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This evening's music features Texas blues singer Frankie Lee Sims. Enjoy!

"If the liberal talking heads told their audience that all kittens are demonically possessed by Russian oligarchs and the only way to stop them is to chew them up and pass them through your intestinal tract, the next morning there’d be millions of dim-witted Democrats picking fur out of their teeth and wondering why it hurts to live. ... The only reason these gibbering bedlamites don’t believe that Elvis is running a pedophile sex trafficking ring out of a UFO is because Rachel Maddow hasn’t told them so yet."

-- Caitlyn Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Pro-War Twist of the ‘Resistance’

The anti-Trump “#Resistance” has become a movement to defend the Democratic establishment’s pro-war policies, to purge anti-war Democrats, and even to embrace Donald Trump’s attack on Syria

The Resistance, a self-aggrandizing term for what amounts to a relatively small but still powerful claque of embittered Clinton surrogates, has been keeping itself busy of late, fanning the flames of McCarthyite recriminations against anyone who dares question the rather flimsy public evidence that Russia influenced the results of the 2016 election, all the while cheering on President Trump’s expansion of the war in Syria. Like its approach to the question of Russia and the election, the Resistance will brook no dissent over whether or not President Trump did the “right thing” in unleashing 59 Tomahawk missiles on a country which we are not at war with and which has never attacked us. ...

Neoliberal Clinton partisan Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote that in her view “Trump is, if not behaving normally, at least adopting normal positions.” Bombing Syria, in the absence of a legal mandate from the United Nations or with expressed authorization of Congress – both legal requirements if the U.S. Constitution and American treaty obligations are to be respected – is, to Marcus anyway, evidence of “Trump’s good judgment.” Nor was Marcus alone. Clinton herself endorsed Trump’s decision to use force just hours before the attack. ... Former high-ranking Obama State Department officials Antony Blinken and Anne Marie Slaughter – he in the pages of the New York Times, she on Twitter – also praised Trump’s bombing of Syria as “the right thing” to do. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza declared, “The moral case for President Trump’s strike on Syria is uncontroversial.” ...

The Resistance may need reminding that international politics, like domestic politics, is about choosing, and the choice that pro-war Democrats (the vast majority of whom are die-hard Clinton supporters who still have not been able to reconcile themselves to her defeat) have made is clear: they’ve thrown their support behind radical Islamist terror groups in Syria because they have bought into the tedious fiction about the existence of “moderate” Syrian rebels. ...

Another trend among the self-fashioned “Resisters” these days is towards an unthinking acceptance of U.S. government talking points, particularly with regard to Russian hacking and the Trump administration’s declassified four-page report on the Syrian chemical weapons attack. Yet given the less than inspiring record of American interventions based on faulty, distorted or simply fabricated intelligence, as in the cases of Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011), the question isn’t why someone like Gabbard is out there questioning the Trump administration’s story, the question is: why aren’t more doing so? And wouldn’t questioning Trump’s unilateral, illegal decision to bomb Syria seem to be the right and proper role of something which bills itself as “The Resistance”?

Demanding “Regime Change” While Claiming You Actually Aren’t - Dianne Feinstein Edition

“Regime change” is incredibly easy to oppose in the abstract. Seldom will you hear anyone of note tout their support for “regime change” as a general principle, and even the most unrepentant US hawks now typically acknowledge that previous “regime change” efforts undertaken in Iraq, Libya, and to some extent Syria have had disastrous results. ...

For example, at a town hall yesterday in Los Angeles, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) declared that Assad “should be ousted from office,” and that the US must “take a more aggressive role” in facilitating that outcome. ... So, I tried to elucidate the paradox here by questioning Feinstein, asking her why her constituents should be at all confident in the ability of the US government to successfully facilitate “regime change” in Syria, given the failures of Iraq and Libya. She replied, “I don’t think we should have any confidence in regime change right now.” And yet the policy that she just got done affirming support for is nothing else if not “regime change.” Asked to explain this disjunction, Feinstein replied: “I don’t want to get into semantics… I think you know what I was saying.”

Well…it’s not really a matter of semantics. You can’t on the one hand run around solemnly affirming that the lessons of previous “regime change” escapades must be internalized, and then proceed to back every instance of “regime change” which comes before you. And yet, this illogic is thoroughly bipartisan. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), the new chair of the House committee investigating alleged “Russian interference” in the 2016 election, made a similar comment to me last week; he too expressed reticence about the efficacy of regime change, but nevertheless affirmed the strategic value of Trump’s airstrikes on Syrian government targets. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has made statements that are similarly incongruous.

