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"The War Powers Act requires presidents to seek the consent of the American people, through their representatives, before sending our troops into war. It is the responsibility of Congress to deliberate and consult with the executive branch before involving ourselves in a military conflict."

-- Charles B. Rangel

News and Opinion

Rep. Ro Khanna: By Blocking Yemen Resolution, House GOP Is Abdicating Its Duty to Decide War & Peace

In Close Vote, House Blocks Debate on Yemen War

On Wednesday, in a vote heavily along party lines, the House passed the Manage our Wolves Act 201-187. The vote effectively blocked all debate on the war in Yemen, and precluded that conflict from coming up for a future vote.

This is the second straight year that an attempt to challenge America’s unauthorized involvement in the Yemen War under the War Powers Act has been derailed by House leadership through last minute rule changes.

When will America stop participating in Yemen's genocidal war?

On Wednesday the Republican leadership briefly transformed the US House of Representatives into a theater of the absurd in order to block a debate and vote on US military participation in a genocidal war. In an odd spectacle, representatives went back and forth between speaking about wolves, who kill other animals, to the Saudi monarchy, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people – mostly civilians including children – and pushed 14 million people to the brink of starvation. The Republicans had hijacked the “Manage our Wolves Act” – a bad but unrelated piece of legislation – to pass a rule that would prohibit the House from debating H Res 138, introduced by Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California. The latter resolution would give the president 30 days to get the US military out of the war in Yemen.

It’s shameful that @SpeakerRyan and House Republicans denied Congress the chance to do our constitutional duty while millions of lives are at stake in Yemen. History will remember this abdication of duty. pic.twitter.com/HwURmGwjk3

— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) November 14, 2018

The Republicans won by a vote of 201-187. But the Democrats could have easily defeated this surprise attack with some of the 17 members of their party who didn’t vote and the 6 who voted with the Republicans. ... Fortunately, this battle in Congress is far from over, and the proponents of war are losing. In the Senate, Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee, are re-introducing a similar resolution that got 44 votes in February. If that vote were held today, it would likely pass.

The Trump administration knows this, and so the White House announced last Friday that it would stop refueling the Saudi and UAE bombers in mid-air. It hasn’t happened yet, and of course any suspension of re-fueling not ordered by Congress could simply be resumed. Congressional sources believe that Trump may do something just before the Senate vote in order to try to pull a few Senators away from voting to end the war.

US war on #Yemen:
No: US refueling
BUT..
Yes: US military intel
Yes: US targeting advice
Yes: US precision bombs/missiles
Yes: US weapons maintenance
Yes: US military training
Yes: US combat logistics
Yes: US diplomatic cover
Yes: US military presence

— @changingourmindset (@changermindset) November 14, 2018

In addition, even if mid-air refueling is suspended, without congressional prohibition on all offensive US military activities, the US can continue its engagement in logistics, special operations, and targeting assistance – all of it concealed from view of American public. ...

Experts have pointed out that once a famine breaks out it will be too late to save many of the victims. Sooner or later, the Trump administration will be forced to withdraw from this genocidal war. The only question is how many people will die before it happens.

Kathy Kelly: Trump Sides with Saudis & U.S. Defense Contractors While Yemeni Children Face Famine

Saudis shield crown prince as death penalty sought over Khashoggi murder

Saudi Arabia says it will pursue the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of the Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, in the latest effort to distance the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, from the grisly murder. The Saudi public prosecutor claimed Saudi agents, including the head of forensics at the national intelligence service and members of Prince Mohammed’s security detail, had orders to abduct Khashoggi but decided to kill him when he resisted. The claim had been contradicted by an earlier Saudi finding that the murder was premeditated.

Prince Mohammed was not implicated in the murder, a spokesman for the prosecutor said. Hours later, the US Treasury said it was imposing sanctions against 17 alleged conspirators, in an announcement that appeared timed to support the Saudi version of events. The Trump administration has attempted to shield Prince Mohammed from blame, and sponsored the theory that “rogue actors” had carried out the plot without his knowledge.

On Thursday Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, described the Saudi statement as insufficient and insisted the killing had been premeditated. “The necessary equipment and people were previously brought in to kill and later dismember him,” he said.

Trump’s Security Chief Bolton Vows to 'Squeeze' Iran

President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton vowed Tuesday to "squeeze" Iran "until the pips squeak", a week after a tough new round of sanctions came into force. ...

