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This evening's music features blues rocker Elvin Bishop. Enjoy!

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

-- Charles Darwin

News and Opinion

Bernie Sanders Misses Chance to Explain Government’s Role in Life Expectancy Gap

With the West Virginia primary five days away, Bernie Sanders traveled Thursday to the state’s impoverished McDowell County, which has the lowest male life expectancy in the country.  During a campaign speech there, he cited the disparity in life expectancy between McDowell and Fairfax, Virginia, a prosperous suburb of Washington, D.C.:

The average life expectancy for men in this county is just 64 years. But if you take a six-hour drive from here you will arrive in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the wealthiest counties in America with a median income of more than $107,000 – over five time the median income in McDowell. In that county a man can expect to live until the age of 82 – 18 years longer than men in McDowell County. The average life expectancy for a woman in Fairfax County is 85, compared to just 73 for women in McDowell. That is unacceptable and that has got to change.

What Sanders didn’t explain is why that a drive would take you from one of the poorest locales in America to one of the richest. ...

The decline of American steel and coal has left McDowell County with few economic engines; the New York Times reported in 2014 that almost 47 percent of the income in the county was generated by federal safety net programs like Social Security and food stamps.

Fairfax, Virginia, too, is reliant on federal aid to generate income — but a far more lucrative kind. ... From 2010 to 2014, the U.S. government spent an average of $59 billion a year on federal procurement in Virginia. Roughly $1 out of every $8.50 the federal government spent on procurement was spent in Virginia. Northern Virginia, where Fairfax is located, received 75 percent of those total procurement funds.

That’s the closer that Bernie Sanders missed telling his audience. They are poor and Fairfax is rich because the government made it so.

Hillary Clinton and the End of the Democratic Party

Liberal incredulity at Charles Koch’s (Koch Bros.) recent (soft) endorsement of Hillary Clinton — assertions that is was either a non-sequitur or a ploy to discredit her, was to dismiss the endorsement without answering the question: what about Mrs. Clinton’s policies, or those of any other establishment Democrat for that matter, could inheritance babies, oil and gas industry magnates and long-term supporters of the radical Right like Mr. Koch possibly object to? Mr. Koch was simply saying out loud what anyone paying attention to American politics in recent decades already knows: the Democratic Party is the Party of Wall Street and of corporate America.

To the political inconvenience of said establishment Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Koch’s endorsement has content behind it. His charge (link above) is that establishment Democrats have the softer touch needed in present circumstance to sell Conservative policies like deregulation of industry and fiscal austerity. As Bill Clinton, whose policies Mr. Koch preferred to those of George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have demonstrated— it is socially liberal Democrats who have been the better proponents of Wall Street’s neo-capitalist takeover precisely because they accomplish with stealth economic policies what Republicans attempt more straightforwardly through politics.

In support of Mr. Koch’s assertions are secret documents leaked last week by Greenpeace on the TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) ‘trade’ agreement that illustrate the Democrat’s strategy of publicly supporting environmental and labor regulations while undermining them through ‘trade’ deals that give the power to regulate to multi-national corporations. The mechanisms for doing so, ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) provisions and their variants in these ‘trade’ agreements, limit state regulations in the public interest by forcing states to pay corporations for phantom ‘lost profits’ due to regulation. That Charles Koch personally benefits from these policies while Democratic Party loyalists pay for them illustrates who Democrats really answer to. ...

Another term for universal health care coverage, high-quality public education, guaranteed jobs that pay a living wage and income security in old age is ‘civilization.’ The contortions of the (Charles) Kochian ‘maker / taker’ shit-logic that Hillary Clinton and her Liberal economists put themselves through to conclude that ‘we can’t afford civilization for the rest of you’ well-illustrates whose interests they serve. Insipid nonsense like economic ‘models’ that demonstrate that the universal healthcare, public education and living wages offered by other developed nations are Left-wing fantasies are declarations of class war launched by the Liberal class against the working classes and the poor.

