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This evening's music features The King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier. Enjoy!

"According to a new Pew poll of public attitudes in 37 countries, the USA is now viewed favorably by less than 50 percent of the global population for the first time. Committing genocide against the indigenous inhabitants of America, enslaving millions of people, nuking two cities, killing three million people in Vietnam, overthrowing regimes around the world, polluting the global atmosphere and engaging in the most heinous forms of torture didn’t do it. Nope. It took Trump."

-- Jeffrey St Clair

News and Opinion

NYT Finally Retracts Russia-gate Canard

The New York Times has finally admitted that one of the favorite Russia-gate canards – that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred on the assessment of Russian hacking of Democratic emails – is false. On Thursday, the Times appended a correction to a June 25 article that had repeated the false claim, which has been used by Democrats and the mainstream media for months to brush aside any doubts about the foundation of the Russia-gate scandal and portray President Trump as delusional for doubting what all 17 intelligence agencies supposedly knew to be true.

In the Times’ White House Memo of June 25, correspondent Maggie Haberman mocked Trump for “still refus[ing] to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected.” However, on Thursday, the Times – while leaving most of Haberman’s ridicule of Trump in place – noted in a correction that the relevant intelligence “assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.”

The Times’ grudging correction was vindication for some Russia-gate skeptics who had questioned the claim of a full-scale intelligence assessment, which would usually take the form of a National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE), a product that seeks out the views of the entire Intelligence Community and includes dissents. The reality of a more narrowly based Russia-gate assessment was admitted in May by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan in sworn congressional testimony.

Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8 that the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (or ICA) produced by selected analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, “a coordinated product from three agencies – CIA, NSA, and the FBI – not all 17 components of the intelligence community,” the former DNI said. Clapper further acknowledged that the analysts who produced the Jan. 6 assessment on alleged Russian hacking were “hand-picked” from the CIA, FBI and NSA. Yet, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion. For instance, if the analysts were known to be hard-liners on Russia or supporters of Hillary Clinton, they could be expected to deliver the one-sided report that they did.

Heh, the mainstream media are kinda touchy about the label, but "lügenpresse" is sounding like a lot more apt term these days.

3490 fake news stories that reported that "17 intelligence agencies" made US election hacking report when only 3 did https://t.co/QGaG47rzBL

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 8, 2017

House Appropriations Committee votes to repeal 2001 AUMF - Foreign Affairs Committee says 'out of order'

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is crying foul over an amendment to a defense spending bill that would revoke the 2001 law giving the president authority to undertake war against terrorist threats. “This provision should have been ruled out of order,” GOP House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesman Cory Fritz said in a statement to The Hill.

The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday surprisingly approved the amendment — introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) — in a voice vote on Thursday.

The measure would repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which was initially approved to authorize the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It has since been used by the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations to justify a number of military actions, including the Iraq War and the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Under Lee’s amendment, the authorization would be revoked eight months after the passing of the defense act, forcing Congress to vote on a new AUMF in the interim.

Syria says U.S. chemical attack warning untrue, aims to justify new attack

The Syrian government said a U.S. warning this week to Damascus not to carry out a new chemical weapons strike were baseless and a ploy to justify a new attack on the country, state television said.

State television quoted a foreign ministry source as saying Washington's allegations about an intended attack were not only misleading but also "devoid of any truth and not based on any facts."

The Case of Syria and the Bleeding Women

In a bizarre episode on Monday evening, the White House announced that it was putting the Assad regime on notice about chemical weapons use. ... However, by the next afternoon, this entire mysterious interlude had been quietly swept under the rug by Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis himself, who told reporters on a flight to the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels that “It appears that the Syrians took the warning seriously said. They didn’t do it.” The Syrians claimed they never had any intention of launching a chemical attack and US intelligence officials speaking anonymously to Reuters backed them up.

So what was this bizarre burst of prime-time war-mongering all about? Was it a distraction from the unraveling of the Senate’s calamitous version of TrumpCare? Was it an aborted power-play by the anti-Iran hardliners in the West Wing looking to cook up a pretext for the next war?

