SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Opinion
Climate
Economy
Politics
Rights & Justice
War & Peace
Cats in Ohio are worried
Further

OMG Now They're Coming For Our Cats and Chairs and Ducks

Sheesh. The Crazy Train just keeps clattering on. After a week of the mad Blowhard-In-Chief blithering he'll put everyone he doesn't like in jail forever and there will be conquest of the "aliens" and child care is child care plus tariffs and Leon aka Elmo aka Elon will solve it, we've evidently reached the demented part of the campaign where we accuse dark-skinned immigrants of killing and eating our pets. Mary mother of God, save us (and our pets).

It should have been clear how daft things were getting when Dick Darth Cheney, long the greatest threat to our republic, declared Trump the greatest threat to our republic, though Sarah Palin is still voting for him. Still, he seems ever more untethered from reality, with his supporters going right down the rabbit hole with him. See Sen. Ron Johnson rave about a Depression "well-planned" by the fat cats of the world - "It's just in my bones" - and who knows how many coups from Nixon on orchestrated by the feds: "There's a reason you call it the deep state. It's very deep." Trump, having lost what was left of his mind, spent last week threatening to punish Dems who did all that "rampant cheating and skullduggery" in the election with "long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again," also - again! - "at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country."

He also told economists he'd get NATO countries to pay for our child care - "child care is child care" - which isn't really as expensive as everyone who needs it says it is "compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in...Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down. You know, I was somebody - we had Sen. Marco Rubio - and my daughter Ivanka"......And besides don't forget about "illegal allll...iens pouring in from countries that nobody ever heard the name of that country, those countries....numbers (again!) that we've never seen before, and they're giving them chairs." Then he went to a hearing about his $90 million rape of Jean Carroll who he's never met, and spent an hour raging against the over two dozen women who've also accused him of sexual assault, especially the one on the plane he was making out with but c'mon, for Mr. Art of the Deal she definitely "would not have been the chosen one."

Moving on to his beloved "American carnage," the small man who often imagined siccing death squads on his enemies vowed swift vengeance on them all, especially the swarthy ones. Foreseeing "a bloody story," he promised, "As soon as I'm back in the White House, the conquest will and the great liberation of America will begin...We will take back every single square inch of territory that has been invaded by these migrant gangs." Especially in Springfield, Ohio, population 58,000, which has become a "giant cesspool of voodoo and animal carcasses" being devoured by some - good people on both sides - of up to 20,000 Haitian immigrants who've surged there to work, pay taxes and eat people's cats and other pets. Howls Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, too upset to tend to the school shooting in his district, "They're in the park. Grabbing up ducks. By they (sic) neck. And eatin 'em."

To backtrack: The story of Springfield residents "left in terror as migrants overtake the once-quiet city," kill their cats, cook 'em with fava beans, go into parks and kill ducks, "eating them right in front of people" came from....Homer Simpson? And, just as reliably, a Facebook post by someone who claimed "their neighbor's daughter's friend" lost her cat and found it hanging from a tree branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home being prepped to be carved up to be eaten. (Echoes of The Crucible.) In response to this spreading-like-rabid-wildfire tale, the Springfield Police issued a statement that plainly said they have "received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten." The now-viral post, they added, "did not cite any first-hand knowledge of any incident." Still, who needs facts? Not the dotty bigots inhaling an alternative reality obsessed with guns, commies, dark skin, women's reproductive organs and cats.

And not "racist piece of shit" J.D. Vance. Having unearthed the big scandal of Tim Walz' life - his brothers say as a kid he got car sick - he picked up the tawdry tale and ran with it. He'd already warned about "Haitian illegal immigrants causing chaos," though many are legal, and now here come "these types of crimes where people can't even live a normal life." Citing "pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country, he listed the cat, "dogs, ducks, geese" and urged, "Please keep a close eye on these animals." Four-footed, presumably, but shady bipeds like Elon, Leon to Trump, chimed in. Charlie Kirk mourned a duck pond "picked clean" as another "Biden gift." When Trump was president, blared Gym Jordan, "The border was secure (and) illegal aliens weren't eating your pets." Klan Mom whined there's no "government show of force" against cat-eaters, who are "more dangerous" than J6 rioters.

