Our Summer Campaign Needs Your Help!
We cannot afford to come up short. It's tough right now.
Long Time Coming: Prisoner Number P01135809
Oh yeah. The way-too-long awaited and historic mug shot of Donald J. Trump, now listed in the Fulton County Jail database as prisoner number P01135809, has been released to joyful applause by beleaguered Americans who never thought we'd get here. We thank God, Fani Willis, Jack Smith and all the other tireless, principled defenders of democracy who ignored the toxic lies, threats, feints and bluster to teach a lifetime crook what happens when you fuck around and find out.
The pointedly, theatrically glowering image - Never Surrender! except four times - was released Thursday evening after Trump was booked at the Fulton County Jail on 13 felony counts stemming from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, even though no other sentient being wanted him to be president. He and 18 other lowlife perps had been ordered to turn themselves in by Friday at the notoriously grim jail where DOJ officials just opened an investigation after “credible allegations that an incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth."
A famed germaphobe, Trump alas didn't stay long enough during fingerprinting, in-take of lies and close-up to encounter the insects or filth. But in his fourth criminal indictment and history's first-ever mugshot - a malignant image that will presumably evolve into his presidential portrait, such as it is - Trump was charged by a Fulton County grand jury on Aug. 14 of crimes ranging from racketeering to conspiring to commit forgery to filing false documents. He now faces 91 felony charges - 44 federal and 47 state - that could carry a staggering 641 years in prison, and yes we hope he gets to serve all of them.
Americans unspeakably weary of his lifelong, racist, bullying, criminal entitlement - and what Joy Reid painfully recalls as its thoughtless, enduring damage to people of color and so many others - celebrated Trump Arrestmas by creating their own giddy #TrumpMugShot for posterity. Enticingly, news reports said the trial is now scheduled to start March 4, 2024, a day before primary elections in several states; in a blessed bonus, they also said that under Georgia law, which allows cameras in courtrooms, it will likely be televised. Talk about arc of the moral universe. To the two-bit, lock-her-up mobster: How does it feel.
Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone (Official Audio)www.youtube.com

'The Pyrocene Is Well and Truly Here': Climate Crisis Made Eastern Canada's Fires 2 Times More Likely
The hot, dry conditions that fueled eastern Canada's unprecedented wildfire season were made at least two times more likely by the climate crisis, the latest study from World Weather Attribution has found.
The study, published Tuesday, also found that, by the end of July, Quebec's fire season was 50% more intense than it would have been without the human-generated release of greenhouse gas emissions.
"The Pyrocene is well and truly here, thanks to our continued burning of fossil fuels," study co-author and Imperial College London physicist Friederike Otto tweeted.
Canada's wildfire season has been the worst on the record books since late June, but the weather conditions that fueled it began the month before. The entire May to July period was the nation's warmest since 1940, according to World Weather Attribution (WWA). As of August 16, the Canadian government calculated that 5,753 fires had ignited to burn a total of 13.7 million hectares—that's 123% more fires and 602% more land burned than normal.
The fires have had a devastating impact on human communities, killing at least 17 people, damaging at least 200 buildings, and forcing more than 150,000 to flee their homes, WWA said in a statement.
"The wildfires had disproportionate impacts on Indigenous, fly-in, and other remote communities who were particularly vulnerable due to lack of services and barriers to response interventions," WWA wrote.
"Now we are able to put the number or an estimate on to what extent those conditions that we have seen this year are caused actually by climate change—and the numbers are very high."
The dangerous smoke from all this combustion has menaced the air quality in cities from Ottawa and Toronto to Washington, D.C. and New York City, where pollution neared a record June 7 with an air quality index of 341.
"The consequences from the wildfires reached far beyond the burned areas with displaced impacts due to air pollution threatening health, mobility, and economic activities of people across North America," WWA added.
For the study, the Canada-, U.K.- and Netherlands-based team looked specifically at the fires in eastern Canada, which were particularly abnormal and contributed the most to the smoke that drifted down over the U.S. East Coast and Midwest. They studied the daily severity rating, which defines how hard it is to put out a particular fire. To establish how extreme the season was at its peak, they also looked at the year's highest seven-day moving average of the fire weather index.
