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This evening's music features delta blues piano player Willie Love. Enjoy!

“Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance.”

-- Barack Obama

News and Opinion

How the Pentagon punished NSA whistleblowers

By now, almost everyone knows what Edward Snowden did. He leaked top-secret documents revealing that the National Security Agency was spying on hundreds of millions of people across the world, collecting the phone calls and emails of virtually everyone on Earth who used a mobile phone or the internet. When this newspaper began publishing the NSA documents in June 2013, it ignited a fierce political debate that continues to this day – about government surveillance, but also about the morality, legality and civic value of whistleblowing. ...

But there is another man whose story has never been told before, who is speaking out publicly for the first time here. His name is John Crane, and he was a senior official in the Department of Defense who fought to provide fair treatment for whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake – until Crane himself was forced out of his job and became a whistleblower as well. ...

During dozens of hours of interviews, Crane told me how senior Defense Department officials repeatedly broke the law to persecute Thomas Drake. First, he alleged, they revealed Drake’s identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge.

The supreme irony? In their zeal to punish Drake, these Pentagon officials unwittingly taught Snowden how to evade their clutches when the 29-year-old NSA contract employee blew the whistle himself. Snowden was unaware of the hidden machinations inside the Pentagon that undid Drake, but the outcome of those machinations – Drake’s arrest, indictment and persecution – sent an unmistakable message: raising concerns within the system promised doom. ...

The key to Snowden’s effectiveness, according to Thomas Devine, the legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), was that he practised “civil disobedience” rather than “lawful” whistleblowing. (GAP, a non-profit group in Washington, DC, that defends whistleblowers, has represented Snowden, Drake and Crane.)

“None of the lawful whistleblowers who tried to expose the government’s warrantless surveillance – and Drake was far from the only one who tried – had any success,” Devine told me. “They came forward and made their charges, but the government just said, ‘They’re lying, they’re paranoid, we’re not doing those things.’ And the whistleblowers couldn’t prove their case because the government had classified all the evidence. Whereas Snowden took the evidence with him, so when the government issued its usual denials, he could produce document after document showing that they were lying. That is civil disobedience whistleblowing.”

Source Reveals How Pentagon Ruined Whistleblower's Life and Set Stage for Snowden's Leaks

Future of national security whistleblowing at stake in US inquiry

A powerful new insider account undermines the idea that the inspector general’s office offers whistleblowers a safe route. John Crane supervised the whistleblower-protection unit of the Pentagon inspector general, which has oversight responsibility for defense department components such as the National Security Agency. His story, told at length in Mark Hertsgaard’s powerful new book Bravehearts: Whistle-Blowing in the Age of Snowden, suggests that an office meant to aid whistleblowing can put whistleblowers in danger.

This is someone who was deep inside the system who says the system failed. Much of the book deals with the case of Thomas Drake, an NSA employee more senior than Snowden, who became concerned after 9/11 over warrantless surveillance and took his concerns to the inspector-general’s office. Crane’s suspicion is that instead of protecting Drake, as his office should have done, Drake’s identity was passed to the justice department.

What is needed, Crane and his advocates argue, is wholesale reform of the whistleblowing system to ensure that there are real protections in place. At present, there is no clarity. Different lawyers have different interpretations of what cover is provided by existing legislation such as the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.

There are also huge gaps in the existing legislation. Contractors such as Snowden are not covered by the same protections as full-time staff, the result of a legislative carve-out at the behest of the intelligence agencies that occurred the year before Snowden’s disclosures.

The stakes for an inquiry at the US justice department, set to launch on 1 June, are nothing less than the future of national security whistleblowing. Will it follow Snowden’s model or Drake’s?

“Name one whistleblower from the intelligence community whose disclosures led to real change – overturning laws, ending policies – who didn’t face retaliation as a result. The protections just aren’t there,” Snowden told the Guardian.

Source Reveals How Pentagon Ruined Whistleblower's Life and Set Stage for Snowden's Leaks

Wow!

New Political Earthquake in Brazil: Is It Now Time for Media Outlets to Call This a “Coup”?

