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“If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle.”

-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

News and Opinion

The DNC’S Lawsuit Against WikiLeaks Poses a Serious Threat to Press Freedom

... The DNC’s suit, as it pertains to WikiLeaks, poses a grave threat to press freedom. The theory of the suit — that WikiLeaks is liable for damages it caused when it “willfully and intentionally disclosed” the DNC’s communications — would mean that any media outlet that publishes misappropriated documents or emails (exactly what media outlets quite often do) could be sued by the entity or person about which they are reporting, or even theoretically prosecuted for it, or that any media outlet releasing an internal campaign memo is guilty of “economic espionage.” ... Some of the most important stories in contemporary journalism have come from media outlets obtaining and publishing materials that were taken without authorization or even in violation of the law. Both the New York Times and Washington Post published thousands of pages from the top-secret Pentagon Papers after Daniel Ellsberg took them without authorization from the Pentagon — and they won the right to publish them in the U.S. Supreme Court. ...

What the DNC is counting on is that contempt for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is so intense in official Washington that it will drown out the obvious menace this lawsuit poses to basic press freedom, or that journalists will be afraid to object out of fear that it will look like they are siding with a despised-in-Washington organization that has been accused by Trump CIA officials (without evidence) of being “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” But just as one should object to torture and the denial of due process for Guantánamo detainees — even if some of the people detained there are actually terrorists who have killed people — one’s personal feelings about Assange and WikiLeaks should be totally irrelevant to recognizing and sounding the alarm about how dangerous the DNC’s legal theory is.

Nor does it matter at all whether one views WikiLeaks as “real journalists” — whatever that might mean. The First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press is not just for media corporations; it is not applicable only to a select group of people called “journalists,” but rather operates to protect an activity when engaged in by anyone. It protects everyone who wishes to publish information that informs the public on matters of public interest. Even WikiLeaks’ most devoted critics and enemies are constrained to acknowledge that WikiLeaks’ publications in general — and its disclosure of at least some of the DNC and Podesta emails, in particular — informed the public about matters legitimately in the public interest. That’s why literally every major media outlet reported on their contents, why those documents forced the resignation of five top DNC officials and the firing of a CNN commentator, and why the DNC itself believes, as evidenced by this lawsuit, that it changed perceptions of Hillary Clinton. ...

No media outlet can function, indeed journalism cannot function, if it becomes illegal to publish secret materials taken by a source without authorization or even illegally. The Obama DOJ — which was not exactly a bastion of press freedom protection, and which despised Assange as much as anyone — wisely recognized this fact, when it decided that it could not prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing stolen materials without severely endangering press freedoms. The DNC, unfortunately, is not nearly as wise — nor nearly as worried — about destroying press freedom in the U.S. The theory it embraced today to sue WikiLeaks for publishing documents is a far more serious menace than any of Donald Trump’s insulting tweets about Chuck Todd. It deserves condemnation and scorn by anyone who actually cares about press freedom.

As Americans, it is our duty to respond when our democracy is attacked. The DNC is filing this lawsuit because Russia, and anyone who supported their interference in the 2016 election, must be held accountable. https://t.co/r42in1EC7r

— Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) April 20, 2018

Keith, do you think "we have a right to lie without being exposed by WikiLeaks" is really a vote winner?

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 20, 2018

Cure Worse Than Disease: Bill to Restrict Trump’s War Powers Would Actually “Endorse a Worldwide War on Terror”

On Monday, three Republican and three Democratic senators, led by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., released a draft of a new “authorization for use of military force,” or AUMF. This AUMF would repeal the AUMF passed on September 14, 2001. ... It would also nullify the October, 2002 AUMF. ...

That sounds good. But the actual language of the Corker-Kaine bill appears to do almost the opposite of what its authors claim. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, it may be “far broader and more dangerous than even current law.” The ACLU’s Christopher Anders calls it “a monumental shift that will amp up war everywhere.”

