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This evening's music features early Texas bluesman Alger "Texas" Alexander. Enjoy!

"The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless and, most importantly, run by a sad gang of incompetent thugs who think that they can scare everybody into submission in spite of not having won a single significant war since 1945. The inability to break the will of the people of Venezuela is only the latest symptom of this mind-boggling weakness."

-- The Saker

News and Opinion

New House Bill Would Bar Israel From Using U.S. Military Aid to Detain Palestinian Children

New legislation proposed by Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, would ban Israel from using any of the billions of dollars in military assistance it receives from the United States every year to pay for the detention, interrogation, or torture of Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.

Israel’s military typically arrests and prosecutes 500 to 700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 17 each year, subjecting them to coercive interrogation, physical violence, and trials in military courts that lack basic guarantees of due process.

McCollum’s bill, HR 2407, would amend the Foreign Assistance Act to prohibit funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. The proposed law would also provide $19 million a year to American, Israeli, and Palestinian nongovernmental organizations to monitor the treatment of children detained by Israel’s army and offer physical and psychological treatment.

“Israel’s system of military juvenile detention is state-sponsored child abuse designed to intimidate and terrorize Palestinian children and their families,” McCollum said in a statement on Wednesday. “It must be condemned, but it is equally outrageous that U.S. tax dollars in the form of military aid to Israel are permitted to sustain what is clearly a gross human rights violation against children.”

In 2017, McCollum, with 30 Democratic co-sponsors from what was then the House minority, introduced similar legislation to prohibit “U.S. assistance to Israel from being used to support the military detention, interrogation, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”

WATCH: @BettyMcCollum04 urges colleagues to co-sponsor H.R. 4391, a bill that would prohibit U.S. taxpayer funds from supporting grave human rights violations against Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system. #nowaytotreatachild pic.twitter.com/8nodpMmOba

— #nowaytotreatachild (@nwttac) July 25, 2018

With Democrats now in the majority, her revised bill was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.

A Debate on Maduro: Two Venezuelans Oppose U.S. Intervention But Differ on Steps Ahead

Venezuela: US doing everything short of ‘the ultimate’, says Trump as protests continue

The United States is doing everything short of “the ultimate” to resolve Venezuela’s crisis, Donald Trump has vowed, after clashes between protesters and security forces broke out in Caracas following a dramatic but so far fruitless bid to force Nicolás Maduro from power by triggering a massive military rebellion.

As tens of thousands of Venezuelan returned to the streets on Wednesday, Juan Guaidó, the young opposition leader who led that attempted mutiny on Tuesday morning, told demonstrators in the capital, Caracas, they needed to intensify their “peaceful rebellion” against Maduro.

In an interview with Fox News, the US president, who is Guaidó’s most powerful international backer, vowed to continue supporting him in his battle against Maduro, who Trump called “a tough player”.

“We are doing everything we can do, short of, you know, the ultimate,” Trump said, adding: “There are people who would like to have us do the ultimate.” Asked what the options were, Trump said: “Well, some of them I don’t even like to mention to you because they are pretty tough.”

“It’s an incredible mess … The place is so bad and so dangerous … so something is going to have to be done,” the US president added in the rambling 10-minute interview. “A lot of things will be going on over the next week and sooner than that. We will see what happens.” ...

Flanked by Venezuela’s military and political elite, Maduro blamed Venezuela’s “coup-mongering far right” and Donald Trump’s deranged imperialist “gang” for what he called Tuesday’s attempted coup. “I truly believe … that the United States of America has never had a government as deranged as this one,” Maduro said in his hour-long pronouncement, calling Guaidó and his team “useful idiots” of the empire.

This is outrageous threat! The team that brought you Iraq seems to thrive on death destruction and spending workers hard earned tax dollars. #HandsOffVenezeula #MayDay2019 https://t.co/dLx59xHRZX

— Jodie Evans (@MsJodieEvans) May 1, 2019

An excellent update by Moon of Alabama, worth a full read. There are far more details at the link.

Venezuela - Guaidó Got Snookered - White House Starts Beating War Drums

Yesterday's failed coup attempt in Venezuela significantly hurt the Trump administration's international standing. It delegitimized its Venezuelan clients Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López. After recognizing that their original 'regime change' plan failed (again) the White House starts to beat the war drums.

