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“Years from now we might be saying it's hyperbolic to compare someone to Donald Trump, because we will be quite sure no one is that cruel.”

-- Thor Benson

News and Opinion

Worth a full read:

History Has Taught Us That Concentration Camps Should Be Liberated. We Can’t Wait Until 2020.

“Yes, we do have concentration camps,” began the stinging critique of the Trump administration’s immigration detention facilities. It was written earlier this week by the editorial board of the Salt Lake Tribune, in the reliably conservative state of Utah. Andrea Pitzer, author of the definitive book on the global history of concentration camps, agrees. So do people who were once forced to live in another era’s concentration camps. But amid the debate about what to call immigration detention facilities, few people have disputed the truly terrible conditions that exist within them. ... Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier was granted access to a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, and wrote in her report about it that “the conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities.” ...

Over the past year, seven children have died in U.S. immigration custody or shortly after being released. These deaths occurred after 10 years during which not a single child died. Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, told The Atlantic that the stench in some detention facilities is so horrible that it was hard for her to even have a focused conversation with the children. Babies didn’t have diapers. Young kids were forced to care for infants who they didn’t even know. Clothes were covered in snot and excrement. Baby bottles were used without being properly cleaned and sterilized. All of these conditions have created environments where sicknesses and diseases spread like wildfire. In one facility, lice spread from child to child, and when the children were forced to share “lice combs,” and one somehow got lost, dozens of kids were punished by having their bedding removed. They had to sleep on the cold concrete floor.

As many have pointed out, we need to remember exactly how and why the teenage diarist Anne Frank actually died. She was not gassed to death in a Nazi death camp. Instead, she died of neglect, malnutrition, and disease. It’s believed that she and her sister Margot contracted and died from typhus. In December 1944, a minor miracle occurred when Nanette Blitz, a lifelong childhood friend and classmate of Anne’s, was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp where the Frank sisters were being held. “She was no more than a skeleton by then,” Blitz recalled. “She was wrapped in a blanket; she couldn’t bear to wear her clothes anymore because they were crawling with lice.” Guess what? Lice are the primary carriers of typhus. That’s how the disease spread.

And right now, today, we have prison camps across the United States where the same thing is happening. ... For all the years that we’ve read and heard about concentration camps in other countries under other regimes, I don’t think many of us fully considered what we would do if such camps were built and operated in our nation, by our government, on our watch, on our dime. But that’s exactly where we are right now. ...

I always wondered how concentration camps lasted for so many years during the Holocaust, but now that we have our own, I see how. It’s a mix of fear, indifference, and lack of political will. We see the consequences of doing nothing, but it seems as though we’ve put all of our eggs into the basket of a far-off election. And I just don’t feel good about it.

Here’s the Real Reason Kids Are Being Kept in Filthy Border Patrol Holding Cells for Weeks

Reports of migrant children confined to dirty, crowded Border Patrol stations for weeks spurred Congress to pass a $4.5 billion emergency funding bill Thursday to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

The Trump administration has blamed a lack of funds to deprive children of everything from basic hygiene like toothbrushes and soap in Border Patrol stations to education and playtime at long-term shelters. But lawyers who regularly tour these facilities say money alone won’t fix the problem. The administration’s own policies are causing children to be held longer in overcrowded detention facilities, causing a backlog that leads to kids being warehoused in facilities that weren’t built to house them, such as the squalid holding cell at the Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas.

Under normal circumstances — and according to federal rules — it should take no more than 72 hours to get kids out of Border Patrol custody and into shelters under the purview of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. From there, ORR is supposed to reunite children with their sponsors as quickly as possible. That’s not happening. In November, the average length of stay in an ORR shelter was 90 days, according to a spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families, the agency that oversees ORR. By May, it had been cut down to 44 days.

Lawyers say the lengthier stays are the result of policies the Trump administration implemented last summer that significantly slowed down the reunification process. In June, ORR began requiring all adults who lived in a prospective sponsor’s home to submit fingerprints and other information to the agency. That information was shared with the Department of Homeland Security, which could use it to deport anyone in the country without authorization. ORR reversed part of the policy in December — from then on, only sponsors had to submit fingerprints, not every adult in the household. But the fingerprinting rule has continued to be a logistical hurdle for sponsors. According to the National Center for Youth Law, it can take weeks for ORR to process fingerprints, and some sponsors have been told that their fingerprints had “expired,” meaning they had to start the whole process again.

