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Bizarrely, the EPA’s own Science Advisory Board (SAB) also argued against the EPA’s blanket support for fracking. The SAB remarked “that if the EPA retains this conclusion, the EPA should provide quantitative analysis that supports its conclusion that hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.” — Has the EPA failed America by denying the link between fracking waste and our drinking water crisis
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U.S
Convicted With No Evidence: a Very Dangerous Precedent! I have already served over 21 months as a result of a Jim Crow trial that had me accused of altering dates on a recall petition against then Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower. The prosecutor and judge both instructed the jury they could convict me “with no evidence.” Indeed, there was no evidence. I am an innocent man, threatened, charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced in an effort to isolate and silence me against the power of the land-grabbing, job-outsourcing, criminal Whirlpool Corporation that has its headquarters in Benton Harbor. My unusually harsh sentence was imposed by county judge Sterling Shrock by Rev. Edward Pinkney
In the aftermath of the rebellion in South Central L.A. two years ago, there has been a massive media blitz to make “violent crime” the major issue of the day. After all the hype, polls have been taken that show crime as the “major” issue—ahead of unemployment, health, taxes, etc. According to a recent survey by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the three major TV networks aired more than twice as many crime stories last year than in 1992. Meanwhile the crime rate has remained virtually the same. — Roland Sheppard, Crime and Punishment: ‘Three Strikes and You’re Out’ Targets Blacks and Poor
Indictment: US Guilty of War CrimesI am sickened as I write, my country, engaged in horrible crimes against human beings, tortured, reduced to helplessness, imprisoned for years, often released subsequently without charges … a compliant (and complicit) public, ranging from profound denial to blissful unconcern or the self-righteous expression of justifiability, forming the silent background for a tableau of dishonor and extreme cruelty. I refer to Guantanamo, but also CIA black sites scattered worldwide, sadistic personnel —jailers, physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists, lawyers, military and intelligence officers, members of Congress, Washington, America in general, right up to Obama — compliant, complicit, no, actively supportive, blood-soaked in mind and spirit, positively relishing the demonic practices, all in the name of freedom and democracy, the American Way of Life, God Himself/Herself. by Norman Pollack
Environment:
Has the EPA failed America by denying the link between fracking waste and our drinking water crisis? by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
On Melting Ice: Inuit Struggle Against Oil and Gas in the Arctic The Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are engaged in a centuries-old fight to retain their culture and reestablish self-determination and genuine sovereignty. In particular, Inuit in the autonomous territory of Nunavut are resisting what American Indian studies scholar Daniel R. Wildcat has described as a “fourth removal attempt” of Indigenous people, coming on the heels of failed efforts at spatial, social and psycho-cultural deletion. By Chris Williams, Truthout 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Army Corps holds off on resuming Dakota Access pipeline work The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won’t yet authorize construction of the $3.8 billion, four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline on federal land in southern North Dakota, it said Monday, along with reiterating its earlier request that the pipeline company voluntarily stop work on private land in the area. By Blake Nicholson
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
Ava DuVernay’s Netflix film ’13th’ reveals how mass incarceration is an extension of slavery By Bethonie Butler
Black Agenda Report for Week of Oct 3, 2016
Reparations a Necessity to Correct America’s Crimes: The United Nations panel of experts that blasted the U.S. for its “legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality” had no choice but to call for reparations for people of African descent, said Kamm Howard, of NCOBRA, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. “The international community recognizes that reparations is pretty much mandatory when a state has committed those types of crimes,” said Howard. “You have to repair the injury, you have to make the people whole, because these types of injuries are long term and, generally, self-perpetuating.”
Black Colombians Favored Peace Deal: “The majority of the ‘Yes’ vote came from Afro-descended territories and from those territories where war has hit most strongly at communities,” said Afro-Colombian human rights activist Charo Mina-Rojas. The agreement that would have ended the half-century-long war between FARC guerillas and the Colombian government was narrowly defeated in a referendum, last month. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and left more than five million homeless, the majority of them Black. Mina-Rojas called the vote a victory for “the elite.” “We were not shocked,” she said.Ajamu
Baraka: Bush and Obama Backed Jihadist Forces: “This country and the world is more dangerous as a consequence of the rampage the U.S. has been involved in in the so-called Middle East,” said Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka. Speaking on Democracy Now!’s “Expanded Debates,” Baraka said both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the rise of Islamic jihadism. “Under the Bush administration, there was a conscious decision to utilize jihadist forces to advance U.S. policies,” he said. “That policy was continued under the Obama administration. We see the blowback happening across the world.”
Crying Wolf on Fascism: “This notion that we’re going to have a white nationalist fascist takeover in this election, and that we all need to go running to this rightwing fanatic, this arch-corporatist, this lying neoliberal warmonger” — Hillary Clinton – “is not sticking with a lot of people on the Left,” said historian and political analyst Paul Street. Part of the reason is that “Clinton has such a long and unambiguous track record of really vanguard neoliberalism,” said Street. The Clintons “led the way for the rightward drift of the Democratic Party.”
Nat Turner as Revolutionary Organizer: The slave revolt that swept through Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831, in which about 60 whites were killed and hundreds of Blacks were hanged or murdered in retaliation, was “far more than an impulsive lashing out against mistreatment,” said Dr. Melvin Peters, associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Eastern Michigan. Turner was a man of “unparalleled leadership,” said Peters. “When Turner called out to the recruits, his six men grew to at least 60, maybe 80 freedom fighters, including free Blacks.” Slave insurrections also broke out “all around the Dismal Swamp, even down to Wilmington, North Carolina, in the same time period — so much so, that they appeared to be coordinated.”
Labor:
US and EU sanctions are ruining ordinary Syrians’ lives, yet Bashar al-Assad hangs on to power The conflict in Syria is the greatest humanitarian crisis the world has seen since the Second World War with 13 million people — two thirds of the population –— in need of assistance By Patrick Cockburn
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Hurricane Matthew kills 22 in US as flooding endangers North Carolina The storm left behind a water-logged landscape where flooding was expected to persist for the rest of the week and at least three rivers could reach record levels
Quotes of the Day: 
The Prison Strike Is Spreading And The DOJ Has Opened An Investigation As a national prison strike enters its second month, the Department of Justice says it will investigate conditions in Alabama prisons. And some corrections officers are expressing support. By Cora Lewis 
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