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"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."

-- Joseph Stalin

News and Opinion

Julian Assange allowed to marry partner Stella Moris in jail

The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been given permission to marry his partner in Belmarsh jail. ... He was granted permission to marry his partner Stella Moris after applying to the prison governor.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Mr Assange’s application was received, considered and processed in the usual way by the prison governor, as for any other prisoner.”

The couple, who met when Assange was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, have two children.

Moris told the PA news agency: “I am relieved that reason prevailed and I hope there will be no further interference with our marriage.” ...

The couple were taking legal action against the prison governor and the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, accusing them of preventing a wedding being held.

Iran’s negotiator wants guarantee US will not leave renewed nuclear deal

Iran requires a commitment that the US will not again leave the nuclear deal signed with world powers in 2015, the country’s new chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister has told the Guardian. Ali Bagheri Kani also said that talks in Vienna between Iran and other signatories had failed to reach agreement on a means of verifying that US sanctions had both been lifted and had a practical impact on trade with Iran.

“We need verification, and this remains unresolved. It is one of the issues that remains not finalised. It is not enough for the ink to be put on the agreement,” he said. Bagheri Kani did not rule out an independent body being responsible for verification.

The Vienna talks are due to recommence at the end of the month after being suspended by Iran, after the June election of a new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi. Bagheri Kani is touring European capitals to set out the Iranian negotiating position.

Defending his demand that the US give a guarantee that it will comply with the agreement, Bagheri Kani said: “This is about an agreement not a policy. If there is a peace agreement between two states, it has the effect of a treaty. This is international law. It is not intended that domestic laws of the US can prevail over an international agreement. That is against international law.”

He added he wanted European powers to give their own guarantees that they will trade with Iran, regardless of the US position, possibly by using a blocking statute nullifying the effect of US sanctions on European firms that trade with Iran.

Saudi-Led Coalition Says Troops Redeploying in Yemen, Not Withdrawing

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen said on Wednesday its troops were redeploying in line with its strategy to support Yemeni forces, but were not withdrawing.

Yemeni security sources told Reuters the Saudi military had withdrawn from a major military base in Burayqah district in the southern port city of Aden, removing troops, hardware and heavy artillery. Some of the troops and equipment were loaded in warships in Aden port, while others flew out from the city's airport, the sources said. Long convoys of the kingdom's military were seen on Tuesday heading from Burayqah military base to Aden port, witnesses said.

The spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition, General Turki al-Malki, told Reuters reports circulating about a Saudi military withdrawal from south Yemen were "baseless and unfounded".

"Movement and redeployment of troops based on operational and tactical assessment" was a standard operation "in all military forces across the world", General Malki said.

The new drawdown of Saudi forces followed intense diplomacy from the United States and the United Nations to end a seven-year-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands and put millions at risk of starvation.

Chinese Communist party elevates Xi’s status in ‘historical resolution’

Xi Jinping’s grip on power has received a big boost after the ruling Communist party (CCP) passed a rare “historical resolution” praising the president’s “decisive significance” in the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It is only the third resolution of its kind in the party’s 100-year history. The two previous resolutions were passed under Mao Zedong, who led the Communists to power in 1949, and Deng Xiaoping, whose reforms in the 1980s turned China into an economic powerhouse.

The official summary of the resolution from the meeting said that under Xi’s leadership, China had “made historic achievements and undergone a historic transformation”. It praised Xi, Mao and Deng for leading the country to achieve “the tremendous transformation from standing up and growing prosperous to becoming strong”. Analysts said the resolution was designed to elevate Xi’s status to the level of Mao and Deng and to help secure his political future, after the party removed presidential term limits in 2018.

“The party central committee called on the entire party, the entire army and people of all ethnic groups to unite more closely around the party central committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core, to fully implement Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” said a Xinhua readout of the meeting.

Human Rights Advocates Condemn 'Intolerable' Abuse of Refugees Trapped at Poland-Belarus Border

The United Nations and international human rights advocates on Thursday condemned the political disputes that have resulted in hundreds of asylum-seekers being stranded at the Belarusian-Polish border in freezing temperatures—calling the situation, which has already turned deadly, "intolerable."