"Climate change made the cumulative severity of Quebec's 2023 fire season to the end of July around 50% more intense, and seasons of this severity at least seven times more likely to occur," the study authors concluded.
They also found that this peak fire weather was at least twice as likely and around 20% more intense.
Yan Boulanger, one of the study authors who works as a research scientist for Natural Resources Canada, toldCBC News that the results were "shocking."
"We know that those extreme fire-prone weather conditions are occurring more frequently," he said. "Now we are able to put the number or an estimate on to what extent those conditions that we have seen this year are caused actually by climate change—and the numbers are very high."
The study authors also found that seasons like this one will only become more likely and intense if policymakers allow global temperatures to rise by 2°C above preindustrial levels.
"Until we stop burning fossil fuels, the number of wildfires will continue to increase, burning larger areas for longer periods of time," Otto toldThe Guardian.
UAW Ramps Up Pressure on Biden to Protect Workers in Electric Vehicle Transition
The president of the United Auto Workers on Tuesday called on U.S. President Joe Biden to use his position of power to help ensure a just transition to electric vehicles—pushing for a major investment in green technology that would also guarantee that workers in the U.S. can earn a decent living in the evolving auto industry.
Biden's actions on the electric vehicle (EV) front, Shawn Fain toldThe Guardian, have been "disappointing."
It has been a year since the president signed his signature climate and jobs law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes incentives for car companies to ramp up manufacturing of EVs and for consumers to purchase them.
The law has paved the way for the "Big Three" automakers—Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors (GM)—to build EV battery plants in joint ventures with companies such as Samsung, SK On, and LG Energy Solution, but the federal incentives and loans have been given to the firms without the guarantee of fair pay and working conditions for the people who will work in the plants.
"We have to make sure endorsements are earned and not freely given. Politicians have to prove they are in the fight with us, which is the only way to win back the working class in the Midwest. We don't have to endorse anyone at all."
A $9.2 billion loan given to Ford and SK On last month for the construction of battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, for example, has left the UAW questioning Biden's self-identification as a "union man,"considering the states' union protections are not among the nation's strongest.
If Biden hands out incentives and subsidies to automakers who pay "poverty wages," like Fain has accused one joint venture plant built by GM and LG Energy Solutions of doing, the president will miss "our generation's defining moment with electric vehicles," the UAW president said.
"If the IRA continues to bring sweatshops and a continued race to the bottom it will be a tragedy,” Fain told The Guardian. "The government should invest in U.S. manufacturing but money can't go to companies with no strings attached. Labor needs a seat at the table. There should be labor standards built in, this is the future of the car industry at stake."
"You have workers at Ultium on $16.50 an hour, which is less than what you'd get working for Waffle House," he added, referring to the GM joint venture plant in Lordstown, Ohio. "It's criminal."
On Monday, the workers' rights-focused media organization More Perfect Union released a video detailing the conditions Ultium employees have worked in without the protections the UAW has called on the Biden administration to require at EV battery plants.
"It is not a great place to work if you are on the floor producing the product that they so rave about, that's so great and is the future," one worker named Tony told More Perfect Union. "There's a dirty, dirty behind-the-scenes that's going on here at Ultium to get to that future."
The video detailed worker injuries and illnesses suffered by nearly two dozen workers, air quality problems, and retaliation against employees who raise concerns about safety hazards.
"The electric vehicle revolution promised thousands of good union jobs. So far, that hasn't happened," said the outlet. "But now the UAW is calling on Biden to make this promise a reality."
The UAW is in the midst of contract negotiations with the Big Three manufacturers, and Fain has demanded significant wage increases for union auto workers that would reflect the companies' record profits and match the raises CEOs have gotten in recent years.
On Monday, Biden called on the two parties to reach an agreement that will "enable workers to make good wages and benefits to support their families, while leading us into a future where America is leading the way in reducing vehicle emissions."
"I'm asking all sides to work together to forge a fair agreement," said the president. "I support a fair transition to a clean energy future. That means ensuring that Big Three auto jobs are good jobs that can support a family; that auto companies should honor the right to organize; take every possible step to avoid painful plant closings; and ensure that when transitions are needed, the transitions are fair and look to retool, reboot, and rehire in the same factories and communities at comparable wages."