The latest tranche of measures have been touted as the toughest yet, and aim to significantly reduce Iran's vital oil exports and cut off its banks from international finance. Speaking in Singapore, Bolton said: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard.”

The United States has repeatedly said that humanitarian needs, food and medicine are exempt from the sanctions and the Iranian people are not the targets. But Iran says the sanctions are inhumane and go against international law.

The sanctions on banks have meant that few if any international lenders are ready to facilitate transactions for fear of upsetting the United States, even for humanitarian purposes such as medical supplies. Coupled with a plunge in Iran's national currency, this has led to severe shortages and soaring black market prices for drugs from abroad needed to treat illnesses like cancer and even simple anaesthetics required for surgery.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a tweet on Monday that the "intention to starve civilian population is crime against humanity".

Chris Hedges on the Ruleless-ness Tearing Our World Apart

Worth a full read, Sirota hits one out of the park:

Big Oil v the planet is the fight of our lives. Democrats must choose a side

The world’s leading scientists issued a report warning of total planetary dystopia unless we take immediate steps to seriously reduce carbon emissions. Then, oil and gas corporations dumped millions of dollars into the 2018 elections to defeat the major initiatives that could have slightly reduced fossil fuel use. Though you may not know it from the cable TV coverage, this was one of the most significant – and the most terrifying – stories of the midterms. For those who actually care about the survival of the human race, the key questions now should be obvious: is there any reason to hope that we will retreat from “drill baby drill” and enact a sane set of climate policies? Or is our country – and, by extension, our species – just going to give up?

Before answering, it is worth reviewing exactly what happened over these last few months, because the election illustrates how little the fossil fuel industry is willing to concede in the face of a genuine crisis. While the dominant media narrative has been about Democratic voters euphorically electing a House majority and yelling a primal scream at Donald Trump, the loudest shriek of defiance was the one bellowed by oil and gas CEOs. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we have only 12 years to ward off an ecological disaster, those oil and gas executives’ message to Planet Earth was unequivocal: drop dead. ...

And make no mistake about it: the industry’s roughly $100m in campaign spending this year was not just about one individual election cycle. It was a shock-and-awe spectacle designed to intimidate any prospective campaigns, organizations and movements that want to challenge the political supremacy of oil and gas – and some prominent Democrats in Washington seem to be cowering in fear. Always nervous about the donor class and about electoral blowback from Republicans, some congressional Democrats now seem intent on avoiding any direct confrontation over climate change policy. ...

As her own state was being incinerated by climate-intensified wildfires, the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, faced pressure for climate action from new lawmakers like New York Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – but Pelosi would only commit to reviving a moribund congressional committee to study the issue. The conflict-averse posture follows the party recently rescinding its policy of rejecting fossil fuel campaign cash, as well as Democratic Representative Vicente Gonzalez of climate-ravaged Texas setting up a new Oil & Gas Caucus to promote the “economic benefits of fully harnessing the country’s natural resources”.

Entire towns are burning to nothing in California. People are being incinerated alive in their cars attempting to flee. But a majority of Democrats still won’t reject fossil fuel money, and no one has put forward a climate plan that is remotely commensurate with the IPCC findings

— Claire Sandberg (@clairesandberg) November 11, 2018

And yet, amid the thick smoke of wildfires and industry propaganda, there is still reason to believe that our children are not guaranteed to live in a real-life version of Mad Max: Fury Road. ... First and foremost, there are now 14 states that have the trifecta of Democratic control of the governorship and both legislative chambers. Those include major fossil fuel producing states such as Colorado, New Mexico and California. Democratic leaders in these states cannot claim that climate inaction is a product of Republican intransigence – the Democrats in these locales have uninhibited power. And so if activists work to hold these local Democratic lawmakers accountable, there is a good chance they can force legislatures to enact emissions standards, renewable energy mandates and other environmental rules that will bolster the fight against climate change.

So, considering both the election setbacks and opportunities, let’s go back to those original questions: is there reason to hope or are we just going to give up? ... In short, will we as a society finally start treating this emergency as an actual emergency? If the answer is yes, then there is still reason to believe we are not doomed – but we better get to work, because there’s no time to spare.