Polish authorities sent riot police militarized police units to the border this week after hundreds of migrants refugees seeking safe harbor arrived there, reportedly at the urging of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's government.

The police reinforced the already-militarized border, where refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Syria, have arrived in recent weeks in the hopes of making it to Western Europe.

At least eight people have died so far at the border, where temperatures at night have dropped below freezing.

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said Wednesday that she was "appalled" by the situation and demanded Belarus and Poland immediately de-escalate their political disputes for the sake of vulnerable migrants and refugees.

"Under international law, no one should ever be prevented from seeking asylum or other forms of international human rights protection, and individual consideration must be given to their protection needs," said Bachelet. "Governments in the region cannot stand by and allow more lives to be lost. States have an obligation to protect the right to life. These hundreds of men, women and children must not be forced to spend another night in freezing weather without adequate shelter, food, water and medical care."

Poland's blocking of the migrants comes a year after the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Belarus over its presidential election, in which Lukashenko claimed victory and began his sixth term despite protests attended by hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who said the election was fraudulent. The election results were rejected by the U.S. and the E.U.

According to the Associated Press, Lukashenko responded to the sanctions by threatening to terminate an agreement to accept migrants.

The Belarusian opposition party claimed this week that Lukashenko's government has actively encouraged desperate refugees to go to the Polish border, offering them help with obtaining visas and driving them to the region.

The E.U. has supported Poland in its blocking of asylum seekers and migrants, with European Council President Charles Michel reportedly considering financing a new border fence or barrier.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Thursday denounced both Poland and Belarus, expressing shock "Europe’s inability to properly handle such a low number of migrants," considering that much poorer countries including Pakistan and Uganda are two of the top nations that welcome refugees each year.

"I have just flown out of Iran which is receiving up to 5,000 Afghans a day," noted Jan Egeland, secretary general of the NRC. "A few thousand people at Europe's Polish border, many of whom have fled some of the worst crises in the world, is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of people displaced to countries that are much poorer elsewhere."

"The way Belarus is using migrants and refugees to achieve political ends is equally outrageous," Egeland continued. "Vulnerable people are not chess pawns to be used in a geopolitical struggle. But this does not in any way free Europe from its responsibility to ensure that people turning up on our borders are allowed to seek asylum and are treated humanely... European values are dangerously under threat when people are allowed to die from hypothermia at its external border."

Belarus threatens to cut gas deliveries to EU if sanctioned over border crisis

Alexander Lukashenko has threatened to cut deliveries of gas to Europe via a major pipeline as the Belarusian leader promised to retaliate against any new EU sanctions imposed in response to the crisis at the Poland-Belarus border. Backed by the Kremlin, Lukashenko has struck a defiant note after inciting a migrant crisis at the border, where thousands of people, mainly from Middle Eastern countries, are camped out as temperatures plunge below freezing. ...

As punishment for Belarus’ actions, the EU is expected to sanction up to 30 Belarusian individuals and entities, possibly including the national air carrier Belavia. Belarus’s neighbours have said they may be forced to shut their borders.

“We heat Europe, and they are still threatening us that they’ll shut the borders,” said Lukashenko in an emergency meeting with his top ministers on Thursday. “And what if we cut off [the transit of] natural gas to them? So I would recommend that the leadership of Poland, Lithuanian and other brainless people to think before they speak.” The threat to cut off deliveries along the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Russia is an attempt to pile additional pressure on Europe, where gas prices spiked last month due to an international energy crisis.

Yet it appears unlikely that EU members will back down from a new round of sanctions against Lukashenko, who has already been targeted for a brutal crackdown on his country’s opposition and the grounding of a Ryanair flight in May.

Inside Puerto Rico's struggle against crippling austerity and Hurricane Maria's devastation

First Nations in Ontario could receive billions in back-rent after court ruling

Canada could face compensation payments to Indigenous communities worth billions, after a court found it had willfully deprived First Nations of the immense wealth extracted from their lands. The Crown has made payments to 23 First Nations of the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory since 1850, in exchange for a territory roughly the size of France. In 1874, the payment was increased to C$4 per person per year. It has not changed since then.

On Friday, Ontario’s court of appeal ruled unanimously that the meagre payments were a violation of the spirit of the treaty: to share the wealth generated from the territory.

