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“Sovereignty is not given, it is taken.”

-- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

News and Opinion

Ecuador’s Ex-President Rafael Correa Denounces Treatment of Julian Assange as “Torture”

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, in an exclusive interview with the Intercept on Wednesday morning, denounced his country’s current government’s for blocking Julian Assange from receiving visitors in its Embassy in London as a form of “torture” and a violation of Ecuador’s duties to protect Assange’s safety and well-being. Correa said this took place in the context of Ecuador no longer maintaining “normal sovereign relations with the American government — just submission.”

Correa also responded to a widely discussed Guardian article yesterday which claimed that “Ecuador bankrolled a multimillion-dollar spy operation to protect and support Julian Assange in its central London embassy.” The former President mocked the story as highly “sensationalistic,” accusing the Guardian of seeking to depict routine and modest embassy security measures as something scandalous or unusual. ...

Denial of visitors is, Correa said, “a clear violation of his rights. Once we give asylum to someone, we are responsible for his safety, for ensuring humane living conditions.” But “without communications to the outside world and visits from anyone, the government is basically attacking Julian’s mental health.” The ex-President said he believed it could be appropriate to limit Assange’s communications if he were acting “irresponsibly” by interfering in another country’s politics. During the 2016 election, Correa said, his own government told Assange they thought his attacks on Hillary Clinton were becoming excessive, and briefly suspended his internet connection to underline their concerns. “But that was just temporary,” said Correa. “We never intended to take away his internet for an extended period of time. That is going way too far.” ...

During his presidency, Correa was particularly assertive about defending the sovereignty of his country from intrusions by more powerful states, particularly the U.S. In 2007, he ordered a U.S. military base on Ecuadorian soil closed unless the U.S. was willing to allow Ecuador the reciprocal right to establish a military base in Miami. But earlier this month, Correa’s successor, the current Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno, announced that it had “recently signed an agreement focused on security cooperation [with the U.S.] which implies sharing information, intelligence topics and experiences in the fight against illegal drug trafficking and fighting transnational organized crime.” Many in Ecuador viewed that as a prelude to a return to the days when the U.S. dominated Ecuador, including with new military bases, a suspicion Moreno’s government denies.

But to Correa, Moreno is returning Ecuador to the days when it was subservient to the dictates of the U.S. Government. “Everyone in Latin America knows what this agreement with the U.S. means: control, intervention, spying,” he said. Given the submissive posture of the current Ecuadorian President, Correa said it would not shock him if they submitted to American and British demands regarding Assange.

Key Democrats Back Gina Haspel’s Confirmation as CIA Director, Despite Her Record on Torture

'Beyond Shameful': Democrats Warner, Heitkamp, and Nelson Announce Support for Torturer Gina Haspel

Less than 24 hours after The Intercept reported that Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) cut off access to a classified memo that several lawmakers said contains "disturbing" information about the record of President Donald Trump's CIA pick Gina Haspel, Warner announced in a statement on Tuesday that he will vote to confirm Haspel despite her ongoing refusal to call what the CIA did to people "torture" or condemn it as immoral.

"Sen. Mark Warner has been accusing Trump and others of obstruction of justice for months," Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted on Twitter in response to Warner's announcement. "Yet he's about to vote for Trump's CIA nominee who, in destroying the torture tapes, was directly involved in the clearest case of obstruction of justice in recent memory." ....

Further bolstering Haspel's chances of sailing through the Senate despite fierce opposition from anti-war groups, former U.S. ambassadors, and victims of the torture program she oversaw, Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) released statements shortly after Warner declaring that they, too, will back Haspel in the final vote on her confirmation, which could come by the end of the week.

Here are the 5 Democratic senators (thus far) who have made clear they don't give a shit about accountability for torture and instead have announced their support of Gina Haspel for CIA director: Mark Warner, Heidi Heitkamp, Bill Nelson, Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) May 15, 2018

Taking aim at Warner's credulous acceptance of the narrative spun by Haspel and the CIA—which has waged an unprecedented propaganda campaign in support of her candidacy—author and activist Naomi Klein asked, "Do these people not understand that it is the actual job of a spy to deceive people?"

