OCTOBER
21 THROUGH 31
WEEKEND
OF OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 1, 2020
Weekend
Read: Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right by
Anne Nelson. Reveals
a political trend that threatens both our form of government and our species.
Amazon
How
a key Pentagon official turned China policy over to arms industry and Taiwan supporters.
... The “Fortress Taiwan” arms deal overseen by ex-Assistant Secretary
of Defense Randall Schriver is one of the most provocative U.S. moves against
China in years – and a big win for his think tank’s arms industry and
Taiwanese patrons. Gray
Zone
US
evangelical group takes legal action against UK venues. ... Action comes after
appearances by Franklin Graham were cancelled amid protests from LGBT rights campaigners.
Guardian
NPR
and the Corporate Criminal Element. CounterPunch
Policing
the Pandemic: How the City of Albuquerque Criminalizes People Living on the Streets.
CounterPunch
ENVIRONMENT Clear
Lake NWR Emblematic of How Livestock Degrades Public Wildlife. CounterPunch
Nestlé
Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For. ... The company’s
operation in Michigan reveals how it’s dominated the industry by going into
economically depressed areas with lax water laws. Bloomberg.
Related: All bottled up - Nestles persuit of community water.
Food
and Water Watch report.pdf
Nestlé’s plan to pump 65 million
gallons of Arkansas River water to Denver for bottling stirs contentious fight.
... The world’s largest food and beverage company wants a new 10-year permit
to pump 200 gallons of groundwater a minute and truck it to Denver for bottling.
Nestlé’s plan has drawn sharp criticism from Chaffee County locals.
Colorado
Sun Revealed:
the full extent of Trump's 'meat cleaver' assault on US wilderness. ... After
four years of Trump, protected places such as national monuments and wildlife
refuges have opened to oil drilling, new maps show – with more on the way.
Guardian
How the West’s
wildfires impact crops. ... Wine grape and cannabis growers try to assess the
invisible damage of ash and smoke on their harvests. HCN Amy
Coney Barrett Is Doubling Down on Climate Denial. ... Democrats finally pressed
Amy Coney Barrett to commit to recuse herself from oil company cases. In response,
she is now refusing — and reiterating her absurd assertion that climate science
is “controversial.” Jacobin
Groundbreaking
study finds 13.3 quadrillion plastic fibers in California’s environment.
... Exclusive: report reveals far more microfibers than there are stars in the
Milky Way – and they can easily enter oceans and waterways. Guardian
Airborne radioactivity
increases downwind of fracking, study finds. ... Particles released by drilling
could damage the health of nearby residents, say scientists. Guardian
Amy Coney Barrett
refuses to tell Kamala Harris if she thinks climate change is happening. ... Supreme
court nominee accuses Democratic senator of soliciting an opinion ‘on a very
contentious matter of public debate’ Guardian
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to Top |
'Eroding
Transparency': New Airwars Report Details Deadly US Drone Strikes and Raids in
Yemen Under Trump. ... Since Trump took office, U.S. actions in the country have
killed "between 86 and 154 civilians, including at least 28 children and
13 women." CommonDreams
'One
Word for This: Vandalism': Six Days Before Election, Trump Finalizes Plan for
'Catastrophic' Attack on Largest National Forest. ... "Destructive development
in the country's largest national forest—such as extractive logging and expansive
road building—will be catastrophic for generations to come," warned
Greenpeace. CommonDreams
Jeff
Bezos may be considering purchase of CNN, according to bankers. ... Rumours of
the purchase stem from investment bankers discussing the potential sale. Independent
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to Top
OCTOBER
29, 2020
The
Threat of Fascism Won’t End with Trump. Socialist
Project
America’s
Imperial Expenditures and Escapades Are Stranger Than Fiction. ScheerPost
FCC
Accused of Prioritizing Corporate Interests Over Needs of American People by Doubling
Down on Net Neutrality Repeal. ... "This remand order callously dismisses
the valid concerns of public-safety officials, competitive broadband providers,
and millions of disconnected low-income families who can't afford to get online."
CommonDreams
Silicon
Valley Campaign Cash Complicates Democrats’ Plan to Break Up Tech Giants.
