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"Forget the “war on terror”. If US foreign policy were honest it would unite all its war propaganda sloganeering under a single banner: the War on Disobedience."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Five years into war, Yemen at 'rock bottom'

Like most residents of Amran, a strategic gateway to Yemen's capital Sanaa, Mohammed al-Najri thought the capture of his city by Huthi rebels five years ago would not last long. But fighting quickly spread to most areas of the country, plunging the Arab world's most impoverished nation into a devastating conflict that is yet to end. ...

At the education ministry office in Amran where he works, Najri has gone without his salary ever since the beleaguered government two years ago moved the central bank from Sanaa to Aden, its makeshift capital. "Five years have passed since the war broke out, but we know there is still a long way to go," the 40-year-old civil servant told AFP by telephone. "Our situation has deteriorated ... We have reached rock bottom. Everything has collapsed," he said.

The United Nations says Yemen is experiencing the world's worst humanitarian crisis, warning that millions are on the verge of famine. Thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed and tens of thousands wounded. Essential health, education and other services have all but collapsed, especially since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 in support of the government.

The United Nations says that 3.3 million Yemenis are displaced, while at least 24 million - some two-thirds of the population - need assistance.

Britain and Iran’s Fight Over Oil Tankers Is Getting Serious

On Thursday, a deployment of British Marines stormed an Iranian oil tanker accused of carrying crude oil to Syria in breach of sanctions against the Assad regime. Now, a senior Iranian military commander has threatened to seize a British ship in retaliation.

British Marines helped Gibraltarian police seize the 330-meter Grace-1 early Thursday after it was suspected of carrying oil from Iran to Syria, in breach of European Union sanctions against the Assad regime. The seizure set off a furious response from Tehran, which called it “piracy” and accused the British government of doing the bidding of the U.S. ...

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that Britain’s ambassador to Tehran, Rob Macaire, had been formally summoned for a complaint about the seizure of the tanker, which he said could further inflame tensions in the Persian Gulf. ...

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton applauded the seizure as “excellent news,” vowing that “America and our allies will continue to prevent regimes in Tehran & Damascus from profiting off this illicit trade.”

Iranian tanker wasn't headed to Syria - Iran deputy foreign minister

An Iranian tanker captured by British Royal Marines in Gibraltar was not headed to Syria, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday in a press conference broadcast live on state TV. ...

The minister said the giant tanker has a capacity of up to two million barrels of oil and that is why it was travelling through the Strait of Gibraltar rather than the Suez Canal. He did not give information on the tanker’s final destination.

“Despite what the government of England is claiming, the target and destination of this tanker wasn’t Syria,” Araqchi said. “The port that they have named in Syria essentially does not have the capacity for such a supertanker. The target was somewhere else. It was passing through international waters through the Strait of Gibraltar and there is no law that allows England to stop this tanker. In our view the stopping of this ship was maritime robbery and we want this tanker to be freed.”

Iran Says It’s Ready to Resume Making Weapons-Grade Uranium

Iran has warned for months that it is ready to begin producing weapons-grade uranium unless Europe helps it avoid crippling U.S. sanctions. Now, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he’s prepared to make good on that threat.

Rouhani warned Wednesday that his government will begin increased enrichment of uranium on Sunday. The warning comes just two days after Iran confirmed it had breached the stockpile limits of low-enriched uranium imposed by the 2015 nuclear agreement it signed with the U.S. and other world powers. ...

Rouhani’s nuclear threat is designed to force the remaining signatories of the fast-unraveling accord to help the country circumvent U.S. sanctions, which are causing severe economic hardship for Iran’s citizens. Rouhani is specifically appealing to France, Germany and U.K., the remaining EU signatories to the deal. ...

But if that doesn’t happen, Rouhani warned, Iran was ready “to take the next step” to produce uranium “in any amount that we want, any amount that is required.”

Under the JCPOA, Iran is limited to producing low-enriched uranium of no more than 3.67 percent, which is enough for nuclear power plants but far below the 90 percent needed for weapons production. Rouhani said Iran will breach that 3.67 percent limit on Sunday — but didn’t indicate how high Iran’s uranium enrichment would go.

World leaders react to Iran's decision to exceed uranium enrichment cap

France, Iran agree to seek conditions to resume nuclear talks by July 15: Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani had agreed to seek conditions for a resumption of dialogue on the Iranian nuclear question by July 15. ...

