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This evening's music features New Orleans musician Dr. John. Enjoy!

“Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.”

-- Edward Snowden

News and Opinion

FBI and Police Are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.

As the city gears up to welcome an estimated 50,000 visitors, and an unknown number of protesters, some of the preparations and restrictions put in place by officials have angered civil rights activists. But the latest string of unannounced home visits by local and federal police marks a significant escalation in officials’ efforts to stifle protest, they say.

“The purpose of these door knocks is simple: to intimidate the target and others in efforts to discourage people from engaging in lawful First Amendment activities,” Jocelyn Rosnick, a coordinator with the Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote in a statement denouncing the home visits.

More than a dozen people in the Cleveland area have reported being visited this week by local police, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secret Service.

Kshama Sawant: Attempting to Work Within The Democratic Party Only Stymies Outside Strategy

Jordanian spies stole CIA weapons intended for Syrian rebels

Weapons shipped into Jordan for Syrian rebels by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia were stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, the New York Times reported, citing American and Jordanian officials.

Some of the stolen weapons were used in a shooting in November that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, according to a joint investigation by the New York Times and Al Jazeera. ...

Theft of the weapons, which ended months ago after complaints by the American and Saudi governments, has led to a flood of new weapons available on the arms black market, the New York Times said. ...

The CIA could not be immediately reached for comment.

Also over the weekend, reports emerged of Syrian rebels using advanced anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down Syrian government helicopters.

Erdoğan apologises for downing of Russian jet, Kremlin says

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has apologised to Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over Ankara’s downing of a Russian military jet last year that shattered diplomatic ties, the Kremlin has said.

“The head of the Turkish state in his message expressed his sympathy and deepest condolences to the family of the dead Russian pilot and said sorry,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said. He added that Erdoğan said he wanted to do “everything possible for the restoration of the traditionally friendly relations between Turkey and Russia”. ...

According to the Kremlin, Erdoğan also said authorities were investigating a Turkish national allegedly responsible for the downing of the jet.

Israel and Turkey end six-year standoff

Israel and Turkey have announced a reconciliation deal to end a six-year diplomatic standoff that started when Israeli naval commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists travelling on an aid flotilla making for the Gaza coast.

A deal negotiated in Rome on Sunday will restore full ambassador-level relations, provide for about $20m in compensation for the families of those killed and wounded aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010, and clear the way for potentially lucrative contracts for Israel to transmit natural gas to Turkey.

After agreeing to halt all proceedings in domestic and international courts against Israeli forces, Turkey is expected to be allowed to ship aid for Gaza through the Israeli port of Ashdod and to build a power station, hospital and desalination plant in the blockaded Strip.

The Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, announcing the deal in Ankara, said a first shipment of 10,000 tonnes of aid would be sent next Friday but it was too early to talk about gas deals with Israel. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said in a simultaneous announcement in Rome that the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza would continue.

Iraq Again Claims ‘Full Liberation’ of ISIS City of Fallujah

For the third time in the past couple of weeks, Iraqi military commanders have declared a total military victory in the ISIS-held city of Fallujah, insisting that they have “liberated” the entire city, and are now just going about removing the explosives.

Iraqi officials claimed it was the “cleanest urban battle in the whole of Iraq,” with only 10-15% of the city destroyed in the fighting. There are still reports of ISIS fighters around the area, and civilians aren’t being allowed back in.

War with Russia?

War with Russia appears increasingly likely as the US and its NATO satraps continue their military provocations of Moscow.

As dangers mount, our foolish politicians should all be forced to read, and then re-read, Prof. Christopher Clark’s magisterial book, ‘The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.’ What is past increasingly appears prologue.

Prof. Clark carefully details how small cabals of anti-German senior officials in France, Britain and Russia engineered World War I, a dire conflict that was unnecessary, idiotic, and illogical. Germany and Austria-Hungary of course share some the blame, but to a much lesser degree than the bellicose French, Serbs, Russians and British.

We are seeing the same process at work today. The war party in Washington, backed by the military-industrial complex, the tame media, and the neocons, are agitating hard for war. ...

