Monday, August 19, 2019 Independent journalism has the power to spark real change -- but only with your help.
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No One in Jail "Gets Better" on Suicide Watch Alan Mills, Truthout I know nothing about Jeffrey Epstein's death, but as an attorney in a civil rights case against Illinois prisons, I have learned that suicides are far more common among people in prisons and jails than those outside of them. This is not surprising, as the purpose of incarceration is to create the very conditions that lead many to commit suicide: social isolation, loss of a sense of agency and helplessness.
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China Did Not Trick the U.S. -- Trade Negotiators Served Corporate Interests Dean Baker, Truthout The media never seem to question Trump's narrative that the large trade deficit with China is a result of its outsmarting the U.S. in negotiations or at best, an accidental result of past deals. In fact, the trade deals were set up to serve the interests of large U.S. corporations at the expense of their workers. Trade creates winners and losers not among countries but within countries.
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Facing Federal Charges for Aiding Migrants, Activist Says He Won't Be Deterred Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Scott Warren, a long-time volunteer with the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, was charged with three felony counts for his alleged crime of providing food, water and shelter to migrants in Ajo, Arizona. The recent trial took eight days, and after hours of deliberation, the jury returned without a verdict. Warren now faces a retrial in November.
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U.S. and EU Accept Dire Consequences for Refugees to Keep Them Out Reva Dhingra, Truthout About 80 percent of the world's refugees are located in developing countries which are often ill-equipped to deal with the pressures of additional populations without international help. Yet increasingly, Western donors are making assistance to refugee-hosting countries explicitly contingent on increased border enforcement that would halt the onward movement of migrants and refugees rather than upholding their basic human rights.
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Trump Claims He's Mulling a Deal to Buy Greenland, Even Though It's Not for Sale Shira Tarlo, Salon Likening the idea to a "large real estate deal," President Trump claimed on Sunday that he is considering purchasing Greenland. The proposed acquisition, first reported last Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, was greeted with a chorus of surprise and confusion. Officials in Greenland have said in recent days that the island is not on the market.
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U.S. Is Obstructing Treaty to Ban "Killer Robots" Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams Human rights advocates renewed their call for a preemptive ban on so-called "killer robots" on Monday as they accused the United States of being among a small number of countries working to halt progress on an international treaty to address the numerous concerns the weapons raise.
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Red States Cut Worker Pay by $1.5 Billion Negin Owliaei, OtherWords A new report finds that 25 U.S. states specifically preempt local minimum wages. Nearly 346,000 workers have been affected by preempted minimum wages in 12 cities and counties. Those workers are losing $4,100 each on average -- nearly $1.5 billion a year in total. Fortunately, the report also finds that the tides may be turning.
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Huge Wildfires in the Arctic and Far North Send a Planetary Warning Nancy Fresco, The Conversation This summer, over 600 wildfires have consumed more than 2.4 million acres of forest across Alaska. Fires are also raging in northern Canada. In Siberia, smoke from 13 million acres -- an area nearly the size of West Virginia -- is blanketing towns and cities. Studies at the University of Alaska's International Arctic Research Center show that the intensity of these fires is abnormal.
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We Are Already Living on an Orwellian Planet Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch Since Trump's election, Americans have been plunged into their own bizarre version of Orwell's 1984. Except in this version, The Donald might be thought of as Big Brother flipped, where instead of him watching us every moment of the day and night, it's we who are watching him in an unprecedented way.
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In Case You Missed It
We Can't Confront Climate Change While Lavishly Funding the Pentagon JP Sottile, Truthout Climate change is very much a by-product of the petroleum-based economy that has dominated the world since World War II, underwritten by the full faith and credit of the U.S. military. Any attempt to confront climate change must first begin with defunding the global protection racket run on behalf of oil companies by the Pentagon, which has itself become the world's largest consumer of oil and greenhouse gas producer.
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The Phrase "Go Back Where You Came From" Has a Long, Violent History Michael J. Viola, Truthout The huge influx of Filipino immigrants to the U.S. West Coast in the early part of the 20th century was the result of a labor shortage brought on by racial exclusion policies against other immigrant groups. Carlos Bulosan's re-released America Is in the Heart shows how Filipino migrants' labor and social movements helped transform their exploitation and racial oppression, and provides historical context to our current anti-migrant political climate.
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