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"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."

-- George W. Bush

News and Opinion

Saudi officials were 'supporting' 9/11 hijackers, commission member says

A former Republican member of the 9/11 commission, breaking dramatically with the commission’s leaders, said Wednesday he believes there was clear evidence that Saudi government employees were part of a support network for the 9/11 hijackers and that the Obama administration should move quickly to declassify a long-secret congressional report on Saudi ties to the 2001 terrorist attack.

The comments by John F Lehman, an investment banker in New York who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, signal the first serious public split among the 10 commissioners since they issued a 2004 final report that was largely read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.

“There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.” ...

The 9/11 commission chairman, former Republican governor Tom Kean of New Jersey, and vice-chairman, former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana, praised Saudi Arabia as, overall, “an ally of the United States in combatting terrorism” and said the commission’s investigation, which came after the congressional report was written, had identified only one Saudi government official – a former diplomat in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles – as being “implicated in the 9/11 plot investigation”.

The diplomat, Fahad al-Thumairy, who was deported from the US but was never charged with a crime, was suspected of involvement in a support network for two Saudi hijackers who had lived in San Diego the year before the attacks.

In the interview Wednesday, Lehman said Kean and Hamilton’s statement that only one Saudi government employee was “implicated” in supporting the hijackers in California and elsewhere was “a game of semantics” and that the commission had been aware of at least five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of involvement in the terrorists’ support network.

9/11 judge and prosecutors should step down over 'destroyed evidence', defense demands

Attorneys for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are calling on the judge and the entire prosecution team in Mohammed’s military commission at Guantánamo Bay to step down from the long-running case over what a member of the defense team called “at least the appearance of collusion” that led to the government apparently secretly destroying information relevant to the premier post-9/11 tribunal.

The defense team further argues that the destruction of evidence ought to spell the end of Mohammed’s military trial entirely, a development that would leave the Obama administration and its successor to come up with an entirely new plan for what to do with the top terror suspect in US custody. ...

The details of what happened are not known because the unclassified legal filing is not yet publicly available. The specific allegations were filed on Tuesday before the commission, but the filing must clear a routine security review that all such legal documents before the commission undergo. ...

Marine Corps Maj Derek Poteet, another member of Mohammed’s defense team, said that roughly two years ago, the prosecution in the tribunal relayed a request by the US government to destroy evidence relevant to both the guilt phase and the sentencing phase of Mohammed’s trial. Pohl issued an order instructing the government not to destroy the evidence, pending a further order. Attorneys for Mohammed did not take further legal action, as they considered the matter settled.

But around late December 2015, the defense team received what the lead attorney Nevin called a “hint from the prosecution that the evidence was no longer available to us”.

On 10 February, the defense team received a sealed order from Pohl revealing that 20 months earlier, the judge had permitted the government to destroy the evidence.

Poteet said that had the defense team been alerted to Pohl’s reversal of his evidence-destruction order, it would have attempted to stop it.

“There’s at least the appearance of collusion between the prosecution and the judge. We’re not saying more than that, but there is that appearance,” Poteet said.

Judge criticizes Pentagon suppression of thousands of Bush-era torture photos

A federal judge has sharply rebuked the Pentagon for the process by which it concealed hundreds of Bush-era photos showing US military personnel torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggesting Barack Obama may have to release even more graphic imagery of abuse.

Alvin Hellerstein, the senior judge who has presided over a transparency lawsuit for the photos that has lasted more than 12 years, expressed dissatisfaction over the Pentagon’s compliance with an order he issued last year requiring a case-by-case ruling that release of an estimated 1,800 photographs would endanger US troops.

“We don’t know the methodology, we don’t know what was reviewed, we don’t know the criteria, we don’t know the numbers,” Hellerstein said during an hour-long hearing on Wednesday.

Hellerstein said he would formally rule on the matter in the “near future”, a process that may compel the Pentagon to disclose additional photographs. ...

The ACLU has pursued the case for over a decade, through setbacks in both Hellerstein’s courtroom and in higher appellate courts, because it argues that the photographs represent evidence of crimes. Their suppression, the ACLU contends, distorts the historical record about the extent the US engaged in torture.

Saudi Military Threatens to Occupy Yemen Capital if Peace Talks Fail

Saudi Arabian Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, the spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition that has been attacking Yemen since March of 2015, today warned that if the ongoing peace talks in Kuwait fail, Saudi troops would respond with a military occupation of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

The timing of the threat is curious, as after the talks were paused last week, they made their first major progress only yesterday, with a massive prisoner exchange agreed to that officials say could free thousands of people on both sides.