"The UAW deserves a contract that sustains the middle class," he added.
Fain toldPolitico that the union agrees "with the president that the Big Three's joint venture battery plants should have the same strong pay and safety standards that generations of UAW members have fought for," but the outlet noted that Biden did not speak about labor conditions and pay at the joint venture plants.
The UAW has so far withheld its endorsement of Biden, four months after he officially announced his campaign for reelection, and Fain made clear Tuesday that the union intends to use its strength in numbers to continue pressuring the president to push for fair wages and conditions in the burgeoning EV sector.
"I do believe the president's heart is in the right place but we have to make sure endorsements are earned and not freely given," Fain told The Guardian. "Politicians have to prove they are in the fight with us, which is the only way to win back the working class in the Midwest. We don't have to endorse anyone at all."
House Freedom Caucus Threatens 'Reckless' Government Shutdown Unless Far-Right Demands Met
With Congress on August recess, the far-right House Freedom Caucus on Monday issued expected but unlikely-to-be-met demands for a stopgap funding bill that would avert an October government shutdown.
Members of the Senate and House of Representatives are set to return to Capitol Hill on the first and second Tuesday of September, respectively—giving them little time to pass full-year appropriations legislation before funding runs out at the end of next month.
Considering the time crunch, both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have recently signaled support for a continuing resolution (CR) that would give lawmakers a few more months to pass a larger package.
So far, McCarthy's fractured conference has only passed one of 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year (FY) 2024. Among the GOP's "five families" is the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), which does not publicly list its members but is made up of a few dozen legislators, including Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Vice Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
In terms of the appropriations legislation for the next fiscal year, the HFC said in a statement Monday that "we remain committed to restoring the true FY 2022 topline spending level of $1.471 trillion without the use of gimmicks or reallocated rescissions to return the bureaucracy to its pre-Covid size while allowing for adequate defense funding."
"In the eventuality that Congress must consider a short-term extension of government funding through a continuing resolution, we refuse to support any such measure that continues Democrats' bloated Covid-era spending and simultaneously fails to force the Biden administration to follow the law and fulfill its most basic responsibilities," the caucus continued. "Any support for a 'clean' continuing resolution would be an affirmation of the current FY 2023 spending level grossly increased by the lame-duck December 2022 omnibus spending bill that we all vehemently opposed just seven months ago."
The HFC declared that its members will refuse to support any CR that does not include the House-passed Secure the Border Act, "address the unprecedented weaponization" of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and "end the Left's cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon undermining our military's core warfighting mission."
The Pentagon language likely relates to U.S. military policies on abortion and gender-affirming care as well as diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility while the DOJ comment is widely seen as a reference to investigations of former President Donald Trump, who has been indicted in four cases this year—including in two probes led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland after the Republican announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
"We will oppose any attempt by Washington to revert to its old playbook of using a series of short-term funding extensions designed to push Congress up against a December deadline to force the passage of yet another monstrous, budget-busting, pork-filled, lobbyist handout omnibus spending bill at year's end and we will use every procedural tool necessary to prevent that outcome," the HFC added Monday. "Lastly, we will oppose any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill."
Democrats in Congress quickly warned that the faction of Republicans was up to no good, with Schumer saying in a statement Monday that "if the House decides to go in a partisan direction it will lead to a Republican-caused shutdown."
Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) said that "extreme House Republicans are now threatening to send us into a reckless government shutdown if they don't get their way. A shutdown would be a disaster for Virginians—from missed paychecks to lapses in essential government services that families rely on."
Referencing Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media that "House Republicans are determined to shut down the government and crash our economy. We will fight these MAGA extremists every step of the way. For. The. People."
The New Republic's Tori Otten also suggested that "tanking the economy" could be the goal, noting that the HFC made similar demands earlier this year before McCarthy struck a debt ceiling deal with Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection:
The government shutdown in 2018 cost the United States $11 billion, including $3 billion in economic activity that will never be recovered, the Congressional Budget Office said at the start of the following year.
