Election Whoopee in a Banana Republic!

Item: Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin Voters purged from Rolls since 2016 General Election.

Item: Florida has Been Stealing Votes from Black People Since the Civil War.

Item: Poverty Main Reason for Low Voter Turnout.

Item: Midterm Congressional Elections: You Can’t Lose what you never had.

Item: Stop Voter Suppression in the Dakotas.

Item: GOP suppresses voters in  AZ and ND.

Item: Reports exist of voter intimidation in Texas.

Item: Texas voting machines flip Senate vote on straight Dem ticket to Republican Cruz.

Item: GOPs Brian Kemp purges over half a million voters.

Item: Georgia’s Kemp Purged 340,134 voters, Falsely Asserting They Had Moved.

Item: Georgia Secretary of State running for Gov. says he’s ‘concerned’ if everybody exercises their right to vote.

Whoopee!

So is it 53,000 voter registrations that have been tossed in the proud State of Georgia as those e-announcements shrill? or 340,134?

Greg Palast says it’s 340,134 and he’s got their names. Now why would  a nice man like Brian Kemp ever think of doing such a nasty thing? When he was elected Secretary of State—that’s the proud State of Georgia—didn’t he swear he would uphold the Constitution? Well yes, he did. But the constitution he pledged to uphold was his own robust constitution, and not the state’s. And it must be pretty robust ‘cause he tossed 1 in 10 Georgia voters off the rolls, especially those who might cotton to his opponent, Stacy Abrams, Georgia’s first black woman candidate, for Governor.

Now if you knew you would lose, and lose to a black woman, wouldn’t you try to whitewash a few names off the rolls, say maybe 10,000, or why not a little more, say, maybe 50,000, and while you’re at it, why not go whole hog at 340,134?  Who’s counting anyway, and if anyone actually tries to question you, why it’s simple, old buddy:  you say they just moved.  Moved?  Well, yes, they didn’t answer my nice glossy junk mailer I sent them, so they must’ve moved.  And who’s this Greg Palast anyway? Some Yankee smart ass, meddling where he has no bidness.  And anyway, as Secretary of the proud State of Georgia, you got every right to ask for a recount anyway, so if you don’t off them coming, you get to off them going.

Republicans annonce the elephant as their symbol has outlived its usefulness. It's headed out the door to be replaced by the noble condom.

(Is there any other kind?)

RNC chairman, Reince Priebus explained that the condom more clearly reflects the Party's current stance because the condom accepts inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

Join rally at a court house near you to support the children’s trial Juliana vs. the U.S. which knowingly violated their constitutional rights by contributing to climate change. In San Francisco, 3 to 6 PM, 95 7^th Street Monday, October 29.

Act Blue Express donate:

Help black Georgians get to the polls so they can cast their ballots this Sunday.

GET OFF YOUR ASS AND VOTE!

Youth plaintiffs file response with Supreme Court which turned down their case, pointing to the government’s serious mischaracterization of Juliana v. the United States.

15-year old Swedish climate activist urges all kids worldwide to walk out of school for a few weeks as she did while doling out educational leaflets to passersby outside the Swedish Parliament. “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to change.”

Five climate activists shut down Enbridge, Inc., the equivalent of 15% of U.S. oil.

Water protectors lock-down Dallas mansion of CEO of Energy Transfer Partners.

Coal-mining country of Wales pledges to leave its remaining coal in the ground.

New York attorney general Barbara Underwood files suit against Exxon-Mobil for defrauding investors by downplaying the  financial threat of regulations to mitigate human-caused global warming.

In a victory for indigenous rights in Ecuador, the Kofan people win legal battle defending Ecuador’s largest river nullifying 62 gold mining concessions.

Peace flotilla protests pollution, waste of taxpayer money, and  militarism at Bay Area Blue Angels airshow.

Greg Palast sues Georgia’s Brian Kemp for purging 340,000 from voter rolls.

Federal judge rules that Georgia election officials must stop tossing out absentee ballots and applications due to signature mismatches without first giving voters an opportunity to fix or dispute any alleged errors.

NAACP wins lawsuit against Shelby County, TN election commission in a ruling ordering it to send notices to all voters who submit incomplete voter registration forms.

Federal judge rules that the border is not a right-free zone.

The Center for Constitutional Rights announces the release from detention and reunification of father and two year old son.

