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"With the exception of the military industrial complex, we all want a more peaceful world."

-- Ron Paul

News and Opinion

Nuclear arms hawks give bureaucratic mauling to Biden vow to curb arsenal

A battle is being fought in Washington over the Biden administration’s nuclear weapons policy, amid fears by arms control advocates that the president will renege on campaign promises to rein in the US arsenal. The battlegrounds are a nuclear posture review (NPR) due early next year and a defence budget expected about the same time. At stake is a chance to put the brakes on an arms race between the US, Russia and China – or the risk of that race accelerating.

Despite Biden’s pledge during the campaign – and in his interim national security guidance issued in March – that his administration would reduce “our reliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons”, hawks at the Pentagon have won the early skirmishes. Biden is also under pressure from some allies, nervous about Biden’s past support for limiting the use of nuclear weapons to the “sole purpose” of deterring, and retaliating against, a nuclear attack on the US or its allies. ...

The administration’s first defence budget in February included $43bn for an array of nuclear modernisation schemes, including controversial programmes introduced by Donald Trump, like a new sea-launched cruise missile. The total cost of modernisation could be over $1.5tn. In September, one of Biden’s political appointees at the Pentagon, Leonor Tomero, who questioned the need for such a vast and growing nuclear weapons budget, was forced out in a bureaucratic power struggle after just nine months in the post. Her job had been to oversee the drafting of the NPR, which sets out what nuclear weapons the US should have and under what conditions they could be used. ...

Arms control advocates complain the Democrats have not been as ruthless as Republicans in pursuit of their policies. A Trump appointee, Drew Walter, a former senior Republican staffer on the House armed services committee, has been allowed to “burrow in” as deputy assistant secretary for nuclear matters, converting from a political appointee to a career official. Tomero was Walter’s Democratic counterpart when they were in Congress, but the Biden administration failed to protect her once she moved to the Pentagon. ...

The White House has sought to placate Democrats by agreeing to an independent review of the feasibility of extending the life of the current Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, compared with replacing with it a new weapon, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). The review is expected to deliver its conclusions next year, although as the review panel has been selected by the Pentagon, it is not expected to upset plans to go ahead with the $100bn GBSD.

Watchdog: Drone Strike That KILLED Afghan Family Was NOT Negligent, "Did Not VIOLATE Laws Of War"

Mass Media Hasten To Help Pentagon Exonerate Itself In Afghan Airstrike

The mass media are full of headlines announcing that a “watchdog” has concluded in an “independent” investigation that US military personnel did nothing wrong in an August airstrike in Kabul which killed ten civilians and zero combatants.

“An independent Pentagon review has concluded that the U.S. drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children in the final days of the Afghanistan war was not caused by misconduct or negligence, and it doesn’t recommend any disciplinary action,” the Associated Press reports in an article titled “Watchdog finds no misconduct in mistaken Afghan airstrike“.

The word “watchdog” appears nowhere else in the article apart from its title, which means it was calculatingly chosen by an AP editor for the public (the vast majority of whom only read headlines) to see. When people hear the word “watchdog” in reference to scrutiny of government institutions they naturally think of the standard usage of that term: parties outside the institution being watched like Amnesty International or the American Civil Liberties Union. They most certainly don’t think of “watchdogs” being the government institutions themselves, as is the case here.

“The review, done by the Air Force Lt. Gen. Sami Said, found there were breakdowns in communication and in the process of identifying and confirming the target of the bombing, according to a senior defense official familiar with the report,” AP informs us.

The US Air Force is of course a branch of the US Department of Defense. So the Pentagon literally did the “we investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing” meme, and the mainstream press is passing that off as a real thing in much the same manner as the famous 1997 New York Times headline “C.I.A. Says It Has Found No Link Between Itself and Crack Trade“.

The claim that the investigation was “independent” is justified later in the AP report:

“As inspector general of the Air Force, Said had no direct connection to Afghanistan operations and thus was deemed an independent judge of the matter,” the article reads.

So AP was told by their source, a senior defense official, that the report is “independent”, and then they passed that claim on to their readers as though it’s an objective fact when it is in reality an assertion by a US government official. This Pentagon stenography is journalistic malpractice.

