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"Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education... no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both."

-- Abraham Flexner

News and Opinion

If Only the US Had That $6.4 Trillion It Wasted on Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to Fight Covid-19 Pandemic

Wouldn’t it be nice if the richest country in the world had some resources stored up to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the worst health crisis since the 1918 Influenza Pandemic that killed 600,000 Americans? I mean, we had a $21 trillion a year economy.

George W. Bush and his administration squandered $6.4 trillion on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. With regard to Iraq, that was a war of choice. Iraq had not attacked the United States. Iraq’s secular government feared and hunted down al-Qaeda. Bush just didn’t like the looks of Iraq and decided to whack it.

The US was in a rare moment of global ascendancy. We had won the Cold War. The former Soviet Union was supine. There were no peer rivals in the whole world. The US could have wound down its arms industries, slashed the Pentagon budget, and invested in science and technology and educating the American public in creativity and critical thinking. Late in the Clinton administration we even had a slight budget surplus.

And then Bush pissed it all away. He actually borrowed a lot of the money for his wars, so you and I had to pay interest on their costs. It was sort of like being forced to buy a burned out building and pay interest on the mortgage for the rest of your life. Then he had the bright idea to lift financial regulation, allowing banks and even General Motors (?) to wrap up bad mortgages into securities and sell them like pigs in a poke to unsuspecting investors until that little ponzi scheme collapsed big time. ...

So our $6.4 trillion is gone up in smoke in Mesopotamia and Central Asia. Did you see any benefit of it? I certainly did not. ... And now when we need it, we don’t have it. Trump put up the Pentagon budget to $721.5 billion. It was $524 billion in 2016. What is the new military threat that we need $200 billion a year extra to fight in 2020?

So not only did we waste $6.4 trillion, we continue to wast trillions more on war industries that don’t actually do us any good or make us perceptibly safer.

An odd and interesting tale, here are some excerpts to get you started:

Ex-Green Beret pitched Venezuela plot to Colorado investors last year, claiming links to Trump insider and DC consultants

To Army Special Forces veteran Drew White, the plan to take over Venezuelan oil fields after overthrowing the government — being pitched by a troubled fellow former 10th Special Forces Group soldier — seemed too far-fetched to be believed. Documents pitching the plan — obtained by Military Times — included letterhead from a Washington consultant firm, as well as the names and credentials of President Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard and another billionaire financier, all of whom have denied involvement in the ill-fated adventure.

The Green Beret veteran at the center of the plot, former Sgt. 1st Class Jordan Goudreau, appeared to be shopping around for investors to back the paramilitary mission using a patchwork of documents, which included a wish list of military gear, including several aircraft, armored vehicles, hundreds of M4 carbines, PVS-14 night vision goggles, ballistic plates and helmets, several hydraulic breaching tools, ketamine and morphine.

White, now 34 and the owner of a successful Colorado Springs insurance firm, was a sergeant first class with 10th Group who served from 2005 to 2017 and received a Bronze Star, among other medals and commendations. He told Military Times that in August of 2019, he was approached by Goudreau with a scattershot proposal seeking investors for an operation designed to overthrow of regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. ... The two Army veterans were previously business associates in a security company called Silvercorp USA, White said.

Goudreau “came out here with paperwork” to pitch the plot, White recalled. Goudreau was seeking $750 million for an operation to secure the Venezuelan oil fields after the overthrow of Venezuela’s government, White said. The operation, as described, was designed to turn a profit from the proceeds of oil sales once the new government was installed, White said. White said that Goudreau implied that the scheme, first reported by the Associated Press, had the backing of the State Department. ...

The pitch, White recalled, seemed preposterous. The documents presented, he added, did not seem to be legitimate. “They were full of typos and not aligned properly. They didn’t seem real,” White said. “I said to Jordan, ‘I have to meet with your contacts,’” said White. “'I have to see the legitimate contracts. You are asking for a large amount of money.’” White said he and the other investors wanted to see a detailed contract for the operation, as well as establish direct contact with the individuals named in the documents. The meeting eventually broke up with no action being taken, said White.

Guaido advisers quit following bungled Venezuela raid

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has accepted the resignation of a United States-based adviser Juan Rendon, his press team said on Monday, after Rendon acknowledged discussions with a US security firm to topple President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido thanked Rendon and another exiled legislator, Sergio Vergara, who also resigned from the opposition's "crisis strategy commission," for their "dedication and commitment to Venezuela," without giving a reason for the decision.

