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"We tortured some folks."

-- Barack Obama

News and Opinion

The Empire Doesn’t Hide Its Worst Deeds, It Just Manipulates How People Think About Them

The worst actions of your government happen not in secrecy, but right out in the open under the narrative cover of mass media propaganda. The western empire doesn’t hide its worst deeds, it just manipulates the way people think about them.

Tomorrow we could unearth rock-solid proof that the US government knowingly orchestrated 9/11, and that crime in and of itself still wouldn’t be as bad as what the US government is facilitating in Gaza right now, in plain view of the entire world. And even if such a revelation did occur, the imperial media would probably either ignore it or spin it so that its impact is dulled into impotence.

The empire’s worst atrocities happen in the open because the empire’s worst atrocities involve butchering and starving huge numbers of people, which is impossible to do in secret. They can assassinate a government official here and sign a malignant secret agreement there without needing to do it openly, but murder at mass scale isn’t something you can conceal in the information age.

The US-centralized globe-spanning power structure therefore relies heavily on its historically unprecedented ability to psychologically manipulate global populations when carrying out such atrocities. The empire has invested more heavily in soft power than any empire or government in human history, and the science of modern propaganda has been advancing under this investment at least as rapidly as military technology has been.

That’s why you can have the most damning information imaginable about the people who rule over us sitting right out in the open, and you won’t see anywhere remotely close to the public outrage and backlash you ought to see. The US government can literally back a genocide without hiding any part of it, and the political-media class will simply manipulate public psychology into getting lost in a bunch of hogwash about self-defense and human shields and difficulties delivering food and medical supplies and hey Biden is working hard to do the right thing here and it’s all very complicated and everything bad that happens in Gaza can be blamed on Hamas anyway.

It’s a truly astonishing power that would inspire awe if it wasn’t so evil. Power is controlling what happens, but real power is controlling what people think about what happens.

Whistleblowers and investigative journalists provide an invaluable service to humanity for which we should all be grateful, but what this civilization needs more than anything right now is not so much new information about what the powerful are doing, but rather the ability to lucidly perceive the information that’s already been made public. We need people clearly seeing what’s already right in front of them, without the lens of distortion and obfuscation that the powerful have placed over their eyes.

Until we find a way to snap a critical mass of people out of the propaganda-induced coma the empire has placed them in, they’ll be able to get away with any evil they need to commit in order to secure their interests and advance their agendas. We can work on this front by doing everything we can to get people looking at the reality of what our rulers are doing at every opportunity, in as creative and interesting a way as we can come up with. The more eyes open to the truth, the more lucid perceivers there will be to help open the eyes of others.

Worth a click and a full read. Here's a snippet to get you started.

How Western Media Built the Case for Genocide

The past five months have been clarifying. What was supposed to be hidden has been thrust into the light. What was supposed to be obscured has come sharply into focus.

Liberal democracy is not what it seems.

It has always defined itself in contrast to what it says it is not. Where other regimes are savage, it is humanitarian. Where others are authoritarian, it is open and tolerant. Where others are criminal, it is law-abiding. When others are belligerent, it seeks peace. Or so the manuals of liberal democracy argue.

But how to keep the faith when the world’s leading liberal democracies — invariably referred to as “the West” — are complicit in the crime of crimes: genocide?

Not just law-breaking or a misdemeanour, but the extermination of a people. And not just quickly, before the mind has time to absorb and weigh the gravity and extent of the crime, but in slow motion, day after day, week after week, month after month.

What kind of system of values can allow for five months the crushing of children under rubble, the detonation of fragile bodies, the wasting away of babies, while still claiming to be humanitarian, tolerant, peace-seeking?

And not just allow all this, but actively assist in it. Supply the bombs that blow those children to pieces or bring houses down on them, and sever ties to the only aid agency that can hope to keep them alive.

The answer, it seems, is the West’s system of values.

The mask has not just slipped, it has been ripped off. What lies beneath is ugly indeed.

As Israel Blocks More U.N. Aid, Gaza Is on the Brink of "Most Intense Famine" Since WW2

Israel reportedly blocking UN food aid to northern Gaza despite high famine risk

Israel has reportedly barred the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest, the head of Unrwa has said.

“Despite the tragedy unfolding under our watch, the Israeli Authorities informed the UN that they will no longer approve any @Unrwa food convoys to the north,” Philippe Lazzarini said on X.

