/us-news

Royaume-Uni : le Premier ministre Rishi Sunak annonce un coup de frein à la transition écologique
▻https://www.bfmtv.com/international/europe/angleterre/royaume-uni-le-premier-ministre-rishi-sunak-annonce-un-coup-de-frein-a-la-tra

Le Premier ministre britannique révise à la baisse les mesures mises en place pour atteindre la neutralité carbone d’ici 2050. Une approche qui se voudrait « plus pragmatique ».

Très clairement, ça allait beaucoup trop vite ce wokisme climatique.

Long Before Daniel Penny Killed Jordan Neely, There Was Death Wish
▻https://jacobin.com/2023/05/death-wish-movie-vigilante-violence-jordan-neely-daniel-penny

C’est une analyse du film qui représente le pire dans l’esprit américain et une réflexion sur sa signification actuelle. Il n’y a plus de société pour nous protéger les uns des autresr alors on s’entretue en suivant nos instincts les plus sombres. La défense personnelle et le besoin d’argent ne sont que des prétextes pour l’expression de notre qualité essentielle : l’Homme est mauvais.

[Ich bin] ein Teil von jener Kraft,
Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft. ...
Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!
Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht,
Ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht

Dans ce monde sans pitié ni solidarité la politique ne peut être que fasciste ou libérale.

27.5.2023 by Eileen Jones - The New York City subway killing of Jordan Neely by ex-Marine Daniel Penny has stirred up heated commentary across the political spectrum. One common denominator in the discourse has been a frequent tendency to reach for a comparison to the notorious 1974 film Death Wish, a neo-noir film starring Charles Bronson as an affluent New York City dweller whose family is attacked in a violent home invasion. In the aftermath, he becomes a vengeful vigilante prowling the streets at night hoping to attract muggers — so he can shoot them. The subway scene in which he shoots two would-be robbers who approach him threateningly, and is acclaimed by the public for it, achieved added notoriety when the scenario was eerily carried out in real life.

In 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot four black teenagers on the subway whom he claimed tried to rob him. Goetz was dubbed “the Subway Vigilante” by the New York press and ultimately tried on multiple charges, including attempted murder. But he was convicted of only the most minor charge of carrying an unlicensed firearm.

The shooting and trial ignited a volatile public debate between those claiming Goetz as an urban hero fighting the forces of darkness in an increasingly crime-ridden New York, and those appalled by how self-appointed vigilantes, especially when they’re white and attempting to execute people of color, are applauded by the public and let off lightly by the criminal justice system. It’s nauseating reading the accounts of the Goetz case, because there are such marked similarities to the Daniel Penny case — especially in the public commentary afterward.

The New York Post op-ed by Rich Lowry, titled “Daniel Penny is NOT a Vigilante, But the Left Can’t Stop Pretending,” typifies much of such commentary. He begins with Death Wish:

Pretty much everything you need to know about the Daniel Penny case you can learn from the “Death Wish” movies.

Or so you might conclude if you took seriously the left’s analysis of the tragic incident in a New York City subway car this month that has led to Penny, a former Marine, getting charged with second-degree manslaughter.

The upshot of this commentary is that conservatives favor “vigilantism” and support it, of course, because it’s a bulwark of white supremacy.

“The Republican Embrace of Vigilantism Is No Accident,” according to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

Lowry goes on to cite a series of op-eds and think pieces making supposedly left-wing accusations of right-wing tendencies to support vigilantism. He then argues that Penny can’t be a vigilante, relying on a dictionary definition of the word, as if he were a desperate undergraduate the night before a paper is due: “Merriam-Webster defines a vigilante as ‘a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate).’”

Lowry promptly invalidates the point by conceding that there can be “loner vigilantes” too. But in his view, the term still applies only in a Death Wish scenario, when someone like the Charles Bronson character is deliberately stalking local malefactors, trying to get himself almost-mugged so he can shoot someone. Lowry then makes his main claim:

By contrast, conservatives are, as a general matter, viewing Penny as a defender of himself and, most importantly, those around him — not an avenging angel administering the justice that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg refuses to.

Indications are that Penny (and his fellow passengers) sincerely believed Jordan Neely, suffering from untreated mental illness, was a threat to people on the train.

There’s still much we need to know about the particulars of the case, but the impulse to protect others is deeply admirable and rare.

Anyone who’s watched Westerns or action films could tell Lowry about vigilantism, which involves a self-appointed guardian or guardians of the public welfare acting like judge, jury, and executioner in meting out sloppy individual notions of justice — generally very rough, often fatal types of “frontier justice” — without due process under the law as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In short, little Richie Lowry really needs to put some more thought into defining his terms and rebutting implied counterarguments when writing essays. Grade: D-.

