Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features gospel singers The Blind Boys of Alabama. Enjoy!

"What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes."

-- Isaac Asimov

News and Opinion

World has six months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert

The world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned. “This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

Governments are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.

“The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Birol told the Guardian. “If we do not [take action] we will surely see a rebound in emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages.”

Carbon dioxide emissions plunged by a global average of 17% in April, compared with last year, but have since surged again to within about 5% of last year’s levels.

In a report published on Thursday, the IEA – the world’s gold standard for energy analysis - set out the first global blueprint for a green recovery, focusing on reforms to energy generation and consumption. Wind and solar power should be a top focus, the report advised, alongside energy efficiency improvements to buildings and industries, and the modernisation of electricity grids. Creating jobs must be the priority for countries where millions have been thrown into unemployment by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. The IEA’s analysis shows that targeting green jobs – such as retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, putting up solar panels and constructing wind farms – is more effective than pouring money into the high-carbon economy.

With the World Focused on the Pandemic, Israel Prepares to Annex Large Swaths of the West Bank

Israel is planning a move on July 1 that the international community has long regarded as one of the gravest assaults on the international order and international law: annexation of land that does not belong to it. The annexation plan developed by the Netanyahu government in consultation with the Trump administration would declare not only the decades-old settlements in the West Bank which the U.N. Security Council in 2016 declared illegal to be permanent Israeli land, but also other swaths of Palestinian territory, including the Jordan Valley, that is central to Palestinian agriculture.

There are multiple reasons why Israel is not just willing but seemingly eager to incur condemnations from the international community by proceeding with this plan. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is beset by political problems as he struggles to form a governing coalition for a new term and, even more importantly, by legal problems as he stands trial on felony charges of bribery and fraud. Emboldening the Israeli population and causing them to unite behind him in the face of international denunciations could distract attention away from those crises and solidify his hold on power.

Most importantly, Israel has become increasingly xenophobic, expansionist, militaristic, hostile to Arabs, and fascistic over the last decade. Aside from the Trump administration, its primary allies are no longer liberal democracies but Arab despots and far-right political movements in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America.

Illustrating the cultural and political shift among younger Israelis in particular, Netanyahu’s son, Yair, this week advocated that all minorities be removed — cleansed — from Tel Aviv. The Israeli left and even center are virtually nonexistent. That is the climate that now shapes Israel’s identity. Annexation of large chunks of the West Bank is, if anything, too moderate for a growing far-right Israeli movement that believes, on religious and militaristic grounds, that they are the owners of all of Palestine.

Regardless of motives, it is virtually certain that annexation of any part of the West Bank would trigger intense pressure in the west to impose serious sanctions on Israel. The last significant annexation took place in 2014, when Russia declared Crimea a formal part of its country, and that event triggered multi-level sanctions from the west despite the fact that a large majority of people in Crimea wanted to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine. Palestinians, needless to say, are virtually unanimous in their opposition to further control over their land and their lives by a foreign occupying government that grants them no political rights of any kind. Any attempt by the west to avoid sanctioning a post-annexation Israel would destroy whatever residual credibility is vested in their claims of a consistent system of international law.

The AFL-CIO’s Police Union Problem Is Bigger Than You Think

After the near murder of a 75-year-old man on a sidewalk in Buffalo, New York, the city’s police union, the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, responded with organized demonstrations of support for the officers who shoved the elderly man to the ground. After the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation was defiant, with President Bob Kroll, who had recently defended his role in three police shootings, attacking Floyd as a criminal, and lashing out at local politicians for not allowing the police to be rougher on protesters. The Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York City, which has attracted reprobation for doxxing NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter Chiara, has also moved to a furious war footing. The Louisville Metro Police Union in Kentucky rallied around the killers of Breonna Taylor, as the officers involved haven’t been fired, let alone charged.

The reactionary intransigence has brought into focus the role of police unions in creating conditions for unchecked violence. On June 8, the Writers Guild of America East, a 6,000-member AFL-CIO affiliate that represents television writers and digital journalists (including at The Intercept), passed a resolution that urged its parent body to “disaffiliate” the International Union of Police Associations, the sole police-only union in the federation. “As long as police unions continue to wield their collective bargaining power as a cudgel, preventing reforms and accountability, no one is safe,” WGAE wrote in a statement.

