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This evening's music features blues singer and harmonica player Big Mama Thornton. Enjoy!

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

-- James Madison

News and Opinion

Wow, we've become a nation of secret laws. Quelle surprise!

Donald Trump Ordered Syria Strike Based on a Secret Legal Justification Even Congress Can’t See

On Friday night, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to conduct a bombing attack against the government of Syria without congressional authorization. How can this be constitutional, given the fact that Article I, Section 8 of America’s founding document declares that “the Congress shall have Power … To declare War”? The deeply bizarre and alarming answer is that Trump almost certainly does have some purported legal justification provided to him by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — but no one else, including Congress, can read it.

The Office of Legal Counsel is often called the Supreme Court of the executive branch, providing opinions on how the president and government agencies should interpret the law. We know that Trump received a top-secret OLC opinion justifying the previous U.S. strike on Syria on April 6, 2017. Friday’s bombing undoubtedly relied on the same memo or one with similar reasoning.

So while over 80 members of Congress wrote to Trump on Friday night stating that “engaging our military in Syria … without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution,” their action has no impact. The military will rely on the OLC’s opinion that, constitutionally speaking, Trump’s orders were perfectly fine. And it will be quite difficult for members of Congress to argue otherwise, since they don’t even know what the Trump administration’s precise rationale is.

It is not unprecedented for the OLC’s reasoning to be classified. Over 20 percent of its opinions between 1998 and 2013 have been secret. However, these OLC memos were generally written on government actions that were themselves classified. One notorious example is the so-called torture memos produced by the OLC during the George W. Bush administration.

What makes Trump’s actions new, according to several legal experts I spoke with, is that previous presidents appear to have always made public their legal justification for any overt military action on a significant scale. No matter how shoddy their explanations were, this at least made debate possible.

U.S. believes Russia is tampering with chemical weapons evidence in Syria

International chemical weapons inspectors have yet to be allowed into the Syrian town of Douma, the scene of a suspected chemical weapons attack that left 75 people dead and drove the U.S., France, and the U.K. to carry out missile strikes on Syria Friday night. Russia and Syria have blocked access to investigators who arrived in Damascus over the weekend, Ahmet Üzümcü, director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told the executive council at a meeting on Monday.

Now nine days after the alleged attack and a week since Russia deployed its own experts, the U.S. fears the Russians have tampered with the site. ...

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov quickly denied Monday that Russia was holding up investigators, instead arguing the global watchdog inspectors were not being allowed into Douma because they didn’t have a U.N. permit, according to the Washington Post. “It is the lack of approval by the U.N. Department for Safety and Security for OPCW experts to visit the site in Douma that is the problem,” Ryabkov said. “As far as I understand, what is hampering a speedy resolution of this problem is the consequences of the illegal, unlawful military action that Great Britain and other countries conducted on Saturday.”

Syria strikes: May tells MPs Britain could not wait for UN approval

Theresa May has told MPs that waiting for UN authority to take action over chemical weapons attacks in Syria “would mean a Russian veto on our foreign policy.” Speaking to MPs after Saturday morning’s missile strikes against chemical weapons facilities, May called chemical attacks in Syria “a stain on our humanity” and said the UK had needed to act rapidly to stop the possibility of further attacks.

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the strikes were “legally questionable” and called for a renewed diplomatic effort by the UK government and its allies, insisting along with some other party leaders that parliament should have been given a chance to approve the action. In turn, May attacked Corbyn’s arguments that diplomatic efforts had not been exhausted, citing the 2013 agreement where the Syrian regime committed to dismantle its chemical weapons programme. ...

The prime minister also denied Corbyn’s claims in a Guardian article, where he described the attacks as “a demolition of what appear to be empty buildings”. ...

Corbyn also reiterated his view that it was not yet confirmed that the Assad regime launched the attack, and said inspectors from the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should be “allowed to do their work”.

“While suspicion, rightly, points to the Assad government, chemical weapons have been used by other groups in the conflict,” he said. Corbyn said there was a need for a law to force the government to seek the approval of parliament before launching military action. “There is no more serious issue than the life and death matters of military action. It is right that parliament has the right to support or stop the government from taking planned military action.”