In an amazing break with Berlin’s normally obsequious behavior, German’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, just demanded that Washington and NATO stop their ‘sabre-rattling’ against Russia. He speaks for many Germans and other Europeans who are deeply alarmed by the alliance’s provocations of Russia.

In fact, many Europeans want to see the end of NATO-imposed sanctions against Russia that were ordered by the US. No one in Europe cares about Russia’s re-occupation of Crimea. The sanctions have been a big backfire, seriously hurting EU exports to Russia at a time of marked economic weakness. Nor are any Europeans ready to fight a war, or worse, even court nuclear war, for such dark-side-of-the-moon places as eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk or Mariupol.

Will Peace Agreement between Colombia and FARC End Years of War, Unrest, and Destabilization?

State Dept’s Propaganda Center Growing Rapidly, But Accomplishing Little

After previously failed ad hoc efforts at building a propaganda department for the ISIS war, the Obama Administration set up the “Global Engagement Center,” (GEC) run out of the State Department, giving them broad authority to hire whoever they want to change the “narrative” on social media to one more favorable to the US and its coalition partners.

When you tell bureaucracies to grow, you don’t have to ask twice, and GEC went from a $5.6 million scheme to a $15 million scheme, with about 150 employees, and the Obama Administration seeking at least $21.5 million next year for it.

And what are those guys doing with all those employees and money? Not such, near as anyone can tell. GEC leader Michael Lumpkin, a retired Navy commander, says they’re still “getting the infrastructure in place” to do something.

Heh, it looks like the previous article understates the propaganda capabilities of the State Department:

State Department Turns Blind Eye to Evidence of Honduran Military’s Activist Kill List

State Department Spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday repeatedly denied that the government of Honduras kills its own citizens, saying more than a dozen times that he has not heard “credible evidence” of “deaths ordered by the military.”

His comments came in the wake of a high-profile assassination of Honduran native-rights activist Berta Cáceres in March, and a report in the Guardian that a high-level deserter from the Honduran army said he is “100 percent certain that Berta Cáceres was killed by the [Honduran] army.”

The deserter explained that Cáceres’s name and picture appeared on a kill list including “dozens of social and environmental activists,” which had been distributed to two elite, U.S.-trained units.

Since Honduras’s right-wing regime seized power in a coup in 2009, media and human rights organizations have compiled overwhelming evidence of Honduran military and police violence. ...

In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played a central role in legitimizing the new coup regime. While President Obama initially called Zelaya’s ouster “illegal” and said it would set a “terrible precedent,” Clinton refused to call it a military coup, and aid continued to flow. She also pushed for a sham election to “render the question of Zelaya moot,” according to Clinton’s memoir – which was later scrubbed of references to Honduras during her presidential campaign.

Snowden lawyer vows to make new push for pardon from Obama

Lawyers working with Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower who received sanctuary in Russia after fleeing the US, have vowed to step up pressure on Barack Obama’s administration for a presidential pardon.

“We’re going to make a very strong case between now and the end of this administration that this is one of those rare cases for which the pardon power exists,” Ben Wizner, the ACLU lawyer who is Snowden’s principal legal adviser, told New York magazine in a cover story published late on Sunday. ...

The comments were reported in lengthy article about Snowden’s use of a “Snowbot”, technically a BeamPro robot, to appear at US galleries and events. The Snowbot is a $14,000 (£10,000) machine that consists of a flatscreen monitor and camera atop a moving base.

From a home studio in Moscow, the magazine reported, the former NSA contractor can control the Snowbot with his computer, moving around and swivelling to make eye contact with people as they speak.

“I’m able to actually have influence on the issues that I care about, the same influence I didn’t have when I was sitting at the NSA,” Snowden said.

The Snowbot, he said, has given him a degree of autonomy.

“There’s always that initial friction, that moment where everybody’s like, ‘Wow, this is crazy,’ but then it melts away. Regardless of the fact that the FBI has a field office in New York, I can be hanging out in New York museums.”

Secretive Alphabet division aims to fix public transit in US by shifting control to Google

Sidewalk Labs, a secretive subsidiary of Alphabet, wants to radically overhaul public parking and transportation in American cities, emails and documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

Its high-tech services, which it calls “new superpowers to extend access and mobility”, could make it easier to drive and park in cities and create hybrid public/private transit options that rely heavily on ride-share services such as Uber. But they might also gut traditional bus services and require cities to invest heavily in Google’s own technologies, experts fear. ...

