Trump/Pence War on Black Dissidents Claims First Victim

NORMALLY I ORDER the linked reports in Dispatches in accordance with news values that were mine as a daily newspaper news editor or telegraph editor. This is to say international news generally outranks all but the most significant local news, and crisis, scandal or disaster outranks everything else unless it is a positive story about some development (such as an increase in the minimum wage) that benefits us all. But those criteria vanish down the proverbial toilet in the face of the following story, which, though it is about the victimization of one man, nevertheless exemplifies the stark, Gestapo-type  terror with which the JesuNazi Trump/Pence Regime threatens us all. Indeed it is a wake-up call of the most alarming sort -- precisely why I have chosen it to lead this edition of "Weekend Update": 
       

Rakem Balogun, who lost his home and more while incarcerated, is believed to be the first person targeted and prosecuted under a secretive US surveillance effort to track so-called 'black identity extremists.' In a leaked August 2017 report from the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit, officials claimed that there had been a 'resurgence in ideologically motivated, violent criminal activity' stemming from African Americans’ 'perceptions of police brutality.'"

Comment: obviously Mr. Balogun is but the first victim in the JesuNazi regime's Gestapo-inspired terrorizing of dissenters, in which context we dast not forget the words of Martin Niemöller, "first they came for the socialists..."  
  

Fight to Save Net Neutrality Requires Only One More Affirmative Vote    
"Democrats on Wednesday officially filed a petition to force a vote in the Senate to save net neutrality. With a single Republican supporting the effort, only one vote is needed to advance a resolution that may one day soon reinstate the net neutrality rules overturned by the FCC last year."  Please use this story's clickable form to contact your senators.

  

Democratic (sic) Party's Closet Fascists Urge CIA Torture Queen's Approval
"Sen. Joe Donnelly on Saturday became the second Democrat to announce he will cast his vote in favor of CIA director nominee Gina Haspel -- boosting her prospects...

(To read the rest, go here.)

War Clouds Darken: Who Will the USian Empire Attack Next?

While the mass media focuses on the latest daily scandals emanating from the White House, a leader of the secular left in Iran says President Trump is stepping up plans for an attack on that country which could trigger a devastating regional war with horrific implications for world peace...The Tudeh Party leader warned that the Trump administration poses a graver threat to peace than any prior U.S. administration..."
See also: "The war on Iran, in other words, has begun. It has been brewing for some time."
And this: "In the immediate wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that America is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, Israel reportedly carried out airstrikes in Syria and began mobilizing its defense forces over what it claimed were 'abnormal movements of Iranian forces.'”
Plus this: "...there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack.
As well as this: "President Trump floated the idea that former Secretary of State John Kerry could face criminal charges for lobbying to salvage the Iranian nuclear deal." 
Also this: "a new CNN poll (showed) support for the (Iran nuclear) agreement (was) continuing to rise, with an all-time high 63 percent of Americans saying Trump should uphold the accord.
Comment: the poll results are irrelevant to the One Percent and its Ruling Class vassalage and thus would be ignored even if support for the Iran accord were 100 percent. But when O when will we finally awaken to the fact our alleged "democracy" is but a Big Lie?

  

Empire Ignores World War II History -- Especially the Battle of Sevastopol
"Western leaders and Ukraine’s current pro-Western government...entertained ideas of a NATO base in Sevastopol, right on the border with Russia, offering NATO ships almost unlimited control over the region and also an opportunity to neutralize the Russian Black Sea Fleet...a similar dream once held by Nazi Germany."
See also: "The US Navy announced on Friday that it is relaunching its Second Fleet..."

