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“Or perhaps the syndrome we are witnessing is preemptive capitulation: If we reduce our conscience to rubble before the bad men get here, they will have nothing to destroy.”

-- J. Budziszewski

News and Opinion

Bernie Sanders Left Delegates With No Way to Fight but Boo

The first night of the Democratic National Convention featured rousing tributes to Hillary Clinton, blistering critiques of Donald Trump — and a chorus of boos from Bernie Sanders delegates at invocations to vote for Clinton, even when they came from Sanders himself. ...

Throughout this process, Sanders openly considered bringing key issues where he was stymied to the convention floor itself, by submitting what is called a “minority plank.” That would have allowed his campaign to submit platform proposals to the floor for a vote among all delegates. ...

Fighting over the platform on the floor would have offered Bernie delegates the chance to continue doing what they do best — organize and make change. They would have had an opportunity to argue over issues the movement cared deeply about and possibly even move the Democratic Party in ways that Bernie’s inside negotiations with the DNC failed to.

But on July 10, Sanders’s campaign released a triumphant statement, calling the platform the “most progressive” in the Democratic Party’s history. On July 12, the Sanders campaign then abruptly ended its talk of a convention fight over the issues. “As a result of our success and the realization that further platform fights would be portrayed in the corporate media as obstructionist and divisive, the senator made the very difficult decision not to file minority reports,” Sanders policy chief Warren Gunnels wrote to key supporters.

Chaos on Convention Floor: Protests, Boos and Chants of "Bernie" Mark Opening of DNC

Bernie Sanders Hears Boos Again as He Asks Supporters to Back Hillary Clinton

Senator Bernie Sanders once again faced boos on Tuesday as his restive supporters continued to raise protests despite his efforts to persuade them that voting for Hillary Clinton is the best way to defeat Donald J. Trump.

After making the rounds at several breakfasts, the Vermont senator was met with a loud chorus of boos from members of the California delegation. The booing started immediately, with many people in the audience giving Mr. Sanders a thumbs-down sign. But Mr. Sanders was quick to wave the crowd to be quiet and to chide them for their response. ...

Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Sanders spoke to delegates from Wisconsin, Montana and Alaska. There, Mr. Sanders was met with tense silence when he tried to make the case for Mrs. Clinton. He started by calling Mr. Trump “the worst, least-prepared candidate for president in my lifetime,” and then went on to make his pitch.

“We have got to obviously elect Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Sanders said, as many in the room sat quietly. ...

The steadfast loyalty of Mr. Sanders’s delegates could lead to more scenes of discord on the convention floor Tuesday when the nominating vote is held.

Teva Gabis-Levine, a Sanders delegate from New Mexico, said he expects the roll-call vote to be filled with more emotional outbursts.

“I know that my state party is encouraging us to fall in line somewhat and wear our official polo shirts and show unity. I know a great number of my delegation are not going to do that,” Mr. Gabis-Levine, 35, said. “I’m expecting similar responses to yesterday, some turning of backs, some booing, some under-the-breath comments, some louder comments, a wide range of reactions.”

Will Bernie Sander’s Political Movement Have Life Beyond the DNC?

The day before the big climate and Sanders marches, during a quieter event at a Quaker meeting hall, representatives from many of these causes met to lay out a platform in a formal, online document. The “People’s Convention,” as participants called it, was designed to look beyond this year’s presidential race, toward creating the sort of wide-reaching political movement the Vermont senator so often invoked on the campaign trail.

The initiative came about largely through the efforts of two organizers, Jack “Jackrabbit” Pollack and Shana East. Both had volunteered for Sanders in the Chicago area. East was hired by the campaign once it started ramping up its organizing efforts in Illinois. But in April, they decided they would have to step away from the Sanders campaign to foster a wider movement.

“The Sanders campaign didn’t really seem to be interested in actually working with the grass roots,” Pollack said. “Once Shana and I realized that that was the case, we figured that for the political revolution that Bernie had been calling for since the beginning of his campaign, it was really essential that we be building for something, toward something. We were kind of giving a form and a framework to a movement that is currently very amorphous.”

