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"There never was a good war or a bad revolution."

-- Edward Abbey

News and Opinion

Senators Introduce Bill to Get US Out of Afghanistan

A bipartisan resolution has been introduced in the Senate on Monday calling for the US to withdraw military forces from Afghanistan. The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Tom Udall (D-NM).

The resolution, called the 2019 Afghan Forces Going Home After Noble Service Act (AFGHAN Service Act), would declare victory. This is on the grounds that Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 and al-Qaeda is all but eliminated within Afghanistan.

The bill goes further than just Afghanistan, too, as with the completion of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, it would repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Though the AUMF was initially passed to invade Afghanistan, it has been broadly expanded by presidents since as a legal justification for wars across the world.

The text of the bill calls for all US troops to be out of Afghanistan within a year of passage. ... Those wishing to contact their Senators to express support for the AFGHAN Service Act can find information to do so here.

Khashoggi’s body was reportedly burned in a tandoori oven. And still the White House refuses to investigate.

Senators threatened Monday to impose new sanctions on Saudi Arabia over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, after the White House failed to investigate the journalist’s murder. Fresh tensions over the killing came on the same day that an Al Jazeera documentary revealed that Khashoggi’s mutilated corpse was likely burned in the home of the Saudi consulate general in a specially-constructed tandoori oven.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked the Magnitsky Act in October, giving the White House 120 days to determine if Riyadh was to blame for the murder. However, the Trump administration missed the Feb. 8 deadline for that update and a Monday briefing by the White House did little to assuage tensions with committee members fuming at “zero” new information. ...

Despite the growing evidence, the White House has steadfastly refused to blame Riyadh. Last week Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner met with MBS in Riyadh to discuss regional peace plans. Before Monday’s briefing, tensions between Congress and the White House over Saudi Arabia were already simmering due to the administration’s backing for the war in Yemen, which has prompted the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Rumours grow of rift between Saudi king and crown prince

There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen.

The unease is said to have been building since the murder in Turkey of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has reportedly concluded was ordered by Prince Mohammed. However, these tensions increased dramatically in late February when the king, 83, visited Egypt and was warned by his advisers he was at risk of a potential move against him, according to a detailed account from a source.

His entourage was so alarmed at the possible threat to his authority that a new security team, comprised of more than 30 hand-picked loyalists from the interior ministry, was flown to Egypt to replace the existing team. The move was made as part of a rapid response, and reflected concern that some of the original security staff might have been loyal to the prince, the source said. The king’s advisers also dismissed Egyptian security personnel who were guarding him while he was in Egypt, the source added.

The friction in the father-son relationship was underlined, the source said, when the prince was not among those sent to welcome the king home.

'Why go to Venezuela?'

Venezuela-Baiting: How Media Keep Anti-Imperialist Dissent in Check

The political right is uniting with establishment Democrats in denouncing presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders for his supposedly pro-dictatorship stance on Venezuela. And the media are piling on.

Yet Sanders’ statements on the Venezuelan crisis were quite critical of President Nicolás Maduro, saying his 2018 re-election was a vote “many observers said was fraudulent.”  He condemned his “violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society,” and insisted “humanitarian aid” be allowed in the country. He has consistently maintained a strongly adversarial position to Venezuela, calling Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez a “dead Communist dictator.” In fact, the 2018 Venezuelan elections were watched over and endorsed as free by over 150 international observers, although media uniformly ignored those bothersome facts (FAIR.org, 5/23/18). It should also be noted that “civil society” is not a neutral, but a highly loaded term (FAIR.org, 1/31/19). In a study of over 500 articles across a 20-year period, I found that the term was used exclusively to refer to the light-skinned US-backed Venezuelan elite, and never once to the largely black, largely working-class groups who support the government.

The UN and Red Cross have also rejected the US “aid” Sanders demands be let in as politically motivated, and have long worked closely with the Venezuelan government in supplying and distributing genuine international aid across the country. Moreover, the McClatchy DC bureau (2/7/19) has already exposed how weapons are being smuggled into the country from the US. Thus, the senator’s statements echoed and supported many of Trump, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams’ discredited regime change talking points. But at the same time, Sanders stopped short of openly endorsing the Trump administration’s attempt to overthrow the Maduro government, warning, “We must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups—as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil & the DR.” ...