Report Sees ISIS Benefiting From Assad Downfall

With many in the U.S. foreign policy community backing both the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the defeat of the Islamic State group (ISIS), a new report could raise some cause for concern. The report says Assad's military has been the most engaged faction against ISIS over the past year of Syria's conflict, making it an extremely risky target for a U.S. foreign policy that is intended to stop the jihadists' advances.

The report published Wednesday by the London-based IHS Jane Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, one of the world's leading security analysis agencies, says 43 percent of ISIS's battles between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017 were fought against the Syrian military and its allies, which include Russia, Iran and pro-government militias. Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a majority-Kurd coalition of Arabs and ethnic minorities, accounted for 17 percent of the action against ISIS.

China is trying to calm things down after North Korea threatened to sink a U.S. ship

Chinese President Xi Jinping moved Monday to play peacemaker on the Korean peninsula, asking U.S. President Donald Trump to “avoid doing anything to worsen the tense situation” after North Korea took a third U.S. citizen into custody and threatened to sink an American ship.

In a phone call to his U.S. counterpart, Xi urged restraint in the face of increasing provocation from Pyongyang in recent weeks, which has included threats of nuclear attack and ongoing missile tests which fly in the face of international sanctions. Since the pair met in Florida earlier this month, Trump has been urging Xi — via a follow-up phone call, Twitter messages and comments to the media — to do more to curb the threat from North Korea, given its position as the country’s closest economic and political ally.

In an editorial in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Monday, North Korea called the decision to send in the USS Carl Vinson carrier group “an extremely dangerous act by those who plan a nuclear war to invade.” ... On Sunday, the newspaper, which is the official publication of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, published commentary that referred to the American ship as a “gross animal,” according to Reuters. “Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” it continued. The story was published on page three of the newspaper and followed a two page feature about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a pig farm.

North Korea won't bow to Donald Trump's threats. It needs assurances

Anyone who harbors the illusion that Donald Trump will be able to threaten North Korea into peacefully giving up its nuclear weapons should think about Libya. ... Clearly Nato never would have risked intervening had Gaddafi developed a nuclear arsenal. The takeaway for a despot like Kim must be painfully simple – relinquish weapons and die.

All this means that the chance of negotiating a peaceful end to North Korea’s weapons program is vanishingly small. Alas, Donald Trump seems intent on destroying whatever chance might remain. ... Trump evidently believes that a show of toughness and a display of brinkmanship will convince Kim Jong-un to negotiate. ... The threat of force can only work to deter a nation from developing nuclear weapons. Once that threshold has been crossed, the threat is worse than empty. It can serve only to strengthen the North Koreans in their belief in the indispensability of their warheads.

Worse still, Trump seems temperamentally incapable of strategic thinking. When he openly confesses that he only learned of the complexity of the Chinese-North Korean relationship after being briefly tutored by Xi Jinping, China’s president, he does more than reveal an embarrassing lack of preparation. He sends a powerful message to America’s adversaries. It is much the same message that is sent when a commander-in-chief misplaces a carrier group, cannot correctly name the country he has just struck with missiles, and launches his most vociferous verbal volleys against allies such as Australia and now Canada while expressing squeaky admiration of strongmen like Erdogan.

The danger is that these provocations, invited by Trump’s ignorance and inconstancy, will escalate in a manner that no one – least of all an untutored, undisciplined and unsophisticated neophyte in world affairs – will be able to control.

Volleyball Over, North Koreans Go Back to Work at Nuclear Site, Analysts Say

North Korea appears to have resumed work at its nuclear test site after a perplexing series of volleyball matches were held there, according to analysts who studied satellite images of the site, renewing concerns that a major weapons test could be imminent. Many observers had feared that North Korea would test a nuclear device at the site around April 15, the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the North’s founding president and the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. But Mr. Kim’s government celebrated the day instead with a military parade in Pyongyang, the capital, during which a fleet of missiles were rolled out, including what analysts believed were never-before-seen long-range ballistic missiles. ...

On Friday, the analysts Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. and Jack Liu posted new satellite images of the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, in northeastern North Korea, on 38 North, a website affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. From the commercial imagery dating from Wednesday, they noted what looked like trailers near the portal of a tunnel where they said North Korea appeared to have been preparing for a nuclear test, which would be its sixth. They also noted mining carts along the tracks leading to a spoil pile and a net canopy, presumably concealing equipment. The North Koreans appeared to have stopped pumping water out of the tunnel. In an earlier report, the analysts said this might mean that the tunnel had been sealed for a possible test.

