Global Research

Featured image: Al Kindi hospital (Aleppo) as it was being demolished by two truck bombs, December 2013. The operation was carried out by Jabhat al Nusra (see logo top right) and its SA partners. Afterwards the Islamist-linked ‘Physicians for Human Rights’ tried to blame the Syrian Government for this destruction. (Photo: Jabhat al Nusra)

“On June 18 at 6:43 p.m., a Syrian regime SU-22 military jet aircraft dropped bombs near Syrian Democratic Forces fighters south of Tabqah, Syria, and, in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of coalition partnered forces, was immediately shot down by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft. The coalition presence in Syria addresses the imminent threat ISIS in Syria poses globally. The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.”

This is the propaganda release of the US Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve news release posted on the US Department of Defence website of June 19^th regarding the shooting down of a Syrian Su-22 that was attacking ISIS positions in Syria. This is the American attempt to justify a war crime, an act of aggression against Syria.

Let’s examine the claims made in this extraordinary document, this casual admission of guilt.

The Americans first try to lend legitimacy to their proxy forces attacking Syria by inserting the word “democratic” in their name. This is the word always used by the Americans to define any anti-democratic group they support or create. In turn they attempt to delegitimize the Syrian government and people by claiming the plane they shot down was the plane of a “regime” the word they always use when they plan to overthrow that government to replace it with a puppet government of their own.

The phrase “rules of engagement” means simply their own internal orders on when and where to commit acts of aggression against Syria in their invasion and occupation of Syrian territory. “Collective self-defence” is a phrase they like to use to make us fall down laughing hoping thereby to disarm and overwhelm us with the black humour of it all. The United States forces in Syria are aggressors and invaders. They are committing the supreme war crime and all the crimes that flow from that. They have no right of self-defence. They have no rights there at all except to leave or surrender to the Syrian government and apologise for their arrogance and the injury they have caused to the Syrian people. “Coalition partnered forces” means the other members of the criminal group of nations that willingly assist the United States to commit aggression against Syria against all international law and the domestic laws of those countries.

The statement that the Syrian jet was shot down “immediately” suggests that the American fighter was in the area at the time waiting to pounce; that this was not a reaction to an attack but an attempt to impose a no-fly zone over terrorist forces operating with American forces. In effect the Americans are attempting to protect their ISIS proxy forces besieging the government garrison at DeirEs-Zor, a siege the government forces are trying to break.

The Americans tried to excuse the shoot down by claiming that the Syrian jet was attacking their Kurdish proxy forces in one town but the facts are that the Syrian jet was attacking ISIS forces in another location. And of course the Syrians have every right to attack the American proxy forces and the Americans themselves since the Americans are invaders. In essence the Americans have shown that they are ready and willing to enforce their no-fly zone whereas the Syrians and Russians have been content to issue warnings if their forces are attacked. So far they have not acted on those warnings. The question is, will they and when? For this is not an isolated incident.

On September 17, 2016 US planes attacked Syrian forces at Deir Ez-Zor claiming they were targeting ISIS forces and hit the Syrians “by mistake” a “mistake’ that helped the ISIS forces in their siege of the Syrian base there.

On April 7, 59 cruise missiles, launched from American ships, hit a Syrian air base. They had another excuse used to attempt to justify that.

On May 18 the Americans attacked Syrian government forces, once again it was claimed, for being too near US proxy forces and a US position near the Jordanian border.

Now we have the US once again protecting and assisting the ISIS forces laying siege to the Syrian government base at Deir Ez-Zor. So the claim in the US press release that the US is “addressing the ISIS threat” is a big lie. The US is not conducting counter-ISIS operations. It is conducting operations directly in support of ISIS forces. Since that is now clearly established to be the case then the US is also guilty of all the atrocities, all the war crimes committed by ISIS since ISIS began its operations about 3 years ago.

The criminal dossier composed of American and allied war crimes is getting very thick yet we see no statement from the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court about these crimes. The Americans of course have withdrawn from the ICC but still the Prosecutor could make a public statement about these crimes, condemn them, state that a dossier is open and active at least for investigative purposes but no, she is silent, ever evading her responsibilities.

Meanwhile the Russians stated that the shoot down of the Syrian fighter jet on June 19 shows a “disrespect for the United Nations”, which it is, though “contempt” would have been a stronger word, and called for a “thorough investigation by the US command” into this “flagrant violation of international law.” But the US is certainly not going to investigate itself for its deliberate act of war. The Russians and Syrians know it is a deliberate act of war. So what does this mean, this call for an investigation? One can only conclude that these words are meant to express outrage while the Russians and Syrians assess their options and what has to happen next, for something has to happen or else the Americans will extend their own no fly zone over all of Syria.

The US aggression against Syria has been taken to a new level of direct American attacks. Unless there is an effective defence against these attacks they will escalate and quickly. The Russians and Syrians of course want to avoid a wider war at all costs and they must be saluted for their patience and endurance in the face of these provocations, but is clear that the Americans are intent on pushing and pushing and pushed so far that Iran has reacted and fired its missiles at the ISIS forces this week. They have said they will do it again. They are not waiting for the Russians and Syrians to act,though we must assume they were informed and perhaps approved, for they also are under direct threat from the aggression against Syria.

The Russian air forces have now stated that from now on they will target American and allied air forces that threaten them and their allies. But targeting is one thing. Will they shoot them down? At some point that will have to happen as the Americans are not interested in talking or negotiating anything and only understand the logic of force.

They showed their intentions a few days ago when an F16 approached the Russian defence minister’s plane as it flew to Kaliningrad and had to be warned off by a Russian fighter. The Americans claim they did not know who was on the plane and were just “checking it out” but the Americans knew exactly who was on that plane and what right do they have to do any such thing in international air space? No, that F16 was a dagger at the throat of Mr. Shoigu and the Russian people. It was a death threat, meant to intimidate Russia and the Russian people, a criminal act under international law, an insult, the action of thugs.

That it happened near Kaliningrad confirms my view stated several times in past articles that Kaliningrad will be a focus for their hybrid war methods since the Russian forces their control the approaches to St. Petersburg, secure Russian access to the Baltic and Atlantic and sit behind NATO lines now running from Estonia, Latvia Lithuania and Poland down to the Donbass republics. The NATO powers would like nothing better than to push the Russians out of Kaliningrad and the Russians, who have reinforced their forces there, know it. The threat made against Mr. Shoigu’s plane is part of American hybrid warfare, an attempt to harass the Russians in Kaliningrad. We can expect further actions there.

But whatever criticism we may level at the Russians for not acting more forcefully against the American threat must be tempered with a respect for the Russian leadership and their ability to assess the situation and react appropriately for there is this difference between the Russians and the Americans; the Americans telegraph every move they make, their intentions are clear, their strategy understood. But the Russian play things closer to the vest, insist on talking while preparing for something else, for they understand very well from their historical experience Sun Tzu’s dictum that the side that knows when to fight and when not to will take the victory.

But the real criticism must lay at the feet of the anti-war movement in the west that, except for some isolated initiatives, by small groups and concerned and active individuals, is almost paralyzed, or taken over by the “interventionists,” those deluded people who think they can solve all problems through war.  This is the case in the USA, Canada, and Europe generally. Kept off-balance and confused by repeated “terrorist” attacks always attributed to whoever the enemy is deemed to be, a few years ago Al-Qaeda, now the US construct, ISIS, and by a massive propaganda campaign in the media, too many who claim in earnest to love peace and humanity call for war and death.  I have no answer to the question of how to revive the peace movement so that it can have an effect on world governments.  Others, I hope, do. But if I were able to speak with President Trump and the war faction that goads him on, to the Canadian prime minister who acts as his simpering puppet, I would repeat what an Indian sage once said to Alexander The Great, who was slaughtering his way across the world,

“Every man can possess only so much of the earth’s surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and others. Ah, well! You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you.”

Featured image: Sen. Bernie Sanders speaking to one of his large crowds of supporters. (Photo credit: Sanders campaign)

The most encouraging trend in the otherwise bleak landscape of Western politics is the success of the “new kind of politics” unveiled by Bernie Sanders in the U.S., Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K., and parallel movements, parties and candidates in other countries.

In their recent campaigns, Sanders and Corbyn laid out specific progressive policies to address the real-life problems facing their constituents and their countries and to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to fully fund healthcare, education and other vital public services. This represents a dramatic U-turn from the vague, deceptive talking points of “center-left” Democratic, Labour and Socialist politicians of the past generation, under cover of which they quietly sold out their constituents to corporate, plutocratic and military-industrial interests.

In 2002, when Margaret Thatcher was asked to name her “greatest political achievement,” she smiled her best cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile and purred, “Tony Blair and New Labour.”

The true measure of the Reagan-Thatcher counterrevolution was not how Reagan and Thatcher changed their own parties’ policies but that they remade their opposition in their own image and thus marginalized progressive politics for a generation in both their countries, clearing the way for the neoliberal transformation of society.

Reagan and Thatcher launched a race to the bottom that politicians in France, Germany, Japan and the rest of the developed world soon joined in with. They slashed taxes on the wealthy and corporations, cut funding for everything but weapons, war and debt, privatized public services, and abandoned the principle that the wealth and power of wealthy countries should benefit all their people.

Western experts also fanned out across Eastern Europe to impose neoliberal “shock therapy” that caused soaring unemployment and shocking declines in living standards and life expectancy.

The DLC: the U.S.’s New Labour

The corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which took over the leadership of the Democratic Party between the 1988 and 1992 elections, was the U.S. equivalent of Blair’s New Labour in the U.K. But unlike New Labour, the DLC downplayed its takeover of the Democratic Party instead of dressing it up in a splashy rebranding campaign.

Lax campaign finance laws already left the U.S. political system wide open to corruption, or “legalized bribery” as former President Jimmy Carter has called it, through lavish fundraising, political advertising and corporate lobbying. The DLC Democrats launched a campaign to match the Republicans in fundraising from the wealthy and corporations, and “Slick Willie” Clinton sold the DLC’s new model of “center-left” corporate politics to the public, veiling the radical nature of his plutocratic agenda behind talking points drafted by corporate-funded think tanks and spin doctors.

It has tragically taken three decades for a majority of Americans to wake up to this plutocratic corporate buyout of their political system, first by Reagan’s Republicans, but then, decisively, by the Democrats who dropped the other shoe and left the public at large effectively unrepresented and marginalized.

Hillary Clinton’s dramatic 2016 defeat by one of the most unpopular figures in U.S. political history should have been a clarion call to the middle management of the Democratic Party — members of Congress, senior Congressional staff, and local and state party leaders — that the DLC model of politics had run its course.

Nobody in the Democratic Party more explicitly symbolized the corrupt DLC political model than the Clintons. Bill Clinton was the DLC’s fourth chairman from 1990 to 1991, and his election as President in 1992 cemented the DLC’s control of the Democratic Party. The first six chairmen of the DLC were all Southern men in the Clinton mold, and the DLC was never chaired by a woman in its 26-year history. (The DLC closed its doors in 2011.)

But Hillary Clinton’s defeat was hardly the first signal that the DLC Democrats had had their day. Corporate Democrats suffered a bloodbath in the 2010 midterm election. Even as the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) enjoyed a net gain of four seats in the House in 2010, 36 percent of non-CPC Democrats were tossed out on their ears, losing 67 of their 185 seats.

The CPC was founded in 1991 by Sen. Bernie Sanders and five progressive Democrats, and it has grown to be the largest Democratic caucus in Congress, with 73 current House members representing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

If the 2010 election should have woken the Democrats from their complacency, the public disillusionment revealed by record low turnout in the 2014 mid-term should have rung the alarm bells off the wall. As Bernie Sanders repeated in almost every stump speech in 2016,

“When voter turnout is high, Democrats and progressives win. When voter turnout is low and people are demoralized, Republicans win.”

And yet the overwhelming majority of Democratic members of Congress, including most members of the Progressive Caucus, still backed Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary. Despite repeated and increasingly dire warnings, culminating in political suicide in 2016, the Democratic Party still refuses to repudiate or reform its failed, corrupt DLC model of politics.

Like other aspects of neoliberalism, the Reagan-DLC model is so entrenched and so successfully insulated the political class from accountability to the public that they just can’t believe the game is up.

After the election, Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison ran for the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), on a platform to reform the party and restore integrity to the DNC, which flagrantly pulled strings for Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary. But right-wing Democrats led by Haim Saban opened their wallets for an ugly campaign to smear Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress as an anti-Semite and dig up the votes to defeat him. When Saban and Company’s new DNC chair Tom Perez joined Bernie Sanders on a so-called “Democratic Unity” tour, he was booed from Maine to Miami.

As Claire Sandberg, Sanders’ former digital organizing director told Vice News,

“The (Democratic Party) Establishment is like a doomsday cult; no matter how thoroughly their predictions (are) refuted by reality, they just dig in deeper in their incoherent worldview, with devastating consequences for the rest of us.”

Jon Ossoff v. Harry Truman

The latest Democratic fiasco is Jon Ossoff’s defeat by a 3.8 percent margin by Karen Handel in a special election in Georgia, despite spending $30 million on a campaign that broke the record for legalized bribery in a U.S. House race. To add insult to injury, Karen Handel is the former vice president of the Susan Komen Foundation who resigned over its support for Planned Parenthood in 2012. How much more self-inflicted humiliation can the Democrats stand?

On the same day, fellow Democrat Archie Parnell did a bit better than Ossoff, losing to Republican Ralph Norman by a margin of only 3.2 percent in an equally Republican-leaning district in South Carolina, despite only spending $500,000 and being all but ignored by national Democratic Party power brokers and fundraisers.

Could a share of the millions fruitlessly lavished on Ossoff have put Parnell over the top? We’ll never know. Or is the corporate Democratic Party machine now so toxic that its coolness to Parnell actually helped his candidacy?

If that is the case, it raises questions about the very purpose and existence of the Democratic Party. Could the Dems be doomed to go the way of PASOK in Greece or the Socialists in France, former ruling parties suddenly reduced to single digits by recent elections? Is that what it would take to revitalize U.S. politics? Should Sanders and progressives inside and outside the Democratic Party start a new People’s Party, as “Draft Bernie” activists at the recent People’s Summit in Chicago were calling for?

While Ossoff was a well-connected former Congressional staffer, a young celebrity candidate hyped by party leaders, Parnell was a self-deprecating retired tax attorney who ran as his own man, staking out straightforward policy positions that appeared to reflect his own judgments of what was important to his neighbors in South Carolina, not the calculations of career political consultants.

Parnell is a former Goldman Sachs executive, not a Sanders- or Corbyn-style democratic socialist, but he followed Sanders and Corbyn’s model of politics in the sense that he responded to the concerns of working- and middle-class voters in his district and vowed to take on powerful corporate interests.

The first issue on the “Issues” page of Parnell’s website was “Taxes and Big Corporations.” He promised to, “use his decades of experience and detailed knowledge of the tax code to make big corporations pay their fair share. He knows how to close the loopholes that allow big companies to stash trillions of dollars overseas (Parnell worked for Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong), and will use that revenue to strengthen our infrastructure and create jobs here at home.”

By contrast, the “Priorities” page of Ossoff’s website began with a section on “Our Economy” that dodged any commitment to take on powerful interests, parroting the corporate Democratic line with non-committal strings of focus-group-tested buzz-words like this:

“Jon will stand up in Congress for a dynamic, forward-looking, fiscally responsible economic policy that maximizes opportunity for entrepreneurs, workers, and investors.”

Besides not committing Ossoff to doing anything at all, this kind of nonsense maintains the pretense that politics can please everyone, rich and poor, without confronting conflicting interests or power disparities between different classes or sectors of society.

In practice, corporate Dems and Republicans alike have used this kind of vague, non-committal language as a smoke-screen for the concentration of more and more power and wealth in the hands of a ruling class that is oblivious to the lives and problems of the rest of humanity. In a televised debate with Handel, Ossoff pledged not to bite the hand that feeds him by raising taxes on the wealthy, and came out against universal publicly-funded healthcare.

The Ossoff fiasco illustrates the dead-end into which the DLC Democrats have driven their party. As long as their primary goal is to raise the money they need to run corrupt multi-million dollar campaigns, their party can never honestly address the real concerns of the people whose votes ultimately decide the result. Once the public finally caught on to the corporate Democrats’ deceptive game, the Dems were bound to reap a whirlwind of righteous popular anger.

As President Harry Truman said in a speech in 1952,

“The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a Republican and a Republican in Democratic clothing, they’ll take the genuine article every time.”

Truman understood that betrayal and outrage are more potent political forces than arguments about which party’s policies are more evil than the other’s.

The Corrupt “Middle of the Road” 

Because the Democratic Party has become first and foremost a fundraising and bribery machine, the only thing that Democratic leaders seem to have gleaned from Bernie Sanders’s success is that his presidential campaign raised millions of dollars in small donations from working- and middle-class people. So, corporate Democrats have latched onto grassroots fundraising as an element of Sanders’s “political revolution” that they can embrace – not issues such as universal healthcare, free college tuition and a $15 minimum wage. Now they are worried that Ossoff’s defeat may have killed that golden goose.

What anyone without a vested interest in the Democratic Party could have told the party bigwigs is that Bernie Sanders’s fundraising success was not a gimmick that could be replicated in isolation from other aspects of his campaign. It was the result of a public upsurge of support for a refreshingly honest, independent and perennially marginalized politician who offered concrete solutions to the real problems of American politics and society — problems largely created, swept under the rug and ignored for a generation by a corrupt political establishment.

As on so many other fronts, the corporate Democrats are caught in a trap they have set for themselves with their deceptive, monetized model of politics.

In 2008, they fabricated a myth that Barack Obama had raised a record share of his funding from small donors. But an apples-to-apples comparison of official records showed that he only raised 24 percent of his funds from donors who gave less than $200, about the same as both Kerry and Bush in 2004.

A well-publicized study by the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) kept the Obama small donor myth alive by treating people who donated to both his primary and general election campaigns as if they were two different people, magically transforming many who gave more than $200 into twice as many smaller donors and boosting his small donor percentage from 24 percent to 30 percent in the primary and 34 percent in the general election in the CFI study.

Now the CFI has backtracked and cites the 24 percent figure. By contrast, both Trump and Sanders really did raise more of their funds from small donors – 44 percent for Sanders and 58 percent for Trump, compared with only 22 percent for Clinton.

The real danger of the Ossoff fiasco is the same one the corporate Democrats keep creating and recreating for their party, that their slick, deceptive brand of politics is so tainting their identity that it will undermine real progressive Democratic candidates in 2018 and beyond.

After a generation of corporate politics, it is vital that both journalists and the public learn to tell the difference between corrupt corporate Republicans and Democrats on the one hand and genuine, well-motivated grassroots candidates on the other. This distinction may ultimately be more important to the political future of the country than the choice between Republicans and Democrats, and telling the difference does not require an advanced degree in political science. A quick look at any candidate’s website can usually tell us most of what we need to know.

I already contrasted Archie Parnell’s promise “to make big corporations pay their fair share” of taxes with Jon Ossoff’s pledges to his wealthy benefactors. Ossoff also fully embraced Ronald Reagan’s tired old saw that the government should be “run like a business.” His so-called “accountability plan,” which aimed only to trim government waste, not to hold politicians accountable to their constituents for their policies or their corruption, included a section headed “Bringing the Government up to Private Sector Standards,” a classic theme of pseudo-technocratic “centrist” politicians.

Despite or maybe because of working on Capitol Hill for five years, Ossoff didn’t seem to understand that the federal government’s most critical responsibilities involve public services like healthcare, education, social welfare and infrastructure, for which the neoliberal “business” model has proved to be damaging and dangerous.

Ossoff’s political posture appeared to be calculated to position himself directly between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the Southern conservative “Blue Dogs,” a throwback to Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” strategy from the 1990s — even though the Blue Dogs have been reduced from 54 seats in Congress in 2008 to 18 now.

As Texan progressive activist Jim Hightower says,

“There ain’t nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.”

The center in “center-left” has always been a euphemism for pro-big-business, and American voters have had 30 years to judge the effects of this calculated, cynical kind of politics on their country and their lives.

Americans are now divided, not so much between the deceptive pitches of corporate Democrats and Republicans, but between desperately hoping for a new kind of politics that honestly addresses the reality of their lives on the one hand and giving up on “politics” altogether on the other.

Moral Bankruptcy on War and Peace

Nowhere is the moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party more evident than on questions of war and peace. Americans chose Obama over Clinton in 2008 in large part based on Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War authorization and Obama’s decision to speak at an anti-war rally in Chicago in October 2002, in which he called the illegal planned invasion “a dumb war.”

But in his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote that he hesitated to speak at that anti-war rally because, “on the merits I didn’t consider the case against war to be cut-and-dried.”

In fact, military-industrial power brokers like Chicago’s Crown family had backed Obama’s political career right from the start and knew him far better than the general public, who were meeting him for the first time through his award-winning marketing campaign. The Crown family were among Obama’s top national fundraising “bundlers” in 2008 and former General Dynamics’ CEO Lester Crown, the patriarch of the family, hosted an elite fundraiser for Obama at his home in Chicago.

Once elected, Obama dropped more bombs and missiles on more countries than Bush, and expanded the violence and chaos of Bush’s “war on terror” to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Obama spent more money on weapons and war than any president since World War II (even after adjusting for inflation), and rewarded General Dynamics with a steady stream of profits from expanded production of Virginia class submarines ($2.5 billion each), 39 new Arleigh Burkedestroyers to be built over 20 years ($1.8 billion each) and three new Zumwalt destroyers ($7.5 billion each, including development costs, more than an aircraft carrier).

Obama and a Democratic Congress ordered the Zumwalt destroyers in April 2009 over the objections of the Navy, which called the Zumwalt, “a ship you don’t need,” as the program had already become an operational, engineering and procurement nightmare.

Admiral Jay Johnson, the former chief of naval operations who had championed the Zumwalt program, was by then Vice Chairman, and soon to be CEO, of General Dynamics. The Zumwalt destroyers are vulnerable to modern anti-ship missiles, and the first ship launched, the USS Zumwalt, had to be towed out of the Panama Canal in December 2016 after its propellers jammed and it ran aground.

As a major supplier of bombs and ammunition, General Dynamics has also profited handsomely from the U.S. bombing of Iraq and Syria, which is now the heaviest U.S. bombing campaign since the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, with over 84,000 bombs and missiles dropped since 2014.

The various Al Qaeda splinter groups tearing Syria apart have all been armed with some share of the thousands of tons of weapons the Obama administration and its allies flooded across Syria’s borders since 2011. These include thousands of howitzers, rocket launchers and other heavy weapons, and over 315 million rounds of ammunition, as Gareth Porter expertly catalogued in a recent article.

Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has introduced the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” which would prohibit any further U.S. arming of Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria or anywhere else. But only 14 of her colleagues have co-sponsored her bill and eight of them are Republicans. The six progressive Democrats who have signed on are Welch, Lee, Conyers, Khanna, Rush and De Fazio.

In the Senate, Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, has taken the lead in opposing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the U.S.’s despicable role in the Saudi-led war on Yemen. The bill Murphy sponsored with Senators Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Al Franken, D-Minnesota, to stop a small part of the latest Saudi arms sale failed by 53-47, thanks to five Democrats who voted with the Republican majority: Donnelly, Manchin, McCaskill, Nelson and Warner.

Senator Bill Nelson, from my home state of Florida, has long been known as the “Senator for Lockheed Martin.” But it is a new low, even for Nelson, to prioritize profits from U.S. arms sales over the dangerously precarious lives of the starving and cholera-stricken children of Yemen.

In its markup for the 2018 national defense authorization, the House Armed Services Committee has approved consideration of Barbara Lee’s amendment to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the legal fig-leaf with which Pentagon and White House lawyers still pretend to justify the rivers of blood shed in the name of September 11th and the “global war on terror.”

Barbara Lee was the only member of Congress in either chamber with the wisdom and courage to vote against the AUMF in 2001. How many will stand with Barbara Lee this time to consign the AUMF to the garbage can of history?

Predictably, neither the Ossoff nor Parnell campaigns offered any new or progressive positions on U.S. war policy. Ossoff’s website had a long-winded statement of unconditional support for Israel, with no mention of human rights, occupation or settlements, nor any word on the plight of the Palestinians at all, and he threw in a threat of destabilizing new sanctions against Iran for good measure.

This kind of blatant pandering to the Israel lobby is another cynical staple of the DLC model of Democratic politics. Ossoff touted his five years as a national security staffer but avoided specific policy proposals, while Parnell’s website promised only to keep the local Air Force base open and support military veterans.

The U.S. has been at war for over 15 years. Its wars have killed hundreds of times the number of Americans killed on September 11th. No country destroyed by the U.S. war machine has yet emerged from the violence and chaos unleashed on it, making them all fertile ground for Al Qaeda and ISIS recruiters, who flaunt their capacity to keep striking back in surprising places, from San Bernardino and Manchester to the Philippines and West Africa to the heart of Kabul’s fortified Green Zone.

Yet no Democratic Party leader has presented any proposal to deescalate an increasingly global asymmetric war that keeps spreading and spinning farther out of control. As the Trump administration looks only to dangerous and potentially catastrophic escalation on every front, where is the Democratic alternative?

Beyond Inverted Totalitarianism

Gabbard’s bill on Syria, Murphy’s initiatives on Yemen and Lee’s AUMF repeal bill are all tests of whether the Democratic Party can become relevant again to the future of our country and the world. Bernie Sanders’s campaign got a shot in the arm when Gabbard joined him on the campaign trail and took on the questions of war and peace that he had timidly avoided.

Sanders’s continued silence or even quiet support for U.S. war policy is a dangerous and disturbing element in an otherwise honorable progressive stance, and the position he has earned as America’s most popular politician gives him both a platform and a responsibility to address critical foreign policy issues as well as domestic ones.

Sanders would do well to have a serious discussion about foreign policy with Jeremy Corbyn, whose progressive views and expressions of concern for the lives of working people and their families do not stop at the borders of his own country. Corbyn’s domestic and foreign policy positions therefore form a coherent and consistent whole that makes sense to the public, who keep rallying around him despite regular predictions of catastrophic defeat by both his Tory opponents and Margaret Thatcher’s pride and joy, the New Labour/Blairite wing of his own party.

In his 2006 book, Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin described our present neoliberal political and economic system as “inverted totalitarianism,” differing from classical totalitarianism in that, instead of just abolishing the tools of democracy, our rulers have coopted them to use for their own purposes.

Wolin observed that the inverted form of totalitarianism seems to be a more palatable and therefore sustainable way to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a privileged ruling class than the classical totalitarianism of the Twentieth Century.

But the genius of inverted totalitarianism is also its weakness. As long as the institutions of democracy still exist, even in their present hollowed-out and corrupted form, the wealthy and powerful face the danger that the public will one day discover its voice and its power, stop voting for corporate-backed celebrity politicians like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and develop a “new kind of politics” that offers real solutions to our most serious problems, from poverty, inequality and for-profit healthcare to war, terrorism and climate change.

The refusal of the Blairites and Clintonistas to see the writing on the wall for their 1990s brand of politics is costing the people of the U.K, the U.S. and the world very dearly. But the sleeping giant of democracy is stirring beneath the astro-turf of the American dream.

The Sanders and Corbyn campaigns, Podemos in Spain and connected movements around the world may be the first green shoots of a just, peaceful and sustainable future — but only if we recognize that it is up to all of us to both nurture them and hold their leaders accountable on the critical questions of our time.

Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.  He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

Será um triunfo para o presidente Trump quando, no dia 6 de julho, chegar de visita a Varsóvia. A Polônia, assegura a Casa Branca, é “fiel aliado na Otan e um dos mais estreitos amigos da América”. Com efeito, é a ponta de lança da estratégia dos EUA e da Otan que arrastou a Europa a uma nova guerra fria contra a Rússia.

Na Polônia, para onde foi transferida em janeiro a 3ª Brigada de blindados dos EUA, foi deslocado, sob o comando dos EUA, um dos quatro grupos de batalha da Otan “com presença avançada reforçada”, com funções anti-Rússia.

A Polônia tem também o mérito de ser um dos quatro países europeus da Otan que realizaram o objetivo, exigido pelos EUA em 2014, de destinar mais de 2% do PIB a despesas militares. Em compensação, anuncia Varsóvia, a Polônia não contribuirá para o “Fundo para a Defesa” lançado pela União Europeia em 22 de junho.

A Polônia do presidente Duda tem, assim, aos olhos de Washington, todas as credenciais para assumir outro encargo importante, qual seja o de lançar e dirigir a “Iniciativa dos Três Mares”, um novo projeto que reúne 12 países compreendidos entre o Báltico, o Mar Negro e o Adriático: Polônia, Lituânia, Letônia, Estônia, Hungria, República Tcheca, Áustria, Bulgária, Romênia, Croácia, Eslovaquia e Eslovênia.

Todos membros da União Europeia, razão pela qual o presidente Duda define a Iniciativa como “um novo conceito para promover a unidade europeia”. Mas esses países são ao mesmo tempo, todos, exceto a Áustria, membros da Otan sob o comando dos EUA  mais ligados a Washington do que a Bruxelas.

A “Iniciativa dos Três Mares” será batizada pelo presidente Trump na conferência que se realizará em Varsóvia em 6 de julho, mas foi concebida pela administração Obama.

Esta foi anunciada em 25 de agosto de 2016 com a Declaração Conjunta de Dubrovnik, que a apresentava como uma iniciativa visando a “conectar a economia e a infraestrutura da Europa central e oriental de Norte a Sul, expandindo a cooperação nos setores de energia, transportes, comunicações digitais e na economia em geral. O objetivo oficial é “tornar a Europa central e oriental mais segura e competitiva”. Os EUA se ocuparão disto.

No seu discurso na Conferência dos Três Mares, anuncia a Casa Branca, o presidente Trump “se concentrará no desenvolvimento da infraestrutura e na segurasnça energética, evidenciando entre outras coisas as primeiras remessas de LNG (gás natural liquefeito) americano à Polonia imediatamente nos próximos meses”. Um terminal no porto báltico de Swinoujscie, que custou cerca de um bilhão de dólares, permitirà à Polônia importar LNG estadunidense numa quantidade de 5 bilhões de metros cúbicos anuais, que podem subir a 7,5 bilhões.

Através deste e de outros terminais, entre os quais um que foi projetado na Croácia, o gás proveniente dos EUA ou de outros países por meio de empresas estadunidenses, será distribuído com gasodutos a toda a “região dos três mares”.

O objetivo do plano é claro: golpear a Rússia, fazendo cair a sua exportação de gás para a Europa (obietivo que só pode ser realizado se a exportação do gás estadunidense, mais caro que o russo, for incentivada com fortes subvenções estatais); ligar ainda mais aos EUA a Europa central e oriental não apenas militarmente mas também economicamente, em concorrência com a Alemanha e outras potências europeias; criar dentro da Europa uma macrorregião (a dos três mares) com soberania limitada, diretamente sob influência dos EUA, que de fato fracionaria a União Europeia e se alargaria à Ucrânia e outros países.

O mapa político da Europa está para ser mudado de novo, mas a bandeira estrelada e listrada continua fincada.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo em italiano : Sui Tre mari dell’Europa bandiera Usa

Fonte : ilmanifesto.info

Artigo publicado em Il Manifesto.

Tradução de José Reinaldo Carvalho para Resistência

Manlio Dinucci é geógrafo e jornalista

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage Sunday, effective from July 1, with the monthly minimum wage increasing from 65,021 to 97,531 bolivars.

The salary increase will include public workers, teachers, doctors, firefighters, police officers and military personnel, among others. The president also raised the salary scales of other public administration workers in addition to an increase in food allowances, which went from 15 to 17 Tax Units.

Through the National Constituent Assembly, the president will also propose a law that allows for the regulation of prices and the application of legal action against speculators, stressing the importance of the fight against speculation and the need for legislation to control prices to put an end to the right-wing economic war that the Venezuelan people suffer.

At a commemorative event for the 14th anniversary of the Robinson Mission — Venezuela’s literacy and primary education program — Maduro said,

“We need the constituent assembly to protect and create useful and stable jobs for the country and the Venezuelan family.”

Maduro also urged people to be on alert for more coup plots.

“I want to alert the people because the conditions are very different, the revolution then was on the defensive without social policies. Today is very different because since Commandante (Hugo) Chavez founded the missions, the people have had to defend them. Unlike in 2002, when the people defended a dream, today we defend a reality: the great missions,” he added.

In a live radio and television broadcast, Maduro recalled that during the economic subversion of 2002, the opposition not only hid all essential products but also sabotaged the distribution of domestic gas, among other types of gas.

I actually forced myself to watch the documentary The White Helmets, which is available on Netflix. It is 40 minutes long, is of high quality cinematographically speaking, and tells a very convincing tale that was promoted as “the story of real-life heroes and impossible hope.”

It is overall a very ., so much so that it has won numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Documentary Short this year and the White Helmets themselves were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. More to the point, however, is the undeniable fact that the documentary has helped shape the public understanding of what is going on in Syria, delivering a Manichean tale that depicts the “rebels” as always good and Bashar al-Assad and his government as un-redeemably evil.

It has been reliably reported that celebrities like George Clooney, Justin Timberlake and Hillary Clinton really like the White Helmets documentary and have promoted it with the understanding that it represents the truth about Syria, but it is, of course, not the whole story. The film, which was made by the White Helmets themselves without any external verification of what it depicts, portrays the group as “heroic,” an “impartial, life-saving rescue organization” of first responders. Excluded from the scenes of heroism under fire is the White Helmets’ relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of “rebel” opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operate in rebel held territory, which enables them to shape the narrative both regarding who they are and what is occurring on the ground. Because of increasing awareness of the back story, there is now a growing movement to petition the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to revoke the Oscar based on the complete and deliberate misrepresentation of what the White Helmets are all about.

Exploiting their access to the western media, the White Helmets have de facto become a major source of “eyewitness” news regarding what has been going on in those many parts of Syria where European and American journalists are quite rightly afraid to go. It is all part of a broader largely successful “rebel” effort to manufacture fake news that depicts the Damascus government as engaging in war crimes directed against civilians.

The White Helmets have certainly saved some lives under dangerous circumstances but they have also exaggerated their humanitarian role as they travel to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them. Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what is filmed to conform to their selected narrative. They have consistently promoted tales of government atrocities against civilians to encourage outside military intervention in Syria and bring about regime change in Damascus. The White Helmets were, for example, the propagators of the totally false but propagandistically effective claims regarding the government use of so-called “barrel bombs” against civilians.

The White Helmets were a largely foreign creation that came into prominence in the aftermath of the unrest in Syria that developed as a result of the Arab Spring in 2012. They are currently largely funded by a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) as well as governments, including Britain and some European Union member states. The United States has directly provided $23 million through the USAID (US Agency for International Development) as of 2016 and almost certainly considerably more indirectly. Max Blumenthal has explored in some detail the various funding resources and relationships that the organization draws on, mostly in Europe and the United States.

Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has described how the White Helmets are not actually trained to do the complicated rescue work that they depict in their self-made videos, which have established their reputation by ostensibly showing them in action inside Syria, rescuing civilians from bombed out structures, and providing life-saving emergency medical care. As an expert in Hazardous Materials handling with New York Task Force 2 USAR team, Ritter reports that

“these videos represent de facto evidence of dangerous incompetence or, worse, fraud… The bread and butter of the White Helmet’s self-made reputation is the rescue of a victim—usually a small child—from beneath a pile of rubble, usually heavy reinforced concrete… The techniques used by the White Helmets are not only technically wrong, but dangerous to anyone who might actually be trapped… In my opinion, the videos are pure theater, either staged to impress an unwitting audience, or actually conducted with total disregard for the wellbeing of any real victims.”

