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“To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence.”

-- Tariq Ali

News and Opinion

Noam Chomsky nails it again:

Playing by the al-Qaida gameplan: how the war on terror spread jihadi influence

In brief, the global war on terror sledgehammer strategy has spread jihadi terror from a tiny corner of Afghanistan to much of the world, from Africa through the Levant and south Asia to south-east Asia. It has also incited attacks in Europe and the United States.

The invasion of Iraq made a substantial contribution to this process, much as intelligence agencies had predicted. Terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank estimate that the Iraq war “generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third”. Other exercises have been similarly productive. ...

The general consequences of resorting to the sledgehammer against vulnerable societies comes as little surprise. William Polk’s careful study of insurgencies, Violent Politics, should be essential reading for those who want to understand today’s conflicts, and surely for planners, assuming that they care about human consequences and not merely power and domination.

Polk reveals a pattern that has been replicated over and over. The invaders – perhaps professing the most benign motives – are naturally disliked by the population, who disobey them, at first in small ways, eliciting a forceful response, which increases opposition and support for resistance. The cycle of violence escalates until the invaders withdraw – or gain their ends by something that may approach genocide. ...

Obama’s global drone assassination campaign, a remarkable innovation in global terrorism, exhibits the same patterns. By most accounts, it is generating terrorists more rapidly than it is murdering those suspected of someday intending to harm us – an impressive contribution by a constitutional lawyer on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, which established the basis for the principle of presumption of innocence that is the foundation of civilized law. ...

Careful studies of al-Qaida and Isis have shown that the United States and its allies are following their gameplan with some precision. Their goal is to “draw the west as deeply and actively as possible into the quagmire” and “to perpetually engage and enervate the United States and the west in a series of prolonged overseas ventures” in which they will undermine their own societies, expend their resources, and increase the level of violence, setting off the dynamic that Polk reviews.

Iraq on the brink of collapse

The recent intrusion into the Green Zone, the vast (10sq km), blast-walled government compound in Baghdad, by thousands of angry Iraqis was probably the beginning of the end of the current dispensation in Iraq.

After only two days they left on May 1, after delivering an ultimatum calling for wholesale reform of the government, but they vowed to return if it does not happen.

It will not happen, and they will be back in the streets soon. ...

There are 7 million government employees in Iraq - in other words, a large majority of the adult male population - and most of them do little or no work. Indeed, some of them don't even exist, like the "ghost soldiers" whose pay is collected by their officers.

Collectively, they were paid around $4 billion a month - which was all right when monthly oil income was up around $6 billion. The oil revenue is now down to $2 billion a month and the Central Bank has been making up the difference from its reserves, but those are now running low.

The system is about to go bankrupt and the economic crisis is now more urgent and more dangerous than the military confrontation with Islamic State.

Abu Ghraib prisoners deserve, finally, their day in court

Twelve years ago American citizens and the rest of the world were rocked by the graphic photographs of the sexual and physical torture at Abu Ghraib. Once seen, the images are impossible to forget: the terrified prisoners, wide-eyed, mostly naked; the pyramids of bodies; the dog-collared man on all fours led on a leash; the hooded man standing on a box, arms spread as if crucified, electrical wires dangling from his fingertips. And, in almost every picture, the guards, looking on with a smirk.

As general counsel to the navy at that time, and an opponent of the Bush administration’s use and rationalization of torture and inhumane treatment against detainees, I watched Dick Cheney, George Tenet and others look on the laws that make torture unlawful with that same smirk. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, two torture proponents, follow in that tradition.

Do we want our American courts to uphold this lawlessness? To join the torturers and their enablers in smirking at the victims? So far, our courts have acted in just this way, barring torture victims from pursuing civil claims.

We are about to find out if our courts will continue this injustice. On 12 May, the fourth circuit court of appeals in Richmond, Virginia, will hear oral argument in Al Shimari v CACI, an appeal from a civil case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Abu Ghraib victims against a US-based government contractor.

