Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

You Could Get Prison Time for Protesting a Pipeline in Texas—Even If It’s on Your Land

This story was originally published by Grist and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.  The fight against a Texas pipeline just got a little more challenging. On Monday, the Texas Senate passed legislation that makes interfering with pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure a crime punishable by up to a year in prison and $10,000 in […]

It Came From 2019!

Widespread permafrost degradation seen in high Arctic terrain

Rapid changes in terrain are taking place in Canada's high Arctic polar deserts due to increases in summer air temperatures.

“Here We Go Again”: A Federal Judge Just Blocked Mississippi’s Six-Week Abortion Ban

“Here we go again.” So begins the preliminary injunction by US District Judge Carlton Reeves, who on Friday blocked a six-week abortion ban from going into effect in Mississippi. Six months ago, Reeves also found a 15-week ban passed by the state Legislature unconstitutional, a bill that he called “pure gaslighting.” Mississippi’s only remaining abortion clinic […]

Socialists and Labor Share the Same Goal

This article was first posted by Jacobin.

Sara Nelson in her own words on building a fighting labor movement, the proud history of democratic socialism in America, how workers ended the shutdown, and how they'll stop Trump, too.

Donald Trump May Spend Memorial Day Pardoning War Criminals

How are you spending Memorial Day? Ordinary people may attend parades, host cookouts, or take the long weekend to visit loved ones.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, may pardon a few war criminals.

The president recently requested the files of several accused and convicted U.S. war criminals, a possible step toward expedited pardons for individuals who’ve done unspeakable things.

There’s SEAL chief Edward Gallagher, who senselessly shot to death a teenage girl and an elderly man in Iraq. Gallagher also brutally stabbed a wounded 15-year-old to death — and then posed for photos with the body, which he texted to friends.

Trump also requested the files of Nicholas Slatten, a Blackwater contractor convicted of shooting dozens of Iraqi civilians in the notorious 2007 Nisour Square massacre, and of Mathew Golsteyn, who confessed to murdering an unarmed Afghan captive U.S. soldiers had released.

Trump has already pardoned Michael Behenna, who took an unarmed Iraqi captive into the desert, stripped him naked, and shot him in the head and chest. Behenna was supposed to be returning the man to his home village.

The president may present these pardons as a show of patriotism — his own Rambo-worshiping way of “supporting the troops.” But several veterans have objected, pointing out that many soldiers do their best to uphold the laws of war even under considerable stress.

“They should treat the civilians as they would neighbors,” combat veteran Waitman Wade Beorn recalled telling his platoon in Iraq, arguing that the cues commanders set make all the difference. Beorn, a Holocaust scholar, warned that one could draw some dark (if inexact) parallels between Trump’s cues and Hitler’s.

During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, he wrote, “soldiers were literally told that they would not be tried for behavior that would be a crime anywhere else in Europe.” Similarly, “when Trump champions war criminals as brave patriots … he seems to push for a climate that condones unethical and criminal behavior.”

Gary Solis, a retired military judge and Vietnam veteran, complained Trump was undermining the entire military justice system. “These are all extremely complicated cases that have gone through a careful system of consideration. A freewheeling pardon undermines that whole system.”

That’s likely the point. The truth is that Trump is pandering to the most atavistic segment of his base. It echoes the Vietnam years, when war supporters turned William Calley, convicted for his role in butchering hundreds of villagers at My Lai, into a folk hero.

Today, Gallagher’s cause is celebrated on "Fox and Friends," the president’s favorite TV show, and Trump has praised Gallagher “in honor of his past service.”

Trump’s recent moves are plainly calibrated to encourage war crimes, not prosecute them. But glorifying serial killer-type behavior most service members would find appalling is a strange way to honor them — particularly when some have taken enormous risks to stop massacres like these.

For instance, seven of Gallagher’s own men reported him repeatedly, even after being warned by superiors it would hurt their careers. Behenna’s fellow soldiers, apparently disturbed by his behavior, testified against him as well. At My Lai, Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson landed his chopper in between marauding U.S. troops and cowering civilians, training his guns on his own comrades and forcing an end to the massacre.

Honoring these heroes would be more fitting, particularly in the present climate. Recent reports have documented alarming rates of U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties in Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan. In the latter case, Trump’s extremist national security adviser John Bolton made brutish threats to get the International Criminal Court to back off investigating U.S. abuses.

Meanwhile, egged on by Bolton, Trump is considering sending 120,000 or more troops into another purposeless bloodbath in the Middle East. And he’s made no plans to fill the 45,000 or so vacant VA jobs backlogging veterans’ health care.

Under these circumstances, do we suppose the troops — or loved ones who’ve lost them — will take a few pardons for war criminals as a compliment? I don’t know. But the real lesson may be that the worst war criminals wear suits, not fatigues.

Happy Memorial Day.

Originally published in Foreign Policy In Focus.

Facebook is actively complicit in the destruction of democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/24/facebook-leaves-fake-nancy-pelosi-video-on-site

Yep, Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Clean Up the Pentagon

One month after Sen. Elizabeth Warren formally launched her campaign for president, she leaned forward during a Senate hearing with senior Pentagon officials and said something you probably won’t be seeing on a bumper sticker: “Let’s dig in a little bit then on OCO.” Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, was asking about “overseas contingency funding,” another […]

Bacteria in fermented food signal the human immune system, explaining health benefits

Researchers have discovered that humans and great apes possess a receptor on their cells that detects metabolites from bacteria commonly found in fermented foods and triggers movement of immune cells.

Uber and Lyft Drivers Strike Alongside Fast Food Workers in LA, Demand $30 Minimum Wage.
https://gizmodo.com/uber-and-lyft-drivers-strike-alongside-fast-food-worker-1834990823

The extraordinary powers of bacteria visualized in real time

The global spread of antibiotic resistance is a major public health issue and a priority for international microbiology research. In a new paper, researchers report on filming the process of antibiotic resistance acquisition in real time, discovering a key but unexpected player in its maintenance and spread within bacterial populations.

At least they're acknowledging it now...

FBI has seen significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism in recent months

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/fbi-white-supremacist-domestic-terror/index.html

Marching for climate change may sway people's beliefs and actions

Americans have a long tradition of taking to the streets to protest or to advocate for things they believe in. New research suggests that when it comes to climate change, these marches may indeed have a positive effect on the public.

GRACE data contributes to understanding of climate change

The team that led a twin satellite system launched in 2002 to take detailed measurements of the Earth, called the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), reports on the contributions that their nearly two decades of data have made to our understanding of global climate patterns.

Live fast, die young: Study shows tiny fishes fuel coral reefs

Scientists have long sought to understand how coral reefs support such an abundance of fish life despite their location in nutrient-poor waters. According to a new study, an unlikely group fuels these communities: tiny, mostly bottom-dwelling creatures called 'cryptobenthic' reef fishes.

Google tracks nearly all your online (and some of your offline) purchases -- see it for yourself, here

http://flip.it/mXLQxQ #privacy

Ocasio-Cortez Ties Concerns Over Unregulated Facial Recognition Technology to 'Global Rise in Authoritarianism and Fascism' - https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/23/ocasio-cortez-ties-concerns-over-unregulated-facial-recognition-technology-global