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"Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material."

-- Susan Sontag

News and Opinion

Greenwald. Worth a full read:

The ACLU, Prior to COVID, Denounced Mandates and Coercive Measures to Fight Pandemics

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) surprised even many of its harshest critics this week when it strongly defended coercive programs and other mandates from the state in the name of fighting COVID. “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” its Twitter account announced, adding that “vaccine requirements also safeguard those whose work involves regular exposure to the public."

If you were surprised to see the ACLU heralding the civil liberties imperatives of "vaccine mandates” and "vaccine requirements” — whereby the government coerces adults to inject medicine into their own bodies that they do not want — the New York Times op-ed which the group promoted, written by two of its senior lawyers, was even more extreme. The article begins with this rhetorical question: “Do vaccine mandates violate civil liberties?” Noting that "some who have refused vaccination claim as much,” the ACLU lawyers say: “we disagree.” The op-ed then examines various civil liberties objections to mandates and state coercion — little things like, you know, bodily autonomy and freedom to choose — and the ACLU officials then invoke one authoritarian cliche after the next (“these rights are not absolute") to sweep aside such civil liberties concerns:

[W]hen it comes to Covid-19, all considerations point in the same direction. . . . In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. . . . .

[Many claim that] vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity. That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute. They do not include the right to inflict harm on others. . . . While vaccine mandates are not always permissible, they rarely run afoul of civil liberties when they involve highly infectious and devastating diseases like Covid-19. . . .

While limited exceptions are necessary, most people can be required to be vaccinated. . . . . Where a vaccine is not medically contraindicated, however, avoiding a deadly threat to the public health typically outweighs personal autonomy and individual freedom.

The op-ed sounds like it was written by an NSA official justifying the need for mass surveillance (yes, fine, your privacy is important but it is not absolute; your privacy rights are outweighed by public safety; we are spying on you for your own good). And the op-ed appropriately ends with this perfect Orwellian flourish: “We care deeply about civil liberties and civil rights for all — which is precisely why we support vaccine mandates.”

What makes the ACLU's position so remarkable — besides the inherent shock of a civil liberties organization championing state mandates overriding individual choice — is that, very recently, the same group warned of the grave dangers of the very mindset it is now pushing. In 2008, the ACLU published a comprehensive report on pandemics which had one primary purpose: to denounce as dangerous and unnecessary attempts by the state to mandate, coerce, and control in the name of protecting the public from pandemics. The title of the ACLU report, resurfaced by David Shane, reveals its primary point: "Pandemic Preparedness: The Need for a Public Health – Not a Law Enforcement/National Security – Approach.” To read this report is to feel that one is reading the anti-ACLU — or at least the actual ACLU prior to its Trump-era transformation. From start to finish, it reads as a warning of the perils of precisely the mindset which today's ACLU is now advocating for COVID. ...

A separate ACLU report from 2015, issued during the ebola epidemic, contained a similar message. It warned “against politically motivated and scientifically unwarranted quarantines, which the report found violated individuals’ rights and hampered efforts to end the outbreak.” ... While both reports acknowledge that more restrictive measures can be justified under extreme circumstances, the crux of each is that voluntary compliance is better than coercion, that state mandates typically fail, and that the far greater danger is vesting too much power in the hands of the state, which it will never relinquish given the permanence of pandemics.

How the ACLU fell from those traditional and vital civil liberties positions to urging this week in The New York Times that “far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” is anyone's guess. But what is beyond doubt is that it is a far fall indeed. And most of all, hearing the ACLU invoke the standard rationale of authoritarians — we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions, but these rights are not absolute — is nothing short of jarring.

Kim Iversen: ACLU Supports MANDATES, BETRAYING True Civil Liberties Mission

Taliban name all-male Afghan cabinet including minister wanted by FBI

The Taliban have announced an all-male caretaker government including an interior minister wanted by the FBI, on a day when at least two people were killed by violent policing of street protests against the new authorities. The leadership unveiled on Tuesday is drawn entirely from Taliban ranks, despite promises of an inclusive cabinet, and many of its senior figures are on UN sanctions lists, which is likely to complicate the group’s search for international recognition. ...

