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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bo Carter

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features master of the single entendre Bo Carter. Enjoy!

^{Bo Carter - Cigarette Blues}

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law."

-- Thomas Paine

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News and Opinion

Five Christian fascist assholes intend to impose their religious beliefs upon an entire nation, much of which does not share their faith, beliefs or opinions. The Democrats which claim to champion the rights of those who do not subscribe to these beliefs seem to be a weak reed to lean upon at this critical moment. Yet somehow most commentators (including the writer of the article below) on these events seem to think that voting will solve the problem.

I sure hope that my fellow Americans have some other tricks up their sleeves other than the obvious ineffectual strategy of voting for Democrat morons.

Abortion: Why is the Court Using Religious Belief to Alter what Should be Secular Law?

Democrats are generally disinclined to discuss religion, much less debate it.

They like to point out that Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin were famously atheist, Jefferson and dozens of other high-profile people in the Founding generation were deists (a close cousin to atheists and certainly not Christians), and that in two different places the Constitution explicitly rejects religion interfering with government or vice-versa.

But it’s time to discuss religion whether we like it or not, because it’s no longer knocking on our door: Sam Alito just sent it into the house with a no-knock warrant and stun grenades that threaten to catch the place on fire.

Alito’s Dobbs v Jackson draft opinion rests on two main premises.

The first is that the Supreme Court has no business recognizing a “right” that isn’t rooted in the nation’s “history and tradition.”

This rightwing canard has been around for years, and has been used to argue against pretty much ever form of modernity from integrated public schools to, more recently, gay marriage. It’s a convenient pole around which you can twist pretty much any argument you want, because American history and tradition have been all over the map during the past roughly 240 years.

For example, Alito could just as easily have pointed out that there were no federal or state laws regulating abortion at all at the founding of our republic, and they didn’t really start showing up until the 1800s as physicians were clamoring for licensure to lock midwives out of birth-related medical practice (which included abortion).

The year Virginia got an abortion-regulating law, for example, was the same year — 1847 — that the American Medical Association was founded. Ben Franklin had been dead more than a half-century and not a single signer of the Declaration of Independence was still alive.

So much for Alito’s “history and tradition” in the early republic and at the time the Constitution was written.

The first antiabortion law in Mississippi — the state whose lawsuit provoked this decision — was put on the books in 1839.  George Washington had drawn his last breath a full 40 years earlier.

South Dakota got their law regulating abortion in 1899; Delaware, Tennessee, and South Carolina in 1883; North Carolina 1881; Kentucky 1879; North Dakota 1877; Utah and Georgia 1876; Oklahoma 1875.

The earliest state to get an antiabortion law was Massachusetts — the state so overwhelmed by Puritan religious fanatics that the Founders nearly rejected them for admission into the union — in 1812.

It was so bad though Ben Franklin fled Massachusetts for Philadelphia in 1723 when he was 17 years old specifically, as he noted at length in his autobiography, to get away from the religious fanatics who ran the state.

Which brings us to Alito’s second position and the nub of the issue: religion.

Alito’s main argument about “unborn human beings” (a phrase he repeats over and over in his decision) merely represents one point on a broad spectrum of religious belief.

He dressed it up as law, with a healthy dose of pseudoscience grumbling about fingernails and heartbeats thrown in, but it’s really all about Alito’s religious belief that “human life” begins at conception.

When should a zygote, embryo, or even a fetus be acknowledged as a human being?  At fertilization? At quickening? At viability? At birth? All have been both legal and religious standards at various times and places throughout our history.

Science could suggest that humanity begins when a baby is born or delivered through C-section: in that moment it acquires independent agency, is its own “self.” Prior to that, the nascent life is part of the mother; the fetus is an appendage to her body, after all, and is entirely dependent on her for its blood supply, oxygen, and nutrition. If she dies, it dies.

Morality could argue that human rights of sorts should appear around the time of viability, when a fetus can survive as a baby outside the womb if forced to do so; it was the basis of the original Roe v Wade decision. But morality, like religion, varies from era to era, country to country, culture to culture.

