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This evening's music features r&b singer Tommy Brown . Enjoy!

"Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years."

-- Adolf Hitler

News and Opinion

Worth a full read, Chris Hedges:

Trump’s Barrett Nomination Another Step Toward Christian Fascism

The Christian Right is content to have the focus on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett revolve around her opposition to abortion and membership in People of Praise, a far-right Catholic cult that practices “speaking in tongues.” What it does not want examined is her abject subservience to corporate power, her hostility to workers, civil liberties, unions and environmental regulations. And since the Democratic Party is beholden to the same donor class as the Republican Party, and since the media long ago substituted the culture wars for politics, the most ominous threat Barrett’s appointment to the court represents is going unmentioned.

All fascist and totalitarian movements paper over their squalid belief systems with the veneer of morality. They mouth pieties about restoring law and order, right and wrong, the sanctity of life, civic and family virtues, patriotism and tradition to mask their dismantling of the open society and silencing and persecution of those who oppose them. This is the real game being played by Christian fascists, which since the early 1970s have been building institutions with tens of millions in corporate donations to take power. Donald Trump, who has no ideology, has allowed the Christian Right to fill his ideological void. He is the useful idiot. And the Christian Right, awash in money from corporations that know their real political intent, will mobilize in this election to use any tool, no matter how devious, from right-wing armed militias to the invalidation of ballots, to block Joe Biden and Democratic candidates from assuming office. The road to despotism is always paved with righteousness. This was as true for Soviet communism as it was for German fascism. And it is true in the United States.

Capitalism, driven by the twin obsessions of maximizing profit and reducing the cost of production by slashing worker’s rights and wages, is antithetical to the Christian Gospel, as well as the Enlightenment ethic defined by Immanuel Kant. But capitalism, in the hands of the Christian fascists, has become sacralized in the form of the Prosperity Gospel, the belief that Jesus came to minister to our material needs, blessing believers with wealth and power. The Prosperity Gospel delights the corporations that have carried out the slow-motion corporate coup. This is why large corporations such as Tyson Foods, which places Christian Right chaplains in its plants, Purdue, Wal-Mart, and Sam’s Warehouse, along with many other corporations, pour money into the movement and its institutions such as Liberty University and Patrick Henry Law School. This is why corporations have given millions to groups such as the Judicial Crisis Network and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to campaign for Barrett’s appointment to the court. Barrett has ruled consistently in favor of corporations to cheat gig workers out of overtime, green light fossil fuel extraction and pollution and strip consumers of protection from corporate fraud. The watchdog group Accountable.US found that as a circuit court judge, Barrett “faced at least 55 cases in which citizens took on corporate entities in front of her court and 76% of the time she sided with the corporations.” ...

These corporations don’t give a damn about abortion, gun rights or the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. But like the German industrialists who backed the Nazi Party, they know that the Christian Right will give an ideological veneer to ruthless corporate tyranny. These corporations view the Christian fascists the same way the German industrialists viewed the Nazis, as buffoons. They are aware that the Christian fascists will trash what is left of our anemic democracy and the natural ecosystem. But they also know they will make huge profits in the process and the rights of workers and citizens will be ruthlessly suppressed.

Indigenous Leaders Furious After EPA Grants Oklahoma Control Over Sovereign Tribal Lands

In a little-noticed development last week that drew ire after being reported Monday, the Trump administration's EPA granted the state of Oklahoma wide-ranging environmental regulatory control on nearly all tribal lands in the state, stripping dozens of tribes of their sovereignty over critical environmental issues.

The Young Turks which first reported the news, obtained a copy of an October 1 letter (pdf) from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler granting a request by Republican Gov. J. Kevin Stitt for control of environmental regulations on tribal land on a wide range of issues, including:

• Dumping hazardous waste—including formaldehyde; mercury; lead; asbestos; toxic air pollutants; per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); pesticides; the herbicide glyphosate, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)—on tribal lands.
• Underground Injection Control, the EPA's fracking permitting system.
• Protecting major agricultural polluters, including large-scale factory farming operations.

The Environmental Protection Agency @EPA has stripped indigenious tribes of regulatory control over environmental issues on nearly all tribal lands.

WE DEMAND INDIGENOUS AND TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY!

https://t.co/yDiAZGWyGV

— Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) (@CJAOurPower) October 5, 2020

Wheeler's letter acknowledges McGirt v. Oklahoma, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that much of eastern Oklahoma is Native American land. The new EPA move essentially means the state of Oklahoma now has the same rights as it did before McGirt. Attorney General William Barr has joined Republican leaders in seeking ways to undermine the landmark ruling.

