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"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

-- George Washington

News and Opinion

U.S. Says New Bombing Campaign Against ISIS in Libya Has No “End Point at This Particular Moment”

The US launched a major new military campaign against ISIS on Monday when U.S. planes bombed targets in Libya, responding to requests from the U.N.-backed Libyan government. Strikes took place in the coastal town of Sirte, which ISIS took in June of last year.

The strikes represent a significant escalation in the U.S. war against ISIS, spreading the conflict thousands of miles from the warzones in Syria and Iraq.

All of these attacks took place without Congressional authorization or even debate.

“We want to strike at ISIL anywhere it raises its head,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. “Libya is one of those places.” He said the airstrikes “would continue as long as [the Libyan government] is requesting them,” and that they do not have “an end point at this particular moment in time.” ...

At the Pentagon press briefing on Monday, when Nancy Youssef of the Daily Beast asked Cook if the war is legal, Cook responded by citing a controversial, 15-year-old Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution passed in the wake of 9/11.

The Never-Ending War: U.S. Announces New Front Against ISIS in Libya

‘Heavy Losses’ Claimed as US Warplanes Pound Libyan City of Sirte

Citing a formal request from the UN-backed “unity government,” US warplanes today began a substantial bombing campaign against the city of Sirte, an ISIS-held city on Libya’s central coast. Details are scant, but early reports detail “heavy losses” among ISIS forces. ...

Pentagon officials said the attacks were carried out in keeping with their ongoing approach to fighting ISIS, adding that strikes will continue with an eye toward ensuring that the unity government secures control over Sirte. The airstrikes were said to focus on destroying tanks and other armored vehicles.

The Pentagon wrongly claimed that there are “no US boots on the ground” in Libya, even though it has been confirmed for months that US troops are active in Libya, and administration officials have even confirmed this, saying they are there looking for allies.

The US is bombing Libya again. It's a too-familiar vicious cycle

Just five years after bombing Libya to dispose of Muammar Gaddafi, the US is now officially bombing the country again, this time against alleged Isis terrorist strongholds that cropped up in the power vacuum created by the last bombing.

It’s yet another episode of the War on Terror Circle of Life, where the US bombs a country and then funnels weapons into the region, which leads to chaos and the opportunity for terrorist organizations, which then leads more US bombing. ...

The pattern of bombing-chaos-bombing in Libya follows the same pattern as Iraq, which was largely free of al-Qaida members before the US invasion in 2003, only to see it become a terrorist hotbed for the group once the US military arrived, eventually leading to the formation of Isis. ... With even less fanfare, the same cycle has been playing out in Yemen, which the US has been backing in its appalling and indiscriminate Saudi Arabian bombing campaign that has killed thousands of civilians and led to many calls of war crimes. ... The US quietly announced in May that it now has troops inside Yemen, fighting the same al-Qaida that it helped strengthen by supporting the Saudi war.

And where will we be in Syria in six months? Well, if Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 presidential election, her campaign is already promising a “reset” on US–Syria policy, where the military has already been dropping bombs for more than a year. Her “reset” policy, described by an advisor in the media last week, sounds an awful lot like she will be starting a war against the Assad regime, in addition to a wider bombing campaign against Isis she has already promised should she get into office. ...

Whoever is in office after Obama leaves in January will have many decisions to make about wars across the Middle East. But one thing seems clear: the government’s established pattern of needing to address the problems its own past actions helped create will continue.

Clinton Foundation, State. and Kremlin Connections

... Consider Skolkovo, an “innovation city” of 30,000 people on the outskirts of Moscow, billed as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley—and a core piece of Mrs. Clinton’s quarterbacking of the Russian reset. ...

The Kremlin committed $5 billion over three years to fund Skolkovo. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department [as a part of an Obama initiative, the 2009 "U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission" -js] worked aggressively to attract U.S. investment partners and helped the Russian State Investment Fund, Rusnano, identify American tech companies worthy of Russian investment. Rusnano, which a scientific adviser to President Vladimir Putin called “Putin’s child,” was created in 2007 and relies entirely on Russian state funding.