“The reality is that Bernie, if you really listened to his speeches and the things that he said over the course of the campaign, he never actually said ‘I’m leading this movement,'” Pollack continued. “I think the mistake that a lot of people have been making is to think that they needed to look to him for this movement. The movement is us.”

'He convinced none of us': Bernie Sanders diehards react to convention speech

Standing on the stage to endorse his former rival Hillary Clinton, against whom he mounted an unexpectedly serious challenge, Sanders endured sporadic boos from his most ardent supporters when he asked for their support in putting the former secretary of state in the White House.

“There’s a long way to go before November,” said Cullen Tiernan, a Sanders delegate from California. “She’ll have to make some concrete commitments instead of the platitudes and fluff that we’ve been getting all day long.” ...

Several stadium seats away, Amy Erb and Luci Riley, members of the National Nurses United and California delegates for Sanders, watched the speech with pained expressions. At one point, Riley wiped tears from her eyes as she listened to Sanders applaud Clinton.

“It was obviously disappointing,” Erb said of Sanders’ speech, “but this movement was beginning and brewing long before Bernie became a candidate, and it will continue after him.”

Away from the hall, Sarah Hernandez, a 22-year-old marketing officer from Houston, Texas, live-streamed the speech from a campsite in New Jersey. A Sanders supporter, she had taken part in anti-Clinton demonstrations on Monday, which included an action outside Philadelphia’s city hall at which she and others chanted “lock her up”, a Republican chant aimed at Clinton.

“It’s not what a lot of us wanted to hear,” she said of Sanders’ speech. “We wanted to hear him lay down the law, saying: ‘This election was rigged from the start,’ and how if you compare the polls of him versus Trump compared to Hillary against Trump, he wins.”

Hernandez and four others from Texas had huddled around a cellphone to watch Sanders speak. It seemed the leftwing firebrand’s efforts to transfer his support to Clinton had fallen on deaf ears, with this group at least.

“From the quick poll of the people I’m with, he convinced none of us,” she said.

"Gosh we're sorry that we stole the election from you..."

DNC apologizes to Bernie Sanders amid convention chaos in wake of email leak

The Democratic National Committee issued an apology on Monday to Bernie Sanders and his supporters over leaked emails that showed bias among party officials towards his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as the Democrats’ national convention opened amid chaotic scenes of Sanders supporters booing the nominee.

“On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email,” Democratic Party officials said in a statement. The controversy led to the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as party chair on Sunday.

“These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process,” the statement went on. “The DNC does not – and will not – tolerate disrespectful language exhibited toward our candidates.”

The statement further noted that the DNC was taking “appropriate action to ensure it never happens again”.

The FBI announced on Monday it was launching an investigation into the hack of the DNC’s email server that led to the publication of the emails, as Clinton’s bid for a week of unity began with renewed rancor among Sanders supporters who had long doubted the neutrality of national party officials.

When will the Dem pundits do this - the ones who kept sneering that this was all a crazy "conspiracy theory"? https://t.co/VvkDICCUBR

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 25, 2016

Leak Confirms DNC Aimed to Squash Questions Over Clinton Fundraising Scheme

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) tried to hide the fact that Hillary Clinton's campaign allegedly benefited from a controversial joint fundraising project her team claimed was helping down-ticket candidates, according to leaked emails.

The emails, released last week ahead of the Democratic National Convention, are "validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies, and Bernie Sanders supporters" about the Hillary Victory Fund, write Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf.

For three months after concerns were raised about the fundraising venture, officials at the DNC and on Clinton's team were publicly defending the scheme, but privately working to shut down "questions raised by reporters, as well as Sanders' since-aborted campaign, about the distribution of the money." ...

Clinton's allies have long claimed that the extravagant donations the committee solicited that paid for large portions of Clinton's presidential run also contributed to campaigns of down-ticket Democrats from 40 states—but in reality, those parties "kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised" through the Hillary Victory Fund, Politico reports.

Jill Stein vs. Ben Jealous: Should Progressives Reject Hillary Clinton & Vote Green?

