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This evening's music features one of America's greatest virtually unknown songwriters Otis Blackwell. Enjoy!

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

-- Frédéric Bastiat

News and Opinion

Russia expels diplomats in tit-for-tat action over Salisbury attack

Russia will close down the US consulate in St Petersburg and expel 60 American diplomats as it takes tit-for-tat measures against all the nations that have expelled Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

More than 25 countries have announced plans to expel a total of more than 130 Russian diplomats in solidarity with the UK over what has been described as the first chemical weapons attack on European soil since the second world war.

Lavrov said US ambassador Jon Huntsman has been summoned to the foreign ministry, where he was given notice that Russia is responding quid pro quo to the US decision to order 60 Russian diplomats out. Lavrov said Moscow will also retaliate to the US decision to shut the Russian consulate in Seattle by closing the US consulate in St Petersburg.

The same approach will be applied to other nations that expelled Russian diplomats this week, he added.

UK govt and media on Skripal case pretty much like 2003 Iraq WMD hoax - Neil Clark

Somebody ought to ask Stormy Daniels if that guy she met in the parking lot in Las Vegas had a prominent mustache.

“We Know Where Your Kids Live”: How John Bolton Once Threatened an International Official

“John Bolton is a bully,” José Bustani, the retired Brazilian diplomat and former head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told me when I reached him by phone in Paris earlier this month. There are a number of people who claim to have been bullied or intimidated by Bolton — including Bustani. The latter’s criticisms of the famously mustachioed hawk have been public for many years now, but some of the details of his tense encounter with Bolton at the OPCW have never been reported before in English.

In early 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was putting intense pressure on Bustani to quit as director-general of the OPCW — despite the fact that he had been unanimously re-elected to head the 145-nation body just two years earlier. His transgression? Negotiating with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to allow OPCW weapons inspectors to make unannounced visits to that country — thereby undermining Washington’s rationale for regime change.

In 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell had penned a letter to Bustani, thanking him for his “very impressive” work. By March 2002, however, Bolton — then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs — arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization’s chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn’t mince words. “Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”

Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.”

There was a pause.

“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”

US ambassador: If Abbas won’t negotiate with us, his replacement will

In a rare interview directly criticizing the Palestinian leadership, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman indicated that the White House’s patience with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is running out, noting that if Abbas refuses to negotiate with Israel and the Americans, others will.

“If Abu Mazen is not interested in negotiating, I am sure that someone else will want to,” Friedman said, referring to Abbas by his moniker.

“If Abbas creates a vacuum, I am convinced that someone else will fill it, and then we will move forward [with the peace process],” Friedman continued, in an interview with the weekly religious-Zionist newspaper Shevi’i. Parts of the interview were released on Wednesday; the full interview will be published on Friday.

None of This Month’s Craziest Nuclear Stories Involved North Korea

The past week featured two crazy nuclear stories. And neither of them involved North Korea.

The first involved Saudi Arabia. Although this highly significant story passed almost uncovered by the media, White House officials confirmed that talks between President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “included critical discussions” about Saudi Arabia’s “nuclear aspirations.” Apparently, talks between Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the Saudis have been going on quietly for some time.

The crazy part isn’t that Saudi Arabia aspires to a nuclear program. Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees every country the right to a civilian nuclear program for energy and medical purposes. The crazy part also isn’t Saudi Arabia’s insistence that it would be allowed to enrich its own uranium: the same article promises that right. The crazy part is that while Trump was continuing “to engage with our Saudi partners on their plans for a civil nuclear program and possible US supply of nuclear equipment and material,” the Crown Prince was simultaneously openly declaring Saudi Arabia’s willingness to use that aid to build a nuclear bomb. ...

The second crazy nuclear story was Israel’s announcement that it was Israel that bombed the Syrian nuclear reactor in September of 2007. There are two parts that are crazy about the Israeli announcement. The first is that everyone always knew it was Israel who bombed the nuclear reactor. ... The second is that it almost certainly wasn’t a nuclear reactor.

If Syria was building a nuclear reactor, Michael Hayden’s CIA knew nothing about it. And he told that to President Bush. That the CIA missed a secret nuclear program is not impossible to believe or even entirely unprecedented. What is more unbelievable is that they missed it when it was right out in the open, that their highly sophisticated satellites missed what a commercial satellite easily picked up. A number of nontechnical features just didn’t fit the Israeli story. Seymour Hersh picked this up in his early investigative reporting of the strike, “A Strike in the Dark.” A former State Department intelligence expert told Hersh that much that one would see around a nuclear reactor was missing from the site. There was not even any security around it. ...