"The greater struggle between the US and Russia is only destroying and impoverishing Syria"

Macron: I never said US and France would stay in Syria for long term

Emmanuel Macron has clarified a suggestion that he was responsible for shifting the US position on Syria, after the White House rebutted an earlier comment by the French president that he had “convinced” Donald Trump to maintain a military presence there. After Macron said in a live TV interview on Sunday night that he had changed Trump’s mind on rapidly withdrawing US troops, the White House issued a statement saying the US view had not changed and Trump still wanted US forces to leave “as quickly as possible” and “completely crush Isis”.

Macron said on Monday he had “never said” that either the US or France would stay engaged militarily over the long term. He said the French and US positions were in line but also had the same long-term target of building a stable and peaceful Syria. “We have one military objective and only one: the war against Isis,” he told a press conference. “The White House is right to recall that the military engagement is against [Isis] and will finish the day that the war against [Isis] has been completed. I suggested no change last night.”

However, Macron said that by joining forces with France and the UK for Saturday’s strikes, the US “fully realised that our responsibility goes beyond the war against Isis and that there is also a humanitarian responsibility and a responsibility to build peace over the long term”.

France and other European nations had been alarmed by Trump’s comments about ending America’s presence in Syria, which contradicted messages from US military leaders. Despite a string of military victories that have driven the group back, Isis militants are still in control of pockets of land in Syria.

Gaza: Palestinians Continue “Great March of Return” Protests for Third Straight Week

Brazilian activists occupy apartment at centre of Lula corruption case

Leftwing housing activists in Brazil have occupied the beachfront triplex apartment at the centre of a corruption case against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was jailed last weekend on corruption charges. Prosecutors say that Lula was promised the beachfront apartment in the seaside town Guarujá in return for helping the construction company OAS secure lucrative contracts with Brazil’s state oil firm Petrobras. He is still appealing against the conviction.

On Monday morning, around 50 members of the homeless workers movement (MTST) occupied the apartment for several hours, hanging flags from the balcony and roof. Another hundred gathered outside the building, chanting slogans in support of Lula. The movement often occupies unused privately owned land and buildings, in São Paulo and across Brazil to call for more affordable housing. Such occupations are permitted in Brazil’s constitution.

The MTST leader Guilherme Boulos, who was beside Lula when he gave a fiery speech to supporters before handing himself in to federal police last weekend, posted on social media: “If [the apartment is] Lula’s, the people can stay. If not, then why is he in jail?”

Hungarians Take to the Streets to Protest an Election Seen as a Hammer Blow to Democracy

Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest on Saturday to protest what they called a deeply undemocratic election last week, which delivered two-thirds of the seats in Parliament to the ruling Fidesz party that won just 47 percent of the national popular vote.

In addition to complaints about a gerrymandered electoral system that left more than half the voters without effective representation, protesters voiced concerns about the government’s near-total domination of public and private media, as well as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s threats to crack down on journalists and rights groups who operate independently of the state.

Protesters also expressed alarm at Orbán’s shrill, nativist campaign, which focused almost entirely on racist fearmongering over the supposed threat posed to European civilization by the tiny number of Muslim refugees allowed into the country, and also labeled Hungarians who dare to offer them legal, material, or emotional support as enemies of the state.

Saheed Vassell’s Parents Call for Police to Release Every Video Leading Up to Their Son’s Death

With Walkout and Rally Planned for Monday, Teachers' Anger Over Low Pay and Lack of Funding Spreads to Colorado

Colorado's teachers' union expects more than 400 teachers at a rally that's planned for Monday at the state's Capitol in Denver.

Englewood School District, outside the capital city, announced  on Sunday that schools would be closed the following day as 70 percent of its teachers had indicated they wouldn't be working Monday. It was unclear on Sunday whether more school districts would be closing. "We are calling Monday, April 16th a day of action,” Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association (CEA), told  KDVR in Denver.

The striking teachers are planning to wear red, as teachers in a number of other states have in recent weeks while rallying at their state capitols for higher pay, greater education funding, and an end to the corporate tax cuts that have caused school spending to fall by the wayside over the past decade.