AP, along with Reuters and AFP, is one of just three news agencies which write the bulk of international news media reporting in the western world. Corporate media outlets who generally can’t be bothered to do their own original reporting on international affairs often run articles published by those agencies, along with whatever propaganda, spin, and journalistic malpractice they happen to contain. A quick search shows that this AP report has already been picked up and run verbatim by Politico, The Independent, Yahoo News, and many other outlets.

Not only there is there clearly nothing “independent” about government officials investigating their own agencies, but the possibility of any actual independent review of the airstrike has been made impossible, since the Pentagon’s report on the matter has been classified.

“The full report on the strike, which includes several recommendations on how to avoid similar incidents in the future, is classified,” reports Business Insider, who also used the word “watchdog” in its headline.

The world is dominated by opaque and unaccountable government agencies who are legitimized and normalized by the mass media. The Pentagon killed ten people, none of whom were combatants and seven of whom were children, lied about it, got exposed, investigated itself and found that those who perpetrated the attack were not even guilty of so much as negligence, then classified the report and called it a day. And then the mass media legitimized this by calling it an “independent” investigation conducted by a “watchdog”.

As we discussed previously, this is just one of thousands of airstrikes the Pentagon has launched since its “war on terror” began, a huge percentage of which have included civilian casualties and virtually none of which have ever been subject to this much critical analysis. The only reason this one is gaining special attention is because of the highly politicized nature of President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal which the mass media aggressively criticized the entire time. It was only because this dynamic led to a New York Times investigation which showed the alleged “ISIS-K” target the Pentagon claimed it had slain was actually an aid worker named Zemari Ahmadi.

Dr. Steven Kwon, co-founder and president of the Nutrition and Education International where Ahmadi worked, released a statement on the Air Force inspector general’s conclusion:

“This investigation is deeply disappointing and inadequate because we’re left with many of the same questions we started with. I do not understand how the most powerful military in the world could follow Zemari, an aid worker, in a commonly used car for eight hours, and not figure out who he was, and why he was at a U.S. aid organization’s headquarters. According to the Inspector General, there was a mistake but no one acted wrongly, and I’m left wondering, how can that be? Clearly, good military intentions are not enough when the outcome is 10 precious Afghan civilian lives lost and reputations ruined.”

The most powerful military force ever assembled does not care about human beings and is completely unaccountable to the public. That’s why these things happen, and that’s why they will continue to happen until this entire corrupt power structure ceases to be.

US denies Iranian account of attempted oil tanker capture

Claims by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) that they thwarted a US attempt to capture Iranian oil on a tanker in the Sea of Oman are untrue, US officials have said.

According to reports in Iranian media – released on the eve of the anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 – the US navy interdicted an Iranian oil tanker on 25 October and intended to transfer the oil to a second tanker, but the the IRGC navy intervened by boarding and taking control of the first tanker. “With the timely and authoritative action of the Guards’ naval forces, the US terrorist navy’s operation to steal Iranian oil in the Sea of Oman failed,” the elite unit said in a statement published by Iranian state media.

US officials said the Iranian account was untrue and there had been no American attempt to seize a tanker. The officials said that in reality Iranian forces had seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker last month and two US navy ships, backed by air support, had monitored the situation, but did not try to interdict the vessel. The tanker was named as Southys, and one of the US destroyers as USS The Sullivans. The US said they watched Iranian forces “swarming, boarding and seizing the vessel and take it to Iranian waters.”

If the American account is true, it is unclear why the Iranians would seek to board a vessel taking Iranian oil for export clandestinely towards Asia.

Iran sets date to resume talks on nuclear deal after five-month gap

Iran has agreed to resume talks with world powers on reviving a nuclear deal on 29 November after a five-month gap, with the US urging a quick resolution.

The announcement of indirect negotiations in Vienna comes as pressure mounts on Iran, with western nations warning that Tehran’s nuclear work is advancing to dangerous levels and Israel threatening to attack.

The EU envoy Enrique Mora, who led six rounds of talks earlier this year and recently flew to Tehran to seek progress, will again chair the 29 November meeting, the EU announced. ...

In Washington, state department spokesman Ned Price said the US believed it was possible to quickly resolve the “relatively small number of issues that remained outstanding at the end of June”.

