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"Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself."

-- James Anthony Froude

News and Opinion

When Will the US Acknowledge its Secret Torture Site in Poland?

One of the longest-held prisoners in the U.S. global war on terror is finally getting a day in court. Sort of. The prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who has never been charged with a crime, has been waiting 14 years for a federal judge to rule on his habeas corpus petition that challenges the legality of his detention. But next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a separate case: Zubaydah’s request that he be permitted to take testimony from the two CIA contractors who oversaw his torture.

The Trump administration intervened to block public disclosure about how Zubaydah was treated while in U.S. custody, or even where he was held, and the Biden administration is continuing the fight. In its Supreme Court briefs, the administration has cited an array of arguments against allowing the two men to be deposed, citing everything from the state secrets privilege, which shields highly sensitive government information from being revealed in civil litigation, to the plot of the Oscar-winning thriller “Argo.”

Zubaydah’s case has reached the Supreme Court circuitously, beginning with an investigation in Poland five years ago into whether any of its government officials were complicit in Zubaydah’s detention and torture. The United States has refused to cooperate with the Polish prosecutors, citing national security concerns.

The Polish investigators asked for help from Zubaydah’s lawyer, who in turn sought to take the depositions of psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. Paid more than $80 million, they were the principal architects of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” — the agency’s euphemism for waterboarding prisoners, slamming them against walls, forcing them into a coffin-sized box, depriving them of sleep for days at a time and other forms of torture. Zubaydah was the first prisoner on whom Mitchell and Jessen tested their techniques, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2014.

After the CIA seized Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002 and secretly took him to a black site in Thailand, Bush administration officials asserted that he was al-Qaida’s third-highest-ranking leader. The government has since acknowledged that he was not a senior terrorist leader and that he had no known connection to the 9/11 attacks. He had been in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly a decade and had suffered a serious head injury while fighting against the Soviet-backed government. Intelligence officials concluded he was more of a facilitator, providing false passports, housing and other arrangements for men, some potential terrorists, who moved between the two countries.

“He wasn’t hatching plots and giving orders,” Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Islamabad when Zubaydah was being monitored and eventually seized, wrote in his book “88 Days to Kandahar.” “I did not expect that he would know the time or place of the next attack.” However, in Washington, CIA officials were convinced that Zubaydah knew about plans to attack the United States, and Mitchell was determined to extract the information, according to declassified documents.

After being waterboarded 83 times in Thailand, Zubaydah had still not revealed any “actionable intelligence,” cables from Thailand to Langley reported. Later, interrogators would conclude he knew nothing about al-Qaida’s plans.

He did, however, send FBI agents on futile investigations as he tried to end the torture. At one point, interrogators in Thailand asked Zubaydah a hypothetical question: If you were going to carry out an attack in the United States, where would you do it? The Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, Zubaydah answered. This led New York City to impose security measures “not seen since the first months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” The New York Times reported.

In December 2002, when journalists began asking questions about a black site in Thailand, it was shut down, and Zubaydah was secretly transferred to Poland.

For years, the Polish government denied the existence of a CIA detention site. But after the 2014 Senate Intelligence report and after the European Court for Human Rights ruled in 2015 that it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Zubaydah had been held in Poland, Polish prosecutors began their investigation. Invoking a mutual legal assistance treaty, which commits each country to support the other’s criminal investigations, Warsaw asked Washington for assistance. Their request went unanswered.

Joseph Margulies, one of Zubaydah’s American lawyers, realized that the Polish investigation offered an opportunity to make public at least some of what had been done to his client at the black sites and might lead to his release. Invoking a federal law that allows an interested party to gather evidence in support of a foreign investigation, he asked a court to compel the depositions of Mitchell and Jessen. The Trump administration immediately intervened. It asserted the state secrets privilege to block the depositions, contending that the testimony would formally confirm or deny that the CIA operated a clandestine detention center in Poland.

As the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit organization in London, put it in a brief recently filed with the Supreme Court in support of Zubaydah, “Study after study, report after report, emerging from the CIA, DOJ and SSCI, along with flight record after flight record, flight invoice after invoice, have confirmed, in graphic and granular detail, what the world already knows: that the CIA had black sites in Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.”

Even the former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski has acknowledged that the CIA had set up a black site in his country. “Of course, everything took place with my knowledge,” he told Poland’s leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, in 2012. “The President and the Prime Minister agreed to the intelligence co-operation with the Americans, because this was what was required by national interest.”