Afghanistan will once more be officially known as an Islamic emirate, as it was under Taliban rule in the 1990s, and its chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, will be supreme leader. The Taliban have also brought back the ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, a notorious enforcement body that was one of the most hated institutions when they last controlled Afghanistan. Its main function was to police the Taliban’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law.

The prime minister will be Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the founding members of the group who was close to its original leader, one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar. He has had far less international exposure than other senior Taliban leaders, but as head of the group’s powerful leadership council he is one of its most influential members. Mullah Omar’s son Mullah Yaqoob will be defence minister, and the acting interior minister is Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI wanted list with a $5m (£3.6m) bounty on his head.

In his first statement since the Taliban seized power last month, Akhundzada said Afghanistan’s new rulers were committed to all international laws, treaties and commitments not in conflict with Islamic law. “In the future, all matters of governance and life in Afghanistan will be regulated by the laws of the holy Sharia,” he said.

New Taliban Government Filled with Hard-Liners, No Women Is “Disappointing” as Protests Grow

Afghanistan services collapsing and aid about to run out, says UN

Access to food aid and other life-saving services in Afghanistan is close to running out, the United Nations has warned, as concern mounts that the country is facing a “looming humanitarian catastrophe”.

The grim assessment from the UN’s Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs [OCHA] came amid an appeal for an extra $200m (£145m) in emergency funding in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover sparked a host of new issues.

The UN says 18 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster, and a further 18 million could quickly join them. ...

With several key donors including Germany, the World Bank and EU suspending their aid programmes follow the Taliban’s lightning military conquest of the country last month, spiralling food prices, the impact or recent devastating drought and uncertainty over how the hardline Islamist movement will provide services to an impoverished and largely rural population, the question of aid has become ever more urgent.

“Basic services in Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other life-saving aid is about to run out,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said adding that $606m in aid was needed for Afghanistan until the end of the year.

Alleged Afghan War CRIMINAL Pens New York Times Op-Ed, FUELS Anti-Withdrawal Warmongering?

Mexico’s supreme court rules criminal penalties for abortion unconstitutional

Mexico’s supreme court has struck down a state abortion law, ruling that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies are unconstitutional, in a decision which advocates say provides a path to decriminalisation across the country.

In a unanimous 10-0 ruling, the top court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code – with several justices arguing the prohibitions on voluntarily interrupting a pregnancy violated women’s rights to control their own bodies.

“It is not about the right to abortion,” said justice Luis María Aguilar, who wrote the court’s opinion for overturning the Coahuila law. “It’s rather the right to decide of women and persons able to gestate to make decisions.”

UN experts condemn Texas abortion law as sex discrimination ‘at its worst’

United Nations human rights monitors have strongly condemned the state of Texas for its new anti-abortion law, which they say violates international law by denying women control over their own bodies and endangering their lives.

In damning remarks to the Guardian, Melissa Upreti, the chair of the UN’s working group on discrimination against women and girls, criticized the new Texas law, SB 8, as “structural sex and gender-based discrimination at its worst”.

She warned that the legislation, which bans abortions at about six weeks, could force abortion providers underground and drive women to seek unsafe procedures that could prove fatal. “This new law will make abortion unsafe and deadly, and create a whole new set of risks for women and girls. It is profoundly discriminatory and violates a number of rights guaranteed under international law,” the human rights lawyer from Nepal said.

Upreti, one of five independent experts charged by the UN human rights council in Geneva to push for elimination of discrimination against women and girls around the world, was also sharply critical of the US supreme court. ... “The law and the way it came about – through the refusal of the US supreme court to block it based on existing legal precedent – has not only taken Texas backward, but in the eyes of the international community, it has taken the entire country backward,” Upreti said.

Texas abortion ‘whistleblower’ website forced offline

Troubles are mounting for a Texas website used to report violators of the state’s extreme anti-abortion legislation after the site was forced offline by two different web hosting platforms. The site ProLifeWhistleblower.com was removed from its original web host by the provider GoDaddy on Friday before being suspended by its new host, an agency known for providing services to far-right groups.

“For all intents and purposes it is offline,” Ronald Guilmette, a web infrastructure expert, told the Guardian. “They are having technical difficulties. My personal speculation is that they are going to have trouble keeping it online moving forward.” ...