“We believe that if the Iranians are serious, we can manage to do that in relatively short order,” Price told reporters. “But we’ve also been clear, including as this pause has dragged on for some time, that this window of opportunity will not be open for ever.”

US blacklists Israeli maker of Pegasus spyware

Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist

NSO Group has been placed on a US blacklist by the Biden administration after it determined the Israeli spyware maker has acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US”.

The finding by the commerce department represents a major blow to the Israeli company and reveals a deep undercurrent of concern by the US about the impact of spyware on national security.

The company’s signature spyware – known as Pegasus – is alleged to have been deployed by foreign governments against dissidents, journalists, diplomats and members of the clergy, with several alleged victims in the UK. Its clients have included Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary and India.

The new designation – which places NSO in the company of hackers from China and Russia – comes three months after a consortium of journalists working with the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, revealed multiple cases of journalists and activists who were hacked by foreign governments using the spyware, including American citizens.

The Guardian and other members of the consortium also revealed that the mobile numbers of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and nearly his entire cabinet were contained on a leaked list of individuals who were selected as possible targets of surveillance.

Dems Plan MASSIVE TAX CUT For Millionaires, Billionaires | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Senators Offer Solution as Progressives Warn SALT Repeal Would Be 'Colossal Mistake'

As congressional Democrats consider repealing the Trump-era $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, the advocacy group Progressive Millionaires joined a pair of U.S. senatorss Wednesday in warning against a move the organization says would "overwhelmingly benefit wealthy Americans."

"I am a millionaire living in New York City who is affected by the SALT cap, and I cannot think of anything more unacceptable and shameful than for Democrats to push this repeal through," Morris Pearl, chair of the progressive advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at the multinational investment firm BlackRock Inc., said in a statement.

CNBC reports House Democrats on Wednesday offered a proposal that would increase the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $72,500 through 2031—six years longer than the current 2025 expiration date—as part of a provision in the Build Back Better budget reconciliation package.

Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that while his House colleagues' proposal was better than a full SALT cap repeal, it's "still is quite regressive."

Instead, Sanders and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) proposed their own SALT compromise.

"So, if completely eliminating the cap on state and local tax exemption is regressive and unfair, what is the solution?" Sanders asked. "The answer is obvious. We should eliminate that cap for families making $400,000 or less, not for millionaires and billionaires. And we should make that permanent."

The SALT deduction was capped at $10,000 under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a way to pay for massive tax cuts that mostly benefited superrich Americans and corporations. While centrist and right-wing Democrats from high-tax states support lifting the limit, Morris warned that "repealing the SALT cap would be a colossal mistake."

"Democrats have already cut trillions of dollars of vital aid for American families from their reconciliation plan, so to add a significant tax cut for the wealthiest Americans in its place would be adding insult to injury," argued Pearl. "Everyday Americans would not benefit whatsoever from the SALT cap repeal, while the top 0.1% of households in states like New York and New Jersey would get an average $300,000 tax break. This must not be allowed to happen."

"If Democrats are absolutely committed to amending the cap, it should only apply to people making less than $1 million a year," he added. "No millionaire should be getting a tax cut from this reconciliation bill."

Sanders concurred.

"We should be substantially increasing taxes on the top 1%," the democratic socialist argued, "not giving the wealthiest people in America a tax break."

Only Worker Revolts Can Save America.

Ahmaud Arbery: trial of accused murderers is test for racial justice ‘in the heart of white supremacy’

It was February last year when Ahmaud Arbery, a Black 25-year-old, was jogging in the small coastal town of Satilla Shores. The three men accused of murder, Gregory McMichael, 67, his 35-year-old son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, all pursued Arbery claiming they suspected him of involvement in a series of burglaries in the neighborhood. ... On Tuesday, after 11 days of jury selection, a panel of 65 jurors was finally selected from a pool of hundreds. Barring any unforeseen delays, including last-minute motions defense attorneys have suggested they will file, a final jury of 12 and four alternates will be seated this week, with opening arguments to follow, probably on Thursday.

The trial of the three men, who have pleaded not guilty, occurs six months after the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer who murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis after pinning his neck to the ground for nine minutes and 29 seconds. That trial was undoubtedly a landmark moment for police reform advocates around the country, but, say many observers, the case of Ahmaud Arbery is a sterner litmus test for the state of racial justice in the US.

