RSN: Jeffrey Sterling | Whistleblowing, the Pandemic and a 'Law and Order' System of Injustice

24 June 20

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24 June 20

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CAN ANYONE HELP WITH A DONATION, PLEASE - We are way behind where we should be at this point in the month. Really because only a precious few of you are donating. The rest are not but can. Now would be a great time. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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RSN: Jeffrey Sterling | Whistleblowing, the Pandemic and a 'Law and Order' System of Injustice

Jeffrey Sterling, Reader Supported News
Sterling writes: "It is hard to find many positives as the death toll from the novel coronavirus continues to climb, but as we have seen before with situations of crisis, truth does find a way to make itself known."
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Amr Alfiky/NPR)

ALSO SEE: Kentucky Senate Democratic Primary Between McGrath and Booker
to Decide Who Challenges McConnell Too Close to Call

Ocasio-Cortez Breezes to Reelection as Progressives, Including Jamaal Bowman, Dominate NY Congressional Primaries
Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News
Sommerfeldt writes: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leading the way. The left-leaning congresswoman breezed to victory in her first primary as an incumbent on Tuesday, setting the tone for an election night dominated by progressive momentum and centrist setbacks."
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Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. (photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

Steven Mnuchin: 'We Never Agreed to Full Transparency.'
Alana Abramson and Haley Sweetland Edwards, TIME
Excerpt: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended his department's decision to only release a partial list of the Paycheck Protection Program's loan recipients, but said Congress could obtain additional information as part of its oversight probes."
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Soldiers train at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., in October 2017. (photo: John Bazemore/AP)

US Soldier Plotted With Neo-Nazis to Stage 'Murderous Ambush' on His Unit, Feds Say
Allyson Chiu, The Washington Post
Chiu writes: "Ethan Melzer, a 22-year-old from Louisville, is accused of leaking sensitive information about his unit to a satanic neo-Nazi cult as part of a plot to launch a 'mass casualty' attack intended to cause 'the deaths of as many of his fellow service members as possible,' according to an indictment unsealed Monday."
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Traders, some in medical masks on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

We're Dying From Coronavirus. Corporations Are Getting Rich Off It.
Nicole Aschoff, Jacobin
Excerpt: "The 2008 bailout was a giant giveaway to corporate America. 2020 is more of the same."
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A soldier of the Honduran presidential guard disinfects shopping carts outside a supermarket during a break of the curfew imposed by the government against the spread of the new coronavirus, in Tegucigalpa, on March 19, 2020. (photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images)

It's Not Just Covid That Has Hondurans Starving. It's Also US Policy.
Meghan Krausch, In These Times
Krausch writes: "From early 20th century military intervention on behalf of banana companies to recent support for a right-wing coup, the U.S. neocolonial relationship with Honduras has a direct hand in driving hunger and poverty."

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An armored sea robin seen during the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas, Leg 1. (photo: NOAA Photo Library)

Mercury Pollution Found in Deepest Part of Ocean
Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
Rosane writes: "Plastic isn't the only human pollutant infiltrating the deepest corners of the ocean."

Two separate studies presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference this week found mercury in fish and crustaceans living 11,000 meters (approximately 36,000 feet) under the sea in the Mariana Trench.

"This is a surprise," Dr. Ruoyu Sun, a scientist from Tianjin University in China who led one of the research teams, said in a Goldschmidt Conference press release published by Phys.org.

Scientists have long known that mercury, which is poisonous to both humans and animals, enters the ocean and the animals within it, concentrating in higher amounts as it works its way up the food web through a process called bioaccumulation. Swordfish, for example, contain 40 times the amount of mercury that salmon do. This means that humans who eat lots of fish are at risk from mercury poisoning, Newsweek pointed out. This can cause neurological and heart damage, and is especially dangerous for developing fetuses.

However, scientists previously thought that this process was mostly taking place in the upper ocean. Then Sun's team found methylmercury, a toxic form of the metal that easily accumulates in animals, in the ocean's deepest trench.

"Previous research had concluded that methlymercury was mostly produced in the top few hundred metres of the ocean. This would have limited mercury bioaccumulation by ensuring that fish which forage deeper than this would have had limited opportunity to ingest the methylmercury. With this work, we now believe that isn't true," Sun said in the press release.

Sun's team uncovered their results by sending deep-sea lander vehicles in 2016 and 2017 to the Mariana and Yap trenches — "amongst the most remote and inaccessible locations on Earth," Sun said in the press release."

They collected deep-sea animals like amphiopods and snailfish at 7,000 to 11,000 meters (approximately 23,000 to 36,000 feet) and sediments at 5,500 to 9,200 meters (approximately 18,000 to 30,000 feet), according to an abstract. They found mercury in all the animals and could tell it came from the upper ocean because of its "isotopic fingerprint," or chemical signature. The results showed human mercury emissions are "much more pervasive across deep oceans than was previously thought," the abstract concluded.

A separate study led by Dr. Joel Blum of the University of Michigan found similar results in the Mariana Trench and in the Kermadec trench near New Zealand.