Then of course the grifter, smelling screamingly racist grift, stepped in. With the value of his media company plummeting almost 75%, an apocalyptic, cat-kabob-themed fundraising letter quickly went out from the narcissistic loser who - wanna bet? - never had a pet in his life. "Kamala Migrants Ravage Ohio City - And It's Coming to Your City Next," it screeched. The influx of 20,000 migrants "dumped in the city unvetted via one of the Harris-Biden administration’s unilateral mass relocation schemes" drained social services and sparked a housing crisis, it said. "Residents have become guests in their own homes. A 45-year resident and her elderly husband have been driven from their home by migrants squatting on their property: “I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses … I weigh 95 pounds. I couldn’t defend myself if I had to."

"Now, Migrants have reportedly been caught 'decapitating ducks' and hunting geese and other livestock in public parks - and even kidnapping residents’ pets — then eating them," it raved. "It's all coming to your city if Kamala Harris is elected in November." Fear, hate, division, lunatic dreams of carnage - it's so relentlessly, risibly-except-for-the-racism all they've got. And it keeps getting weirder, moving from Hannibal Lecter, sinister cannibal eating white people, to (presumably brown) migrants eating (white?) pets. Savagery on all sides. Ron Filipkowski suggests a sensible way forward these next few fraught weeks, democracy in the balance. "If you had a migrant eat your pet, vote for Trump," he wrote. "Everyone else vote for Harris." Also hide your goldfish.

SEE ALL
Bats fly above a road in California.
News

'Astonishing' Study Shows Infant Deaths Rise in US When Bat Populations Fall

Bat die-offs in the U.S. led to increased use of insecticides, which in turn led to greater infant mortality, according to a "seminal" study published Thursday that shows the effects of biodiversity loss on human beings.

Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago, authored the study, which was published by Science, a leading peer-reviewed journal.

Bats can eat thousands of insects per night and act as a natural pest control for farmers, so when a fungal disease began killing off bat populations in the U.S. after being introduced in 2006, farmers in affected counties used more insecticides, Frank found. Those same counties saw more infant deaths, which Frank linked to increased use of insecticide that is harmful to human health, especially for babies and fetuses.

The study was greeted by an outpouring of praise from unaffiliated scientists for its methodology and the important takeaways it offers.

"[Frank] uses simple statistical methods to the most cutting-edge techniques, and the takeaway is the same," Eli Fenichel, an environmental economist at Yale University, toldThe New York Times. "Fungal disease killed bats, bats stopped eating enough insects, farmers applied more pesticide to maximize profit and keep food plentiful and cheap, the extra pesticide use led to more babies dying. It is a sobering result."

Carmen Messerlian, an environmental epidemiologist at Harvard University, told the Times the study "seminal" and "groundbreaking."

The study shows the need for a broader understanding of human health that includes consideration of entire ecosystems, said Roel Vermeulen, an environmental epidemiologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "It emphasizes the need to move from a human-centric health impact analysis, which only considers the direct effects of pollution on human health, to a planetary health impact assessment," he toldNew Scientist.

Reporter Benji Jones echoed that sentiment in Vox, calling Frank's findings "astonishing" and writing that such studies could help us fight chemical pollution by corporations.

"When the link between human and environmental health is overlooked, industries enabled by short-sighted policies can destroy wildlife habitats without a full understanding of what we lose in the process," Jones said. "This is precisely why studies like this are so critical: They reveal, in terms most people can relate to, how the ongoing destruction of biodiversity affects us all."

Frank, who said he started the work after stumbling on an article about bat population loss while procrastinating, happened upon an excellent natural experiment. The spread of white-nose syndrome, the fungal disease, was well tracked on a county-by-county level, leaving him with high-quality data that is hard to find for researchers who study the intersection of human and animal life.

The benefits of biodiversity on humans, and the drawbacks to its loss, are normally very difficult to quantify.

"That's just quite rare—to get good, empirical, grounded estimates of how much value the species is providing," Charles Taylor, an environmental economist at Harvard Kennedy School, toldThe Guardian. "Putting actual numbers to it in a credible way is tough."

Taylor himself is the author of a somewhat similar study that showed that pesticide use and infant mortality rose during years in which cicadas appeared; the insects do so at 13-17 year intervals.

David Rosner, a historian based at Columbia University, said the new bat study joins a large body of evidence dating back to the 1960s that links pesticide use with negative human health outcomes. "We're dumping these synthetic materials into our environment, not knowing anything about what their impacts are going to be," he said. "It's not surprising—it's just kind of shocking that we discover it every year."

