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This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Jimmy Dawkins. Enjoy!

“The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.”

-- Noam Chomsky

News and Opinion

Surprise, surprise, social media platform gets caught out as a tool for social manipulation.

'Blacklisting' of Right-Wing Stories More Proof that Facebook 'Rules the News'

Revelations that Facebook may have regularly "blacklisted" conservative stories from the platform's "trending" news section was met with outrage on Monday from journalists across the political spectrum who found the company's alleged abuse of power "disturbing" and potentially dangerous.

After speaking with several former "news curators," Gizmodo technology editor Michael Nunez reported Monday that the social media platform routinely censored stories "about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users."

The contracted employees also said they were "instructed to artificially 'inject' selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all," and were specifically asked to exclude "news about Facebook itself in the trending module." ...

Aside from fueling right-wing persecution, this is a key reminder of dangers of Silicon Valley controlling content https://t.co/BCromK3Wvu

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 9, 2016

This practice of "imposing human editorial values," as Nunez put it, flies in the face of the company's claim that the section is simply displaying "topics that have recently become popular on Facebook." ...

Right-wing media was predictably incensed after the news broke. But for journalists who fall elsewhere on the political spectrum, the revelations were an alarm bell warning against the social media network's growing power—and desire—to influence.

Facebook's power over news may be disturbing, but so is this. https://t.co/RbNS0PUCX9

— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) May 10, 2016

The U.S. Senate is now investigating Facebook’s Trending News https://t.co/Dv4tBYIMG0 thanks to @MichaelFNunez @Gizmodo reporting

— Carl Franzen (@carlfranzen) May 10, 2016

In Stunning Twist, Brazil's Lower House Acting Speaker Annuls Rousseff Impeachment

The acting speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress annulled the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff in a stunning decision on Monday, calling for a new vote on the matter in the chamber.

In a move just days before the Senate was expected to vote to put Rousseff on trial, Waldir Maranhao said there were procedural flaws in a lower chamber vote on April 17 that approved the impeachment charges against the leftist president.

His decision, seen by markets as decreasing the chances of a more business-friendly government taking power, sent Brazilian financial markets reeling.

Maranhao had broken with his center-right Progressive Party and voted against Rousseff's impeachment in last month's lower house vote. He took over as acting speaker just last week when his predecessor Eduardo Cunha - who launched the impeachment process - was removed by the Supreme Court on corruption charges. ...

In a news release on Monday, Maranhao said the impeachment process should be returned by the Senate so that the lower house can vote again. The vote should take place within five sessions of the chamber after the case is returned, he said.

It remained unclear whether Maranhao's decision could be overruled by the Supreme Court, the Senate or a majority in the house.

Glenn Greenwald on Brazil: Goal of Rousseff Impeachment is to Boost Neoliberals & Protect Corruption

Obama to become first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima

Barack Obama has announced he will visit Hiroshima, Japan, becoming the first sitting president to visit the site where the US dropped an atomic bomb in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people the final days of the second world war.

In a statement the White House confirmed the visit, saying Obama’s visit will “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons”. Obama will be joined with prime minister Shinzo Abe, who is hosting the G7 summit in Ise-Shima later this month.

Earlier this month White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president does not believe the US should apologize for its use of atom bombs on Japan in 1945, a point reiterated by national security adviser Ben Rhodes on Tuesday.

Obama “will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II”, Rhodes wrote in a post on Medium. “This visit will offer an opportunity to honor the memory of all innocents who were lost during the war.” ...

In April, secretary of state John Kerry visited the site, where he made an emotional speech. “It tugs at all of your sensibilities as a human being. It reminds everybody of the extraordinary complexity of choices in war and of what war does to people, to communities, to countries, to the world,” he said.

US Troops in Afghanistan Hospital Attack ‘Confused’

... Troops involved in the deployment on the ground said they were extremely confused about the rules of engagement for the war, repeatedly asking commanders “how far do you want us to go” in helping Afghan forces on the ground. The nominally non-combat troops were simply asked “how far do you want to go?”

Confused, no instruction given from commanders and deployed without proper maps of the area, the troops ultimately called in airstrikes and the plane, itself having myriad technical issues and with an ill-trained crew, attacked a hospital.