I think the answer is much simpler and dumber. The White House issued its impromptu warning about a planned Syrian chemical weapon attack at about the same time an explosive story by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh went live on the site of the German newspaper Die Welt. Hersh’s story details how the Trump White House swallowed a false narrative about sarin gas being used to kill civilians in an ISIS-held town called Khan Sheikhoun and then using this as a pretext to launch a cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base, flouting the warnings of his own military and intelligence advisors. Hersh’s rigorously-sourced story is a devastating account of how a reckless and deranged inner circle in the Trump White House nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Hersh’s exposé is a must-read, a landmark piece of investigative reporting. And you can easily understand why the Team Trump would have been desperate to see the story buried in a whirlwind of manufactured hysteria about a new chemical weapons attack. But they needn’t have bothered. Few people were going to be aware of Hersh’s piece in any event. That’s because Sy Hersh, the man who exposed My Lai, domestic spying by the CIA and the abuses at Abu Ghraib, has been effectively blacklisted in the US and now even Great Britain.

'Conclusions are based on questionable data' - Russian envoy on latest OPCW report

The Hersh reporting apparently occasioned the need for another blast of propaganda:

Sarin used in April Syria attack, chemical weapons watchdog confirms

The nerve agent sarin was used in an attack in April on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun and was likely to have spread from a crater in a road where a projectile had hit, the global chemical weapons watchdog has confirmed. A report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) also found that hexamine – a known component of the Syrian regime’s stockpiles – was contained in samples taken from the scene and from the blood and urine of victims.

The OPCW said its mandate was solely to determine whether chemical weapons were used in the attack, which killed more than 100 people and left up to 300 others contaminated. A UN investigative taskforce will now attempt to determine who was responsible. While not attributing blame, the report’s finding that the contamination spread from a hole in the road is significant. The account matches that of victims and witnesses, who had said the sarin spread from a rocket, or shell, fired from a Syrian jet that had circled above the rebel-held town shortly after 6.30am on 4 April.

Syrian and Russian officials had said the mass exposure was instead caused by an opposition warehouse being hit. The OPCW report made no mention of such a warehouse, and a Guardian inspection of the area within hours of the attack found only abandoned buildings, none of which had been recently hit. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said the OPCW report was “biased” and based on “doubtful evidence”.

From the "surprising candor, but I still don't fully believe you," division of the "No shit, Sherlock" department in the limited hangout lounge:

Army general: US military wasn't 'necessarily concerned' about killing civilians in Iraq during the surge

The US military wasn't "necessarily concerned" about limiting civilian deaths during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, according to the Army's top general overseeing logistics.

At a forum sponsored by the Association of the US Army, Lt. Gen. Aundre F. Piggee made the comment in contrast to air strikes in the fight for Mosul, which he said were carried out with more care to avoid collateral damage.

“These high-tech munitions limit collateral damage, and we were not necessarily concerned about that at the height of the Surge,” Piggee said, according to a transcript on the AUSA website. "Now in Mosul, we are absolutely concerned about that.”

The statement is starkly different from the usual Pentagon messaging of always taking care to reduce civilian casualties. A 2003 American Forces Press Services article, for example, touted the use of precision-guided munitions that would reduce casualties in the Iraq War. The same article quoted then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as saying the coalition would "take great care" to avoid them.

Putin receives former U.S. diplomat Kissinger in Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin received former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Kremlin on Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement. It did not elaborate on what the two men discussed, saying only that Kissinger was in Russia for the Primakov Readings, an annual forum of experts, diplomats and politicians.

Kissinger met U.S. President Donald Trump last month, and Putin and Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty summit in Germany next week, in what would be their first face-to-face meeting since Trump became president.

Contacts between Russia and the United States are under intense scrutiny following allegations by U.S. intelligence officials of Russian interference in last year's U.S. presidential election. Russian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they are frustrated that the Trump administration has not been able to engage effectively with Russia on important issues. ... Moscow is frustrated, according to the Russian officials, because it believes dialogue with the United States is crucial to resolving the conflict in Syria and concluding a peace deal which would allow Russia to end its military engagement there.

