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"To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult."

-- Isaac Asimov

News and Opinion

The U.S. is Exacerbating the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis by Outsourcing Its Yemen Policy

[A]id groups have seen their worst fears realized this week, as U.S.-backed forces organized by the United Arab Emirates launched an assault on the rebel-held port of Hodeidah — the entry point for 70 to 80 percent of the food, medicine, and aid supplies entering Yemen. ... The Intercept interviewed more than a dozen former White House and State Department officials, humanitarian leaders, and Yemen experts, many of whom characterized the offensive as a major failure by the U.S. to restrain its coalition partners, who are largely dependent on American weapons, intelligence, and logistical support. Those sources said the attack was a sign that the U.S. is allowing allies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to drive American policy decisions in Yemen.

“The UAE’s assault on Hodeidah is just another example of the Trump administration outsourcing U.S. policy in Yemen — and really the region writ large — to the Gulf states,” said Kate Kizer, policy director at the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Win Without War.

The Obama administration wholeheartedly backed the Saudi- and Emirati-led intervention and blockade, and provided the coalition with intelligence and tens of billions of dollars in weapons. Under Obama, the Pentagon also helped refuel coalition aircraft, continuing even after they bombed civilian targets like schools and hospitals.

But even as Obama administration officials watched a growing humanitarian crisis unfold in Yemen, the White House firmly opposed a coalition attack on Hodeidah. ... When the Saudis and Emiratis tried to get Obama administration support for an assault on Hodeidah, their arguments were reminiscent of promises they had made in 2015 before launching an attack on Aden, said Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as director of foreign disaster assistance under Obama. “Then, too, they argued that taking the town would put political pressure on the Houthis and enable the free flow of humanitarian aid through the port,” Konyndyk said. “Three years later, none of those promises have panned out.” Even if the assault on Hodeidah is a military success, he said, it will be devastating to Yemeni civilians. "... [I]f Hodeidah is cut off, there is no backup option. Food will run out, fuel to support water systems and aid operations will run out, and people will begin dying in large numbers.” ...

But the Trump administration has been less forceful in its opposition to the attack. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to various Emirati officials and cautioned against damaging the port infrastructure and hampering the flow of aid through Hodeidah, but did not pressure them to stop the offensive. ... “Rather than preventing the offensive, which the U.S. has done twice before, Pompeo releases a weak statement giving the UAE the green light to potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people with no political strategy or end goal,” said Kizer of Win Without War.

“Civilian Lives No Longer Matter”: Millions at Risk as Saudi-Led Coalition Attacks Yemeni Port City

Attacking Hodeidah is a deliberate act of cruelty by the Trump administration

The Trump administration is guilty of many acts of deliberate cruelty, such as taking away the children of immigrant parents at the US border. But just as the world was watching the lead up to the Trump-Kim Jong-un meeting in Singapore last Monday, the US may have done something even worse by quietly announcing a decision that threatens to kill millions by starvation or disease. The potential death sentence came in a short press statement by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, effectively giving a green light for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to launch an offensive in Yemen aimed at capturing Hodeidah on the Red Sea. ...

The eagerness of US officials to avoid accusations of complicity in the Hodeidah attack is a sign that they suspect the outcome may be calamitous. Pompeo was deliberately low-key in his three sentence statement about Hodeidah: “I have spoken with Emirati leaders and made clear our desire to address their security concerns while preserving the free flow of humanitarian aid and life-saving commercial imports.” Absent from this message for the first time was any call for Saudi Arabia and the UAE not to attack Hodeidah, a city with a population of 600,000 who are already hearing explosions in the distance. The US and UAE have been working hard on a smokescreen of misinformation about who is responsible for what is happening and why they are launching the offensive now. ... The US is denying that it has a direct role in the assault on Hodeidh, but it would not be happening without its assent. ...

A crude attempt by the UAE to pretend that it is not acting in concert with the US is to announce publicly that its request to the US for satellite imagery, reconnaissance and mine-sweeping had been turned down. Given that countries do not normally put such rejections up in lights, this is clearly another attempt to play down the US role. Why is the US doing this? Trump is closer to Saudi Arabia and UAE than any another US president and they have put a vast effort into cultivating him. The White House sees Yemen as one front in a broader campaign to put pressure on Iran. But the most important motive for escalation by Saudi Arabia, UAE and their foreign backers such as the US, Britain and France is that their war has not been going well for them.