Well now, there's some optics - Trump declines a US role in negotiating a peace agreement in Libya and shortly thereafter, a long-running impasse is broken.

Libya's warring sides reach diplomatic breakthrough in Rome

Rome has brokered a diplomatic breakthrough in Libya that has the potential to bring the two main warring sides together in a new political agreement after years of division, fighting and economic misery. The scale of the breakthrough will be tested later this week, but Italy is hailing a compromise brokered between the presidents of the house of representatives, Ageela Saleh, and the state council, Abdulrahman Sewehli. ...

The statement also said there would have to be further consultations between the two sides this week in order to bring about reconciliation “and stop the bleeding as well as [ensure] the return of displaced persons”. ... The state council said in a note: “We agreed to reach peaceful and fair solutions to outstanding issues,” a reference to one of the fundamental dilemmas in the Libyan crisis: the military and political role in any unity government of the military commander of forces in the east, Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar.

It appears Donald Trump, who met the Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, this week, does not intend to adopt a hands-on role in Libya, in effect ceding the the future of the territory to north African countries, the EU, Russia, Egypt and some Gulf states.

U.S. considers deploying troops to Afghanistan in wake of deadly Taliban attack

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived unannounced in Kabul Monday for talks on the potential deployment of additional American troops to Afghanistan, as the fallout from one of the deadliest Taliban attacks on the country’s security forces continues. Both Afghan officials and U.S. military commanders have called for more American troops to help counter recent Taliban gains on the battlefield.

The latest devastating attack happened Friday at Shaheen army base near the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, when a group of Taliban militants – dressed as Afghan soldiers and pretending to be transporting wounded comrades – entered the base and opened fire on unarmed soldiers leaving a mosque and others in a canteen.

The killing spree lasted for hours as the insurgents, armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and suicide vests, fanned out and targeted soldiers throughout the complex, before eventually being killed. ... The final death toll has yet to be confirmed, but the Afghan government said that more than 100 people were killed in the attack.

Serb officials warn of another war in the Balkans

Serbian officials warned on Friday of another war in the Balkans if Albanians try to form a joint state with Kosovo in the war-weary European region and the West does not reject such a plan. The angry reactions from the Serbs came after Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama said an interview with Politico journal that a union between Albania and ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo cannot be ruled out if European Union membership prospects for the Western Balkans fade.

Serbian government minister Aleksandar Vulin said he expects the EU and NATO to denounce such statements, otherwise there could be another war in the Balkans. Vulin said that a new war in the Balkans would also include Macedonia and Montenegro which have large ethnic-Albanian populations. Most of the Balkan wars were over attempts to create joint ethnically pure states, such as "Greater Serbia," or "Greater Albania." It is traditional desire by nationalists on all sides.

The Banker vs. the Racist

#Presidentielle2017 - @EmmanuelMacron en tête avec 23,7% et @MLP_officiel, 21,7% s’affronteront au second tour https://t.co/SHi2kHjW70 pic.twitter.com/Je10RGP9P6

— FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) April 23, 2017

After a close race, centrist Emmanuel Macron will face off with far-right Marine Le Pen in the runoff of France’s historic election, the Associated Press reports. The election could determine France’s willingness to remain part of the European Union.  ...

Le Pen is known for her hardline stance on immigration — she wants to shut down “radical mosques,” cut immigration by 95 percent, and prioritize public housing for French nationals — and for her euroscepticism. During her 2012 campaign, she developed her brand of nationalistic protectionism, calling for France to leave the European Union and the restoration of tariffs. She’s scaled that back, now advocating for a referendum on the Euro than abandoning it outright. If elected, she’s promised to renegotiate France’s relationship to the EU and will call for a referendum vote on France’s membership in the Union. ...

Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former Rothschild & Cie investment banker, was unknown in French politics until he became finance minister to Fraçois Hollande in 2014. ... Formerly a member of the Socialist party, his pro-business policies became increasingly untenable with the party’s left flank. Macron is for cutting the corporate tax and making it easier for businesses to hire and fire by chipping away at France’s labor code.

"Front National" makes it to the second round for the first time since 2002

As US prioritises Julian Assange arrest, UK hints Sweden comes first

Sweden’s existing warrant to extradite Julian Assange over a sexual assault allegation would be the first consideration for the British government if the Australian were to leave the Ecuadorean embassy, Home Office sources have indicated.

