• Oil giant Shell gets Friends of the Earth case overturned; will not be required to reduce emissions

• Sea levels set to rise permanently even if global warming is reversed     (archived link)

• Bird flu begins its human spread, as health officials scramble to safeguard people and livestock     (archived link)

• It’s not normal for the East Coast to be on fire     (archived link)

• Fossil fuel rise drives planet closer to critical climate safety limit

• PFAS may be contaminating drinking water for up to 27% of Americans – study

• Fossil fuel CO₂ emissions increase again in 2024     (archived link)

• Nearly half of tropical coral species face extinction, report shows

• 2024 predicted to be first full year above 1.5°c of global warming     (archived link)

• Growing pollution in Pakistan’s Punjab province has sickened 1.8M people in a month, officials say     (archived link)

• Thousands flee as fourth major storm in a month hits Philippines     (archived link)

    Previously

• Earth on track for hottest year in recorded history, passing critical 1.5º warming threshold     (archived link)

• A warming climate continues to ravage sea ice at both poles     (archived link)

• Drought conditions cover a record swath of the U.S.     (archived link)

• The world promised to tame methane, but emissions are still rising     (archived link)

• Horrific details emerge of how victims died in Spain’s flash floods     (archived link)

• Microplastics promote cloud formation, with likely effects on weather and climate

• Record air pollution hospitalizes hundreds in Pakistan     (archived link)

• Warming seas wipe out Greece's mussel harvest     (archived link)

• Toxic smog in Pakistan is so bad you can see it from space     (archived link)

• Record global warming risks aggravating war and violence     (archived link)

• White truffles, Italy's gold, menaced by climate change     (archived link)

    Previously

• Arkansas cop gets four months in prison for sexually assaulting three children     (archived link)

• Scandal-plagued sheriff wins another term in north Texas

• Guns, steroids and $1-million found in home of state trooper under investigation: report     (archived link)

• For attempting suicide, Peoria Jail restrained man in a chair for five days     (archived link)

• Tennessee Police Chief indicted on seven counts

• Federal jury awards $2.3M to man assaulted by police outside his home in 2017     (archived link)

• Chicago to pay $4.5m to settle 3 police misconduct cases     (archived link)

• Hennepin County pays $3.4 million to settle lawsuit for wrongful death of jail inmate Lucas Bellamy

• County pays $300,000 to 11-year-old whose pet goat was seized and killed by cops because she backed out of a 4-H auction

    Previously

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Being old, death gets my attention, so I read the obituaries. This is a collection of recent obits, mostly of people whose work touched my life, because I want to say thanks (or maybe give 'em a final fuck you).

There’ll be a roundup like this occasionally, until I’m on the list myself.

    • Natasha Alexenko activist     (archived link)

• Frank Auerbach artist     (archived link)

• Kenneth Bronstein atheist

• Bruce Degen artist, The Magic School Bus

• Lou Donaldson sax man     (archived link)

• Janey Godley comedian     (archived link)

• Roy Haynes drummer     (archived link)

• Ella Jenkins Singalong with Ella

• James Ledbetter media critic, Village Voice     (archived link)

• Trevor Sorbie Dorothy Hamill's hairstylist     (archived link)

• Paul Stephenson activist     (archived link)

• Grant Ujifusa reparations for Japanese-Americans     (archived link)

• Baltazar Ushca ice harvester     (archived link)

• Andrew Young forgotten person     (archived link)

    Previously dead

> ... the entire case against Backpage was a travesty of justice. The company actually worked closely with the feds (and even received commendations) to stop any actual human trafficking on their platform, but refused to help the feds go after consenting adult sex work. After that happened, a bunch of government actors turned on the company and falsely painted it as knowingly helping sex trafficking. ...

    (archived link)

    (archived link)

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20191120232636/https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/11/7/918462/-Armistice-Day-was-sacred

However bad you’re expecting it’ll be with Donald Trump as president again, it’ll be worse than you’re expecting.

Check me on this, but my recollection is that during Trump’s first term, things were (relatively) mild for a few years, but grew more and more horrendous as his term continued. After the midway point, there were nonstop jawdropping crudities and cruelties — another ghastly nomination, gawdawful statement, or a stupidity to top the previous day’s stupidities — every day.

It took him a while to warm up, because being president was something of a surprise, even to Trump. I’m sure he ran in 2016 just for the publicity, and winning caught him (and all of us) off guard. He was new at being Godzilla on the world stage, and it took some time for him to get the hang of it.