"The key finding is that mercury released by humans and deposited from the atmosphere to the surface of the oceans is being transported to the most remote and deepest environments in the ocean," Blum told Newsweek.

While some mercury could have come from natural sources like volcanic eruptions, humans emit almost three times more mercury than nature does through processes like burning fossil fuels or mining metals.

"We know that mercury is introduced into the environment from a variety of natural sources such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires. However, human activities, such as coal and petroleum burning, mining, and manufacturing, are mainly responsible for mercury deposition to marine environments," University of Hawaii professor Ken Rubin, who was not involved in the research, said in the press release. "We are now learning from these two studies that the effects of this deposition have spread throughout the ocean into the deep sea and the animals that live there, which is yet another indicator of the profound impact of modern human activities on the planet."

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RSN: Harvey Wasserman | Trump's Mis-Judgement at Tulsa/Nuremberg Just Might Doom Him

22 June 20

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Shocked by the Lack of Support

I just want you to know that, as a monthly contributor who thinks the work you are doing is hugely important, I am shocked by the lack of support of other readers. Rest assured that rsn is deeply appreciated and I count on it/you to keep informed.

If we want a “free” and independent press in today’s world of corporate news, you are essential and I, for one, am deeply grateful to you and want to express my thanks. I’m sorry that your fundraising efforts are not bringing faster and more abundant results.

In deep appreciation,

Marilyn, RSN Reader-Supporter

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If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
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22 June 20

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

THREE DAYS WITHOUT A TRIPLE DIGIT DONATION - It been three days since we have seen a donation in the triple digit donation range. Not everyone can afford that kind of donation, we understand. But if someone can it would really help. Sincere thanks in advance. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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RSN: Harvey Wasserman | Trump's Mis-Judgement at Tulsa/Nuremberg Just Might Doom Him

Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News

Wasserman writes: "Imagine if Adolf Hitler had staged one of his infamous 1930s fascist Nuremberg hate-fests ... and the stands were less than full, his speech fell flat, his flawless phalanxes dissolved into chaos, the fighting flags failed to unfurl. That's what just happened to Trump in Tulsa. The implications are Earth-shattering."  

When Hitler staged his ritual witch burnings, the masses were hypnotized. The synchronized film crews, the adoring media, the groveling sycophants, the murderous hate-the-Jew mobs … all were perfectly in place.  

In apocalyptic unison, the Silent Majority (his phrase) panted for Der Führer to Make Germany Great Again (also his phrase). They goose-stepped in precision, all decked out in their fascist finest … the jackboots, the armbands, the billowing banners, the iron formations, the buzzcut hairdos … willing executioners flocking to Stalingrad and Auschwitz. 

There were no empty seats. Every inch of every stadium was packed to the gills.  

Take a look at Triumph of the Will, or google up random clips of Schicklgruber’s pathetic pageants and see if you doubt the coming Holocaust. 

That was Trump’s vision for his Tulsa MAGA hate-fest. White America reeled from history’s biggest mixed-race mass marches. Gestapo cops were actually indicted for murdering unarmed black people. Statues toppled. Racist icons crumbled. White Supremacy cracked at the seams.

But The Donald would rally the faithful. They’d overflow in Tulsa … then again … and again … and yet again. 

He’d mock the infirm, whistle the dog, taunt the libs, deny the virus. Waves of bloodlust would flow from his lips and rise from the grassroots. 

Mass beatings would boil the blood. Packed to the rafters, no masks to be seen, the stadia would rock to His charisma. The loyal millions would rally to Donald and his dictatorship for life.

Just the fall election stands in his way. Tulsa would surge him back toward a groundswell blitzkreig.  

But just one problem: The Donald laid a MEGA-Egg.  

He didn’t know the Anointed Day, June 19, was also Juneteenth, which he didn’t know was the sacred anniversary of the Texas liberation of his hated Others, the slaves that were freed by that other Civil War, won by the previous Republican who was almost as good a president as him, Abraham Lincoln. In an astonishing moment of shifted power, the date had to be changed.

Then protestors abandoned the arena. Wished-for mass beatings gave way to the illegal arrest of an elderly white woman in a Black Lives Matter t-shirt with a rally ticket in her pocket. It was not the Chicago ’68 image The Donald demanded. 

The alleged President of the United States, come to address an adoring citizenry, then confronted an astonishing vision. The outdoor bleachers were empty. Likewise the indoor cheap seats. Pandemic social spacing was no problem. Face masks were moot.  Everyone in the arena had room to breathe. 

Nonviolent activists know the best way to oust a dictator is with ridicule. The late-night pundits have been pouring it on.

But at Tulsa, Trump himself topped them all. Cringing through feeble laugh-lines and lame bigotry, he whined about his old-man’s crawl down a ramp at West Point, where unwilling cadets suffered a shameful rant. 

So maybe Trump has shot his wad. Four years of caustic chaos have left the US a smoldering ruin. Hitler used hate and military spending to rally a devastated Deutschland toward mass suicide, with a whiff of revived prosperity in between.

Trump turned a seemingly sound nation into a preventable Pandemic and an economic collapse unseen since Herbert Hoover, who at least was literate.