That wasn't the plan:

The Trump administration, which has backed Mr. Guaidó since he first challenged Mr. Maduro’s authority more than three months ago, clearly thought the day would unfold differently.

There is no official explanation why the Trump administration believed that the comical coup attempt by Juan Guaidó and his master Leopolo López would work.

There are signs though that the government of President Nicolas Maduro set a trap. Several people in the top echelon of the Venezuelan government gave false promises that they would join the U.S. proxy side. They snookered Guaidó into launching his coup to let him fail. ...

Everyone in Washington believed that significant figures in the Venezuelan government would change sides. They did not do so. Vladimir Padrino rejected the coup within an hour after Guaidó announced it. It seems that the Guaidó side got played by the Venezuelan Defense Minister and several other officials and officers. They seem to have promised to support Guaidó only to bait him into taking steps that would embarrass him. ...

Guaidó and his backers in the Trump administration were made to believe that some significant elements of the Maduro government and of the army would turn on Maduro. They launched a coup attempt that fell apart within a few hours as no one changed sides. All their blustering has now been deflated. Guaidó has lost his credibility. Washington may still support him but in Caracas there is likely no one left who believes in him. Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams and of course Donald Trump have been exposed as buffoons who, despite their powerful positions, can not even organize a simple coup. They publicly supported through dozens of tweets and interviews what turned out be a bad amateur theater play. The diplomatic corps will joke about this episode for the next decade. ...

It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump?

Biden Sides With Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo in Backing Coup Effort in Venezuela

Despite progressive critics and anti-war voices speaking forcefully against the Trump administration's overt backing of the attempted coup d'état by rightwing opposition forces in Venezuela on Tuesday, 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden aligned himself with the White House by throwing his support behind the overthrow effort.

"The violence in Venezuela today against peaceful protesters is criminal," Biden tweeted on Tuesday. "Maduro's regime is responsible for incredible suffering. The U.S. must stand with the National Assembly & Guaidó in their efforts to restore democracy through legitimate, internationally monitored elections."

But what Biden embraced as an effort to "restore democracy," many foreign policy experts—ones not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people like national security advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Donald Trump—called something else entirely: a violent effort by Venezuela's rightwing elites, led by Juan Guaidó, to overthrow the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. ...

Biden wasn't alone among top Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others also expressed support for the military uprising launched by Guaidó.

Democratic presidential "favorite" @JoeBiden who enthusiastically cheerled Iraq War now backing @realDonaldTrump's coup in Venezuela https://t.co/zyFIGazeuw

— venezuelanalysis.com (@venanalysis) April 30, 2019

For critics, however, one of the salient dynamics about Biden's announced support for the U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela in 2019 is what it suggests the former vice president has learned—or rather has not learned—about U.S. intervention (aka "meddling") in the affairs of foreign nations since his support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It’s Looking Like Another Failed Coup Attempt by the US and Its Puppet Guaidó in Venezuela

The imperialist neocons infesting the Trump administration, and the orange-faced joke of a president himself, may think they can invent their own reality through propaganda, as Bush’s “brain” Karl Rove used to claim about the Bush/Cheney administration, but when it comes to Latin America, they fail to realize how deeply the people of that continent loath and resent the US and its colonial-era Monroe Doctrine. ...

By the time Guaidó appeared on a bridge in Caracas flanked by some allegedly defecting troops and by the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, whom defecting Venezuelan soldiers had reportedly released from house arrest where he had been sentenced for fomenting violence, Guaidó’s attempt to create a coup by televising a staged one was already collapsing around him. In short order, troops and officers who had supported Guaidó began entering foreign embassies like Brazil’s and Chile’s and Spain’s, seeking asylum, while others claimed they had been tricked into going to Guaido’s “coup event” and fled when they realized what they were being made a part of. Opposition leader Lopez, meanwhile, recognizing that the attempt to manufacture a coup through faked reporting of one underway had failed, quickly slipped away from Guaido’s side and, calling on his family to meet him, sought asylum in the Chilean embassy (he later moved with them to the nicer and perhaps safer quarters of the Spanish embassy). ...