Do these people not understand that it is the actual job of a spy to deceive people? "Key Democrat backs Haspel for CIA director after she says interrogation program should not have been started" https://t.co/35LQdDAqED

— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) May 15, 2018

Running tally of the major initiatives some Senate Democrats have agreed to help the GOP pass recently:

1. More surveillance powers for Trump
2. Killing debate on US support for the appalling war in Yemen
3. Deregulating banks
4. Installing a torturer as head of the CIA

— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) May 15, 2018

Gina Haspel: Senate committee approves CIA nominee, with early confirmation likely

The Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday voted in favor of Gina Haspel becoming the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, smoothing her way to a probable confirmation by the full Senate as early as this week, despite the bitter debate over her role in torture used by the US on terrorist suspects. Two crucial Democratic senators had announced on Tuesday that they would support Haspel, Donald Trump’s nomination to lead the spy agency , in a move that immediately tipped the balanced towards her being confirmed.

All eight Republicans and two of the seven Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee supported Haspel. The remaining five Democrats had already announced their opposition and did not change their minds. Haspel took pains to tell Senators she would not agree to restart such an interrogation program in future, but she has avoided decrying torture as immoral per se.

On Tuesday, Mark Warner, a Virginia senator and the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota both announced they would back Haspel.

Arms Industry Stocks Shoot up After Trump Withdraws from Iran Deal

German militarization and Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal

Following US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord and under conditions of US preparations for war with Iran, the German bourgeoisie is intensifying its campaign for militarism, rearmament, and war. ... At the invitation of Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), Merkel held the opening address yesterday at a German army conference in Berlin. The main issue at the meeting between top military and defence policy figures will be the revival of German militarism, which was officially announced at the 2014 Munich Security Conference.

The conference is “in content under the rubric of the army’s ongoing process of comprehensive modernisation,” wrote the Defence Ministry. Von der Leyen will “formulate the goals of this process and outline a plan for the army’s future.” This will include attaching “great significance” to “the equal importance of crisis prevention, and national territorial and alliance defence in the 21st century, as already presented in the government’s white paper 2016.” After “important strategic milestones were defined and the necessary changes in course were implemented in the last legislative period,” the issue now is “to continue along this path.” The “changes in course” refer to the major expansion and rearmament of the army. The white paper pledged a return to “national territorial and alliance defence” so as to legitimise Germany’s resort to a militarist great power foreign policy. ...

It is becoming ever clearer that the German bourgeoisie’s military offensive is closely bound up with the breakdown of the post-war order and the transatlantic relationship with the United States. German politicians and media outlets have responded with a mixture of shock and outrage to Trump’s reimposition of sanctions against Iran, including penalties for German companies if they do not withdraw from the geostrategically important and energy-rich country.

“Our relationship with the United States cannot be described as a friendship, not even a partnership,” states the lead article in the latest edition of Der Spiegel. Trump has “adopted a tone that ignores 70 years of trust. He wants trade tariffs and demands subordination.” The issue now “is not, as it was in the past, if Germany and Europe will be involved in a military mission as in Afghanistan or Iraq; the issue is whether a transatlantic economic, foreign, and security policy actually exists. The answer: No.”

Even sections of the German bourgeoisie which were previously vehemently pro-US and enthusiastically backed every one of Washington’s aggressive wars have responded defiantly and are drumming up support for a more aggressive German-European great power policy. “Lamenting won’t do any good,” declared Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “To be heard and gain attention, and pursue its interests, Europe has to throw its weight around more. World power is not achieved in the seminar room, smug speeches, or being insulted.” The Germans in particular must “draw the appropriate conclusions if they want to achieve something in global politics and the Atlantic alliance.” The demands for German “world power” or “global politics” make clear the traditions Germany’s ruling class are drawing on.

Norman Finkelstein: Outrage over Israeli Massacre Shows Power of Nonviolent Palestinian Resistance

No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer Defends Israeli Military Actions in Gaza

Amid a growing chorus of condemnation of Israeli violence by American lawmakers this week, the House’s second-highest ranking Democratic, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, defended Israel’s violence against Palestinian protesters and stood by the Trump administration’s controversial decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“Israel’s in a tough situation. It’s trying to defend its borders,” Hoyer said in response to a question from The Intercept at a pen-and-pad session on Tuesday with reporters on Capitol Hill. “All the world would hope that it would be done so in a peaceful manner, but when you have a terrorist organization in front of you, that is historically and continuing to use violence, that makes it very tough.”