The number of excuses that combined to make such an attack happen may explain the lack of charges for specific people in the incident, but also underscores the disastrously disorganized situation among occupation forces in the country, which soldiers called a “recipe for disaster.” Indeed, disaster happened, and the question that looms largest is how, or even whether, the Pentagon can fix so many calamitous mistakes.

This is an excellent article that highlights the contradictions caused by Obama/Clinton's, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" based policies. It's worth a full read.

The Secret Behind the Yemen War

PBS Frontline’s “Yemen Under Siege,” which aired on May 3, makes for powerful viewing. A first-hand look at the devastation that the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and other powers have visited on one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, the 35-minute documentary shows families struggling amid the rubble, children dying from mortar attacks, surgeons operating without anesthesia, and other such horrors.

But the most important revelation comes almost as an aside. Interviewing pro-Saudi fighters near the central Yemeni city of Taiz, journalist Safa Al Ahmad suddenly hears shouting. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Who are they? They don’t want me to be here?”

A soldier explains that the people making a ruckus are Ansar al Sharia, i.e. fighters for shari‘a. “And he just says quite casually, these are Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” Al Ahmad says later of the local Al Qaeda affiliate often referred to as AQAP. “And he referred to them by their local name, which is Ansar al Sharia. He revealed what is considered an open secret in the front lines, that they [AQAP] had been fighting with all the different factions, the [pro-Saudi] Yemeni factions and the [U.S.-Saudi] coalition against the Houthis.” ...

The documentary lifts the lid on perhaps the single most incoherent aspect of U.S. policy in the Middle East. On one hand, the United States claims to be fighting Al Qaeda, and indeed AQAP, regarded as one of Al Qaeda’s most aggressive franchises, has been a prime target of U.S. drone strikes ever since the war on terror began.

At the same time, though, the U.S. provides military backing for forces led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Persian Gulf petro-states that welcome AQAP fighters into their ranks as full and active participants in the anti-Houthi crusade.

As Al Ahmad – a heroic Saudi dissident who has been effectively banished from her homeland for reporting on the plight of the kingdom’s Shi‘ite minority – puts it, “This is why it’s so difficult to explain the war on Yemen, because there are so many enemies that find themselves on the same front lines fighting the other enemy.” ... Where formerly Al Qaeda “controlled huge parts of South Yemen,” she adds, the group’s reach over the last four years has grown to the point where it now constitutes a veritable state within a state.

All of which runs directly counter to the official line in Washington, which holds that if AQAP has expanded, it is only because it has taken advantage of the disorderly conditions that the Houthi uprising has imposed.

She Spoke Up About Cooked ISIS Intel. They Booted Her—for Cursing.

She worked on and off for five years identifying targets for the U.S. military’s Central Command.

And then, when, some believe, she spoke up about cherry-picked intelligence in the ISIS war, she was drummed out of her job—allegedly for cursing twice in the span of the year. ...

If cursing were really a fireable offense in the military, every soldier, sailor, Marine, and Defense Department civilian would have to be sent home. ...

The case suggested that, at CENTCOM, there are two wars being waged: one against ISIS and a separate internal fight between whistleblowers and commanders. This all came to the fore during a rare public hearing last Wednesday before the government appeals board, brought by a subordinate of Gregory Ryckman, the top-ranking civilian at CENTCOM’s Joint Intelligence office, known as the J2. ...

The Pentagon inspector general now is investigating whether CENTCOM officials, including Ryckman, watered down assessments on the rising jihadist threat to comport with the White House.

House Set to Vote on Question of Drafting Women

This year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) looks set to decide the question of whether women aged 18-26 will have to register for the military draft in the United States, with a vote likely next week on Rep. Pete Sessions’ (R – TX) legislation attempting to block language that would require women to register.

The debate has happened off and on for decades and came up again with calls from the Army and Marine chiefs of staff calling for women to be brought into the Selective Service system in the name of “equality.” The Selective Service Act requires all men 18-26 to register, though none have been conscripted since 1973.

Twitter bars spy agencies from buying bulk user data from analytics firm

Twitter has blocked US spies from buying bulk data on its users from a data analytics company.