The fossil fuel and industrial agriculture industries wield tremendous power in Oklahoma. The state Capitol—which was built on stolen Indigenous land—sits atop a large oil field and has a working oil rig on its grounds. The names of oil companies are also inscribed inside the building's dome.

The EPA policy change—which affects some 38 Native American tribes—sparked anger among Indigenous leaders.

"After over 500 years of oppression, lies, genocide, ecocide, and broken treaties, we should have expected the EPA ruling in favor of racist Gov. Stitt of Oklahoma, yet it still stings," Casey Camp-Horinek, environmental ambassador and elder and hereditary drum keeper for the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, told TYT.

Camp-Horinek continued:

Under the Trump administration, destroying all environmental protection has been ramped up to give the fossil fuel industry life support as it takes its last dying breath. Who suffers the results? Everyone and everything! Who benefits? Trump and his cronies, climate change deniers like Gov. Stitt, Sens. [James] Inhofe and [James] Lankford, who are financially supported by big oil and gas.

I am convinced that we must fight back against this underhanded ruling. In the courts, on the frontlines and in the international courts, life itself is at stake.

The EPA attempted to aussage tribal leaders in a September 29 summary report (pdf) in which the agency vowed to adhere to federal law. However, under President Donald Trump, the agency has reversed, or is in the process of reversing, over 100 environmental rules governing clean air and water, toxic chemicals, and more.

The summary report notes that the EPA consulted with 13 Indigenous tribes. It also acknowledges that all of the tribes questioned the limited time and geographical scope of the consultations.

Trump mobilized Republican-state army to suppress DC protests in June coup attempt

A recently published Washington Post investigative report details how the Trump administration assembled a force of National Guard troops from various states in Washington, DC last June in de facto contravention of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act to suppress anti-police violence protests.

The Post report, titled “How Trump amassed a red-state army in the nation’s capital—and could do so again,” is a confirmation of the analysis made by the World Socialist Web Site, which reported a day after the event that the Republican president was seeking to carry out a coup d’état. Trump planned to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and deploy active-duty troops to suppress the nationwide protests that erupted following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This would effectively overthrow the US Constitution and establish a presidential dictatorship based on sections of the military, the police and far-right militia forces.

The WSWS warned that although Trump was forced to pull back on June 1 due to resistance from the military brass, which considered such a move reckless, premature and unprepared, the coup conspiracy would continue. This has been confirmed by Trump’s refusal to accept an election defeat and his open plans to steal the presidential election by bringing a far-right justice onto the Supreme Court and mobilizing fascist supporters to attack popular opposition to such a move. ...

The Post investigation demonstrates that in lieu of invoking the Insurrection Act, the administration circumvented federal laws banning the use of the military for domestic policing, utilizing an obscure clause in the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act. According to the Post account, Trump, “worrying that the images [of mass protests] showed the country as out of control,” sought to augment Washington D.C.’s relatively small number of National Guard troops. The president put out a call to “commanding officers of all 50 states” to send reinforcements. The states responding affirmatively to the call were overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans. “Over 98 percent of the 3,800 troops that arrived in the District came from states with Republican governors,” the newspaper notes.

On June 1, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper “requested that governors provide 3,800 guardsmen toward that effort, pursuant to 32 USC 502(f).” This law, 32 United States Code §502, pertains to National Guard training and exercises. It determines that “a member of the National Guard” may “support … operations or missions undertaken by the member’s unit at the request of the President or Secretary of Defense.” The invocation of 32 USC 502(f) means that cooperating state National Guards are not bound by the Posse Comitatus Act, as they remain under their state’s jurisdiction and are not officially “federalized” under the command of the US president. Only under the Insurrection Act can National Guard units be formally placed under the command of the president for the purpose of policing the population.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Israel under diplomatic fire over arms to Azerbaijan

Bipartisan bill would give Israel a veto on US Middle East arms sales

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives would enhance protections for Israel’s qualitative military edge to include an effective Israeli veto on US arms sales to the Middle East.

The bill “would require the President to consult with the Israeli government to ensure [qualitative military edge] concerns are settled” when it comes to arms sales to Middle Eastern countries. ... Existing law already guarantees Israel a qualitative military edge in the Middle East, but Congress — not Israel — is the arbiter of whether an arms sale meets QME standards.