In recent days, internet users have protested against the site by flooding it with false reports, memes and even porn in the hopes of rendering it less effective.

The website’s difficulties were compounded when GoDaddy, which provides the servers where the website lives, said the site had violated its privacy policies that bar the sharing of third-party personal information including data related to medical issues such as abortion.

The site was then moved to Epik, according to domain registration data first reported by Ars Technica. Epik is known for its “anything goes” attitude towards web hosting, servicing sites that other companies have deplatformed elsewhere for hate speech and other content violations – including 8chan, Gab and Parler.

According to reports from the Daily Beast, Epik contacted the website about potential violation of its own rules concerning the collection of medical data about people obtaining abortions. ... A Texas Right to Life spokeswoman, Kimberlyn Schwartz, said on Tuesday that the website was in the process of moving to a new host, but was not yet disclosing which one.

Nearly 300% more Covid patients in US hospitals at weekend than a year ago

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the US this Labor Day weekend was nearly 300% higher than this time last year, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The average number of deaths was over 86% higher than the same period last year.

The surge in patients comes as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread across the US, and coincided with a weekend that saw a spike in travel. According to the Transportation Security Administration, more than 3.5 million people travelled across the country on Friday and Saturday for the Labor Day holiday, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation for unvaccinated people to refrain from traveling.

Hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging indicator of Covid spread, so the impact of people’s travels this week will not be clear right away, but the agency is continuing to advise caution. ...

This past weekend saw 1.146m weekly cases, compared with 287,235 last year. Despite the decline in cases in certain states including Florida, other states such as Idaho are seeing hospitals begin to ration healthcare amid patient surges.

Military doctors shore up exhausted health teams in US south amid Covid surge

Military doctors and other federal emergency personnel are shoring up exhausted health teams in some parts of the US south where low vaccination rates are fueling the latest Covid-19 crisis.

As many hospitals struggle to avoid being overwhelmed, one hospital in Louisiana praised Pentagon medics for helping them cope, while health officials in Mississippi reported that four pregnant women died of Covid-19 in one a hospital there, and the governor of Kentucky called the situation in his state “dire”.

In a press briefing last week, the White House announced that as part of its Covid-19 surge response team, it has deployed over 350 EMTs, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to provide emergency medical care.

Ohio judge reverses court order forcing hospital to treat Covid patient with ivermectin

An Ohio judge has reversed a court order that forced a local hospital to treat a Covid-19 patient with the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. On Monday, Judge Michael Oster of Butler county issued an order that sided with West Chester Hospital, citing a lack of “convincing evidence” that the drug – used in small doses in humans against external parasites such as headlice, and in larger doses for animals including cows and horses – could significantly improve the patient’s condition.

The patient, Jeffrey Smith, was admitted to intensive care on 15 July. He has been on a ventilator since 1 August. ... As Smith’s condition deteriorated, his wife reached out to Fred Wagshul, a physician and founder member of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes ivermectin as a preventative treatment. According to Oster’s order, Wagshul, who does not have medical privileges at West Chester Hospital, prescribed 21 days of the medication without having seen Jeffrey Smith.

The hospital refused to administer the medication, citing lack of FDA approval, despite Julie Smith’s request. On 23 August, Butler county Judge Gregory Howard compelled West Chester Hospital to give Smith 30mg of ivermectin daily for three weeks.

Oster’s order nullified the order issued by Howard.

Joseph Stiglitz: Ending Unemployment Benefits as Pandemic Rages Is Cruel & Hurts Economic Recovery

Joe Biden to referee Democrats in brewing battle over $3.5tn budget bill

Congress will return from its summer recess later this month, and some Democrats are already gearing up for a political fight – with each other. Democratic lawmakers are looking to pass their $3.5tn spending package, after the House and the Senate approved the blueprint for the budget bill last month. The ambitious legislation encompasses much of Joe Biden’s economic agenda, including proposals to expand access to affordable childcare, invest in climate-related initiatives and broaden Medicare coverage.

