Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Louis Myers. Enjoy!

“What do I know about it? All I know is what’s on the internet.”

-- Donald Trump

News and Opinion

Edward Snowden: ‘we must seize the means of communication’ to protect basic freedoms

The Logan Symposium, a gathering of journalists, hackers and whistleblowers in Berlin this weekend heard former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, issue a call for citizens to find ways to take direct control over the information technologies we use everyday. ...

During his exclusive video address on Saturday evening, Snowden cautioned against viewing new developments in encryption as the only way of addressing mass surveillance, instead emphasising the urgency of dramatic global political and legal reform. ...

Edward Snowden also warned against assuming that attempting to counter state surveillance through encryption alone would be a panacea, advocating the need to fundamentally challenge the centralisation of power over information technologies in state-corporate hands.

“We’re reliant on for-profit groups corporations like Apple to defend our rights. We have to rely on the protocols and systems that are underlying our communications.

We need to get more radical as technologists and journalists…

There have been extraordinary imbalances of power throughout history. I’m not a Communist, but there were people who argued we need to seize the means of production. We’re rapidly approaching the point where we need to seize the means of our communication.”

The reason?

“We are seeing entirely too much control of institutions we’re supposed to be able to trust, but we cannot trust,” he said. “At the same time, we’re seeing corporations get access to our private lives, in ways we didn’t anticipate and we’re not aware of how its being used.”

This is really quite excellent:

John Oliver: Encryption

An interesting read:

The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

Google is ground zero for a wholly new subspecies of capitalism in which profits derive from the unilateral surveillance and modification of human behavior.  This is a new surveillance capitalism that is unimaginable outside the inscrutable high velocity circuits of Google’s digital universe, whose signature feature is the Internet and its successors. While the world is riveted by the showdown between Apple and the FBI, the real truth is that the surveillance capabilities being developed by surveillance capitalists are the envy of every state security agency. What are the secrets of this new capitalism, how do they produce such staggering wealth, and how can we protect ourselves from its invasive power? ...

The CEO of Allstate Insurance wants to be like Google. He says, “There are lots of people who are monetizing data today. You get on Google, and it seems like it’s free. It’s not free. You’re giving them information; they sell your information. Could we, should we, sell this information we get from people driving around to various people and capture some additional profit source…? It’s a long-term game.”

Who are these “various people” and what is this “long-term game”?  The game is no longer about sending you a mail order catalogue or even about targeting online advertising. The game is selling access to the real-time flow of your daily life –your reality—in order to directly influence and modify your behavior for profit. This is the gateway to a new universe of monetization opportunities: restaurants who want to be your destination. Service vendors who want to fix your brake pads. Shops who will lure you like the fabled Sirens. The “various people” are anyone, and everyone who wants a piece of your behavior for profit. Small wonder, then, that Google recently announced that its maps will not only provide the route you search but will also suggest a destination.

This is just one peephole, in one corner, of one industry, and the peepholes are multiplying like cockroaches. Among the many interviews I’ve conducted over the past three years, the Chief Data Scientist of a much-admired Silicon Valley company that develops applications to improve students’ learning told me, “The goal of everything we do is to change people’s actual behavior at scale. When people use our app, we can capture their behaviors, identify good and bad behaviors, and develop ways to reward the good and punish the bad. We can test how actionable our cues are for them and how profitable for us”. ...

The examples of this new logic are endless, from smart vodka bottles to Internet-enabled rectal thermometers and quite literally everything in between. A Goldman Sachs report calls it a “gold rush,” a race to “vast amounts of data.”

The assault we face is driven in large measure by the exceptional appetites of a wholly new genus of capitalism, a systemic coherent new logic of accumulation that I call surveillance capitalism. ... Surveillance capitalism is a novel economic mutation bred from the clandestine coupling of the vast powers of the digital with the radical indifference and intrinsic narcissism of the financial capitalism and its neoliberal vision that have dominated commerce for at least three decades, especially in the Anglo economies. It is an unprecedented market form that roots and flourishes in lawless space.