Most of the sponsors are Democrats, including a number of Jewish lawmakers, among them Schneider, Elaine Luria of Virginia, Max Rose of New York, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, and Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

UK court overturns ruling on $1.8bn of Venezuelan gold

A battle for the control of more than $1.8bn worth of Venezuelan gold stored at the Bank of England has swung in favour of the government of Nicolás Maduro after an appeals court in London overturned an earlier high court ruling concerning whom the UK recognised as Venezuela’s president.

The court of appeal granted an appeal by the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) and set aside July’s high court judgment, which had found that Britain’s recognition of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the “constitutional interim president of Venezuela” meant the gold could not be released for the Maduro-backing bank.

The BCV sued the Bank of England in May to recover control of the gold, which it has guaranteed it will sell purely to finance Venezuela’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Bank of England, claiming to act independently of the Foreign Office, had refused to release the gold. It cited a British government decision in early 2019 to join dozens of nations in backing Guaidó on the basis that Maduro’s election victory the previous year was rigged. A British commercial court will now be required to re-examine the issue.

Monday’s judgment said it was necessary to determine whether “(1) the UK government recognises Mr Guaidó as president of Venezuela for all purposes and therefore does not recognise Mr Maduro as president for any purpose. Or (2) HMG [the UK government] recognises Mr Guaidó as entitled to be the president of Venezuela and thus entitled to exercise all the powers of the president but also recognises Mr Maduro as the person who does in fact exercise some or all of the powers of the president of Venezuela.”

The appeal court suggested the Foreign Office now provide clarification on the issue, but added it was up to the Foreign Office to decide whether to do so. If the Foreign Office refuses to provide clarification, the appeal court said, it would be a matter for the commercial court on its own to decide if the British government recognises Maduro as de facto president. The UK maintains full consular and diplomatic relations with the Venezuela government, suggesting the British position is at best ambivalent.

“Don’t Be Afraid of COVID”: Trump Removes Mask & Fuels Misinformation Effort After Hospital Release

Donald Trump returns to the White House after three-day hospital stay

A contagious Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday and immediately took off his face mask for a photo op, despite being in close proximity to his staff.

After a three-day stay at a military hospital to treat symptoms of the coronavirus, the US president stepped off the Marine One helicopter just before 7pm and walked up the south portico staircase. He stopped in front of an illuminated entrance with four US flags, turned to face the south lawn – and brazenly removed his mask while posing for cameras.

Trump waved, gave two thumbs up and saluted as he watched Marine One lift off from the south lawn. A photographer stood close by. Video footage suggested that he was breathing hard. He then waved and walked inside, where masked staff were visible, only to reemerge for what appeared to be a film shoot.

In the film, which he tweeted soon after, Trump offered some bizarrely contrary advice about the virus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans: “Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines, all developed recently.”

The president, much criticised for his defiance of public health guidelines, added: “Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. And I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger, but that’s OK. And now I’m better and maybe I’m immune – I don’t know! But don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there. Be careful.”

Well now, here's a shocker:

New York governor agrees to shut schools and businesses in Covid hotspots

The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has agreed to close schools from Tuesday in several New York City neighborhoods, due to a resurgence of the coronavirus. The crackdown, requested by the New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, is warranted due to high rates of infections in several hotspots, Cuomo said on Monday. While the positive infection rate for the state is relatively low at 1%, outlying zip codes have rates as high as 5.5% due to mass gatherings and violations by religious institutions, according to the governor.

“I wouldn’t allow a school to open that I wouldn’t send my child to, that’s my test,” Cuomo said, acknowledging that many New Yorkers will be unhappy with the shutdowns. “Enforcement is kind because enforcement saves lives. I’d rather you be alive and angry with me.”

The move, effective from Tuesday morning in nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens, is a disheartening retreat for a city that enjoyed a summer with less spread of the virus than most other parts of the US, and recently celebrated the return of students citywide to limited in-person learning in classrooms.

De Blasio had requested for non-essential businesses in those zip codes also to close, but the governor has yet to approve the measure and said for now only schools would be closing. If it is approved, the mayor said non-essential businesses in the hotspot areas would close on Wednesday morning.

Keiser Report | Free Money to the People

'Promises Made, Workers Betrayed': Trump Gave $425 Billion in Federal Contracts to Corporations That Offshored 200,000 Jobs

Despite the 2016 campaign promise that he made to voters in pivotal industrial swing states throughout the Midwest that he would end the profit-driven relocation of manufacturing jobs to lower-wage countries, President Donald Trump has awarded more than $425 billion in federal contracts to corporations responsible for offshoring 200,000 jobs held by U.S. workers, according to a new report published Monday by progressive think tank and advocacy group Public Citizen.

