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This evening's music features blues and gospel singer Vance "Tiny" Powell. Enjoy!

"Society gives legitimacy and society can take it away."

-- Willis Harman

News and Opinion

The Supreme Court's Legitimacy Crisis

Chief Justice John Roberts said at an event last week that he doesn't understand current questions about the Supreme Court's legitimacy. "The [Court's] decisions have always been publicly criticized," the chief justice said, but it is a "mistake" to view those critiques as questioning the Court's legitimacy so long as the Court keeps doing its job, which is "to say what the law is."

But is the Supreme Court actually doing its job? Courts are supposed to operate under rules and norms that discourage overreach and encourage public confidence. By deciding questions it doesn't have to, making major decisions via unexplained orders, and tainting key rulings with ethical lapses, last term's decisions give the public reason to think the Court is not saying what the law is, but what the justices personally prefer it to be.

In Roberts's concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which took away the right to abortion, he wrote that "if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to decide more." Yet on numerous occasions last term, the Court did just that, answering questions it was not asked on the way to fulfilling long-standing conservative policy goals in ways that make the justices look much more like players in the game than referees. ...

And of course, even if the Court shouldn't always feel bound by public opinion, the public's perceptions of the Court depend in part on whether it agrees with the justices' decisions. Researchers have found this to be true, which may be why the Court's understanding of the law throughout its history has generally evolved along with public opinion. This history makes it even more striking that a decade-long survey found the Court, which had been largely in step with public opinion, has veered significantly to the right and out of step with the public in the two years since the Court's composition changed. ...

To preserve the Court's legitimacy as an institution that differs from the elected branches, the justices have to appear willing to sometimes "say what the law is" in ways that do not serve their personal or partisan preferences. This past term, however, showcased a Supreme Court majority unwilling to do so, legitimacy be damned.

Biden COMMITS To War With China On Taiwan

Biden Keeps Pledging Direct US War With China Over Taiwan

The president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers.

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Biden was asked point-blank by CBS News’ Scott Pelley if US forces would defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland.

“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,” Biden said.

“After our interview a White House official told us US policy has not changed,” Pelly narrates after the comment. “Officially, the U.S. will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan. But the commander-in-chief had a view of his own.”

“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, US Forces, US men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?” Pelley asked.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

This is by my count the fourth time the US president has made such remarks in transgression of his government’s standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” on this issue only to have them walked back by administration staff.

This past May Biden said “yes” when asked by the press if the US would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion, adding, “That’s the commitment we made.” A White House official later stated that the president’s comments did not reflect a change in US policy.

At a CNN forum in October of last year Biden responded in the affirmative when asked by an audience member if the US would intervene to defend Taiwan, and said “Yes, we have a commitment” when asked to clarify if he meant intervening against an attack from China. Again, the White House quickly clarified that “there is no change in our policy.”

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in August of last year Biden implied that the US would defend Taiwan as it would a NATO ally, saying that the US has “kept every commitment… same with Taiwan” when asked if China might be emboldened to attack the island by the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Again a senior administration official told the press, “Our policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed.”

(It is worth noting at this time that Biden’s repeated assertion that the US has a “commitment” to defend Taiwan militarily is objectively false; that hasn’t been the case for over 40 years.)

I’ve listed these statements in reverse chronological order, and you can see they get more vague the earlier they are. Now you’ve got the president clearly and explicitly saying that he will send US troops to kill and be killed in a direct hot war with China to defend Taiwan.

I don’t know why the US president keeps verbally committing his armed forces to a third world war against a nuclear-armed nation only to have it walked back over and over again by the administration he’s supposed to be in charge of. Is this just some neurological glitch in an aging brain which promoted war and militarism throughout its entire time in office? Is it some weird new tactic in “strategic ambiguity” to have different parts of the administration saying completely different things in totally unambiguous ways? Is Biden just a crazy warmonger? I don’t know. But what I do know is that all this chaos and confusion is happening at the worst possible time.