None of this has slowed the U.S. government’s efforts to avoid acknowledging what is now accepted fact. In their briefs, government lawyers argue that the Polish site, if it ever existed, remains a state secret because the federal government has never officially admitted to its existence. They contend that all those public reports and statements could be part of a CIA disinformation campaign. The lawyers cite as evidence the book and movie “Argo,” which chronicles how the CIA rescued Americans hiding out in Iran by posing as a film crew. (As many commentators pointed out, the movie takes considerable liberties with the facts, adding, among other things, a chase through an airport that never occurred.)

The government’s Supreme Court brief relies primarily on United States v. Reynolds, a 1953 case regarding the crash of an Air Force B-29 near Waycross, Georgia. When the families of three civilian engineers killed in the crash sought a copy of the accident report and witness statements, the Air Force refused to turn over the documents, asserting that they contained classified information about a secret mission. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court upheld the government’s claim and, for the first time, formally recognized the state secrets privilege.

Forty-seven years later, the Air Force declassified the documents. They contained no reference to a secret mission. “Instead, the report told a horror story of incompetence, bungling, and tragic error,” Garry Wills wrote in The New York Review of Books.

From Hunter’s laptop to 'Havana syndrome,' Russiagate disinformation hits new low

Honest Government Ad | AUKUS

Russia says AUKUS pact threatens nuclear non-proliferation regime

Russia has voiced concern over the AUKUS defence deal between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, warning the pact threatens global nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Under the trilateral agreement for the Indo-Pacific region, announced last month, Australia will become only the second country after the UK to be given access to the US nuclear technology to build nuclear-powered submarines.

Moscow said earlier this week it was seeking more information about AUKUS. On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov admitted the Kremlin was uneasy over the deal.

Moscow is “concerned” about the partnership that will allow Australia “after 18 months of consultations and several years of attempts, to obtain nuclear-powered submarines in sufficient numbers to become one of the top five countries for this type of armaments”, Russia’s TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

“This is a great challenge to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.”

To more fully understand this Guardian piece, read here.

Chinese planes fly over Taiwan defence zone in second day of record show of force

China has for the second day in a row flown more than 30 military planes towards Taiwan in yet another record show of force. Taiwan’s defence ministry said 39 aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone in two sorties on Saturday, one during the day and one at night. That followed a similar pattern on Friday, when 38 planes flew into the area south of the self-governing island.

The ministry said 20 planes took part in the daytime flights on Saturday and another 19 at night. It identified most of them as J-17 and SU-30 fighter jets. ...

The show of force on China’s national day on Friday near Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory, came in the same week it accused Britain of sending a warship into the Taiwan strait with “evil intentions”.

Bold, haughty, hyper: will Macron throw it all away as France fights for its future?

In an age of predictable, managed and blatantly fixed elections, France’s looming democratic denouement is refreshingly rambunctious and emblematic. As April’s presidential contest comes into focus, the question of identity dominates. What does it mean, these days, to be French? Who belongs – and who doesn’t? Is France a global power or mere cultural theme park for Chinese tourists? It’s a conundrum deeply familiar to the British. While France, unlike the UK, faces no immediate secessionist threat, it suffers similar internal social, economic, racial and geographical divides – and an imperial hangover, too. The far-right, xenophobic, nationalist-populist tendency common to both countries finds more powerful public expression there. At one time, the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter, Marine, held a monopoly on bigotry. Now it’s an ugly free-for-all.

The new champion of hate is Éric Zemmour, a TV chat show celebrity likened to Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. He demands the “re-Frenchification” of France. “We have to tell French people of migrant origin to make a choice who they are,” he said last month. The French “feel colonised… and have an existential fear of disappearing”. Zemmour wants to ban non-French first names, Islamic headscarves and much else besides. Although he has yet to say he will run, Zemmour’s headline-grabbing is undermining Marine Le Pen, who launched her third presidential challenge last month under the supposedly fumigated banner of the National Rally. ...

Le Pen remains favourite, at this stage, to win a second-round run-off place against the centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, in a repeat of the 2017 election. Macron won easily then with 66% of the vote and would be expected to do so again. But if disillusion, coupled with defections to Zemmour, splits the far-right vote, a centre-right candidate with wider appeal could seize the second-round spot. Such a scenario poses a real threat to Macron. Problem is, the centre right, represented by the conservative Les Républicains party, has yet to agree a candidate. ... All the same, if the centre right does eventually rally round one candidate, if that candidate is endorsed by a party vote in December, and if a campaign meltdown similar to that which overwhelmed François Fillon in 2017 is avoided, there is good reason to believe Macron may face a second-round opponent who, unlike Le Pen, has a realistic chance of beating him. That’s a lot of “ifs”. But a lot could change. ...

