Richard Stallman's Political Notes' Journal

Emmet Till accuser won't be charged

*Emmett Till: woman whose accusation led to [his] lynching will not be charged.*

I think this verdict was inevitable. If her story is true, it implies she is not responsible for the murder of Emmet Till. If she is lying, she might be co-responsible in some way, but there is no evidence about what it may have been, let alone any proof.

The people who really should have been convicted of murder were the people who killed him. They were acquitted by a racist jury.

If that were to happen today, the murderers would face federal civil rights charges, as well as state charges. The conviction of Ahmaud Arbery's killers suggests that the US has learned to be less racist in its justice than it was in 1955. Maybe some day it will learn to be even less racist.

Death Valley flooded

Death Valley suffered flooding from unusual heavy rainfall. At least no homes were flooded, since nobody lives there.

Company fined for fraudulent "Made in the USA" labels

A right-wing t-shirt company, which supports the corrupter, has been fined for fraudulently labeling its shirts "Made in the USA". In fact, they were made in China.

What else would you expect from people that support someone who boasts of lying.

Flawed private water system

Privatized water companies in Britain are profiteering while draining their customers. That's what privatizing a government service tends to do, and the Tories that did it probably were aiming for that result.

Urgent: Vote for the "Inflation reduction bill"

US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to vote for the "Inflation reduction bill" (which includes climate defense, a little more tax on the rich, and reducing some medicine prices), which the Senate already passed.

The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.

If you call, please spread the word!

Amazon purchases

Amazon wants to purchase One Medical, a medical treatment company which holds lots of patients' medical records. And if it can purchase iRobot, which makes robot vacuum cleaners, it can collect data about the lives of the people who use them.

Corrupter could be imprisoned

The corrupter could be put in prison for years for taking secret documents home, or for destroying them.

I don't understand why Risen proposes to involving the Espionage Act in this. That would be very dangerous, because it could legitimize the misuse of that law to prosecute whistleblowers.

Until the day we change that law to protect whistleblowers, whose "crime" is to tell the people about the state's actions, we must not lump them together with people like the corrupter who take secret documents in order to deny the state access to them and block it from functioning.

People collapsing from heat in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona, is so hot that people doing nothing more than walk around are collapsing and need urgent rescue.

Celeste Burgess and Jessica Burgess

The abortion charges against Celeste Burgess and Jessica Burgess are based on a subpoena for their Facebook messages.

The only communication systems you can safely use to discuss abortion plans in the US now are those which do not save any record — either in a central server or in your own device.

China's monomaniacal intimidation

China's communications about Taiwan are monomaniacal intimidation pretending to be friendship.

It's similar to coercive control, but on an international scale.

(Satire) Bodies

(satire) *Relieved [corrupter] Thought Mar-A-Lago Raid Was About All The Bodies.

If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts on the page, then right-click and select the item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement JavaScript and CSS.

FBI searching corrupters' home

FBI agents searched the corrupter's home at Mar-a-Lago, looking for secret government papers he was not allowed to remove from the files. Naturally they had to look inside his safe, but if "breaking in" implies damaging the safe, that was gratuitous. Thugs often cause gratuitous damage to people when they search. and many of those people aren't rich like the corrupter and can't shrug off the cost of those damages

They should have given him — and anyone whose premises they search — the chance to open things for them and avoid damage.

However, there is no reason to suppose he was honest about this. (He's not usually honest.) Maybe the safe was opened without damaging it.

Psychedelic therapies

*Biden Administration Plans for Legal Psychedelic Therapies Within Two Years.*

We must expect Republicans to demonize this with lies and exaggerations.

Warnings for large gun and ammunition purchases

Proposing credit card companies warn when someone orders large supplies of guns and ammunition.

I think this is a good idea. The interference with privacy would be very narrow, and little by comparison with the things we are fighting against.

(Satire) New public safety campaign

(satire) Reminding would-be mass shooters that it has become old hat, and people would hardly even remember their names.

Watchdogs demand Schumer disclose big tech donations

*With Antitrust Bills Stalled, Watchdogs Demand Schumer Disclose Big Tech Donations.* They suspect him of being paid to block those bills from getting a vote.

AIPAC's New Political Strategy

*AIPAC's New Political Strategy: Spend Millions on Elections Without Mentioning Israel.*

$180 billion

* Pentagon contractors operating in Afghanistan over the past two decades raked in nearly $108 billion—funds that "were distributed and spent with a significant lack of transparency," according to a report published Tuesday.*

To Tackle Stubborn Inflation, Experts Urge Bold Action Against 'Corporate Profiteering'

To whip inflation in the US, we need to stop big businesses from raising prices from greed.

The way I prefer is to break up the many large companies that have too big a share of whatever market. Rather than launch a lawsuit against each excessively large company, I recommend a tax system that raises the tax rate sharply as a company gets bigger, or as it gets a bigger share of each market.

Trump Spews 'Tirade of Same Old Lies' But Pleads the Fifth in New York AG Probe

The corrupter said, "Only guilty people and mobsters plead the Fifth." This week, he did just that, while being questioned for a lawsuit.

It's tempting to say, "He's guilty, or he's a mobster — he said so himself!" But it's wrong to say that, because the "rule" he cited was bullshit all along. To treat it as valid is to undermine the Fifth Amendment itself, and we must not do that.

We have plenty of other reasons to believe that the corrupter is guilty of trying to overthrow the US government and seize power, as well as swindling in his fund-raising.

Not yet proof that can put him away, though.

Colombia’s first leftist president says war on drugs has failed

Colombia's new president Gustavo Petro declared that fighting the war on drugs has failed.

but he means, fighting that war on Colombia's territory has failed. He's right about that. But he seems not to realize that fighting that war on US territory is equally a failure. "Strong measures that prevent consumption in developed societies" is not a solution to the problems caused by use of addictive drugs.

We should put that war into a treatment program to get it off drugs.

Inside Somalia’s vicious cycle of deforestation for charcoal

*Inside Somalia’s vicious cycle of deforestation for charcoal.*

Reportedly, al-Shabaab is trying to prohibit cutting trees with leaves, and having some success enforcing the prohibition by burning trucks caught carrying such wood. A democratic government might be able to enforce the rule with less brutality, but this may be better than nothing in the long term.

In a world of growing scarcity, the long-term non-brutal solution is (1) decarbonization and (2) much fewer births.

ISTR that Haiti has suffered for decades from a similar problem; nearly all the forests have been cut down.

Global heating has caused ‘shocking’ changes in forests across the Americas, studies find

*Global heating has caused ‘shocking’ changes in forests across the Americas, studies find.*

Trees are advancing to the north, and dying or burning in the south.

*Melting of the world's biggest ice sheet [the East Antarctic] would cause catastrophic sea level rise, but can be avoided with fast climate action.*