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It's not a good idea to put fruit trees in parks," said a city official. "People throw it."

-- Jared Farmer

News and Opinion

Joe Biden may have broken the Espionage Act. It’s so broad that you may have, too

With President Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States. This should be yet another wake up call that both the classification system and the Espionage Act need a dramatic overhaul. The question is — as more secret documents are found at a second Biden location and Trump’s special prosecutor continues to work — will anyone listen?

Now, before someone accuses me of “both side-ing” the separate Trump and Biden scandals here: no, they are not the same. Trump had mountains of secret documents he purposefully absconded with that he both refused to give back and arguably lied to authorities about. Whereas it seems Biden’s team actually alerted the authorities that the president had them in his office and is fully cooperating in their return. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean Biden didn’t potentially violate the Espionage Act – at least according to some legal experts.

That’s because the Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. As I’ve explained before, even using the Espionage Act to go after Trump should not be cheered on by Democrats. Instead of actual spies, the hundred year-old law is usually abused to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists. But it’s actually so broad that if you are a longtime reader of the Guardian, you’ve probably technically broken the law too!

“Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document…relating to the national defense…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” is in violation of the statute.

The Guardian, like every other major newspaper reporting on US news, has published documents the government considers classified or “national defense information.” The Snowden files are only one example; there are likely countless others. ...

Political elites regularly take/improperly handle classified documents. Sandy Berger, Trump, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Petraeus, etc. Compare the consequences of their actions to those of principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, Daniel Hale, Reality Winner, Edward @Snowden

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) January 11, 2023

As journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out, political elites constantly mishandle classified documents, but never receive the severe punishment lower level whistleblowers do when they commit same or similar crimes. It’s true there is a severe double standard that has ruined the lives of so many brave whistleblowers. But maybe, just maybe, now that the classification system has ensnared each of the last two presidents, people will start coming to their senses: tear down the US secrecy system before it tears down its next victim.

Russia's next move, keeps collective west guessing

Britain confirms plan to send heavy battle tanks to Ukraine

Britain stepped up its critical role in NATO’s war against Russia this week, confirming that it intends to send Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine. The Financial Times and Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday a Downing Street official saying that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has instructed Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to “work with partners” in the coming weeks and go “further and faster with our support for Ukraine including the provision of tanks”.

The spokesperson added, “We are accelerating our support to Ukraine with the kind of next-generation military technology that will help to win this war… It is clear that battle tanks could provide a game-changing capability to the Ukrainians.”

According to various sources the decision will be finalised at the January 20 meeting of the United States-led “Ramstein” contact group of defence ministers—comprising the 50 nations flooding Ukraine with ever more advanced, lethal weaponry. The move takes places just days after the US, France and Germany announced that they will send over a 100 tanks and other armoured, tracked vehicles to Ukraine. As the WSWS noted, “the dispatch of light tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine will only be the prelude to the sending of main battle tanks to Ukraine.”

This is now the reality. Britain’s Challenger 2 tank, along with the US-made M1 Abrams and German manufactured Leopard, is one of the most advanced, heavily armoured battle tanks in the world. Deployed in imperialist military operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, there is only one reported case of the tank being lost in action—destroyed by friendly fire from another Challenger in Iraq in 2003.

It is unclear how many Challengers London will send, with Sky News reporting Monday from a source that “Britain might offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks, enough to equip a squadron.”

Russia Claims Soledar Victory, Trap Ukraine Troops in Bakhumt; Ukraine Soledar Counterattacks Fail

Green Party organises police violence against climate activists in Lützerath, Germany

In NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the Greens have proven to be the most aggressive party of German imperialism. Not a day goes by without their leading representatives banging the drums for a more aggressive war course and demanding further German tank deliveries to Ukraine. The former pacifists play the same role in domestic politics. The current forced evacuation of the village of Lützerath in the Garzweiler brown coal mining area in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is being organized by the self-proclaimed “environmental party.” For this purpose, the NRW state government, a coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Greens, has mobilized thousands of police officers from all over Germany, who have been brutally cracking down on the climate activists since Wednesday.