First, [the bill] discards the language in the 2001 AUMF which declares that force could only be used against those involved the 9/11 attacks — because “the nature of the ongoing armed conflict … has evolved to include numerous non-state terrorist groups.” Now, the president would be explicitly authorized to wage war against “the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and designated associated forces.” The bill specifies five designated associated forces: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; Shabab; Al Qaeda in Syria; the Haqqani Network; and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. This would essentially give the executive branch post hoc approval for the ways presidents have used the 2001 AUMF to date. But what’s worse, the bill gives the president functionally unlimited power to add additional “associated forces” at will.

These associated forces can be anyone that “the President determines,” as long as the president claims they are “a co-belligerent” with our previously named enemies, or were once a part of them. They also can be located in any country that the president names — meaning that once the president adds them to the list, any amount of force can be used there, from drones to all-out war. In theory, Congress would have the power to rescind the president’s designation, but of course, this would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override an inevitable presidential veto — so, in practice, it would never happen. Like the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs, it has no time limit.

Finally, the bill doesn’t even attempt to restrict the other legal justification that Trump has already used for the use of force, and will certainly use again in the future.

"It seems Trump is using Macron as one of his characters for celebrity apprentice"

Macron to put 'Trump whisperer' skills to test on state visit

They call him the Trump whisperer. France’s President Emmanuel Macron – who believes his diplomacy, persuasion and personal charm can sway the thinking of his US counterpart, Donald Trump – arrives in Washington on Monday for the deeply symbolic first state visit by a foreign leader since Trump came to power. The stakes are high, with Macron expected to raise future plans on Syria after the recent joint missile strikes, as well as France’s determination to preserve the Iran nuclear deal which Trump wants to quit. Macron said last week that he had convinced Trump to keep troops in Syria for the long term but was quickly rebuffed by the White House.

But Elysée officials said the highly choreographed visit, including an intimate dinner with the Trumps at Mount Vernon, was aimed foremost at cementing what they called an “intense, close relationship built on trust”, underlined by Macron and Trump’s daily phone conversations over Syria strikes. Macron’s drive for influence in Washington is built on a surprisingly close relationship forged between two men who would appear polar opposites. ...

The intellectual French president is the same age as Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr, and believes a head of state should read literature or philosophy every night lest they lose touch with reality. US observers wonder if Trump can finish a book. And yet Macron, driven by a keen sense of pragmatism, has built up perhaps the closest personal relationship to Trump of any world leader.

Award Winning Journalist Debunks Douma Gas Attack w/Carla Ortiz

Saudi-led coalition strike kills at least 20 at wedding in Yemen

An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, killing at least 20 people, health officials said, as harrowing images emerged on social media of the deadly bombing, the third to hit Yemeni civilians since the weekend.

Khaled al-Nadhri, the top health official in the northern province of Hajja, told the Associated Press that most of the dead were women and children who were gathered in one of the tents set up for the wedding party in the district of Bani Qayis. He said the bride was among the dead. The hospital chief, Mohammed al-Sawmali, said the groom and 45 of the wounded were brought to the local hospital. Health authorities appealed for people to donate blood.

Ali Nasser al-Azib, the deputy head of al-Jomhouri hospital, said 30 children were among the wounded, some in critical condition with shrapnel wounds and severed limbs.

Footage that emerged from the scene of the airstrike shows scattered body parts and a young boy in a green shirt hugging a man’s lifeless body, screaming and crying. Health ministry spokesman Abdel-Hakim al-Kahlan said ambulances were initially unable to reach the site of the bombing for fear of subsequent airstrikes as the jets continued to fly overhead after the initial strike.

South Korea just silenced the speakers broadcasting K-pop over the DMZ

South Korea Monday pulled the plug on the infamous loudspeakers that throw a daily din of propaganda and K-pop over the demilitarized zone and into North Korea.

Killing the high-decibel speakers that have broadcast on-and-off since the early 1960s is part of a wider rapprochement by Seoul toward their neighbor.

Pyongyang’s speakers, which hurl patriotic songs and praise for leader Kim Jong Un in the opposite direction, will also be silenced, Yonhap news agency reported.

The move comes a few days ahead of an historic summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In.

Kim Jong Un says North Korea has suspended its nuclear missile testing

North Korea has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests and will shut down a nuclear testing facility, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, announced Saturday.

“We no longer need any nuclear test or test launches of intermediate- and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles,” Kim said in a statement, according to North Korean state media. “Because of this, the northern nuclear test site has finished its mission.”