Keiser Report: Defense Contractors See Boom Time Under Dems

Amazon’s Accent Recognition Technology Could Tell the Government Where You’re From

At the beginning of October, Amazon was quietly issued a patent that would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user’s physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice. Characteristics, or “voice features,” like language accent, ethnic origin, emotion, gender, age, and background noise would be immediately extracted and tagged to the user’s data file to help deliver more targeted advertising. The algorithm would also consider a customer’s physical location — based on their IP address, primary shipping address, and browser settings — to help determine their accent. Should Amazon’s patent become a reality, or if accent detection is already possible, it would introduce questions of surveillance and privacy violations, as well as possible discriminatory advertising, experts said.

The civil rights issues raised by the patent are similar to those around facial recognition, another technology Amazon has used as an anchor of its artificial intelligence strategy, and one that it controversially marketed to law enforcement. Like facial recognition, voice analysis underlines how existing laws and privacy safeguards simply aren’t capable of protecting users from new categories of data collection — or government spying, for that matter. Unlike facial recognition, voice analysis relies not on cameras in public spaces, but microphones inside smart speakers in our homes. It also raises its own thorny issues around advertising that targets or excludes certain groups of people based on derived characteristics like nationality, native language, and so on (the sort of controversy that Facebook has stumbled into again and again).

If voice-based accent detection can determine a person’s ethnic background, it opens up a new category of information that is incredibly interesting to the government, said Jennifer King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “If you’re a company and you’re creating new classifications of data, and the government is interested in them, you’d be naive to think that law enforcement isn’t going to come after it,” she said.

She described a scenario in which knowing a user’s purchase history, existing demographic data, and whether they speak Arabic or Arabic-accented English, Amazon could identify the user as belonging to a religious or ethnic group. King said it’s plausible that the FBI would compel the production of such data from Amazon if it could help determine a user’s membership to a terrorist group. Data demands focused on terrorism are tougher for companies to fight, she said, as opposed to those that are vague or otherwise overbroad, which they have pushed back on.

Andrew Crocker, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, makes it possible for the government to covertly demand such data.

New York City to Amazon: drop dead

Politicians and advocates gathered in Queens on Wednesday to denounce a multibillion-dollar plan to bring a new Amazon headquarters to New York. One city councilman called the move “an assault on our democracy”. Rallying across the street from the Long Island City site where Amazon’s new campus is set to rise, opponents called the plan – which will give Amazon nearly $3bn in tax breaks and subsidies from state and city – a ripoff to taxpayers that will stress the neighborhood’s infrastructure while doing little to help local residents.

“The more we learn about this deal, the worse it gets,” said state senator Michael Gianaris, who represents the neighborhood. “This is a bad deal, and the state and the city should both be embarrassed to be stand behind this deal. They got taken, plain and simple.” The plan, announced on Tuesday by New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, and New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, will bring 25,000 Amazon workers to 4m square feet of office space on a waterfront Long Island City site, across the East river from Manhattan.

In return for the jobs, which Amazon says will pay an average of $150,000 a year, the company will get at least $1.5bn in cash subsidies and tax breaks from the state, and another $1.3bn in tax breaks from the city. The mayor and governor say they will come out on top, getting $9 back in revenue for every dollar spent. Critics cast doubt on that claim, noting a different development project that would have produced revenue was planned for the site before Amazon came along. The land in a once-industrial neighborhood is now dotted with warehouses, taxi depots, an outdoor bar and a shuttered restaurant that was at the center of a corruption scandal for the city’s mayor. ...

Lawmakers will never get the chance to vote on the plan, since the state is routing it through an economic development agency controlled by the governor, avoiding city council approval on zoning changes that would normally be required.

Facebook reportedly discredited critics by linking them to George Soros

Facebook hired a PR firm that attempted to discredit the company’s critics by claiming they were agents of billionaire George Soros, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Soros is a Jewish philanthropist who is the frequent subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. At the same time, the social media company urged the Anti-Defamation League to object to a cartoon used by anti-Facebook protesters over its resemblance to anti-Semitic tropes.

News of Facebook’s aggressive attempts to undermine critics came in a damning report by the Times, detailing how Facebook executives have struggled to manage the numerous and severe challenges confronting the company, all while lashing out at critics and perceived enemies. Rashad Robinson, the executive director of one of the groups targeted by the PR campaign, Color of Change, called the antisemitic smear “outrageous and concerning”.