Until now, US national security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, had been able to query treasure troves of Twitter data through software from Dataminr, the New York-based analytics company in which Twitter owns a 5% stake. Agents could enter search terms such as “Isis” or “jihad” and view more tweets, over a longer period, than what a standard Twitter search would offer, people familiar with the process said.

Apparently not wanting to seem too close to US spies, Twitter has blocked any future such sales, the company confirmed on Monday. Twitter maintains the power to veto Dataminr’s contracts with its customers, typically news organizations and financial analysts. ...

Several current and former US officials said US intelligence agencies had used Dataminr tools in the past. Dataminr also is backed by In-Q-Tel, the not-for-profit organization that serves as the venture capital arm of US intelligence agencies. Dataminr didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Erdoğan seeks injunction against German media chief who laughed at poem

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is seeking an injunction against the chief executive of the German publisher Axel Springer.

The president’s lawyer, Ralf Höcker, said Erdoğan was taking legal action due to Mathias Döpfner’s support for a poem read out by comedian Jan Böhmermann on German television in March.

In an open letter published inGermany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper in April, Döpfner expressed solidarity with Böhmermann, saying he had laughed out loud at the poem and “wholeheartedly” supported what the comedian had said. ...

Erdoğan is known for his sensitivity to criticism and Turkish prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people perceived to have insulted him since he became president in 2014.

Mayor Jokes About Rape, Brags About Death Squads, Gets Elected President of the Philippines

Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte, the controversial politician known as the "punisher" due to his promises to kill criminals, is the presumptive winner of the Philippine presidency after an election day marred by chaos and violence.

Duterte has ridden a wave of discontent in the violence-stricken country to lead in opinion polls, on campaign promises to eradicate crime by shooting criminals, drowning them in Manila Bay or hanging them using fishing wire. He has a zero-tolerance stance on crime, and often boasts about turning the murder capital in the country, Davao City, where he has served several terms as mayor, into what is now touted as the most peaceful city in southeast Asia. He received frequent criticism from human rights groups for endorsing extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals by vigilante death squads. ...

Duterte will be inaugurated into office on June 30, 2016. He suggested he will begin in earnest, promising during his campaign to get rid of crime and corruption within three to six months of taking office. In his final rally before the election, Duterte reiterated his goals, "Forget the laws on human rights," he said. "If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because... I'd kill you."

Philippines elections: Rhetorically similar but don't confuse Duterte and Trump

'Everyone’s outraged': angry Greeks foresee Grexit and drachma's revival

In his tiny shop in downtown Athens, Kostis Nakos sits behind a wooden counter hunched over his German calculator. The 71-year-old might have retired had he been able to make ends meets but that is now simply impossible. “All day I’ve been sitting here doing the maths,” he sighs, surrounded by the undergarments and socks he has sold for the past four decades.

“My income tax has just gone up to 29%, my social security payments have gone up 20%, my pension has been cut by 50 euros; they are taxing coffee, fuel, the internet, tavernas, ferries, everything they can, and then there’s Enfia [the country’s much-loathed property levy]. Now that makes me mad. They said they would take that away!”

A mild man in milder times, Nakos finds himself becoming increasingly angry. So, too, do the vast majority of Greeks who walked through his door on Monday. “Everyone’s outraged, they’ve been swearing, insulting the government, calling [prime minister] Alexis Tsipras a liar,” he exclaims after parliament’s decision on Sunday night to pass yet more austerity measures. “And they’re right. Everything he said, everything he promised, was a fairy tale.” ...

The latest measures – worth €5.4bn (£4.3bn) in budget savings – mark a new era. After nine months of wrangling with the international creditors keeping the country afloat, Athens must apply policies that until now had been abstract concepts for a populace who have suffered as unemployment and poverty rates have soared.

It was thought the crisis had subsided, usurped by the drama of Europe’s refugees. But it had not gone away. In 2016, just as in 2015 and every year for the previous five years, it had coursed like a cancer through Greek life, corroding families, closing businesses, decimating hospitals and every other form of state care, leaving ever more destitute. ... Increasingly, Greece is a land inhabited by rich and poor. Sights that were once shocking – middle class men and women rifling through the rubbish cans on streets – are now mundane.

