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“Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and perceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and last some crisis shows what we have become.”

-- Brooke Foss Westcott

News and Opinion

Writing a Blank Check on War for the President

Let’s face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating. With the safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land -- otherwise considered sacrosanct -- becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky, or just plain pissed off. ... More often than not, the passing of the emergency induces second thoughts and even remorse. The further into the past a particular war recedes, the more dubious the wartime arguments for violating the Constitution appear. Americans thereby take comfort in the “lessons learned” that will presumably prohibit any future recurrence of such folly. ...

Yet one particular check-and-balance constitutional proviso now appears exempt from this recurring phenomenon of disregard followed by professions of dismay, embarrassment, and “never again-ism” once the military emergency passes. I mean, of course, Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which assigns to Congress the authority “to declare war” and still stands as testimony to the genius of those who drafted it. There can be no question that the responsibility for deciding when and whether the United States should fight resides with the legislative branch, not the executive, and that this was manifestly the intent of the Framers.

On parchment at least, the division of labor appears straightforward. ... Actual practice has evolved into something altogether different. The portion of Article I, Section 8, cited above has become a dead letter. ...

By now, through its inaction, the legislative branch has, in fact, surrendered the final remnant of authority it retained on matters relating to whether, when, against whom, and for what purpose the United States should go to war. Nothing now remains but to pay the bills, which Congress routinely does, citing a solemn obligation to “support the troops.” In this way does the performance of lesser duties provide an excuse for shirking far greater ones.

In military circles, there is a term to describe this type of behavior. It’s called cowardice.

U.S., Iran keep Iraqi PM in place

The United States and Iran have formed an unlikely tacit alliance behind Iraq's prime minister as he challenges the ruling elite with plans for a non-political cabinet to fight corruption undermining the OPEC nation's economic and political stability.

Local calls for Haider al-Abadi's removal -- including one by his predecessor as prime minister Nuri al-Maliki -- had been growing as he pursued a reshuffle aimed at addressing graft, which became a major issue after oil prices collapsed in 2014 and strained the government's finances as it launched a costly campaign against Islamic State.

However, the two old adversaries -- Washington and Tehran -- put pressure on their respective allies in Iraq not to unseat Abadi as he seeks to fill the council of ministers with technocrats, according to politicians, diplomats and analysts. ...

Abadi presented parliament on Thursday with a list of 14 names, many of them academics, to free the ministries from the grip of a political class that has used the system of ethnic and sectarian quotas instituted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to amass wealth and influence through corruption.

The move, which threatens to weaken patronage networks that sustain the elite's wealth and influence, shocked the political establishment that has ruled Iraq since the removal of Saddam Hussein, including Abadi's own Dawa party, the Shi'ite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and the Kurdish alliance. After voting Abadi into office two years ago, these parties want a say in how the government is formed.

Turkey-Backed Rebels Seize ISIS Villages, Fire on Kurdish YPG Forces in North Syria

Syrian rebel factions backed by the Turkish government, including Fallaq al-Sham,, have launched an offensive against ISIS territory in northern Aleppo Province, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying they took at least 16 villages.

Fallaq al-Sham commander Abu Yasser bragged about the “liberation” of a number of villages in the offensive, and said they are hoping to “cleansing northern Aleppo” entirely. The fighting wasn’t just against ISIS, as the group also opened fire on Kurdish YPG forces in the area. ...

According to the Observatory, the rebels opened fire on YPG forces in northern Aleppo city, killing at least 10 people, including four YPG fighters.

Syria Grand Mufti: Rebels Offered Peace in Return for Concessions to Israel

In a new interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV, Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Hassoun, one of the nation’s top religious leaders, accused the Syrian rebel forces of being in league with Israel, claiming they’d repeatedly made offers of a peace deal centered around Assad making concessions to Israel.

Hassoun said that since the civil war began in 2011, the nation had repeatedly received unofficial offers from rebel groups saying they’d end hostilities if the government agreed to a deal with Israel, including the expulsion of all Palestinian resistance from Syria, and cutting all relations with Hezbollah.