The outcome of the appeal will determine whether the case will be heard or dismissed without trial. And a trial would decide whether the victims obtain compensation for their injuries and, no less important, a measure of respect from the hands of American justice.

Rights Group: Turkish Border Guards Killed Five Syrian Asylum Seekers

Human Rights Watch has issued a new report on violence by Turkish border guards against Syrian asylum seekers, reporting that at least five Syrians, including a child, have been killed in incidents, as the guards routinely shoot at and beat refugees at the crossings.

The report called Turkish behavior “truly appalling,” insisting that the Turkish government continues to claim an “open borders” policy even as they use violence to keep civilians off the border and growing camps spring up in northernmost Syria.

The casualties, five confirmed killed and 14 wounded, span the period of March and April, and the report warns that the situation has not improved in early May, meaning the toll is only getting worse, as Turkey aims to stem the tide of refugees.

Amid Embrace of Endless War, Report Shows Epic US Failure to Assist Refugees

The U.S. is failing to fulfill its "modest pledge" to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees by September 2016, according to the most recent government figures and a damning new report (pdf) from Human Rights First, prompting sharp critique from observers

Only 1,736 Syrians have been resettled within U.S. borders—fewer than one-fifth of the country's stated goal—in the seven months since Secretary of State John Kerry's original announcement in September of last year.

"The United States cannot lead by example unless the administration meets this year's very modest goal and sets a more meaningful and ambitious goal for next year," said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at the human rights non-profit to the New York Times on Tuesday.

Germany, Canada, and Brazil have all resettled far more Syrian refugees than the United States, despite those countries' smaller populations and even though it is U.S. foreign policy that has been characterized by many observers as largely responsible for the flood of global migration in the first place.

Days of Revolt: The General's Son

House Hides Most War Funding in NDAA Bill Scheme

The House Appropriations Committee has today unveiled its draft version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a $575 billion bill that includes some $59 billion worth of money for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), the controversial fund which the Pentagon is allowed to shuffle around.

This actually looks like a cut from last year’s $612 billion bill, but provides a deliberately misleading figure, as it includes only the first four months of 2017 war funding, with the assumption that whoever wins the November election will seek “emergency funding” to cover the rest of the year.

Obama to Make History with Hiroshima Visit, as U.S. Quietly Upgrades Nuclear Arsenal

Obama visit to Hiroshima should not be viewed as an apology, White House says

Barack Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima should not be interpreted as an apology, his spokesman said on Tuesday in the wake of the announcement that Obama would become the first sitting president to visit the site where the US dropped an atomic bomb in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people in the final days of the second world war.

Asked if the trip might be seen as an apology, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, replied: “If people do interpret it that way, they’ll be interpreting it wrongly.”

Earnest declined to comment on the morality of America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb, for which there have been calls for the country to apologise. He said: “The president intends to visit to send a much more forward-looking signal for his ambition of realising the goal of a planet without nuclear weapons.”

Earnest acknowledged that the US bore a “special responsibility” for the bombing of Hiroshima but was also quick to pay tribute to the “greatest generation” who fought in the second world war.

“There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about this trip,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “The president will have an opportunity to visit the peace park and offer up his own reflections about his visit to that city.”

Earnest added: “The president certainly does understand the United States bears a special responsibility. The United States continues to be the only country to have used nuclear weapons. It means our country bears a special responsibility to lead the world in eliminating them.

Dilma Rousseff Awaits Brazilian Senate’s Impeachment Vote

The Brazilian Senate is deciding whether to suspend Ms. Rousseff and place her on trial for borrowing money from state banks to plug budget holes, masking Brazil’s economic problems in an attempt to bolster her re-election prospects.

While Ms. Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, has largely stuck to her routine in recent days, consulting with cabinet ministers or meeting with supporters, her office issued a cryptic description of her schedule on Wednesday: “Internal meetings.”

Images have already circulated depicting Ms. Rousseff’s offices cleared of personal photographs, giving rooms a spartan feel. Aides said they expected Ms. Rousseff, 68, to watch the Senate vote unfold on television. Lawmakers are expected to finish voting sometime Wednesday night.

