Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite. Enjoy!

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."

-- Napoleon Bonaparte

News and Opinion

Brazilian Judge Declines to Move Forward With Charges Against Glenn Greenwald “for Now”

A judge today declined to proceed with cybercrime charges lodged against Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald for his reporting on prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in Brazil.

In a decision announced Thursday, Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite ruled that Greenwald’s prosecution would not go forward, but only on account of a previous finding by the Brazilian Supreme Court that The Intercept’s reporting on Operation Car Wash had not transgressed any legal boundaries. In the absence of the injunction issued by a Supreme Court minister that prohibited investigations into Greenwald related to this case, Leite said he would have let the charges against Greenwald move forward. The judge also said that, if the Supreme Court injunction were to be overturned, he would be open to charging Greenwald.

“I decline, for now, to receive the complaint against GLENN GREENWALD, due to the controversy over the extent of the injunction granted by Minister Gilmar Mendes in ADPF nº 601, on 08/24/2019,” Leite wrote, referring to the ruling by Mendes, a Supreme Court minister. ...

“While I welcome the fact that this investigation will not move forward, this decision is insufficient to guarantee the rights of a free press,” Greenwald said in a statement. “The rejection is based on the fact that the Supreme Court already issued an injunction against attempts of official persecution against me. This is not enough. We seek a decisive rejection from the Supreme Court of this abusive prosecution on the grounds that it is a clear and grave assault on core press freedoms. Anything less would leave open the possibility of further erosion of the fundamental freedom of the press against other journalists.”

“We will continue the fight against this authoritarian escalation before the Supreme Court, all while we will keep reporting on the archive provided by our source,” Greenwald said.

Glenn is continuing to fight for press freedom beyond today's important development in his case https://t.co/eyWbS2wsSP

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) February 6, 2020

Bluesters fluent in German may find the links embedded in this piece interesting. I suspect, though, that much of the linked material recapitulates an article that I linked in the last few days about Melzer's recent statements.

German TV Exposes the Lies That Entrapped Julian Assange

Truth has broken through for those confused about how a publisher ended up in a maximum security prison in London with a one-way extradition ticket to court in the U.S. and the rest of his life behind bars. One of the main German TV channels (ZDF) ran two prime-time segments on Wednesday night exposing authorities in Sweden for having “made up” the story about Julian Assange being a rapist. Until last night most Germans, as well as other consumers of “major media” in Europe, had no idea of the trickery that enmeshed Assange in a spider-web almost certainly designed by the U.S. and woven by accomplices in vassal states like Sweden, Britain and, eventually, Ecuador.

ZDF punctured that web by interviewing UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer. One ZDF “Heute Sendung” segment (in German) is especially telling from minute 13:00 to 15:30 . The second is ZDF “Heute Journal” (minute 25:49 to 30:19.) Both ZDF programs show Melzer being interviewed, with minimal interruption or commentary, letting his findings speak for themselves about how allegations against Assange were “made up” and manipulated to hold him captive.

The particularly scurrilous allegation that led many, including initially Melzer, to believe Assange was a rapist — a tried and tested smear technique of covert action — was especially effective. The Swedes never formally charged him with rape — or with any crime, for that matter. ZDF exhibited some of the documents Melzer uncovered that show the sexual allegations were just as “invented” as the evidence for WMD before the attack on Iraq. Melzer had previously admitted to having been so misled by media portrayals of Assange that he was initially reluctant to investigate Assange’s case. ...

Melzer’s indefatigable efforts to expose what Assange has gone through, including “psychological torture,” met with some modest success in the days before the German ZDF aired their stories. Embedded in the linked article is by far the best interview of Melzer on Assange.

Prominent Germans appeal for Julian Assange's release

More than 130 prominent figures in Germany from the world of art, politics, and the media signed an appeal on Thursday calling for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to be released from prison in the UK. He is currently serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail.

The letter's signatories include famous German investigative journalist Günther Wallraff, former Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, and Austrian winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Elfriede Jelinek. It says that Assange, 48, is being held in "isolation and monitored under unnecessarily stressful conditions" in a British prison despite being in "critical health."

UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, told DW that after meeting with Assange he believed that the activisted exhibited "typical signs of psychological torture." They also argue that Assange risks being deprived of his basic human rights if he is extradited to the United States when his sentence is over.