The resolution drew broad support inside the AFL-CIO but also opposition, and it has so far been rejected. Lost in the debate, however, is that the unions who were the immediate inspiration for the resolution would be untouched. Neither the Minneapolis, New York City, Louisville, or Buffalo unions are part of the IUPA or any other AFL-CIO union. Three are independent unions and one, in Louisville, belongs to the arch-reactionary Fraternal Order of Police. And, adding more complexity to advocates of disentangling police unions from the broader organized labor movement, the IUPA, with its 100,000 members, is far from the only union within the AFL-CIO that represents cops. Police have a small but politically and ideologically influential presence in some of the country’s largest and most progressive unions, like the United Food and Commercial Workers; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Government Employees; and the Communications Workers of America. All are major members of the AFL-CIO union federation.

The Change to Win union federation, which broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005, is home to the Service Employees International Union, which has thousands of law enforcement members in its International Brotherhood of Police Organizations/National Association of Government Employees chapter, as well as the Teamsters, which represents tens of thousands of police and corrections officers. ...

Bill Fletcher Jr., a former education director at both the AFL-CIO and AFGE, and a leading expert on race and labor, said that he has witnessed past efforts at major unions to address issues related to criminal justice reform or racism, and seen them collapse in the face of internal police opposition. “The leadership of the overall union will cower in the face of this” law enforcement opposition, he said, “in part because they are afraid that the law enforcement units will leave. That has happened in every union that I’ve worked with and every union that I have observed.” And unlike other groups of union members, police in particular will often vote with their feet to join other unions, a practice that is very uncommon in the rest of labor — giving them additional leverage over internal union deliberations. ...

In major confrontations, police unions have already failed to show solidarity with other public sector unions. In Wisconsin, where the notorious Act 10 revoking collective bargaining rights for public employees provoked mass demonstrations in 2011, GOP Gov. Scott Walker carved cops out of his assault, depriving teachers and other public workers of the political protection that could come from a broader coalition. The police unions did not stand with the other workers.

Much more information about the bad corporate citizens that are funding police brutality, intrusive surveillance and other nasty things at the link:

How Starbucks, Target, Google and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations

Protests over police violence and racism have amplified calls to re-examine police budgets in the United States, with several large companies announcing they are re-evaluating their commercial ties with police departments. But a new report sheds light on the myriad other ways corporations engage with police forces, including by donating to police foundations that don’t face the same scrutiny as police departments.

The report was released on Thursday by the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit corporate and government accountability research institute, and its research database project LittleSis. It details how more than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations – industry groups designated as nonprofits that provide additional funds to police forces.

Police proponents say the foundations have emerged as police departments face budget cuts and are a means to supplement the force with top-of-the-line technology and weaponry. But critics argue police departments are already overfunded – they receive 20% to 45% of discretionary funds in cities across the US – and that funding through foundations allows police to operate with little oversight. Foundations, according to a 2014 report from ProPublica, “can be a way for wealthy donors and corporations to influence law enforcement agencies’ priorities”.

Legally, police budgets are typically public documents that must be approved by elected officials. But designated as private charities, police foundations are not subject to the same public information laws that apply to law enforcement agencies. These foundations receive millions of dollars a year from private and corporate donors, according to the report, and are able to use the funds to purchase equipment and weapons with little public input. The analysis notes, for example, how the Los Angeles police department in 2007 used foundation funding to purchase surveillance software from controversial technology firm Palantir. Buying the technology with private foundation funding rather than its public budget allowed the department to bypass requirements to hold public meetings and gain approval from the city council.

A variety of companies – including financial institutions, technology companies, retailers, local universities and sports teams, provide funding to police foundations. Donations may be, in part, to curry favor with a force that exists primarily to protect property and capital, the report said. “Police foundations are a key space for orchestrating, normalizing and celebrating the collaboration between corporate power and the police,” the LittleSis report said.