Mexican  President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks up for rights of Honduran Migrants Caravan.

PJ, a Cambodian immigrant, receives recommendation for a pardon. Please sign the petition to Gov. Brown.

Oregon volunteers welcome newly released asylum seekers with rides and legal assistance.

LGBTQ stages a massive rally outside White House to reaffirm that trans people will not be erased. 

New Hampshire court strikes down GOP’s law aimed at suppressing Dem-leaning college student voters.

Louisiana district court rules that non-unanimous jury verdict based on racism is unconstitutional.

Overwhelming majority in the European Parliament votes to strengthen EU’s plan to cut plastic pollution.

Army tries and fails to prove GOP claims that antifascist protestors are national security threat.

Marshall Island victims of U.S. bomb tests seek justice in the form of adequate health care.

Black liberation activist, Mike Africa Sr. of Move, as been released on parole after 40 years.

UN rights expert, Baskut Tuncak, urges Japan to halt returns to heavily contaminated Fukushima.

Tohoku Electric Power announces plans to scrap reactor at Onagawa plant.

U.S. announces plans to sue radiation-contaminated Hunters Point shipyard contractors, among them Tetra Tech for fraud.

Emergent political movement, People Power, led by musician politician Bobi Wine, alters landscape of Ugandan politics.

Mass demonstrations take to the streets denouncing the corrupt government of Haitian president Jovenal Moise. 

A Connecticut man who warned motorists about “cops ahead” with a hand-drawn sign brings a federal complaint protesting his arrest and demanding punitive damages. 

New York Attorney General, Barbara Underwood, subpoenas industry groups and lobbyists over fraudulent net neutrality comments.

Eyewash by the IPCC Enables Pentagon Inertia

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 has just issued a report described by the New York Times as quite concerning, predicting a “world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die off of coral reefs as early as 2040.” Despite all its handwringing
(“ the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has ‘no documented historic precedent’ and ‘the atmosphere will  warm up by  as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty’) it urges us just to do the same and more of the same, but it overlooks the vital discussion of self-reinforcing feedback loops resulting from arctic ice melt.

 

Because it leaves out everything it either doesn’t know or can’t quite cope with, the IPCC report and all the media attention it has received is utter eyewash.  Why? For answers we must look to Peter Wadhams, emeritus professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.  His analysis of the flaccid IPCC report is that it is based on old fashioned modeling that ignores the data of observational scientists. It soft pedals such self-reinforcing feedback loops as methane feedback, sea-level rise and glacier melt feedback, decline in thermohaline circulation,  and albedo feedback, (the reflectivity of white ice deflecting the sun’s heat).  None of the four, potentially leading to catastrophic global warming, are described as major threats, says Wadhams, because the IPCC doesn’t consider them in the first place, either hoping they go away by themselves, or forgetting them altogether.

 

For example. the report claims that, if we are to keep to 1.5 degrees, there will be an ice-free summer once every hundred years!  And that if we allow the temperature to rise to 2.0 degrees, there will be an ice-free summer every ten years! Whereas the reality now is that either next year, or at most the year after that we will have nothing but ice-free summers thereafter.

The IPCC has always ignored methane release from the Arctic offshore. And they ignore it again this year.  Because they themselves lack the resources that observational scientists have, they base their conclusions on the old models that say the methane is not supposed to be released for another 50 to 100 years.

Another self–reinforcing feedback mechanism and potentially runaway cycle has to do with the acceleration of sea level rise, coupled with glacier retreat. Because the IPCC ignored present conditions, they produced reports relating to sea level rise in the next century, gifting policy makers with complacency and allowing them to under budget for sea defenses. This year, while reporting on the melt occurring in Greenland, and Iceland, the report still ignores both what’s happening in the East Antarctic ice sheet which is beginning to retreat, and the moulins happening in Greenland of melt water running down to bedrock, which accelerates the rate of melt.

Katrina

A third self-reinforcing feedback loop related to the loss of sea ice, and not mentioned by the IPCC relates to the decline in thermohaline circulation,  a process controlled both by water temperatures and ocean salinity, which leads to an increased amount of water warming up faster in the tropics, resulting in increased hurricane intensity. It ignores the albedo effect altogether for which a very simple solution might be to color all the planet’s roofs and highways white.