“This is outrageous & makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man made famine.”

Israel did not immediately respond on Sunday to AFP’s request for comment about Lazzarini’s statement. The Unrwa spokesperson, Juliette Touma, said the decision had been relayed in a meeting with Israeli military officials on Sunday. It followed two denials in writing for convoy deliveries to the north last week.

No reason for the decision was given, Touma said. ... Touma said Israeli authorities on Sunday also rejected a UN request to send a team to Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, where fighting has flared for almost a week, “to evacuate people who are injured”.

UN PASSES Cease-Fire Vote; Caught On Video Israel BOMBING Civilians

Medics trapped by Israeli gunfire at two Gaza hospitals, says Red Crescent

Israeli forces have besieged two more hospitals in Gaza, pinning down medical teams under heavy gunfire, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. “All of our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are completely immobilised,” the humanitarian organisation told Reuters on Sunday, adding one of its staff was killed when Israeli tanks pushed back suddenly into areas around al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Palestinians who fled the raid described days of heavy fighting, mass arrests and forced marches past dead bodies in interviews with the Associated Press on Sunday.

“From time to time, the tank would fire a shell,” Kareem Ayman Hathat, who lived in a five-storey building about 100 metres from the hospital, told AP. “It was to terrorise us.”

The head of Israel’s southern command, Maj Gen Yaron Finkelman, called the Shifa raid a “daring, tricky and most impressive operation”, saying it would end “when the last terrorist is in our hands, alive or dead”.

Israel claims that the hospitals are used to harbour fighters while Hamas denies using the facilities for military ends and accuses Israel of war crimes.

Israeli regime praises fraudulent US-backed Gaza “ceasefire” resolution

On Friday, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution sponsored by the United States that was absurdly proclaimed by the US media as a “ceasefire” resolution. In fact, the resolution would have given the UN’s imprimatur to the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, specifying conditions for “ongoing and future operations” by the Israeli military. The resolution linked any “ceasefire” with the achievement of Israel’s stated war aims, effectively restating the declaration by US President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address earlier this month that a ceasefire could be achieved by Hamas “laying down arms.” Indeed, in motivating the resolution, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said its aim was to “put pressure on Hamas,” not Israel.

In explaining Algeria’s vote against the resolution, Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s representative to the UN, said the resolution “implies a license for continuing bloodshed.” He noted, “The text presented today does not convey a clear message of peace. It tacitly allows for continuing civilian casualties and lacks clear safeguards to prevent further escalation. “It is a laissez-passer to continuing killing of Palestinian civilians,” Bendjama explained. “The emphasis on measures to reduce civilian harm from ongoing and future operations implies a license for continuing bloodshed.”

Algeria was joined by China and Russia, which both vetoed the resolution.

The Israeli government, which has repeatedly denounced the United Nations for its officials’ criticism of the genocide, fully endorsed the United States’ resolution. “The American resolution, should it have passed, would have marked a moment of morality for the UN,” Israeli UN envoy Gilad Erdan said, praising the US’s willingness to “condemn the Hamas monsters.” He added, “Yet sadly, for purely political reasons, this resolution did not pass, and terrorists can continue benefiting from this Council whitewashing their crimes.”

Erdan then launched into a tirade of genocide denial, absurdly proclaiming that universally-recognized statistics about the civilian death toll are made up and that no one is starving in Gaza. The Israeli delegate condemned the “libelous narrative of famine in Gaza,” proclaiming absurdly, “There is absolutely no limit that Israel places on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.” He claimed the allegations by the UN of mass deaths in Gaza were a fraud, declaring that “Numbers [of civilian casualties] supplied by the terrorists are thrown around and quoted as if they are [the] Word of God. Yet, in essence, these numbers are merely the lies of Hamas that the UN is so quick to parrot.

“Israel has taken steps that no other military in any other conflict has ever taken, all in order to mitigate civilian casualties,” he said. He concluded by reiterating Israel’s determination to assault the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinian refugees are sheltering. “The fire will grow again and spread. This is what will happen without an operation in Rafah. Israel sees no alternative. The road to a permanent ceasefire passes through Rafah.”

US Pariah Status Grows as Finland Resumes UNRWA Funding

As the United States doubled down on banning funds for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Finland said Friday that it would resume contributions to the lifesaving organization in an implicit rebuke of unsubstantiated Israeli claims—reportedly extracted via torture—that staff members were involved in the October 7 attacks.

Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio announced during a press conference that the country's €5 million ($5.4 million) annual contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) would be reinstated, with 10% of the funding reserved for "risk management."

"Improving UNRWA's risk management, i.e. starting to prevent abuses and close supervision, gives us sufficient guarantees at this stage from the perspective of risk management that support can continue," said Tavio. "As a result, UNRWA's support for this year will proceed." ...

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) earlier this week called Israeli claims that UNRWA is a Hamas proxy "flat-out lies."

UNRWA employees say they were tortured into making false confessions about involvement in Hamas and October 7. The staffers accuse Israeli interrogators of severely beating and waterboarding them, as well as threatening to harm their relatives.

The European Union and nations including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia subsequently resumed funding for UNRWA, while other contributors including Saudi Arabia increased their donations.

"For the time being there is no alternative to UNRWA," Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Dan Jørgensen said earlier this week.

The United States, however, continues to withhold UNRWA contributions, as do other nations including Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. An agreement reached earlier this week between Congress and the White House as part of a $1.1 trillion militarized spending package extends the ban on UNRWA funding until next March.

I voted NO on the appropriations bill passed last night, which prohibits funding to the key UN aid agency delivering life-saving humanitarian support in Gaza and provides another $3.3 billion in military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to continue this barbaric war. pic.twitter.com/k8Ii33MjDT

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 23, 2024

Chris Hedges: PEN America Self-Destructs

PEN America, once an important defender of rights for writers, editors and artists, has, under the direction of former State Department official Suzanne Nossel, abandoned its mission, destroyed its credibility and provoked a revolt among its members.

Its refusal to condemn the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s targeted killings of writers, academics and journalists, has seen numerous writers withdraw from the annual PEN World Voices Festival in New York and Los Angeles, scheduled for April and May. PEN America has not only failed to denouce the genocide but provides platforms to Israelis who use racist and dehumanizing language to describe Palestinians. It blacklists those who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. PEN America functions as a propaganda arm for the Biden administration and Ukrainian government — including the banning of Russian writers from a PEN event last May. It has repeated false accusations against Julian Assange and refused to classify him as a journalist.

PEN America peddles agitprop. It is our version of the Union of Soviet Writers. The human rights violations by our enemies are heinous crimes and our own, and those of our allies, are ignored or whitewashed. Writers and editors, such as Assange, who expose the lies and crimes of the state, are discredited, while propagandists for U.S. imperialism and the apartheid state Israel – even as it carries out genocide – are fêted. ... Nossel, an attorney, served as a member of the State Department task force formed to deal with the WikiLeaks publications. She is well aware that the issue of whether Assange is a journalist is not immaterial. It is crucial. The U.S. effort to extradite Assange is built around denying him the status of a publisher or a journalist and denying WikiLeaks the status of a press publication. If he is extradited and found guilty, the precedent will criminalize any journalist that possesses or publishes classified material.

Nossel parrots the U.S. government’s charges against Assange, including that he endangered lives by not redacting documents, hacked into a government computer and meddled in the 2016 elections — charges that are false. PEN America, under her direction, sent out news briefs with headlines such as: “Security Reports Reveal How Assange Turned an Embassy into a Command Post for Election Meddling.” PEN America, after heavy pressure, eventually said Assange should not be extradited. Advocating for his extradition was difficult after The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País published a joint statement demanding charges against Assange be dropped. PEN centers around the world have also denounced the extradition proceedings. Nossel, however, was long part of Assange’s lynch mob. ...

The current letter, now signed by more than 1,300 writers, notes that “Palestine’s poets, scholars, novelists and journalists and essayists have risked everything, including their lives and the lives of their families, to share their words with the world. Yet PEN America appears unwilling to stand with them firmly against the powers that have oppressed and dispossessed them for the last 75 years.” The writers charge that “PEN America has betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere.” PEN America refuses to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. ...

PEN America may continue to exist, indeed its obsequiousness to governmental and corporate power will probably assure its funding, but it is a hollow brand used to justify the crimes and lies of the U.S. government and Israel.

ISIS-K Claims Credit After 137 Killed in Moscow Concert Attack; Russia Tries to Blame Ukraine

Four suspects in Moscow concert hall terror attack appear in court

Four suspects have appeared in court in Moscow charged over the terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall on Friday that left 137 people dead. The men were officially identified as citizens of Tajikistan, the Tass state news agency said, and were remanded in custody for two months at Sunday’s hearing. ...

