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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Roy Brown

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues shouter Roy Brown. Enjoy!

^{Roy Brown And His Mighty Mighty Men - Hurry Hurry Baby}

“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.”

-- Ambrose Bierce

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News and Opinion

Pentagon Pushed for Weakened Regulations on Toxic Chemicals, Endangering Drinking Water of Millions of Americans

Lobbying from the Pentagon is to blame for the Trump administration's latest environmental regulatory rollback, according to reports. The EPA on Thursday released weakened guidelines for the clean-up of toxic groundwater pollution which could contaminate the drinking water millions of Americans use—after the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) called on the White House to intervene and have an earlier draft of the rules changed.

"It's darkly ironic that on the five-year anniversary of the Flint water crisis, instead of taking action to improve our drinking water, Trump's EPA doubled down on its commitment to gut water protections," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, in a statement. "Despite the agency's ongoing spin to the contrary, it seems hell-bent on giving industrial and military polluters a pass despite the clear and present danger these chemicals represent for our health."

The guidelines apply to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used heavily by the Pentagon in foams for fighting fires at military bases, as well as by companies that use them in a number of household products. The Pentagon has pushed in recent weeks to make sure it won't have to quickly remove potential contamination from hundreds of sites across the country, citing costs. The department recently proposed a $750 billion budget.

The new rules will allow military bases to take years to clean up PFAS contamination, eliminating from the draft a section that had called for the prompt removal of "immediate threats posed by hazardous waste sites."

The original proposal also included a rule that a PFAS level of 400 parts per trillion in groundwater would require immediate removal of the threat by excavating the polluted soil or fencing off the affected area. That recommendation was erased from the new draft. The new guidelines call for longer-term clean-up efforts when drinking water has been contaminated with at least 70 parts per trillion of PFAS—a threshold that scientists and federal regulators have acknowledged is "far too high to protect public health," according to Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Senate to take up Trump's Yemen veto next week

The Senate is set to take up President Trump's veto of legislation cutting off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen next week, though any override attempt is expected to fall short.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office said Thursday that the chamber would "process the president’s veto message on the Yemen resolution by the end of the week." ...

Aside from a straight vote on overriding the resolution, there are several procedural tactics Republicans could use to try to deal with Trump's veto message.

For example, senators could try to send the resolution to committee or table it, according to the Congressional Research Service, effectively pigeonholing the veto message and squashing an override attempt.

Yemen death toll to surpass 230,000 by end of 2019: UN report

By the end of 2019, fighting in Yemen will have claimed about 102,000 lives, according to new figures from the United Nations that indicate the war has killed far more people than previously reported.

A UN-commissioned report by University of Denver also revealed that more Yemenis were dying of hunger, disease and the lack of health clinics and other infrastructure than from fighting. About 131,000 Yemenis will have died from these side effects of the conflict between the beginning in 2015 and the end of 2019, according to the 68-page study, called Assessing the Impact of War on Development in Yemen.

The combined death toll from fighting and disease is 233,000, or 0.8 percent of Yemen's 30 million-strong population. Researchers also said that those five years of conflict will have cost Yemen’s economy $89bn.

For NYT, Israel Is Always Nearing ‘Apartheid,’ but Never Quite Gets There

Following Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election as Israeli prime minister earlier this month, the New York Times’ editorial board (4/11/19) wrote:

Under Mr. Netanyahu, Israel is on a trajectory to become what critics say will be an apartheid state like the former South Africa—a country in which Palestinians will eventually be a majority, but without the rights of citizens.

A harsh criticism? Actually, the paper has been saying that Israel/Palestine could “become” an apartheid state for the better part of two decades. It ran a piece in 2003 (1/29/03) arguing that

if Israel does not give up the territories, it will face a choice: relinquish either democracy or the ideal of a Jewish state. Granting Palestinians in the territories the right to vote would turn Israel into an Arab state with a Jewish minority. Not allowing them to vote would result in a form of permanent apartheid.

For almost 20 years, the paper has suggested that Israel/Palestine risks devolving into an apartheid state if it continues to rule over Palestinians in the territories—Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem—who cannot choose their rulers. This population includes approximately 4.75 million occupied Palestinians—320,000 in East Jerusalem, 2.8 million in the rest of the West Bank and 1.8 million in besieged Gaza—to say nothing of the millions of Palestinian refugees who cannot return to their homes and participate in elections because the people who put on those elections won’t let them.