To sum up, the IPCC seems to think that IF we can keep warming to 1.5 degrees, methane release won’t happen because the sea ice won’t melt. But the sea ice is already melting! Other runaway cycles won’t happen either, so they think they don’t even have to mention them.  The report offers complacency when a dire panic warning is called for, requiring  a catastrophic overhaul, but if we go by the IPCC’s impotent report, we are not going to get anything like it done in time, and certainly not as long as the U.S. and Brazil insist on withdrawing altogether from the Paris accords.

 

Wadhams stresses that at the stage we find ourselves, namely keeping to a 1.5 temperature rise, we have to focus on carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. The IPCC  report doesn’t mention how much CO2 removal per year is needed to keep the warming down to 1.5, namely at least 20 billion tons per year, from 40 to 50% of what our present emissions are.  Or up to 1 trillion metric tons of carbon from the biosphere over the 21^st century.  To address such a commitment, development of a huge industry is needed that will change the lives of everyone on Earth. It has already affected me. At 82 years of age, just when walking became a conscious act, I gave up driving, I junked my car. I am inviting you to consider what in your life you might consider giving up.

 

Supposedly the Pentagon “got it,” declaring in 2017 that global warming is a threat to “national security.” Now suppose those Pentagon bean counters were to look over their shoulders for a minute to see what some of the world already sees: the streets of Shanghai choking, the forests of the Western Northern hemisphere burning, do you think they might have the imagination to reallocate every penny that now goes into killing children and starving them in countries like Yemen, and Afghanistan to a concerted effort to preserve life on this planet? Because that’s what it will take:  all the resources that now go to war-making and destruction would have to be reallocated to sucking per year that 20 millions tons of carbon dioxide pout of the atmosphere in order to save Earth.

Nothing short of declaring war on global warming will do it.

Stop dirty fuel projects.

War is the most profligate user of fossil fuels. Prevent the Iran war.

Force a House vote on Saudi War in  Yemen to stop cholera and famine.

Tell Congress to end the 17-year-old Afghanistan war now.

Donate to the Climate Reality Project to train new leaders.

Read more about carbon capture.

Read about peak carbon capture by 2020.

Find the closest rally for the trial of the century.

Make sure you’re signed up to vote.

Judge denies U.S. governments request to skip trial on its responsibility to protect U.S. citizens from the damage due to global warming and its impacts.

Point Conception, an eight-mile stretch of pristine southern California coastline will be protected by The Nature Conservancy.

New Supreme Court ruling re: ConAgra and Sherwin-Williams could make it easier to hold corporations liable for climate change.

AMP Creeks Council and Greater Southern Maryland Community announce success fighting Dominion Energy Cove Point effort to build a giant fracked gas compressor station on 14 clear cut acres.

New York City announces divestment of its pension  funds from fossil fuel stocks. Both the Mayor and City Comptroller plan to re-invest that $4 billion in community-led climate solutions.

Ecosia, a German start up, to buy 200 hectares of Hambach forest slated for open coal mining.

Judge Ann Aiken rules that 21 children and young adults have standing claiming that their due process rights have been violated by the government and fossil fuel companies.

One of nation’s oldest, Englewood, Colorado based Westmoreland Coal Company files for bankruptcy.

Our People and Planet awards two green businesses Nature’s Magic, a woman-owned business in Georgia, and Eutree, which recycles urban tree “waste” in Villa Rica, Georgia.

Bringing together advocates for peace and economic, racial, environmental and climate justice, Peace Congress announces plans to end U.S. wars at home and abroad.

Due at least in large part to public opposition, the administration’s weapons parade in Washington D.C. has been cancelled.

Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are calling for the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation into the policies and practices of charter schools.

Education “Secretary” Betsy DeVos loses major battle over Obama’s student loan protections.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) introduces the Strengthening
Social Security Act of 2018 (H.R. 6929) to ensure the annual Cost of Living Adjustment adequately reflects the real cost of living, and will improve the financial health of the Social Security Trust Fund.

Senators Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV) Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D –Il) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) along with 18 other Democratic senators send a letter to Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen urging her to withdraw proposed regulatory chances to the “public charge” rule.

Thousands of Glasgow women strike over pay discrimination.

Hundreds of thousands march in Berlin demonstrating against racism and calling for solidarity against the far right.

