Fossil Fuels' Double Whammy to Taxpayers: Subsidies Are Dwarfed by Health Costs

Health campaigners say the energy policies of the world’s richest countries are inflicting a double burden on their citizens, not only using their taxes to pay fossil fuel subsidies, but also loading huge health costs on them.

The work of the Health and Environment Alliance, HEAL, the report says that although fossil fuel combustion causes deadly air pollution and climate change, virtually all governments spend vast sums of public money – their citizens’ taxes – on supporting the oil, gas and coal industry in fossil fuel energy production.

How Putin used propaganda to deftly turn Russians against Ukrainians

Vladimir Putin’s decade-long media campaign turned Russians against Ukrainians and Ukraine itself before he annexed Crimea in 2014.

In my book Putin’s War Against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime, I explore how Putin successfully fanned the flames of ethnic Russian nationalism, turning Russians against both the Ukrainian state and people.

While Trump and ‘Mooch’ were creating diversions — lawmakers heard explosive testimony in Russia probe

One of the most important congressional hearings yet in the Trump-Russia probe took place Wednesday, in the midst of one of President Donald Trump’s most chaotic weeks yet.

Bill Browder — once the biggest portfolio investor in Russia but now a leading critic of Vladimir Putin — told the Senate Judiciary Committee how the Russian president needs to lift U.S. sanctions to deliver what he promised to corrupt oligarchs who support his rule, reported Huffington Post.

The Message That Putin’s Expulsion of U.S. Diplomats Sends to Trump

Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Sunday that he would require a dramatic reduction in the U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia is a personal message to Donald Trump—at once a last-ditch effort to gain some conciliations from a U.S. President who had promised them and an indication of how, despite early hopes in Moscow, Putin and those around him are gearing up for a more familiar, confrontational pose with Washington. The Kremlin’s thinking appears to be that if the United States is so intent on demonizing it, then, fine, let it have its Cold War—and anyway, mutual antagonism has come to be a comfortable, even habitual mode for the Putin state.

A Federal Judge Just Found Joe Arpaio Guilty of Criminal Contempt

Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who made a name for himself with his extreme anti-immigration policies and his notorious Tent City jail, has been found guilty of criminal contempt.

Arpaio, who served as sheriff of Maricopa Country for 24 years, was charged by the Justice Department last October with defying a judge’s order to stop targeting immigrants for traffic stops.

He was voted out of office the following month.

Sentencing is scheduled for October 5. Arpaio, 84, faces up to six months in jail.

Original Article
Source: motherjones.com
Author:  Ben Dreyfuss

6 Things We’re Likely To Lose Thanks To Brexit

Japan’s biggest bank has apparently chosen Amsterdam as the location of its EU headquarters, potentially costing hundreds of jobs in London, as the fallout from Brexit begins to swell.

Sources told the Financial Times that Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group had chosen the Dutch capital to maintain its ‘passporting’ rights - the ability to sell financial products across EU borders.

TransCanada Admits Keystone XL Pipeline May Never Happen

After nine years of political rhetoric, protests and lobbying, TransCanada's fight to build the Keystone XL pipeline seemed to end in victory for the company in January, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving the project.

But fast forward half a year, and the controversial project to bring Canadian oilsands product to the U.S. Gulf Coast is no closer to reality. In an earnings call last week, the company's brass — while remaining optimistic — pretty much admitted the project may never happen.

What will be the ramifications of Putin's order to reduce US embassy staff?

When it comes to diplomatic expulsions, Vladimir Putin likes to pull a surprise.

When the outgoing Barack Obama administration kicked out 35 Russian diplomats in December, the Russian president was widely expected to make a symmetrical response, but surprised everyone by doing nothing at all – apparently in the hope that relations would become rosier when Donald Trump took office.

Vladimir Putin to America: You've Let Me Down

Sunday night, Vladimir Putin went on national television and explained his decision to slice American diplomatic staff in Russia by two-thirds. He was retaliating for Barack Obama’s December expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, as well as newly passed congressional sanctions, by kicking out 755 American diplomatic staff—a response over 20 times stronger than Obama’s original retaliation for Russian election meddling. But Putin sounded calm and humble, like a disappointed parent who has no choice left but to send a recalcitrant child to military school. “We were waiting for a long time, thinking that maybe something will change for the better; we kept hope alive that the situation will change,” Putin said. “But judging by everything that’s happened, if something’s going to change, it won’t be soon.”

Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Isn’t Over

Bernie Sanders’s Presidential race ended a year ago, but his campaign never did. Since the election, he has staged events in Michigan, Mississippi, Maine, West Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Montana, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, and Illinois. At every one, he speaks about the suffering of small-town Americans, and his belief that the Democrats can help them. When I caught up with him recently, his shirt was a little untucked, his head hung down, and he carried a printed copy of his remarks. Sanders was catching a late-night flight to Chicago, and was taking a moment to record a message for Snapchat. The central illusion of a Presidential campaign is that a candidate can, through constant motion and boundless energy, meet countless people and, in the end, give voice to the experience of the country. After the election, Sanders seemed to adopt the illusion as an ethos.

Successful African American community is under investigation by Republicans

Examining the decline in violence, cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author Steven Pinker concludes in The Better Angels of Our Nature:

    “Across time and space, the more peaceable societies also tend to be richer, healthier, better educated, better governed, more respectful of their women, and more likely to engage in trade.”

Russia is retaliating against new US sanctions in a big way

Russia will force the US diplomatic mission in the country to eliminate hundreds of people from its workforce by September 1, President Vladimir Putin told state TV in an interview that aired on Sunday.

"More than 1,000 workers — diplomats and support staff — were working and are still working in Russia; 755 must stop their activity in the Russian Federation," Putin said, per Reuters. This does not mean, as early news reports suggested, that 755 US diplomats will be expelled from the country entirely — but it is a serious cut to America’s diplomatic presence in Russia.