Ritter also cites the lack of training in hazardous chemicals, best observed in the videos provided by the White Helmets regarding their activity at Khan Sheikhun on April 4^th. He notes

“As was the case with their ‘rescues’ of victims in collapsed structures, I believe the rescue efforts of the White Helmets at Khan Sheikhun were a theatrical performance designed to impress the ignorant and ill-informed… Through their actions…the White Helmets were able to breathe life into the overall narrative of a chemical weapons attack, distracting from the fact that no actual weapon existed….”

But perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities, to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group has an excellent working relationship with a number of jihadi affiliates and is regarded by them as fellow “mujahideen” and “soldiers of the revolution.”

So by all means let’s organize to revoke the White Helmets’ Oscar due to misrepresentation and fraud. It might even serve as a wake-up call to George Clooney and his fellow Hollywood snowflakes. But the bigger take-away from the tale of the White Helmets would appear to be how it is an unfortunate repeat of the bumbling by a gullible U.S. government that has wrecked the Middle East while making Americans poorer and less safe.

A group of “moderates,” in this case their propagandists, is supported with weapons and money to overthrow a government with which Washington has no real quarrel but it turns out the moderates are really extremists. If they succeed in changing regime in Damascus, that is when the real nightmare will begin for minorities within Syria and for the entire region, including both Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of which seem intent on bringing Bashar al-Assad down. And the truly unfortunate fact is that the Israelis and Saudis apparently have convinced an ignorant Donald Trump that that is the way to go so the situation in Syria will only get worse and, unless there is a course correction, Washington will again richly deserve most of the blame.

Featured image from The Unz Review

In recognition of the U.S. Independence Day the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea launched some remarkable fireworks.

DPRK State TV confirmed a successful launch and the basic data others had measured (video).

The announcement comes nearly exactly six month after President Donald Trump issued this prediction.

That forecast turned out to be false.

Jonathan McDowell @planet4589 – 7:02 AM – 4 Jul 2017
Recap: North Korea launches Hwasong-14 ICBM at 0040 UTC Jul 4 from Kusong’s Panghyon Airport 933 km eastward to Sea of Japan, 2802 km apogee

More official pictures of the launch were published. The North Korean head of state Kim Jong-Un attended.

North Korea fired the missile at a steep trajectory reaching a very high apogee. This limited the range of the test launch. The flight time of 37 minutes was extremely long. Recalculating the data into a more normal trajectory the maximum flight range of the missile is estimated to be 6,700 kilometers with a normal payload. Launched from North Korea it could cover Alaska but not the lower 49 states. With a light warhead, possibly a small nuclear load, the range could be up to 10,000 kilometer and cover at least the north-western states.

Trump will be rightfully blamed for the braggadocious formulation of his tweet. But one can not blame him for not stopping North Korea’s missile development. A war on North Korea would also destroy South Korea and have implications far beyond the peninsula. Only the end of U.S. military maneuvering around Korea and the perspective of a full peace agreement could have achieved a stop of North Korea’s development. The U.S. Congress would support neither. Trump tried to press China to reign in North Korea, But China has no reasonable way to do that. One could just as easy blame former U.S. presidents – Clinton for breaking his agreements with North Korea, Bush for his general hostility and Obama for his do-nothing excuse of “strategic patience”.

North Korea has very good reasons to perceive the U.S. as vicious enemy and to never trust any U.S. statement or agreement. It needs nuclear weapons for its self-defense. As it can not trust any of its neighbors it needs strategic independence. That has now been achieved.

The U.S., and Trump personally, has been just been “shown the finger” by a small underdeveloped state. One wonders how Trump and the official U.S. it will react to that.

All images in this article are from Moon of Alabama.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

On July 4, Putin and Xi Jinping concluded two days of informal and formal talks in Moscow – above all else, affirming the vitally important relationship between themselves and their countries.

Putin called Xi’s visit “a key event in terms of building bilateral relations” now and henceforth, adding:

“Economic issues have always been in the center of our attention, but we are not only dealing with this, we are taking steps to unite our efforts on the international arena, the security area, and fight against modern threats and challenges.”

China is Russia’s largest trading partner. Considerable potential remains to be developed. Each nation contributes significantly to the economic health of the other.

“President Putin and I attach great significance to trade and economic cooperation between China and Russia and (their) development,” said Xi.

“Trade and economic ties are far-reaching and offer enormous potential in practical cooperation between our countries. China maintained its status as Russia’s largest trading partner for the seventh year in a row.”

“Trade turnover amounted to $69.53 billion and grew by 2.2% compared to 2015.” During the first five months of 2017, it “surged 26%. Expectations are that trade turnover may be over $80 billion” by year-end.

A China/Russia investment fund is involved in the Far East of both countries. A Russian company floated Panda Bonds on China’s exchange for its ambitious One Belt One Road initiative.

Both leaders urge a denuclearized Korean peninsula, a freeze in Pyongyang’s ballistic missile program, provocative US-led regional war games halted, resolving issues with Pyongyang diplomatically, belligerence ruled out, respecting the DPRK’s sovereignty, and removal of so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile systems in South Korea.

They’re more about targeting Russia and China than the DPRK. Unrelated to their stated goals, they gravely threaten the strategic security of neighboring countries. Their presence undermines regional peace and stability.

Trump and neocons infesting Washington threaten humanity. Sino/Russia ties represent a vital counterforce to the unprecedented menace they pose.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

On July 4, Putin and Xi Jinping concluded two days of informal and formal talks in Moscow – above all else, affirming the vitally important relationship between themselves and their countries.

Putin called Xi’s visit “a key event in terms of building bilateral relations” now and henceforth, adding:

“Economic issues have always been in the center of our attention, but we are not only dealing with this, we are taking steps to unite our efforts on the international arena, the security area, and fight against modern threats and challenges.”

China is Russia’s largest trading partner. Considerable potential remains to be developed. Each nation contributes significantly to the economic health of the other.

“President Putin and I attach great significance to trade and economic cooperation between China and Russia and (their) development,” said Xi.

“Trade and economic ties are far-reaching and offer enormous potential in practical cooperation between our countries. China maintained its status as Russia’s largest trading partner for the seventh year in a row.”

“Trade turnover amounted to $69.53 billion and grew by 2.2% compared to 2015.” During the first five months of 2017, it “surged 26%. Expectations are that trade turnover may be over $80 billion” by year-end.

A China/Russia investment fund is involved in the Far East of both countries. A Russian company floated Panda Bonds on China’s exchange for its ambitious One Belt One Road initiative.

Both leaders urge a denuclearized Korean peninsula, a freeze in Pyongyang’s ballistic missile program, provocative US-led regional war games halted, resolving issues with Pyongyang diplomatically, belligerence ruled out, respecting the DPRK’s sovereignty, and removal of so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile systems in South Korea.

They’re more about targeting Russia and China than the DPRK. Unrelated to their stated goals, they gravely threaten the strategic security of neighboring countries. Their presence undermines regional peace and stability.

Trump and neocons infesting Washington threaten humanity. Sino/Russia ties represent a vital counterforce to the unprecedented menace they pose.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

Tens of thousands have been killed over 40 years of bloodletting between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and tragically there seems to be no end in sight. In May 2016, President Erdogan stated that military operations against the PKK will continue until “the very last rebel is killed.” What is alarming about Erdogan’s statement is that he still believes he can solve the conflict through brutal force. Erdogan does not understand that he cannot wish the Kurdish problem away—a problem that will continue to haunt him and the country for countless more decades unless a solution is found that respects their cultural and fundamental human rights.

There are 15 million Kurds, representing nearly 18 percent of the Turkish population. Like their Turkish counterparts they are largely Sunnis, but their cultural distinction trumps their religious beliefs. They are fighting to preserve their ethnic identity, fearing that otherwise their culture and language would fade away and die.

The history of the conflict is long, complicated, and painful. In the 1970s Abdullah Öcalan raised awareness about the Kurds’ plight, which was followed by crackdowns by successive Turkish governments, leading to the formation of the PKK and further escalation of violence over the years.

Under intensifying domestic and EU pressure, Erdogan agreed to restart negotiations in late 2012, which collapsed by July 2015. In the wake of the failed military coup in July 2016, Erdogan moved to crush the PKK and Kurdish aspirations, even though to date there has been absolutely no proven connection between the Kurds and the coup plot. His rampage against the Kurds continued despite the US’ and EU’s call to stop his heavy-handed approach that grossly violated their basic human rights. Only recently, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir that around 14,000 Kurdish teachers will be suspended, falsely accusing them of having ties with the PKK.

What made matters worse was Erdogan’s authorization to launch a fierce attack on PKK forces who were embedded in a civilian Kurdish-majority community in the southeast. A UN report documented human rights violations including killings, disappearances, torture, destruction of houses, and prevention of access to medical care, while leaving the area in ruins.

Between July 2015 and December 2016, more than 2,000 were killed, including 1,200 civilians and 800 members of Turkish security forces, and more than 500,000 were displaced. Hundreds of members of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) were put behind bars on charges of collaborating with the PKK. Erdogan continues to refuse to negotiate, insisting that the PKK is a terrorist organization and must be brought to heel by military force.

Certainly, what is wrong or right matters, but what we must face here is a reality that neither side can ignore and expect to find a solution that can exclusively meet the requirements of either side. After more than four decades of bloody conflict that has claimed the lives of so many, and the destruction from which hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Turks have suffered, when will Erdogan come to his senses that the solution lies only in peace negotiations?

What is worse is that the international community, especially the EU and the US, has been publicly silent about Erdogan’s transgressions and ruthlessness. They often cite Turkey’s role in fighting ISIS, its NATO membership, and its geostrategic importance as an energy hub as the reason behind their unwillingness to pressure him to change direction.

That said, and regardless of the challenges that Turkey faces—including the fight against ISIS, a deteriorating economy, domestic upheaval aggravated by the failed coup, and the pressure of hosting three million refugees—nothing justifies Erdogan’s outrageous purges.

His utter disregard for human rights by jailing scores of Kurdish journalists, arresting a dozen Kurdish parliamentarians, employing collective punishment tactics against Kurdish towns and villages, and attacking Syrian Kurds whom he accuses of providing aid to the PKK, only further heightens tensions throughout the country, invites terrorism, and leads to increasing social and political polarization.

As a believer who preaches the gospel of Islamic values, he vilifies and violates these values and conveniently justifies the indiscriminate killing of innocent Kurdish men, women, and children, and still shamelessly claims self-piety.

Erdogan’s demagoguery is second nature to him. As President Kennedy said in the 1960,

“Voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality… [delude themselves that] strength is but a matter of slogans.”

Erdogan claims that Turkey is a full-fledged democracy, but he is dismantling the last vestiges of the country’s democratic governance that he himself promoted during his first and second terms in power.

He claims that the Kurds have equal political and human rights like any other Turkish citizen, and points out the fact that there are 110 Kurdish parliamentarians. True, they are equal under the Turkish constitution, but in practice are systematically discriminated against in government appointments, business contracts, job opportunities, and education.

Erdogan simply does not grasp the fact that even if the Kurds were treated equally in every walk of life, what they want is in line with and even complimentary to the framework of Turkish democracy. They are not seeking a state of their own, but simply to live freely as loyal Turkish citizens and enjoy their customs, folk music and dance, and way of life consistent with their long and rich cultural heritage.

The irony is that while Erdogan wants the Kurds to be loyal citizens, he never understood that their allegiance to the country depends on the way they are treated, the rights they are granted, and the civility they are accorded. To demand from the Kurds unconditional loyalty while robbing them of their basic rights only further alienates them and forces them to seek, fight, and die for autonomous rule if not independence, which he is bent on preventing.

I do not support, and I condemn any individual or group who uses brutal force for political or social gains regardless of its source, motivation, ideology, or belief. Erdogan and the PKK are equally guilty, and must pause and think where all this killing and destruction will lead to, when at the end of the day they will still have to coexist and face one another.

When violent extremism is on the rise, when human rights are fair game, when terrorism is surging, when ethnic violent conflicts are escalating, and when thousands of men, women, and children are slaughtered, leaders of conscience must not add fuel to the raging regional fires that have been consuming us unmercifully and relentlessly.

The PKK must not play into the hands of dictators like Erdogan by killing innocent civilians; as long as they are viewed as a terrorist group, they will not receive any support from influential civic organizations and the Turkish population in general.

To shed the stigma of being a terrorist organization, the PKK must declare a unilateral ceasefire and express its readiness to enter peace negotiations unconditionally, which would increase public pressure on Erdogan to resume peace talks.

Absent American leadership, the EU must assume upon itself the responsibility to use its enormous political and economic leverage to stop Erdogan from pursuing ruthless methods and policies not only against the Kurds, but his own fellow Turkish citizens. Erdogan’s nationalist zealotry is dividing the country and could potentially lead to widespread violence among the Turks, while further intensifying regional instability.

Mr. Erdogan, wake up. You will not succeed in killing every PKK fighter—not only because of the nature of guerilla warfare, but primarily because of the Kurds’ determination to preserve their rich cultural heritage, language, and fundamental human rights. They will remain resolute and will outlast you, regardless of how much pain and suffering they endure under your tyrannical governance.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
[email protected] Web: www.alonben-meir.com

Nearly three weeks after the Grenfell Tower inferno, anger is growing in the surrounding Lancaster West housing estate in North Kensington. The callous treatment of survivors by council authorities and the Conservative government, the state’s cover-up of the death toll and its failure to press criminal charges against those responsible are fuelling protest and indignation.

Locals told a World Socialist Web Site reporting team that hundreds of residents in the low-rise council houses next to Grenfell Tower are still without gas and hot water. The boilers that supplied their homes with gas were located in the basement of Grenfell Tower and destroyed by the fire. Despite this, many residents—including at least one from the burnt-out tower block—are still being charged rent.

Hundreds have been forced to rely on makeshift and temporary accommodation in nearby hotels, churches and community centres and many were left homeless for days.

Mo At-Tu, 18, lives on Grenfell Walk, directly opposite Grenfell Tower. He lost five members of his family in the fire—his aunt Fouza; his uncle Abdul; and their three children, Yasin, 21; Nurhuda, 15; and Mehdi, eight.

His friend, Jake Patten, 20, lives on Clarendon Road, just around the corner from the Tower.

Mo explained,

“I was living with my cousins on Grenfell Walk. When the fire happened, we got evacuated by the police and they didn’t tell us where to go. They just left us out there on the street. I was sleeping out on the streets for about six or seven days, with another 10-15 residents. Westway [Leisure Centre] wouldn’t let us in, because apparently, there was a waiting list, and it was pretty upsetting. How can you be outside, just getting little mattresses supplied by St Clements Church, which obviously helped, but not that much. On Thursday, I saw [Prime Minister] Theresa May myself, and she just walked straight past me and every single other resident when we were shouting her name.”

Hundreds of residents of the low-rise blocks were in the same situation, being moved from hotel to hotel.

“The next day, you’re out on the streets and they’re not able to sort any accommodation out for you.’’

Jake added,

“The government has done nothing. No one has been around. My sister-in-law, she lives in the block here. She’s been staying at my mum’s house for nearly three weeks because there’s no hot water, no electricity and no gas—and there’s 500-600 homes, just in this little area alone.”

Jake was in Grenfell Tower 15 minutes before the fire started and was called by a friend who told him the Tower was on fire. He filmed the blaze on his phone and the footage was later aired on BBC’s Panorama. The video shows how fast the flames spread up from level four, with firefighters attempting to douse the flames from the narrow street-level approach to the Tower, with just a single hose.

Asked if the fire brigade had easy access to the building, Jake said.

“No! I’m telling you, this area was all good before they built the school, the swimming pool. If you look at the film Kidulthood [shot in West London and released in 2006] you are going to see what this area used to be like. As soon as they did that up, that’s when it became a death trap. Where the school is, there were three football pitches and there was a big car park to fit a hundred cars. That’s enough to get 50 fire engines in.”

Mo agreed:

“There was no easy access for them to get in.”

Asked if they saw fire engines having difficulty getting in, Jake said,

“Yes. Very difficult. They were recording it themselves on their mobile phones on their way here to put out the fire. They were on the way here and filming it and they were literally shocked. They were saying there is no way we are going to be able to put this out in time. It was spreading so quick. Within 15 minutes the building was all alight. Within 25 minutes it had spread all around. I couldn’t sleep for three days because of the fire… because I was angry and shocked.”

“The real word is not getting out there in the media. The truth hasn’t got out there yet. These people don’t want to realise the answers yet.” Jake added, “The BBC is telling nonsense.”

Mo said,

“They don’t want to release the answers yet. They want to make the area go quiet. In the first couple of days [after the fire] this area used to be packed. Now it’s going quiet bit by bit.”

On Theresa May’s visit in the days after the fire, in which she refused to meet survivors or local residents, Mo said,

“What actually hurt me is that you’re the prime minister yourself and you paid us no respect. On the first days she came, she just literally walked past everyone. She only went to speak to the police and fire brigade. She realised she made a mistake and she came back the next day, but it was too late for that, so obviously, everyone was trying to chase her down the road. She’s all for the rich,” said Jake.

Asked why he thought the government was not releasing the true number of fatalities, Mo said,

“To be honest I think they can’t release the number as it looks like it’s worse than a terrorist attack and it looks like someone just got a bomb and dropped it there. Because even if someone did try to do a terrorist attack, nothing like this would happen. It wouldn’t destroy everyone. This has basically destroyed everyone at a certain time when everyone was at home, asleep.”

Both Mo and Jake agreed that the council was operating a policy of social cleansing to force working class people out of the borough.

Jake said,

“They are moving everyone to the north like Leeds, Bristol, Manchester.” Mo agreed: “They’ve been planning this for more than 10 years. They’ve been planning to get the poor people out of the area. And the other thing I don’t get is that they put the old people on the top floors and the young people on the bottom floors. People who are disabled in a wheelchair on the top floor! Think about it. If there is a fire how are they going to escape?”

While WSWS reporters spoke with Jake and Mo, a woman angered by the lies over the death toll, Linda Maidment, came over. She exclaimed,

“It’s disgusting! Why don’t they report it?”

Pointing at Grenfell Tower, she said,

“There’s 600 people living in that block. Six hundred, and they’ve only reported 80 fatalities. We’re not stupid. We know how many people were in that block. We saw them all on fire and they are not doing anything for them.”

Linda lives in Avondale Park Road. She explained her son and husband watched the fire develop for six minutes before the fire engines arrived, because they closed the nearby Ladbroke Grove fire station. “Where are the fire engines for the people?

“There are people who died in there and they are not telling us who they are. Where are all these people—the 600 people? And they are saying it’s 80 people [dead]. It’s absolutely rubbish and they can’t possibly think that the people around here believe that there are only 80 people.”

Asked why she thought the government was lying, she said,

“Because there would be a riot. Because of everything that is going on.”

All images in this article are from TruePublica.

Overview

The political turmoil in the United Kingdom following Prime Minister Theresa May’s re-election with a reduced, precarious majority and the implications for the UK’s negotiations to leave the European Union have overshadowed Britain’s other foreign policy concerns. Among other repercussions, it casts doubt on the way in which the UK will mark the centennial of the Balfour Declaration later this year. As is well known, the fateful letter, signed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on November 2, 1917, promised British support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, completely disregarding the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people who lived there.

Prior to the elections May had described the declaration as “one of the most important letters in history” during a speech to a Conservative Friends of Israel meeting, and said it was “an anniversary we will be marking with pride.” May’s comments suggested that the British Embassy in Tel Aviv would host a large celebration to honor the occasion. In addition, President Reuven Rivlin invited the royal family for an official state visit to coincide with the anniversary. Though the Queen is unlikely to travel, Prince Charles may attend.

Now it is an open question as to whether May – or indeed the Conservative Party – can stay in power. This provides the Palestinians with an opportune moment to regroup in their efforts, hitherto unsuccessful, to use the Balfour centennial to begin to address Britain’s century of ill-treatment toward the Palestinians. ¹

This commentary traces Britain’s treatment of Palestine and the Palestinians since the time of Balfour’s letter, demonstrating a largely consistent pro-Israel stance over the decades. It then considers the consequences that Brexit and the recent elections may have for the Palestinian cause, and concludes with recommendations regarding the kind of apology Palestinians should demand of Britain in light of these past and current events.

One Hundred Years of Bias

Theresa May’s fawning to the Conservative Friends of Israel came as no surprise. Britain’s involvement in Israel and Palestine has consisted of an almost unwavering support for the Zionist project since its colonial inception. Despite claims of a commitment to peace, Britain has shown that it is Israel’s ally first and foremost. This can be seen in its continued arms trade with Israel, despite resultant complicity in Israeli war crimes. Britain has also failed to sanction Israel for its continued settlement building in the West Bank, which has doubled since the Oslo Accords, with over half a million settlers in areas that would constitute a Palestinian state. Moreover, the British government continues to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), the global nonviolent grassroots campaign for Palestinian rights. ²

A century ago, Christian Zionist ideology, which sought to facilitate the return of Jews to the Holy Land to fulfill a biblical prophesy, guided Britain’s political elite. This cadre included the prime minister, Lloyd George, who led the coalition government. Just over a month after the Balfour Declaration, General Edmund Allenby took Jerusalem from the Ottoman forces, marking the beginning of British colonial rule in Palestine. Though this rule ended at the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 and the forcible displacement of and denial of return to the majority of the Palestinian population, British interference in Palestine would continue thanks to Britain’s unwavering commitment to Zionism.

Zionism found support in the British Labour Party, which was sympathetic to a movement it saw as a socialist Jewish liberation project. It is thus unsurprising that the party publicly supported the Balfour Declaration. However, after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights, more critical voices began to emerge. This coincided with international recognition of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel’s shift to the right.

1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British (Source: Hanini / Wikimedia Commons)

Under Tony Blair’s rebranded “New Labour,” the party renewed its support for Israel. In fact, Israel’s most ardent supporter in recent British politics is Blair, who from the very beginning of his political career in the early 1980s, was a member of the pro-Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). During his premiership he visited Israel several times, and   among his closest advisors and biggest fundraisers.

Under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, human rights activists brought attention to Britain’s relations and particularly its military trade with Israel during Israel’s 2008-2009 Cast Lead offensive in Gaza. A 2014 parliamentary report confirmed that the Israeli army used weapons from the UK in its attacks, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Yet calls from activists demanding that the UK cease its arms trade with Israel have come to naught, and relations between Britain and Israel continue unabated.

The current Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has a different stance on Palestine. He has been hounded for his decades of support for the Palestinian cause, particularly for his affiliation with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Critics dubbed him a Hamas supporter and an anti-Semite. After his election, the party endured an anti-Semitism scandal that saw the suspension of several party members, including the Jewish activist Jackie Walker, who in a Facebook post referred to the African slave trade as a holocaust. Corbyn subsequently launched an inquiry headed by the barrister and human rights advocate Shami Chakrabarti. The inquiry published its report in June of 2016 and confirmed that despite these claims, Labour is not overrun by anti-Semitism. Many saw the scandal as part of an ongoing attempt by pro-Israel and pro-Blair figures to weaken and undermine Corbyn. Overall, it demonstrates how serious it is for a leading British political figure to take a pro-Palestine stance. The Conservative Party particularly encouraged the attacks on Corbyn.

British Foreign Policy on Palestine: What’s Next?

In the wake of May’s failed attempt to expand her majority, it is now unclear what form Brexit will take. But if Britain leaves the European Union as planned in 2019, some argue that Palestinians may benefit. Ilan Pappe, for example, suggests that Brexit could be an “opportune moment to advance Palestinian freedom” in that Israel would lose its advocate in the EU. As such, EU countries could put forward more initiatives to back Palestinian rights without being blocked by a staunchly pro-Israel Britain. Two months before the Brexit referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron used this argument to support his anti-Brexit stance while addressing a Jewish charity:

“When Europe is discussing its attitude toward Israel, do you want Britain – Israel’s greatest friend – in there opposing boycotts, opposing the campaign for divestment and sanctions, or do you want us outside the room, powerless to affect the discussion that takes place?”

By promising to fight against BDS within the EU, Cameron catered to pro-Israel groups whose fears of Palestinian activism increased in 2015 after the European Commission issued its interpretive notice that products made in Israeli settlements bound for the EU be labeled as such. The UK’s stance against BDS stands in contrast to European countries such as Sweden, Ireland, and Holland, which have affirmed BDS as a legal example of free political expression.

While an EU without Britain might be able to operate more freely in its support for Palestinians (Israel can still count on strong support from central and Eastern European countries to block initiatives for a just peace), the inverse is also true: Israel’s “greatest friend” would have fewer checks on it from European countries that support Palestinian rights. This could allow Britain to impose draconian restrictions on those in the country who support the Palestinian cause, particularly those affiliated with BDS.

The Kind of Apology Palestinians Need and Deserve

The Balfour Declaration has shaped the Palestinian experience. The signing over of Palestine to a European settler colonial enterprise and the disregard for the rights of the indigenous people is the essence of the Palestinian condition. This disregard continues today, manifested in the charade of the “peace process,” which allows Israel to continue its expropriation of Palestinian land and expansion of a Jewish state while simultaneously professing its pursuit of “peace.”

British officials have a common refrain when they discuss Balfour and the 1948 Nakba: They often state that Palestinians should stop talking about the past and instead focus on the future. This call for the dismissal of past events as bygones is a tactic often invoked by those in positions of power in peace process discourses around the world, particularly in contexts of colonialism and settler colonialism. However, when the past infiltrates the present, as is the case for every Palestinian, whether in Ramallah, Haifa, the Bourj Al Barajneh refugee camp in Lebanon, or the wider diaspora, the demand to forget is impossible.

Palestinians rightly desire a British apology for the letter that helped birth this ongoing oppression. However, initiatives in pursuit of this goal must be wary of several pitfalls. First, using a discourse, as some Palestinians do, that stresses that the Balfour Declaration has not fulfilled its obligations to the Palestinian people is problematic, as it suggests that the document holds legitimacy. The declaration was a colonial document that gave legitimacy to a settler colonial project and as such, Palestinians should not use it to further their struggle or to claim their human rights.

Second, while an apology is important, it must not come as an empty, symbolic gesture, as has happened in many other colonial contexts. Indeed, scholars have written about the limitations of settler state apologies, arguing that in most cases these apologies neutralize the historical narrative while simultaneously ignoring the ongoing oppressive relationship between the state and the indigenous people. ³ An apology must therefore come with the recognition that the past is not in the past, that the settler colonial project is ongoing, and that Britain continues to be complicit in the suffering of the Palestinians through its diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.

As such, any apology campaign must also demand British policy changes that would sanction Israel and hold it to account for its international human rights violations. In this way, the Balfour Declaration would not be historicized as a thing of the past, but would be revealed as a document whose legacy continues to have drastic and devastating consequences for the Palestinian people. Until the British government reconsiders its largely default position and makes a commitment to real policy change, it will continue to propagate the destructive and repressive decision it made a century ago.

Notes

1. These efforts include a plan to sue the British government for the declaration announced by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki at an Arab League summit last year, and a petition demanding an apology for the letter, to which the government responded by largely re-stating its position. 

2. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign won a major legal victory against one such attempt to demonize BDS in court on June 22, 2017. 

3. Jeff Corntassel and Cindy Holder, “Who’s Sorry Now? Government Apologies, Truth Commissions, and Indigenous Self-determination in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, and Peru,” Human Rights Review 9 (4): 465-489.

Featured image from Al Shakaba

In 1932, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein conducted a correspondence subsequently published under the title ‘Why War?’ See ‘Why War: Einstein and Freud’s Little-Known Correspondence on Violence, Peace, and Human Nature’. In many ways, this dialogue between two giants of the 20^th century is symbolic of the effort made by many humans to understand that perplexing and incredibly damaging feature of human experience: the institution of war.

In a recent article, the founder of peace research, Professor Johan Galtung, reminded us of the legacy of Freud and Einstein in this regard and reflected on their dialogue, noting some shortcomings including their failure to ‘unpack conflict’. See ‘Freud-Einstein on Peace’.

Of course, Freud and Einstein weren’t the first to consider the question ‘Why War?’ and their dialogue was preceded by a long sequence of individuals and even some organizations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and War Resisters’ International, who sought to understand, prevent and/or halt particular wars, or even to understand and end the institution itself, as exemplified by the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 outlawing war. Moreover, given the failure of earlier initiatives, many individuals and organizations since Freud and Einstein have set out to understand, prevent and/or halt wars and these efforts have taken divergent forms.

Notable among these, Mohandas K. Gandhi was concerned to develop a mode of action to deal with many manifestations of violence and he dramatically developed, and shared, an understanding of how to apply nonviolence, which he labeled satyagraha (holding firmly to the truth),  in overcoming large-scale violence and exploitation. He successfully applied his strategic understanding of nonviolence to the Indian independence struggle against British colonial rule. But while Gandhi was happy to acknowledge his debt to those who had gone before, he was not shy in proclaiming the importance of finding new ways forward:

‘If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors.’

My own journey to understand human violence was caused by the death of my two uncles, Bob and Tom, in World War II, ten years before I was born. My childhood in the 1950s and 1960s is dotted with memories of my uncles, stimulated through such events as attending memorial services at the Shrine of Remembrance where their war service was outlined. See ‘My Brothers’ on my father’s website.

But by the early 1960s, courtesy of newspaper articles and photos, I had become aware of exploitation and starvation in Africa and elsewhere, and as a young university student in the early 1970s I was reading literature about environmental destruction. It wasn’t just war that was problematic; violence took many other forms too.

‘Why are human beings violent?’ I kept asking. Because I thought that this question must have been answered somewhere, I kept reading, including the work of Freud and Karl Marx as an undergraduate, but also the thoughts of many other scholars, such as Frantz Fanon, as well as anarchists, feminists and those writing from other perspectives which offered explanations of violence, whether direct, structural or otherwise.

By the early 1980s I had started to read Gandhi and I had begun to understand nonviolence, as Gandhi practised and explained it, with a depth that seemed to elude the activists I knew and even the scholars in the field that I read.

Separately from this, I was starting to gain a sense that the human mind was not something that could be understood well by viewing it primarily as an organ of thinking and that much of the literature and certainly most of the practitioners in the field of psychology and related fields, especially psychiatry, had failed to understand the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind and the implications of this for dealing with conflict and violence. In this sense, it was clear to me, few had understood, let alone been able to develop, Freud’s legacy. This is because the fundamental problem is about feeling (and, in relation to violence, particularly suppressed fear and anger). Let me explain why.

Violence is something that is usually identified as physical: it involves actions like hitting, punching and using weapons such as a gun. This is one of the types of violence, and probably the one now most often lamented, that is inflicted on indigenous peoples, women and people of colour, among others.

Separately from this, Gandhi also identified exploitation as violence and Galtung elaborated this concept with his notion of ‘structural violence’. Other forms of violence have been identified and they take many forms such as financial violence, cultural violence and ecological violence. But violence can be more subtle than any of these and, hence, much less visible. I have given two of these forms of violence the labels ‘invisible violence’ and ‘utterly invisible violence’. Tragically, ‘invisible violence’ and ‘utterly invisible violence’ are inflicted on us mercilessly from the day we are born. And, as a result, we are all terrorized.

So what are ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence?

In essence, ‘invisible’ violence is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themselves thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioural dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, parents, teachers and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioural responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioural outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behaviour that is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviours, including many that are violent towards themselves, others and/or the Earth.

Moreover, this emotional (or psychological) damage will lead to a unique combination of violent behaviours in each case. And some of these individuals will gravitate to working in one of the social roles that specifically requires, or justifies, the use of ‘legitimized violence’, such as the violence carried out by police, prosecuting lawyers, magistrates and judges, as well as that inflicted by the military. Others, of course, will operate outside the realm of legitimized violence and be labelled as ‘criminals’.

But, you might be wondering, what is the link between what happens in childhood and war?

The answer is simply that perpetrators of violence, and those who collaborate with them, are created during childhood. And these perpetrators and collaborators are all terrified, self-hating and powerless – for much greater detail of the precise psychological characteristics of perpetrators of violence and their collaborators, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – and they go on to perform all of the key roles in creating, maintaining, equipping, staffing and legitimizing the institutions of war and in conducting it.

If it weren’t for the violence to which we are all mercilessly subjected throughout childhood, there would be no interest in violence or war of any kind. If we were raised without violence, we would be naturally peaceful and cooperative, content to spend our time seeking to achieve our own unique evolutionary potential and to nurture the journey of others as well as life itself, rather than just become another cog in someone else’s military (or other bureaucratic or corporate) machine.

If any of the above resonates with you, then I invite you to make ‘My Promise to Children’.

In addition, if further reducing the violence in our world appeals to you, then you are also welcome to consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’, signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ and/or considering using the strategic framework on one or the other of these two websites for your campaign to end violence or war in one context or another: Nonviolent Campaign Strategy and Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

A child is not born to make war. But if you inflict enough violence on a child, and destroy their capacity to become their own unique and powerful self, they will be terrorised into perceiving violence and war as their society wants them to be perceived. And violence and war, and the institutions that maintain them, will flourish.

If we want to end war, we must halt the adult war against children as a priority.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’. His email address is [email protected] and his website is here.

Featured image from Pinterest

When Justin Trudeau stated that, “Canada is back,” it could have been interpreted as just another one of those hollow phrases which he is so good at. With the unveiling of Canada’s new defence policy on June 7th, we now understand better what he meant.

As part of this new policy, the Trudeau government has announced massive increases in the defence budget, particularly the purchase of fighter jets and battleships. This indicates, above all, an important shift in Canadian foreign policy; in particular, the need for a more independent role in relation to the United States, as well as increased participation in imperialist wars. Turbulence on the international scene is causing the cards to be re-shuffled, and the Canadian bourgeoisie intends to take advantage of this to advance its interests

Feminist fighter jets

Apart from vague words and attempts to embellish imperialist violence (they even speak of “progressive, feminist foreign policy”), the document titled Strong, Secure, Engaged, contains important budgetary commitments. These commitments amount to increases in defence spending of $62.3 billion over the next 20 years. The defence budget will thus be increased to $18.9 billion in 2016-2017 and will reach a peak of 33.4 billion in 2027-2028 – an increase of 75%. This money serves not only to improve existing equipment and infrastructure, but also to purchase new weapons and increase the size of the armed forces.

The new policy aims to increase the size of the Canadian armed forces by 3,500 soldiers, 1,500 reservists and 605 new special operations personnel. In the field of military intelligence, 120 new posts will be created, most notably with the aim of improving Canada’s presence in cyberspace: “a purely defensive cyber posture is no longer sufficient” states the document.

Above all, the biggest part of the pie will go to the purchase of arms. A total of 88 fighter jets and surface combat vehicles will be purchased for the cost of 19 and 60 billion dollars respectively. The Liberals are more than doubling the arms spending contained in the Conservatives’ previous plan, which already included $9 billion for aircraft purchases and $26 billion for combat vessels. These purchases serve to double the proportion of the defence budget allocated to major equipment purchases from last year, increasing from 10.84 per cent in 2016-17 to 19.77 per cent in 2017-2018.

While Trudeau calls himself feminist and progressive, he spends billions of dollars taken from the pockets of Canadian workers on imperialist wars. Many people will be shocked by this militarist turn on the part of Trudeau, but this is not that surprising. This is not happening because Trudeau is a bloodthirsty warmonger but because Canada is a capitalist country with imperialist interests around the world. Trudeau must act to defend these interests, whether he calls himself a ‘feminist’ or not.

When workers demand higher wages, or better pensions or money for healthcare and education, we are told that the cupboards are bare. However, when it comes to buying fighter jets, battleships and hiring more soldiers to invade and bomb foreign lands and protect imperialist interests around the world, the money is easily found. This exposes point blank the hollow posturing of Trudeau who uses his progressive language to distract people from his real agenda. Only through fighting capitalism, can we fight against war and militarism and use these huge sums of money for the common good instead of destruction. A socialist program would spend these billions on healthcare, education, public transit, and modern infrastructure for native reserves.