This jackass just totally pisses me off:

The Sanders movement is bigger than Bernie. Now it must defeat Trump

Undoubtedly, the vast majority of Sanders’ supporters will vote for Hillary Clinton, despite a media focus on those pledging to do otherwise. Yes, his most zealous supporters refuse to distinguish between Clinton and Donald Trump. There is nothing radical about failing to take a stand on a far-right racist demagogue sweeping to power in what remains the world’s most powerful nation.

[Apparently, there is something radical about voting for a candidate whose platform represents real progressive change - something that frightens these morons, something really awful, like people not voting for the candidates of the parties of the 1%. -js]

The election of Trump would represent one of the greatest calamities to befall the west since the end of the second world war.

[Worse than Bush? C'mon, pull the other one. -js]

The task ahead is to ensure Trump’s defeat – as decisively as possible – and Democratic control of both Houses of Congress, and then to build pressure from below to enact progressive legislation.

[Yes, yes. Build up a party of the 1% to defeat a party of the 1%. Sounds like a winner! -js]

There are no shortage of social ills to address: that, as one Princeton academic study found, the US resembles an oligarchy more than a democracy; that wages have been stagnating or falling for many years, fuelling resentment that Trump feeds on; a racist judicial system; an inefficient private healthcare system; extortionate university fees; a younger generation facing a future of insecurity; the likelihood of further disastrous military interventions in the coming years; and so on.

[Seems like thousands of people have been assiduously working for decades, organizing, building up the party to address these very issues. How's that hope and change been working out for you? -js]

Facebook admits blocking WikiLeaks’ DNC email links, but won’t say why

Facebook has acknowledged it blocked links to WikiLeaks’ DNC email dump, though (again) hasn’t explained why. ...

It’s possible its algorithm incorrectly identified them as malicious, but it’s another negative mark on the company’s record nonetheless. WikiLeaks is a known entity, not some torrent dumping ground.

Previously, Facebook was discovered to have removed a Live video of Philando Castille dying, and posts of the Bastille Day aftermath were scrubbed from the newswire. Its news bar has also come under fire for being biased.

The rush to blame Russia for the DNC email hack is premature

Since WikiLeaks published the DNC’s hacked emails on Sunday, there has been a flurry of accusations – including from the Hillary Clinton campaign – that Russian president Vladimir Putin orchestrated both the hack and the leak, in an attempt to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

First, it would certainly be disturbing if Russia is trying to affect our democratic process, but maybe we should wait until we see actual evidence before deciding, as some have, that Putin ordered hackers to help swing the US election on the eve of the Democratic convention?

It’s amazing how quickly the media are willing to forgo any skepticism and jump to conspiracy-tinged conclusions where Putin is involved. He has been linked to everything from Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Greece and Spain. People treat him like an omnipotent mastermind who secretly and effortlessly controls world events. Here’s an idea: maybe we should stop giving him so much credit? ...

As Adam Johnson detailed, when you look closely, the evidence is shoddy and often contradictory. ... The bulk of the “evidence” has come from the statements of cybersecurity firms FireEye and Crowdstrike, both of which have lucrative contracts with the US government. As FireEye’s CEO once made clear, his company has a financial stake in nation-state hacking tensions.

If the allegations involving Russia are true, there are plenty more logical motivations besides evil genius-level electioneering, and the media should probably stop feigning shock that a country would stoop to this level. As Edward Snowden pointed out on Twitter with an accompanying NSA document, “Our government specifically authorized the hacking of political parties.” The US has also considered hacking and then releasing sensitive and embarrassing information in China in retaliation for cybersecurity attacks, as the New York Times reported last year.

Nusra Front to Rebrand in Public ‘Split’ From al-Qaeda

Believing that their public status as al-Qaeda’s formal “affiliate” in Syria has made them a target, the Nusra Front is announcing its intention to rebrand as the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or Sham Liberation Front, which itself won’t officially be affiliated with al-Qaeda’s parent organization. ...