With a presidential election on the horizon, the Freedom Caucus could be looking for ways to undermine Biden any way it can. Destroying the economy he's helping to recover would do just that.
The Washington Post reported Monday that "White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton told reporters that she had no updates on whether Biden plans to sign a continuing resolution."
Greek 'Headhunters' Illegally Capture Migrants as Wildfires—and Racism—Rage
Greek authorities on Wednesday arrested three vigilantes after video was posted on social media showing them illegally detaining migrants in the northeastern region of Evros, where 18 migrants were found burned to death the previous day amid ongoing raging wildfires.
Two Greeks and a man of Albanian origin were arrested after the publication of a video showing one of the men holding 13 Syrian and Pakistani migrants in a box trailer being pulled by a four-wheel-drive vehicle near Alexandroupolis. The man filming the video boasts of how he "hunted them down" and caught 25 people and blames the migrants—whom he refers to as "pieces"—for the wildfires, urging others to "collect" more border-crossers before "they burn us."
Later on Wednesday, the 13 migrants were arrested on suspicion of arson. The arrested Albanian vigilante—whose name is not given—toldGreek City Times that he "spotted a group of 13 people who were around an object and were trying to set it on fire while holding a balloon that smelled of gasoline."
"I am not a fascist or a racist," he insisted.
Greek Supreme Court Prosecutor Georgia Aldini on Wednesday ordered an investigation into whether the blaze—which has killed at least 20 people including 18 migrants who crossed over the border from Turkey—was an act of arson perpetrated as part of "an organized plan" by xenophobic agitators.
Aldini described the video of the illegal arrests as "a racist delirium of violence, accusing immigrants of 'burning us' and inciting others to racist pogroms, calling on them to organize and imitate him."
Another video posted Wednesday on social media shows the leader of a group of what the Greek news outlet The Press Project described as "headhunters" giving instructions on how to capture migrants.
Lefteris Papayannakis, director of the Greek Council for Refugees, told the Spanish newspaper El País Thursday that "part of the population thinks that the fires are the fault of the migrants and that's why they chase them."
"They function as a militia; they arrest them on their own account and use violence against them," he added.
Vassilis Kerasiotis, director of the NGO HIAS Greece and a lawyer specializing in migration, told the paper that there are numerous anti-migrant militias operating in Greece, and that "there is tolerance on the part of the authorities, that's why they feel they can freely publicize these criminal acts."
"The role of racism and systemic racism in the treatment of asylum-seekers must be confronted."
Far-right parties and politicians like Greek Solution parliamentarian Paris Papadakis—who accused migrants of starting the fire and "obstructing the work of firefighters"—also regularly issue inflammatory proclamations.
Greek Migration Minister Dimitris Kairides published a statement mourning the deaths of the 18 victims and also condemning "the murderous activity of criminal traffickers (and those who facilitate them) and the trade of illegal migration, which is what endangers the lives of many migrants both on land and at sea every day."
Euronewsreported Thursday that firefighters—scores of whom have been injured—are battling at least 99 different fires in Greece, where temperatures have soared to over 105°F.
The Alexandroupolis arrests came on the same day that a group of United Nations experts including Ashwini K.P., the U.N. special rapporteur on special forms of racism, called on Greek authorities to investigate alleged incidents of racist violence against asylum-seekers and other migrants.
The eight experts said they were "particularly concerned" by Greek security forces' failure to provide "prompt and effective" aid to migrants in distress, including by ensuring their safe disembarkation and adequate reception. The experts noted the case of 12 African asylum-seekers—including a 6-month-old infant—who were rounded up by masked men, stripped of their belongings, and forcibly transported to the port of Mytilene on Lesbos earlier this year.
"The violence, which was captured on video—verified, and reported by the media—exposed the racist exclusion and cruelty of Europe's border protection practices," the experts said in a statement. "The past 12 months have been among the deadliest for asylum-seekers, refugees, and migrants of African descent and others on their journeys, particularly along sea and land routes in the Middle East and North Africa region, and in perilous Sahara and Mediterranean crossings."
