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"The worst form of injustice is pretended justice."

-- Plato

News and Opinion

Australian MPs urge US ambassador to end extradition bid

A cross-party delegation of Australian parliamentarians pressed for an end to the pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, at a meeting with the US ambassador, Caroline Kennedy, in Canberra on Tuesday morning.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, one of the co-chairs of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group, said they were “grateful for this opportunity” to meet with Kennedy to raise “the widespread concern in Australia about the ongoing attempts by the US to extradite Mr Assange to America”.

“In particular we impressed upon the ambassador the broad concern in the Australian parliament for Mr Assange, which was echoed clearly by both the prime minister and opposition leader last week when they said this matter had gone on long enough.”

Wilkie was joined at the meeting by the other co-chairs of the group – Josh Wilson (Labor), Bridget Archer (Liberal) and David Shoebridge (Greens) – along with the Labor MP Julian Hill. Hill said the group “got a fair hearing and have again made clear that enough is enough and this needs a political resolution led by the United States”.

“We thank the ambassador for engaging directly, so she can convey the strength of the views right across the Australian parliament to Washington DC,” Hill said.

Ukraine trapped in narratives as Russian military system gears up

American imperialism demands new bloodbath in Ukraine

As the death toll surges in the Ukraine war, the United States is demanding a renewed military offensive by Kiev. The American ruling class is determined to fight to the last Ukrainian. To date, the NATO powers have sent over $150 billion in weapons and other aid to Ukraine, equal to three-quarters of Ukraine’s pre-war GDP. After earlier declaring they would not provide offensive equipment, the NATO powers have flooded the country with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, as well as the most advanced missile systems in NATO’s arsenal.

Now, the imperialist powers are demanding that this weaponry be put to use in the hands of newly conscripted Ukrainian troops, many of them grabbed off the street, to be thrown at heavily fortified Russian positions. The US and NATO have precluded any negotiated settlement of the war, declaring that negotiation can only take place once their war aims are achieved. ... The Zelensky government is taking increasingly repressive measures as it dragoons tens of thousands of young men to their deaths. All anti-NATO political parties are banned in Ukraine, and any dissent from Kiev’s pro-war line is sharply punished. These actions have been covered up by the US media, which lyingly proclaims that the Zelensky government is fighting for “democracy.”

Reports published Sunday in the New York Times and Washington Post testify to the extent to which Washington is pressuring its client state in Kiev to launch the planned offensive. “Ukraine is feeling immense short-term pressures from its Western backers, as the United States and its allies treat the counteroffensive as a critical test of whether the weapons, training and ammunition they have rushed to the country in recent months can translate into significant gains,” declared the Times. Commenting on the plans for the offensive, the Post wrote, “The buildup ahead of the assault—the details of which remain secret—has left Ukrainian officials grappling with a difficult question: What outcome will be enough to impress the West, especially Washington?”

Here, the relationship of forces driving the offensive is stated plainly. “Washington,” that is, American imperialism, is directing the offensive. It is demanding an adequate return on its investment. How many Ukrainian youth will die to “impress the West, especially Washington”? The Biden administration, with its approval ratings plummeting, and with the war increasingly unpopular, is seeking to use what it can call a “breakthrough” in the Ukraine war to mobilize its political base in the affluent upper-middle class ahead of the upcoming presidential election. This social layer has been whipped into a pro-war frenzy, fueled by hysterical anti-Russian hatred. But having whipped up this militaristic hysteria, what will be the response of the United States to a potential failure of the offensive?

The Missiles at the Heart of the Ukraine War

This Is How To Start A War With Russia!

New Orwellian 'DISINFORMATION' Pentagon Agency

Chile: major blow to president as far right triumphs in key constitution vote

Chile’s far right has won an emphatic victory in a vote to select the committee that will rewrite its dictatorship-era constitution, after José Antonio Kast’s Republican party secured 22 of its 50 seats in a major blow to the progressive president Gabriel Boric.