The US is encouraging the UAE and its allies to take Hodeidah to break the deadlock, by tightening encirclement of the Houthis. But this is a long way from taking Sanaa and forcing the Houthis to surrender. What the Hodeidah operation may do is turn a humanitarian disaster, which the UN is already calling the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, into complete catastrophe.

Russian-Syrian Warnings of a Coming False-Flag Chemical Attack Have Ring of Truth

In recent days, speculation has swirled regarding whether another chemical-weapons attack will soon take place in Syria, as sources in both Syrian intelligence and the Russian military have warned that U.S.-backed forces in the U.S.-occupied region of Deir ez-Zor are planning to stage a chemical weapons attack to be blamed on the Syrian government.

Concern that such an event could soon take place has only grown since the U.S. government announcement this past Thursday that the U.S. would provide $6.6 million over the next year to fund the White Helmets, the controversial “humanitarian” group that has been accused of staging “false flag” chemical weapons attacks in the past. Notably, the White Helmets were largely responsible for staging the recent alleged chlorine gas attack in Eastern Ghouta, which led the United States, the United Kingdom and France to attack Syrian government targets. That same attack in Eastern Ghouta had been predicted weeks prior by the Russian military and Syrian government, who are warning once again that a similar event is likely to occur in coming weeks.

An additional and largely overlooked indication that another staged attack could soon take place has been the recent movements of U.S. military assets to the Syrian coast, particularly the deployment of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (HSTCSG). ...

While the U.S. has publicly claimed to be moving military assets as part of its campaign against ISIS, the fact that the U.S. has recently been accused of aiding ISIS in Syria — both as a pretext for its indefinite occupation of Syria’s Northeast and as a means of distracting and weakening the Syrian government that it has long sought to topple — casts doubt on the official narrative. Indeed, since the U.S. and its proxy force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), took control of northeastern Syria – nearly a third of the entire country – last November, neither group has done anything to target the ISIS pockets in the area until the recent June 4 announcement by Mattis that the U.S. and the SDF had “re-commenced” their offensive after a lengthy hiatus. The U.S. has yet to offer an explanation for the hiatus and reports have not yet surfaced regarding the specific actions of the new offensive to target ISIS.

However, during the “hiatus”, and despite its occupation of the territory, the U.S. has re-trained ISIS fighters and regrouped them into small militias which have been placed under the SDF banner. In addition, SDF defectors have asserted that the U.S. and SDF regularly collaborate with the terror group. More recently, the U.S. again threatened the Syrian government over the latter’s planned offensive aimed at removing militant groups from the Dara’a governorate in the south of Syria. On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. would issue a “decisive response” if the offensive goes forward as planned. Given that the militants in the Dara’a governorate are either ISIS, Al Qaeda or their affiliates, the U.S. threat against a Syrian military offensive targeting these groups has been largely interpreted as a U.S. move actually aimed at protecting ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Given that the U.S. has been documented to be retraining ISIS fighters and protecting ISIS in the portion of Syria it occupies and elsewhere in the country, the movement of U.S. military assets such as the Truman strike group suggests that the official claim that those assets will be used in “the fight against ISIS” may not be what it appears.

Progressives Denounce Democratic Senators for Trying to Keep Trump on a 'Permanent War Footing' in Korea

"Why, exactly, do we need a bill to ensure we have troops in South Korea at all times, even as the two Koreas seem closer to reconciliation than ever before?" That's the question progressives are posing in response to legislation from Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) that aims to scale back President Donald Trump's ability to withdraw American troops from the Korean Peninsula. 

anyway in bizarro upside down land pulling out troops from Korea––even with South Korean approval––is something liberals oppose in practice. Good news is one of them still likes it in theory! https://t.co/Bv2zJVVS8f

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) June 15, 2018

"This is just the most recent example of a cognitive dissonance which has allowed Democrats to acknowledge that Trump is a threat to the fabric of democracy while making sure he stays on a permanent war footing," Paul Blest argued in a Splinter piece that calls for an anti-war political party. "There's another way besides soulless neoconservatism, liberal 'pragmatism' that permits doing just a little imperialism, or just being a clueless dipshit who stumbles ass-backwards into something resembling diplomacy," he wrote.

