Timothy Lange
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energy, abortion laws, environment, guns
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This account is inactive. You can find me at meteorblades.bsky.social
#Landback! Restore Native sovereignty over the Black Hills.
Articles by Timothy Lange
Israeli newspaper Haaretz: 'Netanyahu Isn't Above the Law, It's Time Judges Stop Stalling His Trial'
I’m going to post this editorial board opinion from Israel’s left-leaning newspaper Haaretz without any of my own commentary: Without a shred of shame, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again asked the Jerusalem District Court to postpone for at least two weeks his testimony in his corruption trial. In a letter to the judges, the prime minister's lawyer claimed that "classified security and political reasons" related to the war justified the request.
Trump's Iran war adds to decay of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, making world less safe
“Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. — Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968 At the end of 1946, the year I was born — as was Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump — the United States had nine atomic bombs.
U.N.'s WMO says in its latest State of the Global Climate Report that our situation really sucks
There’s a temptation even still to talk about climate change as if it were a gradual warming — a slow fever rising degree by degree, a long emergency unfolding in disruptive, but manageable increments. During the 1990s and early 2000s, that was perhaps a reasonable perspective.
CBS meteorologist on 'What's making this heat wave so extraordinary?' Not one word on climate change
Backed up with fancy graphics and 20 years in the TV weather business, Darren Beck, a meteorologist for the San Francisco Bay Area’s CBS News, gave us a detailed 9 ½-minute discussion Monday on the record-busting temperatures this week along with bad news on the snowpack in the California Sierras. He didn’t mention climate change. Or hint at it. As we all know, weather isn’t climate.
As Iran war spreads, ICE rampages, jobs plunge, and Epstein files hide, climate crisis doesn't pause
As has been true every day for the totality of Trump 2.0, we’re victims of a political lahar, a seemingly unstoppable deluge of the regime’s actions and inactions carving holes in the economy and whatever remains of the Constitution. Even more than usual has been going on since last Friday to catch everyone’s attention.
Bogus claims of 'imminent' threat from Iran don't make Trump's war of choice legal or moral or smart
Besides spending time staring out the window of the gilded Oval Office at his nonexistent big, beautiful ballroom, our Outlaw Prez has repeated a half-dozen “reasons” he launched a war on Iran — which the White House avoids calling a war. A key claim is his assertion about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear intentions. To wit: "If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would've had a nuclear weapon.
Like all of us, Sen. Fetterman has the right to his own opinions, but not his own 'facts'
For his full-throated support of the Iran operation, the one-time maverick politician John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has roused considerable ire among many Democrats. Fetterman has said he is baffled by the objections several congressional Democrats have raised against the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that have killed Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamanei and 47 other top leaders of the dictatorial Iran regime.
It's time for the Harper's Index again. And some testimony about patriotism from Paul Robeson
The Harper’s Index was the creation of Harper’s magazine’s then-editor Lewis Lapham in 1984, and it has appeared in every issue of the magazine ever since. It has also been quoted countless times in other media. Here is some background on the index. This year marks my 50th as a subscriber. Harper’s monthly collection of essays, fiction, humor, poetry, book reviews, and deep reporting can be had for a yearly subscription that only costs as much as a jumbo pizza.
Reuters and other media are reporting that Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike Saturday as part of a massive joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel, Israel's ambassador to Washington told U.S. officials. Why it matters: The 86-year-old Khamenei led Iran for 35 years, making him one of the world's longest-serving authoritarian rulers. His death is a massive blow to the regime and could accelerate its collapse, which U.S. and Israeli officials have stated as a goal of their operation.
Israel has struck Iran. Prelude to U.S. strike?
News outlets, including the AP, are reporting Israel launched a daylight strike on Iran’s capital Saturday. It happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 86-year-old Khamenei had was there a t the time. For days, he hasn’t been seen publicly in days as tensions with the United States have grown.
Israel/U.S. strike Iran in what Trump calls 'major combat operations.' Iran strikes back widely
Note: The original headline has been UPDATED to reflect new information. This is a gift article from The New York Times: Live Updates: Trump Announces ‘Major Combat Operations’ in Iran In his taped remarks, President Trump urged the Iranian people to “take over your government” once the military action is completed. “This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he said. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it.