The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said on Thursday that the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder was now a “priority”. US federal prosecutors were understood to be considering bringing charges against Assange over a number of the website’s publications since 2010, US media reported, which could potentially lead to a second extradition request for Assange, from Washington.

Were that to happen, the question of which warrant would then take priority - from Sweden or the US - would then come into play.

However the British authorities stressed the UK had an existing legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden under the European arrest warrant. The Home Office never confirms whether an extradition request has been made or received until the person in question has been arrested, the source indicated – this is currently impossible while Assange remains in the embassy, where he was granted asylum in 2012.

Trump is playing chicken with Democrats over border wall funding

Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, went public Friday to the Associated Press with the White House’s demands for a spending bill to be voted on next week to keep the government open: “We want wall funding. We want [immigration] agents. Those are our priorities.”

But passing the bill will require 60 votes in the Senate, and Republicans currently have only 52.

Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made it clear that funding Trump’s border wall with Mexico is a line in the sand for Democrats and that they won’t support any bill with money for it, setting up a high-stakes game of chicken over funding the federal government. ...

Without a spending bill next week, the government will shut down on Friday, April 28, which will be day 99 of the Trump presidency. With Republicans controlling of all three branches of government, voters will blame them for any shutdown, Democrats are betting. And given the president’s historically low approval ratings at this early point in his presidency, many congressional Republicans suspect Democrats may be right.

Trump Administration Ramps Up Threat to Prosecute Immigrant Parents

The Trump administration is doubling down on a controversial plan to prosecute immigrant parents who pay to have their children smuggled into the United States. Speaking at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said that when it comes to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, “everything’s on the table.”

“That includes our approach of prosecuting anyone who pays traffickers to smuggle people into the country, especially those who smuggle in children, including family members who pay to have children smuggled into this country,” Kelly said. ... Kelly had already signaled his desire to see immigration laws enforced “against any individual who — directly or indirectly — facilitates the illegal smuggling or trafficking of an alien child into the United States” when he signed off on a pair of executive order implementation memos in February, a move that stirred outrage among immigration advocates. ...

“As a policy matter, it’s extremely troubling that Sessions and Kelly are even floating this idea that you would criminally prosecute and send to prison a parent who is trying to get their child to safety,” Cecillia Wang, the ACLU’s deputy legal director, told The Intercept. “The more general direction that Sessions is going in — that we’re going increase criminal penalties and prosecute more immigration-related crimes — is completely backwards. It’s the exact opposite direction of where we should be going policy-wise.”

Cornel West: The Democrats delivered one thing in the past 100 days: disappointment

The distinctive feature of these bleak times is the lack of institutional capacity on the left – the absence of a political party that swings free of Wall Street and speaks to the dire circumstances of poor and working people. As the first 100 days of the plutocratic and militaristic Trump administration draw to a close, one truth has been crystal clear: the Democratic party lacks the vision, discipline and leadership to guide progressives in these turbulent times.

The neoliberal vision of the Democratic party has run its course. The corporate wing has made it clear that the populist wing has little power or place in its future. The discipline of the party is strong on self-preservation and weak on embracing new voices. And party leaders too often revel in self-righteousness and self-pity rather than self-criticism and self-enhancement. The time has come to bid farewell to a moribund party that lacks imagination, courage and gusto. ...

Even as we forge a united front against Trump’s neofascist efforts, we must admit the Democratic party has failed us and we have to move on. Where? To what? When brother Nick Brana, a former Bernie campaign staffer, told me about the emerging progressive populist or social democratic party – the People’s party – that builds on the ruins of a dying Democratic party and creates new constituencies in this moment of transition and liquidation, I said count me in.

And if a class-conscious multi-racial party attuned to anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-militaristic issues and grounded in ecological commitments can reconfigure our citizenship, maybe our decaying democracy has a chance. And if brother Bernie Sanders decides to join us – with many others, including sister Jill Stein and activists from Black Lives Matter and brown immigrant groups and Standing Rock freedom fighters and betrayed working people – we may build something for the near future after Trump implodes.

Real News Roundtable: Maddow Response & Liberal Hawkishness on Russia, Iran

The atmosphere now contains more carbon dioxide than in all of human history

On Tuesday, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory found that there is now more planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than ever previously recorded in human history — more than 410 parts per million. And as the atmosphere continues to trap more heat, Earth’s climate is quickly approaching numbers unseen in the past 50 million years.