The statement added Macron will keep on talking with Iranian authorities and other involved parties to “engage in a de-escalation of tensions related to Iranian nuclear issue.”

Scandal for Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister Sergio Moro Grows as the Intercept Partners With Brazil’s Largest Magazine For New Exposé

On June 9, the Intercept began reporting a series of exposés about unethical and corrupt behavior by then-judge Sergio Moro, now the powerful Justice Minister for President Jair Bolsonaro, based on a massive archive of secret documents provided to us by an anonymous source. As the Guardian reported on Wednesday regarding retaliatory investigations launched by Moro’s Federal Police against us in an attempt to intimidate and punish us for this reporting, our articles “have had an explosive impact on Brazilian politics and dominated headlines for weeks.” ...

Moro’s key media supporters have abandoned him: the center-right paper Estadão, long one of his most vocal cheerleaders, called for his resignation after the first week of our reporting. Polling data shows that his approval rating, just after the first week of our reporting, began falling sharply. And the right-wing President of the Senate – installed in February based on an expectation that he would loyally support the agenda of the Bolsonaro government – said that Moro’s behavior was so unethical that he would be “imprisoned” if he were not the Justice Minister. The Senate has demanded that both Moro and Finance Minister Paulo Gedes appear to explain what appears to be their abuse of police power to investigate us.

This scandal has grown as our reporting has continued. To accelerate the reporting, to prevent claims that we have been ideologically selective in choosing what to disclose, and to obliterate Moro’s desperate attempt to cast doubt on the authenticity of the material in the archive, we have partnered with several of Brazil’s most mainstream journalistic outlets – including its largest newspaper, Folha of São Paulo, and a long-time right-wing journalist, Reinaldo Azevedo of the Band News radio network – to jointly report on these incriminating revelations. But today’s events have elevated Moro’s crisis to an entirely new level. The largest weekly newsmagazine in Brazil is the center-right Veja, which has been one of Moro’s most vocal and devoted supporters for years, repeatedly putting his image on their influential covers in heroic postures. But now, Veja is also our new partner in reporting on the archive, and this morning – in partnership with us – published a devastating cover story that lays out in all-new detail, with multiple newly released private conversations involving Moro, how pervasive, sustained and comprehensive was his corruption. ...

Perhaps even more significantly is the magazine’s extraordinary “Note to Readers,” in which they explain why they concluded it was their journalistic duty to expose Moro’s corruption after years of applauding him; detailed the journalistic methods used to authenticate the material; and unflinchingly described why Moro’s conduct as a judge is a grave threat to the rule of law and the pillars of democracy.

Britain and China are Feuding Over Hong Kong’s Protest Movement

Britain’s Foreign Secretary — and potential future prime minister — upped the ante in a bitter feud with China over Hong Kong Thursday, warning that his government would not just “gulp and move on” if Beijing cracks down on pro-democracy protesters. Speaking to the BBC, Jeremy Hunt said Beijing could face “serious consequences” if it responded to recent protests with repression, and repeatedly refused to rule out imposing sanctions and expelling diplomats.

“The way to deal with that violence is not by repression,” said Hunt, one of two candidates to replace outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May. “It is by understanding the root causes of the concerns of the demonstrators that freedoms that they have had for their whole life could be about to be undermined by this new extradition law,” he said. Hunt called on China to honor the terms enshrined in the 1997 handover agreement, which guaranteed Hong Kongers an independent legislature and judiciary, and greater political freedoms than on the Mainland. Britain would put its principles ahead of its valuable trade relationship with China, Hunt claimed.

China and Britain have been locked in an escalating row over the semi-autonomous financial hub since a splinter group of hundreds of hardline protesters stormed the city’s halls of government Monday, following weeks of unrest over a controversial extradition law. Beijing was incensed by the unprecedented show of defiance, in which protesters raised the British colonial-era flag and spray-painted “HK is not China” inside the legislative chamber. China described the occupation as an “undisguised challenge” to its rule.

Expression of support for the protesters from Hunt and May only added to China’s fury, leading top officials to accuse Britain of holding a colonial mindset towards its former territory.

Trump administration is ‘uniquely dysfunctional’: UK investigates leak of ambassador’s memos

Trump hits back over UK ambassador's leaked memos

Donald Trump has said Britain’s ambassador to the US has “not served the UK well” as he hit back following the leak of confidential internal memos that presented an unflattering portrait of the president and his administration. Earlier, the Foreign Office ordered an inquiry into the leaking of the cables, written by the ambassador, Kim Darroch, in which Trump’s White House is described as “uniquely dysfunctional” and “inept”.