“This case is almost a straight line from Emmett Till,” said the civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who represents the Arbery family. “Our legal system is statistically and continuously biased but it’s more of a test than Minneapolis and George Floyd because we are in the heart of white supremacy here in south Georgia.” ... The McMichaels’ defense is expected to hinge on a now defunct Georgia law that traces its roots to the state’s era of slavery and essentially allowed private citizens the power to arrest people if they had “reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion” of a felony being committed. In the wake of mass protest following Arbery’s death, Georgia’s Republican governor repealed the law, but attorneys for all three defendants are expected to utilize it throughout the trial.

The backstory to the prosecution, too, points to evidence of insider politics and institutional racism in the local criminal justice world here. One of the first prosecutors assigned to the case, George Barnhill, initially recommended not charging any of those involved, claiming the pursuit was “perfectly legal” due to citizen’s arrest statutes. Barnhill, who had a chequered history of aggressively prosecuting Black residents in his jurisdiction, eventually recused himself from the case. Another former prosecutor initially assigned the case, Jackie Johnson, has been criminally charged for alleged misconduct in the process as Gregory McMichael had worked as an investigator in her office.

Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert Democrats

Less than a year after taking control of the White House and Congress, Democrats were reeling on Wednesday from a shocking defeat in Virginia and a tight governor’s race in New Jersey as Joe Biden’s popularity sinks and his domestic agenda hangs in the balance.

In Virginia, a state that had shifted sharply left over the past decade and that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer, defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor. And in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, managed only a narrow victory over the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, an unexpected turn of events in a state that is even more reliably Democratic. ...

Republicans’ resurgence after five years of stinging defeats during the Donald Trump era offers a stark warning for Democrats already wary of next year’s midterm elections. The results have echoes of 2009, when Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey presaged their stunning takeover of the House in the 2010 midterms. ...

Tuesday’s elections were the first major test of the national mood since Biden took office in January, and the results were deeply disappointing for the president and his party as they try to keep control of wafer-thin majorities in Congress.

Matt Taibbi: Frustrated Parents DROVE Virginia’s Red-SWING, Voters Likely To TURN On Dems In 2022

Progressives on Virginia Loss: Corporate Democrats Have Only Themselves to Blame

After Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe—a conservative whose campaign was flush with billionaire cash—fell to Republican private equity mogul Glenn Youngkin in Virginia's closely watched gubernatorial race on Tuesday, establishment Democrats wasted no time pinning the blame on progressives.

The finger-pointing started days before the polls opened in Virginia, a state that has trended blue in recent years and that President Joe Biden won by 10 percentage points in 2020.

Several conservative Democrats, including Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, suggested leading up to the contest that progressive lawmakers' refusal to allow a bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass the House without simultaneous approval of a broader reconciliation package could be at least partially to blame for a McAuliffe loss.

"I've got to tell you, in Virginia, where we've got a gubernatorial race tomorrow, that would have really helped Terry McAuliffe a lot if we had been able to notch that win," Warner—who, like McAuliffe, previously served as Virginia's governor—said in an appearance on MSNBC, referencing Democrats' inability to secure an infrastructure vote last week amid progressive opposition.

Warner expressed the same sentiment on Fox News hours before the Virginia results were reported. "I think it would have helped Terry McAuliffe in Virginia," the senator said of a vote on the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Tester, for his part, said of his progressive colleagues: "We haven't gotten anything done. That says enough about their strategy."

The blame game resumed almost immediately following McAuliffe's narrow defeat to Youngkin, a millionaire backed by former President Donald Trump and now the first Republican to win statewide office in Virginia since 2009. Politico reporter Heather Caygle tweeted after the race was called that Democratic members of Congress "are already texting me blaming progressives for [the] 'debacle' in Virginia."

Progressives were quick to push back on that narrative, characterizing it as baseless and self-serving on the part of a Democratic establishment that threw its weight behind McAuliffe—the former chair of the Democratic National Committee—in the Virginia gubernatorial primary earlier this year.

Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, noted that "progressives have been earnestly working to deliver on Biden's full agenda. It's conservative Dems who've ensured that every day for the last several months, the headlines are about how we aren't delivering paid leave, prescription drug reform, elder care, or voting rights."