As Brett Wilkins explains for Common Dreams, a new bill from the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee threatens to bring the world much closer to a horrific war due to the way it would upend existing US policy on China with its recognition of Taiwan as a major “non-NATO ally” as part of a commitment to send billions of dollars worth of weapons to the island. Fears of what this could unleash upon our world have caused even fairly reliable empire facilitators like Ed Markey to vote against the bill, which Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning says would “greatly shake the political foundation of China-US relations and cause extremely serious consequences to China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

This is just one of the ways that tensions with China are being ramped up with astonishing speed over Taiwan, among them also the normalization of sending an increasingly high number of US officials to Taipei in steadily rising contempt for Washington’s One China policy which has kept the peace along this flashpoint for decades.

This Taiwan situation is getting uglier and uglier, much faster than many expected, and the president of the world’s mightiest war machine is either two stupid, too bloodthirsty, too careless or too demented to navigate this situation with the sensitivity it deserves. Things never should have been allowed to get this far, and the US empire is showing us every indication that it intends to take things much, much further.

The real battle is happening in Bakhmut. US searches for second front

Putin Scores Several Diplomatic Wins as West Attempts To Isolate the Kremlin

After Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, Western leaders led by President Joe Biden vowed the Kremlin would face historic isolation that would bring its war machine to a halt and cripple Moscow’s economy. However, nearly seven months into the war, Russia has maintained its economic strength as Moscow has found several partners worldwide.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended a conference of 14 world leaders in Uzbekistan. The countries at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Samarkand make up over half the world’s population and a quarter of the global economy. The SCO is the second largest global body after the UN.

As the summit opened, Iran signed a Memorandum of Obligations to become a full SCO member. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi noted the growing relationship between sanctioned countries is helping to overcome problems. "The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US, such as Iran, Russia or other countries, can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger," he said in Uzbekistan. "The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped. Their perception is a wrong one."

‘Selfish’ Norway accused of Ukraine war-profiteering

Norwegian opposition party lawmaker Rasmus Hansson has a harsh message for his country’s government: The war in Ukraine isn’t a fair reason to demand higher gas prices. Sanctions-hit Russia is weaponizing gas deliveries, hoping to hurt Ukraine's EU allies now scrambling to cut their reliance on Russian energy exports. That's sending the price of natural gas soaring — up sevenfold over the last year. Now Norway has supplanted Russia as the EU's largest source of gas, and torrents of cash are pouring into the country. ...

The Nordic state’s center-left government — made up of the Social Democrats and Center Party — says it has shown solidarity with a 1.4 billion cubic meter production hike at three key fields in March, which is sending more gas to the EU. It argues Norway shouldn’t be blamed for market forces beyond its control.

But Hansson, a former leader of the Norwegian Green Party, isn’t buying the government’s argument. He called it “morally wrong” to profit from price rises driven primarily by war and argued that Norway also risks damaging relations with key European trading partners by forcing them to pay such high gas prices.

‘Olê, olá, Lula!’ Brazil’s voters sing for a heroic comeback to banish Bolsonaro

It was a scene that could have been plucked from Brazil’s history books: an enraptured crowd, a sea of flags and, on stage above them, a bearded leftist in a bright red shirt.“The president of hope is here!” the master of ceremonies roared as the star of the show arrived in a police convoy to address the people whose country he is promising to save. As their champion came into view, the throng chanted back a refrain from old times: “Olê, olê, olê, olá, Lula, Lula!”

Virtually identical spectacles played out two decades ago as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prepared to claim a momentous election victory in 2002 that would make him the first working-class president of one of the world’s most unequal nations. But this was September 2022 and the factory worker who became a left-wing legend was battling to complete a sensational political comeback that would return him to the presidency at the age of 77.

“Get your new Bermudas ready! Get your new shirts ready! Because on 1 January, I’ll be taking power!” Lula told the thousands of supporters who had come to see him in Nova Iguaçu, a down-at-heel city north of Rio. With two weeks until an election in which Lula hopes to defeat Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, the leftist is in pole position to achieve that goal – and the mostly black, working class crowd in Nova Iguaçu is desperate for him to succeed. ...

Nostalgia for Lula’s two-term government, when he used a commodities boom to bankroll social programmes that helped millions escape poverty, has played a leading role in his sixth presidential run. On the stump in Nova Iguaçu, Lula promised to empower the urban poor as he did from 2003 to 2010, telling his audience: “We abolished slavery in 1888 and we no longer want to be anyone’s slave.”

Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficial

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.

Raisi underlined the firm position of his government and dampened hopes that a week of summitry at UNGA in New York might yield any progress in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington has rejected the latest Iranian bargaining positive as “not constructive”, and most observers believe there will be no breakthroughs at least until after the US congressional elections in November.

Asked on the CBS 60 Minutes news programme whenever he would be ready to meet Biden in New York, Raisi replied: “No. I don’t think that such a meeting would happen. I don’t believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial.”

Raisi and Biden are both expected to address UNGA on Wednesday morning.

On comparisons between the Biden administration, which has reentered talks on restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA) and the Trump White House, which withdrew the US from the deal in 2018, triggering its subsequent unraveling, Raisi was blunt. “The new administration in the US, they claim that they are different from the Trump’s administration. They have said it in their messages to us. But we haven’t witnessed any changes in reality,” he said, in an interview due to be broadcast on Sunday evening.

Is Progress Obsolete? The United States Is Now an 'Un-Developing' Country

The United Nations' latest annual ranking of nations by "sustainable development goals" will come as a shock for many Americans. Not only aren't we "Number One," we're not even close. The top four countries are Scandinavian democracies. The United States ranks forty-first, just below Cuba (that's right, below our Communist neighbor). Countries that outrank us include Estonia, Croatia, the Slovak Republic, Romania, and Serbia.

Every ranking contains some element of subjectivity. But the seventeen "sustainable development goals" (SDGs) developed by economist Jeffrey Sachs and his team are well chosen. They include the absence of poverty and hunger, good health and education, gender equality, clean air and water, and reduced inequality.

The goal of the report is to measure countries' progress, or development, toward a civilized and sustainable future. As historian Kathleen Frydl points out, "Under this methodology ... the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries." Frydl's essay was widely circulated under the headline, "US is becoming a 'developing country' on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality."

To Frydl's point, the US picture does look like that of a developing country. But how, exactly, does a country that was once "developed" become "developing"? The phrase "developing country" implies that there are countries that have achieved development, and countries that are on their way. It leaves no room for the possibility that a nation, once it developed, can "un-develop" itself. It's like saying that a "growing child" can become "un-grown." And yet, that's exactly what is happening to the United States.

The language of "developed" and "developing" countries carries with it the idea that Western European and North American countries reached an endpoint in the 20th century, one that other nations naturally aspire to and are on the road to achieving. It is the language of post-colonialism (which suggests the United States is now colonizing itself). The words are heavily freighted with assumptions about globalism, capitalism, and liberal democracy. Among them is the idea that these forces bring with them a stability, the kind of benign stasis that Francis Fukuyama once called "the end of history."

Fukuyama has since renounced that idea, and understandably so. The declining status of the United States undermines the historical assumptions about progress that have guided political and financial elites for many decades. Countries like the United States and United Kingdom look less and less like the end-state of history and more and more like declining world powers, like so many that have gone before them.

Perhaps for this reason, the public debate has moved away from the quasi-Utopian ideals of Westernized development and back toward the idea that history is a cyclical process in which empires rise and fall. Anthropologists like Marshall Sahlins and David Graeber find positive qualities in 'primitive' societies. Journalists like Chris Hedges adopt the decline of the American empire as a major theme. In To Govern the Globe, historian Alfred McCoy forecasts the decline of American power and speculates that imperial nation-states may soon cease to exist altogether.

The historian Marc Bloch, quoted in Harvey Kaye's book on the British Marxist historians, sounds prophetic when he writes that history is "the science of eternal change."

Where does that leave the people of the United States? Other measurements and reports may not place the US below Cuba or Serbia, but most major measurements seem to point one way: down. Life expectancy is declining. Economic inequality is rising. Other measurements are flat at best.

Progress isn't like rain. It does not, as the Bible says of rainfall, "fall on the just and unjust alike." Progress, real progress, is made by people working together for the common good. If they don't work together it slows down, or stops, or reverses itself. The language of "development" is obsolete. We need a new language of cooperation, democracy, and justice. And we need it now, before it's too late, before the forces of climate change carry us away on the tides of eternal change.