Some religious people argue, for example, that human life begins the moment their God decides a baby should be born, even before fertilization. God informs the couple of this moment by making them horny and ready for sex, so birth control devices that prevent the preordained outcome of pregnancy are verboten.

Other religions throughout history have recognized life as starting with the first breath, as implied in Genesis 2.7 and 7.21-22.

In between are a plethora of decision points that are really the question “when does a soul inhabit a human body” presented as law. Does “human” life begin at “intent” when a couple is preparing to have sex without birth control? At six weeks when a bundle of cells that will become a heart start twitching? When an actual heartbeat is detectable? At “quickening” when the fetus’ movement is detectable? At birth?

As recently as the 1960s, theologians were hotly debating this very issue in the pages of Christianity Today and Christian Life magazines. There was no consensus, and (outside of single religions) never has been.

As Jennifer Rubin notes in this week’s Washington Post:

“In assuming life begins at conception (thereby giving the states unfettered leeway to ban abortion), Alito and his right-wing colleagues would impose a faith-based regimen shredding a half-century of legal and social change.”

The vast majority of politicians who loudly proclaim the “sanctity of human life” in the “pre-born” or “unborn” stage also argue against ensuring every child has adequate food, housing, education, and medical care.

Seriously, if these folks cared one whit for “the innocent children” they’d stop school shootings by getting guns under control in this country. But they don’t. It’s just a lot easier to “love” a fetus that doesn’t talk back, doesn’t need healthcare or education, and doesn’t have a particular immigration status. Once it’s born, all bets are off.

That simple reality pretty much proves the cynicism of Alito’s charge that the state must be able to step in with the force of guns and prison bars to “protect” a zygote or fetus. This is all religious performance art, with women as its victims.

“There is ample evidence that the passage of [anti-abortion] laws was,” Alito writes, “spurred by a sincere belief that abortion kills a human being.”

Yes, it’s a belief. Period.

Tragically, this isn’t the first time this Court’s fundamentalists have used its majority’s religious beliefs to alter what should be secular law.

Last year in Tandon v Newsom, the same five justices again went too far even for John Roberts, ruling 5-4 that a person’s religion was the basis for refusing to go along with Covid lockdowns.  The year before that, they ruled in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo that churches could ignore public health orders and subject their parishioners to a deadly disease because of the church leaders’ personal beliefs.

The Court picked up steam down this long and dangerous road with Burwell v. Hobby Lobby which let employers violate federal employment law around insurance coverage because of their religious beliefs, even when those beliefs were not shared by the employees who were directly impacted by their decisions.

And with Masterpiece Cake, the Court even ruled that businesses can discriminate against their customers based on the business owners’ religious belief that gay people are hated by God.

Now “religious people” are free to claim a wide variety of exceptions from American law, from conditions of employment, and even from common decency simply by shouting, “I believe!”

Under Roe v Wade, people who believed abortion was wrong were free to not get one. They didn’t ever have to even pull into the parking lot of an abortion clinic.

Under this draft Dobbs decision, however, women’s bodies have legally become the property of the state, arguably from the moment of intercourse.

If a woman uses or abuses drugs or alcohol, for example, even if she doesn’t know she’s pregnant, you can easily see where this logic could lead to her being charged with a crime and imprisoned. Exotic diets, fasting, experimenting with psychedelics, extreme exercise: all could lead zealous a prosecutor armed with this decision to a charge of child endangerment.

Will Mike Pence’s menstrual period registry be revived so women can be tracked to identify abortions? Will the government mandate that women must collect and preserve the remains of miscarriages for burial with a licensed funeral home, as Pence tried to put into law when he was governor of Indiana?

Alito’s decision is an open assault on the right of bodily autonomy, the right to make ones’ own medical decisions, and the right to choose to have or not have children.