All of which makes it interesting to go back and watch Death Wish, which remains so disturbingly pertinent. If you’ve seen it, you may not remember it as well as you think you do, as the cultural memory of the film is skewed by its notorious context. It touched a cultural nerve and was embraced by the kind of angry “silent majority” that’s never actually silent in the United States, and its popularity led to four hit sequels.
A poster for Michael Winner’s 1974 vigilante thriller Death Wish, starring Charles Bronson. (Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images)

The first Death Wish is an odd film, one of a number of films that reflected the United States’ rough political transition from a period of gains on the political left starting in the post-WWII era, culminating in the radical demands for change and countercultural turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s, through the political malaise and stagnation of the mid-to-late 1970s, to the right-wing Reagan Revolution of the 1980s. In certain scenes, Death Wish actually signals a surprising awareness of how readily smug left-liberalism, entrenched in its societal gains and cultural mores but cut off from any socialist principles or serious critique of the political status quo, swings rightward under pressure toward fascism, expressed as violent, generally racist fantasies of “cleansing” a corrupt population by force.

There’s good reason not to remember the film’s more compelling ambiguities, since its other lurid elements — such as manifest hatred of the poor and racist dog whistles — draw all the attention.

It’s the story of how mild-mannered architect Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) goes from being a “bleeding-heart liberal” to a crazy-eyed vigilante after his family is brutalized by thugs. His wife Joanna (Hope Lange) dies as a result of the attack, and his daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan) is gang-raped and so traumatized she has to be institutionalized. Soon afterward, Kersey is using the nighttime urban scene in New York City as a hunting ground, tracking malefactors, mainly unwary muggers, whom he shoots to kill.

Several of the would-be robbers Kersey shoots are black. But regardless of race, they all approach him in states of excessive, sneering villainy and unambiguous threat, generally pulling out knives and waving them in his face. There’s no indication, through editing or cinematography, that this is the subjective vision of Kersey, deranged by the horror of his family’s experience. It’s clear that these are essentially bad people acting out of evil impulses because they enjoy it, not because they might desperately need the money they always demand with demeaning curses.

The three men who commit the home invasion are white (startlingly, one of them is portrayed by the very young and still unknown Jeff Goldblum), but they’re the most cartoonishly villainous of all, exuding a kind of giggling depravity and love of violent chaos that ignites the protagonist’s determination that such people be put down like rabid dogs for the good of society.

Which is the attitude expressed earlier by Kersey’s business partner (William Redfield), a fat cat in a business suit who makes a Taxi Driver–style argument that approximates the wish for a cleansing rain — or perhaps a hail of bullets — to wash all the scum off the streets. New York City is being made unpleasant for the rich and respectable, because they share the streets with the increasingly poor and desperate, which means the poor and desperate must be erased: “I say, stick them in concentration camps.”

This is unusually bold, forthright fascism. Usually, in real-life public commentary, such statements vaguely indicate that people like Jordan Neely, who are homeless and mentally ill and shout about their misery and appear threatening to people, need to be removed from public life somehow. How often have we heard this line of talk in real life? Tech employees in the Bay Area, for example, made the news regularly for a while, demanding that the homeless be “somehow” removed from their sight while they commuted to and from work at Apple or Google or Yahoo.

In response to his colleague’s insane rant, Kersey makes a vague, rote, half-hearted mention of his sympathy for the “underprivileged.” We’re clearly supposed to recognize the troubling weakness of his response. The early scenes of the film all indicate that Kersey, happy and successful as he is, is straining at the confinement of “civilization” and wants to break out in some way. We first meet him on vacation in Hawaii with his wife. When he proposes sex on the deserted beach instead of waiting to go back to the hotel room, she objects mildly: “We’re too civilized.”
Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) turning around to attack a mugger in Death Wish. (High-Def Digest / YouTube)

“We’re too civilized” is meant to resonate thematically throughout the film as a critique of American society, referring to the idea that the solid bourgeoisie allows itself to be terrorized by the raging criminal underclass out of brainwashed liberal guilt. But is it just Kersey’s fast conversion to this idea that we’re watching, or the film’s overarching argument?

There’s plausible deniability built into the film at certain points — the final image, especially, which shows Kersey arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, having left behind “that toilet,” which is how his Arizonan colleague describes New York. He watches a couple of teenage boys harassing a girl and points his finger in the shape of a gun, making the “pow, pow” sign at their backs as they run off. The film freezes on that image, capturing the insane look in Kersey’s eyes and showing that he’s going to continue his lone vigilante killing spree.

Brian Garfield, the author of the original 1972 novel Death Wish, hated the adaptation:

The point of the novel Death Wish is that vigilantism is an attractive fantasy but it only makes things worse in reality. By the end of the novel, the character (Paul) is gunning down unarmed teenagers because he doesn’t like their looks. The story is about an ordinary guy who descends into madness.

According to Garfield, the admired actor Jack Lemmon was initially slated to play the lead role, with Sidney Lumet directing rather than Michael Winner, which gives some idea of how differently the adaptation might have turned out. Once Charles Bronson was set to star, the shift from thoughtful drama toward brutal neo-noir action film was set.