That situation has remained the same, not only for the period that the Times has been publishing material saying the arrangement might someday add up to apartheid, but since 1967. Yet the Times persists in characterizing Israeli apartheid as a hypothetical future development. The paper acknowledges that governing millions of Palestinians but denying them the vote is a form of apartheid, so there’s no justification for saying, after nearly 52 years of such disenfranchisement, that that will eventually constitute apartheid, but for some unspecified reason doesn’t yet at this point.

US agrees with Russia, China on pulling troops from Afghanistan

The United States on Friday agreed with rivals Russia on China on a goal of withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan, a key component of a peace deal being negotiated by Washington. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy negotiating with the Taliban, met with Russian and Chinese representatives in Moscow as he seeks international consensus for his efforts to end the war.

A joint statement by the three countries called for an "inclusive Afghan-led" peace process and outlined many of the key points expected to feature in an eventual deal. "The three sides call for an orderly and responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan as part of the overall peace process," said the statement issued by the US State Department.

They also said that the Taliban have made a "commitment" to fight the extremist Islamic State group and sever ties to Al-Qaeda. The Taliban have promised to "ensure the areas they control will not be used to threaten any other country," the statement said, calling on them to prevent any "terrorist recruiting, training and fund-raising."

No wind-down for China on stopping its Iran oil buys: Trump officials

Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China’s oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington surprised Iran’s customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or face sanctions. ...

“We understand they don’t like this,” the official said about China’s aversion to sanctions on Iran from the United States alone. “But at same time they tend to act pragmatically and they are going to take what the best most reliable deal is.”

After the Trump administration announced on Monday its intent to sink Iran’s oil exports to zero, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards repeated a threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe and North America. ...

If China does not cut Iran oil purchases to zero, the Trump administration may have to make a decision on blocking Chinese banks from the U.S. financial system. That could have unintended consequences for finance and business between the world’s two biggest economies, already in negotiations over trade disagreements.

“It could,” one official conceded about the potential for unintended consequences, “but that’s why China’s decision is easy, it’s not a difficult decision for them mathematically. They do business with the U.S. which is critical, they do business with Iran which is not critical.”

Press Freedom Is Dying

Labour hints at backing Brexit deal without promise of referendum

Labour is prepared to sign up to a Brexit deal with the government without the promise of a referendum attached if cross-party talks make significant progress in the coming days, one of the party’s negotiators has said. With talks set to resume on Monday, Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, made clear that if Labour’s Brexit demands were met, she would not expect the party to insist it be put to a public vote. ...

Her intervention came ahead of what is widely expected to be a combative meeting of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) on Tuesday, to sign off its manifesto for the European parliamentary elections. Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, who sits on the NEC, made clear on Sunday that he will use the meeting to push for a confirmatory vote on any Brexit deal to be included in the manifesto – even urging Labour supporters on Twitter to lobby potential waverers.

He received unlikely support from Jon Lansman, the founder of the Corbyn-backing campaign group Momentum, who replied: “At conference we agreed: ‘If the Govt is confident in negotiating a deal that working people, our economy & communities will benefit from they should not be afraid to put that deal to the public.’ So surely we too can all agree to a confirmatory vote on any govt deal in our manifesto!”

Spain general election: 'Sanchez will need deal with Basque or Catalan nationalists'

Spanish election: socialists win amid far-right gains

Spain’s ruling socialists won the most votes but fell short of a majority in Sunday’s snap general election, a contest marked by the breakthrough of the far-right Vox party and a disastrous performance by the country’s traditional conservative party.

Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) won 123 seats, the conservative People’s party (PP) 66, the centre-right Citizens party 57, the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos and its allies 42, and Vox 24. Despite it being the country’s third general election in under four years, turnout was 75.8% – well up on the 66.5% two years ago.

Sánchez hailed the result and the high turnout as proof of Spain’s desire to move forward and reject the reactionary policies of some of his rightwing opponents. ...

