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"Biden changing virtually nothing after all that shrieking about Trump seems surprising until you remember that Trump also changed virtually nothing during all that shrieking about Trump. If you take all the behavior of the entire US empire into account, the changes in that empire’s behavior from presidential administration to presidential administration are differences of a fraction of a percentage point."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Europe is rebelling against American power

High-stakes global drama is unfolding on the seabed beneath the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea. It is shaping up as the biggest clash between Europe and the United States since the end of World War II. This underwater confrontation foreshadows the coming century. European countries are steadily less subservient to Washington. They see their future elsewhere. The project that threatens to cause this crackup is a gas pipeline. There may have been a time when laying pipelines was a straightforward matter that concerned only surveyors, but today, pipeline routes shape the global economy and world politics. That’s why the battle over this one has become so intense. It would bring natural gas from rich fields in Russia to energy-hungry Germany. Both countries consider it a good deal. ...

Our official argument against the 765-mile pipeline is that control over Germany’s gas supply would allow Russia to influence German politics. Gas, however, is not Washington’s true concern. What we really fear is that Germany, the most powerful country in Europe, may one day make its peace with Russia. That would clash with American policy, which is based on the premise that Russia is a threatening enemy and must be resolutely confronted. Germany, it follows, must be brought back into line.

At any time over the last 75 years, doing that would have been easy. The United States, through the NATO alliance, has traditionally set European security policy and dictated to allies on important matters. That obedience reflex is now weakening. Donald Trump’s attacks on European leaders and institutions opened a breach that will never be fully repaired. Europeans are seeking stronger ties to Russia and China, often against Washington’s will. They sense that their future partners will be in Eurasia rather than across the Atlantic.

The US Treasury Department has warned that any company connected to the pipeline project, ranging from shippers to insurers to dock operators, may now be banned from dealing with American companies. Under “secondary sanctions,” even firms doing business with those companies could be sanctioned. About 120 companies from 12 European countries now face this threat. At least 18 have quit the project. Work stopped for a year but recently started again — with a Russian vessel laying the last 100 miles of pipe. ...

Biden has called the pipeline “a bad deal for Europe,” but he may be seeking a compromise to avert a Berlin-Washington collision. Congress has given him leeway in imposing sanctions, and none were included in a list of new sanctions issued in February. That set off a wave of outrage. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Jim Risch called the pipeline a “dangerous project.” Senator Tom Cotton summarized the opposition succinctly: “If you are serious about imposing costs on Putin, sanction any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.”

Jimmy Dore: Joe Biden a 'WARMONGERING, SOCIOPATHIC LIAR', Media Owned by Military-Industrial Complex

Biden's prediction on Afghanistan withdrawal spurs doubts

President Biden’s prediction that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by next year is being met with some skepticism. Past predictions and vows, including from Biden himself, of an end date for America’s longest war have come and gone with troops still there years later. Now, Biden is the commander in chief with the power to order all troops out if he wants. But he is liable to face the same hurdles that thwarted his predecessors’ efforts to end U.S. involvement in the war, including grave warnings from military commanders and some lawmakers. ...

“It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday, citing the logistics of withdrawing with just a little more than a month until the deadline. “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” But asked if U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan next year, Biden said he "can't picture that being the case."

“We are not staying a long time,” he said. “We will leave, the question is when we leave.”

US Intelligence Warns Withdrawal Could Lead To Afghanistan Being Controlled By Afghans

US intelligence agencies have warned the Biden administration that if the United States withdraws its military presence from Afghanistan under current circumstances, the nation would be at severe risk of falling under the control of the people who live there.

A New York Times article titled “Officials Try to Sway Biden Using Intelligence on Potential for Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan” warns that an intelligence assessment has predicted that if “U.S. troops leave before any deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the militant group will take over much of the country.”

“The intelligence estimate predicted that the Taliban would relatively swiftly expand their control over Afghanistan, suggesting that the Afghan security forces remain fragile despite years of training by the American military and billions of dollars in U.S. funding,” NYT reports.

The New York Times, which has consistently supported all US wars including the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, informs us the Taliban has been “stalling” to avoid signing a power-sharing deal with the existing government in Afghanistan.