If Trump goes all in against Iran, it would fulfill the neoconservatives' fondest dream
War with Iran is not inevitable. But the fog of war always is. And it doesn’t begin when a war does; it precedes it. We are neck deep now in prewar fog. That is, we’re afflicted even more than usual by the unreliability of some informants, the stepped-up deception of officialdom, the secrecy and censorship of the involved parties, the inadequacies and ideologies of major media, and a plethora of murky conspiracy theories.
Cabal of Trump toadies see victory in tomorrow's EPA announcement ending greenhouse gas regulation
With allies embedded at the highest levels of the Trump regime, a small, disciplined cadre of conservative ideologues stands close to what one calls “total victory” in demolishing federal climate initiatives.
It's not a question of who among the powerful knew about Epstein's filthy deeds, but who didn't
When Jeffrey Epstein turned up dead in his cell, you could almost feel the exhales of relief from a whole batch of rich, powerful people. Entitled people. People who think the rules are made for everybody but them. People whose economic and political clout typically shields them from any serious reckoning. People who had good reason to want to keep secret their sleazy, chummy association with the human trafficking child-raper.
Study: U.S. and other nations' aid cuts could mean 9.4 million to 22 million extra deaths by 2030
In a study published this week, The Lancet Global Health estimates that cuts to official development assistance could result in millions of avoidable deaths by 2030, many of them young children, many of them in places where mortality had been falling steadily for years. Under a scenario of “mild defunding,” consistent with current donor-country trends, the study projects 9.4 million excess deaths, including 2.5 million among children under age 5.
Israeli military says Hamas-run health ministry's tally of nearly 72,000 Gaza war dead is correct
The war in Gaza unfolded amid an incessant argument complete with name-calling over how many Palestinians Israel was killing in its retaliation for the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023 — specifically about whether the figures could be trusted and who was allowed to cite them without reputational punishment. Last week, the argument collapsed when a senior Israeli military spokesman addressed the press on the matter.
In a pickup truck, Trump regime hauls off exhibits to erase documentation of enslaved people
In the shadow of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and just steps from where the Declaration of Independence was secretly debated 250 years earlier, workers from the National Park Service used wrenches and crowbars last Thursday morning to dismantle history.
Remember that guy who promised us an unprecedented American manufacturing renaissance. Well ...
Every week, Dan McCarthy at Canary Media provides us with a new chart. This week it’s about our Outlaw Prez’s promises of huge gains in manufacturing, which he asserted would be advanced by his big beautiful tariffs. Instead, his efforts are helping to kill cleantech projects: Clean energy manufacturing was on the upswing in the U.S. Then the first year of Trump 2.0 happened.
Another court scuttles wind farm ban, as Trump loses some, wins some in war on renewables
There’s no way to create a complete listing of the litany of damage Trump and the Project 2025 chaos agents have delivered to our flawed republic in so short a time. That’s because every day there’s something new. The man’s erratic and fickle behavior colors just about any subject imaginable while he is motivated by vendetta, grifts, and obsessions.
100 House Dems have signed up to impeach Kristi Noem. You can help get the other 113 aboard
Let’s face it, our Outlaw Prez, Veep, and half to three-quarters of the cabinet should be impeached, removed from office, and in some cases criminally prosecuted. Safe to say, over the centuries some major malefactors deserving of impeachment have served in those high offices without articles ever being filed. Most of attention right now focuses on Donald Trump himself, who has already been impeached twice by the House of Representatives without a conviction in the Senate.
And now for a moment of serious levity as the Marsh Family sings their 'Piece of Denmark' parody
Seizing territory at gunpoint in the 21st Century is no joke. The U.S. did quite a lot of that since the Declaration was signed 250 years ago, putting the lie to the “exceptional country” claim. Snatching autonomous Greenland from its own people and from Denmark appears to be mighty unpopular worldwide except maybe for Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin who would view the implosion of NATO with glee.
