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“It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness.”

-- Arundhati Roy

News and Opinion

South Korean intel service says that North Korea “strongly committed to denuclearization”

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported to the National Assembly on Mar. 26 that it believes North Korea is committed to denuclearization. The National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee convened a meeting that was attended by NIS Second Deputy Director Kim Sang-gyun and NIS Director Suh Hoon, who visited North Korea as a special envoy last month. During the meeting, the NIS officials told lawmakers that they believe

“North Korea is strongly committed to dialogue and also committed to denuclearization,” said an NIS senior official. This was how the NIS responded when committee members asked about North Korea’s intentions after the NIS briefed the committee on the results of special envoys’ visits to North Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia.

Beijing confirms Kim Jong-Un visit, his first foreign trip as North Korea's leader

China and North Korea just sent a very clear message to Donald Trump

The announcement Tuesday of Kim Jong Un’s unprecedented visit to Beijing is a direct message to the White House that the U.S. is not the only superpower with interests in the Korean peninsula, a regional expert said Wednesday. ... China has long claimed the role of interested bystander when it comes to tensions on the Peninsula. However, Kim’s decision to make Beijing the destination of his first ever overseas trip as leader suggests both countries want to give China more skin in the game.

Strategically, the meeting benefitted both sides. China has been assured its interests will be represented in the upcoming U.S. talks, while North Korea has a powerful ally that bolsters its negotiating position. ...

Trump tweeted Wednesday that Xi called him about the meeting, revealing that Kim “looks forward” to the summit and “there is a good chance” the dictator will agree to surrender his nuclear arsenal. “The issue of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula can be resolved, if South Korea and the United States respond to our efforts with goodwill, create an atmosphere of peace and stability while taking progressive and synchronous measures for the realization of peace," Kim reportedly told Xi.

Yet experts have warned the the appointment of John Bolton as Trump’s national security adviser last week could scupper the rapprochement — a move that makes China even more important for Kim. “With a possible shift towards a more hawkish U.S. foreign policy underway, [China’s] support is even more important,” Bernt Berger, a senior fellow on Asia at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, told VICE News.

Jimmy Carter calls Trump's decision to hire Bolton 'a disaster for our country'

Former president Jimmy Carter, one of the few U.S. officials who has traveled to North Korea and met with its leaders, expresses hope for the planned White House summit with Pyongyang but warns that President Trump may have made “one of the worst mistakes” of his tenure by naming John Bolton to the sensitive post of national security adviser. ...

Carter calls Bolton “a warlike figure” who backs policies the former president calls catastrophic. “Maybe one of the worst mistakes that President Trump has made since he’s been in office is his employment of John Bolton, who has been advocating a war with North Korea for a long time and even an attack on Iran, and who has been one of the leading figures on orchestrating the decision to invade Iraq,” Carter said. He called the appointment, announced last week, “a disaster for our country.”

The Last Person in the Room: John Bolton, PNAC and the End of the World

The world as we know it ended on the evening of December 12, 2000, when the Supreme Court gave the Executive Branch to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Like as not, Bush had never heard of PNAC. Cheney was a charter member. The world ended, and after September 11 -- the "new Pearl Harbor" envisioned in Rebuilding America's Defenses, PNAC's blueprint for world domination -- the world was born again in the fires of "Shock & Awe." ...

Even by PNAC's grim standards, John Bolton is a snaggletoothed monster. The people who agree with him are still freaked out by him, because he is a ball of terrifying war hubris made flesh, yet somehow he keeps landing jobs within walking distance of the Oval Office. Eighteen years after the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision and 15 years after Bush's invasion of Iraq, too much of the world is what John Bolton and his PNAC friends have made it: A smoldering crater stinking of permanent war, surrounded by refugees and choking on austerity to pay the butcher's bill. We are a shadow of ourselves, timorously following a blowhard strongman as he stomps through the wreckage left behind by people like his new National Security Adviser.

