Tech Workers and Flight Attendants Resist Immigrant Family Separation
Anton Woronczuk | truthout.org | 2018-08-11

| The brutal and wildly unpopular Trump administration policy that separated thousands of children from their immigrant parents triggered widespread protests. | It also provoked resistance from workers whose jobs are crucial to carrying it out. | Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) don't operate in a vacuum. They depend on a host of products and services–including technology produced by software engineers and travel assisted by flight attendants. | By choosing to take a stand, these workers–some union, some nonunion–added their efforts to a national push that got the administration to suspend its policy, though thousands of children who were already separated have yet to be reunited with their families. | Tech Workers: | Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce all have lucrative contracts with immigration enforcement agencies, like ICE…
truthout.org/articles/tech-workers-and-flight-attendants-resist-immigrant-family-separation/

Pesticide Ruling Is Latest Embarrassing Setback for Trump
Merula Furtado | truthout.org | 2018-08-11
A federal appeals court in California ruled on Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) decision to ditch a proposed ban on a pesticide linked to brain damage in unborn babies and young children violated federal law. | The ruling generated embarrassing headlines for the Trump administration as it rolled out a number of attention-grabbing proposals that are also expected to face serious legal and legislative hurdles. | Scott Pruitt, President Trump's disgraced former EPA chief, signed an order shortly after taking office in March 2017 that reversed steps by the Obama administration to ban the decades-old pesticide chlorpyrifos on farms. The insect-killing chemical was banned for household use in 2000, and advocates have petitioned to remove it from the food supply for more than a decade amid mounting evidence that chlorpyrifos can harm developing brains. | In…
truthout.org/articles/pesticide-ruling-is-latest-embarrassing-setback-for-trump/

Democrats Complain About Green Party "Spoilers," but Few in Congress Back a Solution: Ranked-Choice Voting
Zaid Jilani | theintercept.com | 2018-08-10
Recent Midwestern election results have generated criticism of so-called spoiler candidates. A bill in the House could help, but only five in Congress have signed on. | The post Democrats Complain About Green Party "Spoilers," but Few in Congress Back a Solution: Ranked-Choice Voting appeared first on The Intercept.
theintercept.com/2018/08/10/ohio-special-election-ranked-choice-voting/

Court Orders Trump EPA to Ban Pesticide That Harms Children's Brains
Staff | truthdig.com | 2018-08-10
In a " major victory for public health," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Thursday ruled the Trump administration illegally blocked a ban on chlorpyrifos–a pesticide linked to brain development delays in children and nervous systems issuesfor all people and animals exposed to it–and ordered that it be outlawed within 60 days. | "Children, farmworkers, rural families, and science are all huge winners today," responded Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America. "The court affirmed that EPA's job is to protect public health, not industry profits." | While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlawed household use of the chemical in 2000, citing concerns about children's health, it has resisted a ban to stop farmers from spraying chlorpyrifos on crops–which PAN and other pesticide critics have demanded for more than a…
truthdig.com/articles/court-orders-trump-epa-to-ban-pesticide-that-harms-childrens-brains/

Poverty, Violence and Spiritual Wildfires
Robert Koehler | counterpunch.org | 2018-08-10
"They take advantage of that opportunity and they shoot into a crowd, no matter who they hit." The news this past weekend emerging from my fair city, Chicago, felt like news about wildfires sweeping across California: the sudden, hellish karma of climate change, that is to say, the gradual collapse of life-sustaining conditions on Planet…
counterpunch.org/2018/08/10/poverty-violence-and-spiritual-wildfires/

Guesstimating Our Own Gà∂tterdà§mmerung
Manuel García, Jr. | counterpunch.org | 2018-08-10
Max Bràºckner's sketch for the set design of the final scene of Wagner's "Gà∂tterdà§mmerung." We humans are our own Gods, and advancing climate change is the prelude to our own Gà∂tterdà§mmerung. Here then is my speculation (wild ass guess) of a schedule for the possible catastrophic events leading to human (and other) extinction by the…
counterpunch.org/2018/08/10/guesstimating-our-own-gotterdammerung/