"While the investigation is ongoing, there is growing evidence of a deliberate and coordinated policy of forcible return and other dehumanizing border control practices by Greece going far beyond deterrence and in contravention of its international obligations," the experts added. "The role of racism and systemic racism in the treatment of asylum-seekers must be confronted within any meaningful review of these practices."
Beatings, rapes, kidnappings, and illegal detentions are just some of the abuses migrants say they have endured in Greece.
Underscoring the experts' claim, a Greek state television broadcaster faced backlash Thursday after she said on air that "the only good news" about the Evros wildfires "is that there were no casualties, except for the poor 18 charred migrants."
Common Dreamsreported last month that a joint analysis by media outlets and the Berlin-based research agency Forensis found that Greek Coast Guard officials lied when they claimed that distressed migrants aboard a vessel carrying hundreds of people that capsized in the Mediterranean Sea in June refused help. Instead, the investigation suggested the Coast Guard's efforts to tow the vessel destabilized it, causing it to capsize and killing an unknown number of migrants.
Amnesty International had previously condemned what it called the "inhumane" treatment of migrants in the wake of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's February 2020 decision to stop asylum-seekers from transiting through Turkey on their way into Greece and other European countries.
Turkey—which hosts more refugees than any other country in the world—has also been criticized for allegedly shooting and torturing asylum-seekers along the Syrian border, and other alleged abuses.
Turkish media reported Thursday that Turkey's Coast Guard rescued 138 migrants in the Aegean Sea after Greek authorities allegedly pushed them back into Turkish territorial waters. This, after scores of other migrants that Turkey said were repelled by Greece were rescued at sea earlier in the week.
Medvedev Says 'No Other Option' But Nuclear War if Ukrainian Counteroffensive Succeeds
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy chair of the nation's Security Council, threatened to wage nuclear war if Ukraine's counteroffensive to repel Russian invaders and reclaim territories they occupy is successful.
"Imagine if the... offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success and they tore off a part of our land, then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia," Medvedev wrote on Telegram, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin's Decree No. 305.
Signed in 2020, the doctrine authorizes use of nuclear weapons after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened."
"There would simply be no other option," added Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012. "So our enemies should pray for our warriors. They are making sure that a global nuclear fire is not ignited."
Russia conquered and unilaterally annexed regions of Ukraine including Crimea in 2014 and Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia last September. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the annexation of the four oblasts by formally applying for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—whose decadeslong expansion to Russia's borders has been cited by Moscow as a provocation for the invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev and other top Russian officials have raised the threat of nuclear war on numerous previous occasions, including when Western nations provided Ukraine with weapons. In January, Medvedev warned that "the defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war," and that "nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends."
Last month, Putin said Russia had begun deploying tactical nuclear warheads in neighboring Belarus, from which Russian troops have invaded Ukraine.
97% of 'Clearly Fed Up' UAW Big Three Autoworkers Approve Strike
"Our message to the Big Three is simple: Record profits mean record contracts," said UAW president Shawn Fain.
Members of the United Auto Workers at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike should negotiations for a new contract fail, the union announced Friday.
With some votes still left to be tallied, UAW said 97% of its participating members at the so-called Big Three automakers approved a strike if a deal can't be reached with management before the workers' current contract expires on September 14.
"Our union's membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck-to-paycheck while the corporate elite and billionaire class continue to make out like bandits," Shawn Fain, UAW's new president, said in a statement Friday. "The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs."
UAW is demanding a 40% pay raise for workers at the three automakers; the elimination of tiered wages and benefits; re-establishment of cost-of-living allowances, defined benefit pensions, and retiree healthcare; the right to strike over plant closures; increases in current retiree benefits; and more paid time off.
"Our members' expectations are high because Big Three profits are so high. The Big Three made a combined $21 billion in profits in just the first six months of this year," said Fain. "That's on top of the quarter-trillion dollars in North American profits they made over the last decade. While Big Three executives and shareholders got rich, UAW members got left behind. Our message to the Big Three is simple: Record profits mean record contracts."
Vincent Tooles, a worker at a Stellantis factory in Warren, Michigan, earns $20.60 per hour assembling Jeep Wagoneers. Tooles toldThe Washington Post he makes less hourly than his father did at the same company 20 years ago.
