Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues piano player Little Johnny Jones. Enjoy!

"The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

-- Hugo Black

News and Opinion

Report Details Intensifying Police Crackdown on US Journalists Covering Protests

In recent years, particularly since former Republican President Donald Trump took office in 2017, U.S. police have failed to uphold basic constitutional rights for journalists covering rallies and other protests, a new report from the Knight First Amendment Institute said Tuesday, with the study documenting a number of physical attacks, unjust arrests, and suppression tactics used by police at protests both large and small.

Senior visiting fellow Joel Simon interviewed dozens of journalists and legal experts about the resurgence of police violence against journalists in recent years—a trend that recalls numerous "notorious incidents" that took place during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, including the harassment of reporters attempting to cover school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas and the seizure of camera film from journalists in Greenwood, Mississippi as police dogs attacked protesters.

In the 1980s and 90s, Simon wrote in the report, "violent police attacks on journalists receded along with police-protester clashes, perhaps in part because many police departments adopted a more conciliatory, negotiation-based approach to demonstrators."

"The steady growth of police militarization post-9/11," however, "helped fuel further conflict with the press," Simon wrote.

In recent decades the Department of Defense has supplied police departments across the U.S. with "military-grade equipment like armored vehicles, rifles, and grenades," noted the author, and a PEN America report on the protests that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after the police killing of Michael Brown illustrated how that change in law enforcement agencies' arsenals has intensified police officers' treatment of journalists as well as protesters:

The actions against journalists, as well as those against protesters, were "fueled by the aggressive militarized response by police to largely peaceful public protests... This apparently created a mentality among some police officers that they were patrolling a war zone, rather than a predominantly peaceful protest attended by citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, and members of the press who also possess those rights." The number of reported abuses "strongly suggests that some police officers were deliberately trying to prevent the media from documenting the protests and the police response."

In Ferguson, Simon wrote, researchers documented 52 alleged violations of reporters' constitutional right to cover protests, including physical attacks and aggression, obstruction of access, and 21 arrests.

The protests in Ferguson marked a milestone in law enforcement's changing relationship with the press, the report shows, followed six years later by a number of rights violations during the nationwide racial justice uprising of 2020 in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

"The inadequacy of press freedom protections was starkly exposed during the Trump administration, when some of the largest street protests in American history took place, including those against the Floyd murder," wrote Simon. "During that period, police frequently assaulted, arrested, or detained journalists at protests, particularly when enforcing dispersal orders, imposing curfews, or deploying crowd control measures. In 2020, at least 129 journalists were arrested covering social justice protests. More than 400 journalists suffered physical attacks, 80% of them at the hands of law enforcement."

Photojournalist Mike Shum described to Simon how "law enforcement turned on the media" in Minneapolis four days after Floyd's murder, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) imposed an 8:00 pm curfew that ostensibly exempted the press:

That night police fired on a group of journalists with rubber bullets, hitting Shum in the foot. "It was confusing because we just kept screaming 'we’re press, we're press,’ but the bullets just kept flying," Shum recalled. In a separate incident that day, police in Minnesota fired on photojournalist Linda Tirado with what is believed to be a rubber bullet, permanently blinding her in one eye.

Other journalists were "pelted with pepper spray, tear gas, and other projectiles as they ran to take cover" after police "formed a skirmish line" to enforce the curfew. A photographer working with NBC, Ed Ou, was "hit in the head with what he believes was a flash-bang grenade" and then "blasted" with pepper spray by police who ignored his pleas for medical assistance.

Outside the Twin Cities, other journalists covering the uprising were hit with batons, beaten, and shot with rubber bullets, as well as arrested for trying to report on the protests.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker—whose data Simon used to compile the report—found that "hundreds of separate incidents" of police violence against journalists took place in 80 cities across 36 states in the year following Floyd's murder. Journalists in 309 cases said they were targeted by police officers between May 26, 2020—the day after the killing—and May 26, 2021, and 44 of those cases took place in Minneapolis.

"Protests have always been dangerous to cover, but we had never seen anything on this scale," Kirstin McCudden, managing editor of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, told Simon.