Iraqi Officials Say ISIS—Not Iran—Likely Behind Rocket Attack Trump Used to Justify Soleimani Assassination

In a "bombshell" revelation that calls into question one of the Trump administration's stated justificiations for assassinating Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani—a move that nearly sparked a region-wide military conflict—Iraqi intelligence officials told the New York Times that they believe ISIS, not an Iran-linked militia, was likely responsible for the Dec. 27 rocket attack that killed an American contractor at an air base near Kirkuk, Iraq.

The Times reported Thursday that "Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets... saying they believe it is unlikely that the militia the United States blamed for the attack" was responsible.

"All the indications are that it was Daesh," Brigadier General Ahmed Adnan, the Iraqi chief of intelligence for the federal police at the K-1 air base, told the Times, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. "We know Daesh's movements."

The Trump administration has not released a single piece of evidence showing that the Iraqi militia Khataib Hezbollah, which has ties to Iran, was responsible for the attack on K-1. The group has denied carrying out the attack.

Iraqi officials told the Times that "based on circumstantial evidence and long experience in the area where the attack took place," there is good reason to be skeptical about U.S. claims that Khataib Hezbollah was behind it.

As the Times reported:

The rockets were launched from a Sunni Muslim part of Kirkuk Province notorious for attacks by the Islamic State, a Sunni terrorist group, which would have made the area hostile territory for a Shiite militia like Khataib Hezbollah.

Khataib Hezbollah has not had a presence in Kirkuk Province since 2014.

The Islamic State, however, had carried out three attacks relatively close to the base in the 10 days before the attack on K-1. Iraqi intelligence officials sent reports to the Americans in November and December warning that ISIS intended to target K-1, an Iraqi air base in Kirkuk Province that is also used by American forces...

These facts all point to the Islamic State, Iraqi officials say.

"We as Iraqi forces cannot even come to this area unless we have a large force because it is not secure," Brig. Gen. Adnan said of the area from which the rocket attack was launched. "How could it be that someone who doesn't know the area could come here and find that firing position and launch an attack?"

In response to the Times report, Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and we went to war with Iraq. If this report is true, ISIS attacked the U.S. and we nearly went to war with Iran."

UNSC at loggerheads over last militant stronghold in Syria

Turkey Demands Russia Stop Syria From Fighting in Idlib

After the Turkish military attacked and killed scores of Syrian soldiers in the same area, Syria has launched a new offensive against al-Qaeda-held Saraqeb, and Syrian forces have reportedly entered the town.

Turkey is very averse to the idea of Syria taking any more territory from al-Qaeda, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is demanding Russia immediately force Syria to stop all offensives in Idlib Province. ...

Syria’s interest in Idlib, beyond it being part of Syria and just rife with Islamists, is that two towns, Maarat al-Numaan and Saraqeb, are on the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo. Syria would very much like full control of that highway, and having already taken the former town, they are pushing to take the latter as well.

Our Military is Clashing With Russians While Defending Syrian Oil. Why?

Last month, American military forces physically blocked Russian troops from proceeding down a road near the town of Rmelan, Syria. U.S. troops were acting on orders of President Trump, who said back in October that Washington would be “protecting” oil fields currently under control of the anti-Assad, Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces. Meanwhile, the Russians are acting on behalf of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who says the state is ultimately in control of those fields. While no shots were fired in this case, the next time Moscow’s forces might not go so quietly.

U.S. officials offered few details about the January stand-off, but General Alexus Grynkewich, deputy commander of the anti-ISIS campaign, said: “We’ve had a number of different engagements with the Russians on the ground.” Late last month the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported: “Tensions have continued to increase significantly in recent days between U.S. and Russian forces in the northeastern regions of Syria.”

Stationed in Syria illegally, with neither domestic nor international legal authority, American personnel risked life and limb to occupy another nation’s territory and steal its resources. What is the Trump administration doing?

American policy in Syria has long been stunningly foolish, dishonest, and counterproductive. When the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, Washington first defended Assad. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even called him a “reformer.” Then she decided that he should be ousted and demanded that the rest of the world follow Washington’s new policy. ... Candidate Trump criticized “endless wars” in the Middle East, and as president he has repeatedly indicated his determination to bring home U.S. forces from Syria. Despite his cheerful announcement that ISIS had been defeated—it no longer rules any territory as a “caliphate”—Washington continues to occupy Syrian territory without legal warrant, U.S. or international. Nevertheless, the president has continuously faced determined resistance to his withdrawal demands from his own appointees as well as the Pentagon and the Washington foreign-policy establishment. ...