Hoyer, the minority whip, was referring to a threat he claimed Israel faces from Hamas. But it was unarmed civilian protesters, not militants, who Israeli soldiers targeted on Monday, killing at least 58 people and injuring 2,771 others, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The protests in Gaza were in part responding to the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, but were more broadly part of a six-week protest called the “Great March of Return,” in which Gazans demanded the right to return to the homes they were evicted from 70 years ago.

Since the inception of the protests — which led up to Nakba day on May 15 (the day Palestinians observe as the start of their “catastrophe” of displacement) — the Israeli government has sought to portray them as being organized by Hamas. The movement’s grassroots organizers have vehemently disputed the claim. “The Israeli government’s allegations that Hamas organized these protests are lies, and are defamatory statements that have no basis in reality,” Nabeel Diab, one of the organizers, told Mondoweiss. “This march is the embodiment of popular action involving children, women, and involving all the Palestinians that refuse to accept the occupation of our land.”

Hoyer has sided not only with the Israelis, but also with the Trump administration, which on Monday quashed a resolution calling for an independent inquiry into the killings in Gaza. On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said Israel acted with “restraint” in its response to Palestinian protesters. She walked out of the room when the Palestinian delegation spoke.

Deplorable https://t.co/EMGX6xPzva

An early look at Tuesday's front... pic.twitter.com/ZAK1Vk5ACW

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) May 15, 2018

'Burn them, shoot them, kill them': Israelis cheer in Jerusalem as Palestinians shot in Gaza

The contrast could not have been more jarring on Monday between Jerusalem and Gaza, even as a mere 75 kilometres separated the two. As American and Israeli officials inaugurated the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem - an Israeli victory over the international community’s rejection of its claim to Jerusalem as its capital - Israeli forces gunned down Palestinian protesters in Gaza, the death toll rising inexorably throughout the day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exuberantly hailed the embassy move as a “historic” moment. ... Meanwhile, just outside the new embassy, Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem were brutally repressed by Israeli forces. MEE [Middle East Eye] witnessed dozens of unarmed Palestinians beaten and arrested by Israeli security forces outside the embassy, eliciting cheers from Israeli demonstrators who came out to support the embassy’s opening.

“Burn them”, “shoot them”, “kill them”, the Israelis chanted.

Meanwhile, former Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner complained on social media, implying Palestinian deaths in Gaza were an attempt to rain on Israel’s parade.

An excellent piece from Caity Johnstone, here are some excerpts:

Fifteen Thoughts About Israel

People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory. We don’t live in a world where the lines between nations mean anything to those with real power; in reality “Israel” and “America” are both purely conceptual constructs which only exist to the extent that people believe in them. There is no actual “Israel” which can exert control over an actual “America”, and vice versa. It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government. This class of plutocrats uses governments like Israel, the US, the UK, and the KSA to advance its agendas to exploit, loot and plunder the rest of humanity. ...

People make a big deal about Zionism in conspiracy circles, but Zionism is just one more tool of manipulation used by the elite class which only ever cares about power. The people who are actually calling the shots in this world don’t care about Judaism or the Jewish people; Zionism is just a set of ideas they use to move people around. They use Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, white supremacy and secular liberalism in the same way. It’s always about acquiring more power for the western oligarchs, and their insatiable drive in this pursuit is how they wound up at the top of the western power structure. They’ll use any set of beliefs to manipulate the masses toward this end.

Since Israel plays such a crucial role in the agendas of the western power establishment for such a key strategic region, it should be no surprise that the people who lived on that land before Israel was dropped upon them get trampled underfoot. As far as the powerful are concerned, the Palestinians are no different from the animals whose habitats are destroyed by a new military base, or the whales that get killed by navy sonar experiments. They’re a nuisance to be swatted away.

The reason for the extreme brutality that is being used against the Palestinian demonstrators appears to be the same as that used by the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre or the lynchings of the segregated American south: to send a message. That message is “Here is how we will deal with you whenever you hold these demonstrations.” They’re quashing the protests so violently and so aggressively not out of self defense, but to dissuade such protests in the future.

“Unacceptable and inhuman” violence by Israeli army against Palestinian protesters in Gaza

As teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treat people wounded today in Gaza, Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, MSF representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, provided the following statement:

What happened today is unacceptable and inhuman. The death toll provided this evening by Gaza health authorities—55 dead and 2,271 wounded—including 1,359 wounded with live ammunition, is staggering. It is unbearable to witness such a massive number of unarmed people being shot in such a short time.