As in 2002, the US corporate media have soiled themselves trumpeting the popularity of a coup that is actually widely loathed by the Venezuelan people. The US media also shamelessly pedaled fake news put out by Washington and warmongers like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and VP Mike Pence, suggesting that Russia had to prevent Maduro from fleeing to Cuba, that the Venezuelan military was abandoning Maduro, and that the coup was victorious. It is a shameful spectacle of corporate propaganda and government at work, hand-in-hand. (By Wednesday afternoon, the Washington Post at least, a Guaidó cheerleader, was backpedaling, with an  article asking “Did Trump Fumble an uprising in Venezuela,” admitting the coup appeared to have failed, but implying that Washington should have offered more support — including perhaps military support, rather than noting that the whole thing was a pathetic failure with almost no soldiers defecting to back the coup.)

How this will all play out at this point is too early to tell. Will Guaidó end up being arrested and tried for treason for this latest move on his part? Will he be plucked to safety and spirited away to the US by some daring Navy Seal rescue? Will he hide out in the Brazilian or Colombian embassy? It’s hard to say, but after this disaster, his utility to his Washington handlers is zero, so he’ll likely be on his own at this point. If he’s lucky he won’t end up being denied asylum in the US by the Trump Immigration Office as just another Latin American moocher (which in his case would be a uniquely accurate characterization).

Kudos to the people of Venezuela for standing up for their sovereignty.

Worth a full read, an excellent survey of the lame-assed U.S. media coverage of the Empire's most recent coup attempt in Venezuela.

Venezuela: It’s Only a Coup if the US Government Says So

It’s Groundhog Day again in Venezuela, as the local conservative opposition has launched another attempt to oust President Nicolás Maduro from power. Surrounded by a few hardcore supporters, Washington-backed self-appointed president Juan Guaidó on April 30 called on the military to rise up and overthrow the democratically elected Maduro. Guaidó, a man who has never even stood for president, attempted the same thing in January, and the opposition has attempted to remove Maduro, and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, on many occasions, including in 2017, 2014, 2013, 2002 and 2001.

Despite bearing the clear hallmarks of a coup—defined as “the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group”—US media have overwhelmingly supported it, as they have past attempts (FAIR.org, 1/25/19, 5/16/18, 4/18/02). CNN (4/30/19) told the United States that it must “root for the people” of Venezuela, before explicitly stating, “Rooting for the Venezuelan people means hoping that Maduro will step down”—thus underlining the phenomenon noted by FAIR (1/31/19) that to corporate media, “the people” of Venezuela are whoever agrees with the US government. CNN (4/30/19) also used images of Guaidó’s paramilitaries (identifiable by their blue armbands) to illustrate a report claiming the forces of “socialist dictator” Maduro were “mowing down citizens in the streets.”

Framing how readers see an issue is an incredibly powerful tool of persuasion. It’s not carpet bombing, it’s surgical strikes. And people are more likely to accept advanced interrogation techniques than they are torture. In their efforts to refrain from using the negative—but accurate—term “coup” to describe events they support, the media have sometimes had to go to bizarre, roundabout and garbled lengths to dance around it. The Washington Post (4/30/19) used the clunky phrase “opposition-led military-backed challenge.”  The Post (4/30/19) also published an article in support of Guaidó headlined “Is What’s Happening in Venezuela an Attempted Coup? First, Define ‘Coup,” arguing that there were such things as “noble” and “democratic coups.”

Other outlets also refused to use the most logical word to describe events. CBS (4/30/19), Reuters (5/1/19) and CNN (5/1/19) chose the word “uprising,” NPR (4/30/19) and the New York Times (4/30/19) “protest,” and Yahoo! News went with the phrase “high-risk gamble” (5/1/19). Meanwhile, the Miami Herald (4/30/19) insisted that the “military rebellion” in Venezuela “can be called many things. But don’t call it a ‘coup attempt.’” Even international organizations like the BBC (5/1/19), the Guardian (5/1/19) and Al-Jazeera (5/1/19) only used the word “coup” in quotations, characterizing it as an accusation attributed to government officials media have been demonizing for years (Extra!, 11–12/05; FAIR.org, 5/28/18, 4/11/19). This despite the fact that Al-Jazeera (4/30/19) reported on the day of the coup that Erik Prince, CEO of the private military contractor Blackwater, tried to persuade Donald Trump to let him send 5,000 mercenaries to Venezuela to “remove” Maduro.