NBC & Google Team Up To Censor Conservative News

'Orgy of Wealth' Continues as US Billionaires Grew $584 Billion Richer Over Last 3 Months While 45 Million Lost Their Jobs

In their weekly analysis of wealth data Thursday, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) found that billionaires have seen their combined net worth grow by $584 billion in the three months since the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered much of the U.S. economy and threw more than 45 million people out of work.

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison—the five wealthiest billionaires in the U.S.—saw their collective riches grow by $101.7 billion between March 18 and June 17, according to the new report. A dozen other American billionaires saw their wealth more than double during that same period.

Frank Clemente, ATF executive director, said in a statement that over the past three months, "about 600 billionaires increased their wealth by far more than the nation's governors say their states need in fiscal assistance to keep delivering services to 330 million residents."

"Their wealth increased twice as much as the federal government paid out in one-time checks to more than 150 million Americans," said Clemente. "This orgy of wealth shows how fundamentally flawed our economic system is."

"If this pandemic reveals anything," Clemente added, "it's how unequal our society has become and how drastically it must change."

NEW FINDINGS from our @inequalityorg + @4TaxFairness:

In 3 months, the U.S. added 29 more billionaires while 45.5 million filed for unemployment.

Billionaires have seen their net worth skyrocket $584 billion, or 20%, since the beginning of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/lXsZ9MTuwQ

— Institute for Policy Studies (@IPS_DC) June 18, 2020

IPS, a progressive think-tank, has been publishing annual analyses of billionaire wealth increases since 2015. But in May, IPS began releasing weekly reports documenting the steady surge in billionaire wealth amid the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic collapse—a phenomenon the group dubbed "pandemic profiteering."

Since March 18, when social distancing measures and economic shutdowns were in place across the U.S., the combined wealth of America's billionaires has grown from $2.948 trillion to $3.531 trillion, the latest report by IPS and ATF found.

"During the same approximate three-month period, nearly 2.1 million Americans fell ill with the virus and about 118,000 died from it," the report notes. "Among other pandemic victims are 27 million Americans who may lose their employer-provided healthcare coverage. Low-wage workers, people of color, and women have suffered disproportionately in the combined medical and economic crises."

Number of billionaires INCREASES as rest of the country burns

US Slammed as 'Rogue State' for Withdrawing From Global Effort to Make Tech Giants Pay Fair Share in Taxes

The Trump administration on Wednesday abruptly withdrew from international negotiations over how best to tax the profits of multinational corporations such as U.S.-based tech giants Amazon and Google, leading European allies to accuse the White House of torpedoing years-long talks that were close to a resolution.

In a letter to the finance ministers of France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain obtained by the Financial Times, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said negotiations were at an "impasse" and threatened to retaliate "with appropriate commensurate measures" against any country that attempts to unilaterally move ahead digital services taxes on U.S.-based companies—a warning that sparked fears of a potentially devastating trans-Atlantic trade war.

"The U.S. is a rogue state," writer Nando Vila tweeted in response to news of Mnuchin's letter.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that "several European countries, led by France, have been rolling out digital services taxes, which would fall heavily on American internet companies. Italy, Spain, Austria, and Britain have all announced plans to levy digital services taxes, which impose duties on the online activity that takes place in those countries, regardless of whether the company has a physical presence."

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday denounced Mnuchin's letter as a "provocation for everyone who was negotiating in good faith" and said France will reimpose its currently suspended 3% tax on digital services if OECD nations can't reach a deal on a fair tax system by the end of the year.

"We were inches away from an agreement on digital taxation at a time when the digital giants are the only ones in the world to have benefited immensely from the coronavirus crisis," Le Maire said in a radio interview. "So it is a provocation... to all the citizens of the world who say that it is still legitimate for all the digital giants to pay their taxes. It is also a provocation to the U.S. allies. What is this way of treating U.S. allies—the British, Spanish, Italians, French—by threatening us with sanctions?"

Maria Jesus Montero, a spokesperson for the Spanish government, said Thursday that "neither Spain, nor France, nor Italy, nor Britain, no country will accept any type of threat from another country."