Want to Create More Jobs? Reduce Fossil Fuel Use
Basav Sen | counterpunch.org | 2018-08-10
We've all heard claims that fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas are major job creators. President Trump says so all the time. But it turns out that developing and installing the technology to reduce fossil fuel use — known in the industry as "energy efficiency" — creates many more jobs than fossil fuels. Energy efficiency…
counterpunch.org/2018/08/10/want-to-create-more-jobs-reduce-fossil-fuel-use/

Dying of Consumption While Guzzling Snake Oil: a Realist's Perspective on the Environmental Crisis
Kristine Mattis | counterpunch.org | 2018-08-10
We're an egoistical, delusional lot, us humans. We're the only species on the planet who despoils its own life support system and who does not live within biological limits. Does that make us the most intelligent or least intelligent species? Preservation of our environment remains well toward the bottom of our priorities. Personally and collectively,…
counterpunch.org/2018/08/10/dying-of-consumption-while-guzzling-snake-oil-a-realists-perspective-on-the-environmental-crisis/

Heat wave and climate change drive California fires, now largest in state history
wsws.org | wsws.org | 2018-08-10
Last month was the hottest July on record for California going back 124 years, contributing to the drying out of vegetation and setting the stage for a record fire season.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/10/fire-a10.html

Wildlife Conservation: Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration's Trophy Hunting Council
FBD | globalresearch.ca | 2018-08-09
Conservation and animal protection groups sued the Trump administration today for illegally establishing the "International Wildlife Conservation Council," an advisory panel stacked with people who have personal or financial interests in …
globalresearch.ca/wildlife-conservation-lawsuit-challenges-trump-administrations-trophy-hunting-council/5650066

Rashida Tlaib Is Running for Congress on a Mission to Expand Civil-Rights Protections
John Nichols | thenation.com | 2018-08-09
Rashida Tlaib Is Running for Congress on a Mission to Expand Civil-Rights Protections appeared first on The Nation.
thenation.com/article/rashida-tlaib-running-congress-mission-expand-civil-rights-protections/

Experts: If We Don't Stop Climate Change, CA Fires "Will Seem Mild In Comparison to What's Coming"
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-09
The Mendocino Complex Fire in Northern California is now the largest wildfire ever recorded in California's history. It started burning in July–the state's hottest month on record. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California history, 15 have occurred since 2000. This year's fires have already burned nearly three times as many acres as the same time last year. Experts say climate change has increased the length of fire season. In Oakland, California, we speak with Michael Brune, the director of the Sierra Club. We also speak with Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State Univer…
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/9/experts_if_we_don_t_stop

"Earth Will Be Annihilated": On 73rd Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing, a Warning Against Nuclear War
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-06
Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the United States' atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, which killed 140,000 people and seriously injured another 100,000. In remembrance, we turn to the words of a Hiroshima survivor, or hibakusha. Koji Hosokawa was 17 years old when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His 13-year-old sister Yoko died in the bombing. He gave us a tour of the city when Democracy Now! was in Japan in 2014. He spoke to us near the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, one of the few structures in the city that survived the atomic blast.
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/6/earth_will_be_annihilated_on_73rd

Venezuela's President Maduro Survives Assassination Attack On Live TV
Paul Dobson | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-08-05
Six arrests have already been made in the dramatic foiled terrorist attack.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13976

Fighting for a Way of Life in the Arctic
Debbie S. Miller | progressive.org | 2018-08-04
The coastal plain, opened for oil drilling by the Trump Administration, is the birthplace and nursery for the Porcupine caribou herd, and land that the Gwich'in call, "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins."
progressive.org/dispatches/fighting-for-a-way-of-life-in-the-arctic-180804/