In result, surveillance capitalism conjures a profoundly anti-democratic power that qualifies as a coup from above: not a coup d’état, but rather a coup des gens, an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty. It challenges principles and practices of self-determination ––in psychic life and social relations, politics and governance –– for which humanity has suffered long and sacrificed much. For this reason alone, such principles should not be forfeit to the unilateral pursuit of a disfigured capitalism.

The Rapid Rise of Federal Surveillance Drones Over America

An alphabet soup’s worth of government agencies are exercising their ability to look down on ordinary citizens.

On Wednesday, USA Today reported that the Pentagon “has deployed drones to spy over U.S. territory for non-military missions over the past decade,” citing a report by a Pentagon inspector general who declared that the flights are “rare and lawful.”

That’s the narrative that officials speaking on behalf of the federal government keep conveying––that the instances of aerial surveillance over U.S. soil are safe, legal, and rare.

But it isn’t so.

There are too many federal, state, and local agencies with too many surveillance aircraft to pretend any longer that aerial spying is rare. There is too little oversight to presume all these government entities are acting legally. As for safety, Americans know neither what sort of aerial-surveillance data has been archived nor how secure it is. And security researcher Nils Rodday learned that he could successfully hack into professional drones and take over their operations on a $40 budget.

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation are trying to draw attention to these issues; the Department of Justice has issued its own guidelines on domestic drone use. But there’s still not much public discussion, debate, or oversight of domestic drone surveillance.

How the FBI Monitored Crusty Punks, 'Anarchist Hangouts,' and an Organic Farmers' Market Under the Guise of Combating Terrorism

The FBI conducted a three-year investigation, dubbed "Seizing Thunder," into a animal-rights and environmental "terrorists" in the Pacific Northwest that devolved into widespread—and seemingly pointless—surveillance of activists for no apparent reason aside from the fact that they were anarchists, or protested the war in Iraq, or were "militant feminists." Here's the file.

I first came across the name "Seizing Thunder" several years ago while rifling through the FBI's investigative files on the Animal Liberation Front. The ALF records obliquely referenced the evocatively named investigation, which I requested via the Freedom of Information Act just for kicks. Last month—after three years—the FBI returned nearly 500 pages (it held back 784).

It turns out that Seizing Thunder, which was based out of the bureau's Portland field office, was one of several investigations into animal rights and environmental activists nationwide that the FBI eventually merged into Operation Backfire, a wide-ranging probe of ALF and the Earth Liberation Front. Backfire concluded in 2006 with the indictments of 11 activists for arson and other "acts of domestic terrorism," including a notorious 1998 destruction of a $12 million ski lodge in Vail, Colo. The Portland portion seemed to focus primarily on gathering general intelligence on activists who used tree-sitting and other monkey-wrench tactics to fight old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest.

What makes Seizing Thunder interesting, however, is how easily the agents slipped beyond investigating actual federal crimes and devoted considerable resources to tracking political activists with no apparent criminal intent.

Seizing Thunder was opened in 2002 to target members of the "Animal Liberation front (ALF), Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and an anarchist group called the Red Cloud Thunder, all whose members are inter-related and they openly claimed several major arsons," according to the files. The investigation involved physical and video surveillance, warrants for phone taps, and cooperation with local police departments in Portland and Eugene, Ore. But the feds quickly dropped the pretense of tracking organized groups and quickly began surveilling people simply for identifying themselves—or for being identified by informants—as anarchists.

[Click the article link above for extensive documentation. - js]

Oh my, looky here, somebody dropped the word that John Kerry is a neocon war pig:

Kerry sought missile strikes to force Syria's Assad to step down

Jeffrey Goldberg’s newly published book-length article on Barack Obama and the Middle East includes a major revelation that brings US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Syrian diplomacy into sharper focus: it reports that Kerry has sought on several occasions without success over the past several months to get Obama’s approval for cruise missile strikes against the Syrian government. 

That revelation shows that Kerry’s strategy in promoting the Syrian peace negotiations in recent months was based on much heavier pressure on the Assad regime to agree that President Bashar al-Assad must step down than was apparent. It also completes a larger story of Kerry as the primary advocate in the administration of war in Syria ever since he became Secretary of State in early 2013.