However, the PSOE will still need to seek the support of other parties to reach the 176 seats necessary to form a government in Spain’s 350-seat congress of deputies. Even with the support of Unidas Podemos and related groups, it would still be 11 seats short of a majority and would need the help of smaller regional and nationalist parties.

Turf war breaks between Bolsonaro's sons and Brazil's vice president

A turf war has broken out at the pinnacle of Brazilian politics, pitting a presidential son nicknamed ‘pitbull’ and a Steve Bannon-backed polemicist against a group of retired military chiefs led by Brazil’s vice-president, Hamilton Mourao. The animosity between the two factions was exposed last week after Carlos Bolsonaro – son of the incumbent far-right president Jair Bolsonaro – repeatedly bashed Mourao on Twitter for urging the US-based Olavo de Carvalho to stop meddling in Brazilian politics and return to his former career as an astrologer.

The two factions have emerged after Bolsonaro’s January inauguration, with the hard-right ideologues including the presidential family, Carvalho, the foreign and education ministers on one side and retired generals joined by Mourao on the other. The latter has become an unexpected voice of moderation in the face of Bolsonaro’s chaotic opening act. ...

Brian Winter, a Brazil expert who met Carvalho last year at his rural Virginia home, said the spat did reflect a Bolsonarian propensity to “flame-throw” foes on social media but at the same time, it was “more than just a Twitter food fight”. It actually revealed a ferocious ideological battle raging between the two factions – with potentially momentous ramifications for Brazil and Bolsonaro’s presidency. ... What’s at stake in this power struggle is key foreign policies, foremost among them Brazil’s relations with the world’s top two economies.

“A core tenet of ‘Olavismo’ is that China is a communist, globalist menace. ‘Olavistas’ – with support from Bannon – say China is the defining threat of the 21st century and that Brazil needs to join a ‘Judeo-Christian Alliance’ of countries who can confront it,” Winter said. The military faction was aghast at the idea of picking “a mostly pointless fight” with Brazil’s top trade partner.

Olavistas also supported an “almost unconditional alignment with Washington, and specifically Trump, who they adore” – while Mourao’s camp was suspicious of such warm ties. Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, has hailed Carvalho as “one of the great conservative intellectuals in the world”.

US news host Maddow slams YouTube for recommending RT interview

Barr threatens to skip House hearing on Mueller report over format dispute

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has informed the powerful House of Representatives judiciary committee that attorney general William Barr may not attend a Thursday hearing to review special counsel Robert Mueller’s report of the Trump-Russia investigation. Barr has expressed objections over the panel’s questioning format, according to a senior Democratic committee aide.

The department has balked at the panel’s plans to allow committee counsels from both sides to question Barr after the traditional round of questioning by members of Congress who sit on the committee, which is currently chaired by the Democrats because they control the House. ustice officials also told the committee they opposed committee chairman Jerry Nadler’s plan to go into closed session if members want to discuss redacted portions of Mueller’s report. That’s also according to the aide, who requested anonymity to discuss the confidential communications with the justice department.

Barr is scheduled to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, which is chaired by the Republicans, the party in control of the Senate, and to the House panel on Thursday.

From LBJ to Robert Moses: Robert Caro on Writing About Political Power & Its Impact on the Powerless

Gallup Polls Show America Is Dangerously Moving in the Wrong Direction

The Gallup polling organization was out with another new study yesterday that shows America is dangerously heading in the wrong direction. Gallup’s latest poll found that Americans were more likely to be stressed and worried than much of the world. The 55 percent of Americans who said they had experienced stress the prior day was one of the highest rates out of the 143 countries studied. The global average was 35 percent.

With a 55 percent stress rate, the U.S. now ranks even with Albania, Iran and Sri Lanka. Only Greece, the Philippines and Tanzania rank higher at 59, 58 and 57 percent respectively.

The highest stress levels were reported among Americans aged 30 to 49, where 65 percent reported experiencing stress the prior day. The figure was just one percent lower for Americans aged 15 to 29, where 64 percent reported experiencing stress the prior day.

The new Gallup poll also measured worry and anger. Nearly half of Americans (45 percent) indicated that they felt worried a lot while 22 percent said they felt anger a lot. All three measurements (stress, worry and anger) had increased measurably since the prior poll. (See the full report here.)