"Did progressives literally have a press conference yesterday for the sole purpose of declaring that a deal was not close? No, that was Joe Manchin," Greenberg continued. "Progressives were busy trying to pass Biden's agenda. As far as I'm aware, progressives also did not choose McAuliffe over a new generation of rising Black women leaders, nor did they run his campaign and choose his messaging, nor did they write his debate lines."

"I don't want to play the blame game. I'd rather be focusing on what to do next (hint: pass Biden's agenda)," Greenberg added. "But folks have been working overtime to seed this narrative before the election was even over and it's important that we be clear: it's a ridiculous red herring."

Other prominent progressives also weighed in.

Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), tweeted that "maybe, just maybe, the 'debacle' in Virginia could have been avoided if we had a Congress that listened to the overwhelming majority of Americans and passed progressive policies like paid family leave and expanding Medicare instead of bowing down to wealthy campaign contributors."

Charles Idelson of National Nurses United lamented that "any time a Democrat loses, the party establishment, with the help of the corporate media, always blames progressives, no matter how weak or 'centrist' the losing candidate is, and no matter how much the Dem conservatives block reforms that would help the vast majority of people."

Writing for The Daily Beast late Tuesday, Democratic strategist Max Burns observed that Youngkin's campaign "centered around the bogeyman of 'Critical Race Theory,'" not the lack of a timely vote on a bipartisan infrastructure package that Trump and other Republicans have trashed.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, made a similar point earlier this week. "I've watched all the attack ads on Terry McAuliffe and not a single one has talked about [infrastructure] not passing," she said Monday. "They've all been about other things."

In his Daily Beast column, Burns argued that "the worst thing that could possibly happen... is for the party's conservatives to read McAuliffe's loss as a sign that Americans are turned off by the Democratic agenda."

Alluding to fears that the Virginia race is a harbinger for Democratic performance in the 2022 midterm elections, Burns wrote that "there's one simple trick to averting a Democratic bloodbath next year: Do what voters say they want."

"A Vox/Data for Progress poll conducted last month found 71% of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and six-in-ten support Biden's signature spending plan at the full $3.5 trillion," Burns noted. "These aren't mere 'suggestion' numbers—they're supermajorities. Democrats ignore those clearly stated wishes at their own electoral peril."

Why Democrats Lost In Virginia Is Painfully Obvious

Senate Republicans again block key voting rights bill

Republicans in the US Senate again blocked a significant voting rights bill from advancing on Wednesday, a move many see as a breaking point in the push to get rid of the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation.

The bill – the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act – is one of two major pieces of voting rights legislation Democrats are championing in Congress in an effort to fend off attempts across the US by Republicans to erode easy access to the vote. Those efforts often most affect communities of color. ...

There was never any serious prospect of the bill passing – only one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, supported it. The vote in the Senate was 50-49 in favor of advancing the bill.

But Wednesday’s vote was targeted towards Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who supports the filibuster, showing him that passing voting rights legislation is not possible while the filibuster remains in place.

Many Democrats hope it will be the final straw for Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, who is also a staunch defender of the filibuster. Republicans have successfully filibustered voting rights bill three times already this year, including once just two weeks ago.

Kim Iversen: Why Americans Are MAD AS HELL At Democrats

'We're Going to Beat Rand Paul': Charles Booker Files for US Senate Run in Kentucky

Progressive Democrat Charles Booker on Wednesday formally filed candidate paperwork to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in Kentucky next year.

"I'm honored to take this stand for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, I feel the weight of history on my shoulders, I feel my ancestors with me. I am proud to be a Kentuckian, we deserve this moment, this is for all of us," said Booker, who announced his campaign this summer.

"We're going to beat Rand Paul because this is bigger than him," Booker declared. "This is about the people of Kentucky, this is about the challenges that we are facing, that we are sick of being ignored and abandoned and left behind. We've seen poverty for too long, we've seen industries leave and never come back."

While recognizing Andy Beshear, Kentucky's Democratic governor, for "doing great work in the face of a lot of challenges," Booker charged that "we need leadership at the federal level that cares about our lives."