'This Is About Corruption': Fury as Senate Poised to Delay Antitrust Vote

Progressive anti-monopoly campaigners expressed dismay and outrage Friday following a news report indicating that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer—a major beneficiary of Big Tech campaign cash—is likely to delay a vote on bipartisan antitrust legislation until after the midterm elections.

TIME reported late Thursday that key lawmakers involved in the effort to get the American Innovation and Choice Online Act over the finish line "don't expect" Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring the bill to the floor for a vote ahead of the November elections, throwing the stalled measure's prospects into further doubt.

One unnamed senior Democratic aide told the outlet that there is "no chance" the Senate votes on the bill before the midterms.

"Let's make one thing clear: this is not about a 'busy legislative calendar' or 'competing priorities' or 'not having the votes,'" responded Evan Greer, director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future. "This is about corruption, plain and simple, and the nauseating influence of Big Tech money in D.C."

California Democrats Go ALL IN On Censorship

Why wouldn't they ban books? They have no scruples about censoring the internet. Seems to me like the shitlibs got this ball rolling.

Book-Banning Efforts Rising at Unprecedented Rate, US Libraries Report

Right-wing attempts to ban books are showing no sign of slowing down, according to a report released Friday by the American Library Association—and in fact have reached an unprecedented level, with libraries and bookstores increasingly facing legal threats over the materials on their shelves.

The organization, which has been tracking book-banning efforts for more than 20 years, found that so far in 2022, parents and other community members have "challenged" 1,651 different books and have issued 681 complaints across the country.

In 2021, 1,597 individual books were the subject of challenges, which can include written complaints, forms provided by and submitted to a library, or social media posts in which people demand books be removed from a library's collection.

Friday's report showed that right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty have escalated their attacks on library patrons' right to access certain books, with 27 police reports having been filed so far this year over accusations that librarians are providing inappropriate or "pornographic" material to children.

"We're truly fearful that at some point we will see a librarian arrested for providing constitutionally protected books on disfavored topics," Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom at ALA, told The New York Times.

Book challenges this year have mainly focused on titles that center Black or LGBTQ+ characters, according to the Times.

The graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, a memoir about the author's coming of age as a nonbinary person, has been the most frequently targeted book so far this year.

The book was at the center of a vote in Jamestown Township, Michigan last month in which residents rejected essential funding for the town's library, prompting concerns that the library will be forced to close within the next year.

Parents in a town in Washington also filed police reports against the school district for including Gender Queer in a school library's collection, and a Republican lawmaker sued Barnes & Noble to prohibit it from selling the book to minors—a lawsuit that was dismissed last month.

ALA president Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada said the group's report "reflects coordinated, national efforts to silence marginalized or historically underrepresented voices and deprive all of us—young people, in particular—of the chance to explore a world beyond the confines of personal experience."

Banning books that discuss racial inequality or LGBTQ+ issues "denies young people resources that can help them deal with the challenges that confront them," added Pelayo-Lozada. "Efforts to censor entire categories of books reflecting certain voices and views shows that the moral panic isn't about kids: It's about politics."

West Virginia Gov. Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

West Virginia on Friday became the second state in the U.S. to pass an abortion ban into law following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, one day after Indiana's new ban went into effect.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice abruptly announced at a press conference that he had privately signed House Bill 302, which passed in the legislature earlier this week. ...

The bill will go into effect immediately, and the state's only abortion clinic, Women's Health Center of West Virginia in Charleson, started canceling dozens of abortion care appointments earlier this week following the passage of H.B. 302.

The law bans abortions at any stage of pregnancy and is written to permit abortion care in cases of a fetus that is not medically viable, an ectopic pregnancy, or a medical emergency—exceptions that Justice said qualified as "reasonable and logical."

Recent cases in Texas and Louisiana have demonstrated that in practice, such exceptions can result in hospitals and doctors waiting until a pregnant person's life is in danger before providing care, or forcing them to carry a nonviable pregnancy for weeks. ...