If the bombed Syrian building was a nuclear reactor, there should have been uranium in the environmental samples the IAEA took. But there wasn’t. Mohamed ElBaradei said that “so far, we have found no indication of any nuclear material.” Every sample that was actually taken from the ground in the area of the Syrian building tested negative for uranium and plutonium. That’s a problem for the Israeli narrative. But, it wasn’t even the biggest problem. The biggest environmental inconsistency came not from testing for uranium but for graphite. After all, the Syrian site was supposed to be a gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactor. If it was, then when the building exploded, it should have sent graphite everywhere, according to Scott Ritter. Ritter says there would have been thousands of pounds of graphite in the facility already. But, he says, “there’s no evidence in the destruction. … If it had been bombed and there was graphite introduced, you would have a signature all over the area of destroyed graphite blocks. There would be graphite lying around, etc. This was not the case.”

Saudi Arabia must face U.S. lawsuits over Sept. 11 attacks

A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected Saudi Arabia’s bid to dismiss lawsuits claiming that it helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and should pay billions of dollars in damages to victims.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said the plaintiffs’ allegations “narrowly articulate a reasonable basis” for him to assert jurisdiction over Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), a 2016 federal law.

The Saudi government has long denied involvement in the attacks in which hijacked airplanes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people died. ...

Daniels’ decision covers claims by the families of those killed, roughly 25,000 people who suffered injuries, and many businesses and insurers.

The judge also dismissed claims that two Saudi banks, National Commercial Bank and Al Rajhi Bank, and Saudi Binladin Group, a construction company controlled by the bin Laden family, provided funds and financial services for the attacks, saying he lacked jurisdiction.

As North Korea Talks with China, South Korea & Japan, Could Bolton Derail Denuclearization Progress?

Kim Jong Un just agreed to become the first North Korean leader to cross the DMZ

Kim Jong Un will become the first North Korean leader to set foot south of the demilitarized zone on April 27 when he attends a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae, officials said Thursday.

The historic sit-down will be held in Freedom House on the southern side of the 38th parallel that divides the peninsula. It will be the first meeting between leaders of the two countries since 2007 and only the third in history.

The timing of the summit was announced by representatives of both countries who met Thursday to iron out the details. The meeting will take place in the Joint Security Area, the only part of the DMZ where soldiers from the North and South stand face-to-face across the border.

Cho Myoung Gyon, Seoul’s unification minister, said both sides had committed to the meeting, with denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula high on the agenda.

Nicolas Sarkozy to face trial for corruption and influence peddling

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sent to trial for corruption and influence peddling. The case centres over phone calls Sarkozy allegedly made to a senior judge who was investigating claims that his 2007 presidential campaign was illegally funded. Sarkozy is alleged to have promised the judge a comfortable promotion in return for information about the fraud inquiry.

The judge and Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, have also been ordered to stand trial on the same charges. All three have denied any wrongdoing; the former leader’s lawyers announced he would appeal against the decision to send the case to court.

This new legal setback came days after Sarkozy was formally put under investigation over claims he took €50m (£44m) from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in illegal donations for his successful 2007 presidential campaign, which he also denied. He went on prime time television to denounce the allegations as “crazy, monstrous”.

No one at the Ecuadorian embassy will tell Assange the Wi-Fi password

Although Ecuador claims it isolated Assange over his Tweeting about the detention of #Piugdmont in Germany, the political context is his breaking the "Watergate" of Ecudor, #HackingTeam, which led to the implosion of the national spy service this month https://t.co/PNYbDY9fYb

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 29, 2018

While Ecuador hasn’t specified what triggered the move, the decision appears to have been taken after Assange tweeted about the detention of former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont in Germany.

However, WikiLeaks claimed Thursday that Assange’s internet was cut over a tweet he shared that included a link to an article about interactions between Italy's Hacking Team and Ecuador's SENAIN intelligence agency.

Department of Justice Charges FBI Whistleblower Under Espionage Act

A former FBI agent has been charged with two counts related to the unauthorized disclosure of national security information, according to documents filed by the Department of Justice this week, marking the latest instance of the Trump administration’s stated intention to crack down on leaks to the press.