This number is likely to increase, since carbon dioxide emissions — a major contributor to climate change, as they block heat from leaving the atmosphere — can take anywhere between 20 and several hundred thousands years to disappear from the planet. So even though global carbon emissions have remained flat for the past three years, those emissions remain extremely difficult to eradicate.

Best. Poster. Ever. #ScienceMarch pic.twitter.com/hhEIAEOQaO

— Grrrrrrrrreg (@GregGonsky) April 23, 2017

Easily the best protest sign anyone has ever made #MarchForScience #EarthDay pic.twitter.com/uf6pNfIEXT

— Gaby Mérida (@ThatSpanishLady) April 22, 2017

Japan to exceed bluefin tuna quota amid warnings of commercial extinction

Conservation groups have called on Japan to abide by international agreements to curb catches of Pacific bluefin tuna after reports said the country was poised to exceed an annual quota two months early – adding to pressure on stocks that have already reached dangerously low levels.

Japan, by far the world’s biggest consumer of Pacific bluefin, has caused “great frustration” with its failure to abide by catch quotas intended to save the species from commercial extinction, said Amanda Nickson, the director of global tuna conservation at Pew Charitable Trusts. “Just a few years of overfishing will leave Pacific bluefin tuna vulnerable to devastating population reductions,” Nickson said in Tokyo on Monday. “That will threaten not just the fish but also the fishermen who depend on them.”

Decades of overfishing have left the Pacific bluefin population at just 2.6% of its historical high. ... About 80% of the global bluefin catch is consumed in Japan, where it is served raw as sashimi and sushi. A piece of otoro – a fatty cut from the fish’s underbelly – can cost several thousand yen at high-end restaurants in Tokyo.

Coal Miners’ Futures in Renewable Energy

Berkeley Energy Group this month announced plans to put coal miners back to work by building the largest solar project in Appalachia on top of a closed mountaintop strip mine near the town of Pikeville. The Eastern Kentucky coal company is partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has helped develop 9,000 megawatts of renewable energy, to bring jobs and clean energy to the region.

Mining employment in the area has plummeted from more than 14,000 jobs in 2008 to fewer than 4,000 today, owing to mine automation, competition from natural gas, and environmental controls on dirty coal emissions. Even if Trump’s administration and Congress roll back clean air and water rules, most experts agree that coal-mining jobs are not coming back, particularly in Appalachia where production costs are relatively high. ...

Nationally, the solar industry added 51,000 jobs last year and now employs over a quarter million people, more than three times as many as the coal industry. Solar jobs are attractive, paying a median wage of $26 an hour for installers. ... Nationwide, employment in the wind industry topped 100,000 for the first time last year. The industry added jobs at nine times the rate of the overall economy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the fastest growing occupation in the country is wind turbine technician, with a median wage of $51,000 a year.

Wind now supplies 5.5 percent of all electricity in the United States, contrary to President Trump’s ill-informed claim that “for the most part they (wind turbines) don’t work.” Wind is now one of the lowest cost sources of electricity, even without federal subsidies, according to newly released estimates by the Department of Energy. And contrary to Trump’s complaint that solar is “so expensive,” energy from the sun is now cheaper than new coal or nuclear power. As a result, nearly two-thirds of new U.S. generation capacity in each of the last two years used renewable technologies.

Also of Interest

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

The Bait-and-Switch ‘War on Terror’

CIA Fights Disclosure of Secret Aid to Israel

We Can Still Beat The Deep State

Cybersecurity for the People: How to Protect Your Privacy at a Protest

The Honeymoon of the Generals

Japan Made Secret Deals with the NSA that Expanded Global Surveillance

How US Race Laws Inspired Nazism

Breaking Up the Big Wall Street Banks Is Back in the Headlines

Why They March: “Science and Scientists Are Now Under Attack”

Democrat Disunity: Hypocritical Media Attacks on Sanders

Democrats Would Eat Live Kittens If Rachel Maddow Told Them To

A Little Night Music

Frankie Lee Sims - Hey Little Girl

Frankie Lee Sims - Don't take it out on me

Smokey Hogg w/ Frankie Lee Sims - Goin' Back Home

Frankie Lee Sims - Short Haired Woman

Frankie Lee Sims - She Likes To Boogie Real Low

Frankie Lee Sims - Send My Soul to the Devil

Frankie Lee Sims - Walking With Frankie

Frankie Lee Sims - Cross Country Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Lucy Mae Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Jelly Roll Baker

Frankie Lee Sims - Yeh, Baby