In their seminal study of the media, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argued that there is an all-pervading anti-socialist secular religion in the press. They noted that leftists at home are constantly accused of supporting the “atrocities” of “socialist” countries, keeping them permanently on the defensive and demanding they support reactionary policies abroad in order to prove their democratic credentials. ... Sanders has faced similar baiting before, over his position on Russia—another official enemy. Despite consistently endorsing the Russiagate narrative and condemning President Vladimir Putin for interfering in US elections, he was constantly attacked as a Russian puppet himself (FAIR.org, 7/27/18). The Washington Post (11/12/17) asked its readers, “When Russia interferes with the 2020 election on behalf of Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders, how will liberals respond?”

The reality is that nothing but complete capitulation to this extractive right-wing tactic will be accepted. Redbaiting is a time-honored technique of enforcing discipline by directing flak for those who step outside the range of “respectable” opinion. Sanders should know this; he once shared a stage with Chomsky (5/20/85), introducing the professor’s  lecture on how the US media distort the image of Latin American countries as a first step towards military intervention. They also attempt to destroy and defame anyone not sufficiently excited by the prospect of regime change in America’s “backyard.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal criticizes “deeply unfair” scrutiny of Ilhan Omar

The left’s revolt against Democrats’ plan to punish Rep. Ilhan Omar appears to be working

A vote to condemn anti-Semitism as a rebuke to Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of Israel will likely be delayed, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told VICE News.

Democrats’ plan to punish Omar with the resolution triggered swift outrage and backlash from their party’s progressive wing and activist groups, which argued that the accusations of anti-Semitism were nothing more than an attempt to shut down a debate about Israel.

The resolution, which originally focused on anti-Semitism and was scheduled for a Wednesday vote, may be refocused to include many more forms of prejudice and bigotry.

"We're still discussing it," Hoyer told Politico on Tuesday. "The sentiment is that it ought to be broad-based. What we're against is hate, prejudice, bigotry, white supremacy, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism." ...

Democrats seem to have underestimated the groundswell of support that manifested for Omar. Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, vowed not to kick Omar off the committee and started defending her on Twitter. Even one of Omar’s defenders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, received backlash for not being explicit enough about her defense of Omar.

Huawei trolls the U.S. by opening a cybersecurity center in Europe

Chinese electronics giant Huawei, which the U.S. has long suspected of colluding with China’s government to spy on Western countries, said Tuesday that governments and regulators “lack a basic common understanding” of how cybersecurity really works. In remarks made during the opening of a new cybersecurity transparency center in Brussels, Huawei’s rotating chairman, Ken Hu, called on governments to come together to create a set of common cybersecurity standards “to build a trustworthy environment.”

“Trust in cybersecurity is one of the major challenges that we face as a global community,“ Hu said. “Trust needs to be based on facts. Facts must be verifiable, and verification must be based on common standards. We believe that this is an effective model for building trust in the digital era.”

The launch of the new center in Brussels and Hu’s call for global cybersecurity standards will likely be met with suspicion in Washington, where the White House has been leading a sustained campaign to get allies to prevent Huawei from developing their next-generation 5G networks. Huawei, for its part, has been on a charm offensive in Europe — where it’s already an established player — and where U.S. allies like Germany and the U.K. have said they may break with Washington and allow Huawei equipment on their networks.

Yellow Vests: UN calls for full investigation on 'excessive' force by French police at protests

Trump has a new enemy on trade: India

Donald Trump threatened Monday to open a fresh trade war with India — over knee implants. The president announced New Delhi was being removed from a preferential tariff agreement that allows developing countries to export certain goods to the U.S. with zero duty. ...

Trump has made no secret of his disdain at what he perceives as unfair trade practices, calling India a “tariff king.” Central to the dispute are farm produce and medical supplies. The National Milk Producers’ Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council have both complained about restricted market access for farm products, while the Advanced Medical Technology Association has raised the issue of price caps on coronary stents and knee implants.

While India did agree to open up the market for a wide array of U.S. farm produce, it would not budge on the medical products, saying it had a responsibility to keep the prices low so its citizens can afford them.