Soon, dozens of U.S. tech firms, including top Clinton Foundation donors like Google, Intel and Cisco, made major financial contributions to Skolkovo, with Cisco committing a cool $1 billion. ... By 2012 the vice president of the Skolkovo Foundation, Conor Lenihan — who had previously partnered with the Clinton Foundation — recorded that Skolkovo had assembled 28 Russian, American and European “Key Partners.” Of the 28 “partners,” 17, or 60%, have made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation, totaling tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.

Russians tied to Skolkovo also flowed funds to the Clinton Foundation. ...

Amid all the sloshing of Russia rubles and American dollars, however, the state-of-the-art technological research coming out of Skolkovo raised alarms among U.S. military experts and federal law-enforcement officials. Research conducted in 2012 on Skolkovo by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth declared that the purpose of Skolkovo was to serve as a “vehicle for world-wide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.”

Trump: Taking Crimea From Russia Would Start World War III

Speaking to a crowd in Columbus, Ohio today, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump warned that any actual effort by the US to take Crimea away from Russia militarily and restore it to Ukrainian control would result in World War III, suggesting it wasn’t worth such a war to get the territory for Ukraine, adding that he doubts the Russian government intends to move into Ukraine itself.

Crimea’s historical status is a complicated one. A long-standing part of Russia, it was moved into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. ... Ukraine’s 2014 ouster of its Russian-allied government in favor of a western-backed government restarted questions.

With a large ethnic Russian population in Crimea, the peninsula held a vote to secede from Ukraine almost immediately thereafter, and gained accession into the Russian Federation. The US has ruled out ever recognizing that, however, insisting Crimea will forever be Ukrainian territory.

Trump suggested he might have a different position on the matter, however, saying that he was willing to “take a look at” recognizing Crimea as Russian, saying that he believes many Crimean would rather be in Russia than in Ukraine.

Donald Trump Reaffirms Support for Warmer Relations With Putin

Donald J. Trump unabashedly trumpeted his support for warmer relations with Russia at a campaign rally here on Monday night, acidly mocking opponents who say he is too friendly to Vladimir V. Putin, the country’s strongman president.

Mr. Trump, who has been under fire from Democrats and some conservative national security leaders for his accommodating stance toward Mr. Putin, cast his supportive remarks as a matter of practical necessity. By aligning itself with Russia, he said, the United States could more easily take on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

“If we could get Russia to help us get rid of ISIS — if we could actually be friendly with Russia — wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said. Repeating the question moments later, he won loud applause from the crowd: “If we could get along with Russia, wouldn’t that be a good thing, instead of a bad thing?”

Mr. Trump also reiterated his view that NATO, the security alliance formed as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, was “obsolete.”

After Repeated Allegations, US Officials Now Question Wisdom of Blaming Russia for DNC Hack

After a solid week of US officials and top Democratic Party politicians, including their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, publicly blaming Russia for the hack of the DNC and the leak of DNC emails to WikiLeaks, officials in the administration are finally starting to ask whether publicly blaming Russia is a good idea.

Intelligence officials are warning that the costs of publicly blaming Russia could “far outweigh the benefits, if there would be any benefits,” and that US revenge hacks, which may already be ongoing, risk provoking Russian hacks on actual important infrastructure.

The US has been keen to “name and shame” whatever country they choose to blame for any given back, but so far this hasn’t meant much, since officials never offer any real evidence. Indeed, one of the key arguments officials give for not “officially” blaming Russia, despite repeatedly, publicly blaming Russia, is that they’d have to provide what evidence, if any, they actually have to make the charge credible.

