(2018-08-28). Contrary to the NYT, the Next Financial Crisis is Not Just Around the Corner. counterpunch.org The NYT had a major editorial arguing against the rush by Republicans (and some Democrats) to selectively deregulate the financial sector. (It is important to note that the industry doesn't want to eliminate government protections that benefit it, like deposit insurance or the Fed's support in a crisis.) The gist of the piece is that More
(2018-08-28). Confusion Looms As Iran Claims Control Over Strait Of Hormuz. iranian.com A Reuters headline early Monday sparked fears that Iran could be in control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf through which about one-third of the global supply of oil passes. Reuters reported in its story headline, Iran says it has full control of Gulf and U.S. navy does not belong there, while citing the head of […]
(2018-08-28). Rouhani Asks Europe For Guarantees On Banking Channels And Oil Sales. iranian.com Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday urged the remaining signatories to it's 2015 nuclear agreement to act to save the pact, although France's leader called again for broader talks on Tehran's missile program and its role in the Middle East region, Reuters reports. In a phone call to French President Emmanuel Macron, Rouhani said Iran wanted the […]
(2018-08-28). Fundraiser for a Lakota Elder's Roof 6-25-2018. indybay.org The event was held at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz California on Saturday, August 25 from 5 PM to 8 PM. and hosted by Romero Institute, Resource Center for Nonviolence, Lakota People's Law Project…
(2018-08-28). Brown's Last Chance activists arrested at State Capitol – photo essay. indybay.org 17-year-old Nalleli Cobo, a Los Angeles resident who was sickened by toxic emissions from the oil drilling site, AllenCo., near her home, said the Governor has it in his power to issue an executive order to protect communities from oil extraction that state scientists identified as being toxic in 2015.
(2018-08-27). Why Kyrie Irving's Connection to the Standing Rock Sioux Matters. thenation.com Why Kyrie Irving's Connection to the Standing Rock Sioux Matters appeared first on The Nation.
(2018-08-27). Student Loan Borrowers Lose an Advocate at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. truthdig.com Seth Frotman, in a scathing resignation letter to acting director Mick Mulvaney, says the agency "has turned its back on young people and their financial futures."
(2018-08-27). Inside the "Humanitarian" Regime-Change Network Exploiting Jo Cox's Death. mintpressnews.com 
From the Kosovo Protection Corps in the Balkans to the White Helmets of Syria, a group of well- connected people with the fundings of governments and elite billionaires have sought to wage a war on public opinion and have recently exploited Jo Cox's death to do so.
(2018-08-27). Trump snubbed McCain, but the media snubbed the rest of us. peoplesworld.org 
Editors' Note: Sen. John McCain of Arizona died on August 25, 2018. McCain's career, as both a U.S. Senator and before, was full of contradictions. He has long been one of the most outspoken advocates of the use of U.S. military force in the world; opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday; was against busing; supported right-wing supply-side economics; and, more recently, voted in favor of every Trump federal nominee that came before the Senate. However, he also represents a dividing line in the current battle for factional control inside the Republican Party. McCain separated himself from Trump on issues such as immigration reform, the Affordable Care Act, climate change, and LGBTQ equality. In the past, he supported sanctions against apartheid South Africa and advocated for normalization of relations with Vietnam. In this column, written just days before…
(2018-08-27). Publicly Subsidized Climate Change Insurance for Big Oil. counterpunch.org "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad" — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow My 14 August 2018 article, "Climate Change Bites Big Business", described the now evident large financial impacts on Big Business caused by climate change, for example: + the bankrupting-level liabilities to one California electric utility company (PG&E) for causing massive wildfires in More
(2018-08-27). For Native Americans, History Continues to Repeat Itself. truthout.org Professor emeritus and former chair of Native American Studies at University of California Davis Jack Forbes writes in his book, Columbus and Other Cannibals, of what he calls the "sickness of exploitation," or the wétiko (cannibal) disease. | Cannibalism, as Forbes defines it, "is the consuming of another's life for one's own private purpose or profit." | Forbes notes, "Imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalism and, in fact, are precisely those forms of cannibalism which are most diabolical or evil." | "Few, if any, societies on the face of the Earth have ever been as avaricious, cruel, violent, and aggressive as have certain European populations," Forbes concludes. | Native Americans experienced wétiko in brutal fashion not long after "first contact" with Europeans. | "[Europeans] slaughtered, during one short period alone, 50 million buffalo, because thousands of us relied on them, and in…
(2018-08-27). One Dead McCain, 2.5 Million Dead Iraqis. counterpunch.org 
The grossest thing in American society is the reactionary sentimentality that fill our gossip infected hearts with a chemical reaction every time one of our supposed war heroes moves on to a more peaceful place. The carefully rehearsed statements from useless political figures numb our minds as all those who are sane must collectively wonder what on earth has a fusty bag of bones like John McCain ever done for us? More
(2018-08-27). Britain is Preparing for War Against Russia. mintpressnews.com Britain would be a much better place if it acknowledged that there is no threat whatever from Russia — why on earth would Russia even want to begin to consider attacking Britain, or any NATO country, for that matter? — and that the billions being wasted on weapons would be better directed at improving the country's infrastructure and social development.