Darroch said in the memos that media reports about vicious administration rows (“knife fights”, as he put it) were mostly true. He cast doubt on whether the Trump regime would ever become more stable, described the president as insecure, and suggested Trump’s career might end in disgrace.

Asked about the controversy in New Jersey by reporters on Sunday night, Trump said: “The ambassador has not served the UK well, I can tell you that. We are not big fans of that man … I can say things about him, but I won’t bother.”

Darroch’s comments were made in a series of briefings sent to London over the past two years, which were published by the Mail on Sunday. Although Darroch’s assessments are in line with a lot of mainstream commentary on the Trump regime, the publication of such remarks from the UK’s top diplomatic representative in the US is an embarrassment.

Greece General Election: "Mitsotakis is very much a representation of Greece's establishment"

Tsipras fails to fight austerity imposed by EU neoliberals and is out on his ass.

Greek elections: landslide victory for centre-right New Democracy party

Voters in Greece have given Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right New Democracy party a resounding mandate to form a new government after it won by a landslide over the incumbent leftwing Syriza party, which has been in power since 2015.

As the outcome of Sunday’s general election became clear, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, conceded defeat, calling Mitsotakis to congratulate him on his victory. The official handover of power will take place on Monday.

With 91% of the vote counted, the country’s interior ministry said the conservatives had gained 39.7% compared with 31.5% for Syriza.

In his first address as the country’s new leader, the 51-year-old Harvard-educated former banker said he welcomed the result with a sense of “modesty and respect” seeing it as a victory for all, irrespective of political persuasion. ...

The result gives New Democracy an outright majority with 158 seats in the Greek parliament, more than double its current representation in the 300-seat house.

Rescued refugees land in Sicily as another ship defies Salvini

Forty-one refugees and migrants disembarked overnight at the port of Lampedusa after a charity vessel that rescued them off Libya defied an attempt by Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to close ports to NGO boats. The Italian-flagged Alex, run by the NGO Mediterranea, was escorted by the Italian coastguard and on Saturday the ship was seized by police, the captain was put under investigation for allegedly aiding illegal immigration, and the rescuees eventually disembarked. Mediterranea was fined €16.000 (£14,300).

The arrival of the Alex, which docked in the Sicilian port after spending two days stranded at sea, follows the arrest of Carola Rackete, the German captain of the another NGO rescue boat, Sea-Watch 3. On 28 June she was temporarily placed under house arrest for violating an Italian naval blockade that was trying to stop her bringing to the Sicilian port a group of asylum seekers she had rescued in the central Mediterranean.

Rackete told the Guardian in an interview on Saturday: “If I were to find myself in the same situation, I have no doubts I would do everything again, because people’s lives matter more than any political game.” Rackete was arrested on charges of resistance and violence against warships. As she had manoeuvred her vessel into the port, she had risked ramming into a military boat that was trying to prevent her from docking.

Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change, Julian Assange & More

Congress Members Who Toured Shelters for Migrant Kids Were Concerned by What They Didn’t See

The members of Congress who visited Homestead — a South Florida shelter for migrant children plagued by allegations of abuse and mistreatment — were shocked by what they saw Tuesday. Or rather, by how much they didn’t see. Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean told VICE News the group only saw about 40 children out of the 2,296 Customs and Border Protections said were being held there. Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson said she was especially concerned about the girls — she'd been told there were some 700 girls at the facility, but she'd only seen about 30.

“We saw a lot of the property. We saw an empty dormitory that had been made up very nicely. We saw a cafeteria: empty. We saw an auditorium: empty,” Dean said. It’s strange that their focus is on children, and they didn’t want us to see the children.”

Other members of Congress who visited Homestead Tuesday described the tour as “sanitized” and “sterile.” And California Rep. Pete Aguilar, who visited another facility holding child migrants in Texas on Monday with a dozen other lawmakers, called that tour “superficial.” The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency that oversees these shelters, maintains that the children in its custody are safe and well cared for despite budget issues and allegations of mistreatment at certain facilities. The agency also said it has significantly streamlined the process of releasing children to their families or sponsors.

But if lawmakers aren’t given full access to the facilities, they say they have no way of knowing whether any of that’s true.

