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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erma_Franklin
This evening's music features Aretha's big sister Erma Franklin. Enjoy!

“If guns don't kill people, why do mass killers arm themselves with guns?”

-- DaShanne Stokes

News and Opinion

“One Life Is Worth All the Guns in America”: Students Demand End to Violence at March for Our Lives

March for Our Lives : thousands join anti-gun protests around the world

Hundreds of thousands of students joined the pro-gun control March for Our Lives rallies across the US in one of the largest expressions of popular opposition in the modern era. Events have been taking place at more than 800 locations around the world – including London, Sydney, Tokyo, Mumbai, plus hundreds of places in the US.

n Washington, as the number of young, diverse and impassioned protesters swelled along Pennsylvania Avenue, many carried signs reading “We are the change”, “No more silence” and “Keep NRA money out of politics”. Organizers said they hoped their protest would be one of the biggest in the capital since the Vietnam era, and it was clear they had been careful to create a diverse, inclusive group of speakers.

Along with survivors from the attack in Parkland, Florida, who have galvanized the new push for gun reform, speakers included young victims of gun violence from around America. They sang, they chanted, and they challenged their parents’ generation to be effective in eliminating gun violence from society.

Veteran civil rights leader John Lewis said the protests reminded him of the early days of the civil rights era. “I think it’s amazing,” Lewis said. “They will be the leaders of the 21st century.” In one of the first speeches, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas senior Delaney Tarr told the crowd of the students’ demands, including background checks and a ban on assault weapons. “When you give us an inch, that bump stocks ban, we will take a mile,” she said. “We are not here for breadcrumbs, we are here to lead.”

“I Learned to Duck Bullets Before I Learned to Read”: Edna Chavez at March For Our Lives Rally

'We share the stage': white suburban liberals and minority activists fight together for gun reform

Saturday’s protests in Washington and across the world mark a profound shift in America’s gun control debate. For decades, political analysts have said that Congress’s refusal to pass new gun laws was due to an “intensity gap” between the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun control supporters. ... But the “intensity gap”, like the concept of “economic anxiety”, is dangerously vague, a talking point that conceals more than it reveals.

There has never been an “intensity gap” between NRA members, and the young activists and heartbroken parents in Oakland or St Louis or Miami. For decades, with media attention or without it, black and brown communities have pushed for stricter regulation of the gun industry and for laws that would keep guns out of the hands of at-risk teenagers and adults. Working alone, they’ve never had the votes in Congress to pass the gun control laws they want. They’ve needed allies – the allies from liberal white suburbs, who, at least in theory, support stricter gun control laws. The “intensity gap” has always been an “empathy gap”, because those suburban allies have rarely shown up to fight for the lives of black and brown children – not unless their own schools, their own children, were threatened.

But the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas also made a concerted effort to close the empathy gap – to acknowledge decades of erasure of activists of color, and to put them on stage, not as a token figure at the end of a long row of mass shooting victims, but as central voices in the movement. Suburban kids affected by gun violence are usually treated as innocent victims. Young Americans of color who are shot are blamed for their behavior, and held responsible for becoming a target. But at the March for Our Lives, all of the young speakers were presented the same way: as students, as survivors, and as a powerful challenge to the political status quo. ...

But having a national gun control movement that includes the voices and stories of young people of color is only the first step. The policy solutions that a national movement is trying to achieve also have to reflect the goals of the survivors of everyday gun violence – and some of those solutions require a very different approach than the policy proposals of the Parkland advocates, who have focused on banning civilian ownership of military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as closing loopholes in the background check system. “Does Gun Control include the police?” Chance the Rapper, a Chicago artist and activist, asked on Twitter Saturday night. “Should police have ARs?”

Chavez and the young activists from Chicago made similar points: they were interested in gun control, but they also wanted economic investment in their communities, focused on “changing the conditions that foster violence and trauma,” as Chavez put it. Putting more police officers in schools to fuel the school-to-prison pipeline would not protect children of color from violence. “Instead of making black and brown students feel safe, they continue to profile and criminalize us,” Chavez said. “Instead [of police], we should have a department specializing in restorative justice.”

Jeff Sessions just announced his plan to ban bump stocks

Nearly a month after President Donald Trump ordered his attorney general to ban bump stocks, Jeff Sessions has finally announced a plan to follow through on that promise.