He went on to say that al-Sham was once “a vast territory extending from the Sinai desert to Hejaz desert and was not divided into a small state,” and that Britain and France had carved it up for political purposes, saying the Western efforts to divide the region continue to this day.

The EU appears to be clearing the field for the new "unity" government to take hold in Libya so that it can legitimize the coming US-EU invasion of Libya already secretly in progress.

Libya's Tripoli-Based Government Says Will 'Cease Duties'

One of Libya's rival governments resigned on Tuesday, a step that helps efforts by a new, U.N.-brokered unity government to assert itself in the capitol, Tripoli, despite opposition from some local militias.

In a statement, the Tripoli-based National Salvation Government said it would "cease duties" as executive authority, and therefore absolve itself of responsibility for the country's fate. ...

Tuesday's move came after the European Union slapped sanctions on three Libyan officials, including Prime Minister Khalifa Ghweil of the Islamist-backed government in Tripoli, for what it described as hindering the new unity government from beginning its work.

Europe Is Now Proposing Rewriting Its Asylum Rules and Boosting Border Security

The European Union's executive will lay out proposals on Wednesday to overhaul its asylum procedures and strengthen its external borders as it seeks to tackle both an uncontrolled influx of migrants and security threats.

A policy paper from the European Commission will outline two options regarding asylum rules, according to the Guardian. The first possibility would be scrapping the Dublin regulations, which require refugees to claim asylum in the first EU country they arrive in, in favor of a mandatory redistribution system throughout the bloc according to different states' wealth and capacity. The second option would be adding a "corrective fairness mechanism" to the rules which would allow refugees to be redistributed in different countries during times of crisis.

The mass influx of migrants and refugees over this year and last has exposed "significant structural weaknesses and shortcomings in the design and implementation of European asylum and migration policy," the paper will state, according to the Guardian.

The document will also highlight security threats to the EU, stating terror attacks in Paris and Brussels have "brought into sharper focus the need to join up and strengthen the EU's border management, migration, and security cooperation."

Why the Panama Papers should be a US election issue

Whether US politicians are named or not, the kind of arrangements that allow the global super-rich to hide their wealth only exist with our leaders’ consent

While the Panama Papers investigation has not named any well-known US citizens – though “just wait for what is coming next”, as one of the lead editors said – the scandal should be a critical issue in US presidential election. This is especially true in the Democratic primary, where the story once again calls into question free trade agreements which the party’s elite have been pushing on its rank-and-file for years.

What makes this story particularly relevant is that it was partly predicted by Bernie Sanders when the Obama administration signed the Panama free trade agreement in 2011.

At the time, Sanders gave a prescient speech warning of the exact kind of scandal exposed by the Panama Papers. ... The Panama free trade agreement, of course, ended up being implemented, in large part due to strong support by Barack Obama and then secretary of state Hillary Clinton. As David Sirota has reported, the emails of a Clinton aide show that the State Department knew of the concerns that Panama would become even more of a tax haven that it already was but continued to push for the deal anyway. ...

It remains to be seen whether any well-known US politicians will end up caught in the Panama Papers’ web. But individual corruption is really beside the point. Politicians are complicit in this scandal whether they are named or not. For years, they have accepted campaign donations from the country’s largest corporations and wealthiest individuals, who have a vested interest in preserving tax havens. In return, they’ve made sure that any wealth parked overseas stays far out of the reach of US law enforcement.

Edward Snowden Ridicules David Cameron For Defending 'Private' Matter Of Panama Papers Leak

Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower who revealed numerous covert global surveillance programs, was shocked by PM David Cameron's insistence that his father's implication in the list of high-profile tax avoiders was "a private matter".

The late Ian Cameron’s Blairmore Holdings Inc company, set up in the 1980s, managed tens of millions of pounds for the wealthy but has not ever paid tax on UK profits.

