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"In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?"

-- Barack Obama

News and Opinion

Another in an endless series of examples of why one should never trust what a candidate says when they are seeking your vote on the sole basis that they will do what they seem to say they will do.

Obama Went From Condemning Saudis for Abuses to Arming Them to the Teeth

In the 2002 speech against the Iraq War that helped propel him to the presidency, then-state Sen. Barack Obama denounced not just the looming invasion of Iraq, but also human rights abuses by our “so-called allies” in Saudi Arabia:

Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

And he spoke out against the U.S.’ role as weapons supplier to the world:

Let’s fight to make sure … that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

Thirteen years later, Obama is making his fourth trip to Riyadh, having presided over record-breaking U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia while offering only muted criticism of the kingdom’s human rights violations. ...

Obama’s visit this week will be taking place in the shadow of an ongoing U.S.-supplied, Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians. ...

“The reality is the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including the State Department and Pentagon, are happy with the Saudi relationship,” said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. “In order to change course, meaningfully, it would take real leadership and investment in doing so, and President Obama — although his instincts might be that the Saudis are problematic in a number of ways — he hasn’t shown any serious desire to bring about a change of policy.”

Obama in Saudi Arabia: US President in Riyadh amid tensions with historic ally

Obama faces friction in Saudi Arabia over 9/11 bill and Iran relationship

Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia to face some potentially awkward questions from his hosts – not least over a push by some of his political allies for the kingdom to be held responsible in US courts for any role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The US president landed in Riyadh on Wednesday on his final trip to the region before leaving office. He will try to smooth the ruffled the feathers of Saudis, Emiratis and Bahrainis who have come to resent their longstanding ally for “tilting” towards their rival Iran and pressing too hard for domestic reforms they fear will undermine the autocratic status quo.

Adding to Obama’s diplomatic headache is legislation proposed by Senate Democrats that would enable victims of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington to sue the Saudi government if it is found to have been involved. Fifteen of the 19 airline hijackers were Saudi citizens but the government has long denied any connection. ...

“If that legislation passes without being watered down, it will pose a very serious problem for the relationship,” said Bruce Riedel, a veteran of the CIA for 30 years and now an intelligence analyst at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “If members of the Saudi government are taken to court, there will be retaliation from the kingdom.”

But despite the negative headlines, Riedel noted that the US, UK and Canada have all struck the biggest arms deals in their histories with Saudi Arabia in the last few years. “One has to separate rhetoric and reality in this relationship,” he said. “There is an unprecedented degree of criticism of Saudi Arabia in the United States, even from the president. On the other hand the security, military and intelligence relationships are probably stronger than they’ve ever been before.”

Senator Lindsey Graham joins the coalition of the quaking in their boots at Saudi threats as Obama goes to grovel in Riyadh.

Lindsey Graham Blocks 9/11 Lawsuit Bill Amid Saudi Threats

The battle over the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act continues to grow today, with co-sponsor Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) announcing that he’s going to block his own bill, to “make sure that anything we do doesn’t come to bite us.”

It’s unspoken, but the admission is the latest response to Sunday’s threats by Saudi Foreign Minister Abu Jubeir to sell $750 billion in US treasury assets in response to the law, a move which if done rapidly could do massive damage to the US dollar and the American economy in general.

Obama: If we let Americans sue Saudis for 9/11, foreigners will begin suing US non-stop

Is Obama Objection to 9/11 Bill Attempt to Prevent Lawsuits for US Overseas Terrorism?

Obama said legislation would mean 'opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries.'

Is President Obama promising to veto a bill over fears that it could make U.S. officials the subject of lawsuits over drone strikes and other deadly acts during its War on Terror?

The pending legislation in question is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), authored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), which would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). It would enable victims of 9/11 and other attacks on U.S. soil to sue nations, including Saudi Arabia, if the are found to have been involved or supplied material support for terrorism. ...

Obama told CBS News on Monday, "This is a matter of how generally the United States approaches our interactions with other countries. If we open up the possibility that individuals and the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries." ...

Mark Joseph Stern wrote at Slate that such retaliation could take the form of "lawsuits against American service members, diplomats, and government officials in their own courts." He further noted: "A primary justification for foreign sovereign immunity is comity: America doesn't judge foreign countries' internal decisions; in return, other countries don't judge America's." ...