Goldberg reports that “on several occasions” Kerry requested that Obama approve missile strikes at “specific regime targets”, in order to “send a message” to Assad – and his international allies – to “negotiate peace”. Kerry suggested to Obama that the US wouldn’t have to acknowledge the attacks publicly, according to Goldberg, because Assad “would surely know the missiles’ return address”.

Goldberg reports that Kerry had “recently” submitted a “written outline of new steps to bring more pressure on Assad”. That is obviously a reference to what Kerry referred to in Senate testimony in February as “significant discussions” within the Obama administration on a “Plan B” to support the opposition that would be more “confrontational”. Kerry made no effort in his testimony to hide the fact that he was the chief advocate of such a policy initiative. 

War in Syria: Putin in Moscow begins withdrawal of military equipment

Putin Withdraws Most Forces From Syria, Saying Russia Has 'Achieved Its Goals'

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military on Monday to begin withdrawing the majority of Russia's forces from Syria, saying that Russian military intervention had mostly achieved its goals.

Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with his defense and foreign ministers, said the order for withdrawal should become effective on Tuesday.

He also said that Russia would ramp up its role in the peace process to end the conflict in Syria. Putin called Syrian President Bashar al Assad to let him know that Russia was beginning a withdrawal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. ...

"The effective work of our military created the conditions for the start of the peace process," Putin said in a statement.

Putin added that Russian involvement had "profoundly reverse[d] the situation" in Assad's favor, and that the Syrian president recognized "the professionalism, courage and heroism" of the Russian military. "In a short period of time," Putin said, " Russian troops disorganized militants' infrastructure and inflicted fundamental damage upon them." ...

The Kremlin plans to keep its air force base at Hmeynim in Latakia province, close to the Turkish border, and its naval base at Tartus.

Russian fighter jets 'continue Syria raids' as troops withdraw

Russian fighter jets have continued to carry out intense air raids in Syria in support of forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad after Moscow said it had begun withdrawing its forces from the country.

Syrian government forces on Tuesday advanced towards the historic city of Palmyra under “heavy Russian air cover”, according to Al-Manar – a television station belonging to Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the Syrian president’s regime. ...

Palmyra was seized last summer by Islamic State, which destroyed many of the city’s monumental ruins. The renewed offensive in the area came as Russian warplanes began leaving Syria following a six-month offensive that was crucial in halting the momentum of opposition fighters and cementing Assad’s rule in the country’s western provinces. ...

Russia’s defence ministry said a first group of planes had taken off for home from the Hmeymim airbase near Latakia. In a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, it said aircraft would be relocated from the airbase to their home bases in Russia.

State television showed footage of soldiers loading an Ilyushin-76 transport plane with equipment to be returned to Russia. An unspecified number of Su-34 fighter jets were among the first group to set off for the long-distance flight back. ...

Moscow’s sudden decision, taken after a meeting between Vladimir Putin and his foreign and defence ministers, highlighted its leverage over the peace negotiations amid the absence of options for western powers.

While state television covered the withdrawal with fanfare, deputy defence minister Nikolai Pankov suggested the bombing campaign was far from over. At a ceremony to mark the withdrawal at the Hmeymim airbase, he said the Russian planes remaining in Syria would continue to carry out missions.

New Libyan government prepares to establish Tripoli office

Ministers from a newly appointed Libyan unity government are expected to establish an office in Tripoli in the coming days, but their arrival is likely to be contested and could trigger fresh violence in the capital.

Western capitals predict the new government will give a green light to a future military training programme for a new Libyan army and back the US-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants already under way.

The new government of national accord was nominated over the weekend by a UN-recognised provisional government in exile, the presidency council based in Tunis, a move that was quickly endorsed by the US, the UN and EU.

The list of proposed ministers has yet to receive a vote of approval from the house of representatives (HoR), a UN-backed assembly in Tobruk, as had been envisaged in a political settlement agreed in Morocco in December. But western diplomats say the volatile and often violent nature of Libyan politics meant that many HoR members were not able to cast their votes. Instead, the presidency council chose to interpret the endorsement of about 100 HoR members as a “green light” to proclaim the new government.