Rendon has said that while he negotiated an exploratory agreement with Florida's Silvercorp USA late last year, he cut ties with the firm's chief executive, Jordan Goudreau, in November. Goudreau, Rendon said, then went ahead with an operation led by two former US soldiers to capture Maduro. ...

Guaido has denied any involvement in the bungled invasion.

Corporate Media Don’t Think Americans Paid to Invade Venezuela Count as Mercenaries

When an attempted invasion of Venezuela launched from the shores of Colombia was foiled on May 3, after armed commandos were intercepted at Venezuela’s coastline of La Guira, it seemed undeniable that the heavily armed men, possessing satellite phones and uniforms with the US flag emblazoned on them, had been paid to take part in a coup attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government (People’s Dispatch, 5/6/20).

In recent reports regarding the Bay of Pigs–style invasion, however, the term “mercenary” was accompanied by scare quotes, as if these men could only be seen that way from the perspective of an Official US Enemy^TM (whose perspective is always illegitimate in the eyes of corporate media).

Fox News’ “Venezuela’s Maduro Says Two US ‘Mercenaries’ Were Captured in Failed Raid Attempt” (5/5/20) described Maduro as the “embattled leader of Venezuela,” who said that authorities in Caracas had “captured 13 ‘terrorists’—including two US citizens—in a failed invasion attempt that he said was no doubt orchestrated by the Trump administration.”

The Hill’s “Venezuela Says Two US ‘Mercenaries’ Captured in Raid” (5/5/20) reported that “Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday said that two US citizens have been detained as part of a group of ‘mercenaries’ authorities captured in a raid,” and added that

Maduro said during a state television address that 13 “terrorists” were arrested by Venezuelan authorities for allegedly being involved in a plot Maduro claimed was coordinated with Washington to oust him from power.

The New York Times’ report (5/5/20) actually mentioned that the two Americans captured, Airan Berry and Luke Denman—who had their names and birthdays, from their ID cards and passports, recited aloud in a state address—were employed by “Silvercorp, a Florida-based security company whose owner has claimed responsibility for the failed incursion on Sunday,” which appears to confirm the Venezuelan government’s account. The Times cited a video posted on social media by Silvercorp owner Jordan Goudreau, a retired Green Beret, and retired Venezuelan army captain Javier Nieto, claiming that “Operation Gideon” had been “successfully launched ‘deep into the heart of Caracas.’ They added that other armed cells had been activated throughout the country.”

Before the coup attempt, the Associated Press (5/1/20) published a report describing these men as “aspiring freedom fighters,” scolding the soldiers-for-hire for “skimpy planning” and “poor training,” leaving them unprepared to execute their regime change schemes. The article seemed to take more issue with the fact that it was an unrealistic and poorly planned effort, rather than the fact that trying to overthrow democratically elected governments in Latin America is immoral and illegal.

Subsequent articles (New York, 5/5/20, 5/5/20; Vice, 5/6/20) mocked the botched coup plotters for announcing their plans via Twitter. Perhaps US journalists should be more focused on condemning and investigating these coup attempts, rather than giving advice on how to pull one off better?

The AP’s later report (5/5/20) on the failed invasion, “Venezuela: Two US ‘Mercenaries’ Among Those Nabbed After Raid,” which described how Venezuelan authorities “arrested two US citizens among a group of ‘mercenaries’ on Monday,” went on to omit the role of US’s genocidal sanctions devastating Venezuela’s economy by pinning the blame on Maduro, absurdly painting him as an all-powerful dictator, despite the opposition controlling the Venezuelan legislature (Venezuelanalysis, 1/16/20):

Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis under Maduro’s rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care have driven nearly 5 million to migrate. But Maduro still controls all levers of power despite a US-led campaign to oust him.

The Wall Street Journal’s report (5/6/20) not only put terms like “mercenary incursion” in scare quotes, but also lionized these mercenaries by portraying them as unlikely heroes, out to “arrest Venezuela’s authoritarian government and free political prisoners.” Whereas BBC’s headline “Venezuela Detains Two US Citizens Over Speedboat Incursion” (5/5/20) seemed better suited to describing rich bros wandering into the wrong area, rather than soldiers of fortune caught trying to overthrow a government.