The report also details the use of "kettling"—in which police contain protesters, and in some cases, journalists, by surrounding them in one area—which was prevalent during the demonstrations that erupted in Washington, D.C. during Trump's inauguration in 2017.

One journalist, Aaron Cantú, was reporting on the "DisruptJ20" rally when he was trapped by the police officers' kettling tactic.

"He assumed he could approach the police line and explain he was reporting on the rally," Simon wrote. "But when he initially tried to engage with police, he was hit with pepper spray in his eyes and temporarily blinded."

Police also applied zip ties to Cantú's wrists "so tightly that his hands went numb" and refused him access to food or a bathroom "during the more than eight hours he was held in the kettle." Law enforcement also demanded access to his phone and electronic communications.

"The nature of journalism has changed, and the law does not appear to have kept up," Cantú told Simon. "In these dangerous situations, law enforcement is deciding who is or who is not a journalist."

Cantú was one of more than 200 protesters and journalists who were arrested at the protest, none of whom were ultimately convicted of a crime.

"These events could have played out differently. Police could have opted not to use kettling, an indiscriminate tactic that detains everyone in a geographical area, instead attempting to single out for arrest those who were violating the law," wrote Simon. "Police might have made a greater effort to ascertain if journalists were accidentally caught up in the kettle and to release them if their role could be confirmed. Prosecutors could have made a decision not to charge them, based on the fact that they were acting as journalists and engaged in newsgathering activities."

New Zealand state media censors Ukraine truth

Ukraine Got $6.2B EXTRA In US Military Aid Due To ANOTHER Pentagon ‘ACCOUNTING ERROR’?!

Joe Biden's Pentagon Basement Discount Warehouse of Destruction finds some new accounting tricks to pick our pockets with:

Extra $6bn in US arms for Ukraine after ‘accounting error’

The Pentagon says it has overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2bn – about double early estimates – resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

A detailed review of the accounting error found that the replacement cost was used rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from stocks, said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.

The Pentagon previously made a similar announcement, in May, that it had overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment by about $3bn, and the figure could grow with further investigation. On Tuesday, Singh said final calculations showed there was an error of $3.6bn in the current fiscal year and $2.6bn in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended on 30 September.

As a result, the department has additional money to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. It come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.

Ukr Standstill, Russia Warns US/UK Retaliation If Missiles Hit Russia; Blinken Humiliated by China

More stuff fresh off of The Guardian's catapult:

Russia threatens Ukraine’s ‘decision-making centres’ if Kyiv uses western arms in Crimea

Russia has threatened a strike against Kyiv’s “decision-making centres” if Ukraine uses western-supplied missiles against the occupied peninsula of Crimea, in the Kremlin’s latest attempt to inhibit Nato support for Kyiv amid the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said on Tuesday that the potential use of US-supplied Himars and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Crimea would mark the west’s “full involvement in the conflict and would entail immediate strikes upon decision-making centres in Ukrainian territory”. Those are seen to include the Ukrainian presidential administration and intelligence headquarters.

Russia has issued similar threats before, but the latest comments come as Kyiv is launching a counteroffensive into south and eastern Ukraine to retake land occupied by Russia since the early days of the war.

Shoigu claimed without providing evidence that Ukraine was preparing a strike against Crimea using the missiles.

Heh, Brandon was just saying that there was going to be a thaw in relations with China. I guess he forgot to turn off the gaffe machine.

China slams Biden for equating Xi to 'dictators'

Lots more detail at the link, worth a peek:

US Troops Are in Peru to Counter Chinese and Russian Influence in Latin America, Reports Peruvian News Outlet

As Peru descends even deeper into political chaos and ungovernability, the main priority for its unelected President Dina Boluarte is basic survival. So says a piece in the Peruvian daily La Republica, adding that Boluarte’s dire approval rating (14%-17%) is a result not just of the 60 protesters’ deaths on her watch but also her abject lack of management ability. As vice president, Boluarte helped to topple and replace her former boss, Peru’s elected President Pedro Castillo, now languishing in jail, sparking riots throughout the country. But since then (December 7), her short-lived presidency has brought nothing but bloodshed, chaos and division.