Garfield so disapproved of the eventual film, he did “penance” by writing a 1975 sequel underscoring his own critique of vigilantism called Death Sentence. Meanwhile, the four increasingly violent and successful sequels to Death Wish, all vehicles for Bronson, rocked on.

Making Kersey look like a menace to society at the end of the film is interesting, especially in terms of the ignoble way he’s shooting at retreating backs, something we’ve seen him do several times when using a real gun to finish off wounded robbers running away. It’s something no classic Western hero would ever do, because “honor” supposedly defined all his actions. The film contains a thoroughly developed Western theme, evoking a genre known for celebrating vigilantism and “frontier justice.”

On a business trip to Tucson, Arizona, Kersey is brought to a fake-Western town, maintained for tourists and occasional Hollywood filmmaking, and gets strangely caught up in watching the actor playing the heroic sheriff gun down bank robbers who are shooting up the town. His colleague and host during the business trip is a gun enthusiast who celebrates how freely people like them move around in the world, carrying guns that supposedly guarantee their safety from outlaws and evildoers. And it’s revealed that Kersey was raised with guns, attaining almost sharpshooter abilities growing up, before his father was killed in a hunting accident and his mother banned all guns from the house. Kersey also mentions that he was a conscientious objector in the Korean War and served as a medic. His colleague’s response: “You’re probably one of them knee-jerk liberals, thinks us gun boys shoot our guns because it’s an extension of our penises.”

Returning to the world of guns seems to revive his father’s frontier-style legacy, which had been interrupted by his mother’s presumably weak, “too civilized” fears. It also places Kersey back within Hollywood Western mythologizing, where it seems he longs to be.

This mythologizing was accepted by many Americans as close enough to the nation’s actual history, which Hollywood studios encouraged. The harsh revisionist Westerns of the 1960s and early ’70s, aiming at greater authenticity about the inglorious vigilante violence, robber baron capitalism, cynical land grabs, racism, misogyny, and drug use that were widespread in the actual Old West, came as a rude shock to fans and all but killed off the genre.

That Kersey develops an idea of himself as the Western hero is clear when he challenges the last mugger he encounters, who’s succeeded in wounding him, to “draw,” as if he were starring in Shane. It’s another of the film’s ambiguous scenes emphasizing Kersey’s mental collapse, and in this case also satirizing his inability to live up to his own heroic image of himself, especially when he faints from loss of blood.

In the end, Kersey the anonymous vigilante has gotten so popular with the public, the police don’t dare arrest him, though they know he’s the killer. They’re trying to avoid making public Kersey’s success in reducing the number of street crimes, which might unleash an epidemic of vigilantism. Kersey’s given the option to avoid arrest by relocating, and he’s told by the police officer heading up the case to get out of town. Kersey echoes a phrase used by lawmen in Westerns, asking, “You mean get out before sundown?”

The persistence of the inflammatory discourse around vigilante violence in the United States, whether it revolves around actual events in the world or fictionalized representations, indicates strongly that many Americans, like the Paul Kersey character, are still enamored of the vigilante justice celebrated in old Westerns. The belief is widespread that we live in an ever-degenerating society, a “jungle,” beset by vicious “animals” and mobs of rampaging savages that can only be quelled by a lone “hero” ever prepared to shoot and claim self-defense and defense of others, no matter what the actual circumstances. Outraged and outrageous commentary cheering on Paul Kersey and Bernhard Goetz and Daniel Penny all blurs together, making it terrifying to contemplate who’s going to be the next Jordan Neely, whose publicly distraught state should have brought him offers of help but got him murdered instead.

Jordan Neely, street artist who died from chokehold on a New York City subway, mourned at funeral in Harlem
▻https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/19/us/jordan-neely-funeral-harlem/index.html

19.5.2023 by Zenebou Sylla - Jordan Neely, the homeless street artist who was the victim of a fatal chokehold on a New York City subway, was remembered at his funeral Friday as a “well known and loved” performer.

Neely, 30, known for his Michael Jackson impersonations, was restrained in a chokehold May 1 on a Manhattan subway by another rider, Daniel Penny, after Neely began shouting that he was hungry, thirsty and had little to live for. Penny, a 24-year-old US Marine veteran, surrendered to police last Friday to face a second-degree manslaughter charge.

“He performed in front of thousands of people in the streets of New York City, and on the subways where he was well known and loved,” Neely’s great aunt Mildred Mahazu said at his funeral service at the Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem.

“One of Jordan’s biggest passions was to dance and entertain. He was greatly influenced by pop star Michael Jackson, who he started idolizing from the age of seven. Over time, he began to perfect MJ’s dance moves by the time he turned 18,” Mahazu said.

Neely’s death ignited protests and calls for Penny’s arrest while refocusing attention on struggles with homelessness and mental illness across America.

