Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, February 20, 2020

• Methane emissions from fossil fuels ‘severely underestimated’ by Robert McSweeney from Carbon Brief.

• Climate Disinformation from Union of Concerned Scientists.

• Record Antarctic temperatures fuel sea level worry by Alex Kirby from Climate News Network.

• Just a Tiny Fraction of America’s Plastic Can Actually Be Recycled, Report Finds from Yale Environment 360.

• Report Attacks Industry Campaign to Fix Natural Gas’s Climate PR Problem by Dana Drugmand from Desmog.

• Is Iran ill-advised to finance its regional allies while under sanctions? by Elijah J. Magnier from his weblog. My commentary follows:

One likely wouldn't be able to understand the Middle East conflicts without this journalist. And one wouldn't likely understand this article without having following events closely in the Middle East for over 30 years. Capitalists of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire have viewed this region, which is rich in fossil fuels, as a strategic factor in their obsessive desire to rule the world. 

Ordinary Americans, coping with rising inflation, particularly health-related costs (see the next posted article), and tenuous employment do not have the time to understand even the details of this long history. They are focused on surviving. In this vacuum of understanding, Americans, and others throughout the Empire, have also been brainwashed on a massive scale by media corporations, Hollywood films, and schools to believe that their countries were fighting terrorism in the Middle East.

Americans have been the target of the transnational capitalist Empire as much as nations in the Middle East. Although they have been manipulated by home grown terrorism perpetrated by agents of the Empire, Americans and other ordinary people in the nations of the Empire have not suffered terrorism on a much larger scale--terrorist Jihadi armies. These were organized by agents of Empire and their allies,  and suffered by nations in the Middle East who have opposed the Empire. And, Americans don't understand the devastating effects of economic sanctions on the lives of ordinary people in the Middle East.

However, for those Americans, who have had the time and followed closely the events in the Middle East from more independent sources for the past many decades, this article is priceless toward their understanding of the current scene today in that unfortunate region.

• Sanders’ surge in the polls triggers new provocations by media, Democratic establishment by Barry Grey from World Socialist Web Site. 

There are growing concerns within the party apparatus and much of the corporate elite that wins for Sanders in Nevada and South Carolina could set him up for victories on Super Tuesday that would make his nomination unstoppable. The response of the corporate media and the party establishment has been twofold: to promote the candidacy of Bloomberg and launch new political provocations aimed at derailing the Sanders campaign.

• China’s Massive Coronavirus Study Covering 44,000 Cases Reveals the True Nature of the Virus by Drago Bosnic from FRN (Fort Russ News).

• Syria - Turkey's Bluff Is Called - Media Opposition Sources Run By British Intelligence by Bernhard from his weblog Moon of Alabama.