In recent weeks, busy-bee Macron has been hit by an egg and slapped in the face on “meet-the-people” tours. He’s been confronted by the misery of the excluded and the unextinguished, visceral anger that infused the gilets jaunes (yellow vests). He struggles to reconcile his vow to uphold secular values and eradicate Islamic “separatism” with a vision of a country at peace with its differing racial, religious and cultural aspects. The pandemic may produce more booby traps. ... Like the submarine debacle, multiple other issues at home and abroad could yet blow up in his face before next April. They point to fragility at the heart of the Macron presidency. His peculiar brand of bold, haughty hyperpolitics, which brought unexpected glory in 2017, is a vulnerability, too. Political enemies may fail to dethrone him. But ultimately that may not matter. Mercurial Macron has seven months to defeat himself before the guillotine descends. Hold on to your chapeau.

PANDORA PAPERS: Putin, Jordanian King CAUGHT Hiding Billions In Historic Leak

Pandora Papers: 'Biggest-Ever' Bombshell Leak Exposes Financial Secrets of the Super-Rich

In what's being called the "biggest-ever leak of offshore data," a cache of nearly 12 million documents published Sunday laid bare the hidden wealth, secret dealings, and corruption of hundreds of world leaders, billionaires, public officials, celebrities, and others.

The bombshell revelations—known as the Pandora Papers—were published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and include private emails, secret contracts, and other records obtained during a two-year investigation involving more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.

"This is the Panama Papers on steroids," said ICIJ director Gerard Ryle, referring to the 2016 exposé of the tax-evading secrets of the super-rich. "It's broader, richer, and has more detail."

According to The Guardian:

More than 100 billionaires feature in the leaked data, as well as celebrities, rock stars, and business leaders. Many use shell companies to hold luxury items such as property and yachts, as well as incognito bank accounts. There is even art ranging from looted Cambodian antiquities to paintings by Picasso and murals by Banksy.

"There's never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of what offshore companies can offer to help people hide dodgy cash or avoid tax," said ICIJ's Fergus Shiel, who added that the people in the files "are using those offshore accounts, those offshore trusts, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of property in other countries, and to enrich their own families, at the expense of their citizens."

The leaked documents reveal how some of the world's wealthiest people avert the financial consequences of their misdeeds by using offshore entities. Dozens of current and former world leaders feature prominently in the files, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

While most of the richest Americans do not appear in the files, The Washington Post reports that "perhaps the most troubling revelations for the United States... center on its expanding complicity in the offshore economy."

Chuck Collins, author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, and co-editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies, said in a statement that "the U.S. has become the weak link in stopping global crime and wealth hiding."

"States like South Dakota and Delaware have morphed their laws to attract billions, sometimes illicitly obtained, from around the world," he said. "We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we've become a magnet for kleptocratic funds."

Collins added that the Pandora Papers show "it is time for U.S. lawmakers to shut down the hidden wealth system that allows for such aggressive tax avoidance and the sequestering of wealth."

ICIJ said Sunday that the "publication of Pandora Papers stories comes at a critical moment in a global debate over the fairness of the international tax system, the role of Western professionals in the shadow economy, and the failure of governments to stanch the flow of dirty money into hidden companies and trusts," and that the documents "are expected to yield new revelations for years to come."

CNN Anchor FREAKS As Former Dem Senator's CORRUPTION Called Out LIVE

Joe Manchin whines about $3.5 trillion — but he spent $9.1 trillion on defense

Whether President Biden's agenda fails at this point depends on two people: Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Earlier this week, Sinema appeared the more immovable obstacle. On Wednesday, Manchin made it clear he's still in the running for that infamous crown. "I can't support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March," he wrote in a statement apparently ruling out any new programs whatsoever. "[S]pending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can't even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity," Manchin said.

This is a complete crock, as Manchin's own actions prove: For years, he has been casually voting for bloated defense budgets many times the size of the Biden agenda. His squalling about overspending is dishonest nonsense, and he is utterly wrong about what America can afford. ...

Manchin was first elected to the Senate in 2010, giving us a full decade of defense budgets under his watch. If we take the figures for each year from 2011 to 2020, adjust them for inflation, and add them all together, we get a total of $7.6 trillion in 2012 dollars. Then if we adjust again to get 2021 dollars, we get a total of $9.1 trillion over a decade. Again, these are rough figures, but they are certainly in the right ballpark.