Canadian militarism

This increase in military spending can be better understood in the light of the recent speech delivered in the House of Commons by Foreign Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland the day before. She announced a more active and independent role for Canada on the world stage, including on the military front, due to the upheavals suffered by the world “liberal, democratic” order. She began by outlining growing global instability, most notably with, “Russian military adventurism and expansionism,” the failure of western powers in Syria as well as in Ukraine, and the rise of China. Following this, Freeland, using veiled but harsh language, condemned the powerlessness of the United States to preserve the “postwar order” – in other words, the domination of the big western powers over half of the planet. Therefore, “For Canada that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order.” The message sent by the minister is clear: the Canadian bourgeoisie can no longer rely on the United States to protect its imperialist interests. They need to look for other options.

The minister has thus announced a more active role for the Canadian military. It is with this in mind that we must understand the massive spending increases in the defence budget.

“Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power,” she said, “To rely solely on the U.S. security umbrella would make us a client state.”

Canada needs to have a “capable, professional and robust military” if it wants to have a say and not simply leave “the Great Powers to settle among themselves.” She announced that Canada would seek a two-year mandate on the UN Security Council. She also highlighted Canada’s military deployment in Latvia this summer. This NATO mission essentially consists of placing troops on the Russian border to act as cannon fodder, in order to justify Canadian intervention in the event of a Russian invasion of Europe.

The new defence policy aims to allow the Canadian armed forces to simultaneously lead, “two sustained deployments of approximately 500-1500 personnel in two different theatres of operation, including one as a lead nation,” in addition to several other smaller deployments of a shorter duration.

It must be noted that the desire of the Canadian bourgeoisie to make greater use of military force is nothing new. Previous defence policies in 2005 under the Liberals and 2008 under the Conservatives already increased the defense budget by 35% from 2005-2011. This allowed them to increase the size of the Canadian armed forces by several thousand as well as carry out major equipment upgrades. This tendency towards militarism was only halted by the economic crisis and the deficit reduction policy adopted by Harper as a result.

Canada is far from being the ”Care Bear” peacekeeping nation described in nationalist mythology. Although it is a middle power and it is far from spending as much on its armed forces as the United States, Canada remains an imperialist nation. It is one of the main imperialist forces in the mining industry in Africa and defends the interests of Canadian multinationals there whose abuses were revealed in the book Noir Canada. Canada played an important role in the coup d’etat against Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 2004. Canada also participated in military missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Rebels lynch police informant after taking city of Gonaives, Feb. 22 2004 (Source: Pierre Evans/LATINPHOTO.org via Albion Monitor)

The decline of the United States

Since the second world war, Canadian foreign policy has been intrinsically linked with that of its neighbour. More than 70% of Canada’s trade is with the United States as well as over 42% of foreign direct investment. Canada’s largest area of investment in the US is finance and insurance, totalling $131-billion in 2014. Canadian imperialism’s connection with US banks has meant that Canada gained a secondary dividend from the profits of US imperialism. The biggest catastrophe for the Canadian bourgeoisie would be anything that cuts off this flow of trade and dividends. From this position came a foreign policy closely aligned to that of the United States.

But the Canadian bourgeoisie cannot fail to notice the weakness of its traditional ally. The weakness of the United States is actually not a military one (no nation comes close to rivaling their military might), but a political one. The Trump presidency has reverted to a policy of US isolationism with the attempt to “Make America Great” at the expense of everyone else. The relative decline of American imperialism is marked by growing tensions between the big Western allied powers in NATO as they tend to become more and more independent from the United States. Donald Trump taking power has only added fuel to the fire. The recent NATO summit revealed the extent of the transatlantic divergences. At the meeting in Brussels, Trump sent a clear message to his allies.

Going against tradition during his speech at this meeting, Trump would not confirm his commitment to Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, central to NATO, which deals with the principle of collective defense between allies. The American president rather severely criticized his allies for failing to meet the minimum of 2% of GDP spent on defence required by NATO. The message to the European countries – continue in this direction and you will no longer be able to count on our protection – has only exacerbated the tensions. The declaration of German chancellor Angela Merkel upon exiting the summit demonstrated the breadth of the gulf which separates these great powers:

“[Europe must] really take our fate into our own hands…The times in which we could rely fully on others — they are somewhat over” she said.

As Ivo H. Daalder of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs noted in the New York Times,

 “This seems to be the end of an era, one in which the United States led and Europe followed”.

The New York Times pointed out:

“With the United States less willing to intervene overseas, Germany is becoming an increasingly dominant power in a partnership with France.”

The rise of tensions between Europe and the United States is only the continuation of the slow decline of the American empire which has accelerated in recent years. The resounding failure of the adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan was followed by the intervention of Russia in Georgia in 2008, against which the US was powerless. Since then, the humiliations have accumulated. The coup d’etat in Ukraine should have been a relatively simple operation but it ended in the annexation of Crimea by Russia. In Syria, the inability of American imperialism to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and the subsequent passage of Turkey over to the side of Russia demonstrated that the giant has feet of clay. The recent hostility coming from the Philippines towards the United States – and the new orientation of the archipelago towards China – is another sign of the weakness of the American empire.

Canada’s new direction is part of the same determination recently expressed by Europe to no longer count on the United States. David Bercuson, of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, pointed out in a letter in the Globe and Mail:

“When Canada first joined the NORAD agreement back in 1959, we contributed about a third of the assets of the bi-national command…Today that contribution has slipped to under one-sixth. Everything else is done by the United States. We contribute about as little as we can get away with. Why? Because we take U.S. protection for granted. What if we can’t? What if Mr. Trump comes up with some new, ridiculous notion that if we don’t do more, the U.S. won’t cover the slack.”

A new commercial direction

But the clearest message from Chrystia Freeland’s speech in the House of Commons was that Canada now intends to set its “own clear and sovereign course.” While reaffirming Canada’s current commitments to the United States, Freeland indicated that they wanted to increase Canada’s participation in international organizations, in particular to bring Canada closer to Europe. To this end, she insisted on the importance of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), “our historic trade agreement with the European Union.” Freeland also stated that CETA was just the beginning and that Canada would intensify its efforts to establish new trade agreements.

The American ruling class is in crisis and is fighting over the way to get out of the impasse. The arrival of Trump in the presidency, the abandonment of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the rise of protectionist tendencies are an expression of this crisis. It has therefore become more and more risky for Canada to put all its eggs in the U.S. basket. The privileged trade relationship with the world’s leading power, which has benefited Canada until recently, is turning into a burden as the United States threatens to drag its northern neighbor down with them. The result is that Canada finds itself stuck with its main trading partner in a serious political crisis, headed by a fanatic willing to sabotage trade agreements at the foundation of the relationship between the two allies. The renegotiation of NAFTA and the reopening of the softwood lumber dispute can only confirm to the Canadian bourgeoisie that it is time to expand its trade horizons. CETA is particularly important in this respect, since it provides the opportunity for the Canadian bourgeoisie to forge more trade links with the second biggest market in the world.

The last few years have also seen Canada try to establish trade relations with Asian countries. Following the sabotage of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) by Trump, Justin Trudeau spoke on the phone with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe to establish a bilateral trade agreement. At the last Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in May, trade ministers from the other 11 countries of the deceased TPP, including Canada, agreed to discuss a revised version of the trade agreement, without the United States. In addition, other initiatives indicate an increased focus on Asia, including the establishment in Jakarta in 2016 of an embassy dedicated specifically to Canada’s relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which would pave the way for Canada’s inclusion in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the ASEAN countries and China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. There are also the beginnings of exploratory discussions with China with the aim of forming a bilateral agreement.

Economic crisis, political crisis

Of course, it would be absurd to think that the Canadian bourgeoisie could conduct a foreign policy that is truly independent of the United States, especially with regards to the military. Canada has no military bases abroad. However, in a situation of economic and diplomatic turbulence and tension, and considering the presence of the unpredictable Trump in the White House, it becomes risky for the Canadian ruling class to depend too much on the United States. Conflicts within NATO, instability and wars in the Middle East, changes in historic allegiances, and tensions in the China Sea all point to storms on the horizon, of which the Canadian bourgeoisie is well aware.

The Canadian ruling class therefore has every interest in developing its military capabilities in order to defend its national interests in the coming conflicts that will inevitably emerge. Global instability means that the next few years will see other regional conflicts in which the great powers will re-divide the spoils of imperialism. The growing powerlessness of the United States offers an opportunity for Canadian imperialism to advance its pieces on the chessboard with greater independence.

Although Canada is not in a position to truly compete militarily with the big players, the ruling class hopes to use its military to both advance its own imperialist interests, most notably in Africa, where they are already present in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, and as a bargaining chip with the United States. Considering the upcoming NAFTA renegotiation, as well as negotiations in the softwood lumber industry and the Boeing-Bombardier dispute, we can expect that Canadian imperialism will propose to participate in or conduct a military adventure with the United States, in exchange for compromise in the ongoing trade negotiations. Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said recently that he is considering sending new troops to Afghanistan.

The uptick of the world economy has not been able to resolve the deep contradictions that undermine capitalism. Protectionist impulses demonstrate an attempt by the various national bourgeoisies to protect their domestic market, while the countless shenanigans and closed door negotiations to establish trade agreements indicate that they are playing a tug-of-war, trying to get a bigger share of the world market. This inevitably results in increased tensions and turbulence. Military force is sometimes the only way to solve these tensions. As Clausewitz put it, “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” To which Lenin added, “Politics is concentrated economics.”

Featured image from In Defence of Marxism

An inspiring story of a man who, driven by his conscience and sense of honor, took a stand that created unexpected consequences. His actions not only transformed his life, but impacted an entire nation. Complementing Brian’s story are profiles of other veterans and peace advocates who share the common belief that dissent and standing up for peace in America is more courageous than going to war.

This important film also features: Daniel Ellsberg, Ron Kovic, Roy Bourgeois, Medea Benjamin, Blase Bonpane, Martin Sheen, Alice Walker, Amy Goodman, Ramsey Clark, Camila Mejia, Phil Donahue, Col. Ann Wright, David Hartsough, David Swanson, Chelsea Manning, Charlie Clements, Charlie Liteky, Duncan Murphy, George Mizo, Jack Ryan, Bruce Gagnon, Daniel Ortega, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Lindley & Ed Ellis.

Music by Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, Creedence Clearwater, Barry McGuire & Malcolm Payne.

Vietnam veteran S. Brian Willson paid the price for peace as he was run over and nearly killed by a military train during a non-violent protest at The Concord Naval Weapons Station in California on September 1st, 1987. The train was carrying weapons that were to be shipped to Central America and used to kill innocent civilians in Nicaragua, El Salvador & Guatemala. Since then, Brian has not stopped calling attention to the US government’s defiance of international law through waging endless illegal wars.”PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE” exposes the truth about the United States’ addiction to war and the lies it perpetuates in order to wage ongoing violence. Brian’s story is very moving, inspirational and educational.

Click here for the full trailer.

“PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE: The Story of S. Brian Willson” produced & directed by Bo Boudart, narrated by Peter Coyote, with Associate Producer Frank Dorrel, is now on AMAZON.COM. You can rent the film for $5.00 or buy it for $20.00.

S. Brian Willson has written several incisive articles for Global Research, read them here.

UNCA media briefing with experts and parliamentarians on the ban treaty’s potential ramifications, the UN High Level Conference and related measures to eliminate nuclear weapons.

WHAT? A media briefing with nuclear experts, parliamentarians and a former UK naval commander, designed to help journalists cover the treaty to ban nuclear weapons, which non-nuclear weapons states are negotiating at the UN now.

Negotiations are on track, and will very likely achieve a treaty on or before July 7. That’s historic, but what will it mean practically? What impact could it have on nuclear weapons states and their allies who are not participating in the treaty, and what will it do to reduce nuclear arsenals and defuse nuclear threats?

That’s an urgent question, since growing conflict between Russia and NATO/European Union and increased tensions in North East Asia and South Asia have made nuclear risks more acute than any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The ban treaty will strengthen the global norm against using nuclear weapons, but additional measures and forums, including the 2018 UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, are necessary to move the nuclear armed States to phase out nuclear deterrence and negotiate comprehensive nuclear disarmament, say experts who will brief UNCA members and answer questions.

At the briefing presenters will release a new Parliamentary Action Plan for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World developed by Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (PNND) in consultation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). It outlines parliamentary actions that can implement the ban treaty in non-nuclear countries, and advance nuclear threat reduction and disarmament in nuclear-armed countries and allied countries, based primarily on the nuclear disarmament resolution adopted by the 130th Assembly of the IPU.

The Action Plan highlights opportunities provided by the 2018 UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament (UNHLC), which follows successful, impactful UNHLCs on sustainable development (2015), climate change (2016), refugees and migrants (2016) and oceans (2017).

Briefers will also discuss nuclear weapons divestment actions for which the ban treaty could provide additional impetus. Parliamentary and civil society action has already moved some countries (Norway, New Zealand and Lichtenstein) to curtail investments from their public funds in corporations that make nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Some banks have been pressured to do the same.

The adoption of the ban treaty could lead to a global nuclear weapons divestment campaign, challenging the power of the nuclear weapons corporations which are influential and effective at lobbying for and extracting huge nuclear weapons budgets from their governments.

WHO? Experts presenting at the UNCA briefing will include:

• Commander Rob Green — British Royal Navy (Retired), co-director of the Peace Foundation’s Disarmament & Security Centre. He flew nuclear strike aircraft and was in charge of round-the-clock intelligence support for Polaris. He now advocates nuclear disarmament, using his military experience to promote alternative thinking about security.
• Bill Kidd – Member of the Scottish Parliament. Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.
• Alyn Ware — Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Winner of the Right Livelihood Award and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Jonathan Granoff — President Global Security Institute, UN representative for the Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates

WHEN & WHERE? The press briefing will take place on Wednesday, July 5 at 11:00am in the UNCA press room, United Nations Correspondents Association Meeting Room, Secretariat Building, New York, Third Floor, Room S-310. Side interviews are available on request. For more information, please contact Stephen Kent.

Featured image from International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Global Research strives for peace, and we have but one mandate: to share timely, independent and vital information to readers across the globe. We act as a global platform to let the voices of dissent, protest, and expert witnesses and academics be heard and disseminated internationally.

We need to stand together to continuously question politics, false statements, and the suppression of independent thought.

Stronger together: your donations are crucial to independent, comprehensive news reporting in the ongoing battle against media disinformation. (click image above to donate)

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Fake News? US-backed Forces Blast Through 8th Century Syrian Wall to Fight ISIS

By Karin Brothers, July 05, 2017

The US-backed forces, fronted by the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)”, appeared to come to ISIS’s rescue. On the night of July 3rd, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), claimed that SDF had “found a way” through the historic wall at “the most heavily-fortified portion of Raqqa”; two 25 meter-long breaches had been blasted through it.

Thinking About Waiting. Time is All We Have…

By Edward Curtin, July 05, 2017

For why else are they waiting without raising their voices in protest against U.S. nuclear first strike policy and the trillion dollar modernization of American nuclear weapons announced by Barack Obama and continuing under Donald Trump?

Jamaica: Marcus Garvey’s Economic Philosophy Has a “Capitalism Problem”

By Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya, July 04, 2017

We cannot use Garvey’s message of liberation to break “mental and physical chains of oppression” without acknowledging and discussing the fact that Marcus Garvey’s philosophy has a capitalism problem.

U.S. Intends to Use Confrontation Between Turkey and Kurds in Northern Syria

By Firas Samuri, July 04, 2017

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that the U.S. would continue to finance and provide weapons to Syrian Kurdish fighters after the operation in Raqqa, Syria.

Reflections on Canada at 150

By Jim Miles, July 04, 2017

Yes the ruling Liberals under Justin Trudeau includes a select group of diverse people, but they are essentially token representatives concealing larger problems.

Featured image from SURYAA

The Russian Military Police may be deployed in buffer zones in Syria, Russia’s chief negotiator at the Astana talks and the president’s envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said on Tuesday when the fifth round of talks started in the Kazakh capital. According to him, the issue, including the status of de-escalation control forces, has not yet been finally agreed. The sides will begin setting up security zones within two-three weeks after signing relevant documents as well as establish a joint coordination center to monitor security in the zones. However, the Russian official pointed out that there are still difficulties in “establishing the lines of contact.”

Syrian government forces have liberated the Tulul Hayl area and advanced near Ramamin in the province of Homs. The Syrian army and its allies, backed up by the Russian Aerospace Forces, are preparing for a major push toward the ISIS-held town of Sukhna at the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor road.

At the same time, Russian and Syrian warplanes expanded number of airstrikes against ISIS along the Deir Ezzor road and in the area of the provincial capital. According to pro-government sources, the airstrikes inflicted major damage to terrorists, including destruction of at least 5 vehicles, but no videos or photos were provided.

Reconciliation negotiations between the government and militants have started in Jayroud area in Rif Dimashq province. The goal of negotiations is to disarm local armed factions and to allow people that want to settle their status to do this. Those who want to leave the area will be able to do this towards Idlib. However, no agreement has been reached.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed up by the US-led coalition, have opened a gap in the ISIS defense in Old Raqqah and captured the Palace of the Maidens and the Abdul Malik School. An intense fighting is ongoing in the area. If the SDF is able to make significant progress in Old Raqqah, it will increase chances for liberation of Raqqah in the near future. The old part of the city is a key ISIS defense point.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

Allegations and accusations without credible evidence are baseless.

The OPCW’s report on Syria was deeply flawed. Alleged evidence of CW use in Kahn Sheikhoun was fake, not legitimate – provided by anti-Syria sources, including the al-Qaeda-connected White Helmets.

The agency’s so-called fact-finding mission conducted its work in absentia – never visiting Kahn Sheikhoun, not getting a firsthand, on-the-scene account of events from reliable sources.

Its methodology was polar opposite, entirely lacking credibility. No peer-review vetting would accept its report as reliable.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry justifiably blasted it, calling conclusions drawn “fabricated” and “misleading” – suppressing hard truths, producing a narrative Washington and other anti-Syria rogue states demanded, likely “written and prepared in advance by certain circles that are hostile to Syria,” according to its Foreign Ministry.

Sources the OPCW cited are connected to US and UK intelligence. No honest, reliable, transparent, credible investigation was conducted.

Syria eliminated its CWs. No evidence suggests any remain. US-supported terrorists use them often, each time falsely blamed on Damascus.

The shameful OPCW report was

“a fabricated and contrived narrative that has no credibility and cannot be accepted in any manner, because it is removed from logic, and is concocted by a twisted imagination that only thinks about weaving conspiracies and about ways to raise the collapsing morale of terrorist groups following the achievements made by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies on the Syrian ground,” Syria’s Foreign Ministry stressed.

Believe its statement. It’s true. At no time during over six years of US imperial aggression did Syria use CWs against anyone. No evidence proves otherwise.

US-supported terrorists used them numerous times against defenseless civilians and government forces.

Trump ignored US intelligence, saying no evidence suggests use of toxic sarin or any other CW in Kahn Sheikhoun on April 4. Yet he ordered the terror-bombing of Syria’s Shayrat airbase anyway – a lawless, belligerent, outrageous act of aggression.

According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, an unnamed Trump administration security advisor said

“(w)e KNOW that there was no chemical attack.”

“The Syrians struck a weapons cache (a legitimate military target) and there was collateral damage. That’s it. They did not conduct any sort of a chemical attack.”

“There has been a hidden agenda all along. This is about trying to ultimately go after Iran…Russia is not going to take this lying down.”

What’s going on “is a big f…ing deal…POTUS” is playing with fire. Russia isn’t likely to respond militarily “unless (its) own assets (and personnel) are threatened.”

And what did Trump’s cruise missile attack accomplish? An unnamed US military source said

“(w)e didn’t hit a damn thing…We basically gave them a very expensive fireworks display.”

“(I)t didn’t really matter whether we elected Clinton of Trump.” Russia is justifiably furious.

On June 29, the State Department commented on the dubious OPCW report – disgracefully saying it “confirm(ed) that sarin or a sarin-like chemical weapon was used on April 4, 2017 in Kahn Sheikhoun, Syria.”

The OPCW’s investigation was “impartial and highly professional…”

“The facts reflect a despicable and highly dangerous record of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime. Through its continued use of chemical weapons and its failure to destroy its chemical weapons program in its entirety, Syria continues to fail to comply with its legal obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and UN Security Council Resolution 2118.”

Fact: The OPCW’s report drew conclusions without credible evidence. It was disgracefully biased, unreliable, dubious and fabricated.

Fact: No evidence shows any CW attack occurred. The incident was staged to lay blame on Syria for what never happened.

Fact: No Syrian CWs exist. They were all eliminated. None were ever used by its military throughout over six years of war. No credible evidence proves otherwise.

Fact: No Syrian Chemical Weapons Convention and Security Council Resolution 2118 violations occurred.

The State Department’s press release turned truth on its head. The Trump administration continues aggression Obama began on a sovereign independent state.

Its objective is destroying Syrian sovereignty, replacing Assad with a pro-Western puppet, isolating Iran, and pursuing regime change against its legitimate government.

That’s how imperialism works – waging endless wars of aggression for wealth and unchallenged dominance, the human cost of no consequence.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

Don Giovanni (some of us know him as Don Juan) was born in the fire of temptation and vitality. Tirso de Molina gave him shape in The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, added more coherent limbs.  

Then came the critics, with Søren Kirkegaard thinking he had the opera’s number, the sense, and the totality of Mozart’s creation which premiered in Prague in October, 1787. 

In his Journals and Papers, comprising 7 volumes, Kirkegaard outlines his exhilarative torment, making his most famous stab in “The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical-Erotic”. His character “A” deems the opera harmonious and balanced in terms of content and form, a case of “mutual permeation”. “B” is the moralist, Judge Vilhelm, who stresses the ethical aspect. 

The longer one engages this figure, the more one sees it disappear, vanish into a bundle of emotions and desires. It is the swamp of the conman, a confection of feeling that necessitates the importance of desire. “Don Giovanni, as many have noticed, is a non-person; a bundle of drives without apparent psychological motivation.” The character in Mozart’s opera insists on this theme: “Who I am you shall never know.” 

The theme here, as Kirkegaard explains, is musical. (Could it be anything else?) “Mozart’s good fortune is that he has found a subject matter that is intrinsically altogether musical, and if any other composer were to compete with Mozart, there would be nothing for him to do except compose Don Giovanni all over again.”  

In it is an unmistakable genius, but it has also drawn out the snark as being “a notoriously scrappy piece of dramatic construction.” Certainly, the final scene is uneven, and even unnecessary.   

But complaining about operatic dramatic construction is much like lamenting the fat register of deep fried chips.  The issue with Don Giovanni is aesthetic front loading and display. 

Kirkegaard seems tormented by the protagonist. “In certain respects, I can say of Don Juan what Elvira says to him:

‘You murderer of my happiness – for to tell the truth it is this piece which affected me so diabolically that I can never forget it; it was this piece which drove me, like Elvira, out of the cloisters into the quiet night.” 

Don Giovanni remains the well of torment to draw upon, the libertine whose moral (and amoral) engagements tease biblical morality and invite retribution. Why that should has less to do with the desert religions of monotheism as the plain attempt, by humans, to seek retribution.  

His punishment, in the sense of any rake’s damnation, is cheap vengeance that seeks the superstitious formulae while regretting it. It results in delicious dramatic resolution. Sloppy dramatic casting is mended by astonishing operatic rescue. The devil, in every true sense, does have the best tunes. 

The issue of love is fundamental, though it has a Christian backdrop to it, a lament about over eager eroticism and good will (all will, in fact), the sense that one’s number is up if the wick is dipped too often. Beware desire, and take heed of the moralist who sorts out the ledger. 

Kirkegaard has to resort the theme of salvation and suffering, but notes that Don Juan is indulgently, and infuriatingly, aesthetic. Christ, ever a nuisance, played on the holiness of the Word, the inner truth. And how dull it was. 

A man who deigns to love so much, even in rough, take-it-all fashion, to spread his wings and seed amongst the petticoats and the cunning shadow between the thighs, is doomed to a one-way ticket, all expenses paid, by the Stone Statue who seeks revenge. In the way Christ forces a personal issue of dying for sins on the Cross, the statue insists that Don Giovanni has no real choice as a consequence of his behaviour. The ghost, to use the well fashioned Kirkegaard description, “no longer speaks, he passes judgment.”  

The libertine resists for as long as he can, beating off the dining advances of the Commendatore, though fiery hell yawns and pulls with inexorable force. The women (Elvira, Anna and Zerlina), animate, furnish and supply the basis of the opera, but demonstrate inconstancy. The Devil has the best tunes, but each woman here shall her tailored tune from the remorseless rake.  

Figures such as Don Ottavio and Masetto have purposeful arias but little effect in hunting down the libertine, and must be left disappointed despite anger and desperation. Everything Don Giovanni touches is immeasurably transformed and is quite literally unforgettable. 

This particular performance, simulcast on June 30 in the stadium of the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco Opera, revealed how sharp and witty Don Giovanni, rendered in superb fashion by Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, can be. The jousting and play with Leporello, his servant played by Erik Anstine, is a delight. This is music as all, and fine drama to boot. As Friedrich Nietzsche observed with life tickling reality,

“without music, life would be a mistake.”

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Featured image from Wikipedia

Together with lashing out at the anchors of Morning Joe, slamming “garbage” fake news CNN, and suggesting that Greta Van Susteren was fired because she “refused to go along with Trump hate”, President Trump on Saturday blasted the 29 (and rising) states refusing to comply with his election fraud commission’s request for voter data to a commission he created to investigate alleged voter fraud, asking “what are they trying to hide?“

Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

Last Wednesday, Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity – which was formed to investigate his claim that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election – sent a letter to all 50 states asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of social security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories. The request was for information publicly available under each state’s laws. And while some states are providing part of this information, many states immediately raised concerns and voiced their opposition to providing the information, and as of Saturday morning, more than half of all US states – 29 at last count – had refused to comply with the commission’s requests, saying they are unnecessary and violated privacy, according to statements from election officials and media reports.

“This commission was formed to try to find basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation,” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told Reuters previously in an interview.

Among the states refusing to comply with Trump’s request are both Democratic and Republican states.

Echoing Trump’s skepticism, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chair of the commission, had a similar response to the president on states refusing to comply.

“Frankly, if a state like Kentucky or California won’t provide available information, one has to ask the question, ‘Why not?’” Kobach said Friday during an interview with NPR. “I mean, what are they trying to hide if they don’t want a presidential advisory commission to study their state voter rolls?” he asked.

Several states replied to that question, as the Hill reports.

“There’s not enough bourbon here in Kentucky to make this request seem sensible,” Kentucky’s Democratic Secretary of State, Alison Lundergan Grimes, said on MSNBC. “Not on my watch are we going to be releasing sensitive information that relate to the privacy of individuals.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, also said he won’t turn over any information to the panel, telling members of the voter fraud commission to, “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, took a similar line, calling the Trump investigation an attempt to suppress the vote.

You can add PA to that list. We will not participate in this systematic effort to suppress the vote. https://t.co/EHnY2NJI5R

— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) June 30, 2017

Election officials from both sides of the aisle expressed skepticism about Trump’s claim of voter fraud:

“In Ohio, we pride ourselves on being a state where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat,” said Jon Husted, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state. “Voter fraud happens, it’s rare and when it happens we hold people accountable. I believe that as the Commission does its work, it will find the same about our state.”

Several states, among them California and New York, said participating in the attempt to compile voter data would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud,” according to Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla. On the other hand, by refusing to participate in the first place, they force Trump himself to question what it is they are hiding.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, both Democrats, said their states would not provide confidential information.

“New York refuses to perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We will not be complying with this request.”

Even Kansas, where Kobach is secretary of state, will not share voters’ Social Security information with the commission.

“In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available,” Kobach told the Kansas City Star. “Every state receives the same letter, but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available.”

Officials in Connecticut, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington also expressed skepticism and said their states would withhold nonpublic information. North Carolina will provide all but the last four digits of Social Security numbers, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers.

Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea (D) took her criticism further, saying Kobach was unfit to lead the commission, given his record of strict voting laws and a recent court fine for failing to produce documents related to a lawsuit over voting laws.

* * *

Trump has made such allegations of voter fraud before, including claiming that that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

Kobach says he does not know if such claims are true but the commission is investigating them. He is an advocate of strict voter identification laws, which he says are necessary to combat fraud. Opponents say those laws hinder access to the polls primarily for elderly and minority voters.

Meanwhile, the Hill reported that officials have raised questions about the commission’s discretion obtaining the confidential documents.

“State statutes permit the [Wisconsin commission] to share confidential information in limited circumstances with law enforcement agencies or agencies of other states,” Haas said. “The presidential commission does not appear to qualify under either of these categories.”

Trump appointed another voter identification supporter, Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky, to the commission Thursday. Von Spakovsky, one of Kobach’s mentors, has long advocated for stricter voter access rules.

As of noon on Saturday, the states who have refused the Commission’s demands are: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

“I am waiting for my case to come up
And I am waiting
For a rebirth of wonder
And I am waiting for someone
To really discover America
And wail” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Some sullen sage once said that life is what we do while we wait for death. It’s not the kind of wise-guy wisdom I would try to refute, especially since I was one of those precocious kids who saw the skull at his first Pablum banquet. He seemed to be waiting for me even then, and I can only assume he’s waiting still, though, like the dead writer William Saroyan, I can enjoy thinking that an exception will be made in my case.

But wishful thinking aside, there’s no question but that Mr. Death knocks at everyone’s door sooner or later, better never than late, to coin a phrase in reverse and revert to wishful thinking. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny the fact that he’s coming and everybody’s waiting for his knock. Unless, that is, you are in league with those technologists out in Silicon Valley, such as Ray Kurzweil, who are going to employ technology to knock death dead and live forever. But even Ray is waiting for what he calls the Singularity to kick in (he recently announced a date change from 2045 to 2029) – the day when humans and computers tie the knot and the former get uploaded into the latter and death disappears as humans live in the “cloud.” In the meantime, Ray swallows a few hundred pills a day to keep chugging along until he reaches the promised land. These artificial intelligence folks seem to feel they’re smarter than Plato, Jesus, Buddha, Shakespeare, and other idiots we used to think wise, but I think George Carlin meant to include the Artificial Intelligence crowd when he said,

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

Of course, rather than knock, Mr. Death just might blow the house down. Although it’s a little impersonal and there will be no introductions, a lot of people are waiting for that. Like the early Christians who were eagerly awaiting the imminent end of the world, most people today are unconsciously waiting for a nuclear holocaust – to be seen on the evening news, of course, or maybe announced by a tweet or an instant message as they scroll their little crystal rectangles to see what’s going down. Everyone will be, that’s what going down. The general consensus seems to be it will solve all problems, which is a brilliant insight in a Humpty Dumpty sort of brillig way in a looking-glass/ technological world where our most amazing technology is the nuclear bomb, rather recently joined in conjugal bliss with the computer that will save us from death.

In any case, what’s there to do? Keep waiting, that’s all, seems to be the popular approach. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think people were looking forward to meeting Mr. Death. For why else are they waiting without raising their voices in protest against U.S. nuclear first strike policy and the trillion dollar modernization of American nuclear weapons announced by Barack Obama and continuing under Donald Trump? Why do they wait in silent fear and trembling as the United States military and CIA maraud across the planet killing and maiming to profit their capitalistic masters? Why do they wait with mouths sealed shut for the neoconservatives in the Trump administration to ignite war with Russia and WW III?

That’s the big picture, so to speak, the big waiting game. Waiting in the smaller sense can also kill you, or keep you going (but don’t ask where), depending on your point of view. There are endless variations to this waiting game with the smaller joined to the larger in a powerful synergy that freezes people in their tracks.

This sense of waiting for something terrible to happen permeates the air these days. The media and government pump out incendiary reports in an endless stream of things to fear in an effort to immobilize the population. Neurotic fears have long been known to be most effective tools of social control. When these can be manufactured in great and continuous numbers, they have a cumulative effect of creating growing social anxiety, which is the case today. It is no accident that the dramatic increase in drug usage to quell anxiety, nervous stress, and depression has occurred concurrently with the mainstream media’s propagandistic outpouring of fear-mongering and the drug industries relentless advertising campaigns for their psychotropicfixes.

The news is constantly suggesting that some “apocalyptic” event is just around the corner. Like: there will be strong thunderstorms at 4:30 PM, or at least a 58.5% chance, so wear your helmet and take shelter. Like: a woman in South Dakota ate a cherry that had a double pit that caused her to almost choke to death, so be very careful eating cherries; “almost” might be “really” in your case. Like: the sun is very hot this year, so never step outside unless you are sprayed with chemical sunscreen from head to toe. Like: there is a bug or bird or some critter that has recently been detected that is carrying a disease so deadly that if it flies by you within 11 ½ inches you will die a slow tortuous death in four days, five at the most. All kinds of neurotic fears are endlessly broadcast to keep folks on their anxiety-ridden toes while the real dangers go unmentioned and bubble under the surface. This is the corporate media’s job, of course, one they have perfected.

Wherever you go in the United States, you can see on people’s faces the strain of waiting for some absurd fear to become a reality. You can almost feel them holding their breaths in nervous anticipation. It keeps people occupied.

Lewis Lapham says it eloquently in the recent issue of Lapham’s Quarterly:

In my capacity as human being, I’ve met with most if not all of the descriptives handed down from antiquity, but in my profession as journalist, I’ve encountered primarily the distinctions between what Sigmund Freud in 1917 defines as real fear and neurotic fear, the former a rational and comprehensible response to the perception of clear and present danger, the latter “free-floating,” anxious expectation attachable to any something or nothing that catches the eye or the ear, floats the shadow on a wall or a wind in the trees. Real fear invites action, the decision to flee or fight dependent upon “our feeling of power over the outer world”; expectant fear induces states of paralysis, interprets every coincidence as evil omen, prophesizes the most terrible of possibilities, ascribes “a dreadful meaning to all uncertainty.

Ironically, it was Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, the great red, white, and blue American propagandist,who took his uncle’s insights and used them in the service of corporate and government control. By inducing irrational fears of a foreign enemy – i.e. the Soviet Union in the 1950s – as he urged President Eisenhower, you could distract people from the real threat, which was their own government and the CIA with whom Bernays worked overthrowing the democratically elected of Guatemala, among other evil projects. Fake fears large and small could paralyze the average person and create loyalty to the state and capitalism. They would wait for their protectors to tell them what to do. The present Russia bashing and fear-mongering is straight from Bernays’ play book.

Is it any wonder that Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot was such a popular play in the 1950s? Godot never came then and he’s not coming now, but waiting is still the name of the game. The character Vladimir sums up the waiting game:

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?

Wasn’t it Camus who said you can encounter the absurd on every street corner? While I would agree, I would add that you can also run into Mr. Death while waiting on a street corner. If you are a waiter, meeting him can change your life.

An absurdly strange thing once happened to me. I was waiting on a street corner in New York City, the southwest corner of 5^th Ave. and West 47^th St. to be precise, on an eerily silent Sunday morning. The streets were deserted as I waited for The Gotham Book Mart to open. Biding my time and bored while waiting, I walked into the entrance way of a diamond store and was looking in the window at the jewelry that I had zero interest in. Diagonally through the window I could see a face staring at me from the street. Was I hallucinating? A pale, death mask visage, milky white hair, staring and staring, as if immobilized. Chilled by this ghostly apparition as cold as the glittering diamonds, I walked along the glass window to the street, but the face followed along the front window glass, staring at me the whole time. A moving white reflective shadow taunting me. I thought: Mr. Death has found me waiting, so I better get moving and get the hell out of here. But when I got to the street and turned right, the pasty face met me face-to-face, staring through strange round translucent glasses – and then he lifted a tiny device and shot me. “What are you doing?” I shouted as I stumbled back. “I didn’t give you permission to shoot me.”