The Democratic senators' proposed amendment to the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—which would prevent Trump from taking action "unless the U.S. Secretary of Defense certifies it is in our national security interest and would not significantly undermine the security of our allies in the region"—comes after Trump said, following the summit in Singapore, he ultimately wants to draw down troops in the region.

It is not the only pending provision to prevent the president from reducing troops in the region, but it goes the furthest. Any measure that passes the House or Senate will have to survive the conference committee that resolves any differences between the two chambers' bills. Murphy and Duckworth, a combat veteran, introduced their amendment on Wednesday, citing the president's remarks after the summit in Singapore and concerns that Trump may use U.S. troops as "bargaining chips" in ongoing diplomatic talks about North Korea denuclearization.

Kaliningrad photos appear to show Russia upgrading nuclear weapons bunker

Russia appears to have upgraded a nuclear weapons storage bunker in its Kaliningrad enclave, in the latest sign of Moscow’s increased emphasis on nuclear arms in its standoff with Nato, according to a new report. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has published satellite images which the group says show a storage facility in the Baltic coast enclave between Poland and Lithuania being deepened and then covered with a new concrete roof in recent months.

“It has all the fingerprints of typical Russian nuclear weapons storage sites,” said Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at FAS. “There is a heavy-duty external perimeter of multilayered fencing. The bunkers themselves have triple fencing around them as well. These are typical features from all the other nuclear weapons storage sites that we know about in Russia.” ...

“It’s a site we have been monitoring for quite some time and there have been and there have been some upgrades in the past but nothing as dramatic as this one. This is the first time we’ve seen one of the nuclear bunkers being excavated and apparently renovated,” Kristensen said. “These pictures don’t prove that there are nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad now, but they do show it is an active site,” Kristensen said. ...

Kristensen said it was unclear what kind of warheads the renovated bunker in Kaliningrad is meant to serve, but it is much closer to the naval base than the missile base, which is further inland.

Israel's Solution to Global Condemnation of War Crimes? Punish Anyone Who Documents Them

Israel's right-wing government has apparently decided that the best way to stop global criticism of its flagrant human rights violations against the Palestinian people is not to stop committing them, but to silence and punish anyone who attempts to document its crimes. The Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday approved legislation that would sentence anyone who attempts to film the actions of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in the occupied West Bank to as much as five years in prison.

As Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy noted shortly after the measure was approved, the bill in its current form would target not just the press, but also "human rights organizations and Palestinian residents, the last witnesses for the prosecution against the occupation."

"We will violate this law proudly. We have an obligation to violate this law, like any law with a black flag waving over it," Levy declared. "We will not stop documenting. We will not stop photographing. We will not stop writing—with all our might. Human rights organizations will do the same too and like them, we hope, Palestinian eyewitnesses, who will of course be punished more than anyone."

While some changes to the specific language of the bill are expected after it was deemed constitutionally "problematic" by Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, advocacy groups said it is alarming that such an extreme measure has garnered significant support amoung Israeli lawmakers. "If the government finds the occupation too embarrassing to even be visibly documented, it should work to bring it to an end—not go after photographers," Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, said in a statement.

Colombia election: Is the peace deal with the FARC in trouble?

Colombia’s new right-wing president could destroy the fragile peace process

A day after Colombians elected the populist conservative Ivan Duque as their president, there are already concerns he'll disrupt the fragile peace process that ended 52 years of war with leftist rebels. Duque, a 41-year-old former senator from the right-wing Democratic Center party, won 54 percent of the vote in a second-round presidential runoff Sunday, defeating former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, who mustered about 42 percent.

Duque ran with the support of his longtime mentor Alvaro Uribe, an influential former president who led a hard-line military approach toward the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) while in power from 2002-2010. In 2016, Colombia signed a contentious peace agreement with FARC, formally bringing an end to more than five decades of conflict that left 220,000 dead and 7 million displaced. But the new president says he wants to rewrite the terms of the deal ­– a stance that analysts are concerned could drive some former militants to take up arms again.