Strengthening Russo-Turkish Alliance Stokes US-Russian Cold War

Turkey, Russia pursue gas pipe dream as EU frets

Declarations by Russia and Turkey last week reviving plans for the TurkStream natural gas pipeline linking the two have worried EU diplomats who see it strengthening Moscow's hand - but analysts say the project is more rhetoric than reality.

EU officials fear that TurkStream will be expanded to bypass Ukraine as a transit route for supplies to Europe, increasing dependence on Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) and shutting in alternative supplies from the Caspian region. "Turkey's new friendship with Russia might become an issue if Russia tries to replace Turkey for Ukraine," a senior EU official said. "It makes sense for Turkey to get cheap gas from Russia, but it will come with strings attached: That is likely to be a problem for us."

However, the entente, almost a year after Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane, remains fragile, analysts say, particularly amid turmoil caused by the failed coup in Turkey. "In times of instability, if you are sane, you don't commit to huge infrastructure projects," said Simone Tagliapietra, an energy fellow with Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.

Moscow and Ankara are more keen on "signaling political messages than about advancing projects in reality," he said. Russia's drive to reroute gas to Europe around Ukraine, including by expanding the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, has met with heated opposition in Brussels since Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014, prompting EU sanctions. Turkey's own role in facing off with Russia and as an energy corridor has tempered EU criticism of President Tayyip Erdogan authoritarian turn.

Turkey, once the great hope of the Middle East, is left weak and unstable

Coup attempt and purge are tearing Turkey apart. The Turkish armed forces, for long the backbone of the state, are in a state of turmoil. Some 40 per cent of its generals and admirals have been detained or dismissed, including senior army commanders. ...

Five years ago, Turkey looked like the most stable and successful country in the Middle East – an example that its neighbours might like to follow. But, instead of Iraq and Syria becoming more like Turkey, it has become more like them in terms of political, ethnic and sectarian division. ...

The destabilisation of Turkey is good news for Isis because Turkish security organisations, never very assiduous in pursuing salafi-jihadi rebels, will be devoting most of their efforts to hunting down Gulenists. Both Isis and other al-Qaeda-type movements like al-Nusra Front will benefit from the anti-American atmosphere in Turkey, where most believe that the US supported the coup attempt. ...

For the moment, Erdogan is benefiting from a degree of national solidarity against the conspirators. Many Turks (and not just his supporters) criticise foreign governments and media for making only a token condemnations of the coup attempt before demanding restraint in conduct of the purge. They point out that, if the coup had more successful, Turkey would have faced a full-blown military dictatorship or a civil war, or both. Erdogan said in an interview that foreign leaders who now counsel moderation would have danced for joy if he had been killed by the conspirators. ...

Erdogan thrives on crisis and confrontation, of which the failed coup is the latest example. But a state of permanent crisis is weakening and destabilising Turkey at a moment when the rest of the region is gripped by war.

Texas college students plan to protest 'campus carry' gun law with dildos

A new law that allows people to carry concealed handguns into most buildings on public college campuses takes effect today in Texas, and students are planning to protest by bringing some equally inappropriate — but much less lethal — objects into their classrooms: dildos.

Supporters of the so-called "campus carry" law claim it gives students and faculty the ability to protect themselves against mass shootings. Texas has allowed registered gun owners to carry concealed firearms on college campuses since 1995, but this is the first time that weapons will be allowed inside school buildings. ...

"The purported benefits of this law are not worth the potential for accidents, suicides, escalating ordinary conflicts to deadly levels, or the brain drain of teachers who are either resigning or withdrawing their applications to the university," said Jessica Jin, the founder of "Cocks Not Glocks," a student group at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jin's group is organizing a demonstration called "Campus Dildo Carry" on August 24, the first day of fall semester classes at the state's flagship public university, that she says will involve students carrying "a few thousand non-phallic sex toys to accurately reflect the 'concealed carry' aspect of this law, [and] about 500 very dick-like toys too." ...

"Hopefully the dildos will churn up the sense of shock and discomfort that people should feel about guns being everywhere."