Days of Revolt: Mr. Fish

Ankara Bombing Shows Turkey’s War Fueling Blowback Beyond Kurdish Southeast

Monday’s massive car bombing in the Turkish capital of Ankara, the second such bombing in three weeks, is being loudly blamed on the Kurdish PKK by ruling officials, hoping to parlay it into increasing support for their ever-escalating war against the Kurdish southeast.

Yet if the claims hold true, it reflects a big problem for the Turkish government, that their war against the Kurdish separatists is fueling some pretty major blowback outside of the southeast, and the Erdogan government’s gleeful escalation into Kurdish territory, as well as attacks against Kurdish areas in Iraq, aren’t making Ankara any safer. ...

As Turkish officials continue to hype the threat, their lack of a realistic response is all the more glaring, as abandoning the ceasefire has made Turkey a dangerous place indeed, and the government’s only answer is to keep doubling down on that mistake.

Turks Eye US Embassy’s Terror Warning, Issued Two Days Before Ankara Attack, With Suspicion

In the wake of yet another deadly terror attack in Ankara, this time killing at least 37 people, some Turks have cast suspicions on a U.S. embassy warning issued just two days before the devastating car bombing.

Turkish security officials say Sunday night’s terror attack, the third bombing in the country’s capital since October, was the work of two fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, although no group has claimed responsibility.

The embassy’s message Friday warned Americans to stay away from Ankara’s city center due to a “potential terrorist plot to attack Turkish government buildings and housing located in the Bahcelievler area of Ankara.”

The warning was eerily on point, with a massive explosion detonating at a transport hub several hundred yards from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's office, killing dozens of innocent bystanders.

The embassy’s pre-emptive message now serves as fodder for both U.S. conspiracy theories as well as finger pointing at the Turkish government, which some have deemed ineffective for failing to stop the attack. The U.S. embassy even went so far as publishing an explanation to counter “Turkish media speculation” as to how and why it issued the terror warning.

Washington Post Attacks Clinton's Role in Honduran Coup

Paul Krugman Raises the White Flag on Trade

The working-class voters of Michigan put a big dent in Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but they also body-slammed celebrated economists like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who made his name by relentlessly ridiculing critics of globalization like myself. ...

The Nobel Prize–winning economist now admits in a column and blog that the orthodox case he championed for “free-trade” globalization was mostly garbage. Now he tells us. ...

The facts did not fit the professor’s theory. Yet influential voices like Krugman grossly misled the nation’s political debate for a generation. He was the bell cow for a herd of ambitious young academics who mimicked his sharp-tongued style and worshiped at the same shrine of macroeconomics that’s now a shambles.

Krugman hasn’t lost his snide manner (he accuses Senator Sanders of “the luxury of irresponsibility”), and he pretends not to have reversed himself. But here is his white flag:

It’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict.

After that mouthful of a correction, Krugman turns uncharacteristically modest about his own performance as an economic prognosticator. “I hope, by the way, that I haven’t done any of that,” the professor wrote.

[Click the article link ot see examples of Krugman doing exactly what he says above that he hopes that he didn't do. - js]

The Untold Story of Why the SEC Paid Whistleblower Eric Hunsader $750,000

On March 8, 2016 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wired $750,000 into the bank account of Eric Hunsader as a whistleblower award for spotting and documenting an illegality at the New York Stock Exchange. Hunsader is a trading software and market data expert and founder of Nanex LLC, a market data company that also provides a boatload of free research on behalf of the public interest. Hunsader is one more thing: he’s the SEC’s biggest critic when it comes to its failure to restore integrity to U.S. stock exchanges and U.S. markets. ...

In announcing the whistleblower award on January 15 of this year, the SEC seemed to go out of its way in its press release to pat its then unnamed whistleblower on the back, writing: “This award demonstrates the Commission’s commitment to awarding those who voluntarily provide independent analysis as well as independent knowledge of securities law violations to the agency. We welcome analytical information from those with in-depth market knowledge and experience that may provide the springboard for an investigation.” ...