Brazil today awoke to stunning news of secret, genuinely shocking conversations involving a key minister in Brazil’s newly installed government, which shine a bright light on the actual motives and participants driving the impeachment of the country’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff. The transcripts were published by the country’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, and reveal secret conversations that took place in March, just weeks before the impeachment vote in the lower house took place. They show explicit plotting between the new planning minister (then-senator), Romero Jucá, and former oil executive Sergio Machado — both of whom are formal targets of the “Car Wash” corruption investigation — as they agree that removing Dilma is the only means for ending the corruption investigation. The conversations also include discussions of the important role played in Dilma’s removal by the most powerful national institutions, including — most importantly — Brazil’s military leaders.

The transcripts are filled with profoundly incriminating statements about the real goals of impeachment and who was behind it. The crux of this plot is what Jucá calls “a national pact” — involving all of Brazil’s most powerful institutions — to leave Michel Temer in place as president (notwithstanding his multiple corruption scandals) and to kill the corruption investigation once Dilma is removed. In the words of Folha, Jucá made clear that impeachment will “end the pressure from the media and other sectors to continue the Car Wash investigation.” It is unclear who is responsible for recording and leaking the 75-minute conversation, but Folha reports that the files are currently in the hand of the prosecutor general. The next few hours and days will likely see new revelations that will shed additional light on the implications and meaning of these transcripts.

The transcripts contain two extraordinary revelations that should lead all media outlets to seriously consider whether they should call what took place in Brazil a “coup”: a term Dilma and her supporters have used for months. When discussing the plot to remove Dilma as a means of ending the Car Wash investigation, Jucá said the Brazilian military is supporting the plot: “I am talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it.” He also said the military is “monitoring the Landless Workers Movement” (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST), the social movement of rural workers that supports PT’s efforts of land reform and inequality reduction and has led the protests against impeachment.

The second blockbuster revelation — perhaps even more significant — is Jucá’s statement that he spoke with and secured the involvement of numerous justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court, the institution that impeachment defenders have repeatedly pointed to as vesting the process with legitimacy in order to deny that Dilma’s removal is a coup. Jucá claimed that “there are only a small number” of Court justices to whom he had not obtained access (the only justice he said he ultimately could not get to is Teori Zavascki, who was appointed by Dilma and who — notably — Jucá viewed as incorruptible in obtaining his help to kill the investigation (a central irony of impeachment is that Dilma has protected the Car Wash investigation from interference by those who want to impeach her). The transcripts also show him saying that “the press wants to take her [Dilma] out,” so “this shit will never stop” — meaning the corruption investigations — until she’s gone.

Iraq PM: Offensive Against ISIS-Held Fallujah Has Begun

With the fall and virtual destruction of the Anbar Provincial capital city of Ramadi earlier this year, Fallujah is the major ISIS city that is closest to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and is the target of a new offensive announced by Iraqi PM Hayder Abadi this weekend. ...

Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul ordered all civilians to flee the city of some 200,000 people, adding that they are providing “corridors” to escape through. This call came in spite of weeks of Iraqi officials claiming ISIS wasn’t allowing anyone to flee.

Neighboring Ramadi, the fate of the larger city must be looming large for Fallujah’s residents, as Ramadi was virtually destroyed in weeks of Iraqi military offensive, and civilians by and large still aren’t able to return to the rubble, nearly six months later.

Fighting Between Kurds, Arab Rebels in North Syria Spiraling Out of Control

Throughout the increasingly complex Syrian Civil War, one constant has been that any major group armed by the US will sooner or later start fighting the others. This is increasingly the case, with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Kurdish YPG increasingly at odds, threatening yet another war-within-a-war. ...

The US has been keen to back both sides, and has tried to get the two sides to work out their differences. With the YPG mostly fighting ISIS and the FSA mostly fighting the Assad government, however, they have very different priorities, and the fighting could easily continue to escalate.

The foggy numbers of Obama’s wars and non-wars

As the Obama administration prepares to publish a long-delayed accounting of how many militants and noncombatant civilians it has killed since 2009, its statistics may be defined as much by what is left out as by what is included.

Release of the information was first envisioned three years ago this month, as part of strict new guidelines President Obama announced for the United States’ controversial use of drones and other forms of lethal force to battle terrorism abroad. Such operations, Obama said in a 2013 speech at the National Defense University, would also be subject to new transparency and oversight.