The case has now been sent back to a trial judge to determine how much money the nearly 40,000 Anishinaabe descended from nations that ceded the territory are owed – a figure will probably be in the billions of dollars. It is not yet clear if the federal government, the government of Ontario, or both, will be required to pay the compensation.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Chief Dean Sayers of the Batchewana First Nation hailed the court victory as “an incredible moment in the history of our lands here in Canada” and said the decision represented a long-overdue chance for Anishinabek people to “reclai[m] our inheritances”.

Schumer, Warren, PUNT Student Debt Cancellation To Biden After Admitting It Will FAIL In Congress

Ahmaud Arbery killing: outrage as defense team tries to limit Black pastors in courtroom

Kevin Gough, a defense attorney in the trial over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, has sparked outrage after asking the court to limit the number of Black pastors who can sit with the Arbery family, claiming their presence could influence the almost entirely white jury. On Thursday, while addressing Judge Timothy Walmsley, who is presiding over the trial, Gough claimed that high-profile Black pastors such as the Rev Al Sharpton and the Rev Jesse Jackson could be “intimidating” for jury members.

“There’s only so many pastors they [Arbery’s family] can have. If their pastor’s Rev Al Sharpton right now, that’s fine. But that’s it. We don’t want any more Black pastors in here or others,” said Gough. As others in the court discussed Sharpton’s presence in the court room, Gough went on to say, “If a bunch of folks came in here dressed like Colonel Sanders with white masks … ” before being cut off.

Walmsley refused Gough’s request, stating: “I’m not going to start blanketly excluding members of the public from this courtroom.”

Sharpton said in a statement: “The arrogant insensitivity of attorney Kevin Gough in asking a judge to bar me or any minister of the family’s choice underscores the disregard for the value of the human life lost and the grieving of a family in need spiritual and community support.” He added: “This objection was clearly pointed at me and a disregard to the fact that a mother and father sitting in a courtroom with three men that murdered their son do not deserve the right to have someone present to give spiritual strength to bear this pain. This is pouring salt into their wounds.”

Gough previously said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the jury selection pool in the case did not have enough “bubbas or Joe six-packs”, meaning white men over 40 without a college degree.

Kyle Rittenhouse judge in spotlight after angry reprimand of prosecution

The shouting that unfolded on Wednesday in Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial has thrust the presiding judge, Bruce Schroeder, and his style of unusual lectures and quirky questions in court under the spotlight. Schroeder heavily admonished prosecutors in the trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin, questioned the authenticity of some pinch-to-zoom footage presented in evidence, and apparently forgot to silence his phone in court, which at one point rang with a song used at Donald Trump’s rallies.

The trial is in its second week. The defense team rested its case on Thursday afternoon, setting the stage for closing arguments on Monday, and the prosecution said it would seek approval for the jury to consider lesser charges against the teenager on some criminal counts. ...

Schroeder, 75, is Wisconsin’s longest-serving circuit judge. Over the years he has developed a reputation of being a tough jurist. “He has a reputation for doing what he believes is the right thing and being an independent thinker,” said William Lynch, a retired attorney who served on the Wisconsin board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy group at the time Schroeder controversially started ordering sex workers to get tested for HIV in the 1980s, which drew scrutiny. ...

On Wednesday, Schroeder appeared to sympathize with the defense team after Rittenhouse’s lawyers suggested Apple’s pinch-to-zoom feature on tablets and phones can distort video evidence. The company’s “iPads … have artificial intelligence in them that allow things to be viewed through three-dimensions and logarithms,” the defense team argued. “This isn’t actually enhanced video. This is Apple’s iPad programming creating what it thinks is there, not what necessarily is there.” Schroeder responded that the prosecution shouldered the burden of proof that Apple does not use artificial intelligence to manipulate footage. ... The judge also suggested prosecutors find an expert during their brief recess, saying: “Maybe you can get someone to testify on this within minutes? I don’t know.”