“The Biden administration is making a final effort before May 1 to show progress in slow-moving negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha, Qatar,” NYT reports. “The Taliban, according to American officials, are stalling.”

And, I mean, why wouldn’t they? As Defense Priorities policy director Ben Friedman puts it, “If this assessment is right, and the Taliban could take most of Afghanistan if US forces left, and they want that, why sign a deal limiting themselves to less? Or why not sign to get the US out and renege? Keeping US forces there is just a delaying tactic.”

If the most powerful faction in Afghanistan wants power and has the ability to simply take it, they stand nothing to gain by signing a power-sharing agreement with a faction that is incapable of holding power. The New York Times and the US intelligence cartel (if one can even categorize these as separate entities at this point) are trying to spin the ongoing military presence in Afghanistan as a temporary situation awaiting conditions which will be arriving shortly, and that’s simply false. The Taliban will not voluntarily choose to make itself less powerful.

And, after the Afghanistan Papers exposed the fact that the US war machine has been lying left and right to justify the continuation of the occupation of Afghanistan, you would have to be out of your mind to believe that’s not intentional. The US military is in Afghanistan not to protect women’s rights from control by the illiberal Taliban forces, but because it’s a crucial geostrategic region that the US stands much to gain on the world stage by controlling. This is why the Afghanistan Papers were quickly memory-holed by the mass media as soon as they came out, and why now all we hear about is more made-up reasons why leaving would be disastrous.

When the US-centralized power alliance babbles about “conditions” which need to be met before there can be a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the conditions they are really referring to are a puppet regime in Tehran, in Moscow, and in Beijing. As long as Iran, Russia and China successfully resist absorption into the empire-like blob of US client states, the military presence will remain and narratives will be manufactured to justify it.

The Taliban is an entirely regional power with entirely regional goals; there is no defense-based argument for using military force to keep them out of power in a nation on the other side of the planet. Arguments that they must be kept out of power by military force to protect Afghan women from their regressive ideology is nonsensical unless you also say the US military must be used to forcibly end all illiberal cultural norms everywhere in the world, which would also be absurd.

All the US empire and its narrative managers are really saying when they claim the Taliban will take power if the US leaves is that without the US in Afghanistan, the US won’t be controlling Afghanistan anymore. And, like, duh. Of course it won’t. The people who live there will be determining the fate of their own nation, by violence if they so choose. Giving a nation back its sovereignty necessarily means letting them control their own fate, per definition. Using that self-evident fact to argue against the cessation of military force is just admitting you don’t believe other nations should be self-sovereign.

Saying there might be violence and oppression without an oppressive force of violent thugs controlling things is silly in a couple of different ways. It is a known fact that Australian forces occupying Afghanistan have already committed horrific war crimes there, and if the US government stopped stopped obstructing the International Criminal Court from investigating potential war crimes of American forces it would certainly find a lot there too.

The US is at this point making the argument, “If we don’t keep killing the Afghans, they might kill each other.” The Taliban has warned that if the United States remains in Afghanistan after the May 1st deadline established in a previous peace deal they will begin attacking occupying forces, so pretending the US empire is maintaining the peace by continuing the occupation is entirely baseless. They’re not there to maintain peace, they’re there to maintain control.

Should the US military permanently occupy foreign countries to control what happens there? That’s really the argument on the table right now. Ignore all the narrative distortion and focus there.

Top US admiral warns war with China over Taiwan “much closer than most think”

The US Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino, testified this week that he regarded a Chinese attack on Taiwan as the most threatening flashpoint for war in the Indo-Pacific region and advocated a further build-up of US military force in the western Pacific to counter China. His remarks underscore the mounting bipartisan clamour in Washington against Beijing and the accelerating danger of the Biden administration, not China, provoking a war.