House approval of border bill triggers Democratic progressive-moderate split

Congressional approval for funds for the Trump administration to spend at the southern border has triggered open warfare between a “squad” of high-profile progressive House Democrats and party leaders they accuse of caving to a White House determined to mistreat migrant children. The split became brutally evident late last month when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – together known as “The Squad” – voted against when Pelosi moved to pass a Senate bill that provided $4.59bn in border security funding.

Critics said the bill would not ensure that the money was spent to relieve squalid and overcrowded conditions in holding facilities run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Responding on Twitter, Omar said: “A vote for Mitch McConnell’s border bill is a vote to keep kids in cages and terrorize immigrant communities.” Tlaib declared: “If you see the Senate bill as an option, then you don’t believe in basic human rights.” Ocasio-Cortez said: “Hell no. That’s an abdication of power.”

On Saturday Pelosi responded in a New York Times interview, taking aim at The Squad for voting against “our bill”.

“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

In a tweeted response, Ocasio-Cortez said: “That public ‘whatever’ is called public sentiment. And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country.” She also defended her use of social media. The progressive-moderate split is becoming more evident and bitter.

Alleged Abuse by US Border Guards Who Forced Detained Migrant to Wear Humiliating Sign Around His Neck Reminiscent of Nazi Camps, Expert Warns

An incident at a Texas Border Patrol detention center in which a prisoner was forced by guards to wear a humiliating sign around his neck is directly reminiscent of abuse that took place in Nazi concentration camps in the 1930s, an expert on the camps said on Friday, and could be the precursor for worse treatment around the corner. In March, according to CNN, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents forced a Honduran man at the El Paso Processing Center to hold a sign reading "Me gustan los hombre," or, "I like men." CNN shared a photo of the note, which was revealed in emails about the incident obtained by the network.

The incident was reported to higher-ups, but no action was taken.

"The first thing that came to my mind was a man named Hans Beimler who was forced to wear a humiliating sign in 1933, during the first weeks that Dachau was open in Nazi Germany," Andrea Pitzer, the author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps," told Common Dreams in an email. Pitzer said that the details from CNN's reporting were similar to the Beimler incident, which she documented for her book—and that the disturbing parallels are unlikely to end there as President Donald Trump's war on immigrants continues. "Whether the abuse is low-grade or rises to actual sexual assault, the point is the same," said Pitzer. "Guards are trying to assert total control over detainees, and to demonstrate that there's nothing they can do to protect themselves."

The CBP agent who reported the incident documented the humiliation and his attempts to reach out his superiors.

Reporter sees "definite parallels" between hate groups and Border Patrol group on Facebook

As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at the behest of President Donald Trump, plans mass raids following the July Fourth holiday, newly released documents shed light on the tactics the agency employs during such operations. The documents, released Wednesday by the immigrant rights groups Mijente, Just Futures Law, and Detention Watch Network, show that ICE officials are building arrest target lists for mass raids to meet specific numbers, even as the agency continues to internally and publicly stress a “public safety” rationale for immigration arrests.

Most of the documents relate to a planned September 2017 ICE operation that was meant to target 8,400 noncitizens; ICE called off the raid after details were leaked to the media. But the documents also include information on five other ICE operations with similar objectives, pointing to how the agency repeatedly recycles its logistical plans. ...

Last month, Trump announced a logistically impossible plan to begin arresting “millions” of undocumented immigrants; later reporting revealed that ICE was planning to target 2,000 families who were issued final orders of removal after not showing up to immigration court proceedings. Trump postponed the operation for two weeks after details were leaked to the media. Last Saturday, Trump said the raids were planned for sometime after Thursday, July 4.

“The ongoing threat of mass raids for mass deportations has made it necessary for us to understand the inner workings of ICE’s mass raid operations,” said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. “We’ve confirmed in government documents that ICE operations are politically motivated. Immigration raids are meant to terrorize communities and instill fear.“

Hondurans describe nightmare of life under US-backed 'dictatorship'

Justice Department Says 2020 Census Fight Might Not Be Over, Following President’s Tweet

Just one day after the Trump administration admitted defeat in its legal fight to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 United States census, a federal judge ordered Justice Department lawyers to explain why President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that the government was “absolutely moving forward” with those plans. The president’s defiant tweet, which set him on course to defy a Supreme Court ruling blocking the question, contradicted statements made the previous day by Justice Department lawyers and the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, who said that the Census Bureau had “started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question.”