The men, identified as Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Dalerdzhon Barotovich Mirzoyev, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, face charges of a “terror attack committed by a group of individuals resulting in a person’s death”, according to the Tass news agency. All four pleaded guilty. Earlier on Sunday, Islamic State had released new footage of the attack, corroborating the terror group’s claim to have masterminded the slaughter even as Russia has sought to place the blame on Ukraine, which Kyiv denies. ...

Vladimir Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen. Russia’s investigative committee released a video earlier yesterday showing the suspects being led, blindfolded, into its headquarters. ... The Russian leader also claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine had “prepared a window” for the terrorists to cross the border from Russia into Ukraine. Kyiv has vociferously denied any links to the attack and has indicated that it believes Moscow is preparing a pretext to escalate the conflict.

The US has said it received intelligence that the terror group acted alone. “Isis bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” the national security council spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, said in a statement. ... On Sunday, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, disregarded the US intelligence reports that IS was behind the attacks. “I wish they could have solved the assassination of their own President Kennedy so quickly,” she wrote on Telegram. “But no, for more than 60 years they have not been able to find out who killed him after all. Or maybe that was Isis too?”

“Until the investigation into the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall is completed, any phrase from Washington exonerating Kyiv should be considered as evidence,” she added. “After all, the financing of terrorist activities of the Kyiv organised criminal group by the American liberal democrats and participation in the corrupt schemes of the Biden family have been going on for many years.”

Who’s REALLY Behind Russia Terrorist Attack, ISIS-K or UKRAINE? Interview

ISIS-K? You mean the remnants of the US client state in Afghanistan, covered in the fingerprints of foreign spy agencies? pic.twitter.com/yZKN2JlFlO

— Seth Harp (@sethharpesq) March 23, 2024

Putin Vows OBLIVION for Moscow Attack and Ukraine is Done ft. Scott Ritter

Poland to demand explanation from Moscow after missile breaches its airspace during Ukraine attack

Poland said it would demand an explanation from Moscow after a Russian missile briefly breached Polish airspace during a massive missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the Nato member to put its forces on heightened readiness. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with Sunday’s early morning strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut.

A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people has also become a new flashpoint between the two countries, with President Vladimir Putin seeking to tie Kyiv to the attack; Ukraine has denied involvement and Islamic State has claimed responsibility. ...

The Polish Armed Forces Operational Command (RSZ) said on Sunday that its forces were on a heightened state of readiness due to the “intensive long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation tonight” and the missile attacks in Ukraine. “Polish and allied aircraft have been activated, which may result in increased noise levels, especially in the south-eastern part of the country,” it said.

It later said Russia had violated Poland’s airspace with a cruise missile which “entered Polish space near the town of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds”. ...

Speaking to the Polish broadcaster TVN24, Andrzej Szejna, a deputy foreign minister said the foreign ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador to “provide information and explanations”.

Alastair Crooke: Is Europe Preparing for War?

Marielle Franco: two politicians and ex-police chief arrested over Brazil murder

Two powerful politicians and Rio de Janeiro’s former chief of police have been arrested as part of a federal police operation targeting the suspected masterminds of the 2018 assassination of Rio councillor Marielle Franco. The operation – named Murder, Inc – was launched at the crack of dawn on Sunday and came just over six years after the shooting of Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, caused an international outcry.

Brazilian media reports said three prominent figures were arrested: the federal congressman, Chiquinho Brazão; his brother, the former state congressman, Domingos Brazão, who is a adviser to Rio’s court of auditors; and the former head of Rio’s civil police, Rivaldo Barbosa. The Brazão brothers have long faced accusations of involvement in organised crime – claims they have denied. ...

As news of the arrests broke, Marcelo Freixo, a prominent leftwing politician who was close to Franco, tweeted: “The arrests today of the Brazão brothers and Rio’s former police chief make clear who carried out this killing, who ordered it, and who failed to investigate it.” ...

Six years after the assassination, the hitman who has confessed to pulling the trigger, a former police officer called Ronnie Lessa, is behind bars awaiting trial. However, until now the alleged architects of the crime have remained at large and their motivations remain a mystery. ...