Our medical teams are working around the clock, as they have done since April 1, providing surgical and postoperative care to men, women, and children, and they will continue to do so tonight, tomorrow, and as long as they are needed. In one of the hospitals where we are working, the chaotic situation is comparable to what we observed after the bombings of the 2014 war, with a colossal influx of injured people in a few hours, completely overwhelming the medical staff. Our teams carried out more than 30 surgical interventions today, sometimes on two or three patients in the same operating theater, and even in the corridors.

This bloodbath is the continuation of the Israeli army’s policy during the last seven weeks: shooting with live ammunition at demonstrators, on the assumption that anyone approaching the separation fence is a legitimate target. Most of the wounded will be condemned to suffer lifelong injuries.

Norman Finkelstein: Palestinians Have the Right to Break Free of the “Unlivable” Cage That Is Gaza

Israel's violent rule increasingly driving liberal American Jews on to the streets

The massacre by Israeli soldiers of dozens of Palestinians in Gaza this week has prompted a new round of protests by progressive Jewish-American groups who object to the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem – and who lump the Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu administrations together as enemies of peace in the region.

Groups such as IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and others began to step up protest activity – marches, vigils and community meet-ups – in late March, when Israeli forces killed 17 Palestinians and wounded at least 1,400 in Gaza. ...

The Israeli foreign ministry has said it was “protecting its citizens from thousands of violent rioters from Gaza, who have been trying to break the fence and cross into Israel, with the goal of killing or kidnapping Israelis”. That rationalization was repeated and amplified on Tuesday by UN ambassador Nikki Haley and by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and other influential US-based institutions.

But those organizations are increasingly being taken to task by groups with younger members and different views on what it means to support the Jewish state. “The violence that is being committed in our name, the massacre of 50-plus Palestinian protesters Monday in Gaza – we’re not going to sit idly by as that’s committed,” said Ethan Miller, a spokesman for IfNotNow. “We’re actually going to be taking action and building a movement within our communities to make sure that we’re no longer part of supporting the occupation, and our community is actively working against it.”

Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, blasted the juxtaposition of the celebratory US embassy opening, attended by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and the killing of Palestinians. “Monday I thought was one of the most disgraceful days in the history of the Israeli relationship to Palestinians, with the celebration of annexation – even as Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are refugees, were being gunned down, just for protesting their basic rights to live in dignity and freedom,” Vilkomerson said. “The idea that this is being done in our name, or being justified in our name, is absolutely unacceptable.”

About 100 protesters affiliated with IfNotNow blocked Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC for about two hours Monday, chanting “stop the violence” and other slogans. Jewish Voice for Peace has helped to organize 45 actions across the country since the end of March, Vilkomerson said, and on Monday the group held events in New Haven, Connecticut; Montclair, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Boston, central Ohio, Washington DC and New York City.

North Korea: "Kim shows that he's not walking away from nuclear weapons without some concessions"

North Korea threatens to cancel the Trump summit over “repugnant” John Bolton

Donald Trump thought he’d walk off with a Nobel Peace Prize. But North Korea proved Wednesday that nothing is predictable with the rogue state, which abruptly threatened to cancel next month’s summit if Washington insists on Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang also made clear it does not want to deal with Trump’s “repugnant” national security adviser, John Bolton.

In a statement, Kim Kye Gwan, Pyongyang’s first vice minister of foreign affairs, said that if Washington was “genuinely committed” to improving relations, “they will receive a deserving response” at the summit, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. But, he continued, “if the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the ... summit.”

Kim singled out the hawkish Bolton — taking particular exception at his recent calls for a “Libya model” of verifiable denuclearization in North Korea. Pyongyang has had previous dealings with Bolton when he worked in the Bush administration, and has labelled him a “bloodsucker” and “human scum” in the past. ...

He said Bolton’s references to Libya represented “an awfully sinister move to impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq, which have been collapsed due to yielding the whole of their countries to big powers.”

“It is absolutely absurd to dare compare [North Korea], a nuclear weapon state, to Libya, which had been at the initial stage of nuclear development," he added, noting that both Arab countries had met a “miserable fate.”

Kansas had to pass a law to tell cops they can’t have sex with people they’re arresting

Kansas just became the 18th state to make it illegal for cops to have sex on the job.

Kansas police officers are now specifically forbidden from having sex with someone during a traffic stop, for example, while they’re interrogating someone in custody, or during an interview in a criminal investigation, according to the bill Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer signed into law last week.