Bolton isn't finished yet, either. Just last month, he forcefully advocated for a first-strike attack against North Korea. He calls for the preemptive bombing of Iran with dreary regularity during his many Fox News appearances, and has labored for years to arrange the proper set of circumstances that would allow Tehran to be rendered into a pile of rubble. The man, simply put, wants war wherever and whenever he can get it. ...

It has been firmly established by now that the most powerful person in the country is the last person Trump speaks to before making a decision. ... As National Security Adviser, John Bolton -- serial liar, lover of war, volatile abuser -- will very often be the last person in the room with Trump when the life-and-death decisions come rolling down. Think on that. ... PNAC, it seems, has won again.

US and Russia: New Age of Nuclear Instability

Congress bans arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis

A little-noticed provision in the 2,232-page government spending bill passed last week bans U.S. arms from going to a controversial ultranationalist militia in Ukraine that has openly accepted neo-Nazis into its ranks.

House-passed spending bills for the past three years have included a ban on U.S. aid to Ukraine from going to the Azov Battalion, but the provision was stripped out before final passage each year.

This year, though, the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law last week stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.”

“White supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and have no place in our world,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), an outspoken critic of providing lethal aid to Ukraine, said in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday. “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.” ...

“The State Department should pressure Kiev to dissociate itself with this group and investigate whether any of our weapons or training have already been provided to them,” Khanna said in his statement. “This is just one of many reasons why lawmakers should be concerned about channeling huge amounts of weapons into this volatile conflict zone.”

US says it needed no proof, only UK’s word to expel diplomats

Rebels Shell Syrian Capital, Killing at Least 27 Civilians

On Tuesday, rebels from Eastern Ghouta fired mortars into the Syrian capital city of Damacus, killing at least 27 civilians and wounding nearly 60 others. The strike was reported in a single sentence article in Reuters, quoting a Russian news agency. ...

Though it was not reported, the fire presumably is coming out of Douma, which is the last rebel-held territory in Eastern Ghouta. The Syrian military also reported that the rebels are using “human shields” to prevent military advances.

Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

The government of Ecuador has confirmed that it has cut off internet access in its embassy in London to Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, saying that he was putting the country’s international relations at risk.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Ecuador said that the step had been taken because Assange had failed to abide by an agreement not to interfere in the South American country’s relations with other states.

“The government of Ecuador warns that Assange’s behaviour, through his messages on social networks, put at risk the country’s good relations with the United Kingdom, the other states of the European Union, and other nations,” the statement said.

As part of an agreement between Assange and the Ecuadorian government, he is not permitted to send any messages that could interfere with the South American nation’s relations with other countries.

The arrest of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont: Another step toward a police state in Europe

The arrest of former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont in Germany is a major step toward the development of a police state in Europe. The Europe-wide police-state structures, which emerged under the pretext of combatting terrorism and cracking down on refugees, are now being deployed against political opponents.

Puigdemont’s arrest was conducted based on a European arrest warrant. These warrants were introduced in 2004 to simplify the extradition process between EU member states following the elimination of internal border controls. They were allegedly aimed at combatting terrorism, gangs, people trafficking, the drugs trade, and other serious criminal offences.

Ever since, the police, intelligence services and judiciaries in the EU member states have intensified their cooperation. Puigdemont’s arrest was planned by Spanish intelligence, which had been following him across Europe with 10 to 12 agents. It was done in close consultation with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, which received information from Spanish intelligence about Puigdemont’s car and route ahead of time and organized the arrest.

The charges against Puigdemont are as hypocritical as they are fraudulent. His “crime” consists of nothing more than advancing the demand—which has a long political history—for the separation of Catalonia from Spain. He has neither called for nor threatened violence to achieve this goal. The Catalan separatists have relied on peaceful and democratic means: elections, parliamentary motions, and demonstrations.

The German state accepts the claim of the right-wing regime in Madrid that the advocacy of separatism is a crime. But in the case of Yugoslavia, Germany ruthlessly pursued the breakup of that state in the 1990s, with catastrophic results. As always, the policies of the German ruling class are determined by its geopolitical and economic interests.