Nusra’s “rebranding” seems like a cynical attempt to get around this US-Russia operation by suddenly not being al-Qaeda, at least in name, but might conceivably work, given the number of US officials openly objecting to attacking Nusra even as part of al-Qaeda.

At the same time, the ruse is transparent, since al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a public audio statement only back in May suggesting Nusra could make a public break with al-Qaeda as a way to unify Islamists to form an “emirate” to rival ISIS.

UN Reports Record High Civilian Toll in Afghanistan

Following a trend that has been depressingly familiar in recent years, the United Nations has released a new report today on violence in Afghanistan, finding record levels of violence against civilians in the first half of 2016, with 1,601 killed and 3,565 wounded. ...

Children are increasingly the targets of this rising violence, with the new report including 388 children killed and 1,121 wounded, a level the UN described as particularly shameful. This toll stops in June, and so doesn’t include the 80 civilians killed last week or the hundreds wounded in Kabul suicide bombings by ISIS.

US Still Can't Escape Calls for War Crimes Investigation into Its Bombing of MSF Hospital

New UN report finds record level of civilian casualties in Afghanistan; says there are 'prima facie grounds to warrant further investigation into whether US personnel committed war crimes'

A new United Nations report reveals a grim state of affairs for civilians in Afghanistan—a record level of civilian casualties for the first half of the year—and also renews the call for an independent investigation into whether the United States committed war crimes in bombing a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz. ...

The U.N. report includes the U.S. military's own findings, in redacted form, into the bombing, which it released in April following a shifting narrative on the attack.

The U.N. report cites the U.S. argument that "the tragic accident resulted from a combination of unintentional human errors and equipment failures" while the designation of "'war crimes' is typically reserved for intentional acts."

UNAMA, however, questions the impartiality and transparency of the U.S. military's findings, and states that "there are prima facie grounds to warrant further investigation into whether United States personnel committed war crimes."

US approves release of last Russian held at Guantanamo

A former ballet dancer and member of the Russian military who has been imprisoned as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo for nearly 14 years was given notice Monday that a review board has approved his release from the U.S. base in Cuba.

Ravil Mingazov was deemed eligible for release by the Periodic Review Board, an interagency task force set up by the Obama administration to evaluate whether prisoners not facing charges can be released without endangering U.S. security. He is the last Russian citizen still held at Guantanamo. ...

Mingazov, who denied any involvement in terrorism, was never charged with a crime. ...

His lawyers have asked the government to resettle him in Nottingham, England, where his son and ex-wife live under political asylum. The review board statement did not say where Mingazov would be sent or when he would be released. Britain most recently accepted a Guantanamo prisoner in October with the release of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen who was a resident of Britain before his capture.

Turkish PM: coup suspects' testimony points to Gülen's involvement

Binali Yildirim says country expects US to comply with extradition request for cleric, hinting alliance could be at risk otherwise

Turkey’s prime minister has said that testimony from suspects detained in the aftermath of the attempted coup has pointed to the direct involvement of Fethullah Gülen, an exiled cleric based in Pennsylvania.

Binali Yildirim said the Turkish government had not yet requested Gülen’s extradition, but would do so once the investigation was complete, with the expectation that Washington would comply with the request, hinting that the strategic alliance between the two countries could suffer if it did not. ...

“Of course, since the leader of this terrorist organisation is residing in the United States there are question marks in the minds of the people whether there is any US involvement or backing,” he said in an interview with the Guardian, taking care to note that Washington was not involved in the coup attempt. “So America from this point on should really think how they will continue to cooperate with Turkey, which is a strategic ally for them in the region and world.”

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has said the US would consider an extradition request for Gülen if Turkey could supply “legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny”. Turkey has so far provided limited public evidence on the role of Gülen and his Hizmet organisation, but Yildirim said it would make its case to Washington in a formal extradition request.

The Chinese government has banned news operations by internet companies

When floods killed at least 154 people in Northern and Central China and displaced tens of thousands over the weekend, Chinese web users may have wanted to know more about the extent of the disaster through reporting from Chinese journalists on the scene. But that kind of reporting was not available on the Chinese web, and it will be even harder to come by, after the government cracked down on web-based news outlets, forbidding them from running their own news operations.