Obama's opposition to the legislation met backlash from families of 9/11 victims, who wrote in a letter sent to Monday to Obama, "Your place in history should not be marked by a campaign to foreclose the judicial process as a venue in which the truth can be found."

Wow, it's a good thing that Obama ended the Afghan war!

Death toll rises to 64 in Taliban's deadliest Kabul attack since 2011

The Afghan government has revised the death toll after Tuesday’s Taliban attack in Kabul to 64, in what appears to be the deadliest assault on the Afghan capital since 2001. An additional 347 were injured, many of them civilians. ...

During morning rush hour, a suicide bomber struck an elite military unit that was training bodyguards for Afghan politicians and officials. According to a security source, at least 11 personnel were killed, including a nephew of the second vice-president, Sarwar Danish. ...

The carnage puts a strain on recent government attempts to convince the Taliban to join the peace process. Immediately after the attack, Abdullah cancelled a trip, scheduled for early May, to Pakistan, which provides some support for the militant group.

Faisal, Abdullah’s spokesman, hinted that potential future peace talks could be derailed. “Before, we had focus on a peaceful solution, but now there’s been a shift in strategy, to hit [Taliban] where it hurts the most. We’ll be hitting them with full force, with all means available,” he said.

“They do not answer positively to the peace call of the government, they answered with bullets. If they want war, we’ll give them war.”

Announcing diminished expectations of civilian safety sounds like the Pentagon's way of telegraphing that its operations are going to result in serious carnage for civilian populations, sometimes ironically in places where Obama has "ended the war."

New rules allow more civilian casualties in air war against ISIL

The Pentagon has approved airstrikes that risk more civilian casualties in order to destroy Islamic State targets as part of its increasingly aggressive fight against the militant group in Iraq and Syria, according to interviews with military officials and data.

Since last fall, the Pentagon has delegated more authority to the commander of the war, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, to approve targets when there is the risk that civilians could be killed. Previously, authority for missions with the potential to kill innocents had been made by the higher headquarters of U.S. Central Command. Seeking approval from above takes time, and targets of fleeting opportunity can be missed.

Six Defense Department officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe how Islamic State targets are selected and attacked, described a sliding scale of probable civilian casualties based on the value of the target and the location. For example, a strike with the potential to wound or kill several civilians would be permitted if it prevented ISIL fighters from causing greater harm. ...

The increased tolerance for civilian casualties dovetails with the revised strategy Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced in October — the focus on recapturing Ramadi, Iraq, mounting more raids to capture or kill ISIL leaders and adding pressure to Raqqa, Syria, the capital of ISIL's self-proclaimed state.

US Paying Iraqi Kurds to Fight in Mosul

With the Iraqi military’s own offensive around Mosul almost immediately stalling, US hopes to eventually see the city recovered from ISIS are resting more heavily on the idea that the Kurdish Peshmerga will succeed where Iraq’s military has failed. That’s not coming cheap.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter revealed today that as part of the latest US escalation in Iraq, $415 million in cash has been set aside for certain Kurdish Peshmerga units, to insure that those groups keep fighting against ISIS.

Infants Starving in Squalor Created by EU-Turkey Refugee Deal

Conditions for refugees have deteriorated in Greece in the wake of last month's controversial EU-Turkey deal to such an extent that newborn babies are being deprived of milk, endangering their lives, refugee advocates and rights groups say.

"Approximately 25 babies under the age of six months, whose mothers are unable to breastfeed, are being given roughly 100ml of milk formula just once a day on the island of Chios, according to photographs sent by detained refugees and testimonies provided by phone," the Guardian reported Tuesday.

"Britain's Royal College of Midwives said the situation, if confirmed, would contravene international protocol," the newspaper continued, "and suggested that some refugee babies in Greece may be receiving just a quarter of their recommended daily intake."

Many women and children are trapped in Greece in the detention centers that have been created in the midst of the refugee crisis, while others are stuck in the massive makeshift camp at Idomeni, a Greek city bordering Macedonia that closed its borders as part of the deal last month. Police in Idomeni recently assaulted asylum seekers with tear gas and rubber bullets for attempting to cross into Macedonia.

Humanitarian groups have condemned the detention centers as violating international law and human rights, and conditions for asylum seekers throughout Greece have grown so squalid that refugee children are in danger if the situation doesn't change, the groups say.