The Saudi threat is also raising eyebrows because of how many times Gen. Asiri and others have predicted a quick military victory and overrunning of Shi’ite-held cities. After 15 months of such predictions, only a fraction of southern Yemen has actually been taken.

Given that, the threat to immediately take Sanaa just seems like bluster, because if the Saudi military could really take Sanaa in short order they surely would’ve done so by now.

The US Is Switching on an $800 Million Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe

The United States switches on an $800 million missile shield in Romania on Thursday, a step it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states, but which the Kremlin says is aimed at countering Russia's nuclear capabilities in the event of war.

At the remote Deveselu air base in Romania, senior US and NATO officials will declare the ballistic missile defense site operational. It is capable of shooting down rockets from countries such as Iran that Washington says could one day reach major European cities. ...

When complete, the defensive umbrella will stretch from Greenland to the Azores. On Friday, the US will break ground on a final site in Poland that should be ready by the end of 2018, completing the shield first proposed almost a decade ago that also includes ships and radars across Europe.

Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its Cold War rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe. Moscow says the US-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where NATO is also considering increasing patrols.

"It is part of the military and political containment of Russia," Andrey Kelin, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, said on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Kremlin says the shield's aim is to neutralize Moscow's nuclear arsenal long enough for the US to strike Russia in the event of war.

Samantha Power and the Humanitarian Bombers have a big day at the UN, committing the US to kill for peace. It's too bad that Power's and the US' vision of "protecting civilians" does not extend to taking care of the millions of civilians homeless, hungry, dispossessed and left to fend for themselves by their viscious "humanitarian" wars. Sadly, the US can only "help" with bullets and bombs, not bread.

US approves UN use of force to protect civilians in conflict

The United States is announcing its support for a set of principles that give a green light for U.N. peacekeeping troops and police to use force to protect civilians in armed conflicts.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told a high-level U.N. meeting Wednesday focusing on the responsibility to protect civilians that the United States was "proud" and "humbled" to join 28 other countries that have pledged to abide by the 18 pledges.

U.N. peacekeepers from these 29 countries are now required to act in cases where civilians are in danger.

Wars displace record 40.8 million people: report

The number of internally displaced people rose to a record 40.8 million people in 2015, according to a joint report released Wednesday by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

"This is the highest figure ever recorded, and twice the number of refugees worldwide," said Jan Egeland, the NRC's secretary-general.

There were 8.6 million people newly displaced within borders last year, nearly half from conflict zones in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, the report said. ...

"While richer, stable countries have been scheming to keep asylum seekers out of their borders and deny them protection, millions remain trapped in their own countries with death staring them just around the corner," Carsten Hansen, NRC's regional director in the Middle East said.

Exploiting Global Warming for Geo-Politics

Few media bothered to cover a frightening new report this month by Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Institute, which concluded that searing temperatures in the Middle East and North Africa could render much of the region uninhabitable by the end of this century and create a “climate exodus” that dwarfs today’s mass migration of refugees from the area.

But we don’t have to wait decades to see the explosive impact of climate change on the Middle East. For the past decade, scientists, humanitarian workers and U.S. diplomats have watched as devastating heat and drought disrupted Syria, causing hunger, unemployment, internal migration and civil unrest.

Aggravated by government mistakes and foreign intervention, those ills helped trigger the tragic violence that has killed nearly half a million Syrians and displaced more than half its population. ...

Thanks to documents released by Wikileaks, we know that none of this came as any surprise to Washington.

In August 2006, the U.S. embassy in Damascus reported that Syria faced a “water crunch” that could “balloon into a crisis in the medium to long term.” Although Damascus had “initiated steps to transition Syria’s agricultural sector to modern, more water-efficient, irrigation techniques,” the report warned that “the country’s emerging water crisis carries the potential for severe economic volatility and even socio-political unrest.”

Instead of helping the country overcome this looming crisis, however, the embassy began drafting recommendations for ways to destabilize Syria’s government — ranging from fomenting sectarian disputes to fanning rumors of coup plots within the country’s security services. By 2009, predictions of a crisis had come true. ...

By January 2010, the embassy was citing estimates by the UN World Food Program that 1.3 million Syrians had been affected by the drought and 800,000 were “in dire need of assistance.” UN experts begged the United States to contribute aid to prevent a worsening disaster. But American supporters of regime change argued for continuing to withhold aid. ...