Aquilino was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing to replace Admiral Phil Davidson as head of the US Indo-Pacific Command—the largest US military command. He told the committee that “the dangerous concern is that of a military force against Taiwan.” He referred to the previous testimony of Davidson, who last week warned of a supposed Chinese takeover within six years, then added, “[M]y opinion is this problem is much closer to us than most think.” Significantly, Aquilino agreed with the assessment of Trump’s former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who told the Senate committee this month that Taiwan was “the most significant flashpoint now that could lead to a large-scale war.” In his bellicose anti-China remarks, McMaster argued that “China has a fleeting opportunity that is closing,” and the months between next year’s Winter Olympic Games in Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress later in the year presented the “greatest danger.”

These declarations stand reality on its head. It is not Chinese “aggression” that threatens a devastating nuclear war between China and the US, but rather the relentless US military build-up throughout Asia. Combined with naval provocations in the South and East China Seas and trade war measures against China, this has dramatically escalated geopolitical tensions. Aquilino, Davidson and McMaster all used the alleged threat posed to Taiwan to justify their demands for a further major expansion of armaments and military spending for the US Indo-Pacific Command.

The deliberate US ramping up of confrontation with China began under the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” which called for the deployment of 60 percent of the Pentagon’s naval and air assets to the region by 2020. The Trump administration then launched what amounted to economic warfare against China, directed in particular at preventing its development of rival hi-tech products. This was combined with accelerated provocative “freedom of navigation” operations in Chinese-claimed territorial waters in the South China Sea. Within weeks of being installed, President Biden has accelerated the war drive against China. ... In the last fortnight, Biden has convened the first leaders’ summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, involving the US, Japan, Australia and India—a quasi-military alliance directed against China—and dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea to consolidate alliances against China. Blinken went on to Alaska, where he and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan opened a two-day meeting with their Chinese counterparts with a provocative attack on China across a broad array of issues.

UN in talks with China over 'no restrictions' visit to Xinjiang

The UN has begun negotiations with Beijing for a visit “without restrictions” to Xinjiang to see how the Uighur minority is being treated, secretary-general António Guterres said in an interview broadcast.

At least one million Uighurs and people from other mostly Muslim groups have been held in camps in the north-western region, according to US and Australian rights groups, which accuse Chinese authorities of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labor.

China has repeatedly bridled at criticism of its treatment of the group.

The UN’s high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet said in February that reports of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, sexual violence and forced labor in Xinjiang necessitated a thorough and independent assessment.

Bachelet said talks to organise a visit had begun but no agreement has yet been reached. ... Guterres said the Chinese had repeatedly affirmed to him “that they want that mission to take place”.

Troops open fire at funeral as Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup

Myanmar security forces opened fire on mourners gathered for the funeral of one of the 114 people killed the previous day, the bloodiest day of protests since the military coup on 1 February, according to witnesses.

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the funeral in the town of Bago, near the commercial capital, Yangon, according to three people who spoke to Reuters.

“While we [were] singing the revolution song for him, security forces just arrived and shot at us,” said a woman called Aye, who was at the service for Thae Maung Maung, a 20-year-old student who was shot on Saturday. “People, including us, ran away as they opened fire.“

Two people were killed during protests in separate incidents elsewhere on Sunday, witnesses and news reports said. One person died when troops opened fire overnight on a group of protesters near the capital, Naypyitaw, Myanmar Now reported.

So far on Sunday, there have been no reports of large-scale protests in Yangon or in the country’s second city, Mandalay, which bore the brunt of the casualties on Saturday, Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day. Funerals were held in many places. At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed on Saturday, according to news reports and witnesses.

Florida House Passes GOP's Anti-Protest Bill

Decrying the passage of House Bill 1 in the Florida legislature on Friday, the state's ACLU chapter warned that if the undemocratic anti-protest bill pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is passed by the state Senate and signed into law, it would "silence and criminalize" people who want to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully advocate for social change.

"It is shameful that this bill has passed in the House," Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement. "It is clear certain legislators are more interested in earning political points with the governor than upholding the constitutional rights of their constituents."

"We've said it before and will state it again," Kubic continued: "This bill is not intended to increase public safety. It is not intended to address any public need. Over 95% of protests across the state of Florida have been peaceful."

Kubic noted that "HB1 and its companion bill, Senate Bill 484, represent a blatant attempt to silence and criminalize speech that runs counter to the political agendas of those currently in power in Florida."