The report (pdf), Promises Made, Workers Betrayed: Trump's Bigly Broken Promise to Stop Job Offshoring, was released during a press conference and is based on an analysis of data from the Department of Labor on trade-related job loss as well as data on federal procurement.

Researchers at Public Citizen found that Trump's claim that he would deny billions worth of lucrative government contracts to companies that offshored jobs in order to encourage those firms to bring jobs back to U.S. factories was an empty threat. Instead, the report reveals, eight of the top 10 corporations receiving government contracts during Trump's time in office have participated in offshoring.

According to the analysis, of the more than 300,000 U.S. workers who have lost their jobs as a result of worsening trade deficits during the Trump presidency, just over 200,000 of those jobs were classified as offshored.

"Trump lied to America's workers when he told them jobs were staying in the United States," said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, in a statement. "Under his watch jobs have left while he continues rewarding outsourcing corporations with millions of dollars in lucrative government contracts—in the middle of a pandemic."

At least $425.6 billion in public money has gone to firms that moved jobs overseas in the past four years, according to the analysis, which means that "at least one of every four taxpayer dollars spent by the federal government on procurement contracts during the Trump administration went to the pockets of companies that offshored American jobs."

Ex-Officials, Rights Groups Denounce 'Wildly Inappropriate' ICE Billboards

Former Department of Homeland Security officials joined human rights groups Monday in condemning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement billboards in Pennsylvania depicting the faces of "wanted" undocumented immigrants and baselessly calling sanctuary city policies "a real danger."

ICE announced the placement of six billboards in metro Philadelphia in a Friday statement claiming their purpose is "to educate the public about the dangers of non-cooperation policies."

The billboards feature men of color—labeled "criminal aliens"—from countries including Ecuador, Kenya, and South Korea who, according to ICE, "were previously arrested or convicted of crimes in the U.S., but were released into the community instead of being transferred to ICE custody pursuant to an immigration detainer."

Human rights groups were quick to blast the billboards.

"Once again, ICE relies on fear-mongering to achieve a discriminatory policy agenda fueled by tactics of misinformation and disinformation," Amnesty International USA researcher for refugee and migrant rights Denise Bell said in a statement. "Tactics by ICE demonstrate how low the agency chooses to stoop again and again to invoke baseless fear of our very neighbors. This is propaganda."

"This hate-mongering and xenophobia is a disease in this country stemming from the very top of the government," Bell added. "We've seen the president of the United States use these demonization tactics throughout his presidency."

The Nazis used to publish things like this, to scapegoat and build up hatred for "the criminal Jew."

Now ICE is putting up billboards in Pennsylvania with immigrants faces in order to "educate the public."

Where do you think this will lead? "NEVER AGAIN" IS NOW. @RefuseFascism pic.twitter.com/dFK8xs1YuA

— The Revcoms (@therevcoms) October 2, 2020

Former DHS officials also condemned the billboards as an election-year stunt in a swing state where President Donald Trump trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the latest polls about a month before Election Day.

"The placement and the timing... make it clear that this is a political move, not related to operational matters," former DHS press secretary David Lapan told CBS News.

John Sandweg, a former ICE acting director, told CBS that the billboards are "a political advertisement in favor of the president or at a minimum, against politicians that they disagree with, and that's just wildly inappropriate."

Mitch McConnell Put the Senate in Recess

The Senate went into recess Monday afternoon following the news that at least three Republican senators were waylaid with Covid-19. It was the latest in an ongoing parliamentary battle whose outcome could shape both the judiciary and the Senate for years to come. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a near-invincible upper hand in the fight, but now his control is far from certain amid the virus outbreak, which seems to have been spread rapidly by the very ceremony that kicked off the confrontation: a reckless White House party to celebrate the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

McConnell, who has not said whether he’s taken a Covid-19 test, has made clear his unyielding determination to brush aside any norm or obstacle to implant Barrett into the Supreme Court. To make that happen before the election — or, in the event of a loss by Donald Trump, before the president leaves office — McConnell has two major hurdles to clear. The first is a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican facing a surprisingly close race for reelection. On Monday, McConnell said a Judiciary vote would likely happen by October 16. The second is a floor vote, which McConnell has pledged to hold as quickly as possible after the nomination clears the committee. A floor vote is eyed for sometime around October 26. ...