Dunkirk, the biggest European city so far to do so, offers entirely free transport to residents and visitors alike.

Citing the S.F. Bryant Street jail as unsafe and apt to liquefy in a major earthquake, No New Jail activists call for its closure and funds for a substitute to be allocated to health, education, and housing.

Canada legalizes marijuana.
 

Following their success advocating for no funding increases for ICE, the #DefundHate Coalition urges people to mobilize calling for complete defunding of this racist agency and its inhumane practices.

California’s Contra Costa and Sacramento Counties and the City of Santa Ana sand Williamcon Couty, TX, and Atlanta pull out of their contracts with ICE.

Atlanta cop, Matthew Johns, who beat a teenager, is indicted after over two years.

A measure on the Maine ballot proposes universal home health care for all Maine residents to be paid for by a tax on people making more than $128,400 a year.

ACLU with other civil rights groups file joint lawsuit against Kemp for “disproportionately impacting the ability of voting-eligible African-American, Latino, and Asian-American applicants to register to vote.”

Activists raise a stunning $100,0000 in 70 minuites to defeat Native American Voter Suppression in North Dakota.

The Illinois State Journal-Register announces that remains from the 1908 Springfield race riots will be excavated.

Rahm Emanuel announces he won’t seek third term as mayor of Chicago. We await his notification of retirement.

More than eighty civil society organizations protest the National Park Service’s “Pay to Protest” Proposal.

National Park Services receives over 71,000 comments in response to the new proposed anti-protest regulations.

Florida Supreme Court thwarts Republican Governor Rick Scott’s plan for the Florida courts to remain in Republican control for years to come.

As Judge Suzanne Bolanos considers letting Monsanto off the hook, jurors demand court respect their historic verdict holding Monsanto to account.

The two Koreas agree to begin re-connecting rail and road links.

Streets for Sale

This week responding to what Washington throws our way requires the lightning quick swordplay of the samurai. On the nuclear catastrophe front San Onofre was the site of a near miss nuclear accident when a storage cask fell 18 inches, six inches more than its warrantee allows, and on the vote suppression and  vote  integrity front, while a Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate, Brian Kemp, purges the voting rolls of black folks because his chief opponent happens to be a black woman, Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis publish an article pointing up Democrats for failing to focus on how all those nice blue wave votes can be and inevitably will be stolen (https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/52754-rsn-will-the-trump-gop-strip-and-flip-americas-2018-election-while-the-democrats-fail-to-protect-the-vote)

Connie at the White House-longest lasting protest in U,S. History

 We speed past these so very critical issues to focus on the stealth program initiated by the National Park Service to chop the head off protest of any kind. The Park Service wants to demand bucks for protest. They want to declare those White house sidewalks off limits. They want to keep organizers guessing till the day before knowing very well that any large protest, of say 100,000 or more takes months of planning and strategizing to folks out. Whose streets? you my ask.  Pay-to-play’s streets., that’s whose.

 

The Park Service is but one branch of an octopus that’s spreading its many tentacles around us to make sure we can’t even utter a whimper. How can we send them a message that they’re hopelessly out of line? That the streets have always been the venue of citizen assemblies?  That we are not succumbing to compassion fatigue, that we are not wasted by protest fatigue. Hell, no!

 

The deadline for this stealth initiative is this coming Monday.  If you care at all, please submit your comments by then (See our Action section where you can do so easily.) Let them know loud and clear that you have no intention of going home and shutting the door behind you. You are in this for the duration, and you don’t mean to follow uncivil regulations anymore than you itch to join a monastery.  Hell, no!

Stop the Trump Administration plan to crush protests in  the nation’s capital.

or at: http://www.justiceonline.org/take_action_now_stop_trump_new_laws_to_crush_protests_in_washington_dc#/5/

Deadline October 15, this Monday: Follow this link to the National Park Service Comment page. Let National Park Service k now how these changes matter to you.

or go to:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=NPS-2018-0007-0001

Take action to suppress Brian Kemp’s Georgia voter suppression scheme.

or go to:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-brian-kemp-stop-suppressing-georgia-voters/?link_id=1&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-stop-this-voter-suppression-scheme&email_referrer=email_434860&email_subject=stop-this-voter-suppression-scheme

Submit your comment via Popular Resistance to severe protest restrictions here or go to:

https://popularresistance.org/national-park-service-proposes-severe-restrictions-on-protests-in-washington-dc/

Read.