Terms like ‘income inequality’ apply the illusion of natural distribution to the wholly predictable consequences of the class war launched in the 1970s by the well-funded radical Right (Charles Koch) in collusion with Liberal economists as the memory of the last domestic capitalist catastrophe— the Great Depression, faded from memory. In capitalist theory inequality of outcomes is the entire point because in that theory people earn in proportion to their economic contribution. That capitalism is more precisely a system of welfare for the rich was well understood by the New Deal Democrats of the 1940s and 1950s. And to be clear, with the bailouts and trade deals they support as evidence, it is well understood by plutocrat-loving establishment Democrats in the present. Assuring that this welfare for the rich continues is why Charles Koch hearts Hillary Clinton.

After a Landmark Legal Ruling, Will CIA Torture Victims Finally Have Their Day in Court?

Pope Francis castigates Europe in speech on solidarity

Europe is struggling to live up to the vision of its founders, Pope Francis has said in a powerful speech that asked: “What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?”

Speaking as he became the first pope to accept the prestigious Charlemagne prize for his work on behalf of European solidarity, the pontiff called for Europe to reclaim the principles that had been established after the second world war, above all by embracing integration and revamping its economic model to “benefit ordinary people and society as a whole”.

His remarks reflected a concern that Europe is coming apart at the seams: from the unwillingness by some countries to deal with the refugee crisis, to the rise in populist and xenophobic political parties, to economic and immigration concerns fuelling the ‘leave’ campaign ahead of next month’s referendum in the UK. ...

The award committee highlighted a speech by Francis to the European parliament in 2014 in which he compared Europe to an old woman who was “no longer fertile and vibrant”. The committee said his words had helped orient millions of Europeans to the values at the core of the EU, including respect for human dignity and civil liberties.

On Friday, Francis repeated his somewhat harsh assessment of Europe, and did not seek to balance it out with flowery language or examples of where Europeans were succeeding. Instead, he hailed the previous generation, who had laid the “foundations for a bastion of peace, an edifice made up of states united not by force but by free commitment to the common good”.

Francis, the political Pope

NATO Targets Russia With Planned Missile Defense Expansion

Of the many moves by NATO to increase their military presence in Eastern Europe, none has been so onerous to Russia as the European missile defense system. Late this week, NATO is making some significant moves in that regard.

Thursday, the system officially went online with the opening of a base in Romania. One day later, ground will be broken on a major additional base in Poland, which will also hold significant missile defense assets.

Though throughout its construction the defense system was repeatedly claimed to have nothing to do with Russia, despite being built overwhelmingly on the Russian frontier, US officials are now openly talking up the “robust display of military power” the system represents as explicitly targeted at Russia.

U.S. Ships Tanks To Georgia For Military Drills

The United States is for the first time shipping its tanks across the Black Sea for joint exercises with Georgia.

The U.S. Army's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division loaded the tanks on to ferries in Varna, Bulgaria, in order to ship them to Batumi ahead of the second annual Noble Partner military exercises to be held later this month. The exercises will include 650 American troops, as well as 500 from Georgia and 150 from the United Kingdom.

Last year's Noble Partner (the first such exercise) was noteworthy for the fact that the U.S. shipped Bradley Fighting Vehicles across the Black Sea for the occasion. It was the first such movement of heavy U.S. materiel across the sea and was a vivid illustration of the U.S.'s ability to project power around Russia's periphery. This year's addition of tanks to the mix ups the stakes a little more.

An excellent article, here's a taste to get you started:

If Russia Had ‘Freed’ Canada

As the United States plans to move thousands of NATO troops to Russia’s borders and continues to bolster a fiercely anti-Russian regime in neighboring Ukraine, the official line in Washington and its subservient corporate media is that beneficent America is simply seeking to curtail Moscow’s “aggression.” But the U.S. government and media might look at things quite differently if the shoe were on the other foot.

What, for instance, would the U.S. reaction be if Russia instead had supported the violent overthrow of, say, Canada’s government and assisted the new Ottawa regime’s “anti-terrorist operations” against a few rebellious “pro-American” provinces, including one that voted 96 percent in a referendum to reject the new Russian-backed authorities and attach itself to the U.S.?