A former state representative, Booker gained national attention in 2020, when he narrowly lost a Democratic primary race against Amy McGrath, a party establishment-backed candidate who went on to be defeated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a year ago.

Booker has relationships with major progressive figures—including Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—and supports key policies such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and universal basic income.

The candidate's campaign website shares his story of enduring poverty throughout childhood, becoming the first in his family to graduate from law school, building a career in government, and founding the grassroots group Hood to the Holler.

"Charles is a lifelong resident of Louisville's West End, growing up in what has been one of the poorest zip codes in Kentucky," the site says. "He's been homeless, and Charles has had to ration his insulin because he couldn't afford the medication he needed as a Type 1 diabetic."

The Democrat said Wednesday that "I'm mounting a campaign that's focused on Kentuckians from the hood to the holler and everywhere in between based on our common bonds."

"This isn't about party, this is about the people," Booker continued. "We're going to win because of the truth—the truth is if we stand together, if we come together we can move mountains, we can do all things, and I'm proud to say that Kentucky's gonna tell a new story and send a young Black man from the hood to Washington to represent them."

How the US supreme court could be a threat to climate action in the US

President Joe Biden exhorted other world leaders to treat climate change as an “existential threat to human existence” at the Cop26 global climate summit on Monday. Yet his administration may soon have its hands tied as it seeks to address that threat at home. That’s because just three days earlier, the US supreme court agreed to hear a set of cases challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose carbon emissions limits on existing power plants.

Court watchers expect the court’s conservative majority, consistent with a string of rulings in favor of big business and against regulation, to side against the EPA. If so, the decision will highlight how the court could stand in the way of meaningful efforts to address the climate crisis for decades to come. More generally, that outcome would underscore how the supreme court and broader features of the US constitutional system pose a significant obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats.

In simple terms, the related cases all ask whether Congress, in somewhat vague statutory language, authorized the EPA to promulgate rules that would require shifting some electricity generation from high-emissions sources such as coal plants to lower-emitting alternatives. The justices strongly signaled their view that the EPA lacks that authority back in 2016, when they issued a ruling staying the operation of the Obama-era EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) before lower courts had even ruled on challenges. The Trump administration rescinded the CPP, but the US court of appeals for the DC circuit ruled that the rescission was unlawful. The court will now review that decision.

There’s every reason to think the conservative-dominated court will again rule for the challengers. Indeed, the biggest question is not so much how the case will come out, but how boldly the court will rule. Lurking behind the statutory issues in the case is a deeper question: how much rule-making authority does the constitution even permit Congress to delegate to administrative agencies? Implementing a broad “non-delegation doctrine” and thereby dramatically undercutting the regulatory power of administrative agencies like the EPA has been a conservative fantasy for decades.

Whether the court goes big or rules more narrowly, any win for the challengers will underscore how tough it will be for the US to implement significant climate reforms.

How a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Can Guide a Global Just Transition & Emission Cuts

‘A continuation of colonialism’: indigenous activists say their voices are missing at Cop26

As world leaders inside the Cop26 conference centre in Glasgow boasted about pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions and end deforestation, indigenous delegates gathered across the river Clyde to commemorate activists killed for trying to protect the planet from corporate greed and government inaction. At least 1,005 environmental and land rights defenders have been murdered since the Paris accords were signed six years ago, according to the international non-profit Global Witness. One in three of those killed were indigenous people. ...

As the names of the murdered defenders were projected on a large outdoor screen, indigenous activists from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador and the Philippines implored political leaders to listen to their struggles. “The Cop is a big business, a continuation of colonialism where people come not to listen to us, but to make money from our land and natural resources,” said Ita Mendoza, 46, an indigenous land defender from the Mixteca region of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, attending Cop for the first time. “What benefits does the Cop bring when more than a thousand people fighting to keep the planet alive have been killed [since Paris]?” ...

In the 26 years since the first Cop was held in Berlin in 1995, international climate policies have mostly ignored or violated the cultural and territorial rights of indigenous peoples – despite them being recognized in 2001 as a formal constituency, one of nine broad thematic clusters (that also include business groups, environmental NGOs, women and youth groups and trade unions) permitted to observe and lobby negotiators.