Rep. Cindy Holscher told the Wichita Eagle that she introduced the bill in response to allegations of sexual abuse in a police investigation into a wrongful murder conviction. Affidavits in the case alleged that, over decades, retired white homicide detective Roger Golubski repeatedly threatened to arrest black women or their family members unless they had sex with him.

Holscher told the Eagle that her decision to introduce the bill was also driven by a case in New York City last September where two NYPD officers allegedly raped an 18-year-old woman in their police van after they arrested her on marijuana charges. The rape kit matched both officers’ DNA, but they claimed the sex was consensual. The case is ongoing, and the judge has so far declined to drop charges against the officers.

N.C. teachers are rallying for better pay, better funding — and Medicaid expansion

North Carolina teachers are fed up with education funding cuts dating back to 2008, so on Wednesday, they headed en masse to the Capitol in Raleigh. And in a departure from the states whose teachers walked out before now, North Carolina's educators are also fighting for a Medicaid expansion. "We've been waiting too long, and it's time for us to show the General Assembly how strong the support for public schools is in our state," Kristin Beller, a kindergarten teacher at Joyner Elementary School and president-elect of the Wake County Association of Educators, told VICE News. “North Carolina teachers started realizing we don't have to actually settle for anything, we can fight for what our kids deserve.”

At least 42 of the state’s 115 school districts are closed today, including the 16 largest, representing more than one million students. While it’s illegal for employees in North Carolina to strike, so many teachers took personal days that there weren’t enough substitutes to cover for them, leading to the district closures. Like their colleagues in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, and Arizona, North Carolina’s teachers are demanding an increase in their salaries and the state’s general education funding. ...

The North Carolina Education Association is also pushing for changes that would improve student health and school safety. That includes funding for at least 500 additional school nurses, social workers and counselors, and the state accepting the Medicaid expansion that was offered by the Affordable Care Act. “We think that that's not only the correct and the moral thing to do, but as educators, our student well-being and their literal health comes first,” Todd Warren, president of the Guilford County Association of Educators, said.

'CEOs don't want this released': US study lays bare extreme pay-ratio problem

The first comprehensive study of the massive pay gap between the US executive suite and average workers has found that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio has now reached 339 to 1, with the highest gap approaching 5,000 to 1.

The study, titled Rewarding Or Hoarding?, was published on Wednesday by Minnesota’s Democratic US congressman Keith Ellison, and includes data on almost 14 million workers at 225 US companies with total annual revenues of $6.3tn. Just the summary makes for sober reading.

In 188 of the 225 companies in the report’s database, a single chief executive’s pay could be used to pay more than 100 workers; the average worker at 219 of the 225 companies studied would need to work at least 45 years to earn what their CEO makes in one. It also shows how some of the most extreme disparities in CEO-to-worker pay exist in industries that are considered consumer discretionary, such as fast food and retail, with a 977 to 1 disparity, one of the widest gaps.

“Now we know why CEOs didn’t want this data released,” says Ellison, who championed the implementation of the pay ratio disclosure rule as it was written into the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill of 2010. “I knew inequality was a great problem in our society but I didn’t understand quite how extreme it was.”

According to a recent Bloomberg analysis of 22 major world economies, the average CEO-worker pay gap in the US far outpaces that of other industrialized nations. The average US CEO makes more than four times his or her counterpart in the other countries analyzed.

Ellison rejected claims from corporate America that executive suite compensation is a just reward for the skillful exercising of their business talents. “Truth is, they’re doing nothing except extracting value and wealth from hard working people because they have economic advantages.”

Billionaires are getting richer while you still can’t pay your bills

It’s a good time to be a billionaire, and it's only getting better as the ultra-wealthy become even richer than ever before, a detailed new report reveals. The superrich of the world have seen their fortunes increase drastically, according to a new survey of billionaires released Tuesday. There were 2,754 people worth more than $1 billion in 2017, up 357 people, or nearly 15 percent, from 2016. Not only are there more billionaires now than ever before — their wealth is skyrocketing. According to the report, the billionaires of the world are worth, all together, nearly 25 percent more than they were a year ago.

That’s a record year-over-year increase, both in the number of billionaires and their overall worth, according to the Wealth X billionaire census. In total, the group holds about $9.2 trillion — roughly half of the U.S. gross domestic product. Earlier this month, Forbes came to a similar conclusion that the world’s billionaires were worth about the same amount: $9.1 trillion, according to their calculation.