How Buffalo News Helped Keep a Socialist out of City Hall

Incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s seemingly quixotic write-in campaign for re-election, launched after losing the Democratic primary to democratic socialist activist India Walton, turned out to be successful. He had a lot of help in his corner, such as unions with whom he had long-standing relationships (WIVB, 9/6/21), Republicans who worried about a left-wing mayor (WGRZ, 8/19/21) and high-ranking New York state Democrats who withheld their endorsement of the nominee (City and State, 10/25/21).

Brown, crucially, also had the key support of the hometown paper, the Buffalo News.

In its editorial endorsement (10/23/21) of Brown in the general election, the paper propped up Brown’s power of incumbency against Walton, whom the paper called “dangerously unqualified” and the “municipal version of electing Donald Trump: expecting great things from an inexperienced and unqualified leader who is sometimes driven by grievances.” It added that “many of her proposals would set the city back,” chastising her for going too far in demanding a reduction in the police budget. The paper argued that “although she has toned down her rhetoric since the June primary,” her “approach is divisive” and she is “a political rookie.”

The endorsement cited the News’s coverage (10/19/21) of an affordable plan Walton had championed as a community leader that failed to come to fruition, quoting one person who cited Walton and her partner’s “inexperience with complex housing projects of this scale.” This was a follow-up to another story (10/5/21) in which the News gave Brown the chance to criticize her record on affordable housing.

After having also endorsed Brown (6/12/21) in the primary, the paper (6/29/21) supported his write-in campaign. Enough city voters are “concerned about having an inexperienced and self-proclaimed democratic socialist take over the city’s top job that Brown’s write-in campaign has a chance to succeed,” the paper editorialized; Buffalo should not “undergo such a drastic change based on such a small number of primary voters.”

The Trump comparison is a standard charge corporate media throw against left candidates (FAIR.org, 1/24/20), illustrative of the content-free dismissal of progressive challengers: Anyone who deviates from establishment politics is like Trump, and thus all those connotations of intransigence, dishonesty, bullying and divisiveness stick with the candidate, even if they disagree with Trump on everything from policing to taxation to immigration.

The paper’s attacks on Walton weren’t limited to the editorial pages. The News (7/20/21) reported that “an allegation of drug activity at a house rented by Democratic mayoral nominee India B. Walton three years ago cast new perspectives on her campaign,” although the paper admitted that “nobody was charged in connection with the complaints activity,” adding that the “man suspected of dealing drugs from Walton’s home was Anson Whitted, who served more than 12 years in state prison for selling cocaine, assault and possession of a weapon.” It said, “Walton denied Whitted ever lived at her home, but acknowledged he occasionally stayed there.”

In short, she had nothing to do with any criminal activity whatsoever, but the Buffalo News sullied her name with racialized language about drugs and crime with a flimsy connection. About a dozen activists protested outside the paper’s headquarters for what  they called biased coverage against Walton, with one activist (WGRZ, 7/21/21) saying the News “article was full of ‘half-truths, misstatements and misallegations.’”

The News also played up Walton’s 2014 arrest when she was working as a nurse (8/19/21)—the details of which are murky, even by the News’ own accounting—insinuating that she was too questionable to be in the city’s highest office. The piece said that Walton was arrested “on a charge of second-degree harassment on June 27, 2014, at work at Children’s Hospital,” and that “the arresting officer said a fellow nurse had complained that Walton ‘has continuously threatened to do bodily harm’ to her.” Later on in the piece, the News says “Walton denied that she ever harmed the co-worker,” noting that she was “the victim of bullying on social media by the woman who had her arrested.”

What’s interesting about such lengthy coverage of the incident is that it ended with Walton receiving a slap on the wrist, as WIVB (7/8/21) reported that Walton “took an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal,” which is “a legal mechanism that allows charges to be dropped as long as a defendant stays out of trouble.”

And while one lengthy piece (10/23/21) praised her tenacity and commitment to her ideals, it questioned whether she was ready for political life, quoting one activist, “She has an angry temper.” The paper added, “Walton indeed has a history of using raw language in protests and elsewhere,” using “intimately impolite language referring” to a political opponent who had “criticized her call for cutting police funding.”

Another piece (10/17/21), noting that she had softened her “defund the police” rhetoric in her run for mayor, reported that she had been captured on video during a demonstration, chanting: “No justice, no peace. Fuck these racist ass police.”

