---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Curtis Jones

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues piano player Curtis Jones. Enjoy!

^{Curtis Jones - Highway 51 Blues}

"I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."

-- Jim Garrison

---

News and Opinion

Surprise (not), the Feds sympathize with the fascists. Worth a full read.

Intelligence report appeared to endorse view leftwing protesters were 'terrorists'

An intelligence report produced for law enforcement agencies in the months before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in which a neo-Nazi killed one protester by driving a car into a crowd, appeared to endorse a view that leftist demonstrators were “terrorists” and at least equally as responsible for street violence as white nationalists, the Guardian can reveal.

The report, Antifa/Anti-antifa: Violence in the Streets, was produced by the Regional Organized Crime Information Center (ROCIC) in May 2017. ... Experts say the report mischaracterizes the dynamics of the street violence that was emerging at that time, and is mistaken in characterizing white nationalist groups as “anti-antifa”, suggesting they act in opposition to leftwing groups or out of a sense of anarchism rather than having their own political and violent agenda.

ROCIC is one of six Regional Intelligence Sharing System (RISS) Centers throughout the country. RISS is a federally funded program designed to share intelligence between federal, state and local agencies. ROCIC serves 14 southern states, including Virginia, the site of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. Documents accompanying the Foia request indicate that the US Secret Service was among the agencies that the report was provided to.

The report frames political street violence in America as an evenly-poised battle between “antifa’s”, described as “an alliance between anarchists and communists to confront and defeat fascists and white supremacists by whatever means necessary”, and “anti-antifa, a loose collection of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klanners, white identity groups and a group called the alt-right”. The report blames the two sides equally for the violence, continuing: “So it’s the anarchists versus the nationalists, the communists versus the Nazis, the leftwing extremists versus the rightwing extremists and the confrontations are becoming more violent and destructive.”

Michael German, a former FBI agent who infiltrated far right groups in the 1990s, and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the report’s framing was wrong. “Somehow they have this set up almost like antifa is the antagonist, and anti-antifa has developed to resist it,” he said “What it seems to do is completely whitewash the history of white supremacist violence in this country.” German said that framing it this way belies the way in which “far-right groups use these public spectacles as the method to incite violence. And they come knowing that it will attract protest groups from the community.” Such groups “intentionally go to places to provoke protesters to come out, and they go armed for a real street fight”, German said.

AOC calls for Chelsea Manning’s release: “Solitary confinement is torture”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for the release of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been in solitary confinement for 26 days after refusing to testify before a grand jury, according to her supporters.

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez said Manning’s current imprisonment was “torture” and that the whistleblower should be released on bail. Ocasio-Cortez also asserted that the U.S. should ban extended solitary confinement.

Ocasio-Cortez is perhaps the most prominent American official to come forward in Manning’s defense since the whistleblower was jailed last month. Manning refused to comply with a grand jury subpoena regarding WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, whom the U.S. had secretly charged with an unknown offense last year.

Related: Chelsea Manning has been trapped in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a Grand Jury.

Solitary confinement is torture.

Chelsea is being tortured for whistleblowing, she should be released on bail, and we should ban extended solitary in the US. https://t.co/95ef4xYt3k

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 2, 2019

CNN And WaPo Demand That Trump Further Escalate Tensions With Russia

CNN has aired a segment in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network’s audience that the US president has “been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue” and asks “will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?” The segment is a near-verbatim reading of Zakaria’s Washington Post column from a couple of days prior, so that’s two massive prongs through which this false and pernicious narrative is being driven into mainstream consciousness claiming that the Trump administration has been far too dovish toward Moscow, rather than dangerously hawkish as is actually the case. Zakaria begins his segment by describing the Trump administration’s (completely illegitimate) efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, then describing Russian efforts to counter this agenda as an attempt to “taunt the United States.” He then spends the rest of the segment asking if Trump will be brave and patriotic enough to further escalate tensions against a nuclear superpower. Zakaria concludes by implying that if Trump fails to increase world-threatening nuclear tensions to effect yet another US regime change intervention in yet another oil-rich country, it will be because he is a Kremlin agent.