If she is ousted by the Senate, the formal notification of her removal should arrive on Thursday morning.

Brazil: Rousseff in last-ditch attempt against impeachment

Brazil’s Democracy to Suffer Grievous Blow Today as Unelectable, Corrupt Neoliberal is Installed

In 2002, Brazil’s left-of-center Workers Party (PT) ascended to the presidency when Lula da Silva won in a landslide over the candidate of the center-right party PSDB (throughout 2002, “markets” were indignant at the mere prospect of PT’s victory). The PT remained in power when Lula, in 2006, was re-elected in another landslide against a different PSDB candidate. PT’s enemies thought they had their chance to get rid of PT in 2010, when Lula was barred by term limits from running again, but their hopes were crushed when Lula’s handpicked successor, the previously unknown Dilma Rousseff, won by 12 points over the same PSDB candidate who lost to Lula in 2002. In 2014, PT’s enemies poured huge amounts of money and resources into defeating her, believing she was vulnerable and that they had finally found a star PSDB candidate, but they lost again, this time narrowly, as Dilma was re-elected with 54 million votes.

In sum, PT has won four straight national elections – the last one occurring just 18 months ago. Its opponents have vigorously tried – and failed – to defeat them at the ballot box, largely due to PT’s support among Brazil’s poor and working classes.

So if you’re a plutocrat with ownership of the nation’s largest and most influential media outlets, what do you do? You dispense with democracy altogether – after all, it keeps empowering candidates and policies you dislike – by exploiting your media outlets to incite unrest and then install a candidate who could never get elected on his own, yet will faithfully serve your political agenda and ideology.

That’s exactly what Brazil is going to do today. The Brazilian Senate will vote later today to agree to a trial on the lower House’s impeachment charges, which will automatically result in Dilma’s suspension from the presidency pending the end of the trial.

Filipinos Just Elected Rodrigo Duterte, Their Version of Trump, as President

Filipino journalists Patricia Evangelista and Nicole Curato suggested on the eve of Monday’s election, Duterte’s foul-mouthed speaking style and reputation as a crime-fighter — he is accused of sanctioning hundreds of extrajudicial killings by vigilante death squads in his home city of Davao — appears to be exactly what appealed to voters fed up with a dysfunctional political system that seems to serve just the 40 families that reportedly control three-quarters of the nation’s wealth.

Writing on the Filipino website Rappler, Evangelista and Curato observed that “an angry old man from the forgotten south has already changed the tenor of political conversation.”

The new tone, they added, “is indignant, often violent, but it is hopeful nonetheless, and it has energized a citizenry once resigned to politics as usual.”

He stands instead for the politics of the extreme. He says screw the bleeding hearts, and to hell with the bureaucracy. He voices the helplessness and rage of Filipinos forced to make do in a country where corruption is casual and crime is ordinary. Duterte has their backs, and he says the struggle ends here, today. He goes beyond anger, even beyond solutions. Digong Duterte offers retribution.

According to Phelim Kine, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia, the operation of death squads in Davao during Duterte’s time in charge has “resulted in the deaths of hundreds of street children, petty criminals, and petty drug dealers since 1998.” ...

Duterte reacted by encouraging Human Rights Watch to file charges against him, but said in the same interview that he would kill 100,000 criminals if he became president and dump their bodies in Manila Bay.

German eatery forced to close over Erdogan burgers

If Facebook hides conservative news, a Senate inquiry is a bad idea

Many people were rightly disturbed earlier this week when Gizmodo revealed that Facebook employees allegedly suppressed conservative news stories on the whim of their employer’s political leanings. As alarming as that story is, a new congressional investigation into Facebook for those editorial choices is arguably worse. ...

Republicans on the Senate commerce committee have opened an inquiry into Facebook’s editorial decisions, which encroaches on the first amendment in a way that represents a clear and present danger to their free speech. ...