ACLU fights back at the Park Service’s “Stealth Proposal” to limit public’s right to protest outside White House.

District Court Judge Robert Tiffany acquitted defendants of all charges in Clearwater County “Valve Turner” case.

Military families speak out against the Afghanistan 17-year-long war as veteran of 8

tours there dies.

In Maine, 4 Bantu Somali refugees raise crops on shared land at New Roots Coop Farm, growing regional and Somali produce, one of a number of coop farms operating in the North East.

The City of Oakland, along with Alameda County, formally halted its use of Roundup on Sept. 1, according to Public Works Department notice.

According to the NYT, a new wave of Democrats is testing the party’s lockstep support for Israel.

Fox reported Bret Baier reports U.S. Supreme John Roberts refers allegations of judicial misconduct against Kavanaugh to Tenth Circuit to investigate his ethics.

Petitions to impeach Kavanaugh surge as organizers insist not even Supreme Court judges are ‘above the law.’

Protesting, N.Y.C. law students stage walkout protesting Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Gov. Jerry Brown signs legislation to end harmful use of drift gillnets.

Federal Judge permanently bars Administration from withholding policing grants from California, San Francisco, and other so-called sanctuary jurisdictions across the nation.

Re-discovered grand jury records of Georgia’s “last” lynching persuades federal Georgia judge to order them unsealed, declaring the testimony to be of broad public interest.

Congress passes broad water infrastructure legislation providing for more natural coastal infrastructure, delivering key victories for the Everglades and Long Island Sound.

Israel’s Mishab Housing and Construction has been fined by Israel for discriminating against Arab home buyers.

Citing arbitrary use and racial bias, Washington State abolishes state’s death penalty.

Amid massive public outcry, 12-year-old-Tamir Rice’s killer won’t be hired as a cop

byK another police jurisdiction.

NYT reports that Democratic states suing the government rack up substantial wins.

U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick cites newly unsealed video, ordering that a lawsuit by Mario Woods, shot by S.F. rogue cops,  mother can proceed to trial.

Google’s “Waze” expands carpooling service throughout the U.S.

ACLU sues San Francisco for targeting African-American in drug arrests.

Postal workers unite nationwide against administration’s “privatization” plan.

Fourth circuit court vacates Mountain Valley Pipeline permit.

World Nuclear Industry Status Report confirms nuclear power decline.

Coalition of civil rights group sues George’s Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp for voter suppression of upwards of 50,000 voters favoring his opponent.

Gov. Jerry Brown signs the Fair and Just Sentencing Reform Act (SB 1393) allowing judges to use their discretion instead of being forced to stick to unjust mandatory minimums in deciding sentences.

Representative Ro Khanna calls for congressional hearing into journalist Khashoggi’s disappearance. 

Miracle aquatic dog clears ocean of  over one million pounds of plastic.

For the price of a smart phone small homes can now be powered by a small energy-saving windmill.

Drones Fly, Children Die

Last week, marking the 17^th anniversary of the Afghan War, I joined my friends and colleagues at Creech Air Force Base at Indian Springs, Nevada, home of the Predator (formerly Reaper) Drones to protest extra judicial killings in all the countries drones operate: including Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, Syria, and Somalia,  We were a varied crew from places as far distant as Iowa, Salt Lake, Reno, Indiana, Colorado, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Mexico, including professors of anthropology and linguistics, a Menonite activist who walks Palestinian children safely to school past the Israeli checkpoints two months a year, and a former U.S. diplomat and participant in the Gaza flotilla delivering a boat load of medicines intended for Gaza but detained till further notice by the Israeli government. Our week of protest was organized by Code Pink, in collaboration with Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and local groups. Some of us protest in the hope that eventually we will shut down Creech and the military machine that now consumes over 62% of the national budget to the detriment of infrastructure maintenance, environment, health, welfare, and education, which receive percentages in the meager single digits. Some of us think we cannot change a waroholic government, but we don’t want that government to change us. We are a motley but cheerful crew of Code Pink organizers as our goofy picture shows.   