With an edict made public on Monday, China's top internet regulator ordered online companies to stop producing original reporting from their news operations. Websites will have to hew to the official message of the Communist Party, or expect to see their publication "cleaned up" or shut down, according to the official statement in Chinese.

The order issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China or CAC is targeting the popular news portals owned by some the country's biggest Internet private companies: Sohu, Sina, NetEase and Phoenix. ...

As of Monday, some of the most popular news sections produced by those companies had already been taken down, such as Sohu's Click Today or People in News, with URLs redirecting users to Sohu's main page.

As for Western news sites, several of them aren't accessible in China, including the websites of The Economist, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, according to GreatFire, a website that tracks censorship on the Chinese web.

European banks prepare for possible shockwaves from stress test results

Europe’s biggest banks are braced for the outcome of financial health checks that could expose the extent of the weaknesses of the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), and send shockwaves through the markets.

However, the tests – due to be published on Friday – are being viewed by some analysts as a missed opportunity to gauge the full extent of the fragility of the banking system in Europe. Only 51 banks are being assessed, compared with 124 in 2014, and they will not be given a pass or fail mark as in the past. ...

The fate of the Italian banks is being closely watched. “Italy could provide the watershed moment for European banks. If a banking crisis were to start in Italy, we believe it would spread throughout Europe with the more levered names in the sector bearing the brunt of the pressure,” said analysts at Berenberg. ...

The EBA has said the 51 banks cover approximately 70% of the EU banking sector. No banks from Portugal, Cyprus or Greece are big enough to fall within the scope of the test.

The UK’s biggest lenders – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC – are being assessed. The outcome of the check on Deutsche Bank will also be closely watched.

Big tech asked to pay their 'fair share' in taxes to help San Francisco's homeless

The tech boom has generated thousands of high-paying jobs and vast amounts of wealth. It’s also contributed to a spike in housing costs, a steady rise in evictions, a seismic shift in the identity of neighborhoods and an ever-widening gap between the city’s richest citizens and its poorest.

Now some San Franciscans want the tech industry to pay what they call its “fair share” to mitigate some of the damage they believe it has done.

Last month, supervisor Eric Mar proposed a 1.5% payroll tax on technology companies that bring in more than $1m a year. The move, he says, will raise more than $120m, which would be used to provide low-cost housing for some of the city’s more than 6,600 homeless citizens. It would also lower some fees for small businesses.

This is in direct counterpoint to the 1.5% cuts the city offered companies such as Twitter, Uber and Spotify in 2011 to move into a blighted neighborhood a short walk from city hall – known colloquially as the ‘Twitter tax break’. According to a report by the San Francisco controller’s office, that break netted these companies $34m in 2014. ...

But Mar’s proposal has been met with fierce opposition from the mayor’s office, business groups and other local politicians. ... It’s a battle that’s been brewing for a long time, and Mar’s tax proposal may help bring it to a head.

The war comes home to Australia as it inevitably does everywhere.

'Abu Ghraib'-style images of children in detention in Australia trigger public inquiry

Australia’s prime minister has launched a public inquiry following the broadcast of footage of children in detention being abused, hooded and bound in a manner likened to Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay.

Malcolm Turnbull announced a royal commission hours after the national broadcaster aired shocking footage showing children in detention at the Don Dale facility outside Darwin in the Northern Territory.

Footage aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday showed one youth being stripped and physically held down by guards.

In another scene that the program compared with images from Guantánamo Bay or the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, 17-year-old Dylan Voller was shown hooded and tied in a restraint chair for two hours.

The revelations cast a new spotlight on Australia’s treatment of Indigenous people in general and also on the NT government’s hardline approach to crime.

Indigenous youths make up 96% of the young prison population in the Northern Territory and Indigenous people are overwhelmingly represented in the NT prison system across the board. Indigenous people make up 30% of the overall population of the NT.