Despite some political unpredictability in the U.S. brought on by Donald Trump’s presidency, which the report describes as “characterized by grandiose announcements, often chaotic governance and regular stirring of America’s culture wars,” it also turns out the tax bill was really good for very rich. “The benefits of the tax bill are skewed heavily towards the ultra wealthy,” the report says.

Bill Aimed at Saving Community Banks Is Already Killing Them

AFter initial reluctance, House Republicans have finally reached an agreement to move forward on a bipartisan bank deregulation bill that the Senate passed in March. Its stated aim — to help rural community banks thrive against growing Wall Street power — appears to have been enough to power it across the finish line.

But banking industry analysts say the bill is already having the opposite effect, and its loosening of regulations on medium-sized banks is encouraging a rush of consolidation — all of which ends with an increasing number of community banks being swallowed up and closed down.

“We absolutely expect bank consolidation to accelerate,” Wells Fargo’s Mike Mayo told CNBC the day after the Senate passed the deregulation bill in March. The reason? Banks no longer face the prospect of stricter and more costly regulatory scrutiny as they grow. And regional banks in Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi, and Wisconsin have already taken note before the bill has even passed into law, announcing buyouts of smaller rivals.

The expected consolidation simply furthers an existing trend. Community banks have been struggling for decades against an epidemic of consolidation; the number of banks in America has fallen by nearly two-thirds in the past 30 years.

DC Journalists Are Getting Very Rich Off of Trump

Over the past 18 months, political journalists and news executives have done plenty of dancing around the idea that a “Trump Bump” has provided a financial lifeline for national media outlets. The idea that a Donald Trump presidency is a good thing for the bottom line doesn’t mesh with the notion that he presents a unique threat to the press or other democratic institutions. ...

Press briefing room clashes and personalized insults from Trump himself have also catapulted individual journalists to greater prominence. MSNBC and CNN are hoovering up reporters from print and digital outlets who can break news about the Trump world. Publishers are seeking out the next bestseller chock-full of juicy anecdotes that may be true, may be false, who really cares? And a new BuzzFeed report suggests that they are turning all of these minor indignities into piles of money. While news outlets across the country are being sucked dry by Wall Street vampires, the going in Washington is good.

As any savvy media type will tell you, “diversified revenue streams” are essential in this tough environment. And the TV contributor deal — which gives a particular network exclusive rights to a reporter’s on-air analysis—is a meat-and-potatoes option for Washington reporters expanding their portfolios. As Steven Perlberg notes at BuzzFeed, these deals can start near or above the U.S. median household income of about $59,000. And there’s more: Book deals—long a staple—can come with six- or seven-figure advances. BuzzFeed also suggests that paid speaking gigs, which are barred by some news outlets’ ethical guidelines, might be fetching higher-than-normal sums. ...

So if you ever pondered whether elite journalists are sufficiently removed from prevailing power structures to be able to sound the alarm about them, here’s another reason to wonder.

Canada says it will cover losses in bid to finish Trans Mountain oil pipeline

Canada’s federal government will cover financial losses a pipeline builder might suffer if British Columbia’s provincial government continues to obstruct the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion said Bill Morneau, the country’s finance minister, on Wednesday.

Morneau also said that other investors would step in if Houston-based Kinder Morgan backs out of the expansion, which would triple the capacity of a line carrying oil from Alberta to a Pacific port.

Kinder Morgan has halted essential spending on the project and says it will cancel it altogether if the national and provincial governments cannot guarantee it. British Columbia’s leftist premier has objected to the plan on environmental grounds. The company set a 31 May deadline.

The line would allow Canada to diversify and increase exports to Asia, where it could command a higher price. Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves but 99% of its exports now go to refiners in the US, where limits on pipeline and refinery capacity mean Canadian oil sells at a discount.

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano just threw a huge ash cloud 2 miles into the sky

Hawaii was put on “red alert” Tuesday, after the Kilauea volcano sent a plume of gas and ash 12,000 feet into the sky, posing a hazard to residents and aircraft in the area. The U.S. Geological Survey raised the alert from orange to red, meaning a "major volcanic eruption is imminent, under way, or suspected with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air.” It’s the first time the alert has been raised to red since Kilauea — one of the world’s most active volcanoes — flared up on May 3.

“We’re observing more or less continuous emission of ash now with intermittent, more energetic ash bursts or plumes,” Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Deputy Scientist-In-Charge Steve Brantley told reporters. ...