Despite there being no suggestion that the avoidance arrangement or others exposed by the leak were anything but entirely legal, Cameron responded to the news saying:

That is a private matter, I am focused on what the government is doing"

Oh, now he's interested in privacy. https://t.co/jfCSYgensb

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 4, 2016

There's a French Far-Right Party in the Panama Papers Leak

French daily Le Monde revealed Tuesday that close aides of Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right, populist National Front party, and her father and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen were named in the so-called Panama Papers. ... The appearance of people closely tied to the National Front in the scandal might damage the popularity of a party that has risen in the polls thanks to its anti-immigrant stance and strenuous defense of what it describes as traditional French values. ...

Tuesday, the daily said that businessman Frédéric Chatillon and accountant Nicolas Crochet — two close allies of Marine Le Pen with ties to the party — were implicated in the scandal.

Chatillon and Crochet were both charged in 2015 with illegal campaign financing dating back to 2012. ...

The Panama Papers could also bring new clues to the ongoing investigation into "money laundering and tax fraud" faced by Le Pen senior and his wife Jeanine. Investigators are trying to determine whether Le Pen's former butler Gérald Gérin helped the couple transfer large sums of money in and out of the country.

Panama Papers: Why are there no americans?

200 people in the US exposed for using tax havens in Panama Papers leak

A prisoner serving 13 years after being involved in a Ponzi scheme, a Florida billionaire found guilty of copying sculptures and a British national who lived the high life in Monte Carlo.

These are among 200 people in the US exposed this week by the Panama Papers, the leak of secret documents offering the world an unprecedented insight into how the rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.

While the Washington and Wall Street establishments have emerged relatively unscathed – “How have Americans so far escaped the biggest leak of financial data of all time?” asked the influential Politico website – some colourful characters who fell foul of the law are identified in Mossack Fonseca’s files.

McClatchy DC, which has partnered with the Guardian and other media organisations to investigate the leak, reported that in four separate cases the Panama-based law firm helped register offshore companies for individuals who are now either accused or convicted of serious financial crimes.

Forget Panama: it's easier to hide your money in the US than almost anywhere

About 200 people with US addresses have so far been revealed as clients of Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the center of the Panama Papers leak. Compared with countries such as China, Switzerland, Russia and the United Kingdom, the number is small.

The anomaly may be because it’s so easy to create a vehicle to hide your money and your identity in the US that there’s no need to mess with Panama, according to Shruti Shah, vice-president of programs and operations at Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization. ...

“In every state in the US, you can incorporate an LLC – [a limited liability company] – or another legal entity and you don’t have to disclose who the beneficiary on it is. In fact, Delaware is so synonymous with anonymous companies and ghost corporations that it was named in Transparency International’s Unlock the Corrupt campaign as one of the most symbolic cases of corruption.” ...

A while back, Shah sent her husband to return an overdue book she had borrowed from the library. When he returned, he told her her library card was expired and that to renew it she would have to bring her driver’s license showing her current address or a utility bill with her address.

“If I were to open a shell company, I wouldn’t require any of those things. I would actually need less information to open a shell company in the US than I would need to get a driver’s license or a library card,” pointed out Shah.

Here's another indication that the Panama Papers might be a propaganda operation.

Panama Papers’ Publishers Don’t Need to Sell Out WikiLeaks

When it’s all said and done, there’s no doubt that the hundreds of stories exposing the intricate web of tax avoidance and laundering, also known as the Panama Papers, will be an important blockbuster feat of journalism. The sheer size of the leak (11.5 million documents) and scope of the project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (which brought together over 100 news outlets) is as staggering as it is impressive. The implications—the prime minister of Iceland has resigned, and dozens of investigations are allegedly underway around the world—will be felt for years.

Why then, in this moment of well-earned glory, would the primary party responsible for this act of journalism go out of its way to take a swipe at WikiLeaks, and, by extension, a prisoner of conscience?

ICIJ director Gerald Ryle was quoted in Wired (4/4/16):

Ryle says that the media organizations have no plans to release the full dataset, WikiLeaks-style, which he argues would expose the sensitive information of innocent private individuals along with the public figures on which the group’s reporting has focused. “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” Ryle says. He says he advised the reporters from all the participating media outlets to “go crazy, but tell us what’s in the public interest for your country.”