Reports on social media give an idea of the massive scale of the police violence. Videos show hundreds of police armed with shields and batons—accompanied by armoured police vehicles—entering the village and attacking the mostly peaceful protesters. Medics had “to treat many head injuries” because “the police hit people on the head,” one activist reported on Twitter. Police also blocked medics from carrying out their procedures, he said. Another tweet reads, “Terrible #policeviolence against tripod activists [who use bamboo structures] in #Lützerath! They are screaming in pain and the police seem to be deliberately torturing activists here!”

The person directly responsible for the brutal action is Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach—also a member of the Green Party. Even before the start of the operation, which could drag on for weeks, he justified the violent action to the media. “It is not my role and not our role as police not to implement or correct democratically reached decisions [...] of the responsible authorities.” This is hard to beat in terms of cynicism. In fact, the eviction of Lützerath has not the slightest thing to do with democracy. It is about the enforcement of a policy that was concocted behind closed doors, which will further aggravate the climate catastrophe and flush millions of profits into the coffers of the energy giant RWE—and the whole thing in the name of the aggressive war policy against Russia.

The eviction of Lützerath is based on a dirty deal between the NRW state government, the federal government and energy company RWE. Last October, at a joint press conference with NRW Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens) and RWE CEO Markus Krebber, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced that Lützerath was to be mined for coal. Other villages were to be preserved in its place and the phase-out of lignite-based power generation pushed forward to 2030. In doing so, Habeck, Neubaur and Krebber justified their plan explicitly on the basis of the NATO war offensive against Russia. “Putin’s war of aggression is forcing us to temporarily make greater use of lignite so that we can save natural gas in power generation,” Habeck declared, adding cynically, “That’s painful, but necessary in view of the gas shortage.” He said the agreement reached was “a good way to go.”

Sweden - Turkey tensions: Effigy of President Erdogan hung by feet in Stockholm

South Korean President Under Fire for Considering Nuclear Weapons

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stoked global alarm on Wednesday by suggesting for the first time that his country would consider building nuclear weapons or asking the United States to redeploy them in response to the threat posed by North Korea.

"It's possible that the problem gets worse and our country will introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own," Yoon said during a policy briefing with his defense and foreign ministries, according toThe New York Times. "If that's the case, we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities."

South Korea, which previously had a nuclear program in the 1970s, would have to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop such arms. The United States—one of the nine official nuclear-armed nations—withdrew its nukes from the country in 1991.

That same year, both Koreas signed a joint declaration agreeing not to "test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy, or use nuclear weapons," but, as the Times noted, the North has since "reneged on the agreement by conducting six nuclear tests since 2006."

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts related to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—responded to the South Korean leader's comments on Thursday.

"Suggestions that rejecting agreed [international] law and norms to develop nuclear weapons are outrageous, and must be globally condemned," ICAN tweeted. "President Yoon Suk Yeol's remarks should be condemned, as should all nations that threaten to leave the NPT and develop nukes."

"Adding more nuclear weapons into an already tense region is like pouring oil onto a grease fire," ICAN continued. "All it does is increase the chances of a nuclear escalation."

Lula suspects pro-Bolsonaro staff helped mob enter presidential palace

The Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he suspects hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro among the presidential staff facilitated the entry of insurrectionists who stormed his presidential palace seeking to overthrow Brazil’s government.

Speaking to a group of political journalists in Brasília’s Planalto palace – one of three buildings trashed by the pro-Bolsonaro mob last Sunday – Lula vowed to carry out a “thorough screening” of employees in the wake of the historic attack.

“I am waiting for the dust to settle. I want to see all of the [security] tapes that were recorded inside the supreme court, congress and the Planalto presidential palace,” Lula said on Thursday morning.

“[But] many people were complicit in this … many people in the military police were complicit. There were many people in the armed forces here inside [the palace] who were complicit,” added the leftist veteran, as a bodyguard carrying a flexible bulletproof screen loitered behind him.