“What’s happening is that ORR is not releasing kids expeditiously,” Hope Frye, an immigration attorney who led the site visit to the Ursula Border Patrol facility in Texas last week, told VICE News.“There are all these kids stuck [in ORR shelters], so there aren’t enough beds. But if you promptly release these kids to sponsors — and all these kids have sponsors — you have plenty of shelter beds.”

"Problem solver" congressworm Josh Gottheimer needs a primary challenger. What a piece of work.

Josh Gottheimer Warned Democratic Leaders He Had Votes to Block Bill Mandating Better Conditions for Children in Detention

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, boxed in by the Senate and centrist Democrats in her caucus, caved to Republicans on an emergency border funding bill. The Senate bill was put on the floor after New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat and co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, told House leaders he had the votes to scuttle a House version that mandated improved conditions for detained migrant children. Gottheimer’s attempted power play was first reported by the Washington Post, and confirmed by The Intercept. ...

The House amendment would have taken away money from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and increased protections for children, among other oversight provisions. The Senate passed its version of the $4.6 billion emergency bill on Wednesday 84-8. A vote on the House version of the spending bill was beaten in the Senate 55-37, largely along party lines, with the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders missing the vote. The Senate’s vote meant House Democrats would have had to hold out to pressure the upper chamber to accept its version, while Gottheimer’s move sapped the House’s leverage. “The quote-unquote Problem Solvers Caucus, I think, threw us under the bus and undermined our position to actually be able to negotiate,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.

“Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” asked Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Wouldn’t they want to at least fight against contractors who run deplorable facilities? Kids are the only ones who could lose today.” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar joined Pocan in slamming the move, saying that a vote for Mitch McConnell’s border bill “is a vote to keep kids in cages and terrorize immigrant communities.”

When asked what Gottheimer’s objection to the House border bill was, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it came down to “not giving as much ICE money as the Senate did.”

If Elected in 2020, Bernie Sanders Vows First Executive Orders Will 'Reverse Every Single Thing President Trump Has Done to Demonize and Harm Immigrants'

In response to a new report detailing how children and young mothers are going hungry and often being given "inedible" food at federal detention centers in Texas, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday vowed to immediately move to reverse President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant policies if elected in 2020.

"This is a disgrace," wrote Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. "No child should go hungry in the United States of America. My first executive orders will be to reverse every single thing President Trump has done to demonize and harm immigrants."

This is a disgrace. No child should go hungry in the United States of America. My first executive orders will be to reverse every single thing President Trump has done to demonize and harm immigrants. https://t.co/jZDqUrSx1x

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 28, 2019

Bloomberg reported Friday that migrants detained at U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities in Texas are being fed "frozen sandwiches, cold burritos, and potato chips, and detained children and young mothers have complained of hunger to visiting attorneys."

Rafael Perez-Escamilla, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, told Bloomberg that the food provided at the facility is "appalling" and does not meet federal dietary guidelines.

Think The Photo Of Drowned Migrant Father And Child Will Change Something? Just Ask Europe.

The harrowing photograph of the body of 23-month-old Angie Valeria, face down beside her father in the Rio Grande, has jolted the world’s conscience over the plight of migrants crossing into the United States. But don’t count on that wave of sympathy translating into more humane policies on the U.S.’s southern border. For migrant activists in Europe, the photograph of the Salvadoran child and her father provokes a familiar horror — and a strong sense of déjà vu. Nearly four years ago, a similarly chilling image of another drowned child, a three-year-old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi, provided a flashpoint in Europe’s migration debate.

The devastating image of the dead child, washed up on a Turkish beach like a piece of driftwood on Sept. 2, 2015, triggered a wave of material support and new recruits for charities working to help migrants, mass demonstrations in solidarity, and created a compassionate public mood which drove European leaders to accept greater numbers of refugees. But nearly four years on, that mood has curdled. Across the continent, public attitudes to refugees have hardened, stoked by surging populist politicians, while groups that work to help migrants, once hailed as heroes, are increasingly vilified. European governments have taken a hardline, deterrent approach to border control, making the routes into Europe deadlier than ever, advocates say. ...

European governments failed to deliver on a coordinated humanitarian solution that would have seen migrants relocated from the major arrival points in Greece and Italy and distributed evenly throughout EU countries. A number of countries, notably Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic, refused to cooperate with the resettlement scheme, while most other EU countries fell significantly short of accepting the numbers of refugees they were assigned.

Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watch’s Europe division associate director, said the failure of that response fueled a growing sense of grievance and anxiety over the new arrivals — particularly in countries where people perceived they were shouldering more than their share of the burden — that was fueled by rising national populist movements like Germany’s AfD and Italy’s Lega. “European leaders so grossly mismanaged the surge in arrivals that it became incredibly chaotic and frightening for a lot of people around the bloc,” she said. That sense of grievance and anxiety over the new arrivals — particularly in countries like Germany and Italy where people perceived they were shouldering more than their share of the burden — has been stoked by xenophobic populist movements. Sunderland said the populists had played a major role in shifting public opinion in Europe against refugees, “grabbing control of the narrative and saying ‘this is an invasion, we can’t handle it’.”

Sea-Watch captain appears before court after bringing migrants to Lampedusa

'Saving Lives Is Not a Crime': Captain of Refugee Rescue Ship Arrested in Italy, Faces Up to 10 Years in Prison

The German captain of a ship that rescued 53 refugees at sea was arrested Saturday after she attempted to dock at Italy's Lampedusa port. Italy's far-right, anti-immigrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini accused 31-year-old Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete of attempting to "sink" a police boat while docking her vessel, which he described as "an act of war." As the Associated Press reported, Rackete could face up to ten years in prison if convicted.

Salvini's refusal to allow Rackete to dock resulted in a tense 16-day standoff in the Mediterranean, with Rackete urging the Italian government to allow her desperate passengers off the ship. "This is not a game, we're not playing. We need to get these people off this ship," said Chris Grodotzki, spokesman for the humanitarian organization Sea Watch, which operates the rescue ship. "We will not wait another night. We are prepared to disembark them ourselves if the authorities continue to neglect their responsibility."

Thirteen migrants were allowed off the ship for medical reasons on Thursday and Friday, and the remaining refugees were let off the vessel on Saturday. According to AP, the rescued migrants "hugged personnel of the German Sea-Watch charity who helped them during their 17 days at sea. Some kissed the ground after disembarking from Sea-Watch 3." France, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, and Portugal are expected to take in the refugees.

In a statement, Sea Watch chairman Johannes Bayer praised Rackete for doing "exactly the right thing."

"She upheld the law of the sea," Bayer said, "and brought people to safety." On social media, human rights advocates applauded Rackete and denounced the Italian government. "Saving lives is not a crime," tweeted Greenpeace, a sentiment that was widely echoed.

Ron Paul Talks Julian Assange, Trump, And Iran

In an astonishing turn, George Soros and Charles Koch team up to end US ‘forever war’ policy

Besides being billionaires and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common. They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government. Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its “forever war” and adopt an entirely new foreign policy.

In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. This is a radical notion in Washington, where every major think tank promotes some variant of neocon militarism or liberal interventionism. Soros and Koch are uniting to revive the fading vision of a peaceable United States. The street cred they bring from both ends of the political spectrum — along with the money they are providing — will make this new think tank an off-pitch voice for statesmanship amid a Washington chorus that promotes brinksmanship.

New Soros/Koch-Funded Think Tank Claims To Oppose US Forever War

If you were to have asked me what news reports I definitely did not expect to see when checking my news feed this morning, “Malignant plutocrats join hands across partisan divide to end America’s forever war” would probably have been among my first guesses. And yet, weirdly, here we are.

Hi Joshua,
I've got a bridge on sale. You seem very interested in buying such. Gimme a call.

— Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) June 30, 2019

Such skepticism is warranted. It is true that the Quincy Institute’s co-fouder Trita Parsi has been a vocal opponent of US imperialism towards Iran and elsewhere, but it is also true that the Kochs and Soros have both acted as toxic facilitators of US imperialism. The report claims that the new think tank seeks an end to America’s regime change agenda in Venezuela, for example, yet investigative journalist Greg Palast reports that the Koch brothers have been a major driving force behind that very agenda. The group claims to seek a de-escalation against Syria, yet investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley and alternative media outlet Mintpress News have documented extensive ties between George Soros and the various NGOs and narrative management operations which have been facilitating the agenda of toppling Syria’s government.

In 2014 journalist Mark Ames observed that Soros “funded many of the NGOs involved in ‘color revolutions’ including small donations to the same Ukraine NGOs that Omidyar backed. (Like Omidyar Network does today, Soros’ charity arms — Open Society and Renaissance Foundation — publicly preached transparency and good government in places like Russia during the Yeltsin years, while Soros’ financial arm speculated on Russian debt and participated in scandal-plagued auctions of state assets.)”