Boric beat Kast, an ultra-conservative lawyer often compared to Brazil’s former leader Jair Bolsonaro, in the 2021 presidential election. But on Sunday night it was Kast who was celebrating after 35% of voters backed Republicanos, the extreme-right party he founded in 2019.

“This is an earthquake in Chilean politics,” the Chilean journalist Rocío Montes wrote in El País, noting how Chile’s left had secured only 17 places on the council, meaning it would be unable to veto rightwing changes. Another rightwing coalition won 11 seats.

Moves to rewrite Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution began in 2020, when nearly 80% of citizens voted to revamp the charter following huge street protests and unrest the previous year. However, a progressive new draft was rejected by a clear majority last September, forcing politicians to return to the drawing board and for a new constitutional council to be elected.

Political scientist Robert Funk said Sunday’s results meant the next draft of Chile’s constitution was likely to be more rightwing. ... If that happened, it was possible Chile’s left would boycott or actively campaign against the new draft and that voters might again reject it, as they did last year. “That’s what worries me more than anything else because that just means a continuation of uncertainty and tension and polarization,” Funk said.

Israel Kills 13, Including Women & Children, in Airstrikes Targeting Militant Leaders in Gaza

Should US get rid of debt ceiling altogether? Lawmakers consider it as crisis looms

In just a few weeks, the US may be unable to pay its bills. A divided Congress has still not reached an agreement on raising the debt ceiling, and time is running out to avoid a default. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned that the government may be unable to cover its financial obligations as early as 1 June. And economists predict that a federal default would cause unemployment and interest rates to rise as the country’s GDP shrinks, wreaking havoc on Americans’ finances.

As Congress clashes, some lawmakers and economists have suggested a novel way to avoid future disputes over the debt ceiling: get rid of it entirely. Critics argue that the debt ceiling, created by Congress in 1917, has long since outlived its usefulness and has instead become a political weapon that could ultimately sink the US economy.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chair of the Senate budget committee, recently reintroduced a bill that would eliminate what he derides as “the bear trap in the bedroom that is the debt ceiling”. ... Economists echoed Whitehouse’s point at a Senate budget committee hearing on Thursday, suggesting that Congress should find a new way to handle the government’s borrowing limit.

Speaking to the Guardian after the hearing, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, described the debt limit as “totally anachronistic”. Although the debt ceiling might have previously spurred bipartisan negotiations over government spending levels and priorities, the threat of default was much too high in the US’s current era of hyper-polarized politics, he argued. “It’s doing more harm than good,” Zandi said. “Twenty-five years ago, the debt limit may have resulted in some policy changes. I don’t think that’s the case any longer. It’s doing real damage, and we just need to get rid of it.”

Louisiana man wrongly convicted of rape released after 29 years in prison

A Louisiana man who served 29 years for a crime he did not commit has been released from prison after it was revealed in court that the victim had told the prosecutors in New Orleans for over two decades that the man was innocent, but she was repeatedly ignored.

Patrick Brown, 49, was sentenced to life without parole in December 1994 after he was accused of raping his six-year-old stepdaughter. But for over 20 years, the victim, named in court as LB, had told authorities that her stepfather was innocent and implicated another family member, named as LW, who had bragged about it around the time of the crime, according to filings and prosecutors notes from the time. ...

Over 29 years since the original trial, LB appeared in the same courtroom and sobbed as she spoke of how, since May 2002 when she was 14 years old, she had made repeated attempts to tell the court and the district attorney’s office that her stepfather had been wrongfully accused.

She said: “I’ve written over 100 letters … mailed them to the DA’s office. I’ve shown up unannounced to talk to someone and been turned around.” ...

Orleans parish, the county which covers most of New Orleans, has the highest per-capita rate of wrongful convictions in the United States. The jurisdiction has seen a line of so-called “tough on crime” prosecutors over the decades, associated with sustained allegations of racial bias and systemic misconduct.

Jury finds Trump sexually abused, defamed writer E. Jean Carroll

44 Lawmakers 'Sound the Alarm' on Threat of LNG Expansion

More than 40 U.S. lawmakers signed a letter Monday to "sound the alarm" on the recent expansion of liquefied natural gas infrastructure and capacity and call on the Biden administration to give "greater scrutiny" to the LNG supply chain from wellhead to shipping overseas.