And it’s all based on his personal religious belief — shared with four fundamentalist colleagues and now about to be imposed on the rest of us — that human life legally begins at the moment a sperm meets an egg.

Law in the United States should be based on a secular consensus and the most recent science; it should not become a flag that flutters in the winds of whichever religious perspective is majority-represented on the Supreme Court at any particular time.

Every single member of this Court who appears to have ruled to outlaw abortion was put on the Court by a president who did not win a majority of the vote, and was confirmed by a group of senators representing far fewer than half of Americans.

Their appearance on the Court was engineered by wealthy right-wingers who proudly proclaim their belief that America should be run along religious lines.

Only an informed and politically active majority in America can right this wrong and establish majority rule in the world’s most important democracy.

This summer and fall the window for voter registration will close in some states: make sure your registration has not been purged and that everybody you know is prepared to show up at the polls this November.

Hedges: Jesus, Endless War, and the Rise of American Fascism

The Democratic Party – which had 50 years to write Roe v Wade into law with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama in full control of the White House and Congress at the inception of their presidencies – is banking its electoral strategy around the expected Supreme Court decision to lift the judicial prohibition on the ability of states to enact laws restricting or banning abortions. I doubt it will work. The Democratic Party’s hypocrisy and duplicity is the fertilizer for Christian fascism. Its exclusive focus on the culture wars and identity politics at the expense of economic, political, and social justice fueled a right-wing backlash and stoked the bigotry, racism, and sexism it sought to curtail. Its opting for image over substance, including its repeated failure to secure the right to abortion, left the Democrats distrusted and reviled.

The Biden administration invited Amazon Labor Union president Christian Smalls and union workers from Starbucks and other organizations to the White House at the same time it re-awarded a $10 billion contract to the union-busting Amazon and the National Security Agency (NSA) for cloud computing. The NSA contract is one of 26 federal cloud computing contracts Amazon has with the U.S. Army and Air Force, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, and the Census Bureau. Withholding the federal contracts until Amazon permitted free and open union organizing would be a powerful stand on behalf of workers, still waiting for the $15 minimum wage Joe Biden promised as a candidate. But behind the walls of the Democratic Party’s Potemkin village stands the billionaire class. Democrats have failed to address the structural injustices that turned America into an oligarchic state, where the obscenely rich squabble like children in a sandbox over multibillion-dollar toys. The longer this game of political theater continues, the worse things will get.

The Christian fascists have coalesced in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump. They are bankrolled by the most retrograde forces of capitalism. The capitalists permit the stupidities of the Christian fascists and their self-destructive social and cultural wars. In exchange, the billionaire class gets corporate monopolies, union busting, privatized state, and municipal services, including public education, revoked government regulations, especially environmental regulation, and can engage in a virtual tax boycott. The war industry loves the Christian fascists who turn every conflict from Iraq to Ukraine into a holy crusade to crush the latest iteration of Satan. The Christian fascists believe military power, and the “manly” virtues that come with it, are blessed by God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. No military budget is too big. No war waged by America is evil.

These Christian fascists make up perhaps 30 percent of the electorate, roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans who believe abortion is murder. They are organized, committed to a vision, however perverse, and awash in money. John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, mediocre jurists and Federalist Society ideologues who carry the banner of Christian fascism, control the Supreme Court. Establishment Republicans and Democrats, like George Armstrong Custer on Last Stand Hill, have circled the wagons around the Democratic Party in a desperate bid to prevent Trump, or a Trump mini-me, from returning to the White House. They, and their allies in Silicon Valley, are using algorithms and overt de-platforming to censor critics from the left and the right, foolishly turning figures like Trump, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor Greene into martyrs. This is not a battle over democracy, but the spoils of power waged by billionaires against billionaires. No one intends to dismantle the corporate state. ...