Catalan separatists block roads in protest at Puigdemont detention

Spanish riot police broke up a blockade by Catalan separatists on major motorways in Catalonia Tuesday, part of a wave of protests over the arrest and detention of ex-regional president Carles Puigdemont. Television images showed riot police surrounding protesters who had sat down in the middle of motorway AP-7, which links Spain to neighbouring France. Police removed the protesters one by one facing a chorus of boos from the pro-Catalan independence activists.

But on Tuesday evening two other roads were blocked around the northeast Spanish region, according to Catalonia’s traffic authority, while hundreds of people protested near Barcelona's main Sants trains station. They had planned to surround the station but access to it was blocked by riot police. Tuesday's road blockades followed protests in Barcelona on Sunday, when Catalan riot police shoved and hit demonstrators with batons to keep the crowd from advancing on the Spanish government's representative office.

Nearly a hundred people were slightly injured during the protests, ​​including 22 police officers, emergency services said.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign tour buses hit by gunshots in attack

Gunshots hit two buses in a caravan for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign tour in southern Brazil on Tuesday, officials in his Workers’ party said.

No one was hurt, and the former president was not in either of the two buses, which were carrying guests and journalists. Nails had also been placed along the caravan’s route, piercing the tyres of one bus, the party said. ...

Gleisi Hoffmann, the Workers’ party president, complained in a statement that authorities haven’t provided enough security for the caravan and later called the attack an attempted homicide. Officials noted that Paraná state is the only one the caravan has passed through that hasn’t provided a police escort.

“It’s not normal in a democracy that people fire on a democratic caravan,” Hoffmann told supporters Tuesday night.

Killed in Cold Blood: Alton Sterling’s Family Decries Decision Not to Charge Officers for Murder

Oklahoma teachers haven’t had a raise in 10 years so they’re walking out

Lyndsey Stuart is a history and leadership teacher at Bartlesville High School in Oklahoma. She’s been teaching for 10 years. And she’s never had a raise. “I don't think any teacher goes into the profession and thinks, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm going to be a millionaire,’’’ Stuart said. “But we also don't think that we're going to be that close to poverty.”

Earlier this month, the state teachers union, the Oklahoma Education Association, called for teachers to walk out of their classrooms on April 2, the day after the state Legislature is required to pass an education budget. They’re calling for a $10,000 raise for teachers over three years, as well as a $200 million increase in funding for education, which has been cut 28.2 percent since 2008.

Stuart makes $34,929 a year as a teacher, but she works about 30 additional hours a week as a photographer to make ends meet. She said she makes about as much as a photographer as she does teaching.

Teachers at Bartlesville High School have been taking personal days every Tuesday to lobby legislators in Oklahoma City. But they haven’t been as receptive as the teachers would have liked them to be. While the Oklahoma House this week passed a package that would give teachers at least a $5,000 raise and raise taxes in the state for the first time since 1990, it hasn’t become law yet. And it doesn’t include an increase in school funding. So the Oklahoma Education Association has said the walkout is still on.

Arizona teachers prepare for mass statewide demonstrations

Thousands of Arizona teachers demanding improved wages and conditions are expected to converge on the state Capitol in Phoenix tomorrow. Despite the efforts of the teacher unions to block the spread of strikes and protests after their betrayal of the nine-day strike in West Virginia, educators throughout the US and internationally are pressing ahead with their opposition to austerity and attacks on public education.

Teachers in the Phoenix area will be holding what they call a “teach-in” in front of the Capitol building as teachers continue protests in other parts of the state. Arizona Educators United, the Facebook group teachers are using to organize, told local news station KTAR News, “We’re going to do what we do best, we’re going to teach.”

Teachers are scheduled to march on the Capitol at 4 p.m. to bring attention to unsustainable salaries. According to the Arizona State University Morrison Institute for Public Policy, the median pay for elementary teachers was $42,724 in 2016, ranking last in the country.