Peru is currently in the grip of its worst ever Dengue outbreak, which is hitting poor communities — many of the same communities that voted for Castillo — particularly hard. Five days ago, the Health Minister Rosa Gutiérrez resigned over criticism of her management of the crisis. Gutiérrez’s replacement, César Vásquez, faces allegations in Peru’s Congress of influence peddling in early 2021. It is against this febrile backdrop that Boluarte chose to break the news five days ago that she will not be calling general elections until 2026 — despite the fact she has repeatedly pledged to call new elections some time this year, has zero democratic legitimacy, is broadly despised by the public and is under investigation for numerous human rights violations.

But Boluarte still enjoys the support of the US Embassy*, and for the moment that is what counts. In fact, there are 1,172 US soldiers on Peruvian soil right now or at least on their way there. As I reported in my May 26 post, Why Are US Military Personnel Heading to Peru?, the Boluarte government and Peru’s Congress — which ranks even lower in the public’s estimation than Boluarte — have authorised the entry of US troops onto Peruvian soil between June 1 and August 29. They also authorised the entry of 11 US military aircraft, two boats, two trucks, rockets, grenades, detonators, satellite communication equipment, machine guns, pistols and ammunition.

Since that article, more details have seeped out about the US military’s presence in Peru, which is certainly out of the ordinary. US troops have entered Peru periodically for decades, but never for periods as long as this. “Juegos de Guerra” (War Games), an in-depth report published by the weekly newspaper Hildebrandt en sus trece, wagers that the main reason for the US troops’ mobilisation is as a show of force to Washington’s main strategic rivals, Russia and China, which are “eroding” US influence in the region. “There is a global political confrontation between the United States and China and Russia. Peru is key because we are located at a strategic point in the Pacific basin, a gateway for China and access point to Brazil’s huge market on the Atlantic seaboard. We are a hinge”, Wilson Barrantes, former director of Peru’s National Intelligence Directorate (DINI), told the weekly newspaper. ...

Preparations for the exercise were thrashed out between the US Embassy in Lima and Ana Cecilia Gervasi Diaz, Peru’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gervasi Diaz was appointed to the role by Boluarte on December 10, just three days after Castillo’s impeachment and imprisonment.

John Durham TORCHES Steele Dossier, FISA Surveillance Of Trump Campaign In BOMBSHELL Testimony

The State That May Let Corporations Vote In Elections

Democratic President Biden has called his home “the corporate state of Delaware,” and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney has insisted that “corporations are people, my friend.” Embodying that bipartisan spirit in post-Citizens United America, Delaware Democrats are now advancing a Republican bill that would allow corporations to directly vote in a municipal election.

As GOP states across the country aim to limit voter participation, Delaware’s Democratic-controlled legislature has been considering a bill to allow the expansion of the franchise to businesses. The Republican legislation would explicitly permit the city of Seaford, Delaware “to authorize artificial entities, limited liability corporations’ partnerships and trusts to vote in municipal elections.”

The legislature has until June 30 to vote on the bill, when the legislative session ends. ...

Critics say the move is an outgrowth of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United, which allowed an unprecedented flow of corporate money into elections and asserted that corporations have both personhood and free speech rights.

“After Citizens United, this is another step down the road to corporate tyranny,” Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of the progressive watchdog group Common Cause Delaware, told The Lever, “It’s bad enough that Citizens United gives corporations free speech rights. Now Seaford wants to give voting rights to corporations.”

Who’s unhoused in California? Largest study in decades upends myths

Nearly half of all unhoused adults in California are over the age of 50, with Black residents dramatically overrepresented, according to the largest study of the state’s homeless population in decades. University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) research released on Tuesday also revealed that 90% of the population lost their housing in California, with 75% of them now living in the same county where they were last housed. The study further found that nearly nine out of 10 people reported that the cost of housing was the main barrier to leaving homelessness.

The research from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, based on a representative survey of nearly 3,200 unhoused people, contradicts several persistent myths about the population, including that most unhoused people come from out of state to take advantage of services, as well as stereotypes that homeless people are mostly young adults who prefer to live outside and don’t want help.