(2018-08-27). Tons of Plastic Trash Enter the Great Lakes Every Year — Where Does It Go? truthout.org 
Awareness is rising worldwide about the scourge of ocean plastic pollution, from Earth Day 2018 events to the cover of National Geographic magazine. But few people realize that similar concentrations of plastic pollution are accumulating in lakes and rivers. One recent study found microplastic particles — fragments measuring less then five millimeters — in globally sourced tap water and beer brewed with water from the Great Lakes. | According to recent estimates, over 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year. Using that study's calculations of how much plastic pollution per person enters the water in coastal regions, one of us ( Matthew Hoffman) has estimated that around 10,000 tons of plastic enter the Great Lakes annually. Now we are analyzing where it accumulates and how it may affect aquatic life. | No…
(2018-08-27). Trump Moves to Open 1.6 Million Acres of California Public Lands to Fracking. globalresearch.ca The Trump administration took the first steps on Wednesday towards opening up 1.6 million acres of public land in California to fracking and oil drilling, The Sacramento Bee reported. | In …
(2018-08-27). Why Women From Asia Are Confronting U.S. Fracking: Oil Extraction Equals Plastic Production. asia-pacificresearch.com …
(2018-08-27). New Australian prime minister forms cabinet after endorsement from Washington. wsws.org The political turmoil is the outcome of mounting geostrategic tensions between the US and China, and immense popular disaffection with the parliamentary establishment.
(2018-08-26). Children Separated Under Trump's "Zero Tolerance" Policy Say Their Trauma Continues. theintercept.com 
On August 9, several reporters took a government-led tour through America's largest detention facility for immigrant parents and their children: the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Sprawling over 50 acres of a repurposed oil field workers' camp, Dilley, as the center is colloquially known, has room for 2,400 detainees. It currently holds about 1,500 people — all mothers and their children, including babies. | No interviews with the detainees were allowed, so reporters were left to record random sounds and observations: phalanxes of baby strollers, a salad bar in the cafeteria, and, as the Wall Street Journal noted, "a speaker blasting a Jimmy Buffett song." But The Intercept has been in contact with some of the occupants of Dilley by phone — many of them children — and the circumstances they're enduring are decidedly less sanguine than Buffett's tunes.
(2018-08-25). How a DuPont Spinoff Lobbied the EPA to Stave Off the Use of Environmentally Friendly Coolants. theintercept.com 
Chemours asks in letter to the EPA for help promoting its HFO refrigerants, to stave off natural coolants that cause far less global warming.
(2018-08-25). Earth, fire & water: NASA maps atmospheric aerosols in psychedelic image. rt.com 
A new NASA image outlining the various types of aerosols in the air shows that we may be getting more than we bargained for with every intake of breath.
(2018-08-25). New Trump coal regulations will kill as many as 1,400 Americans annually by 2030. wsws.org According a report by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the agency's recent rule change will lead to 1,400 more premature deaths by 2030.
(2018-08-24). Some Call It Forest Management, I Call It Racketeering. counterpunch.org 
When government agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management produce the danger, the propaganda hyping the danger, and the protection against it at a price, that's racketeering. The definition of a racketeer is someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. War is just a racket. A racket More
(2018-08-24). Egotopia. counterpunch.org 
Imagine Milton Friedman and Robinson Crusoe together, reminiscing about Burning Man, on a remodeled off-shore oil rig. Like the image? Welcome to seasteading. The latest in a long line of libertarian exit strategists, seasteaders aim to create self-governed, private floating platforms on the ocean. In an era of Silicon Valley excess, techno-libertarian optimism, and mainstream More
(2018-08-24). Foreign Correspondent: What Has Fifteen Years of U.S. Occupation Produced? Angry Iraqis. progressive.org As militant protests roil the city of Basra in Iraq, two summer films give a fuller sense of what U.S. occupation there has wrought.