If the U.S. government tried to help these embattled “pro-American” Canadians – and protect the breakaway province against the Russian-installed regime – would Washington see itself as the “aggressor” or as simply helping people resist anti-democratic repression? Would it view Russian troop movements to the U.S. border as a way to stop an American “invasion” or rather an act of “aggression” and provocation by Russia against the United States?

Are the US Special Forces deployed to Yemen wearing boots?

US military supporting Yemen in fight against al-Qaida

The Pentagon is providing military support, intelligence, ships and special operations forces to help in the ongoing operations against al-Qaida militants in Yemen, U.S. officials said Thursday. ...

A senior U.S. official said that American special operations forces are advising the Yemeni and Emirati forces in the region, and that they are working at the headquarters level and are not near the conflict.

Dozens Dead as Airstrike Hits Syrian Camp for Civilians Who've Fled the War

Airstrikes on a camp housing Syrians displaced by the five-year war in the country killed at least 28 people near the Turkish border on Thursday. The attack was carried out on the Kamouna camp in the northern Idlib province, and hit at around 6.20pm local time, according to the Syria Civil Defense volunteer organization. ...

On Friday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described the attack as "despicable."

"Given these tent settlements have been in these locations for several weeks, and can be clearly viewed from the air, it is extremely unlikely that these murderous attacks were an accident. It is far more likely they were deliberate and amount to a war crime," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said. ...

On Friday, the Syrian military denied that its warplanes had conducted the airstrikes.

"There is no truth to reports... about the Syrian air force targeting a camp for the displaced in the Idlib countryside," it said in a statement carried by state media.

Turkey media crackdown: "Europeans can't imagine gravity of situation"

Israeli Tank Fire Kills Gaza Woman in Worst Clashes Since 2014

Israeli tanks fired into the Gaza Strip today, with one shell hitting a civilian home and killing a Palestinian woman, one of several incidents of firing over the last two days which has experts calling this latest round the heaviest fire in the strip since Israel’s 2014 invasion.

The woman, identified as 54-year old Zeina al-Amour, is the only death so far in the firing, though at least five other Palestinians have been wounded, including three children who were wounded in overnight Israeli airstrikes against the strip.

Israeli military officials claim “at least 10” incidents of fire crossing the border from Gaza, including both rockets and bullets. So far, there are no reports of Israeli casualties in the clashes, which Hamas blamed on an Israeli incursion across the border.

The Candidate Who's OK With Rape and Death Squads May Be the Next President of the Philippines

In late April, a video showing presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte became a viral sensation in the Philippines. It showed Duterte joking that, as mayor of the city of Davao, he should have been first to rape Jacqueline Hamill, an Australian missionary who had been gang-raped and then killed in Davao in 1989. She was, he said, beautiful. The video outraged many Filipinos and made international news. ...

Duterte is a controversial figure who has risen in popularity by billing himself as an anti-establishment outsider who would upend traditional Philippine politics — an everyman who offends polite sensitivities, but is attuned to the frustrations of people deeply disaffected with politicians they view as more interested in enriching themselves than addressing the needs of Filipinos. That's helped propel him to 33 percent in polling released last week, ahead of Mar Roxas, supported by the current administration, with 22 percent.

It would be easy to compare him with another presidential candidate who has risen to the top of the polls by saying outrageous things, Donald Trump. But not even the American tycoon can match Duterte for the shock value of his statements. Trump, for example, never threatened to personally kill anybody. Duterte had no problem doing that. ...

Davao, the city he has run for more than 20 years, is famously disciplined, and Duterte is running on the promise of bringing Davao-style law and order to the rest of the country. According to Human Rights Watch, however, the order in Davao has come at a high cost. Death squads meting out extra-judicial punishment to suspected criminals and drug dealers have killed at least 1,000 people, including children. At least 12 of those people were killed in cases of mistaken identity.

Duterte has admitted to endorsing the Davao death squads and even to killing people himself. He's even said that as president, he would pardon himself. In a televised interview last year, he warned criminals that "I will really kill you ... that 1,000 will become 100,000 and I will fatten the fish in Manila Bay. That's where I will throw your bodies."