Denouncing Pompeo's 'Disturbing' Pro-War Record, Grassroots Groups Pressure Democrats to Unite Against His Confirmation

With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expected to vote against recommending President Donald Trump's Secretary of State pick Mike Pompeo to the full Senate on Monday, 50 grassroots organizations sent a letter (pdf) to Democratic senators denouncing Pompeo's "disturbing" record of warmongering and urging them to block his confirmation when it reaches the floor for a final vote as early as this week.

"Pompeo has claimed all Muslims are 'potentially complicit' in terrorism. He has pushed for war over diplomacy with Iran," reads the letter, which was signed by Peace Action, CodePink, Win Without War, and dozens of other progressive groups. "During his tenure in the House of Representatives, he evangelized for torture."

The organizations also called on the Senate to reject Trump's pick to replace Pompeo as CIA chief, Gina Haspel, whose Senate hearing is scheduled for May 9.

"The confirmation of Haspel or Pompeo would normalize torture, jeopardize human rights, increase the likelihood of war and of war crimes—and empower the worst impulses of Trump and [national security adviser John] Bolton," the groups argue. "We already know Trump is a danger to our democracy; we should not heighten that danger by giving him willing tools who have demonstrated a disregard for the rule of law and all that we hold dear."

The groups' letter was delivered as hopes of Democratic unity against Pompeo diminished further on Monday, after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) became the second Democrat to announce that he will vote to confirm Pompeo. The first Democrat to back Pompeo, as Common Dreams reported last week, was Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), whose declaration of support for the "committed Islamophobe" was denounced by progressives as "disgusting."

Even if Pompeo is rejected on Monday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—where every Democrat is expected to join Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in voting "no"—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can still bring him to the floor for a full vote. Pompeo will likely only need one Democratic vote to make it through the full Senate. "If confirmed, Pompeo would become the first nominee to win a Cabinet post without a committee endorsement since 1945," the Washington Post's John Wagner noted on Monday.

Finland to end basic income trial after two years

Europe’s first national government-backed experiment in giving citizens free cash will end next year after Finland decided not to extend its widely publicised basic income trial and to explore alternative welfare schemes instead.

Since January 2017, a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 have been paid a monthly €560 (£475) , with no requirement to seek or accept employment. Any recipients who took a job continued to receive the same amount. The government has turned down a request for extra funding from Kela, the Finnish social security agency, to expand the two-year pilot to a group of employees this year, and said payments to current participants will end next January.

It has also introduced legislation making some benefits for unemployed people contingent on taking training or working at least 18 hours in three months. “The government is making changes taking the system away from basic income,” Kela’s Miska Simanainen told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The scheme – aimed primarily at seeing whether a guaranteed income might incentivise people to take up paid work by smoothing out gaps in the welfare system – is strictly speaking not a universal basic income (UBI) trial, because the payments are made to a restricted group and are not enough to live on.

Economic Update: Struggling Against the System

Georgia Bus Drivers Joined the School Uprising and Paid a Price

The red-state school uprising is spreading to educators around the country, with teachers in Colorado and Arizona now planning walkouts to demand better treatment from state and county governments. But the widespread public support that has helped carry the teachers to victories so far has been less present for blue-collar workers following in their footsteps. In Georgia, bus drivers who organized their own work stoppage last week were met with public condemnation and immediate firings.

On Thursday, the same day that the votes in favor of a walkout were tallied in Arizona, nearly 400 school bus drivers in DeKalb County, Georgia, stayed home from work, staging a “sickout” to protest their low salaries and meager benefits.

Whether the school bus drivers can succeed in winning their demands and maintaining broad popular support remains to be seen, but the protest provides an important test case on whether these teacher movements will lead to a broader working-class uprising or stay limited to organizing among a narrower band of white-collar professionals. The bus drivers are not building their case around the idea that their unique talents merit greater monetary reward, but that they simply need and deserve to be treated more fairly. ...

While the teachers strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona have boasted the vocal support of local school boards and superintendents, the school district leadership in DeKalb County has offered no such solidarity to the school bus drivers. In fact, seven bus drivers were fired on Thursday, identified as “sickout ringleaders.” ...