"What I would like to see change is just an increase in pay," he said. "I feel like we're the only industry probably in the country that has went down in pay over the last 30 years."
UAW said 147,000 members took part in the vote—46,000 at GM, 57,000 at Ford, and 44,000 at Stellantis, the parent company of 16 brands including Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram in the United States.
The UAW strike vote follows this week's ratification by an overwhelming majority of UPS Teamsters of a new contract—hailed by some as "historic" and slammed as a "sellout" by others—averting a potentially crippling strike. The UAW vote also comes as 85,000 Kaiser Permanente hospital and clinic workers are set to start voting Saturday on authorization of what could be the biggest healthcare strike in U.S. history over what advocates say are unfair labor practices.
As Trump Surrenders in Georgia, Groups Warn of Continued Threat to Democratic Institutions
"It is not inconceivable that Trump or a future anti-democratic leader could incite another mob to attack a different government institution," reads a new report by CREW and Common Cause.
As former Republican President Donald Trump surrendered at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta Thursday evening, a new analysis warned that his extremist political movement poses a continued threat to U.S. government institutions nearly three years after he and 18 co-conspirators allegedly tried to change the 2020 election outcome in Georgia.
Government watchdogs Common Cause and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Thursday released a report titled Donald Trump: Threatening Courts and Justice, warning of the threat that is posed to the nation's court system by the outgrowth of the so-called "Stop the Steal" movement, which emerged after the 2020 election and led the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The groups noted that a document titled "1776 Returns" was uncovered by prosecutors as they investigated the perpetrators of the January 6 attack. The document detailed a plan to "seize and occupy the Supreme Court and other government buildings to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and force federal officials to overturn election results."
"It's unclear exactly why these attacks did not fully materialize, but the lack of a specific call to action could have played a part," reads the report. "This is in contrast to Trump's specific call for his followers to come to Washington, D.C. on January 6th for a 'wild' event at the Capitol. Given the continued incendiary, anti-democratic rhetoric toward government institutions and officials coming from extremist groups and leaders, it is not inconceivable that Trump or a future anti-democratic leader could incite another mob to attack a different government institution."
As Trump's legal issues have mounted this year, he has continued to make threats against the judiciary, including New York Supreme Court Acting Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over one of the former president's four criminal cases—one involving 34 felony counts regarding multiple alleged hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Shortly after being arraigned in New York in April, Trump publicly called Merchan "a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for [U.S. Vice President] Kamala Harris," ignoring the judge's instructions to "refrain from making comments or engaging in conduct that has the potential to incite violence, create civil unrest, or jeopardize the safety or well-being of any individuals."
Trump has also publicly said Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over a case in Washington, D.C. regarding the former president's alleged incitement of the January 6 attack, would not give him a "fair trial."
A Texas woman was arrested earlier this month for making a death threat in a voicemail to Chutkan, and Common Cause and CREW noted that "Judge Merchan and his family received dozens of threats, including death threats, in the immediate aftermath of Trump's comments" in April.
"Put together, these examples and others illustrate a clear pattern of conduct of Trump supporters levying threats against judges whom Trump publicly attacks, when, in reality, they are simply applying the law," said the groups. "Given Trump's ongoing legal fights, and his continued public criticism of the courts, it is likely that judges presiding over Trump-related cases will continue to face serious threats in the future."
The report was released the same day that Trump surrendered to the authorities in Atlanta following his indictment earlier this month in a case regarding his attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.
Trump's arrival at Fulton County Jail Thursday evening marked the first time in any of his criminal cases that officials released a mug shot, which he soon after posted on X—formerly known as Twitter—months after owner Elon Musk reinstated his account. Trump was banned from the platform after January 6, 2021, due to fears that he could incite more violence.
Earlier this week, as his fellow 2024 Republican candidates for president participated in the first debate of the election cycle, Trump told former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson in an interview that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is "getting killed" for indicting him and said his political enemies are "savage animals."
Willis has asked Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee to hold Trump's arraignment on September 5.