Philippines: Son of late dictator Marcos leads opinion polls for Vice President

FBI Told Cops to Recreate Evidence From Secret Cell-Phone Trackers

A recently disclosed document shows the FBI telling a local police department that the bureau’s covert cell-phone tracking equipment is so secret that any evidence acquired through its use needs to be recreated in some other way before being introduced at trial. ...

Privacy advocates have long warned of “parallel construction,” in which investigators cover up information obtained without a warrant by finding other ways to attribute it — never allowing the source of the original lead to be scrutinized or subject to judicial oversight.

“This is the first time I have seen language this explicit in an FBI non-disclosure agreement,” Nate Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, wrote in an email to The Intercept. “The typical NDAs order local police to hide information from courts and defense attorneys, which is bad enough, but this goes the outrageous extra step of ordering police to actually engage in evidence laundering.”

“Instead of just hiding the surveillance, the FBI is mandating manufacture of a whole new chain of evidence to throw defense attorneys and judges off the scent. As a result, defendants are denied their right to challenge potentially unconstitutional surveillance and courts are deprived of an opportunity to curb law enforcement abuses,” Wessler continued.

Foreign Intelligence Services Targeted 2008 Campaign, Officials Were Warned

The Intelligence Community evidently gave some incoming members of the Obama administration a star-spangled welcome briefing — complete with a stern warning.

In a newly disclosed document titled “Unlocking the Secrets: How to Use The Intelligence Community,” intelligence officials told incoming officials that foreign intelligence services had been extensively spying on the 2008 political campaigns.

“Foreign intelligence services have been tracking this election cycle like no other,” the authors from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote.

On the campaign trail, the ODNI authors wrote, foreign spooks met with campaign staff and other sources, hacked into campaign data, and engaged in “perception management” more aggressive than traditional lobbying—though the lack of specifics make it’s unclear what any of that really entails.

Venezuelan Opposition Activates Recall on Maduro's Presidency

US doctors call for universal healthcare

A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians’ bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare.

The new single-payer system would be funded mostly by existing US government funding. The physicians point out that the US government already pays for two-thirds of all healthcare spending in the US, and a single-payer system would cut down on administrative costs, so a transition to a single-payer system would not require significant additional spending.

“Our patients can’t afford care and don’t have access to the care they need, while the system is ever more wasteful, throwing away money on bureaucratic expenses and absurd prices from the drug companies,” said David Himmelstein, a professor in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College and lecturer on medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Himmelstein, one of the authors of the plan, said the proposal is meant as a rallying cry for physicians and other healthcare professionals around the cause of a single-payer model. According to the paper, even with the passage of the Affordable Care Act many patients “face rising co-payments and deductibles that compromise access to care and leave them vulnerable to ruinous medical bills”. Despite the current high healthcare spending levels in the US, healthcare outcomes are worse than in comparable well-funded countries.

US economy adds just 160,000 jobs in April – further sign of a slowdown

The US economy showed further signs of a slowdown on Friday as the US Department of Labor announced just 160,000 new jobs had been created in April, 40,000 fewer than had been expected. The US unemployment rate remained steady at 5%.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected the economy to add 202,000 jobs. February and March job gains were revised down, with the US economy now estimated to have added 19,000 jobs fewer than originally thought.

Over the last 12 months, employment growth averaged 232,000 jobs per month. April’s job gains were the lowest in seven months.

Slowdown? What could be slower than Obama's virtually non-existent "recovery?"

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

Verizon Strike Surges as Workers Demand Right to 'Make a Decent Living'

Strikers arrived at Verizon shareholders meeting in ABQ -- all day, everyday, whatever it takes. #VerizonStrike pic.twitter.com/x57yyf6DSC

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) May 5, 2016

Hundreds of protests took place around the country on Thursday as the Verizon strike entered its fourth week, with workers in Albuquerque, New Mexico converging outside the annual shareholder meeting to fight for reforms of the company's labor policies.