"It is a political stunt designed by Gov. DeSantis that will further cultivate the disparate justice we've seen administered in Florida for years," he added. "It is a rebuke of a year of historic expression where millions of people joined together to protest the continued killings of Black people at the hands of police."

As Common Dreams reported earlier this year, progressives have been sounding the alarm that Republican lawmakers in multiple states are exploiting the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of then-President Donald Trump's supporters to push for anti-protest bills, which critics say have nothing to do with stemming the tide of far-right extremism and everything to do with suppressing left-wing dissent and quashing protests against police brutality, fossil fuel pipelines, and more.

In an op-ed published earlier this year, Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, and Ngozi Nezianya, counsel at Protect Democracy, argued that "Florida's bill would use the tragic events to dress in sheep's clothing DeSantis' wolfish intent to become the arbiter of free speech."

House Dems Unveil Bill to Stop Assault on USPS

Just days after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a 10-year restructuring plan that would reduce Post Office hours, increase postage prices, and slow down first-class mail delivery, a group of House Democrats on Friday introduced legislation to prevent DeJoy from implementing a key aspect of his latest assault on the U.S. Postal Service.

The bill—called the Delivering Envelopes Judiciously On-time Year-round Act, or DEJOY Act—would prohibit the USPS from "lengthening mail-delivery windows and require it to adhere to present service expectations," as the Washington Post reported.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who introduced the DEJOY Act with six Democratic co-sponsors, told the Post that "going from 100% of first-class mail being delivered one to three days to only 70%, would be a nonstarter, in my opinion, with the American people."

Earlier this week, DeJoy—a Republican megadonor with no previous USPS experience whose scandal-plagued tenure as postmaster general began last June after he was picked for the role by a postal board controlled by appointees of former President Donald Trump—released a 58-page document (pdf) outlining a plan to avoid an estimated $160 billion in operating losses over the next decade through aggressive austerity measures.

House Democrats have denounced DeJoy's proposed service reductions and price hikes as "draconian" and "unacceptable."

One area of agreement between the postmaster general and congressional Democrats is their mutual support for repealing a 2006 law that requires USPS to prefund retiree benefits decades in advance—a mandate that postal advocates say is a key source of the agency's financial woes.

But DeJoy's insistence on pairing the repeal with further cuts that would undermine the crucial institution's ability to deliver medications, paychecks, and bills on time has led to growing calls for his ouster.

In a letter to the postal board demanding the immediate termination of DeJoy, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) argued Thursday that the postmaster general's "pathetic 10-year plan to weaken USPS demonstrates that he is a clear and present threat to the future of the Postal Service and the well-being of millions of Americans."

Duckworth continued: "The only question facing the USPS Board of Governors right now is whether PMG DeJoy is the best individual to lead the Postal Service moving forward. Based on the PMG's performance to date, the answer is clear: no. Failure to remove PMG DeJoy will confirm my worst fears about each member of this Board of Governors. Namely, that you are unwilling to admit error and thus incapable of fixing a grave mistake."

Krystal Ball: Bernie FIGHTS To Expand Medicare And He's Got A Secret Weapon

Just how severe will America's minority rule become?

As everyone from President Joe Biden to the conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin to liberal groups now push to reform the Senate’s rules, the defense of the filibuster goes something like this: by design, our nation is a republic, not a direct democracy, and therefore we must create institutional obstacles to empower a minority of Americans to prevent the whims of the majority from being too hastily enshrined in legislation. By this logic, we must keep the Senate’s cloture rule, which requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to end a filibuster and move a bill to a vote.

Those who make this case seem to love sounding like erudite constitutional scholars steeped in the grandeur of American history, and they purport to be pluralists worrying about minority rights. ... But an inconvenient fact undermines Thune’s argument and should set pluralists at ease: even if the filibuster were eliminated and bills could advance on a simple majority vote, the Senate would still be giving a minority of the American population enough Senate representation to block legislation supported by the majority of the country. In the debate over the filibuster, then, the question is not whether you believe the majority should rule. Instead, the question is this: how small a minority should be given legislative veto power over the rest of the country? ...