The U.S. was also worried about India’s e-commerce and data localization policies, which New Delhi sees as a sovereignty issue, but Washington views as hindering companies such as Amazon and Walmart, which owns a majority stake in Indian online company Flipkart.

Brazilians demand answers for Marielle Franco's murder at Rio carnival

Nearly a year after the still-unsolved murder of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman and LGBT activist Marielle Franco, Brazilian revellers have used their country’s annual carnival to demand answers. On Monday night, Rio’s most famous samba school, Mangueira, used its parade to pay tribute to the murdered politician with a sequin-smothered show of song, dance and dissent. ...

Franco, a gay councillor who was born and raised in one of Rio’s largest favelas, was gunned down on 14 March last year as she returned home from a debate with her driver, Anderson Gomes, who was also killed. She was 38. Brazilian newspapers have reported that investigators suspect the crime was committed by a death squad called the Escritório do Crime (The Crime Bureau) – a paramilitary group recently linked to one of the sons of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. ...

David Miranda, a lawmaker from Franco’s Socialism and Liberty party who took part in Monday’s pageant, said it was intended as both a tribute to his friend and an attempt to highlight the fact that her killers were still at large. “We want to remind the world that a political crime was committed in Brazil and this crime has still not been solved. We need the world to keep paying attention to the situation to help us solve it,” he said.

Miranda said he believed some progress had been made in the investigation since the country’s federal police became involved late last year. “I think that we will manage to find out who pulled the trigger soon. But we also need to know who ordered her murder and why.”

Greg Grandin on “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America”

Senate set to reject Trump's national emergency declaration

Donald Trump’s declaration of an emergency on the Mexican border will be rejected by the Senate, the most senior Republican in the US upper chamber has admitted.

The Democratic-controlled House has already voted to reject the national emergency declaration. A rejection in the Republican-controlled Senate would send a powerful signal that Trump’s control of his own party may be slipping.

If his national emergency declaration is rejected, Trump could veto that rejection. A presidential veto can be overruled by both houses of Congress, but only with two-thirds majorities, which is unlikely, meaning the declaration is likely to stand in the end. ...

The Senate vote is expected next week.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Medicare for All Will Lower Costs & Expand Healthcare Coverage to Everyone

If Democrats lure Amazon back to NYC, they won't be forgiven

Back when Amazon was still deciding which American city to move its new headquarters to, the New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, promised to change his name to Amazon Cuomo if that’s what it took to win the bid. Needless to say, he was upset when the company announced it would not build a new “HQ2” headquarters in New York’s Long Island City. Feeling jilted, Cuomo has since gone begging Amazon and Jeff Bezos to change their mind. He’s also lashed out at the politicians and community groups who fought his planned $3bn giveaway to the company. Cuomo’s fight to win Amazon back is exactly the kind of desperate move Democrats should avoid.

Republicans and establishment Democrats have long been united in the belief that corporations are the key to mitigating – if not solving – America’s most pressing problems, from inequality to climate change. The reality is that big business created those problems in the first place, with ample help from policymakers. Reining them in and revitalizing the public sphere is the only way to fight back. By aggressively lobbying to smash safety nets and corporate tax rates, corporations over the last several decades have effectively taken cities and states hostage, leaving mayors and governors to grovel before billionaires for a few crumbs for their increasingly desperate constituents – usually in the form of poorly paid work.

As companies gobble up city resources, they are afforded generous tax breaks to make sure they don’t actually have to pay their fair share to maintain them. Such measures, it’s said, are necessary to create a “positive investment climate” – or else they will just find somewhere else offering a sweeter deal. Similar logic operates at the federal level, and Reagan’s business-backed push for supply side economics foretold that tax breaks for the wealthy few would eventually trickle down to the many. Needless to say, that didn’t work out, and wages have stagnated as corporate profits have climbed. The myth, however, endures. Controversy over Amazon’s decision to pull out was based on the promise that it would boost New York City’s economy by creating 25,000 jobs, a figure that seems to have pulled virtually out of thin air by Amazon PR and repeated ad nauseum in the press. It’s not hard to imagine, though, how the Amazon deal might have played out: temporary jobs would dry up within a few years, white-collar workers (mostly) would get steady paychecks, and Long Island City would officially become a playground for the wealthy as Jeff Bezos got even richer. Maybe the 7 train, serving Queens, would start running a little faster.