... The stage is being set for Democrats to clash next year over a push to rein
in Silicon Valley oligarchs. Earlier this month, House Democrats called for the
break-up of major tech giants, but Democratic candidates in key Senate races are
comfortably out-fundraising their Republican counterparts in campaign cash from
the tech industry. TruthOut
The
Circle of Amnesiacs. Today was a particularly interesting meeting of the Holyrood
Inquiry into the mishandling of the Salmond affair, with two senior civil servants,
Judith Mackinnon and Barbara Allison, who both had very convenient and complete
failures of memory, about key points which just happened to be the very points
on which the committee had previously been lied to. Craig
Murray
The
Heartlessness of Amy Coney Barrett’s Originalism. ... The nominee embraces
originalism and claims it’s a neutral reading of the law. Here’s what
that misses. Salon
Deception
2020: One Party, Two Flavors (Video). Popular
Resistance
Data
is the lifeblood of a functioning government. Over the past four years, the Trump
administration has destroyed, disappeared or distorted vast swathes of the information
the state needs to protect the vulnerable, safeguard our health and alert us to
emerging crises. HuffPost
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OCTOBER
28, 2020
Report:
Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content. ... News organizations are meant to play a
critical role in the dissemination of quality, accurate information in society.
This has become more challenging with the onslaught of hoaxes, misinformation,
and other forms of inaccurate content that flow constantly over digital platforms.
Columbia
Uni. Related studay: On Twitter, news outlets amplify Trump’s false statements:
Columbia
Uni
Survival
and Denial. ... I Watched War Erupt in the Balkans. Here’s What I See in
America Today. Intercept
Chomsky
Makes Case for Lesser Evil Voting. ...
the renowned thinker shares his criticisms
of Israel and his views on electoralism. ScheerPost
Related: (Jan. 2020) Noam Chomsky: America Has Built a Global Dystopia
TruthDig
Nestlé’s
plan to pump 65 million gallons of Arkansas River water to Denver for bottling
stirs contentious fight. ... The world’s largest food and beverage company
wants a new 10-year permit to pump 200 gallons of groundwater a minute and truck
it to Denver for bottling. Nestlé’s plan has drawn sharp criticism
from Chaffee County locals. Colorado
Sun
Chris
Hedges talks to Christian Parenti, about Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury
Secretary of the United States who has been called the founding father of U.S.
capitalism and imperialism. YouTube
Republicans
closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey -- study. ... Swedish
university finds ‘dramatic shift’ in GOP under Trump, shunning democratic
norms and encouraging violence. Guardian
The
Australian Right Is Trying To Import Trump-Style Reactionary Populism. ... Victoria’s
lockdown has provoked a self-styled rebellion that postures as defending freedom
against the state premier, “Dictator” Dan Andrews. But once you scratch
the plebian surface, the “movement” is led by right-wing activists and
funded by Liberal Party money. Jacobin
Trusted
Demonologies: US Electoral Interference, the Proud Boys and Iran. CounterPunch
2020
election polls: Trump’s attacks on mass mail-in ballots are working, Independent
poll reveals. ... Exclusive: Independent poll reveals confidence in the 2020 election
is low after sustained attacks from the President. Independent
The
NYPD Unleashes Its Most Brutal Cops On Protesters. ... The police unit most likely
to bust protesters’ heads is full of cops with long misconduct histories.
Popular
Resistance.
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to Top
OCTOBER
27, 2020
Survival
and Denial. ... I Watched War Erupt in the Balkans. Here’s What I See in
America Today. Intercept
Chomsky
Makes Case for Lesser Evil Voting. ...
the renowned thinker shares his criticisms
of Israel and his views on electoralism. ScheerPost
Related: (Jan. 2020) Noam Chomsky: America Has Built a Global Dystopia
TruthDig
Nestlé’s
plan to pump 65 million gallons of Arkansas River water to Denver for bottling
stirs contentious fight. ... The world’s largest food and beverage company
wants a new 10-year permit to pump 200 gallons of groundwater a minute and truck
it to Denver for bottling. Nestlé’s plan has drawn sharp criticism
from Chaffee County locals. Colorado
Sun
Chris
Hedges talks to Christian Parenti, about Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury
Secretary of the United States who has been called the founding father of U.S.