Arthur Dhont, a senior analyst at IHS Markit, said Duque would be constrained in how much he could tamper with the terms of the peace agreement, both by his likely coalition partners, who backed the deal, and by a court ruling that ruled that its terms must be respected by subsequent administrations.

But he would still have wiggle room – and popular support – for pushing for a more hardline approach toward the estimated 7,000 former militants, which could nudge a minority back toward militancy. Dhont said an estimated 1,000-1,400 rebels were already outside the peace process, and growing numbers had been abandoning demobilization camps that were at the heart of rehabilitation efforts.

With Spotlight on Migrant Families Separated at the Border, Will Democrats Push to Abolish ICE?

2,000 kids were separated from their parents at the border in just 6 weeks

About 2,000 children have been separated from their parents at the border in one six-week span, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Associated Press first obtained the figure, which the Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a call on Friday, according to various media outlets. In April, the Trump administration mandated that every adult caught crossing the border illegally would be criminally prosecuted as part of a new “zero tolerance" policy meant to deter border crossings. What that has meant, in practice, is that parents have been detained and families have been wrested apart.

Now, the scale of the problem is clear: Between April 19 and May 31 alone, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults, according to the AP. Because all adults are now being charged with a crime for crossing the border, they can’t be held with their children, who aren’t criminally charged for coming across with their parents.

'Monstrous': GOP Using 'Functionally Kidnapped' Immigrant Children as Hostages to Advance Anti-Immigrant Agenda

In a political maneuver one commentator described as a "monstrous" attempt to "use functionally kidnapped children as literal hostages" to advance an extremist anti-immigrant agenda, House Republicans are circulating a legislative plan that would limit the Trump administration's family separation policy while simultaneously ramming through cuts to legal immigration and adding billions to fund the president's "ridiculous" border wall.

While the GOP proposal was described by the Washington Post as a "solution," the plan would continue the mass and unjust detention of asylum-seeking families while keeping parents and children together in prison facilities—a far-cry from the humane alternatives proposed by rights groups and progressive lawmakers.

This just in from @davidbegnaud: Border Patrol has reached out to @cbsthismorning and said they are "very uncomfortable" with the use of the word cages. They say it's not inaccurate and added that they may be cages but people are not being treated like animals. pic.twitter.com/0zSDqJszgK

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 18, 2018

Desperate Asylum Seekers Are Being Turned Away by U.S. Border Agents Claiming There’s “No Room”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are systematically violating U.S. and international law by blocking immigrants at international ports of entry on the southern border from entering the country so they can claim asylum. Immigration civil rights advocates have been documenting this illegal behavior since late 2016, from Texas to California. It was sporadic then, and appears to have been based at least in part on CBP’s difficulties with handling large numbers of people.

Even so, the practice of turning immigrants away has suddenly become routine, creating chilling scenes of immigrants and children camped out near the bridges, exposed to sun, wind, and rain, amid make-do bedding, scattered clothing, and trash. A few times a day, the immigrants walk to the middle of the bridges and ask to be admitted to the port of entry building on the U.S. side so that they can request asylum. They are almost always turned back. ...

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, immigrants within the U.S. who tell immigration officials they’re afraid to return to their countries have the right to request asylum and to be immediately processed. They are not supposed to be turned back at bridges. They are not supposed to be banished to life on Mexican sidewalks, by public toilets, begging passersby for tacos to feed their children.

Yet this has been happening, not just at El Paso but also at ports of entry all along the southern border. Immigration rights advocates first noticed that asylum-seekers were being turned away at some bridges shortly after the election of Donald Trump, and the practice continued into 2017. A Southern California immigrant advocacy group, Al Otro Lado, responded by suing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for violations of U.S. immigration law and the Constitution. The suit is ongoing.

US - Sessions quotes Bible verse "Romans 13", used by defenders of slavery in the past

Trump is creating his American caliphate, and democracy has no defence

If there was a dictator’s playbook, the Donald Trump administration would now be on the “Instrumentalise Religion” chapter. Last week, in what sounded like the launch of a US caliphate, the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, reached for a biblical verse to defend his department’s policy of separating migrant parents from their children at the Mexican border, suggesting that God supports the government.