Why a black man shot by Chicago police believes his case may be a sign of change

Antwon Golatte lifted his shirt to reveal the wide, dark scars of three bullet holes and two surgeries.

“I always said I was innocent,” said Golatte, 35, speaking to reporters for the first time since he was shot by police officers on the south side of Chicago in February 2015.

On Thursday, the city’s independent police review authority (IPRA) ruled that officers were unjustified in shooting Golatte. Their investigation contradicted officers’ contention that they shot him in self-defense, believing that Golatte was trying to run them over with his SUV. ...

Golatte and his lawyers said they think IPRA’s ruling signals that the movement for police accountability in Chicago may finally be having some effect.

“If IPRA is going to start stepping forward and giving some kind of fairness back to communities and other cities start following their lead, that stops all this chaos and madness out there of cops versus communities,” said Chris Stewart, an Atlanta-based attorney working with Golatte who also represents the family of Alton Sterling, killed by police in Baton Rouge earlier this month. “Because all people in communities want to know is we’re going to be treated fairly ... If someone gets shot, investigate fairly. That’s pretty reasonable.”

Robert Kagan and Other Neocons Are Backing Hillary Clinton

As Hillary Clinton puts together what she hopes will be a winning coalition in November, many progressives remain wary — but she has the war-hawks firmly behind her.

“I would say all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump,” leading neoconservative Robert Kagan told a group gathered around him, groupie-style, at a “foreign policy professionals for Hillary” fundraiser I attended last week. “I would say that a majority of people in my circle will vote for Hillary.” ...

The event raised $25,000 for Clinton. Two rising stars in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Amanda Sloat and Julianne Smith, also spoke.

The way they described Clinton’s foreign policy vision suggested that if elected president in November, she will escalate tensions with Russia, double down on military belligerence in the Middle East and generally ignore the American public’s growing hostility to intervention.

Sloat, the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, boasted that Clinton will be “more interventionist and forward-leaning than Obama’s been” in Syria. She also applauded Clinton for doing intervention the right way, through coalitions instead of the unilateral aggression that defined the Bush years.

“Nothing that [Clinton] did was more clear than the NATO coalition that she built to defend civilians in Libya,” said Sloat, referencing the Obama administration’s overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. That policy, spearheaded by Clinton, has transformed a once stable state into a lawless haven for extremist groups from across the region, including ISIS.

The Neocons Have Whipped Up A Foreign Policy Blueprint For Hillary

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a report entitled "Extending American Power: Strategies to Expand U.S. Engagement in a Competitive World Order." It could just as easily have been entitled "What Hillary Should Do When She Gets Elected, and Why She Should Hire Us to Do It." The report's authors run the gamut from interventionist Republican neocons like Robert Kagan to Democratic hawks like Michele Fluornoy, the co-founder of CNAS and a possible candidate for Secretary of Defense in a Hillary Clinton administration. There is not a fresh or independent voice in the lot. As Stephen Walt rightly points out in his take-down of the report in Foreign Policy, this is at best a status quo document, and at worst a doubling down on the failed policies of the past two decades. And why should we expect otherwise? After all, as Walt notes, "the report's signatories helped create many of the problems they now seek to fix, so you'd hardly expect them to cast a critical eye on their own handiwork." ...

The CNAS report is breathtaking in its scope. As Daniel L. Davis has noted, "The theme of the policy options and recommendations throughout this paper reflect the ambitions of an imperialist, domineering and expansive global power." Davis further notes that if the authors were to "describe their aspirations in those unpalatable terms" no one would support their approach. So instead we get rhetoric about the need for "American leadership" to enforce a "rules-based international order." There is little discussion of who makes the rules, or how they should be made, but the underlying assumption is that they should be made in Washington. In fact, the CNAS document crystallizes the kind of thinking that Andrew Bacevich roundly criticizes in his 2010 book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."