Manchin voted for every single one of the military budgets over the last decade — in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. He voted for all $9.1 trillion. While he occasionally complained about wasteful military programs and asked for an audit of the Pentagon, these quibbles were never enough to get him to vote differently. He helped inflate the already-bloated war budget and regularly boasted about thus "supporting" the troops. This year, he did it again.

Manchin Demanded Bank Bailout Before Slamming “Entitlement Mentality”

On Thursday, coal-baron-turned-senator Joe Manchin threatened to kill his party’s climate, health care and anti-poverty legislation, telling reporters: “I cannot accept our economy, or basically our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality." Manchin’s declaration comes almost exactly 13 years after he played a pivotal role pushing for a massive Wall Street bailout that funneled hundreds of billions of dollars of public money to the banks whose financial crisis destroyed the global economy and ravaged West Virginia with mass foreclosures.

The bailed-out banks quickly paid themselves huge government-subsidized bonuses and later bankrolled Manchin’s political campaigns. ... A few years after the bailout happened, Manchin’s wife was named to the board of a mortgage bank. Donors from Goldman Sachs — the bank which received $10 billion from the Manchin-backed bailout — would go on to collectively become one of Manchin’s biggest career campaign donors, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets.

Manchin’s inveighing against an “entitlement mentality” also comes as he’s demanded the preservation of special tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, which is among the biggest financial contributors to his election bids.

INSIDE Manchin's CORRUPT Deal With Dem Leadership

Pelosi shifts infrastructure bill deadline to 31 October amid Biden frustration

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has set a new deadline for the House to pass a major infrastructure spending bill after a week of negotiations left Joe Biden’s social and environmental policy overhaul plan in a limbo. In a letter to House Democrats on Saturday, Pelosi said that the House will have until Sunday 31 October to pass the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate in August.

Progressive Democrats in the House refused to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, despite pressure from their moderate counterparts, as leverage in negotiations over a separate bill that contains massive spending on many of Biden’s campaign promises, including increased access to childcare and action on climate change. “More time was needed to reach our goal of passing both bills, which we will,” Pelosi said in the letter.

Biden and progressive Democrats have advocated an overhaul plan costing $3.5tn, but centrist Democrats have refused to agree to that cost. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key centrist in negotiations, proposed a package of $1.5tn, a significant cut to Biden’s original plan. Refusing to agree on a price that low, progressive Democrats in turn declared on Friday that they would stall a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until an agreement is reached on the overhaul plan.

Talking to reporters on Saturday morning before he boarded a flight to his home in Delaware, where he is staying for the weekend, Biden said he was going to “work like hell” on selling his plan directly to the American people over the next month, educating Americans on what he has in mind for the plan. “I’m going to try to sell what I think the American people will buy,” he told reporters. “I believe that when the American people are aware of what’s in it, we’ll get it done.”

Progressive Pramila Jayapal flexes muscles in cat-and-mouse negotiations

It seemed a throwaway line during a media scrum on Friday outside the House of Representatives. But no other comment by Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), highlighted her group’s growing prominence and leverage in Capitol Hill politics: “In the House,” she said, “everybody is a Joe Manchin.”

The Democratic Washington state congresswoman’s point, as the delicate cat-and-mouse game with centrist Democrats over the fate of Joe Biden’s flagship domestic agenda, was clear. West Virginia senator Manchin and his fellow holdout Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona might hold the cards in the 50-50 US Senate, but in the lower chamber at least the progressives were in the driving seat.

That dynamic is set to play out for the month of October now as the fate of Biden’s political ambitions has been suspended for further talks as the president seeks to reconcile warring factions of his party, especially the recalcitrant Senate centrists who have been stunned by progressive strength – with Jayapal at the tip of their spear. ...

Jayapal’s supporters credit her communication skills combined with a hard-nosed determination for maneuvering her caucus into its new authoritative role. She told reporters last week that her message for anybody doubting that the group would block the infrastructure bill unless the social package passed was: “Try us.”

Sanders urges progressives to stand firm in Democratic battle over Biden agenda

Bernie Sanders, the leftwing firebrand who has drawn the fight against poverty and inequality into the mainstream of American politics, issued a call to arms on Sunday for fellow progressives to stand firm in the intensifying battle over the future of Joe Biden’s economic and social policy agenda. With the Democratic party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency, Sanders said the outcome of the next few weeks would be critical not just for the future of American working families but also for the country’s political future.