Our Enemies Are the Same People: San Diego Synagogue Shooter Inspired by New Zealand Anti-Muslim Massacre

Two weeks before a man walked into a Poway, California, synagogue and shot four people, killing one, an arsonist tried to burn down a nearby mosque. The same man likely committed both crimes. In a 4,000-word manifesto reportedly posted online by the synagogue shooter, a 19-year old San Diego man named John Earnest who was taken into custody on suspicion of committing the synagogue killing, claimed responsibility for the mosque arson in the nearby town of Escondido. He had done the arson in honor, he said, of the mass murderer who had recently killed 50 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. “I scorched a mosque in Escondido with gasoline a week after Brenton Tarrant’s sacrifice and they never found shit on me,” he wrote in his manifesto.

The connection between these two crimes screams at us to pay attention.

In the past six months there have been three mass shootings at houses of worship in Western countries — two targeting Jews and one targeting Muslims. In each case the ideology has been the same. The shooters were driven not just by white supremacy, but by a bigoted conspiracy claiming whites are being demographically “replaced” by ethnic minorities. Earnest’s manifesto is a stomach-churning blend of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, with justifications for violence liberally mixed in. He leaves no ambiguity about who inspired him. “Tarrant was a catalyst for me personally,” he wrote, referring to the New Zealand mosque shooter who left behind a similar manifesto. “He showed me that it could be done.”

For the past several decades, Jews and Muslims living in the West have had the relative luxury of being able to fight with each other over foreign policy to the near exclusion of any other issue. Those were the halcyon days. Little did we realize that, while we clashed, the ground was slowly giving way under our feet. As my colleague Mehdi Hasan and British journalist Jonathan Freedland have written, both minority groups are today threatened by the emergence of far-right movements utterly hostile to diversity. If these movements reach critical mass, the outcome of old debates will be moot. History has already shown us where this road leads. ...

The horrible shooting of Jewish worshippers at synagogue on the last day of Passover reminded me of the pain I felt following recent far-right massacres of Muslim worshippers at mosques in Quebec City and New Zealand. The choice of targets in each case was different, but the ultimate goals were the same. The fact is that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the West flow from one source: the quest for ethnic purity. Those who accept one bigotry while thinking they will be safe from the other are living a delusion.

US immigration officials looking at housing migrant children at Guantánamo Bay, report says

The United States is considering housing migrant children at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay to help handle an up-tick in the number of immigrants crossing the US southern border, according to a new report. The idea was first proposed earlier this year as the Department of Homeland Security looked for military facilities where migrants could be held as they wait for their cases to be processed.

But, the proposal has not gained much traction so far, with officials telling the New York Times that the idea has been less ideal because of the optics involved with housing children right next to terrorism suspects in the notorious American prison.

The US is looking for military facilities to help hold asylum seekers and migrants as it faces a surge in the number of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border and seeking help.

The New York Times reports that there are no “immediate” plans to actually bring children to Guantanamo Bay, and that the base has only been brought up as a potential housing location because it has dormitory facilities that have been used for asylum seekers in the past.

US builds migrant tent city in Texas as Trump likens treatment to 'Disneyland'

The US government has begun erecting tents close to the border with Mexico to house detained migrants – even as Donald Trump likened the treatment of undocumented families entering the US to “Disneyland” on Sunday. Life at the foothills of the Franklin mountains in El Paso, Texas, has been rudely disrupted in the last few days by construction crews coming and going near the adjacent border patrol station.

The main frames of two large tents popped up last week. They are expected to hold up to 500 migrants amid a level of chaos at the border that has unfolded under the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Construction crews are now working to prepare the interior of the shelter, which is expected to be operational by 1 May, even as the president downplayed conditions in which migrants are held and appeared once again to support the separation of families crossing the border.

He told the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures: “When they used to separate children, which was done during the Obama administration, with Bush, with us, with everybody, far fewer people would come, and we’ve been on a humane basis, it’s pretty bad” He added to the host, Maria Bartiromo: “We go out and we stop the separation. The problem is you have 10 times more people coming up with their families, it’s like Disneyland now.”