The Obama administration’s attention to climate change as a strategic, economic and humanitarian issue stands in sharp and welcome relief to Republican Party denialism. But its worthy efforts to coordinate an international response to global warming are not enough.

Washington must also stand ready to help even inept or unfriendly governments — like Assad’s in Syria — cope with the immense social and economic stresses that millions of their citizens are today suffering as the planet warms. As Syria’s tragedy illustrates, taking advantage of regimes weakened by environmental catastrophes to coerce political changes is a recipe for humanitarian disaster and endless violence.

No-Confidence Vote Fails in France, Leaving Socialist Government Intact

France’s Socialist government survived a no-confidence vote in the lower house of Parliament on Thursday evening, leaving the government standing but still weakened as demonstrators continued to protest a contested labor law overhaul in cities around the country. ...

The motion was put forward by the right-wing opposition after the French government forced a labor reform bill through the National Assembly without a vote on Tuesday, a step it took after encountering opposition to the legislation from Socialist and other left-leaning lawmakers.

To do so, the government wielded a rarely-used constitutional provision that allows it to bypass a vote on a bill but enables lawmakers to file a motion of censure. Had the motion passed, the bill would have failed and the Socialist government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls would have been toppled, forcing President François Hollande to form a new one.

Hollande Continues to Prove that a Fake Left-Winger Is Worse than Most Right-Wingers

The majority of French citizens are opposed to the relaxation of labour standards that Hollande wants to push through, and there have been massive demonstrations against it. So what does Hollande’s government do?

France’s government announced Tuesday that it would empower Prime Minister Manuel Valls to bypass parliament and push through controversial labour reforms by decree despite widespread public demonstrations against the bill.

And the French people had a party at the Bastille when Hollande won! Hollande is a far more loathsome individual than, say, British PM David Cameron. Cameron ran as a right-wing pig-fucker who intended to destroy the social state. ...

This sort of bullshit will continue until it is stopped by ordinary people making a ruckus in the halls of power.

And they aren’t going to be allowed in because they ask nicely.

The different faces of France's anti-labour reform protesters

Dilma Rousseff suspended from office as senate votes to impeach Brazilian president

Less than halfway through her elected mandate, Dilma Rousseff was stripped of her presidential duties for up to six months on Thursday after the Senate voted to begin an impeachment trial.

After a marathon 20-hour debate that one politician described as the “saddest day for Brazil’s young democracy”, senators voted 55 to 22 to suspend the Workers’ party leader, putting economic problems, political paralysis and alleged fiscal irregularities ahead of the 54 million votes that put her in office.

Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, will have to step aside while she is tried in the upper house for allegedly manipulating government accounts ahead of the previous election. Her judges will be senators, many of whom are accused of more serious crimes.

A final decision, which is likely in September or October, will require a two-thirds majority. Ominously for the president, this margin was exceeded in Thursday’s vote.

The impeachment is more political than legal. Similar fiscal irregularities went unpunished in previous administrations, but they are a pretext to remove a leader who has struggled to assert her authority.

Dilma Rousseff Removed from Office As Impeachment Proceedings Continue

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff to Face Trial After Senate Votes to Impeach Her

The president of Latin America's largest economy and the world's fifth most populous country has been suspended from office and faces an impeachment trial following a Kafka-esque political saga that has divided Brazil down the middle. ...

Michel Temer, Rousseff's vice-president who will take over for six months as she undergoes an impeachment trial in the senate, has been investigated for bribery and kickbacks twice, also oversaw Petrobras during the height of the corruption scandal, and also approved the fiscal accounting measures that Rousseff is being impeached for.

Temer is the leader of the PMDB, the biggest party in Brazil, which does not have an ideological base but says it is committed to economic stability. While he also faces an impeachment process himself he has enough support in both houses that he does not need to worry. He has ruled out holding fresh elections, despite recent polls showing a majority of Brazilians want them. ...

The lead-up to Thursday's vote was marked by so many bizarre twists and turns that even Brazilians were struggling to understand what was going on. The impeachment vote in the lower house on April 17 saw congress members line up one by one to vote "yes" while shouting of their love for their country or support for its former military dictatorship — which imprisoned and tortured Rousseff — in an atmosphere resembling that of a soccer match.