Penny was released on a bail package last week, which included a $100,000 cash insurance company bond. He has not been indicted and has not yet been required to enter a plea.

Neely had experienced mental health issues since 2007, when he was 14 and his mother was murdered, said Neely family attorney, Donte Mills. He had been traumatized after his mother’s brutal killing was followed by the discovery of her body in a suitcase, his friend Moses Harper told CNN.

After Neely lost his mother, with whom he shared “an unbreakable bond,” he moved in with his father, Mahazu said, adding that in high school he was a star basketball and soccer player.
Andre Zachary, Jordan Neely’s father, follows the coffin of his son after the funeral service Friday.
The Rev. Al Sharpton delivers eulogy

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered a eulogy at Neely’s funeral, said the street artist “wasn’t trying to be something negative,” but wanted to “be like Michael” and “made the world smile and get on one beat.”

Sharpton did not directly address Penny on Friday but said the city should hold him accountable.

“You didn’t have the right to snatch the life out of this young man,” Sharpton said.

Sharpton promised that in Neely’s name he would work to change the circumstances of those experiencing homelessness and those battling with mental health issues by providing city services.

Before his death, Neely had been on a NYC Department of Homeless Services list of the city’s homeless with acute needs – sometimes referred to internally as the “Top 50” list – because individuals on the list tend to disappear, a source told CNN.

“In the name of Jordan, we’re going to turn this city around to serve the homeless,” said Sharpton.

“We can’t live in a city where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat, and you go home and sleep in your bed while my family got to put me in a cemetery. It must be equal justice under the law.”

Penny’s attorneys said in a statement last week that Neely had been “aggressively threatening” passengers and Penny and others had “acted to protect themselves.”

“Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely,” they said.

Penny’s attorneys said they are confident he will be “fully absolved of any wrongdoing.”

Neely’s death was ruled a homicide, though the designation doesn’t mean there was intent or culpability, a spokesperson for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said earlier this week, noting at the time it was a matter for the criminal justice system to determine.

CNN’s Emma Tucker contributed to this report.

‘It’s a failure of the system’ : before Jordan Neely was killed, he was discarded
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/12/jordan-neely-new-york-social-services-support-mental-health

#USA #New_York #sans_abris

Biden administration quietly resumes deportations to Russia
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/18/biden-administration-russia-deportations

#Immigration advocates were taken by surprise when a young Russian man, who came to the US fleeing Vladimir Putin’s efforts to mobilize citizens to fight in #Ukraine, was abruptly deported at the weekend from the US back to #Russia.

He was among several Russian asylum seekers, many of whom have made their way to the US in the last year, who are now terrified the US government will return them to Russia where they could face prison or be sent rapidly to the frontline, where Russia has seen tens of thousands of casualties.

[...] News of resumed #deportations to Russia came just over a year after reports that the Biden administration had suspended deportation flights to Russia, Ukraine and seven other countries in Europe during Russia’s attack on Ukraine. It is unclear when deportations to Russia resumed. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortion | US news | The Guardian
►https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/10/republican-wave-state-bills-homicide-charges
►https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5f23c5e3f11ad3f5defad08d8cf4352c80acc5f2/0_134_4000_2401/master/4000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.

Bills in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also explicitly target medication abortion, which so far has fallen into a legal grey zone in much of the country.

A bill in Alabama has also been announced, although not yet been introduced, by Republican representative Ernest Yarbrough, that would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a section of Alabama’s abortion ban that expressly prevents homicide charges for abortion. The state’s current law makes abortion a class A felony, on the same level as homicide, but exempts women seeking abortions from being held criminally or civilly liable.

Biden drops candidate’s nomination to human rights post over Israel remarks | Biden administration | The Guardian
about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2023%2Ffeb%2F14%2Fbiden-withdraws-nominee-human-rights-post-israel-remarks

The Biden administration has withdrawn the nomination of a leading law professor to an international human rights post, for describing Israel as an “apartheid state” and accusing the top Democrat in Congress of being “bought” by pro-Israel groups.

James Cavallaro, of Wesleyan and Yale universities, said he was told by the US state department on Tuesday it had dropped his selection to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) “due to my statements denouncing apartheid in Israel/Palestine”.

The withdrawal of his nomination followed an article by a New York Jewish newspaper, the Algemeiner, that also highlighted Cavallaro’s retweeting of a Guardian story about the gratification of pro-Israel groups at the election of the New York Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries as House minority leader.

Jeffries is closely tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and other hardline pro-Israel lobby groups. One of them, Pro-Israel America, was his largest single donor over the past year.

Cavallaro retweeted the Guardian story with the comment: “Bought. Purchased. Controlled.”

The state department spokesman, Ned Price, said the administration had not been acquainted with Cavallaro’s views when his nomination was announced on Friday.