Even without the filibuster, the Senate is still a place where the 265,000 South Dakotans who elected Thune get as much representation as the 2.2 million Georgia voters who elected Raphael Warnock. Consequently, a filibuster-free Democratic Senate would still allow a minority of the population’s senators to rule, if they so choose – because the Senate still provides far less than half the country with the 51 votes necessary to stop any legislation in its tracks. ... The power imbalance becomes more pronounced when you take party out of the equation and just look at states with the least population. A whopping 52 senators from the least populated states currently represent just 17% of America’s total population – but they would still be able to stop all legislation in a filibuster-free Senate under simple-majority rules. ...

The point here is simple: no matter what is done with the filibuster, the much-worshiped “cooling saucer” is preserved, and every armchair constitutional scholar with a high self-regard will still get to smugly tell others we are a republic, not a democracy. ... Again, considering that it only takes 50% of the vote to get elected, the filibuster means that about 11% of the voting-age population has successfully elected Republican senators who can theoretically block anything that polls show the overwhelming majority of the country might want.

When the founders created the Senate, they aimed to guarantee that the minority of the population still had rights – they didn’t care about the rights of political parties or factions (which many of them hated). By contrast, when Republicans like Thune depict the filibuster as a noble bulwark protecting “minority rights”, he is not talking about protecting a minority of the population. He is talking about fortifying the power of the chamber’s minority political factions, regardless of how small a segment of the population those factions actually represent.

Bezos Personally Orders AMAZON WAR Against Bernie, Warehouse Workers

‘You will not have your seat again’: how the Fight for $15 movement gained new momentum

For Terrence Wise, a McDonald’s employee from Kansas City, Missouri, the battle for a raise in the federal minimum wage is far from over.

Joe Biden campaigned on a raise, the first since 2009, and the majority of Americans of both parties support an increase. And yet, last month, Congress blocked an increase from the paltry $7.25 an hour where it has been stuck since 2009. Now there are signs of new momentum for change.

If Washington can’t find a solution, Wise had a warning for politicians of both sides. “If you’re not going to make $15 a reality for workers, if you’re not going to create an environment for workers to join a union and make that possible, you will not be re-elected. You will not have your seat again,” Wise said, an organizer with the Fight for $15 movement. “We will not continue to choose representatives who are truly not representing us or who are out of tune with the working class.

“We say don’t take it as a threat – take it as a promise.”

Senate Democratic moderates push for minimum wage compromise

Moderate Senate Democrats are pushing their leaders for a more modest approach to the party’s signature minimum wage hike, arguing for a compromise that can attract broader support after the defeat of a $15 hourly wage proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer convened a meeting on the topic Tuesday afternoon that includes the eight Democratic caucus members who opposed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) $15 hourly wage plan earlier this month. Several of those members opposed that proposal because it eliminates the tipped wage, a lower minimum wage for restaurant workers and other employees who receive gratuities. ...

Given the differences between Sanders and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the issue, attendees expected a collision between the uncompromising liberal wing of the party and the centrist wing that recently voted down one of the party's longtime goals. But the meeting was promising, Democrats said. ... In the meeting, Manchin seemed steadfast about his support for an increase to $11 an hour, according to one attendee. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) suggested that if the wage was raised to $11 now and was indexed at a rate faster than inflation, it wouldn't be far off from Sanders's goal of $15 an hour by 2024. ...

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who opposed Sanders’ proposal, said servers are telling him: “Please don’t screw this up.” King, who caucuses with Democrats, suggested that his state’s tipped-wage solution could be a guidepost for Congress: Maine raised its tipped wage to half its general minimum wage of $12.15, making the adjustment easier for restaurants that have to make up the difference for certain workers.

Fast Food Giant Claims Credit For Killing $15 Minimum Wage

The parent company of some of America’s largest fast food chains is claiming credit for convincing Congress to exclude a $15 minimum wage from the recent COVID relief bill, according to internal company documents reviewed by The Daily Poster. The company, which is owned by a private equity firm named after an Ayn Rand character, also says it is now working to thwart new union rights legislation. The company’s boasts come just a few months after a government report found that some of its chains had among the highest percentage of workers relying on food stamps.