In response to the president’s tweet, U.S. District Court Judge George Hazel convened a telephone conference of lawyers for the government and two immigrant-rights groups in Maryland that have sued to prevent the question from being added on equal protection grounds. That suit appeared to be over on Tuesday, when the Justice Department told the court that the census forms would be printed without the question. Judge Hazel, who said that he follows the president on Twitter, expressed regret that he “hadn’t gone far enough in terms of pinning the government down on where things stand,” when the case appeared to be over on Tuesday.

“The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the President’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and Your Honor,” Josh Gardner, a lawyer for the Justice Department’s civil division, who has served under multiple administrations, told the judge, according to a transcript. “I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the President has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on,” he added. Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt then told the court that Justice Department lawyers “have been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow us to include the citizenship question on the census.”

To clear up the confusion, lawyers for the rights groups — Asian Americans Advancing Justice, or AAJC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF — asked the judge to issue a court order requiring the government to agree that “there will be no further effort to inquire about citizenship status as part of the 2020 census.” Seeing Trump’s tweets as a means of sowing fear among immigrant communities that the government might try to use the census to pursue undocumented immigrants, the lawyers also asked the judge to compel the administration to “publicly counter any such misinformation that comes from government officials.”

After noting that he might not have the power to “enjoin the President of the United States from tweeting things,” Judge Hazel ordered the Justice Department to explain by Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern Time whether or not the government would still try to add the question to the 2020 census forms.

Census 2020: justice department brings in new team to fight for citizenship question

A new team of lawyers at the Department of Justice will take over handling 2020 census-related cases, a spokeswoman for the agency said on Sunday, a shake-up that came as President Donald Trump pushes to include a contentious citizenship question in the decennial population survey. Spokeswoman Kerri Kupec did not give a reason for the change, but an official at the DOJ said the new team would be a mix of career and political appointees, including lawyers who work in the consumer protection branch.

The department has been looking at ways to add the question after Trump said he wanted it included, despite the Supreme Court on 27 June blocking his first effort to add the question, faulting the administration’s stated reason.

Trump said he was considering issuing an executive order to accomplish his aim. On Friday, the DOJ told Maryland-based US District Judge George Hazel it had not made a final determination on whether to add the question.

Jeffrey Epstein, a Billionaire Friend of Presidents Trump & Clinton, Arrested for Sex Trafficking

Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse case could push powerful friends into spotlight

The sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein, unveiled by prosecutors from the southern district of New York in Manhattan, may have implications for many men who have come in and out of Epstein’s social circle. ...

Epstein has counted Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew among his friends and associates.

The counts against Epstein allege that he drew dozens of underage girls to his home on the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. Prosecutors will allege some of the girls were as young as 14. If convicted, Epstein could face up to 45 years in federal prison, according to the New York Times.

As the Epstein saga moves back into public view the White House could come under the spotlight. Trump was a sometime member of Epstein’s social set and told New York magazine in 2002 he was a “terrific guy” he had known for 15 years. “He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump said. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet showed that former president Bill Clinton took at least 26 trips aboard the plane between 2001 and 2003 – the same period from which the new charges are believed to stem.

Joe Biden's Campaign Staff Is "Freaking Out!"

'This Is the Agenda America Needs': Sanders Fires Back After Biden Attacks Medicare for All and Other Progressive Solutions

After former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Medicare for All, decriminalization of border crossings, and other major progressive agenda items during an interview that aired Friday morning, fellow 2020 White House contender Bernie Sanders responded that bold ideas will be necessary to "energize voters" and defeat President Donald Trump.

"I'm proud to be working with AOC and so many other Democrats to pass Medicare for All, debt-free college, and a Green New Deal," Sanders tweeted, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "This is the agenda America needs."

Biden was asked by CNN's Chris Cuomo whether he supports "big" ideas like tuition-free public college and student debt cancellation—two policies backed by Sanders. "For example, I think there should be healthcare for everyone. I have a plan how to do that that's rational, and will cost a hell of a lot less, and will work," said Biden, who has not put out a healthcare plan. Biden suggested he supports allowing Americans to buy in to Medicare instead of going all the way to Medicare for All, which he slammed as disruptive and costly despite studies showing it would save the U.S. trillions of dollars in overall healthcare spending.

On the topic of immigration, Biden said he doesn't agree with calls to decriminalize entering the U.S. without documentation, a proposal put forth by Julián Castro and backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "No, I don't," Biden said when asked if he supports the proposal. "I think people should have to get in line, but if people are coming because they're actually seeking asylum, they should have a chance to make their case."