“People are homeless because their rent is too high. And their options are too few. And they have no cushion,” Dr Margot Kushel, initiative director and lead investigator, told the Associated Press. “And it really makes you wonder how different things would look if we could solve that underlying problem.”

California is home to more than 171,000 people experiencing homelessness, comprising 30% of the homeless population in the US and half of all Americans who are unsheltered and living outside. The crisis has become a public health catastrophe in recent years as an aging population is forced to live in tents, cars and other makeshift shelters, with thousands dying on the streets each year. California is considered the most unaffordable state for housing, where minimum-wage earners would have to work nearly 90 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

DOJ Report Exposes Minneapolis Police Civil Rights Violations Amid Call for Community-Led Reforms

Donald Trump to face trial in mid-August over classified documents charges

US district judge Aileen Cannon has set an initial trial date of 14 August in Florida on former US president Donald Trump’s federal charges of willful retention of classified government records and obstruction of justice, according to a court order on Tuesday.

The justice department’s special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, promised a speedy trial after a 37-count indictment charging Trump with willfully retaining classified government records and obstructing justice.

But the complexities of handling highly classified evidence, the degree to which Trump’s legal team challenges the government’s pre-trial motions, and the way the judge manages the schedule could all lead to a trial that is anything but swift, legal experts say, and a lengthy delay is widely expected.

Hunter Biden Takes Plea Deal on Tax & Gun Charges, But Legal Trouble May Not Be Over

Nature at risk of breakdown if Cop15 pledges not met, world leaders warned

Humans are exploiting nature beyond its limits, the University of Cambridge economist Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta has warned, as the UN’s environment chief calls on governments to make good on a global deal for biodiversity, six months after it was agreed. Dasgupta, the author of a landmark review into the economic importance of nature commissioned by the UK Treasury in 2021, said it was a mistake to continue basing economic policies on the postwar boom that did not account for damage to the planet.

Speaking to the Guardian six months after Cop15, where countries agreed this decade’s targets to protect nature, Dasgupta cautioned that a headline goal to protect 30% of land and sea should not lead to the destruction of the remaining 70%. He reiterated a recommendation from his 2021 report that companies must disclose the parts of their supply chain that rely on nature, so governments can take action on halting biodiversity loss.

Since the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework was agreed in December 2022, there has been a deal to protect the high seas and first steps towards a legally binding UN treaty to regulate plastic waste. The first few months of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency in Brazil has seen reductions in deforestation in the Amazon, although nature has become a culture wars issue in the EU, with proposals on restoration and pesticide reduction facing fierce opposition.

An informal update on progress towards reaching the 23 targets and four goals included in the Montreal agreement is expected to be made at Cop28 in Dubai amid continuing scientific warnings about the health of the planet. “It is a truism: if the demand for nature’s products and services continues to exceed its ability to supply, then there is going to be a breakdown,” said Dasgupta. “It is a finite resource. We know when fisheries are depleted by continuous overfishing, it leads to the destruction of a fishery. Now try to imagine that at the scale of the biosphere.

“This excess demand [for nature] is only about 50 years old. There’s been a great acceleration in that demand since the second world war. This experience is guiding policy and it’s a real mistake because it has come at a big expense to natural capital. The decline has not been recorded in statistics. It doesn’t show up in national accounts,” he added. “As an economist, I like to look at small societies as a prototype of the world economy. Studying poorer village economies tells you a lot: they are deeply dependent on natural capital. Many such societies have fallen under. We’ve seen this in Sudan with rainless areas, skinny cattle and people migrating miles and miles. It is not as if we don’t know what happens when nature breaks down.”

Iceland suspends annual whale hunt in move that likely spells end to controversial practice

Iceland’s government has said it is suspending this year’s whale hunt until the end of August due to animal welfare concerns, a move that is likely to bring the controversial practice to an end. Animal rights groups and environmentalists hailed the decision, with the Humane Society International calling it “a major milestone in compassionate whale conservation”.

“I have taken the decision to suspend whaling” until 31 August, food minister Svandis Svavarsdottir said in a statement, after a government-commissioned report concluded the hunt does not comply with Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act.