(2018-08-24). Abandoned KFC served as front for drug-smuggling tunnel from Mexico to Arizona (VIDEO). rt.com 
US federal authorities have unearthed a secret drug-smuggling tunnel that stretched from a house in Mexico to an abandoned KFC restaurant in the state of Arizona.
(2018-08-22). Trump Administration Admits 1,400+ More People Will Die Each Year Following Coal Plant Deregulation. democracynow.org 
President Trump rallied supporters Tuesday night in West Virginia to announce a massive rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations on coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change. Trump's "Affordable Clean Energy" proposal would allow individual states to decide whether to curb emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency's own data shows the plan could cause up to 1,400 more premature deaths a year by 2030. The Washington Post reports the deregulation would also lead to the release of at least 12 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the next decade.
(2018-08-22). Large Earthquake Off Northern Venezuelan Coast. venezuelanalysis.com According to the Venezuelan Foundation of Seismological Research, the quake registered at 6.9 on the Richter Scale and left parts of Trinidad and Tobago without electricity.
(2018-08-22). Recent Arrests Under New Anti-Protest Law Spotlight Risks That Off-Duty Cops Pose to Pipeline Opponents. theintercept.com 
Law enforcement officers hired by a private security company are enforcing a new Louisiana law which makes trespassing near oil pipelines a felony.
(2018-08-21). Headlines for August 21, 2018. democracynow.org In Historic Letter, Pope Condemns Catholic Church Sex Abuse and Cover-Up, Trump to Announce Massive Rollback of Obama-Era Coal Regulations, In Racist Comment, Trump Says Hispanic Border Agent "Speaks Perfect English", Taliban Fires Rockets at Afghan Presidential Palace, India: Death Toll Rises to 400 in Kerala's Historic Flooding, French Oil Company Total Withdraws from Iran in Wake of U.S. Sanctions, Microsoft: Russian Hackers Targeting Conservative Think Tanks, Michigan Health Director Faces Involuntary Manslaughter Trial over Flint Water Crisis, NYT: #MeToo Leader Asia Argento Paid Off Her Sexual Assault Accus…
(2018-08-20). As Trump Favors Asbestos, People Die. progressive.org Donald Trump has been rolling back protections against exposure to asbestos, which kills an estimated 15,000 people each year in the United States alone.
(2018-08-16). Headlines for August 16, 2018. democracynow.org Violence Roils Afghanistan as Taliban Cracks Down on Red Cross, Trump Revokes Security Clearance of Ex-CIA Director, a Major Critic, Security Clearance Flap Comes Amid Mounting White House Scandals, Trump's Lawyer Prepared to "Unload" on Mueller "Like a Ton of Bricks", Hundreds of Media Outlets Condemn Trump's Attacks on the Free Press, Turkish Court Releases Jailed Amnesty International Chair, Brazil: Lula Registers from Prison as Presidential Candidate, Malta Allows Migrant Ship to Dock After 5 Days Stranded at Sea, ACLU Says ICE "Trapped" Immigrant Spouses at Green Card Interviews, CDC Says Record 72,000 Ameri…
(2018-08-14). What the 'Sensible Middle' Doesn't Get About Education. progressive.org There is no middle between facts and the story that the earth is flat.
(2018-08-05). Venezuela's President Maduro Survives Assassination Attack On Live TV. venezuelanalysis.com Six arrests have already been made in the dramatic foiled terrorist attack.
(2018-08-04). Fighting for a Way of Life in the Arctic. progressive.org 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."
(2018-07-26). Venezuela: Maduro Announces Economic Reforms Including Monetary Reconversion, Tax Breaks & Currency Control Changes. venezuelanalysis.com The measures also transfer an entire oilfield from PDVSA to the Central Bank.
(2018-07-20). Glimmers of Economic Recovery amid Mixed Reports about Venezuelan Oil Production. venezuelanalysis.com Lower levels of oil production have been reportedly offset by rising prices and reduced domestic consumption.
(2018-07-20). Trump Admin Closes Venezuela Sanctions Loophole in Favour of US Bondholders. venezuelanalysis.com The measure opens the way for seizures of Venezuela's US-based oil assets should the Maduro government default on PDVSA bond payments.