Over the weekend, Schumer had been pressed to block McConnell’s attempt to adjourn and instead force the Senate to remain in session, or even seize full control of the floor by massing more Democrats than Republicans have available. Democrats sent Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who had the coronavirus in March, onto the floor to safely (we assume) jockey with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., over the adjournment. Kaine, acting on Schumer’s behalf, did not go that far, and instead made a motion to modify McConnell’s adjournment resolution, suggesting instead that the Senate be kept in recess through the election. McConnell objected and moved his initial motion for recess again, which was accepted this time without objection. In a concession to Schumer, McConnell withdrew five federal judges from the calendar that he had submitted last week, meaning he’ll have to add them back, taking more time, when the Senate returns.

The upside of adjourning is that it allows for Senate personnel to decamp from what has become a toxic hotspot. The upside of keeping the Senate in, and forcing McConnell to repeatedly attempt to adjourn, would have been to give Democrats the opportunity to highlight Republicans’s unwillingness to work on legislation to address the economic and public health crisis caused by Covid-19. Since Barrett has yet to move through committee, any floor action at this point is primarily tied to messaging, as the real fight to slow down or stop her nomination begins when she arrives on the floor. Schumer, in agreeing to the adjournment, signaled that he didn’t see the messaging value in keeping the Senate open the next two weeks. ...

Under the new floor schedule, the Senate will return on Monday, October 19, at 4:30 p.m., with the first order of business the nomination of Michael Jay Newman for district judge in Ohio. On that day, McConnell, if Barrett is through committee, will also attempt to begin the process of confirming Barrett on the Senate floor. McConnell would need 51 senators present for a quorum. (The vice president does not count toward a quorum.)

Ryan Grim: Do COVID Infections Put SCOTUS Nominee In Jeopardy?

The SCOTUS's religious bigots are feeling frisky:

Supreme court rejects appeal from clerk who refused to register gay marriage

LGBTQ campaigners and legal experts have told of their fears and outrage on Monday after two US supreme court justices issued an “appalling” attack on the 2015 landmark decision enabling same-sex couples to marry. It came as the court declined to hear an appeal in the case of former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, after gay marriage became legal.

Although supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they agreed with the decision not to hear the case, they said it was a “stark reminder of the consequences” of the court’s 2015 Obergefell v Hodges decision. Davis, they claimed, “may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision” and warned: “She will not be the last.”

In a scathing attack they said the court had “bypassed the democratic process” and left those with religious objections to same-sex marriage “in the lurch”.

“By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem that only it can fix,” they said. “Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ‘ruinous consequences for religious liberty.’”

Thomas and Alito, who are two of five conservatives on the nine-member court, also said it “enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.

Krystal Ball: Why Biden Is Winning By Promising Americans NOTHING

100,000 Ballot Requests Were Invalidated in Iowa After Courts Sided With Trump Campaign

In 2018, Democrats won three of Iowa’s four congressional districts, picked up five seats in the state House, and lost the governor’s race by less than 3 points. The state has only trended more Democratic since, giving the party real hope that its six electoral votes could wind up in the camp of Joe Biden and that its Senate seat, now held by Republican Joni Ernst, could flip to Democrat Theresa Greenfield.

It may all hinge, however, on an absentee ballot snafu affecting tens of thousands of voters that the party is scrambling to rectify.

In July, the top elections officials in Linn and Johnson counties went ahead and began mailing out absentee-ballot request forms with some voter information already filled in, like names and dates of birth. Crucially, voters need to know their voter ID number. Most don’t, and Linn County Auditor Joel Miller had the state’s vendor fill it in for them. Republicans protested, and courts sided with the GOP, saying that Miller’s decision to proceed with the mailing violated a “clear directive” from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate.

More than 100,000 absentee ballot requests have already been invalidated in several Iowa counties. In late August, judges ordered two Iowa counties to invalidate at least 64,000 ballot requests, siding with a challenge brought by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the GOP, which have been filing similar lawsuits nationwide. About 50,000 voters in Linn County and at least 14,000 in Woodbury will be informed that their absentee-ballot requests won’t count and that anyone who still wants to vote by mail in November will have to send in a new form in order to receive their ballot. In a separate case in Johnson County, home to the University of Iowa, more than 92,000 ballot request forms were voided.