“I would cite you to the apostle Paul, and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing, and that protects the weak and protects the lawful.” When the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, was asked about Sessions’ statement and challenged to produce the passage in the Bible that says it is moral to separate families, she said: “I’m not aware of the attorney general’s comments or what he would be referencing, [but] I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is repeated throughout the Bible.” ...

After Charlottesville, where a woman lost her life after being run over by a man who held racist, pro-Nazi views, Trump said that “both sides” were to blame for the violence. It was a normalisation of white supremacy. When Trump embarked on a policy of attacking the press, it was an assault on accountability. Now his administration’s use of religion to justify its laws is another step in an alarming direction . The government is not only unaccountable: it is doing God’s will. There should be no focus on the brutality of law, only on obedience to the sovereign. Sessions, the grand mufti, had pronounced his fatwa. ...

The terror of the Trump doctrine is not in its innovation but in its imitation. The last few months are a testament to the fact that history is not past, that the passage of time does not necessarily imply progress. The words Sessions quoted were used in the 1840s and 50s to justify slavery. When abolitionists argued that slavery was cruel, and that separating families was a violation of religious ethics, they were met with the argument of religious compliance with the law. John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, told the Washington Post: “Whenever Romans 13 was used in the 18th and 19th century – and Sessions seems to be doing the same thing, so in this sense there is some continuity – it’s a way of manipulating the scriptures to justify your own political agenda.”

Pittsburgh cartoonist says he was fired after 25 years for making fun of Trump

A cartoonist who lost his job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes his searing portrayals of Donald Trump were the most likely cause of his firing. Rob Rogers was terminated on Thursday by the paper for which he had worked for 25 years, after six cartoons in a row were spiked and his employer tried to change his terms of working, he said.

His last cartoon depicted a bloated man representing the USA, impaled on a steel girder with “trade war” written on it, waving the Stars and Stripes and saying: “Take that, Canada, Mexico and Europe.” After being fired, Rogers drew Trump shaking hands with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and saying: “You’re so talented and your people love you, look how they’re smiling!” Kim is standing on a pile of skulls.

“Suppressing voices in any situation is bad,” Rogers told the Guardian. “You want to have as many voices as you can and they are starting to have only one voice of the paper, and I think that goes against what a free press is all about – especially when silencing that voice is because of the president.”

Rogers’s departure prompted uproar from fans including the mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto. In a statement, he said: “The move today by the leadership of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to fire Rob Rogers after he drew a series of cartoons critical of President Trump is disappointing, and sends the wrong message about press freedoms in a time when they are under siege.” The mayor said he had known Rogers for a long time but that had not stopped the cartoonist criticizing him in his art.

“This is precisely the time,” the mayor added, “when the constitutionally protected free press – including critics like Rob Rogers – should be celebrated and supported, and not fired for doing their jobs. This decision, just one day after the president of the United States said the news media is ‘our country’s biggest enemy’, sets a low standard in the 232-year history of the newspaper.”

Supreme court sidesteps ruling in partisan gerrymandering cases

The supreme court dodged a decision on whether it is constitutional for political parties to redraw electoral maps to gain a partisan advantage. In two cases, one in Maryland and one in Wisconsin, the court on Monday found procedural reasons not to issue a ruling on gerrymandering. Instead of making a landmark ruling, the cases were both kicked back to lower courts for new hearings. ...

The justices unanimously ruled against Wisconsin Democrats who challenged legislative districts that gave Republicans a huge edge in the state legislature. In a separate unsigned opinion, they also did not side with Maryland Republicans who objected to a single congressional district.

The Maryland case is only in its preliminary phase and has not yet had a trial. That will now happen. In Wisconsin, the Democrats prevailed after a trial in which the court ruled that partisan redistricting could go too far and indeed, did in Wisconsin, where Republicans hold a huge edge in the legislature even though the state is otherwise closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.

The supreme court said that the plaintiffs in Wisconsin had failed to prove they have the right to sue on a statewide basis, rather than challenge individual districts. The Democrats will have a chance to prove their case district by district.