Republicans on the Senate commerce committee, led by Senator John Thune, were apparently so stung by Facebook’s alleged anti-conservative bias, they wrote an accusatory letter to Facebook on Tuesday saying: “Facebook must answer these serious allegations and hold those responsible to account if there has been political bias in the dissemination of trending news ... Any attempt by a neutral and inclusive social media platform to censor or manipulate political discussion is an abuse of trust and inconsistent with the values of an open internet.” ...

The most hypocritical part of all this is that Thune’s investigation directly contradicts his own purported views on free speech that date back to the debate over the Fairness Doctrine. ... The most notable critic was Senator Thune himself, who wrote in 2007 that the proposed revival of the policy was “Orwellian”. He added: “I know the hair stands up on the back of my neck when I hear government officials offering to regulate the news media and talk radio to ensure fairness.” Apparently the same does not apply when it’s progressive views which bear the brunt of criticism.

Senate Kicks Off Debate Over Reauthorizing Controversial NSA Programs

The Senate Judiciary Committee summoned a handful of cybersecurity, privacy, and national security experts on Tuesday to lay out the pros and cons of reauthorizing the law the NSA says authorizes it to collect hundreds of millions of online communications from providers like Facebook and Google as well as straight off the internet’s backbone.

The NSA spying programs PRISM and Upstream are ostensibly aimed at “foreign targets” but nevertheless scoop up a potentially vast but non-public number of communications involving innocent Americans, some of which are made accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008, the authority cited for the programs, will sunset in December 2017. That gives privacy advocates the same kind of leverage they had in 2015, when the sunset of some Patriot Act provisions led Congress to end bulk collection of domestic phone records. ...

Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Christopher Coons, D-Del., and Al Franken, D-Minn., all pushed for some sort of estimate of how many American communications are collected.

Clapper has said his office is working on a way to disclose a ballpark number, but hasn’t provided any timeline to release it.

Hackers Attempt to Hold Capitol Hill Data for Ransom

The House is under attack by hackers hoping to infiltrate congressional computers, encrypt their contents, and then force users to pay a ransom to get their access back.

“In the past 48 hours, the House Information Security Office has seen an increase of attacks on the House Network using third party, web-based mail applications such as YahooMail, Gmail,” the House’s Technology Service Desk wrote in an email to House staffers on April 30.

According to the email obtained by The Intercept, the hacked emails impersonate familiar people and invite staffers to download an attachment laced with malware—what’s known as a “phishing” attack. ...

House administrative offices refused to say how many if any attacks have been successful, what sort of data may have been affected, or how much has been paid in ransom, if anything.

A lockdown on parts of the House internet network—from WiFi to Ethernet—remains ongoing.

Top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn in 2015 – more than some nations

The world’s top 25 hedge fund managers earned $13bn last year – more than the entire economies of Namibia, the Bahamas or Nicaragua.

Kenneth Griffin, founder and chief executive of Citadel, and James Simons, founder and chairman of Renaissance Technologies, shared the top spot, taking home $1.7bn each – equivalent to the annual salaries of 112,000 people taking home the US federal minimum wage of $15,080.

The earnings of the best-performing hedge fund managers, published by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine on Tuesday, dwarfs the pay of top Wall Street executives who have been under fire for their multimillion-dollar pay deals. The best paid banker last year was JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who collected $27m.

401(k) Plan Has Been a Disaster for Black Workers (And a Wealth Transfer to Wall Street for Everyone Else)

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, shows that Black workers experienced devastating declines in their defined contribution plan balances (mostly 401(k) plans) between 2007 and 2013 – an experience not shared by White workers.

According to the GAO, Black working households’ median 401(k) balance declined by a stunning 47 percent between 2007 to 2013, the latest date for which data is available. The median balance for Black working households in 2007 stood at $31,100 versus $16,400 in 2013. To put that 47 percent decline into sharper focus, the GAO found that the 401(k) balance for White working households “did not change significantly over the same period.”

That isn’t actually good news for White workers either since they were likely making regular contributions to their 401(k) plans while the account value went nowhere.