Frank's claim about the cause of increased infant mortality should be taken with some caution, said Vermeulen, the Dutch researcher. He said the loss of agricultural income caused by bat die-offs could be connected to the increased deaths in complex ways.

The exact causal mechanism isn't known, Frank told media outlets, but the data shows the rise of infant mortality didn't come from food contamination by insecticides—rather, it's more likely it came via the water supply or contact with the chemicals.

Frank's other research extends beyond pesticide use. He and another researcher recently estimated that hundreds of thousands of human beings have died in India due to the collapse of the country's vulture population, as rotting meat increased the spread of diseases such as rabies.

Frank is not the first to study the impacts of white-nose syndrome on humans. Other studies have shown a reduction in land rents in counties hit by the bat plague and documented the billions of dollars that farmers have lost as their natural pest control disappeared.

The syndrome attacks bats while they hibernate. It was first identified in New York in 2006 and has since spread to much of North America. It's believed to have been brought over from Europe. It doesn't affect all bat species, but it's killed more than 90% of three key species, and bats also face a myriad of other threats, including habitat loss, climate change, and the dangerous churn of wind turbines.

Frank's bracing study should be a call to arms, experts said.

"This study estimates just a few of the consequences we suffer from the disappearance of bats, and they are just one of the species we're losing," Felicia Keesing, a biologist at Bard College, told The Washington Post. "These results should motivate everyone, not just farmers and parents, to clamor for the protection and restoration of biodiversity."

SEE ALL
Covid-19 vaccine administration
News

Once Free, Covid-19 Vaccines Now Cost Up to $200 for Uninsured in US

The latest coronavirus vaccine costs up to $200 for the roughly 25 million uninsured people in the U.S., due to the defunding of a federal program that previously covered the costs, The Washington Postreported Tuesday.

It's the "latest tear in the safety net" as pandemic-era programs wind down, the newspaper reported. Covid-19 vaccines were free for everyone in the U.S. in 2021 and 2022, per federal policy. However, in January, congressional Republicans negotiated a deal that rescinded $6.1 billion in emergency coronavirus relief funding, which killed the Bridge Access Program, launched in April 2023, that covered the cost for the uninsured.

The latest version of the Covid-19 vaccine was approved on August 22 and costs just over $200 for uninsured patients at CVS pharmacies in Nashville and St. Louis—examples cited by the Post.

Raynard Washington, head of the Mecklenburg County health department in North Carolina and chair of the Big Cities Health Coalition, said that vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech should lower their prices to make the shots more affordable for health agencies.

"What's at stake is we are reverting back to a system where a person's financial ability to be able to pay will determine their ability to be healthy," Washington said.

News of the lack of affordable access to the Covid-19 vaccine for uninsured people led to outrage on social media, with one X user asking "Is this the way to keep the rest of us safe?" and another declaring: "This makes me want to scream."

People covered by Medicare—which insures Americans over the age of 65—and Medicaid can still receive Covid-19 vaccines for free. But roughly 25 million people in the U.S. under the age of 65 are uninsured and left to pay the sky-high rates; people of color are disproportionately represented in the ranks of the uninsured.

Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech have profited off of the sale of the vaccines even though U.S. and European taxpayers heavily subsidized their development. The companies told the Post that free vaccines would be available through patient assistance programs, but provided no details.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had identified $62 million to purchase Covid-19 vaccines for distribution to health agencies, but officials say that's a "sliver" of what's needed, the paper reported.

The Biden administration in its budget requests repeatedly tried to establish a Vaccines for Adults program aimed at providing shots, including Covid-19 boosters, to uninsured adults, but the efforts stalled in Congress. The proposal was based on a federal Vaccines for Children program that's been active since the 1990s.

The new Covid-19 vaccine is recommended for everyone 6 months of age or older. It includes a level of protection against the KP.2 variant that accounted for roughly one quarter of U.S. cases this summer.

The public health emergency for Covid-19 ended in May 2023 but the virus has killed tens of thousands of people in the U.S. since then and can cause long-term complications.

SEE ALL
Donald Trump
News

Judge Delays Trump Sentencing in Hush Money Case Until After 2024 Election

The New York judge overseeing the criminal case stemming from hush money payments that Donald Trump made to porn star Stormy Daniels opted Friday to postpone the Republican nominee's sentencing until after the 2024 election, granting the former president's request for a delay.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan wrote Friday that "this is not a decision this court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this court's view, best advances the interests of justice."