The Washington Post (5/4/20) reported that Maduro claimed that his government “had captured two American ‘mercenaries’ Monday in a murky operation allegedly intended to infiltrate Venezuela, incite rebellion and apprehend its leaders.” But even as it cast doubt on the idea that a mercenary force had tried to overthrow Venezuela’s government, the Post seemingly tried to justify such a coup effort by reiterating bogus and hypocritical US accusations against Maduro for being involved with narcoterrorism. The Post inserted—without any critical scrutiny—that “US officials” have “indicted Maduro on narcoterrorism charges, offered a $15 million bounty for information leading to his capture or conviction, and imposed severe sanctions on his government.”

FAIR (4/15/20) has documented how the US has long been involved in a War for Drugs and a War of Terror, and how corporate media covered for the US government’s threats against Venezuela by laundering numerous evidence-free drug allegations against Official US Enemies (Extra!, 1/90, 9/12; FAIR.org,  9/24/19, 5/24/19).

The Grayzone (8/6/19, 3/27/20) reported how Maduro has survived previous assassination attempts, and documented US-backed opposition figurehead Juan Guaidó’s ties to the infamous Los Rastrojos drug cartel. The news site noted that only 7% of total drug movement in South America comes through Venezuela, with the US being the biggest consumer of cocaine, while US-allied Colombia is the biggest producer.

Pino Arlacchi, former executive director of the UN’s Office for Drug Control and Prevention, claimed that he never came across evidence of Venezuela’s involvement in the drug trade, and observed that Colombia and the US have driven drug production and consumption in his 40 years of anti-narcotic work. Honduras’ US-backed President Juan Orlando Hernández has been linked to drug trafficking in US courts and brought about a resurgence of death squads, yet the US has put no Mafia-style bounty on his head.

That the US government and corporate media recite these dubious talking points suggest they’re more interested in sabotaging the Bolivarian Revolution and undermining domestic progressive movements (FAIR.org, 2/8/19, 2/20/19) than in any sincere effort to combat narcoterrorism, as the Venezuelan government has a strikingly different political agenda than the right-wing Colombian and Honduran governments aligned with the Trump administration.

[More at the link. -js]

Final Nail In Russiagate Coffin: CrowdStrike Admits “No Evidence”

Saagar Enjeti: Obamagate is real and the media can't just ignore it

As Trump and Biden Trade Anti-China Ads, Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans Spike

As coronavirus deaths mount, President Donald Trump’s China-bashing has evolved from a short-term political tactic into a full-fledged election strategy. Take the ad “Travel Ban,” which was unveiled last week by pro-Trump Super PAC America First Action. The spot is one of several anti-China ads released by the group over the past few weeks, and it revisits some standard Trump campaign tropes: There are images of Biden from the Obama years, clips of the former vice president stumbling over his words, and allusions to the decades Biden spent in Washington. But the ad, which is part of a larger attempt to dub the presumptive Democratic nominee “Beijing Biden,” reserves its greatest ire for Biden’s purported ties to China, zooming in on a shot of him shaking hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “China is killing our jobs and now killing our people,” a male voice intones ominously.

Instead of taking the high road, the Biden campaign has offered its own version of xenophobic hype. A Biden campaign spot released in mid-April juxtaposes Chinese medical workers in Tyvex suits with lines of Americans waiting to get tested for the virus. “Trump rolled over for the Chinese,” a narrator says.

Both ads have angered Asian American activists. The Biden spot in particular has upset people who view him as a potential ally at a time of rising xenophobia. They worry that even without going to extremes like calling Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and the “kung-flu” — terms used by Trump and officials in his administration over the past few months — images of Asian faces and offhanded mentions of “the Chinese” are just a slightly subtler form of racist dog-whistling, and harmful at a moment when hate crimes against Asian Americans are on the rise. ...

Hate crimes and hate speech against Asian Americans flared up soon after the first U.S. case of the new coronavirus was reported in Washington state in January. While figures are hard to pin down because of underreporting, an effort called Stop AAPI Hate recorded nearly 1,500 incidents in the United States in its first month of counting, despite the fact that stay-at-home orders were in place in many states. Women reported harassment twice as often as did men. New York City’s Commission on Human Rights has separately documented 113 anti-Asian bias incidents since the outbreak of Covid-19, and the FBI warned in March that hate crimes against Asian Americans would “likely surge.”