The speaker of the lower house, evangelical conservative PMDB member Eduardo Cunha — third in line to the presidency and described as the architect of the impeachment — is accused of receiving $5 million in bribes and was suspended two weeks later by Brazil's Supreme Court for obstruction of justice. The man who took over, Waldir Maranhao, attempted to annul the vote last week, then within 24 hours announced he was annulling his annulment.

Police Officer Indicted on Federal Charges in Walter Scott Killing

A federal grand jury has indicted former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager for the fatal shooting of Walter Scott. ...

A statement issued Wednesday from the Department of Justice says that the three-count indictment includes charges for a federal civil rights offense for the shooting, excessive force without legal justification, and obstruction of justice for making false statements to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigators.

Slager, who is white, initially pulled over Scott, who is black, for having a broken tail light on his car. As Scott attempted to run away, the North Charleston officer shot the unarmed 50-year-old Navy veteran and father of four five times from behind.

The 34-year-old already faces an and indictment by a state court. The Post and Courier explains:

The new charges could serve as a backstop if the state’s case against Slager were to fail. Putting him on trial in both state and federal courts for the same shooting would not be double jeopardy because the jurisdictions are considered sovereign.

The Post and Courier reports, "The indictment makes the case one of the few high-profile American police killings in recent years to result in a federal criminal charge."

Cops Will Testify Against Cops as Trials for Freddie Gray's Arrest and Death Resume

The process of accountability for the six officers facing charges related to his arrest and death is just beginning. The trials resume today with the case of Edward M. Nero, one of the officers involved in Gray's arrest. He has pleaded not guilty to four misdemeanors including second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment in connection with Gray's death.

Two of Nero's colleagues are expected to take the stand against him. Never before in Maryland have co-defendants with pending charges for the same crime been forced to testify against each other.

Nero was one of three officers on bike patrol near the Gilmor Homes public housing complex on April 12, 2015 who arrested Gray after he ran from police. Officers found a switchblade knife on Gray. Nero and two colleagues appear in Moore's video, which shows Gray, his hands cuffed behind his back, being lifted into the back of a police van where, fatefully, he was not seat-belted.

In pretrial motions Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams granted a number of motions limiting the information that will be presented in Nero's trial. At the defense's request, any video of Gray's arrest shown in court will have the audio muted on the grounds that Gray's wailing and the commentary of onlookers could prejudice the case; a "step-by-step" rehashing of Gray's injuries sustained after the arrest will not be permitted, nor will discussion of Gray's past run-ins with the law and his exposure to lead poisoning as a child. The state will not be allowed to argue that the knife found on Gray was legal, as their case argues that the knife was found after Nero committed the alleged wrongful arrest. ...

The trials have been on hold since December, when a mistrial was declared in the case of 26-year-old officer William G. Porter. Months of delays followed while Maryland's highest court grappled with the key question of whether Porter can be forced to testify under limited immunity while he still has pending charges against him in Gray's death, including involuntary manslaughter and second-degree assault. Prosecutors allege that Porter, who was called to the arrest while on neighborhood patrol, repeatedly failed to respond to Gray's requests for medical attention.

Now, this is an outrage. Despite my familiarity with a wide range of expletives and derogatory language, words fail me in the struggle to find a category reprehensible enough to describe George Zimmerman.

George Zimmerman to auction gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin

George Zimmerman has listed the gun with which he killed Trayvon Martin in 2012 for auction, touting it as “your opportunity to own a piece of American history”.

Zimmerman listed “the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin” on GunBroker.com on Thursday, with bidding scheduled to begin at 11am EDT on Thursday.

He wrote in the item description that it had recently been returned to him by the Department of Justice and was fully functional.

“Many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C. This is a piece of American history. It has been featured in several publications and in current university text books. Offers to purchase the firearm have been received; however, the offers were to use the gun in a fashion I did not feel comfortable with.” ...

Zimmerman wrote that he was “proud to announce” that a portion of the proceeds raised would be used to “fight BLM [Black Lives Matter] violence against Law Enforcement officers” as well as ending the career of Angela Corey, his prosecutor – “and Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric”.

Remembering Michael Ratner, Pioneering Lawyer Who Fought for Justice from Attica to Guantánamo

Michael Ratner, attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, dies at 72

Michael Ratner, the civil and human rights attorney who represented Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in the US, died Wednesday at age 72, leaving behind an outsized legacy of advocacy for whistleblowers and US government detainees.