Now, though, he’s an experienced monster, with Project 2025 and a team of loyal suck-ups surrounding him from his first day, so everything’s going to be worse, lots worse, right from the start.

What outrages and obscenities can we expect from Trump?

Climate change: Trump will again pull America out of all climate change accords, and do all he can to bring us back to being powered by coal and perhaps whale oil. There will be no recovery from the damage he’s about to do, and it’ll finalize a perpetually hellish future for America and the world. Of course, we weren’t doing a fraction of what was needed even before Trump, so the looming climate catastrophe was bound to happen anyway, but Trump will make it happen sooner.

Abortion: Sorry, ladies. Your time of having almost-equal rights is at an end. Either by law or by a Supreme Court decision, abortion will be banned, in all 50 states. Women who have sex will be legally obligating themselves to give birth and raise a child. Many millions of women’s and children’s lives will be ruined, which is the intent. My suggestion is tubal ligations and vasectomies, and fast, before those options are also illegalized.

Israel will have carte blanche, even more than they’ve had in the past, to do anything without even the mildest statement of rebuke from American government. Best we can hope is for full evacuation of Gaza, but its utter annihilation, until there aren’t two bricks held together by mortar, is very much a possibility.

Ukraine will see the complete cessation of US weaponry and funding after Trump takes office on January 20, 2025, and sanctions against Russia will be lifted, so you might as well erase Ukraine from your world maps.

Regulation of big business, which has always been vapors anyway, will completely vanish. There will be no more of those very rare days when you’ve read that some corporation is being sued by a government agency. How quaint.

Those are the certainties, but by the nature of Trump, there’ll be surprises, so there’s really no knowing what else to expect. His Supreme Court has granted Trump unprecedented “presidential immunity,” so dang near anything goes.

Perhaps the ACLU will be banned. Perhaps transgender Americans will be stripped of citizenship until they resume their birth genders. Perhaps Yellowstone will become FritoLay Yellowstone Park. Everything previously unthinkable is now possible.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump spoke of deporting all immigrants, sending the military to guard the border with Mexico, ending the Department of Education, locking up his opponents, shutting down anti-MAGA (i.e., mainstream) media, imposing crippling tariffs, sending the National Guard into American cities to round up the homeless, pardoning all 1/6/2021 insurrectionists … and more, much more that I’ve forgotten.

For each of these items, if he’s successful, the ramifications will be dreadful, but there are two hopeful things to remember.

First and most obviously, Trump is a bullshit artist, always happy to lie. Much of what he’s promised, he has no intention of even trying. (How’s that wall coming, Donald?)

Second, many or most of the outrageous things he will attempt are blatantly illegal, so there’ll be lawsuits. In at least some of these cases, lower courts will rule against the Emperor’s atrocities, and even the fully owned Supreme Court might balk on lesser items, if only to retain credibility for ruling in Trump’s favor on the major items.

Still being optimistic, it’s too early in the fascism for Trump to order judges removed from the bench or executed. That’ll come later.

But he’s already stacked the courts, and the stacking will continue and get worse. Republicans will control the Senate, so every heinous judicial nominee will be confirmed, meaning the courts will block him less and less often, over the coming years.

What’s worst to me is knowing that there won’t be an “after.” Trump will abrogate the 22nd Amendment and become President for Life. When he dies we’ll have President J D Vance, who’s every bit as evil but much smarter, younger, and worse in every way.

If elections are still allowed, they’ll be sham elections, with full cooperation from the Democrats, since they won’t nominate anyone who could actually win.

In closing, I should mention that this collection of cynicism and despair was written off the top of my head, without consulting any experts’ articles on what Trump is planning. The coming reality, then, will certainly be much, much worse than what I’ve predicted.

    (archived link)

    (archived link)

    (archived link)

> ... All empires fall. It is up to us to imagine their alternatives. To live as though the future we are dreaming is already named. To be unafraid to answer its call in the dark, and come into a new world of our making. "And joy filled him from head to foot," writes Ende, when Bastian has finally realized his greatest wish is love. ...

Being old, death gets my attention, so I read the obituaries. This is a collection of recent obits, mostly of people whose work touched my life, because I want to say thanks (or maybe give 'em a final fuck you).

There’ll be a roundup like this occasionally, until I’m on the list myself.