Inspire Brands — which owns Jimmy Johns, Arby’s, Sonic, and Buffalo Wild Wings, plus recently acquired Dunkin’ Donuts for $11.3 billion in November — on Thursday sent employees and franchisees a review of its government lobbying activity that highlighted its success in keeping the $15 minimum wage out of Democrats’ American Rescue Plan, the COVID-19 relief bill President Joe Biden signed earlier this month. “We were successful in our advocacy efforts to remove the Raise the Wage Act, which would have increased the federal minimum wage to $15 and eliminated the tip credit,” reads the report.

Further down, the report notes the company’s ongoing lobbying campaign in the Senate against the PRO Act, which recently passed the House and contains a laundry list of organized labor’s goals, such as eliminating right-to-work laws and banning mandatory company-sponsored meetings that are designed to discourage union activity.

Maryland police video shows officers threatening, screaming at crying child

A police department in Maryland has released body camera video that captured two of its officers berating a five-year-old boy who had walked away from his elementary school, calling him a “little beast” and threatening him with a beating.

The video released by the Montgomery county police department shows one of the officers repeatedly screaming at the crying child, with her face inches from his. “Oh, my God, I’d beat him so bad,” the officer said in the child’s presence before telling him: “You do not embarrass me like this at school.”

The Washington Post reports that the police department and the county’s public school system declined to address the incident in detail, citing a pending lawsuit from the boy’s mother.

“There is no excuse for adults to ever speak to, or threaten, a child in this way,” the school system said in a statement. “As parents and grandparents, we know that when families send their children to school, they expect that the staff will care for them, keep them safe and use appropriate intervention processes when needed.”

A police department spokeswoman told the newspaper that the two officers in the video remain employed by the department after an internal investigation.

Robin D.G. Kelley on Derek Chauvin Murder Trial, Reparations in Evanston & Cornel West Tenure Fight

'Everything is riding on the outcome': Minneapolis braces for Chauvin trial

The city of Minneapolis and millions across the US and around the world are bracing for Monday’s opening arguments in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, who was Black, in the city last May. ...

Chauvin has denied the charges of murder and manslaughter against him and prosecutors are due to set out their case in the heavily fortified court building in downtown Minneapolis on Monday morning, in one of the most significant police brutality trials in US history.

Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s defence attorney, has not said whether the former officer, who was fired shortly after Floyd’s killing, will testify. The defence team will try to focus the jury on aspects such as the fact that the opioid fentanyl was found in Floyd’s system, as well as methamphetamine, and that he had underlying health conditions.

The official autopsy concluded that Floyd’s death was a homicide.

Keith Ellison, the prominent Minnesota attorney general, leads the prosecution team and will rely heavily on the damning video that shows Floyd pinned to the street with Chauvin kneeling on his neck, a hand in his pocket, seemingly impervious to Floyd’s waning cries that he can’t breathe. Darnella Frazier, who was just 17 when she recorded the video that went viral, as two other police officers restrained Floyd’s torso and another fended off bystanders, will be called as a witness.

Prosecutor tells jury ex-officer used ‘excessive force’ against George Floyd

AOC Goes Full Establishment

One Man Is Standing in the Way of an Investigation into Cuomo’s Nursing Home Scandal

Over the past two months, two scandals have subsumed the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: the state’s gross mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, especially in the state’s nursing homes, and the governor’s reported harassment of several women around him. But the state attorney general has launched a formal investigation into only one of those scandals. ...

New York Attorney General Tish James has not, however, begun an investigation into the Cuomo administration on its actions last spring, for a bureaucratic reason: She needs a referral from either Cuomo himself or Tom DiNapoli, the state’s low-profile comptroller, who has served since 2007. James has the statutory authority to investigate nursing homes, hence the January 28 report. She does not have the statutory authority to launch an investigation with subpoena power into the Cuomo administration without DiNapoli’s referral. (Theoretically, James could decline to investigate Cuomo’s handling of the nursing home crisis even if she received the referral from DiNapoli, though that seems very unlikely given her willingness to investigate the issue so far.)