... The implication of calling WikiLeaks irresponsible is that Manning’s leaks somehow harmed innocent people. The problem is there is no evidence of this ever happening. Despite multiple attempts by the United States government and its media allies to show otherwise, an internal review by the Pentagon found “no instances…of any individual killed by enemy forces as a result of having been named in the releases.”

The idea that the Manning leaks ever harmed any innocents is entirely a fiction that was promoted early on and never went away. It’s a shame to hear ICIJ heavily imply it, and to see Wired publish it without question. The reality is that Assange, WikiLeaks and their media partners redacted thousands of documents and released only a fraction of the total received, despite the cartoon “bulk dump” media narrative that insisted otherwise.

Panama leaks should be released in full - WikiLeaks

Here’s the Price Countries Pay for Tax Evasion Exposed in Panama Papers

Reading the many stories based on the giant leak of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — notorious for its prolific creation of shell companies to hide assets of wealthy malefactors — you might well ask: How much tax revenue do the world’s governments lose thanks to this kind of financial engineering?

According to The Hidden Wealth of Nations, a recent book by University of California, Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, the answer is that tax evasion costs governments approximately $200 billion per year.

Zucman also estimates that tax avoidance by U.S. corporations — which, unlike tax evasion, is generally carried out in the open and is technically legal — costs governments an additional $130 billion per year. (European and Asian corporations have the same incentives to avoid taxes, but there is not enough data to estimate its scale.)

So as a result of all the different schemes like the ones being unveiled by the Mossack Fonseca leak, governments around the world are dealing with at least a one-third of a trillion dollar annual shortfall that must be made up by cutting spending, borrowing, or taxing the rest of us more than they should.

Brazil's vice-president must face impeachment proceedings, judge rules

Brazil’s vice-president, Michel Temer, must face impeachment proceedings, a supreme court judge ruled on Tuesday as senior lawmakers called for early elections to stem the country’s intensifying political crisis. ...

Temer – a senior member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement party – is poised to replace the president if she is removed. But with the latest ruling, he is also at risk of being forced out.

Justice Marco Aurélio Mello said the lower house must discuss the vice-president’s fate because he is accused of the same charges as Rousseff. The judgment could yet be appealed, but it appears to be a boost for the beleaguered president ahead of the impeachment vote, which is expected around the middle of the month.

With both sides rallying hundreds of thousands of supporters on to the streets in recent weeks, there are concerns that tensions could lead to violence.

Stingray ruling could challenge hundreds of Baltimore convictions

A major Maryland court ruling that found police cannot use cellphones as a “real-time tracking device” without a warrant could call into question hundreds, if not thousands, of convictions in Baltimore – and set a precedent for similar privacy cases across the US.

The ruling by Maryland’s second-highest court was the first by an appeals court to hold that using cell site simulator technology known as Stingray without a warrant violates an individual’s fourth amendment protections against illegal search and seizure.

The state has 16 days to appeal against the ruling to the state’s highest court, and legal observers expect it could reach the US supreme court. The attorney general’s office would not say whether it would ask the high court to reverse the ruling, saying it was still evaluating the case. ...

An ACLU report shows that 61 agencies in 23 states and the District of Columbia have purchased Stingray devices, but Levi said that this is one of the first times that the full scope of this technology has made it into the public record of a courtroom – partly because of non-disclosure agreements between the Harris corporation, the FBI and local jurisdictions. In 2011, Baltimore signed such an agreement that prevents the police department or state’s attorney’s office from even acknowledging use of the technology.

“It’s shocking,” [public defender Deborah] Levi said. “They engage in a third-party contract to violate people’s constitutional rights.”

In Shock to Wall Street & Washington, Puerto Rico Moves to Suspend Payments on $72B Public Debt

'Did You Have Your Eyes Stitched Closed?' Warren Blasts Former Fed Official

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday—which was described as "little more than another attempt to rail against Wall Street regulation"—U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent seven minutes tearing into former Federal Reserve deputy director Leonard Chanin, a man she said "might have one of the worst track records in history on this issue."