“As an attorney, writer, speaker, educator, activist ... Michael Ratner’s passion was not just for the law but for the struggle for justice and peace,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights, a not-for-profit legal advocacy organization where Ratner worked to bring cases for 45 years. “Michael dedicated his life to the most important fights for justice of the last half century.”

Ratner joined CCR in 1971 after graduating from Columbia law school, just a week before the famous prisoner revolt at the Attica correctional facility in upstate New York. The case of the Attica brothers versus then governor Nelson Rockefeller would be Ratner’s first for the organization.

A tireless critic of extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention throughout the post-9/11 war on terror, Ratner was co-counsel in a 2004 suit filed on behalf of captives at Guantánamo Bay that reached the supreme court. In a landmark decision, the justices decided in Rasul v Bush that detainees did have the right to challenge their detention and that US courts have the jurisdiction to hear those complaints in the case of foreign nationals.

Sanders' Top California Staffer Exits Before the Most Important Remaining Primary

The Sanders campaign has long used the California contest as an example that the nomination contest is far from over, hopeful that he will capture a large portion of the 475 pledged delegates available on June 7. News of state director Ceraso's split with the campaign, first reported by Politico, comes at an inopportune time, as Sanders struggles to catch up to rival Hillary Clinton's lead of 276 pledged delegates.

The circumstances surrounding Ceraso's departure were not immediately clear. Ceraso, who previously helped the campaign earn a key victory in New Hampshire, where he was the campaign's deputy state director, reportedly had pushed the campaign to focus more on its digital strategy in California, rather than television advertising, according to Politico. ...

The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request from VICE News for comment on Wednesday. But they wasted no time in announcing a replacement for Ceraso. Robert Becker, who was Sanders' state director in Iowa and worked on the campaigns efforts in numerous other states, including New York, will take the reins in California, a spokesman told Politico.

This is an excellent article, absolutely worth a full read.

Neocons and Neolibs: How Dead Ideas Kill

For centuries hereditary monarchy was the dominant way to select national leaders, evolving into an intricate system that sustained itself through power and propaganda even as its ideological roots shriveled amid the Age of Reason. Yet, as monarchy became a dead idea, it still killed millions in its death throes.

Today, the dangerous “dead ideas” are neoconservatism and its close ally, neoliberalism. These are concepts that have organized American foreign policy and economics, respectively, over the past several decades – and they have failed miserably, at least from the perspective of average Americans and people of the nations on the receiving end of these ideologies.

Neither approach has benefited mankind; both have led to untold death and destruction; yet the twin “neos” have built such a powerful propaganda and political apparatus, especially in Official Washington, that they will surely continue to wreak havoc for years to come. They are zombie ideas and they kill.

Yet, the Democratic Party is poised to nominate an adherent to both “neos” in the person of Hillary Clinton. Rather than move forward from President Barack Obama’s unease with what he calls the Washington “playbook,” the Democrats are retreating into its perceived safety. ...

Democratic Party insiders appear to be counting on the mainstream news media and prominent opinion-leaders to marginalize Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and to finish off Sanders, who faces long odds against Clinton’s delegate lead for the Democratic nomination, especially among the party regulars known as “super-delegates.”

But the Democratic hierarchy is placing this bet on Clinton in a year when much of the American electorate has risen up against the twin “neos,” exhausted by the perpetual wars demanded by the neoconservatives and impoverished by the export of decent-paying manufacturing jobs driven by the neoliberals.

Now, if only the US labor movement to stop embracing the neoliberal Democratic Party, all of Trumka's and others rhetorical exertions might come to something.

To Counter Trump and Far-Right, Labor Leaders call for 'Global New Deal'

Concerned about the rise of right-wing extremism and how it has preyed on the fears of working people across the world, labor leaders from nearly a dozen countries met in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to declare the need for a "global New Deal" to fight these forces.

"Too many politicians in the U.S. and Europe are exploiting our differences and inciting hate and division," said Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, which organized the day-long forum along with its non-union affiliate, Working America, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party. ...

"Income inequality is a global problem that should unite all leaders; it should not give rise to right wing extremism and building walls," Trumka continued. "We must come together to focus on common issues like raising wages and creating good jobs. Political tactics that scapegoat hardworking immigrants and refugees only serve to pit workers against one another, while ignoring the corporate excess that created these problems." ...