The glue holding this Christianized fascism together is not prayer, although we will get a lot of that, but war. War is the raison d’être of all systems of totalitarianism. War justifies a constant search for internal enemies. It is used to revoke basic civil liberties and impose censorship. War demonizes those in the Middle East, Russia, or China, who are blamed for the economic and social debacles that inevitably get worse. War diverts the rage engendered by a dysfunctional state towards immigrants, people of color, feminists, liberals, artists, anyone who does not identify as a heterosexual, the press, antifa, Jews, Muslims, Russians, or Asians. Take your pick. It is a bigot’s smorgasbord. Every item on the menu is fair game.

The Guardian's propaganda mill version of Putin's Victory Day speech:

Putin ties Ukraine invasion to second world war in Victory Day speech

Vladimir Putin has told Russian soldiers they are “fighting for the same thing their fathers and grandfathers did” as he used his Victory Day speech to justify his invasion of Ukraine. As Putin sought to rally his country through the memory of the second world war, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pushed back in his own address from Kyiv. “We will not allow anyone to annex this victory, we will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said.

The dual speeches marked a closely watched anniversary in eastern Europe, where Russia has used claims that it is fighting fascism to justify its bombardment of cities such as Mariupol and Kyiv and to launch the largest military campaign in Ukraine since the 1940s. Prior to the speech, foreign officials had said Putin could use it to launch a full mobilisation of Russian troops or formally declare war in Ukraine, but there were no large policy announcements.

Instead he suggested Russia was “forced” into the war by Nato and pledged to provide aid for the families of soldiers who had died in what the Kremlin is calling a “special operation”. ...

The muted speech came in stark contrast to that delivered by Zelenskiy, who delivered a recorded address to a piano accompaniment as he walked through central Kyiv past anti-tank barricades. “This is not a war of two armies,” he said. “This is a war of two world views. A war waged by barbarians … who believe that their missiles can destroy our philosophy.”

On anniversary of defeat of Nazi regime, German Chancellor Scholz delivers war speech

Seventy-seven years after the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht during World War II, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats) used the anniversary to justify an unprecedented rearmament of the German army (Bundeswehr) and a massive expansion of the proxy war against Russia. To this end, he trivialized and relativized the crimes of the Nazi regime in an unspeakable manner and drew on the worst traditions of German great power politics.

German chancellors rarely address the population in a televised address on current issues. Merkel did so only once during her 16-year tenure, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Scholz now used this means on the day of the liberation from fascism to propagandise for an aggressive drive to war with Russia and announce further arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Scholz accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of wanting to “subjugate Ukraine to destroy its culture and identity” with his “barbaric attack.” In this way, according to Scholz, Putin brought “war, genocide and tyranny” back to Europe. “We defend law and freedom—alongside the attacked. We support Ukraine in the fight against the aggressor. Not doing so would mean surrendering to sheer violence—and encouraging the aggressor.”

Germany will therefore not accept “a Russian-dictated peace,” Scholz proclaimed, thereby indirectly admitting that he sees himself as a war party in the conflict. In keeping with this, he announced that he would supply Ukraine with further heavy weaponry to defeat Russia militarily. The historic decision to let German tanks roll against Russia once again is not driven by “security and peace” and least of all the protection of the Ukrainian population. Instead, Germany and the other NATO powers have systematically provoked Russia’s reactionary invasion to allow them to wage a proxy war against Russia on the backs of the Ukrainian population.

U.K. Orders Zelensky To Stop Peace Negotiations with Russia

The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened

We are once again witnessing history being made, folks. Today, in the Year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-two, we get the great privilege of bearing witness to the single most American thing that has ever happened.

The Biden administration has asked top Democrats to decouple the federal government’s Covid relief spending package from its much larger bill for funding of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, because one of those two things is too controversial and contentious to pass quickly.

Guess which one.

NEW: President Biden has asked congressional leadership to decouple a Ukraine aid package from COVID relief money in an attempt to pass the aid for Ukraine without having to deal with thorny partisan opposition to the COVID relief funds, a Congressional source tells NBC News.

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 9, 2022

Politico reports:

Congressional Democratic leaders reached a bipartisan accord to send $39.8 billion to Ukraine to bolster its monthslong battle against a brutal Russian assault.