"We are not legislating to damage the interest of other countries," said Montero. "We are legislating so that our tax system is orderly, fair, and adapted to current circumstances."

As the Wall Street Journal explained:

Current rules generally allocate corporate profit for tax purposes based on where value is created. But modern multinationals—particularly ones with digital offerings—can sell their products across borders in ways that leave little taxable profit in a country where those products are consumed.

Many big European countries say that tech companies should pay more taxes in the countries where their products are consumed, something that could boost their tax revenues by billions of dollars. But the U.S. has opposed any solution that is too targeted at tech companies, where it has more to lose...

Tech companies, for their part, have opposed national digital-services taxes like France's, but have supported the OECD process, arguing that they would like to avoid a patchwork of overlapping national initiatives.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist and professor at Columbia University, said in an interview with the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation Wednesday that the coronavirus pandemic "has helped the very companies that have been the tax avoiders," bolstering the case for measures like digital services taxes until a global tax framework is established.

"The internet companies are the big beneficiaries, because they are the people who can continue to operate... So they're the big beneficiaries of the pandemic," said Stiglitz. "Part of their advantage is they're not paying taxes. They're not paying their fair share in taxes."

"That's why the proposals—as an interim measure until we work out a whole global system—of just having a digital tax is one that had a lot of resonance before the pandemic, but now becomes an imperative," Stiglitz added.

With 'Systemic Violations' of Worker Rights, US Comes in Dead Last in Labor Rankings of Wealthy Nations

The International Trade Union Confederation's world map showing its rankings of the best and worst countries for working people includes a noticeable difference between the U.S. and other wealthy countries.

Dark orange in color on the map, the U.S. was singled out by the ITUC this year as the only country in the Group of Seven to have "systematic violations of rights" in work places.

What are the 10 worst countries for workers in the ? Find out in the 2020 #RightsIndex
https://t.co/lHCS56fgEX pic.twitter.com/VyHO1MXpAt

— ITUC (@ituc) June 18, 2020

Along with Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries with far fewer resources than the U.S., the nation was ranked as a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, with the top-ranking countries reporting only "sporadic violations of rights."

Every other G7 country ranked at least a 3 on the scale.

The countries with the highest rankings include several European and Nordic countries with strong social welfare systems, high marginal tax rates for the wealthiest citizens and corporations, and robust nationwide paid family and sick leave policies. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Uruguay, and Iceland were among those found to have the fewest violations.

Of countries with the rating of 4, the ITUC wrote, "The government and/or companies are engaged in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers, putting fundamental rights under threat."

The organization ranked countries based on a number of indicators, including threats to the right to form or join labor unions, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to strike.

Navajo nation reinstates lockdown as Covid-19 cases surge near reservation

The Navajo nation has been forced to reinstate lockdowns to shield its people from major coronavirus outbreaks outside the reservation, especially in Arizona, where cases are surging. The Navajo, the second largest Native American tribe, has been severely affected by the pandemic with 322 confirmed deaths as of Wednesday – more than 16 states including Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. The death toll equates to a death rate of 177 per 100,000, higher than any single US state.

New cases and deaths have been declining over the past couple of weeks, thanks to public health measures such as widespread testing, which led to travel restrictions including a weekend curfew being lifted at the start of June. However, tribal leaders fear the rapid rise in cases in neighboring states, especially Arizona but also Utah, threatens to undo their hard-won progress in containing the spread.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the Navajo nation is a food desert with only 13 grocery stores, and a third of residents do not have running water, which forces people to travel to neighboring states for basic items.

Navajo nation president Jonathan Nez said at a virtual town hall earlier this week: “Arizona relaxed its preventive measures, and the number of cases and hospitalizations continue to drastically increase. We cannot put our nation in the same situation. We will continue to rely on science and data as we fight this pandemic.” ...

During its peak, the Navajo nation sent the sickest patients from the reservation to hospitals equipped with intensive care units in neighbouring states. But this may not be possible in future, given that more than 80% of Arizona’s adult ICU beds are full – almost 40% with Covid-19 patients.