Landowners challenge pipeline developer, saying taking property is unconstitutional

Virginia and West Virginia residents opposed to the Mountain Valley Pipeline asked a court in Roanoke, Virginia, to block federal regulators from allowing the pipeline’s developers to confiscate private property to build the 303-mile natural gas pipeline.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the residents challenge the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to allow a private company like Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, to confiscate property through eminent domain to build such a project. The residents also are seeking a preliminary injunction so that — even if the FERC grants the company final permission to build the pipeline — the company would not be allowed to use eminent domain until this suit is decided.

Simply Drinking Water Shouldn’t Be This Dangerous

Health officials in a major American city downplayed dangers of lead contamination in water even as officials connected to the Flint, Michigan, crisis faced a criminal investigation, according to a report obtained by the Guardian.

Residents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were given “misleading” statements by health officials who “deflected” attention from lead-contaminated water, according to the audit.

When bat-shit crazy is an understatement

O.J. Simpson recently told the parole hearing that released him after nine years in prison that he had led a “conflict-free” life.

After hearing that from a man convicted of causing wrongful death, kidnapping and armed robbery — and who entered a no-contest plea on a case of wife-beating that sent Nicole Simpson to hospital (the eighth time the cops had answered a 911 call from the doomed woman) — I thought narcissistic bullshit couldn’t find a higher gear.

I was wrong.

Donald Trump subsequently claimed that he was the second most “presidential” person to occupy the White House … after Abraham Lincoln.

Dems pivot to offering ObamaCare improvements

House Democrats are poised to advance a flood of proposals designed to address the problems dogging President Obama's signature healthcare law — a move that puts pressure on Republican and Democratic leaders alike.

The strategy marks a pivot for the Democrats, as party leaders have throughout the year discouraged members from offering improvements to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), fearing they would highlight problems with the law and divert attention from the Republicans’ months-long struggle to repeal and replace it.

Putin: US must cut diplomatic staff in Russia by 755

President Vladimir Putin said the United States would have to cut its diplomatic staff in Russia by 755 people and that Russia could consider imposing additional measures against the US as a response to new sanctions approved by Congress.

Moscow ordered the US on Friday to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two US diplomatic properties after the House of Representatives and the Senate approved new sanctions on Russia. The White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump would sign the sanctions bill.

Watch: Hackers Demonstrate How to Crack Into Electronic Voting Machines in Minutes

Who says America's electronic voting machinery cannot be hacked?

One of the world's largest and best-known hacker conventions, DEF CON, debuted an interactive "Voting Machine Hacker Village" this year at its annual gathering in Las Vegas. In some cases within minutes, and in other cases within a few hours, of the village doors' opening, hackers in attendance said they had successfully breached some systems. The security investigators claimed to have found major vulnerabilities or claimed to have breached every voting machine and system present.

New Film Shows the Brutality of Duterte’s Murderous Drug War in the Philippines

President Donald Trump attracted bipartisan criticism in April for enthusiastically endorsing one of the world’s most brazen human rights catastrophes: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s murderous anti-drug campaign. Since Duterte took office last June, police and vigilante death squads have killed more than 7,000 people, and devastated poor communities in cities across the country.

Will Wisconsin Get Foxconned?

President Trump, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and House Speaker Paul Ryan got a big political boost from the news that the Foxconn corporation is promising to bring thousands of  jobs to Wisconsin in a new factory for flat-panel display screens.

But caution is in order, as the Taiwan-based electronics giant is one of the world’s most brutal employers, notorious for driving workers to suicide.

Why American Democracy Is Broken, and How to Fix It

Under President Barack Obama, Americans saw how divided government leads to crisis-wracked governance, with the Republican Congress roadblocking presidential appointments (particularly in the courts) and playing a game of chicken with the debt ceiling that risked sending the country into default. Now, under President Donald Trump, Americans are seeing that unitary government also leads to crisis-wracked governance, with the Republican Congress unable to coalesce around an agenda.

These Days, All Roads Lead To Beijing

When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, at the beginning of September 2013, few thought it was anything but another ordinary visit. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, had been to the Kazakh capital several times and usually talked about how he welcomed good relations with one of China’s neighbors to the west. But when Xi began his speech, it was obvious that something new was afoot. The Chinese president was offering more than the usual banal platitudes. He was talking about the future, and he was talking about a plan.

Christy Clark, Former Premier, To Resign As B.C. Liberal Leader

VANCOUVER — Christy Clark, a gifted political campaigner with an ever-present smile, announced her resignation Friday as leader of British Columbia's Liberal party, one month after her government was tossed from power in a dramatic confidence vote.

Her resignation is effective Aug. 4, the former premier said in a statement. She is also leaving as a member of the legislature serving the riding of Kelowna-West.

Here's How The Government Could Have Stopped Sears Canada Employees From Getting Fucked Over

When a big company like Sears Canada goes through tough times, public sympathy is usually with the workers who are losing their benefits, pensions, or severance. But the way the law is currently written means that, for the most part, people with deeper pockets get paid before employees do.

"What we have essentially is a regime that creates a priority of claims in any insolvency situation for who gets paid out," Mark Rowlinson, a labour lawyer and policy researcher at the United Steelworkers union, told BuzzFeed Canada.

Obamacare Saved This Woman’s Life—and Her Farm

Not many people have jobs that are as physically demanding as Tina Hinchley’s. With her husband and four children, Hinchley, 51, milks 130 cows twice a day and works the corn and soybean fields on her family’s 2,500-acre farm in southeastern Wisconsin. To keep things running smoothly, Hinchley says the whole family needs to be healthy and strong. But like everyone else, sometimes farmers get sick.