“We were not aware of the statements and writings,” he said. “His statements clearly do not reflect US policy, they are not a reflection of what we believe and they are inappropriate to say the least.”

À la défense de J.K. Rowling | TRADFEM
▻https://tradfem.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/a-la-defense-de-j-k-rowling

« Vous brûlez la mauvaise sorcière »

Prenez exemple de l’une de ses anciennes détractrices. L’année dernière, E.J. Rosetta, une journaliste qui avait dénoncé Rowling pour sa prétendue transphobie, a été chargée d’écrire un article intitulé « 20 citations transphobes de J.K. Rowling dont nous avons décidé de nous passer ». Après 12 semaines de travail sur ce reportage et de lecture, Rosetta a écrit : « Je n’ai pas trouvé sous sa plume un seul message réellement transphobe. » Sur Twitter, elle a déclaré : « Vous brûlez la mauvaise sorcière. »

Pour mémoire, j’ai moi aussi lu tous les livres de Rowling, y compris ses romans policiers écrits sous le nom de plume de Robert Galbraith, et je suis revenue bredouille. Ceux qui ont épluché son œuvre à la recherche de transgressions ont énoncé le fait que dans l’une des œuvres de Galbraith, Rowling a inclus un personnage transgenre et que dans un autre de ces romans, un tueur se déguise occasionnellement en femme. Inutile de dire qu’il faut un genre particulier de personne pour voir là une preuve de sectarisme.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que Rowling et son œuvre sont condamnées par des idéologues. Pendant des années, les livres de la série « Harry Potter » ont été parmi les plus interdits en Amérique. De nombreux chrétiens y ont dénoncé la représentation positive de la sorcellerie et de la magie ; certains ont traité Rowling d’hérétique. Megan Phelps-Roper, une ex-membre de l’hyper-réactionnaire Église baptiste de Westboro et autrice de Unfollow : A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism, dit avoir apprécié ces romans lorsqu’elle était enfant mais que, élevée dans une famille connue pour son extrémisme et son sectarisme, on lui a appris à croire que Rowling irait en enfer à cause de son soutien aux droits des homosexuels.

A very American death: how Caleb Blair lost his life in the Phoenix heat
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/05/caleb-blair-phoenix-arizona-death-heat-drugs

Caleb Blair entered the Circle K gas station in Phoenix asking for help. “I can’t breathe, I’m hot, I need to sit down. I can’t breathe,” he told the male cashier. He was sweaty, panting heavily, and struggling to stand up straight.

It was 10 June 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona, and the city was experiencing the season’s first extreme heatwave. The temperature outside was 112F (44C) and rising.

The cashier told Caleb, a 19-year-old Black man, that he could not rest inside the air-conditioned store – it was against company policy. Blair had no choice but to go back outside, where CCTV footage shows him curled up on the asphalt, rolling around, distressed and struggling to breathe as cars drive in and out of the parking lot. The temperature on the unshaded ground was probably 130-140F (54-60C), but the teenager was unhoused and high on fentanyl, a powerful opioid, and methamphetamine, an addictive upper. He was confused, disorientated and overheating.

Monterey Park shooting: 10 killed at dance studio during lunar new year parties – latest updates
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/jan/22/california-mass-shooting-los-angeles-monterey-park-dance-club-latest-ne
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/871005c92cc7eb7c078b2ee5c7adfb4477595b88/0_19_5472_3286/master/5472.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

It’s January 22. There have already been 33 mass shootings in the US this year.

Pendant ce temps, Alex Jones, qui a diffamé les parents des victimes du massacre de Sandy Hook pendant des années, est en train de passer un très mauvais moment. Il y a une heure, l’accusation lui a révélé que son propre avocat s’était embrouillé et lui avait transmis l’intégralité du contenu de son téléphone 12 jours plus tôt. Téléphone dans lequel l’accusation trouve de nombreux messages évoquant Sandy Hook, alors que Jones soutenait sous serment que son téléphone ne contenait pas de tels messages. « Savez-vous ce que signifie “parjure” ? », demande l’avocat des parties civiles.

▻https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1554875160749977600/pu/vid/1280x720/RsHtr2Z22WpdqyYE.mp4

Apparemment, les documents donneraient aussi une idée des sommes invraisemblables que lui rapportent ses saloperies (si j’ai bien compris, jusqu’à plusieurs centaines de milliers de dollars par jour).

At least 12 military bases contaminating water supply with toxic #PFAS | US military | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/military-bases-contaminating-water-supply-pfas

[…] the military has known about the threat for decades, and “they are only alerting neighbors because Congress ordered them to do so”.

“In the absence of a Congressional order, they would continue to be a bad neighbor,” he said.

#pentagone #empoisonneur #impunité #complicité

She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more common
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/03/california-stillborn-prosecution-roe-v-wade

Two months before, Becker had had a stillbirth at a California hospital, losing a baby boy at eight months pregnant. The King’s county prosecutor in the central valley charged her with “murder of a human fetus”, alleging she had acted with “malice” because she had been struggling with drug addiction and the hospital reported meth in her system.