Carbon Brief just updated our climate status with more facts. But facts don't convince the stubborn
It’s been 170 years since Eunice Newton Foote showed that carbon dioxide traps the heat of the sun. It’s been 130 years since Svante Arrhenius first calculated that rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were capable of greatly warming the surface of the planet. It’s been nearly 90 years since engineer Guy Stewart Callendar, using data from scattered measurements over the previous half-century, calculated that CO emissions had already warmed the Earth.
The oceans are burning quietly while the arsonists continue to say no big deal
Even as scientific knowledge advances and sharpens, one conclusion has remained steady: the largest unknown in the climate system is human behavior. The future still depends on whether societies reduce emissions, prepare for unavoidable impacts, and act together. If they do, a livable climate — one that can sustain both human communities and ecosystems — remains within reach. Meanwhile, however, the perils keep staring us in the face and the response is … inadequate.
One bright spot of depraved violence: ICE is making an airtight case for abolishing itself
The Los Angeles Times reports that a 21-year-old protester had their skull fractured and was permanently blinded in one eye after a Homeland Security agent fired what law enforcement calls a nonlethal round, although “less lethal” is a more accurate description: Jeri Rees said her 21-year-old nephew underwent six hours of surgery and that doctors found shards of plastic, glass and metal embedded in his eyes and around his face, including a metal piece lodged 7 mm from a carotid artery.
Trump drops 66 int'l groups, including the 8-decade-old one protecting endangered species
If our Outlaw Prez was told that injecting pulverized elephant trunks would speed up the extraction of coal, oil, and gas, he’d subsidize poachers to kill every pachyderm in Asia and Africa. Elephants are perhaps the most iconic of the world’s 16,000 species the International Union for Conservation and Nature has listed as “endangered” or “critically endangered.“ Of those, 1,300 live in the United States.
Trump drops 66 int'l groups, including the 8-decade-old one protecting endangered species
If our Outlaw Prez was told that injecting pulverized elephant trunks would speed up the extraction of coal, oil, and gas, he’d subsidize poachers to kill every pachyderm in Asia and Africa. Elephants are perhaps the most iconic of the world’s 16,000 species the International Union for Conservation and Nature has listed as “endangered” or “critically endangered.“ Of those, 1,300 live in the United States.
Carving of 'spheres of influence.' The 'Donroe Doctrine' presages a path to global instability
Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social Just hours after U.S. forces extraordinarily renditioned Nicolás Maduro, our Outlaw Prez declared the 1823 Monroe Doctrine had been “superseded” by what he giddily named the Donroe Doctrine. It was vintage Trump — boastful, glib, historically illiterate, and determined to have his legacy remembered by plastering his name on everything.
Arctic Report Card 2025 tells us for the 20th time what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay there
In the summer of 2001, Ben Saunders, then just 23 years old, tried together with a friend to reach the North Pole. It was rough going over the ice, and they eventually turned back. But in 2003, Saunders made it to the Pole on his own. And in the spring of 2004, the freelance adventurer attempted a solo trip across the Pole from Cape Artichevsky in Siberia to Canada. Seventy-two days after starting out, he had to be rescued about 30 miles from Canada because open water blocked his way.
Trump & Rubio hint Colombia, Cuba, and ... Mexico could be next on the U.S. intervention list
Numerous commentaries have already covered a lot of ground regarding the Venezuela attack and abduction, so I’m just going to stick to excerpting two important pieces on the subject. From Jake Johnson at Common Dreams: During a Saturday press conference, Trump openly invoked the Monroe Doctrine—an assertion of US dominance of the Western Hemisphere—and said his campaign of aggression against Venezuela represented the “Donroe Doctrine” in action.
No thanks to you-know-who, millions get raises tomorrow as minimum wages go up in 19 states
Let’s start with a caveat from Sebastian Martinez Hickey’s Economic Policy Institute write-up about the minimum wage increases coming January 1: Rising costs of living throughout the country will require policymakers to target minimum wages at higher levels than have been typical in recent years. When striking fast food workers in New York City sparked the Fight for $15 movement in 2012, the buying power of a $15 minimum wage was substantially higher than it is today.