Shrinking into his whiteness, Andy Warhol turned and meekly walked away, carrying my image with him in his tiny spy camera. No doubt it still exists somewhere since Warhol was a compulsive hoarder of anything he ever touched, his talismans against death, his greatest fear, his obsession.

Poor Andy, he was so afraid of death he shot everything he could see, including me. Time was his enemy, and everything he did was aimed at killing time. He was a stop-time artist, waiting, lurking to get the perfect shot, to sneak up on his own death and shoot it dead. But he never ran into his own death since it was nowhere to be seen, and it snuck up on him when he least expected it.

But he saw me, and I have to thank him for sneaking up and spooking me as I waited that morning for what I didn’t know. He played Mr. Death for me, and made me realize that waiting is a waste of time. And time is all we have, so don’t wait too long.

Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely.  He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/

ISIS’s last holdout in Syria is in Raqqa; its forces have been backed into an ancient wall that surrounds the old city of Raqqa on three sides. The Rafiqah Wall, first constructed in the 8th century by the Abbasid dynasty, is reported to be over 12 feet high, over a meter thick and stretches over 3 miles around the old city. 

While the wall had been described as an important fortification for ISIS, the advancement of Syrian troops made the wall a trap that could have allowed the ISIS fighters to be completely wiped out. According to a July 3, 2017 TIME article(1), ISIS fighters had taken positions there “to defend the city [sic]” and planted explosive devices at what the article described as “breaks in the wall.” Under the circumstances, the point to planting explosive devices in the wall would only have been to create escape routes. It was apparent from the next day’s news, however, that the “breaks in the wall” were not adequate for escape.

The US-backed forces, fronted by the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)”, appeared to come to ISIS’s rescue. On the night of July 3rd, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), claimed that SDF had “found a way” through the historic wall at “the most heavily-fortified portion of Raqqa”; two 25 meter-long breaches had been blasted through it. Laughably, the article claimed that the two “small” — almost 100-foot — gaps “will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall”: now US-backed forces might not need to totally demolish the 1300-year old wall.

While Brett McGurk, described as the US envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, tweeted that the operation was “a key milestone” in the campaign to “liberate the city”, it is evident what was really being liberated.

Karin Brothers is a freelance writer.

Note

1) Hincks Joseph U.S.-Backed Troops Breach the Perimeter of ISIS’ Last Bastion in Syria Jul 03, 2017
http://time.com/4844317/raqqa-syria-isis-wall/

Featured image from SURYAA

Featured image: Russian-made BMPT Terminator Combat Vehicles (Source: Screenshot from the video below)

Syrian government forces, led by Liwa al-Quds and Hezbollah units, have further advanced against ISIS northeast of the Arak gas field in the eastern part of Homs province. Army troops and their allies have captured a number of hills and reached the important Rammim Hill west of the Hail gas field. By controlling the Rammim Hill, government forces will be able to establish fire control over the vicinity of the Hail gas field and thus soon to retake the field from ISIS. Doing so will also contribute to a wider effort aimed at liberating the strategic town of al-Sukhnah.

According to reports, government forces received an unknown number of Russian-made BMPT Terminator combat vehicles. The vehicles will allegedly be used during the upcoming advance on Deir Ezzor. If confirmed, this will be the first usage of the Russian-made armoured vehicle in a combat environment.

The US-led coalition has airdropped about 100-150 members of US-backed groups of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) from the US-held Al-Tanf area in southeastern Syria to the Al-Shaddadi area in northeastern Syria, according to pro-militant media activists and media outlets.

According to reports, the goal of this move is to set a foothold for a US-backed advance on the government-held city of Deir Ezzor, besieged by ISIS terrorists. Some sources suggest that the US is going to establish a coalition garrison in the border area. Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra even declared the start of the offensive on Deir Ezzor. However, without direct support from US-led coalition ground forces this seems as merely a PR move. Another obvious target for the US-led operation is the ISIS-held border town of al-Bukamal.

If reports are confirmed, this move will be considered as a common part of a wider US effort aimed at building a buffer zone between Syria and Iraq by seizing as much border area as possible, the goal being to prevent any cooperation between the Syrian and Iraqi militaries.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed up by the US-led coalition, continued storming the ISIS-held part of Raqqah. Slow progress inside the city might be one of the reasons behind the US attempt to launch a separate operation in the border area with Iraq.

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

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In an explosive interview with Megyn Kelly at the 21^st St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, systematically destroyed many of the narratives promulgated by the enemies of the Syrian state who seek to turn the country into the new Libya.

Although the panel discussion covered many issues and featured other speakers, one of the most crucial sections was when Kelly questioned Putin over the Syrian conflict.  The opening exchange consisted of Kelly asking the Russian leader whether he believed Assad was an “evil guy?”, allowing Putin to articulate one of the central reasons why Russia supports the Syrian government. Putin emphasized that it is not Assad that Russia is protecting per se; instead, Russia is protecting “the Syrian statehood” from collapsing into an abyss of chaos similar to the one we have seen Libya descend into since 2011:

“It’s not President Assad whom we are protecting; we are protecting the Syrian statehood. We don’t want their interior to be a situation similar to that in Libya, or that in Somalia, or in Afghanistan – in Afghanistan NATO has been present for many years, but the situation is not changing for the better. We want to preserve the Syrian statehood. On the basis of resolving this fundamental issue we would like them to move towards settling the Syrian issue through political means. Yes, probably everyone there is to blame for something, but let’s not forget that were it not for active interference from outside, this civil war probably would not have broken out.”

Ever since NATO forced regime change in Libya – through waging a bombing campaign coupled with supporting al-Qaeda connected rebel legions on the ground – it has been in total chaos. The North African country has been a failed state for years, with rebel factions fighting over control of certain regions.

As journalist Neil Clark and others have pointed out, in July 2010, the Telegraph listed Libya as number one on their six best exotic cruise destinations. By August 2011, numerous reports detailed how many factions of the Libyan opposition were slaughtering black people on mass. In 2012, a disturbing video surfaced which purported to show Libyan rebels forcing African prisoners to eat flags while being kept in giant cages. Earlier this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that African migrants were being bought and sold in slave markets.

This is just a glimpse into the utter chaos and degradation that Libya has descended into after NATO ‘liberated’ the country back in 2011, and it provides a window into what Syria would be like if the West forces regime change in Damascus.

NATO-led destruction of Libya, 2011 (Source: Sott.net)

“The Militants used Chemical Weapons” 

Putin then moves on to counter the propaganda spread by the enemies of Syria that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in April of this year, before highlighting that the militants have a history of using chemical weapons in the region:

“What is President Assad been accused of recently? We know he has been accused of using chemical weapons, but there’s no evidence to support that whatsoever. Right after the incident, we suggested that an inspection should be carried out at the airbase… But they refused to conduct this kind of inspection. So, they’re talking a lot, but not doing much. We suggested that an inspection should be carried out at the site where the strike took place, [but] they’re saying it’s too dangerous. Why is it dangerous if the strike was against the good part of the opposition? No, they say it is too dangerous.” 

“In Iraqi Kurdistan, the militants used chemical weapons and the world community recognised it. So, they know that the militants have got chemical weapons. But according to the OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] Syria has destroyed its stocks of chemical weapons. You see, if pretexts are created without any real willingness to look into the matter, it’s not going to lead us anywhere. Let’s talk substantively. Did Assad make mistakes? Yes, probably a lot of them. But those who oppose him, are they angels? Who [are] murdering people and executing children – beheading people. Should we support those people?” 

On multiple occasions, investigations have indicated that chemical weapons have been used by the Syrian opposition. In May 2013 for instance, the Commissioner of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Syria, Carla Del Ponte, said in an interview that there was evidence which suggested that the rebels, not the Syrian army, used chemical weapons:

“During our investigation for crimes against humanity and war crimes, we collected some witness testimony that [appeared to confirm] that some chemical weapons were used – in particular nerve gas. What appeared to our investigation was that it was used by the opponents, the rebels, and we have no indication at all that the Syrian government have used chemical weapons. Of course, now, the special commission will investigate and tell us what it is exactly. But I was a little stupefied that the first indication we got [was] about the use of nerve gas by the opposition.” 

In regards to the nature of the Syrian opposition, it is not just the Russian President who believes that many of the opposition forces are far from angelic. Even the former Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, who was always a strong proponent of forcing regime change in Syria (he was also heavily involved in the Libyan war), admitted in early 2016 that many of the ‘moderate’ rebels actually belonged to “relatively hardline Islamist groups” (i.e. terrorist groups): 

“But if you’re arguing: are all these people impeccable democrats, who would share the view of democracy that you and I have? No. Some of them do belong to Islamist groups, and some of them belong to relatively hardline Islamist groups.” 

Furthermore, a declassified US military intelligence report – by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) – from August 2012, clearly states that the opposition was the walking antithesis of moderate: 

“The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq], are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The report added that “AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media,” and that “events are taking a clear sectarian direction.” 

False Flags and Provocations 

When Kelly again brought up the chemical weapons attack in April of this year, asking whether the Russian leader believed the videos of the alleged victims of the attack were “fake,” Putin responded by describing the incident as a “provocation” designed to blame the Syrian President:

“As for those people who were killed or who suffered because of the use of weapons – including chemical weapons, this is false information. As of now, we are absolutely confident that this is just a provocation; President Assad didn’t use chemical weapons. All of this was orchestrated in order to accuse him. Moreover, our intelligence services have got information that in another district of Syria, not far from Damascus, there were plans to reproduce this scenario, and we made these plans public. Those who had been planning these actions thought it better not to engage in these actions.”

When Kelly pressed him further, asking: “are we really to believe that the whole thing was staged?”, Putin responded by saying:

“The answer is very simple and you know it. Yes, sarin could have been used by someone, but not by Assad. It could have been used by someone in order to accuse Assad. So, we have to understand who is to blame; otherwise, if there is no true investigation, it is only going to play into the hands of those who orchestrated it. I would like to ask you a question: why didn’t everyone go right away to inspect the airbase, to the spot where chemical weapons allegedly had been used? Why didn’t they want to go to see the aircraft that had been allegedly used to perform the strike? The answer is very simple: because they were afraid that the truth would come to light.” 

Logic alone would tell you that the Syrian government did not use chemical weapons in April. Why would Assad order the use of chemical weapons when the Syrian government had the upper hand in the conflict? Assad may be a lot of things, but he is not suicidal. Why would he give the enemies of Syria justification to bomb the country or launch a full-scale invasion? As the former US congressman and host of the Liberty Report, Ron Paul, said at the time:

“It makes no sense, even if you were totally separate from this and [you] take no sides of this and you were just an analyst, it doesn’t make sense for Assad, under these conditions, to all of the sudden use poison gasses… I think [there’s] zero chance that he would have done this deliberately.” 

For the sake of the Syrian people, let’s hope that Syria does not become the new Libya.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of  The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image from Sputnik

Recent hearings by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees reflected the rising tide of Russian-election-hacking hysteria and contributed further to it. Both Democrats and Republicans on the two committees appeared to share the alarmist assumptions about Russian hacking, and the officials who testified did nothing to discourage the politicians.

On June 21, Samuel Liles, acting director of the Intelligence and Analysis Office’s Cyber Division at the Department of Homeland Security, and Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy under secretary for cyber-security and communications, provided the main story line for the day in testimony before the Senate committee — that efforts to hack into election databases had been found in 21 states.

Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI counter-intelligence chief Bill Priestap also endorsed the narrative of Russian government responsibility for the intrusions on voter registration databases.

But none of those who testified offered any evidence to support this suspicion nor were they pushed to do so. And beneath the seemingly unanimous embrace of that narrative lies a very different story.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a record of spreading false stories about alleged Russian hacking into U.S. infrastructure, such as the tale of a Russian intrusion into the Burlington, Vermont electrical utility in December 2016 that DHS later admitted was untrue. There was another bogus DHS story about Russia hacking into a Springfield, Illinois water pump in November 2011.

So, there’s a pattern here. Plus, investigators, assessing the notion that Russia hacked into state electoral databases, rejected that suspicion as false months ago. Last September, Assistant Secretary of DHS for Cybersecurity Andy Ozment and state officials explained that the intrusions were not carried out by Russian intelligence but by criminal hackers seeking personal information to sell on the Internet.

Both Ozment and state officials responsible for the state databases revealed that those databases have been the object of attempted intrusions for years. The FBI provided information to at least one state official indicating that the culprits in the hacking of the state’s voter registration database were cyber-criminals.

Illinois is the one state where hackers succeeded in breaking into a voter registration database last summer. The crucial fact about the Illinois hacking, however, was that the hackers extracted personal information on roughly 90,000 registered voters, and that none of the information was expunged or altered.

The Actions of Cybercriminals

That was an obvious clue to the motive behind the hack. Assistant DHS Secretary Ozment testified before the House Subcommittee on Information Technology on Sept. 28 (at 01:02.30 of the video) that the apparent interest of the hackers in copying the data suggested that the hacking was “possibly for the purpose of selling personal information.”

Ozment ‘s testimony provides the only credible motive for the large number of states found to have experienced what the intelligence community has called “scanning and probing” of computers to gain access to their electoral databases: the personal information involved – even e-mail addresses – is commercially valuable to the cybercriminal underworld.

That same testimony also explains why so many more states reported evidence of attempts to hack their electoral databases last summer and fall. After hackers had gone after the Illinois and Arizona databases, Ozment said, DHS had provided assistance to many states in detecting attempts to hack their voter registration and other databases.

“Any time you more carefully monitor a system you’re going to see more bad guys poking and prodding at it,” he observed, “because they’re always poking and prodding.” [Emphasis added]

State election officials have confirmed Ozment’s observation. Ken Menzel, the general counsel for the Illinois Secretary of State, told this writer,

“What’s new about what happened last year is not that someone tried to get into our system but that they finally succeeded in getting in.” Menzel said hackers “have been trying constantly to get into it since 2006.”

And it’s not just state voter registration databases that cybercriminals are after, according to Menzel.

“Every governmental data base – driver’s licenses, health care, you name it – has people trying to get into it,” he said.

Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan told Mother Jones that her I.T. specialists had detected 193,000 distinct attempts to get into the state’s website in September 2016 alone and 11,000 appeared to be trying to “do harm.”

Reagan further revealed that she had learned from the FBI that hackers had gotten a user name and password for their electoral database, and that it was being sold on the “dark web” – an encrypted network used by cyber criminals to buy and sell their wares. In fact, she said, the FBI told her that the probe of Arizona’s database was the work of a “known hacker” who had been closely monitored “frequently.”

James Comey’s Role

The sequence of events indicates that the main person behind the narrative of Russian hacking state election databases from the beginning was former FBI Director James Comey. In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 28, Comey suggested that the Russian government was behind efforts to penetrate voter databases, but never said so directly.

Comey told the committee that FBI Counterintelligence was working to “understand just what mischief Russia is up to with regard to our elections.” Then he referred to “a variety of scanning activities” and “attempted intrusions” into election-related computers “beyond what we knew about in July and August,” encouraging the inference that it had been done by Russian agents.

The media then suddenly found unnamed sources ready to accuse Russia of hacking election data even while admitting that they lacked evidence. The day after Comey’s testimony ABC headlined, “Russia Hacking Targeted Nearly Half of States’ Voter Registration Systems, Successfully Infiltrating 4.” The story itself revealed, however, that it was merely a suspicion held by “knowledgeable” sources.

Similarly, NBC News headline announced, “Russians Hacked Two U.S. Voter Databases, Officials Say.” But those who actually read the story closely learned that in fact none of the unnamed sources it cited were actually attributing the hacking to the Russians.

It didn’t take long for Democrats to turn the Comey teaser — and these anonymously sourced stories with misleading headlines about Russian database hacking — into an established fact. A few days later, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff declared that there was “no doubt” Russia was behind the hacks on state electoral databases.

On Oct. 7, DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement that they were “not in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian government.” But only a few weeks later, DHS participated with FBI in issuing a “Joint Analysis Report” on “Russian malicious cyber activity” that did not refer directly to scanning and spearphishing aimed of state electoral databases but attributed all hacks related to the election to “actors likely associated with RIS [Russian Intelligence Services].”

Suspect Claims

But that claim of a “likely” link between the hackers and Russia was not only speculative but highly suspect. The authors of the DHS-ODNI report claimed the link was “supported by technical indicators from the U.S. intelligence community, DHS, FBI, the private sector and other entities.” They cited a list of hundreds of I.P. addresses and other such “indicators” used by hackers they called “Grizzly Steppe” who were supposedly linked to Russian intelligence.

But as I reported last January, the staff of Dragos Security, whose CEO Rob Lee, had been the architect of a U.S. government system for defense against cyber attack, pointed out that the vast majority of those indicators would certainly have produced “false positives.”

Then, on Jan. 6 came the “intelligence community assessment” – produced by selected analysts from CIA, FBI and National Security Agency and devoted almost entirely to the hacking of e-mail of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta. But it included a statement that “Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple state or local election boards.” Still, no evidence was evinced on this alleged link between the hackers and Russian intelligence.

Over the following months, the narrative of hacked voter registration databases receded into the background as the drumbeat of media accounts about contacts between figures associated with the Trump campaign and Russians built to a crescendo, albeit without any actual evidence of collusion regarding the e-mail disclosures.

But a June 5 story brought the voter-data story back into the headlines. The story, published by The Intercept, accepted at face value an NSA report dated May 5, 2017, that asserted Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, had carried out a spear-phishing attack on a U.S. company providing election-related software and had sent e-mails with a malware-carrying word document to 122 addresses believed to be local government organizations.

But the highly classified NSA report made no reference to any evidence supporting such an attribution. The absence of any hint of signals intelligence supporting its conclusion makes it clear that the NSA report was based on nothing more than the same kind of inconclusive “indicators” that had been used to establish the original narrative of Russians hacking electoral databases.

A Checkered History

So, the history of the U.S. government’s claim that Russian intelligence hacked into election databases reveals it to be a clear case of politically motivated analysis by the DHS and the Intelligence Community. Not only was the claim based on nothing more than inherently inconclusive technical indicators but no credible motive for Russian intelligence wanting personal information on registered voters was ever suggested.

Russian intelligence certainly has an interest in acquiring intelligence related to the likely outcome of American elections, but it would make no sense for Russia’s spies to acquire personal voting information about 90,000 registered voters in Illinois.

When FBI Counter-intelligence chief Priestap was asked at the June 21 hearing how Moscow might use such personal data, his tortured effort at an explanation clearly indicated that he was totally unprepared to answer the question.

“They took the data to understand what it consisted of,” said Priestap, “so they can affect better understanding and plan accordingly in regards to possibly impacting future election by knowing what is there and studying it.”

In contrast to that befuddled non-explanation, there is highly credible evidence that the FBI was well aware that the actual hackers in the cases of both Illinois and Arizona were motivated by the hope of personal gain.

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Havana. The psychological warfare being waged by the oligarchic opposition in Venezuela –following the strategic and tactical objectives of US imperialism– has strong support in a well-organized Twitter operation that promotes protests from the Miami-based DolarToday platform. This is described in a research article published by the well-known specialist Erin Gallagher.

DolarToday is a US website based in Miami that, according to Wikipedia, “is more known for being an exchange rate reference to the Venezuelan bolivar” and “monitoring the Venezuelan economy.”

Currently, with no other reliable source other than the black market exchange rates, these rates are used by Reuters, CNBC, and several media news agencies and networks.

The Economist states in its defense that the rates calculated by DolarToday are “erratic”, but that they are “more realistic than the three official rates” released by the Venezuelan government. It maintains that it is not true that the rates published by DolarToday are manipulated in order to undercut the Venezuelan government.

The DolarToday website has been denounced by the Venezuelan State for setting a parallel dollar artificial price marker (black market). It has also been the target of a lawsuit by the Central Bank of Venezuela for falsifying the country’s exchange rates.

In 2013, President Maduro accused the website of “fueling an economic war against his government, and manipulating the exchange rate.”

“DolarToday is also promoting opposition protests in Venezuela. Its tweets are being boosted by automated accounts that exhibit repetitive, bot-like characteristics and are using a social media management tool called IFTTT (If This Then That) to automate their tweets”, says Erin Gallagher.

“What immediately caught my attention in the #TeamHDP hashtag data were the shared networks between the influencers (real persons of high credibility),” explained the specialist.

Trolls and bots carry out coordinated attacks to create false trends, congest or disrupt networks, and disseminate misinformation. Sometimes they succeed having a respected media –by neglect or mistake– disseminate their fake information and misleading headlines.

“Bots” are automated systems or programs –that can be run on home computers or on sophisticated servers—which use non-existent Twitter accounts to repeat a certain phrase hundreds or thousands of times. Thus they can turn those phrases into “trends”; that is to make them appear among the 10 or 20 topics that Twitter considers the subjects most discussed in recent hours.

Bot experts disguise themselves as “digital marketing companies”, create dozens or hundreds of fake Twitter accounts, and then use “bots” so that these accounts simultaneously tweet certain content, including headlines from news sites.

Because many journalists in the print media, radio and television use Twitter trends to determine what topics to deal with in their media, whoever dominates Twitter trends can get to determine the topics most talked about in the country’s media.

Gallagher says it is relatively easy to discover the use of these systems: when you enter a tag on Twitter and then click “Most Recent”, you will notice that there are hundreds or thousands of accounts tweeting exactly the same phrase.

This is not the first time robotic cyber actions have been observed in Venezuelan networks. Mexican researchers from the platform “LoQueSigue” used, in 2014, bots with the hashtag #PrayForVenezuela, which denounced “the violence, the repression and the supposed “censorship” of the protests in Venezuela,” which became a worldwide trend.

In addition, NoBotsPolitico of Spain documented fake accounts that supported the protests in Venezuela until June 2014, then remained silent for eight months, but went back to tweeting propaganda against Podemos in hashtags related to the 2015 elections in Spain.

Bloomberg published a feature on an investigation of March 2016 titled “How to Hack an Election” about the Colombian hacker Andrés Sepulveda, who worked with a team of hackers to manipulate information about the elections in Latin America. Sepulveda is currently serving 10 years in prison for crimes such as abusive access to computer networks, violation of personal data, espionage, and the use of malicious software during the 2014 election in Colombia.

It is not difficult to guess who controls the automated accounts that support #TeamHDP. The counterrevolution will someday have to answer for so much crime against the Venezuelan people.

Manuel E. Yepe is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He is a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana.

Featured image from Twitter

 July 1st, 2017, was Canada’s sesquicentennial, its one hundred fiftieth birthday. A youngster in comparison to many, not an elder statesman to any. The Canadian maple leaf flag hung on our porch rail, not for pride in our government, but for the realization that by pure chance we live in a remarkable region of the world geographically with a diverse landscape ranging from Atlantic to Pacific and northward to the Arctic oceans. The cultural geography is equally important, representing a large diversity of peoples, from the original indigenous occupants through the colonial-settler immigrants of mostly white European extraction, but including many Chinese, Japanese, east Indians as cheap labour to build the railways and roads. ‘Modern’ immigrants continue with this but also includes war refugees from South Asia, Latin America, and the greater Middle East.  

Diversity is the problem

However diversity has become a problem in precisely the institution where it should be highly valued, Canada’s parliament. Yes the ruling Liberals under Justin Trudeau includes a select group of diverse people, but they are essentially token representatives concealing larger problems.

The main problem has been the Liberal’s scrapping of their intention to change the electoral procedure from the not very democratic “first past the post system” (FPTP) to something that allows for more diversity for the party structure of government, that allows all voices to be heard, that ”your” vote counts.  

Having made electoral reform a central campaign promise, Trudeau scrubbed the idea completely after the mandate for his minister was changed in February of this year. His reason is that he had wanted a preferential ballot (ranked ballot) rather than the proportional representation that was the overwhelming favorite of most concerned citizens.

Interesting as to why he did not just say this from the beginning, but it might not have gained as many votes as a full committee on electoral reform (but also considering that many votes were also votes rejecting the Harper government). His reasoning is illogical as he argued later that ranked voting, as compared to both FTPT and proportional representation did not allow for “strategic voting”.   

Strategic voting is of course the way many people vote in our current system – how to get someone out, someone else in, according to which party has the best chance to do so. The same logic applies to ranked voting, which because of the use of more than one vote actually increases the need to work a good strategy. It is mathematically true that the more options a person has the more one needs to consider strategy – if one understands the statistical possibilities behind a ranked system.

A first vote is obvious for most. A second, third, and however many other votes are allowed would require much awareness of how the different secondary votes would affect the outcome. For that matter, even someone leading after the first round of counting could be defeated by a strong secondary vote for someone who consistently comes up after the various rankings are dropped. Also, someone considered a third choice could win if everyone who voted for a second person chose a wide variety of people none of whom could garner a lead while everyone voted for the same third person. Strategy becomes paramount if the parties wish to instruct their voters how to spread out their votes.  

More obviously though, at least in Canada, a ranked ballot would support whichever party can capture the middle or centrist vote. Canadians on the left would not choose someone on the right as an alternative; similarly those on the right would not choose someone on the left. The secondary, tertiary votes would go to the middle, the position the Liberals hope to consider its home ground. Strategy remains strong, if not devious. 

Proportional representation, the main choice from the various committees and subcommittees, allows for much stronger representation of all voters as the parliamentary seats are proportionally distributed to all parties. This allows smaller parties to achieve some power and those voters will then have their votes count. The larger parties might have to form coalitions or agreements of some kind with smaller parties in order to remain/achieve power, something Trudeau – and to be fair, the Conservatives – are not particularly willing to do. But it is much more fair to the voter, it does require the parties within the system to – more than likely – work together.

In sum, for Trudeau, Canadian diversity is fine, so long as it does not spill over into governance models that would hinder the power of the  major party(ies) in parliament.

Diversity with apartheid?

Another area diversity fails is within Canada’s well established apartheid system for its indigenous people. Yes, Trudeau recognizes that much needs to be done, and superficially talks well about the topic, but there is little progress being made to truly solve the issue.   

As long as apartheid legislation remains in force – the Indian Act of 1876 – with its “reservations” (How can “reservations”, generally small and on poor land that whites did not want, not be considered apartheid?) and separate laws for indigenous people (How can that not be considered apartheid?) little can be accomplished other than a treatment of symptoms but not of the underlying systemic problems.  

Fortunately the Canadian Supreme Court appears to be well ahead of the politicians on this and all cases going before the court have found support for indigenous rights and unceded land claims. The former would include the many treaties that have not been honoured, the many broken promises by the colonial-settler policies of earlier governments. The latter, unceded claims, pertains in particular to the province of British Columbia, where the majority of the land has never been subject to treaties and still can be considered to retain indigenous title.  

The solution is simple in its most drastic form: get rid of the Indian Act, give the indigenous people large swaths of their territory and resources back, compensation for that which cannot be returned, and allow them to govern themselves independently. Many will argue against compensation, but money in our modern computerized central bank zero interest monetary regime truly is ‘cheap’, it can be made to work to the benefit of our GDP – if perhaps not our corporations. Canada needs to negotiate with the independent nations with full respect for the Canadian Charter, the UN Charter of Rights and the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People.

A truly diverse democratic state cannot exist while one group of people, the original inhabitants of the land, are subject to ongoing separate/apartheid laws and conditions.   

Bicentennial diversity

Fifty years from now, Canada will celebrate its bicentennial. I will not be around for it, but it will be interesting for those who are there to see if true progress has been made to fully recognize and do something about Canada’s diversity rather than talk about it at politically opportune moments.  

Donald Trump is threatening to visit Britain on the quiet in the next few days.

His sneak visit here is as unwelcome as his proposed state visit. He has endorsed the right-wing fundamentalist regime in Saudi Arabia, dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on Afghanistan, and the US-led coalition is responsible for many civilian deaths in Mosul. He is a threat to world peace and should be stopped. His travel ban on people from six Muslim countries only helps stoke racism. The protests earlier this year have forced him to arrive by stealth to avoid the opposition to him coming onto the streets.

We need to make sure that there are protests whenever and wherever he appears. Stand up to Trump is urging the biggest possible mobilisation at Downing Street or wherever he tries to visit. Keep checking our website or standuptotrump.uk for updates and start spreading the word.

On Monday 26 June, the UN conference to negotiate a treaty banning nuclear weapons undertook the first read-through of a revised draft treaty text prepared by the conference president, Costa Rican ambassador Elayne Whyte. Now two weeks into this final round, many in the room expressed some frustration at this further exchange of positions and views. With the clock ticking towards the conference end and target date for adoption of an agreed treaty text on 7 July, many delegates expressed their desire to get stuck into negotiating treaty text, paragraph by paragraph, line by line.

Between Wednesday 28 and Friday 30 June, the negotiating work of the conference proceeded in earnest, with 3 and occasionally 4 separate working groups considering different treaty elements. Though these sessions were closed to civil society, the sense of urgency and commitment was palpable, with delegates meeting late into the night.

At 5 pm Friday, the conference reconvened in Conference Room 1 in open plenary session, to hear reports from the facilitators of each of the working groups on the progress made. One by one, the four facilitating diplomats described a highly positive atmosphere and the achievement of significant progress towards agreed proposed treaty language. When these texts became available a little while later in the evening, it was evident that substantial progress had indeed been made.

I for one felt a considerable sense of relief to see the revised texts, particularly in relation to the most challenging and technically complex area of the treaty, the provisions on national declarations of nuclear weapons related activities, safeguards on nuclear materials, and the pathways by which states which possess or control nuclear weapons could accede to the treaty (articles 2 – 5 in the 27 June draft treaty text). This cluster had the greatest evident potential to bog down the negotiations.

The revised provisions allow for both elimination of all nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons related facilities prior to a state joining the treaty (“destroy then join”); as well as states with nuclear weapons to join the treaty and then eliminate their nuclear weapons program, a “join and destroy” pathway. A number of gaps and loopholes in the previous versions of articles 2 to 5 of the President’s draft have been closed in this revised text, which also provides a greater level of consistency in the requirements of states joining the treaty, and greater internal consistency with the key prohibitions defined in article 1 of the treaty. The clarity, time-bound nature, verifiability and irreversibility embodied in these provisions have been strengthened.

They have been crafted to anticipate future developments in safeguards and verification regimes, and do not allow any state to claim that there is no pathway for them to join this treaty.

Core prohibitions – article 1

The group working on the essential core of the treaty, the prohibitions laid out in article 1, proposed the addition of “threaten to use” in addition to “use” of nuclear weapons as prohibited activities. With encouragement from ICAN, as well as support from the International Committee of the Red Cross, a number of states are advocating that a specific prohibition on engaging in military preparations to use nuclear weapons also be included in article 1.

This would be consistent with the approach taken in the Chemical Weapons Convention, which has been signed by 192 states, including all of those participating in this negotiating conference, and therefore can be expected to have no issue with the inclusion of a similar provision in this treaty. Such language would add clarity that policies and practices of nuclear deterrence, including extended nuclear deterrence, are incompatible with this treaty. Nuclear deterrence is the main justification touted for continued possession of nuclear weapons, including by states which claim to rely on the nuclear weapons of others, such as the 28 states of NATO, South Korea, Japan, and Australia.

While such policies and practices are clearly inconsistent with other provisions of article 1, including to “assist, encourage, or induce, in any way” prohibited activities, and the prohibition on use and threat of use, a clear statement that military preparations to use nuclear weapons are prohibited would strengthen the treaty.

The new draft text also proposes, rather than a specific clause prohibiting “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion”—language reflecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—that a more general prohibition on testing of nuclear weapons be added to provisions prohibiting states to “develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons.” This is positive, as in plain meaning, this broadens the prohibition on testing. (Apart from North Korea, all other nuclear-armed states currently use tests that do not involve nuclear explosions to develop and modernise their arsenals. These subcritical, hydrodynamic, laser and computer-based tests are not prohibited by the CTBT, even if it were to one day enter into force.)

The article 1 working group has yet to resolve the question of transit of nuclear weapons. Thus far, no specific mention of financing of nuclear weapons production is proposed in the prohibitions. Such an inclusion would advance treaty norms and provide further clarity for the prohibition to “assist, encourage, or induce in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this Treaty.”

Victim assistance, environmental remediation and international cooperation and assistance

In relation to the victim assistance and environmental remediation, and international cooperation and assistance provisions, the new draft text includes a number of positive changes. The qualification “in a position to do so” has been removed from the obligation of states parties to address the needs and rights of those affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons. A provision that such assistance should be required “without discrimination” has been added. An obligation on states to undertake appropriate environmental remediation of areas contaminated by the testing or use of nuclear weapons has been added. The provisions for international cooperation and assistance to facilitate the implementation of the treaty have been strengthened. A contested issue remains whether the treaty should in some way recognise the special responsibility of the states that have used or tested nuclear weapons towards victim assistance and environmental remediation.

Institutional arrangements

In regard to institutional arrangements for the treaty, article 9 on meetings of States parties has been strengthened and simplified to specify more clearly a focus on measures for the “verified, time-bound and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons programs, including additional protocols to this Treaty.”

The provision for relevant non-governmental organisations to be invited to attend meetings of states parties and review conferences of the treaty has been retained.

The number of state ratifications required for the treaty to enter into force has been increased from 40 to 50, a number that should still be readily achievable given the more than 120 states supporting the negotiating mandate for this conference and the more than 130 states participating in these negotiations.

A welcome addition is a specification that the Treaty shall be open for signature at the United Nations in New York at a date to be specified in the next few months.

The Arms Trade Treaty language on relations of this treaty with other agreements has been retained. Unlike the first draft, this proposed text appropriately does not subordinate this treaty to other international treaties and does not give priority to any particular other instrument.

Although the provisions for the unlimited duration of the treaty and the treaty not being subject to reservations, but needing to be accepted in toto by states which join, have been retained, it is disappointing that the proposed draft allows for states to withdraw from the treaty if “extraordinary events” “jeopardise the supreme interests of its country,” language that is at odds with a categorical, humanitarian-based prohibition, and the object and purpose of the treaty as laid out in the treaty’s preamble. While the notice period for withdrawal has been increased from 3 to 12 months, it would be far stronger and consistent with the treaty’s purpose and substance to specify that states cannot withdraw from the treaty. This is the case for a number of other important international treaties, such as the UN Charter itself and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Regrettable, too, is the lack of a provision establishing a secretariat to assist with the treaty’s implementation and promotion. This could however be agreed at a subsequent meeting of states parties, and it is pleasing that the specification of the first meeting of States parties to be convened within one year of the entry into force of the treaty has been retained.

Preamble, and something that doesn’t belong

As it sets the basis for the rest of the treaty, the text of the preamble had been largely agreed prior to Ambassador Whyte submitting her 27 June draft treaty text, and has not been the subject of further negotiations over the past week. From a planetary health viewpoint, it was strengthened in that draft. There is clear reference to the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons, with deep concern expressed about the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” of any use of nuclear weapons; the “risks posed by the continued existence of nuclear weapons” concerning “the security of all humanity,” and posing “grave risks for human survival.” Impacts on the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security, and the health of current and future generations, as well as disproportionate impacts on women and girls are included. There is also reference to the clear medical evidence that “the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed.”

Perhaps the most regrettable aspect of the preamble is its repetition of a big mistake in the NPT, a so-called “inalienable right of its States Parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” This repetition is unnecessary, and is legally potentially fraught repeated outside the context of the NPT’s safeguards provisions. Worse, its affirmation of the world’s most hazardous technology is wrong and counterproductive. Nuclear power spreads radioactive contamination at every stage; leads to creation of massive pre-positioned potential radiological weapons risking catastrophic accidents; is not needed; hinders transition to safe and sustainable energy solutions available now; generates a burden for future generations over geological time of large amounts of long-lived highly radioactive waste; and inextricably creates capacities to generate weapons-usable materials through uranium enrichment or extraction of plutonium from spent reactor fuel. It thus spreads the means for nuclear proliferation, increases the risk of nuclear war, and makes it harder and slower to achieve and sustain a world freed from nuclear weapons. This provision has no place in a treaty banning nuclear weapons, especially one based on humanitarian principles.