Standoff in South Dakota: Cheyenne River Sioux Refuse Governor’s Demand to Remove COVID Checkpoints

The Trump Administration's "Monstrous Idea": Direct Payments in Exchange for Cuts to Social Security Benefits

Suddenly concerned about the growing national debt now that corporations have secured access to trillions of dollars in Covid-19 bailout funds with little oversight, Trump administration officials are reportedly considering several proposals purportedly aimed at reducing government spending—including a pair of plans that would provide Americans with cash payments in exchange for delays or cuts to their Social Security benefits.

In addition to weighing a push for automatic federal spending cuts that would take effect once the economy rebounds from the coronavirus crisis, Washington Post reported Sunday that top White House economic officials are "exploring a proposal floated by two conservative scholars that would allow Americans to choose to receive checks of up to $5,000 in exchange for a delay of their Social Security benefits."

Senior administration officials have also "discussed the 'Eagle Plan,' a 29-page memo that called for an overhaul of federal retirement programs in exchange for upfront payments to some workers,"  according to the Post. "The proposal calls for giving Americans $10,000 upfront in exchange for curbing their federal retirement benefits, such as Social Security." The "Eagle Plan" was crafted by a State Department official close to President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who forwarded the proposal to the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Art Laffer, a conservative economist and Trump adviser, told the Post that he supports the proposal.

Alex Lawson, executive director of advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement Monday that the plan would "force people to choose: Go hungry today or work until you die."

"The Trump administration is obsessed with using the coronavirus crisis to undermine our Social Security system," said Lawson. "Social Security is an earned insurance benefit. It is not a piggy bank. This plan, and any plan that raids Social Security, is a moral abomination. Instead of trying to steal the earned benefits of desperate people, the government should be sending $2,000 a month to everyone in America, as Democrats in Congress have proposed." ...

Amid a global pandemic that has left more than 30 million people in the U.S. jobless, Trump's top economic stimulus idea has been cutting the payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare. The president said during a Fox News town hall last week that he would not sign any future Covid-19 stimulus package that does not include a payroll tax cut.

Progressives Sound Alarm as BlackRock Prepares to Lead the Fed's Covid-19 Corporate Bailout Program

BlackRock, the largest asset management firm on the planet, has for years faced criticism and protests from progressives over its massive investments in fossil fuels, private prisons, and the arms industry—and now the financial behemoth is set to take on a leading role in the Federal Reserve's sprawling coronavirus bailout program.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that BlackRock—which manages over $7 trillion in assets—will in the coming days help the central bank funnel "money into both new and already-issued corporate bonds, assisting the Fed in its recently adopted role as lender of last resort for businesses."

"BlackRock will steer as much as $750 billion into the corporate debt market for the Fed," according to the Journal. "[The firm] will be central to what is expected to be a multi-trillion-dollar overall program of central-bank support to the economy and markets, a program that will help decide which businesses survive the pandemic."

BlackRock partnered with the Fed during the 2008 financial meltdown, helping the central bank oversee Bear Stearns and American International Group (AIG) assets. But the firm's role in the current crisis will be "far bigger," the Journal reported.

Progressives expressed alarm over BlackRock's outsize power over such a massive pot of public money.

The Fed's March 24 announcement that it hired BlackRock to play a central part in its corporate bond-buying program sparked immediate backlash from progressive advocate groups and policy analysts who warned that the firm could steer funds to fossil fuel companies and into its own pockets.

In a March 27 letter (pdf) to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, a coalition of 30 progressive advocacy groups noted that BlackRock is "the largest owner of many of the firms over which it will make decisions" under the Fed's corporate bond-buying program.

"Conflicts of interest abound," the groups wrote. "By giving BlackRock full control of this debt buyout program, the Fed is further entwining the roles of government and private actors. In doing so, it makes BlackRock even more systemically important to the financial system. Yet BlackRock is not subject to the regulatory scrutiny of even smaller systemically important financial institutions."