House Democrats Who Join Forces With GOP in Plot Against Social Security Threatened With Billboard Campaign

Earlier this month, 30 House Democrats joined dozens of their Republican colleagues in signing a letter endorsing legislation that has been condemned as a plot to cut Social Security benefits behind closed doors.

Now those Democrats are feeling the heat from their constituents and advocacy groups that caught wind of the bipartisan letter (pdf), which warns the "federal debt is growing at an alarming pace" and urges congressional leaders to advance an agenda that brings "the debt burden to sustainable levels as the pandemic recedes."

As part of that agenda, the House lawmakers recommended passage of the TRUST Act, a bipartisan, bicameral measure introduced last October by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah)—a longtime proponent of slashing Social Security benefits. If passed, the bill would establish "rescue committees" with mandates to craft "solutions"—which, in the view of progressive advocacy groups, is often code for cuts—for trust fund programs like Medicare and Social Security.

"No member of the party of FDR should support cutting the American people's earned Social Security benefits," Linda Benesch, communications director for Social Security Works, told Common Dreams. ...

Unless lawmakers clarify their intentions to defend Social Security from cuts, Benesch said her group is planning to put up billboards this election cycle in the districts of House Democrats and Republicans who signed the letter.

David Sirota: Are Wall Street barons about to destroy your retirement?

US employers step up anti-unionization efforts as pandemic spurs activism

During the coronavirus pandemic, employers have opposed unionization elections even as workers’ activism over safety protections, job security and wages has increased in the face of an economic shutdown and health fears. But the pandemic has created difficult conditions for workers to organize elections in – something many employers appear to have taken advantage of, despite the wave of labor activism sweeping the US.

The number of resolved union election cases at the National Labor Relations Board dropped from 84 in March 2020 to 13 in April 2020 as the pandemic raged. Several of the delayed union elections then had petitions withdrawn or have yet to be scheduled. During the pandemic, union election petitions have declined significantly. According to the NLRB, union representation case intake in April 2020 decreased by 67.6% compared with April 2019.

The NLRB initially froze all union elections, while permitting mail-in ballot elections if employers and workers agreed to proceed. The board lifted the freeze on 6 April, after 116 union elections were delayed, and several other groups of workers had petition hearings postponed.

For many workers, the need to have a union has never been greater.

Aaron Maté: Dems responsible for elevating neocon John Bolton

Trump again threatens to cut China ties after US official ruled it out

Donald Trump has renewed his threat to cut ties with China, a day after his diplomats held high-level talks with Beijing and his top US trade negotiator said severing the trade relationship was not a viable option. The conflicting stances emerged as Washington questioned China’s credibility on accurately reporting the new Covid-19 cluster in Beijing.

Trump wrote on social media that the US “certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!”.

Trump said he was responding to comments by his trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, who has been at the forefront of trade negotiations with Beijing. Lighthizer told a congressional committee on Wednesday that China so far had been living up to the terms of a “phase one” trade agreement that eased the dispute, and that decoupling the two economic giants was now impossible. ...

Lighthizer said he expected to see more supply chains moving to the United States because of tax and regulatory changes, but also noted that the US-China trade deal would result in significant positive changes and increased Chinese purchases of US goods and services.

In his post, Trump attempted to let his trade official off the hook: “It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.”

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Black Liberation & Day to Remember “Horrific System That Was Slavery”

Trump was told meaning of Juneteenth by black Secret Service agent

Donald Trump has told an interviewer that he was informed about the Juneteenth holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in the US by one of his own Secret Service agents, who is black. Trump recently caused anger and raised fears of major social unrest by scheduling his first public campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic broke out for 19 June, which is the date when Juneteenth is celebrated and how the day got its nickname.

He also chose to hold it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the scene of one of America’s worst massacres of black Americans at a time when the nation is witnessing massive anti-racism protests. ...

Trump told the Wall Street Journal that neither he nor any of his staff seemed to know the meaning of the holiday before the furor over the Tulsa rally.

“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump told the newspaper. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."