Of course, Amazon isn’t an anomaly. And these sorts of bad deals aren’t just for Democrats. The former Republican Wisconsin governor Scott Walker made a similar gamble on Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer perhaps best known for its factory town in Shenzhen, where 18 employees attempted suicide in a single year, making screens for Apple in squalid working conditions. Walker handed Foxconn more than $4bn in public money, for a few years making Wisconsin a petri dish for regressive anti-union laws on the basis that teachers and other public sector employees were a drain on taxpayers. After promising 13,000 jobs that would boost southern Wisconsin’s economy, Foxconn announced that only a small percentage of jobs would be blue-collar work, with most positions going to “knowledge” workers. By some estimates – depending on how many jobs are actually created– the midwestern state will shell out up to $1m per job. Walker lost his seat last November, in part thanks to blowback from the Foxconn deal.

I think I'll call this the "snowball's chance" bill:

Progressive Tax Takes Aim at Wall Street Transactions, Financial Crashes

Democrats on Tuesday proposed a tax on Wall Street transactions which could stop another financial crash and bring in $777 billion over the next decade. "The Wall Street Tax Act would tax the sale of stocks, bonds, and derivatives at 0.1 percent," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hi.), who introduced the bill (pdf) with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as lead co-sponsor. "A stock trade of $1,000 would incur a tax of just one dollar," Schatz added.

The bill was also cosponsored in the Senate by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-Ore.), who is not.

The House version of the bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) with the support of Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

In an opinion piece published Tuesday, Sarah Anderson, the director of the Global Economy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies, said the tax was needed for market stability. Citing the use of high frequency trades by "stock scalpers"—traders who, millions of times a day, use microsecond advantages to drive up stock prices in advance of trades—Anderson argued that the tax could stop those traders from fleeing a volatile market in the case of a downturn; an acceleration of financial disaster known as a "flash crash."

Democrats Continue Campaign To Reelect Trump

The Democrats try to find something that will put Trump into a bad light. I am sure that there are many shady deals Trump made during his life. But there are many worse things that he is doing right now right under the eyes of Congress. Instead of focusing on what Trump currently does with deregulating whatever he can, by filling the courts with young conservative judges and by his mismanaging of foreign policy, the Democrats will draw the public attention towards issues in the past that have no relevance for what happens to their electorate right now and in the future. It is a strategy of political self-castration. Instead of promoting policy issues that can attract voters, the Democrats draw attention to their anti-Trump campaign. That scheme was already tried, tested and failed in 2016. The chance is high that it will also fail in 2020. Trump might well get reelected despite all the dirt the Democrats will uncover during such sham investigations.

The unwillingness of the Democrats to have real political discussion is also visible in their attempt to subdue the new young House members who have come up with real new proposals and ideas. The use of the Zionist lobby AIPAC and false claims of 'anti-semitism' against them is especially outrageous:

When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.

Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.

On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists “push for allegiance to a foreign country,” they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.

Ilhan Omar will not be the only one to be targeted like that. The Lobby is aiming at two more:

In Florida, Mr. Fiske said it was time for “pro-Jewish voices to speak up” about Ms. Omar and two other Democratic freshmen who have been critical of Israel: Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

And he offered a prediction: “They are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years.”

The leadership of the Democrats is not defending the three freshmen who proved that they can attract and motivate young voters. It is actively helping the Lobby to oust them. The new policies the newcomers stand for will likewise be discarded.

The Democrats seem to believe that their potential voters have nowhere else to go. That believe is wrong. Elections in the dual party system are won by turnout. If the Democrats don't prove that they have the right policies and attractive politicians, their potential voters will simply stay home. Nearly half of them already do that. Throwing the kitchen sink at Trump, after Russiagate disastrously failed, might help CNN's quotes. But it is not a substitute for well motivated policy fights. Killing off the next generation of attractive politicians for a few more Benjamins will drive away the young voters attracted by their views. Together these steps suggest that the Democrats have no real strategy and will to win. They will help Trump to win a second term.