China flexes military muscle in Hong Kong during Xi Jinping visit

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has presided over Hong Kong’s biggest military parade since the British handover in a tub-thumping show of strength that observers said was intended to intimidate members of the former colony’s nascent independence movement.

More than 3,100 troops gathered at the Shek Kong military base near Hong Kong’s border with mainland China on Friday morning to stage the review for Xi, who is on a rare tour of the city to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the the former British colony’s return to Chinese control on 1 July. ...

Suzanne Pepper, a political observer whose blog chronicles Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy, said the show of strength was part of an increasingly hardline posture that China’s leaders appeared to be taking towards Hong Kong after a recent upsurge in support for the idea of independence or self-determination.

“The reason Beijing is so apoplectic now is because of independence advocacy. They are out of their minds because they are afraid this is going to catch on,” Pepper said.

“You have these young people [promoting independence and self determination, saying] ... that if we can’t have what we thought we were going to have with genuine universal suffrage then … we’re going to do it our way [and] they are worried that if that catches on then they are going to have no end of trouble here, which maybe they won’t be able to contain so easily. So what they are trying to do is nip this in the bud before it goes any further.”

US-China honeymoon over: Washington sanctions Chinese bank and sells arms to Taiwan

Relations between the world’s two largest economies look to be entering a new phase of turbulence after the US punctured Chinese celebrations of the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return by unveiling sanctions against a Chinese bank linked to North Korea and a major arms sale to Taiwan.

The US state department on Thursday gave the green light to a total of $1.4bn in arms sales to Taiwan, a self-governing island which China considers its own territory.

Sanctions were also announced targeting a Chinese bank accused of serving as “a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity”. Two Chinese individuals and the Bank of Dandong, which US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said was an institution of “primary money-laundering concern”, were blacklisted from the US financial system. ...

Mnuchin claimed the move was not retribution for a lack of Chinese action over North Korea. “This is not directed at China, this is directed at a bank, as well as individuals and entities in China,” he said. However, both the sanctions and the arms sale are likely to anger China and experts said both moves clearly represented a deliberate response from a Trump White House that is losing patience with Beijing.

US military updates Trump's North Korea options

Revised US military options for North Korea have been prepared and are ready to be presented to President Donald Trump, two US military officials told CNN.

The options, which include a military response, will be presented to the president if Pyongyang conducts an underground nuclear or ballistic missile test that indicates the regime has made significant progress towards developing a weapon that could attack the US, they said.

US National Security Adviser HR McMaster also confirmed publicly Wednesday that military options had been prepared. ...

Trump last week also indicated he is becoming more concerned.
"The North Korean regime is causing tremendous problems and is something that has to be dealt with, and probably dealt with rapidly," he said.

Mexican spy scandal escalates as study shows software targeted opposition

The text messages seemed innocuous enough when they buzzed on to the smartphone of Roberto Gil, a senior member of Mexico’s opposition National Action Party. ... Each message carried a link, however, and, once clicked, they would have immediately allowed sophisticated spy software to infect Gil’s phone, tracking keystrokes, accessing contact lists and taking control of the phone’s cameras and microphone.

The spy software – known as Pegasus and made by the Israeli firm NSO Group – is only sold to governments, supposedly for use against terrorists and criminals. But an investigation by researchers at the University of Toronto revealed that it was deployed against Mexican anti-corruption crusaders, journalists investigating the president, and activists pushing for a soda tax.

Now the spying scandal has escalated after researchers showed that the same software was used to target senior members of the rightwing PAN party. Opposition politicians and civil society activists alike have reacted with outrage at the revelation that they had been targeted alongside the crime groups which have pushed violence in Mexico to its highest levels in 20 years. ...

Others have expressed concern that the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, is backsliding towards the worst excesses of authoritarianism that it displayed during more than 70 years of single-party rule. ... The scandal has marked a new low for the president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who came to power cast as a reformer, but whose approval rating now hovers in the teens. The fact that the spying was first reported on the front page of the New York Times has caused intense embarrassment for the image conscious administration currently preparing for tense Nafta renegotiations with a hostile US government.