“This is a test of whether American democracy can work,” he said in a fiery interview with ABC News’s This Week. “I hope and expect that the Democratic party and the president – I know he will – will stand firm.”

With the White House and congressional leaders scrambling to meet a new 31 October deadline for passing the legislation, two flanks of the Democratic party find themselves at loggerheads. ... On Sunday Sanders was bullish about the chances of his side prevailing. “We have the American people very strongly on our side, we have the president of the United States on our side, we have 96% of the Democratic caucus of the House on our side, and we’ve got all but two senators on our side. We’re going to win this thing,” he told This Week.

Andrew Yang REVEALS Plans for Third Party

Trump asks judge to force Twitter to reinstate his account

Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force social media giant Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the attack that month on the US Capitol in Washington DC.

Trump’s use of the platform was a signature mark of his run for the presidency in 2016 and one he continued to use in office. He wielded it to attack enemies and dominate news cycles.

His tweets often inspired ridicule and anger but also posted content that was racist and dangerously provocative on anything from immigration to the origins of the coronavirus to urging people to resist Democratic governors.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday filed a motion in US district court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey. They argue that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.

Twitter permanently banned Trump from its platform days after his followers violently stormed the Capitol building to try to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win. Twitter cited concerns that Trump would incite further unrest. ... Prior to the ban, Trump had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter.

‘They don’t include Native voices’: tribes fight to ensure their votes count

Data from the 2020 census, released last month, show that the US Native American population grew by 27.1% over the last decade to the largest size in modern history. Still, advocates say that number represents an undercount because the census count had tight deadlines and reaching Native populations, many of whom live in remote rural areas, was difficult during the pandemic.

For that reason, Native groups say it’s vital that they organize to ensure they’re not left out of the redistricting process and do not end up with districts that dilute their power. Without fair representation, they worry they won’t have influence on pressing policy concerns, like suppressive voting laws or high joblessness and incarceration rates on reservations. ...

As North Dakota gears up to redraw the state’s lines and determine how its citizens will be represented, Native groups are advocating for fair representation of people who live both on and off reservations. They want tribes to be included in the same districts to maximize their potential representation and they are pleading for the state redistricting committee to consider input from Native Americans in redistricting meetings. “They don’t include Native voices in the process,” said Nicole Donaghy, the executive director of North Dakota Native Vote, who was also at the committee hearing. “They don’t reach out to the tribes.” ...

In other states, tribal leaders and groups representing Native people are also getting involved in the redistricting process. In New Mexico, tribes are preparing to propose maps aimed at greater representation in future elections. In South Dakota, Native advocates are pressuring the redistricting committee to hold meetings on tribal land and with tribal governments.

Media Silent as Steven Donziger JAILED in Chevron Corporate Prosecution

Major oil spill off California's coast could become an 'ecological disaster'

‘There’s tar everywhere’: large California oil spill fouls beaches and kills wildlife

One of the largest oil spills in recent Southern California history fouled popular beaches and killed wildlife while crews scrambled Sunday to contain the crude before it spread further into protected wetlands. At least 126,000 gallons (572,807 liters) of oil spilled into the waters off Orange county, according to a statement from the city of Huntington Beach.

“The spill has significantly affected Huntington Beach, with substantial ecological impacts occurring at the beach and at the Huntington Beach Wetlands,” the statement said.

The oil created a miles-wide sheen in the ocean and washed ashore in sticky, black globules along with dead birds and fish. Crews led by the US Coast Guard deployed skimmers and floating barriers known as booms to try to stop further incursion into the wetlands and the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

The closure stretched from the Huntington Beach Pier nearly 4 miles (6.4 km) south to the Santa Ana River jetty amid summer-like weather that would have brought beachgoers to the wide strand for volleyball, swimming and surfing. Instead, beaches lay vacant other than flocks of seagulls staring out into the brown-tinged tide. ...

The oil slick originated from a broken pipeline connected to an offshore oil platform known as Elly, Orange county supervisor Katrina Foley said on Twitter.

“Blah, Blah, Blah”: Youth Climate Activists Slam Political Inaction at U.N. Summit Ahead of COP26

Giant sequoias and fire have coexisted for centuries. Climate crisis is upping the stakes

It is still unclear how the giant sequoias of California will fare as two fires – which together have scorched more than 140,000 acres in their namesake national park and national forest – continue to burn. Thick smoke and rugged inaccessible terrain has hindered efforts to assess destruction from the KNP Complex and Windy fires, and a full accounting may take weeks. Scientists on the ground say so far the news has been both good and bad. There are still pockets of lush greenery left within the footprints of two fast-moving fires, as well as areas where the flames left little in their wake.