Striking employees say the company and CEO Lowell McAdams are refusing to pay them livable wages and have made no effort to stop offshoring and outsourcing jobs—shortchanging not just the workers, but the customers who are losing out on service because of the strike.

"Verizon's CEO makes 243 times more than the average worker, while customers in towns up and down the East Coast can't get the quality service the company promised them," said Richard Hesterhagen, a Verizon employee and shareholder who is participating in the work stoppage. "Striking workers aren't just fighting to protect good middle-class jobs, we're fighting for a better Verizon that invests in communities."

Panama Papers: US launches crackdown on international tax evasion

Barack Obama is launching a crackdown on international tax evasion in response to recent disclosures in the Panama Papers revealing the scale of offshore financial activity.

In a series of initiatives announced by the White House on Thursday night, the president will take executive action to close loopholes used by foreigners in the US and call on Congress to pass legislation

Though the later steps may hit political obstacles in an election year, the package of measures are among the most comprehensive response yet to the Panama Papers revelations, disclosed by a consortium of international journalists including The Guardian. ...

Earlier Obama, who is also under pressure to limit the flow of corporate money out of the US, was one of the first world leaders to respond to the record-breaking leak last month.

“There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem,” Obama told reporters in an unscheduled appearance last month. “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.”

American Police State: Secret Service Controlling Journalist Access to Conventions by Arbitrary, Secretive, No Appeal Screening Process

Freedom of the press has been on its way out for some time. ... The latest restriction on press oversight is the first-time requirement that only journalists who pass a Secret Service screening process will be allowed to attend the Democratic and Republican conventions. Mind you, delegates and guests are free to attend. Bear in mind that these restrictions were implemented by the Obama Administration. From the Daily Beast:

The United States Secret Service…whose once-pristine reputation has been tarnished in recent years by scandal, congressional investigations and, more to the point, aggressive investigative reporting—is for the first time ever running background checks on thousands of journalists who want to attend this summer’s Republican and Democratic Party nominating conventions.

Journalists who don’t pass muster — in what several complain is an inscrutable security screening process for which there are no plainly established criteria, and from which there is no appeal — will be denied credentials…

“I personally think it’s the government deciding who can and can’t be a journalist, and I don’t think the First Amendment allows that,” said Newark Star-Ledger Washington correspondent Jonathan D. Salant, a member and former chairman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents..

In addition, the Secret Service says it isn’t singling out journalists for special scrutiny — never mind that these background checks apparently won’t be conducted on thousands of delegates and guests…

And yes, this is an Obama-created star chamber:

Salant, for his part, told The Daily Beast that three months of constructive engagement and quiet diplomacy with the agency have yielded zero accommodations from the Secret Service, which is premising its unprecedented credentialing authority on a 2013 Obama administration national security directive—Presidential Policy Directive 22—whose language is classified and thus not publicly available.

Needless to say, it is extremely unusual, at least in the American context, for a government agency to formulate a policy regarding the news media, based on the possibly tendentious interpretation of a secret directive that, because the content and purpose of the directive are a mystery, is not open for discussion. An official listing of President Obama’s directives mentions the existence of PPD 22 but otherwise offers no explanation, leaving the line blank. (An anonymous law enforcement official told Politico that the directive gives the Secret Service to power of enforcing “access control.”)

So if the revolution is not televised, does it not exist? This seems to be the premise of a lot of the absence, selective coverage, and minimization of important political stories.

May Looking Bright for Sanders as Political Revolution Marches On

Coming off a big win in Indiana and with the Democratic Party holding four more primaries this month, May could end up showing a resilient Bernie Sanders' campaign despite the concerted effort of the mainstream press to count him out.

With upcoming contests in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, and the territory of Guam, Politico reports Friday that Sanders could be poised for another upcoming "win streak" against rival Hillary Clinton:

Sanders points to his record of winning 18 states and the narrow margin separating him and Clinton in national polls as cause for remaining in the race.

He contends that he’s the strongest Democratic candidate against presumptive GOP front-runner Donald Trump, and holds out hope that more super delegates in the states where he won will ultimately line up in his camp.  Wins in West Virginia and Oregon, following his victory last week in Indiana, would bolster his argument...