“We are carrying out a thorough screening [of our staff] because the truth is that the [presidential] palace was full of Bolsonaristas and military officials and we want to try to correct this so we can appoint career civil servants – preferably civilian ones … so that this becomes a civilised department.

Democratic lawmakers demand Biden revoke Bolsonaro’s visa after Brazil riot

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including some of the top members of the House foreign affairs committee, sent a letter to Joe Biden on Thursday demanding former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s diplomatic visa be canceled in the wake of the rampage in Brazil’s capital by his supporters.

“We request that you reassess his status in the country to ascertain whether there is a legal basis for his stay and revoke any such diplomatic visa he may hold,” said the letter. It continued: “The United States must not provide shelter for him, or any authoritarian who has inspired such violence against democratic institutions.”

The letter was led by Republicans Joaquin Castro of Texas, Gregory Meeks of New York, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania.

It isn’t certain which visa Bolsonaro used to enter the United States on 30 December, just before the end of his presidential term. He is staying in a home outside Orlando, Florida, and video has shown him snapping photos with supporters in the gated community and walking around a supermarket.

Asked about Bolsonaro’s entry, state department spokesman Ned Price declined Monday to provide specifics about the former president’s visa status, citing privacy concerns. He said, however, that anyone entering the US on a so-called A-1 visa reserved for sitting heads of state would have 30 days to either leave the country or adjust their status with the Department of Homeland Security upon conclusion of their term of office.

US prices drop for first time since May 2020 as inflation rate falls to 6.5%

Prices dropped in the US in December for the first time since May 2020, in an encouraging sign that the inflation crisis may be easing.

According to the latest consumer price index (CPI) – which measures a broad range of goods and services – the cost of living dropped 0.1% in December compared with a rise of 0.1% in November. The annual rate of inflation fell to 6.5% from 7.1% in the previous month, the sixth straight month of yearly declines, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Falling gas prices were by far the largest contributor to the monthly decrease, falling 9.4% over the month, more than offsetting increases in shelter indexes, which rose 0.8% over the month and were 7.5% higher than a year ago.

The news cheered European investors and helped the FTSE 100 index rise to a four-year high in London but was met with a more muted response on Wall Street, with most of the major indices making small gains.

In a research note Oxford Economics said the latest CPI survey was “another small step in the right direction” but said it was unlikely to deter to the Federal Reserve from continuing raising rates as it fights inflation.

Dems Fall All Over Themselves To Defend The FBI

Meta alleges surveillance firm collected data on 600,000 users via fake accounts

Meta has sued to block a surveillance company from using Facebook and Instagram, alleging the firm, which has partnered with law enforcement, created tens of thousands of fake accounts to collect user data.

A complaint filed on Thursday asks a judge to permanently ban Voyager Labs from accessing Meta’s sites and comes after a Guardian investigation revealed the company had partnered with the Los Angeles police department (LAPD) in 2019 and claimed that it could use social media information to predict who may commit a future crime.

Public records obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-profit organization, and shared with the Guardian in 2021, showed that Voyager’s services enabled police to surveil and investigate people by reconstructing their digital lives and making assumptions about their activity, including their network of friends. ...

The lawsuit in federal court in California details activities that Meta says it uncovered in July 2022, alleging that Voyager used surveillance software that relied on fake accounts to scrape data from Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Telegram. Voyager created and operated more than 38,000 fake Facebook accounts to collect information from more than 600,000 Facebook users, including posts, likes, friends lists, photos, comments and information from groups and pages, according to the complaint.

The affected users included employees of non-profits, universities, media organizations, healthcare facilities, the US armed forces and local, state and federal government agencies, along with full-time parents, retirees and union members, Meta said in its filing. It is unclear who Voyager’s clients were at that time and what entities may have received the data. But Voyager, which has offices in the US, the United Kingdom, Israel, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, designed its software to hide its presence from Meta and sold and licensed for profit the data it obtained, the suit says.