The law also imposes restrictions on people whose pregnancies are the result of rape or incest. Adult survivors cannot obtain abortion care after eight weeks of pregnancy and must report their assault to the police, while minors have until 14 weeks of pregnancy and must either file a police report or be treated for their assault in a hospital—or else they will be forced to continue the pregnancy.

Biden Takes VICTORY LAP As Rail Workers REVOLT

California’s fast-food industry calls for referendum on new labor legislation

The fast-food industry is seeking to overturn one of the most significant labor wins in recent American history by trying to scrap a new law in California that will establish an industry council for the sector on wage standards and other regulations, including safety. The Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, AB 257, was signed into law by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, on 5 September in what is seen as a huge fillip to a US labor movement seeking to capitalize on a wave of unionization drives.

The law paves the way for a statewide fast-food sector council that includes workers, state regulators, franchises and their parent companies to establish wage standards and other regulations for the industry in the state. ...

As workers are now organizing to collect signatures to create the councils, the fast-food industry is mobilizing to try to overturn the law, claiming it will harm businesses and lead to a 20% increase in menu prices due to possible wage increases to up to $22 an hour in 2023. The industry also claims the law will not bolster worker protections.

Opponents have also claimed the law could lead to restaurant closures and dissuade franchise owners from opening new locations in California.

The National Restaurant Association and International Franchise Association has created a coalition of industry groups to back a statewide voter referendum initiative to overturn the law, and has warned that other states could follow suit in passing similar laws. Major fast-food corporations spent at least $1m lobbying against the bill between June 2021 and June 2022.

Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigation

Attorneys representing Venezuelan asylum-seekers flown thousands of miles to an affluent holiday island in Massachusetts at the behest of Republican governors have formally requested authorities open a criminal investigation, claiming the victims were “induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretences”.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based group representing 30 of the 48 people flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, said: “Individuals, working in concert with state officials, including the Florida governor, made numerous false promises [to the migrants] – including of work opportunities, schooling for their children, and immigration assistance – in order to induce them to travel.”

According to LCR, which is providing pro bono legal assistance to the asylum-seekers, the Venezuelans were duped in what was essentially a coordinated political stunt targeting vulnerable people based on their race and country of origin. Those flown to the holiday island included women and children as young as two years old.

LCR has written to the US attorney Rachael Rollins and the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, requesting they open criminal investigations, as “we strongly believe that criminal laws were broken by the perpetrators of this stunt”.

In a statement, LCR said: “This cowardly political stunt has placed our clients in peril. Upon arrival, numerous individuals had to be rushed to the hospital, in need of medical care. Some now have immigration hearings as early as Monday thousands of miles away.”

The end of the debate? Republicans draw the curtain on political theater

The vast collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington contain two brown wooden chairs. Their backs have labels explaining that they were used by John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in “the first face-to-face discussion between presidential candidates” at the CBS television studio in Chicago in 1960. In short, the first televised presidential debate. And where America led, the rest of the world followed, copying the model of gladiatorial political combat as the ultimate format to help voters make up their minds.

But heading into the US midterm elections, the debate appears to be in decline, a casualty of fragmented digital media, a deeply polarised political culture and a democracy losing its sense of cohesion.

For many Republicans, ducking debates is a way to express disdain for a national media that former president Donald Trump has derided as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people”. Some Democrats have a different motive, refusing to share a platform with Republican election deniers peddling baseless conspiracy theories. ... But Republicans are the main objectors.

AOC SQUISHES On Whether She'll Back Pelosi

Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs. The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. ...

The new documents are “the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers”, said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity. “If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,” Wiles added.

Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are “explosive” and show a “culture of intense disrespect” to climate activists. The oil giants’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,” he added. “Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”

Several of the emails and memos within the released trove of documents appear to show executives, staffers and lobbyists internally contradicting public pronouncements by their companies to act on lowering planet-heating emissions. ...

Previous releases of internal documents have shown that the oil industry knew of the devastating impact of climate change but chose instead to downplay and even deny these findings publicly in order to maintain their business model.