Farm Workers Sue Over Labor Rights in Landmark Case for 'Dignity and Humanity'

Farm workers have sued New York for the right to organize in a groundbreaking lawsuit that demands they receive the same rights as "virtually every other worker," the New York chapter of the ACLU said on Tuesday.

The lawsuit claims that laborers are being forced to work in "life-threatening, sweatshop-like conditions" and are prevented from organizing under threat of retaliation.

It also charges that the State Employment Relations Act is part of a Depression-era measure meant to enact protections for workers but which excluded farm workers, who were majority black at the time, to accommodate segregationist policies of racist Congress members. That exclusion has held, impacting laborers who are now largely Central American and Mexican immigrants, the lawsuit states.

"It's a shame for New York that in 2016, a holdover, racist policy from the Jim Crow era prevents farm workers from organizing to improve their brutal work conditions," said NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman. "Enough is enough. Farm workers who we depend on to put food on our tables deserve no less dignity and humanity than any other hardworking New Yorker."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Crispin Hernandez, who was fired from Marks Farm LLC—one of the state's largest dairies—after his employer saw him meeting with coworkers to discuss unionizing. Hernandez, who has worked for Marks Farm since he was a teenager, says he lost his home after being terminated.

Striking Prisoners in Alabama Accuse Officials of Using Food as Weapon

Alabama prisoners who have been on strike for 10 days over unpaid labor and prison conditions are accusing officials of retaliating against their protest by starving them. The coordinated strike started on May 1, International Workers’ Day, when prisoners at the Holman and Elmore facilities refused to report to their prison jobs and has since expanded to Staton, St. Clair, and Donaldson’s facilities, according to organizers with the Free Alabama Movement, a network of prison activists.

Prison officials responded by putting the facilities on lockdown, partially to allow guards to perform jobs normally carried out by prisoners. But prisoners told The Intercept that officials also punished them by serving meals that are significantly smaller than usual, a practice they have referred to as “bird feeding.”

The Alabama Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment, though earlier this month they told local reporters that inmates had “not given any demands, or a reason for refusing to work.”

Prisoners told The Intercept they are protesting severe overcrowding, poor living conditions, and the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bans slavery and servitude “except as a punishment for crime,” thus sanctioning the legality of forced, unpaid prison labor. Prisoners said they have voiced their requests in meetings with prison officials but were told their demands were “too great.” Last month, after riots broke out at Holman prison twice in four days, prisoners also circulated a list of demands, including federal assistance, the release of inmates who are eligible for parole, and compensation for “mental pain and physical abuse.” They are planning to circulate an updated list today.

A prisoner serving a life sentence at Holman prison shared photos of his meals in text messages over the last several days. One picture shows a meal made of two slices of white bread, cereal, a slice of yellow cheese, artificial sugar and a brown sauce the inmate said was prune stew. Another meal was made up of two slices of white bread, an apple, and an unrecognizable white mixture wrapped in plastic.

Now this is progress! Whacko right wingers now seem to agree that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment.

Cliven Bundy sues Obama over 'cruel and unusual' solitary confinement

Jailed Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy filed a lawsuit against Barack Obama, challenging his placement in solitary confinement and seeking to dismiss the federal government’s felony charges that could condemn him to die behind bars.

The suit from the rancher, who led a high-profile standoff against the government in 2014, also names US judge Gloria Navarro and Nevada senator Harry Reid.

The complaint, filed Tuesday, offers a defense of the 70 year old’s infamous comment that black people may have been “better off as slaves, picking cotton” and slams Obama for “despicable disrespectful mocking” of Bundy at the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The lawsuit from Bundy – who has been denied bail and remains incarcerated as he awaits trial, is scheduled for February 2017 and accuses the government of “cruel and unusual punishment” for locking him in solitary confinement. It also says officials have violated his free-speech rights, his freedom of religion, his second amendment rights and his right to a speedy trial.