A nursing home investigation has the potential to be explosive for a much broader range of actors than just Cuomo, and DiNapoli is himself considering a run for governor. While DiNapoli, a mainstream Democrat who nonetheless has occasionally clashed with Cuomo, is among the Democratic politicians calling for Cuomo’s resignation over sexual harassment claims, so far his office has declined to make a referral. Most of the leading Democrats calling for his resignation have not specifically referred to the nursing home scandal, with a notable exception being powerful state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a longtime Cuomo foil who assailed his “loss of credibility surrounding the Covid-19 nursing home data” in addition to “allegations about sexual harassment.”

Families of nursing home victims in New York have organized into a group called VoicesForSeniors, which counts over 4,000 members on Facebook. They have petitioned DiNapoli to immediately provide the referral. “We are not merely sad,” they wrote to DiNapoli on March 19. “We are also angry. We demand justice and accountability, and so we write to you to ask for help,” and they urged DiNapoli to “make this referral immediately.” DiNapoli’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept but told the New York Post that VoicesForSeniors’ letter was “under review.”

NY AG Investigation HEATS UP, Will Aides Jump Ship?

Georgia Rep. Charged With Felonies for Knocking on Kemp's Door as He Signed Voter Suppression Bill

Democratic Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon was arrested and reportedly charged with two felonies late Thursday for knocking on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's office door as he signed into law a sweeping voter suppression bill that aims to curtail ballot drop boxes, impose more strict voter ID requirements for absentee ballots, and give the GOP legislature significant control over the state election board.

Video footage posted online shows Cannon, who represents Georgia's 58th House district, exchanging words with a state trooper standing in front of Kemp's closed office door as the governor moved to grant the omnibus election bill final approval just hours after the 96-page measure cleared both the House and Senate Thursday afternoon.

"The governor is signing a bill that affects all Georgians," a person standing behind Cannon said as the lawmaker spoke with the state trooper. "Why is he doing it in private? And why is he trying to keep elected officials who are representing us out of the process?"

When Cannon began knocking on the governor's door and continued after being told to stop, two state troopers detained her and removed her from the building as activists protested the arrest.

"There is no reason for me to be arrested. I am a legislator!" Cannon yelled at one point.

Cannon was released hours later and, according to an arrest affidavit seen by CNN, is facing "two felony charges—felony obstruction and preventing or disrupting general assembly session." Gerald Griggs, one of Cannon's attorneys, said the lawmaker's team intends to "vigorously defend against these charges."

In a series of tweets early Friday morning, Cannon wrote that she is "not the first Georgian to be arrested for fighting voter suppression."

"I'd love to say I'm the last, but we know that isn't true. But someday soon that last person will step out of jail for the last time and breathe a first breath knowing that no one will be jailed again for fighting for the right to vote," the lawmaker continued. "We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled. We have a right to our future and a right to our freedom. We will come together and continue fighting white supremacy in all its forms."

Shortly after the arrest, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.)—the senior pastor of the church Cannon attends—arrived at the Atlanta jail where she was being held and addressed activists and reporters, saying, "Today is a very sad day for the state of Georgia."

"What we have witnessed today is a desperate attempt to lock out and squeeze the people out of their own democracy," said Warnock. "This effort to silence the voices of Georgians who stood up in the historic election in November and January will not stand."

Biden Taps MANCHIN'S WIFE For Position In Blatant Nepotism

Endangered condors return to northern California skies after nearly a century

After a century of absence, the endangered California condor is set to return to the skies of the Pacific north-west. The condor once soared from British Columbia to Mexico, but habitat loss, overhunting and, most significantly, poisoning from hunting ammunition drove the birds to near extinction.

By the early 1980s, these threats had caused such a precipitous decline in the population that only 22 remained in the wild. In an effort to regrow their numbers, biologists captured the remaining birds and began a breeding program.

Since then, the condor has been reintroduced to south and central California. Its population has expanded into parts of Utah, Arizona and Baja California in Mexico, with experts estimating the number of free flying birds at more than 300.

Now, the bird will be reintroduced in northern California. The reintroduction efforts there have largely been led by the Yurok Tribe, whose ancestral land encompasses large swaths of forest and coastline in northern California and parts of Redwood national park that were once home to the condor. ...