Sessions proposed legally recognizing “bump stocks” as “machine guns” on Friday. Since most machine guns are illegal in the United States, the change would effectively ban bump stocks, which channel semi-automatic firearms’ recoil into rapid fire, allowing them to spew bullets like automatic weapons. ...

Sessions’ proposal also won’t go into effect immediately. Once his amendment is published in the Federal Register, civilians will be able to comment on it for 90 days.

Remington, maker of the rifle used at Sandy Hook, just filed for bankruptcy

Remington, the oldest gunmaker in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy Monday, a move that could delay progress of a lawsuit against the manufacturer brought by the families of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

The company, which cites slumping gun sales for its decision, will be allowed to continue to make and sell firearms, but the bankruptcy allows for an immediate stay on any lawsuits against the business.

Founded more than 200 years ago, Remington makes the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that was used in the 2012 Connecticut school massacre that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.

The families of Sandy Hook victims are seeking to hold Remington accountable, and in November presented oral arguments in the Connecticut Supreme Court, claiming that the company knowingly marketed and sold the AR-15 to a vulnerable group of young men.

Meet Neocon John Bolton, the Most Hawkish National Security Adviser Imaginable

The Only Good Thing About John Bolton in the White House Is That He’s Not a General

America already loves its generals too much, but national security adviser H.R. McMaster and chief of staff John Kelly nonetheless deserve a special round of thanks for conclusively demonstrating why it’s foolish to trust generals when they swap their uniforms for suits and ties. While Kelly is hanging onto his job for now, McMaster has gotten the boot from President Donald Trump in favor of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who is a genuinely terrifying individual and one of the fiercest war hawks of our times. Whether it’s Iran, North Korea, or Iraq, the military option is pretty much the only one for which Bolton has enthusiasm. His ascension to the White House should deepen our anxieties.

But that’s not a reason to give a free pass and warm hug to McMaster and other generals who have gotten top White House jobs. A year ago, McMaster and Kelly, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis, were hailed by civilian Washington as the grown-ups in the Trump Cabinet. While Mattis has not yet tarnished himself, McMaster and Kelly have displayed a range of failings — proving that generals are often the opposite of the trustworthy hands their civilian admirers believe them to be. ...

The quick version of Kelly’s failures is this: He protected Rob Porter as his deputy even though Porter’s ex-wives accused him of violent abuse; he described undocumented immigrants as “too lazy to get off their asses”; he lauded Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as an honorable man; and he smeared a member of Congress who accurately noted that Trump made insensitive comments to a grieving war widow. McMaster was an unexpectedly reckless hawk regarding North Korea until Trump shocked everyone and agreed to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. McMaster is also reported to have a general’s impatience with civilians who don’t toe his line. According to Foreign Policy, he refers to people who support him as patriots and to those who don’t as “reflecting the enemy narrative.” ...

What we are seeing, in the slow-motion failures of Kelly and McMaster, is not the soiling of good men by a bad president, but the truth of who these men are once they take the blinding stars off their shoulders.

Here’s John Bolton Promising Regime Change in Iran by the End of 2018

Among those most alarmed by President Donald Trump’s selection of John Bolton as his new national security adviser on Thursday were supporters of the Iran nuclear deal, the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of economic sanctions.

Rob Malley, who coordinated Middle East policy in the Obama administration, observed that Bolton’s appointment, along with the nomination of Iran deal critic Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, seemed to signal that the agreement would most likely be “dead and buried” within months. Trita Parsi, leader of the National Iranian American Council wrote on Twitter: “People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran. With Pompeo and Bolton, Trump is assembling a WAR CABINET.” ...

Bolton has spent the better part of a decade calling for the United States to help overthrow the theocratic government in Tehran and hand power to a cult-like group of Iranian exiles with no real support inside the country.

#JohnBolton 8 months ago among MEK supporters tells them they will overthrow #Iran’s regime and celebrate in #Tehran with Bolton himself present, “before 2019” pic.twitter.com/H7oaaU3faU

— Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) March 22, 2018

Just eight months ago, at a Paris gathering, Bolton told members of the Iranian exile group, known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, MEK, or People’s Mujahedeen, that the Trump administration should embrace their goal of immediate regime change in Iran and recognize their group as a “viable” alternative. ... As the Iranian expatriate journalist Bahman Kalbasi noted, Bolton concluded his address to the exiles with a rousing promise: “And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!”