The suit calls for Navarro to be removed as the judge in the Bundy case, noting that Reid recommended her for an appointment and Obama nominated her – and both Reid and Obama have publicly made negative comments about Bundy.

Canada Adopts UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, but Some Are Skeptical Anything Will Change

Cheers erupted in the room on Tuesday as Canada announced it will fully support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), reversing the position of the previous government, which nine years ago made this country one of just four to reject the document.

But certain phrases used in the announcement — which comes as various Indigenous communities voice opposition to pipeline or development projects running through their territories — have put critics on edge.

Signed in 2007 by 144 countries — excluding Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand — UNDRIP recognizes Indigenous peoples' rights, including language, identity, culture, health, education, as well as the right to free, prior and informed consent to development on Indigenous lands. It's a non-binding declaration that cannot be enforced.

Canada initially voted against it, despite being involved in its creation, citing concerns that the informed consent provisions amounted to giving Indigenous people veto power. ...

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said on Tuesday that the government intends to do "nothing less than adopt and implement the declaration in accordance with the Canadian constitution," citing Section 35 of the document as a "robust framework on Indigenous rights." ...

A statement from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said the announcement "disappointingly suggests little change from the previous government's stance on the right of Inuit and other Indigenous peoples to self-determination."

They called Bennett's suggestion that the declaration should be interpreted to fit within Canada's constitutional framework a fundamental departure "from the spirit and intent of the Declaration itself," adding that ideally, the opposite would happen.

"Section 35 is the legal floor upon which to build in more robust, consent-based processes between Indigenous peoples and the Government of Canada that are based on our right to free, prior and informed consent, which is a much stronger standard than 'consultation,'" the statement said.

Bernie Sanders takes West Virginia, media still diminishing the significance of Sanders' support with appeals to "the math."

Bernie Sanders takes West Virginia

A defiant Bernie Sanders refused to go gently into the night on Tuesday with another last-minute primary win over Hillary Clinton that comes despite her commanding lead in the national race for delegates.

In a fundraising email sent out soon after polls closed, the leftwing senator hailed his victory in West Virginia and said: “Every vote we earn and every delegate we secure sends an unmistakable message about the values we share, the country’s support for the ideas of our campaign, and a rejection of Donald Trump and his values.”

He added: “There is nothing I would like more than to take on and defeat Donald Trump, someone who must never become president of this country. But I believe that it is not enough to just reject Trump – this is an opportunity to define a progressive vision for America.

“Voters agree: just today, three new polls showed that we are the best campaign to defeat Trump.” ...

But with West Virginia’s 29 delegates awarded on a proportionate basis, the small net gain for Sanders is unlikely to make much of a dent in the lead of 290 pledged delegates that the former secretary of state had going into the contest. She is much further ahead when superdelegates – party elites not bound by primary results – are factored into the equation.

Sanders Wins West Virginia Primary (And No, It's Not Inconsequential)

Though the mainstream and corporate media continue to push a narrative suggesting the race for Democratic nomination is essentially over, polling released in the last twenty-four hours shows that Sanders continues to do better nationally in a hypothetical general-election matchup against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Karli Wallace Thompson, a campaign manager for Democracy for America, an advocacy group backing Sanders' campaign, said Tuesday's win in West Virginia should not be downplayed.

"Regardless of what the mainstream media would like you to believe, these victories matter," said Thompson, "and not just because each win gets us closer to overtaking Hillary Clinton in the delegate count."

Sanders' latest victories matter, argues Thompson, "because they send a clear message to the Democratic Party that we refuse to give up on our values. Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, some pro-corporate Democrats are sensing an opportunity to move the party even further to the right in order to win the votes of 'Never Trump' voters. They're ignoring the fact that modern presidential elections are always won by candidates who motivate their base and speak to their values."

Targeting Big Pharma Price Gouging, Sanders Backs California Ballot Fight

"While Congress has failed to stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, the people of California can by supporting this ballot initiative," Sanders said while campaigning in the state on Tuesday.