With the West Virginia primary next text Tuesday, Sanders has been campaigning heavily in the state where he has put his main focus on lifting up workers and the scourge of poverty that impacts large portions of the state and remains a too-often ignored epidemic nationwide.

#BernieOrBust: Sanders Fans Debate Whether to Vote for Clinton If She is Democratic Nominee

Trump as Unifier: Are Hillary Clinton and Neoconservatives Ready to Join Forces?

As Donald Trump is declared the presumptive Republican nominee for president, members of the neoconservative establishment, disgusted by the prospect of Trump in the White House, appear to be heading into the welcoming arms of someone more sympathetic to their imperial worldview: Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Steve Schmidt, a prominent Republican strategist and former senior aide to Sen. John McCain, is just one of several political insiders to have made the case over the last couple days – and he has done so repeatedly while speaking as a contributor for MSNBC.

With Trump at the head of the GOP ticket, Schmidt predicted on Chris Matthews' show earlier this week, "You're going to see a concerted and organized effort by the Hillary Clinton campaign to go after senior members of the Republican foreign policy establishment — big names. I'm not trying to put a partisan imprint on David Petraeus. But names like Petraeus, retired General Odierno, Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft. Men and women who served in senior positions, in national security positions, in Republican administrations. The Clinton campaign's going to go after them. They're going to go after them forcefully."

On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign at least hinted at this approach by posting a list of people it described as "prominent activists, journalists and elected officials" in the Republican Party who have decided to reject Trump, quoting some who explicitly said they would vote for Clinton if she ends up as the Democratic nominee. A verbatim sampling from the list (which was further updated by the campaign on Thursday) follows:

• Lifelong Republican, foreign policy expert Max Boot: “[Hillary Clinton] would be vastly preferable to Trump.’”
• Billionaire Bush-backer Mike Fernandez: “If I have a choice — and you can put it in bold — if I have a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I’m choosing Hillary.”
• Elliott Abrams, former foreign policy advisor for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: “won’t be voting for Trump”

Another indication of the country dividing?

Pro-Trump tow truck driver leaves disabled Sanders supporter stranded

On Monday, a Donald Trump-supporting tow truck driver outside Asheville, North Carolina, responded to a call from a driver with disabilities.

When the tow truck driver saw the stranded motorist’s Bernie Sanders sticker, Fox Carolina reported, he aborted the pick-up and left her on the side of the highway.

According to Fox Carolina: “Kenneth Shupe said he was called to pick up a woman stranded on I-26 in Asheville on Monday.

“When he saw ‘a bunch of Bernie Sanders stuff’, he said he told the woman ‘very politely’ that he couldn’t tow her car because she was ‘obviously a socialist’.

Shupe “advised her to ‘call the government’ for a tow”, the report said.

Donald Trump tells his West Virginia supporters: don't bother voting

In a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, in front of roughly 13,000 screaming attendees, the newly minted presumptive Republican nominee took a victory lap. Trump proclaimed “I wish the primaries would keep going but I am the only one left” and celebrated by repeatedly urging his supporters to not even bother voting in West Virginia’s upcoming primary and instead “save your vote for the general election in November”. ...

In lieu of his typical attacks on primary opponents – calling Cruz “lyin’ Ted” and criticizing the way John Kasich eats food – Trump pivoted his vitriol toward Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. He made veiled reference to former president Bill Clinton’s liaison with Monica Lewinsky in the White House and said of the Clinton Foundation, “the whole thing is a scam”.

Just hours before he took the stage, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, told CNN that he was not ready to endorse the real estate mogul’s candidacy. “I’m just not ready to do that at this point” said the 2012 vice-presidential nominee. In response, Trump blasted out a statement. “I am not ready to support speaker Ryan’s agenda,” he said. “Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!”

Trump Taps Goldman Alum as Uneasy Wall Street Weighs Its Options

A prince of Wall Street has cast his vote: Trump.