The hearing, Warren said on her Facebook page, was called by Republicans "to talk about why we should roll back the rules on mortgages and credit cards because they're just too costly for the banks."

Chanin, who now works for a private law firm advising big banks, was summoned as a key witness by the GOP. But Warren called into question his credentials on the matter.

Establishment Slowly Conceding US Capitalism Is Broken

After the 2008 financial crisis, left wing critiques began seeping into the mainstream, culminating in the publication of French economist Thomas Piketty’s “Capital In the Twenty-First Century.” Piketty was complimented by other more established voices calling bullshit on US capitalism, such as former Nobel-prize economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.

And now, in perhaps the most embarrassing defection to reality from neoliberalism yet, The Economist has admitted US capitalism is in desperate need of government intervention.

As if Wall Street isn't Organized Crime.

How the Teamsters pension disappeared more quickly under Wall Street than the mob

Real estate investments in Las Vegas casinos and hotels once threatened the integrity of a Teamsters pension fund that the federal government wrested away from corrupt trustees and organized crime after five years of legal battles.

A quarter-century later, the professionals who replaced them—Central States Pension Fund administrators; the Goldman Sachs & Co. and Northern Trust Global Advisors fiduciaries; and Department of Labor regulators—stood watch while the financial markets accomplished what the mob had failed to: which was to smash the fund’s long-term solvency with massive money-losing investments.

The debacle unfolding at the $16.1 billion Central States fund in Rosemont, Illinois, is a cautionary tale for all Americans dependent on their retirement savings. Unable to reverse a decades-long outflow of benefits payments over pension contributions, the professional money managers placed big bets on stocks and non-traditional investments between 2005 and 2008, with catastrophic consequences.

When the experiment blew up, rather than exhume the devastated portfolio to better understand the problem—and perhaps seek accountability—Central States administrators lobbied Congress to pass legislation giving them authority to cut retirement benefits by up to 50% after Treasury Department approval.

That’s close to Central States’ astonishing 42% drop in assets—and a loss of about $11.1 billion in seed capital—in just 15 months during 2008 and early 2009. And while the investment losses are not the source of the retirement plan’s unsustainability today, they accelerated the pension’s problems, and almost certainly made the benefits cuts deeper. The professionals made more money disappear in a shorter period of time than the mobsters ever dreamed of.

Skeptics Said $15 Minimum Wage Movement Was Unrealistic — 60 Million People Are Now Slated to Get It

The pundits said it would never happen. But both California and New York on Monday implemented legislation that moves them toward a tiered minimum wage of $15 an hour, covering 60 million Americans.

The hikes come as a direct result of organizing by thousands of people in the union-backed “Fight for 15” movement that kicked off in 2012 — organizing that was quickly decried by pundits and opponents as unrealistic and unlikely to ever succeed.

[See article for many examples of 1% punditry. - js]

None of this is to say that these skeptics were completely wrong. The federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour. Most fast-food workers still earn pitifully low wages, far below the ambitious new levels set by California and New York. But it does show that by aiming high, the Fight for 15 movement accomplished much more than its skeptics and detractors — who dismissed it out of hand — ever predicted.

The Panama Papers could hand Bernie Sanders the keys to the White House

The Democratic presidential primaries in the US have been characterised by surging anger at the global elite. ... Although there have been no major American casualties over the leak at this stage, all of the presidential candidates will be questioned about the scandal. And nobody is going to be under more pressure than Hillary Clinton. For some Americans, she is the embodiment of a “global elite”, while Bernie Sanders is its antithesis. ...

But this more than a battle of candidates, it is a battle of ideas. Globalisation, heralded by the likes of Hillary Clinton, has enabled the richest in society to exploit the system while ordinary working people pick up the tab. This has been going on for decades; as a political family, the Clintons have done nothing about it. Hillary continues to describe her opponent’s policy platform as ‘pie in the sky’, yet corporations paying their fair share of taxes could easily fund many of Sanders’ proposals.