Sidewalk Labs was spun out from Google last June with a mission to “improve city life for everyone”. Since then, it has deployed several hundred free Wi-Fi kiosks in New York and is rumoured to be designing a city from the ground up for self-driving cars. Now, it’s offering Columbus a three-year demonstration project consisting of 100 Wi-Fi kiosks and free access to Flow.

The emails and documents show that Flow applies Google’s expertise in mapping, machine learning and big data to thorny urban problems such as public parking. Numerous studies have found that 30% of traffic in cities is due to drivers seeking parking.

Sidewalk said in documents that Flow would use camera-equipped vehicles, like Google’s Street View cars, to count all the public parking spaces in a city and read roadside parking signs. It would then combine data from drivers using Google Maps with live information from city parking meters to estimate which spaces were still free. Arriving drivers would be directed to empty spots.

Supreme Court strikes down Texas abortion clinic restrictions in major pro-choice ruling

The Supreme Court just struck down restrictions on abortion clinics in Texas, setting a national precedent in a major victory for pro-choice groups. ...

More than 20 abortion clinics in Texas closed in October 2013 as a result of the state's House Bill 2, which requires, among other things, that doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. The measure passed even with then-State Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster, which captured national attention.

A delayed part of the bill would have required abortion clinics in the state to be ambulatory surgical centers, which have strict building requirements, such as wider halls.

The case, which is now called Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, determined the definition of "undue burden" in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. That 1992 ruling upheld most of Roe v. Wade, but allowed states to pass abortion restrictions as long as they didn't create "undue burden" for women, which the court never defined. ...

"Texas law expressly authorizes other surgical procedures, including those performed under general anesthesia — which early abortion is not — to be performed in the physician's office," attorney Stephanie Toti argued to the Supreme Court in March in her rebuttal. "And even other physicians that operate at an [ambulatory surgical center] aren't required to have admitting privileges... So these regulations target one of the safest procedures that a patient can have in an outpatient setting for the most onerous regulations."

Although Texas attorney Scott Keller argued the law would protect women's health, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quipped that abortion wasn't riskier than child birth.

Spanish election: still no majority

Spanish elections: renewed deadlock beckons as no party wins majority

Conservative People’s party wins largest share of vote but falls short of majority and Unidos Podemos surge fails to materialise

Spain is facing further political deadlock after the country’s second general election in six months proved a near rerun of the December vote, leaving the conservative Partido Popular (PP) with the most votes but once again short of an overall majority.

Exit polls, which had suggested that the far-left Unidos Podemos coalition was on course to stage a historic breakthrough by pushing the socialist PSOE into third place, were thoroughly confounded as it became clear that the anticipated surge would not materialise.

By the time the count was finished, the PP had increased its lead on last time, taking 137 seats on 33% of the vote, and strengthening the hand of its leader, acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy. The socialists came second with 85 seats, Unidos Podemos third with 71 seats, and the centrist Ciudadanos party fourth with 32. ...

In the run-up to the vote, the party seemed to have capitalised on growing disenchantment with the traditional political behemoths as Spain emerges slowly from its economic crisis but still struggles with an unemployment rate of 21% and a youth unemployment rate of 45%. Its position has also been strengthened by the proliferation of corruption scandals that has tarnished the PP in recent years.

But despite the initial confidence provoked by two exit polls putting it comfortably in second place, Unidos Podemos came nowhere near the predicted sorpasso, or overtaking, of the PSOE. Its recent decision to run on a joint ticket with United Left (IU), the leftwing coalition that includes the Communist party of Spain, had not borne the expected fruit.

Making Sense of Brexit: Paul Mason on Britain's Growing Economic & Political Crisis

This is truly worth reading in full:

Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions

The decision by U.K. voters to leave the EU is such a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions that — for once — their failures have become a prominent part of the storyline. Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting one’s own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility. Virtually every reaction that falls into the former category emphasizes the profound failures of Western establishment factions; these institutions have spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew condescending scorn at their victims when they object.