Recent monitoring by Iceland’s Food and Veterinary Authority on the fin whale hunt found that the killing of the animals took too long based on the main objectives of the Animal Welfare Act. Shocking video clips broadcast by the veterinary authority showed a whale’s agony as it was hunted for five hours. “If the government and licensees cannot guarantee welfare requirements, these activities do not have a future,” the minister said.

The country has only one remaining whaling company, Hvalur, and its licence to hunt fin whales expires in 2023. Another company stopped for good in 2020, saying it was no longer profitable. Iceland’s whaling season runs from mid-June to mid-September, and it is doubtful Hvalur would head out to sea that late in the season.

Gas stoves emit benzene levels above secondhand smoke, US study finds

Using a gas stove can raise indoor concentrations of benzene, a cancer-linked chemical, to above what’s found in secondhand smoking or even beyond levels found next to oil and gas facilities, a new study has found. The research, which measured benzene levels in 87 homes in California and Colorado, found that gas and propane stoves frequently emitted benzene at rates well above healthy benchmarks set by the World Health Organization and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Leaving a single gas hob on for 45 minutes raised benzene levels to above that found in secondhand tobacco smoking, or at the boundary of oil and gas plants, with emissions 10 to 25 times higher than that from electric coil stoves. Even low-burning hobs, or gas oven use, emits significant levels of benzene. Induction stoves emit no benzene at all, the researchers found.

The peer-reviewed study, led by scientists at Stanford University, is the first to use new monitors to effectively measure benzene indoors. Even low doses of airborne benzene raise the risk of a variety of cancers, including lymphomas and leukemia, by damaging people’s bone marrow. Elevated levels of benzene can linger for six hours throughout a house or apartment after a gas stove is turned off. ...

More than a third of households in the US use gas stoves, although many lack adequate ventilation to help reduce dangerous levels of benzene, the researchers said. Range hoods, even when they are used, often just circulate air around a dwelling rather than expel the harmful chemicals.

Tropical Storm Bret forecast to strengthen into hurricane

Tropical Storm Bret is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the eastern Caribbean’s Leeward and Windward islands, with meteorologists noting that the weather pattern is unusually early and aggressive for the Atlantic cyclone season that formally began on 1 June.

It is only the second hurricane to form in the tropical Atlantic in June since record keeping began, according to forecasters. The previous June hurricane was the 1933 Trinidad hurricane.

On Tuesday morning, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 40mph and was moving across the Atlantic Ocean at 17mph. It is predicted to strengthen into a hurricane, hit the eastern Caribbean islands on Thursday and Friday, but then weaken ahead of its approach to the Lesser Antilles, potentially taking aim at southern Haiti as a tropical storm, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. ...

Tropical Storm Bret is set to be followed by another weather pattern, currently listed as a disturbance, that has a 60% chance of cyclone formation. No June on record has had two storms form in the tropical Atlantic, according to meteorologist Philip Klotzbach at Colorado State University.

Also of Interest

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

U.S. Admits Defeat In War On Russia And China

The Silent Slaughter of the Flower of Ukraine’s Youth

Patrick Lawrence: US Still Nowhere with the Chinese

15 Questions That Are More Useful Than “What Presidential Candidate Should Americans Vote For?”

The Duty Of The Good Is To Be Powerful

Turkey & Hungary Blocking Sweden’s Entry to NATO

France to shut down climate protest group citing public safety risks

Kodak Black's Lawyer SLAMS Hunter Biden Plea After Rapper Sentenced To 3+ YEARS For Same Crime

A Little Night Music

Little Johnny Jones - Big Town Playboy

Little Johnny Jones - Dirty By The Dozen

Little Johnny Jones w/ Muddy Waters - Shelby County

Little Johnny Jones - Hoy Hoy

Little Johnny Jones - Doin' The Best I Can

Johnny Jones & Billy Boy Arnold - Sloppy Drunk Blues

Little Johnny Jones - Wait Baby

Tampa Red w/ Little Johnny Jones - So Crazy About You Baby

Little Johnny Jones - Chicago Blues