The longer this scandal this kept alive the more beneficial will be for Sanders. And if any more skeletons in the Clinton closet see the light, it will parachute Bernie Sanders into the White House.

Juan González Was at Bernie Sanders' NY Daily News Editorial Board Meeting. What Really Happened?

Surprise, the NY Daily News goes all in for Hillary, spouting propaganda in her behalf.

Bernie Wins Wisconsin on Honesty and Inspiration; Gets Shamed on Cover of New York Paper

The New York Daily News [today] has seen fit to devote its full front cover of today’s newspaper to shaming Bernie Sanders.

What did Sanders do to infuriate the New York Daily News? Absolutely nothing. The newspaper has twisted an interview its editorial board conducted with Sanders on April 1 into a pretzel to come up with a headline screaming that Sanders “callously defends gunmakers” against the relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, who are attempting to sue the gun manufacturer for selling the assault weapon that killed the children and school staff.

What Sanders actually said in that interview is that (1) he would vote to ban assault weapons like the one used in Sandy Hook; (2) he supports suing gun manufacturers if they knowingly sell a gun to people exhibiting suspicious behavior; (3) he would “significantly strengthen and expand the instant background check,” (4) “do away with the gun show loophole, where people now are buying guns from unlicensed dealers,” and (5) “do away with the straw man provision, where you can buy a gun legally and then sell it to somebody who’s a criminal.”

The first half of the article in the New York Daily News that accompanied the bold cover headline blatantly distorted the actual editorial board interview with Sanders, making it appear that Sanders was cut and dry on the Sandy Hook issue and failing to provide any of the steps he stated that he would vote for to rein in gun sale abuses. The first three paragraphs read:

“Presidential populist Bernie Sanders came under blistering fire Tuesday for opposing efforts by families of Sandy Hook shooting victims to sue gun manufacturers.

“Sanders, in an exclusive interview with the Daily News last week, said, ‘No, I don’t,’ when asked if victims of a crime with a gun should be able to sue the manufacturer.

“His Democratic rival and her Connecticut supporters took aim at the upstart, saying the Vermont senator was out of touch on the issue after the full transcript of his remarks were released Tuesday.”

How Sanders Exposes the Democratic Establishment's Neoliberal Underbelly

The depth of Clinton’s contempt for Sanders has had a deeply destabilising effect, allowing a space for the full articulation of long held suspicions about the extent to which the ideological differences between leftists and progressives are reconcilable to surface. Since the 1990s, progressives have increasingly focussed their egalitarian spirit towards issues like marriage equality and the gender pay gap; the social justice concerns of the upwardly mobile. Of course in questions of identity politics these issues are as good as any other, but they do not a complete worldview, nor a presidential platform make. The contradiction that the Sanders campaign has forced into the arena is that, if you are more or less a neoliberal, you can ill afford to scrutinise too rigorously broad-based questions of economic justice. The problem is what it has always been, class. Yet instead of getting down in the trenches and grappling with it, Clintonites have gone on the offensive, levelling all manner of accusations at Sanders advocates. They are privileged, they are white, they are young, they are single issue, they are not playing the long game, they are impractical, they are irresponsible, they do not understand realpolitik and they absolutely cannot do math. This commentary has been so shot through with condescension, disregard, and a general tone (pardon the pun), that it could be construed as an attempt to filibuster a way to the start line. I mean, who needs Republicans when you have friends like that? These allegations however have not dampened the mutinous spirit. Sanders is still in the race and he is gaining momentum, stretching even longer the distance between leftists and progressives that at some point will need to be bridged or abandoned.

Clinton is a pioneer, certainly, and it does matter that she is a woman, of course it does. But it does not matter more than the fundamentals of a long and hazardous struggle for economic justice. Nothing ever has. The momentum of the Sanders campaign is a result of his open acknowledgment of the centrality of economic justice to the possibility of every other thing, and no amount of identity politicking is going to be distracting enough to obscure that. Feminist Andrea Dworkin famously noted in her critique of a left that would conflate pornography with freedom, that “the Left cannot have its whores and its politics too.” It looks as though Clintonites are fast discovering that as far as the Sanders platform is concerned, progressives cannot have Wall Street and their equality politics too.