ICE’s Attempt to Deport a Critic Was “Outrageous” and “Egregious,” Appeals Court Rules

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted last year to deport Ravi Ragbir, an outspoken critic of the agency, it was motivated by a desire to retaliate against his criticism, according to a ruling by a panel of judges with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals released yesterday. “Ragbir’s public expression of his criticism, and its prominence, played a significant role in the recent attempts to remove him,” the ruling says. “The government’s retaliation was egregious.”

The ruling, written by Judge Christopher Droney, constitutes a direct challenge to broad executive power over immigration issues. In the case, the administration contends that people facing deportation are not entitled to make constitutional claims. The 2nd Circuit’s rebuke of that position now sets up a potential Supreme Court showdown over whether Congress or the executive can prevent the courts from hearing such claims.

Stanton Jones, one of the lawyers representing Ragbir, called yesterday’s ruling an important affirmation that the government cannot silence its critics through exile. “It should outrage every American that our government would attempt to stifle important political dissent and advocacy for civil rights by deporting the government’s most prominent critics,” Jones said. “That is the type of behavior that we might expect from an autocratic foreign regime, but it’s not behavior that any of us should expect or accept from our government.” ...

The 2nd Circuit’s decision reverses the lower court’s ruling in the Ragbir case based on the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. ... The ruling acknowledged that a section of the 1996 law was expressly intended to prevent courts from considering the constitutional claims of people facing deportation, but held that that intent is itself unconstitutional, running afoul of the ancient and fundamental principle of habeas corpus, because people must have some judicial recourse when the government’s conduct is outrageous.

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With any luck the lame-assed morons of the DCCC through their ignorant hatred of all things progressive will wind up creating an industry completely outside of any control of the Democrat establishment that is dedicated to primarying their conservadem candidates.

DCCC Defense of Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Democrat Sparks Pushback

Progressive groups are coming to the aid of Marie Newman after at least four consultants dropped her campaign under pressure from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new policy to cut off vendors working with primary challengers.

Politico reported Friday morning that a consultant had dropped Newman’s campaign as recently as Wednesday. She’s taking a second shot at unseating incumbent Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s 3rd District after she came within 2.2 points of beating him in a 2018 primary. Democracy for America, or DFA, is endorsing Newman and both DFA and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee will fundraise for her, a spokesperson for the group told The Intercept. Politico reported that the DCCC was clear with the consultants that if they continued working against Lipinski, their future business with the party would suffer.

The DCCC policy, critics say, will have the effect of protecting white male incumbents defending seats against challengers in an increasingly diverse party. That’s the case with Lipinski, who inherited the seat from his father in 2005 and has retrograde views when it comes to much of the Democratic agenda, including his opposition to marriage equality and abortion rights. He voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the signature legislation House Democratic leaders are trying to save in their campaign against Medicare for All. While some House Democrats have strongly objected to the DCCC policy, others, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, support it. The DCCC says the policy doesn’t discourage primary challengers and that anyone who wants to run for office can do so without them. The DCCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The DCCC would rather stand with a so-called Democrat who has stood against reproductive, immigrant, and LGBT rights and a $15 minimum wage rather than allow a fair competition and choice for voters,” said Alexandra Rojas, head of Justice Democrats. “The Democratic Party leadership is choosing machine politics over ushering in a new generation of leaders and the fundamental idea of democracy. Dan Lipinski needs to go and Marie came within 1,600 votes of defeating him with progressive support in 2018. We look forward to Marie finishing the job, but have not made a formal endorsement at this time.”

New Election Ordered After Ca. Dems Caught Cheating Progressives

What Joe Biden’s (Non-)Apology to Anita Hill Reveals About Him

Joe Biden did not apologize to Anita Hill. When the former vice president arranged a phone call with Hill a few weeks in advance of announcing his presidential bid, the political calculus could not have been more transparent. Biden has had 28 years to apologize to Hill for the foul treatment she received in Senate Judiciary Committee hearings chaired by then-Sen. Biden. Hill had come to the Capitol to testify about her sexual harassment accusations against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ;— a hearing where, with Biden presiding, the young woman was eviscerated by a panel of 14 male senators.