GOP Senator Who Voted for Trump Tax Cuts and Corporate Slush Fund Now Says 'Not Enough Money to Help Everybody' Harmed by Covid-19

A top Republican senator who had no qualms with voting for a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich or a multi-trillion-dollar corporate slush fund said Sunday that, as millions of people across the U.S. struggle to afford basic necessities, there is "not enough money" to provide relief to everyone harmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

"There's not enough money to help everybody hurt when you shut down the government," Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We have to reopen the economy, we have to do it carefully, we have to let people go back to work and earn a living," said Alexander. "And I don't see us being able to appropriate much more money to help provide a counter to that."

Progressive groups and economists reacted with outrage to Alexander's remarks, which came amid ongoing debates over the next coronavirus stimulus package as the relief provided by previous measures—such as expanded unemployment insurance and one-time stimulus payments—proves inadequate to match the scale of the crisis.

Stephanie Kelton, professor of economics at Stony Brook University, tweeted Sunday that she "can't believe we're hearing, 'We're out of money' in the early stages of a crisis. AGAIN."

"The truth is, Congress can appropriate whatever it chooses," Kelton said. "It literally cannot run out of money."

The Working Families Party said that Republicans "took care of their billionaire buddies and Wall Street bankers," and "now they're trying to say there's 'not enough' left to help you and your family."

"It's a lie," the group tweeted.

Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, said Friday that formal negotiations with Congress over the next Covid-19 stimulus package have been suspended—even as other White House officials predict the U.S. unemployment rate could surpass 20% by next month. Under the CARES Act, which Trump signed into law in March, expanded unemployment benefits are set to expire by July 31 without additional action from Congress.

As the Trump administration and Senate Republicans stall on additional relief, claiming to be concerned about the rising national debt, House Democrats are in the process of crafting their own stimulus legislation that could be unveiled as early as this week.

The package, according to Axios, is expected to include an increase in federal nutrition assistance and Medicaid funding, expanded unemployment benefits, and another round of direct stimulus payments.

Krystal Ball: Millions lose health insurance and establishment Dems don’t seem to care

Covid-19: nursing homes account for 'staggering' share of US deaths, data show

Residents of nursing homes have accounted for a staggering proportion of Covid-19 deaths in the US, according to incomplete data gathered by healthcare researchers. Privately compiled data shows such deaths now account for more than half of all fatalities in 14 states, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Only 33 states report nursing home-related deaths. ...

Despite early warnings that nursing homes were vulnerable to Covid-19, because of group living settings and the age of residents, the federal government is only beginning to gather national data. In Connecticut, 194 of 216 nursing homes have had at least one Covid-19 case. Nearly half the Covid-19 deaths in the state – more than 1,200 people – have been of nursing home residents. The proportion is higher elsewhere. In New Hampshire, 72% of deaths have been nursing home residents.

'We're on the other side of the mountain': Cuomo hails falling rate of coronavirus infections

As parts of New York prepared to reopen on Friday, the governor said new infections had fallen to the same rate as 19 March, the date he said the state “went into the abyss”. Giving his daily press briefing in Rochester, Andrew Cuomo said: “In many ways, from my point of view, we’re on the other side of the mountain.”

Cuomo shut down the entire state on 22 March, as the New York City area emerged as a global pandemic hotspot. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the state has recorded 335,395 coronavirus cases and 26,641 deaths, about a third of all fatalities in the US. ...

The outbreak has been less severe in smaller cities and rural areas and Cuomo said three upstate regions had met all criteria for opening some business activity after 15 May: the Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley and the Finger Lakes. Other upstate regions could follow soon, Cuomo said, though the reopening regions still needed to work out logistics such as creating regional “control rooms” to monitor the effects of reopening.

Cuomo said the reopening would happen in four phases. The first businesses able to open would include construction, manufacturing and retail with curbside pickup. Additionally, landscaping and gardening businesses and drive-in theaters would be able to open statewide, the governor said, adding that the state was also relaxing restrictions on low-risk outdoor activities such as tennis. ...

To open, regions of New York must meet a range of criteria. They include 14-day declines in hospitalizations and hospitalized deaths or falls in new hospitalizations or deaths on average per day, across a three-day period; measures regarding the availability of hospital and intensive care beds in case of a surge in infections; the ability to administer 30 tests per thousand residents a day; and the presence of 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents.

Trump's Anti-Abortion Policies Are Hurting Coronavirus Vaccine Research

While countries around the globe race to develop treatments and a vaccine to fight the coronavirus, a Trump administration policy that’s beloved by opponents of abortion may be slowing down U.S. scientists’ ability to test those drugs.