The death tolls, like the guidelines, will cover places where the United States conducts airstrikes but does not consider itself officially at war: Yemen, Somalia and Libya. They are likely to exclude Pakistan, where the CIA has conducted hundreds of drone strikes but which the administration has long labeled part of the Afghanistan war theater. The United States still does not publicly acknowledge CIA attacks inside Pakistan, although the Pentagon announced Saturday that it had targeted Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in Pakistan. ...

The pending announcement will also be accompanied by additional information on the guidelines, perhaps elevating them to an executive order, according to several senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been made public.

Erdogan calls on Europe to take in more Syrian refugees

The Turkish president has asked Europe to welcome more of the 3 million refugees currently living in Turkey, as the main group campaigning to take Britain out of the EU suggested that higher levels of immigration from Turkey could pose a security risk if the country is admitted to the EU.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Europe was not doing enough to shoulder the refugee burden in Turkey, which now holds more refugees than any other country in the world, after the Syrian civil war forced 2.7 million Syrians to flee northwards across the Turkish border. ...

Turkey expects western countries such as Britain to step up the formal resettlement of Syrians on Turkish soil, particularly after Turkey agreed in March to readmit all asylum seekers arriving by sea to Greek shores. “As the Syrian civil war enters its sixth year, we are calling on the world to rise to the challenge and create a fair mechanism for sharing the burden,” Erdogan wrote.

“To keep illegal immigration under control, Europe and Turkey must work together to create legal mechanisms, such as the March 2016 agreement, for the resettlement of Syrian refugees. By rewarding refugees who play by the rules and making it clear that illegal immigrants will be sent back to Turkey, we can persuade refugees to avoid risking their lives at sea.”

German Court Rejects Turkish President Erdogan's Attempt to Stop 'Wave of Insults'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is taking legal action against a German media mogul for defending the comedian who recited a satirical and sexually crude poem about him on television.

Ralf Hoecker, a lawyer representing Erdogan, filed a request on Monday for a preliminary injunction against Mathias Doepfner, the chairman and CEO of German media company Axel Springer, in an attempt to stop a "wave of insults" against the Turkish leader, local media reported.

A district court in Cologne rejected the request on Tuesday afternoon on the basis of "the defendant's right to free expression of opinion" — but Hoecker said he had expected that, and would recommend Erdogan appeal to a higher court.

Hoecker said yesterday that he had successfully sought a similar measure against German director Uwe Boll, who produced a video featuring an expletive-filled rant about Erdogan.

Binali Yildirim named new Turkish PM

Turkey's New Prime Minister: Expanding Erdogan's Power Is Top Priority

Turkey's incoming prime minister said on Sunday his top priority was to deliver a new constitution to create an executive presidency, giving President Tayyip Erdogan the broad powers he has long sought.

As delegates from the ruling AK Party unanimously elected Transport Minister Binali Yildirim as their new party leader, and therefore the next premier, Yildirim left no doubt that he would prioritize the policies closest to Erdogan's heart. ...

A co-founder with Erdogan of the AKP, Yildirim has been the driving force behind major infrastructure projects in Turkey which were one of the pillars of the party's electoral successes during its first decade in power.

He has been seen as someone who will help pursue two of Erdogan's biggest priorities — the executive presidency and the fight against militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the largely Kurdish southeast.

Israel’s New Death Penalty Law Won’t Apply to Jews

One of the many conditions of incoming Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman for joining the coalition government, Israel’s parliament is quickly advancing a new bill to allow the military to impose the death penalty.

Under current Israeli law, the death penalty is only possible for genocide or treason, and in practice Israel hasn’t sought a single execution in decades. The return to the more routine use of executions is controversial, and coalition member Kulanu has said they will oppose the bill.

Likud officials, however, are defending the law and trying to downplay concerns about it domestically on the grounds that the law won’t apply to Jews, even if those Jews are convicted of the same terror offenses.

The Occupation of the American Mind - RAI with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters

Leaked Documents Show How the UN Failed to Protect Myanmar's Persecuted Rohingya

The United Nations failed to protect the human rights of the persecuted Rohingya minority in Myanmar, according to documents leaked to VICE News.

The papers also indicate that UN officials on the ground disregarded multiple recommendations on the rights and security of the group.