"Stop the Cops & Fund Black Futures": Voices from First Day of New York City Hall Park Occupation

New York City protesters demand police commissioner Bill Bratton be fired

Protesters in New York City began occupying the park next to city hall in Manhattan on Monday, declaring they would not leave until police commissioner Bill Bratton was fired.

Organized by Millions March NYC, a group affiliated with Black Lives Matter movement, the #ShutDownCityHallNYC protest has been inspired by protesters setting up encampments in public spaces in Chicago and Los Angeles to fight for the abolition of the police.

The park closes to the public at midnight tonight and that is when protesters expect police will attempt to kick them out. “The fact they’re criminalizing New York City residents for being in the New York City parks demanding the New York City police stop killing us, it’s absurd that they would arrest us for that. It’s also indicative of the system and the criminalization that is happening,” said Rye.

There are three specific immediate demands the protesters are calling for:

1. The termination of Bratton as police chief and the end to Broken Windows policing.
2. The NYPD getting defunded and that money being put into black, brown and working class communities.
3. Reparations paid to the victims and the families of police violence.

...

Protesters had not discussed their plans with police at all – “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” said Armie Jeffreys, 22, from Newark, New Jersey, one of the organizers of Millions March NYC – but a police guard was heavily present by 11am. About three dozen police officers, including those from the disorder control unit, the strategic response group, park officers and plain clothes cops kept watch of around 40 protesters.

Movement for Black Lives Calls for Reparations & "End to War Against Black People"

Police shooting of 18-year-old may have violated policies, Chicago's top cop says

Chicago's police superintendent says video evidence from the fatal officer-involved shooting of an 18-year-old car theft suspect theft last week suggests three cops involved in the incident may have violated departmental policy.

Eddie Johnson, Chicago's top police official, spoke on Sunday for the first time about the death of Paul O'Neal at the hands of police. ...

The shooting occurred last Thursday at around 7pm after police responded to reports of a stolen Jaguar in Chicago's South Side. O'Neal was found driving the car, and officers reportedly opened fire after he sideswiped a patrol car and a parked vehicle. A resident of the neighborhood where the incident occurred told Chicago's ABC7 that six or seven gunshots were heard. O'Neal, who was unarmed, died of a gunshot wound to the back, police said.

Three officers involved in the shooting have been relieved of their police duties.

Chelsea Manning: 'It is terrifying to face the government alone'

In an interview with Amnesty International, made exclusive to the Guardian ahead of its publication in the new book Here I Stand, Chelsea Manning describes her feelings of isolation while in the hands of the most powerful government in the world, and reveals that she is optimistic that her decision to leak state secrets to whistleblowing site WikiLeaks has illuminated public consciousness for the better. ...

You are one person, and the military and the government are so powerful. Through all this, have you ever felt afraid?

I am always afraid. I am still afraid of the power of government. A government can arrest you. It can imprison you. It can put out information about you that won’t get questioned by the public – everyone will just assume that what they are saying is true. Sometimes, a government can even kill you – with or without the benefit of a trial. Governments have so much power, and a single person often does not. It is very terrifying to face the government alone.

Can you describe a moment when you have particularly felt this way?

It’s a very difficult feeling to describe. Not long after I was first detained by the military, I was taken to a prison camp in Kuwait, where I essentially lived in a cage inside of a tent. I didn’t have any access to the outside world. I couldn’t make phone calls. I didn’t get any mail. I had very limited access to my lawyers. There was no television or radio or newspapers. I lost the sense of where in the world I was. The military had total control over every aspect of my life. They controlled what information I had access to. They controlled when I ate and slept. They even controlled when I went to the bathroom. After several weeks, I didn’t know how long I had been there or how much longer I was going to be staying. It’s an overwhelmingly terrifying feeling. I became very, very sad. At one point, I even gave up on trying to live any more.