And that deal is now expected to move swiftly to President Joe Biden’s desk after Democrats agreed to drop another one of their top priorities — billions of dollars in pandemic aid that has stalled on the Hill. The Ukraine aid could come to the House floor for a vote as soon as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity.

That nearly $40 billion worth of proxy war funding eclipses the paltry $10 billion in Covid relief funding that was being debated in congress, and is in fact well in excess of the already massive $33 billion sum requested by the White House.

“President Joe Biden and top Democrats have agreed to a GOP demand to disentangle a stalled COVID-19 response package from a separate supplemental request for military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine so the latter can move more quickly,” Roll Call reports. “At the same time, House and Senate Democrats have upped the price tag on the Ukraine package by $6.8 billion above Biden’s initial $33 billion request. Democrats proposed including an additional $3.4 billion for food aid and $3.4 billion more to replace U.S. military equipment sent to Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the offer.”

Biden initially requested $33 billion for Ukraine and $22.5 billion for Covid in an emergency funding bill; now Biden says he’s willing to sign off on $40 billion for Ukraine and $0 for Covid: https://t.co/U3yGtDiIYL

— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) May 9, 2022

I defy you to find me anything more American than Washington decoupling relief for its own citizens from its proxy war funding because it wants to make sure the proxy war funding actually passes.

It’s almost too perfect. You couldn’t come up with a better summation of the US empire in a nutshell if you tried. Taking money away from needful Americans because congressional opposition to helping them so was putting too much inertia on Washington’s games of nuclear brinkmanship is the single most American thing that has ever happened.

There’s actually a real poetic beauty to it, if you look close enough. The government which runs a globe-spanning empire is dubious about the need to help its own citizenry recover from an economy-flattening pandemic, but throws its full bipartisan support behind a proxy war which threatens the life of every living organism.

That’s it. That’s the whole entire point I wanted to make here. It’s so insane you’ll cry if you don’t laugh. And we’ll always have those little moments of laughter. Even if these psychos get us all killed.

Daniel Davis: Sending MORE Weapons Is NOT Helping Ukraine

In Rebuke to Biden, Mexico Says No Nation Should Be Excluded from Americas Summit

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday that no nation in the Western Hemisphere should be left out of the upcoming Summit of the Americas, directly refuting Washington's attempt to bar Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the U.S.-hosted meeting.

"Nobody should exclude anyone," López Obrador said during a public event in Cuba, according to Reuters.

The Mexican leader's remarks come as the U.S. State Department has indicated that government representatives from three Latin American countries are unlikely to be invited to the June summit in Los Angeles.

"Cuba, Nicaragua, the [Nicolás] Maduro regime [in Venezuela] do not respect the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and therefore I don't expect their presence," Western Hemisphere Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said in an interview last week.

"It's [U.S. President Joe Biden's] decision," Nichols added, "but I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy—they will not receive invitations."

Following Obama-era efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, the Trump administration adopted more than 200 policies designed to punish the Caribbean island. Despite Democratic lawmakers' pleas and Biden's own campaign pledge to reverse his predecessor's "failed" approach, the White House has implemented additional sanctions in recent months.

Speaking from Havana on Sunday, López Obrador vowed to continue pushing the U.S. to lift its 60-year embargo on Cuba.

Meanwhile, Biden has described the 2021 reelection of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, as fraudulent.

In addition, Washington does not officially recognize elected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate leader of the South American country even though he was reelected last year in a contest that U.S. legal observers called fair.

Instead, the U.S. recognizes Juan Guaidó—an unelected and unpopular right-wing opposition figure who was a key player in the unsuccessful Trump-backed effort to overthrow Maduro in 2019—as president.

Biden went so far as to invite the Venezuelan coup leader to his administration's so-called Summit for Democracy in December.