The charges, filed by the DOJ’s National Security Division in Minnesota, accuse Terry J. Albury of one count of “unauthorized disclosure of National Defense information” and one count of “unauthorized retention of National Defense information.” The Star Tribune, a Minneapolis-based newspaper, reported that “Albury is listed as a special agent for the FBI with a phone number corresponding to its Minneapolis division in an online directories.”

The Star Tribune linked the charges revealed Wednesday to a series of stories published by The Intercept regarding a set of secret FBI guidelines. ...

Rather than a complaint, the documents revealed Wednesday were informational, suggesting that the government may have secured a plea deal in the case. The government claims that from February 2016 to January 2017, Albury unlawfully possessed “a document pertaining to assessing Confidential Human Sources dated August 17, 2011, and an undated document relating to threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country,” and that Albury “knowingly and willfully” shared those materials with a journalist. The DOJ also accuses Albury of unlawfully possessing “a document relating to the use of an online platform for recruitment by a specific terrorist group.”

Number of armed guards at US schools is rising, study finds

Armed security officers are becoming more prevalent at America’s schools, according to a federal study released Thursday amid a heated debate over whether teachers and other school officials should carry guns.

Armed officers were present at least once a week in 43% of all public schools during the 2015-16 school year, compared with 31% of schools a decade before, according to data from a survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. ...

“There has been an increase in security staff in school over the last 10 years and it’s more pronounced at the primary school level,” said Lauren Musu-Gillette, lead author of the report.

Experts are divided on whether it makes schools safer.

Serial's Adnan Syed granted new trial in murder case

A Maryland appeals court has upheld a ruling granting a new trial to a man whose conviction for the murder of his high school sweetheart became the subject of the popular podcast Serial. ... A three-judge panel on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling granting him new trial.

Syed’s story was widely publicized in the 2014 Serial podcast, which cast doubt on his guilt. The show attracted millions of listeners and shattered podcast records.

Family to Bury Slain Sacramento Man Stephon Clark, as Protests Continue Demanding Justice

White House says looking into Stephon Clark’s death isn’t its job

It’s not the federal government’s job to hold police departments accountable when officers kill black men.

That was the impression Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave on Wednesday when she was asked about two high-profile police killings, most recently, the death of Stephon Clark. Police in Sacramento, California, shot and killed the 22-year-old black man while he was standing in his own backyard holding only an iPhone on March 18, sparking days of protests.

“Certainly a terrible incident,” Sanders replied. “This is something that is a local matter, and that’s something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time.”

How the Denver DSA Convinced the Local Democratic Party to Endorse Socialism in Its Platform

In a remarkable display of grassroots power, the Denver chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, successfully convinced the Denver Democratic Party to endorse a key tenet of democratic socialism in their party platform. The party’s official platform now includes the following plank:

We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few.

The construction used here is similar to “for the many not the few,” the slogan used by the U.K.’s Labour Party. That party is currently run by Jeremy Corbyn, a committed socialist, who borrowed the phrase from neoliberal politician Tony Blair, who first used it during election campaigns in the 1990s. Blair and Corbyn both owe it to Shelley, whose Masque of Anarchy Corbyn has taken to quoting. ...

It even echoes in New York, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon has her own spin on it, promising a “New York for the many, not just the few.”

The vote to establish the new plank in the Denver Democratic Party platform came on March 24, during a meeting of the Denver County Democratic Assembly. Local DSA members attended the event with the goal of joining the ranks of the local Democratic Party and learning the ropes of local politics ahead of possibly running their own candidates in 2020.

Trump’s lawyer may have obstructed justice if he floated pardons for Flynn and Manafort

If pardons were dangled for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort in the Russia probe, the president’s lawyer and the president himself might be looking at obstruction of justice charges.

President Trump’s then-lawyer John Dowd last summer discussed a presidential pardon with lawyers for former national security adviser Flynn and Trump campaign manager Manafort, people familiar with the conversations told the New York Times and the Washington Post in stories published Wednesday. As we know, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, while Manafort refused a deal and is fighting the charges against him, fueling speculation that he may have taken Dowd up on a pending pardon offer.

If Dowd did float the pardon idea with lawyers for Flynn and Manafort as leverage to convince them not to cooperate with Mueller, it could amount to an obstruction of justice charge for Dowd, and for Trump, too, if he knew about it. In obstruction cases, an attempt is enough; actually going through with it is not required to bring the charges. Dowd resigned last week.