But to get the bill passed, Democrats will first need to reach an agreement on the cost of the legislation. Centrist Democrats, including Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, have expressed concern about the bill’s $3.5tn price tag, while progressives have indicated they will fiercely oppose any attempt to cut funding in the proposal.

With his entire economic agenda hanging in the balance, Biden will need to convince the two fractious wings of his party to come together and pass a comprehensive spending package. And given Democrats’ extremely narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate, there is virtually no room for error. ...

Despite the war of words between moderates and progressives, the White House has continued to express confidence that Congress will ultimately reach an agreement on the legislation. “The president and his whole team are proud of and fighting for the substance of his Build Back Better agenda,” a White House official said in a statement. “These are complex processes, but as recent weeks have demonstrated, leaders in Congress and the President know how to move them forward.”

'No Flexibility on the Price Tag,' Jayapal Says of $3.5 Trillion Bill

The leader of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus made clear Tuesday that she's not willing to accept cuts to Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation proposal, a sweeping climate and social spending package that conservative members of the party are currently attempting to scale back.

"There is no flexibility on the price tag, and it's not because I care about what the top line is," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, told the Washington Post. "It's because I care about delivering on these benefits."

Jayapal went on to warn that approving a watered-down version of the popular proposal—which includes Medicare expansion, paid family and medical leave, immigration reform, and major investments in green energy—could have disastrous electoral consequences for Democrats, who are clinging to vanishingly narrow majorities in the House and Senate ahead of the 2022 midterms.

According to a recent USA Today/Suffolk University survey, 52% of U.S. voters overall and 90% of Democrats support the $3.5 trillion package, which lawmakers are racing to complete by next month as deadly extreme weather across the U.S. lays bare the need for ambitious climate action.

"If we don't deliver," Jayapal said, "then I think all of the people who came out and voted for Democrats to take control of the House, the Senate, and the White House are going to come out and say, 'that's it.'"

Progressives in Congress believe they have the leverage to ensure that their major priorities are not stripped from the final reconciliation package to appease conservative Democrats, who are griping about the bill's $3.5 trillion price tag without offering an alternative or specifically detailing which provisions they would like to cut.

For weeks, members of the CPC have promised to vote against a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill backed by conservative Democrats unless a reconciliation package containing progressive priorities is approved at the same time—a position that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) reiterated Tuesday.

"The commitment on this strategy to move both of these pieces simultaneously still remains," Omar, the CPC whip, told Roll Call.

Democratic committee leaders currently are rushing to finalize the details of the far-reaching reconciliation package before September 27, the date on which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill up for a floor vote.

Asked about Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) call last week for a "strategic pause" on the reconciliation package, Pelosi said Tuesday, "Obviously, I don't agree."

"The number is the number: $3.5 [trillion]," Pelosi added. "We're going to pay for as much of it as possible. It'll have far less impact on the national debt than Republicans' 2017 tax scam."

A large majority of that tax giveaway went to the richest 1%, noted Pelosi, and "it added $2 trillion to the national debt."

Virginia to remove Robert E Lee statue from state capital Richmond

One of the largest Confederate statues still on full public display in the US is to be removed on Wednesday when the authorities take down the towering bronze depiction of General Robert E Lee from Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the confederacy. ...

Protective fencing will go up on Tuesday along Monument Avenue in Richmond, where numerous other Confederate statues have already been removed. Only Lee is left, looming from the middle of a major traffic circle.

On Wednesday, the bronze statue of man and horse – but not the granite base – will he hauled off. ...

The statue of Lee will come down 130 years after it was built and more than a year after the Virginia government intended to remove it, delayed by a legal battle between those arguing for its preservation and those criticizing it as a symbol of racial injustice.

“Virginia’s largest monument to the Confederate insurrection will come down this week,” said Ralph Northam, Virginia’s governor, on Monday. “This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a commonwealth.”

Texas governor signs controversial voting restrictions into law

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has signed into law highly controversial new restrictions on voting access, which voting rights advocates say unfairly target people of color and seek to preserve Republican dominance in state and national elections.

Abbott signed the law on Tuesday in the east Texas city of Tyler, an area that supported Donald Trump by more than two-to-one last year. But Texas demographics are changing and the presidential election was far closer in the state overall, Trump beating Joe Biden by just 5.5 points, the thinnest margin for a Republican in decades. ...