The reasons for the reluctance of the media to use the word “coup” can be found in official announcements from the government. With all the credibility of an armed man in a mask repeatedly shouting “this is not technically a bank robbery,” national security advisor John Bolton told reporters on April 30, “This is clearly not a coup,” but an effort by ”the Venezuelan people” to “regain their freedom,” which the US “fully supports.” Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that what we are seeing in Venezuela “is the will of the people to peacefully change the course of their country from one of despair to one of freedom and democracy.”

Venezuelan Coup Fails & So Does CNN

Top general: US military focused on collecting intelligence in Venezuela

The U.S. military is focused on gathering intelligence in Venezuela, the military’s top general said Wednesday, with the crisis in the country appearing to reach a critical stage. “The situation is a little bit unclear today from our perspective between Maduro and Guaidó,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford told the House Appropriations Committee defense subpanel. ...

“We’re doing what we can now to collect intelligence and make sure we have good visibility on what’s happening down in Venezuela and also be prepared to support the president should he require more from the U.S. military," Dunford added. ...

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is canceling a planned trip to Europe in order to "more effectively coordinate” with the National Security Council and State Department on Venezuela, as well as issues on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Shanahan also told the House Appropriations subcommittee that he, Dunford, Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet later Thursday to discuss Venezuela. “When people say all options are on the table, they literally are,” Shanahan said. "We've done exhaustive planning. There's not a situation or scenario that we don't have a contingency for."

Pentagon: American Public Doesn't Need to Know How Much Territory We've Lost in Afghanistan

The Pentagon will no longer inform the American public who has greater control of Afghan districts—the Afghan government or insurgents—the latest sign that the military is trying to obfuscate the failure of its 18-year war in Afghanistan. The revelation comes from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's (SIGAR) quarterly report (pdf). ...

John Sopko, the special inspector general, told reporters last week that he thought the decision by the Pentagon doesn't make sense:

The Afghan people know which districts are controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban obviously know which districts they control. Our military knows it. Everybody in Afghanistan knows it. The only people who don't know what's going on are the people who are paying for all of this, and that's the American taxpayer.

The new data on the matter would likely not have been anything for the Pentagon to brag about. ...

"What we are finding is now almost every metric for success or failure is now classified or non-existent," said Sopko.

Wikileaks founder Assange says does not consent to extradition US

Julian Assange Beams in from Prison for his First Extradition Hearing

As activists and journalists converged on a London court for a preliminary hearing in Julian Assange’s case Thursday, the WikiLeaks co-founder beamed in through a video stream from his new home: Belmarsh Prison.

Assange has been held at the high-security prison since April 11, when British authorities hauled him out of the Ecuadorian Embassy where he’d been in asylum for nearly seven years from an extradition request by Sweden for sexual assault charges. A judge’s decision Wednesday to hand Assange 50 weeks’ jail time for skipping bail in that case assured him more time at the facility as he battles an extradition request by the United States.

Thursday’s hearing was brief, with Assange confirming via video that he did not wish to surrender to face charges that he aided former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s attempted 2010 hack of a Pentagon computer system.

"I do not, not for doing journalism that has protected many people and won many awards," he said, according to USA Today.

The 47-year-old Australian will instead remain at Belmarsh awaiting additional hearings on May 30, June 12, and beyond. The London prison, which has the capacity to hold up to 900 inmates, rose to international prominence for housing terror suspects without formal charges.

Corbyn condemns May's defiance of Chagos Islands ruling

Jeremy Corbyn has written to the prime minister condemning her decision to defy a ruling of the UN’s principal court which concluded that Britain should hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

In a letter to Theresa May, the Labour leader has accused her of disregarding international law and the right of exiled islanders to return to their homeland. His unusual intervention in a highly sensitive case highlights the dangers of Britain’s diplomatic isolation at the UN.

Earlier this year, the international court of justice (ICJ) at The Hague declared the UK’s continued occupation of the Indian Ocean archipelago was illegal.

The UK has retained possession of the Chagos archipelago since Mauritius gained its independence in 1968. The Foreign Office refers to it as British Indian Ocean Territory or BIOT. About 1,500 native islanders were deported so the largest island, Diego Garcia, could be leased to the US as an airbase in 1971. The islanders have never been allowed to return home.