According to  KMGH in Denver, "The CEA estimates that teachers spend on average $656 of their own money for school supplies for students." The state's teacher salaries rank 46th out of 50, with educators making an average of $46,000 per year. Public schools are underfunded by $828 million this year, Dallman told the Post, and lawmakers have said they could inject at least $100 million more into schools—but they have yet to do so. 

As Comey Praised By Media and Democrats, A Small Reminder of His Long History of 'Authoritarian Abuses'

As fired FBI director James Comey dominates the front pages of America's corporate media outlets with explosive denunciations of President Donald Trump's immorality and utter lack of fitness for office, many commentators have hastened to remind the public that while his claims about the president may be accurate, Comey himself is hardly worthy of praise and is certainly "no martyr for democracy."

In addition to highlighting Comey's abrupt public announcement during the 2016 election that the FBI was reopening its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails—which violated FBI policies against making public statements about ongoing investigations and may have played a significant role in swinging the election in Trump's favor—The Week's Ryan Cooper notes that the former FBI director has a long history of approving warrantless wiretapping and a slew of other "authoritarian abuses."

"He spent years trying to force Apple to undermine its security by putting in an backdoor for authorities, and worked hard to outlaw end-to-end encryption altogether," Cooper observed in a column on Monday. "He defended the arrest and due process-free detention of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil for well over three years. He signed off on the illegal Bush torture program, despite his own doubts."

"At bottom, he's just another grifter out to cash in on his carefully-crafted reputation," Cooper concludes, alluding to the fact that Comey is making the media rounds to promote his new book, A Higher Loyalty, which has already skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller lists.

While his book has been marketed as a guide to "ethical leadership," many critics echoed Cooper in pointing out that Comey's leadership of the FBI was anything but ethical and denouncing the "pious sloganeering" that erases his actual record. Following Comey's televised ABC News interview that aired Sunday night, media critic and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) contributor Adam Johnson highlighted the FBI's mass surveillance and entrapment of vulnerable Muslims under Comey's leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Who’s defending Canada’s national interest? First Nations facing down a pipeline

Last Saturday, Indigenous leaders stood arm-in-arm in front of the gates of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline worksite in Burnaby, British Columbia. For weeks before, hundreds of non-native people – environmentalists, federal parliamentarians Elizabeth May and Kennedy Stewart, even an engineer formerly employed by the Texas oil corporation – had marched to the same place. In each case, police approached, read aloud their violation of a no-go zone, and arrested and shackled them.

Now it was the turn of half of the leadership of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, including Grand Chief Stewart Phillip. They waited in the rain for hours. But the police never came. It wasn’t an accident. As the push for this pipeline has transfixed the country, there’s one image the oil industry and Canadian government desperately want to avoid: that of Indigenous peoples as the unifying front of a rising movement for an alternative.

The media has thus far done them the favour. We’ve heard little about the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish, the coastal First Nations who’ve taken the federal government to court. We’ve heard even less about the Secwepemc in the interior of BC – whose lands cover almost half of Kinder Morgan’s route – who are building solar-panelled tiny houses directly in the pipeline’s path. And we’ve heard nothing about the Lubicon, Athabasca Chipewyan and Beaver Lake Cree downstream of the Alberta mines, who first raised the cry of concern about Canada’s future with the tar sands.

They understand what the Alberta and Canadian governments seem to not. To prevent climate breakdown, we must stop oil companies from digging up new deposits of fossil fuels. Government boosters of each pipeline project have instead sent a very clear message: to hell with our climate commitments. So Indigenous peoples have done what our governments will not: they’ve drawn the line. ...

The rule of law, you say? By pushing through the pipeline, Justin Trudeau bulldozes it himself. He violates Indigenous land rights on unceded lands that have been recognized by the Supreme Court, and the right to “free, prior informed consent” in the United Nations declaration. He violates the Paris Climate Accords, whose ambitious target his government was praised for helping establish. And he violates an electoral mandate granted by a majority of British Columbians. In other words, the Indigenous-led opposition to pipelines aren’t “rogue criminals” or a “noisy minority.” They’re enforcing the democratic will of a province – and the sacred legal duties of the country. So don’t let pundits and politicians pretend this crisis is about BC Premier John Horgan defying federal jurisdiction. Governments aren’t provoking a new constitutional impasse. They’re prolonging an old colonial pillage.