But one thing remains abundantly clear: with drier and hotter conditions, the fires the forests – and the stakes – have changed.

The incredibly resilient giant sequoias that have grown on these ridges for thousands of years, coexisting and evolving with wildfires that helped keep overgrowth at bay and clear space needed for seedlings. But as the climate crisis intensified conditions, causing fires to burn bigger and hotter, the tall trees are starting to succumb in larger numbers. During last year’s Castle fire, which blackened 175,000 acres in Sequoia national park, up to 14% of the world’s sequoias were lost to the flames – an alarming development for the trees once believed to be largely fire-resistant.

Scientists are now afraid the species may not survive if wildfires continue to grow more severe. ...

The death toll for the trees is expected to be significant. But there have also been big wins during the at-times-dramatic firefights, and many popular groves have been spared. In others, where the flames got in but severity was low or moderate, researchers believe the burn will be beneficial. ... Anthony Ambrose, a forest ecologist and researcher at the non-profit organization the Marmot Society, said the fate of a grove depends on what condition it was in before the fire and the weather patterns, such as wind, heat and humidity, when the flames burned through. But even if trees survive the flames, they may be weakened enough to succumb to other ailments, such as beetle attacks. ...

Nathan Stephenson, a government scientist based in Sequoia national park who has studied the impact climate change is having on forests, said the outcome could become a permanent shift. “There is a good possibility that a lot of these forests may not come back as forests in our lifetime,” he said, adding that other plants and trees could soon replace the giants that have stood there through the centuries. “People often think that because climatic warming is happening slowly … ecosystems are going to change slowly and adapt as the climate changes.” Instead, he explained, the climate hits a threshold that can change landscapes and ecosystems in abrupt and extreme ways.

Fat Bear Week: Alaska to choose most portly and hibernation-prepared bear

America may feel like a divided society but one thing is guaranteed to unite the nation each year: Fat Bear Week, a seven-year-old competition held in October to choose the fattest, most gorged and hibernation-prepared bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Fat Bear Week, which closes Tuesday and gathered 650,000 voting participants last year, is the creation of Explore.org, an online showcase for wildlife webcam videos, nature films and photographs that, it says, “creates a portal into the soul of humanity”.

Few of its innovations have proved as compelling as the portly bears of Alaska – divided into adult and junior categories – in the moment of their most impressive condition after feasting on salmon running through the Brooks River before settling into a den for their winter’s rest.

Which bear comes out on top next week will be decided when voting is tallied . A web page that tracks the numbers suggests the 2021 competition is on track to beat last year’s total of enthusiastic watchers.

Also of Interest

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

Inside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste

What the Yahoo! Assange Report Got Wrong

CIA Plan To Poison Assange Wasn’t Needed. The US Found a ‘Lawful’ Way To Disappear Him

Taliban Raids ISIS-K Hideout North of Kabul

Biden Administration disappoints on Khashoggi anniversary

Satellite Images Show Damage at Tehran ‘Missile’ Site

3,000 paedophiles in French Catholic church since 1950s - inquiry head

The Corporations Are The Government: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Shitlibs Literally Think Jimmy Dore Is Causing The Apocalypse

Incomes Got Chewed Up by Inflation. Americans Spent Heroically on Goods, But Not on Services. Eviction Moratoriums & Forbearance Implicated

Krystal Ball: Media SLOBBERS Over Kyrsten Sinema with DISGUSTING Identity Politics

Italy court suspends ex-Catalan leader case pending EU ruling

Poll: Biden "Not Mentally Sharp" Say Majority Of Americans

Ryan Grim: Media Losing Its Mind Over Progressives Actually Flexing Power

Kim Iversen: SCOTUS Could Overturn Roe V Wade And Expand Gun Rights In CULTURE WAR Session

A Little Night Music

Andrew Odom & The Gold Tops - Feels So Good

Andrew Odom - Fattening Frogs For Snakes

Andrew 'Big Voice' Odom - I Made up My Mind

Andrew Odom - I don't know

Earl Hooker & Big Voice Odom - The Sky Is Cryin & Moanin' And Groanin

Andrew "Voice" Odom - I Got This Bad Feeling

Andrew Big Voice Odom - Going To California (Live)

Andrew "Voice" Odom - Farther Up The Road

Andrew "Voice" Odom - The World's In Trouble