The Los Angeles Times’s Vincent Bevins, in an outstanding and concise analysis, wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years”; in particular, “since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.” The British journalist Tom Ewing, in a comprehensive Brexit explanation, said the same dynamic driving the U.K. vote prevails in Europe and North America as well: “the arrogance of neoliberal elites in constructing a politics designed to sideline and work around democracy while leaving democracy formally intact.”

In an interview with the New Statesman, the political philosopher Michael Sandel also said that the dynamics driving the pro-Brexit sentiment were now dominant throughout the West generally: “A large constituency of working-class voters feel that not only has the economy left them behind, but so has the culture, that the sources of their dignity, the dignity of labor, have been eroded and mocked by developments with globalization, the rise of finance, the attention that is lavished by parties across the political spectrum on economic and financial elites, the technocratic emphasis of the established political parties.” After the market-venerating radicalism of Reagan and Thatcher, he said, “the center left” — Blair and Clinton and various European parties — “managed to regain political office but failed to reimagine the mission and purpose of social democracy, which ­became empty and obsolete.”

Heh, those slimy elites may have an out, after all:

British Exit From EU Not Inevitable, Despite Referendum

Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the failed campaign to convince voters to stay in the EU, told the public that an exit would not happen soon, as he intended to resign in three months and leave it to his successor to decide “when to trigger Article 50 of the union’s basic agreement, the Lisbon Treaty, which says that a member state has two years after declaring its desire to leave to negotiate the terms of its exit.

Speaking to the press a short time later, the man considered most likely to be prime minister in October, Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, also seemed in no hurry to get the process started. ...

Given that the popular mandate his side had just won was summed up in a single word on the backdrop behind him, “Leave,” it seemed odd that Johnson made no mention of the fastest way to get that process started, by pressing for an immediate Article 50 declaration. ...

As the legal blogger David Allen Green has explained clearly, the measure Britons just voted for “was an advisory not a mandatory referendum,” meaning that it is not legally binding on the government. No matter who the prime minister is, he or she is not required by the outcome to trigger Article 50.

The British Labour Party is in meltdown after Brexit

The Labour Party has been plunged into chaos, and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is coming under increasing pressure to resign in the wake of Brexit, which has triggered mass resignations within his shadow cabinet. About three-quarters of its members have resigned since Sunday, saying they have no confidence that Corbyn can lead Labour to victory in the early election that may follow the political crisis caused by last week's referendum vote to leave the European Union.

Corbyn is defiant, and released a statement on Sunday evening saying he would not resign, despite the pressure, and has replaced the resigning members of his Cabinet with members of parliament who have been steadfast supporters of his leadership.

"I regret there have been resignations today from my shadow cabinet. But I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me," Corbyn wrote. "Those who want to change Labour's leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate." ...

Critics of Corbyn's leadership say led a lackluster campaign to remain in the EU. The BBC says they reviewed internal documents which "suggest Jeremy Corbyn's office sought to delay and water down the Labour Remain campaign. Sources suggest that they are evidence of "deliberate sabotage."

Ah, right on time. You probably could have set your watch by the timing of the latest betrayal of the 99% by the Corpadem DLC elites.

Betraying Progressives, DNC Platform Backs Fracking, TPP, and Israel Occupation

Appointees by Clinton and Wasserman Schultz resoundingly reject numerous proposals put forth by Sanders surrogates

Staying true to their donors, Corporate Dems rejected Sanders' DNC platform proposals on minimum wage, trade, climate change, & Palestine.

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) June 25, 2016

Despite its claims to want to unify voters ahead of November's election, the Democratic party appears to be pushing for an agenda that critics say ignores basic progressive policies, "staying true" to their Corporate donors above all else.

During a 9-hour meeting in St. Louis, Missouri on Friday, members of the DNC's platform drafting committee voted down a number of measures proposed by Bernie Sanders surrogates that would have come out against the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), fracking, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. At the same time, proposals to support a carbon tax, Single Payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage tied to inflation were also disregarded.

In a statement, Sanders said he was "disappointed and dismayed" that representatives of Hillary Clinton and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz rejected the proposal on trade put forth by Sanders appointee Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), despite the fact that the presumed nominee has herself come out against the 12-nation deal. ...