Last summer, the Trump administration banned federal researchers from using human fetal tissue that had been collected from abortions. They also issued new restrictions on scientists who wanted to use funding from the National Institutes of Health in their fetal tissue research. Scientists say those restrictions were so onerous that they amount to a de facto ban on using fetal tissue for new research at all.

By implanting fetal tissue in immunocompromised mice, scientists can essentially reconstruct a miniature model of the human immune system. These “humanized mice” are invaluable for determining which drugs will work on humans before actually testing them out on humans — and thus for speeding up research into potential treatments for viruses. ...

Irving Weissman, the director of Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, believes that a vaccine to the coronavirus will be created. But scientists’ inability to test out treatments or vaccines on humanized mice could make the whole process take far longer.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people who won’t have a chance to be treated because they had a short window of opportunity, as they got the disease, to be treatable,” said Weissman, who specified that his opinions are his own. “So by delaying things, by bureaucratizing things, by putting in these religious or moral or political barriers — it’s condemning people to death who might have been saved.”

Bernie's "Our Revolution" Votes To DemExit & Start 3rd Party!

Missouri Republicans on the verge of gutting gerrymandering reform

In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Missouri Republicans are seeking to undo a recent effort to make electoral districts in the state legislature more fair. Lawmakers are trying to gut a referendum voters embraced in 2018 that sought to prevent excessive gerrymandering, a process of manipulating electoral maps that Republicans have used to gain advantages throughout the country this decade. The 2018 measure, approved by 62% of Missouri voters, put a non-partisan demographer in charge of drawing districts, limiting partisan influence on the process. It also makes partisan fairness one of the top criteria the mapmaker must follow. It would likely weaken Republican control of the legislature, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Now, Republicans are on the verge of sending a new ballot proposal to voters that would undo those protections. Their plan would eliminate the non-partisan demographer and return redistricting power to committees nominated by the political parties and selected by the governor. It makes partisan fairness the least important criteria to follow when drawing maps, instead prioritizing keeping communities compact. The proposal also makes it harder to get a gerrymandered map struck down in court. ...

The measure has already passed the state senate, and is awaiting a vote in the full House. If approved by 15 May, voters across the state would then choose whether to support it later this year. It is likely the last chance Republicans, who control the state legislature, have to undo the referendum before the once-a-decade redistricting takes place in 2021. If Republicans succeed, advocates worry it could serve as a model for weakening gerrymandering reform elsewhere. Voters in Michigan, Colorado and Utah all used ballot measures to pass gerrymandering reform in 2018.

Rights Groups Work to Stop 'Unnecessary and Potentially Disenfranchising Purges' of Voter Rolls in Pennsylvania

American civil rights groups on Monday moved to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the right-wing activist group Judicial Watch that critics warn could result in "the unnecessary and potentially disenfranchising purges" of voter rolls in three Pennsylvania counties ahead of the November elections.

In the April 28 suit, Judicial Watch v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (pdf), the right-wing organization accused election officials in the commonwealth and Bucks, Chester, and Delaware Counties of failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from their rolls as is required by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The Pennsylvania chapters of Common Cause and the League of Women Voters responded Monday with a motion (pdf) filed on their behalf by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. The filing asks a federal court to allow the rights groups to intervene as defendants in the case.

"Counties routinely clean up their voter registration lists of inactive voters and people who are deceased," Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, explained in a statement Monday. "But when outside actors try to strong arm the counties into excessive purging, that can lead to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters. Our clients have every reason to defend the interests of voters, and we hope the court recognizes that."

Terrie Griffin, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, cast doubt on the credibility of Judicial Watch's analysis of Pennsylvania voter information, which was referenced in the right-wing organization's complaint.

"The data proposed by this challenge is unverified and deliberately targets senior voters and black voters," said Griffin. "This is just another attempt by an outside group to parachute in to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters. In a presidential election year, during a global pandemic, our election officials should be focused on securing and safely administering our elections. Instead, they are forced to deal with the distraction of an illegitimate voter roll challenge."

The joint statement announcing the filing by the local rights organizations denounced Judicial Watch as "a pro-voter-purge group" that is "known for disenfranchising voters" through threats of legal action and lawsuits designed to pressure other states and counties—including Pennsylvania's Allegheny County in January—to remove inactive voters from their rolls.