The protest follows almost a month of activity by Arizona teachers, bolstered by the West Virginia strike, which temporarily broke free from the control of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), as well as rank-and-file agitation, primarily through social media, for an April 2 statewide strike in Oklahoma. ...

In Arizona, 24 percent of children live in high-poverty areas. The state’s per student spending is just over $4,000, one of the lowest in the country. A 2016 report by the US Department of Education found that Arizona spends $20,000 more annually on each inmate than it does on a student in its school system. From 1989-2013, spending for public education virtually remained flat while funding for prisons skyrocketed by 90 percent.

In Ploy to 'Force' Deep Safety Net Cuts, GOP Reportedly Planning Vote on Balanced Budget Amendment

Sparking fresh alarm that the GOP is preparing to take an axe to America's already inadequate safety net, Politico reported on Wednesday that House Republicans are planning to take up a "balanced budget amendment" when Congress returns from recess—news that comes just months after the GOP passed a tax bill that analysts say could add nearly $2 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

"A balanced budget amendment is the GOP dream, because it means every tax cut for the rich will 'force' them to cut programs for the poor and middle-class," observed journalist and academic Josh Mound in response to news of the Republican plan, which coincides with reports that GOP is reportedly mulling yet another round of tax cuts later this year.

As Politico notes, the desire to force a vote on a balanced budget amendment—which has been a right-wing goal for decades—is likely the result of Republicans wanting to "be able to say they voted to support balancing the federal budget" ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Since the beginning of the GOP's push to deliver massive tax cuts to the rich and major corporations disguised as relief for the working class, progressives have warned that key programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are in Republican crosshairs.

Poll shows Dennis Kucinich and Richard Cordray tied in governor's primary

A new poll of the governor's race shows a dead heat between former federal consumer watchdog Richard Cordray and former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primary, though both trail Republican frontrunner Attorney General Mike DeWine in the general election.

Kucinich and Cordray each clock in at 21 percent, with four other candidates in the single digits and 46 percent still undecided as the May 8 primary date approaches. The poll was conducted by SurveyUSA for Cleveland 19 news and has a margin of error of 5.3 percentage points for the primary and 3.5 points for the general election. The survey was taken from March 16 and March 20.

The results indicate Cordray may be struggling to catch on after a strong start both in fundraising and endorsements from figures around the state, while the upstart Kucinich's aggressive campaign schedule and progressive views may be clicking with Democratic voters.

Mueller court filing shows Rick Gates was knowingly in contact with a Kremlin spy

Donald Trump’s deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates was in direct communication with a person he knew was a Russian spy in the weeks ahead of the 2016 election, according to court documents filed by special counsel Robert Mueller Tuesday.

The documents reveal Gates was in contact with a former officer in Russian military intelligence in the months leading up to Trump’s win. Gates was “directly communicating in September and October 2016” with an unidentified person who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016,” the filing says.

Crucially, Gates was aware of this person's ties to Russian intelligence, the filing adds, calling the 2016 conversations “pertinent to the investigation.” Gates last month struck a plea deal with Mueller, likely avoiding decades behind bars. Yet it remains unclear what information the former Trump official offered in return. ...

The unnamed intelligence officer, referred to as “Person A” in the documents, worked for one of Manafort’s companies. The Washington Post claims the description matches that of Konstantin Kilimnik, the manager of Manafort’s lobbying office in Kiev.

Stormy Daniels' lawyer asks court to compel Trump to testify in deposition

A lawyer for Stormy Daniels has requested in federal court to take a deposition from Donald Trump, in a legal battle over an agreement to keep the porn star quiet about her allegation that they had a sexual relationship. Attorney Michael Avenatti also asked to depose the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, whom Daniels is suing for defamation, a motion filed in US district court in the central district of California showed on Wednesday.

Avenatti said in the motion he would need no more than two hours to question each of the men. “We’re looking for sworn answers from the president and Mr Cohen about what they knew, when they knew it and what they did about it,” Avenatti told the Associated Press. While he noted that “in every case you always have to be open to settlement”, Avenatti said “at this point we don’t see how this case would possibly be settled”. ...