“The big question for Washington is: Will it allow Moscow to make a mockery of another U.S. red line?” Zakaria said. “The United States and Russia have taken opposing, incompatible stands on this issue. And as with Syria, there is a danger that, if Washington does not back its words with deeds, a year from now, we will be watching the consolidation of the Maduro regime, supported with Russian arms and money.” ...

War obsessed CNN pushing Trump to destroy Venezuela to prove he’s not Putin’s bitch.

My god, this is pure war propaganda. https://t.co/RUQiRHvcYv

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) April 1, 2019

You could not ask for a more perfect illustration of just how dangerous and toxic this years-long Russiagate psyop has been. Even after the Mueller investigation concluded with no mass arrests, no sealed indictments, no further indictments and no evidence of Russian collusion, the mass media war propagandists are attempting to use the Russia hysteria they’ve already manufactured via the collusion narrative to create demand for more escalations against Russia. Fragmenting and undermining Russia and shoving it off the world stage has been an agenda of opaque US government agencies since the fall of the Soviet Union, and steps have been taken into a new cold war to effect this agenda for more than five years now, long before liberals in America spent any part of their day thinking or caring about Vladimir Putin. Mass media outlets like CNN and WaPo have been actively facilitating this agenda by promulgating these false narratives, and they are playing an instrumental role in convincing the US populace to keep their foot off the brake pedal in an accelerating and world-threatening new cold war.

Trump has already greatly escalated tensions with Russia by implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a much more aggressive stance against Russia, withdrawing from the INF treaty, bombing and illegally occupying Syria, arming Ukraine, staging a coup in Venezuela, and many, many other hawkish actions taken against the interests of Russia’s geostrategic and economic interests. It is an indisputable fact that Trump has been more aggressive toward Russia than any other president since the fall of the Berlin wall. But the Russiagate narrative enables the war propagandists to not only ignore these escalations and the danger they pose to all life on earth, but to demand more and more of them.

Latin Americans fear precedent set by legal justification for Syria intervention

Latin American states are mounting a challenge to the acceptance of a legal standard promoted by the US, UK and their allies to justify military operations in the Middle East, fearing the same standard could eventually be used to justify intervention in their own hemisphere. The Mexican government is spearheading an effort at the UN to bring greater transparency to the formal legal justifications presented by western powers for military operations in Syria and elsewhere. Latin American states say that one of the most important questions in international law – when is it permissible to wage war on another country’s territory – is being settled by stealth, by a small group of military powers, with no global debate.

States involved in the counter-Isis campaign and other foreign military operations have submitted letters of justification for their actions to the UN, citing self-defence against the threat of terrorism and arguing in many cases that the governments of the countries involved have been “unwilling or unable” to deal with the threat. The letters have typically been submitted after the military operations have taken place.

Writing for the legal website, JustSecurity, on Tuesday, the legal adviser to the Mexican UN mission, Pablo Arrocha Olabuenaga, said: “The debate regarding the legitimacy and relevance of the ‘unwilling or unable’ standard to use force against terrorist groups has so far been largely dominated by a few western states.” Olabuenaga argues that the lack of a concerted pushback so far against the use of such self-defence arguments under Article 51 of the UN charter should not be interpreted as consent. Rather, it is a reflection of the lack of transparency of the UN system. The submission of Article 51 letters to the security council justifying a military operation is not publicised. They eventually appear on a security council archive, known as the repertoire, but that is currently two years out of date. “Most member states are left in the dark,” Olabuenaga writes.

Unease in Latin America has been heightened by Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric. He accused the Mexican armed forces of being “unable or unwilling” to stop columns of migrants reaching the US border, and in March he said he was thinking “very seriously” about designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organisations. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed in February there were Hezbollah “active cells” in Venezuela, and declared: “We have an obligation to take down that risk for America.”

Should MSNBC Lose Their Facebook Page For Russiagate Conspiracy Fake News?