Less than 48 hours after Donald Trump locked up the Republican presidential nomination with a primary win in Indiana, Steven Mnuchin, a second-generation alumnus of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., threw his weight, and connections, behind him. Mnuchin will be Trump’s national finance chairman, looking to tap a network of bankers and hedge-fund managers for campaign cash. His goal is to raise $1 billion from donors of all stripes. ...

The appointment of someone prominent in an industry Trump has criticized exposed political fault lines, even as it signaled the candidate is trying to embrace a community that’s played crucial roles in past elections and has largely given him the cold shoulder.

'Trump Emergency': Mexico Reacts to the Real Possibility of a Trump Presidency

Donald Trump is not a popular man in Mexico. Piñatas made in his image are beaten with sticks throughout the country, two former presidents have called him crazy, and the country's current leader has compared him to Hitler and Mussolini.

But could all that change now that the man who called Mexicans "rapists" and has promised a "big beautiful wall" along the border has nearly locked up the Republican nomination? Two months ago Former President Vicente Fox wagged his finger and said "I'm not paying for that fucking wall." Yesterday, he rushed to apologize to the man he had also previously called a "false prophet." ...

Trump's near certain nomination did, however, prompt a comment from Humberto Roque, deputy interior minister for migration. "The Mexican government is deep in analysis over how to face what we could call the Trump emergency," he said on Wednesday. He was particularly critical of Trump's claims that he will block remittances if Mexico does not agree to pay for the frontier wall he wants to build to keep Mexicans out. "We live in a globalized world," Roque said. "The Unites States would have to go back to the middle ages to prohibit remittances."

So far, however, the Mexican government has not been firm enough for former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda. ... "The problem is that Peña Nieto and his government do not have a clue about what they should do," Castañeda told VICE News. "It was a huge mistake to underestimate him before, and it would be a huge mistake to underestimate him now." Castañeda urged the government to be much more active making its displeasures known, as well as explaining to Mexicans at home and in the US what a Trump victory would mean. "It should be made clear to Americans that the Mexican government and Mexican society believe that [Trump's] stances are harmful to Mexican-American relations," he said.

Hate Crimes Rise Along With Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

A new report published by Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has documented an upsurge in violence against Muslims in the United States coinciding with the 2016 election campaign.

The major uptick in hate crimes dates back toward the end of 2015, which corresponds with Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States — but also with other possibly inciting factors such as the San Bernardino shooting and intensified political debate over the Syrian refugee crisis.

“Our data suggests that acts and threats of anti-Muslim violence increased in 2015, and that it has escalated further during the presidential election season,” said Engy Abdelkader, a member of the U.S. State Department Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group and the lead author of the report.

The FBI has not released its own figures for anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2015. But in recent months a number of government officials and civil society leaders have raised the possibility that the incendiary tone of the election could lead to violence.

Jane Goodall's bid to save grizzly bears threatened by $50 hunting licenses

A coalition of scientists headed by renowned conservationist Jane Goodall has implored the federal government to re-think its decision to strip protection from Yellowstone’s grizzly bears, as hunters in Montana are set to be offered $50 licenses to shoot the hulking predators.

A total of 58 experts have put their name to a letter urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to keep the grizzly bears on the Endangered Species Act, which has protected them from hunters and other interference since 1975.

The letter states that the bears “continue to be imperiled by resource declines, including habitat and dietary staple losses” due to climate change, invasive species and drought. The experts also dispute USFWS figures that show there are around 700 grizzlies in the 22,500 sq mile Yellowstone national park region.

Wildlife officials in Wyoming and Montana have already drawn up plans to allow hunting of grizzly bears once the delisting, announced in March, goes ahead. Bears that wander outside would be shot by authorized hunters.

Montana’s plan, revealed this week, will offer $50 permits to local residents, with hunting seasons running between November and December and then March to April. Out-of-state hunters will have to pay $1,000 for a permit.

Canada Wildfires grow tenfold as thousands are airlifted to safety

A convoy of evacuees from wildfire-ravaged Fort McMurray in western Canada began a long drive south on Friday morning after being stranded by the catastrophic blaze since Tuesday in work camps north of the city.

A mass airlift of residents that began was also due to resume, a day after 8,000 people were flown out as the wildfire grew tenfold.