The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority from Myanmar's western Rakhine state, have been subjected to decades of persecution in the Buddhist-majority nation, culminating in massacres in 2012. The violence of that year was described by Human Rights Watch as a campaign of "ethnic cleansing," which involved "crimes against humanity" perpetrated by local mobs, at times with the support of state agencies. A 2015 report prepared by a team at Yale Law School for the NGO Fortify Rights found "strong evidence that genocide is being committed" against the Rohingya. ...

Stripped of their citizenship rights in 1982, the minority are among the world's largest stateless populations. Last year, their plight caught the attention of the international press when boats full of Rohingya and some Bangladeshi passengers were abandoned on the open seas by human traffickers, and mass graves of many of the same "boat people" were found in Thailand.

Perhaps the most damning charge contained in the cache of documents obtained by VICE News is found in a report commissioned by the UN to review the "human rights implications" of the world body's recent record in Rakhine state. ... The "current UN strategy of emphasizing development investment as the solution to the problems in Rakhine state," the study said, "fails to take into account that development initiatives carried out by discriminatory state actors through discriminatory structures will likely have a discriminatory outcome." In other words, pouring money into "development" without changing the government-imposed structures that oppress the Rohingya will not solve the problem.

The findings of the paper are particularly damning in light of repeated internal warnings about the inadequacy of the UN response, contained in material seen by VICE News.

US lifts decades-long embargo on arms sales to Vietnam

The US has lifted a decades-old arms embargo on Vietnam in a historic move that follows the country’s growing assertiveness against China’s influence in the region. ...

“At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation,” he added during a joint press conference with the Vietnamese president, Tran Dai Quang. Quang said the end to the embargo was “clear proof that both countries have completely normalised relations”. ...

Activist groups have called for Obama to push for greater respect for human rights in Vietnam, where there are about 100 political prisoners in jail. In March, seven activists were sentenced for “spreading anti-state propaganda”. ...

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, criticised the move. “Obama has jettisoned what remained of US leverage to improve human rights in Vietnam – and basically gotten nothing for it,” he said. “The United States government has been telling the Vietnam government for years that they need to show progress on their human rights record if they are going to be rewarded with closer military and economic ties. Yet today President Obama has rewarded Vietnam even though they have not done anything of note.”

Wow, Kim Jong Un has weaponized the greed of capitalist exploiter NATO countries and turned it against them.

Cash for Kim: How North Koreans Are Working Themselves to Death in Europe

North Korean forced laborers, in the heart of the European Union? It sounds impossible to believe. But a VICE investigation has found extensive evidence of North Koreans working in conditions of forced labor in Poland, with their wages funding the DPRK regime. ...

The investigation was sparked by the death of a North Korean working as a welder at a major shipyard in the Warsaw region. He suffered 95 percent burns in an accident that was only possible because of inadequate working equipment and unsafe practices, the yard's responsible work inspector Tomasz Rutkowski told us.

After obtaining a copy of the official accident report by the Polish National Labor Inspectorate (PIP), we unraveled a complex web of organized exploitation, bureaucratic chaos, official indifference, and political ignorance that extends all the way to the European Commission. Most of all, the investigation shines a light on working conditions that appear to meet the definition for forced labor as laid out in the European Convention on Human Rights and by the International Labor Organization — labor that companies across Europe are profiting from as leader Kim Jong-un fills his coffers with foreign currency. ...

PIP documents seen by VICE show two companies, Armex and Alson, owned by the same Polish businesswoman Cecylia Kowalska, supply North Korean laborers to Nauta, one of Poland's oldest shipyards, and Crist, where one worker lost his life after his clothes caught on fire last year. Nauta cites its "low labor costs" as one of the reasons it is "an ideal place for repairs of naval vessels for other NATO countries." ...

The UN estimated in a report last year there are about 50,000 North Koreans abroad, earning the Kim regime $1.2billion to $2.3bn per year. The workers are paid very little, with their employers paying "significantly higher amounts" directly to the North Korean government, said special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman.

France fuel shortages: Strikes bring shortages to hundreds of petrol stations

Baltimore Officer Found Not Guilty on All Counts in Freddie Gray Case

Baltimore Police Officer Edward Nero was found not guilty of all charges by a judge Monday morning for his role in the arrest and subsequent death of 25-year-old black man Freddie Gray. ...

According to the Baltimore Sun:

Prosecutors alleged that Gray's arrest was an assault because it did not meet the standards of a legal detention. Legal analysts had called the theory unusual. Nero was also accused of endangering Gray by failing to secure him in the back of a police van with a seat belt.