Cabinet ministers split over customs union Brexit deal with Labour

Cabinet ministers are bitterly divided over whether Brexit talks with Labour should broach the possibility of a customs union, with several sceptical that such a deal could even command a majority in parliament or survive hostile backbench amendments.

A senior cabinet minister suggested a deal involving a customs union could be backed by as few as 90 Tory MPs and would mean a slew of resignations from the government payroll. It is also likely to be opposed by the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties, as well as dozens of Labour MPs who would only back a deal if it included a confirmatory referendum. ...

Theresa May told the liaison committee on Wednesday that she had an “open mind” on a deal to be done with Labour. “There are differences on issues but on many of the key areas – particularly on the withdrawal agreement – there is common ground,” she said. ... Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman was positive about the talks, describing them as “serious and constructive” and expressing optimism they could reach a conclusion.

Worth a full read if you are interested in how the vampire squids massed on Wall Street are warming the public up to accept a drilling from their blood-funnels again.

Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner Wrap Themselves in the Heroic Garb of Firefighters to Lobby for Another Wall Street Bailout

Could Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner have possibly picked a more self-serving title for their latest revisionist history of their secret $29 trillion bailout of the most insidiously corrupt industry in America? Their new book is titled Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons. Every municipal and volunteer firefighter in America should come together to file a class action lawsuit against the three for invoking an honorable profession in their dishonorable gambit to set Wall Street up for another obscene heads-we-win, tails-you-lose bailout.

What the shameless trio – former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke; former Treasury Secretary under G.W. Bush and Ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs Hank Paulson; and former New York Fed President and Treasury Secretary under Obama, Tim Geithner – are up to is to provide cover for the Wall Street lobbyists who are trying to bully Congress into repealing the sections of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that prevent the Fed from throwing another $29 trillion at Wall Street in the next crisis while accepting toxic waste as collateral.

Virginia judge rules confederate statues are war monuments and can't be removed

A Virginia judge has ruled that the Confederate statues in Charlottesville are protected by state law because they are war monuments – and will not be taken down while the case is ongoing.

The statues were at the center of shocking violence in the summer of 2017 as neo-Nazis and other white nationalists, marching in support of them staying put in a park in the college town, clashed with anti-rightwing demonstrators in an outbreak that left many injured and one young demonstrator dead.

The ruling on Wednesday by Judge Richard Moore came after a lawsuit was filed against city council members by the Monument Fund, an organization based in Charlottesville that campaigns to preserve such statues, which could yet go to trial. The suit was filed back in March 2017, alleging that the city council violated state laws when they voted to remove the statues of Confederate generals Robert Lee, and later, the Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from Charlottesville.

Moore cited how statues of Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson depict the men in military uniforms and on horses associated with them during the civil war. Virginia law makes it illegal for local municipalities to remove war monuments without permission from the state.

Guatemalan boy detained by US border agency dies at Texas hospital

A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy has died in a Texas hospital after he was detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), becoming the third migrant child to die in US government custody in the past five months.

The boy, who has not been named, died on Tuesday at a Texas children’s hospital in the McAllen area after several days in intensive care. The cause of death has not been released.

It was unclear where and when the boy was detained, but on the evening of 20 April, he was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to a facility run by Southwest Key – a not-for-profit organization which houses up to 5,000 migrant children in more than 20 shelters – apparently in good health.

He was taken to an emergency room the following morning with symptoms including fever, chills and a headache, but discharged back to the shelter later that day. The youngster’s health did not improve, according to a statement by Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and he was returned to the emergency room by ambulance on 22 April. From there, the sick boy was admitted to an intensive care unit, where he died just over a week later.

The Trump administration is going to DNA-test families at the border

The Department of Homeland Security is rolling out a DNA testing program at the border designed to root out immigrants they think may be posing as families, a phenomenon data suggests occurs in only 1% of cases.

The pilot program will begin next week and run for two to three days at two border locations, agency officials told CNN and BuzzFeed News. Immigrants will be subjected to a cheek swab, the results of which will be available in an average of 90 minutes. Information from the tests will not be kept or shared by federal agencies, an Immigration and Customs official told CNN.