capitalism and imperialism. YouTube
Republicans
closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey -- study. ... Swedish
university finds ‘dramatic shift’ in GOP under Trump, shunning democratic
norms and encouraging violence. Guardian
The
Australian Right Is Trying To Import Trump-Style Reactionary Populism. ... Victoria’s
lockdown has provoked a self-styled rebellion that postures as defending freedom
against the state premier, “Dictator” Dan Andrews. But once you scratch
the plebian surface, the “movement” is led by right-wing activists and
funded by Liberal Party money. Jacobin
Trusted
Demonologies: US Electoral Interference, the Proud Boys and Iran. CounterPunch
2020
election polls: Trump’s attacks on mass mail-in ballots are working, Independent
poll reveals. ... Exclusive: Independent poll reveals confidence in the 2020 election
is low after sustained attacks from the President. Independent
The
NYPD Unleashes Its Most Brutal Cops On Protesters. ... The police unit most likely
to bust protesters’ heads is full of cops with long misconduct histories.
Popular
Resistance.
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to Top
OCTOBER
26, 2020
Covid-19
and the Political Utility of Fear. The true mortality rate of covid-19 remains
a matter of intense dispute, but it is undoubtedly true that a false public impression
was given by the very high percentage of deaths among those who were tested positive,
at the time when it was impossible to get tested unless you were seriously ill
(or a member of society’s “elite”).
Craig
Murray
Covid-19
and the Political Utility of Fear. The true mortality rate of covid-19 remains
a matter of intense dispute, but it is undoubtedly true that a false public impression
was given by the very high percentage of deaths among those who were tested positive,
at the time when it was impossible to get tested unless you were seriously ill
(or a member of society’s “elite”).
Craig
Murray
Neoliberal
Education Reformers Have Found a New Way to Scapegoat Teachers. ... Liberal writers
sympathetic to the corporate education reform movement are beating the drum about
reopening schools, claiming to stand up for low-income students. But attacking
teachers and their unions does nothing for poor and working-class students —
it simply scapegoats the people who have dedicated their lives to actually helping
those students. Jacobin
Alaska's
new climate threat: tsunamis linked to melting permafrost. ... Scientists are
warning of a link between rapid warming and landslides that could threaten towns
and tourist attractions. Guardian
Biden
And Liberal Censorship. ... It is Democrats and the technology companies which
support them that are doing most of the censoring that is identified with fascist
societies. Popular
Resistance
David
Harvey: Socialists Must Be the Champions of Freedom. ... Right-wing propaganda
claims that socialism is the enemy of individual freedom. The exact opposite is
true: socialists work to create the material conditions under which people can
truly be free, without the rigid constraints capitalism imposes on their lives.
Jacobin
Barrett
Poised to Be Sixth SCOTUS Justice Hand-Picked by Federalist Society. TruthOut
With
the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than The Actual Story.
... Unprecedented efforts to squelch information about a New York Post story may
prove to be more dangerous corruption than whatever Hunter Biden did with a crooked
Ukrainian energy company. Tabbi
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WEEKEND
OF OCTOBER 23-25, 2020
Weekend
Read: Dismantling Democracy: The forty-year attack on government, ....and the
long game for the common good. by Donald Cohen. Since the 1970s a constellation
of aligned conservative institutions, grassroots issue groups, academics, intellectuals,
industry leaders, and politicians has been enormously successful at shifting fundamental
attitudes toward government and its basic role in American society. These groups
have focused on winning the hearts and minds of the people not with detailed policy
prescriptions but with a set of beliefs and conventional wisdom, a vaguely defined
national philosophy that protects the privileges of the wealthy and powerful.
Amazon
or Thrift
Books
Fascist
Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and Resistance in Dark Times. CounterPunch
“We’re
Not a Democracy”. ... Four years ago, the nation tumbled down the Trump rabbit
hole. We’ve been lost in the dark so long it‘s hard to know which way
is up. Intercept
How
To ‘Weaponize’ Misleading Narratives About Voting: Lessons from Trump-Linked
PILF Playbook. ... Using internal emails, sworn testimony, and other documents,
Snopes was able to break down exactly how the Public Interest Legal Foundation
(PILF) worked to "generate, create, organize and weaponize" misleading
narratives. Snoops
“Herd
Immunity” Was Originally About Vaccination. Now It Is Neoliberal Violence.
TruthOut
Surprise
“Air Ambulance” Bills Are the Latest Nightmare in Private Health Insurance.