The panel also rejected amendments suggested by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, another Sanders pick, that would have imposed a carbon tax, declared a national moratorium on fracking as well as new fossil fuel drilling leases on federal lands and waters.

"Former U.S. Representative Howard Berman, American Federation of State, County, and Muncipal Employees executive assistant to the president, Paul Booth, former White House Energy and Climate Change Policy director Carol Browner, Ohio State Representative Alicia Reece, former State Department official Wendy Sherman, and Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden all raised their hands to prevent a moratorium from becoming a part of the platform," noted Shadowproof's Kevin Gosztola.

To Transform Nation, Sanders Urges Movement to Organize its 'Outrage'

In a 75-minute speech on Thursday night, Bernie Sanders described his "vision of transforming this country"—a vision that depends on the wholesale mobilization of the populist army galvanized by his presidential campaign.

"Never, ever lose your sense of outrage," Sanders told the New York City crowd in an address titled "Where We Go From Here."

"You can beat the establishment," he declared. "They're not quite as powerful as some make them out to be. In every state we had to take on the entire Democratic establishment. That is not just your state—that's true in every state in this country and yet we ended up winning 22 of those states."

"I have no doubt that a strong well-organized grassroots movement can take on the establishment and defeat the establishment and that is precisely what we've got to do and what the political revolution is all about," he said to rowdy applause.

Hillary Clinton’s Likely Defense Chief Says She Did Not Advocate U.S. Ground Troops in Syria

Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy said Wednesday that she does not advocate sending U.S. ground troops to Syria to fight President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

On Monday, Defense One, the national security and defense news outlet of Atlantic Media, reported that Flournoy had “called for ‘limited military coercion’ to help remove Assad from power in Syria, including a ‘no bombing’ zone over parts of Syria held by U.S.-backed rebels.”

Reporter Patrick Tucker interpreted those comments, which Flournoy made at a Center for New American Security conference, to mean that she “said she would direct U.S. troops to push President Bashar al-Assad’s forces out of southern Syria and would send more American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region.” ...

After publication, Flournoy wrote a letter to the editor of Defense One denying that she advocates “putting U.S. combat troops on the ground to take territory from Assad’s forces or remove Assad from power.”

Tucker told The Intercept that Defense One did not issue a correction because they felt they accurately reported Flournoy’s policy position. “Strike weapons at standoff distance is troops,” said Tucker. “Those are military personnel. That is U.S. military power — at war with the Assad regime. There is just no way around it.”

Landmark Survey Finds Special Interests are Pouring Money into Local Elections

While the outsized influence that Big Money is having on federal elections is well-documented, the local impact of the Supreme Court's 2011 Citizens United ruling has not been fully realized—until now.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law on Sunday published a landmark report (pdf) documenting how secret donations have corroded democracy at the state level, where it is "arguably most damaging."

"Mining companies secretly targeting a legislator who opposed permits. Food companies battling a ballot measure to add labeling requirements. Payday lenders supporting an attorney general who promised to shield them from regulation," writes Brennan Center president Michael Waldman, listing the ways that outside money has corrupted local politics.

According to the report, secret spending on the local level rose from 24 percent in 2006 to 71 percent in 2014. This is largely due to a new phenomenon the authors have dubbed "Gray Money," which is when "organizations, which are legally required to disclose their donors, route money through multiple layers of PACs to obscure its origin." ...

The lower cost of state and local elections makes it relatively easy for dark money to dominate. According to the study, outside groups often outspent candidates by the $10,000's to lower $100,000's, which it notes is "a modest business expense for special interests, but a major hurdle for many candidates and community groups."

TransCanada Files NAFTA Suit Demanding More Than $15 Billion for Keystone XL Rejection

On June 24, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding more than $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.

TransCanada’s case will be heard in a private tribunal of three lawyers who are not accountable to any domestic legal system, thanks to NAFTA’s “investor-state” system, which is also included in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The controversial TPP would empower thousands of additional corporations, including major polluters, to follow TransCanada’s example and use this private tribunal system to challenge U.S. climate and environmental policies.

TransCanada’s Request for Arbitration follows the Notice of Intent to submit a claim to arbitration that it filed on Jan. 6.