The president appears to realize that the standard reasons for entanglement do not just justify America’s ongoing military presence, but his officials see the oil mission as a stalking horse, an excuse to keep the U.S. entangled in the region. Admiral William D. Byrne, Jr., vice director of the Joint Staff, opined that protecting the stolen Syrian oil was merely a “subordinate task.” The president may reign, but he does not govern.

Risk of Nuclear War Rises as U.S. Deploys a New Nuclear Weapon for the First Time Since the Cold War

Macron unveils nuclear doctrine, warns EU ‘cannot remain spectators’ in arms race

JPMorgan Chase Is Under Fourth Criminal Probe after Pleading Guilty to Three Prior Felony Counts

Yesterday, Bloomberg News reporters Tom Schoenberg and Liam Vaughan broke the story that JPMorgan Chase is under a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over charges of rigging gold, silver and other precious metals markets. Six traders who worked on the precious metals desk at JPMorgan Chase have been indicted thus far but this is the first report that the bank itself is also under a criminal investigation. This marks the fourth criminal probe of the bank in the past 8 years by the U.S. Department of Justice with the bank pleading guilty to three felony counts in two of the prior criminal investigations.

Throughout this serial crime wave, the Board of Directors of JPMorgan Chase has kept Jamie Dimon in his seat as Chairman and CEO. Despite knowing that three of the bank’s traders had been charged under the criminal RICO statute and that the investigation could very likely result in criminal charges against the recidivist bank itself, the Board recently awarded Dimon a pay package of $31.5 million for last year – buttressing presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ message that the business model of Wall Street is fraud.

There was a time in America when a criminal probe of the nation’s largest bank, which holds $1.6 trillion in the life savings of moms and pops at more than 5300 bank branches across the country, would have been worthy of a front-page headline. Not today. Crime and fraud are so de rigueur at the bank led by Dimon that not one major newspaper ran the headline on the front page or anywhere else in the paper.

Corporate media is, in fact, complicit in letting Dimon and his Board off the hook. Dimon’s public relations flacks have teamed up with mainstream media to create the false narrative that Dimon is some kind of economic genius and a Wall Street superstar. Bloomberg News itself has perpetuated that myth by portraying Dimon as the man whose greatest mission is to take good care of his customers – despite the hard fact that federal regulators are perpetually documenting how the bank is ripping its customers off in brazen fraudulent actions. As recently as November 10 of last year, Lesley Stahl of the CBS investigative news program, 60 Minutes, interviewed Dimon and strolled through the bank’s trading floor without ever asking Dimon about the unprecedented felony charges the bank has been forced to plead guilty to under his tenure.

After Trump Acquittal, White House Press Secretary Threatens 'Maybe Some People Should Pay' for Impeachment

In a Fox News interview just hours after President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Thursday threatened that "maybe some people should pay" for how Trump was treated during the impeachment proceedings.

"He's glad it's over, he'll certainly talk about that," Grisham said, pointing to the "victory" speech Trump is set to deliver from the White House at 12:00pm ET on Thursday. "But I think he's also going to talk about... just how horribly he was treated and, you know, that maybe people should pay for that."

Parker Molloy, editor-at-large with Media Matters for America, pointed out on Twitter that "right before the 2018 midterms, a Trump superfan named Cesar Sayoc mailed 16 bombs to people he considered to be Trump's political enemies."

"If the goal isn't to inspire another person to do the same," Molloy wrote, "maybe speak with a little more clarity than 'maybe people should pay for that.'" ...

As Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman reported ahead of the Senate vote, Trump—seeking "revenge" for his impeachment—has begun compiling an "enemies list" that consists of Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), and former national security adviser John Bolton, who congressional Democrats wanted to testify in the Senate trial on his first-hand knowledge of the president's effort to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into his Democratic rivals.

"Trump, says a source, wants Bolton to be criminally investigated for possibly mishandling classified information," Sherman reported. "[Republican Sen. Mitt] Romney, Schiff, and Nadler are also in West Wing crosshairs."

Missouri lawmaker wants police officers to stop women from getting abortions

A Missouri state representative who once beheaded a chicken on Facebook to make a point about abortion wants police officers to stop women from terminating pregnancies.

Mike Moon, a Republican Missouri state representative, introduced a bill he calls the Right to Due Process Act, which redefines a fertilized egg as a person with all the constitutional rights of any other citizen. The suggested law then requires police and the courts to “affirmatively enforce” the Missouri constitution’s due process clause which guarantees legal rights to people, effectively turning any attempt to terminate a pregnancy into murder.