 

(For Creech religious practices see: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7218921764613108785#editor/target=post;postID=3754103717847685258;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=41;src=postname)

Valiantly we displayed our banners (Kill by Drone, Reap the Whirlwind) from 6 to 9 AM and from 3 to 5 PM as hundreds of cars streamed past us entering and leaving the base, most operated by their single drivers hailing from 70 miles away in Las Vegas. We sustained  seven arrests, one of them unintended because no warning was given, one public stripping of a female organizer, and jail holds lasting in excess of 30 hours in the Clark County Detention Center, one of the worst jails in the United States. Said one detainee: “Not a place for human beings., A place for slaves.” And while children are killed, the drones drone on from sun up to sunset, and we protest in a barren landscape under its vast skies and towering thunderheads in a weather system building up from storms as far south as Baja, with gale force winds, and rain, lightning and thunder in the desert. 

 

Asymmetrical  Warfare

The U.S. drone program dates from the events of 9/11, growing exponentially by 2018 with drone bases scattered as far as Niger and Chad. Its rationale was to prevent our “brave young men and women” from the inconveniences of combat, in favor of shedding blood other than theirs, a system which has proved to have unfortunate consequences: it facilitates extra judicial killings, without trial judge or jury, it destroys societies unable any longer to conduct weddings and funerals out of danger, or to shop, go to school, attend evening prayer, herd goats, or farm; for every “terrorist” it takes out, statistics show that it spills the blood of innocent civilians, many of them children; it creates more enemy-terrorists than it is designed to kill, and perhaps worst of all: its pilots still suffer from PTSD.

 

Destabilization

While we were at Creech, we entertained the company of Ray McGovern, former intelligence analyst for the CIA in the good old days before spooks scurried under its umbrella, corrupting an organization by inherent conflict of interest, namely in its tendency now “fixing” the intelligence to justify military action.  Among other things, he brought to our attention an article uncensored by the New York Times of Sept. 6, 2018, in which Jodi Rudoren quotes Nathan Thrall, a Jerusalem-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, quoting him as saying “The perpetuation of the [Syrian] conflict is absolutely serving Israel’s interest,” because destabilization of the middle East countries surrounding Israel keeps their threat to manageable levels. Drone warfare is encouraged by Israel with the help of the United States acting as its enforcer state.

Profit

But a third factor keeping the skids of dronewar greased is that of profit for such corporations as the two leading drone manufacturers, Northrup Grumman, maker of the  Global Hawk with a flight time of 32 hours, and a unit cost of $131.4 million, and General Atomics, a privately held corporation, and maker of the Predator, now rebranded as Reaper drone, with a stay in the air capability of 14 hours, at a unit cost of  $16.9 million. Figures for the privately held company are hard to establish, but Northrup Grumman showed $22.8 billion in sales in 2018. Basking in an income tax rate of just 19.5 %, its profits for Q2 of 2018 stand at  $7.l billion. As George Bush famously advised  President Kirchner of Argentina, when that country was on the verge of economic collapse. “War is good for business.”

Racism

Yet a fourth irrationalization for the use of drones applies, such that with the exception of Germany in World War II, the United States’ preferred enemies are always people of color, especially people of color whose territories and resources it covets. 

 

The chief dysfunction guiding the U.S. military/industrial/prison complex is the racism it publicly displays with the election of its current administration by a huge proportion of its voters. 

Meantime, we occupy the highway outside Creech AFB, wondering how many casualties, how many prosthetic arms and legs the drone whirlwind may reap during the scant hours we maintain our vigil, banners aloft, (17 years in Afghanistan. Enough!) and the ingeniously constructed stanchions and ballast holding them against the occasionally

hurricane force winds that compete with them, wonderstruck at the immense skies surrounding us, the swales of sunlight radiating between menacing thunderheads, breakthrough sunlight firing the surrounding mountains in bright colors, and the endless stretch of desert, all reminders that this Earth is an island, one of millions of similar islands marking their trajectories throughout the universe, some of them perhaps peopled by more peaceful and intelligent life than ours.

End the war in Afghanistan.

Urge your Representative to sign on to end the war in Yemen.

Give journalists access to immigrant detention centers.

Submit your comments to the National Park Service why you oppose charging fees for protests, making scheduling impossible and restricting White House sidewalks.

Stop a new nuclear warhead.

 

International

In 1989, Brazil’s Porto Allegre became the world’s first city where residents participate in budgetary decisions, Three decades later the practice has become widespread in over 3000 municipalities.