State Department wants limits on questioning of Clinton aides

Top aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should not be questioned about an ongoing FBI investigation into the presence of classified information on her private email server or about the substance of the messages that were exchanged, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the State Department said in a court filing Tuesday night. ...

State is not specifically urging Judge Sullivan to scratch anyone from that list, apparently clearing the way for each person to be called to appear at a deposition that could last up to seven hours. However, State asked Sullivan to cabin the questioning to details about why the server was created.

"State respectfully submits that the Court’s order should specify that discovery is limited to this topic. To that end, State requests that the Court clarify that Plaintiff is not entitled to discovery on matters unrelated to the topic identified by the Court, to include without limitation: the substantive information sought by Plaintiff in its FOIA request in this case, which involves the employment status of a single employee; the storage, handling,transmission, or protection of classified information, including cybersecurity issues; and questions about any pending investigations," the submission says. "State objects to any discovery requests pertaining to the FBI’s pending investigation into matters referred to it by the Inspectors General of the Intelligence Community and State in connection with former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server."

Judicial Watch has said it does not intend to seek Clinton's testimony at this time, but may do so in the future. The FBI, meanwhile, is reportedly seeking to interview many or all of the same aides in connection with its probe of the classified information in Clinton's account.

Cenk at TYT picks up the story about Clinton buying off the state Democratic parties and superdelegates and has this nice explainer:

Hillary Donors Use State Loopholes To Launder Millions

Clinton charities will refile tax returns, audit for other errors

Hillary Clinton's family's charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in case of other errors.

The foundation and its list of donors have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Republican critics say the foundation makes Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, vulnerable to undue influence. Her campaign team calls these claims "absurd conspiracy theories."

The charities' errors generally take the form of under-reporting or over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government donations entirely when reporting revenue, the charities confirmed to Reuters.

The errors, which have not been previously reported, appear on the form 990s that all non-profit organizations must file annually with the Internal Revenue Service to maintain their tax-exempt status. A charity must show copies of the forms to anyone who wants to see them to understand how the charity raises and spends money.

"A Victory for the Underdogs": Sanders & Cruz Win Big in Wisconsin As Frontrunners Stumble

Why Cruz and Sanders' victories in Wisconsin primaries matter

In theory, Wisconsin’s primaries aren’t that much of a big deal, with only 138 delegates available across both the Democratic and Republican parties.

But in practice, at this point in the election calendar, Wisconsin matters a lot. And the wins that Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders clinched on Tuesday night have helped clarify the race to the White House: Sanders isn’t the only candidate who faces an uphill climb to get his party’s nomination – things aren’t going to be easy for Donald Trump either. The New York billionaire increasingly faces the prospect of a contested convention. ...

Despite coming first, Sanders too had a difficult night. The Vermont senator won 57% of the vote, significantly ahead of Hillary Clinton who won 43%. Unlike the Republicans, Democrats divide delegates according to vote share. So in the end Sanders was able to add 45 pledged delegates to those he had gained in the primaries so far. That still leaves Sanders trailing 249 delegates behind the former secretary of state (and with an even larger gap to make up of 687 delegates once you account for Clinton’s huge lead in superdelegates, party elites who are not bound by primary results).

That said, Sanders is not out yet. In his speeches, Sanders’ rhetoric has focused on the idea of himself as the underestimated underdog who is building “momentum”. He has a point. While it’s true that current polling suggests it will be very hard for Sanders to catch up with Clinton, the socialist candidate has already exceeded all expectations and may yet continue to do so. ...

Wisconsin’s results show that the contest to be chosen as a presidential nominee in 2016 is still competitive.

Tigers declared extinct in Cambodia

Tigers are “functionally extinct” in Cambodia, conservationists conceded for the first time on Wednesday, as they launched a bold action plan to reintroduce the big cats to the kingdom’s forests.

Cambodia’s dry forests used to be home to scores of Indochinese tigers but the WWF said intensive poaching of both tigers and their prey had devastated the numbers of the big cats.