Conclusion

While up until the moment of adoption of the treaty it is possible that changes could be made, practically it can be expected that the new draft formulations will by and large see the light of day in the final text, which is likely to be concluded in close to its entirety by 6 July. A new revised text from the conference pesident will be presented in an open plenary at 5 pm on Monday 3 July. Hopefully, that will continue the strengthening of the draft treaty which the negotiations to date have produced, with strong encouragement from ICRC and civil society.

A treaty to comprehensively and categorically ban nuclear weapons is within our grasp, and should be in our hands in less than a week.

The revised texts discussed above can also be accessed at Reaching Critical Will.

Tilman Ruff is co-president of IPPNW and the founding co-chair of ICAN in Australia. He represents the federation on the ICAN International Steering Group.

Featured image from Ralf Schlesener for ICAN

Featured image: Columbia River in Hanford Reach National Monument, Washington. (Photo via Department of Energy)

KENNEWICK, Wash. (CN) – Groundwater contaminated with radioactive waste from the decommissioned Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state is still “flowing freely” into the Columbia River, a program manager with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said at a meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board.

The announcement came as part of a five-year review of cleanup measures taken at the Superfund site. Officials with the EPA and the Department of Energy said at a meeting Wednesday that the review showed most of the cleanup actions at Hanford were properly “protective,” meaning the public was shielded from the worst of the site’s estimated 500 million gallons of potentially radioactive waste.

Radioactive sludge in shuttered reactors, contaminated soil in landfill sites and equipment that was once used to refine the uranium that fueled the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki were all properly contained, according to the report.

But there was a glaring exception: groundwater contaminated with hexavalent chromium and strontium-90 was still flowing into the nearby Columbia River, according to a presentation from Mike Cline, director of the Department of Energy’s Soil & Groundwater Division.

“Contaminated in-area groundwater is still flowing freely into the Columbia,” EPA Project Manager Dennis Faulk told members of the board.

Source: Courthouse News Service

The stretch of river adjacent to the Hanford nuclear facility, called the Hanford Reach, was declared a national monument in 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton. That designation is now under threat from an executive order by President Donald Trump directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the status of 27 national monuments.

The agencies say they will build additional, stronger wells and a “permeable reactive barrier” to hold the toxic water. But the announcement came as the agency mulled major cuts to Hanford’s operating budget under Trump’s proposed budget plan.

Columbia River river deposits (Photo by Rich Steele via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The EPA and the Department of Energy said the plan would mean cuts totaling $120 million at Hanford.

That worried officials, who said they are already struggling to keep up with cleanup under the current budget.

“We don’t have enough funding as it is to do the work that needs to be done,” said Randy Bradbury, spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology’s Hanford Nuclear Waste program. “So the cuts are very concerning.”

The Russia sanctions bill that passed the US Senate by 98:2 on June 15 is a bombshell; it directly demonizes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, under the Baltic Sea, which is bound to double Gazprom’s energy capacity to supply gas to Europe.

Sarà un trionfo per il presidente Trump quando, il 6 luglio, arriverà in visita a Varsavia. La Polonia, assicura la Casa Bianca, è «fedele alleato Nato e uno dei più stretti amici dell’America». In effetti è la punta di lancia della strategia Usa/Nato che ha trascinato l’Europa in una nuova guerra fredda contro la Russia. In Polonia, dove è stata trasferita in gennaio la 3a Brigata corazzata Usa, è schierato in funzione anti-Russia, sotto comando Usa, uno dei quattro gruppi di battaglia Nato «a presenza avanzata potenziata».

La Polonia ha anche il merito di essere uno dei quattro paesi europei della Nato che hanno realizzato l’obiettivo, richiesto dagli Usa nel 2014, di spendere per il militare oltre il 2% del pil. In compenso, annuncia Varsavia, la Polonia non contribuirà al «Fondo per la difesa» lanciato dall’Unione europea il 22 giugno.

La Polonia del presidente Duda ha quindi agli occhi di Washington tutte le carte in regole per assumere un altro impegnativo incarico, quello di lanciare e guidare l’«Iniziativa dei tre mari», un nuovo progetto che riunisce 12 paesi compresi tra il Baltico, il Mar Nero e l’Adriatico: Polonia, Lituania, Lettonia, Estonia, Ungheria, Cechia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Croazia, Slovacchia e Slovenia. Tutti membri della Ue, per cui il presidente Duda definisce l’Iniziativa «un nuovo concetto per promuovere l’unità europea».

Ma questi paesi sono allo stesso tempo, tutti tranne l’Austria, membri della Nato sotto comando Usa, legati più a Washington che a Bruxelles.

L’«Iniziativa dei tre mari» sarà tenuta a battesimo dal presidente Trump, alla conferenza che si svolgerà a Varsavia il 6 luglio, ma è stata concepita dall’amministrazione Obama. Essa venne annunciata il 25 agosto 2016 con la Dichiarazione congiunta di Dubrovnik, che la presentava come una iniziativa mirante a «connettere le economie e infrastrutture dell’Europa centrale e orientale da Nord a Sud, espandendo la cooperazione nei settori dell’energia, dei trasporti, delle comunicazioni digitali e in generale dell’economia». Scopo ufficiale, «rendere l’Europa centrale e orientale più sicura e competitiva». A questo penseranno gli Usa.

Nel suo discorso alla Conferenza dei Tre mari, annuncia la Casa Bianca, il presidente Trump «si concentrerà sullo sviluppo delle infrastrutture e sulla sicurezza energetica, evidenziando tra l’altro le prime spedizioni di Lng (gas naturale liquefatto) americano alla Polonia presto entro questo mese». Un terminale nel porto baltico di Swinoujscie, costato circa un miliardo di dollari, permetterà alla Polonia di importare Lng statunitense nella misura di 5 miliardi di metri cubi annui, espandibili a 7,5.

Attraverso questo e altri terminali, tra cui uno progettato in Croazia, il gas proveniente dagli Usa, o da altri paesi attraverso compagnie statunitensi, sarà distribuito con appositi gasdotti all’intera «regione dei Tre mari». Lo scopo del piano è chiaro: colpire la Russia facendo calare il suo export di gas in Europa (obiettivo realizzabile solo se l’export di gas Usa, più caro di quello russo, sarà incentivato con forti sovvenzioni statali); legare ancor più agli Usa l’Europa centrale e orientale non solo militarmente ma economicamente, in concorrenza con la Germania e altre potenze europee; creare all’interno dell’Europa una macroregione (quella dei Tre mari) a sovranità limitata, direttamente sotto influenza Usa, che spezzerebbe di fatto l’Unione europea e si allargherebbe all’Ucraina e oltre.

La carta politica dell’Europa sta per cambiare di nuovo, ma vi resta piantata la bandiera a stelle e strisce.

Manlio Dinucci

Featured image: An Israeli soldier stands atop a tank on the Golan Heights (Source: EIPA)

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with a Syrian rebel commander and half a dozen fighters, who confirmed the worst kept secret of the Syrian conflict: Israel is directly aiding Syrian rebel factions with both humanitarian and financial aid.

Israel’s involvement “is much deeper and more coordinated than previously known and entails direct funding of opposition fighters near its border for years,” the report said.

“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” Moatasem al-Golani, a spokesman for the rebel group Fursan al-Joulan, told the Wall Street Journal. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”

According to the report, Israel provides $5,000 each month to Fursan al-Joulan – or Knights of the Golan – which it uses to pay fighters’ salaries and purchase weapons and ammunition for its campaigns against the government in the Syrian Golan.

I had never heard of Fursan al-Joulan before. An online site dedicated to documenting the Syrian conflict describes a “Fouj al Joulan” as a Golani militia allied with the Assad regime and dedicated to protecting Druze villages in the region. Though the names sound similar, they are unlikely to be the same group, especially considering Fouj al-Joulan’s commander, Majd Himoud, is an implacable Israeli enemy, whom it has attempted to assassinate twice.

With approximately 400 fighters, Fursan al-Joulan would appear to be a local militia. It undoubtedly has an affiliation with a larger Islamist group like al-Nusra or al-Qaeda, but I haven’t been able to determine that. The Journal makes clear that it isn’t affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, which increases the likelihood that Fursan al-Joulan is an Islamist group. It’s also quite possible there are other groups, perhaps numerous ones, which Israel is aiding in a similar fashion.

On 22 June, Yediot Achronot’s chief military-security correspondent, Alex Fishman, confirmed the Journal’s report and explored the motivation behind it:

“A not insignificant portion of the Syrian rebels in the Golan have adopted the extreme Salafist ideology of Jabhat al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda…The Israeli view is that the religious extremist views of the Syrian rebels are less relevant [than their capacity to combat Israel’s enemies – Iran and Hezbollah]. Israel believes that what interests them [the rebels] above all is survival; and that it’s possible to buy their loyalty through material aid which helps guarantee their own security.

“The Journal article gives one the impression that Israel doesn’t always examine closely the views of its allies as long as it gets from them a useful security exchange. According to Israel’s perspective, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And if Jabhat al-Nusra fights against IS in the southern Golan, and each of them in turn fights against Hezbollah and the Syrian army in the Deraa region – all the better.”

This exchange-based mode of interaction may work for Israel in the short run, but the history of the region is replete with such temporary alliances which quickly devolved into outright hostility when circumstances changed. A former ally can easily and quickly become one’s worst enemy.

And in fact the goods, experience and skills transmitted during the alliance permit the former ally to become an even more formidable foe (just think the Mujahadeen-Taliban in Afghanistan). Any number of actors inside Syria from IS to al-Nusra could at some future time decide that Israel is a riper target than their former enemies. This short-term alliance of convenience could easily become a nightmarish Golem of Israel’s own making.

What Israel wants

These new reports confirm several years of my own reporting which have documented extensive Israeli intervention in the Syrian conflict, including numerous air strikes against Hezbollah and Iranian arms convoys, the shooting down of a Syrian jet which had strayed a few metres into Israeli-occupied Golan, assassinations of Hezbollah and Iranian commanders, equipment drops to al-Nusra units allied with al-Qaeda, and direct intelligence briefings between IDF officers and rebel commanders.

All this has belied the repeated false claims in the media (including in this WSJ article) that Israel is a neutral party to the conflict – which is what Israel would have the world believe. However, it is deeply involved in it and seeks to weaken or topple Bashar al-Assad, because Israel’s arch enemies, Hezbollah and Iran, are his chief allies.

I expect that Israeli escalation will continue since Assad and his allies are in the ascendant. They are routing IS in eastern Syria and, once they finish, it’s very possible Assad could turn his attention to the west, including the Golan, to consolidate his territorial gains. That is when the true test will come.

Israel wants a divided Syria. It wants a country riven by ethnic and religious disputes so that it can dominate the Golan and protect its northern border. How far is it willing to go to prevent Assad from reasserting full control there?

Israel has had numerous opportunities to negotiate a peace deal with Bashar al-Assad and, even earlier, with his father. It turned away from each of these efforts. It does not want an agreement with Assad.

To avoid an internal political fight with nationalist forces over returning the Golan, Israel’s right-wing government prefers maintaining its illegal conquest of the Golan and the status quo. To do so, it must continue to sow discord and military adventures in the Golan.

Shot across the bows

Numerous ominous escalations in the Syria conflict have occurred in recent days. Iran announced that it had fired missiles from its territory to attack IS positions in eastern Syria. It would mean that Iranian forces had advanced technically in order to fire its weapons and hit targets hundreds of miles away. The last time it attacked an enemy beyond its borders in this way was during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Anonymous Israeli military sources claimed that each of the seven missiles that were fired missed their target, with several not even landing in Syria. However, aside from unnamed sources, the Israelis didn’t offer any proof of their claims either. It would be in Israel’s interest to spread a spurious claim debunking the military prowess of its chief regional rival.

Iran explained that the missile attack was revenge for a recent terror attack by Iranian Kurds in Tehran for which IS has taken credit. Since Iran has also blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack, which killed 17, mostly civilians, the missile attack is a thinly veiled warning against the Saudis: “just as we can reach IS in Syria, we can reach you in Riyadh as well.”

Or as Al Jazeera’s correspondent said:

“And, of course, we need to see this in the wider geopolitical context: it will be very interesting what the reaction is going to be from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, because Iran is saying it can retaliate and it will.”

On 18 June, a US fighter jet downed a Syrian war plane in the Raqqa countryside which had bombed a target close to US-backed Syrian rebel forces. The US military claims these were Syrian Democratic Forces (whom Syrian regime troops had routed from the city), while the regime claims they were IS. US air power also shot down at least two pro-regime drones.

Fear of Assad victory

All this comes on the heels of Assad’s growing success in taking back territory that had been formerly held by IS. The US, in attacking Syrian war planes, is attempting to stymie Assad’s efforts. This means, in effect, that US policy largely mirrors that of Israel. The Trump administration, as well, appears not to want a united Syria, rather a Syria divided up into ethnic cantons.

Assad’s Russian ally reacted with fury to the US attack and cancelled critical deconfliction efforts meant to keep the various powers fighting in Syria from accidentally attacking each other (US officials have since said that a deconfliction hotline is still in operation). Further, Russia announced that any more US attacks on the Syrian air force might result in direct conflict with Russia.

All this is part of a US escalation of its own involvement which has included bombing a Syrian government military convoy, a mosque, and now this. Clearly, the Trump administration is directing our military to flex its muscles in this arena.

The problem is that this is a very crowded field of battle and there are many parties involved, including Russia. The plane we shot down was a Russian Sukhoi bomber, for example. All it will take is one split-second mistake for this to turn into a major bloodbath which could suck the major parties in far deeper than they prefer to go.

The new alliance

Syria is only part of a wider playing field of conflict in the region where Sunni forces, financed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, are arrayed against Shia power under the auspices of Iran and Hezbollah.

As the Sunni coalition continues to lose sway in Syria, this rivalry has moved to newer and even more dangerous places. The ultimatum given to Qatar to end its relations with Iran and Hezbollah is an example of how the ripple effects of Syria could send a tsunami throughout the Middle East.

A growing alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel adds yet another combustible element to the mix. They both appear to be itching for a fight with Iran. When they were separate parties, the danger of such a conflict was less.

With them uniting against a common foe, the fetters are considerably loosened, not to mention that the ascension of a young, ambitious, hot-headed Saudi crown prince who’s shown himself only too willing to embroil his kingdom in foreign interventions adds even more danger to the scenario.

Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog, devoted to exposing the excesses of the Israeli national security state. His work has appeared in Haaretz, the Forward, the Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times. He contributed to the essay collection devoted to the 2006 Lebanon war, A Time to Speak Out (Verso) and has another essay in the upcoming collection, Israel and Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on Statehood (Rowman & Littlefield).

Oliver Stone’s Vladimir Putin interviews have recently shaken the American media, historically devoted to attacking the Russian president. American historian, author and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, Peter Kuznick, who co-wrote Untold History of the United States with Stone, explicates the mainstream media’s demonization of the Russian president, and now the renowned filmmaker.

“That’s what happens to peacemakers in this sick world,” quipped Professor Doctor Kuznick.

Edu Montesanti: Professor Doctor Peter Kuznick, thank you so very much again for the unspeakable privilege of being your partner in publications all over the world. How do you evaluate American media coverage of Oliver Stone’s recent interviews with the Russian President Vladimir Putin?

Peter Kuznick: I completely understand why Oliver Stone would want to interview Vladimir Putin. I completely understand why the interviews would be so controversial. And I completely understand why so many of the critics would want to kill Oliver – the Messenger – rather than deal with the content of what Putin told Oliver in the interviews.

Oliver’s interest in Russia and Putin is not some kind of passing whimsy. Oliver is a child of the Cold War, who grew up in its shadow. His father was a conservative Republican. In his home, the Soviets were the bad guys out to conquer the world. Most Americans believed that in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Oliver was very patriotic and politically conservative. As a freshman at Yale in 1964, he supported Barry Goldwater for president. Oliver later dropped out of Yale and volunteered for combat in Vietnam, where he was wounded twice and highly decorated. Not only did he believe that the United States was on the right side, he risked his life for his convictions. Vietnam planted some seeds of doubt, but he was just beginning to figure things out. He didn’t have some sudden epiphany.

As late as 1980, Oliver voted for Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t really until his visit to El Salvador in the early 1980s that he began to understand the nature of the American empire and the insidious impact of American exceptionalism. Then his views began to change, as was evident in his movies Salvador, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street, and JFK–all made during an extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, burst of creativity between 1886 and 1991.

As with all of us who grew up during the Cold War, Oliver was fascinated with Russia. In the 1980s, he visited the Soviet Union, met with dissidents and wrote a script about them. Oliver says it was very good. I’m sure it was. However, it was too serious a movie for Hollywood at that time and never got made. But, Oliver’s interest in Russia never waned.

U.S.-Russian relations are at the heart of our Untold History of the United States documentary film and book project. While we worked on this for five years, Oliver studied Russian history as well as the history of U.S. foreign policy. We presented a very different portrait of these topics than most Americans learn in school or in the U.S. media. We showed that the armed U.S. opposition to the Russian Revolution and the overt U.S. support for the counter-revolutionaries.

We demolished the myth that the Americans won the Second World War in Europe, showing that it was the Soviets who did the bulk of the fighting, the bulking of the dying, and the bulking of the killing of German forces, suffering 27 million dead in the process.

While deploring Stalin’s extraordinary brutality, we showed that it was the U.S. that held all the cards after WWII – from a booming economy to a network of bases around the globe to a monopoly of atomic bombs – and bore the principal responsibility for starting the Cold War.

We delved into the history of the Cold War, focusing largely on the ways the U.S. departed from its professed ideals to overthrow popular democratic leaders, interfere in other countries’ political processes, support dictators and tyrants who gave free rein to avaricious U.S. corporations and banks, and intervene militarily across the globe – the nearly four million dead Vietnamese being only the most obvious victims.

But Russia remained at the center of the story as the Soviets responded to the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal built largely under President Eisenhower by building one of their own as the world quaked under the prospect of universal annihilation.

Subsequent decades saw the easing and heightening of tensions, but the danger of mutually assured destruction never abated until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. There was even a brief moment of hope for humanity as Gorbachev, a true visionary, tried desperately to create a world of peace and democracy. Unfortunately, he lacked a partner in the United States or Europe.

The 1990s were a disaster for the Russian people as Boris Yeltsin, with the prodding of U.S. advisors, put the economy through shock therapy so savage that it wrecked standards of living and created a new group of blood-sucking plutocrats or oligarchs almost overnight.

During that dismal decade, Russian life expectancy plummeted and the economy shrank to the size of Holland’s. Russia went from being a superpower to being a doormat on which the United States wiped its feet. It was Putin who engineered Russia’s dramatic recovery and restored it to the status of a great nation and major player in world affairs.

At first, Putin reached out to the United States, seeking friendly relations. But U.S. policymakers had grown accustomed to treating Russia with contempt in the 1990s and getting away with it. They assumed that Russia would continue to roll over upon U.S. command under Putin. They were in for a rude awakening.

With the help of higher energy prices, Putin reversed Russia’s economic decline and its economy grew rapidly. Standards of living and life expectancy rose. He also reversed Russia’s military decline, bolstering and modernizing its armed forces.

In 2006, the Council of Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs magazine even published an article claiming that the United States had achieved its long-sought first-strike capability. The authors argued that if the United States launched a nuclear attack on Russia, Russia would be defenseless and incapable of striking back. That sent heads spinning in the Kremlin.

On top of that, Russia was surrounded by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Despite promises by President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, NATO expanded 12 (now 13 with Montenegro) countries to the east, right up to Russia’s doorstep.

When George W. Bush began promoting further expansion to include Georgia and Ukraine, Putin decided enough was enough and began his resistance. He decided that the United States and Europe were not trustworthy partners. He realized that they were out to weaken, humiliate and marginalize Russia.

The European Union’s effort to ensnare Ukraine was another step too far for Putin who responded to the U.S.-backed coup by seizing the former Russian territory of Crimea and supporting the resistance in the Donbass.

Russia became more assertive on other fronts too, including Syria. It strengthened ties to China and other nations that mistrusted U.S. hegemonic intentions. Under Putin’s leadership, Russia became a player again on the world stage.

In response, American political leaders and the lapdog media began a campaign of Putin vilification in the United States and parts of Europe. Tensions escalated between the United States, NATO, and Russia in Syria, Ukraine, and the Baltics. Neither side respected the other’s red lines. The threat of war loomed larger and larger.

Oliver and I, along with many of our colleagues, grew alarmed and said so publicly as often as we could. But Oliver had a chance to do more and he seized it. He wanted to bring Putin’s views to the public in hopes that understanding how the world looks to Putin would help ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

He wanted to show that Putin was not the bloodthirsty ogre he is often portrayed to be. He hoped to break through the U.S. media vituperation toward Putin and his policies so the United States and Russia might be able to find common ground, act together where we have common interests and ease tensions where we don’t.

Oliver is well aware that the United States and Russia have more than one thousand nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair-trigger alert. He is well aware that two individuals – Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin –have veto power over the future existence our species.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, (John F.) Kennedy and (Nikita S.) Khrushchev discovered how fragile life on this planet really is and endeavored to work together to eliminate everything between our two nations that could cause another such crisis. Unfortunately, they were not able to see that effort through to fruition.

In bringing Putin to the American public and letting him speak for himself, Oliver was acting in the tradition of Kennedy and Khrushchev. He was being a peacemaker. Oliver reached out his hand and stuck out his neck.

And the lockstep American media, led by the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Daily Beast, stomped on his fingers and tried to cut off his head. That’s what happens to peacemakers in this sick world.

Why do you think the American media demonizes President Putin?

The American media demonizes Putin because he defends what he believes to be Russia’s national interests, which often puts him at odds with America’s neocon-dominated leaders and their efforts to maintain U.S. unipolarity.

In fact, American policymakers don’t even recognize that Russia has national security interests that need to be respected. The U.S. media lacks historical context and perspective. One can turn on CNN or other networks and hear all the “experts” agree that Russia’s alleged hacking of the U.S. election was an “act of war.” They call for sanctions and boycotts and aggressive measures. No one ever mentions the U.S. history of intervening in election after election all over the globe, including in Russia, since 1947, and throughout Latin America starting long before that.

The pundits talk about the need to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine. Did they call on the world to boycott the United States for its invasion of Iraq? Did they call for sanctions against the United States and NATO for overthrowing (Muammar) Gaddafi in Libya and further spreading chaos throughout the region? Are they even capable of judging the United States the way they judge other nations? Of course not. This is the sickness of nationalism and parochialism. It is what we call American exceptionalism – a blindness toward America’s own “mistakes” because our motivations are so pure.

Well, after you see the United States intervening into, bombing, invading, hacking, surveiling, droning, looting one country after another, you start questioning the purity of America’s motives – at least you do if you’re still able to think rationally and critically.

The problem with the American media is not that it knowingly spreads “fake news.” The problem is that its frame of reference is so narrow that it excludes versions of history, truth and reality that challenge the American exceptionalist framework. As Samuel Huntington wrote, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion…but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Knowing how dismissive the American media is of views that in any way challenge the mainstream consensus, as Oliver obviously does, he might have adopted a slightly different approach in his own media appearances around the Putin interviews.

Instead of stating categorically that Putin didn’t hack the U.S. election, I think it’s better to say that we have yet to see solid evidence to support that charge. Russia has the capability to hack those emails and might have had the motivation to do so, given hostile U.S. behavior that goes back several years. We can’t rule out the possibility. But, on the other hand, there are reasons to question the certainty of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, which essentially boils down to the three that did the study.

First, the hack was extremely sloppy and the hackers left so many fingerprints behind that it appears that they wanted to get caught or, alternatively, to cast blame on Russia.

Second, it would have been uncharacteristically risky behavior on Putin’s part to do something that would antagonize the United States and (Hillary) Clinton, especially in light of the fact that neither he nor anyone else in either country expected Trump to win, probably including Trump himself.

Third, it defies credulity to believe that both the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the Democratic National Committee thought it was sufficient to accept the private security firm CrowdStrike’s investigation of the hack without the FBI conducting its own investigation.

And fourth, the argument that the Russians wanted to undermine American democracy makes no sense. Nothing could possibly have done more to make a mockery of American democracy than the Republican primary campaign and Trump candidacy.

With 17 flat-earthers arguing over who was the biggest ignoramus when it came to climate change and science in general and debating who had the biggest penis, did Russia really need to intervene to discredit American democracy? The Americans were doing a good enough job without Russian help. That U.S. voters chose a colossally ignorant and bigoted reality TV host and pathological liar as president is more than sufficient proof that the United States is a failed democracy.

But Oliver, not wanting to give an inch to the Putin-bashers who run roughshod over American political discourse, dug in his heels and denied the possibility that Russia was behind the hack and distribution of emails to Wikileaks. I would have just said that that many governments and private outlets hack and there has been no proof yet provided that the Russians were Wikileaks’ source.

In fact, Julian Assange has adamantly denied this on numerous occasions. But, I would not reject the possibility that the Russians did this and that Putin was involved because governments often act irrationally and go against their own interests.

What is the importance of such interviews, and what are the most important passages of them to you?

The most important thing about the interviews is that they humanize Putin. That in itself is a major achievement at a time when the U.S. media presents him as a comic book villain.

In the interviews, Putin comes across as a knowledgeable and reasonable defender of Russian national interests even if he clearly dissembles on occasion. He has a coherent view of history, much of which I tend to share. I was glad to see a copy of the thousand-page Russian translation of our Untold History book on his desk.

I certainly don’t agree with Putin on everything.

For example, I have a much more laudatory view of Mikhail Gorbachev than Putin does. Yes, Gorbachev should have been more practical and less trusting, as Putin tells Oliver. He should have gotten in writing the promise from Bush and Baker not to expand NATO one thumb’s width to the east. That was extremely naïve of him.

But, I welcome and admire Gorbachev’s utopianism and faith in humanity and wish that more shared it. He wanted to replace the failed Soviet system with a democratic socialist one and establish a new international order based on shared peaceful development.

Unfortunately, he never got the chance. Yeltsin replaced him. Putin rescued Russia from the Yeltsin debacle, but the country, like its leader, has some profoundly and disappointingly conservative tendencies in its embrace of capitalism, nationalism, and religion and in its ties to some pretty unsavory characters around the world.

Putin justifies many of Russia’s excesses by saying that its democracy is still young. To me, an outspoken critic of American “democracy,” that is not good enough.

In Russia, I would much rather see a more open media, a more equal distribution of wealth, not only toleration but encouragement of dissent, explicit repudiation of all forms of discrimination against gays and lesbians, greater protection for journalists and more vigorous prosecution of their assailants, and a diminished role for religion. But Putin has different ideas and he expressed them clearly in the interviews. His ideas apparently resonate with the vast majority of Russians.

His approval ratings still top 80 percent and the hit that the economy has taken due to falling oil and gas prices and American and European sanctions have not dented those approval ratings. Gorbachev, who provided the first blurb in support of our Untold History project, is, I’m sorry to say, much less popular in Russia despite the fact that he came so tantalizingly close to abolishing nuclear weapons at Reykjavik in 1986 in what would have been one of the greatest achievements in all of human history.

Those quibbles aside, the interviews provide an unprecedented opportunity to understand the Russian perspective on many of the crucial issues of our time.

Putin details his views on Syria, Ukraine, NATO, U.S. politics and foreign policy, cyber warfare, terrorism, climate change, and a host of other issues.

I found his cautionary statements about the nuclear threat to be particularly revealing and I very much appreciated that Oliver convinced Putin to sit down with him and watch Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant black comedy about nuclear annihilation.

Putin thought the film raised “serious issues” about “real threats that exist.” He said that “little has changed” since the film was made in 1964. Though modern nuclear weapons, he warned, are “more sophisticated, more complex,” the “idea of a retaliatory strike and the inability to manage these systems” is just as relevant today. And these things, he predicted, will “become even more difficult and more dangerous” in the future.

Oliver got Putin to talk about his own background and family history and questioned him about his desire to retain power and control. In the fourth interview, Oliver pushed Putin hard to defend alleged Russian hacking of the recent U.S. election. Putin’s repeated denials were less than convincing.

His statement that Russia doesn’t intervene in other countries’ internal affairs sounded ludicrous. We know that all powerful nations do so. Perhaps his comment that every action brings a counter-action was more to the point, especially after he detailed a long list of U.S. actions that were hostile toward Russia.

What one comes away with is a good understanding of how Putin views the collapse of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of Communism. He clearly doesn’t like the current hostility between the two nations, repeatedly referring to the Americans as his “partners” and urging improved relations between the world’s two most powerful nations.

He says he is cautiously optimistic. But he is also a realist. At the end of the interview, after they had watched Strangelove, Oliver handed Putin the DVD case to keep in case he wanted to watch it again. Putin thanked him and opened up the case to find that it was empty. “Typical American gift!” he declared.

Oliver knew that he was going to pay a steep price for giving Vladimir Putin a platform to express his views on American television. And he has been pounded mercilessly across American media.

At the end of the third interview, Putin asked Oliver if he’d ever been beaten. “Oh, yes, many times,” Oliver said. Putin responded presciently, “Then it’s not going to be anything new, because you’re going to suffer for what you are about to do.” To which, Oliver replied, “I know… but it’s worth it. It’s worth it to try to bring some more peace and consciousness to the world.” Sadly, there are many who don’t share that goal.

Edu Montesanti is an independent analyst, researcher and journalist whose work has been published by Truth Out, Pravda, Global Research, Brazilian magazine Caros Amigos and numerous other publications across the globe.

Featured image from Zero Hedge

Featured image: Rabbi Shlomo Mlma (Source: Days of Palestine)

Days of Palestine, West Bank -Israeli Jewish Rabbi Shlomo Mlma asked on Sunday Israeli Jewish settlers to poison Palestinian water resources in order to kill them.

Mlma, the chairman of the Council of Rabbis in the West Bank settlements, asked the settlers to do so in order to cleanse the Palestinians from the West Bank cities and villages.

According to Israeli anti-occupation organisation “Breaking the Silence,” the rabbi wanted the Israeli Jewish settlers to push the Palestinians to leave their villages and pave the way for settlers to take over their lands.

Dozens of similar orders were made by rabbis that called for killing Palestinians, robbing their lands and farmlands and destroying their property.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlement building on the land to be illegal.

About 800,000 Jewish settlers currently live on more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.

Inspired by such incitement, Israeli Jewish settlers several times killed Palestinians and destroyed their properties in the occupied West Bank.

Aaron Maté: It’s The Real News. I’m Aaron Maté.

Trump administration officials and right wing allies are openly talking about regime change in Iran. A series of news reports say White House officials want to oust the government in Tehran. The CIA recently established a new mission center specifically aimed at Iran, and the US military has increasingly targeted Iran-backed forces inside Syria. The most stark words came recently from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Earlier this month, he was asked if regime change is the goal.

Rex Tillerson: Our policy towards Iran is to push back on this hegemony, contain their ability to develop obviously nuclear weapons, and to work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government. Those elements are there, certainly as we know.

Aaron Maté: The timing of Tillerson’s statement was striking. The next day, the State Department quietly released documents on the CIA’s role in the overthrow of Iran’s democratic government in 1953. The US and Britain targeted Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalized his country’s oil. The coup has shaped Iran’s modern history and remains all the more relevant today.

I’m joined now by one of the top historians of modern Iran. Ervand Abrahamian is the distinguished professor of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and politics at Baruch College and the author of The Coup: 1953, The CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations. Professor, welcome.

E. Abrahamian: Good morning.

Aaron Maté: Thank you for joining me. You’ve gone through these new documents now. Can you lay out for us what they contain and also provide us with the context for what happened with this coup in 1953?

E. Abrahamian: First, about the documents. The State Department has a policy of releasing its documents 30 years after event. The documents for the Mosaddegh period, which is ’51, ’53 were delayed and delayed. Once they were published, they were so skimpy that there were long periods where there was a crisis in Iran, there was no correspondence between the embassy in Tehran and DC, which was very strange obviously. The American Historical Association kicked up such a fuss that the State Department agreed to bring out the new edition, and this is what has come out recently, what they call a retrospective for 1951, ’54 period.

Some people expected that there would be much more on the actual coup of August ’53. I really didn’t expect much new on that because in the year 2000 a CIA document, an autopsy on the coup was leaked to The New York Times, and that was 150-page, very detailed document on how the US pulled off the coup in ’53. So there wasn’t really much new to discover. Maybe some details about individuals, the actual operation on the ground. But one really couldn’t expect much more from that, more than what was called the Wilber Document. The new batch, which is 1,000 pages, some 375 documents, really doesn’t tell us much more about the coup.

But it is actually very valuable for a number of reasons for knowing what was going on between ’51 and ’53. The main striking thing, and I think this is why these documents were not released before, is how far not just the CIA but the State Department’s deeply involved in Iranian politics from ’51 on. It wasn’t just a question of basically negotiating and dealing with the oil crisis and being a go-between between Iran and UK. The State Department, the CIA was actually very much involved in elections and choosing prime ministers and doing everything they could to undermine Mosaddegh even long before the coup. But what these documents show is, in fact, the US was really up to its neck with the nitty-gritty of Iranian internal politics.

Aaron Maté: Can you talk about why they were so involved and specifically why they wanted to target Mosaddegh?

E. Abrahamian: The main issue was that Mosaddegh nationalized the British oil company. This is often just seen as just a crisis between Iran and Britain. In fact, it had repercussions on United States because if Iran had succeeded with nationalization of oil, it was clear cut that this would have repercussions, direct threat to United States oil interests, not just in the Middle East, throughout the world. Other countries would then try to nationalize their oil, and that would be a major setback for United States. So from the very beginning, the US was very much interested in preventing real nationalization. They accepted the concept of nationalization. They were willing to pay lip service to nationalization so long as actually the oil industry was not controlled in Iran by the Iranians. That was very consistent throughout the Truman, Eisenhower administration, and it was very similar to the British position.

Actually, what these documents confirm, again, in the diplomatic dispatches is how far United States was interested in making sure that real nationalization does not take place. So even Eisenhower, who was very reluctant to get too involved into nitty-gritty of politics, he kept distance from this, whenever he’s in a National Security Council meeting, this is just before the coup, he stresses that international agreements are sacred and they should not be permitted to be violated. Of course, for him, Iran nationalizing its oil was a violation of the sanctity of international agreements. This is very consistent … This was actually pretty much well-known, although many historians like to deny it. What these documents do confirm is actually that American position was that Iran should not get away with successful nationalization.

Aaron Maté: Yeah, what you’re saying there about how historians have interpreted US motives is very important. I just spoke recently to Malcolm Byrne for The Real News about these documents. He’s at the National Security Archive. He’s very critical of the coup and has done a lot of work to get these documents released. But he seemed to ascribe the US motive to this Cold War mentality of wanting to stop Russia from getting access to Iran’s oil. Even if the internal documents used the Cold War language, it’s quite possible that that would just the rhetorical advice to mask their real concern, which is stopping local countries from having control over their own oil like Iran.

E. Abrahamian: Yes. I think Byrne has done heroic work getting these documents and other documents released, but I really disagree with his point of view. His idea is that the coup was a mistake, but the motivations were good, and the motivation was in the context of the Cold War. In the documents, you can find a lot of evidence for this because almost every national security document starts off with talking about the Soviet threat and the two-day threat, but I read this very much like some people start their pronouncement saying, “In the name of God, the Compassionate” and so on, and then you go onto the real business. So I think that was the discourse of the time. If you were going to legitimize anything, you put it in the context of the Cold War. I think Allen Dulles and Roosevelt, if they wanted to throw their grandmother under the bus, they would again resort to the Cold War.

But the problem is every so often when you really look at the negotiation positions, both by Britain and United States, the position there, and this is not in public, and when they come to discuss the oil issue with Mosaddegh, their argument was, “Yes, fine. We agree with nationalization. We’re all in favor of nationalization. But you are not really capable of controlling and exploiting and refining oil, so we will do it for you. We’ll do it in your name, and you can claim that it’s nationalized, but we have to have really control over the industry.”