CNN and Fox News Are Finally Covering the TPP After Ignoring It for Two Years

Until recently, cable news outlets almost completely ignored the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — the 12-nation government agreement that would dramatically expand corporate and investor rights at the expense of medical affordability, the environment, and labor rights.

The impact of this news blackout was devastating on Americans’ ability to understand what the agreement entailed. A June 2015 New York Times poll found that 78 percent of Americans said they had heard or read “not much” or “nothing at all” about the TPP. ...

Media Matters for America studied cable news coverage of TPP negotiations from August 1, 2013 to January 31st, 2015, and found that the agreement was mentioned just once on CNN and Fox News during that period. On MSNBC, the agreement netted 73 mentions, with all but two of those on a single program, the now-cancelled The Ed Show. ...

Why might major news stations ignore this consequential international agreement?

MSNBC’s owner, Comcast, has lobbied for the TPP. ... Time Warner, the parent company of CNN owner Turner Broadcasting, also lobbied for the TPP. 21st Century Fox — the legal successor to News Corporation, which operates Fox News — lobbied for passage as well.

Jamaica is paying its oil debts to Venezuela with food

Jamaica has announced it is going to pay off oil debts it has with Venezuela with food, medication, and fertilizers, instead of cash.

The barter agreement comes at a time when Venezuela is suffering from acute shortages of basic products amid a major economic and political crisis.

Jamaica's government announced the deal last Friday, saying that the transfers will take place in the last quarter of this year and amount to $4 million.

The oil-for-basic products exchange is taking place within a regional agreement known as PetroCaribe that was signed in 2005 by Venezuela and 12 Caribbean States.

The deal requires the Caribbean nations to pay for half of the oil at market prices immediately. The remaining 50 percent can be paid up to 25 years later. A special "compensation mechanism" within the agreement allows for cash substitutes to be used to settle that delayed payment.

Ultra-Right Annotated Edition of Pocket Constitution Tops Amazon Charts After Khizr Khan’s DNC Speech

Following Gold Star father Khizr Khan’s powerful speech at the Democratic convention last week, sales of pocket Constitutions have skyrocketed. But the edition topping Amazon’s charts – right up there with the new Harry Potter book — comes with annotations and right-wing commentary from Glenn Beck’s favorite conspiracy theorist.

“Let me ask you: have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy,” Khan said last week in Philadelphia, pulling his edition out of his pocket. “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law’.”

But the version that Amazon is touting as a best-seller is not the one Khan held up. And readers looking for those words in the edition there will be misled. It’s published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a fringe Mormon group focused on teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of the founding documents. ...

The book’s notes and annotations are by W. Cleon Skousen, a rabidly anti-Communist ideologue who took to rewriting history to support his ultra-right, Bible-based theories.

Skousen’s edition interprets the Constitution as evidence that the United States is subject to a Christian God’s ruling.

Wasserman Schultz Faces FEC Complaint from Progressive Challenger

With less than a month before the Florida congressional primary on August 30, incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz is facing a potential Federal Elections Committee (FEC) complaint from progressive challenger and law professor Tim Canova.

Canova alleges that evidence in WikiLeaks' release of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) show Wasserman Schultz using DNC resources to strategize against his congressional campaign. ...

"It's very clear that Wasserman Schultz was using the DNC resources to monitor my campaign and to strategize on how to crush the campaign," Canova said on MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily" Monday.

"That's a violation of federal law," Canova added. He said he plans to file the FEC complaint soon.

Indeed, a quick search of the leaked emails show DNC staffers warning each other about the activities of Canova campaign staffers and surrogates, such as Zack Exley and Warren Gunnels, as well as deeply involved in coordinating and seeking positive media coverage for a May speech Wasserman Schultz gave in Alaska, during which Canova Skyped in to a separate venue to provide an alternate talk for progressive Democrats.

The emails also show DNC staffers advising Wasserman Schultz on her response to Sanders' endorsement of Canova in May.