Body of Olivia Lone Bear Found in N. Dakota as Native Women Face Crisis of Murders, Disappearances
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-03
After an agonizing 9-month search, the body of Olivia Lone Bear was found Tuesday in a pickup truck submerged in a lake right by her house on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The mother of five went missing in late October in New Town, North Dakota. Her disappearance has sparked renewed attention to the disproportionately high rates of disappearance, rape and murder of Native American women across the United States. These already-alarming rates are particularly high in areas of oil extraction, like North Dakota's Bakken Shale, which is the origin point for the Dakota Access pipeline. We speak with Olivia Lone Bear'…
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/3/body_of_olivia_lone_bear_found

Extreme Weather Is Exploding Around the World. Why Isn't the Media Talking About Climate Change?
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-02
Major corporate broadcast networks reported on July's 2-week global heat wave at least 127 times, but mentioned climate change only once. That's according to a report by Media Matters, which tracked coverage of the extreme weather by ABC, CBS and NBC. We host a panel discussion on the media's role in the climate change crisis, the fossil fuel industry and global warming-fueled extreme weather across the globe. We speak with Nathaniel Rich, writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His piece "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change" was published August 1 in a special edition of The New Yo…
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/2/extreme_weather_is_exploding_around_the

Rob Nixon: Gov't Inaction on Climate Change Is "Slow Violence" That Hits World's Poor the Hardest
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-02
With unprecedented fires, floods and heat waves sweeping the globe, 2018 is on track to be the fourth-hottest year on record. The regions most affected by the disastrous effects of global warming are overwhelmingly not the countries that have contributed the most to climate change. According to the 2018 Global Climate Risk Index released by the public policy group Germanwatch, the nine countries most affected by climate change in the past 20 years are developing nations, including Honduras, Haiti, Burma, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Indian government says more than 500 people have died as a result of flooding and…
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/2/rob_nixon_govt_inaction_on_climate

"Losing Earth": How Humanity Came to Understand Climate Change & Failed to Act in Time
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-08-02
"Losing Earth." That's the title of The New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich published August 1 in a special edition of the magazine dedicated entirely to climate change. The story tracks the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989, the decade Rich claims that humankind first came to a comprehensive understanding of climate change but failed to address its extreme dangers while there was still time. The story was produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center. We speak with Nathaniel Rich, writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine.
www.democracynow.org/2018/8/2/losing_earth_how_humanity_came_to

Noam Chomsky: Survival of Organized Human Life Is At Risk Due to Climate Change & Nuclear Weapons
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2018-07-30
At least eight people have died in California as climate change-fueled wildfires rage statewide. In total, firefighters are battling 17 wildfires blazing across California, engulfing more than 200,000 acres and forcing mass evacuations, including in Yosemite National Park. The fires come amid a surge of deadly extreme weather worldwide, including in India, where more than 500 people have died as a result of flooding and heavy rains in recent weeks. Scientists have linked increased flooding and rainfall to climate change. For more, we speak with world-renowned political dissident, author and linguist Noam Chomsky.
www.democracynow.org/2018/7/30/noam_chomsky_survival_of_organized_human

Venezuela: Maduro Announces Economic Reforms Including Monetary Reconversion, Tax Breaks & Currency Control Changes
Paul Dobson | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-07-26
The measures also transfer an entire oilfield from PDVSA to the Central Bank.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13967

Glimmers of Economic Recovery amid Mixed Reports about Venezuelan Oil Production
Cira Pascual Marquina | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-07-20
Lower levels of oil production have been reportedly offset by rising prices and reduced domestic consumption.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13958

Trump Admin Closes Venezuela Sanctions Loophole in Favour of US Bondholders
Paul Dobson | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-07-20
The measure opens the way for seizures of Venezuela's US-based oil assets should the Maduro government default on PDVSA bond payments.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13955

Venezuela's Defunct National Assembly Attempts to Privatise Oil Industry
Paul Dobson | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-07-12
Grassroots movements have frequently denounced de facto back-door privatisation in PDVSA.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13935

China Approves US$5Bn Loan for Venezuelan Oil Development
TEV | venezuelanalysis.com | 2018-07-05
Venezuelan officials said Chinese cooperation opens up alternative networks outside the sanctions of the United States.
venezuelanalysis.com/news/13918