Opponents did not wait for his signature to begin filing lawsuits. The American Civil Liberties Union, minority rights groups and disability advocates are part of a broad coalition that filed last week in federal court in Texas, accusing Republicans of violating the federal Voting Rights Act and discriminating against minorities.

20 meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gas than Germany, Britain or France

Twenty livestock companies are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than either Germany, Britain or France – and are receiving billions of dollars in financial backing to do so, according to a new report by environmental campaigners. Raising livestock contributes significantly to carbon emissions, with animal agriculture accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Scientific reports have found that rich countries need huge reductions in meat and dairy consumption to tackle the climate emergency.

Between 2015 and 2020, global meat and dairy companies received more than US$478bn in backing from 2,500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds, most of them based in North America or Europe, according to the Meat Atlas, which was compiled by Friends of the Earth and the European political foundation, Heinrich Böll Stiftung. With that level of financial support, the report estimates that meat production could increase by a further 40m tonnes by 2029, to hit 366m tonnes of meat a year.

Although the vast majority of growth was likely to take place in the global south, the biggest producers will continue to be China, Brazil, the USA and the members of the European Union. By 2029 these countries may still produce 60% of worldwide meat output. Across the world, the report says, three-quarters of all agricultural land is used to raise animals or the crops to feed them. “In Brazil alone, 175m hectares is dedicated to raising cattle,” an area of land that is about equal to the “entire agricultural area of the European Union”.

The report also points to ongoing consolidation in the meat and dairy sector, with the biggest companies buying smaller ones and reducing competition. The effect risks squeezing out more sustainable food production models. “To keep up with this [level of animal protein production] industrial animal farming is on the rise and keeps pushing sustainable models out of the market,” the report says.

“Badly Damaged”: Environmental Activist in “Cancer Alley” Documents Oil Spills After Hurricane Ida

Animals ‘shapeshifting’ in response to climate crisis, research finds

Animals are increasingly “shapeshifting” because of the climate crisis, researchers have said. Warm-blooded animals are changing their physiology to adapt to a hotter climate, the scientists found. This includes getting larger beaks, legs and ears to better regulate their body temperature. ...

The review, published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, found that the differences are particularly pronounced in birds.

The author of the study, Sara Ryding of Deakin university, a bird researcher, said: “Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is fine. “It just means they are evolving to survive it – but we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving.” ...

Examples include several species of Australian parrot that have shown a 4-10% increase in bill size since 1871, positively correlated with the summer temperature each year. Meanwhile, research on the North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, showed a link between increased bill size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. Researchers have also reported tail length increases in wood mice, and tail and leg size increases in masked shrews. Bats in warm climates were shown to have increased wing size.

Also of Interest

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

Imagine Spending $8 Trillion to Rebuild a Society Instead of Destroying One

The Other Afghan Women

The Two Satans of Afghanistan – And Jimmy Carter’s Lips Are Sealed

IAEA Falsely Claims Iran’s Tiny Stockpile of 60% Uranium Growing Rapidly

Israeli Military ‘Greatly Accelerating’ Plans to Attack Iran

How U.S. Levant Policies Defeated Themselves

Israel prison break: escape allegedly took place while guard slept

Bolsonaro diehards take to streets of Brazil to urge firing squads and coups

The Bizarre Civil War-Stoking Impulses of the Professional-Managerial Class in the US

Biden Could Share Vaccine Data With The World

As US Prepares to Ban Ivermectin for Covid-19, More Countries in Asia Begin Using It

Avocados and vanilla among dozens of wild crop relatives facing extinction

A Little Night Music

Alvin Robinson - The Blues

Alvin Robinson - Fever

Alvin Robinson- Let Me Down Easy

Alvin Robinson - Down Home Girl

Alvin Robinson - Let The Good Times Roll

Alvin Robinson - I'm Gonna Put Some Hurt On You

Alvin Robinson - Baby Don't You Do It

Alvin Robinson - Whatever You Had You Ain't Got No More

Alvin Robinson - You Brought My Heart Right Down To My Knees

Alvin Robinson - Searchin'