Then in 2015, the Paris accords legally recognized the crucial role of traditional knowledge and innovations by local communities and indigenous peoples in understanding and tackling the climate crisis. The move was meant to ensure they could participate and influence international climate policies in a more meaningful and equal way. But six years on, indigenous people interviewed by the Guardian say little has changed inside the UN-led negotiations, while outside environmental destruction continues unchecked in their communities and the impact of the climate crisis is getting worse.

“Indigenous people are more visible but we’re not taken any more seriously; we’re romanticized and tokenized,” said Eriel Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and member of the facilitated working group for North America, part of the new UN structures established after Paris. “They’re trying to collect and preserve indigenous knowledge while continuing to leave us out of the actual decision-making and positions of power. It’s the only lever we have to hold states and governments accountable, but it’s the same paternalistic system as ever. We’re set up to fail, so that’s where civil society must come in.”

'Invisible Toxic Cocktail' in Tap Water Across US Due to 'Regulatory Capture': Analysis

Millions of people throughout the United States "are unwittingly drinking water that includes an invisible toxic cocktail made up of contaminants linked to cancer, brain damage, and other serious health harms," according to the Environmental Working Group, which updated its nationwide Tap Water Database on Wednesday.

"EWG's Tap Water Database offers a panoramic view of what drinking water quality looks like when the federal office meant to protect our water is in an advanced stage of regulatory capture," Environmental Working Group (EWG) president Ken Cook said in a statement.

"The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water has demonstrated for decades that it is utterly incapable of standing up to pressure from water utilities and polluters to protect human health from the dozens of toxic contaminants in America's drinking water," said Cook.

EWG's unique database—assembled over the course of multiple years by researchers who collected and analyzed test data from nearly 50,000 water systems in the U.S.—reveals "widespread contamination from toxic substances such as arsenic, lead, and the 'forever chemicals' known as PFAS in the drinking water of tens of millions of households in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."

The "comprehensive consumer tool" enables individuals to "enter a ZIP code into the database and see a report of the type and amount of toxic chemicals detected in that location's drinking water. They can also see safety assessments developed by EWG scientists about the adverse health effects associated with exposure to those contaminants."

EWG stressed that its database "underscores the need for stricter federal water quality standards and a massive injection of funding for badly needed water infrastructure improvements across the country."

"The U.S. tap water system," EWG added, "is plagued by antiquated infrastructure and rampant pollution of source water, while out-of-date EPA regulations, often relying on archaic science, allow unsafe levels of toxic chemicals in drinking water."

Since Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, the EPA has established maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for more than 90 contaminants.

While the water coming out of most taps across the U.S. is deemed legal by the EPA— whose MCLs determine a pollutant's upper limit—"it is hardly safe," according to the EWG, which added that "federal oversight of drinking water has been failing for years."

"The EPA has become very good at constantly reassuring the public that all is well with the water coming out of their taps," said Cook. "That message is music to the ears of polluters who've fouled source waters and water utilities wary of treatment and infrastructure costs. But it's just not true—and the EPA's own scientists know it."

Also of Interest

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

US Sends Warships to Black Sea, Stoking Tensions With Russia

One Day - Three Biden Failures

Democrats Have a Choice: Embrace Progressive Populism or Suffer a Trumpian Fascist Future

The Red-Pilling of Loudoun County, Virginia

Major Police Overhaul Goes Down in Minneapolis, But Austin and Cleveland Advocates Notch Wins

These Billionaries Received Taxpayer-Funded Stimulus Checks During the Pandemic

Biden’s Nominee Omarova Called the Banks She Would Supervise the “Quintessential A**hole Industry” in a 2019 Feature Documentary

Pointed questions suggest US supreme court ready to ease restrictions on guns

More Than 30 Years Ago Global Warming Became Front-Page News

Oren Cass: Here's What Workers REALLY Want From Unions

A Little Night Music

Bo Diddley - Diddy Wah Diddy

Bo Diddley - I'm Bad

Bo Diddley - Road Runner

Bo Diddley - Who do you love?

Bo Diddley & Chuck Berry - Bo's Beat

Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley Is Crazy

Bo Diddley - Pollution

Bo Diddley - I Can Tell

Bo Diddley - Pills

Bo Diddley - I'm A Man

Bo Diddley, Ronnie Wood - Hey Bo Diddley