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced in July for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but Merchan noted that the U.S. Supreme Court's sweeping presidential immunity decision provided Trump's legal team an opening to delay the process further.

Prior to Merchan's order Friday, Trump's sentencing hearing was set for September 18.

As The New York Timesreported, "it is unclear whether sentencing Mr. Trump" in the weeks ahead of the November 5 election "would have helped or harmed him politically; his punishment could have been an embarrassing reminder of his criminal record, but could have also propelled his claims of political martyrdom."

"The jury did its job and, after reviewing a mountain of evidence that resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts, it's well past time for Donald Trump to be held accountable."

Norman Eisen, co-founder and board member of State Democracy Defenders Action, argued in an op-ed for MSNBC last month that Trump's sentencing should not be delayed, writing that "Trump should be denied the special treatment he seeks to delay his sentence simply because he is a presidential candidate."

"To avoid undermining public faith in the rule of law and fairness of the criminal justice system," Eisen wrote, "Trump's sentencing should go ahead as scheduled."

Eisen wrote on social media Friday that Merchan's decision to postpone Trump's sentencing was "wrong."

"Trump has already benefited from extraordinary special treatment," he added. "If no one is above the law, then Trump shouldn't be either."

Merchan wrote in his decision Friday that "this matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this nation's history," and experts are uncertain what would happen under various possible scenarios—including if Trump wins the 2024 election and is subsequently sentenced to prison.

One certainty, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is that "even if Trump is elected to a second term, he would not be able to pardon himself for these crimes because he was convicted on New York state charges."

Lisa Gilbert and Brett Edkins, co-chairs of the Not Above the Law Coalition, said in a statement Friday that "today's latest delay prevents justice from being served."

"At every step along the way, Trump and his legal team did everything they could to delay accountability in this case and undermine our legal system—even stooping so low as to intimidate witnesses, publicly criticize jurors, and defy orders from the judge," they continued. "The jury did its job and, after reviewing a mountain of evidence that resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts, it's well past time for Donald Trump to be held accountable."

This story has been updated to include a statement from the Not Above the Law Coalition.

SEE ALL
An activist holds a sign calling for Saudi authorities to free Salma al-Shehab
News

40 Groups Slam 'Deep Hypocrisy' of Saudi-Hosted Internet Governance Forum

As Saudi Arabia prepares to host a global internet summit in December, 40 human rights groups on Friday urged authorities in the kingdom to release everyone imprisoned for online expression, including an activist serving a 27-year prison sentence for criticizing her country's severe repression of women.

The 40 groups said in a joint statement that "Saudi Arabia must free all individuals arbitrarily detained solely for their online expression ahead of hosting the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Riyadh, which will take place from December 15-19."

"It is counter to the IGF's stated values for Saudi Arabia to host the IGF," the organizations asserted. "In 2024 it adopted a thematic focus on advancing human rights and inclusion in the digital age and Saudi Arabia continues to prosecute, lock up, forcibly disappear, and intimidate people into silence for expressing themselves on social media."

As Amnesty International—which accused Saudi Arabia of "deep hypocrisy"—noted:

Saudi authorities have waged a chilling crackdown against people who demonstrate even the slightest sign of dissenting or critical views online. Among those who have been convicted for their online expression is Salma al-Shehab. She was arrested in January 2021 and, after a grossly unfair trial, sentenced in January 2023 to a shocking 27-year prison term followed by a 27-year travel ban on trumped-up terrorism charges, simply because she tweeted in support of women's rights.

In another deeply disturbing case, in January 2024, Saudi Arabia's terrorism court sentenced Manahel al-Otaibi to 11 years in prison in connection with social media posts promoting women's rights and sharing images of herself online at a mall without wearing an abaya (a traditional loose-fitting long-sleeved robe).

Those targeted also include Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a Red Crescent worker, who in April 2020, after a grossly unfair trial, was sentenced to 20 years, to be followed by a 20-year travel ban, for his satirical tweets, and Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a retired school teacher, who was sentenced to death in July 2023 for criticizing authorities on X (formerly Twitter) and his online activity on YouTube.

"These cases are emblematic of the Saudi authorities' chilling crackdown on freedom of expression, but they are not isolated examples," the 40 groups said in their statement. "Dozens of people in Saudi Arabia, including visitors to the country, have been detained solely for their online expression."