Charles Koch has been a major donor to the Iraq-raping think tank American Enterprise Institute, which has returned the favor by aggressively churning out narrative management on the public image of the Koch brothers. George Soros is a major funder of the NATO narrative management firm Atlantic Council, which has been a driving force behind the campaign manufacturing consent for escapations against Russia, something the Quincy Institute claims to oppose.

So if you’re interested in viewing world events through a lens that is untainted by corrupt narrative management, some skepticism of this new Quincy Institute is not just appropriate, but absolutely required.

The term “think tank” almost always refers to a group of academics hired by plutocrats to come up with reasons why it is very good and smart to do something very evil and stupid, and then to market those reasons at key points of influence. They are key tools of narrative management for the billionaire class, and the interests of the billionaire class are rarely in alignment with those of ordinary people. This is especially true when said billionaires are operating in a bipartisan manner.

Political Ploy by Mitch McConnell Blocks Attempt to Stop War With Iran

Senate Republicans narrowly defeated an amendment Friday that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to attack Iran without congressional approval. The 50-40 vote gave the measure a majority of votes cast, but due to parliamentary maneuvering by Senate leadership, it needed 60 votes to pass.

The measure was intended as a rebuke of Trump’s threats and escalatory policy toward Iran and drew four Republican votes. Trump has publicly threatened Iran with “obliteration” and said he doesn’t need congressional approval for military strikes on the country.

The measure was proposed by Sens. Tom Udall, D.-N.M. and Tim Kaine, D-Va., as an amendment to an annual defense funding bill. Udall stated that the bipartisan support for the amendment “sent a powerful and resounding message: Congress is not going to roll over for an unconstitutional war. President Trump and his advisors should heed this significant vote [and] change course from the saber-rattling and reckless escalation.” ...

McConnell was largely responsible for the amendment’s defeat. Democratic and Republican Senate aides told The Intercept that under McConnell’s direction, the Senate parliamentarian ruled the measure “not germane” to the substance of the bill, thus requiring it to get 60 votes to pass instead of a simple majority. ...

The effort to pass the amendment came amid longstanding concerns that the Trump administration has been trying to lay the legal ground for attacking Iran without congressional authorization, and that such an attack could escalate into a full-scale war before Congress weighed in.

Iraqi Militias Are Prepared to Fight the U.S. if It Starts a War with Iran

Hashem Al Mayahi didn’t always despise America. When the U.S. first invaded Iraq to rid the country of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he hoped regime change would usher in a brighter future. “I thought they’d turn Iraq into a paradise after they rid us of Saddam,” he recalled. But as Baghdad descended into violence and chaos, and American abuses rose to the surface, he began mobilizing his neighborhood against the occupation, first as part of the Mahdi army, an insurgency led by popular Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and later its splinter group, Asaib Ahl Al-Haq. Asaib grew and gained notoriety for targeting American troops, claiming responsibility for over 6,000 such attacks.

Now, with the U.S. and Iran in a standoff that’s threatening to spill into armed conflict in Iraq, he’s ready to do it again. In an exclusive interview with VICE News, Al Mayahi said Asaib was ready to hit U.S. targets in Iraq using the same insurgent tactics it deployed during the height of American occupation. “Ninety percent, there will be a war,” the 46-year-old told VICE News from his home in a Baghdad neighborhood. “When America attacks Iran, we will not be silent.”

Al Mayahi is a senior military commander of Asaib, which is now technically part of Iraq’s security apparatus after its contributions in the war against ISIS and operates under the prime minister’s command. But the militia and its sister groups maintain close ties with Tehran. And as relations between the U.S. and Iran continue to deteriorate, Asaib and militias like it could factor as major players in any conflict. ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that “Iran and its proxies” were planning imminent assaults on U.S. interests in Iraq and rushed to Baghdad to seek assurances of support. He also urged Baghdad to rein in Iranian-backed armed groups like Asaib. ... Such demands put Iraq’s government in a tricky position: It can’t afford to alienate the U.S., a key strategic partner, particularly in the defense and energy sector. But some officials in Baghdad chafe at Washington’s pressure campaign, which they say overlooks the domestic circumstances that gave rise to these groups and continue to galvanize their support base.