US suspends F-35 program deliveries to Turkey over Russian arms

The United States said Monday it was halting all deliveries and joint work with Turkey on the F-35 fighter jet program after the NATO ally insisted on a major arms purchase from Russia. After months of warnings, the United States said that Turkey's decision to buy Russia's S-400 missile system was incompatible with remaining part of the emblematic US warplane program.

"Until they forgo delivery of the S-400, the United States has suspended deliveries and activities associated with the stand-up of Turkey's F-35 operational capability," Pentagon chief spokesman Charles E. Summers Jr. said. "Should Turkey procure the S-400, their continued participation in the F-35 program is at risk," he said in a statement.

US officials have voiced concern that, with Turkey in both camps, Russia could obtain F-35 data to improve the accuracy of the S-400 against Western aircraft. ...

Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35A fighter jets, with pilots already training in the United States. The plane's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, said that contracts with Turkish companies to build parts for the F-35 had been expected to reach $12 billion.

$7 Billion in Equipment Looted From Former US Base in Afghanistan

The US handed over the Camp Kearney base in Paktika Province to the Afghan government in 2014, with an estimated $8 billion in equipment still inside. Today, the estimation is that about $1 billion worth of equipment is left.

So what happened between then and now that cost the site about $7
billion? Mass looting. The provincial governor says that former
governors, local mayors, MPs, and commanders have all had a go at the
site, and everyone has been entering the base and taking anything that isn’t nailed down.

‘What kind of dictatorship is this?’ Caracas cops caught on cam protecting Guaido from angry mob

‘Renouncing Violence’ Is a Demand Made Almost Exclusively of Muslims By New York Times

A FAIR survey of the phrase “renounce violence” in the New York Times over the past 10 years shows that 95 percent of the time the demand is made of Muslim organizations, people or political parties, the most prominent being the Taliban and Hamas. There are zero instances of anyone in the Times—whether reporters quoting officials or columnists—from March 28, 2009, to March 28, 2019, insisting or suggesting that the United States, Israel or any white-majority country “renounce violence.”

Almost half—48 percent—of the instances of “renounce violence” in the New York Times during the time period asserted that Palestinians “refused” to “renounce violence.” This was typically signaled with an umbrella label of “Hamas,” with varying degrees of specificity. Roughly a third of those said to not “renounce” violence were either Afghan or Iraqi insurgency groups fighting American military occupation. Thus, roughly 80 percent of the time, the term was evoked to describe people under military control of Israel or the US.

Of the 58 examples found of the phrase in the Times from 2009 to present day, only three instances expressed a demand that non-Muslims “renounce violence”: The Czech government (12/22/09) threatening to ban the Communist Party; Turkish criticism (7/29/10) of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a secular Communist party, though Kurds are mostly Muslim; and a report (2/5/17) on Obama’s commutation of Oscar López Rivera that noted the longtime Puerto Rican independence advocate “refused to renounce violence.”

The complete list can be viewed here. The New York Times was selected as the focus of the study due to its position as the US’s most influential newspaper.

Brexit deadlock: EU's Barnier says no deal scenario more and more 'likely'

May calls for cabinet showdown as MPs reject all Brexit options

Theresa May will summon her warring cabinet to Downing Street for a five-hour showdown on Tuesday after parliament once again failed to coalesce behind any alternative to her rejected Brexit deal. Three options – a common market, a customs union and a second referendum – were all narrowly rejected in the process of indicative votes, prompting renewed talk of a swift general election.

After Conservative MPs failed to support any option in sufficient numbers, there were immediate recriminations in the House of Commons chamber.

The Tory MP Nick Boles declared that he had failed to persuade his colleagues to compromise with his “common market 2.0” plan and announced his departure from the party. Supporters of a second referendum from across parliament were also accused of increasing the risk of a no-deal by refusing to back soft Brexit options.

With just 10 days left until Britain is due to leave the EU without a deal unless the government secures a fresh delay from Brussels, the Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, said the cabinet would have to decide the way forward. ...

One Downing Street adviser said that a snap election fronted by May was being “tested” and that it was viewed by some in the No 10 bunker as “the least worst option”.