99 Years Later, Wounds of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Have “Never Been Remedied”

Trump Threatens Violent Police Crackdown Against 'Any Protesters' Who Gather to Denounce Him in Tulsa

President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that "any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters, or lowlifes" who gather at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday will be met with a "much different" response than they've seen in other major cities—a message that was immediately interpreted as a threat to unleash a violent police crackdown on demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights.

"Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters, or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!" Trump tweeted, falsely suggesting that law enforcement has shown restraint in its responses to mass demonstrations against police brutality in those cities.

In a speech at the White House earlier this month, Trump presented himself as an "ally of all peaceful protesters" and an opponent of "professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others." But the president's tweet Friday did not draw any such distinctions, as observers pointed out:

The president is threatening violence against people who protest him pic.twitter.com/1ThtHYfS8E

— Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) June 19, 2020

"The president expresses his intention to violate the Constitution by denying Americans' First Amendment right to peacefully assemble," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) tweeted in response to Trump's threat. "Trump idolizes dictators who respond to dissent and criticism with violence. He is unfit for office."

Trump's tweet came hours after Tulsa's Republican Mayor G.T. Bynum on Thursday imposed a curfew between 10 pm and 6 am for the area surrounding the BOK Center, the venue for Trump's first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered much of the U.S. in March. The curfew will remain in effect until 6 am Sunday morning.

In an executive order authorizing the curfew, Bynum claimed—without offering specific details—that he has "received information from the Tulsa Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that shows that individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive or violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally."

The ACLU, which sued Trump over the violent police assault on protesters outside of the White House on June 1, vowed legal action if law enforcement attacks demonstrators in Tulsa, the site of a 1921 racist massacre.

"Any president, mayor, or police chief who attacks protesters should understand that you will be sued, like we sued in D.C., Seattle, and Minneapolis," the group tweeted. "You will be held accountable.

This Friday!

West Coast Longshoremen
(In the Bay Area- mostly Black)

will shut down TWENTY-NINE West Coast ports in solidarity w stopping police terror

This is a 1 day work stoppage, but it can put the idea out there for prolonged strikes w specific demands.

ill be speaking pic.twitter.com/56NJJSBgcT

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) June 17, 2020

Heh, just in case you need yet another reminder that Trump is a moron:

Trump Says Rayshard Brooks Killing Was ‘Terrible’ But ‘You Can't Resist an Officer’

President Donald Trump weighed into the controversy surrounding the police killing of 27-year-old Black man Rayshard Brooks by boosting a conspiracy theory that the victim was armed, and suggesting the cop was justified in shooting Brooks twice in the back because “you can’t resist an officer.” Trump was speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, hours after the officer who shot Brooks in the car park of a Wendy’s in Atlanta on Friday was charged with felony murder and 10 other counts. ...

On Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard revealed during a press conference that Rolfe would have also been aware that the taser Brooks wrangled from him was not functional, as it had already been fired twice and thus was of no use.

Trump, who an executive order to outlaw chokeholds and create a nationwide database of police misconduct earlier this week, concluded by saying he hopes Rolfe will be treated “fairly” by the courts. He went on to claim the police, who have reacted to recent police brutality protests with shocking and well-documented violence, have been treated unfairly.

“It’s up to justice right now. It’s gonna be up to justice,” Trump said. “I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country. They have not been treated fairly.”

Officer involved in fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor to be fired, says mayor

More than three months after 26-year-old black ER tech Breonna Taylor was killed by police in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment, a detective involved in the shooting is being fired from the Louisville metro police department (LMPD).

In a letter to Brett Hankinson released by LMPD on Friday afternoon, the interim police chief, Robert J Schroeder, wrote that the detective had violated standard operating procedures by displaying “an extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly” fired 10 rounds of ammunition into Taylor’s apartment on 13 March. ...

Louisville’s mayor, Greg Fischer, had previously said that officers could not be fired until an investigation was completed. On Thursday afternoon, Kentucky’s attorney general and Fischer said the investigation was ongoing.

Police statements about Hankinson firing blindly into the apartment – and some of the shots fired entered the apartment next door to Taylor’s – lines up with what lawyers for Taylor’s family and her boyfriend have said about what happened that night.