Declining Green VP Offer, Nina Turner to Keep Fighting for Soul of Democratic Party

Former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a prominent figure in Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, has declined the offer to run as the Green Party's vice presidential candidate because she said she wants to continue to fight for progressive ideals within the Democratic Party.

"I'm going to keep fighting in the party, even though I'm disappointed," Turner said in a telephone interview with Cleveland.com. "I'm a Democrat, and that's worth fighting for."

Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, had reportedly offered Turner the position over the weekend after the rising star was barred from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. Last fall, Turner, a vocal critic of the establishment, left a top post within the Ohio Democratic Party to campaign for Sanders. ...

The Green Party announced later Monday that veteran human rights activist and organizer Ajamu Baraka will be joining Stein on the ticket.

Hailing Baraka's "lifelong commitment to building true political revolution," Stein said that he would serve as "a powerful, eloquent spokesperson for the transformative, radical agenda whose time has come—an agenda of economic, social, racial, gender, climate, indigenous and immigrant justice."

Colorado Green Party Senate Candidate: 'I'm Running to Stop Endless Wars'

Sanders supporters turn to Jill Stein: 'You should vote your conscience'

Bernie Sanders may have endorsed Hillary Clinton, praised Hillary Clinton, and urged his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, but it seems even the maverick Vermont senator has been unable to convince his fans, many of whom say they are planning to cast their ballot for the Green party candidate Jill Stein instead on 8 November.

Support for Stein, who won 469,501 votes as the Green party nominee in 2012, was impossible to escape at the Democratic national convention last week. Inside the Walls Fargo Center, some Sanders delegates dressed in green and wore Green party pins.

Outside the hall, hundreds of Sanders supporters – in Philadelphia to demonstrate against Clinton’s nomination – attended a Green party rally at which Stein accused the Democratic party of derailing Sanders’ campaign. ...

The idea that the Democratic National Committee, and the Clinton campaign, “rigged” the Democratic primary is fairly widespread among Sanders supporters. For some it is a big motivator in turning their back on the party.

Trump labels Clinton 'the devil' and suggests election will be rigged

Donald Trump has claimed that there is a possibility of the US presidential election being “rigged” as he tried to divert attention away from a disastrous week for his campaign by also labelling his rival Hillary Clinton as “the devil” and praising the primary opponent of Republican speaker Paul Ryan.

The Republican nominee has in the past few days faced a barrage of criticism following his controversial comments about the Gold Star parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq. ... A range of figures and organizations from across the political spectrum from John McCain to Barack Obama to the Veterans of Foreign Wars have criticized him for his comments.

But at rallies on Monday Trump declined to address that controversy and, in moments typical of his campaign so far, decided to ignite others.

At a campaign town hall in Columbus, Ohio, Trump said he feared that the election would be “rigged,” in an unprecedented statement for a major party nominee in modern history. ...

He did not elaborate but later repeated the charge on Monday night with Sean Hannity on Fox News, saying: “November 8th, we’d better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged. And I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us.”

Clinton and Trump's intelligence briefings aren't anything to worry about

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will begin receiving top secret briefings from the US intelligence community in the coming days, and that's leading some big names in Washington — and some people around the country — to say they shouldn't go forward because neither candidate can be trusted with sensitive classified information.

But the president says they'll continue as planned, and his intel chief and former senior spies say that's a good thing. Moreover, they say it's simply not that big of a deal.

"Candidates only get parts of briefings," said former CIA officer David Priess, who wrote The President's Book of Secrets, and briefed the attorney general, national security advisor, and the FBI director during George W. Bush's administration.

"They receive a no-kidding, top-secret, classified briefing, based on intelligence sources that are highly classified," he said. But there's one important omission: the brief doesn't include information about "covert actions, intelligence sources, and methods."