Stocks See WORST Weekly Decline In A DECADE

MI5 asked police to spy on political activities of children, inquiry hears

MI5 asked police chiefs to collect information about the political activities of schoolchildren as young as 14, a public inquiry into undercover policing has heard. The request – circulated to chief constables throughout Britain in 1975 – was approved by the head of the Security Service and a senior Whitehall official.

An undercover police unit regularly stored files recording the political beliefs of schoolchildren, along with photographs of them. ... Among those spied on were schoolchildren who were campaigning against fascists who were carrying out violent attacks on vulnerable ethnic minorities.

The inquiry – headed by the retired judge Sir John Mitting – is examining how undercover police officers spied on 1,000 mainly leftwing political groups over more than 40 years. The inquiry was set up after a slew of revelations about the conduct of the undercover spies including deceiving women into intimate relationships and monitoring grieving families.

Over the next two weeks, the inquiry will question managers of the covert unit the Special Demonstration Squad, who were responsible for authorising and supervising the early stages of the infiltration operations between 1968 and 1982.

Rand Paul Trashes “Disinformation” Chief To His Face

Privacy Advocates Celebrate 'Big Win' Against Facial Recognition Giant

A historic settlement filed in court on Monday highlighted the power of Illinois' strong privacy law and will result in new nationwide restrictions on a controversial technology company infamous for selling access to the largest known database of facial images.

The deal permanently banning Clearview AI from providing most private entities with free or paid access to its database stems from a lawsuit that the ACLU and partners f in 2020, arguing that the company violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

"This settlement is a big win for the most vulnerable people in Illinois," declared Linda Xóchitl Tortolero, president and CEO of the Chicago-based nonprofit Mujeres Latinas en Acción, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

"Much of our work centers on protecting privacy and ensuring the safety of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault," she added. "Before this agreement, Clearview ignored the fact that biometric information can be misused to create dangerous situations and threats to their lives. Today that's no longer the case."

In addition to permanently banning Clearview from granting private companies and individuals access to the database, the settlement has some state-specific limits. For the next five years, Clearview can't allow private companies with exceptions under BIPA or state or local government entities in Illinois, including law enforcement, access to the database.

Under the settlement, Clearview will also maintain an opt-out request on its website for Illinoisans, end its free trials for individual police officers, and continue its efforts to remove photographs that were taken in or uploaded from the state.

As The New York Times reported:

In a key exception, Clearview will still be able to provide its database to U.S. banks and financial institutions under a carve-out in the Illinois law. Hoan Ton-That, chief executive of Clearview AI, said the company did "not have plans" to provide the database "to entities besides government agencies at this time."

The settlement does not mean that Clearview cannot sell any product to corporations. It will still be able to sell its facial recognition algorithm, without the database of 20 billion images, to companies. Its algorithm helps match people's faces to any database that a customer provides.

"There are a number of other consent-based uses for Clearview's technology that the company has the ability to market more broadly," Mr. Ton-That said.

Floyd Abrams, an attorney for Clearview, said the company was "pleased to put this litigation behind it."

Meanwhile, lawyers representing the plaintiffs and other experts celebrated the settlement as a victory.

J. Eli Wade-Scott of Edelson PC—which recently obtained a $650 million settlement in a BIPA case with Facebook—noted that the case was part of a broader fight.

"There is a battle being fought in courtrooms and statehouses across the country about who is going to control biometrics—Big Tech or the people being tracked by them—and this represents one of the biggest victories for consumers to date," he said.

Abortion Ruling: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Canada and Mexico prepare to accept Americans seeking abortions

If, as a leaked draft decision indicates, the US supreme court votes to overturn Roe v Wade, many Americans in need of surgical abortion could be forced to travel not just across state lines but, once again, across international borders – both along the northern border to Canada and the southern one to Mexico.

On Tuesday, Canada’s minister of families, Karina Gould, reaffirmed that Americans can access abortion services in Canada. “If they, people, come here and need access, certainly, you know, that’s a service that would be provided,” she told CBC News.