Civil Rights Activists Seek Justice for Racial Violence in the Name of Emmett Till

Emmett Till’s murder deeply inspired the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. But it was only one of dozens of other racially motivated murders that took place primarily in the South that were never solved. The fight Till’s mother started eventually led to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act — a bipartisan effort to reopen investigations into racially motivated murders that occurred before 1970. That legislation, which will expire in 2017, led to dozens of cases being reopened, to little success.

Now civil rights advocates are pushing for the act to be reauthorized, strengthened, and expanded to include all racially motivated murders. In late April, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced a new bill in both the House and Senate aiming to do just that.

“We should not abandon the pursuit of justice,” wrote civil rights activist and Georgia congressman John Lewis, who sponsored both the original bill and the current one, in an email to The Intercept. “We learned from our experiences with the last bill how we could strengthen the new bill,” he added, noting that legislation alone is not “a silver bullet” and that society as a whole must contribute to the healing process. He also emphasized the connection between past racist violence and current one.

“It is not possible to separate the crimes of today from the legacy of injustice where they were born,” he wrote. “Actually, understanding the crimes of the past may help this society comprehend the depth of injustice communities of color are bearing today. It is all connected.”

The Feds and North Carolina Are Suing Each Other Over the State's Anti-LGBT Law

North Carolina and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are suing each other over the state's controversial anti-LGBT law, with the feds arguing that the measure illegally discriminates against transgender people and state officials accusing the Obama administration of overstepping its authority by attempting to intervene.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the federal lawsuit against the state at a press conference Monday afternoon. Lynch said that North Carolina's House Bill 2, which requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their biological sex and denies them equal rights protection from discrimination, is intended only to "inflict further indignity on a population who has already suffered far more than their fair share." She called the measure "state-sponsored discrimination."

The DOJ had warned Governor Pat McCrory that the state would face consequences if he didn't use his powers to block the law from being implemented by the end of the day on Monday. Rather than comply with the request, McCrory announced on Monday morning that North Carolina had filed a lawsuit against the federal government. He called the attempt at federal intervention "baseless and blatant overreach."

Another Bundy standoff possible as groups call for US to seize livestock

Environmental groups have called on the government to round up Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle with a mass seizure of livestock that some fear could lead to a tense standoff between armed militia groups and federal authorities.

A coalition of wildlife organizations wrote to the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Monday urging the agency to remove Bundy’s cattle in the Gold Butte area of Nevada where the 70-year-old has for years allowed his cows to graze freely on public lands in defiance of federal land-use restrictions.

The advocates’ demands come three months after federal officials arrested Bundy, eventually charging him and 18 other activists for their roles in a high-profile conflict at the family’s ranch in Bunkerville, about 80 miles north-east of Las Vegas. ...

Although the Bundy men are locked up, the cattle are still grazing without restrictions in an area that the government and environmentalists say is critical habitat for the Mohave desert tortoise, a threatened species.

“The BLM must not wait to act to protect the desert tortoise,” nine environmental and wildlife groups wrote in their letter, which cited a recent study showing how livestock grazing causes severe declines in tortoise populations. “The cattle should be rounded up and removed from these public lands no later than summer 2016.”

An excellent article worth a full read.

Clinton and the DNC Are Not Just Colluding — They’re Changing the Rules for Superdelegates

The award for most deliberate and egregious burying of a lead has just been handed out.

It goes to NBC News, for a story entitled, “Bernie Sanders Makes Things Awkward for Hillary Clinton’s DNC Takeover.” ...

There can be no doubt about which sentence in the above-cited NBC News story is the most important. It’s this one, about what the Clinton campaign and the DNC have been up to since April (more than three months prior to the Party’s late-July convention):

Back-channel conversations have already begun between Clinton’s campaign and the DNC about what role the party will play in the general election. These discussions are happening out of sight for now to avoid the appearance of collusion before the party has formally selected a nominee.

Where does this information appear in the article? In the very last sentence, of course. ...

If you can, cast your mind all the way back to February 19th — less than 90 days ago. On February 19th, only two states — Iowa and New Hampshire — had held primary votes for the Democratic presidential nomination. The results in Iowa (a tie) and New Hampshire (a landslide victory for Bernie Sanders) had at that point made Sanders the front-runner for the nomination.