Forcing Canada to Confront Past, First Nations Erect Symbolic Teepee in Nation's Capitol

Widespread applause greeted a large teepee in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario on Thursday morning. First Nations protesters erected the teepee as a reminder of the mistreatment of their ancestors amid celebrations in Canada for the country's 150th anniversary.

Though the demonstrators' first attempt to raise the teepee was blocked by police the previous evening, the effort was part of a four-day "reoccupation ceremony" ahead of Canada Day next week. Organizers say Indigenous tribes have little cause to celebrate the holiday, as their ancestors were driven from their land by Europeans who colonized what is now Canada.

Ten protesters were briefly detained during the first action, and were ordered to stay away from Parliament Hill in Canada's capitol city. Supporters chanted "Let our people go!" as at least one protester was dragged away.

But a group of 150 protesters were finally able to erect the teepee, drawing support from onlookers.

beautiful https://t.co/nzBQ8HjFRp

— Desmond Cole (@DesmondCole) June 29, 2017

Trump Plows Ahead With 'Potentially Devastating' Trade War

Despite fervent opposition from an overwhelming majority of his own cabinet, President Donald Trump is reportedly gearing up to wage an all-out trade war that critics argue could have a "potentially devastating" impact on the American economy and on U.S. relations with key allies.

Trump's views, along with the protests of his staff, were voiced during a Monday meeting at the White House, Axios's Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan reported on Friday. "No decision has been made" regarding the official direction of U.S. trade policy, Allen and Swan noted, "but the president is leaning towards imposing tariffs, despite opposition from nearly all his cabinet."

Axios went on to detail the specific policies favored by Trump, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (who didn't attend the meeting), Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and policy advisor Stephen Miller:

The president and a small band of America First advisers made it clear they're hell-bent on imposing tariffs—potentially in the 20% range—on steel, and likely other imports.

The penalties could eventually extend to other imports. Among those that may be considered: aluminum, semiconductors, paper, and appliances like washing machines.

One official estimated the sentiment in the room as 22 against and 3 in favor—but since one of the three is named Donald Trump, it was case closed.

Writing for New York magazine, Ed Kilgore noted that the president should have anticipated opposition to his protectionist positions when he was filling "his cabinet with corporate tycoons and conventional conservatives."

Illinois Is in a $6 Billion Budget Hole and Flirting With Junk

Two years ago, Illinois’s budget impasse meant that the state’s lottery winners had to wait for months to get their winnings. Now, with $15 billion in unpaid bills, Illinois is on the brink of being unable to even sell Powerball tickets. For the third year in a row, the state is poised to begin its fiscal year on July 1 with no state budget and billions of dollars in the red. If that happens, S&P Global Ratings says Illinois will probably lose its ­investment-grade status and become the first U.S. state on record to have its general obligation debt rated as junk. Illinois is already the worst-rated state at BBB-, S&P’s lowest investment-grade rating. The state owes at least $800 million in interest and late fees on its unpaid bills. Any further downgrade will make it more expensive the next time the state needs to sell bonds.

Unlike Detroit or, say, Lehman Brothers, states can’t file for bankruptcy, so Illinois has no choice but to dig its way out of a $6 billion budget hole. This is not a new problem. While many states are required by their constitutions to have balanced budgets, Illinois has been running deficits since 2002. Things have gotten worse since 2015, when tax hikes expired. That year, Republican Bruce Rauner became governor and began battling with Democrats, who control the Illinois legislature. ...

So far, the budgetary pain has been limited mostly to social service providers and universities reeling from the loss of state aid. Services for the homeless, disabled, and elderly have been slashed. Starting on July 1, Illinois won’t be able to pay contractors, bringing road construction to a halt and a possible shutdown of transit services. Without state aid, school districts across the state say they may not be able to stay open for the full school year. Vaccine access for thousands of children is at risk because the state isn’t paying doctors for immunizations on time, according to the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. ...