Catalonians are not happy with the arrest of their former leader Carles Puigdemont

Catalonia’s former leader Carles Puigdemont will appear before a German judge Monday, after the pro-independence activist was arrested Sunday, sparking mass protests in Barcelona.

Puigdemont, living in self-imposed exile in Brussels since October, was arrested in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein Sunday as he was driving from Finland to Belgium.

He was detained by German police acting on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain, where Puigdemont is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds relating to last year’s illegal referendum on Catalan independence.

The sudden arrest of the former leader, who had eluded Spanish justice for months, sparked a furious response across Catalonia. In Barcelona, an estimated 55,000 people gathered in the streets, with a group chanting “no more repression” and “general strike” outside the office of the European Commission.

The protests turned violent, with three people arrested and at least 52 injured in clashes with police, as a splinter group tried to break through cordons surrounding Spanish government buildings. Smaller demonstrations were held in other parts of the province.

US and Europe to expel Russian diplomats over spy poisoning case

Russia retaliates with vow to expel dozens of western diplomats

Russia has vowed to expel dozens of western diplomats in the growing diplomatic dispute over the Salisbury nerve gas attack.

Officials promised a swift and most likely tit-for-tat response after the expulsion of Russian diplomats across Europe and North America on Monday in a show of solidarity from British allies that represents the biggest concerted blow to Russian intelligence networks since the cold war.

In an official communique, the Russian foreign ministry issued a “determined protest” to the expulsions and said it would respond to the “unfriendly act”. ...

Russian diplomats were expelled from at least 17 countries in Europe and North America on Monday. The US expelled 60 diplomats and closed Moscow’s consulate in Seattle, despite Donald Trump’s administration having previously made moves to build relations with Russia. Germany, France, Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands said they would expel Russian diplomats, along with Ukraine and Canada.

Mexicans Fear Abuses as New Law Empowers Military — but U.S. Security Aid Keeps Coming

Last December, the Mexican government enacted a new law that empowered its military to act domestically against “internal security threats,” cementing the role of the country’s armed forces in combatting crime and giving them expanded surveillance authorities. The law also allows the Mexican president to deploy troops for immediate action against those threats.

As the law, formally called the Internal Security Law, was being debated, Claudia Medina Tamariz spoke out about the way the country’s military has treated the citizens it is supposedly fighting to protect. In 2012, she was arrested by Mexican marines on false charges of cartel ties and subjected to horrendous torture. Marine troops tied her to a chair, shoved a rag in her mouth, and electrocuted her with two cables attached to her big toes. They splashed her with buckets of water, forced hot sauce into her nostrils, wrapped her in an elastic band, and proceeded to kick and beat her. She was also blindfolded and sexually assaulted. As the troops tortured her, they also threatened to do the same to her children.

The charges against Medina were eventually dropped. ... She has spent years fighting to clear her name and obtain justice. Recounting her torture, Medina said she is horrified by the idea that the Mexican government is giving more power to forces known to carry out abuses. “It’s sad to see that our senators, our representatives, everyone in Mexico sees this, and yet they are continuing to hand Mexico over to sick people,” Medina said.

The U.S. government is also well aware of these abuses. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has remained quiet on the Internal Security Law and has continued with plans to support Mexico’s security forces. Despite President Donald Trump’s anti-Mexico vitriol and his public feud with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto over a wall for the border between the two countries, funding is still flowing from the American government. What’s more, the Trump administration has cut funding from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which supported efforts to strengthen Mexico’s criminal justice system, while U.S. military funds have increased.

Cambridge Analytica had “foreign agents” working on the 2014 GOP midterms

Cambridge Analytica sent dozens of foreign workers to advise Republican 2014 midterm campaigns, even though the company’s own lawyer explicitly warned that doing so was illegal, the Washington Post reported Monday.

Three former Cambridge Analytica employees, including whistleblower Christopher Wylie, detailed the company’s decision to ignore legal advice and send Canadians, Britons, and Europeans to work on Republican campaigns. “[Cambridge Analytica’s] dirty little secret was that there was no one American involved in it, that it was a de facto foreign agent, working on an American election,” Wylie said.