Sanders was the leader in the popular vote.

Sanders was the early leader in the all-important pledged-delegate count.

And here’s where the super-delegate count stood on February 19th:

• Hillary Clinton: 451
• Bernie Sanders: 19

Now it’s May, and we’re being told that the sole purpose of the Democratic “super-delegate” has all along been to acknowledge the popular-vote and pledged-delegate leader.

Except that’s nonsense.

Hillary Clinton courted hundreds and hundreds of super-delegates at a time when there was no popular-vote or delegate-count leader, and in 2016, as in 2008, she worked hard to keep her super-delegates even in those times she was neither the leader in the popular vote nor the leader in the delegate count. ...

Clinton and her camp suddenly discovering some unstated principle about the connection between super-delegates and the popular vote, or super-delegates and the pledged-delegate count, is pretty rich — given that Clinton picked up 86 percent of her super-delegates (451 of 523) at a time when she was well behind in both measures. Calling Clinton a hypocrite on the issue of super-delegates would be unkind; it would be more accurate to say that, on the subject of super-delegates, as on so many other subjects, there is no evidence that Clinton has any core principles whatsoever.

Ralph Nader: Sanders Should Stay in Democratic Race, Is Only Losing Due to Anti-Democratic System

At Sacramento rally, some Sanders fans would rather Trump than Clinton

Hillary Clinton might have a problem in November. Some supporters of Bernie Sanders at a rally in Sacramento, California, indicated they would rather vote for anyone in the general election than the former secretary of state – even, in some cases, Donald Trump.

As the sun set over the arena, Sanders – voice strained but otherwise visibly energized – addressed a packed stadium crowd of 15,000 vocal and enthusiastic supporters. Introduced by the actor Danny Glover, Sanders fed meat to his base in an energetic speech, promising to win the California primary and go into the Democratic campaign in Philadelphia with a majority of pledged delegates – even if some have declared that impossible. ...

It has been said that the sun is setting on the Sanders campaign – he is behind in the delegate count and the path to victory is far from clear. But his massed supporters punctuated his speech with roared appreciation nonetheless, remaining hopeful that the Vermont senator can pull off a miracle.

Clinton was not a popular figure – roundly booed six or more times by the audience in the stadium; pretty much every time she was mentioned.

A Los Angeles Times poll from March found that eight out of 10 Sanders supporters would vote for Clinton – however reluctantly. But at the Sacramento rally fewer than half of the 22 supporters spoken to by the Guardian said they would even consider voting for Clinton if Sanders was not the nominee.

Nader: The U.S. Political & Media System Is Designed to Obstruct, Silence Third-Party Candidates

The presumptive Democratic nominee pays lip service to Sanders supporters and nothing more

With the prospect that Clinton will be attacked by both Trump and Sanders as the primary season continues, one wonders why she is not doing more to embrace his best ideas.

At a speech Friday in Oakland, California, Clinton said that she had better ideas than Sanders for cutting college tuition and health care costs. She briefly praised Sanders’ team, reminded Democrats there is more uniting them than not, and urged supporters to help get out the vote for her in the state’s June 7 primary. But mostly, she ignored Sanders’ ideas and focused on criticizing Trump.

Trump, in contrast, has said that he not only likes what Sanders has been saying, but would use his core critique from New York’s red-hot primary against Clinton: that she lacks the judgment to be president. “I’m going to be taking a lot of the things Bernie said and using them,” Trump told the Morning Joe show on MSNBC at that time. ...

Trump also has recited Sanders’ critique of trade deals, the Iraq War, Clinton’s Goldman-Sach’s speeches, and even slammed Medicare prescription drug price gouging as he paints himself on the side of frustrated Americans. As he said on the eve of Indiana’s primary, “I think a lot of the Bernie Sanders young people are going to join my campaign, and I see it all the time… because nobody’s stronger on trade than me.” ...

Trump is already calling her “Crooked Hillary.” As he tweeted this week, “I would rather run against Crooked Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders and that will happen because the books are cooked against Bernie!” And “Crooked Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most dishonest person to have ever run for the presidency.”

Bernie Sanders visits Stephen Colbert

Out of nowhere, Bernie Sanders appeared on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” cold-open sketch last night.