Becker’s attorneys argued there was no evidence that substance use caused the stillbirth and California law did not allow for this type of prosecution in the first place. Still, she spent 16 months in jail awaiting trial before a judge dismissed the charges.

INFERTILITÉ TOTALE EN 2045

Dans un livre récemment paru, le duo de scientifiques Shanna H. Swan et Stacey Colino montre que le nombre de spermatozoïdes produits dans les pays occidentaux a chuté de 59 % entre 1973 et 2011. Si la trajectoire actuelle se poursuit, ce chiffre pourrait atteindre zéro dès 2045. 

La pandémie va-t-elle faire chuter le taux de fécondité  ? D’après l’Insee (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques), en tout cas, le nombre de naissances enregistrées en France en janvier a chuté de 13 % par rapport à janvier 2020. Une baisse inédite depuis 1975, dans un contexte « de crise sanitaire et de forte incertitude, [qui] a pu décourager les couples de procréer ou les inciter à reporter de plusieurs mois leurs projets de parentalité », selon l’Institut d’études statistiques. Certes, le nombre de naissances en France est en baisse constante depuis six ans, mais l’Insee note que la chute observée en janvier est « sans commune mesure avec les baisses qui ont pu être observées dans le passé ».
▻https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/000436391

Une tendance qui reste à confirmer, donc… et à laquelle pourrait bien s’ajouter un autre phénomène encore plus global. Celui de la présence, dans notre organisme, de certaines substances chimiques aux effets nocifs sur la fertilité. C’est ce que met en évidence le duo de scientifiques Shanna H. Swan et Stacey Colino dans un nouveau livre récemment paru en anglais, Count Down – How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.
▻https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Count-Down/Shanna-H-Swan/9781982113667

Dans une étude qu’elle avait co-signée en 2017, Swan montrait en effet que le nombre de spermatozoïdes produits dans les pays occidentaux avait chuté de 59 % entre 1973 et 2011. Si cette courbe poursuit sa trajectoire actuelle, prévient-elle aujourd’hui, ce chiffre pourrait atteindre zéro dès 2045. Dans le détail, Count Down démontre que ce sont les « substances chimiques du quotidien » que l’on trouve dans les emballages alimentaires, les jouets, les cosmétiques ou encore les pesticides qui affectent durablement notre système endocrinien. Les phtalates et le bisphénol A sont plus particulièrement visés par les deux auteurs « car ils font croire au corps humain qu’il dispose de suffisamment d’hormones – testostérone ou œstrogènes – et qu’il n’a donc pas besoin d’en fabriquer davantage ». La taille et la forme des organes génitaux seraient aussi affectées.
▻https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689
▻https://usbeketrica.com/fr/article/la-baisse-de-la-fertilite-masculine-menace-l-humanite
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival
▻https://sante.lefigaro.fr/mieux-etre/environnement/phtalates/quels-risques-pour-sante
▻https://www.futura-sciences.com/sciences/definitions/chimie-bisphenol-6185
▻https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/pollution-penis-shrink-sperm-count-b1821863.html

« Les phtalates abaissent les taux de testostérone et ont donc une influence particulièrement mauvaise côté masculin, par exemple en provoquant la diminution du nombre de spermatozoïdes, détaille Swan dans son interview au Guardian. Le bisphénol A, lui, imite les œstrogènes et est donc particulièrement nocif côté féminin, augmentant les risques de problèmes de fertilité. Mais il peut également faire chuter la qualité du sperme, la libido et provoquer des taux plus élevés de dysfonction érectile. »

« Une grande partie de l’exposition à ces matières se produit in utero, lorsque le fœtus se forme pour la première fois » Shanna H. Swan

Le constat est d’autant plus inquiétant que l’exposition à ces substances commence… avant même la naissance. « Une grande partie de l’exposition à ces matières se produit in utero, lorsque le fœtus se forme pour la première fois, renchérit Swan. Les effets se poursuivent ensuite pendant l’enfance, l’adolescence et l’âge adulte. C’est un phénomène cumulatif : un fœtus femelle, in utero, développe déjà les ovules qu’il utilisera pour avoir ses propres enfants. »

Preuve de l’étendue du problème, une enquête publiée par Santé publique France en 2019 révélait que la présence de bisphénols et de phtalates dans le corps est généralement plus importante chez les enfants que chez les adultes. « L’alimentation participerait à 90 % de l’exposition totale », précisait à l’époque Santé publique France. Seules manières de minimiser les risques à l’échelle individuelle, selon Shanna H. Swan : manger, « dans la mesure du possible », des aliments non transformés comme « des carottes ou des pommes de terre cuisinés naturellement »  ; éviter les poêles qui contiennent du téflon ou des molécules toxiques  ; et « ne pas passer de matières plastiques au micro-ondes ».
▻https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/etudes-et-enquetes/esteban