Indonesia bans new palm oil plantations.

Chile convicts 20 Pinochet-era intelligence agents for their role kidnapping and murdering 12 victims of CIA-backed Operation Condor.

International Court investigates the U.S. and U.K.’s mass expulsion of  the indigenous Chagossian people, from Diego Garcia.

Green Party endorses letter to the ICC requesting that it investigate crimes committed  by Israel.

Fighting for the poor and disenfranchised, Renata Souza steps into the role of assassinated  councilwoman, Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro..

AMLO’s landslide election raises hopes for Mexican labor.

Environment

Ohio hospital treats whole neighborhood as ‘patient,’ diagnosing the cause as “unstable housing.”

Pakistan plants more than a million trees.

Australian real estate developer Lendlease is supporting a 200 MW solar power project which has secured a town approval and a tax abatement in East Texas.

Putting world on notice, Dutch court orders government to move faster on emissions cuts.

Cleveland, Ohio aims for 100% renewables as it sheds its fossil fuel past.

Federal judge strikes down the administration’s decision to remove the greater Yellowstone grizzly bear from the endangered species list, thereby reinstating federal protection for the bears.

Black residents of  Greensborough, N.C. open food co-op, the first of its kind in the nation.

Kentucky’s Mountain Association for Community Economic Development announces energy conservation jobs have come to coal country.

Denver requires “green” rooftops on all new  buildings exceeding 25,000 square feet.

Zero emission buses move a giant step loser to becoming commonplace in California.

Solar United launches Solar for All to provide free local solar to all of Washington D.C.’s low income families over the next fifteen years.

Justice

Dallas police officer who killed an innocent unarmed black man in his own home is fired.

Officials in Hartford Connecticut roll out ordinance preventing deceptive advertising in faith-based pregnancy centers that use anti-choice messaging to target those seeking abortion and contraception services.

California is first in the nation to ensure water or milk comes standard with children’s meals at restaurants.

John McDonnell of the UK Labour Party unveils policy requiring large corporations gradually to place 10% of their equity into an inclusive Ownership Fund owned by workers.

Two whistleblower attorneys announce that a joint client received a whistleblower award from the IRS of $13.6 million dollars by providing information leading to the government collecting over $52.6 million dollars in taxes, penalties, and interest.

Jury finds police officer Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder in the 2014 murder of black teenager, Laquan McDonald..

Amazon whose CEO is richest man in the world, concedes $15 hour floor wage.

Across the U.S. states and 92 cities, among them San Francisco and Cincinnati, ditch Columbus Day to honor indigenous peoples.

Governor Brown signs A.B. 829 and 2162 to eliminate local barriers to housing homeless people.

Democratic AGs successfully sue DeVos in federal court to stop her from rolling back protections for students from abusive for-profit colleges.

U.S. won’t appeal court order freeing pizza delivery man from ICE custody.

Citing shithole countries slur, judge blocks administration from ending immigration protections.

Udall and 12 other democrats introduce bill to battle suppression of the American Indian vote.

Colorado, Michigan,  Missouri and Utah vote on redistricting reforms in November.

Senate Democrats introduce bill mandating body cameras at ICE.

At last Feds arrest SoCal racists for violence in Charlottesville.

Resistance

Dozens of students, faculty, and community members demonstrated at John Hopkins University demanding the university end its relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Charges dismissed for Roman Catholic woman priest and others who sat in Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office demanding he speak out against U.S. involvement in Yemen. 

Workers at Diamond Freight in Yakima band together to sue a local trucking company for wage theft.

Rapid Response pro-immigrant networks spread nationwide.

Medea Benjamin of Code Pink confronts official at hearing on Iran.

Yale cancels some classes as law students protest Brett Kavanaugh nomination.

Los Angeles puts city-owned bank on the ballot.

Peace

UN court issues interim order to U.S. lifting some Iran sanctions.

House resolution directs the president to end U.S. support for Yemen War.

The House and Senate in a rare display of partisan accord, pass measure to address the opioid epidemic.  

South Korea’s leader urges U.S. to end the Korean war.

Pyongyang agrees to start denuclearization process.

Moon and Kim stage exuberant summit in Pyongyang.

Koreans begin removing land mines from the DMZ to ease military tensions.