Amid growing pressure from lawmakers over its role in Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Facebook increasingly turned to Definers Public Affairs, a Washington DC based political consultancy founded by Republican operatives and specializing in opposition research, according to the report. One of Definers’ tactics was to publish dozens of negative articles about other tech companies, including Google and Apple, in order to try to distract attention from Facebook’s public relations woes. Definers published the content on NTKNetwork.com, a website that looks like a news site but is actually run by the PR firm. The narratives pushed on NTK Network were often picked up by conservative sites such as Breitbart.

Another tactic was to cast Soros as the driving force behind groups critical of Facebook. The firm circulated a research document connecting Soros to “a broad anti-Facebook movement”, the Times reported, and pressed reporters to look into financial links between Soros and groups such as Freedom from Facebook and Color of Change. ... The anti-Soros drumbeat reached something of a fever pitch in the weeks before the midterm elections, as conservative politicians and news outlets advanced baseless allegations that he was behind a caravan of Central American migrants travelling through Mexico. Soros was one of the targets of a rash of mail bombs that were sent to Democratic politicians in October.

Brazil’s ‘Slow Motion Coup’ – General Admits Intimidating Court into Imprisoning Lula da Silva

It has been little over three weeks since Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro as their president with 55 percent of the vote. Since then, Bolsonaro has appointed several generals to various ministries, such as those of transportation and defense. He also appointed judge Sergio Moro as his minister of justice. Moro is the judge who was behind the imprisonment of Lula da Silva, who at the time was the frontrunner in this year’s presidential race.

Last weekend, a high ranking general of Brazil’s military, General Villas Boas, admitted in an interview to the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo that he threatened Brazil’s Supreme Court so that it would rule in favor of Lula’s imprisonment.

Jeff Flake threatens to block judicial appointments over Mueller inquiry bill

Donald Trump faces a potential roadblock to his appointment of rightwing judges to federal courts after the retiring Republican US senator Jeff Flake threatened to withhold support from judicial confirmations unless his bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia collusion is allowed to proceed.

Flake issued his threat after his bipartisan bill to protect the Mueller investigation, drafted alongside the Democratic senator Chris Coons, received a frosty reception from the Republican leadership. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, refused to allow a vote on the bill because, he said, he could see no such threat to Mueller’s inquiry that is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential race.

Flake responded furiously, saying: “Why are we so sanguine about this? Why do we protect a man who seemingly is so incurious about what Russia did during the 2016 elections?”

The senator from Arizona has the potential to cause considerable trouble for Trump until he stands down from his seat on 3 January. In the lame-duck Senate, the Republicans continue to enjoy the slimmest of margins, 51 to 49, meaning that if Flake goes ahead with his threat to block nominees Vice-President Mike Pence would be forced to cast his vote to force confirmations through.

Jim Mattis defends deployment of US troops to Mexico border

US defense secretary Jim Mattis has defended the deployment of thousands of troops to the border, despite persistent condemnation of the move which critics have described as a political stunt. Donald Trump’s decision to send US troops to the Mexico border came ahead of US midterm congressional elections last week, and critics dismissed the move as a political stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls.

But Mattis rejected criticism, saying the mission was justified and “absolutely legal”. ...

Mattis said soldiers were making rapid progress erecting barriers along the border. Mattis said the US military was also rehearsing helicopter operations to help support US border personnel, potentially flying them to new locations if the caravans of migrants shift direction. The deployed US troops are not expected to directly interact with migrants, most are unarmed, and they are only assigned tasks that support US border personnel, including building temporary lodging.

Migrants in Tijuana face barbed wire, long lines and dim hopes of ever claiming asylum

For the past month, the caravan of Central American migrants trekking toward the U.S. border have been sustained by an unwavering faith that God will open the doors to the American promised land. Now, their faith is on a collision course with reality. The caravan’s first members arrived in Tijuana over the weekend, where they are finding a vastly more difficult situation than when they left their homes in Honduras and Guatemala in mid-October. Just-installed barbed wire and barricades signal a newly militarized border. Wait times to claim asylum at legal ports of entry now stretch out for weeks. ...

But at best, the migrants face weeks and potentially months of waiting just to legally present themselves at a port of entry and request asylum. At worst, the migrants face a potentially violent clash with U.S. troops.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Monday that it’s shutting down several lanes of traffic at the San Ysidro and Otay ports of entry in San Diego “to install and pre-position port hardening infrastructure equipment in preparation for the migrant caravan and the potential safety and security risk that it could cause.” While there are 48 ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, most migrants in the caravan are aiming for the Tijuana-San Diego border for safety reasons, even though that makes their journey 1,000 miles longer. They worry that the much closer entry ports in Brownsville, Hidalgo, and Laredo, Texas, are closely monitored by cartels known to kidnap and extort migrants.