Moon also filed a bill to “abolish” abortion in Missouri, and specifically cites “murder by abortion”. The law makes no exemptions for rape, incest or apparently for women who have pregnancies which are not viable and potentially fatal, since the proposals strike references to abortion exemptions for maternal health. ...

His bill did not lay out how, exactly, law enforcement would “affirmatively enforce” such a provision. But a frequent collaborator of Moon’s, the state representative Ben Baker, said the legal focus was right to be on conferring rights to fetuses.

Human Rights Watch: 200 Salvadoran Asylum Seekers Killed, Raped or Tortured After U.S. Deportation

US customs dismantled 'impossible to replace' instrument, Mali musician says

Malian musician Ballaké Sissoko has accused US border officials of breaking his “impossible to replace” musical instrument during a security check. Sissoko plays the kora, a west African instrument whose 21 strings can sound similar to a harp. US border officials said they did not open the instrument case.

“Would US customs have dared to dismantle a Stradivarius?” asked a statement posted on Sissoko’s Facebook page. “In its own way, that is what has just happened to Ballaké.”

Sissoko checked his kora on a flight from New York, where he had just ended his US tour, to his home in Paris. At home after the flight on Tuesday, Sissoko found that his kora, which was made to his specifications, had the neck removed, and the strings, bridge and amplification system had been taken apart.

“Even if all the components that have been dissembled were intact, it takes weeks before a kora of this calibre can return to its previous state of resonance,” the Facebook statement said. “These kinds of custom-made koras are simply impossible to replace. They are certainly not available in shops.”

The statement said a baggage inspection notice from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), written in Spanish, had been left in the bag. The notice said a security agent had inspected the case and apologized for any inconvenience it had caused.

An ICE Agent Shot a Brooklyn Man in the Face, Reports Say

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent reportedly shot a man in the face while trying to serve a deportation order in Brooklyn Thursday morning. The agent was attempting to arrest and deport Gaspar Avendano-Hernandez, a 33-year-old man who immigration officials described as having been “twice-removed” from the United States. The agent managed to approach Avendano-Hernandez Thursday as he was returning home from work with Kevin Yanez-Cruz, the 19-year-old son of his girlfriend and a co-worker, according to the New York Daily News.

While the agent was serving the deportation order, Yanez-Cruz’s mother came running out of the home with her other son, 26-year-old Eric Diaz-Cruz, according to the Daily News. Some sort of altercation took place — the Daily News and local station WABC described it as a “scuffle,” while an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to VICE News that it was a “physical attack” — and an agent reportedly shot Diaz-Cruz in the face. Yanez-Cruz told the Daily News his older brother was unarmed.

Diaz-Cruz survived the shooting and is being treated at a local hospital.

BREAKING: The Associated Press is unable to declare a winner of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses because of irregularities in this year's process and the tight margin between Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. https://t.co/FX25oUDFaV

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 6, 2020

Worth a full read, far too much detail to cover here:

Acronym group that sabotaged Iowa caucus birthed by billionaire who funded Alabama disinformation campaign

The force accused of sowing the confusion and disarray surrounding the first Democratic Party contest of the 2020 election season is a dark money nonprofit called Acronym. It was Acronym that launched Shadow Inc, the mysterious company behind the now-infamous, unsecured, completely unworkable voter app which prevented precinct chairs from reporting vote totals on caucus night.

The exceptionally opaque Acronym was itself created with seed money from a Silicon Valley billionaire named Reid Hoffman who has financed a series of highly manipulative social media campaigns. The billionaire founder of LinkedIn, Hoffman is a top funder of novel Democratic Party social media campaigns accused of manipulating voters through social media. He is assisted by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a corporate consultant who pushed school privatization before joining Hoffman’s political empire.

One of the most consequential beneficiaries of Hoffman’s wealth is Acronym CEO Tara McGowan, a 33-year-old former journalist and Obama for America veteran. Once touted as “a weapon of a woman whose innovative tactics make her critically important to the Democratic Party,” McGowan’s name is now synonymous with the fiasco in Iowa. She also happens to be married to a senior advisor to Pete Buttieg’s presidential campaign.