The great unknown is his lingering clout among the angry uneducated, an inscrutable mass of gun-loving evangelicals who have somehow seen The Donald as some kind of Messiah.

Abortion is his mainstay, though we all know he’d happily fund them for his corps of courtesans.

So too the Johnson Amendment, which bans partisan speech from tax-exempt churches. Trump lies that he’s abolished this law. In fact, he’s just ordered the IRS to not enforce it, sending tax-exempted Dark dollars to be laundered by the Trump cult’s Rolex priesthood, which worships him for it.

But The Donald has just goose-stepped through a peaceful gathering to pose with an upside-down Bible before a burnt-out church whose ministry hates him for it. Some evangelicals have noticed, especially among suburban white women.  

Just one thing could still save the Trump dictatorship: a stolen election. Without mass public support, it’s unlikely he can cancel this fall’s balloting. But in league with gerrymandered swing-state legislatures, he can strip the voter rolls, subvert vote-by-mail and rig the vote count.

An emergency election protection coalition is fighting to embed America’s local/state/county election boards with a well-trained volunteer network. By protecting the voter rolls, mastering the complexities of vote-by-mail, and monitoring the vote count, we just might beat the Trump Dictatorship.  

Trump’s Tulsa debacle might mean his plans for a blitzkrieg of Nuremberg rallies, like all else around him, will turn to rubble. 

And if election protectionists can produce a free and fair voting system this fall, we just might make America a democracy. Are you ready to do it?

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Completion of Harvey Wasserman’s The People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure. His radio shows are at prn.fm and KPFK-Pacifica. To join the COVID-19 Emergency Election Protection Zoom Calls, contact him via solartopia.org.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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Residents wear faces mask to protect against coronavirus and wear San Fermin's red kerchief as people march the route of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, northern Spain. Spain reopened its borders to European tourists Sunday, June 21, 2020. (photo: Alvaro Barrientos/AP)

World Just Had Its Worst Day Ever for New Coronavirus Infections, Says WHO
Joseph Wilson and Jamey Keaten, Associated Press
Excerpt: "The virus has infected over 8.8 million people worldwide and killed more than 464,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University, though the true numbers are thought to be much higher because many cases go unreported or undetected."
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Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic, has performed better in recent polling among white evangelicals and is widely perceived as more religious than President Donald Trump. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trump Allies See a Mounting Threat: Biden's Rising Evangelical Support
Gabby Orr, Politico
Excerpt: "The president's supporters worry Biden can grab a larger slice of a critical voting bloc - when Trump can least afford departures from his base."
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Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. (photo: Hennepin County Sheriff's Office)

Ramsey County Corrections Officers of Color Say They Were Barred From Guarding Derek Chauvin
Liz Sawyer, The Star Tribune
Sawyer writes: "Eight minority Ramsey County corrections officers have filed discrimination charges with the state's Department of Human Rights after they were barred from guarding or having any other contact with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last month."
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An electronic sign on Santa Monica Boulevard reminds people to wear masks to limit the spread of coronavirus, Thursday, April 16, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (photo: AP)

Researcher: Asymptomatic Coronavirus Patients Can Still Face Organ Damage
Shalina Chatlani, KPBS
Chatlani writes: "New analysis from Scripps Research has found that anywhere from 30 to 40% of people with coronavirus are asymptomatic, but that doesn't mean they aren't impacted by the disease."
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Zimbabwes Health Minister, Obadiah Moyo, centre, makes a court appearance accompanied by plain clothes policeman, at the magistrates courts in Harare, Saturday June 20, 2020. (photo: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP)

Zimbabwe's Health Minister Charged in COVID-19 Graft Case
Farai Mutsaka, Associated Press
Mutsaka writes: "Zimbabwe's health minister on Saturday was charged with criminal abuse of duty as a public officer, accused of illegally awarding a multi-million-dollar contract for COVID-19 medical supplies to a shadowy company that sold the government face masks and other materials at inflated prices."
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Cavendish bananas. (photo: Wilson Hennessy/Wired)

The 'Pandemic' Destroying the World's Favorite Fruit

Louise Gray, BBC News

Excerpt: "The banana equivalent to Covid-19 is spreading to new countries, forcing the industry to change how the world's most widely eaten fruit is farmed and even how it could taste."

Although this may sound remarkably like Covid-19, I am actually talking about Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a disease that affects bananas. Also known as Panama Disease, it is a fungus that has been rampaging through banana farms for the past 30 years. But within the last decade the epidemic has suddenly accelerated, spreading from Asia to Australia, the Middle East, Africa and more recently Latin America, where the majority of the bananas shipped to supermarkets in the global north come from. To date it is now in more than 20 countries, prompting fears of a “banana pandemic” and shortages of the world’s favourite fruit.

Scientists around the world are working against the clock to try to find a solution, including creating genetically modified (GM) bananas and a vaccine. But just like Covid-19, the question is not only if we can find a cure, but also how do we live with a “new normal” that will change bananas forever?

The first place to look for clues is the origin of the modern banana that we all recognise. Its history shows just what happens if this disease is ignored.

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