For United States, this was very important because, as I said, if nationalization succeeded in Iran, it could actually threaten the American interests in the Gulf, in Iraq, in Indonesia, in Venezuela. This was always back of their mind. Again, every so often, if you look carefully, the devil’s in the details, you find these statements in these documents all basically covered up with the Cold War and so on. But you have this statement that the sanctity of international agreements cannot be violated.

Aaron Maté: Just to clarify for people, Allen Dulles, who you mentioned, was the head of the CIA at the time. Let me ask you, the goal here was to stop nationalization of Iran’s oil. Can you talk about the impact, though, that Mosaddegh’s action had on the broader Middle East and the movement there that we saw, especially in the ’70s, towards countries taking control of their own oil?

E. Abrahamian: Yes. Eventually, of course, the Middle East countries, even conservative countries like Saudi Arabia, nationalized their oil, but this was not until some 20 years later. By then, actually there was a shift in the world situation. In the mid-’70s, Western companies and Western states basically had no choice but to accept that. In 1951, ’53, this was considered the end of the world, that the sky would fall if nationalization was successful. So if you read some of their internal documents, they’re talking about like it’s the end of the world as they know it if Mosaddegh succeeds in nationalizing.

Aaron Maté: Finally, Professor, as we wrap, I’m wondering if you can comment on the current context today. I noted earlier the timing could be coincidental of the State Department releasing these documents on the 1953 coup just after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said those words that we played, that the US supports a transition of government inside Iran.

E. Abrahamian: I think it’s pure coincidence. They were been under pressure to publish it. They’ve kept on delaying it. They were supposed to publish it four years ago. They said the British had some concern, and they had to remove any reference to the British involvement in the coup. Then they said they didn’t want to publish it in the last years of Obama because that would jeopardize the nuclear discussions. I think that-

Aaron Maté: Fair enough. So timing aside, then, your thoughts on what we’re seeing right now from the Trump administration with officials openly floating regime change.

E. Abrahamian: Again, it’s hard to take anything that comes out of this administration seriously. Not just about Iran, elsewhere. But with Iran, they said they would basically renegotiate the nuclear deal, but once they came in, they realized that this is actually not something you can do. The agreement was between Iran and United Nations, not United States. So there’s a lot of hot air, and frankly, they want to put pressure on Iran, but it’s not the old days that US is capable of pulling off a coup. These documents actually prove that.

Tanks in the streets of Tehran, 1953 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1951, ’53, the CIA actually was involved in literally ground street politics of Iran. They would hire thugs to go and beat up newspaper sellers and peaceful demonstrators. They had those thugs in their payroll. They could do that. They had newspaper journalists, editors, they had deputies they had put in actually in parliament. That’s what these documents show, how US was involved actually in electoral politics in Iran.

Nowadays, it’s a very different situation. People in Washington can huff and puff and all that they want, but Iran is not going to collapse. So it’s a very different type of regime, and Iran just does not have that influence. What this type of huffing puffing then does is it actually strengthens the very right wing in Iran who are always talking about the US wants to come back and take over, and they use that as a camouflage to silence any criticism, any opposition. So it gives fuel to them, but it’s not really a serious talk that will try to overthrow the regime.

Aaron Maté: We’ll leave it there. Ervand Abrahamian is a distinguished professor of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and politics at Baruch College and the author of The Coup: 1953, The CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations. Professor, thank you.

E. Abrahamian: Thank you very much.

Aaron Maté: And thank you for joining us on The Real News.

Ervand Abrahamian is the author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations (New Press).

Featured image from The Real News Network

Late last week, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that are involved in attempting to isolate Qatar sent the tiny Gulf nation a list of 13 demands. They are insisting that Qatar meet these demands within ten days or face unspecified further action.

The list of demands includes Qatar shutting down Al-Jazeera and its affiliate stations; shutting down other news outlets that Qatar funds, including Middle East Eye; curbing diplomatic ties with Iran and expelling members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard; terminating the Turkish military presence in Qatar; consenting to monthly audits for the first year following acceptance of the demands, and aligning itself entirely with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially, and economically – to name but a few.

The most ludicrous of the demands is that Qatar must end its interference in sovereign countries’ internal affairs. Qatar does interfere in a number of countries, including Libya and Syria, but as the German Foreign Minister explained, this list of demands directly challenges Qatar’s sovereignty. Who is interfering with whose sovereignty, exactly?

Unsurprisingly, Qatar has dismissed the list of demands as neither reasonable nor actionable. Surely, the Saudi-led anti-Qatar alliance is aware of this. It would be tantamount to asking Great Britain to shut down the BBC and expel American troops – it just wouldn’t happen. All of the world’s major newspapers are complicit in running state-sanctioned propaganda, and singling Al-Jazeera out is hardly fair or practical.

In that context, Saudi Arabia and its friends have given Qatar a list of demands they cannot conceivably meet and imposed a ten-day deadline to concede or face unspecified further action. Qatar was essentially doomed from the start of this rift, and it’s only just beginning. As Newsweek lamented,

“the demands are designed to be impossible to comply with.”

The UAE has warned that Qatar is now facing indefinite isolation and that the economic and political sanctions are likely to become permanent. Taken together with the recent promotion of the Saudi King’s son, Mohammed bin Salman, now first in line to the throne, things are indeed heating up against Qatar. Prince Salman is widely regarded as one of the main proponents behind the Saudi-Qatar rift.

The ultimate agenda of the Saudi-led alliance is to deter Qatar from continuing its relationship with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional arch rival. But even the Guardian notes that “cutting ties to Iran would prove incredibly difficult,” as Iran and Qatar share a massive offshore natural gas field that supplies Qatar with much of its wealth. In fact, Iran immediately came to Qatar’s aid and began supplying the country with food after the Saudi-led sanctions created a shortage within the country. Shaking off Iran and Turkey —the two countries that have stood by Qatar’s side during this feud — is almost unthinkable. Qatar would be left without a single ally on either side of the Middle East region.

Qatar was initially among a handful of countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, that wanted to install a natural gas pipeline through Syria and into Europe. Instead, the Syrian government turned to Iran and Iraq to run a pipeline eastward and cut out the formerly mentioned countries completely. This is precisely why Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been among some of the heaviest backers of the Syrian opposition fighters. This pipeline dispute pitted the Sunni Gulf States against the Shia-dominated bloc of Iran, Iraq, and Syria (Syria’s president is from a minority denomination of the Shia sect of Islam). Although Iran and Qatar shared this lucrative gas field, they were directly at odds in regard to how the field should have been utilized.

Not long after Bashar al-Assad’s proposed deal with Iran and Iraq was announced, foreign fighters began to flood the country. Syria was demonized at the outset, even though then-Secretary of State John Kerry dined with Assad two years before the conflict erupted. It should be clear that Washington’s issues with Assad are not rooted in human rights concerns considering the dictator had been in power for 11 years and was notorious for human rights abuses in the period before the so-called revolution began.

John Kerry (who was then senator for Massachusetts) and his wife Teresa dined with the Assads in February 2009 at a restaurant in Damascus (Source: Telegraph)

Though Qatar has been heavily involved in arming the Syrian opposition and calling for Assad’s departure (Assad being an integral Iranian ally), Qatar actually maintains an independent foreign policy agenda of its own. Over the past two years, Qatar has conducted over $86 billion worth of transactions in Chinese Yuan and has signed other agreements with China that encourage further economic cooperation.

This is incredibly important because Qatar shares its major natural gas reserve with Iran, and Iran also conducts its oil-related business deals with China in Yuan. Shortly after the nuclear accord reached in 2015, the Islamic Republic sought to capitalize on these economic opportunities by ramping up production on their share of the Iran-Qatari gas reserve. In November 2016, Iran signed a deal with France’s Total, a multinational integrated oil and gas company, to develop this project. Iran is expected to surpass Qatar’s gas production by next year, and Qatar was left with little choice but to join the venture. It lifted a self-imposed ban on developing the gas field in April of this year.

If Iran and Qatar continue down this path, the U.S.’ self-asserted hegemony over the world’s financial markets will directly come under attack, and rising economic and military powers like Russia and China will continue to reap the benefits.

Remember that Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails confirmed that the U.S. and France were so concerned with attacking Muammar Gaddafi in Libya not out of humanitarian concern, but rather, out of fear of his plan to unite Africa under a single gold-backed currency that would be used to buy and sell oil on the global markets.

Remember that in 2000, Saddam Hussein announced he would sell Iraqi oil in euros, and the Guardian reported in 2003 that Iraq had actually netted a handsome profit in doing so — at least until the U.S. invaded not long after and immediately switched the sale of oil back to U.S. dollars.

Perhaps it sounds like a conspiracy theory (even with Clinton’s leaked emails as evidence), but it’s important to ask why Saudi Arabia is so concerned with Qatar, if not for economic reasons? Because of Qatar’s support for terrorism? Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails also revealed that both Saudi Arabia and Qatar financially sponsored ISIS – making such a rationale hypocritical beyond belief.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

The push to oust Assad in Syria has almost all but failed, and Qatar, learning from its mistakes, is not relying on Assad’s departure to maintain its vast supply of wealth (though it would probably still welcome such a move). As Counterpunch explains:

“The failure of this insurgency, however, has spelled the death of this proposal, leaving Qatar bound to look East to Asia – already their biggest customers – for their LNG markets. But most of the existing Eastbound LNG pipeline infrastructure is controlled by Iran. For Qatar, then, cutting its Iran links would be cutting off its nose to spite its face. This is why the Saudis aim to demonstrate that the alternative is having their entire face cut off.”

How far in Saudi Arabia’s face-cutting agenda against Qatar these Gulf State adversaries will go is unclear, but Qatar has already seen some heavy-handed treatment in the early stages of this conflict. Further complicating the issue is the fact that Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military base in the region, with 11,000 troops currently stationed there.

Further, the U.S. just recently implemented a policy to target Iran for regime change. President Trump met with Saudi Arabia and the GCC nations earlier this year and sword-danced and sabre-rattled his way down a warpath with Iran. Trump’s military has been striking down Iranian drones and Iranian-backed troops in Syria, and the White House has just launched fresh accusations against the Syrian government regarding an attack that hasn’t even happened yet.

Clearly, Qatar cannot meet Saudi Arabia’s demands, and Saudi Arabia must be completely aware of this. As we have seen in Yemen and Syria, Saudi Arabia almost always resorts to outright brutality in order to bully non-compliant states into submission. As we have also seen in America’s treatment of Iraq and Libya, countries that depart from the U.S. dollar are not met kindly by the American military, either.

In this context, expect this rift to heat up on multiple fronts. We may very well be witnessing Qatar’s denigration into a Syrian or Yemeni-style battlefield in the months to come.

Let’s hope this is not the case.

Featured image from Anti Media

Pro-government forces, led by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces, have fully expelled ISIS terrorists from the area east of the Khanasir-Ithriyah road. Initially, the Tiger Forces took control over the entire Ithriyah-Resafa road, including the Habbari oil field and nearby points. Then, after a series of firefights with ISIS terrorists, government troops cleared the remaining ISIS-held pocket in eastern Aleppo.

With this advance, the SAA shortened the frontline with ISIS in the area and got a useful supply line to its strong point of Resafa. In the current situation, government forces will likely develop momentum against ISIS terrorists east of Salamiyah. If the SAA and its allies secure the road between Salamiyah and Palmyra, they will further shorten the frontline and repel any possible ISIS counter-attack on the Tiyas Airbase that may threaten the supply lines of government forces operating against ISIS east of Palmyra.

Faylaq Al-Rahman has followed the White House’s advice and blamed the Syrian government for using chemical weapons against its members in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. The militant group accused the SAA of using chlorine gas at the Ayn Tarma front after it had failed to advance in the area. Faylaq Al-Rahman said that 30 of its fighters were poisoned and added that the SAA once again used chlorine at the Zamalka front north Ayn Tarma. The Syrian Defense Ministry released a statement denying those claims and saying these reports are a pure propaganda.

In late June, the White House launched a large-scale media campaign preparing public opinion for further attacks against the Syrian government. The Trump administration claimed that it had some secret evidence that the Assad government was preparing for a chemical weapons attack in the country. The UK and France added that they would support any US military action against Syria.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured Hussainiya and Kasrat Mohamed Ali, and advanced on Ratlah in the southern Raqqah countryside. The US-backed force expanded its operations in the area after it failed to weed out the ISIS resistance inside Raqqah despite a desperate bombing campaign by the US-led coalition. The SDF is attempting to enter the Old Raqqah area, but this is a complicated task because clashes in al-Sinaa and Rawdah are still ongoing. ISIS claimed that 74 SDF fighters have been killed and 12 others wounded by its snipers so far in the city.

The US Marines have released a video showing its artillery unit supporting the SDF advance in Raqqah. Some people suggested that the video allows seeing alleged phosphorus shells prepared for usage.

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Featured image: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

It is unreasonable to ask taxpayers to pay billions more dollars for NATO’s budget because they get less and less peace, security and stability, says Jan Oberg, director of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.

European #NATO Allies & Canada spent almost $46 billion more on defence over the last 3 years. The trend is up. And we intend to keep it up. pic.twitter.com/O1qGyAr5AB

— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) June 28, 2017

RT: Why does NATO feel it necessary to increase its spending? Have new threats developed to the alliance in the last year?

Jan Oberg: There is absolutely no threat that would legitimate this type of increase. NATO with 29 countries are 12 times higher in terms of military spending than Russia which is the alleged main threat. And secondly, terrorism, which is a very legitimate threat to combat, has increased since 2001 80 times, meaning the war on terror is the most counterproductive war ever fought in human history. On Thursday, the defense ministers are meeting in Brussels. And one of the things they are going to discuss is how to combat ISIS in the Middle East. Everybody knows the US and its allies are supporting ISIS and other terrorists and are preventing the struggle of the Syrian government from combating this intrusion, these terrorists on its territory. Facts play no role anymore. It is perception management…Whenever we have a problem – and for 68 years we have failed to create a peaceful world – we need more money. The money Stoltenberg is talking about is citizens’, taxpayers’ money and my serious proposal would be: those who want war and have done such a bad job for 68 years and asking for even more money – they should go and do crowdfunding for their wars because it is unreasonable to ask taxpayers to pay billions of more dollars and getting less and less peace, security and stability.

‘NATO is the part of the US global empire’

NATO is ubiquitous and this has to do with the preservation of corporate interests, not saving or helping people, says Mike Raddie, co-Editor of BSNews.

RT: Why does NATO feel it necessary to increase its spending by such a large amount?

Mike Raddie: I think NATO is still trying to justify itself after 25 years of existence that shouldn’t have happened really – after the Cold War NATO should have been disbanded. It is still being used: it was used in Libya, it is used in Afghanistan, and it is used in Syria, still today. I think the build-up of troops on the Russian borders is extremely dangerous, really provocative. It is not just Russia. China is pretty much surrounded by US troops, US bases, and US aircraft carriers.

A couple of hundred years ago, if a government saw hostile troops on its border, it wouldn’t wait for a declaration of war, it would just see that as an imminent invasion and defend themselves. So, you can say that Russia and China have been amazingly restrained in their attitude to the West and NATO countries in particular. It is part of the US’ global empire. We can’t forget that they’re at least 800 US bases around the world. And the US Special Forces last year were deployed in 138 countries. That is 70 percent of the country-states in the world. So, it is ubiquitous; it is everywhere. There are very few countries that don’t have a US presence in their land at the moment. Arguably some of these Special Forces are for training purposes. But they are only to train the local troops, and this is all to do with the preservation of corporate interests. They are not there to save people or help people. They are there to protect corporate interests wherever they may be.

Featured image: Muhajideen fighters in 1984. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Chaos is everywhere – it can be in a form of civil disorder that springs from domestic concerns/causes while it can also be a pretext for a “fabricated civil war” or “regime change” which incites external response under the cloak of “humanitarian intervention”. Is chaos really a prelude to achieving genuine peace? Read our selected articles below.

A phenomenon of humanitarian intervention has been one of the most contentious topics in international law, political science, and moral philosophy. Nonetheless, by reviewing the evolution of the concept, it can be concluded that the motives for humanitarian intervention are morally and legally intolerable, acting as a force of liberal imperialism. Furthermore, history illustrates that humanitarian intervention is a part of a wider process employed by power states as a strategy to expend their political and economic influence. (Petar Djolic)

*     *     *

“Color Revolution” Comes Home? Are Americans Also the Victims of “Regime Change”?

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, July 03, 2017

Have the people of the United States been the victims of regime change operations at home? Have the wealthiest and the security state created a government that serves them, rather than the people? To answer these questions, we begin by examining how regime change works and then look at whether those ingredients are being used domestically.

Once Only Blacks Were Enslaved, Now We All Are

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 03, 2017

Not a word will be said about Washington’s 16 years of purely gratuitous war in the Middle East and North Africa that has destroyed in whole or part seven countries, sending millions of war refugees to overrun the Western World and change the quality of life for Western peoples.

Humanitarian Interventions: The Doctrine of Imperialism

By Petar Djolic, July 03, 2017

From the very beginnings of the world system as it is recognized today, some 500 years ago, ideologies that justify Western power on the grounds that it is based on natural law and universal values were developed and espoused by Euro-American leaders.

US Won’t Leave Syria After The Islamic State (ISIS) Is Defeated, Says Commander of US Forces in Syria, Iraq

By Russia Insider, July 03, 2017

The three-star US general in command of American forces in Syria and Iraq says the US will leave Syria as soon as ISIS is defeated, but not really. Actually, they will stick around, because after the ISIS state is defeated there will still be ISIS guerrillas to deal with.

Big Lies Incorporated

By Mark Taliano, July 03, 2017

The Fake Left embraces taboos. False flags are “conspiracy theories” so they could never happen at home or abroad. NGO’s are credible sources and not fronts for intelligence agencies, nor do they receive government funding according to the Parallel Left. The White Helmets must be legitimate since they won an Oscar, and Hollywood never lies.

What is July 4th to US Imperialism? What is it to the Oppressed?

By Danny Haiphong, July 03, 2017

“The Declaration of Independence implicitly legalized the enslavement of Black people and the genocide of Native people within the context of the developing American capitalist nation-state.”

*     *     *

Truth in media is a powerful instrument.

Global Research is a small team that believes in the power of information and analysis to bring about far-reaching societal change including a world without war.

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In 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, Sweden took in more migrants per capita than any other European country.

Then on April 7 this year a terrorist attack, in which an Uzbek man, who was a rejected asylum seeker drove a stolen beer truck into a crowd of shoppers. He ended up killing four people and wounding 15 others. Sweden quickly changed its refugee policy in the face of mounting social problems from within.

Armstrong Economics has had sight of a leaked Swedish report that concludes the Refugee Crisis is now tearing Europe apart. The report has revealed that the number of lawless areas in Sweden alone has now reached 61, rising from 55 in just one year.

The article entitled “Sweden on the brink of legal crisis” says

“Sweden’s National Police Commissioner, Dan Eliasson, came out and pleaded on national television for assistance: “He warned that Swedish police forces can no longer uphold the law. The refugees are so disrespectful that if the free money is cut off, Sweden can quickly find itself in the midst of total chaos. The refugees will turn violent and seek whatever they can from the other regions. When the police come out and ask for help, you know something is seriously wrong.“

Just two months ago Magnus Ranstorp, the head of terrorism research at the Swedish Defense University, said that roughly 12,000 rejected asylum seekers have gone underground. Ranstorp explains what the backlash of refusing refugees asylum looks like and what the implications for its own laws looks like –

“Because you have a lot of people who come in who will not be allowed to stay, and that in itself creates a pool of people who will try to elude themselves from the authorities. They become a shadow population with no rights. And that fuels extremism in all different directions. 

There are about 150 known Syrians who have gone back to Syria and fight and then returned to Sweden. Ranstorp says 

“Extremists meet little resistance in Sweden. “It’s not that security services and police are not doing their work. The reason is our counterterrorism laws are difficult to apply. You actually have to prove a violent crime was committed or about to be committed [to be convicted of a crime]. It’s not enough that you joined ISIS.”

Arrests and scuffles after anti-refugee rampage (Source: Al-Jazeera)

Later, in June 2016, Sweden toughened the rules for migrants seeking asylum, limiting who can receive permanent residency, and making it more difficult for parents to reunite with their children. Prior to that Sweden introduced border checks with its neighbours for the first time in 20 years, requiring police to monitor trains and ferries and turn back those who don’t have valid travel documents. Under the previous system, asylum seekers could enter the country unobstructed, regardless of whether they had travel documents, like a passport.

In February this year the BBC reported that Swedish police had launched an investigation after a riot erupted in a predominantly immigrant suburb of the capital, Stockholm. Rioters, some of them wearing masks, threw rocks, set vehicles on fire and looted shops. One officer fired at rioters who threw rocks at police. The unrest in the Rinkeby suburb came after police tried to arrest a suspect on drugs charges.

Things are not much better in many other parts of Europe either. Further south, the Independent reports that

“Italy threatens to close ports to humanitarian refugee rescue ships as it reaches ‘saturation point.”

The move comes amid Italian anger at the lack of help from Europe as it hosts almost 200,000 asylum seekers.

In France Emmanuel Macron’s refugee friendly speeches were one thing, reality is something completely different where the crisis is intensifying. Gérard Collomb, Macron’s interior minister, authorised the transfer of three extra police squadrons to the Calais region. In an interview on June 10th with the Le Parisien newspaper, Collomb said

“Our priority is that Calais and Dunkirk do not remain places of fixation and that ‘Jungles’ do not reconstitute.”

OpenDemocracy describes the squalid, filthy, miserable conditions of refugee camps in Greece, whilst Mediterranean countries including Spain sees record numbers of refugees arrive. The UN Migration Agency said 8,863 migrants were rescued trying to reach their coast from Libya between June 24 and 27, another report sees over 10,000 arriving in just three days in the last week of June.

Towards Eastern Europe, some 13,000 migrants are still stranded in Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country. In an attempt to prevent illegal crossings, the country built a fence on its border with Turkey and reinforced its border controls amid the backdrop of migrant rioters clashing with police. Hungary and Poland have refused to take any refugees amid a political crisis where the highest EU courts is the battle ground against the quota demands of Brussels.

Findings from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey published last week show Brexit was the result of widespread concern over the numbers of people coming to the UK. The refugee crisis and migrants from Europe ended up causing the biggest upset in modern British history and threatens the existence of the EU project.

To defend itself, the EU is now spending tens of Millions in an attempt to stop migrants and refugees leaving Libya. The country’s ongoing civil war, started by Britain, France and NATO has left Africa’s wealthiest nation is ruins. Now daily allegations of torture, rape and killings earn it the moniker of “hell on Earth” among migrants.

Research by the US-based Refugees International (RI) group warned that the EU’s push to prevent boats leaving the Libyan coast – now the main departure point towards Europe – could fuel horrific abuses.

In the end, the dichotomy is here. Europe is facing a serious slow down in birth rates so it needs migration to boost working age populations to drive growth. Migrants arriving in such circumstances are on balance either not educated enough or can’t speak the various languages of the EU, rendering 83 percent unemployable for at least 5 to 10 years according to the latest statistics from Germany, the country with the largest migrant/refugee intake over the last few years.

Herbert Bruecker of the IAB Institute for Employment Research said experience showed around 50 percent of migrants tended to have found employment after living in Germany for five years, at least 60 percent were in work after 10 years and 70 percent after 15 years.

All this is a huge strain on the economy of countries accepting refugees whilst having austerity forced upon them by unelected bureaucrats of the EU. It is hardly surprising that public sentiment to mass immigration into Europe is negative, politically charged and leading to civil unrest.

Featured image from TruePublica

When the U.S. military takes a bunch of journalists on a press junket to a foreign country it has a certain intention and prepares every detail in advance. There will be witnesses and local people who are briefed for their two minute talk with the journalists to convey exactly what the military wants them to convey. After enjoying local flair, for ten minutes max, some U.S. diplomatic official or a general will treat the journos to some good whiskey and a genuine local steak. The official will speak a few prepared lines on the record that will reinforce the story the locals were tasked to tell.

The outcome is predictable. The stories the journalists will write will be the same.

Michael Gordon in yesterday’s New York Times and David Ignatius in yesterday’s Washington Post both report of their latest junket, a visit of Tabqa in Syria.

Gordon’s piece: In a Desperate Syrian City, a Test of Trump’s Policies

The young man unburdened himself about the dark years of living under the Islamic State as a crowd of curious onlookers gathered in front of a weathered storefront in the town marketplace. The militants, said the man, a 22-year-old named Abdul Qadir Khalil, killed many residents, doled out precious jobs and severely limited travel to and from the city. …He ticked off a list of the things Tabqa needs: electricity, water, fuel and a sizable bakery. Then, laughing about his new freedom to openly denounce the militants, he said, “If they ever come back, they will slaughter all of us.”

The Ignatius’ piece: As the Islamic State falls in Syria, one city offers a preview of the country’s future

A boisterous group of young Syrian men is gathered outside a tire and vehicle-parts shop across from the warehouse. American military advisers aren’t sure at first that it’s safe to talk with them, but the men press eagerly toward two visiting reporters. Abdul-Qadr Khalil, 22, dressed in a bright blue-nylon jacket, speaks for the group. He complains that there’s not enough food, water, gas or bread, and there are no jobs. But he dismisses the idea that the Islamic State will ever take hold here again.“No, never!” says Khalil, and the young men around him nod in unison. “It will be impossible to live if they come back. They will kill all of us.”

Gordon:

.. small children greet visitors with a “V” sign for victory.

Ignatius:

Young children flash V-for-victory signs.

Gordon:

“A fundamental problem in our society is that ISIS’ ideology has been implanted in little kids’ brains, which means it will carry on in the future,” said Ahmad al-Ahmad, the co-president of the council.

Ignatius:

Ahmad al-Ahmad, the co-president of the newly formed Tabqa Civil Council, … Young boys who were indoctrinated at Islamic State training camps are trying to find their balance in a new world where beheadings and the chanting of Islamist slogans are over.

Gordon:

Nearly 50 tons of flour, paid for by the Pentagon, were trucked in from Iraq to an American-funded warehouse on Wednesday.

Ignatius:

At a warehouse near the town center, the first shipment of American food arrived on Wednesday; sacks of flour and rice are stacked on pallets, ready for distribution, …

Gordon:

“We are not going to get beauty; it’s about pragmatism,” said Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones of the British Army, the deputy commander of the coalition force.

Ignatius:

“This is not a work of beauty. This is pragmatism,” says Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones, the British deputy commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Syria ..

I agree with the British general. The reporting in the Washington Post and New York Times from this military press junket is not a work of beauty but pragmatism. These highly paid journalists do not want to get their new desert dress dirty. They pragmatically repeat what the well briefed (and bribed) locals say, picture the children that make V-signs (and receive the promised candy) and they stenograph whatever the military or some diplomats say. No real reporting, no thinking and no dirty boots are required for their job.

The military wanted to convey that nearly everything is fine now in Tabqa. The people love the U.S. occupation and all that is needed now are a few billion $$$ for some minor nation building. The journalists ate up the prepared bites and transmit exactly what the military wanted them to say.

The mainstream media want their readers to believe that their narratives from war zones are genuine reporting. The above examples show that they are not. Their journalists are simple recording highly choreographed shows the Pentagon and State Department press advisors made up and the local press officers prepared in advance. A modern version of the Vietnam war’s five o’clock follies.

Richard Pyle, Associated Press Saigon bureau chief during the war, described the [military press] briefings as, “the longest-playing tragicomedy in Southeast Asia’s theater of the absurd.”

Back then most media did not fall for the nonsense. Now they willingly join in.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, the USS Stethem missile destroyer trespassed Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha/Paracel Islands in South China Sea on June 2.

In its turn, Beijing “dispatched military vessels and fighter planes in response to warn off the US vessel.”

The Chinese ministry described the US aircraft carrier’s “entry into the territorial sea of China” as a “provocation.”

“Under the pretext of “navigation freedom”, the US side once again sent a military vessel into China’s territorial waters off the Xisha Islands without China’s approval. Its behavior has violated the Chinese law and relevant international law, infringed upon China’s sovereignty, disrupted peace, security and order of the relevant waters and put in jeopardy the facilities and personnel on the Chinese islands, and thus constitutes a serious political and military provocation. The Chinese side is dissatisfied with and opposed to the relevant behavior of the US side.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged the US to “immediately stop such kind of provocative operations that violate China’s sovereignty and threaten China’s security,” adding that Beijing will continue to take measures to defend its national sovereignty.

Beijing cited the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, which proclaimed the baseline of the Xinsha Islands 21 years ago.

“The relevant Chinese law has explicit provisions on foreign military vessels’ entry into the territorial sea of China,” it added.

The South China Sea area, where Xisha/Paracel Islands are located, is a disputed region claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam, as it is believed that it has vast energy resources. Chinese authorities claim 90 percent of the area and have repeatedly said that the country’s activities in the region are China’s sovereign right.

Earlier, Japan and Australia reiterated their calls for the US to stick with its longstanding policy of conducting freedom-of-navigation operations in the region.

In May, the USS Dewey, a United States Navy guided-missile destroyer also conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea. The ship sailed around Mischief Reef, in the Spratly Island chain. The Chinese Defense Ministry accused Washington of militarization of the South China Sea region, following the sailing of the USS Dewey near the Mischief Reef.

Also in May, Chinese fighter jets reportedly came within 100 feet of US anti-submarine and maritime surveillance P-3 Orion aircraft over the South China Sea.

The United States has perfected the art of regime change operations. The US is the largest empire in world history with more than 1,000 military bases and troops operating throughout the world. In addition to military force, the US uses the soft power of regime change, often through ‘Color Revolutions.’ The US has been building its empire since the Civil War era, but it has been in the post-World War II period that it has perfected regime change operations.

Have the people of the United States been the victims of regime change operations at home? Have the wealthiest and the security state created a government that serves them, rather than the people? To answer these questions, we begin by examining how regime change works and then look at whether those ingredients are being used domestically.

Color Revolutions and Regime Change Operations

Almost from the start, the CIA’s role has been more than intelligence gathering. It has been a key player in putting in place governments friendly to the United States and conducting other operations, e.g. the CIA is currently involved in drone strikes.

One of the first regime change operations of the CIA was Operation Ajax conducted in Iran, and led by Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, who was president when the US solidified its global empire ambitions. The CIA was founded in 1947 and the regime change coup in Iran was 1953. Greg Maybury writes in “Another Splendid Little Coup“: “Placing to one side an early dress rehearsal in Syria in 1949, the Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in regime change upon the part of Anglo-American alliance…”  Just this month the US government released documents showing the CIA and State Department’s planning and implementation of the coup against the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. This release supplements one from 2013 that did not reveal the full role of the US in the coup.

The Iran coup was crude compared to more modern efforts but had the ingredients that have become common – civil society protests against the government, media reports supporting the protests, agents within the government supporting the coup and replacement of the government with a US-friendly regime. The Iran coup may have been the most costly mistake in US foreign policy because it undermined a secular democratic government in Iran that could have been the example for the region. Instead the US installed the brutal Shah of Iran, whose rule ended in the 1979 revolution, in which, as Maybury reports, the US was also implicated because it felt the Shah had overstayed his welcome.

The Iran coup was perceived as a great CIA success, so it was copied in other Middle Eastern countries as well as countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Regime change is still a major tool of US foreign policy. There is a long-term ongoing coup campaign in Venezuela, with its most recent episode last week in which a helicopter attack on the Supreme Court was tied to the US DEA and CIA. The US has allied with oligarchs, supported violent protests and provided funds for the opposition, which has also worked to undermine the Venezuelan economy — a tactic the US has used in other coups, e.g. the coup of Allende in Chile.

The coup in Ukraine, which the media falsely calls a ‘democratic revolution,’ was, as the head of the ‘private CIA’ firm Stratfor says, “the most blatant coup in history.” The CIA and State Department played the lead roles.

Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, bragged that the US spent $5 billion to build civil society opposition against a government that leaned toward Russia. The government funded civil society opposition through US AID, which is the open vehicle for what the CIA used to do covertly, along with the National Endowment for Democracy. This funding was used to build oppositional civil society groups and create destabilization. They focused on the issue of corruption, which exists in every government, and built it up to a centerpiece for regime change. The US allied with extremist right-wing groups in Ukraine.

The US picked the new leaders of Ukraine. This included Petro Poroshenko, whom U.S. officials refer to as “Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko” in a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 . The selected Prime Minister was Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Before the coup, Victoria Nuland told the US Ambassador to Ukraine that ‘Yats’ should be the prime minister. And, the Finance Minister was Natalia Jaresko, a long-time State Department official who moved to Ukraine after the US-inspired coup, the Orange Revolution, to become a conduit for US funding of civil society through her hedge fund. She was a US citizen whom Poroshenko made a Ukrainian on the day she was appointed Finance Minister. To top it off, fmr. Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and fmr. Secretary of State John Kerry’s longtime financial ally, Devon Archer, were put on the board of the largest private gas corporation in the Ukraine. Yet, the US media refuses to call this complete take over of the country by the United States a coup and instead describes Russia as the aggressor.

The US has perfected regime change operations from the 1950s up through today. The standard method of operation is finding an issue to cause dissent, building opposition in a well funded civil society ‘movement’, manipulating the media, putting in place US friendly leaders and blaming US opposition for the coup to hide US involvement. This approach is consistent no matter which party is in power in the US.

The Kleptocratic Oligarch Coup In The United States

Let’s apply the lessons from around the world to the United States. There is no question the US is an oligarchy. We say no question because recent political studies have proven it in multiple ways.

One difference in the US is that money plays an outsized influence in US elections. The wealthy can buy the government they want through campaign donations and by anonymous spending but the tools of color revolutions are still needed to legitimize the government. Legitimacy is getting harder to buy. Many realize we live in a mirage democracy. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs reported in 2016 the extent of the loss of legitimacy of US government:

“Nine in 10 Americans lack confidence in the country’s political system, and among a normally polarized electorate, there are few partisan differences in the public’s lack of faith in the political parties, the nominating process, and the branches of government.”

Jimmy Carter has pointed to the “unlimited bribery” of government as turning the US into an oligarchy. The government needs to use the tools of regime change at home in order to create an veneer of legitimate government.

The Donald Trump presidency, which we regularly criticize, brings a lot of these tools to the forefront because Trump beat the system and defeated the elites of both parties. As a result, Democratic Party propaganda is being used to undermine Trump not only based on his policies but also through manufactured crises such as RussiaGate. The corporate media consistently hammers home RussiaGate, despite the lack of evidence to support it. Unlike the Watergate or Iran-Contra scandals, there is no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to get elected. And, the security state – the FBI and the agencies that conduct regime change operations around the world – is working to undermine Trump in a still unfolding domestic coup.

Civil society also has a strong role. John Stauber writes that:

“The professional Progressive Movement that we see reflected in the pages of The Nation magazine, in the online marketing and campaigning of MoveOn and in the speeches of Van Jones, is primarily a political public relations creation of America’s richest corporate elite, the so-called 1%, who happen to bleed Blue because they have some degree of social and environmental consciousness, and don’t bleed Red. But they are just as committed as the right to the overall corporate status quo, the maintenance of the American Empire, and the monopoly of the rich over the political process that serves their economic interests.”

Civil society groups created or aligned with the Democratic Party are defining the new form of false-resistance as electing Democrats. The Democrats, as they have done throughout history as the oldest political party, know how to control movements and lead them into ineffectiveness to support the Democratic Party agenda. We described, in “Obamacare: The Biggest Insurance Scam in History,” how this was done skillfully during the health reform process in 2009. This new resistance is just another tool to empower the elites, not resistance to the oligarchic-kleptocrats that control both parties. In fact, a major problem in progressive advocacy is the funding ties between large non-profits and corporate interests. The corruption of money is seen in organizations that advocate for corporate-friendly policies in education, health care, energy and climate, labor, and other issues.