EU to announce further no-deal measures as MPs fail to end impasse

Britain has been warned by Brussels that the country is staring into the “abyss” as the EU prepared to outline new no-deal measures in the wake of the latest Commons votes.

EU sources said their focus had to be with dealing with the UK probably crashing out of the bloc in two weeks’ time, with patience increasingly wearing thin in the EU’s capitals.

“All we can do is sort our house out,” one EU diplomat said. “But the failure to even find a small majority for any solution offers little indication that there is an orderly way out of this.”

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit negotiator, tweeted that the last stage of the indicative vote process, to be held on Wednesday, offered the last hope of avoiding a no-deal. MPs plan to bring back a smaller number of proposals to the Commons in the hope that a compromise position can be found.

He said: “The House of Commons again votes against all options. A hard Brexit becomes nearly inevitable. On Wednesday, the UK has a last chance to break the deadlock or face the abyss.”

May to ask for short Brexit extension and reaches out to Labour

Theresa May is to ask for another brief Brexit extension in order to seek a compromise withdrawal plan with the Labour party, she has announced, signalling the likelihood of Downing Street backing a softer Brexit. In a brief TV statement inside No 10 following a seven-hour cabinet meeting, the prime minister said she would hold talks with Jeremy Corbyn to seek a Brexit plan they could agree on and “both stick to”.

If agreement with the Labour leader was impossible, May said, the plan would be to put to a vote in parliament a series of Brexit options, with the government committing to enact whichever idea won support. This would require another extension to article 50, May said, but added that she aimed for this to not go beyond 22 May, thus ensuring the UK would not need to take part in European elections. ...

The prime minister’s move would seem to point inevitably to a softer form of Brexit. Labour has made it plain it will not back any plan without customs union membership, and a runoff vote in parliament could lead to even closer ties in the EU. It remains to be seen how leave-minded ministers in May’s cabinet will react.

Corbyn's response to May's statement

The Labour party has just put out Corbyn’s response:

I’m very happy to meet the prime minister. I don’t want to set any limits, one way or the other, ahead of those meetings. We recognise that she has made a move. I recognise my responsibility to represent the people who supported Labour in the last election and the people who didn’t support Labour but nevertheless want certainty and security for their own future. And that’s the basis on which we will meet her and have those discussions.

Labour has put forward our proposals to ensure there is a customs union with the EU, access to vital markets and protections of our standards of consumer, environmental and workers’ rights. And we’ll ensure that those are on the table. We’re also very clear that there has to be an absolute guarantee that the Good Friday Agreement is maintained for peace in Northern Ireland.

So far, the prime minister hasn’t shown much sign of compromise but I’m pleased that today she’s indicated she’ll accept the view of Parliament and is prepared to reach out and have that discussion. I have been meeting MPs from all parties over the past weeks. And there is some common ground; there are some areas it’s difficult to agree on. But, however people voted in the referendum of 2016, they didn’t vote for lower living standards or to lose their jobs. And there’s far more that unites people on both sides than divides them.

The chair of the parliamentary home affairs select committee, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, has welcomed what she called the prime minister’s “recognition that she needs to avoid a damaging no-deal on April 12th”.

When the cabinet secretary and national security adviser to the government had advised the cabinet that no-deal would make the country less safe, it would have been irresponsible of them not to listen. We do need a sensible approach and the prime minister needs to find a way to bring the country together, not just Parliament.

We are waiting to find out further details on how the government’s proposed process will work, including how decisions will be taken about the length and purpose of an extension, and how indicative votes will work to make sure we don’t just end up with no-deal a bit later on.

Italy Looks to China

Italy caused a political firestorm in mid-March when it announced that it would be joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative by signing a memorandum of understanding during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome from March 21 to 23. As the first G-7 country to accept a formal agreement to participate in the initiative, also known as the New Silk Road, Italy found itself under instant pressure from both the United States and its allies in Europe, all of which worried that it represented an expansion of China’s economic foothold in the West. ...