Kamala Harris LOUDLY Pushes Trump To War

Paul Weiss, the Law Firm that Has Represented Citigroup through Serial Fraud Charges, Is the Number One Donor to Democratic Presidential Hopeful Kamala Harris

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which keeps meticulous tabs on political campaign flows, as of this morning, the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison – which has represented Citigroup through more than two decades of serial fraud charges – is the number one campaign donor to the Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris. As the Center notes, the money isn’t coming from the law firm itself, but from its “PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals’ immediate families.”

The campaign ad for Harris reads like this: “Kamala Harris has spent her entire life defending our American values. From fighting to fix our broken criminal justice system to taking on the Wall Street banks for middle class homeowners, Kamala has always worked For The People.” But here we are in the early days of the Democratic primary campaign, when the big money has not even yet entered the fray, and Harris has already collected $140,475 from the folks at Paul Weiss. ...

Numerous law partners at Paul Weiss are hedging their bets and contributing simultaneously to other Democratic Presidential candidates. Donations from Paul Weiss also rank number one in the Presidential campaign of Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey; number three in the Presidential campaign of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; number six in the Presidential campaign of Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana; and number 9 in the Presidential campaign of Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

The name Paul Weiss has become synonymous with getting serial miscreant mega banks on Wall Street off the hook or bargaining down the charges.

USDA Scientists Are Quitting In Droves. That’s Really Bad News For Climate Research.

Housed inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the federal agency that regulates all things farming and food — is a little-known research organization that has, for six decades, helped quietly guide the country’s foreign and domestic agriculture policy.

Over 300 employees at the Economic Research Service track the health of the American farm industry, studying everything from the projected impact of global temperature changes on crop yields to the promise of genetically modified organisms. Agency employees consider it as among the most prestigious jobs an agricultural economist can land. ...

But USDA employees fear all the agency’s work could be erased completely if the Trump administration follows through with plans to uproot the division — and all its scientists — and move them to Kansas City.

The researchers’ union anticipates, after an unofficial count, that as many as 80 percent of the employees are planning to quit rather than move, and that will disrupt entire fields of study, ranging from honeybee pollination patterns to how crop prices fluctuate with changes in consumer demand. Their positions will take years to fill, if USDA staff recruits new hires at all.

“I think, as a whole, we feel that this is a pattern of hostility toward scientific research at our agency,” said Laura Dodson, a researcher and union steward at the agency. She and Zilberman estimate that the attrition spurred in part by this move will set the agency back five to ten years. One agency employee who plans on leaving the agency this summer is more blunt: “I think it’s fairly clear they want to gut this agency.”

Anchorage, Alaska Hits 90 Degrees for First Time in Recorded History

With Alaska in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave that experts say is driven by the climate crisis, Anchorage—the state's largest city—reached an all-time high temperature of 90 degrees on Thursday. "At 5 pm [Thursday] afternoon, Anchorage International Airport officially hit 90 degrees for the first time on record," the Anchorage National Weather Service announced in a tweet early Friday.

UPDATE! At 5pm this afternoon, #Anchorage International Airport offically hit 90 degrees for the first time on record. #AKwx #RecordHeat

— NWS Anchorage (@NWSAnchorage) July 5, 2019

Anchorage reached the 90-degree mark just hours after the city hit 89 degrees, shattering the previous high of 85 degrees set in June of 1969, according to the Anchorage National Weather Service.

LATEST on 7.1 magnitude earthquake near Ridgecrest, California: https://t.co/AIobHVLTNe

• Reports of damage, including structural fires and ruptured gas lines
• Area of state highway 178 is closed
• Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the White House for federal assistance pic.twitter.com/VBWtBturDY

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 6, 2019

UN Warning That Climate Crisis Disasters Now Occur Weekly Provokes Calls for Action

A "staggering" new warning from a top United Nations official that climate crisis-related disasters are now occurring at the rate of one per week, with developing nations disproportionately at risk, provoked calls for immediate global action to combat the human-caused climate emergency.

The warning came in an interview with The Guardian, which reported Sunday:

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of "lower impact events" that are causing death, displacement, and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative on disaster risk reduction. "This is not about the future, this is about today."

This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. "People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience."

"We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive," Mizutori added. "We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience."

Will Bernie Sanders Stick With a Carbon Tax In His Push For a Green New Deal?