Judge denies request from Stormy Daniels lawyer to depose Trump

A federal judge turned down the request from the lawyer for Stormy Daniels to depose Donald Trump in her lawsuit against him on Thursday. In a ruling, James Otero, a federal judge in the central district of California, said the motion was “premature and must be denied”.

The judge’s ruling does not foreclose future efforts by Daniels, a pornographic actor whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to compel a deposition from Trump. Instead, it was issued on procedural grounds as the litigation is still in its early stages. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, filed the motion on Wednesday.

Alarmed conservationists call for urgent action to fix 'America's wildlife crisis'

An extinction crisis is rippling though America’s wildlife, with scores of species at risk of being wiped out unless recovery plans start to receive sufficient funding, conservationists have warned.

One-third of species in the US are vulnerable to extinction, a crisis that has ravaged swaths of creatures such as butterflies, amphibians, fish and bats, according to a report compiled by a coalition of conservation groups. A further one in five species face an even greater threat, with a severe risk of being eliminated amid a “serious decline” in US biodiversity, the report warns. ...

More than 1,270 species found in the US are listed as at risk under the federal Endangered Species Act, an imperiled menagerie that includes the grizzly bear, California condor, leatherback sea turtle and rusty patched bumble bee. However, the actual number of threatened species is “far higher than what is formally listed”, states the report by the National Wildlife Federation, American Fisheries Society and the Wildlife Society.

Using data from NatureServe that assesses the health of entire groups of species on a sliding scale, rather than the case-by-case work done by the federal government, the analysis shows more than 150 US species have already become extinct while a further 500 species have not been seen in recent decades and have possibly also been snuffed out.

Whole classes of creatures have suffered precipitous drops, with 40% of freshwater fish species in the US now vulnerable or endangered, a third of bat species experiencing major declines in the past two decades and amphibians dwindling from their known ranges at a rate of about 4% a year. The true scale of the crisis is probably larger when species with sparse data, or those as yet unknown to science, are considered.

China is celebrating its climate change success — even though emissions are still going up

The Chinese government announced on Tuesday that the country has reached its carbon emissions reductions targets for 2020 three years early. It's the result of a government war on pollution that’s accelerated the shift from coal to natural gas and renewables as well as taken steps to clean up manufacturing. But despite China's apparent success at regulating its environmental impact, the country's total carbon emissions still grew.

Not all countries have pledged to slash their overall emissions, and that list includes China. Like many fast-growing developing economies, the country’s climate pledges hinge on the concept of reducing “carbon intensity,” or the amount of carbon emitted per unit of economic growth. The greener growth strategy has been a key bargaining chip in U.N. climate negotiations. Developing economies are encouraged to sign onto international agreements under the premise that environmental goals won’t curtail expansion.

China’s carbon intensity was 46 percent lower in 2017 than in 2005, the baseline year for measurements. That means the country overachieved on a main pledge under the Paris Accord: to secure a 40 to 45 percent reduction by 2020. But GDP grew an average of almost 10 percent each year over the same period, causing the overall growth in the economy to more than offset the decrease in emissions per dollar. China’s government celebrated early completion of national targets, but total emissions still crept up 1.7 percent in 2017.

Also of Interest

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

Trump’s Nominee to Oversee Superfund Program Spent Decades Fighting EPA Cleanups on Behalf of Polluters

JPMorgan CEO: Banking Bill “Doesn’t Really Have Anything to Do With Us”

A Little Night Music

Otis Blackwell - Let The Daddy Hold You

Otis Blackwell - Paralyzed

Otis Blackwell - Tears, Tears, Tears

Otis Blackwell - (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear

Otis Blackwell – All Shook Up

Otis Blackwell - Oh What A Wonderful Time

Otis Blackwell - Daddy Rollin Stone

Otis Blackwell - Please Help Me Find My Way Home

Otis Blackwell - Make Ready For Love

Otis Blackwell - Searchin´

Otis Blackwell - Bartender, Fill it up Again!

Eddie Cooley & The Dimples - Fever

Otis Blackwell - Wake Up Fool

Otis Blackwell - Great Balls Of Fire

For an interesting studio out-take version click the link:

Otis Blackwell Great Balls Of Fire