▻https://usbeketrica.com/fr/article/l-occident-pourrait-devenir-totalement-infertile-en-2045
▻https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/grand-bien-vous-fasse/grand-bien-vous-fasse-du-lundi-18-avril-2022
▻https://www.facebook.com/franceinter/posts/5333622433339500
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https://image.over-blog.com/VFRoNi01HG93Cu7Tz9ZKDqlsbO0=/filters:no_upscale()/image%2F1941362%2F20220423%2Fob_598e45_infertilite.jpg

ADL leaders debated ending police delegations to Israel, memo reveals | US policing
Sam Levin and Alex Kane | Thu 17 Mar 2022 | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/17/adl-police-delegations-israel
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/41714b6a8d7342c28becf6fdc13fea5f6edcd58e/0_214_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

Senior leaders of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the US-based non-profit organization known for combatting antisemitism and tracking extremism, debated whether to end a controversial program that connects American law enforcement officers with police leaders and members of the military in Israel, a 2020 internal document reveals.
(...)
The draft document said termination of the program was the “best approach” since it would “eliminate a program with limited impact and high controversy”. (...)

#violences_policières

Estados Unidos podría estar bajo un dictador de derecha en 2030, advierte profesor canadiense
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/03/us-rightwing-dictatorship-2030-trump-canada
El politólogo canadiense advierte en un artículo de opinión sobre la amenaza trumpista a la democracia estadounidense y el posible efecto en el vecino del norte

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d8/9e/a3/d89ea37dedb9c79da9a7df69e5485048.jpg

Patrick Radden Keefe on exposing the Sackler family’s links to the opioid crisis | Opioids crisis | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/27/empire-of-pain-patrick-radden-keefe-sackler-opioid-crisis-oxycontin

▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cf7748e0504c704d45a29d51b325ff6789a6f86d/0_27_8192_4918/master/8192.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

Très intéressant portrait de Patrick Radden Keefe.

In the afterword to Say Nothing, he describes his approach as “narrative non-fiction”. How would he define the term? He thinks for a moment. “I worked as a research assistant for thehistorian Simon Schama at Columbia and he would always talk about narrative history – that he was not just writing for other historians. In my own way, I want to write something that is sophisticated and rigorous but approachable by anyone. You don’t have to have an interest in big pharma or the Troubles, because hopefully the characters and their dynamics will be rich and intriguing enough that I can pull you into their world.”

His books, I say, are often as suspenseful and as tightly structured as crime fiction. “Well, that’s good to hear… I do use certain devices that may be more familiar from fiction. I’m thinking about a person reading my book on the subway. You don’t take that reader for granted, so you cannot be shy about thinking about character and suspense and editing in a way that’s compelling for the reader.”

For Say Nothing, which explores the darkest aspects of the Troubles through a single killing, Keefe drew on long interviews given to others – including the veteran Irish journalist and author Ed Moloney – by former IRA members. One of them was with Dolours Price, who before her death admitted that she had driven McConville across the border into County Louth, where she was executed. I wondered if Keefe’s interest in the dark dramas of the Troubles emerged from his Irish-American upbringing.

“People see my name and know I come from Boston, so they often assume I must have some personal connection, which is not true. I’d never heard of Dolours Price until I read her obituary in 2013, but she was so fascinating on so many levels. This was someone who took people across the River Styx, but, in middle age, she was having misgivings. The collision between her beliefs and her humanity was right there on the surface.”

Is the saga of the Sacklers is a quintessentially American tale, I wonder. He mulls this over for a long moment. “On one level, yes, because it illustrates the belief that many immigrants have that you can come to America, and in the space of one lifetime, completely transform the fortunes of your family, rise to the pinnacle of society and leave your mark on your new country. But it is also a story about corporate impunity and impunity for the super-rich. The whole last third of the book is about the bad guy getting away with it in the end. To me, that’s a story I could just as readily see taking place in London, as indeed it has – because many of the Sacklers are based there. You have to remember that OxyContin generated upwards of $35bn. That buys a level of influence that is hard to fathom.”

#Patrick_Radden_Keefe

Sur l’impact différencié du Covid selon les caractéristiques des populations :

(dans ce thread, je collecte différents arguments sociaux et de santé sur les inégalités de santé et les facteurs de risques sociaux/de santé/ethniques face au covid, histoire de savoir où retrouver les références sur ce sujet. En effet, de nombreux élèves/activistes auxquels je suis confrontée quotidiennement semblent mettre de côté leur volonté affichée de lutte contre les inégalités/inclusivité et autres dès qu’il s’agit du covid - ces notes me permettent d’argumenter les discussions sur santé publique vs vécu individuel.)