Email Dump: Hillary Clinton aide jumps on blame Russian bandwagon

The Hawks’ Election Strategy: Pushing a New Cold War

Begin with what is obvious: no responsible citizen ought to support in any way the presidential aspirations of Donald Trump. But in a wild election season, intelligent discussion cannot afford to end there. The past few weeks have cemented an extraordinary alliance to defeat Trump that joins two foreign-policy sects that were never entirely distinct: the neoconservatives who commandeered the Bush-Cheney foreign policy of 2001-2006, and liberal interventionists who supported the Iraq war, the Libya war, an expanded program of drone killings, and military intervention in Syria beyond what the Obama administration has allowed. With a spate of recent articles and op-eds, these people are preparing the ground for Hillary Clinton to assert that the Russian government is in league with the Trump campaign, and that Russia has intervened in the election by releasing hacked Democratic National Committee emails to embarrass Clinton.

In Slate magazine, for example, Franklin Foer explained that “Putin has a plan for destroying the West—and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump.” The Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum echoed this verdict: “we finally have a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, with direct and indirect links to a foreign dictator, Vladimir Putin, whose policies he promotes.” Foer and Applebaum have written earlier about Putin, in articles that had a stronger factual basis, and their stances are not surprising. A more telling measure of the efforts in the mainstream media to project a sinister association between Trump and Moscow may be found in a column by Paul Krugman entitled “The Siberian Candidate.”

Krugman here floats the idea that Trump may be a Russian agent, “Vladimir Putin’s man in the White House.” Stimulated by his own conjecture, he goes on to suggest that Trump “would actually follow a pro-Putin foreign policy”; that “Mr. Trump does, indeed, admire Putin”; that Trump’s helpless fondness for Putin comes out in his insistence that our NATO allies pay their share of the cost of maintaining NATO; that among Trump’s advisers, there may lurk a more “specific channel of influence”; and finally (a nameless general menace) that “there’s something very strange going on here.” ...

Yet it was not Krugman but the Atlantic Monthly blogger and reporter Jeffrey Goldberg who stole a march on subsequent alarmists by saying the choice between Clinton and Trump was really a choice between Clinton and an agent of Putin. This, in turn, was a clever variation on the tune called by Goldberg’s neoconservative associates, who a few weeks earlier had agreed in designating Trump a fascist. ... The truth is that the charge of fascism against Trump was a stopgap measure. Now it has been replaced by a charge that he is soft on the Communist menace, or the next worst thing—which they are betting the American mind will translate into the same thing—he is soft on the Russian menace. Fascism was never a ripe choice of terms. It gets hardly any play and commands little attention in America. For the neoconservatives, Red-baiting is a more familiar tactic and in the absence of a Red, a Russian will do. ...

The hope cherished by Goldberg and Kagan, Applebaum and Foer and possibly Krugman too, as well as Jonathan Chait in New York magazine (who praised the “long and fascinating report” by Foer) and doubtless a good many others who have yet to weigh in—the hope is that Mrs. Clinton will put the Cold War accusation of Trump at the heart of her election campaign. The language and logical processes of these articles are shoddy, their texture is pure tabloid, and they are full of words like “stooge” and “patsy,” which the earlier writings of these opinion makers would not lead one to expect. The design calls for Mrs. Clinton to run against Trump and Putin—and to forge the closest possible linkage between the two names in the public mind. ...

We may deplore Donald Trump for his abridgment of the protocols of honest debate, his pandering to racial and religious prejudice, his contempt for plain facts and his lack of acquaintance with facts. But to picture Trump as an agent or enabler of Vladimir Putin—and to insinuate that anyone who seeks diplomatic arrangements with Moscow in preference to a new Cold War must be “soft”—does nothing to elevate the political discourse of the moment. It takes us out of the sewer and leads us into the cesspool.

EPA ruling on aircraft emissions paves way for new regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday declared that jet engine exhaust endangers public health by contributing to climate change, a key milestone as it works to develop regulations that will cut carbon emissions from commercial aircraft.

Large commercial jets account for 11% of all emissions from the global transportation sector. Aircraft emissions are expected to grow by 50% by 2050 as demand for air travel increases. ...