    • Dorothy Allison author, Bastard Out of Carolina     (archived link)

• Geoff Capes tough guy and parakeet breeder     (archived link)

• Virginia Carter feminist physicist and advisor to Norman Lear

• Elwood Edwards "You've got mail!"     (archived link)

• Jim Hoagland journalist, Washington Post     (archived link)

• Shawna Hughes in county jail     (archived link)

• Patricia Johanson artist     (archived link)

• Linda LaFlamme rock'n'roller, It's a Beautiful Day     (archived link)

• Bernard Marcus billionaire bastard     (archived link)

• Murray McCory backpacks     (archived link)

• Samantha Jo Moss forgotten person     (archived link)

• Tyka Nelson sister

• Phyllis O’Donnell surfing champion     (archived link)

• Ollie Olsen rock'n'roller, The Young Charlatans

• Alan Rachins actor, Dharma & Greg     (archived link)

• Edward Ramos in county jail     (archived link)

• Madeleine Riffaud French resistance     (archived link)

• Murray Sinclair Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

• Warren Washington climate scientist     (archived link)

• Michael Whitfield forgotten person

• Richard Winfield free press activist     (archived link)

    Previously dead

• Evangelical leaders celebrate Trump's victory as a prophecy fulfilled     (archived link)

• Former CEO of evangelical get-out-the-vote group is arrested for kiddie porn     (archived link)

• Texas church removes four elders over Trump-linked founder’s abuse of girl, 12, in 1980s

• Catholic high school teacher accused of sending nudes and having sex with student in office     (archived link)

• "Bling Bishop" Lamor Whitehead sentenced to 9 years for defrauding Brooklyn congregants     (archived link)

• Michigan pastor charged with child sex crime     (archived link)

• Minnesota youth pastor pleads guilty to child sex charges

• Church of England covered up 'abhorrent' abuse, report finds

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) today released a statement of frustration about yesterday's presidential election, and as often happens when Sanders says something, he's absolutely spot-on.

He said it on Twitter, by posting a picture of the text, so here's what Sen Sanders said, typed, for easier reading and sharing.

It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is the Latino and Black workers as well.

While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.

Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.

Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse.

Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave.

Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government's all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.

Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disaster campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.

In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.

Stay tuned.

Being old, death gets my attention, so I read the obituaries. This is a collection of recent obits, mostly of people whose work touched my life, because I want to say thanks (or maybe give 'em a final fuck you).

There’ll be a roundup like this occasionally, until I’m on the list myself.

    • Charles gorilla     (archived link)

• Joey Dyckman forgotten person     (archived link)

• Richard Fineberg genuine journalist     (archived link)

• Jonathan Haze actor, Little Shop of Horrors     (archived link)

• Quincy Jones music

• Richard Moore probably innocent, but black

• Eckhart Schmidt filmmaker, The Fan     (archived link)

• Lewis Skelton forgotten person

• unnamed     (archived link)

    Previously dead

• Two Ohio cops indicted in death of yet another black man who cried, "I can't breathe"     (archived link)

• Cop/substitute teacher reenacts George Floyd murder with black student, says "police brutality isn’t real"

• Cops don't believe 13-year-old was raped by her stepfather; charge victim with filing false report     (archived link)

• Video shows Phoenix police burning man during arrest: ‘Like acid on my skin’

• 3 Miami-Dade correctional officers get 20 years for inmate's deadly beating     (archived link)

• Detroit murder conviction is overturned 22 years later because of police misconduct     (archived link)

• San Diego County pays $4.95M in jail medical neglect case     (archived link)

• Ohio Sheriff’s Lieutenant in hot water after social posts; “I am sorry. If you support the Democratic Party, I will not help you”     (archived link)

• Former Akron police officer Geoffrey Parker pleads guilty in Trumbull County to child pornography charges     (archived link)

• 13 Lewisville officers disciplined after "inappropriate contact" during prostitution busts     (archived link)

• Earth is becoming ‘increasingly uninhabitable,’ scientists warn     (archived link)

• Spain’s deadly floods and droughts are two faces of the climate crisis coin

• Extreme drought areas treble in size since 80s — study

• Changing climate could increase mobility of toxic metals in soils, experimental study shows     (archived link)

• Heat-related deaths and diseases rising due to climate change, experts warn     (archived link)

• The world's largest river is running low

• "Alarm bells ringing" as report finds greenhouse gas emissions growing faster than ever     (archived link)

• New Yorkers urged to conserve water after driest October in 150 years

• 'Doomsday' Antarctic glacier melting faster than expected, fueling calls for geoengineering     (archived link)

    (archived link)