On Monday, after Daniels appeared in a widely watched TV interview on 60 Minutes on CBS, Avenatti filed an amended lawsuit claiming that Cohen had defamed his client by suggesting she was a liar.

A hearing before Judge James Otero in Los Angeles is set for 30 April. ...

Such controversy does not seem to have hurt Trump’s standing with supporters – the president’s approval rating is up seven points since last month, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research.

Judge Drops Charges Against 13 Who Argued Pipeline Civil Disobedience Action Was "Necessary" to Save Planet

Climate activists are cheering after a district judge in Boston on Tuesday ruled that 13 fossil fuel pipeline protesters were not responsible for any infraction because of the necessity of their actions.

Good golly! A few minutes ago a Boston judge acquitted 13 pipeline protesters on the grounds that the climate crisis made it necessary for them to commit civil disobedience. This may be a first in America. Details to follow, and go to @ClimateDisobey for some live video

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) March 27, 2018

The charges the defendants faced stemmed from actions they took in 2016 to block Spectra Energy's fracked gas West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline. While they had spent a year and a half preparing a climate necessity defense to present to a jury trail, prosecutors prevented that from happening last week when they reduced the criminal charges to civil infractions. "By reducing the charges," the Climate Disobedience Center argues, "the prosecutor has avoided what could have been a groundbreaking legal case."

Judge Mary Ann Driscoll, did, however, allow each of the defendants to explain to the court why they were motivated to take part in their actions to stop the Massachusetts pipeline. After that, according to a lawyer for the defendants, she said they were not responsible by reason of necessity.

Big Bank Investment in World's Dirtiest Energy Projects Surged in 2017

Going backward in the era of Trump—and despite international efforts to curb the climate crisis by reducing carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels—a new study out Wednesday details how major banks invested heavily in the world's dirtiest energy sectors in 2017, pouring $115 billion into tar sands, offshore oil drilling, and coal mining projects.

"Every single dollar that these banks provide for the expansion of the fossil fuel industry is a dollar going to increase the climate crisis," said Stephen Kretzmann of Oil Change International, one of the groups behind the study (pdf). ...

Institutions including JP Morgan Chase, TD Bank, and Bank of America increased their funding of dirty energy by 11 percent from 2016 to 2017, flouting the Paris Climate Agreement.

The tar sands sector, known as the dirtiest source of energy on the planet, received major support from banks last year, with financing going up by 111 percent to $98 billion. JP Morgan Chase quadrupled its funding of the industry, a year after researchers found tar sands operations were a major cause of pollution.

Environmental campaigners also denounced banks for their support of industries that have caused destruction to communities by building pipelines with no regard for citizens' homes and human rights. Dirty energy projects funded by financial institutions in 2017 included the Line 3 Tar Sands pipeline proposed by Enbridge, which TD Bank, Citibank, Royal Bank of Canada, and MUFBGall invest in; and new coal plants expected to be build across Southeast Asia, bankrolled by Mizuho, MUFG, and SMFG.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: Donald Trump’s ’Stache Infection

Arms Research "Watchdog Group" Lobbies For War On Yemen And Iran

We're Headed To War With Russia, and No One Seems to Care

“44 Messages From Catalonia” Charts the Struggle for Independence in Private WhatsApp Conversations

Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

People are downloading their Facebook data and posting it to Twitter, and the results will terrify you

PE Firm Cerberus Capital’s “Rollup” Collapses into Bankruptcy

CWA tries to ram through sellout deal to end Frontier strike

DCCC Injects Itself Into a Third Texas Democratic Primary, This Time Going Up Against EMILY’s List

A Little Night Music

Gloria Jones - Tainted Love

Gloria Jones - My Bad Boy`s Comin` Home

Gloria Jones - What You Want

Gloria Jones - Finders Keepers

Gloria Jones - Come Go With Me

Chyvonne Scott - I'm Moving On

Chyvonne Scott - You Lost Your Good Thing

Chyvonne Scott - Everybody Needs A Friend

Chyvonne Scott - Thanks for the Invitation