Is the U.S. Backing Rousseff’s Ouster in Brazil? Opposition Holds Talks in D.C. as Obama Stays Quiet

Judge Rejects Challenge to Searches of Emails Gathered Without Warrant

A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge to rules permitting F.B.I. agents, when working on domestic criminal cases, to search emails written by Americans that the government has intercepted without a warrant in the name of gathering foreign intelligence.

In an 80-page opinion that was issued in November and remained classified until being made public on Tuesday, Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ruled that what critics call “backdoor searches” of messages by the F.B.I. comply with both the Constitution and the FISA Amendments Act. That 2008 statute legalized a form of the government’s once-secret warrantless surveillance program. ...

Judge Hogan’s ruling is notable because some lawmakers want to require government agencies to get a warrant before searching the raw repository of emails for an American’s name or email address. Bipartisan majorities in the House have twice passed such a proposal in the last two years, and it is expected to be a central feature of a fight over legislation to renew the FISA Amendments Act, which is set to expire at the end of 2017.

Secret spy court scolded NSA, FBI for not deleting data

Analysts within the National Security Agency “potentially” violated the law by improperly failing to delete information collected about people on the Internet, the federal court overseeing U.S. intelligence agencies declared in an opinion declassified on Tuesday.

A judge on a secretive federal court was “extremely concerned” that the NSA’s continued to hold on to data that it was supposed to delete, he wrote in the November 2015 opinion.

By maintaining retention of the information, the spy agency violated “several provisions” of its internal policies, and was “potentially” in violation of the law, Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) claimed in the heavily redacted order.

In addition to the infractions by the NSA, officials at the FBI also failed to abide by protections designed to protect attorney-client privileges in an unidentified number of cases discovered in 2014 and 2015, Hogan claimed.

Ex-NYPD officer Peter Liang spared jail for killing unarmed man

Former NYPD officer Peter Liang has been sentenced to five years of probation and 800 hours of community service for the 2014 death of an unarmed man in a darkened stairwell.

Liang faced up to a 15-year prison sentence for the second-degree manslaughter of Akai Gurley, but New York supreme court judge Danny Chun reduced his conviction to criminally negligent homicide moments before the sentence was delivered.

The prosecution stated its intention to appeal against the reduction in charges. But the sentence handed down was nearly identical to what was recommended by the DA, Ken Thompson, in March.

Noting that Liang did not intend to harm Gurley, Thomson said last month that “due to the unique circumstances of this case, a prison sentence is not warranted”. ...

Gurley’s family said the sentence “sends the message that police officers who kill people should not face serious consequences. It is this ongoing pattern of a severe lack of accountability for officers that unjustly kill and brutalize New Yorkers that allows the violence to continue.”

'Hope everyone pukes on your artisanal treats': fighting gentrification, LA-style

A realtor who invited clients to tour the neighbourhood for bargain properties and enjoy “artisanal treats” felt the backlash within hours.

“I can’t help but hope that your 60-minute bike ride is a total disaster and that everyone who eats your artisanal treats pukes immediately,” said one message. “Stay outta my fucking hood,” said another.

Fearing violence, the realtor cancelled the event. ...

Welcome to Boyle Heights – or not, depending on how locals view you.

This hardscrabble Latino community, just across the Los Angeles river from the lofts and skyscrapers of downtown, is waging a vigorous and in many ways effective campaign against gentrification.

Where Brooklyn, San Francisco, Oakland and other parts of LA have yielded to and often embraced moneyed outsiders, Boyle Heights has dug a metaphorical moat.

An eclectic coalition of residents, business owners, feminists, Maoists and other activists stands guard, working the levers of local government, deploying zoning and legal arguments – and occasionally intimidating perceived interlopers.

The goal is to avoid a flood of money and outsiders which it fears would drive up rents, drive out residents and erase a cradle of Chicano identity. ...

Marco Amador, who co-founded a collective space called Espacio 1839, said the battle was not just against gentrification. “It’s about how capitalism works. We’re not just fighting realtors, we’re fighting American capitalism.”

North Carolina's anti-LGBT law could cost the state millions in lost revenue

North Carolina’s controversial anti-LGBT law has so far cost the city of Raleigh $3m, according to the agency that promotes tourism in the area.

The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau told local media on Monday that the economic losses from the law have quadrupled in the past week. The visitors’ bureau said $2.4m in lost business has been reported last week, up from $732,000 a week before. By Monday, the total losses had equaled about $3.1m. ...