Garrett Marquis, confidant of U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton and former Security Council spokesman, followed up with a threat to stop intelligence-sharing between the two countries. ... Michele Geraci, undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, who led negotiations on the deal, has insisted that despite taking into account U.S. and EU worries, Italy must make its own decisions, following an “Italy first” strategy.

Italy is certainly not the first country in Europe to look to China for economic growth opportunities. Its larger neighbors in the European Union (EU) actually do more business with China, and have established themselves as key partners in the BRI. Germany exports 94 billion euros worth of goods to China, for example, while the United Kingdom and France come in at 23 billion and 21 billion, respectively. Italy’s share is currently only 13 billion.

After his visit to Rome, Xi Jinping was welcomed to Paris, where he signed agreements for the purchase of tens of billions of euros of French products, from airplanes to wind power systems, despite not formally joining the BRI. And the German city of Duisburg has become a key terminal for the Chinese initiative, with the arrival of dozens of trains every week that carry goods to be distributed throughout Europe thanks to the city’s central position and infrastructure connections. ... Other European countries, such as Portugal and Greece, have signed formal agreements with China regarding the New Silk Road. Italy is different because it has a much larger economy, and is a member of the G-7. Yet it shares the need to rebound from the economic collapse suffered in recent years during the Euro crisis. These have been aggravated by the neoliberal policies imposed by the European Commission and the European Central Bank, with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund. ...

Italy’s situation reflects a larger problem for the West. The neoliberal economic policies of the past 30 years have brought the outsourcing of well-paying jobs, and a reduction of the role of the state in both stimulating growth and guaranteeing the welfare state. This has weakened the middle class and widened inequalities. As this has happened, the West has lost economic and political weight, opening the door for new powers to expand. China has been the main beneficiary, considerably increasing its economic presence in areas such as Africa and Latin America, and now aiming to play a leading role in Europe as well. This shift worries U.S. government institutions seeking to bar China from such strategic sectors as telecommunications and to maintain close military-industrial cooperation with European allies.

Colorado lawmakers just passed a “red flag” law to take guns away from dangerous people

Colorado lawmakers just passed the state’s first “red flag law,” which would temporarily remove guns from people believed to be dangerous to themselves or others. The legislation now heads to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ desk for his signature. The law passed the newly Democrat-controlled Legislature 38-25 on Monday, with two Democrats voting against it. State Republicans killed the same bill last year.

Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., now have “red flag laws” on their books. Eight of those states passed their laws in the year since the Parkland massacre, which left 17 dead at a Florida high school in February 2018. ...

Under Colorado’s law, police or a concerned family member or household member can petition a court for a temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order. If the petitioner demonstrates that someone is at “significant risk” of harming themselves or others, law enforcement will seize that person’s firearms. The court has 14 days to schedule a hearing, after which they’ll decide whether to return the firearms or keep them for a year.

“The Status Quo is Not Sustainable”: How Medicare for All Would Fill Gaps in Obamacare Coverage

There's a critical shortage of guacamole in our near future:

US will run out of avocados in three weeks if Trump closes Mexico border

US consumers would run out of avocados in three weeks if Donald Trump makes good on his threat to close down the US–Mexico border.

Trump said on Friday that there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.

But a complete shutdown would disrupt millions of legal border crossings in addition to asylum seekers, as well as billions of dollars in trade, about $137bn of which is in food imports.

From the avocados on avocado toast, to the limes and tequila in margaritas, the US is heavily reliant on Mexican imports of fruit, vegetables and alcohol to meet consumer demand.

Nearly half of all imported US vegetables and 40% of imported fruit are grown in Mexico, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Keiser Report: Central Banks Are Failing, Will UBI Work?

Economic Update: Beyond Universal Basic Income

Dave Dayen has a good piece about Warren's antitrust proposal for Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Here's a piece of the intro:

How to Think About Breaking Up Big Tech

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan to break up tech giants Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple has given concentrated corporate power its most prominent political platform since the 1912 presidential election — and we’re still nearly a year away from the first round of primary voting. This tracks with the rising awareness of the corrosiveness of monopoly power generally and those tech giants specifically.