Sunday’s arrests appeared to be the result of a plea bargain Lessa recently struck with investigators, in which he agreed to name the masterminds in exchange for a reduced sentence and other benefits. The precise alleged roles of the Brazão brothers – who built their political careers in Rio’s paramilitary dominated west – and the former police chief Barbosa were not immediately clear. However, local reports claimed Lessa had accused Barbosa of green-lighting the murder and assuring the masterminds that they would never be caught.

Simon Harris to become Ireland’s youngest prime minister

Simon Harris will become Ireland’s youngest prime minister after the leadership race in his Fine Gael party ended without any other candidates coming forward.

The leadership became vacant after the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, announced his surprise resignation “for personal and political reasons” last week.

Harris, 37, the higher education minister, was the only candidate when nominations closed at 1pm on Sunday, but he will not become taoiseach until 9 April when the Irish parliament, the Dáil, resumes after its Easter break.

He outlined his leadership priorities on Sunday at a selection convention in Athlone, County Westmeath, to choose party candidates for the European parliament elections in June.

Harris said he wanted the centre-right Fine Gael – which governs with fellow conservatives Fianna Fáil and the Green party – to revert to core values including making work pay, being tough on law and order and supporting farmers.

Trouble ahead for Bidenomics

How rightwing groups used junk science to get an abortion case before the US supreme court

A pharmacy professor who strenuously avoids heated political discussions is an unlikely candidate to get involved in a fight over abortion, particularly one as high stakes as a case now before the supreme court: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM). But when the professor Chris Adkins of South University in Georgia emailed his concerns about an academic article to the editors of Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, that’s exactly what happened.

The article had been published by an anti-abortion research institute and, perhaps unsurprisingly, concluded that medication abortion was far less safe than the accepted scientific consensus – one established by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies across multiple continents and two decades of real-world use. “The way this study used this situation to exaggerate, and I’ll say obfuscate, the truth behind mifepristone’s safety profile is where I thought: ‘I’ll reach out to the journal and say I’ve got these issues,’” said Adkins, referring to the drug targeted by researchers. Mifepristone is one half of a two-pill regimen that treats miscarriage and ends early pregnancy, and its future hangs in the balance of the supreme court case, to be heard this week. “I honestly didn’t think I would be the first to do that,” said Adkins.

Within a couple days of Adkins’ complaint, the global academic publisher Sage, which publishes the journal, began investigating. Within weeks, Sage retracted not one but three papers by the anti-abortion researchers.

Adkins’ concerns go to the heart of a problem that has bedeviled scientists for at least a decade: the judicial system’s repeated adoption of poor-quality evidence to justify litigation and legislation to restrict abortion. Often that evidence is produced by the anti-abortion movement itself. FDA v AHM is scheduled for oral arguments on Tuesday. The suit, brought by anti-abortion doctors, seeks to force the FDA to reverse decisions that relaxed restrictions on prescribing mifepristone. The Biden administration and the medication’s manufacturer argue the doctors have no right to sue in the first place.

The study Adkins complained about is central to the doctors’ case, and was cited heavily by a federal district court in Amarillo, Texas, that kicked off the government’s appeal when it found in favor of anti-abortion doctors. How the supreme court decides the case could have profound implications. A finding in favor of anti-abortion doctors could reshape abortion access again in the US, including in Democratic-led states that might have considered themselves immune from restrictions. It also holds the potential to upend the FDA’s authority, which could call into question the future of all kinds of controversial drugs, from contraception to vaccines to treatments for HIV.

Ex-US justice Stephen Breyer signals support for supreme court term limits

Former US supreme court justice Stephen Breyer signaled his support for term limits in the country’s highest court following his retirement in 2022.

In a new interview on Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press, 85-year-old Breyer said: “I don’t think that’s harmful,” adding: “If you had long terms, for example, they’d have to be long. Why long? Because I don’t think you want someone who’s appointed to the supreme court to be thinking about his next job.”

“And so, a 20-year term? I don’t know. 18? Long-term? Fine.” Breyer continued. “I don’t think that would be harmful. I think it would have helped in my case. It would have avoided, for me, going through difficult decisions when you retire. What’s the right time?” the liberal justice said.

Breyer was nominated to the court by Bill Clinton in 1994 and has more than 20 years of a moderate and pragmatic track record of interpreting the constitution.