Illinois’s record-breaking budget impasse has left it with no spending plan for two years, $15 billion in unpaid bills, and a $6 billion deficit.

"Inaction Means Death": California Sees Groundswell of Support for Single-Payer Healthcare

Republican healthcare bill limps into recess with no vote in sight

As senators started to leave Washington for the Fourth of July recess on Thursday, a compromise over the beleaguered GOP healthcare bill that would attract enough votes to pass seemed distant.

Days after the Senate Republican leadership faced a revolt from both wings of their caucus over a draft bill to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), lawmakers were considering whether to reach out to moderates by keeping the former president’s tax increase on wealthier people’s investments and retreating on cuts for subsidies to the poor and elderly.

The Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to postpone the healthcare vote he hoped would occur before the Fourth of July holiday was a stunning twist in Republicans’ seven-year effort to repeal Obamacare, raising the possibility that the demands from conservatives and moderates may be irreconcilable. ...

By the end of the day on Thursday, the Republican senators had largely retreated into two camps: those with concerns about the plan’s impact on vulnerable Americans, including low-income and elderly people, and those resistant to axing the bill’s generous tax cuts.

Travel ban 2.0 goes into effect despite courts saying security issues unfounded

The United States implemented a modified version of Donald Trump’s travel ban Thursday evening on some people from six Muslim-majority countries and certain refugees, citing security concerns that federal courts have declared to be unfounded. Travel through major US airports appeared to be proceeding as usual, with border officials under orders to respect previously issued visas for citizens from the countries in question: Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Libya.

The airport scenes contrasted sharply with the protests and security chaos that greeted the Donald Trump administration’s first travel ban in January, which drew impassioned demonstrators and led to the sudden detention and expulsion of travelers with valid visas. Just before the latest travel ban took effect at 8pm ET, it came under court challenge, with the state of Hawaii questioning the Trump administration’s interpretation of a standard for granting visas described by the supreme court in a ruling Monday allowing the ban.

Travelers with a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” could be exempt from the ban, the high court ruled. The Trump administration interpreted “bona fide relationship” to include parents, children, in-laws and step-relations but to exclude grandparents, nephews, nieces, cousins and others. There appeared to be some indecision within the Trump administration about what the phrase signified. Fiances were originally placed in the excluded group, only to be declared by the state department late Thursday to qualify as partaking in a bona fide relationship.

Perjury Charge Dropped Against Ex-Trooper in Sandra Bland Case

The Texas state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland, the black woman who was found hanging in a Waller County jail cell in 2015 and whose death became a symbol of the national debate over the treatment of blacks by the police, was cleared on Wednesday of the only criminal charge he faced in the case.

The trooper, Brian T. Encinia, was indicted last year by a Waller County grand jury on a perjury charge, in connection with his description of the arrest of Ms. Bland, whom he pulled over in July 2015 in a routine traffic stop in Prairie View, northwest of Houston. On Wednesday, the perjury charge against Mr. Encinia was dismissed by a judge, after prosecutors filed a motion asking for the charge to be dropped.

The charge, a misdemeanor, led to Mr. Encinia’s firing by the Texas Department of Public Safety. He had fought the charge, pleading not guilty. The same grand jury that indicted Mr. Encinia had declined to indict any of Ms. Bland’s jailers in connection with her death, which the medical examiner had ruled a suicide. ...

The dismissal of the perjury charge was tied to an agreement prosecutors had with Mr. Encinia. In the agreement — which was signed by prosecutors, the judge, Mr. Encinia and his lawyers — Mr. Encinia agreed to end his career as a law enforcement officer in exchange for the dismissal of the charge.

Mr. Encinia permanently surrendered the state-issued license given to all law-enforcement officers and agreed that he would “never seek, accept or engage in employment in any capacity with law enforcement,” either as a sworn police officer or in a civilian role, according to court records. He also agreed to never seek expungement of the charge, the legal process of having a criminal record erased or sealed. If he violates any parts of the agreement, the state can refile the charge against him.