“Addressing pollution from aircraft is an important element of US efforts to address climate change,” Janet McCabe, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, said in a statement. “EPA has already set effective GHG standards for cars and trucks and any future aircraft engine standards will also provide important climate and public health benefits.”

Both the EPA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), are developing regulations that will cut carbon emissions from commercial aircraft. The ICAO is expected to finalise its emissions standards in 2017, but the EPA could not proceed with developing its own standards in the US until it concluded that jet engine exhaust poses a public health threat.

Solar plane completes round-the-world trip | DW News

Solar plane makes history after completing round-the-world trip

Solar Impulse 2 has completed the first round-the-world flight by a solar-powered aeroplane, after touching down in Abu Dhabi early on Tuesday.

The final leg of the feat, aimed at showcasing the potential of renewable energy, was a bumpy one, with turbulence driven by hot desert air leaving the solo pilot, Bertrand Piccard, fighting with the controls.

The plane, which has a wingspan wider than a Boeing 747 and carries more than 17,000 solar cells on its wings, began the circumnavigation in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi. It has since crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans using no fossil fuel and has spent more than 23 days in the air.

Speaking to the Guardian from the cockpit shortly before landing, Piccard said he was feeling emotional as he neared the end of the journey: “It is a very, very special moment – it has been 15 years that I am working on this goal.

“I hope people will understand that it is not just a first in the history of aviation, but also a first in the history of energy,” he said.

Western Canada Oil Spill Drenches Birds, Will Taint Drinking Water for Months to Come

Despite a devastating pipeline leak that flooded the North Saskatchewan River with 200,000 liters of tar sands crude last Thursday, Husky Energy waited until Monday to shut down the leaking pipeline. An executive with the oil behemoth said the company was "deeply sorry" for the incident while announcing the pipeline closure.

The apology and pipeline shutdown also only occurred after two cities were forced to shut off their water supplies and photos emerged of birds drenched in "very, very, very thick bitumen," according to Saskatoon-based rescue organization Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.

Provincial officials and wildlife rescuers both warn that the effects of the spill will be long-term.

Meanwhile, booms laid on the river to contain the spill have been ineffective, a provincial official who wished to remain anonymous told the Canadian Press, as high water levels have lifted the oil over the barriers. As of Monday evening, less than half of the oil spilled had been recovered.

The pipeline shutdown also came despite Husky's announcement on Sunday that the spill cleanup was complete.

California wildfire fills LA with smoke after a dozen homes destroyed

Thousands driven from their homes as days of triple-digit temperatures fuel unpredictable wildfire that has scorched more than 51 square miles

An unpredictable wildfire that destroyed more than a dozen houses filled skies north of Los Angeles with smoke on Monday after driving thousands from their homes.

Some evacuees were about to return home on Sunday when unexpected winds stirred up the blaze that ignited two days earlier in brush withered by days of 100F (38C) temperatures and years of drought.

The number of firefighters on the lines surged to nearly 3,000 as flames devoured heavy vegetation in rugged mountains and canyons near the fringes of the metro area.

“All the experience we’ve had with fires is out the window,” said Los Angeles County deputy fire chief John Tripp, one of many who noted the fire’s special volatility on Sunday.

More than 51 square miles were scorched and at least 18 homes destroyed since the blaze erupted on Friday. ...

About 300 miles up the coast, crews battled another fire spanning more than 23 square miles that destroyed six homes on Sunday and forced evacuations outside the scenic Big Sur region. The fire was threatening about 1,650 mountain homes and burning mostly out of control.

Also of Interest

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

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DNC Leak Shows Mechanics of a Slanted Campaign

Hillary Clinton exchanged top secret emails on her private server with three aides

Do Black Kids Matter in Memphis?

A Little Night Music

Andrew Odom - Night Shift Lover

Andrew Odom - Mother-in-Law Blues

Andrew Odom - I don't know

Andrew Odom - Woke up this morning

Andrew "Voice" Odom - Don't You Ever Leave Me All Alone

Andrew "Big Voice" Odom - I Can't Go On This Way

Andrew Odom - Bad Feeling

Andrew 'Big Voice' Odom - Feel So Good