So far, the biggest cancellation in Raleigh is $1.7m from the Community Transportation Association of America. It planned to bring 1,000 people to the city in June 2018. The association, which is based in Washington DC, says it will hold the event in Baltimore instead.

Wake County, the second-largest county in North Carolina, has been especially affected as it is home to the PNC arena in Raleigh. The losses will probably continue to increase as Pearl Jam announced on Monday that they are canceling their concert on 20 April.

Ringo Starr, Bryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen and Cirque du Soleil have also canceled their performances in North Carolina to boycott the law. Additionally, PayPal has canceled its plans to open a new operation center in Charlotte. The new center was expected to create about 400 jobs. Deutsche Bank, too, has canceled its expansion plans within the state, which were expected to create about 250 new jobs at its location in Cary, North Carolina.

It is yet unclear what kind of an economic impact these boycotts will have on the state’s economy as a whole. NBC estimates that North Carolina might have lost between $39.7m and $186m in revenue due to boycotts.

Striking Verizon Workers Take to the Streets of Manhattan

Plans to stop collecting data on wealthiest 1% in UK criticised

Proposals by the UK government to stop collecting information showing how the wealthy pass on their assets from one generation to another have been condemned by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a leading tax and spending thinktank.

The IFS said Britain was in danger of allowing a misleading picture to emerge of its richest families, the top 1% whose wealth is at least £1.4m including the value of their home, that underestimates their wealth.

The warning follows a debate about the assets and influence of Britain’s top 1% of wealthy households following the leak of the Panama Papers, which revealed the offshore holdings of many rich individuals. ...

The IFS said the acquisition of expensive houses, generous occupational pensions and trust funds in offshore havens have helped to cement the wealth of the top 1% for their children and grandchildren.

In response to moves by HMRC to stop gathering wealth data on the top 1%, the report said: “Wealth is a key determinant of wellbeing. It matters to households whether they have enough savings to see themselves through retirement and it matters for how they would respond to economic shocks and to fiscal and monetary policy. So understanding the distribution of wealth matters.

Panama Papers: US launches criminal inquiry into tax avoidance claims

The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the widespread international tax avoidance schemes exposed by the Panama Papers leak, published by the Guardian and other journalistic partners.

Preet Bharara, the US attorney for Manhattan, said he had “opened a criminal investigation regarding matters to which the Panama Papers are relevant”.

Bharara has written to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which coordinated the unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca, to ask for further information to assist with his criminal investigation.

The inquiry comes after Barack Obama described the revelations from the leaks – which have caused political tumult across the world – “important stuff” and global tax avoidance as a “huge problem”.

This is an excellent article with important information for progressives voters and decent people to grasp. When Hillary blurts out that there is more that unites us than divides us, it is a lie. Average Americans do not favor her endless imperialist wars or her suicidal urge to mix it up with Putin. A vote for Hillary is a vote for war.

Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon

If there were any doubts that Hillary Clinton favors a neoconservative foreign policy, her performance at Thursday’s debate should have laid them to rest. In every meaningful sense, she is a neocon and – if she becomes President – Americans should expect more global tensions and conflicts in pursuit of the neocons’ signature goal of “regime change” in countries that get in their way.

Beyond sharing this neocon “regime change” obsession, former Secretary of State Clinton also talks like a neocon. One of their trademark skills is to use propaganda or “perception management” to demonize their targets and to romanticize their allies, what is called “gluing white hats” on their side and “gluing black hats” on the other.

So, in defending her role in the Libyan “regime change,” Clinton called the slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi “genocidal” though that is a gross exaggeration of Gaddafi’s efforts to beat back Islamic militants in 2011. But her approach fits with what the neocons do. They realize that almost no one will dare challenge such a characterization because to do so opens you to accusations of being a “Gaddafi apologist.” ...

Clinton, like the neocons, also shows selective humanitarian outrage. For instance, she laments the suffering of Israelis under crude (almost never lethal) rocket fire from Gaza but shows next to no sympathy for Palestinians being slaughtered by sophisticated (highly lethal) Israeli missiles and bombs. ...

“Yes, I do still support a no-fly zone [in Syria] because I think we need to put in safe havens for those poor Syrians who are fleeing both Assad and ISIS and have some place that they can be safe,” Clinton said. But she showed no such empathy for Palestinians defenseless against Israel’s “mowing the grass” operations against men, women and children trapped in Gaza. ...