Trump dismantles environmental protections under cover of coronavirus

The Trump administration is diligently weakening US environment protections even amid a global pandemic, continuing its rollback as the November election approaches.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, US federal agencies have eased fuel-efficiency standards for new cars; frozen rules for soot air pollution; proposed to drop review requirements for liquefied natural gas terminals; continued to lease public property to oil and gas companies; sought to speed up permitting for offshore fish farms; and advanced a proposal on mercury pollution from power plants that could make it easier for the government to conclude regulations are too costly to justify their benefits.

The government has also relaxed reporting rules for polluters during the pandemic.

The Trump administration is playing both offense and defense, rescinding and rewriting some rules and crafting others that would be time-consuming for a Democratic president to reverse. ...

Historians say Trump’s presidency has forced a pendulum swing back from the environmental awakening of the 1960s and 70s, when there was bipartisan support for conservation. Protecting the environment – and particularly the climate – is an issue that has become embroiled in political ideology.

The world is on lockdown. So where are all the carbon emissions coming from?

Pedestrians have taken over city streets, people have almost entirely stopped flying, skies are blue (even in Los Angeles!) for the first time in decades, and global CO2 emissions are on-track to drop by … about 5.5 percent. ...

A 5.5-percent drop in carbon dioxide emissions would still be the largest yearly change on record, beating out the financial crisis of 2008 and World War II. But it’s worth wondering: Where do all of those emissions come from? And if stopping most travel and transport isn’t enough to slow down climate change, what will be? ...

Transportation makes up a little over 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. (In the United States, it makes up around 28 percent.) That’s a significant chunk, but it also means that even if all travel were completely carbon-free (imagine a renewable-powered, electrified train system, combined with personal EVs and battery-powered airplanes), there’d still be another 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions billowing into the skies.

So where are all those emissions coming from? For one thing, utilities are still generating roughly the same amount of electricity — even if more of it’s going to houses instead of workplaces. Electricity and heating combined account for over 40 percent of global emissions. Many people around the world rely on wood, coal, and natural gas to keep their homes warm and cook their food — and in most places, electricity isn’t so green either. ...

The reality is that emissions need to be cut by 7.6 percent every year to keep global warming from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — the threshold associated with the most dangerous climate threats — according to an analysis by the United Nations Environment Program. Even if the global lockdown and economic slump reduce emissions by 7.6 percent this year, emissions would have to fall even more the year after that. And the year after that. And so on.

Also of Interest

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

How Covid Will Play Out In America

The ‘See-No-Evil’ Phase of Russiagate
Conservatives Are Fighting a “No-Brainer” Ethics Rule Banning Judges From Joining the Federalist Society

Fed Report Shows Magical Thinking on Safety of Wall Street’s Banks

Botched Infiltration of Venezuela Leaves Guaidó Tainted Beyond Repair

Groups Write Sternly-Worded Letter to Biden, Demand End to Endless Wars and Destructive US Foreign Policy

'The Free Market Is Working,' Declares For-Profit Health Industry Front Group. No, Say Medicare for All Advocates, 'It Is Not.'

'Chaotic and crazy': meat plants around the world struggle with virus outbreaks

The Novel Coronavirus Went Global In November - Or Maybe Even Much Earlier

Public Schools Collapsing into a Zoom Heap

Life-threatening extreme heat set to trap millions indoors by 2060

Krystal and Saagar: Biden team claims he's next FDR, focuses on Kamala for VP

Krystal and Saagar: Media gives Biden a PASS AGAIN on Tara Reade in latest TV interview

Krystal and Saagar: Failed relief response shows how universal programs are the only option

Krystal and Saagar: Even MSNBC founder admits Biden campaign 'Not ready for primetime'

A Little Night Music

Sam Lay Blues Band - Don't Mess With Me Baby

Sam Lay - Sam Lay Shuffle

Sam Lay Blues Band - Red White and Blues

Sam Lay - You're so fine

Sam Lay - Boogie Chillen

Sam Lay Blues Band - Tell Me, Mama, Walking By Myself, I Can't Be Satisfied

Sam Lay & Siegel Schwall - Goin' Back To Alabama

Sam Lay - My Fault

Sam Lay - Rock Me Baby / King Bee

Sam Lay’s Blues Family con Bob Margolin e Greg “fingers” Taylor