A defining feature of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s political career is his consistency. The economy is rigged against the working class, the independent senator from Vermont charges, and bold political action is necessary to remedy that. His approach to tackling the climate crisis has long reflected that mindset, with Sanders ignoring the advice of the Democratic consultant class to champion taxing the nation’s largest polluters and redistributing the bulk of the earned revenue back to consumers and vulnerable people. Now, as the 2020 presidential candidate prepares to release his climate change plan, a key element to watch out for is whether Sanders will abandon the tool he’s heralded for years to combat global warming, or integrate it into his push for a Green New Deal. As he makes this decision, Sanders is wading into an increasingly contentious debate among environmentalists about the right role for market-based solutions in progressive policy.

Sanders has long argued that a carbon tax “must be a central part of our strategy for dramatically reducing carbon pollution,” and he’s often touted the consensus behind it from economists across the political spectrum. ... But over the last year, some influential groups on the left have soured on a carbon tax, pointing to a recent ballot measure that failed at the polls in Washington state and also the yellow vest protests in France over rising fuel prices — sparked by taxing carbon. And as more conservatives and business leaders have warmed to the idea of a carbon tax, some progressives have grown correspondingly distrustful — skeptical that Republicans will really do anything other than undermine the bold action that is needed.

Sanders, an original Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution, has been touting a Green New Deal often on the 2020 campaign trail but has so far been silent on taxing carbon. His campaign website, unlike in 2016, says nothing about it, and in June, a Sanders speechwriter told E&E News, an environmental trade publication, that a forthcoming Green New Deal speech does not say anything about a carbon tax, though he added that doesn’t mean Sanders might not tackle the issue in the future. ...

One of the most prominent voices in the environmental movement to turn against a carbon tax is Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state and the presidential candidate who is running primarily on tackling climate change. Inslee has strongly supported taxing carbon in the past (an idea sometimes called imposing a “carbon fee”), but bills in favor of the proposal never made it out of his state legislature, and related ballot initiatives failed in 2016 and 2018. (The fossil fuel industry spent more than $31 million to beat the 2018 initiative, more than twice the amount spent by supporters.) In January, Inslee announced that he had grown wary of relying on a carbon tax to reduce emissions. “To actually get carbon savings, you need to jack up the price so high that it becomes politically untenable,” he told NBC News, adding that he was more interested in taxing the rich to fund a Green New Deal. His aggressive proposals on the 2020 campaign trail also do not include taxing carbon.  ...

Other proponents of the Green New Deal have argued that a carbon tax just shouldn’t be a primary focus. A set of talking points released — and then retracted — by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office in February emphasized that any carbon tax “would be a tiny part” of a Green New Deal. A carbon tax generally “misses the point and would be off the table unless we create the clean, affordable options first,” the fact sheet said. Ocasio-Cortez also wrote on Twitter that ideas like a carbon tax can’t be the premier solution to tackling the climate crisis.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: Philosopher Srecko Horvat on the Yugoslav Fight Against Fascism and the Rising Right-Wing Political Forces in Europe

Italy’s Hard-line Anti-Migrant Interior Minister Is Going Postal Over a Rescue Boat

On Eve Of 4th Of July Parade U.S. Attempts To Lure Iran Into Shooting Down Another U.S. Plane

US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience

FBI’s Leniency Toward Border Vigilante Contrasts With Harsh Treatment of “Black Identity Extremist”

Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, and it’s With Her Own Party’s Future

CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller’s Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims

Border Patrol Agents Tried to Delete Racist and Obscene Facebook Posts. We Archived Them.

Jeffrey Epstein charged with sex trafficking, reports say

On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe

The PowerPoint That Got a Climate Scientist Disinvited From a Shell Conference

A Little Night Music

Piano Red - My Gal Jo

Piano Red - The Right String, Baby, But the Wrong Yo-Yo

Piano Red - Rockin' With Red, Red's Boogie, I'm Gonna Rock Some More, Diggin' The Boogie

Piano Red - Boogie Woogie

Piano Red - Big Rock Joe From Kokomo/ Decatur Street Boogie

Piano Red - You Ain't Got A Chance

Piano Red - Right and Ready

Dr. Feelgood & The Interns - Love Is Amazing

Dr Feelgood & The Interns - Doctor Feel-good

Dr Feelgood (aka Piano Red) - Mr Moonlight

The Beatles - Mr Moonlight