"This is part of a larger investigative process. This is not screenings, this is not just random application of this. This is a pilot designed to assess the usefulness of this technology in an investigative process," ICE acting Deputy Director Derek Benner told CNN. Both ICE and Customs and Border Protection will be involved in the pilot.

College Democrats Revolt Against DCCC

Fuck MicroSloth:

Microsoft joins group seeking to kill off historic climate change lawsuits

Microsoft has joined a conservative-led group that demands fossil fuel companies be granted legal immunity from attempts to claw back damages from the climate change they helped cause. The stated goals of the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) include a $40-a-ton fee on carbon dioxide emissions in return for the gutting of current climate change regulations and “protecting companies from federal and state tort liability for historic emissions”.

Microsoft has become the first technology company to join the CLC, which includes oil giants BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips among its founding members. Handing legal immunity to these oil companies would squash a cavalcade of recent climate lawsuits launched by cities and counties across the US, including one by King county, Washington, where Microsoft is based.

“When Microsoft is underwater it should ask itself if this is a good deal,” said Matthew Pawa, a lawyer representing King county, which includes Seattle, in its lawsuit against five major oil companies. Pawa also represents New York City in its suing of the same five firms – BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell. “Microsoft and other tech companies have been looking for a whizz-bang technocratic solution to climate change and they think this is it,” he said. “But they don’t know what they are doing. This is a raw deal that would stick taxpayers with the bill for decades of carbon pollution. It’s much like the NRA trying to get Congress to give them a free pass from our system of legal justice.”

Facing rising costs from sea level rise, storms and heatwaves, a growing band of elected officials from across the US have turned to the courts to force fossil fuel producers to pay compensation to ameliorate the escalating damages. Many of these claims point out that firms like Exxon privately knew of the consequences of climate change for at least 40 years, long before it was a public issue, only to deny the problem and block meaningful action to address it.

This raft of legal action – waged by places including Rhode Island, San Francisco and Baltimore – would be nullified under the CLC plan, which was drawn up by veteran Republicans James Baker and George Shultz, both former secretaries of state, and backed by former Federal Reserve chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen.

BREAKING - UK MPs pass a motion to declare an environment & climate emergency. This has seen them start to #TellTheTruth about the climate & ecological crisis. They must now halt biodiversity loss, go net #ZeroCarbon2025 & create a #CitizensAssembly.pic.twitter.com/qXR7vEJwpG

— Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) May 1, 2019

George Monbiot on U.K. Climate Emergency & the Need for Rebellion to Prevent Ecological Apocalypse

'Nice But Extremely Insufficient': Critics Warn Bill to Keep US in Paris Agreement No Solution to Climate Emergency

Progressives are urging federal lawmakers to pursue a "real solution" to the climate crisis while House Democrats gear up for a vote this week on a bill to block President Donald Trump from ditching the Paris climate agreement.

"This action from the House is better than no action at all, but not much better," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement Wednesday. "Given all that's known about the severity of the climate crisis we face, and the urgent, aggressive action required to stem it, this legislation is merely symbolic."

The legislation in question, the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), was introduced in late March by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).

In June of 2017, Trump vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement—but he can't officially take action until November of next year. H.R. 9 would prevent the president from bailing on the accord—which is backed by every other country on the planet—and require his administration to develop a public plan detailing how the United States "will achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025."

Although a primary priority of the bill is keeping the country signed on to the agreement that coordinates global efforts to combat the climate crisis, E&E News reported Wednesday that "during a closed-door caucus meeting yesterday ahead of floor action today on H.R. 9, leaders told the rank and file to focus on the economic benefits of climate action and not 'some international standards.'"

Because 'The House Is on Fire,' Naomi Klein Takes Centrism-Obsessed Media to Task for Failed Climate Coverage

News coverage of the climate crisis can no longer rely on the false pretense of objectivity, writer and activist Naomi Klein said Tuesday.

"There is a confirmation bias among the largest chunk of journalists out there who really pride themselves on being centrists," Klein said Tuesday during a town hall at the Columbia Journalism School in New York. "There's an absolute fetish for centrism, for seriousness defined by splitting the difference—and not getting too excited about anything"

The mainstream media is "profoundly distrustful of people who are saying 'actually, the house is on fire,'" Klein said, citing the impulse among many journalists to remain objective and hear both sides.