Nero's attorneys, meanwhile, had sought to minimize his role in the arrest, saying that he had limited contact with Gray. They also argued that Nero followed his training.

NYPD Cop Stripped of Badge After Pointing Gun at Bystander Who Filmed Arrest

A New York police officer has been stripped of his gun and badge after pointing his weapon at a man who was filming an arrest in Harlem. The bystander recorded the entire incident and posted the footage on Facebook.

The video, which was recorded on Thursday evening, shows two plainclothes officers pinning a man to the floor in the lobby of an apartment building. One of the officers, who is wearing a black T-shirt, grows increasingly agitated with a bystander, later identified as Calvin West, who was recording the encounter. With the suspect still pinned underneath him, the officer draws his gun, points it at West, and repeatedly shouts "Back up!"

In an interview with local TV news broadcaster NY1, West said the officer threatened him by saying, "Move. Get out of here. I'm not playing with you all. I'll shoot."

Deloris Johnson, tenant association president of the apartment building where the incident occurred, told NY1 that the officer "held out the gun like he was one of them god damn gangsters or like a gang member."

Attacking a Cop in Louisiana Will Be a Hate Crime if Gov. Signs 'Blue Lives Matter' Bill

Louisiana's hate crime law already protects vulnerable minorities from attacks based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, but state lawmakers want to add another group to the mix: cops.

The state's House and Senate have already approved the measure — dubbed the the "Blue Lives Matter bill" — and it just needs the signature of Governor John Bel Edwards in order to become law. Edwards is expected to approve the bill, which also covers firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders. ...

Some police advocates assert that the Black Lives Matter movement has fostered an anti-law enforcement climate, though the evidence used to support that claim is murky. The number of "ambush killings" of police officers has declined in recent years — the Washington Post found that about 9.5 such incidents have occurred each year across the country since 2000 — but by March of 2016 there had already been five.

According to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, a total of 124 officers died in the line of duty in 2015, a 4 percent increase from 2014. But only 42 of those were shot and killed, and fatal shootings of officers actually fell 14 percent between 2014 and 2015. The overall rate of officers being killed in the line of duty remains far lower than it has been in previous decades.

Should Dems Be Freaking Out? In First, National Polling Average Shows Trump Over Clinton

After weeks of polls showing Donald Trump gaining on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton's once sizable lead, for the first time on Monday, Real Clear Politics recorded the New York billionaire ahead in the national polling average.

For the period between May 13-19, the presumptive Republican nominee polled ahead of Clinton by a national average of 0.2 points.

Perhaps even more troubling, the NBC/WSJ survey found that the negative ratings for the two presumptive nominees are the highest in the history of the poll. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed hold a negative opinion of Clinton and 58 percent have a negative opinion of Trump.

At the same time, Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders continues to best both Clinton and Trump in favorability ratings (43 percent hold a positive view of the Vermont senator versus 36 percent who have a negative view) and maintains a double-digit lead over the Republican candidate.

Bernie Sanders: I will not support Democratic party chair in her primary

Bernie Sanders has said he will not support the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in her primary campaign this year, and would not re-appoint her if he were president and she were re-elected to the House. ...

“Well, clearly, I favour her opponent,” Sanders told CNN in an interview to be broadcast on State of the Union on Sunday. “His views are much closer to mine than as to Wasserman Shultz’s.”

Under Wasserman Schultz, the DNC has faced criticism for allegedly tailoring its debate schedule to Clinton’s advantage, for holding primaries in key states such as New York that were closed to independent voters, and for the “superdelegate” system. ...

Wasserman Schultz, who entered Congress in 2005 and became DNC chair in 2011, faces a primary challenge on 30 August.

Her opponent is Tim Canova, a professor of law and public finance who in 2011 served on an advisory committee on Federal Reserve reform set up by Sanders in his capacity as a Vermont senator.

A Harvard MBA Guy Is Out to Bring Down the Clintons

In a 9-page letter dated yesterday and posted to his blog, Charles Ortel calls the Clintons’ charity the “largest unprosecuted charity fraud ever attempted,” adding for good measure that the Clinton Foundation is part of an “international charity fraud network whose entire cumulative scale (counting inflows and outflows) approaches and may even exceed $100 billion, measured from 1997 forward.” Ortel lists 40 potential areas of fraud or wrongdoing that he plans to expose over the coming days. ...