When Biden did finally call — a blatant and ill-conceived attempt at damage control in the lead up to his announcement — it was not an apology he offered. According to his own campaign, Biden “shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country.” Hill’s response to Biden, offered in an interview with the New York Times, recognized how his gesture was insufficient. And she was still more gracious than Biden deserves. “I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you,’” said Hill, a professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. “I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose.”

Biden’s non-apology is yet further evidence that the Third Way Democrat has no intention of addressing the sort of power structures that enable patriarchal sexual abuse to prevail.

In recent years, as questions of sexual predation and violence have risen to the political fore, Biden consistently framed himself as a victim of circumstance when it came to the Thomas hearings. He has made a point of playing up his passive role during Hill’s testimony. “I wish I could’ve done something,” he told the audience at his foundation’s awards ceremony last month. “To this day, I regret I couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved.” He’s made comments along these lines numerous times. As chair of the Judiciary Committee, Biden could well have “done something” in 1991 as his colleagues verbally battered and humiliated Hill. He oversaw a rushed process, against the wishes of a number of female colleagues at the time. He allowed a panel of 14 white men to bully and demean a young black woman. Biden himself appeared consistently more sympathetic to Thomas, whom he allowed to testify twice, while his accuser testified only once. ...

Hill told the Times that Biden “set the stage” for the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “He needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw,” Hill said. “And not just women. There are women and men now who have just really lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence.”

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Spanish Socialists Running for Re-election Sunday on a “Green New Deal de España”

The idea of a Green New Deal first sprouted in the U.S. — which is only fair, since we did the first New Deal, after all. Depending on the results of this weekend’s elections, though, Spain might be the first country to actually put one into place.

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE, took over at the national level last summer following a corruption scandal that hobbled longtime Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his right-wing Popular Party, the PP. PSOE struck a tenuous bargain with the country’s regional nationalist parties, allowing party leader Pedro Sánchez to become prime minister. That agreement fell apart over budget negotiations earlier this spring, forcing Sánchez to call for a snap election that will take place on Sunday. PSOE is ahead in the polls and could potentially form a government with the left populist party Podemos, formed in 2014 out of Spain’s Occupy Wall Street-esque 15-M movement. Should PSOE remain in power, Spain — Europe’s fifth-largest economy — could become a testing ground for rolling out a Green New Deal nationwide.

Sánchez came out in support of the U.S. Green New Deal — sometimes translated as “El New Deal Verde” or “El Green New Deal de España” — in January and has campaigned on it throughout the election. Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, told me by phone earlier this month that a Green New Deal “accepts that we are in an emergency moment where we need to transform,” calling it an “opportunity to update our economy and our industry.” She sees it, too, as an opportunity to draw vital connections between income and wealth inequality and the degradation of the environment, “transforming that into a positive agenda.”

With the economy now on a stronger footing, PSOE hopes that this time can be different, especially on climate. They’ve already made some inroads. Soon after taking office last June, Ribera moved to repeal the “sun tax” — an anti-solar levy put in place by the PP that stymied renewables development — and pledged to bring more renewables online. She worked as well with trade unions to set up a just transition for coal workers, as Spain shudders its last mines. The crux of PSOE’s climate plans is embodied in a sweeping new climate law the party proposed before this election was called, and which shares plenty in common with Green New Deal plans here in the U.S.: reducing emissions by 90 percent below 1990 levels by mid-century and generating all of the country’s power from renewables along the same timeline; 74 percent of power would come from renewables by 2030. The bill would ban fracking nationwide, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and government investments in fossil fuels, and phase out fossil-fueled vehicles, with the aim of banning the registration and sale of carbon-emitting vehicles by 2040. As outlined in the party’s recently released 110-point manifesto, the overall goal of Spain’s Green New Deal is an economy-wide mobilization involving participation from local communities, civil society, unions, and businesses, with an industrial policy that treats decarbonization as an engine of job creation. The manifesto further outlines building out sustainable public transit and a zero-waste strategy.

Colorado Dems Took On the Oil and Gas Industry. Now the Recalls are Starting.