Santa has arrived sans reindeer with some excerpts from the January Harper's Index
Last Christmas Eve, I resurrected the Open Thread for Night Owls, a DK daily feature that I produced from 2004-2021. Over two decades, the Night Owls thread typically included my own writing or, more commonly, an excerpt from something written at a news outlet, blog, or magazine to spur end-of-the-day conversations that might not have made it into other DK posts. Sometimes something heavy, sometimes not.
'Peacemaker' Trump verges on Venezuela war in push to oust Maduro and take supposedly stolen oil
Maduro first won office in a narrow, disputed election following the death of Chávez — who had become prominent from being involved in a failed coup in 1992. Maduro consolidated power through a combination of loyalist courts, a pliant electoral authority and elections widely criticized by various international entities, including the Organization of American States and the European Union, for lacking basic guarantees of fairness, media access, and opposition participation.
Starvation by design: How U.S. aid cuts have become death sentences in Kenya and beyond
In Kakuma, a refugee camp in northwest Kenya, hunger is an acute crisis measured in empty bowls, collapsing bodies, and children who die not from war or disease, but from the deliberate withdrawal of food. This catastrophe did not emerge from drought alone. As a journalistic investigation documents in painstaking detail, the Trump regime engineered it.
Earth Matters: Trump regime wants to ensure Native tribes can never again block an energy project
From Farmington to Red Lake, from Kayenta to Teec Nos Pas, the Navajo Nation is packed with places of astounding beauty. At dawn on Black Mesa, the light reveals every contour of land and memory alike. First the dry wash. Then the old fence lines, half-bent and half-buried. Then the silhouettes of sheep and the quiet movement of people whose ancestral families have lived there since long before the United States had a name. I spent much time there in the distant past.
Brimful of other defects, Trump regime's National Security Strategy disses climate action
“We reject the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.” —U.S. National Security Strategy, 2025, p. 14. The National Security Strategy began in 1991 as a requirement of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act — a mandate that every president annually explain to Congress how the nation understands its threats, the tools to meet them, and the principles guiding its power.
Are We Really Going to Have to Tolerate Three More Years of This Gold-Plated Narcissism?
Including fake Time magazine covers, claims he got a Michigan Man-of-the-Year award that he didn’t, publicly expressing a desire to give himself a Medal of Honor, and trawling for a sculpture of himself on Mount Rushmore, Donald Trump’s self-conferred glory would get a “tone it down” from Napoleon, who literally crowned himself emperor. Snatching the FIFA World Cup from the winning team last summer would have been a stunning achievement pinnacle for the average self-unaware doofus.
Earth Matters: Fuel economy retreat feeds Trump's energy bonfire; plus a Stewart & Kolbert convo
Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled its plan Wednesday to slash Biden-era fuel-economy standards for passenger cars from 50.4 miles per gallon to just 34.5 mpg by 2031. If finalized, it will mark the second time Donald Trump has sabotaged the effort to reduce vehicle inefficiency and pollution. He and his gang might as well be slashing tires.
Truth about killing survivors of alleged drug boat could be obtained with answers to two questions
Since The Washington Post’s Nov. 28 report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second missile strike to kill survivors of an alleged drug-smuggling boat coming out of Venezuela, there’s been plenty of coverage throughout the legacy media and social media platforms, including here. So I’m going to keep this short without repeating all the ins and outs and motives behind what the U.S. is doing in the Caribbean.
The Grift: Who Knew 'Draining the Swamp' Meant Pumping It Full of Crypto? $11.6 bn flows to Trump
Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social In a devastating new report —Trump, Crypto, and a New Age of Corruption — the House Judiciary Committee staff paints a portrait of a presidency transformed into a personal bank for the Donald Trump family.
Agrivoltaics hold promise, but without a just transition, they could worsen ownership concentration
In a world afire in climate crisis and simultaneously hungry for food and energy, agrivoltaics—the pairing of solar panels with farming and ranching — has been hailed as a miracle solution. But this encouraging technological fix is also a political battleground over land, labor, and power. Proponents of agrivoltaics — sometimes called agriphotovoltaics — often present this as a “win-win”: fields that feed people and generate clean electricity.