A helicopter led an initial evacuation convoy of 400 vehicles after Alberta Highway 63, the only major road south, was declared safe. The convoy will pass through Fort McMurray where the fire, which threatened to engulf huge areas of the arid province of Alberta, has torched 1,600 homes and other buildings. ...

Three days after the residents were ordered to leave Fort McMurray, firefighters were still battling to protect homes, businesses and other structures from the flames. ...

Chad Morrison, Alberta’s manager of wildfire prevention, said rain was needed.

“Let me be clear: air tankers are not going to stop this fire. It is going to continue to push through these dry conditions until we actually get some significant rain.”

No rain clouds were expected around Fort McMurray until late Saturday, with a 40% chance of showers, according to online forecasts by Environment Canada.

Wildfire at Fort McMurray

On May 5, 2016, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired this false-color image of the wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 7-5-3). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown.

According to news reports, the burned area grew significantly overnight. On the evening of May 4, the burned area spanned about 100 square kilometers (40 square miles); by the morning of May 5, it spanned about 850 square kilometers (330 square miles).

Apocalyptic Alberta Wildfire Could Stunt Canada’s Economy as Oil Production Slows

An apocalyptic wildfire raging in the heart of Canada's oil sands is already having a major economic impact beyond the devastated town of Fort McMurray.

Canada's GDP will likely take a hit from the disaster, one economist tells VICE News, while oil production has slowed by as much as one million barrels per day, according to the Financial Post. The now 85,000-hectare forest fire spread south on Thursday, shutting down ConconoPhillips' Surmont oilsands project and Nexen's Long Lake facility.

The slowdown in production in Fort McMurray could push oil prices higher, and may have already begun to. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the North American index for oil, grew slightly as the fires raged in northern Alberta, hitting a high of $45 per barrel on Thursday before declining slightly as the trading day ended.

Other major oil producers had already reported slowdowns. Shell Canada stopped work at its Albian Sands operation, and a staff shortage led Suncor Energy to slow its Millenium and North Steepbank mines. The wildfire also reportedly cut off a diluent pipeline that was supplying Husky Energy's Sunrise thermal oilsands project.

'Recall Gov. Richard D. Snyder' Campaign in Michigan Gains Momentum

New Yorkers Throw Away 9.3 Billion Plastic Bags Every Year — But Now They Have to Pay for Them

The New York City Council just passed a law that would impose a minimum five-cent fee on single-use plastic and paper bags at stores. Following vigorous debate, the council passed the bill 28-20 on Thursday afternoon, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has already promised to sign it into law.

New Yorkers throw away an estimated 9.3 billion plastic bags each year. By incentivizing shoppers to bring their own bags, the new measure's backers say that it would reduce that number anywhere from 60 to 90 percent. The city now pays over $12 million hauling discarded bags to landfills. ...

"The number of bags used in our city has become an environmental hazard," said Council President Melissa Mark-Viverito before Thursday's vote. The proposal had divided the council evenly for weeks, but Mark-Viverito, who had been undecided, endorsed the bill last week. This signaled that support for the measure had at least a slight majority on the council, though the final vote resulted in a wider margin than was expected.

Also of Interest

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

Bringing the Sanders ‘Revolution’ to Philly’s Streets

When Liberals Run Out of Patience: the Impolite Exile of Seymour Hersh

How the Curse of Sykes-Picot Still Haunts the Middle East

Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban Still “Stupid and Wrong,” David Cameron Says

Even a Time Finance Columnist Is Now Questioning American Capitalism

Today Is the 6th Anniversary of the ‘Flash Crash’; No Progress Made to Restore Confidence

Mariana trench live feed: engrossing viewing from deepest place on Earth

A Little Night Music

Elvin Bishop - Going Fishin

Elvin Bishop - Can't Even Do Wrong Right

Elvin Bishop - Midnight Creeper

Elvin Bishop - Everybody's In The Same Boat

Elvin Bishop - Calling All Cows

Elvin Bishop - Don´t Let The Bossman

Elvin Bishop - Born in Chicago