After seizing unified control of the Colorado state government in November’s wave election, Democrats there did something unusual: They governed. For decades, the oil and gas industry has had a stranglehold on Colorado politics, but the newly empowered Democrats unveiled a sweeping bill to rein in fracking. The industry spent millions to stop it, but Democrats muscled it through, and it was signed by Gov. Jared Polis, an independently wealthy Democrat who ran in opposition to the industry.

Now the industry is fighting back by threatening to recall state Rep. Rochelle Galindo, who was elected last year and represents Weld County, the state’s top oil and gas producer. Galindo is the first openly gay person or woman of color to hold her seat. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office approved a recall petition against Galindo earlier this month, giving opponents until June 3 to collect 25 percent of the total votes cast in her election, which would mean 5,696 signatures.

Recall efforts have also been launched against Polis, Rep. Meg Froelich and Sen. Jeff Bridges, but no official petitions have been approved. According to state law, a governor must be in office for at least six months before a recall can be petitioned. Polis opponents would have to obtain 630,000 signatures in 60 days to get a recall election on the next ballot, and the signatures can’t be collected until July. It isn’t an empty threat, either. The last time Colorado Democrats held a trifecta of control, two Democratic lawmakers were successfully voted out of office in the state’s first-ever recall elections. Former Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron were ousted in an NRA-led effort for their support of tougher gun laws following the Sandy Hook and Aurora mass shootings. Those recalls have haunted Colorado politics since. ...

A single Weld County rancher, Steve Wells, is bankrolling the effort to push Galindo out of office. Wells, whose property has hundreds of oil and gas wells, has donated $100,000 to the Committee to Recall Rochelle Galindo through his company, according to filings with the Secretary of State’s office. There was initially another recall effort against the freshman representative that has now been disbanded, pushed by Joe Neville, brother of Senate Minority Leader Patrick Neville; Weld County pastor Steven Grant, who called Galindo a “homosexual pervert”; and gun rights lobbyist Dudley Brown.

The Declare a 'Climate Emergency' Movement Grows as Scotland Joins

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first world leader to declare a "climate emergency" on Sunday.

The Scottish leader told delegates to a party conference in Edinburgh she was inspired after meeting young climate activists. Ms. Sturgeon said: "A few weeks ago, I met some of the young climate change campaigners who've gone on strike from school to raise awareness of their cause. They want governments around the world to declare a climate emergency. They say that's what the science tells us. And they are right. So today, as first minister of Scotland, I am declaring that there is a climate emergency. And Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it."

The Scottish first minister said she was declaring the emergency because the science showed global warming was worsening. Scotland’s Green Party has recently criticized Sturgeon’s government for moving too slowly on climate change.

Also, this weekend, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a bid to declare a climate emergency in the United Kingdom. Members of Parliament will vote this Wednesday on whether to declare an environmental and climate emergency following mass protests over political inaction in addressing the crisis. Labour will force a Commons vote on the issue, one of the key demands of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement, whose activists took over London in recent weeks. Corbyn said he hoped other countries would follow if the UK Parliament became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency.

The Climate Emergency Movement has grown rapidly as more than 450 local governments have recently declared a climate emergency and committed to action to drive down emissions at emergency speed. A spreadsheet of all the local governments is available here. To learn more or to get involved, click here.

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Also of Interest

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

‘Revenge of the Kurds’: Erdogan’s Missteps Are Piling Up

Being Rupert Murdoch: How the Founder of Fox News Spreads His Brand of Destruction

Lies, Damn Lies, and Abortion

US farmers count cost of catastrophic 'bomb cyclone' in midwest

If we care about plastic waste, why won’t we stop drinking bottled water?

Bernie Sanders v the Democratic establishment: what the battle is really about

Comcast-Owned MSNBC in the Tank for Joe Biden’s Presidential Run

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A Little Night Music

Roy Brown - Bootleggin' Baby

Roy Brown - Crazy Crazy Women

Roy Brown - Queen Of Diamonds

Roy Brown - Good Looking and Foxy Too

Roy Brown - Diddy-Y-Diddy-O

Roy Brown And His Mighty Mighty Men - Bar Room Blues

Roy Brown - Travelin' Man

Roy Brown - Butcher Pete

Roy Brown - Cadillac Baby

Roy Brown & Mamie Dell - Oh So Wonderful

Roy Brown - Roy Brown Boogie

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