So, Clinton made clear – both at the debate and in her recent AIPAC speech – that she is fully in line with the neocon reverence for Israel and eager to take out any government or group that Israel puts on its enemies list. While waxing rhapsodic about the U.S.-Israeli relationship – promising to take it “to the next level” – Clinton vows to challenge Syria, Iran, Russia and other countries that have resisted or obstructed the neocon/Israeli “wish list” for “regime change.” ...

Hillary Clinton appears fully onboard with the neocon goal of grabbing the Big Enchilada, “regime change” in Moscow. Rather than seeing the world as it is, she continues to look through the wrong end of the telescope in line with all the anti-Russian propaganda and the demonization of Putin, whom Clinton has compared to Hitler. ...

Though Clinton’s anti-Russian delusions are shared by many powerful people in Official Washington, they are no more accurate than the other claims about Iraq’s WMD, Gaddafi passing out Viagra to his troops, the humanitarian need to invade Syria, the craziness about Iran being the principal source of terrorism (when it is the Saudis, the Qataris, the Turks and other Sunni powers that have bred Al Qaeda and the Islamic State), and the notion that the Palestinians are the ones picking on the Israelis, not the other way around. ...

Clinton’s potential escalation of the new Cold War with Russia could be both the most costly and conceivably the most suicidal feature of a Clinton-45 presidency. Unlike her times as Secretary of State, when Obama could block her militaristic schemes, there will be no one to stop her if she is elected President, surrounded by likeminded neocon advisers.

Barred from the Ballot Box: Disenfranchised in New York

Voting Problems Plague High-Stakes Primary Day in New York

Some precincts opened two hours later than they were supposed to, while some would-be voters' names couldn't be found on registration lists

Amid charges of voting machine mishaps and names purged from voter rolls, New Yorkers cast their ballots Tuesday in high-stakes Democratic and Republican primaries—those who were able to, at least.

The results in New York's closed primary could define the rest of the race, putting the Empire State in the rare campaign spotlight. 

And the glare has been harsh.

There were reports that some precincts opened two hours later than they were supposed to, and would-be voters whose names couldn't be found on registration lists. 

The state's "strict voter registration rules sparked mounting frustration and anger among Bernie Sanders supporters," the Guardian reported, "as some discovered they were unable to vote in the primary election showdown with Hillary Clinton only after arriving at their local polling stations."

According to the Guardian, some "registered voters arrived at polling stations claiming they had met all the requirements to switch party affiliation in time, yet still found themselves missing from the list, prompting angry scenes that may further hamper hopes of reconciling the two wings of the Democratic party once the nomination is decided."

Battle for New York: Clinton & Trump Win as NYC Voters Report Chaos & “Irregularities” at the Polls

Hillary Was Nowhere to Be Seen in the Fight for 15—I Should Know

#Clinton Was Nowhere to Be Seen in the Fight for 15—I Should Know #NYprimary #Sanders via @thenation @cmkshama https://t.co/WaMEmsatDv

— New International (@NIBS_TradesHall) April 20, 2016

It was inspiring to see the call for a $15 minimum wage take center stage at last week’s presidential debate in New York. And arguably, to become the most contentious part of it, each candidate jockeying to prove their support for what was once considered a politically impractical dream. Our movement has come a long way.

But as an early participant in this movement, and as an elected official who centered the Fight for $15 in my 2013 election campaign for Seattle City Council, I was surprised to hear from Hillary Clinton that she had always supported $15. Even more surprising, she specifically said she supported the call for $15 here in Seattle, the first major city to pass it.

I can tell you, this came as a news flash to all the activists and fast-food workers who fought hard against Big Business to win $15 in Seattle.

When we started, our demand was ridiculed by Seattle’s political and media establishment. We were told to “tone it down,” not unlike Hillary’s recent advice to Bernie. For almost the entire 2013 election, no part of Seattle’s Democratic establishment supported $15 an hour. Local media asked mayoral and other city council candidates if they would support $15, and not a single one initially would! Some went out of their way to make opposing arguments, saying it would be a job killer, or that it was “presumptuous.”

At that point, if someone like Hillary Clinton had so much as tweeted in support of $15, it would have made our work a lot easier. But she did nothing of the kind.