Miller told Bleeding Heartland, a blog covering Iowa politics, that his research indicated that neither the secretary of state nor the legislature had the authority to stop his mailing; Miller was simply “trying to make it easy for people to vote while reducing their exposure to others in a pandemic,” he said. The Iowa Democratic Party, along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, are suing Pate for issuing a directive saying that county auditors could only distribute blank absentee-ballot request forms to voters. Democrats argue that using these prefilled request forms, which included some personal information and voter identification numbers to make the process as easy as possible, was “entirely lawful under the Iowa Code and the Iowa Constitution.” No hearing has yet been set.

Krystal and Saagar: Republican Senate Majority At RISK With Lindsey Graham On The Ropes

Amazon near tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah

Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned. Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

New research shows that this tipping point could be much closer than previously thought. As much as 40% of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Any shift from rainforest to savannah would still take decades to take full effect, but once under way the process is hard to reverse. Rainforests support a vastly greater range of species than savannah and play a much greater role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Parts of the Amazon are receiving much less rain than they used to because of the changing climate. Rainfall in about 40% of the forest is now at a level where the rainforest could be expected to exist as savannah instead, according to the study, led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on computer models and data analysis.

Washington state officials hunt murder hornet nests before ‘slaughter phase’

Officials in Washington state are conducting a frantic search for a nest containing Asian giant hornets, also known as murder hornets, before the creatures enter what is known as their “slaughter phase”. Six hornets have been sighted or trapped near the city of Blaine in the past two weeks, prompting authorities to launch a hunt before the hornets embark upon a murderous rampage among honeybees.

“Asian giant hornets this time of year start going into what we call the slaughter phase,” said Sven-Erik Spichiger, an entomologist at the Washington state department of agriculture. In this phase, the hornets launch attacks on honeybee colonies, decapitating workers and dividing up their bodies as food for their young. The prospect is worrisome for farmers who rely on the bees to pollinate key crops, such as blueberries and raspberries.

The Asian giant hornet, called the murder hornet due to its ferocious reputation, was spotted in North America for the first time last year, first appearing in British Columbia in Canada before spreading across the border into Washington state. It is likely the hornets arrived from eastern Asia via a shipping or aircraft container.

California fires set bleak record as 4m acres destroyed

The wildfires that have ravaged California have reached a bleak new milestone, having consumed 4m acres in a fire season that shows little sign of ending. The unprecedented figure – an area larger than Connecticut – is more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in California.

“The 4m mark is unfathomable. It boggles the mind, and it takes your breath away,” said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California department of forestry and fire protection, known as Cal Fire. “And that number will grow.”

Meanwhile the August complex fire, in the Mendocino national forest north of San Francisco, on Monday became the first fire in state history to surpass 1m acres. The fire is nearly five times the size of New York City and is only 54% contained by weary firefighters. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said the amount of land scorched by the August Complex was larger than all of the recorded fires in California between 1932 and 1999. ...

The scale of the fires has meant that people living far from the flames experienced a degree of misery that in itself was unprecedented, with historically unhealthy air quality and smoke so dense that it blurred the skies across California and on some days even blotted out the sun.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Death Toll Rises in Nagorno-Karabakh

Ex-OPCW chief Jose Bustani reads Syria testimony that US, UK blocked at UN

Trump Appointee to VOA Reporters: Criticizing Trump Is a Conflict of Interest

Young people inspired by George Floyd ask what is more powerful: voting or protest?

Freedom Rider: Breonna Taylor and Black Life

Texas Voter Suppression Tactics Recall the Jim Crow Era

Leaked Docs From Inside 'Omnicidal' ExxonMobil Reveal Plan to Increase Climate-Killing Emissions

More than 14m tonnes of plastic believed to be at the bottom of the ocean

Caitlin Johnstone: WaPo Publishes Paranoid Screed Cautioning Readers Not To Let Russia Make Them Paranoid

LGBT Twitter users tease far-right group by taking over Proud Boys hashtag

Gallup: MAJORITY Of Americans Want A Third Party

A Little Night Music

Tommy Brown - Atlanta Boogie

Tommy Brown - Remember Me

Tommy Brown - The House Near The Railroad Track

Big Walter Horton w/Tommy Brown - Nosey Neighbors

Griffin Brothers featuring Tommy Brown - Tra La La

The Griffin Brothers w/Tommy Brown - Weepin' and Cryin'

Tommy Brown - Double Faced Deacon

Tommy Brown - V-8 Baby

Tommy Brown & Big Walter Horton - Card Game

Tommy Brown - Never Trust A Woman

Bill Doggett (vocal by Tommy Brown) - Honky Tonk