The U.S. Geological Survey warned Tuesday that the activity at Kilauea could become more explosive at any time, “increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent.” Kilauea, the most active of the five volcanoes that form Hawaii’s Big Island, has been active for much of its recorded history.

Mysterious rise in banned ozone-destroying chemical shocks scientists

A sharp and mysterious rise in emissions of a key ozone-destroying chemical has been detected by scientists, despite its production being banned around the world.

Unless the culprit is found and stopped, the recovery of the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging UV radiation, could be delayed by a decade. The source of the new emissions has been tracked to east Asia, but finding a more precise location requires further investigation.

CFC chemicals were used in making foams for furniture and buildings, in aerosols and as refrigerants. But they were banned under the global Montreal protocol after the discovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica in the 1980s. Since 2007, there has been essentially zero reported production of CFC-11, the second most damaging of all CFCs.

The rise in CFC-11 was revealed by Stephen Montzka, at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Colorado, and colleagues who monitor chemicals in the atmosphere. “I have been doing this for 27 years and this is the most surprising thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I was just shocked by it.”

Protesters brought “Fire him” and “Mr. Corrupt” signs to Scott Pruitt’s Senate testimony

Scott Pruitt just got trolled today during a Senate hearing pic.twitter.com/t2LjPUr81B

— VICE News (@vicenews) May 16, 2018

Protesters at Scott Pruitt’s latest congressional appearance want him fired. So do many members of Congress.

As the embattled EPA chief gave his opening remarks Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the environment, a group of protesters in the audience held up signs that read “Fire him” and “Mr. Corrupt” — in full view of the lawmakers questioning Pruitt about his agency’s budget, including the many egregious ways he’s spent taxpayer money. ...

One hundred and seventy Democratic members of the House already signed a letter calling for Pruitt’s resignation, and four Republicans in the House have called for Pruitt to step down. Sen. Chuck Grassley also threatened to call for Pruitt’s resignation on Tuesday — not over any of Pruitt’s numerous ethical lapses but rather over EPA policies that would hurt the ethanol-producing industries in Grassley’s corn-rich state of Iowa.

Scott Pruitt’s Policy Director at EPA Met with Hundreds of Industry Representatives, Emails Show

A cache of internal Environmental Protection Agency communications shows that the embattled agency administrator Scott Pruitt isn’t the only one who has been in frequent contact with the industries that the environmental agency is supposed to regulate. Samantha Dravis, who was the EPA’s senior counsel and director of its Office of Policy until she resigned last month, had more than 90 scheduled meetings with representatives of energy and manufacturing companies, trade associations, agricultural interests, car makers, and other industry groups between March of 2017 and January of this year, according to emails that were made public as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. During that time, those same documents show Dravis having only one scheduled meeting with a representative of an environmental or public health organization. Some of the regulated groups that sought meetings were the beneficiaries of relaxed EPA regulations. ...

The EPA describes the Office of Policy as “the primary policy arm of EPA,” which itself has the mission of protecting human health and the environment. People who have worked in the policy office in previous administrations say that the director usually meets with a mix of people who represent environmental and health concerns as well as industry. “What’s not at all typical is the fact that it’s so one-sided,” said George Wyeth, who worked in the EPA policy office from 1998 to 2014 and is currently a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Law School. “This is simply industry trying to get access to decision makers at as high a level as possible.”

Also of Interest

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

War Crimes and Collective Punishment: Gina Haspel, Torture, and the Massacre in Gaza

Gina Haspel and the Fiction of a Feminist CIA

Media Can Tell Readers Who’s Killing Whom–When They Want To

Gazans Have the Right to Invade Israel — At Least If You Believe One of Israel’s Justifications for the Six-Day War

Assange 'split' Ecuador and Spain over Catalan independence

Trump Strikes a Deep Blow to Trans-Atlantic Ties

A Little Night Music

Joe Louis Walker - Rollin' & Tumblin'

Joe Louis Walker w/Zac Harmon - Dust My Broom

Joe Louis Walker - Silvertone Blues

Joe Louis Walker - I'm Ready

Joe Louis Walker - Sugar Mama

Joe Louis Walker and Debbie Davies - Blue Guitar

Joe Louis Walker - Blues of the Month Club

Joe Louis Walker - Ramblin Soul

Joe Louis Walker - Hot Tamale Baby