Whether such policy boldness means anything in a brand-obsessed political landscape will be determined when ballots are cast. But it is undeniably driving a policy discussion that the next Democratic presidential nominee, no matter who it is, will likely take up. In that context, the debate over Warren’s plan is critical, as it prefigures the trajectory of each and every challenge to corporate dominance.

First, many critiques will come from those with a direct stake in the outcome — in this case, Big Tech-funded individuals or organizations, which are so ubiquitous as to create an echo chamber. Second, the critiques will highlight the “radical” nature of the changes, setting them at odds with American history, even though Warren’s central proposal — to structurally separate business lines in an effort to eliminate anti-competitive conduct and foster competition — has a century-old pedigree. And third, we’ll be assured that the cure is worse than the disease, that Warren’s ideas would destroy everything from online shopping to the smartphone, a perspective that relies on deliberate misinterpretation.

This roadmap for discrediting policy solutions that confront power should be easy enough to spot by now, and will be employed long into the future.

---

---

Tulsi Takes On Monsanto & Religious Bigotry

Sanders Holds Double-Digit Lead Over 2020 Rivals Among Young Democratic Voters: Poll

A new national poll of young Democratic voters released Monday shows Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the crowded 2020 field with a double-digit lead over the second most popular candidate, Joe Biden.

According to the survey by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Harvard Kennedy School, the U.S. senator from Vermont is preferred by 31 percent of likely Democratic primary voters between the ages of 18 and 29 years old.

While Biden came in second place with 20 percent and Beto O'Rourke of Texas nabbed the third spot with 10 percent, none of the other candidates garnered more than single digits in the poll.

Bernie is killing Kamala and Mayor Pete in fundraising

Bernie Sanders leads the pack of 2020 candidates in first-quarter fundraising. In the 41 days since he announced his (second) bid for the White House, the Vermont senator has pulled in $18.2 million, his campaign announced Tuesday.

That puts him ahead of the two other 2020 contenders who've announced their hauls for first-quarter fundraising, which ended Sunday night: California Sen. Kamala Harris ($12 million) and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana ($7 million).

Sanders’ campaign highlighted that the vast majority of his donations came from small-dollar donors — from teachers, more than any other occupation. He received just short of 900,000 individual donations, with 99.5 percent of them at $100 or less. The average campaign donation to Sanders is $20. At this point, his campaign also has a lot more momentum than it did at the same point in 2016. It took 146 days to reach 900,000 individual donations back then. ...

Sanders also did well early in the crowded field of 2020 candidates. He raised $5.9 million during his campaign’s first 24 hours, behind only Beto O’Rourke, who raised $6.1 million the first day and has yet to announce his first-quarter fundraising numbers.

---

---

Slow moving justice catching up with sleazy neoliberal jackass Rick Snyder:

Citing 'Conscience Shocking' Conduct, Federal Judge Reinstates Former Gov. Snyder in Flint Water Lawsuit

A federal judge on Monday—who agreed that allegations of "conscience shocking" conduct claimed by plaintiffs were "plausible"—reinstated Michigan's former Governor Rick Snyder as a defendant in a class action lawsuit by the victims of the water crisis in the city of Flint that first captured national headlines in 2014.

After earlier removing Snyder from the suit, brought by city residents harmed by the poisoning of the municipal water supply, U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy reversed that decision as she noted the plaintiffs had shown the allegations against Snyder and his fellow co-defendants "plausibly describe 'conscience shocking' conduct" as the people of Flint were stripped of 14th Amendment protections from bodily harm or injury.

The plaintiffs in the suit, Levy wrote in her ruling,

plausibly state that the Governor acted indifferently to the risk of harm they faced, demonstrating a callous disregard for their right to bodily integrity. This indifference manifested itself in two ways. Initially, the Governor was indifferent because instead of mitigating the risk of harm caused by the contaminated water, he covered it up. In private, he worried about the need to return Flint to DWSD water and the political implications of the crisis. But in public, he denied all knowledge, despite being aware of the developing crisis."