So why did the SEC fine the NYSE and make a big production out of rewarding a whistleblower for bringing this infraction to its attention? The SEC isn’t saying that the stock exchanges aren’t allowed to charge obscene monthly fees that a small investor or trader could never afford to pay. And it’s not saying that the stock exchanges can’t, through faster feeds and faster computer access through co-location, give an insurmountable edge to high frequency traders. All it’s saying in this award is that the NYSE has to “release” its data to all feeds at the same time. To hell with what happens after that. By getting loads of press on fining the iconic New York Stock Exchange and saluting whistleblowers, the SEC thinks it can shine its tainted halo a little.

Former GOP Congressmember Mickey Edwards: We Don't Have Democracy in Our Political System

In the midwest, Sanders and Clinton peddle very different visions of America

In a fight for blue-collar votes, Clinton hails Obama’s legacy but her rival condemns a ‘rigged economy’ that rewards the rich

Despite spending days crisscrossing the same midwest battlegrounds in search of votes that could decide the Democratic primary once and for all, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton enter Tuesday’s rustbelt showdown with two very different visions of the region’s economic fortunes.

In keeping with a “glass half full” view of America, the former secretary of state is keen to stress the progress made under the current administration, particularly in reducing unemployment since the financial crisis. ...

Sanders, meanwhile, has doubled down on his thesis that Americans are still labouring under a “rigged economy”, telling a rival crowd in Ohio that the country is literally “falling apart” due to crumbling infrastructure and a corrupt campaign finance system. ...

For Clinton, the five states voting on Tuesday offer a chance to vanquish the Vermont senator, and his unexpectedly strong leftwing challenge, with a more optimistic diagnosis.

Yet seeing off the resurgent Sanders in the rustbelt is not just a question of sealing the mathematics of the Democratic primary for Clinton. She also desperately needs a strong showing in these northern states to show she can unify the party behind her in time to compete against Donald Trump and his similarly gloomy view of the American economy in November’s likely general election match-up. ...

The Vermont senator broke a personal campaign record on Monday, flying to five rallies in four states to receive progressively more rapturous applause for his uncompromising economic message.

In Akron, Ohio, he stepped up his invective against Clinton for previously backing the trade deals he blames for hollowing out US manufacturing. “She supported virtually every one,” he said to loud jeers from the crowd. “When the choice was made whether to support workers or corporate America, she made her choice. I made a very different choice.”

Which Side Are You On, Hillary?

“We’ve got to stand up for unions,” Hillary Clinton declared in her closing statement during the Democratic debate in Milwaukee last month. The line offered the labor-friendly audience a comforting rebuke to Gov. Scott Walker’s relentless attacks on Wisconsin’s unions. It generated passionate applause.

But Mrs. Clinton’s show of support contrasted with her long indifference to the concerns of organized labor. ...

Mrs. Clinton’s troubles with labor began before she arrived in Washington. From 1986 to 1992, as a corporate lawyer in Arkansas, she served on the board of Walmart. ... During Mrs. Clinton’s first presidential run, a former Walmart board member told ABC News that he could not recall her ever defending unions during more than 20 private board meetings. “She was not a dissenter,” Donald G. Soderquist, the vice chairman of the board during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure, told The Los Angeles Times in 2007. “She was a part of those decisions.” ...

It is Mrs. Clinton’s past support for free-trade agreements, though, that has most antagonized labor. In 1996, she said that the two-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement was “proving its worth,” a position she reaffirmed years later as a senator. In 2000, while running for her Senate seat, Mrs. Clinton supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and granting the country Permanent Normal Trade Relations.

More recently, as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton praised the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership repeatedly (at one point she called it the “gold standard” of free-trade deals) and lobbied foreign governments for its adoption. But last October, Mrs. Clinton announced that she opposed the agreement. ...