Fani Willis: ‘Train is coming’ for Trump despite efforts to derail Georgia case

The Georgia prosecutor overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case in that state promised Saturday that “the train is coming” for him despite defense efforts to derail her office’s pursuit of charges against the former president and nearly two dozen co-defendants.

Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s remarks came after a court challenge centering on a romantic relationship that she had with a special prosecutor whom she appointed to the case, Nathan Wade. After the relationship was exposed, Wade stepped down from the prosecution to defuse any appearances of a potential conflict of interest and so Willis could stay on the case. “I don’t feel like we have been slowed down at all” by Trump’s efforts to use the relationship with Wade to disqualify her from prosecuting him, Willis told CNN on Saturday at a Georgia Easter egg hunt. “I think there are efforts to slow down the train, but the train is coming.”

Willis’s case alleges a conspiracy to commit election fraud after Trump came up narrowly short in the state’s vote during the 2020 presidential race that he lost to Joe Biden. But it has been beset with complications. A little more than 10 days ago, Fulton county judge Scott McAfee dismissed six counts against Trump and his co-defendants relating to a notorious phone call in which the former president urged Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” more than 11,000 votes that would put Trump over Biden.

Of the 13 counts Trump faces, three of them were thrown out. McAfee essentially agreed with defense lawyers that the charges “fail to allege sufficient detail” regarding what aspect of Raffensperger’s oath of office the defendants were allegedly trying to get him to break.

World’s largest oil companies ‘way off track’ on emissions goals, report finds

In recent years, virtually all of the world’s largest oil companies have made splashy climate pledges. But when it comes to actually slashing emissions, those firms are “way off track”, a new report has found. The analysis from the thinktank Carbon Tracker assessed the production and transition plans of 25 of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. None align with the central goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to keep global warming “well under” 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the report found.

“Companies worldwide are publicly stating they are supportive of the goals of the Paris-Agreement, and claim to be part of the solution in accelerating the energy transition,” said Maeve O’Connor, analyst at Carbon Tracker and co-author of the report. “Unfortunately, however, we see that none are currently aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement.”

The authors examined the firms’ exploration and production plans, investments, carbon emission reduction targets and executive bonus policies, placing the results on a Paris alignment scorecard. They assigned each company a letter grade from A to H, wherein an A is “potentially aligned” with the Paris agreement goals and H is the “furthest from being aligned”, with activities and strategy consistent with cataclysmic warming of 2.4C above pre-industrial levels.

By the authors’ metrics, each company received a failing grade. There are “are clear differences between companies”, however, O’Connor noted. The highest ranked company, BP, received a D grade. Saudi Aramco, Brazil’s Petrobras, and ExxonMobil received G grades, and at the bottom was ConocoPhillips, the only firm to receive an H.

Also of Interest

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

The Media’s Linguistic Gymnastics Surrounding Israel’s Forced Starvation of Gaza

A Barely-Disguised Genocide

Half Of Americans Have No Idea Whether Israelis Or Palestinians Are Suffering More Deaths

Hedges & Finkelstein on Gaza

Defunding UNRWA Was Never About Hamas

When Criticizing Israel Wasn’t Anti-Semitic

Russia. Is. At. War.

Media Snippets Related To The Crocus City Hall Attack

VIPS MEMO: The French Road to Nuclear War

Meet the AI-Censored? Naked Capitalism

House GOP 'Imploding' as Gallagher Resigns and Greene Moves to Oust Speaker

Seizing Trump’s New York properties will not be easy for Letitia James

California zombie lake turned farmland to water. A year later, is it gone for good?

World Ignores Sudan Hunger Crisis; 230,000 Children and Mothers Could Die in Coming Months

US ALLOWS Ceasefire Resolution To Pass At UN

Hillary Clinton Emails Reveal Real Reason U.S. Destroyed Libya!

Criticising Israel is not anti-Semitic. Official

Crocus City Hall, ISIS-K, and Russian retribution

Ray McGovern: What Happened in Moscow?

Larry Johnson: Was MI-6 or CIA Behind Moscow Terror?

A Little Night Music

Yank Rachell - Peach Tree Blues

Yank Rachell - Up North Blues

Yank Rachell - Army Man Blues

Sleepy John Estes & Yank Rachell - Expressman Blues

Yank Rachell - I Don't Believe You Love Me No More

Yank Rachell - Depression Blues

Yank Rachell - My Baby's Gone

Yank Rachell - My Mind Got Bad

Yank Rachell - Tappin' That Thing