In the red states where teachers movements have erupted, school bus drivers have helped support the educators protesting their working conditions. In Oklahoma, for example, while teachers walked off their jobs to protest at the state capitol for nine days, bus drivers prepared and drove free meals to more than 100 designated pick-up points to make sure that students were not left hungry. Some school bus drivers even helped transport teachers to the state capitol.

The Supreme Court could make it easier for Trump to fire Mueller

President Donald Trump can’t directly fire Bob Mueller, the man overseeing the investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia. (Everyone except the president seems to know that.) So if Trump wants to rid himself of the probe he calls a “witch hunt,” he needs to find someone who can. The only person with the power, right now, to fire Mueller is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. And he’s said he won’t pink-slip the special counsel without “good cause,” as federal regulation requires. If Rosenstein refuses and Trump fires him, then the assignment could fall next in line at the Justice Department is Solicitor General Noel Francisco.

Francisco hasn’t addressed whether he’d fire Mueller, but he’s a Republican Trump appointee who’s already accused the FBI of overreaching. He’s also taken what experts called a “bizzare” position in a case against the SEC that the Supreme Court will hear on Monday. The decision could ultimately affect his — and Trump’s — ability to fire Mueller by watering down the “good cause” standard. The case, Lucia v. SEC, considers how certain judges who preside over SEC regulation are appointed. But seemingly out of left field, Francisco asked the Supreme Court to expand the scope of the case and consider if the law that requires these judges only be removed “for cause” is constitutional. Anyone with the power to fire Mueller would be held to the same standard.

Francisco later not only asked the Supreme Court to dilute that regulation but also argued that Congress doesn’t have the power to limit the president’s, or one of his appointees’, ability to fire officers, like Mueller. “If the solicitor general gets this judicial ruling that ‘for cause’ really means any reason related to job performance, then that gives some support for a Rosenstein successor to discharge Mueller,” said Harold Krent, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, who filed an amicus brief in the case.

Flint activists still waiting as governor escapes fallout of water crisis

The lead poisoning crisis that swept Flint was, for a time, expected to fell Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan. But the start of criminal trials of those deemed responsible for the disaster has stirred outrage in Flint at the prospect that the governor will pay no price for what happened on his watch. Neither Snyder, nor any of his closest aides, are among the 15 people identified by Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette as being criminally responsible for allowing lead to leech into Flint’s drinking water in April 2014 and failing to deal with its deadly consequences.

Wednesday will be four years since Flint’s water switched to the Flint river, without lead corrosion controls, prompting the public health crisis. “No one is above the law, not on my watch,” Schuette, who is running to replace term-limited Snyder this year, has vowed. But no crime has been been established against the governor, Schuette stressed.

As it stands, Snyder will be able to round off his eight-year tenure in January and return to the private sector, where he forged a sizable personal fortune via venture capital and technology before he ran for office. The technocratic Republican, whose Twitter handle is @onetoughnerd, would exit with little worse than some gloomy approval ratings. “I don’t think the governor is going to get what he deserves,” said Gina Luster, an activist with Flint Rising. Laura MacIntyre, a sociologist at University of Michigan-Flint, is more descriptive: “He deserves to be tarred and feathered.”

At the apex of the crisis, in 2015 and 2016, it appeared that Snyder would, at least politically, be toppled by the outrage. He faced a humbling congressional hearing in March 2016 where, sipping a bottle of water held with trembling hands, he told lawmakers “I kick myself every day” over what happened in Flint. “Career bureaucrats” in his administration had deceived him. “I get so mad, I should’ve never believed them,” Snyder said. The governor was jeered by Flint activists and residents, some wearing “Flint Lives Matter” T-shirts, and got little respite from his interlocutors. “I’ve had enough of your false contrition and apologies,” said congressman Matt Cartwright. “You sit there dripping with guilt.” As he was shielded out of the hearing by his security detail, Snyder’s political end seemed nigh.