More than half US population lives amid dangerous air pollution, report warns

American Lung Association’s ‘state of the air’ report finds 166 million Americans are living in unhealthy ozone or particle pollution with serious health risks

A total of 166 million Americans live in areas that have unhealthy levels of of either ozone or particle pollution, according to the American Lung Association, raising their risk of lung cancer, asthma attacks, heart disease, reproductive problems and other ailments.

The association’s 17th annual “state of the air” report found that there has been a gradual improvement in air quality in recent years but warned progress has been too slow and could even be reversed by efforts in Congress to water down the Clean Air Act.

Climate change is also a looming air pollution challenge, with the report charting an increase in short-term spikes in particle pollution. Many of these day-long jumps in soot and smoke have come from a worsening wildfire situation across the US, especially in areas experiencing prolonged dry conditions. ...

Small particles that escape from the burning of coal and from vehicle tail pipes can bury themselves deep in people’s lungs, causing various health problems. Ozone and other harmful gases can also be expelled from these sources, triggering asthma attacks and even premature death.

After Big Oil Pressure, EU Dropped Key Environmental Measures

European Union officials "abandoned or weakened" new environmental protections after a top BP oil executive expressed concerns about their effect on the fossil fuels industry, the Guardian revealed on Wednesday.

According to a 10-page letter obtained by the Guardian, the unnamed executive warned that proposed pollution cuts and a push for clean technologies "has the potential to have a massively adverse economic impact on the costs and competitiveness of European refining and petrochemical industries, and trigger a further exodus outside the EU."

The Guardian reports:

The missive to the EU’s energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, was dated 9 August 2013, partly hand-written, and signed by a senior BP representative whose name has been redacted.

Green MEP Molly Scott Cato said the document "reveals how the arm-twisting tactics of big oil seek to undermine the EU's progressive energy and climate policies. BP's covert lobbying, combined with threats of an exodus of the petrochemicals industry from the EU, are nothing short of blackmail."

"This document paints a disturbing picture of the degree to which global corporations subvert the democratic process, influence the commission and threaten the vital transition to a cleaner, greener Europe," she told the Guardian.

'Only the Beginning': Three Face Criminal Charges in Flint Water Crisis

Two employees of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and one city employee charged in lead poisoning disaster

According to MLive, the individuals charged are Flint employee Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Steven Busch and Michael Prysby.

MLive reports:

Glasgow is accused of tampering with evidence when he allegedly changed testing results to show there was less lead in city water than there actually was. He is also charged with willful neglect of office. 

Prysby and Busch are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, a treatment violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act and a monitoring violation of the Safe Drinking Water.

"These charges are the only beginning and there will be more to come. That I can guarantee you," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. "So many things went so terribly wrong, and tragically wrong, in Flint."

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Is Drinking Flint's Water Every Day For a Month

"Flint residents made it clear that they would like to see me personally drink the water, so today I am fulfilling that request," said the Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in a statement. "And I will continue drinking Flint water at work and at home for at least 30 days."

Earlier this month, a group of government water authorities and independent researchers reported that the city's water had improved and that properly filtered tap water should be safe to drink. The group said the water is safe to bathe in unfiltered, but also advised that the system remains unstable and that at-risk groups, including young children and pregnant woman, should continue drinking bottled water.

Snyder has touted these finding as progress. ... But Flint Democratic congressman Dan Kildee sees the 30-day pledge as more helpful to Snyder than it is to the beleaguered Flint community.

"The governor is treating this crisis like it is a public relations problem for him rather than the public health emergency that it is for 100,000 people," said Kildee.

Also of Interest

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

Washington's Dangerous Addiction to Military Power

Bowing to America’s Oligarchs

How I Was Arrested by a War Crimes Tribunal — for My Journalism

The tragedy of ‘foreign policy elites’

What Really Stands in the Way of Closing Guantánamo

I want Bernie Sanders to win. But it's more vital that his movement persevere

Sanders says Clinton violated campaign spending laws

A Little Night Music

James " Son " Thomas - Feelin' Good & Highway 61 blues

James Son Thomas - Cairo Blues

James "Son" Thomas - Catfish Blues

James "Son" Thomas - Early One Morning Blues

James Son Thomas - Crawlin Kingsnake

James 'Son' Thomas - Roll And Tumble

James Son Thomas - Standing at the crossroads