The newspaper’s coverage of Walton’s colorful language and personal issues falls into tropes about assertive Black women: They are rough, unsophisticated and bullying. Passion about injustice isn’t seen as a natural or even admirable response, but rather unchecked rage that should be kept from official levers of power.

A newspaper has the responsibility to treat all candidates with scrutiny. Yet, the editorial board’s endorsement of Byron Brown doesn’t acknowledge that he supported former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pension cuts (Business Council, 2/3/12) and signed a law limiting social services (Buffalo News, 10/4/06), two examples of his role as an austerity mayor. It’s likely that the News just doesn’t see these issues as problems; the editorial board hailed Brown’s tax cuts, for example. As Jacobin (11/1/21) noted, Brown’s tax vision

always favoring bigger cuts for businesses, with commercial property taxes in the city having dropped 28% by 2017. The declining revenue left the city more dependent on federal and state aid to plug constant budget shortfalls, and led to painful spending cuts. By 2020, Brown was denying city workers a 2% raise.
The cuts to Buffalo’s property tax rate could be justified by shifting the tax burden to those who could pay more. But instead, Brown stealthily raised taxes on the working class through hikes on user fees, increasingly aggressive parking and traffic fines, and other aggressive claw-back measures, like late fees on overdue bills—for some, anyway. After six years, Brown’s administration had simply left $22 million of housing fines uncollected for nearly 1,500 property owners who had violated building and health codes, further starving the city of funds while undermining the work of city inspectors.

This didn’t have much impact on the paper’s coverage this fall.

The paper is owned by Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, the fourth-largest newspaper chain in the country; Lee bought the paper from Berkshire Hathaway in 2020 for a reported $140 million (Buffalo News, 1/29/20). The company’s “board is stacked with Republican donors,” the Intercept (5/24/17) reported. The company has clashed with the News union, which went on a byline strike in protest of Lee Enterprises, saying “the company wants the power to lay off any guild workers for any reason,” and “wants to move jobs out of Buffalo” (WIVB, 6/15/21). Historically, according to Open Secrets, the company has backed Republicans, though in 2020 it gave overwhelmingly to Democrats.

Buffalo native Raina Lipsitz, a Nation and New Republic contributor who has covered Buffalo politics and is writing a book about the ascendent left for Verso Books, was interviewed by FAIR about the Buffalo News:

It’s a fundamentally conservative paper that sees itself as embodying an old-school, “voice from nowhere” tone, but actually engages in a lot of fear-mongering about socialism and redistributive policies in general. It is squarely on the side of local developers and corporate interests—it’s both beholden and naturally sympathetic to the business community, and sees business leaders and owners as the backbone of the community. From the News‘ perspective, the last, best hope of moving Buffalo forward is attracting as many big, splashy development deals as possible, which will in turn, the paper thinks, bring more jobs to Buffalo.

It’s the paper of record in the city of Buffalo, and many of its star political reporters are white men in their 60s and 70s. Buffalo is a Democratic town and a union town, and everyday people are often sympathetic to labor. But, as a general rule, the News doesn’t approve of people who go “too far,” and that includes most left-wing candidates and movements. Sure, Black lives matter—all lives matter!—but it’s always wrong, in the News‘ eyes, to make that point too loudly or “divisively.” The News employs a number of traditional Catholics, and has historically been hostile to abortion rights.

November 2021 was not a good month for Democrats (FAIR.org, 11/5/21), as the Republican victory in the Virginia governor’s race indicated they were likely headed for trouble in the 2022 midterms. But it was also a disappointment for progressives and socialists, who had thought that Walton’s election was all but assured. And given the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post (11/3/21) welcomed Brown’s victory as a “law and order” candidate, Walton’s loss does feel like a win for the right. There were many actors in the political establishment that worked hard to keep Brown in office, and the Buffalo News was definitely one of them.

Sinema SHOWERED With Pharma CASH After Blocking Drug Price Reform

Walkout: Outraged by New COP26 Pact, Civil Society Holds People’s Plenary & Leaves Climate Summit

Cop26 targets too weak to stop disaster, say Paris agreement architects

World leaders will have to return to the negotiating table next year with improved plans to cut greenhouse gases because the proposed targets agreed at the Cop26 summit are too weak to prevent disastrous levels of global heating, the three architects of the Paris agreement have warned.

Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who oversaw the 2015 Paris summit, and Laurence Tubiana, the French diplomat who crafted the agreement, have told the Guardian the deadline is essential if the world is to avoid exceeding its 1.5C temperature limit. Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who also oversaw Paris, added: “In the present circumstances [targets] must be enhanced next year.”

The last-ditch intervention by such senior figures, with the Glasgow talks reaching their final hours, reveals the heightened alarm among many experts over the chasm between carbon targets and the deep cuts necessary to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Current national plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – would lead to 2.4C of heating, according to an influential analysis this week by Climate Action Tracker. Countries are currently expected to return with better pledges in 2025, but many are now demanding the deadline should be brought forward. This is seen as the most closely fought area of disagreement as the UK hosts struggle to broker a deal.

“If that [five years] is the first time that countries are called to increase their ambitions, honestly that’s going to be too late,” said Figueres, founding partner of the Global Optimism thinktank.

Pelosi Confronted At Climate Summit Over Military Funding

World’s militaries avoiding scrutiny over emissions, scientists say

Armed forces are among the biggest polluters on the planet but are avoiding scrutiny because countries do not have to include their emissions in their targets, scientists say. The world’s militaries combined, and the industries that provide their equipment, are estimated to create 6% of all global emissions, according to Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR).

Owing to what they describe as a “large loophole” in the Paris agreement, governments are not required to provide full data on greenhouse gases being emitted by armed forces. Previously, under the Kyoto protocol, militaries were given an automatic exemption from CO2 targets, after lobbying from the US government.

Campaigners say the current situation, whereby it is only voluntary for states to include armed forces in their carbon-cutting obligations, is undermining efforts to tackle the climate crisis. SGR’s executive director, Dr Stuart Parkinson, said that as military spending increased, the loophole continued to grow. “Military carbon emissions matter because they are a potentially large loophole in the Paris targets – especially for the high military spenders like the US, China, UK, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and France,” he said.

‘Band-Aid on bullet wound’: Flint water settlement leaves some residents angry

Sharply mixed reactions have greeted the award by a federal judge of a $626m settlement for residents affected by the lead water crisis that engulfed the city of Flint, Michigan, more than six years ago. While some residents and officials welcomed the payout resulting from lawsuits filed over the crisis, which was particularly damaging to many of the city’s children, others were dismayed at an outcome they saw as wholly inadequate.

“It’s a Band-Aid on a bullet wound once again for our city that is still coping with the residual effects of the water crisis,” LuLu Brezzell told local news website MLive. The Flint resident is the mother of Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, the youth activist also known as Little Miss Flint.

On Tuesday, district judge Judith Levy announced the settlement deal, calling it a “remarkable achievement” that “sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant”. However, some Flint residents who came out against the settlement before its approval are bitterly disappointed about the small amount of money many community members will receive and the lack of legal accountability for those behind the crisis. ...

More than half of Flint’s 81,000 residents have signed up for a share of the newly announced settlement. A proposal was also forwarded for $200m out of the settlement’s $626m to go to attorneys involved in the case, but Levy did not rule on that motion on Wednesday.

Also of Interest

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

Kenosha judge shields right-wing extremist killer Kyle Rittenhouse during his murder trial testimony

U.S. Threatens Regime Change in Nicaragua

Debunking myths about Nicaragua’s 2021 elections, under attack by USA/EU/OAS

The Fed’s Board of Governors Is Blocking the Release of Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Records

Privatization Is Always A Ripoff

These maps show how Republicans are blatantly rigging elections

Plessy v Ferguson upheld segregation – now Plessy’s family seeks a pardon

The Climate Fight Over Line 5, or the Upper Peninsula and Canada Versus Greenhouse Gas Absolutism

Why it's so hard to electrify shipping and aviation

The earth’s secret miracle worker is not a plant or an animal: it’s fungi

A Little Night Music

Them - Baby, Please Don't Go

Them - Mystic Eyes

Them - Just a Little Bit

Them - If You And I Could Be As Two

Them - Richard Cory

Them - Times Gettin' Tougher Than Tough

Them - (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66

Them - Bright Lights, Big City

Them - Gloria