Taylor was killed early on the morning of 13 March as police officers were executing a no-knock narcotics warrant on her south Louisville apartment. When officers knocked in her door with a battering ram, her boyfriend thought it was a home invasion and fired a shot, striking an officer in the leg. Police responded with a barrage of gunfire, hitting Taylor eight times. No drugs were found in the apartment.

Biden Bets $15M That Voters Will Stay Furious at Trump Over Coronavirus and Black Lives Matter

Former Vice President Joe Biden is taking to the airwaves to rip into President Trump for his poor response to the coronavirus pandemic and violent reaction to recent Black Lives Matter protests. Biden’s first television ads of the general election, released Thursday, blast Trump for the two failures that have so far defined the 2020 race — and put the president far behind Biden in recent polls.

The first ad opens with Biden’s acknowledgment that “so many Americans are suffering,” before promising to move away from Trump’s divisive, inflammatory and fury-filled leadership style. “The country is crying out for leadership,” he says, as the ad shows images of the white supremacist protests at Charlottesville and Trump’s waffling response play followed by images of protestors being tear gassed in front of White House so he could have a photo op just outside its gates.

“I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain. I’ll do my job and I’ll take responsibility, I won’t blame others,” Biden says in the spot.

The other English-language ad opens with Biden promising to get more money to essential workers, before pivoting to a promise of unity. ...

Biden’s team is putting $15 million behind the pair of ads. They will air in six states Trump won in 2016 that strategists in both parties agree are the most crucial battlegrounds for 2020: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden has led in recent polling in all six states.

Poll shows progressive poised to wipe floor with Schumer's candidate

Trump’s Poll Numbers Are So Bad the GOP Is Starting to Panic About a ‘Wipeout’

President Trump’s poll numbers have never been worse, and Republicans are starting to panic that he could be headed to a historic wipeout that could drag the rest of the party down with him.

Trump has trailed former Vice President Joe Biden by almost 10 points in recent national polling. And Republicans privately admit things look just as bad at the local level. More than a half-dozen GOP strategists working on Senate and House races told VICE News that they’ve seen Trump’s numbers plunge in states and districts across the country. His standing with voters was already suffering from his botched coronavirus response — and his inflammatory reaction to national Black Lives Matter protests has pushed him even further down with key groups of voters.

“The environment really sucks for us right now. We’ve got a worldwide pandemic, the economy is slipping and now we have a race war tacked on,” warned one GOP strategist involved in multiple races. “If the election were held today, we’d be talking about a wipeout. We’d be in landslide territory.”

The president badly trails Biden in states and districts that went red in 2016 that he needs to win again in 2020. Trump is in alarmingly poor shape in a number of states that appeared well outside Democrats’ reach at the beginning of the election cycle. And his terrible numbers aren’t just hurting him: Republicans are increasingly concerned that he could cost them the Senate as well, handing Democrats unified control of Washington after the next election.

Trump administration will not regulate rocket fuel chemical in drinking water

US environmental regulators have decided they will not put restrictions on perchlorate – a rocket fuel ingredient known to harm fetal brain development – in drinking water.

The Environmental Protection Agency argued that the federal government, states and public water systems have already taken proactive steps to reduce perchlorate levels.

Perchlorate is found in rocket fuel, explosives, fireworks and other products. It can also be naturally occurring.

The chemical disrupts the thyroid function and can harm the developing brains of fetuses and young children. The chemical has been found in the water, soil or sediment of 45 states, according to a 2010 Government Accountability Office study. ...

Health and environment experts quickly decried the move and promised to sue.

Environmental justice means racial justice, say activists

Tackling systemic racism is fundamental to achieving environmental and climate justice, according to leading activists, as Covid-19 disparities and the global uprising against police brutality lay bare the ramifications of racial inequalities in every sphere of life. A wave of protests demanding an end to racist policing have taken place in towns and cities across the world amid mounting evidence that brown, black and native communities have also been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Increasingly, experts and protesters have identified racial injustice as the common denominator in police violence, as well as environmental and health inequalities linked to poor Covid-19 outcomes. And on the streets, what started as Black Lives Matter protests have morphed into a movement for racial justice amid growing recognition that systemic racism denies people of colour equal access to economic, social, environmental and climate justice, as well as health equity, political power, civil rights and human rights.