Trump tells Saudi crown prince he’s doing ‘a spectacular job’

US President Donald Trump on Saturday praised Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying he was doing a “spectacular job” as the pair met on the sidelines of the G20 summit. “You have done a spectacular job,” Trump told the powerful crown prince, referring to him as “a friend of mine.”

Trump ignored questions from the media about whether he would raise the journalist’s murder during his working breakfast with the prince.

Russia and Saudi Arabia agree to extend deal with Opec to curb oil output

Russia has agreed with Saudi Arabia to extend by six to nine months a deal with Opec on reducing oil output, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said, as oil prices come under renewed pressure from rising US supplies and a slowing global economy.

The Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Sunday that the deal would most likely be extended by nine months and no deeper reductions were needed.

Putin, speaking after talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, told a news conference the deal – which is due to expire on Sunday – would be extended in its current form and with the same volumes.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers, an alliance known as Opec+, meet on July 1-2 to discuss the deal, which involves curbing oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day.

Russia & China’s trade in national currencies may increase fivefold

The Pentagon says, "Everybody poop your pants! Russians!"

Pentagon white paper says US underestimating Russia's aggression

A Pentagon white paper says the U.S. is underestimating the scope of Russia's aggression. ...

Prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the Pentagon and independent strategists, the paper details Russian efforts to undermine democracies. The study points to Russia's use of propaganda and disinformation to sway public opinion across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

It also highlights the danger of alignment between Russia and China, both of which fear the United States' international alliances and share an affinity for "authoritarian stability."

The study recommends the State Department spearhead "influence operations," including sowing divisions between Moscow and Beijing.

Trump Makes History by Walking into North Korea. Could This Help to Finally End the Korean War?

Donald Trump invites Kim Jong-un to US after entering North Korea

Donald Trump has invited Kim Jong-un to the US after becoming the first sitting American president to enter North Korea. The apparently impromptu meeting came about after Trump tweeted an invitation to Kim on Saturday from the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. ...

Following a trilateral meeting between Kim, Trump and the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, Trump later said he agreed with Kim to restart talks after nuclear negotiations stalled earlier this year and had invited him to the US “when the time is right”.

Trump said he and Kim were “not looking for speed. We’re looking to get it right.” He added: “We are going to have teams, they are going to meet over the next weeks, they are going to start a process and we will see what happens.”

He said sanctions would remain in place, but suggested Washington might be willing to offer concessions in return for piecemeal North Korean moves towards denuclearisation – an approach it had previously rejected. “At some point during the negotiation things can happen,” he said.

Kim said the meeting at the heavily armed border, which was originally supposed to be a brief exchange of pleasantries but lasted almost an hour, was symbolic of warming ties between the US and North Korea.

The Supreme Court Won’t Bring Back an Alabama Abortion Ban

The Supreme Court let stand a court ruling striking down an Alabama ban on the most common form of second-trimester abortion on Friday. It’s a signal that the justices won’t leap at just any chance to carve away at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Alabama’s 2016 ban on dilation and evacuation abortions, commonly referred to as D&Es, after its judge found that it placed an unconstitutionally heavy burden on women. D&Es are the only form of the procedure available in Alabama after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“While we are pleased to see the end of this particular case, we know that it is nowhere near the end of efforts to undermine access to abortion,” Andrew Beck, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “Politicians are lining up to do just what Alabama did — ask the courts to review laws that push abortion out of reach and harm women’s health, with the hope of the getting the Supreme Court to undermine, or even overturn, a woman’s right to abortion.” ...

The Supreme Court’s decision isn’t a good sign for the future of Alabama’s most infamous abortion restriction: a law passed in May that would ban almost all abortions in the state, without exceptions for rape or incest. That law is not yet in effect, and abortion rights groups have vowed to sue and keep it that way.

Stephanie Kelton on Student Debt Forgiveness & The Fundamentals of Modern Monetary Theory

Sanders is right: Republican tax cuts cost more than forgiving student debt

A 2016 plan for free college tuition didn’t go far enough for Bernie Sanders. In this election cycle, the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is promising to forgive all outstanding student loan debt.

Although Congress has the legal power to write off such debts, voters might be skeptical about the government’s financial power to do so.

In 2006, total student loan debt stood at $481bn. Since then, total student loan debt has more than tripled, now standing at $1.6tn.