Those travelling internationally won’t find it free – people without immigration status in Canada are charged about C$500 (US$388) for a surgical abortion, Egan said – but Americans do not need a health card to access clinics in Canada. Wait times vary, from one to two weeks in Ontario to several weeks or months in the Atlantic provinces.

Crossing the border will probably only be possible for those who can afford to do. Abortion advocates in the US have underscored that after Roe v Wade falls it will be wealthier white women who have the means – including travelling – to access abortion, while people on lower incomes and those who face socioeconomic barriers including African American, Latino and Indigenous women and transgender people may struggle more. ...

South of the US border, Mexican advocates are preparing for an increase in Americans visiting to access abortion services. In 2021, Mexico’s supreme court ruled it was unconstitutional to criminalise abortion, although access still varies by state.

Krystal Ball Exposes LIES at the Heart Of Roe v Wade Debate

The Democrats claim that there is some point to electing them after all they've not done for decades to prevent what is happening now.

Democratic AGs Position Themselves as 'Last Line of Defense' If Roe Falls

Democratic state attorneys general and candidates are gearing up to play a key role in the fight for abortion rights in the wake of Politico revealing a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade amid the GOP plotting to pass a nationwide ban if they regain control of Congress.

The reversal of Roe could outlaw abortion in up to 26 states, due to trigger bans and other existing laws, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.

CNN noted last week that "the inability of Democrats in Washington, despite narrow majorities in Congress and President Joe Biden in the White House, to come up with the votes to pass federal legislation guaranteeing abortion rights—and the likelihood that, even if they were to retain or build on those majorities, action would be difficult—has positioned Democratic state leaders as the last line of defense against Republican efforts to seize on the court's potential decision and move forward seeking either to ban or severely restrict the right to an abortion."

Representatives for both the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) pointed to Justice Samuel Alito's forthcoming opinion as a wake-up call for what is at stake in this year's state-level races.

"If Roe is overturned, this fight will move squarely into the states," DAGA communications director Geoff Burgan told CNN, "and we need national donors, both large and small, to recognize that reality and invest in electing Democratic AGs this year."

A new memo from the organization first reported Friday by The New Republic details plans to boost paid media and services to up to $30 million "in support of incumbent Democratic AGs and DAGA-backed candidates in battleground states like Georgia, Arizona, and others to come."

In addition to announcing the nearly 40% increase in spending on such races compared to the 2018 campaign cycle, the memo highlights DAGA's requirement that "endorsed attorneys general and candidates must publicly support abortion access and reproductive healthcare."

Abortion Protestors Go To Supreme Court Justices Homes!

White House announces internet program for low-income Americans

The Biden administration announced on Monday that 20 internet companies have agreed to provide discounted service to people with low incomes, a program that could effectively make tens of millions of households eligible for free service through an already existing federal subsidy.

The $1tn infrastructure package passed by Congress last year included $14.2bn in funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides $30 monthly subsidies ($75 in tribal areas) on internet service for millions of lower-income households. ...

The 20 internet companies that have agreed to lower their rates for eligible consumers provide service in areas where 80% of the US population, including 50% of the rural population, live, according to the White House. Participating companies that offer service on tribal lands are providing $75 rates in those areas, the equivalent of the federal government subsidy in those areas. ...

American households are eligible for subsidies through the Affordable Connectivity Program if their income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, or if a member of their family participates in one of several programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), Federal Public Housing Assistance (FPHA) and Veterans Pension and Survivors Benefit.

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Why Are Dems Boosting An Anti-Abortion Candidate?

A new super PAC led by consultants for Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns is diving into a Texas primary to support a conservative Democrat who opposes abortion. Democratic leaders have come under fire for continuing to support conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in his runoff election versus progressive Jessica Cisneros, even after the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion set to invalidate federal protections for abortion rights.

With the runoff only weeks away, Cuellar, the last remaining anti-abortion Democrat in the House, has seen little outside support from Democratic groups — until now. On April 29, America United, a super PAC formed recently to back Latino House candidates, placed $241,000 worth of independent expenditures backing Cuellar, despite the fact his challenger is also Latina.