Notably, Tuesday's panel placed "a sizable share of the blame" on center-left parties' embrace of neo-liberalism, HuffPo reports, which has "diminished the public's faith in the ability of labor unions and progressive politics to deliver for them—paving the way for far-right populism."

"We must insist that the candidates and political parties we support back an ambitious program for broad-based economic growth driven by rising wages," declared Damon Silvers, director of policy at the AFL-CIO. "The labor movement must demand that the politicians we support offer, in place of neoliberalism and austerity, a global New Deal."

Clinton Policies Have Hurt Women

“I strongly argued that we had to change the [welfare] system…I didn’t think it was fair that one single mother improvised to find child care and got up early every day to get to work while another stayed home and relied on welfare…The third bill passed by Congress cut off most benefits to legal immigrants, imposed a five-year lifetime limit on federal welfare benefits, and maintained the status quo on monthly benefit limits, leaving the states free to set benefit limits…I agreed that he [Bill] should sign it and worked hard to round up votes for its passage…Weeks after Bill signed the law, Peter Edelman and Mary Jo Bane, another friend and Assistant Secretary at HHS who had worked on welfare reform, resigned in protest.” – Hillary Clinton in her 2003 memoir Hard Choices.

Not liking Hillary has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has everything to do with the hypermasculine values she espouses.

Hillary is that rare combination, even in our grotesque political landscape, of a smooth-talking neoliberal with the worst tendencies of a warrior-neoconservative. You couldn’t say that about Bill to the same extent, but there isn’t a regime change opportunity, a chemical or conventional arms deal, an escalated aerial (or lately drone) war, or an authoritarian friend in need, that Hillary hasn’t liked. If we get her, we will only be setting back feminism by decades, because her policies—like welfare “reform”—have always come packaged under the false rubric of caring for women and children. It’s like George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” the rhetorical cover she needs to enact policies, time after time, that erode women’s and children’s standing even as she claims to be their steadfast advocate.

Bernie Sanders May Actually Have A Wall Street Buddy

Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders appears to have some friends in unexpectedly high places — Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial Wednesday called “Saved by the Superdelegates,” declaring in rather impassioned language that Sanders is being cheated by the superdelegate system, that he’ll do a way better job against Trump than Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would, and that, perhaps, the party should consider a contested convention.

As the primary season ends, Democratic voters are exhibiting a profound case of buyer’s remorse about Mrs. Clinton as their nominee, but she’s being rescued by the establishment … Mrs. Clinton has proven to be a lousy candidate, unappealing even to millions of Democrats. Mr. Trump is probably the weakest candidate Republicans could nominate, yet could Mrs. Clinton be the one Democrat who could lose to Mr. Trump? Maybe Democrats should consider a contested convention.

So, what’s to gain by trashing Trump and Clinton in the same breath? A contested convention, in theory, I guess.

But it could also just be that the Wall Street Journal understands on a practical level how bad someone as volatile — and lacking in clear policy — as Trump would be for the American economy in the long run and that it believes the data it cites in the
editorial about Sanders being electable against Trump in November. Few (maybe no one) would have expected the Wall Street Journal to be commending Sanders a year ago, but as has been said many, many times this election, politics makes strange bedfellows.

Bernie Sanders has been treated terribly by the Democrats—both with delegates & otherwise. He should show them, & run as an Independent.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2016

FBI's Comey: I feel 'pressure' to quickly finish Clinton email probe

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday he feels "pressure" to complete the federal investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server competently and quickly.

However, Comey said the pressure is similar to other high-profile cases the bureau handles such as terrorism investigations.

"We want to do it well and we want to do it promptly. I feel pressure to do both of those things," Comey told reporters during a roundtable at FBI headquarters. "As between the two things, we will always choose 'well.'"

Comey indicated he's not taking into account political events, including the upcoming conventions or the fall election.

"I don't tether to any external deadline," the FBI chief said.

Comey also swatted away a series of questions about the status of the investigation, describing it only as pending. He did repeat that he is tracking the probe closely.

Air pollution rising at an 'alarming rate' in world's cities

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

While all regions are affected, fast-growing cities in the Middle East, south-east Asia and the western Pacific are the most impacted with many showing pollution levels at five to 10 times above WHO recommended levels.

According to the new WHO database, levels of ultra-fine particles of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5s) are highest in India, which has 16 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities. ...

The new data, drawn from city and academic records, shows a rapid deterioration in air quality as low-income cities grow unchecked and populations become unable to escape clouds of smog and soot from transport, industry, construction sites, farming and wood-burning in homes.

