). They warmed the top six inches of soil. Animals could come and graze and the natural system was preserved as much as possible.

Over 29 years, researchers found that shrubs increased by 150% in warmed plots compared with those without warming. The surface of the soil was dried by up to 20%, and shallow-rooted plants became stressed. Some wildflowers went extinct in heated plots. “It’s a sign of things to come,” says lead researcher Lara Souza from the University of Oklahoma.

Scientists also noted big changes in the invisible world of soil fungi and microbes. Shrubs and sage brush don’t rely on fungi in the same way as grasses. They found a decline in fungi that help plants acquire nutrients, and an increase in fungi that decompose organic matter. “This highlights that when you have a big change above ground, you’ve likely got a big change below ground,” says Souza. “Turning back is very unlikely.”

Fossil fuel companies finally accept the climate crisis – just not their role in it

While the US government continues to call climate change a hoax and attack the science, in courtrooms from The Hague to Honolulu, fossil fuel companies are taking a different approach. Shell, Chevron, RWE and TotalEnergies all accept that climate change is real, human-caused and serious. The era of corporate climate denial, at least in legal proceedings, is largely over. What has replaced it is a more nuanced position: accepting the science of climate change while contesting their responsibility for it.

New research published in the journal Transnational Environmental Law offers the first systematic analysis of how major fossil fuel companies defend themselves when taken to court over their role in causing global warming. Drawing on case documents from landmark lawsuits, the research identifies three distinct strategies companies are using.

The first and broadest argument is that climate change is a collective problem caused by society’s demand for energy, not by the companies that supply it. Chevron and Shell, in separate cases on different continents, cited the same passage from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report – that greenhouse gas emissions are driven by “population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use” – to argue that responsibility lies with modern industrial society as a whole.

The second strategy is more technical. Companies do not dispute that the climate is warming or that human activity is the cause. However, they contest whether a clear legal causation between their emissions and the science exists.A third strategy involves questioning the credibility of those producing the science. ... In the US, defendants in a lawsuit brought by Oregon’s Multnomah County against ExxonMobil and other oil companies have sought to strike peer-reviewed evidence by alleging undisclosed connections between a claimant’s lawyer and the studies’ authors.

In courtrooms across the world, the same pattern holds: fossil fuel companies now accept the science but refuse responsibility. The central battleground in climate litigation will no longer be whether climate change is happening, but who, legally and financially, bears responsibility for it.

Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Accelerating Economic Damage Creates Urgency on Strait of Hormuz Closure; Shambolic US Assault Preparations Continue; Iran Demands Recognition of Sovereignity Over Strait; Houthis Set to Strangle Red Sea Traffic if US Makes Ground Attack

‘This Is Our Land,’ Says the Israeli Settler

Rebecca Hendin on Donald Trump’s 15-point peace plan – cartoon

War on Iran: – Just A Few Links …

Flights, fertilizer, mortgage rates: how the Iran war is raising more than just US gas prices

Chevron threatening to leave California

Arizona gun dealer accused of selling firearms to two Mexican cartels

Fears net zero is ‘next Brexit’ as oil crisis fuels political climate divide

A Little Night Music

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder – My Baby Done Changed The Lock On The Door

Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son

Ry Cooder - Do Re Mi

Ry Cooder - How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live

Ry Cooder – Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now

Ry Cooder- Police Dog Blues / Dark Is The Nigh t/ Goin’ To Brownsville

Ry Cooder - The Concert for New Orleans

Ry Cooder - Billy the Kid

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder – Pawn Shop Blues

Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal And Ry Cooder – Dust My Broom