Cost of the GOP Tax Scam for the rich:~$1.8-2.3 Trillion

Cost of forgiving all student loans in America:~$1.5 Trillion

Clearly where there’s a will, there’s a way.

When people say that there isn’t “enough” to do these things, what they mean is they don’t *want* to do them. https://t.co/RvcYk8kbEy

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 13, 2019

A counter-argument put forward by politicians like Sanders and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that Republican tax cuts have cost the government more money than would student loan forgiveness.

These claims are correct.

Worth a full read if you are following the horse race:

NYT reporter hides corporate ties of Sanders critics she highlights

New York Times reporter Sydney Ember has a problem with Bernie Sanders—which may be why the paper has her cover him. Ember is supposed to write reported articles, not op-eds, but she consistently paints a negative picture of Sanders’ temperament, history, policies and/or political prospects in the over two dozen pieces she’s done on him. This makes sense, given the New York Times’ documented anti-Sanders bias, which can be found among both editors and reporters alike. ...

Ember came to the New York Times with a resumé limited to the finance industry: She was an analyst for BlackRock, the biggest global investment management corporation, and the largest investor in coal plant developers in the world. (Her husband, Mike Bechek, is also in the investment business; he was a senior associate consultant at Bain Capital, where his father was CEO.)

Ember was hired by the Times in 2014 to cover advertising and marketing for the paper’s business vertical Dealbook. She started covering politics in May 2018, and immediately got the enviable assignment of covering one of the leading contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Ember has a multi-prong approach to undermining Sanders: She went to great lengths to avoid calling him the frontrunner until he was “no longer” one;  she attributes his political positions to attention-getting, self-serving ulterior motives; frames even his victories and the popularity of his ideas as weaknesses; cherry-picks polls; presents opinions as facts (claiming he’s “outflanked on the left by rising stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Beto O’Rourke”); and creates false equivalency between Sanders and Donald Trump.

Brad Johnson, a political analyst with a background in climate science pointed out that Ember quoted a source without mentioning that she’s a corporate lobbyist; journalist Zaid Jilani noted that Ember failed to disclose that another source was a senior advisor for a Hillary Clinton Super PAC. Education scholar Diane Ravitch devoted a blog post to the reporter’s “shameful” reporting on Sanders’ education policy, questioning the authority of her sources. Ember’s articles on Sanders (sometimes co-written with other Times reporters) often quote as neutral authorities individuals who are on the other side of a wide ideological divide, with longstanding antipathies to Sanders’ left socioeconomic perspective. Moreover, many of these “experts” are corporate lobbyists, whose work in a particular area is not guided by academic, journalistic or other professional standards, but by the economic and political interests of their clients. Ember spins the identity of her authorities, who are themselves professional spinners.

Polls & Meghan McCain Say Tulsi Won Debate

Demanding End to 'AIPAC-Created Status Quo,' Progressive Jewish Group Pressures 2020 Democrats to Take Stand Against Israel's Brutal Occupation

In an effort to pressure Democratic presidential candidates to take a stand against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, the youth-led progressive Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow has launched a new campaign arm with the goal of bringing Israel's brutal occupation "to the forefront of the 2020 elections."

"In addition to pushing the candidates to adopt more progressive positions on Israel," according to Politico, "the group said it is hoping to draw public attention to the Democratic Party's changing attitudes on the topic and clarify candidates' stances on particular issues." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appears to have been the first 2020 presidential candidate confronted by IfNotNow members in New Hampshire. The group said the senator expressed support for their campaign.

"IfNotNow believes that the time is ripe to put Israel at the center of the primary debate," Politico reported. "Only 26 percent of Democrats view the government of Israel favorably, according to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center."

In a series of tweets explaining the motivation behind the new campaign, IfNotNow organizer Emily Mayer said the group senses "an opportunity to break with the AIPAC-created status quo and push for a new politics within the Democratic Party."

"A generation of young Jews are horrified watching what is being done in our name," Mayer said. "The movement is there. It just needs to be activated. So let's go."

The next part of the story I want to hear is how the little girl in California who was bussed to school then grew up to threaten parents with jail time if their kids missed school

— Melissa Gira Grant (@melissagira) June 28, 2019

Heatwave cooks mussels in their shells on California shore

In all her years working at Bodega Bay, the marine reserve research coordinator Jackie Sones had never seen anything like it: scores of dead mussels on the rocks, their shells gaping and scorched, their meats thoroughly cooked.