Through close collaboration with Redwood national park, the tribe will begin the creation of a captive breeding facility within the boundaries of the park. The facility will house captive-bred condors that could be released into the park as early as this fall.

Senate Dems Employ Obscure Law in Effort to Reverse Trump Rollback of Methane Emissions Standards

Four members of the Democrat-controlled Senate this week introduced a resolution that would use an "obscure but powerful" federal law to reverse the Trump administration's weakening of Obama-era rules on fossil fuel companies' emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) along with Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Angus King (I-Maine)—who caucuses with the Democrats—led a larger group of lawmakers Thursday in introducing a resolution of disapproval, under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to reinstate Obama-era methane rules.

Though the methane rollback was just one of several environmental and climate policies under President Donald Trump that served the oil and gas industry, campaigners were particularly critical of the move because, as Heinrich noted, "methane has over 80 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide in the short term."

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced the rollback in August, Center for Biological Diversity attorney Liz Jones called the decision "mind-bogglingly stupid and destructive," adding that "even for the Trump administration, this is an appalling new low." That sentiment was shared by various activists and scientists.

Schumer said Thursday the Senate will take up the resolution when lawmakers return from April recess. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) introduced a companion resolution in the House, which also has a Democratic majority. Notably, such a resolution allows for Congress to take action while avoiding the filibuster in the Senate.

The senators' announcement came after The Hill revealed Wednesday that Heinrich and King had drafted the resolution. The outlet noted that "it would be the first rollback of Trump environmental policy Democrats target with the CRA" and "would come as lawmakers are rapidly approaching the deadline to use the technique."

Lawmakers only have 60 legislative days to formally disapprove of and quash a regulatory action under the CRA. As The Hill reported:

The CRA was a legislative tool favored by Republicans in the early days of the Trump administration, used by a GOP-led Congress to strike down 14 regulations from the Obama era.

But Democrats have been more reluctant to use the CRA, partly due to concern over statutory language in the law that blocks the relevant agency from then crafting another rule that's substantially similar.

However, Heinrich emphasized the importance of getting stricter emissions standards back on the books because of both the climate crisis and public health.

"In the wake of the Trump administration, there are very few Clean Air Act protections left in place to limit emissions of dangerous methane pollution from the production, processing, transmission, and storage of oil and gas in the United States," he said. "When methane leaks from oil and gas wells, harmful carcinogens like benzene leak into the air alongside it. That means children are suffering more asthma attacks, and seniors are having trouble breathing."

Also of Interest

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

The lawyer who took on Chevron – and now marks his 600th day under house arrest

The Judicial Right Is Coming After Freedom of the Press

Russia and China Are Sending Biden a Message: Don’t Judge Us or Try to Change us. Those Days Are Over

Western govt contractor entrapped British scholar in sting operation to cover up Syria corruption scandal

A Massive Increase in Trading in GameStop by Dark Pools Owned by the Mega Wall Street Banks Coincided with the Spike in its Share Price

After Half Century in Prison, Elderly Black Panther Should Not Be Left to Die

Caitlin Johnstone: Corrupt Power Can’t Function In The Light: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Republican senator Ted Cruz mocked for documentary-style trip to US-Mexico border

Democracy Now: Robin D.G. Kelley: Amazon Union Drive Builds on Decades of Black Radical Labor Activism in Alabama

Democracy Now: Capitalism Without Accountability at Root of Suez Canal Shipping Crisis, Says Scholar Laleh Khalili

Ken Klippenstein: Amazon CAUGHT Lying About Workers Peeing In Bottles

Zaid Jilani: Why Media Is So MAD That Andrew Yang Is Winning

A Little Night Music

Louis Myers - I'm A Southern Man

Louis Myers - Wailin' the blues

Louis Myers - Reconsider baby

Louis Myers - All My Love In Vain

Louis Myers - Worried Life Blues

Louis Myers - Just Woke Up

Louis Myers - Tomorrow night

Louis Myers - Old Black Mattie

Louis Myers & The Aces - Bluesy

Carey Bell & Sons with Louis Myers in Chicago