Back in December 2018, McGowan personally credited Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s “Investing in US” initiative for the birth of her dark money pressure group, Acronym. ... At the time, Hoffman had just been exposed for funding Project Birmingham, a covert disinformation campaign consisting of false flag tactics that aimed to depress voter turnout and create the perception of Russian interference in the 2017 Alabama senate election. Hoffman and Mehlhorn have also faced scrutiny for their alleged operation of a series of deceptive pages which attempted to manipulate center-right users into voting for Democrats. Today, Acronym’s McGowan oversees a massive Facebook media operation that employs similarly deceptive techniques to sway voters.

New statement from Iowa Democrats: pic.twitter.com/EQoAlPtApn

— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) February 6, 2020

Krystal Ball: Pete, DNC collusion is class warfare

Iowa Caucus Results Riddled With Errors and Inconsistencies

The results released by the Iowa Democratic Party on Wednesday were riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws. According to a New York Times analysis, more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.

In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.

Some of these inconsistencies may prove to be innocuous, and they do not indicate an intentional effort to compromise or rig the result. There is no apparent bias in favor of the leaders Pete Buttigieg or Bernie Sanders, meaning the overall effect on the winner’s margin may be small.

But not all of the errors are minor, and they raise questions about whether the public will ever get a completely precise account of the Iowa results. With Mr. Sanders closing to within 0.1 percentage points with 97 percent of 1,765 precincts reporting, the race could easily grow close enough for even the most minor errors to delay a final projection or raise doubts about a declared winner.

The errors suggest that many Iowa caucus leaders struggled to follow the rules of their party’s caucuses, or to adopt the additional reporting requirements introduced since 2016. They show that the Iowa Democratic Party, despite the long delays, failed to validate all of the results fully before releasing them to the public.

Krystal and Saagar: Even the establishment wants Tom Perez to resign

I wonder why corporate coprolite Tom Perez only wants to recanvass some, rather than all, precincts. I don't trust Perez further than I can spit, and maybe not that far.

Iowa caucus remains too close to call with 100% of precincts reporting

Pete Buttigieg expressed confidence over the Iowa caucus results on Thursday after days of chaotic vote tallying, even as the head of the Democratic National Party called on the state to “recanvass” the votes. Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders have remained neck-and-neck for most of the week, and the Associated Press declared on Thursday evening that the race was still too close to call.

With 100% of precincts reporting, the pair were locked in a virtual tie. Buttigieg, leading by just 1.5 state delegate equivalents, had an advantage of about .1 percentage points.

But that didn’t stop Buttigieg from declaring victory on Twitter as he prepared to take the stage for a CNN event. “The first time I was here, few people knew me or how to pronounce my name. Now we’ve won the Iowa caucuses and we’re just 5 days away from the New Hampshire Primary,” he wrote. ...

Wading into the growing chaos, the Democratic National Committee chair, Tom Perez, called for a “recanvass” of the tally. ... Speaking to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC on Thursday night, Perez called the caucus fiasco “unacceptable” but said he only sought a recanvass in certain precincts. “In the grand scheme of things,” he said, a recanvass would probably not affect the overall delegate math. But “the reason why I think it’s important is because I want to make sure that every Iowa voter knows their vote was counted”.

Yep, I was right. That shitweasel Perez is, as usual, up to no good.

If this was @TomPerez's actual reason this is nothing other than corrupt. I reported yesterday that the satellite caucuses could make the difference for Sanders. This didn't come out of nowhere. To order a re-canvass because Sanders surged at satellites is staggering. Get over it https://t.co/nlCwII7oWr

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 6, 2020

Ryan Grim: Tom Perez's 'CORRUPT' recanvass call

Really? Is this the best excuse you guys can come up with?

Trump fans flooded hotline to disrupt Iowa caucus process, Democrats say

Donald Trump’s legion of followers flooded a vital telephone hotline used to share Iowa Democratic caucus results after the number was shared online. The hack was reported in a phone conference Wednesday night between Iowa Democratic party staff and the state’s central committee.

“The unexplained, and at times hostile, calls contributed to the delay in the Iowa Democratic party’s collection of results, but in no way affected the integrity of information gathered or the accuracy of data sets reported,” said Mandy McClure, the communications director for the Iowa Democratic party. In a statement, McClure added that calls to the hotline reached “an unusually high volume” and included some “supporters of President Trump”.

On Wednesday night’s call, the committee member Ken Sagar called the disruption deliberate. The incident was first reported to Bloomberg News.

Democratic Congresswoman blames Russia for Iowa caucus app disaster

'In Law School They Called This Conflict of Interest': Tlaib Objects to Paid Bloomberg Staffers on DNC Committees

Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused two members of the Democratic National Committee's rules committees of having a conflict of interest following reports that they are paid staffers of the presidential campaign billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City.