Color Revolution Tools Used In The US

Now the tools the US uses for regime change around the world are being used at home to funnel activist energy and efforts into the Democratic party and electoral activities. In order to resist this new “resistance” we need to be aware of it and how it operates. We need to see through propaganda, such as RussiaGate, and attempts to manipulate the masses through scripted events that are portrayed as organic, such as the recent “sit in” by Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Cory Booker on the Capitol steps, or through highly emotional cultural content that portrays the plutocratic parties as parties of the people. We have to remember that the root issue is plutocracy and the US has two plutocratic parties, often referred to as “The Duopoly.”

We must continue to focus on the issues that are in crisis such as the economy, health care, education, housing, racism, inequality and militarization at home and abroad. We must fight for these issues independent of political party. We must be clear and uncompromising in our demands so that we are not taken off track. And we must have a clear vision of the future that we want to see.

Popular Resistance is a co-convener of the People’s Congress of Resistance. The People’s Congress will bring people together from around the US to meet in Washington, DC this September to outline a vision from the grassroots. A draft of that vision will be circulated over the next few months so that many people will provide input. Check out the People’s Congress here and get involved however you are able.

All images in this article are from the authors.

The 4th of July is upon us. We will hear all sorts of patriotic BS about how wonderful we are and how thankful we are to our brave military who defends our liberty.

Not a word will be said about the destruction by the Bush and Obama regimes of the US Constitution, which once protected our liberty far better than any military action.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s 16 years of purely gratuitous war in the Middle East and North Africa that has destroyed in whole or part seven countries, sending millions of war refugees to overrun the Western World and change the quality of life for Western peoples.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s ongoing insane provocations of Russia and China and Iran and Syria and North Korea that are likely to end in nuclear Armageddon.  

Speeches will celebrate “the exceptional, indispensable USA,” and fireworks will go off, preludes to the onrushing nuclear Armageddon.

While we listen to speeches of our wonderful fairy tale life, how lucky we are to be so beloved by our Great Democratic Government, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has issued an all points bulletin urging its members to wake up and to urge their US Senators

“to oppose the American Health Care Act passed by the House. This harmful bill gives billions of dollars to special interests while sticking ordinary Americans with huge premium hikes. It includes an age tax that would force older Americans to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance. it weakens Medicare and removes protections for people with pre-existing conditions. I urge you to represent my interests—not those of the drug and insurance companies.”

The last sentence astounded me. How is it possible that a lobby group for retired people can possibly believe that the House and Senate have any interest in serving the American people?

The House and Senate serve the people who have money, and those people are not the elderly. Thanks to the Federal Reserve, the elderly have not had any interest income on their savings for a decade.

Moreover, thanks to jobs offshoring, the middle class is shrinking, and grandparents are having to support out of their savings both children and grandchildren. Savings are being drawn down and used up. Retired Americans simply do not have the resources to compete in Washington with the pharmaceutical and insurance corporations who are determined to pillage the elderly.

In the USA money resides in the hands of the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby (US taxpayers give the money to them), Wall Street and the Banks Too Big To Fail, real estate and insurance, and environmental polluters such as energy, mining, electricy production, and agribusinss.

No one else has any money. Therefore, these interest groups determine US domestic and foreign policy. 

The policy of the US government is easy to sum up. It consists of driving the American population into the ground and fomenting war abroad. This is what serves the money interests that control the government.

Democracy does not exist in America. All the bombast you will hear on the 4th is designed to keep you locked in The Matrix.

The talk about “taking back your government” is nonsense. The government doesn’t belong to you. You can’t take it back. 

Chris Hedges says that your only alternatives are to overthrow the criminal class in Washington or to accept your slavery.

Featured image from The United States Army

Featured image: Muhajideen fighters in 1984. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“Hell is full of good wishes and desires” – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Defining the concept of humanitarian intervention is problematic and, therefore, implementation of its conceptualisation is contentious. On the one hand, humanitarian intervention is commonly acknowledged to be an action of ‘last resort’ taken by a state or a group of states to alleviate or end gross violations of human rights on behalf of the citizens or ethnic minorities of the target state, through the use of military force. On the other hand, humanitarian intervention is perceived to be one of the most subtle and hidden forms of power in contemporary geopolitical systems. That is to say, the ideological structures that provide and underpin legitimacy for the more overt exercise of political and economic powers are manifested through the rhetoric of humanitarian interventionism.

Consequently, a phenomenon of humanitarian intervention has been one of the most contentious topics in international law, political science, and moral philosophy. Nonetheless, by reviewing the evolution of the concept, it can be concluded that the motives for humanitarian intervention are morally and legally intolerable, acting as a force of liberal imperialism. Furthermore, history illustrates that humanitarian intervention is a part of a wider process employed by power states as a strategy to expend their political and economic influence.

“International history is rife with interventions justified by high-sounding principles” (Doyle, 2006: 5).

From the very beginnings of the world system as it is recognized today, some 500 years ago, ideologies that justify Western power on the grounds that it is based on natural law and universal values were developed and espoused by Euro-American leaders. As such, the power wielded by their actions is presented as a benevolent vehicle through which the common good is spread. According to Wallerstein (2006), the humanitarian intervention debate can be traced back to the origins of European colonization. However, as Chomsky emphasizes,

“if we had records we might find that Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun professed humanitarian motives” (1999: 76).

Although contemporary humanitarian interventions are carried out in the name of democracy and more specifically human rights, a historical survey of this phenomenon reveals a clear evolution of such notions over time. As noted by Wallerstein

“the intervenors, when challenged, always resort to a moral justification — natural law and Christianity in the sixteenth century, the civilizing mission in the nineteenth century, and human rights and democracy in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries…” (2006: 27).

Juan Gines de Sepúlveda (1984) in his book, Democrates Segundo o de las Justas causas de la guerra contra los indios, outlined “basic arguments that have been used to justify all subsequent ‘interventions’ by the ‘civilized’ in the modern world into ‘noncivilized’ zones” (Wallerstein, 2006: 6). Sepúlveda (1984) accused the indigenous population of barbarism due to their practice of human sacrifice, which violates the divine and natural law. As such, according to Sepúlveda (ibid.), the Spanish had the responsibility to protect the innocent harmed by such hostile practices. In addition, Sepúlveda (ibid.) argued, Spanish rule was essential in bringing the message of Christ to the secular indigenous population. Therefore, as Sepúlveda (ibid.) notes, the positive ends including the spread of the natural law for the great benefit of the barbarians and protection of the innocent justify bellicose means employed by the civilized.

Bartolome de Las Casas, the first priest appointed in the Americas in the early 1500s, however, questioned the morality of such intervention. By denouncing the injustices of the Spanish conquest of South and Central America, Las Casas sought to secure the protection of the indigenous population. Las Casas (1999) countered Sepúlveda’s arguments by asserting that irrespective of how prevalent those motives were, they lacked moral significance. Moreover, even if such claims were justified, it did not mean that Spain was the appropriate actor to protect the innocent, or even that it could be done without causing more harm than good (Las Casas, 1999).

Such sentiments, the inability of the barbarians to govern themselves and the consequent need for civilizing missions, followed through to the nineteenth century, and were even shared by the most liberal and progressive of Western thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill. While mainly agreeing with the principle of nonintervention, Mill (1867) argued the case for ‘benign colonialism’. In other words, Mill’s principles of nonintervention were applicable only to ‘civilized’ nations. According to Mill (1867), ‘uncivilized’ peoples suffer from debilitating infirmities such as anarchy, despotism, familism and amoral presentism, which, in turn, makes them incapable of self-determination and, therefore, unfit for the principles of nonintervention. As such, Mill notes:

“…there assuredly are cases in which it is allowable to go to war, without having been ourselves attacked, or threatened with attack… To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error….” (1867: 166-167).

Nevertheless, once Mill’s words are put into the context of the whole paper, it is clear that Mill (ibid.) advocates for neither racial domination nor exploitation; on the contrary, Mill (ibid.) promotes the duty of paternal care, precluding exploitation and oppression while acquiring education and care so that one day colonized people become fit for independent national existence. That is to say, in order for ‘uncivilized’ societies to advance to the point where they are capable of sustaining liberal institutions and self-government, a temporary period of political dependence or tutelage is necessary. From this perspective, colonialism is not principally a form of economic exploitation and political domination, but rather an empire’s paternalistic practice that exports ‘civilisation’ in order to foster the improvement of indigenous population (Mill, 1867). However, a benign trusteeship is a slippery slope that generally, as history has shown (refer to colonialization of Africa, Latin and Central America as well as Asia), become malign imperialism. After all, as Doyle (2006) notes, how far is it from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and King Leopold’s Congo Free State to the Aborigines’ Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Campaign? Furthermore, there is a great difficulty of consistently and objectively delineating between the ‘uncivilized’ and ‘civilized’ peoples. The problematic nature of such can, therefore, be exploited in order to legitimize subjugation as a way to facilitate the salvation and enlightenment of indigenous peoples.

1946 – General Assembly adopts its first resolution (Source: UN Photo/Marcel Bolomey)

With the passage of WWII, and the inception of the United Nations, powerful states shifted their rhetoric from the notions of cultural and racial superiority and consequent ‘civilizing missions’ to human rights. Such sentiments intensified after the end of the Cold War, which subsequently saw a surge in the number of humanitarian interventions, concomitant to the seemingly decreasing prominence of state sovereignty. This “revolution of moral concern” (Davidson, 2012: 129), emphasized through the moral necessity (Teson, 2001) and responsibility to intervene militarily in the face of gross violations of human rights, has, therefore, been promoted heavily within contemporary liberal circles. Up until the beginning of 1990s, an act of self-defence was a predominant justification for intervention, however, the rise to pre-eminence of liberal ideas regarding states’ responsibilities to individual rights “seemed to be manifesting itself in the interpretation of international law” (Davidson, 2012: 134). Thus, the principle of non-intervention, which was founded on the principle of states’ sovereignty, no longer had the authority it once did within the international community. Such shift in attitudes regarding the permissibility of military interventions culminated in the formulation of the term ‘Responsibility to Protect’ based on the principle of natural law theory — “our common human nature generates common moral duties — including, in some versions, a right of humanitarian intervention” (Holzgrefe and Keohane, 2003: 25). However, an absence of international legal mechanism that is able to address and enforce laws formulated on the back of such principle provides room for powerful states to act flexibly based upon their own political and economic bias and challenges the traditional humanitarian values of “impartiality, neutrality and independence” (Barnett, 2005: 724), ultimately rendering such principle purposeless and, in some cases, even damaging, susceptible to manipulation and exploitation.

In sum, the use of military force to further humanitarian ideals seems, at the very least, a paradox in terms. That is, “wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended, they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone” (Foucault, 1990: 137). According to Dillon and Read (2009), such are the paradoxes inherent in humanitarian intervention — liberal powers are waging war against human life in the name of human life’s protection and preservation. In other words, issues such as poverty, health crises, environmental concerns and civil conflicts are re-conceptualized as international threats that necessitate intervention so that they do not “inundate and destabilize Western society” (Duffield, 2007: 1). Accordingly, those ways of life that do not conform to Western liberal standards are viewed as a threat to society as a whole. This notion is at the root of the drive to liberal interventionism.

Considering the above-outlined historical survey, it is difficult to argue that, despite it humanitarian cloak, liberal interventionism has not, in reality, always been a part of a liberal strategy of global governance. That is to say, liberal imperialism. As such, it can be concluded that liberal enterprise is “quintessentially concerned with the art of global supremacy” (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991: 14). As illustrated, there are distinct similarities between the current discussions surrounding liberalism and old rhetoric of the empire. In other words,humanitarian intervention is basically a veil behind which political and economic imperialism can disguise itself. Furthermore, it seems there exists a significant cognitive dissonance between liberal universalism proclaimed through cosmopolitan humanitarianism, and liberal imperialism expressed through high-sounding principles of humanitarian intervention that, in reality, functions as a vehicle through which all forms of life that do not conform to liberal ideals are eradicated or expelled (McCarthy, 2009: 166).

Sources

Barnett, M. (2005), ‘Humanitarianism Transformed’. Perspectives on Politics. 3(4): 723-740.

Burchell, G., Gordon, C., Miller, P. (1991), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chomsky, N. (1999), The New Military Humanism: Lessons From Kosovo. London: Pluto Press.

Davidson, J. (2012), ‘Humanitarian Intervention as Liberal Imperialism: A Force for Good?’. POLIS Journal. 7: 128-164.

Dillon, M., Reid, J. (2009), The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live. London: Routledge.

Doyle, M. W. (2006), Sovereignty and humanitarian military intervention. Available at:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pcglobal/conferences/normative/papers/Session5_Doyle.pdf

[Accessed: 15 May 2017].

Duffield, M. (2007). Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Foucault, M. (1990), The History of Sexuality, (translated by Robert Hurley). New York: Random House.

Holzgrefe, J. L., Keohane, R. O. (2003), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Las Casas, B. (1999), In Defense of Indians, trans. S. Poole. DeKalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

Mill, J. S. (1867), ‘A Few Words on Nonintervention.’, Dissertations and discussions. London: Savil and Edwards, pp. 153-78.

Sepúlveda, J. G. (1984), Democrates Segundo o de las Justas causas de la guerra contra los indios, trans. A. Losada. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Tesón, F. R.(2001), ‘The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention’.Public Law Research Paper No. 39. FSU College of Law.

Wallerstein, I. (2006), European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power. New York: New Press.

The June 5 decision by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt to suspend diplomatic ties with Qatar has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.

The ensuing blockade shut down much of the Gulf’s maritime and land trade with Qatar, provoking fears that the tiny state would soon face food shortages. Major air carriers, including Emirates, Gulf Air, flydubai, and Etihad Airways, canceled flights, and Qatari citizens living in the participating nations had just two weeks to return home. Even immigrants with Qatari residency permits would be caught up in the expulsion.

The UAE outlawed any expression of sympathy for Qatar – including on Twitter – and threatened offenders with jail terms of up to fifteen years.

Governments closely linked to Saudi Arabia and the UAE quickly expressed support for the blockade, including the Tobruk-based House of Representatives in Libya (one of the country’s warring governmental factions), the Saudi-backed Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi government in Yemen, as well as the Comoros, Mauritania, and the Maldives.

Source: Socialist Project

Bad Press: Financing Islamist Groups and Closer to Iran

The move against Qatar came after months of bad press in American and Gulf media, in which state officials repeatedly claimed that Qatar was financing Islamist groups and growing closer to Iran.

Yousef Al Otaiba, UAE’s ambassador to the United States, played a major role in this campaign. Since the beginning of the 2010 Arab uprisings, Otaiba has roamed Washington’s corridors of power, warning that these popular revolts threaten the region’s established order and claiming that Qatar supports movements and individuals hostile to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Former American government officials and think tanks – notably the neoconservative, pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a prominent supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq – have taken up this anti-Qatari crusade. On May 23, the FDD convened a high-profile seminar to discuss the Gulf nation’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and how the Trump administration should respond. There, former secretary of defense Robert Gates called on the American government to relocate its massive airbase in Qatar unless the country cut ties with such groups.

According to emails released shortly after the conference, Otaiba supposedly reviewed and encouraged Gates’s comments. Indeed, this leak reportedly helped trigger the blockade, revealing the ambassador’s cozy relationship with Gates, the FDD, and other figures close to the Trump administration.

Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have also claimed that Qatar has sought to strengthen ties to Iran over the past months. One piece of evidence offered for this is the claim that Qatar recently paid $700-million to Iran in order to secure the release of twenty-six Qatari royals who had been kidnapped in Iraq in 2015, and had been held in Iran for a year and a half. This story – which also allegedly involved a separate payment of up to $300-million to Al Qaeda-aligned groups in Syria – was denied by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who stated on June 11 that the money remains in the Iraqi central bank.

For its part, Saudi Arabia decried a statement attributed to Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, which appeared on the state-owned Qatar News Agency. During a graduation speech for national guard officers at the Al Udeid base, Al Thani purportedly praised Iran and criticized the Gulf states that see the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Qatar explained that the website had been hacked – an assertion the FBI later supported– and that Al Thani had made no such statements.

Amid all these claims and counter-claims, some observers argue that Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on May 20 represented a key moment in the campaign against Qatar, alleging that Trump gave Saudi Arabia and the UAE the green light. Indeed, one of his characteristically eloquent tweets seems to confirm this, as the president bragged that the blockade came out of his meetings in Riyadh.

Not everyone in Washington, however, fully supports Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Other officials – notably Rex Tillerson – are calling for an easing of the blockade and a peaceful solution. The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, also weighed in, calling for an end to the conflict while also stating that Qatar “urgently needs to do more to address support for extremist groups.”

Internecine squabbling is nothing new for the Gulf’s fractious ruling families, but the decision to isolate Qatar marks a significant escalation. How should we understand the blockade in the context of wider developments in the Middle East, particularly in the wake of the Arab uprisings? Do these events mark an irreconcilable schism in Gulf politics or a fundamental shift in the historic patterns of American alliances in the region?

Shared Interests and Rivalries

We cannot understand the current conflict without analyzing the wider regional integration project, embodied in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman established this organization two years after the 1979 Iranian revolution and at the beginning of the war between Iraq and Iran that would last until 1988.

At the time, the GCC was widely seen as an American-backed response to these regional upheavals, designed to establish a security umbrella across the six member states, which the United States would encourage, equip, and oversee.

Not only do these states have rich oil and gas resources – the ultimate explanation for the United States’ interest in such an alliance – but they also share similar structures, marked by authoritarian ruling families and a labour force that primarily consists of largely rightless temporary migrant workers – a feature often forgotten in the flurry of media discussion about the Gulf over the past few weeks. The GCC’s integration project reflected these states’ collective interests, which are uniquely aligned with Western powers.

The relationship between the United States, other Western powers, and the GCC has strengthened considerably since 1981, as Qatar’s Al Udeid air base demonstrates.

Now over fourteen years old, Al Udeid hosts over ten thousand American troops and is the United States’ largest overseas airbase. As the forward headquarters of Special Operations Central Command and Air Forces Central Command, Qatar helps coordinate the United States’ military footprint throughout the region, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States also runs its principal naval base from Bahrain, home to the Naval Forces Central Command and Fifth Fleet. More than twenty thousand American military personnel are stationed throughout the rest of the Gulf.

The sale of military equipment to the Gulf by the United States and European nations, particularly the United Kingdom and France, is closely linked to this military presence. Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia put this aspect of the U.S.-Saudi relationship on display: the dealmaker-in-chief reportedly signed contracts for more than one hundred billion dollars. (The precise values remain disputed, as they are largely based on letters of intent and include deals agreed upon with the Obama administration.)

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Arms and Military Expenditure Program, nearly 20% of world military imports went to GCC nations in 2015; Saudi Arabia and the UAE ranked first and fifth. Saudi Arabia and the UAE accounted for 80% of all GCC military imports that year, but Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman also appear on the list of the world’s top forty importing countries. The GCC’s share of the global market has more than doubled since 2011, and it has become the largest market for weapons in the world.

These purchases recycle a portion of the Gulf’s petrodollar surpluses to the companies that produce the world’s military hardware. The GCC not only hosts American forces, but it also pays handsomely for the privilege.

The Gulf’s Political Economy

But the significance of the GCC project extends beyond protecting an exclusive club of oil-rich monarchies and maintaining the region’s role as forward headquarters for American military power in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the institutional framework laid down by the GCC encouraged the six member states to devise a much closer political and economic alignment, an arrangement often compared to the European Union. The last two decades have seen considerable progress toward this goal: increased levels of pan-GCC capital flows, a move toward standardized taxes and tariffs for imported goods, policies that encourage the free movement of citizen labour, and more unified political institutions. A common currency, the khaleeji, was even proposed.

This regional integration process supports the specific form of capitalism GCC states share. The large Gulf conglomerates (both state and privately owned) that dominate the Gulf’s political economy operate across Gulf borders, and – similar to the European Union – are also marked by a pronounced interpenetration of capital ownership structures across different Gulf states.

Importantly, however – and this helps us understand the latest conflicts in the region – this integration project did not extinguish the members’ rivalries or competitive tensions. A sharp hierarchy of political and economic power has marked the GCC since its inception, with the main pivot revolving around a Saudi-UAE axis.

These two countries have become the primary sites of capital accumulation, and firms from Saudi Arabia and the UAE dominate the GCC economy in the real estate, finance, trade, logistics, telecommunications, petrochemicals, and manufacturing sectors. There are also significant cross-border investments between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

This axis is not without its own tension – reflected, for example, in the Emirati rejection of the Saudi-backed unified currency project in 2009 – but their political alignment has developed alongside their economic ties.

Bahrain is closely integrated into this axis as a junior partner. Its ruling Al Khalifa monarchy depends on Saudi financial, political, and military support, as the 2011 uprisings clearly demonstrated.

This sub-alliance influences how other GCC states relate to the rest of the world, a feature clearly illustrated by the region’s trade patterns. Due to relatively low levels of non-hydrocarbon manufacturing and small agricultural sectors, the GCC relies heavily on imports. The Saudi-UAE axis mediates these shipments: they bring goods in, then re-export them to other states, sometimes after value-added processing.

Food imports are of particular importance. The four other GCC states import more food from Saudi Arabia and the UAE combined than from any other country in the world. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE each ranked as either the first or second food exporter to every one of the other GCC states.

Remarkably – particularly since these figures include major wheat and meat exporters, including the United States, India, Brazil, and Australia – Saudi Arabia and the UAE were responsible for 53% of the total food export value to Oman, 36% to Qatar, 34% to Bahrain, and 24% to Kuwait.

These trends not only underscore the importance of placing the Saudi-UAE axis at the center of our understanding of the rest of the Gulf, but they also help explain the potential effects of the current blockade.

The Regional Scale

Dominated by this Saudi – UAE axis, the other smaller states have played a more marginal role in the Gulf’s political economy. With a tiny citizen population (only 313,000 citizens out of a total population of 2.6 million, an astonishing 12% of the country) and enormous wealth from its vast natural gas reserves, Qatar has particularly chafed at this hierarchical structure.

On a per capita basis, it is the richest country in the world – with 17.5% of its citizen households worth more than one million dollars – yet it has largely been denied a place in the GCC’s wider political and economic structures, muscled out by its bigger neighbors.

Source: Socialist Project

Limited by the size of their domestic markets and flush with surplus capital from nearly fifteen years of rising oil and gas prices, a key consequence of these internal competitive hierarchies has been the attempt by all Gulf states to grow beyond the GCC’s borders. Large private and state-backed conglomerates have expanded their operations globally, investing in real estate, financial institutions, emerging technologies, agribusiness, and other sectors. While all GCC states have participated in this process, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have led the way.

Although Gulf capital flows have largely concentrated on North America and Europe, the Middle East has also become an important target. As Arab states opened their markets and liberalized key economic sectors – a process led by the World Bank’s neoliberal poster child, Mubarak’s Egypt – Gulf capital took a leading role throughout the 2000s in buying up privatized assets (often through corrupt deals with state elites) and benefitting from the market opening that followed in the wake of neoliberal reform.

From 2003 to 2015, GCC states accounted for a remarkable 42.5% of total new foreign direct investment (FDI) in other Arab nations. In this period, around half of all foreign investments in Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, and Tunisia came from the Gulf. Further, from 2010 to 2015, European, Gulf, and North American investors spent just over twenty billion euros on mergers and acquisitions in the Arab World. The GCC share made up almost half, at 44.7%.

As stunning as these figures are, they actually understate the level of internationalization. They do not include, for example, the considerable levels of bilateral aid from the Gulf, nor do they necessarily incorporate Gulf firms’ portfolio investments in regional stock markets.

As this process unfolded, the GCC’s political role became increasingly prominent. The Gulf not only drove the construction of a regional order marked by authoritarian states and liberalized economies, but also benefited from it. All of this occurred under the auspices of Western powers and international financial institutions.

As this process drew the GCC states closer together, it also intensified their rivalries. One of the most important manifestations of this tension came when Qatar attempted to adopt an autonomous regional policy, relatively independent of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Qatar began sponsoring different political forces – the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban – and hosting a variety of exiled dissidents – the Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who hosts popular television shows on Qatari channels, and the Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara. Qatar also used its extensive media network to promote itself as a regional force, notably through Al Jazeera and its affiliates and, more recently, the daily newspaper and TV channel Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, launched in early 2015.

The Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in late 2010 accentuated these divisions, but they also emphasized the Gulf’s shared interests. By profoundly threatening the regional order and its authoritarian regimes, the uprisings presented the GCC states with a sharp challenge: how to head off the popular movements and reconstitute the authoritarian, neoliberal order? Each state had a common interest in this counterrevolutionary process, but their responses differed along the lines described above.

Qatar supported forces allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE looked toward people like Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt and former CIA asset Khalifa Haftar in Libya. A contradictory and rapidly changing constellation of alliances formed around the GCC’s common interests and their internal rivalries.

Qatar supported the Saudi-led intervention in Bahrain, participated in the war against Yemen, and, in Syria, opposed its supposed new ally, Iran. In Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Palestine, however, Qatar tended to back rival factions. The lines blur even in these cases: Qatar expressed support for Sisi following the 2013 coup, despite its clear alliance with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

These diverging alliances also extend to other participants in the current blockade; Sisi’s Egypt, for example, supports the Assad regime in Syria, lining up with Iran but against Saudi Arabia, despite its almost complete dependence on the Saudi – UAE axis.

The key point, often overlooked in the media commentary on the blockade, is that there are no principled political positions involved in these alliances – this is about calculated expediency and a pragmatic assessment by each state of how best to further their regional influence, always within the framework of reordering the region in a way amenable to their collective political and economic power.

We need to keep both these tendencies in mind when we assess the current situation. A strong unanimity of interests underpins the Gulf states’ position on top of the regional order, a situation fully supported by – and in full support of – Western powers. Simultaneously, the GCC is split by rivalries and competition, reflected in the members’ different visions of how to maintain their shared interests.

The Question of Israel

In the wake of the Arab uprisings, we are now seeing an assertion of both of these tendencies. Specifically, the current blockade is a play by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to fully assert their hegemony over the region and to put Qatar back in its place.

But this is not just about Saudi Arabia and the UAE; it fundamentally expresses a general counterrevolutionary process that has been present since the beginning of the uprisings – restoring the status quo of authoritarian neoliberal states that has served the interests of the GCC as a whole (including Qatar) for several decades. All of this must also be seen through the lens of the Gulf’s continued and ever-strengthening alliance with the U.S. and other Western powers.

Within this process, the place of Israel plays a key role. Since the 1990s, American regional policy has sought to bring the GCC and Israel closer together, normalizing economic and political relations between the two pillars of U.S. power in the region. Since the Arab uprising, this rapprochement has appeared more and more likely.

It is no accident that Trump’s first international trip had him visit Saudi Arabia and then Israel (flying directly between the two), a travel schedule that perfectly illustrates the United States’ strategic priorities in the region. Despite the Arab League’s long-standing boycott of relations with Israel, the Gulf region (particularly the Saudi – UAE axis) and Israel agree on key political questions, and both sides are actively seeking to build closer ties.

In late March 2017, Haaretz reported that the UAE and Israel participated in joint military exercises in Greece alongside the United States and several European countries. This was not their first collaboration: a year earlier, Israel, the UAE, Spain, and Pakistan participated in Red Flag, an aerial combat training exercise that took place in Nevada.

In late November 2015, Israel opened a diplomatic office in the UAE’s capital city, Abu Dhabi, as part of the International Renewable Energy Agency – the first time an official Israeli diplomatic presence appeared in that country. Bloomberg Businessweek reported in February 2017 that the office could act as an embassy for Israel’s expanding ties in the Gulf.

Israeli security firms have reportedly set up more than $6-billion worth of security infrastructure in the UAE; this comes after Israel sold an estimated $300-million worth of military technology to the Gulf nation in 2011.

Israeli high-tech military and security firms are also active in Saudi Arabia, where they are purportedly helping Saudi Aramco set up cyber-security, selling advanced missile systems, and even conducting public opinion research for the royal family. Israeli media has stated that the country has offered the Saudis its Iron Dome military technology to defend against attacks from Yemen.

These once-clandestine relationships are now being spoken about openly. The Times of Israel reported in June 2015 that Saudi Arabia and Israel had held five secret meetings since early 2014. In May 2015, then-director general of the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, Dore Gold, appeared publicly with retired Saudi general Anwar Eshki. The next year, Eshki visited Israel to meet with the former spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces and current coordinator of government activities in the territories, Major General Yoav Mordechai.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Israel supports the blockade against Qatar. But that doesn’t mean Qatar hasn’t also tried to normalize its relations with Israel. Like the other GCC states, Qatar’s involvement in Palestine has been designed to guarantee itself a better seat at the table – a goal the Israelis have happily supported when it serves their interests.

In 1996, Qatar permitted Israel to open a trade office in Doha, making it the only Gulf state to maintain official relations with Israel at that time. Although the office closed following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in 2008, Qatar has repeatedly offered to re-establish ties in return for being allowed to supply financial and material aid to Gaza. An Israeli trade delegation that visited Qatar in 2013 reportedly learned that Qatar was interested in investing in the Israeli high-tech sector.

Qatar is the only GCC state that admits Israeli visitors and has allowed Israeli athletes to participate in sporting and cultural events. In 2013, Qatar chaired the Arab League meeting that changed the 2002 peace initiative to allow Israel to keep its settlement blocs in any final agreement. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli justice minister, described the development as “very positive.” And in early February 2017, Muhammad al-Imadi, head of Doha’s national committee for the reconstruction of Gaza, claimed that “he maintains excellent ties” with Israeli political and military officials.

All of these trends indicate that none of the Gulf states – including Qatar – should be viewed in any way as a reliable ally or friend of the Palestinian struggle. But the current tensions in the Gulf also hold potentially important implications for political power in Palestine.

Mohammed Dahlan’s increasing political influence speaks to this possibility. Dahlan, a Fatah factional leader some believe will replace Abu Mazen (the current head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority), lives in Abu Dhabi, and the UAE has long supported him politically and financially. He has close ties to Israel and the United States and has become their preferred candidate to succeed the octogenarian Mazen.

Although rivalries within Fatah may cut Dahlan’s rise short, his growing importance points to how the current tensions in the Gulf might realign the power balance in neighboring areas.

Future Directions

Not all GCC states or regional actors support the current blockade. At the time of writing, Oman has allowed Qatar-bound ships to use its ports, and Kuwait has been engaged in frantic diplomatic efforts to calm the tensions. Only Bahrain has stood fully behind Saudi Arabia and the UAE, largely thanks to the Al Khalifa monarchy’s long-standing dependence on Saudi Arabia.

Turkey has offered to send troops to a Turkish military base in Qatar, and Iran has pledged to send food and water to overcome the closure of Qatar’s sole land border with Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s attempts to recruit other countries with large Muslim populations – such as Senegal, Niger, Djibouti, and Indonesia – have largely failed. Arab countries like Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have also rejected the blockade.

In light of these disputes, we should remember what the GCC represents as a whole. This bloc of states is fully integrated into a U.S.-aligned regional power structure, has massively benefited from neoliberal reforms in the Arab world, and has become more and more intertwined with the region’s political dynamics.

These states share an interest in preserving their regional position and their long-standing political structures. These commitments outweigh the potential benefits of fracturing the project. Likewise, the West and Israel want to see the GCC hold together, as it has served their interests so well over recent decades.

Despite the current schisms, some kind of negotiated solution that sees Qatar defer to the Saudi – UAE axis and accept diminished regional influence is the most likely outcome.

This settlement would ultimately strengthen the Saudi – UAE axis and help consolidate the counterrevolution; it would also likely precipitate a realignment of political power in places like Tunisia, Libya, and Palestine.

But the Left must realize that none of Qatar’s putative allies – specifically Turkey and Iran – represent a progressive alternative for the region. While they may be lined up against the Saudi – UAE front in this context, these states have participated in the post-2011 counterrevolutionary process just as enthusiastically as their rivals.

Perhaps the most important lesson of the current crisis is that we must avoid simplistic readings of the Middle East, especially those based on the notion that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

It would be utterly foolish to consider Qatar, Turkey, or Iran as representative of some progressive realignment just because they happen to be – at least for the moment – on the wrong side of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel. Jostling for regional power sparked these tensions and produced all sorts of contradictory and shaky political alliances, but none of the states involved represent any kind of political alternative worthy of the Left’s support.

Adam Hanieh is a senior lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and the author of Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East. This article is first published on the Jacobin website.

An international legal and political coup d’état is taking place these days, with the help and co-operation of the European Commission, against yet another state of the EU,.

As unbelievable as it may seem, Juncker and Guterres are trying, through application of the guidelines of US and British policy, to destroy a second member of the EU after Greece and to transform it into a kind of post-modern protectorate. What is even more impressive, nearly nobody is speaking about that in international media, or, when they speak, they just reproduce the official narrative.

As 82% of the Cypriot population are Greeks by nationality, this coup should be regarded as continuation and “radicalization” of the “Destroy the Greeks” program that has been under implementation by the EU and the IMF, under supervision from High Finance in alliance with Germany, for the last seven years. From the economy they are now moving on to geopolitics. Up until now they have been usurping Greek sovereignty on matters of economic policy. With the Cyprus coup they are attempting to usurp “hard” sovereignty from the Greek people.

I am not using the term coup d’état as a rhetorical schema, I am using it stricto sensu.

An international conference has been convened in Geneva, with three foreign states (Britain, Turkey, Greece) represented along with representatives of the two largest national groups in Cyprus: Greeks and Turks. The Republic of Cyprus, a member state of the EU, is not officially represented in that conference. Two of the three states (Britain and Turkey) have in the past launched very bloody wars against the Cypriot people.

The purpose of this conference is to draw up a new “Treaty for a Federal Cyprus” and to decide the future constitutional and international regime of this state, without taking into account what the citizens of Cyprus think about this! The reason they have convened such a conference is that they are unable to persuade Cypriots themselves in a referendum to vote the solution the Western powers propose to the ethnic conflict on the island, a solution  tantamount to the suicide of the Cypriot state and its transformation into a protectorate!

The Greek government, which now acts more and more as a representative in Greece of the Troika and the West, not as a representative of the Greek people, has agreed to participate in this criminal farce. The same has happened with the President of Cyprus himself, who is openly, internationally and publicly being blackmailed with various criminal allegations, in  particular the Lebedev scandal, at the hands of the US administration and courts.

Unfortunately for the Greek people in both Greece and Cyprus, its political and ruling class has made the greatest progress in Europe in advancing the totalitarian agenda of the foreign powers that are seeking to subjugate and destroy the Greek people, their states and their democracy.

In the new “state” they want to create in Cyprus, the rule of the majority (the foundation of democracy) will be officially abolished, as the 18% minority will have a veto on all essential decisions, and foreign judges and officials will have to take the decisions in the very likely  contingencies where Greeks and Turks disagree.

The new state will not have any army or police of its own, but will be under the power of an International Police Force!

In fact, their intention is to return Cyprus to the status of a colony, which is what it was before its revolution of 1955-59 and before it achieved independence in 1960!!! They are gestating a monster, a kind of Frankenstein state.

This coup d’état is one more expression of the world-wide attack against popular and national sovereignty, against the social welfare state and against all forms of democracy.

It is the same attack which is also being organized through treaties such as TTIP, CETA, etc. which aim at establishing nothing less than a totalitarian world order, destroying any existing possibility of elected powers, at either the local or national level, having any influence on the decisions affecting people.

Neoliberalism was initially an economic and political proposal. It is now becoming a proposal for regime change.  It is already clear that, since the Maastricht Treaty at least, we have been witnessing a multi-faceted coup d’ état in the West, undermining the very foundations of the Western political order. They are abolishing the principle of popular sovereignty as such, seeking to replace it with a kingdom of Finance, whose power is embodied in various international organizations and their bureaucracies, including the EU institutions and bureaucracies and most “national governments”. They do not state as much openly but they are proceeding through various means, including TTIP, CETA and the other treaties of similar character.