Called the California Drug Price Relief Act, the measure in question, as described by the San Francisco Chronicle, "would restrict California health programs from paying more for prescription drugs than what’s paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs." Given the enormous leverage of the VA, those drug prices are often the lowest available anywhere in the nation.

Backed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the National Nurses United (NNU), and Californians for Lower Drug Prices campaign, voters will have a chance to vote on the initiative in November after supporters collected more than half a million signatures to get it on the ballot.

Clinton Wall Street candidate based on donation figures

The party of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Hillary Clinton is open for business. Having quietly rescinded Obama's policy of barring lobbyists and special interests, the Democratic National Committee is getting jiggy with big money.

Democratic Convention Hosted by Republican Donors, Anti-Obamacare Lobbyists

The composition of the 15-member Democratic National Convention Host Committee may appear out of sync with the rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but the reality is that the party, in the form of the Democratic National Committee, has moved decisively to embrace the lobbying industry. In October 2015, DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., reportedly huddled with dozens of lobbyists to plan the convention in Philadelphia, and provided the influence peddlers involved with a menu of offerings in exchange for donations. In February, news reports revealed that the DNC had quietly lifted the Obama-era ban on federal lobbyist donations to the party and convention committee. ...

The Host Committee’s finance chair is Daniel Hilferty. In his day job, Hilferty is CEO of Independence Blue Cross, a health insurance giant that covers nine million people. In December, Hilferty became board chairman of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association of America, a trade group that lobbies for the insurance industry, and he serves on the board of directors of America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP), the insurance industry lobbying group that spearheaded the campaign against the Affordable Care Act. Lobby registration documents show the BCBS Association is actively supporting a number of Republican bills to roll back provisions of the ACA. ...

The Philadelphia Host Committee chair, former Gov. Ed Rendell, headed for Wall Street as soon as he left office, and has since represented a number of controversial special interests. In 2011, as New York was debating regulations on fracking, Rendell wrote a pro-fracking opinion column in the New York Daily News, while failing to disclose that he was a paid consultant at a private equity firm that had investments in the industry. ...

The former governor also joined the group Fix The Debt — an organization backed by private equity billionaire Pete Peterson that advocates for cutting Social Security benefits — co-chairing its activities alongside Judd Gregg.

Clinton aide reported to have walked out of FBI interview

A senior aide to Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of State briefly walked out of an interview with federal investigators when an FBI official began to discuss a topic considered off-limits, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former State Department chief of staff, and her lawyer both returned to the interview room a short time later, according to the newspaper, citing several unidentified people.

The off-limits questions reportedly concerned the way in which emails were given to the State Department to be distributed to the public. According to the Post, Mills worried that the questions would violate the attorney-client privilege, and investigators had previously agreed not to broach the subject. It is unclear when the interview occurred. ...

The Tuesday afternoon report comes as the federal investigation related to Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server throughout her time at the State Department appears to be coming to a close. Interviews of Mills and other top aides have reportedly been conducted in recent weeks, and Clinton herself is expected to answer investigators’ questions soon.

World's carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return

Future in which global concentration of CO2 is permanently above 400 parts per million looms

The world is hurtling towards an era when global concentrations of carbon dioxide never again dip below the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone, as two important measuring stations sit on the point of no return.

The news comes as one important atmospheric measuring station at Cape Grim in Australia is poised on the verge of 400ppm for the first time. Sitting in a region with stable CO2 concentrations, once that happens, it will never get a reading below 400ppm.

Meanwhile another station in the northern hemisphere may have gone above the 400ppm line for the last time, never to dip below it again.

“We’re going into very new territory,” James Butler, director of the global monitoring division at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Guardian.

When enough CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, the seasonal cycles that drive the concentrations up and down throughout the year will eventually stop dipping the concentration below the 400ppm mark. The 400ppm figure is just symbolic, but it’s psychologically powerful, says Butler. ...

“Even if we stopped emitting now, we’re committed to a lot of warming.”