Outdoor air pollution causes more than 3m deaths a year - more than malaria and HIV/Aids - and is now the biggest single killer in the world. The toll is expected to double as urban populations increase and car numbers approach 2bn by 2050.

28% of US bees wiped out this winter, suggesting bigger environmental issues

More than a quarter of American honeybee colonies were wiped out over the winter, with deadly infestations of mites and harmful land management practices heaping mounting pressure upon the crucial pollinators and the businesses that keep them.

Preliminary figures commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 28% of bee colonies in the United States were lost over the 2015-16 winter. More than half of surveyed beekeepers said they suffered unsustainable losses during the winter.

Over the year, from April 2015 to March 2016, beekeepers lost 44% of their colonies – the highest annual loss on record. Until six years ago annual figures were not kept as it was assumed colony losses were only suffered during winter, but similar declines are now occurring year-round.

“It’s very troubling and what really concerns me that we are losing colonies in summer too, when bees should be doing so well,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a University of Maryland bee scientist and survey leader. “This suggests there is something more going on – bees may be the canary in the coalmine of bigger environmental problems. ...

Bees’ woes have been pinned to a number of factors, including the mass conversion of pollen-rich meadows into heavily farmed land for staples such as corn and soy beans. Pesticide use and the spread of the varroa mite, parasites that suck blood from bees, which weakens and even kills off colonies, are also driving the decline.

Naomi Klein: Let them Drown - The Violence of Othering in a Warming World

Renewable Windfall as Germany's Green Energy Meets 90 Percent of Demand

Germany, the fourth-largest economy in the world and a leader in renewable energy, produced so much energy this weekend from its solar, wind, hydro, and biomass plants that power prices went into negative territory for several hours. Consumers were being paid to use energy.

According to Quartz, around 1 pm on Sunday, May 8—a particularly "sunny and windy day"—the plants supplied a combined 55 gigawatts, or 87 percent, of the 63 gigawatts being consumed.

"The power system adapted to this quite nicely," Christoph Podewil, of the German clean energy think tank Agora Energiewende, told the publication. "This day shows again that a system with large amounts of renewable energy works fine."

According to Agora, the average renewable mix in 2015 was 33 percent. ...

"Sunday’s performance highlights the success of the Energiewende, or 'energy transition,' Germany’s push to expand clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and democratize power generation," he wrote. "Smart policies have opened the renewable energy market to utilities, businesses and homeowners. As of 2012, individuals owned more than a third of Germany’s renewable energy capacity."

However, according to the reporting, the green power haul was slightly complicated by the inability of nuclear and coal plants to be taken offline "so they went on running and had to pay to sell power into the grid for several hours, while industrial consumers...earned money by consuming electricity."

French Rail Company Invests in Elon Musk's Near-Supersonic, Levitating Train of the Future

French national railway company SNCF has decided to back one of the American startups currently at work on the Hyperloop — a self-powering, high-speed transportation link that could see passengers zipping around low-pressure tubes in levitating, train-like "capsules."

The Hyperloop is the brainchild of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, best known for giving the world Tesla cars, Paypal, and SpaceX, a company that specializes in launching rockets and spacecraft. Initial plans for the Hyperloop were released in 2013.

Musk's vision for rail transport involves state of the art trains traveling through low-pressure tubes. The project was first revealed in 2013, when Musk released a 57-page document outlining his vision.

Powered by the overhead solar panels lining the Hyperloop tubes, Musk's system would see passenger capsules hurtling through the low-pressure tubes at speeds of up to 800 miles per hour.

Passengers of the Hyperloop — described by Musk as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air-hockey table" — will be able to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 30 minutes. A commute from Paris to Marseille, which takes just over three hours on an SNCF high-speed train, would shrink to 40 minutes.

Also of Interest

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

To end corruption, start with the US and UK. They allow it in broad daylight

A Major Flaw of the U.S. National Security State

Ten Ways Israel Is Just Like Saudi Arabia

Planning to flee Donald Trump's America? It might not be that easy

A Little Night Music

Henry James Townsend - Blind Girl Blues

Henry Townsend - Henry's Worry Blues

Henry Townsend - Poor man blues

Henry Townsend - The Train Is Coming

Henry Townsend - My Sweet Candy

Henry Townsend - Buzz Buzz Buzz

Henry Townsend - She Drove Me to Drinking

Henry Townsend - Sloppy Drunk