... On top of skyrocketing medical costs, many Americans face staggering surprise
bills for “air ambulances.” What’s no surprise is that the private
equity industry is deeply implicated in this nightmare — and spending heavily
to make sure no one puts a stop to it. Jacobin
Part
Six: The Looting of the Nation
Trump has served as the Pied Piper for the most
radical GOP agenda on the economy, workers, and the poor. Intercept
Part
Seven: Climate Carnage
Trump has stacked his anti-science administration with
corporate polluters, gutted environmental regulations, and opened protected land
for extraction. Intercept
Parents
of 545 children still not found three years after Trump separation policy. ...
Lawyers struggling to find parents deported to Central America, says ACLU, after
US government removed 1,030 children in 2018. Guardian
Brennan’s
Nuremberg Defense: One More Whitewash of the CIA’s Torture Program, CounterPunch
US
Wasted Billions of Taxpayer Dollars in Afghanistan From 2018 to 2019. ... US government
oversight authority released its latest report. AntiWar
Trump
State Department Plan to Declare Human Rights Groups 'Anti-Semitic' Slammed as
'Desperate,' 'Obscene'. ... The designation would target humanitarian organizations
including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, sources said.
CommonDreams
Biodiversity
is an Asset Worth Bending Over Backwards to Protect. CounterPunch
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to Top
OCTOBER
22, 2020
Large-Scale
Permafrost Thawing. CounterPunch
Chomsky:
OPCW cover-up of Syria probe is ‘shocking’. ... Noam Chomsky says that
the OPCW’s cover-up, under US pressure, of a Syria chemical weapons probe
raises “very severe suspicions.” Gray
Zone
Part
Five: Courting Corporate Theocracy
With Trump in power, the GOP is transforming
the federal judiciary into a right-wing cult that will wield
'Vote
These Monsters Out': Trump Officials Weigh Deep Funding Cuts to Covid-19 Relief,
Newborn Screenings in Democrat-Led Cities
"Besides
shameless graft, Trump's central agenda is tormenting the people who didn't vote
for him." CommonDreams
influence
over the lives of millions. Intercept
The
Coup Already Underway. CounterPunch
Chomsky:
from nuclear weapons to Iran, Trump’s worst threats are dangerously ignored.
Gray
Zone
The
US Is Missing a Chance to Tackle Climate Crisis and Pandemic Relief Together.
TruthOut
Journalists
Should Stop Relying on Cops’ Lies. ... American police departments are addicted
to lying, and journalists are entrusted with reporting what’s happening in
the world. Those journalists can’t take police at their word and act as cops’
stenographers. Jacobin
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to Top
OCTOBER
21, 2020
Chris
Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair. ... It is despair that is killing us,
eating into the social fabric, rupturing social bonds, and manifesting in self-destructive
pathologies. ScheerPost
When
Does Incompetence Become a Crime? CounterPunch
75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer. ... In the past four
years, Trump has shredded environmental protections for American lands, animals
and people. Guardian
Only
Class War Can Stop Climate Change. ... A new report shows that the world’s
top 1 percent is responsible for double the emissions of the entire bottom half
of the planet. The message is clear: to fight climate change, we have to fight
the ruling class. Jacobin
Bolivians
Return Evo Morales’s Party to Power One Year After a U.S.-Applauded Coup.
... Right-wing forces cheered by the U.S. tried to destroy one of Latin America’s
most vibrant democracies. Voters just restored it. Intercept
How
Trump Got Played By The Military-Industrial Complex. ... The president promoted
defense jobs in swing states, pushed through arms sales and gave industry figures
top jobs. He didn’t get the political boost he wanted. HuffPost
The
Details of Worker Abuse at One of the World’s Largest Logistics Companies
Are Appalling. ... A report compiled by an international network of unions exposes
ruthless worker exploitation at XPO Logistics, the global transportation giant
headquartered in Connecticut. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s
mistreatment and repression have only gotten worse. Jacobin
Dark
Money & Barrett Nomination: The Link Between Big Polluters & the War on
ACA, Roe & LGBT Rights. DemocracyNow
The
Squad Is Growing: A New Crew of Left Challengers Is Bringing Movement Politics
to Congress. ... It’s not just AOC, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib. This crop of
organizers-turned-politicians -- alongside the Squad—plans to usher in a
progressive revival in the House of Representatives. ITT
Black
Civil Rights Leaders Fear Barrett “Invites a Return to a Racist Past”.
Intercept
The
TMX Pipeline Threatens First Nations People. It Must Be Stopped. TruthOut
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