Naomi Klein: Radical Solutions Only Proper Response to 'Unyielding Science-Based Deadline'

In a public lecture delivered last week and published online Tuesday, award-winning Canadian author and social justice activist Naomi Klein argues the dire situation of climate change, coupled with failing political and economic systems, is creating a world where nobody will be left unaffected.

"It is not about things getting hotter and wetter but things getting meaner and uglier, unless we change the corrosive values that are pitting people against each other," Klein said last Wednesday as she gave the 2016 Edward W. Said London Lecture at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

In her construction, the many neglected populations — either left behind or exploited by global capitalism's rapacious appetite for growth and profit—reside in what she refers to as 'sacrifice zones' in which pollution, extreme weather events, endemic poverty, and political disempowerment have all become commonplace.

In her remarks, Klein returned to one of the central premises of her most recent book, This Changes Everything, by reminding the audience that even as global warming and its attendant crises present perhaps the great challenge humankind has ever confronted, the situation should also be seen as a great opportunity. ...

Because of the intersecting and overlapping nature of the crises the world faces, Klein added, "we need to design and fight for policy solutions that radically bring down emissions, create huge numbers of well-paying jobs that pay a living wage, that are unionized, and that bring justice to the 'sacrifice zones' and to the frontlines of climate impacts."

GPS Tracking Devices Catch Major U.S. Recyclers Exporting Toxic E-Waste

A two year investigation of electronics recycling using GPS tracking devices has revealed that policies aimed at curtailing the trade in toxic e-waste have been unsuccessful, with nearly one third of the devices being exported to developing countries, where equipment is often dismantled in low-tech workshops — often by children — endangering workers, their families, and contaminating the surrounding environment.

A report from the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based non-profit devoted to ending the trade in toxic waste, raises major questions about U.S. government e-waste policies and oversight as well as the voluntary programs the electronics recycling industry relies on to ensure that this equipment is handled responsibly. BAN’s early data has already resulted in one major recycler losing an important certification as a responsible e-waste handler and launched state investigations into possible hazardous waste violations. The data BAN obtained with these tracking devices also shows equipment left at Goodwill, with whom Dell partners for recycling, was also exported.

Most of [the exported] equipment went to Hong Kong. But others were tracked to 10 different countries that include China, Taiwan, Pakistan, Mexico, Thailand, Cambodia and Kenya. While China has been a major e-waste export destination, the government there has been cracking down on these imports and trying to clean up some former major e-waste sites like Guiyu. Hong Kong’s New Territories region near the Chinese border appears to be the “new ground zero” for e-waste processing, said BAN’s executive director Jim Puckett. ...

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent estimate, the U.S. generates an estimated 3.14 million tons of e-waste annually. About 40 percent of this waste is recycled. Based on these numbers, BAN calculates that the U.S. is exporting between 314,000 and 376,800 tons of e-waste annually — or 43 to 52 container loads daily.

If not disposed of properly, e-waste can release numerous toxics — heavy metals including lead, mercury, and cadmium; and chemicals, among them brominated flame retardants and dioxins — into the environment. Numerous studies have found toxics associated with e-waste leaching from landfills, contaminating waterways, and contributing to global air pollution. In developing countries where informal and rudimentary electronics recycling often takes place, this e-waste processing has led to high levels to toxic exposures, including for children.

Also of Interest

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

British Hacker Wins Court Battle Over Encryption Keys

The Alberta Wildfire: Climate Change Clickbait?

The Secret NSA Diary of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator

These Residential School Survivors Won a Legal Battle in Canada — Now They Want An Apology

Bernie Sanders Could Still Win the Democratic Nomination — No, Seriously

Homeless photographers serve up antidote to food porn in new exhibit

A Little Night Music

Tommy Ridgley - Spreading Love

Tommy Ridgley - Jam Up Twist

Tommy Ridgley - When I Meet My Girl

Tommy Ridgley - In The Same Old Way

Tommy Ridgley - The Girl From Kooka Monga

Tommy Ridgley - Just A Memory

Tommy Ridgley - Monkey Man

Tommy Ridgley - Double Eye Whammy