(scroll way down)

Seattle's War on Homeless Culminates in Bitter Tax Fight   
"In (retaliatory) response to Seattle’s proposed head tax, Amazon is pausing construction of a new tower and may sublease to tenants a new skyscraper in downtown Seattle."
See the tax proposal's details here: "...the city expects only three percent of Seattle’s businesses to be subject to the tax. Amazon, of course, is the big one..."
Plus this: "One day after an open letter from more than 100 Seattle area business leaders to the Seattle City Council in opposition...a group of several local unions has sent a letter in support..." 
And this: "Looking just at the percent of (homeless) people...King County ranked 5th while east coast cities like ...D.C., Boston and New York disappear from the top 10 entirely...all places with some form of a legal right to shelter. Seattle, like most West Coast cities, doesn’t guarantee access to shelter.
Also this: "At the town hall, neighborhood residents sneered at him, telling O’Brien to invite the homelessness into his house."
Comment: because I had the misfortune of being stuck in Seattle for four miserable years -- it was unquestionably the most venomously unfriendly place I have ever lived --  I recognize the malice expressed by the Ballard residents as an unusually public expression of the same reflexively fascist hatred of Blacks and impoverished people in general that has long obstructed mass transit development throughout the state. Indeed, despite the state's documented secularism, it exemplifies the white-supremacist malevolence that brought us the Trump/Pence Regime and its ever-accelerating thrust toward zero-tolerance JesuNazi theocracy.  

(To read the rest, go here.) 

 

"Headaches, Confusion, and an Inability to Think Straight"

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Reaches All-Time Human-Era High

"Carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii averaged 410.31 parts per million (ppm) in April. That bests last May’s record of 409.65 ppm, is well above the pre-industrial value of 280 ppm, and means the atmosphere of April 2018 was unparalleled in human history. Its reign will be short-lived, as May will almost surely set another record."

See Also: "At it's most tame state, hypercapnia will cause headaches, confusion, and an inability to think straight." 

Comment: could it be the carbon dioxide poisoning that's turning so many of our alleged leaders into apocalypse-courting economic cannibals? (See diagnostic data above, indicative stories below.)

Iowa Governor Gleefully Inks Law to Forever End All U.S. Abortion Rights

“Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed the country’s most restrictive abortion bill into law Friday, outlawing the procedure once a 'heartbeat' is detected, which is usually at about six weeks — a time when many people do not yet know they are pregnant...Reynolds, who has in the past referred to abortion as 'murder,' echoed that sentiment in a statement Friday. 'I understand and anticipate that this will likely be challenged in court, and that courts may even put a hold on the law until it reaches the Supreme Court,' (she said). This is bigger than just a law. This is about life.'”

Comment: we all know the intent of the Trump/Pence Regime is to pack the Supreme Court with misogynistic, homophobic, racist JesuNazis; we likewise know that only a deity-class miracle will prevent judicial aging from giving Trump at least one more vacancy to full -- all he needs to turn the court into precisely the rubber-stamp for theocracy he and his collaborators intend it to be. But maybe after the Trumped Court upholds this murderously misogynistic law,  as we know with near 100-percent-certainity it will do,  the nation's women finally will throw away their pussy hats -- which sugar-coat dead serious issues with pink polyester silliness (and in tactical truth  do nothing more than give the cops and secret police aiming points for their cameras and guns) -- and at long last recognize the only way to defeat the JesuNazis is to get Petrograd-serious about the hard and deadly dangerous work of revolution. The only question -- should that blessed event obtain -- is whether we men of the USian Empire will have the brass balls demonstrated by the men of the Putilov Machine Works and, just as they did when they joined the women of the Lesnoy Textile Works on International Women's Day of 1917, follow our breathtakingly courageous sisters into battle.

    

2018 Farm Bill Threatens Genocidal Food Stamp Cuts

"There is a lot at stake in the 2018 Farm Bill negotiations. The largest proposed cuts would be to the SNAP program, formerly known as 'food stamps.' Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, argues that these cuts would 'increase hunger, foster poorer nutrition, and further increase health inequity in our nation,' while Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, calls them 'deeply concerning because they potentially cut millions of Americans out of these benefits, putting their health in jeopardy. The staff of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, cautions that the bill’s proposed 'sweeping, aggressive new work requirements' for SNAP recipients 'would likely prove unworkable and do substantially more harm than good, fueling increases in hunger and poverty.'"

Comment: this is conflict in which the Democrats lose the 2018 election by revealing their true Neoliberal (aka Republican aka JesuNazi) colors and supporting the Trump/Pence Regime's savagery.

Trump/Pence Regime Continues Iran Warmongering...

(to read the rest, go here.)