Stronger & Wetter: Michael Mann on How Climate Change Makes Storms Worse & Why We Must Cut Emissions

Severe storm headed for Alaska could bring devastating levels of flooding

Alaska is bracing for what forecasters believe could be its worst storm in decades, as the remnants of a typhoon bring hurricane-force winds and towering waves crashing toward its shores.

The remnants of Typhoon Merbok, now swirling over the Bering Sea, are predicted to deliver devastating levels of flooding and damaging wind gusts beginning Friday night and lasting through the weekend.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks forecasted that the impact from this severe storm could produce the worst coastal flooding in five decades and that the rising waters might not recede for 10 to 14 hours in some areas, warning residents to take “immediate action” to protect themselves.

The fierce storm will also accelerate coastal erosion that has already put villages and Indigenous communities in peril.

“It looks like for the northern Bering Sea, this will be the deepest or strongest storm we’ve ever seen in September,” said meteorologist Ed Plumb, adding that it was on a “perfect track to bring significant severe coastal flooding to parts of western Alaska”.

Blackout in Puerto Rico: Whole Island Loses Power Amid Hurricane Fiona as Privatized Grid Collapses

Hurricane #Fiona could produce 12-16" of rain, possibly up to 25", over portions of Puerto Rico. These rains will pose an extreme life-threatening flooding risk, especially over southern and eastern portions of the island.@NWSSanJuan: https://t.co/2iimGXc4sq pic.twitter.com/ohN1oWFg6r

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 18, 2022

Puerto Rico braces itself as Hurricane Fiona knocks out power on entire island

The entire island of Puerto Rico was without power as a category 1 hurricane bringing heavy rains and dangerous winds was expected to make landfall on Sunday evening, with the island bracing for “life-threatening” flash floods and landslides. Hurricane Fiona, which was located about 25km (40 miles) off the coast of the Caribbean island at midday on Sunday, threatens to cause widespread flooding and damage to infrastructure in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as it continues to strengthen and dump torrential rain over the next 24 hours.

Lights went out across the island just after 1pm, leaving only those households and businesses with rooftop solar or functioning generators with power.

The health minister confirmed that a major cancer hospital in the capital San Juan was without power after its backup generator failed. An emergency shelter in Sabana Grande in the south-west, where dozens of locals including some infirm residents had sought refuge, is alsso currently without power after its generator failed, according to Ruth Santiago, an environmental lawyer and campaigner for Queremos Sol, a grassroots movement to transition the island away from a centralized energy grid to rooftop solar.

“The only thing that can save us this time is that Fiona is not as strong as Maria because so little has changed, the whole transmission system is down. The Fema money [federal funds to rebuild the energy system after Maria] should have been spent on rooftop solar… if people die the Biden government will have blood on its hands,” said Santiago from Salinas, a town being battered by gusty winds and torrential rains.

Also of Interest

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

Zelensky and NATO plan to transform post-war Ukraine into ‘a big Israel’

Chile Refuses Israeli Ambassador Over Killing of Palestinian Teen

New Footage Shows Israel's Raid on a Palestinian Rights Group

Israel’s denial of accountability for Abu Akleh killing may require cutoff of aid — Leahy

Gang rule engulfs Haitian capital

'Chickensh*t': Watchdogs Criticize Biden DOJ's New Corporate Crime Plan

House Dem Demands Biden HHS Probe Hospital Behemoth for Bilking Medicare

Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to kick teenage gun control activist

It’s the thirstiest crop in the US south-west. Will the drought put alfalfa farmers out of business?

'We Don't Owe Joe Manchin Anything!' Opposition to Dirty Side Deal Grows

The Missing Data Behind Manchin’s Dirty Pipeline Deal

Ukrainian Kids Giving Nazi Salute Caught During “Feel Good” News Story

Scott Ritter on Ukraine's counter-offensive, Russia's next move

A Little Night Music

Tiny Powell - Take Me With You

Tiny Powell - On The Blue Side

Tiny Powell - Done Made It Over

Tiny Powell - Going Home

Tiny Powell - Get My Hat

Tiny Powell - Bossy Woman

Tiny Powell w/The Paramount Gospel Singers - Breathe On Me

Tiny Powell w/The Paramount Gospel Singers - Working On The Building

The Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi w/Tiny Powell - In The Wilderness