"Consequently," the signers added, "many civil society organizations and advocates, who would ordinarily attend the IGF, have chosen not to travel to Saudi Arabia, fearing that they cannot safely and freely participate in the conference."

Representatives of some of the 40 groups that signed the statement weighed in on Saudi Arabia hosting the IGF.

"Is this a bad joke?" asked Freedom Forward executive director Sunjeev Bery. "There's a phrase for this: 'rights-washing.' Rights-washing is when a human rights violator tries to hide their crimes by wrapping themselves in human rights language and causes."

"Saudi Arabia's dictatorship is one of the most repressive governments on the planet," Bery added. "Saudi internet users who dare to speak their minds are often arrested, tortured, and jailed for years."

Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said that "Saudi Arabia's authorities have 100 days before the IGF begins to demonstrate that they will ease their draconian crackdown on freedom of expression, and to show that they will use this event as an opportunity to carry out genuine reforms rather than as part of an image-washing campaign."

"In order to prove that their hosting of the conference about the internet's future is more than just a cynical PR exercise, the Saudi authorities must release all those arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression online before the IGF begins," she added.

SEE ALL
Ukrainian women photograph the remnants of a cluster bomb
News

Report Details Ongoing Civilian Harm From Banned Cluster Bombs

The overwhelming majority of cluster bomb casualties last year were civilians, with children making up nearly half of those killed or maimed by remnants of the internationally banned munitions, a report published Monday revealed.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published its annual Cluster Munition Monitor report, which "details the policy and practice of all countries with respect to the international treaty that prohibits cluster munitions and requires destruction of stockpiles, clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants, and victim assistance."

That treaty, the landmark Convention on Cluster Munitions, has been ratified by 112 nations. However, numerous countries that are not parties to the agreement—including Myanmar, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and the United States—continued to use or sell cluster bombs.

"Cluster munitions can be fired from the ground by artillery, rockets, missiles, or mortars, or dropped by aircraft," HRW explained. "They typically open in the air, dispersing multiple submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. Many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving unexploded duds that can indiscriminately injure and kill like landmines for years, until they are found and destroyed."

The results have been devastating. According to the report, 93% of cluster munition casualties reported by the monitor last year were civilians, while children made up 47% of those killed or wounded by cluster bomb remnants. Children are particularly vulnerable to unexploded cluster bomblets, which are often mistaken for toys.

According to the report, the following countries suffered more than 1,000 cluster bomb casualties in 2023: Laos (7,810), Syria (4,445), Iraq (3,201), Vietnam (2,135), and Ukraine (1,213).

HRW noted that "Russia has used stocks of old cluster munitions and newly developed models in Ukraine since 2022" and that "between July 2023 and April 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden approved five transfers to Ukraine of U.S. cluster munitions delivered by 155mm artillery projectiles and by ballistic missiles."

Meanwhile, unexploded cluster munitions dropped by the United States during the Vietnam War are still killing and maiming people, mostly children. In Laos, where the U.S. dropped more bombs than all sides in World War II combined, as many as 270 million cluster munitions were sprinkled over the country. Unexploded bomblets have killed an estimated 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war. It is believed that less than 1% of unexploded cluster munitions have been cleared in Laos.

The report highlighted some promising developments:

In December 2023, the convention reached a major milestone when Peru completed the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions, as it was the last state party with declared stocks to complete this obligation. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa announced the completion of the destruction of their respective cluster munition stocks in September 2023. These developments mean that member countries have collectively now destroyed 100% of their declared cluster munition stocks, destroying 1.49 million cluster munitions and 179 million submunitions.

However, there were also setbacks, such as legislation in Lithuania approving the Baltic nation's withdrawal from the cluster bomb treaty.

"Lithuania's ill-considered move to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions stains its otherwise excellent reputation on humanitarian disarmament and ignores the risks of civilian harm," said HRW deputy crisis, conflict, and arms director Mary Wareham, who edited the new report. "It's not too late for Lithuania to heed calls to stop its planned withdrawal."

Speaking more broadly of the new report, Wareham—a joint recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines—said that "the Convention on Cluster Munitions provides a vital framework for ending the immediate and long-term harm and suffering caused by these abhorrent weapons."

"All countries should join and adhere to the convention if they are serious about protecting civilians from these weapons in the face of rising conflict," Wareham added.

SEE ALL