A la Réunion, le traitement des diabétiques victime de l’épidémie de Covid

La vague de Covid-19 qui frappe actuellement le département, où le taux d’incidence est le plus élevé de France, complique la prise en charge des patients atteints de diabète, une maladie chronique qui concerne un habitant de l’île sur dix.
▻https://www.liberation.fr/societe/sante/a-la-reunion-le-traitement-des-diabetiques-victime-de-lepidemie-de-covid-
▻https://justpaste.it/8stc3

Here’s how Republicans ‘dismembered’ a Democratic stronghold | US voting rights | The Guardian

Un magnifique “gerrymandring”, véritable cas d’école. La géographie est politique !

▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2022/jan/25/nashville-tennessee-gerrymandering-congress-republicans
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▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1c0b0a907d1f77e770204ad96badd870218838d8/0_1_2240_1344/master/2240.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee gave final approval on Monday to an aggressive plan to split Nashville, a Democratic bastion, in a deeply Republican state, into several congressional districts as part of an effort to tilt the state’s congressional map in their favor. The plan is now waiting for approval from Governor Bill Lee, who is likely to sign it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/h5aic4a35jcr1e3/nashville%20gerymandring.png?dl=0

Covid hospitalizations among US children soar as schools under pressure | US news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/covid-hospitalizations-us-children-omicron-schools-hospitals
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7da7b4fc87431a254dc285fde4490b874a8a0512/0_214_6773_4068/master/6773.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

In New York, hospitalizations among kids quadrupled. In Washington DC, children’s hospital admissions have roughly doubled. In Texas, children’s hospitalizations were described as “staggering”. In Alabama, cases were “like a rocket ship”. In Louisiana, one doctor said: “We’ve never seen anything like it.” In Ohio, one associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics critical care recently told ABC news: “We’re on fire.”

#enfants #covid

Ghislaine Maxwell, the Demon Queen, is behind bars. Does she have a secret that could unlock her shackles? | Ghislaine Maxwell | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/02/ghislaine-maxwell-the-demon-queen-is-behind-bars-does-she-have-a-secret
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/96a82fc6f56f3683358eb8ac0c3acca65149987b/0_1564_3600_2160/master/3600.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

She has a secret key that could unlock her shackles. What if she sings, tells the feds what she knows, gives up the overmighty men who, along with her one-time lover Jeffrey Epstein, abused women more child than adult back in her pomp? She could cut her jail time down to 10 years and be out in seven, thanks to good behaviour.

But to do that, Maxwell – once the bosom pal of the second son of the Queen of England, two US presidents, and our prime minister, Boris Johnson, on the word of his sister, Rachel – would have to admit that she had been Epstein’s $30m pimp, that she treated a host of underage women as nothings, trash, that she did great wrong, that she was sorry.

No sign of that. I do feel pity for Maxwell, for the dark chasm between how her life was and the wretched place she is in now but her lack of remorse, her failure to address reality, her unwillingness to express a smidgen of regret to her victims hardens the heart. And therein lies her tragedy, the darkest fairytale of modern times.

Liste de liens trouvés dans les commentaires de cet article

Affaire Epstein : Ghislaine Maxwell condamnée, après un procès dérangeant

Jugée pour trafic sexuel de mineures, Ghislaine Maxwell, ex-maîtresse de l’homme d’affaires américain Jeffrey Epstein, a été reconnue coupable mercredi 29 décembre à New York. Un verdict qui met un terme à plus de deux décennies d’impunité, mais qui laisse de nombreuses questions ouvertes.

▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/301221/affaire-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell-condamnee-apres-un-proces-derangeant

Condamnation de Ghislaine Maxwell, qui risque 65 ans de prison(anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/ghislaine-maxwell-sex-trafficking-trial-verdict?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Le prince Andrew émerge sans encombres du procès de Ghislaine Maxwell (anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/prince-andrew-ghislaine-maxwell-trial?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Principaux enseignements du procès de Ghislaine Maxwell(anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-key-moments?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Récapitulation de la vie mondaine de Ghislaine Maxwell (anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/29/ghislaine-maxwell-social-circle-jeffrey-epstein?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A New York, toujours pas de verdict au procès Maxwell pour crimes sexuels (AFP)
▻https://www.boursorama.com/actualite-economique/actualites/a-new-york-toujours-pas-de-verdict-au-proces-maxwell-pour-crimes-sexuels

Début des délibérations du jury dans le procès de Ghislaine Maxwell (anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-closing-arguments-jeffrey-epstein?CMP=Share_iOS

Quelle était la nature des relations entre Ghislaine Maxwell et Jeffrey Epstein ?(Anglais -The Guardian)
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/11/ghislaine-maxwell-prosecutors-jeffrey-epstein-relationship?CMP=Share_iO

Affaire Epstein : perversions en hautes sphères (Docu W9)
▻https://planetes360.fr/alerte-video-a-voir-en-urgence-jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell-pervers