The charges being made by Ortel are difficult to dismiss as a flight of fancy because mainstream media has tinkered around the edges of precisely what Ortel is now calling out in copious detail.

In a 2013 New York Times article, “Unease at Clinton Foundation Over Finances and Ambitions,” reporters Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick hint that Hillary Clinton’s political operatives are occupying offices at the Clinton Foundation headquarters, writing that they “will work on organizing Mrs. Clinton’s packed schedule of paid speeches to trade groups and awards ceremonies and assist in the research and writing of Mrs. Clinton’s memoir about her time at the State Department, to be published by Simon & Schuster next summer.”

A June 2015 article in the Wall Street Journal by Kimberley Strassel stopped hinting and spelled it out boldly, calling the Clinton Foundation a “Hillary superPac that throws in the occasional good deed.” Strassel explained:

“The media’s focus is on Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, and whether she took official actions to benefit her family’s global charity. But the mistake is starting from the premise that the Clinton Foundation is a ‘charity.’ What’s clear by now is that this family enterprise was set up as a global shakedown operation, designed to finance and nurture the Clintons’ continued political ambitions. It’s a Hillary super PAC that throws in the occasional good deed.”

Report: Sanders to Demand Changes in Democrats' Israel Policy

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is planning to use his leverage to change current U.S. policy on Israel in the Democratic Party’s platform at the convention in Philadelphia, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

According to the report, Sanders plans to push for revisions in the party’s position about relations with Israel, with a focus on elevating Palestinian rights as a U.S. priority. People involved in discussions over potential changes to the Democratic Party’s platform said Sanders is expected to demand revisions in wording about U.S. relations with Israel and push for a more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinians conflict.

The current platform endorses “a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian accord, producing two states for two peoples.” Any changes to the platform will go through the 15-member DNC rules committee.

Sanders to Senate Dems: Do You Stand with Puerto Rico or with Wall Street?

As a U.S. House committee prepares to take up the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) on Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is calling on his U.S. Senate colleagues to oppose the bill, which he says "would make a terrible situation even worse."

In a letter to Senate Democrats issued Monday, Sanders said: "We have an important choice to make. Do we stand with the working people of Puerto Rico or do we stand with Wall Street and the Tea Party? The choice could not be clearer."

PROMESA (pdf) would allow Puerto Rico restructure $72 billion in debt, while establishing an unelected outside control board to oversee the territory's fiscal matters—a top demand from Republicans.

As The Atlantic wrote on Thursday:

The board would not be subject to any Puerto Rican authority and is bound by PROMESA to make decisions that are in the interests of Puerto Rico’s creditors. If it isn’t colonialism, it certainly looks like it. Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla accepted the restructuring as necessary but said the extraordinary power of the board was “not consistent with our country’s basic democratic principles.”

After the latest version of the bill was unveiled last week, Sanders blasted the creation of this "undemocratic board," which he said "would have the power to slash pensions, cut education and health care, and increase taxes on working families in Puerto Rico."

"Even worse, Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker [Paul] Ryan would be in charge of handpicking a majority of the control board's members," Sanders said at the time, "while the people of Puerto Rico would be in charge of choosing none. That may make sense to the Tea Party and one of the largest trade groups representing Wall Street—groups that endorsed this legislation—but it makes absolutely no sense to me."

Top Democrats Ally With Oil and Gas Industry to Fight Colorado Anti-Fracking Ballot Measures

Oil and gas companies are spending heavily to crush three Colorado ballot initiatives that would limit fracking. And some of the state’s most powerful Democrats are helping them.

The stakes are particularly high for several Colorado communities that have voted to limit or ban oil and gas development locally. Those limits were nullified in two cities by state Supreme Court decisions earlier this month. So the ballot initiatives may be their last best chance to slow development whose speed has surprised even cities that initially supported oil and gas projects. ...

But top Democrats in Colorado have warmed to the frackers.

Consider the case of Ted Trimpa, a registered lobbyist for Noble Energy and Encana oil and gas, who sits on the advisory committee of Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development, another front group for Anadarko and Noble that is fighting the proposals.