"Although the courts were ultimately not attacked on January 6, Trump's sustained anti-democratic rhetoric continues to make federal and state courts potential targets for his supporters," said Common Cause and CREW. "As Trump's legal battles intensify, and the 2024 presidential election approaches, the threat of violence posed by the far right to the judiciary is one which demands serious attention and vigilance."
When Antarctic Sea Ice Melted Last November, It Took More Than 9,000 Emperor Penguin Chicks With It
One scientist warned that if humanity doesn't stop burning fossil fuels, "we will drive these iconic, beautiful birds to the verge of extinction."
As Antarctic sea ice dwindled to match record low levels last year, it caused "catastrophic breeding failure" in four emperor penguin colonies.
The loss of more than 9,000 chicks was documented in a study published in Communications Earth & Environment Thursday. It's the first recorded case of such extensive breeding failure in the charismatic penguins due to sea-ice loss, but the study authors warn it may be a "snapshot of a future, warming Antarctica."
"There is hope: We can cut our carbon emissions that are causing the warming," study lead author Peter Fretwell of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) toldBBC News. "But if we don't we will drive these iconic, beautiful birds to the verge of extinction."
Antarctic sea ice is in the midst of a striking decline. Four of the years with the lowest sea-ice extent in the 45-year satellite record have been in the last seven years, with the lowest in 2021-22 and 2022-23, according to BAS. In February of this year, ice extent shrank to a record low. And it has not fully recovered during the Antarctic winter months, BAS pointed out. The winter extent as of August 20 was lower than the previous record low by about half of a square mile and differed from the 1981 to 2022 median by an area larger than Greenland.
Natural variations like El Niño can alter sea-ice extent year to year, and it will take more data and research to determine the cause of the current anomaly, polar scientist Caroline Holmes told BAS.
"However," she added, "the recent years of tumbling sea-ice records and warming of the subsurface Southern Ocean point strongly to human-induced global warming exacerbating these extremes."
"This paper dramatically reveals the connection between sea-ice loss and ecosystem annihilation."
This is bad news for emperor penguins. Between April and January, they spend their time on sea ice connected to the land. There, they lay and hatch their eggs in the Antarctic winter and rear them through the spring until the chicks develop waterproof plumage in December or January and are ready to strike off on their own, as Inside Climate News explained.
"But if it breaks earlier than that, the chicks basically lose that platform," study co-author Norm Ratcliffe told Inside Climate News. "So they either fall into the sea and they drown."
Ratcliffe added that while the chicks might be able to make it to an iceberg, their feathers would still be wet, so "they'll probably freeze to death."
That's exactly what the scientists think happened to 4 out of 5 emperor penguin colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea region. Researchers had been tracking the colonies using satellite imagery for years based on the buildup of guano on the ice. Then, in November, that ice suddenly disintegrated, with some areas seeing a loss of 100%. With the ice went the guano, leading the scientists to conclude the colonies were abandoned. They think it's unlikely that the chicks survived the loss.
"It's a grim story," Fretwell toldThe Guardian. "I was shocked. It's very hard to think of these cute fluffy chicks dying in large numbers."
While individual colonies have been impacted by sea-ice loss before, what happened in the Bellingshausen Sea region was "unprecedented," BAS said.
When sea ice disappeared locally from Halley Bay in the Weddell Sea after 2016, for example, penguins with a colony there relocated to Dawson Lambton Glacier, the study authors noted.
"However, such a strategy will not be possible if breeding habitat becomes unsuitable at a regional scale," the study authors wrote.
Up until now, emperor penguins have emerged relatively unscathed from the pressures of industrial capitalism, such as massive hunting, overfishing, or habitat loss. But that is changing. BAS observed that the study lends support to the prediction that more than 90% of emperor penguin colonies could be nearly extinct by 2100 if nothing is done to stop burning fossil fuels and curb predicted temperature rise.
"This paper dramatically reveals the connection between sea-ice loss and ecosystem annihilation," BAS sea ice physicist Jeremy Wilkinson said in a statement.
"It is another warning sign for humanity that we cannot continue down this path, politicians must act to minimize the impact of climate change," Wilkinson added. " There is no time left."
Summer Campaign Today!




