While Mrs. Clinton’s pro-union shout out at the debate resonated widely, many of Wisconsin’s labor activists remain skeptical. “A lot of our job problems stem from NAFTA, and the TPP will kill us,” Gerry Miller, a United Steelworkers welder at a Caterpillar plant in South Milwaukee, told me last month. “We can’t compete with people being paid two dollars a day in Vietnam. The thing that we’re most upset about is the pandering. Democrats like Clinton speak labor out of one side of their mouth, but the corporate interests pull the strings.”

This may be the best photo from Mrs. Reagan's funeral. pic.twitter.com/kX1WZP9mwi

— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) March 14, 2016

RIGGED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Strikes Again

In a pathetic move to protect her seat, DNC Chair blocks access to voter files

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s reputation as DNC chair has plummeted to the point where she is being challenged in the Democratic Primary for her congressional seat for the first time ever. ...

And now, to help rig her own election in the Democratic primaries, Ms. Wasserman Schultz is blocking any challenger to a Democratic incumbent from accessing the voter file database—a vital campaign tool for any election.

“Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country,” wrote Tim Canova, Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s primary challenger, in an article on Medium. “I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access?—?even a lifelong progressive challenging an out-of-touch incumbent.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz has demonstrated time and again the lengths she will take to protect her position of power from any challengers. She has received millions of dollars in contributions from special interests on Wall Street and from the alcoholic beverages industry—which has influenced her opposition to medical marijuana, while the majority of Floridians favor it. Most recently, Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s contributions from payday lenders pushed her to side with many Republicans against Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau is attempting to enact rules to protect consumers from the predatory lending practices of payday loans, but of course Ms. Wasserman Schultz is protecting these practices for her own profit and the special interests that support her.

Samantha Bee Plumbs the Depths of the Trump Supporter Psyche—and It's Way Worse Than You Thought

Louisiana's vanishing island: the climate 'refugees' resettling

Isle de Jean Charles has lost 98% of its land and most of its population to rising sea levels

Wenceslaus Billiot, an 88-year-old native of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, remembers growing up on a much different island than the two-mile sliver of his ancestral home that remains today. ...

Billiot and his equally sprightly 91-year-old wife, Denecia Naquin, are among the last remaining residents of this island, which has lost 98% of its land and most of its population to coastal erosion and rising sea levels since 1955. The population, which peaked at around 400, is now down to around 85. ...

The couple, like nearly everyone on the island, belong to the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, and can trace their roots to the early 1800s when Native Americans fleeing forced relocation under the Indian Removal Act first settled the island. The tribe was quickly intertwined with the local French Cajun influence, which can still be heard in the lilting accent of Billiot and Naquin’s generation. ...

Now, with new federal funding, the Isle de Jean Charles tribe will be part of the first program in the lower-48 states to address an entire community’s resettlement needs due to climate change and increased natural disasters.

In January the tribe was awarded $52m for resettlement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as part of its $1bn Natural Disaster Resiliency Competition. The money will fund a new sustainably designed development to provide housing to up to 400 tribe members on a new plot inland. Planning is in the early stages, but officials hope to choose a site likely somewhere north of Houma, the closest city, later this year.

The project will be watched closely as a testing ground for the resettlement of whole communities – culturally sensitive ones, in particular – as the effects of climate change begin to be felt more acutely along the coasts of North America and indigenous communities in Alaska face similar prospects of disappearing land.

Naomi Klein endorses Sanders but, sadly at the end of the interview suggests that she would vote for Clinton if reduced to a choice between Clinton and one of the Republicans running this cycle. When are liberals going to learn that you will not get anything from neoliberals like Clinton by pledging to accept the crumbs from the 1% corporadem's table?

Naomi Klein: How Clinton Failed the Climate Megaphone Test

Arguing that Clinton's corporate ties makes her 'vulnerable, the Canadian author and activist says that Bernie Sanders is 'a much better candidate.'

Naomi Klein, the Canadian social justice activist and best-selling author, declared in a new interview that, when it comes to climate, she does not trust Hillary Clinton.

In an interview preview aired Tuesday, Klein argues that Clinton's corporate ties make her a "vulnerable" candidate for the presidency and that Democratic rival Bernie Sanders is a "significantly better candidate."