A record-breaking June heatwave apparently caused the largest die-off of mussels in at least 15 years at Bodega Head, a small headland on the northern California bay. And Sones received reports from other researchers of similar mass mussel deaths at various beaches across roughly 140 miles of coastline.

While the people who flocked to the Pacific to enjoy a rare 80F beach day soaked up the sun, so did the mussel beds – where the rock-bound mollusks could have been experiencing temperatures above 100F at low tide, literally roasting in their shells.

Sones expects the die-off to affect the rest of the seashore ecosystem. “Mussels are known as a foundation species. The equivalent are the trees in a forest – they provide shelter and habitat for a lot of animals, so when you impact that core habitat it ripples throughout the rest of the system,” said Sones.

Trump Says He Won't Take Climate Action Because It Would Threaten Corporate Profits

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is at a record high, Europe is in the midst of a hellish heat wave, and extreme weather is ravaging large swaths of the globe, but President Donald Trump dismissed the need for climate action during the G20 summit in Japan on Saturday and falsely claimed that air and water in the U.S. are the "cleanest" they have ever been.

Trump told reporters during a press conference Saturday morning that he is not ignoring the threat of the climate crisis, but he doesn't want to take action to confront the emergency because such a move would threaten corporate profits. "So we have the best numbers that we've ever had recently," Trump said. "I'm not looking to put our companies out of business."

"I'm not looking to create a standard that is so high that we're going to lose 20-25 percent of our production. I'm not willing to do that," Trump continued. "We have the cleanest water we've ever had, we have the cleanest air—you saw the reports come out recently. We have the cleanest air we've ever had. But I'm not willing to sacrifice the tremendous power of what we've built up over a long period of time, and what I've enhanced and revived."

As the Associated Press reported after Trump claimed earlier this month that the U.S. is "setting records environmentally" with its air and water quality, the "U.S. does not have the cleanest air, and it hasn't gotten better under the Trump administration."

"The U.S. ranks poorly on smog pollution,which kills 24,000 Americans per year," according to AP. "On a scale from the cleanest to the dirtiest, the U.S. is at 123 out of 195 countries measured." Furthermore, according to a study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tens of millions of Americans are exposed to unsafe drinking water each year.

Trump's comments came amid reports that the U.S. president attempted to pressure allies to weaken the G20 commitment to fighting climate change.

Japan: Ships set off in first commercial whale hunt in over 30 years

Japan resumes commercial whaling for first time in 30 years

Japanese fishermen have set sail to hunt whales commercially for the first time in more than three decades, following Tokyo’s controversial decision to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission. Five vessels, their harpoons concealed beneath tarpaulin, left Kushiro in northern Japan on Monday morning. At around the same time, three whaling boats left Shimonoseki in southwestern Japan.

Together they will kill 227 whales through to late December, according to the fisheries agency, which had delayed announcing the quota until the conclusion of the G20 summit in Osaka on Saturday. The quota includes 52 minke, 150 Bryde’s and 25 sei whales, the agency said. ...

Japan’s whalers killed 333 minke whales during their final “research” expedition to the Antarctic, which ended in March. In previous years, however, it slaughtered almost 1,000 whales a year, amid confrontations on the high seas with the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd.

Also of Interest

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

Power Versus the Press: The Extradition Cases of Pinochet & Assange

UN-Backed Libyan Govt Says US Missiles Found at Haftar Base

How Russia's President Putin Explains The End Of The 'Liberal' Order

The Forever War Is So Normalized That Opposing It Is “Isolationism”

CounterSpin interview with Brian Mier on Brazilian election fraud

How Lobbyists and Insiders Could Override Voters to Choose the Democratic Presidential Nominee

Kamala Harris Is An Oligarch’s Wet Dream

Joe Biden Bragged About Getting Republicans to Raise Taxes in 2012. It Was Actually a Disaster for Democrats.

A Little Night Music

Victoria Spivey - Hoodoo Man Blues

Victoria Spivey - Got The Blues So Bad

Victoria Spivey - Shimmy Like Sister Kate

Victoria Spivey - My Handy Man

Victoria Spivey - Mr. Freddy Blues

Victoria Spivey & Clarence Williams' Blue Five - Organ Grinder Blues

Victoria Spivey - Black Snake Blues

Otis Spann & Victoria Spivey - Diving Mama

Victoria Spivey - No. 12 Let Me Roam

Victoria Spivey - the Alligator Pond Went Dry