IMPORTANT READS

CLIMATE WATCH-Climate scientists on Friday were stunned by the intensity of flooding in Germany and Belgium that killed at least 120 people and damaged tens of thousands of homes, with experts saying they did not expect such extreme weather to result from the human-caused climate crisis as rapidly as it has.

DACA WATCH-Immigrant rights advocates on Friday called for the immediate codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into law after a federal judge in Texas blocked new DACA permit approvals in a ruling asserting that former President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he implemented the policy that has protected hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers from deportation.

MIGRATION ECONOMICS-Earlier this month, a Honduran court found David Castillo, a U.S.-trained former Army intelligence officer and the head of an internationally financed hydroelectric company, guilty of the 2016 murder of celebrated Indigenous activist Berta Cáceres.

WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS-Over the last week, I have been watching the Taliban sweep across the map of northern Afghanistan, capturing places that I first visited in 2001 at the beginning of the US-backed war.

COMMENTARY-Imagine a nation so reactionary and racist that “Black Lives Matter” is considered a “radical slogan” inside its borders.

AFGHAN WITHDRAWAL--A Taliban judge is promising that Sharia law will be reinstated in Afghanistan after coalition forces have left the country and the brutal Islamic force regains power.

IMMIGRATION POLITICS-Last month, attorneys from the Department of Justice joined with counsel for the private prison corporation, the GEO Group, to present Oral Arguments supporting private immigration detention in California. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-The attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom has many geographic roots. Its original proponent was a sheriff’s deputy from Yolo County.

EASTSIDER-By all accounts, this was a really bad (as in ill-conceived and poorly executed) war, and yet we have been there for 20 years without “winning” anything.

COVID WORLD UPDATE-Underscoring the desperate need to dramatically increase access to coronavirus vaccines on a global scale, Africa just saw its worst pandemic week yet and conditions across the continent are only expected to get worse in the weeks ahead.

MILITARY WATCH-An end to war? It’s certainly necessary, but is it politically possible?

VIEW FROM HERE-Wokerism has not been around long, at least not by that name. It refers to the Left wing anti-white racist ideology that all things white are evil and all things minority are good.

CLIMATE POLITICS-Facing Future TV founder and executive producer Stuart Scott and co-host Dale Walkonen recently broadcast a wide-ranging interview with Noam Chomsky about the state of human existence in the face of universal decadence.

LABOR WATCH-The COVID-19 pandemic has left pain and tragedy in its wake.

LABOR TRAFFICKING-In June of 2018, two Monterey County site inspectors visited a Salinas cannabis farm, where they encountered a small group of farmworkers who they suspected had been trafficked.

POLITICAL ANALYSIS-Donald Trump will go down in history as the president responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans due to the criminal negligence in his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and for pushing the world closer to a precipice with his denialism of our climate crisis;

RACIAL RECKONINGS-On June 30, the New York Times published an article, Target Store Closings Show Limits of Pledge to Black Communities, about Target closing 13 stores and divesting in some Black communities.

TOM DISPATCH-America has an accountability problem. In fact, if the Covid-19 disaster, the January 6th Capitol attack, and the Trump years are any indication, the American lexicon has essentially dispensed with the term “accountability.”

TAKING THE HELM-President Joe Biden announced that he is appointing Chantele Wong to be the ambassador-level position of U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank, a financial institution that works on the government level with over 60 member countries to provide fiscal services.  

RACIAL RECKONINGS-When in the course of human events it comes time to mark the birth of this grand but deeply imperfect nation, damn but the zealots and squawkers emerge from the musty woodwork to proclaim their unholy certainties.

WORLD WATCH-President Biden may well succeed in forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace by restating in the strongest terms that a two-state solution remains the only viable option and works to create the conditions on the ground to that end.