TransCanada’s attempt to make American taxpayers hand over more than $15 billion because the company’s dirty Keystone XL pipeline was rejected shows exactly why NAFTA was wrong and why the even more dangerous and far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership must be stopped in its tracks.

Extractive Economies Threaten an Ancient Grain in Minnesota

Robert DesJarlait, co-founder of Protect Our Manoomin (wild rice — manoomin in Ojibwe), a group working to protect Minnesota’s wild-rice economy, says wild rice faces two existential threats: “Mining and Enbridge’s pipelines.”

The pipelines “run through the middle of Minnesota, across the wild-rice lakes and tribal areas.” He worries about pipelines carrying an ultra-heavy crude called bitumen, but so far there have been no Kalamazoo, Michigan-sized spills.

Mining occurs mainly in the northeastern part of the state, known as the Iron Range, or Range for short. Those mines pose a threat to the rice, says DesJarlait, because “sulfate from the mining gets in the water, floats down stream and embeds in the sediment.”

The biggest mining proposal in the works, and at the heart of a heated debate, is PolyMet Mining Corporation’s NorthMet Project, a copper-nickel mega-mine near Minnesota’s Iron Range. The proposal for an open pit mine, processing plant and tailings basin cleared a significant hurdle in March when the state signed off on a 3,500-page environmental review that clears the way for PolyMet, a Canadian mining company based in Toronto, to obtain other approvals and permits needed to begin the construction phase. ...

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), which is revising its 1973 water quality standards, is currently deliberating the amount of sulfate-converted-to-sulfide necessary to kill or thwart wild rice growth.

The 1973 standard limits sulfate pollution to 10 milligrams per liter in waters used for the production of wild rice. That means Minnesota’s big sulfate emitters—municipal wastewater treatment plants, industrial facilities and mining operations—aren’t allowed to discharge water with sulfate levels that exceed that limit, at least in theory.

But that standard, says Iron Range state Rep. Carly Melin (DFL), “was never in a permit and never enforced. ... A bloc of lawmakers who represent the state’s Arrowhead Region, a northern area where most mining occurs, strategically added a section to Minnesota law in 2015 that has stopped exercise of the 1973 standard all together. ... The 2015 legislative change restricts the agency from requiring permittees to spend money on measures to control or mitigate sulfate pollution.

DNC Platform Calls for Justice Dept. to Investigate Fossil Fuel Companies - Brushes Off Actions To Move Away From Fossil Fuels

The committee drafting a platform for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party unanimously called on Friday for the Justice Department to investigate fossil fuel companies, such as ExxonMobil Corp., accused of misleading shareholders and the public about the risks of climate change.

At the same time, in a session Friday night, the group brushed off calls by environmental activists for the platform to support several stronger actions to move away from fossil fuels. The policies, favored by Bernie Sanders, include a carbon tax and a ban on fracking.

The effect of the session, one of several forums around the country, was to intensify the partisan heat around criticism of Exxon's climate record, while allowing the Clinton camp to stake out political territory that is not quite so harsh on oil, coal and natural gas companies. ...

In the face of petitions by green activists trying to pull the platform more in the Sanders direction, Clinton's representatives on the platform panel backed her up. Clearly, they wanted to keep their fingers off such hot buttons, such as a promise to leave most fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

They also refused to embrace a "climate test" for approving future energy projects, similar to the one President Obama imposed in turning down TransCanada's application for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Asked about the loss on so many points, the 350.org campaigner Bill McKibben said in an email, "Since I argued for them, I guess their failure is on me. Disappointing."

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Speaking Nonsense to Power: Misadventures in Dissent Over Syria

After 60 years of conflict, the truce signed between President Santos and leaders of the Farc rebels has made a nation rejoice

Standing on Backs of Global Poor, Filthy Rich Getting Even Filthier

A Little Night Music

Dr. John - Such a Night

Dr John - Iko Iko

Dr John - Basin Street Blues

Bluesiana Triangle - Life's A One Way Ticket

Dr. John - Right Place, Wrong Time

Dr John - There Must Be A Better World Somewhere

Dr. John - Newport Jazz Festival