“The disproportionate rates of [Covid-19] infection, hospitalisation and deaths are linked to lingering and persistent health, social, economic and environmental inequities facing black Americans, conditions which are rooted in oppression, discrimination, medical apartheid and structural racism … and which today have created a perfect storm,” said Peggy Shepard, co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, at a press conference this week.

‘Defunding the Police’ Is Also an Environmental Issue

As Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the country in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many political groups and brands fumbled and debated over which parts of the broad calls for racial justice they wanted to support — and what kind of language they should use.
But some of the country’s most influential environmental organizations responded without hesitation to a once obscure demand that has now become the protests’ main rallying cry: “defund the police.”

The youth-led Sunrise Movement recently hosted a mass online training about the concept, which has a variety of interpretations, including taking funds away from police departments — or abolishing them altogether. The group also urged its supporters to donate to racial justice groups and assist Black senate candidates like Charles Booker in Kentucky. Another climate group known as 350 raised $100,000 for bail funds and Black-led organizations and called on members to sign a ”pledge in defense of Black lives.”

For these and other environmental groups, it makes no sense to fight for aggressive climate action that would protect Black communities from natural disasters and air pollution while staying silent about the 1,098 people killed last year by police — a fate three times as likely for Black Americans than white. Failing to support Black Lives Matter and calls for racial justice would not only be morally incoherent, it would also risk pushing Black people away from the climate movement. ...

Efforts to end outsized police control and influence in the U.S. also acknowledge the deep links between racism and climate change. In Richmond, California, for example, Black and brown residents who live near an oil refinery and other fossil fuel infrastructure experience higher-than-average asthma rates. The refinery’s operator, Chevron, a major contributor to climate change, also helps fund the local police department. Four officers there are currently being sued for wrongly arresting a Black man during a traffic stop and then allegedly trying to cover it up.

Also of Interest

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

Leaked documents reveal right-wing oligarch plot to overthrow Mexico’s AMLO

John Bolton Is Telling the Truth but Let’s Not Forget His Horrible, Dangerous Career

Trump rally in Tulsa spurs renewed call for 1921 racial massacre reparations

Why antiracism protests are achieving more progress under Trump than Obama

The Police Weren’t Created to ‘Protect and Serve.’ They Were Created to ‘Maintain Order.’ A Brief Look at the History of Police in America

As States Struggle With Vote-by-Mail, “Many Thousands, If Not Millions” of Ballots Could Go Uncounted in November

Josh Gottheimer Is a Democrat Who Votes Reliably With Republicans. His Primary Challenge Is Heating Up.

If the Fed Is Being Honest that Citigroup is Well Capitalized, Why Did It Need $3 Billion from the Fed’s Paycheck Protection Program?

Why The Chinese-Indian Skirmishes May Escalate

Wood heaters too dirty to sell are clean enough to give to tribes, says EPA

Northrop Grumman Accused Of Fueling False ‘Revenge Porn’ Allegations Against CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou

Medical data, the most precious commodity

Aaron Maté: Crippling new sanctions punish Syrian civilians for US defeat in proxy war

Krystal Ball: A response to our critics

Krystal and Saagar: Klobuchar hilariously THROWS Warren under bus, Fox News poll shows Trump down 12

"She's a Cop": Advocates Scoff at Former Orlando Police Chief Val Demings as Potential Biden Running Mate Amid Racial Injustice Uprising

A Little Night Music

The Blind Boys of Alabama w/Marc Cohn - Walking in Memphis

Blind Boys Of Alabama w/Mavis Staples - Nobody's Fault But Mine

Solomon Burke & Blind Boys of Alabama March 1995 HOB New Orleans

Dr. John w/The Blind Boys of Alabama - What a Wonderful World

Blind Boys of Alabama - Way Down In The Hole

Blind Boys of Alabama - I shall not walk alone

Blind Boys of Alabama - Wade In The Water

Blind Boys of Alabama - Down By The Riverside

Blind Boys of Alabama - Higher Ground