The legislators letter to Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Brenda Mallory comes amidst an uptick in LNG exports from the U.S. to Europe in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Climate campaigners have warned that fossil fuel companies have used the war and subsequent energy crisis as an excuse to lock in more LNG infrastructure that could push the 1.5°C temperature goal out of reach and hasten more extreme climate impacts.

"Our ability to combat the worst impacts of the climate crisis depends, to a significant degree, on whether the United States approves proposed LNG pipeline and export terminal projects on top of the already-substantial LNG infrastructure," the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

The CEQ is currently finalizing its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Guidance on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Climate Change, which would advise federal agencies on how to assess proposed infrastructure projects' contribution to the climate crisis, The Washington Post explained. The administration of former President Donald Trump issued a rollback in 2020 mandating that federal agencies considering projects under NEPA should not take their "indirect" climate impacts into account.

While the Biden administration has already reversed this rule, it is now working on more detailed instructions. The lawmakers want to make sure these updated instructions consider LNG's true impact both on the climate and on frontline communities.

Frogs in Puerto Rico croak at a higher pitch due to global heating

Frogs in Puerto Rico are croaking at a higher pitch due to global heating, scientists have found. The frogs appear to be decreasing in size at warmer temperatures, which causes their croaks to become high pitched. If the trends continue, the heat could become too much for the sensitive amphibians to survive successfully, researchers have said. ...

Peter Narins of the University of California, Los Angeles, has been studying their croaks for 23 years. While recording the sounds along the slopes of El Yunque mountain in Puerto Rico, he and his team found that the calls changed depending on the altitude of the frogs.

Amphibians are very sensitive to changes in temperature, and the higher on the mountains they were, the cooler it was. The frogs on the mountain peaks, therefore, were found to be larger than ones sitting in warm valleys, and this meant their call was different. ...

Two decades after first recording their sound, Nairns returned to the mountains with a colleague, Sebastiaan Meenderink. The pair found that every frog call, no matter where it was on the mountain, had become higher pitched.

“In order to record a call with certain characteristics we had to move to a slightly higher altitude,” said Meenderink. “It was as if all the animals had moved up the mountain.” The scientists are concerned that the frogs will keep crawling up the mountain to escape higher temperatures at the bottom, but they will eventually run out of room.

Vietnam records highest ever temperature of 44.1C

Vietnam has reported a record-high temperature of 44.1C (111.38F), as weather experts and authorities told the population to remain indoors during the hottest parts of the day.

Scientists have said global warming is aggravating adverse weather. Neighbouring countries registered record temperatures during a heatwave in Asia in April. ...

Vietnam’s weather varies from north to south, but the country as a whole is now entering its hottest summer months.

“This is a worrying record in the context of climate change and global warming,” Nguyen Ngoc Huy, a climate change expert, said from the capital, Hanoi. “I believe this record will be repeated many times. It confirms that extreme climate models are being proven to be true.”

Also of Interest

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

Havrylov Predicts ...

A Kingly Proposal: Letter From Julian Assange to King Charles III

Are the Best Years of My Country Behind Me?

Deposits at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo Shrank by $465 Billion Y-O-Y; More than Twice the Total of 4,000 Small Banks

Climate scientists first laughed at a ‘bizarre’ campaign against the Bureau of Meteorology – then came the harassment

TRUMP Endorses East Palestine Rail Safety Bill

Garbage “Fact Check” Of RFK Jr. Debunked!

FBI 'Run Hide Fight' Video On How To Survive A Mass Shooting

A Little Night Music

Guitar Crusher - The Monkey

Guitar Crusher - Hambone Blues

Guitar Crusher - Itch With Me

Guitar Crusher - I Can't Help It

Guitar Crusher - Why Oh Why

Guitar Crusher - I Once Loved You Baby

Guitar Crusher - I Got To Know

Guitar Crusher - Cuddle Up

Guitar Crusher - Weak For Your Love