*US Once Planned To Kill Assange But Gives "Assurances" It Won't Again.*

Cruel US prison conditions are a national shame, but in addition to threatening Julian Assange, the US demand to prosecute Assange also threatens freedom of the press. That is the biggest issue here.

(satire) *"We're Still Gonna Go To Vegas, Buddy," Says U.S. Soldier Holding Dying Drone In His Arms.

Indigenous pipeline-resisters in Canada point out that the courts almost always side with the pipeline and against them. This author has no doubt that the pattern is racism at work.

Is that pattern due to racism? It could be so. Or it could be due to plutocracy. Or it could be due to a combination of both causes.

It isn't valid to presume a priori that the cause is mostly racism, when we know how far the Canadian government will go to support pipeline construction and tar sands oil.

We could tell how significant racism is as a factor if we could contrast these statistics with comparable statistics about non-indigenous Canadians. The article doesn't give any.

Perhaps there are no comparable statistics. Perhaps non-indigenous landowners don't oppose pipelines. Perhaps the government routs pipelines through indigenous land to spare the white Canadians' land. If so, that choice could be directly because of racism, or because the whites have more political clout to resist with, or both.

It could be the case that the indigenous pipeline resisters in Canada have special opportunities to sue, based on the rights of their tribes, which no one else has. If so, I appreciate their exercising those opportunities to defend the climate. They are fighting for all of us.

Alas, that would mean this gives no opportunity to measure to what extent the Canadian courts are racist in enforcing Canadian law.

Senator Sinema has stated the intention to maintain the filibuster at all costs rather than pass a voting rights law that could block the Republican coup.

Her argument is that the Republicans could benefit from the absence of the filibuster, if they take the Senate. That's true — if they hold the House and the presidency.

But if that happens, they would abolish the filibuster the first day. They abolished the filibuster for nominations years ago, which is how they put three right-wing extremists onto the Supreme Court.

Sinema's heroic "sacrifice" is a bogus excuse not to resist the next coup.

(satire) *Texas School's Unbanned Books Down To 3 Copies Of Tom Clancy's "Threat Vector".*