Federal Officials Investigating Massive EPA Spill That Turned River Orange

Federal officials are launching a criminal investigation into the 2015 Gold King Mine spill that sent millions of gallons of toxic waste into a Colorado waterway and memorably turned portions of the state's 126-mile Animas River orange.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which caused the spill, made the announcement Monday as it sent letters to members of U.S. Congress to update them about the agency's own analysis of the spill, according to the Denver Post.

EPA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said the probe, launched by the U.S. Attorney's Office, part of the Department of Justice, was "based on requests from several members of the House and Senate."

The Post writes that in its report to Congress, the EPA found that

as of July 15 it has dedicated $29 million to respond to the release and for continued water quality monitoring. Officials say they are also evaluation more incident-related expenses and that they are working to expedite the distribution of those funds.

[....] A year after the Gold King spill, the EPA says it is working on more permanent solutions to tackling mining drainage broadly and in the areas around the Gold King. The mine and 47 other surrounding sites are part of a proposed Superfund listing in San Juan County.

However, the National Wildlife Federation said "no meaningful effort has been made" since the disaster to address the complex dangers posed by abandoned mines throughout the country, the Post continues.

Once-in-a-Millenium Rainfall Descends on Maryland, Killing 2

An entire month's worth of rain fell on Ellicott City, in Howard County, Maryland, within two hours late Saturday evening, causing catastrophic flash floods that killed two people and forced over 100 others to be rescued.

The local Patapsco River rose more than 13 feet, according to The Weather Channel. A state of emergency was declared Sunday in Howard County, where the community of 65,000 is located. ...

The record-shattering rainfall was a once-in-a-thousand-years occurrence, meteorologists say—and with today's rapidly warming climate, these events are becoming more and more common.

Indeed, as Slate meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote in his email newsletter Monday:

If you think you've heard something like this before, you're probably right. In fact, 1,000-year rainfall events are occurring frequently enough now that we can start to categorize them. There's the "rapid onset" 1,000-year events, like what happened this weekend in Maryland and last month's extreme rainfall in West Virginia, where river valleys are utterly transformed in just a few hours. There's the "weekend deluge" 1,000-year events, like last October's catastrophic rainstorm in South Carolina, in which an entire hurricane's worth of rain was shunted toward the coast by a unique atmospheric pattern over a period of a few days. And there's the "will it ever stop raining?" 1,000-year events, like last May in Oklahoma, where a good chunk of an entire year's worth of rainfall fell.

"What's happening here is honestly very simple," Holthaus wrote. "Our atmosphere is changing. We literally do not have the same sort of atmosphere as we did 20 or 100 years ago. A warmer atmosphere is able to hold more water vapor, and that means the heaviest rainstorms are getting more intense."

CDC Issues Unprecedented Travel Warning for US City Over Zika Spread

For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a travel warning for a continental U.S. city, as Miami grapples with a burgeoning Zika outbreak.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced this week that an additional 10 people in the state have been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus, bringing the total to 14.

CDC Director Tom Frieden warned pregnant women against traveling to the "transmission area" and advised people already in the area to take extra precautions against mosquito bites. ...

The travel warning is notable not just for its unprecedented nature, but also because it seems to confirm health officials' fears that Zika would eventually make its way to U.S. shores.

Also of Interest

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

The U.S. Intervention in Libya Was Such a Smashing Success That a Sequel Is Coming

Iraq war resisters who fled to Canada ask Justin Trudeau to allow them to stay

Russian news may be biased – but so is much western media

Who Leaked the Damning DNC Emails? What Difference Does It Make?

Can mythbusters like Snopes.com keep up in a post-truth era?

Khizr Khan and The Triumph of Democratic Militarism

Is Hillary Double-Talking on Trade Deals?

Author Michael Lewis: Rigged Markets Show Signs of a Desperate Slumlord

Your battery status is being used to track you online

A Little Night Music

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Cleanhead's Blues

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - Lonesome Train

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Kidney Stew

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Cadillac Blues

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - Back Door Blues

Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Peas And Rice

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - I'm Gonna Wind Your Clock