Tijuana presents its own problems. More than 1,000 asylum seekers are already camped out there in public plazas and in shelters, waiting to legally present themselves at the San Ysidro port of entry. Border officers are turning away asylum seekers because the officers say they have a limited capacity to process requests. As of last week, the migrants were waiting on average four to six weeks to present themselves for processing.

Trump wants a local Florida elections official fired over conspiracy theories with zero evidence

President Donald Trump, as he is wont to do, has called for the firing of a person he disagrees with. On Wednesday, Trump inserted himself into Florida politics at a granular level when he told conservative news outlet the Daily Caller that he believes Florida state official Brenda Snipes should be “removed” from her duties as the Broward County supervisor of elections. Snipes, a Democrat, has become the target of widespread conservative attacks as Florida recounts votes for U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and state agriculture commissioner races.

For his part, Trump pushed the conspiracy theory that Snipes was single-handedly working to undermine the election. “When they call this woman incompetent, they’re wrong,” Trump told the Daily Caller. “She’s very competent, but in a bad way.” The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment. ...

So far, Snipes has tried to maintain a low profile as conservatives have turned her into a scapegoat for Florida’s election problems. ...

It’s unusual for presidents to publicly call for firings of state officials, but President Trump is no ordinary president. The president is, of course, famous for his TV firings, and once suggested that the NFL fire players who kneel during the national anthem. Just last week, Trump suggested at a news conference that CNN should no longer employ its chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, after he and the president got into a confrontation. CNN sued Trump and other White House officials this week over the revoking of Acosta’s press credentials.

Trump just had a Twitter meltdown about Mueller

“The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess,” Trump tweeted. “They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!”

Trump followed up the tweet with a claim that Mueller was protecting Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and two former FBI employees who had exchanged anti-Trump text messages. He also pointed out that Mueller was not approved by the Senate.

And he tweeted once more to accuse Democrats, with zero evidence, of colluding with Russia during the 2016 U.S. election. He also claimed, again without evidence, that tech companies like Facebook and Twitter are biased against conservative voices.

Oh, no. It looks like John Kerry is testing the waters. Perhaps all of the dreadful ghouls of the Democrat past will resurface for 2020.

John Kerry: US 'cannot afford truculent child president'

America cannot afford “a truculent child president” if it is to fulfil its global leadership role, the former US secretary of state John Kerry said on Thursday as he lambasted Donald Trump for failing to attend a key Armistice Day commemoration ceremony in Paris at the weekend. Kerry is visiting the UK to promote his book and will be speaking at a Guardian Live event in London on Thursday night.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Kerry spoke of “a dearth of a leadership on a global basis” adding: “Every country is feeling the pressure of this nationalistic populist and in some cases very frightening rightwing advance.” He said: “I was appalled that rain drops prevented the president from going to pay honour to those that died in rain, gas, snow and mud. That was the reason he came to Paris.” ... Kerry said: “People are tired of the embarrassment of what took place in Paris in the last few days. We cannot have a truculent child president. We need something serious.”

Despite his personal criticism of Trump, Kerry urged his party to avoid becoming so obsessed with Trump that they call for his impeachment. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives should do whatever is appropriate, he explained, but he said: “the Democrats should not even be talking about impeachment right now. We should be talking about the alternatives that might make life better for the people in our country.” He highlighted climate change, saying in 30 years of political activity he had “never seen evidence mounting so powerfully as it is today about the urgency of action, but it is not happening on a global basis. Scientists have just said if we do not get our act together in the next 12 years we are in for a serious catastrophe”. ...

He said he had not ruled out standing as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, but said he was not “actively running round” to secure the nomination, saying as many as 20 to 25 names were being bandied around in what he described as a “mish-mash”.

Michael Avenatti arrested for felony domestic violence

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer famous for representing porn star Stormy Daniels, has been arrested for felony domestic violence and is currently in the custody of the Los Angeles Police Department. The alleged domestic violence occurred on Tuesday, before Avenatti’s Wednesday arrest.