"But guess what," said Klein. "The house is on fire."

The journalism school's publication, The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), is joining with The Nation to launch an initiative, #CoveringClimateNow, to change coverage of the climate crisis.

Lifetime of drinking California water could raise cancer risk, study finds

Drinking California tap water over the course of a lifetime could increase the risk of cancer, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Researchers with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy non-profit, studied the combined health impacts of contaminants found in 2,737 community water systems throughout California and calculated that prolonged consumption of the contaminated water could cause almost 15,500 new cases of cancer.

The study found traces of arsenic, hexavalent chromium, and disinfection byproducts in the water systems. All of these contaminants are regulated federally and on a state level. Trace amounts of some are legally allowed in the water. But the study found that a majority of the cancer risk was due to the cumulative effect of these legally allowed amounts. “A large majority of the cancer risk, about 85% of it, is due to the combination of contaminants that are present at legal limits,” explained Tasha Stoiber, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist and the lead author of the report.

“We have found that the majority of that risk was below the federal legal standard,” she told the Guardian. “These cumulative risks are based on health-based standards, not legally enforceable levels. So although the drinking water may get a passing grade, there still may be some health risks associated with it.”

Inside the Democrats’ secret plan to make the $2 trillion infrastructure bill green

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer seemed giddy after President Trump told a room full of Democrats and his senior advisers Tuesday that he would back as much as $2 trillion in spending to rebuild the nation’s dilapidated roads, bridges, rail systems, and broadband infrastructure. But aside from finding the money, there’s another big roadblock ahead: Democrats are determined that any grand plan to replace America’s aging infrastructure should also break the nation’s addiction to carbon. ...

“Green energy is very important to members of our party,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, answering a question from VICE News at the Capitol after the Tuesday meeting at the White House. “We’re going to push for green.” Right now it’s all just politics, because there is no infrastructure bill. There's just a verbal commitment from the president, made in private, with none of his party members — who are essential to passing a deal — in the room. But it’s already looking like climate initiatives will be the second-biggest stick in the spokes of this non-deal-deal threatening the passage of anything before 2020.

Republicans are already signaling that green initiatives have no place in an infrastructure bill, and to put them there would be playing politics with the nation’s infrastructure. “Let’s not make this a green, red or blue argument. Let’s make this about doing the right thing for the American people,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana) told VICE News at the Capitol. “I hope infrastructure doesn’t become some kind of hyper-politicized debate.” ...

On the Democratic side, there will be no infrastructure bill out of the House that doesn’t address climate. “Without a clean-energy emphasis, it’s a nonstarter,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). Democrats are also skeptical that Trump may be just blowing smoke on infrastructure, particularly since the president burned Pelosi and Schumer after he said he’d exchange wall funding for a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and instead partly shut down the government for more than a month. That’s why, like many other progressives, Schatz isn’t buying Trump’s backroom promises this time around.

More dolphins are washing up dead on France’s shores. Fishermen are getting the blame.

More than 1,200 dolphins and porpoises have washed up dead on France’s shores since January — and the crisis is sparking tension between fishermen and environmental activists.

In 2017, 846 small cetaceans, of which 90 percent were dolphins, were found on French beaches, according to scientists at the Pelagis Observatory in La Rochelle. The following year, that number declined to fewer than 700. But now the dolphin death count is shooting back up again, already outpacing previous years.

The way these dolphins die is well understood. As fishermen attempt to catch fish, dolphins get caught in their equipment. Unable to surface for air, the mammals die of asphyxiation. After hauling them onto their boats, fishermen usually end up releasing the bodies into the water, whereupon a portion of the carcasses wash upon on beaches. ...

There’s a difference between knowing how these animals are dying and knowing why they are. So far, scientists don’t know why the number of dolphin deaths have risen so dramatically, and they have yet to identify the types of boats or fishing equipment that are most prone to catching dolphins. The issue stems partly from the fact that despite European laws protecting dolphins, there are no penalties for fishermen who catch dolphins. So fishermen have little incentive to minimize the number of dolphins they catch or even keep track of them. And without those numbers, coming up with solutions is especially hard.

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