The last tiger was seen on camera trap in the eastern Mondulkiri province in 2007, it said.

“Today, there are no longer any breeding populations of tigers left in Cambodia, and they are therefore considered functionally extinct,” the conservation group said in a statement. ...

Deforestation and poaching have devastated tiger numbers across Asia, with recent estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature putting the global population at just 2,154.

Calls For Fossil Fuel Divestment Ignite Across Canadian Campuses

TransCanada Shuts Keystone Pipeline Over Leak: 'We Don't Know Where It's Coming From'

'Their hotshot computer system did not detect the spill... Our worst fears have been realized.'

On Monday April 4, TransCanada announced that it has shut down its Keystone pipeline south of Freeman, South Dakota after an oil spill was reported by a local rancher, stating that "crews initially found visible signs of oil on a small surface area."

A video posted on Facebook by Keystone XL (a proposed extension of the existing Keystone pipeline) fighter Faith Spotted Eagle—a Yankton Dakota Sioux tribal elder and founder of the Brave Heart Society—showed TransCanada representative Shawn Howard onsite answering questions regarding the spill.

“We don’t know what has happened here,” Howard admitted, “and we don’t know where it is coming from.”

When asked if the company had concerns over whether the detection system failed he said, “we appreciate [the landowner was] alert and reported this to us quickly,” but he considered that a success story because it demonstrated that TransCanada’s public awareness programs are working.

Spotted Eagle reported that the rancher was not happy with this assessment, that he said he does not have time to be looking for leaks, that this should not be his job.

Still, the TransCanada representative assured the public that the company has in place “layers to our leak detection system” and that alert landowners are only part of the equation, the other being “our high tech oil control center.” During the South Dakota Public Utility Commission meetings Spotted Eagle and other Keystone XL opponents from several Dakota/Lakota tribes and South Dakota landowners were reassured repeatedly by TransCanada officials that the oil control center would immediately catch any leaks.

As The Great Barrier Reef Bleaches White, Queensland Government Approves Australia's Biggest Coal Mine

The Queensland government’s approach to protecting the Great Barrier Reef seems a bit like that of a hypocritical anti-drugs campaigner who preaches the evils of heroin and cocaine while running a meth lab and bong factory in their basement.

The state’s left-wing Labor Government has been simultaneously regretting the lack of global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions that damage the reef while granting approvals for the biggest coal mine in Australia’s history.

As oxymoronic statements go, some of the political rhetoric coming out of the Australian state of Queensland in recent days takes some beating.

Mining minister Anthony Lynham said the approvals for Indian-owned miner Adani’s Carmichael mine were “tangible evidence” of his government’s “commitment to the sustainable development” of the massive but as-yet-untapped coal reserves in the state’s Galilee Basin.

But as the government was drafting its statements, there was some “tangible evidence” elsewhere of the damage the fossil fuel industry is causing to the state’s iconic reef.

The approvals for Adani’s mine came as large sections of the 2300 kilometre (1430 miles) reef, mainly in the northern sections, were turning white.

The reef is currently suffering what is likely to be its worst mass coral-bleaching event since the phenomenon was first reported in 1998 by scientists on reefs around the world.

Also of Interest

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

L.A. Activists Want to Bring Surveillance Conversation Down to Earth

Syria: The Doomed US Strategy of Arming Proxies

How Hillary Clinton Militarized US Policy in Honduras

US scolds others about offshores, but looks other way at home

TRANSCRIPT: Bernie Sanders meets with the Daily News Editorial Board, April 1, 2016

We must smash the Clinton machine: Democratic elites and the media sold out to Hillary this time, but change is coming

Hillary Clinton is taking credit for the Fight for $15. Here’s why this is a betrayal of workers.

A Little Night Music

Chubby Checker - Pony Time

Chubby Checker - Limbo Rock

Chubby Checker + Dee Dee Sharp - Slow Twist

Chubby Checker - The Fly

Chubby Checker - Hooka Tooka

Chubby Checker - Let's Twist Again

Chubby Checker - The Hucklebuck