TMZ, citing unnamed law officials, reports Avenatti’s estranged wife was seen running out of an apartment building in Los Angeles Tuesday while yelling, “I can’t believe you did this to me. I’m going to get a restraining order against you.” According to TMZ, Avenatti followed her a few minutes later, shouting “She hit me first,” and, “This is bullshit.” The outlet reports his wife’s face was “swollen and bruised” with “red marks” on both cheeks when she filed the domestic violence report Wednesday.

A California power company is being sued for its role in the state’s deadliest wildfire

As of Wednesday evening, the death toll had reached 56, making the Camp Fire California’s deadliest ever. The blaze, now in its eighth day, has also destroyed 8,817 structures. But PG&E, a major gas and power company in California, might have been able to prevent, or at least mitigate, some of that damage. PG&E had originally alerted about 70,000 residents that it planned to turn off power to prevent downed lines from sparking — but it never did.

On Tuesday, a coalition of lawyers filed a lawsuit accusing PG&E of negligence when the fire conditions worsened. Under California law, even if a utility does everything possible to prevent a fire, if its equipment caused the blaze, the company can be held accountable.

PG&E, which said it’s fully cooperating with all ongoing state investigations into the Camp Fire, is already expecting losses of about $2.5 billion for its role in 14 wildfires last year.

Despite Vows to Act, Ongoing Fossil Fuel Subsidies Show G20 Nations Failing Climate Test

A new analysis of G20 countries found that despite warnings from international scientists of a looming climate catastrophe absent dramatic action within the next decade or so, governments in most of world's top economies are providing sizeable subsidies to the fossil fuel industry while planet-warming emissions continue to rise.

Released Wednesday, just ahead of the G20 Summit in Argentina and COP24 in Poland, Climate Transparency's Brown to Green Report 2018 (pdf) concludes that among these countries, "more ambitious climate action is needed to keep global warming well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C" above pre-industrial levels within this century, the main goals of the Paris climate accord.

While the report points to some positive developments since the international community came together for the Paris agreement in 2015—with the thought that a "solutions-oriented approach" will motivate the adoption of more planet-friendly practices—it also features some alarming takeaways. Simply put, as co-author Jan Burck told the Guardian, "The G20 is not moving fast enough." In part, that is because "there is a huge fight by the fossil fuel industry against cheap renewables," he explained. "The old economy is well organized and they have put huge lobbying pressure on governments to spend tax money to subsidize the old world."

Such lobbying efforts have paid off. Across the G20, from 2007 to 2016, subsidies for coal, oil, and gas rose from $75 billion to $147 billion—which, as the report notes, "only includes tax exemptions and budgetary support towards production and consumption of fossil fuels, and does not consider other types of subsidies, such as state-owned enterprise investments and public financing."

As fossil fuel subsidies have increased in these nations, so have greenhouse gas emissions. According to the report, "In 15 of the G20 countries, energy-related CO2 emissions increases again in 2017, and 82 percent of the G20 energy supply is still from fossil fuels."

Brazil's new foreign minister believes climate change is a Marxist plot

Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a new foreign minister who believes climate change is part of a plot by “cultural Marxists” to stifle western economies and promote the growth of China. Ernesto Araujo – until now a mid-ranking official who blogs about the “criminalisation” of red meat, oil and heterosexual sex – will become the top diplomat of South America’s biggest nation, representing 200 million people and the greatest and most biodiverse forest on Earth, the Amazon. His appointment, confirmed by Bolsonaro on Wednesday, is likely to send a chill through the global climate movement.

Brazil was where the international community first came together in 1992 to discuss reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Its diplomats have played a crucial role in bridging the gap between rich and poor nations, particularly during the forging of the Paris agreement in 2015.

But when the new government takes power in January, the foreign ministry that leads that work will be headed by a man who claims climate science is merely “dogma”. In his blog, Araujo states his goal is to “help Brazil and the world liberate themselves from globalist ideology”, which he sees as anti-Christian.

The 51-year-old diplomat – who has never served as an overseas ambassador – claims unnamed leftist politicians have hijacked environmentalism to serve as a tool for global domination. “This dogma has been used to justify increasing the regulatory power of states over the economy and the power of international institutions on the nation states and their populations, as well as to stifle economic growth in democratic capitalist countries and to promote the growth of China,” he wrote in a post last month.

In another, he claimed the centre-left Workers party in Brazil was “criminalising sex and reproduction, saying that all heterosexual intercourse is rape and every baby is a risk to the planet as it will increase carbon emissions”. He then went on to accuse the party of criminalising red meat, oil, air conditioners and Disney movies.