"I think that Bernie Sanders could win in a general election," Klein told Mehdi Hasan, host of Al Jazeera's "UpFront."

"The logic of her candidacy," Klein said, "was because she had so much money. A lot of it was just, 'she's unbeatable—look how deep the pockets are.'"

The "irony," Klein explains, is the sources of that money and "the entanglement of the Clinton Foundation, with so many corporations and so many governments," is precisely what makes her "vulnerable."

Obama to kill off Arctic oil drilling

President also expected to protect large areas of Atlantic coast after backlash from communities that fear Gulf of Mexico rig disaster could happen again

The Obama administration is expected to put virtually all of the Arctic and much of the Atlantic off limits for oil and gas drilling until 2022 in a decision that could be announced as early as Tuesday.

The decision reverses Barack Obama’s move just last year to open up a vast swathe of the Atlantic coast to drilling – and consolidates the president’s efforts to protect the Arctic and fight climate change during his final months in the White House.

The five-year drilling plan, which will be formally announced by the interior department, was expected to block immediate prospects of hunting for oil in the Arctic, according to those familiar with the proposals.

The move was widely anticipated after Obama and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, declared last week they would follow “science-based standards” when it came to sanctioning new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.

But the plan was also expected to seal off large areas of the Atlantic coast from future exploration, following protests from coastal communities in the Carolinas and Georgia – and that could cause reverberations in the presidential elections.

Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron have been pushing heavily to reopen drilling off the Atlantic coast, and Republicans and some state governors were also in favour.

Flint water crisis: congressman says EPA is guilty of 'flat-out incompetence'

The EPA’s role as a national regulator of water is questioned by Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, who said the Flint crisis demonstrated serious flaws in the federal agency’s ability to protect the public.

“There has been a catastrophic failure from top to bottom, and someone has to be held responsible,” Chaffetz told the Guardian. “We aren’t going to say, ‘Oops, let’s just move on.’”

“It’s shocking that the EPA knew about Flint and yet never let anyone know about it. What good are they if they knew about it and didn’t do anything? This is an organization that wants to control every puddle in the country but they can’t handle it. This isn’t solved with more money or authority, because they’ve been flat-out incompetent. ...

On Tuesday, the committee will hear from former EPA regional administrator Susan Hedman and Darnell Earley, the former emergency manager of Flint. Earley was in charge in April 2014 when it was decided to switch Flint’s water supply to the Flint river, which led to pipes being corroded and lead leaching into drinking water at dangerously high levels.

Hedman resigned in the wake of the disaster, after it emerged the EPA was aware of problems long before a state of emergency was declared in December. In a previous committee hearing, the EPA said it warned of the crisis but was “met with resistance” from Michigan authorities, with scientists ignored and officials sidelined when concerns were raised. ...

n Thursday, the committee will question the EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy, and Governor Rick Snyder of MichiganO, who is facing growing calls to step down after released emails showed his advisers were aware of the “downright scary” problems in Flint shortly after the switch in 2014 but refused to return to Detroit’s water supply due to the $1m cost.

Also of Interest

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

Was This the Strangest Weekend in American Political History?

Just saying no: US interns challenge employers over exploitation

Revisiting the "Humanitarian" Intervention in Libya

The Sad Spectacle of the Whining Don: the Thug-in-Chief Throws His Vassals Under the Bus

Inside the Clinton Plan to Defeat Donald Trump

Hillary can't win. She's the establishment candidate in year of insurgency.

E.J Dionne Is Far Too Generous, “Moderate Progressives” Were Promoting Inequality

Mikhail Lesin’s Corpse Press-Ganged for Infowar by Victoria Nuland

'Bizarre' pro-Israel robot accused of harassing students at Brown University

A Little Night Music

Louis Myers & The Aces - Bluesy

Louis Myers + The Aces - Take a Little Walk with Me

Louis Myers - Top Of The Harp

Louis Myers - Tell My Story Movin'

Louis Myers + Dave Myers ( The Aces) - Sweet Little Angel

Louis Myers - In The Evening

Louis Myers - Wiggle Tail