The employees were sent to the U.S. despite a 10-page memo prepared by New York Attorney Laurence Levy for CA President Rebekah Mercer, Vice President Steve Bannon, and CEO Alexander Nix, explaining why this was potentially illegal. Levy told those CA executives that foreign employees cannot “directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process” of a political campaign, although they can play lesser roles.

According to documents seen by the Post touting CA’s 2014 work, its employees were involved in everything from deciding what voters to target, to managing media relations, fundraising, planning events, and providing “communications strategy.”

Trump’s lawyer demands Stormy Daniels stop talking about alleged parking lot “threat”

A lawyer working for President Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen sent Stormy Daniels a cease-and-desist letter late Sunday night, urging the porn star to take back what the lawyer says are “false and defamatory” claims she made in a "60 Minutes" interview that same evening.

In the letter, which was obtained by CNN, Cohen’s lawyer Brent Blakely says Cohen had nothing to do with a man who Daniels said approached her and her then-infant daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, shortly after Daniels told InTouch magazine she had an affair with Trump in 2006. Daniels said the man told her to keep quiet about the affair. InTouch didn't run the story until a few months ago. ...

“A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’” Daniels told interviewer Anderson Cooper. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.” ...

In the letter, which is addressed to Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti, Blakely says Cohen doesn’t believe this incident ever happened. “I hereby demand that you and your client cease and desist from making any further false and defamatory statements about my client, that you immediately retract and apologize to Mr. Cohen through the national media for your defamatory statements on '60 Minutes,' and make clear that you have no facts or evidence whatsoever to support your allegations that my client had anything whatsoever to do with this alleged thug,” Blakely wrote.

White House attacks Stormy Daniels' credibility after TV interview

The White House attacked the credibility of Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who spoke out on US TV on Sunday night about her alleged affair with the president and threats she said she had received, only hours after Donald Trump’s personal attorney sent her a cease and desist letter.

Speaking from the podium of the White House press briefing room, administration spokesman Raj Shah said: “With respect to that interview, I will say the president strongly, clearly has consistently denied these underlying claims. The only person who’s been inconsistent is the one making the claims.” He later reiterated his pushback on Daniels’s interview, although Shah did not once mention her by name. Trump “denied the claims she made last night. He has been consistent in doing so, she has not”. ...

The interview attracted 22 million viewers, leading to 60 Minutes’s highest ratings in a decade.

We’re going to lose a lot of species by 2050, U.N. report finds

A panel of scientists commissioned by the U.N. just published a comprehensive three-year study assessing the regional impacts of humans on biodiversity around the world. ... Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the U.N. working group that issued the report, stressed that the report wasn’t just about animals — biodiversity is crucial for us humans, too.

“Biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people sound, to many people, academic and far removed from our daily lives,” said Robert Watson, the chair of the group that produced the study, in a statement. “Nothing could be further from the truth – they are the bedrock of our food, clean water and energy. They are at the heart not only of our survival but of our cultures, identities, and enjoyment of life.” ...

Under a “business as usual” scenario, the report says that climate change will be the primary driver of loss of biodiversity in the Americas by 2050, surpassing land use. “By 2100, climate change could also result in the loss of more than half of African bird and mammal species,” said Emma Archer, co-chair of the African regional study.

In Southeast Asia 90 percent of coral reefs will be severely degraded by 2050 under the most conservative of climate change scenarios. In a region where people rely on the oceans for food and livelihood — and where they live in coastal regions that are more likely to flood — the next half century isn’t looking great.

Europe may fare a little better than the other regions, but that’s not saying very much. Half the region’s wetlands are gone, and just under a third of its species show an “unfavorable conservation status.

Also of Interest

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

Terrible Mistreatment of Haitians Is a Shared Pastime of Donald Trump and the “Deep State”

Yemen is entering its fourth year of war – when will the suffering end?

Study: wind and solar can power most of the United States

A Little Night Music

Erma Franklin - I Don't Want No Mamas Boy

Erma Franklin - Big Boss Man

Erma Franklin - Dr.Feelgood

Erma Franklin - Baby What You Want Me To Do

Erma Franklin - Open Up Your Soul

Gotta Find Me A Lover (24 Hours A Day)

Erma Franklin - Saving My Love For You

Erma Franklin - Love Is Blind

Erma Franklin - What Kind Of Girl (Do You Think I Am)

Erma Franklin - Don't Wait Too Long

Erma Franklin - I'm Just Not Ready For Love