As a result, plaintiffs were lured into a false sense of security. They could have taken protective measures, if only they had known what the Governor knew. Instead, the Governor misled them into assuming that nothing was wrong. Governor Snyder's administration even encouraged them to continue to drink and bathe in the water.

The legal team representing the plaintiffs welcome the judge's determination.

...

According to a statement from the plaintiff's legal team, the complaint submitted to the court alleged that Snyder and his staff were aware of the health risks associated with the city's transition to Flint River water, including the risk of Legionnaires' disease, for months before an official announcement was made and that they concealed this information from the public. Overall, the lawsuit charges that officials from the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, Genesee County, and two private engineering firms created the public health crisis and did so while making calculated decisions that "deliberately exposed" residents of Flint to the harmful health effects of lead and other toxins.

Insects have ‘no place to hide’ from climate change, study warns

Insects have “no place to hide” from climate change, scientists have said after analysing 50 years’ worth of UK data. The study found that woodlands, whose shade was expected to protect species from warming temperatures, are just as affected by climate change as open grasslands.

The research examined records of the first springtime flights of butterflies, moths and aphids and the first eggs of birds between 1965 and 2012. As average temperatures have risen, aphids are now emerging a month earlier, and birds are laying eggs a week earlier. The scientists said this could mean animals were becoming “out of sync” with their prey, with potentially serious ramifications for ecosystems.

Researchers are increasingly concerned about dramatic drops in populations of insects, which underpin much of nature. In February it was said that these falls could lead to a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, and in March there was further evidence of widespread loss of pollinating insects in recent decades in Britain. Other studies, from Germany and Puerto Rico, have shown falling numbers in the last 25 to 35 years. Another showed butterflies in the Netherlands had declined by at least 84% over the last 130 years.

James Bell, at Rothamsted Research institute, who led the woodlands research, said: “Under global warming you would expect woodlands to have some protection for insects, a buffer against change. But we didn’t see that. It is the major surprise and is disturbing. There is really no place to hide against the effects of global warming if you are an insect in the UK.”

Another surprise was that insects and birds living in farmland are emerging later in the spring, not earlier as expected. “We can only assume this is to do with other, non-climate factors,” Bell said. The loss of wild areas and changing crop types could be among the factors, he said, along with declining food availability leading to delayed breeding.

‘It’s no longer free to pollute’: Canada imposes carbon tax on four provinces

Canada has imposed a landmark carbon tax on four provinces which had defied Ottawa’s push to combat climate change, prompting unhappy premiers to say they would challenge the measure. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, citing international commitments to fight global warming, had made clear for two years he would slap the tax on any of the 10 provinces that did not come up with their own plans by 1 April.

The measure is opposed by Ontario, the most populous province, where Trudeau’s Liberals need to do well to stand a chance of retaining power in a federal election this October.

Carbon pollution will initially cost C$20 ($15) a tonne, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022. It also applies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. “As of today, it’s no longer free to pollute anywhere in Canada,” the environment minister, Catherine McKenna, said on Twitter. “Climate change is real ... some politicians may not care much, but our kids and our grandkids do.“

Ontario premier Doug Ford vowed to oppose what he called “the worst tax ever” in court. “We’re going to keep fighting this carbon tax with every single tool at our disposal,” he said in a filmed statement.

---

Also of Interest

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

Chelsea Manning Again Takes Fall for Defending Public’s Right to Know

Taibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won

NATO Is Not Dying. It’s a Zombie.

The Newest AI-Enabled Weapon: ‘Deep-Faking’ Photos of the Earth

The Liberal Betrayal of America’s Most Vulnerable

All About Pete

Found: fossil 'mother lode' created by asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs

---

A Little Night Music

Curtis Jones - Cool Playing Blues

Curtis Jones - Tour Blues

Curtis Jones - Reefer hound blues

Curtis Jones - Wrong Blues

Curtis Jones - Rolling The Blues

Curtis Jones - Black Gypsy Blues

Curtis Jones - Curtis Jones' Boogie Woogie

Curtis Jones - Down In The Slums

Curtis Jones - You Don't Have To Go

Curtis Jones - Good Time Special

---