After Colbert has his arm caught in a vending machine trying to retrieve a chocolate bar, the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate arrived to teach him a lesson in perseverance.

Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits

Six more islands have large swaths of land, and villages, washed into sea as coastline of Solomon Islands eroded and overwhelmed

Five tiny Pacific islands have disappeared due to rising seas and erosion, a discovery thought to be the first scientific confirmation of the impact of climate change on coastlines in the Pacific, according to Australian researchers.

The submerged islands were part of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago that over the last two decades has seen annual sea levels rise as much as 10mm (0.4in), according to research published in the May issue of the online journal Environmental Research Letters.

The missing islands, ranging in size from 1 to 5 hectares (2.5-12.4 acres) were not inhabited by humans.

But six other islands had large swaths of land washed into the sea and on two of those, entire villages were destroyed and people forced to relocate, the researchers found. ...

The Solomon Islands, a nation made up of hundreds of islands and with a population of about 640,000, lies about 1,000 miles north-east of Australia.

Chile's southern coast hit by 'red tide'

First Nation Wins Historic Victory Over Mammoth Coal Export Terminal

In a move being hailed as a landmark victory for the climate movement, Pacific Northwest communities, and tribal members alike, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday denied federal permits for the largest proposed coal export terminal in North America. ...

For years, the Lummi Nation led the campaign against the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal in Xwe’chi’eXen (also known as Cherry Point), Washington. Last year, tribal leaders asked (pdf) the Army Corps to reject the project on the grounds that it would violate treaty rights and cause "irreparable damage to important crab and salmon fisheries" in the Salish Sea. ...

The decision marks the first time that a coal export facility has been rejected based on its negative impacts to the treaty rights of a tribal nation.

Quinault Nation President Fawn Sharp, who also serves as president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, called the ruling "an appropriate and just decision."

Sharp said that "everyone who cares about fish and wildlife, the environment and human health should be happy with the Corps’ decision. This is an historic victory for tribal treaty rights as well as for everybody else who lives here."

'On Borrowed Time': Human Activity Puts One in Five Plant Species at Risk of Extinction

Habitat loss from agriculture and deforestation is a leading threat to world's plants

Human activity, from the razing of forests to the spewing of carbon, has imperiled large swaths of the plant kingdom, according to a landmark survey of the world's flora published Tuesday.

The State of the World's Plants (pdf) report "provides, for the first time, a baseline assessment of our current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the global threats these plants currently face, and the policies in place and their effectiveness in dealing with these threats," according to scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) in Kew, London.

Culling from three previously-existing databases, the botanists estimate that—excluding algae, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts—there are 390,900 plant species worldwide, of which approximately 369,400 are flowering and about 31,000 have a documented use for medicines, food, and materials.

And they find that fully one in five—21 percent—is at risk of extinction due to threats associated with climate change, land-use change, invasive plants, and diseases.

As the Guardian reports, "the biggest factors threatening plant species with extinction are the destruction of habitats for farming (31%)—such as palm oil production and cattle ranching—deforestation for timber (21%), and construction of buildings and infrastructure (13%)."

Also of Interest

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

At Conference of Elites, the Distress of Others Is an Investment Opportunity

The rise of militias: Patriot candidates are now getting elected in Oregon

New Photos Show Bush’s Response To 9/11 Attacks

Ground the Blimp to Nowhere

Germany Blinks on Giving Debt Relief to Greece….or Did It?

New York Fed President Is Worrying About the Next Crash; He Should Be

No, Donald Trump Doesn’t Want to Pay Down the Debt

Who rules the world? America is no longer the obvious answer

After noted Hillary supporter “forgets” his Iraq position, Twitter comedian creates the best timeline of pundits’ reactions to the war

Dean Rusk Also Missing, Feared Dead

The jewels of the new SFMOMA photography collection – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Dawkins - Kant Sheck Dees Bluze

Jimmy Dawkins - Night Rock

Jimmy Dawkins - Hard Life Blues

Jimmy Dawkins - Highway Man

Jimmy Dawkins - Cotton Country

Jimmy Dawkins - Cold As Hell

Jimmy Dawkins - Your Love