The Michigan Democrat tweeted a link late Wednesday to a report by Sludge regarding the recent appointments of Alexandra Rooker, vice chair of the California Democratic Party, to the DNC's Rules Committee, and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the Standing Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Both panels can propose rule changes to the Democratic nominating process, and both Rooker and Nutter began working on Bloomberg's campaign in recent weeks, advising him on policy and other campaign issues.

"Out of tens of millions of qualified people, Tom Perez's DNC is seating two Bloomberg campaign surrogates" on the committees, tweeted David Moore, who wrote for Sludge Wednesday about the appointments.

Out of tens of millions of qualified people, Tom Perez's DNC is seating two Bloomberg campaign surrogates on bodies that can propose changes.
- national political chair is on the standing Rules Cmte.
- senior adviser was nominated to 2020 Convention Ruleshttps://t.co/AtEyDNz98b

— David Moore (@ppolitics) February 5, 2020

"In law school, they called this a conflict of interest," wrote Tlaib, a surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic race.

The Sludge report came a week after the DNC announced it was amending debate rules to eliminate a requirement for a minimum number of individual donors—a change that could allow Bloomberg to participate in the debate coming up on February 19.

That rule change came directly from Perez, members of the Standing Rules and Bylaws Committee told Sludge—but that panel and the committee Rooker is serving on could make more changes as the primary continues.

The elimination of the fundraising requirement was also announced after Bloomberg donated $320,000 to the DNC in November, as well as $800,000 to a joint PAC that raises funds for the DNC and state Democratic parties. ...

In addition to the debate rule that has already been changed, Politico reported last weekend that some DNC members were privately plotting to change other rules, including the manner in which delegates are counted at the party's national convention.

Bloomberg Plagiarized Parts of At Least Eight of His Plans

Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign plagiarized portions of its plans for maternal health, LGBTQ equality, the economy, tax policy, infrastructure, and mental health from research publications, media outlets, and a number of nonprofit, educational, and policy groups.

The Intercept found that exact passages from at least eight Bloomberg plans or accompanying fact sheets were direct copies of material from media outlets including CNN, Time, and CBS, a research center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the American Medical Association, Everytown for Gun Safety, Building America’s Future Educational Fund, and other organizations. Bloomberg co-founded Everytown for Gun Safety, a political organization focused on gun control, and Building America’s Future Educational Fund, a nonprofit working on infrastructure investment and reform, and has chaired them in the past, and he was listed as a co-author on the educational fund’s reports. He is not clearly affiliated with the other sources. The plagiarized sections ranged in length from entire paragraphs to individual sentences and fragments in documents that were between five and 14 pages long.

On Wednesday afternoon, The Intercept sent a detailed query to the Bloomberg campaign. By Thursday morning, one of the plans was completely taken down, while others were changed. Asked about the plan that was removed, spokesperson Julie Wood said the campaign would notify The Intercept when it was posted again.

[Highlighted copies of plagiarized documents (showing the plagiarized portions) at link. - js]

The ACLU Is Coming For Biden and Klobuchar in New Hampshire

The ACLU is running ads attacking two moderate Democratic presidential candidates — former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar — for their stances on online privacy. The civil liberties group is running full-page ads in newspapers up and down New Hampshire starting Thursday blasting Biden and Klobuchar for not committing to requiring the government to seek warrants before requesting online information about individuals from private companies like Google or Facebook.

That could move votes in the “Live Free or Die” state, where residents who famously value privacy and civil liberties will head to the ballot box Tuesday as the second state in the nation to vote in the Democratic primary.

“The New Hampshire electorate very much cares about issues relating to privacy,” said Ronnie Newman, the ACLU’s national political director and a former Obama administration official. “When you think about a candidate like Biden or like Klobuchar, it concerns us that we have not been able to get a clear 'yes' on an issue that we think is really important.”

The ads note that Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, and Andrew Yang “have committed to protect your personal information online,” while the other two have “failed to make that commitment.”

Another war for energy coming right up!