Canada: Trudeau vows to push ahead with pipeline plans in spite of protests

Justin Trudeau has said Canada’s government is prepared to use taxpayer dollars to push forward plans for a controversial pipeline expansion, despite protests and efforts by a provincial government to halt the project on environmental grounds. For months, the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia have been locked in a standoff over plans, spearheaded by Texas-based Kinder Morgan, to expand an existing pipeline and lay nearly 1,000km of new pipe from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific coast.

While the project could allow Alberta to get its landlocked bitumen to markets in Asia and reduce its reliance on the US market, it has encountered opposition in British Columbia over the potential for oil spills and the impact that a dramatic rise in tanker traffic could have on the region’s southern resident killer whales, a population already on the knife edge of extinction. The political stalemate over the C$7.4bn project catapulted into the national conversation last week after Kinder Morgan Canada announced it would walk away from the project unless it saw a clear path to completion by the end of May.

Their project has now become a crucial test for Trudeau and his Liberal government, who swept into office in 2015 on promises of striking a balance between economic growth, environmental concerns and repairing the country’s fraught relationship with indigenous peoples. “While governments grant permits for resource development, only communities can grant permission,” noted the Liberal party’s 2015 platform. The pipeline expansion has put this sentiment to the test, with Vancouver and nearby Burnaby launching court actions against the project along with several First Nations communities. After taking power in 2017, the provincial government of British Columbia – a left-leaning coalition which relies on support from the Green Party – vowed to use all the tools available to them to halt the project.

On Sunday, Trudeau interrupted a foreign trip to meet the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia, reiterating his government’s determination to see the project completed. “The Trans Mountain expansion is a vital strategic interest to Canada − it will be built,” he told reporters after the meeting. ... Alberta’s premier, Rachel Notley, said she would move to introduce legislation on Monday that would allow her province to scale back its oil and gas exports to British Columbia, potentially driving up prices in the province.

Scott Pruitt broke spending laws to get his infamous soundproof booth

Scott Pruitt’s infamous soundproof booth, an early indicator of the EPA chief’s high-spending tendencies, is under scrutiny again, for breaking several spending laws.

The Government Accountability Office said Monday that the EPA didn’t follow proper notification rules when they went ahead with the $43,000 secure, soundproof phone booth, installed in his office last fall.

In an eight-page letter to ranking members of congressional appropriations and environmental committees, GAO general counsel Thomas H. Armstrong explained that the EPA failed to notify the proper channels that they’d spent well over the $5,000 limit for furnishing or redecorating offices. The letter also states that the EPA violated the Antideficiency Act because it used the money “in a manner specifically prohibited by law.” The letter called for the EPA to report its Antideficiency Act violation, which is required by law, as soon as possible.

The EPA denies that they did anything wrong. They argued that the customized phone booth wasn’t technically part of Pruitt’s office, and shouldn’t be limited to the $5,000 cap. But the GAO report noted that the EPA itself says the booth is located in a former storage closet inside Pruitt’s office — and that there are plenty of other places for the EPA administrator to take private calls.

Also of Interest

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

Andrew Cuomo Sees What’s Coming. He Doesn’t Know Whether to Run, Join It, or Destroy It.

Inspector General says McCabe’s a liar, but Comey’s not

A Little Night Music

Big Mama Thornton - Just Like A Dog

Big Mama Thornton - Swing It on Home (Take 2)

Big Mama Thornton - Life Goes On

Big Mama Thornton - I Have Searched The Whole World Over

Big Mama Thornton - Big Mama's Coming Home

Big Mama Thornton - Watermelon Man

Big Mama Thornton - My Heavy Road

Big Mama Thornton - Gimme a Penny

Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog

Shafted: Willie Mae Thornton's "Hound Dog"