Former New York mayor Bloomberg announces he will not run for president in 2020

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor and champion of causes such as gun control and climate change, has ended months of speculation by announcing that he will not run for US president next year. The 77-year-old, one of the richest men in the world, revealed his decision on Tuesday not to join the crowded Democratic field – currently at 16 candidates – but pledged to pour his vast wealth into the resistance movement against Donald Trump.

“I know we can do better as a country,” he wrote in a Bloomberg News editorial. “And I believe I would defeat Donald Trump in a general election. But I am clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination in such a crowded field.” ...

Neil Sroka, spokesperson for the progressive political action committee Democracy for America, said: “No surprise. No constituency. He had an additional challenge as a billionaire at a moment when the last thing people want is someone with ungodly sums of money telling them what to do. More importantly, he was pushing an agenda that has little support in the Democratic party and even less outside the Democratic party.”

Bernie Sanders Is Beating Kamala Harris 2-1 Among Black Democratic Primary Voters, New Poll Finds

Three weeks after launching his presidential campaign, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading all other announced candidates in support from black voters, a new poll finds. The only potential candidate who polled better with African-Americans than Sanders, according to the poll by Morning Consult, is former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not announced a campaign.

Despite a persistent notion that his supporters are disproportionately white male “bros,” the new survey suggests that Sanders is actually slightly more popular among black Democratic voters than white ones, indicating that the narrative that developed during the 2016 campaign may no longer hold, if it ever did.

Sanders’s support among black voters, at 28 percent, puts him in second place among that demographic, behind Biden, at 32 percent. He trailed Biden 31-25 among whites.

There appears to be a strong class element at play in the finding. The same poll found that the demographics Sanders is least popular with — at 19 and 17 percent, respectively — are Democrats who make more than $100,000 per year and Democrats who have post-graduate degrees (two qualities that typically, if not always, overlap). Because of structural wealth and income gaps, that population is heavily white. Sanders, meanwhile, receives his strongest support support from those making less than $50,000 — a group that is, for the same reasons, much more diverse. The poll found that 30 percent of those with the lowest incomes backed Sanders.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., meanwhile, has half as much support, at 14 percent, among black voters as Sanders, according to supplementary polling data provided to The Intercept by Morning Consult.

Endangered species face 'disaster' under Trump administration

Bald eagles are often held up alongside American alligators and whooping cranes as examples of the great species revivals that have taken place in the 45 years since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) arrived to stem the bleeding of American wildlife. “It’s been remarkable in pulling back some species from the brink,” Seabird McKeon, an ecologist at St Mary’s College of Maryland, said of the ESA. Many conservationists now fret this progress is at risk of being reversed as the Trump administration looks to refashion endangered species protections in order to ease conditions for industry, particularly those involved in oil and gas. Along the way, some species may risk being pushed close to extinction.

“The Trump administration has been a disaster for endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The stated intent is to expand oil and gas drilling. It is quite possible we will lose species because of the hostility and callousness shown by this administration.”

The ESA currently lists more than 1,600 species as being at risk, with listed species afforded protections in their habitat that can stymie activities such as building construction, hunting and mining. This approach has so far proved relatively successful, with just 1% of listed species ever becoming extinct. Significant elements of the protections are being picked apart, however. In July, the Trump administration proposed ending the practice of providing the same protections to species whether they be endangered or the less serious designation of threatened. The administration also wants economic impacts to be considered when species listings are decided, with species removed from the list more easily.

Separately, the administration announced it will no longer pursue people or businesses for the unintentional killing of birds, such as when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wiped out up to a million birds in 2010.

David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist who is now Donald Trump’s choice to be interior secretary, wrote that the ESA changes will remove an “unnecessary regulatory burden” on companies and stop species lingering on the endangered list for too long.

If America can find $716bn for the military, it can fund the Green New Deal

At long last the political debate in the world’s richest country is vibrant with proposals that would help the most vulnerable in our society. And what do we hear in response? A growing chorus of naysayers. “Just pipe dreams” – that’s how the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson referred to proposals for guaranteed jobs, Medicare for All, universal childcare, and the Green New Deal.