Congress Quietly Adopts Exxon Mobil-Backed Law Promoting New Gas Pipeline, Arms to Cyprus

In a bitterly divided Congress, lawmakers still managed to come together to help Exxon Mobil pass major legislation that could remake the geopolitics of the Middle East and Europe. During the holiday season legislative blitz in December, legislators tucked an obscure provision into the omnibus spending package that lifted arms restrictions and boosted a controversial pipeline deal in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The legislative text, mirroring a bill that has circulated in Congress over the last year, promises a range of U.S. assistance for the development of natural gas resources off the coasts of Israel and Cyprus, including support for constructing pipelines and liquified natural gas terminals and the creation of a United States-Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center in the region run by the U.S. Department of Energy. Cyprus, one of the smallest states in the European Union, has come under increasing pressure from Turkey, which opposes the development of new gas fields off the disputed coasts of the island-state and has used its navy to threaten drilling vessels.

In response, the legislative text also repeals the prohibition of weapons transfers to Cyprus put in place in 1987, promotes greater U.S military assistance to Greece and Cyprus, and instructs the U.S. to maintain its newly situated predator drone fleet in the region. The omnibus includes provisions from the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, legislation introduced in the House and Senate last year.

While the provision received scant coverage in American media, it prompted a flurry of activity after its passage. On January 2, leaders of Israel, Greece, and Cyprus appeared together to sign a trilateral deal to build a new $6.7 billion pipeline to bring gas from offshore fields in Israel and Cyprus to Greece, Italy, and Bulgaria. The new EastMed pipeline could transport as much as 20 billion cubic meters of gas to those countries annually, pitched as a way to lessen Russian and Turkish energy influence in the region. Days later, Russia and Turkey announced plans for their own joint venture, the TurkStream pipeline.

The authorization of the military assistance and pipeline support never received a single hearing, an up-or-down vote, or any open debate. Its inclusion in the must-pass spending package reflects the powerful lobbying coalition that came together in support of the deal. That coalition included foreign agents tied to both Greece and Cyprus, the American Jewish Committee, and Christians United for Israel, an evangelical group with close ties to Israel. Greek American diaspora groups also mobilized to lobby for the legislation. Hellenic American Leadership Council, one Greek American group, touted the passage of the text as the “most pro-Hellenic bill in a generation.” But disclosure documents reviewed by The Real News and The Intercept suggest that Exxon Mobil was at the center of the lobbying effort.

Exxon to Congress: Lift Cyprus Arms Embargo, There’s Gas Nearby

Just disgusting.

Trump Is Blowing Up a National Monument in Arizona to Make Way for the Border Wall

Contractors working for the Trump administration are blowing apart a mountain on protected lands in southern Arizona to make way for the president’s border wall. The blasting is happening on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a tract of Sonoran Desert wilderness long celebrated as one of the nation’s great ecological treasures, that holds profound spiritual significance to multiple Native American groups.

In a statement to The Intercept, U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the blasting began this week and will continue through the end of the month. “The construction contractor has begun controlled blasting, in preparation for new border wall system construction, within the Roosevelt Reservation at Monument Mountain in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector,” the statement said, referring to an area also known as Monument Hill. “The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue intermittently for the rest of the month.” The agency added that it “will continue to have an environmental monitor present during these activities as well as on-going clearing activities.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, told The Intercept that he has zero faith that the Department of Homeland Security’s “environmental monitor will do anything to avoid, mitigate, or even point out some of the sacrilegious things that are occurring and will continue to occur, given the way they’re proceeding.” Grijalva’s blunt assessment is based on a visit he made to Organ Pipe last month, alongside archaeologists and leaders of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose ancestral homelands and sacred burial sites are in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s border wall expansion. One of those burial sites lies just beyond the westward advance of the border wall, Grijalva explained. “It’s right in the path,” he said, meaning that “the one indignation of the blasting on the hill is shortly to follow with other indignations and disrespect.” According to Grijalava, “DHS had mentioned to the tribes that they would back off on developing the hill, but the work is still being done.” ...

Celebrated as “a pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem,” Organ Pipe was designated as a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve in 1976. Even before the explosions began, the construction there was already one of Trump’s most controversial border wall projects, unfolding on the homelands of the Tohono O’odham and in areas that are ostensibly safeguarded by the strictest public-land designations on the books. Neither factor has stopped contractors from drilling into the ground and draining water from a rare desert aquifer in order to mix concrete to support a towering, 30-foot barrier along the U.S.-Mexico divide. In working to fulfill the president’s chief campaign promise, construction crews on Organ Pipe have uprooted saguaro cacti, slicing the iconic plants into chunks and bulldozed a wide roadway to make room for trucks, cranes, and other construction vehicles.