3rd Party Formation Very Doable Says Former Bernie Official

Former Bank of Canada Head: Pipeline Protesters May Be Killed. So Be It.

As Canada's controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project faces ongoing opposition, the former governor of the Bank of Canada said that protesters may die but that the government should push the project through anyway.

Speaking at an event Wednesday, David Dodge said, "We're going to have some very unpleasant circumstances," the Edmonton Journal reported. "There are some people that are going to die in protesting construction of this pipeline. We have to understand that."

"Nevertheless, we have to be willing to enforce the law once it's there," Dodge said. "It's going to take some fortitude to stand up."

In an interview with the Journal, he elaborated by saying, "We have seen it other places, that equivalent of religious zeal leading to flouting of the law in a way that could lead to death."

Dodge's comments prompted outrage from climate activists.

Author and 350-org co-founder Bill McKibben warned, "North American governments have shown the 'fortitude' necessary to kill indigenous people often enough that this is no idle threat," while Canandian author Naomi Klein called the threat a "disgrace." She added, "If the worst happens, we now know they went into this with their eyes wide open."

'Historic First': Nebraska Farmers Return Land to Ponca Tribe in Effort to Block Keystone XL

In a move that could challenge the proposed path of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline—and acknowledges the U.S. government's long history of abusing Native Americans and forcing them off their lands—a Nebraska farm couple has returned a portion of ancestral land to the Ponca Tribe. At a deed-signing ceremony earlier this week, farmers Art and Helen Tanderup transferred to the tribe a 1.6-acre plot of land that falls on Ponca "Trail of Tears."

Now, as the Omaha World-Herald explained, rather than battling the farmers, "TransCanada will have to negotiate with a new landowner, one that has special legal status as a tribe." The transfer was celebrated by members of the Ponca Tribe as well as environmental advocates who oppose the construction of the pipeline and continue to demand a total transition to renewable energy. ...

"Repatriating this land to the Ponca Tribe raises new challenges for the Keystone XL pipeline and respects the leadership of Native nations in the fight against the fossil fuel industry," 350.org executive director May Boeve added. "Tribal sovereignty is central to the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground and build a more just society for all." ... In recent years, the Tanderups have worked with Ponca leaders to grow the tribe's sacred corn on the land that's now been returned.

Flooding from sea level rise threatens over 300,000 US coastal homes

Sea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities, with new research finding that as many as 311,000 homes face being flooded every two weeks within the next 30 years.

The swelling oceans are forecast repeatedly to soak coastal residences collectively worth $120bn by 2045 if greenhouse gas emissions are not severely curtailed, experts warn. This will potentially inflict a huge financial and emotional toll on the half a million Americans who live in the properties at risk of having their basements, backyards, garages or living rooms inundated every other week.

The UCS used federal data from a high sea level rise scenario projected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and combined it with property data from the online real estate company Zillow to quantify the level of risk across the lower 48 states. Under this scenario, where planet-warming emissions are barely constrained and the seas rise by about 6.5ft globally by the end of the century, 311,000 homes along the US coastline would face flooding on average 26 times a year within the next 30 years – a typical lifespan for a new mortgage.

The losses would multiply by the end of the century, with the research warning that as many as 2.4m homes, worth around a trillion dollars, could be put at risk. Low-lying states would be particularly prone, with a million homes in Florida, 250,000 homes in New Jersey and 143,000 homes in New York at risk of chronic flooding by 2100.

Also of Interest

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

Is Anti-War Fever Building in the U.S.?

Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority”

It’s Time To Start Getting Enraged At What Western Imperialists Have Done To Syria

Alabama’s Lynching Memorial and the Legacy of Racial Terror in the South

Anthony Ray Hinton Spent Almost 30 Years on Death Row. Now He Has a Message for White America.

'This is huge': black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prison

A Little Night Music

Georgia White - I Just Want Your Stingaree

Georgia White - Trouble in Mind

Georgia White - I'll Keep Sittin' On It

Georgia White - Was I Drunk

Georgia White - Dead Man´s Blues

Georgia White - Walking The Street

Georgia White - Alley Boogie

Georgia White - The Stuff Is Here

Georgia White - New Dupree Blues