Donald Trump threatened with subpoena over Comey 'tapes'

Bipartisan leaders on the House intelligence committee are threatening a subpoena if the White House does not clarify whether any recordings, memoranda or other documents exist of Donald Trump’s meetings with fired FBI director James Comey.

The panel had previously set a 23 June deadline for the White House to respond to the panel’s request. The day before, Trump said in a series of tweets that he “did not make, and do not have, any such recordings” but also said he has “no idea” if tapes or recordings of his conversations with Comey exist.

“With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea ... whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings,” the president wrote on Twitter.

In a 23 June letter, the White House responded to the committee request by referring to Trump’s tweets.

Canada Undermines Targets for Protecting Oceans by Increasing Oil Exploration

Climate Change Will Hit Southern Poor Hardest, U.S. Economic Analysis Shows

Nationwide, rising temperatures could lower U.S. GDP by 6 percent this century while worsening economic inequality, the authors say. It’s “the poor getting poorer.”

Without effective action to bend the upward curve of greenhouse gas emissions, parts of the American South could experience more than a 20 percent drop in economic activity due to global warming by the end of the century, according to a new analysis of the regional economic risks of climate change. The county-by-county analysis shows that the poorer regions of the country would be hit hardest, and that the nation as a whole could see as much 6 percent shaved off of its GDP by the end of this century.

The analysis is based on a high-emissions trajectory that doesn't take into account future voluntary efforts to reduce emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement. By breaking down the economic impacts regionally, the authors show that parts of the country that are already economically frail could be hit the hardest. This means that if the whole world took the laissez-faire approach of the Trump administration, impacts on poor people would not just be felt in the developing world, but in the richest nation on earth.

The Pacific Northwest and New England, parts of the country with robust regional economies, would likely see a slight uptick in economic activity, while the Gulf Coast and southeastern states would be particularly hard hit. The yawning gap between the richest and the poorest—income inequality—would only worsen, thwarting one of the key goals of sustainable economic development.

Germany ‘massively weakened’ draft G20 climate plan to appease Trump

Germany’s G20 presidency dramatically weakened a climate action plan, gutting it of ambitious language and defining gas, and potentially even some coal power, as “clean technologies”, in an attempt to appeal to US president Donald Trump.

The action plan was intended to be agreed at next week’s Hamburg G20 summit. ...

Several elements that have been removed in the May draft are:

• A 2025 deadline for the end of fossil fuel subsidies
• References to the risk of “stranded assets”
• A call for “the alignment of public expenditure and infrastructure planning with the goals of the Paris Agreement”
• A push for carbon pricing
• A commitment to publish mid-century decarbonisation blueprints by next year
• A pledge to develop a “profound” climate plan for multilateral development banks
• Seven references to the UN’s 2018 review of nationally-determined contributions
• 11 references to the 2050 mid-century pathway for net zero emission
• 16 mentions of infrastructure decarbonisation

Also of Interest

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

6 Trigger Points: How the Conflict Between the United States and Iran Is Fast Escalating Toward War

Trump Courts War Risks with Iran

50 years after the Glassboro Summit, we should question the wisdom of leaders who seem averse to any kind of détente between the United States and Russia.

How Donald Trump Could Destroy the Global Fight Against Kleptocracy

New York Times Forced To Retract Longstanding Lie About Russian Hacking

An Investigation in Search of a Crime

Beyond Inauthentic Opposition

AP analysis shows how gerrymandering benefited GOP in 2016

The End of Growth in the Tar Sands. So Now What?

A Little Night Music

Clifton Chenier - Hot Rod

Clifton Chenier - The Cat's Dreamin'

Clifton Chenier - Bad Luck and Trouble

Clifton Chenier - The Big Wheel

Clifton Chenier - I Can't Stand

Chenier, Clifton - Boppin' the Rock

Rod Bernard & Clifton Chenier - My Jolie Blonde

Clifton Chenier - Clifton Blues

Clifton Chenier - Squeeze Box Boogie

Clifton Chenier - Hot Tamale Baby