Climate activist: COP30 summit the 'deadliest talk show ever' as fossil fuels get another pass
Steven Victor, Palau’s environment minister, warned delegates: “We are dangerously close to a 1.5°C global warming overshoot … Unless we choose the path of course correction right here and now, leaders are dooming our world to disaster.” At the core of this summit was the same conflict as at past ones: The world cannot afford to keep burning oil, coal, and gas.
Earth Matters: Killing 80% of wetland protection; Beijing makes bank in Belém while U.S. stays home
Wetlands and old-growth forests stabilize carbon, sustain indigenous subsistence, buffer storms. Their destruction disproportionately burdens Indigenous peoples, rural communities, poor people and people of color who live in the “extractive zones” of this nation. Our anti-environment overlords are proposing to weaken wetland protections. The Trump regime has escalated its assault on the environment with yet another potentially devastating move.
Trump regime keeps up its dystopian jackassery with plans to undermine the Endangered Species Act
The Trump regime on Wednesday released a sweeping package of proposed rules to dilute the Endangered Species Act by weakening habitat protections, narrowing the designation of “critical habitat,” and crippling federal agencies’ capacity to take climate change into account in species listing decisions. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is a covenant: a promise to protect the wild, the vulnerable, the rare.
Trump regime's USAID cuts have unleashed a savage health crisis and soaring death toll across Africa
When a government chooses austerity over humanity, the blood price is typically paid by people with no vote in the matter. In his first days of office, Donald Trump unleashed Elon Musk’s attack DOGE to demolish the United States Agency for International Development and eliminate most of its funding. For reference, USAID’s spending in fiscal 2024 was 0.3% of the federal budget.
Trump regime's USAID cuts have unleashed a savage health crisis and soaring death toll across Africa
Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social When a government chooses austerity over humanity, the blood price is typically paid by people with no vote in the matter. In his first days of office, Donald Trump unleashed Elon Musk’s attack DOGE to demolish the United States Agency for International Development and eliminate most of its funding. For reference, USAID’s spending in fiscal 2024 was 0.3% of the federal budget.
Sen. Whitehouse Goes Solo to Climate Summit - and Says Trump’s State Dep't. Tried to Lock Him Out
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, one of the Senate’s loudest and most consistent voices on the climate crisis, landed in Belém, Brazil, this week as the lone, official federal U.S. presence at the COP30 climate summit, which began Monday. And he had to fight to make it happen. Not by choice. Not by bureaucratic screw-up. Not because of the government shutdown.
Int'l Energy Agency alters forecast: If we stick to the current climate trajectory we're gonna fry
The world is on track for 2.6 °C of heating. That headline should terrify everybody the way it terrifies climate scientists. The latest comes from media coverage of the International Energy Agency’s 519-page World Energy Outlook 2025 report released Wednesday. The IEA also notes that the ongoing green transition — which has been an encouraging counterpoint to climate pessimism — is slowing down, thanks in large part to the Trump regime’s outright war on renewables.
Int'l Energy Agency alters forecast: If we stick to the current climate trajectory we're gonna fry
The world is on track for 2.6 °C of heating. That headline should terrify everybody the way it terrifies climate scientists. The latest comes from media coverage of the International Energy Agency’s 519-page World Energy Outlook 2025 report released Wednesday. The IEA also notes that the ongoing green transition — which has been an encouraging counterpoint to climate pessimism — is slowing down, thanks in large part to the Trump regime’s outright war on renewables.
The gov't has underfunded its Native obligations for decades. The Trump regime is making this worse
Some progress has come through negotiations that are returning small portions of ancestral land with co-stewardship of other public lands being undertaken, changes that most Native activists previously considered impossible. Wide-ranging activism among young Natives has also been rising — a very welcome sign. Under Obama and President Joe Biden, Natives at least had the impression we are being listened to. But all is not well.
Brazil vows climate 'conference of action,' but serious action requires smashing fossil-fuel's clout
At COP30, Brazil promises a “conference of action.” But unless fossil-fuel power is broken, implementation will mean only managed decline — and another squandered decade. The setting could scarcely be more symbolic — the summit of the world’s climate negotiators convenes Monday in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. Many participants, harking back to past summits, are skeptical much progress will be made despite the desperate need to do so.
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