Teacher and cousin of Black Lives Matter founder ‘Tased to death’ by LAPD

A cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors was killed by Los Angeles police after he got in a traffic accident and officers who showed up repeatedly Tased and restrained him in the middle of the street, according to body-camera footage and his family’s account.

Footage from the 3 January encounter released on Wednesday showed that Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old high school teacher and father, was begging for help as multiple officers held him down, and at one point said, “They’re trying to George Floyd me.” One officer had his elbow on Anderson’s neck while he was lying down before another Tased him for roughly 30 seconds straight before pausing and Tasing him again for five more seconds.

“My cousin was asking for help, and he didn’t receive it. He was killed,” Cullors told the Guardian after watching the LAPD footage. “Nobody deserves to die in fear, panicking and scared for their life. My cousin was scared for his life. He spent the last 10 years witnessing a movement challenging the killing of Black people. He knew what was at stake and he was trying to protect himself. Nobody was willing to protect him.”

Trump appointee named special counsel in Biden papers investigation

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice-president.

The move to name Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor and former top justice department official, was a rapid decision from Garland to insulate the department from possible accusations of political conflicts or interference.

Hur will be responsible for investigating the potential unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents at Biden’s home and his former thinktank, and will have the authority to prosecute any crimes resulting from the investigation, the order signed by Garland said.

“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgement. I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said in a statement released by the justice department.

The decision to appoint a special counsel comes at a fraught moment for Garland, who only just named Jack Smith in November to serve as special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security material and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found. A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use.

A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards, predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.

Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”. Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with what subsequently happened.

“This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science. These graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.”

Dramatic spike in rain has helped counter California’s extreme drought, data reveals

A weeks-long onslaught of heavy rain has made a notable dent in California’s extreme drought, new data shows, even as the state braces for another round of punishing storms with no reprieve in sight until next week. The storms have killed at least 18 people so far, with more fatalities likely to be confirmed in the coming days. The dramatic increase in precipitation has raised sunken reservoirs and boosted the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range, putting the state in a much better position to weather warm and dry days that probably lie ahead.

Roughly 46% of California remains categorized in “severe drought” according to the latest assessment released by the US Drought Monitor on Thursday, a sharp shift from more than 71% in the category just last week. Less than 1% was categorized as under “extreme drought”, down from 27% last week.

California’s snowpack, now more than 227% of average for this time of year, is already more robust than where it typically stands by the start of spring, with months still to go in the rainy season. It’s a welcome reprieve, especially since officials, residents, and the state’s sprawling agricultural sector had been bracing for another dry winter and the continuation of devastating drought conditions.

The drought is far from over, however. The storms delivered about 4.7m acre feet of water in just six weeks – enough water to supply 23 million people for a year – and California’s 154 largest reservoirs jumped to 84% of historical average from 67% marked on 1 December. But after years of dryness and climbing temperatures, water resources were drawn low.

Even after the deluge, some of the state’s reservoirs remain far below historical averages. California’s climate has long produced weather extremes, shifting swiftly between wet and dry. But the climate crisis has turned up the dial, intensifying outcomes on both sides of the hydrological spectrum. One wet start to the winter season will not be enough to stave off desiccation and new dangers lurk in the dry seasons to come.

Also of Interest

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

‘The Government Killed Him’: A Tribute to Activist and Programmer Aaron Swartz 10 Years After His Death

‘Industry’ and the State (Twitter Files 11 & 12)

180 Million Barrels Of Crude May Never Be Returned to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The plight of the Japanese giant salamander: ‘23m years of DNA might die out’

Crowds flock to US suburb to witness snowy owl visiting from the Arctic

Jeff Beck – a life in pictures

A Little Night Music

Ten Years After - I Want To Know

Ten years after - I`m going home

Ten Years After - I Can't Keep From Crying

Ten Years After - Spider In Your Web

Ten Years After – Turned Off T.V. Blues

Ten Years After – Boogie On

Ten Years After – Standing At The Crossroads

Ten Years After - I May Be Wrong, But I Won't Be Wrong Always

Ten Years After - Sweet Little Sixteen

Ten Years After 1968