Like many other pundits and politicians, Samuelson says we can’t afford such luxuries. Taxing the rich wouldn’t raise enough money. We’d have no choice but to resort to deficit spending. Funny how some politicians have no qualms about ballooning the deficit with tax cuts for the rich but balk at investing in the long-term health of our people and communities. Just as peculiar: the fact that military spending cuts are virtually never mentioned as an option for freeing up funds for social good instead of war.

This year the US military budget is $716bn – and boy is it ripe for slashing.

That military budget represents about 53 cents of every discretionary dollar in the federal budget – and it’s one of the biggest reasons that people so often throw up their hands and shake their heads when they think about funding innovative ways to end poverty. ...

When young organizers from the Sunrise Movement recently challenged Senator Dianne Feinstein to support a Green New Deal, she told them “there’s no money to pay for it”. She probably didn’t expect those eight- and 10- and 11-year-old kids to respond immediately: “Yes, there is, there’s tons of money going to the military.” Feinstein responded condescendingly that the military does “important things” with that money. Our never-ending wars say otherwise. ... Trillions for war isn’t an investment – it’s just a loss. It’s loss at a scale that, if it were reversed, would make a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and all the rest perfectly realistic.

Which would make us safer?

Army Corps confirms it intends to issue permit to allow Rosemont Mine construction

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed Monday that it intends to issue a crucial permit authorizing construction of the proposed Rosemont Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains southeast of Tucson. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office, which had been regularly blasting the $2 billion project since 2012, says it will not send the mine issue to its Washington, D.C., office for additional review. That turnaround by the EPA is a huge boost for the mine project, because an EPA move to elevate it could have delayed the already-delayed project for months more and maybe led to an EPA veto.

Word of the Corps’ intent to OK the project and the EPA’s withdrawal from the case first surfaced in an email sent Thursday, Feb. 28, by a top EPA official to an attorney for the Tohono O’Odham Nation and two other Arizona tribes. The email came from Michael Stoker, administrator for the EPA’s San Francisco regional office that governs Arizona issues, and offered no reason for the agency’s decision. ...

The tribal attorney, Stu Gillespie of the Earthjustice environmental law firm, wrote Stoker back Friday, requesting “meaningful, government to government consultation with you regarding this monumental decision.” Such a consultation is required by federal law and EPA policy, said Gillespie in his email. His firm also represents the Pascua-Yaqui and Hopi tribes. All three have opposed the mine out of concern it would damage areas they consider ancestral homelands.

EPA regional officials first identified Rosemont in January 2012 as a project with serious enough environmental impacts to make it a candidate for elevating to its main office for further review. Since then, EPA regional officials have written seven other lengthy letters and memos warning the mine will cause serious impacts. They include drawing down the aquifer, drying up wells, polluting surface waters and reducing water flows from washes at the mine site into neighboring Davidson Canyon and Cienega Creek. The criticisms have come during both the Obama and Trump administrations, most recently in memos from November 2017.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: American Misdirection: Militarism and Capitalism Reign as Spotlight Stays on Russia Conspiracy

'Call It the Oppression of the Supermajority': Americans Eager for Bold Change, So Why Can't They Get It?

Small-Dollar Donors Are Playing a Growing Role in Congressional Campaigns

Antisemitism debate exposes new fault lines in US politics

Report Exposes 'Devastating' Economic, Public Health, and Environmental Impacts of Trump's Industry Giveaways

America's school students exposed to water tainted by toxic lead

Brazil's Bolsonaro ridiculed after tweeting explicit carnival video

A Little Night Music

Joe Tex - Cut It Out

Joe Tex and His X Classmates - Charlie Brown Got Expelled

Joe Tex - Boys Will Be Boys

Joe Tex - Yum, Yum, Yum

Joe Tex - Ain't I A Mess

Joe Tex - I Want To (Do Everything For You)

Joe Tex - I Let Her Get Away

Joe Tex - Get Out Of My Life, Woman

Joe Tex - Skinny Legs And All

Joe Tex - I'm A Man, SYSLJFM

Joe Tex - Woman Stealer

Joe Tex - Medley: Show Me; Green Green Grass of Home; and, Papa Was Too