With the wall in place, and its floodlights illuminating the area through the night, the migration of several rare desert animal species is expected to come to an end. The construction is particularly threatening to Quitobaquito Springs, the only naturally occurring source of fresh water for miles around. The desert oasis was once inhabited by the Hia Ced O’odham — a smaller band of the larger O’odham community — and remains a monumentally important spiritual site for the O’odham people to this day.

Canadian Police Raid Indigenous Land to Help Build $6B Pipeline

The first sound was a snowmobile, somewhere in the distance. Then, with no warning, a dozen RCMP vehicles, including prisoner vans and RCMP-branded Suburbans, roared out of the pre-dawn darkness and stopped just short of the watch camp where Wet’suwet’en land defenders have been resisting a court-ordered evacuation of their lands to make way for the controversial $6 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The raid, which took place on unceded Indigenous land in northern British Colombia, took place after weeks of increasing tension over construction of the 400-mile-long natural gas pipeline.

I just got out from #Gidimten clan territory on #Wetsuweten yintah, where RCMP conducted an aggressive, pre-dawn raid. Six land defenders arrested: pic.twitter.com/JkKempHUGM

— Jesse Winter (@jwints) February 6, 2020

Backed up by tactical officers, dog teams, and drones with infrared sensors, dozens of RCMP officers began raiding Wet’suwet’en land defender camps shortly before 5 in the morning. Led by one officer bellowing “Police! Stay Calm!,” dozens of officers flooded into the watch camp. One read a statement aloud saying that police were enforcing an injunction order and that anyone present had 10 minutes to gather their things and leave, or be arrested and charged with obstruction of justice. At least six land defenders have so far been arrested, several being dragged away in handcuffs. ...

Police also attempted to prevent journalists from photographing or filming members of the tactical enforcement teams, the green-clad militarized units which stormed the Gidimt’en barricades a year ago under the supervision of “lethal overwatch.”

Largest maker of pesticide linked to brain damage in kids to stop producing chemical

The world’s largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, an agricultural pesticide linked to brain damage in children, has announced that it will stop producing the chemical by the end of the year. The announcement on Thursday by Corteva, the corporation formed from a Dow Chemical and DuPont merger, comes after the Trump administration reversed regulatory plans to ban the pesticide and rejected the scientific conclusions of US government experts.

Chlorpyrifos has been widely used on corn, soybeans, almonds, citrus, cotton, grapes, walnuts and other crops, but research has repeatedly found serious health effects in children, including impaired brain development. Environmental groups have long advocated for its ban, and the state of California, which grows the majority of the nation’s fruits and nuts, defied Trump and banned the chemical last year.

Corteva said it was ending production due to declining sales. Susanne Wasson, the president of Corteva’s crop protection business, told Reuters it was a “difficult decision”.

Chlorpyrifos is a neurotoxic chemical that was found to be harmful enough to humans that the US banned it from residential use in 2000. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, has continued to defend its safety for agricultural uses. ...

Marisa Ordonia, an attorney with Earthjustice, a group that has sued the EPA for failing to ban chlorpyrifos, said advocates would still seek a ban on the product given that it remains on the market through other manufacturers.

Bumblebees' decline points to mass extinction – study

Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say.

A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”.

Peter Soroye, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa and the study’s lead author, said: “We found that populations were disappearing in areas where the temperatures had gotten hotter. If declines continue at this pace, many of these species could vanish forever within a few decades.”

The team used data collected over a 115-year period on 66 bumblebee species across North America and Europe to develop a model simulating “climate chaos” scenarios. They were able to see how bumblebee populations had changed over the years by comparing where the insects were now to where they used to be. ...

The research is published in the journal Science.

Also of Interest

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

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10 US oil refineries exceeding limits for cancer-causing benzene, report finds

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The Hill's Editor-in-Chief: Nightmare week for Democratic establishment

Andrew Yang—That 2020 Hopeful With the 'Math' Pin—on Iowa Results: 'Looks Like Bernie Won'

Debate Night: Should Bernie call out Pete to his face?

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Mike Bloomberg will pay you $150 to say nice things about him

A Little Night Music

Charlie Musselwhite ?- Takin' My Time

Charlie Musselwhite - Blues

Charlie Musselwhite - Gone Too Long

Charlie Musselwhite - I'm Goin' Home

Charlie Musselwhite - When it rains it pours

Charlie Musselwhite Band - Long Lean Lanky Mama

Buddy Guy w/Charlie Musselwhite - Hey Baby Jam

Charlie Musselwhite with Rick Estrin & The Nightcats

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite - When The Levee Breaks