The effort suggests at least some Democratic operatives and donors remain willing to back an anti-abortion candidate in a state controlled by right-wingers, even though federal abortion protections could be eliminated any day now. The looming Supreme Court decision on abortion could have major implications for Texas residents, as Republicans there passed a so-called “trigger law” last year that will make it a felony to perform abortions 30 days after Roe is overturned.

Biden's DESPERATE Plan To Blame Shift On Inflation

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Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows. The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global average temperature was 1.1C above pre-industrial levels in 2021.

It is also close to certain – 93% – that by 2026 one year will be the hottest ever recorded, beating 2016, when a natural El Niño climate event supercharged temperatures. It is also near certain that the average temperature of the next five years will be higher than the past five years, as the climate crisis intensifies.

“The 1.5C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet,” said Prof Petteri Taalas, head of the World Meteorological Organization, which published the new report. “For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise,” said Taalas. “Alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme.”

Treaties Protecting Fossil Fuel Investors Threaten Global Efforts to Save the Climate—And Could Cost Countries Billions

Fossil fuel companies have access to an obscure legal tool that could jeopardize worldwide efforts to protect the climate, and they’re starting to use it. The result could cost countries that press ahead with those efforts billions of dollars.

Over the past 50 years, countries have signed thousands of treaties that protect foreign investors from government actions. These treaties are like contracts between national governments, meant to entice investors to bring in projects with the promise of local jobs and access to new technologies.

But now, as countries try to phase out fossil fuels to slow climate change, these agreements could leave the public facing overwhelming legal and financial risks.

The treaties allow investors to sue governments for compensation in a process called investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. In short, investors could use ISDS clauses to demand compensation in response to government actions to limit fossil fuels, such as canceling pipelines and denying drilling permits. For example, TC Energy, a Canadian company, is currently seeking more than US$15 billion over U.S. President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

In a study published May 5, 2022, in the journal Science, we estimate that countries would face up to $340 billion in legal and financial risks for canceling fossil fuel projects that are subject to treaties with ISDS clauses.

That’s more than countries worldwide put into climate adaptation and mitigation measures combined in fiscal year 2019, and it doesn’t include the risks of phasing out coal investments or canceling fossil fuel infrastructure projects, like pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. It means that money countries might otherwise spend to build a low-carbon future could instead go to the very industries that have knowingly been fueling climate change, severely jeopardizing countries’ capacity to propel the green energy transition forward.

Of the world’s 55,206 upstream oil and gas projects that are in the early stages of development, we identified 10,506 projects – 19% of the total – that were protected by 334 treaties providing access to ISDS.

That number could be much higher. We could only identify the headquarters of project owners, not the overall corporate structures of the investments, due to limited data. We also know that law firms are advising clients in the industry to structure investments to ensure access to ISDS, through processes such as using subsidiaries in countries with treaty protections.

Depending upon future oil and gas prices, we found that the total net present value of those projects is expected to reach $60 billion to $234 billion. If countries cancel these protected projects, foreign investors could sue for financial compensation in line with these valuations.

Doing so would put several low- and middle-income countries at severe risk. Mozambique, Guyana and Venezuela could each face over $20 billion in potential losses from ISDS claims.

If countries also cancel oil and gas projects that are further along in development but are not yet producing, they face more risk. We found that 12% of those projects worldwide are protected by investment treaties, and their investors could sue for $32 billion to $106 billion.

Canceling approved projects could prove exceptionally risky for countries like Kazakhstan, which could lose $6 billion to $18 billion, and Indonesia, with $3 billion to $4 billion at risk.

Canceling coal investments or fossil fuel infrastructure projects, like pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals, could lead to even more claims.

There have been at least 231 ISDS cases involving fossil fuels so far. Just the threat of massive payouts to investors could cause many countries to delay climate mitigation policies, causing a so-called “regulatory chill.”

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