If anyone knows the power of Colorado cash to swing local politics, it’s Trimpa. He was an architect of Colorado Democrats’ surprise take-back of state politics from Republicans in 2004. The scheme involved aiming the cash of four wealthy donors, known as the “Gang of Four,” at key races, and later evolved into an infrastructure for coordinated Democrat donations through a network of non-profits. ... Trimpa’s old pal Tim Gill, one of the “Gang of Four,” is now chairman of another group, Colorado Concern, that has put money down to halt the initiatives. ...

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper recently spoke at a luncheon alongside American Petroleum Institute head Jack Gerard, stating that this year’s ballot initiative to increase distances between homes and gas wells could invite lawsuits costing billions. “I don’t think it’s a good idea at all,” he said.

Oil Traders Are Borrowing From Banks to Store Crude at a Loss

Oil traders awaiting a recovery in crude are turning to floating storage after benchmark Brent prices more than halved over a span of two years, according to Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Longson.

Unlike previous oil storage trades, however, this one is unusual in that current oil prices and storage costs ought to make it unprofitable. Morgan Stanley estimates that the one-month Brent storage arbitrage currently produces a loss of $0.48 per barrel, while its six-month equivalent loses $6.11 per barrel.

That suggests "no incentive to store oil on ships," the analysts write. "Yet, banks are seeing a sharp uptick in interest to finance storage charters. This storage is not happening for profit. Rather, the market is looking for places to store oil. To profit, traders need to hope for oil prices to rise enough to pay for the new debt incurred for this storage."

Soon you can get a free side-order of dead pollinators with your frankenfood...

Bayer bids $62bn for Monsanto

German drug and chemicals group Bayer has offered to buy GM seed pioneer Monsanto for $62bn (£43bn), which would create the world’s biggest agricultural supplier.

The offer of $122 a share in cash values the US Monsanto group at 37% more than its closing share price on 9 May, before rumours of a bid emerged.

The deal, which includes Monsanto’s $9bn net debt, would represent the largest all-cash acquisition and the biggest takeover by a German company. Bayer, which invented aspirin in the 19th century, would fund the purchase with a mixture of debt and equity, including raising about $15bn from existing shareholders.

Agricultural producers are battling for position amid an industry shakeup. Monsanto missed out on buying Syngenta when China National Chemical swooped on the Swiss pesticide maker in February. That deal followed Dow Chemical’s merger with DuPont to form a $100bn company last year.

Warnings of Food Safety Threats as Canada Green Lights 'Frankenfish'

Despite a sustained effort from public health and climate activists, genetically modified (GM or GMO) salmon has been officially sanctioned for sale in Canada.

And if that wasn't foreboding enough, a pending trade deal between Canada and the European Union means the country's first approved GMO food animal, known colloquially as the "Frankenfish," could soon be sold and eaten internationally.

Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced their approval of the U.S.-based biotechnology company AquaBounty's salmon—which will be shipped as eggs from Prince Edward Island to laboratories in Panama, where they will be grown to their adult full size and sent back to Canada for sale and consumption—on Thursday.

The approval comes despite two ongoing court battles against the Canadian government and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which were filed by environmental groups including the Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia and the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C. ...

Friends of the Earth, another of the groups involved in the lawsuit against the FDA, denounced the approval and noted that it comes despite a draft risk assessment from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans that raised concerns about the safety of the fish themselves, finding that they are more susceptible to disease-causing bacteria.

"Health Canada's approval is irresponsible and disappointing," said Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

Also of Interest

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

Pentagon Official Once Told Morley Safer That Reporters Who Believe the Government Are “Stupid”

Israel: The rise of the new 'messianic elite'

Has convenience turned you into a monster?

Portland's black residents putting faith in 'Soul District' to counter gentrification

Donald Trump may have called Oakland one of the ‘most dangerous,’ but community members say the real danger is its police officers

High School Debaters Bring Surveillance, Encryption Arguments to Capitol Hill

Stone age cities: what modern urbanites could learn from paleolithic humans

A Little Night Music

Willie Love and his Three Aces - Way Back

Willie Love and his Three Aces - Falling Rain

Willie Love & his Three Aces - 21 Minutes to Nine

Willie Love and his Three Aces - Seventy Four Blues

Willie Love - Little Car Blues

Willie Love - V8 Ford

Willie Love - Take It Easy Baby

Willie Love & his Three Aces - Everybody's Fishing