It wasn’t to be. “You don’t roll up in a ball, you don’t walk away,” Snyder said, explaining his unwillingness to resign. ... The criminal legal action, now starting to hit the courts, has so far focused on the sort of “career bureaucrats” Snyder blamed for the Flint crisis, rather than their ultimate boss. “They started with the low hanging fruit and we weren’t happy, we thought ‘really?’” Karen Weaver, Flint’s mayor, told the Guardian. “People are waiting to see if the governor will be involved and, if the evidence points that way, he should be involved. “We want everyone to be held accountable. What happened was inexcusable. People ask how I can work with the governor. Well, he’s in office. He has power. He has resources we need.”

Pruitt promised polluters EPA will value their profits over American lives

[T]he Daily Caller recently reported that at a gathering at the fossil fuel-funded Heritage Institute, Pruitt announced that the EPA and federal government will soon end two important science-based practices in evaluating the costs and benefits of regulations.

When the EPA regulates pollutants, the practice often yields what are called “co-benefits.” For example, limiting allowable mercury pollution can force dirty coal power plants to install pollution-control equipment or shut down. Since coal plants produce other pollutants like soot, the regulations not only reduce mercury levels, but also particulate matter in the air. The latter isn’t an intended consequence of the regulations, but creating cleaner air and healthier Americans are unintended “co-benefits” of limiting another pollutant.

In doing cost-benefit analyses, the EPA accounts for all direct benefits and indirect co-benefits of its regulations. Certain industry groups and conservative pundits don’t like that approach, because they care more about polluter profits than they do about clean air and healthy Americans. However, during the George W. Bush administration in 2003, the Office of Management and Budget issued a guidance saying that it’s important to consider co-benefits:

Your analysis should look beyond the direct benefits and direct costs of your rulemaking and consider any important ancillary benefits and countervailing risks. An ancillary benefit is a favorable impact of the rule that is typically unrelated or secondary to the statutory purpose of the rulemaking (e.g., reduced refinery emissions due to more stringent fuel economy standards for light trucks)…

Pruitt wants to disregard this Bush-era guidance and instead consider only the costs and benefits of regulating the “targeted pollutant” (mercury, in our example). They want to ignore the lives saved by also incidentally reducing particulate matter pollution. To be blunt, this makes no sense, unless your goal is to protect polluters at the expense of public and environmental health.

As a backup argument, industry groups argue that the EPA overestimates these co-benefits because particulate matter (specifically, PM2.5) isn’t harmful to human health below a certain threshold value. Not coincidentally, Pruitt’s EPA hired a scientist who has argued that American air is “a little too clean for optimum health.”

Scott Pruitt is the target of no less than 10 federal investigations

The feds are really, really curious about what Scott Pruitt’s been up to.

As the controversies surrounding the EPA chief have mounted in recent weeks, so have the federal investigations. Now, the EPA’s internal watchdog has lots of questions for Pruitt, as does the top federal ethics watchdog, and the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Trey Gowdy.

There are at least 10 federal investigations focused on Pruitt’s first-class travel, unusually large security detail, frequent association with lobbying interests, pay raises for staffers, and, somehow, more. The mounting appearance of misconduct and corruption at the EPA has started to attract not just the attention of Democrats — 170 of whom have called for Pruitt’s resignation — but Republicans, too.

Also of Interest

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

To Defeat ISIS, the U.S. Helped Turn Old Mosul Into Rubble — but Won’t Help Rebuild It

Another Dodgy British Dossier: the Skripal Case

Gina Haspel's CIA appointment will delight torturers around the globe

Republicans Have Found a Nuclear Option to Kill Regulations

Trump Scores Major North Korea Points; Dems Sue WikiLeaks For Telling The Truth

The Media War On Truthful Reporting And Legitimate Opinions

Controversial Contractor Was Behind Island-Wide Blackout, as Puerto Rico Debates Full Privatization

A Little Night Music

Tampa Red and Chicago Five - You Got To Learn To Do It

Tampa Red - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Tampa Red - I Ain't Fur It

Tampa Red & Black Bob - Crazy With The Blues

Tampa Red and Georgia Tom - Voice Of The Blues

Tampa Red and The Chicago Five - She Said It

Tampa Red - King Fish Blues

Tampa Red - What Is That Tastes Like Gravy ?

Tampa Red - Let Me Play With Your Poodle

Tampa Red - So Crazy About You Baby