Claws out: crab fishermen sue 30 oil firms over climate change

For the fourth-generation crab fisherman John Beardon, the warming of Pacific waters off the coast of California has meant toxic crabs, shortened fishing seasons and a near decimation of his livelihood as a crab boat captain. Now he would like to see the industry he says is responsible pay for the damage.

On Wednesday, associations representing California crab fishermen like Beardon filed suit against 30 fossil fuel companies seeking to make the companies pay for the harm global warming has caused to California’s fisheries. The suit demands that petroleum interests finance the changes that will be needed to sustain the crab fishing industry in the future.

“We just about can’t make a living fishing crabs any more,” said Beardon, who has seen the earnings he can make with his 35ft crab boat, Stormy II, cut in half in recent years because of the effects of ocean warming. “I’d like to see the industry that caused this take responsibility for that.”

The lawsuit, filed in California state superior court by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, is the first legal action by a private industry group seeking to hold the fossil fuel companies responsible for major losses attributed to global warming. It seeks unspecified damages from defendants including Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP. The suit also names 27 other petroleum companies.

200+ Groups Call on Senate to Reject 'Pesticide Industry Loyalist' Scott Hutchins as USDA's Top Scientist

Denouncing his "strong ties to corporate agribusiness and pesticide companies," over 240 groups urged the Senate on Wednesday to reject the nomination of Scott Hutchins, President Donald Trump's pick for chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"The election last week demonstrates that people across the country are tired of this administration's dangerous anti-science, pro-industry agenda," declared Tiffany Finck-Haynes, pesticides and pollinators program manager with Friends of the Earth. "We urge the Senate to listen to the American people and reject this pesticide industry loyalist who will put corporate profits over farmers, public health, and our environment.”

If appointed Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics—a position with "broad implications for the future of American agricultural science and policy-making"—Hutchins would be the third Dow executive at the USDA, making the cozy relationship between the Trump administration and the agribusiness giant even more clear.

In a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the massive coalition opposed to Hutchins warns that by appointing someone that "spent over 30 years of his career working at Dow Agro Sciences with a focus on pesticides," the Trump administration has once more demonstrated its willingness to put its "unhealthy relationship" with Dow Chemical ahead of the "health and safety of the American public and our environment."

We hired an underwater drone operator to inspect Chicago’s Trump tower

For years now, Chicago’s Trump Tower has been taking in close to 20 million gallons of Chicago river water each day to cool its air conditioning system.

While the practice itself isn’t unusual, environmental groups say the quantity of water the tower takes in, and then releases, is far larger than most buildings of similar size along the river. Moreover, the Trump Organization hasn’t performed the environmental assessments required under the Clean Water Act — assessments aimed at showing that the tower’s water intakes aren’t affecting local wildlife.

“We've stocked almost 300,000 native Illinois fish in this system, so if you're pulling that water in faster than our fish can swim, those fish can get killed in that system,” says John Quail, director of watershed planning at Friends of the Chicago River, one of the environmental groups involved in the state’s lawsuit. “So that's one big concern of ours.”

The Trump Organization didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. But shortly after the lawsuit was filed, it told reporters that it was “disappointed that the Illinois attorney general would choose to file this suit,” adding that, “one can only conclude that this decision was motivated by politics."

Also of Interest

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

Clapper Admits Gross Intelligence Failure
on Iraq WMDs But Still Escapes Justice

The Signs of Creeping Fascism Are All Around Us

Rise of Europe’s Far Right Emboldens Serb Extremists and Threatens a Fragile Peace in Bosnia

Republicans Used a Bill About Wolves to Avoid a Vote on Yemen War

Immigration activists file lawsuit saying they were targeted by US government

Counselors, Not Cops: Creating Safe and Supportive Environments in America’s Schools

How to survive a wildfire: let's copy tactics from nature

Impact crater 19 miles wide found beneath Greenland glacier

A Little Night Music

Harlem Hamfats - Garbage Man

Kansas Joe McCoy - One More Greasing

Kansas Joe McCoy - I'm Alright Now

Kansas Joe McCoy - Mississippi Delta Blues

Kansas Joe McCoy - The World's A Hard Place To Live In

Joe McCoy - Botherin' That Thing

Big Joe and his Rhythm - It Ain't No Lie

Harlem Hamfats - Hamfats Swing

The Harlem Hamfats - I Feel Like Going to Town