We seem to live through a gigantic international counter-revolution, against the social and political results of the Second World War and the victory of the European peoples against Nazism and Fascism and, in reality, against also the very principles of Enlightenment and the French and similar revolutions (including the Greek one of 1821 and the Cypriot of 1955-59).

Our nations are in jeopardy and our states have already been, more or less, hijacked by globalization, that is, by the international dictatorship of finance capital, or at least its politically and strategically coherent wing, in alliance with the US military-industrial complex and NATO.

The content of the Western political regime as we have known it since 1945 has already been to a great extent abolished and its legal form is now gradually changing to reflect this new reality. One of the means being used is the previously mentioned international treaties. Another relevant factor is the way the European Union, the IMF and the ECB responded to the banking crisis of 2009, transforming it into a debt crisis and using it as a tool to destroy popular and national sovereignty, particularly in southern Europe.

Nowhere has this experiment gone as far as it has in Greece, which is being used, at the same time, as an example to frighten other Europeans, as a scapegoat and as a field of experimentation. The bailout program imposed on the country has already led to an economic and social crisis of unprecedented proportions, deeper than the huge crisis of 1929 in the US or the crisis in the Weimar Republic in 1929-33.

Greece is now the battlefield of the new financial totalitarianism, as between 1936 and 1939 Spain was the experimentation field of the rising Nazi and Fascist totalitarianisms.

The program being applied to Greece is not a classical program of neoliberal reforms. It is a mistake to describe what is happening in Greece using terms like austerity. What we face here is the assassination of a nation. The creditors have already taken away Greek national and popular sovereignty. A troika is running even the everyday affairs of the state and the government. All Greek public property is being looted. The Greek population is shrinking as young people are not having children; young people with specialized qualifications are emigrating in large numbers; mortality is rising among pensioners as a result of the crumbling of the health and social security systems. Greek pensions have been reduced fifteen times in the seven years of the “bail out” program. The psychology and morale of the Greek people are at an all-time low, strikingly similar to the psychology of Mr. K., the accused in the Trial by Franz Kafka.

It is not only a political, an economic, a social experiment. It is a kind of an anthropological one. They want not only to destroy the nation, democracy, the state. They want to destroy the idea of them and the very idea of citizenship. They want to lead Greece into committing a kind of collective suicide and they have up to now been to a large extent successful, especially since the betrayal by SYRIZA, one of the gravest betrayals in the history of the international Leftist movement.

Now, with the Cyprus coup, this attack against Greeks is taking new, unprecedented and even more dangerous forms.

What is happening in Greece, what is happening in the Middle East, what is happening regarding climate, all are proofs that we are faced with a horrible, extremely radical and ruthless offensive by the most dangerous and reactionary forces humankind has ever produced. No illusions are permissible. But most of us do not make a proportionate response to the situation. We frequently condemn these phenomena but we do not behave as if they are a question of life or death for human civilization.

It is important in these conditions to defend every element, everywhere, of popular and national sovereignty. But at the same time we should understand that such a struggle cannot ultimately be won at the local or national level, especially as we are already living, to a large extent, in what objectively is one state, and this state, whether we like it or not, is the EU. Our opponents already have a sophisticated regional and world agenda, but we try to confront them within the narrow context of national realities that are becoming more and more irrelevant.

We need new political subjects that will take into account the radical character of the offensive we are facing, enshrined in our national realities but also, at the same time, in the objective international reality.

More than ever we need a Zimmerwald B conference, a century after the first one.

*The above is from an intervention to the Conference on a democratic response to Free Trade Agreements, organized by the Fundación Galiza Sempre and the Centre Maurits Coppieters in Coruna (Galiza).

Featured image: Cyprus European Union EU Presidency flags over skylines Republic of Cyprus (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The attack by Turkey on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria looks more like a tactical victory than yet another instance of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s impishness.

In fact, looking over the reports on this incident it looks obvious that the real goal was Raqqa not the Kurds themselves. To wit:

1. The Russian moved into Afrin months ago, during the siege of Aleppo to keep Turkey from allowing rebels to be resupplied. They pulled their forces out before the attack.
2. The Turks have been massing in the area in preparation for an assault.
3. Reports exist of Turkish forces firing at U.S. troops embedded with the SDF and not firing back. This less than two weeks since the U.S. shot down a Syrian SU-22 for ‘threatening U.S. forces.
4. The SDF is threatening to pull out of its operation to oust ISIS from Raqqa.

These are the things we know. Even if the SDF haven’t officially stated they would pull their troops out of Raqqa in the event of a Turkish attack in Northern Aleppo, it’s pretty obvious that this attack was designed to slow down U.S. plans to colonize Syria east of the Euphrates River.

With the stepped-up U.S. belligerence against the Syrian Army in recent weeks this move by Erdogan reveals his willingness to use whatever leverage he can against his NATO ally.

This is exactly the kind of ‘parallel escalation’ that Russia excels at. Instead of dealing with the U.S. head-on and creating overt tension, Putin has his military pressure the U.S. on a different front.

Using the Turks this way serves both strategic and tactical purposes, which is why I think it’s the most likely reason why this attack suddenly started and just as suddenly stopped.

Now, everyone involved is under no illusions about what the stakes are. The U.S. cannot hold onto both Turkey as a NATO member and have the Kurds do its dirty work with the end goal being to partition Syria while the U.S. builds military bases to threaten Iraq, Iran and Russia.

This is a non-starter for Erdogan and Putin. So, it makes perfect sense that they would have discussed this plan beforehand. It also means that Putin, who has remained neutral on the Kurdish question, just told them how far he is willing to be pushed before unleashing his attack dog, Erdogan.

The Russians just pushed the U.S. military and Deep State into making the choice to give up at least one of these three things or escalate the conflict further. Because the Kurds have made it clear that they don’t trust the U.S. not to abandon them at the end of this.

So, now the American counter-move will have to be President Trump authorizing a massive build up in Syria if the Kurds abandon them at Raqqa to support the PKK enclave the Turks are threatening.

This move by Erdogan slows down the advance on Raqqa and buys the Syrian Army a little more time to shore up their campaigns to the south before moving much farther east.

The front line is too big at this point and needs to be shortened to allow longer supply lines for any assault on ISIS in Deir Ezzor.

Featured image from Zero Hedge

Note: With few exceptions, sources are from mainstream media and updated daily with additions and changes.

April 30, 2017 Sunday

– Trump dominates the 101st day with tweets, tough talk about health care.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/30/trump-dominates-101st-day-tweets-tough-talk-health-care/101124052/

– Trump on whether he could start war with North Korea: ‘I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-north-korea-nuclear-latest-war-a7710521.html

– South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-idUSKBN17W04T

– Trump says China could have hacked Democratic emails.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-china-idUSKBN17W0N4

– McCain on pre-emptive strike on North Korea: ‘We have to consider that option’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/30/mccain-north-korea-missiles-237803

– U.S.-led fight on ISIS has killed 352 civilians: Pentagon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-civilians-idUSKBN17W0ML

– Reince Priebus says White House is looking into change to libel laws.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/30/reince-priebus-libel-law-change-media-white-house

– Attorney General Eric Holder: Trump’s first 100 days full of ‘chaos, carnage’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/331329-holder-trumps-first-100-days-full-of-chaos-carnage

– Neo-Nazis and anti-fascist protesters leave Kentucky after standoff.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/30/neo-nazis-anti-fascist-protesters-kentucky-pikeville

– Trump invited President Rodrigo Duterte, an authoritarian leader accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines, to visit him at the White House.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/trump-duterte.html

– Spread of Hate Crimes Has Lawmakers Seeking Harsher Penalties.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/hate-crimes-legislation.html

– Immigrant workers at Churchill Downs fear deportation.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/immigrant-workers-fear-deportation-churchill-downs-134258304.html

– Trump guarantees protection for those with preexisting medical conditions — but it’s unclear how.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/04/30/trump-guarantees-protection-for-those-with-preexisting-medical-conditions-but-its-unclear-how/

– After a lost court battle, New Orleans protesters launch last-ditch effort to protect Confederate monuments.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/04/30/after-a-lost-court-battle-new-orleans-protesters-launch-last-ditch-effort-to-protect-confederate-monuments/

– Sebastian Gorka to leave White House. Gorka is a former Breitbart national security editor who has been outspoken on the need to confront Islamic terrorism.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/30/politics/gorka-leaving-white-house/index.html

(Opinion) Rick Perlstein: The Alt-Right Is Gunning for Anti-Trump Protesters.

http://www.newsweek.com/rick-perlstein-alt-right-gunning-anti-trump-protesters-590732

– FULL TRANSCRIPT: President Donald Trump’s interview with “Face the Nation” (recorded Apr. 29)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-interview-full-transcript-face-the-nation/

– Pelosi accidentally refers to Trump as Bush: ‘I am so sorry’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/331283-pelosi-accidentally-refers-to-trump-as-president-bush

May 1, 2017 Monday

– Congress strikes budget deal that shortchanges Trump. The bill doesn’t include money for the border wall or block funds for ‘sanctuary cities.’

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/30/budget-deal-congress-shutdown-237822

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/01/whats-in-the-spending-agreement-we-read-it-so-you-dont-have-to/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/winners-and-losers-of-the-spending-deal-spoiler-alert-trump-lost.html

– After spending-bill win, Democrats confident they can block Trump agenda. By exploiting Republican divisions over spending priorities, Democrats secured nearly $5 billion in new money for domestic programs in the five-month budget deal. The lopsided victory means it will be very difficult — if not impossible — for the GOP to exert its will in future budget talks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/after-their-spending-bill-win-democrats-confident-they-can-block-trumps-agenda/2017/05/01/5be2915e-2e97-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html

– Trump administration scraps Michelle Obama’s health and education programs.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/01/michelle-obama-school-lunch-let-girls-learn-scrapped-trump

– GOP suffers surprise defection on Obamacare repeal. The scramble for votes is still very much on.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/01/does-gop-have-obamacare-repeal-votes-237843

– (Other) In Donald Trump, European elites see a threat that rivals Vladimir Putin. Three months into his presidency, the rest of Europe too [besides Sweden] is still deeply unsettled over this new president unlike any other, confused about whether he’s a dangerous ideologue or merely dangerously ignorant.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/01/trump-europe-carl-bildt-global-politico-215087

– The White House is quietly starting to pull the plug on its shadow Cabinet of Trump loyalists who had been dispatched to federal agencies to serve as the president’s eyes and ears.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/01/trump-starts-dismantling-his-shadow-cabinet-237819

– Trump voices confusion over US history: ‘Why was there a civil war? Walks out on interview.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/01/donald-trump-civil-war-cause-andrew-jackson

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-jackson-idUSKBN17X20W

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/trump-interviews-civil-war-wiretapping

– U.S. issues travel alert for Europe, citing threat of terrorist attacks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-europe-alert-attacks-idUSKBN17X2CV

– May Day Marked With Defiant Rallies for Worker Rights Around the Globe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-may-day-usa-protests-idUSKBN17X1H1

http://time.com/4761103/may-day-labor-day-rallies/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/05/millions-hit-streets-worldwide-day-rallies-170501124327738.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p050y2s6

– Arrests made as thousands rally in US against Trump’s immigration and labor policies on May Day.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/immigrants-unions-march-us-rights-trump-47123801

– Trump says he would be ‘honored’ to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/01/trump-says-hed-be-honored-to-meet-with-north-korean-dictator/

– Trump keeps praising international strongmen, alarming human rights advocates. Trump appears to be buttering up totalitarian leaders with long records of human rights abuses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-keeps-praising-international-strongmen-alarming-human-rights-advocates/2017/05/01/6848d018-2e81-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/01/trump-duterte-dictators-white-house-237848

– Historians see a dark underside to Trump’s Civil War riff.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/01/trump-civil-war-237854

– Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven T. Mnuchin, told a Beverly Hills audience at the annual conference of the Milken Institute, an economic research group: ‘Thank me for your bank stocks doing better’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/01/trumps-treasury-secretary-thank-me-for-your-bank-stocks-doing-better/

– Senate Republicans introduce anti-net neutrality legislation.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/331483-republicans-introduce-anti-net-neutrality-legislation

– Historian Timothy Snyder: “It’s pretty much inevitable” that Trump will try to stage a coup and overthrow democracy.

http://www.salon.com/2017/05/01/historian-timothy-snyder-its-pretty-much-inevitable-that-trump-will-try-to-stage-a-coup-and-overthrow-democracy/

May 2, 2017 Tuesday

– Trump Says U.S. Needs Government ‘Shutdown’ in September or an immediate end to filibusters in the Senate so that he might gain more leverage in the next round of budget talks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/us/politics/good-shutdown-congress-trump.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/02/trump-raises-prospect-of-government-shutdown-to-leverage-better-budget-for-gop-in-fall/

– (Other: morning TV): Scarborough: ‘I’m Not Saying He [Trump] Has Dementia’ But…

http://theweek.com/speedreads/696001/joe-scarborough-frets-about-trumps-mental-state-compares-mother-dementia

http://crooksandliars.com/2017/05/scarborough-im-not-saying-he-has-dementia

– Democrats save arts funding for NPR and PBS from Donald Trump.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-npr-pbs-public-arts-cuts-democrats-save-funding-budget-a7712421.html

– Trump rally altercations could add to legal woes. The rough treatment of protesters by Bikers for Trump at the president’s rally Saturday could provide fodder for lawsuits by people who had similar experiences during the campaign.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/02/trump-rally-fights-protesters-237861

– Clinton says Comey’s letter, Russian hackers cost her the election.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-clinton-idUSKBN17Y2FF

– Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates plans to tell a Senate panel next week that she strongly warned the White House about then-national security adviser Michael Flynn weeks before he was fired.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/331640-cnn-yates-to-testify-that-she-gave-white-house-forceful-warning-on

– U.S. Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as SEC chairman.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-senate-sec-clayton-idUSKBN17Y2KS

– Senate intel panel to CIA headquarters for briefing on Russia probe.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/02/politics/senate-intelligence-committee/index.html

– U.S. high school cancels Canada trip over fears students might not be let back in.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/02/washington-high-school-field-trip-canada

– FDA delays enforcement of stricter standards for e-cigarette, cigar industry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fda-suspends-enforcement-of-stricter-standards-for-e-cigarette-cigar-industry/2017/05/02/be7e557a-2ed6-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html

– USDA shifts Obama-era school lunch guidelines. The Trump administration is scaling back school meal nutritional requirements set by the Obama White House in 2012, relaxing standards in three key areas: whole grains, salt and milk.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/02/health/school-lunch-changes/index.html

– Trump and Putin discuss cease-fire in Syria in first conversation since U.S. airstrikes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russias-putin-to-talk-with-the-leaders-of-the-west–separately/2017/05/02/d77dd446-2ecd-11e7-a335-fa0ae1940305_story.html

– Frustrated by failures, Trump now demands more power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/29/trump-is-now-talking-about-consolidating-his-own-power/

– Nouriel Roubini, the man who called the 2008 financial crisis, fears Wall Street is badly underestimating the negatives lurking beneath Trump’s agenda.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/investing/roubini-dr-doom-trump-biggest-risk/index.html

– As tensions mount over Syria and North Korea, World War III again a U.S. fear.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/02/world-war-iii-trump-russia-north-korea-syria-fear/101193642/

– White House leaning toward exiting Paris climate pact.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/331671-white-house-leaning-toward-exiting-paris-climate-pact

– Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross calls Trump’s Syria airstrikes ‘after-dinner entertainment’.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/wilbur-ross-calls-syria-airstrike-after-dinner-entertainment-article-1.3130681

May 3, 2017 Wednesday

– The House approved a bipartisan spending deal to keep the federal government funded through September and avoid a shutdown at the end of this week.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/331773-house-passes-spending-deal-to-avoid-shutdown

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/budget-spending-government-shutdown.html

– Trump wins over two Republican holdouts in new healthcare bill push breathing new life into the embattled effort to make good on the party’s top legislative priority of the last seven years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/03/obamacare-repeal-healthcare-reform-trump-republicans

– FBI Director James Comey appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The tense, four-hour appearance exposed still-raw emotions over President Trump’s surprise victory in November. ‘Mildly Nauseous’ Over Idea He Swayed the Election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/james-comey-fbi-senate-hearing.html

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/331809-fbi-director-to-congress-no-regrets

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/comey-senate-hearing-highlights/index.html

– Comey’s Calculations Favored the GOP.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-03/comey-s-calculations-favored-the-gop

– Susan Rice declines Senate request to testify on Russian hacking.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/susan-rice-refuses-graham-russia-hearing/index.html

– Rex Tillerson: ‘America first’ means divorcing our policy from our values, spoke of a separation between American values and policies that support its interests, a distinction that alarmed former diplomats.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/03/rex-tillerson-america-first-speech-trump-policy

– Scott Pruitt, EPA chief, argued that using coal for electricity is necessary for the reliability of the electric grid. Pruitt and President Trump have worked on numerous fronts in recent months to push policies that help coal, mainly through working to repeal regulations that harmed the industry.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/331819-epa-chief-us-needs-coal-to-protect-electric-grid

– Trump Is Expected to Relax Tax Rules on Churches Taking Part in Politics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/trump-religion-executive-order-gay-rights.html

– 141 House Republicans support repealing defense budget caps.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/331827-141-house-republicans-support-repealing-defense-budget-caps

– Code Pink activists convicted for disrupting Sessions’s confirmation hearing.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/331790-code-pink-activist-found-guilty-for-disrupting-sessions-confirmation

– Fed holds interest rates steady, downplays economic weakness.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-idUSKBN17Z28S

– Trump was elected 176 days ago. He’s spent 68 of them talking about the election.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/696382/trump-elected-176-days-ago-hes-spent-68-talking-about-election

– House to vote Thursday on Obamacare repeal. GOP leaders are confident they have the support but acknowledge it will be very close.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/03/house-to-vote-thursday-on-obamacare-repeal-bill-237949

– GOP rushing to vote on healthcare without analysis of changes. House Republicans are once again fast-tracking consideration of their ObamaCare replacement bill without knowing the full impact of the legislation they’ll vote on.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/331863-gop-rushing-to-vote-on-healthcare-without-analysis-of-changes

– Groups brace for Trump’s religious liberty order that they fear will give individuals and organizations a sweeping license to discriminate against women and LGBT Americans. The ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign are already on the attack.

http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/331792-groups-brace-for-trumps-religious-liberty-order

 May 4, 2017 Thursday

– U.S. Senate passes bill to fund government through September.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN1802FI

– House banking panel passes bill to undo U.S. financial crisis rules. With support only from the panel’s Republicans, the bill approved by the House Financial Services Committee would eliminate significant parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and place new restrictions on regulators monitoring Wall Street.

– Jay Clayton sworn in as chairman of the U.S. SEC.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-sec-clayton-idUSKBN1802O6

– Trump signs order to ease ban on political activity by churches, an executive order on religious liberties designed to ease a ban on political activity by churches and other tax-exempt institutions. The order also mandates regulatory relief to religious employers that object to contraception. It does not include provisions to allow government agencies and businesses to deny services to gay people in the name of religious freedom, as was feared by some civil liberties and gay rights groups.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-religion-idUSKBN18025T

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signs-order-aimed-at-allowing-churches-to-engage-in-more-political-activity/2017/05/04/024ed7c2-30d3-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/trump-religious-liberty-executive-order/index.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/04/donald-trump-religious-liberty-johnson-amendment/101277724/

– GOP HOUSE DISMANTLES ACA 217-213. The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to repeal Obamacare, handing Republican President Donald Trump a victory that could prove short-lived as the healthcare legislation heads into a likely tough battle in the Senate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN18014F

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/politics/health-care-bill-vote.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republicans-plan-health-care-vote-on-thursday-capping-weeks-of-fits-and-starts/2017/05/03/e7dd7c28-306d-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/04/politics/health-care-vote/index.html

– Trump congratulated Republican members of the House after the passage of a bill to repeal and replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005080570/trump-obamacare-repeal.html

– Trump savors health care win: ‘Hey, I’m president’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/04/trump-health-care-win-238005

– State Dept. seeks tougher visa scrutiny, including social media checks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visa-idUSKBN18020A

– Senate GOP to Snub House Obamacare Repeal Bill and Write Its Own. The decision will likely delay even further the prospect of any repeal bill reaching Trump’s desk.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-04/senate-gop-plans-own-obamacare-repeal-bill-after-house-action

– [Bloomberg Editorial Board] The Shame of the House. Nothing can redeem the Republicans’ health-insurance legislation.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-04/the-shame-of-the-house-health-care-vote

– American Medical Association condemns House healthcare bill passage.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/331966-american-medical-association-condemns-house-healthcare-bill-passage

– Senators face lobbying onslaught from liberals, health care groups.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article148726669.html

– FBI Director Comey and NSA chief brief House panel amid Russia probe.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/332002-comey-rogers-brief-house-intelligence-committee

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article148719984.html

– The U. S. will shoot itself in the foot if it quits the Paris climate accord because China, India and Europe will snap up the best power sector jobs in future, U.N. Environment chief Erik Solheim said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-un-idUSKBN1802H3

– Secretary of State Tillerson urges ASEAN to cut North Korea funding, minimize ties.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-asean-northkorea-idUSKBN1802EI

– Protesters turn out for Trump’s New York return. President forced to make a quick getaway after his first visit home since winning the White House.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332027-protesters-turn-out-for-trumps-new-york-return

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/hes-an-embarrassment-hostile-welcome-for-trump-on-return-to-new-york

– Trump’s malignant narcissism is toxic: Psychologist.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/05/04/trump-malignant-narcissistic-disorder-psychiatry-column/101243584/

May 5, 2017 Friday

– Republican healthcare bill heads to Senate, where it may undergo drastic changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/republicans-house-healthcare-bill-senate

– Trump-Russia investigation reignites as Senate asks aides to hand over notes – Carter Page, Roger Stone and others.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/trump-russia-investigation-senate-carter-page

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/us/politics/senate-russia-trump-associates.html

– Planned Parenthood head: ‘Being a woman is now a pre-existing condition’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/planned-parenthood-healthcare-bill-devastating-women-cecile-richards

– Trump rejoices: ‘We will have truly great healthcare!’ Trump touted House Republicans’ “very exciting” win, while predicting a bright future for American health care.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/obamacare-repeal-bill-passes-trump-tweet-response-238029

– Trump to stay in N.J. to avoid causing ‘big disruption’ in NYC. “Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend. Also saves country money!,” Trump tweeted.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/trump-stay-in-new-jersey-tweet-238030

– North Korea accuses CIA of biochemical plot to kill Kim Jong-un.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/05/north-korea-accuses-cia-biochemical-plot-kill-kim-jong-un

– Saudi Arabia, U.S. in talks for billions in arms sales.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-arms-exclusive-idUSKBN18124K

– FCC chairman wants to cut regulations, speed new innovation approvals.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fcc-idUSKBN181273

– Poll: Most federal employees disapprove of Trump.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332125-poll-most-federal-employees-disapprove-of-trump

– Canada studying ban on U.S. coal exports from Pacific ports. Trudeau revealed the news in a letter to British Columbia premier Christy Clark, who asked him last month for the ban in response to fresh U.S. tariffs on Canadian exports of lumber.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-canada-coal-idUSKBN18125U

– S&P 500 hits record on rebound in U.S. job growth, energy shares.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-idUSKBN18118G

– Make Pregnancy Expensive Again: A Woman’s Guide to the New Health Bill.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/make-pregnancy-expensive-again-a-woman-s-guide-to-the-new-health-bill

– U.S. Bluntly Rebuffs Queries on Climate. The Trump administration, responding to skepticism about its commitment to the Paris climate accord from China and other countries, bluntly told them that it is putting American jobs first.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-05/u-s-bluntly-rebuffs-queries-from-china-u-k-on-climate-change

– White House fires its chief usher — the first woman in that job.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/05/white-house-fires-its-chief-usher-the-first-woman-in-that-job/

– FDA denies memo saying it only allows Fox News on TVs.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/332133-fda-denies-memo-saying-it-only-allows-fox-news-on-tvs

– Mark Green withdraws his nomination for Army secretary. The decision by Green, Trump’s second pick for the post, came after his nomination ran into trouble following a backlash after past controversial statements on LGBT issues, Islam and evolution were revealed.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/05/politics/mark-green-army-secretary-withdrawal/index.html

– Amid opioid epidemic, White House may cut drug control office budget.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/05/amid-opioid-epidemic-white-house-may-cut-drug-control-office-budget/101335060/

– States That Voted for Trump May Have the Most to Lose Under House Health Care Bill.

http://time.com/4769170/congress-ahca-trump-voters/

– Senate Intelligence Committee Russia investigators issue veiled subpoena threat to Carter Page.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/senate-subpoena-threat-carter-page-238038

– Pentagon to lease privately owned Trump Tower apartment for nuclear ‘football’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pentagon-trumptower-idUSKBN1812B5

May 6, 2017 Saturday

– Trump suggests financing for historically black colleges may be unconstitutional.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/trump-historically-black-colleges-financing-unconstitutional-238061

– Chicago mayor Emanuel posts EPA’s deleted climate change page.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/06/chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-posts-epa-deleted-climate-change-page-238067

– Commerce secretary warns Canada against ‘retaliatory action’ on lumber tariff.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/06/canadian-softwood-lumber-tariffs-wilbur-ross-retaliatory-action-238072

– U.S. far-right activists, WikiLeaks and bots help amplify Macron leaks: researchers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-cyber-idUSKBN1820QO

– U.S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-hack-french-election-marine-le-pen.html

– Kushner family in Beijing: ‘Invest $500,000 and immigrate’ to US. The Kushner family hopes to lure investments from wealthy business owners in China with the promise of American visas.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/06/news/jared-kushner-nicole-family-event/index.html

– GOP Congressman Raul Labrador: ‘Nobody Dies Because They Don’t Have Access to Health Care’.

http://time.com/4769830/raul-labrador-gop-congressman-nobody-dies-health-care/

– Warren Buffett, at Berkshire Meeting, Condemns Republican Health Care Bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/business/dealbook/warren-buffett-berkshire-health-care.html

– Trump former aide Carter Page refuses to provide Russia contacts to Senate.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-carter-page-russia-contacts-senate-refuse-putin-latest-a7721651.html

– Michelle Obama responds with class to reports Trump may abolish her flagship education policy for girls.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/michelle-obama-trump-response-let-girls-learn-policy-white-house-attack-a7720611.html

May 7, 2017 Sunday

– Reporters barred from Kushner Companies’ visa-for-investment event in China.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-kushner-idUSKBN1830E7

– Jared Kushner’s Sister Woos Chinese Investors With Much-Criticized U.S. Visa Program.

http://time.com/4769960/jared-kushner-sister-visa-chinese-investors/

– Trump and Kushner exploitation of presidency ‘unlike anything we have ever seen before’, Obama’s ethics lawyer says.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-and-jared-kushners-exploitation-of-presidency-unlike-anything-we-have-ever-seen-before-a7722996.html

– Price defends cutting nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid.

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/hhs-secy-1t-proposed-medicaid-cuts-gives-states-141024827–politics.html

– Tempers Flare Over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/us/new-orleans-monuments.html

– Eric Trump said family golf courses attracted Russian funding, author claims.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/07/trump-family-golf-courses-russia-funding-author-claims

– Trump tries to pressure Senate Republicans on health care.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/HHS-sec-y-1T-proposed-Medicaid-cuts-gives-11127611.php

– As some Republicans rush to defend House health bill, Senate GOP warily pauses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-some-republicans-rush-to-defend-house-health-bill-senate-gop-warily-pauses/2017/05/07/47cde200-3346-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html

– The government wants Julian Assange in jail.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-government-wants-julian-assange-in-jail-thats-bad-for-the-rest-of-us/2017/05/05/c8e153dc-3197-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html

– If Shutdown Needed to Fix Washington, ‘So Be It,’ Mulvaney Says.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-07/if-shutdown-needed-to-fix-washington-so-be-it-mulvaney-says

– White House health care victory short-lived as Russia probe looms.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/07/trump-health-care-russia-238086

– GOP onslaught on Obama’s ‘midnight rules’ comes to an end. Republicans are about to end a special period for killing Obama-era rules with an impressive array of trophy heads for their wall.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/07/obama-regulations-gop-midnight-rules-238051

– Texas Republican governor signs into law bill to punish ‘sanctuary cities’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-texas-idUSKBN18402L

– Obama voices ‘fervent hope’ Congress will tread carefully on healthcare.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-idUSKBN1830KX

– EPA dismisses half of its scientific advisers on key board, citing ‘clean break’ with Obama administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/07/epa-dismisses-half-of-its-scientific-advisers-on-key-board-citing-clean-break-with-obama-administration/

May 8, 2017 Monday

– Left launching blitz against Republicans who backed Obamacare repeal.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/08/liberals-obamacare-repeal-238089

– Anti-protest bills would ‘attack right to speak out’ under Donald Trump. The ACLU says more than 30 bills have been introduced amid a huge swell of activism, prompting UN intervention over criminalization of peaceful protest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/donald-trump-anti-protest-bills

– EPA removes half of scientific board, seeking industry-aligned replacements.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/08/epa-board-scientific-scott-pruitt-climate-change

– Obama warned Trump against Flynn as national security adviser: ex-official.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN1841UO

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/obama-trump-michael-flynn/index.html

– Trump administration seeks to convince judges to revive travel ban.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-idUSKBN1840ZU

– A Global Trump Movement? France Election Signals No.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/world/europe/trump-macron-france.html

– Domestic violence hotline: Immigration-linked calls increase. The nation’s most prominent domestic violence hotline reports a sharp increase in calls from abuse victims struggling with issues related to their immigration status.

http://www.live5news.com/story/35370439/domestic-violence-hotline-immigration-linked-calls-increase

– Hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer sued by hedge fund worker fired after blasting Trump.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-08/trump-backer-mercer-sued-by-employee-fired-after-speaking-out

– McCain hammers Tillerson in NYT op-ed. Sen. John McCain slammed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a New York Times op-ed published Monday morning, accusing the nation’s chief diplomat of adopting a foreign policy that abandons both U.S. values and victims of oppression around the world.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/08/john-mccain-rex-tillerson-new-york-times-op-ed-238107

– International climate negotiators stare into a looming American void.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/08/climate-negotiators-paris-agreement-trump-238117

– Senate judiciary committee questions former DNI director James Clapper and former Acting AG Sally Yates. Yates says she told White House that Michael Flynn was ‘compromised’. Clapper said Russia Is ‘Emboldened’ to Interfere in Elections After 2016.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/yates-set-to-testify-about-white-house-meeting/2017/05/08/ade2ca2c-33f7-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/08/sally-yates-trump-russia-michael-flynn-blackmail-compromised

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/08/sally-yates-michael-flynn-russia-contacts/101339968/

http://time.com/4771349/sally-yates-michael-flynn-white-house/

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-08/yates-says-she-warned-white-house-flynn-was-at-risk-of-blackmail

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/sally-yates-senate-testimony/index.html

– Trump slams Yates hearing: ‘Nothing but old news’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/08/trump-sally-yates-hearing-238133

– Trump: Russia collusion story ‘a total hoax’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332458-trump-russia-collusion-story-a-total-hoax

– Condoleezza Rice chides Trump for criticism of judges, media.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-rice-idUSKBN18427E

– FCC website hit by attacks after ‘net neutrality’ proposal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fcc-idUSKBN18428T

– Divided Senate Republicans Turn to Health Care With a Rough Road Ahead; Form All-Male Panel on Health Bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/women-health-care-senate.html

May 9, 2017 Tuesday

– Trump’s remarks about Muslims could be what ends the travel ban, testimony suggests. Federal appeals judges cites comments Trump made on the campaign trail.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/08/trump-travel-ban-appeals-court-hearing

– House Republicans face fiery town halls following healthcare vote.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/09/house-republicans-healthcare-bill-town-halls-activists

– U.S. Republican Senator Graham to examine Trump’s business deals.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-graham-idUSKBN1851TV

– How the White House Explains Waiting 18 Days to Fire Michael Flynn.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/michael-flynn-russia.html

– Comey misstated key Clinton email evidence at hearing, say people close to investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/comey-misstated-key-clinton-email-evidence-at-hearing-say-people-close-to-investigation/2017/05/09/074c1c7e-34bd-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

– How Trump Won: White Working Class Voters Motivated by Fear of Immigrants Not Economic Woes.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-voters-immigration-working-class-605930

– (Opinion) The GOP’s health-care fantasy is a libertarian delusion.

http://theweek.com/articles/697336/gops-healthcare-fantasy-libertarian-delusion

– More than 20 US states have cracked down on protests since Donald Trump’s election.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-states-ban-protests-donald-trump-election-more-than-20-arkansas-georgia-iowa-a7725946.html

– Who has Trump’s ear? Often rich, white, Republican men.

http://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/trump-white-house-visitor-logs-and-records/index.html

– Senate GOP invites female senator to healthcare group after criticism.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/332536-senate-gop-invites-female-senator-to-healthcare-working-group

– Texas AG sues ‘sanctuary cities’ after state law signed.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/05/09/Texas-AG-sues-sanctuary-cities-after-state-law-signed/9591494342028/

– U.S. Census director resigns amid turmoil over funding of 2020 count.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/us-census-director-resigns-amid-turmoil-over-funding-of-2020-count/2017/05/09/8f8657c6-34ea-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html

– Burr threatens subpoenas if Trump aides ignore his deadlines.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/09/richard-burr-subpoenas-trump-238173

– Reporter arrested after repeatedly questioning Health secretary Tom Price.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332675-reporter-arrested-for-asking-hhs-secretary-price-healthcare-questions

– All of Trump’s campaign statements just vanished from his website. So let’s remember them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/09/all-of-trumps-campaign-statements-just-vanished-from-his-website-so-lets-remember-them/

GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS ISSUED in FBI’s Russia investigation. Flynn associates subpoenaed in Russia probe.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/grand-jury-fbi-russia/index.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-idUSKBN18607N

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/fbi/332670-grand-jury-subpoenas-issued-in-fbi-russia-probe-report

– FBI DIRECTOR COMEY FIRED BY TRUMP HOURS AFTER SUBPOENAS WERE ISSUED

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39866170

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-idUSKBN1852MV

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/james-comey-fbi-trump-white-out/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/09/james-comey-fbi-fired-donald-trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html

– (Opinion) In Trump’s Firing of James Comey, Echoes of Watergate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/trump-fbi-investigation-nixon.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/opinion/donald-trumps-firing-of-james-comey.html

– (Opinion) James Comey’s firing won’t end election controversy over Russia.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/09/analysis-james-comey-firing-election-controversy-russia-trump/101488952/

– (Opinion) Trump firing Comey demands fuller explanation. The timing feeds suspicions that Comey’s firing is really an effort to disrupt or derail the FBI’s investigation into the Russian connection.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/05/09/trump-firing-comey-demands-fuller-explanation-editorials-debates/101492134/

– (Opinion) Comey Firing Poses Toughest Test Yet for Senate’s Russia Probe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-10/comey-firing-poses-toughest-test-yet-for-senate-s-russia-probe

– (Opinion) Donald Trump’s Firing of James Comey Is an Attack on American Democracy.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trump-james-comey-attack-american-democracy

– White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that it was “time to move on” from the investigations into ties between Trump campaign officials and Russia, hours after the president fired FBI Director James Comey.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332669-white-house-spokesperson-time-to-move-on-from-russia-probes

– Comey learned he was fired from TV, thought it was prank.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332662-comey-learned-he-was-fired-from-tv-reports

– Schumer calls for special prosecutor, suggests cover-up.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/09/comey-firing-congress-reaction-238180

– Scarborough to GOP: ‘Stand the hell up’ to Trump.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/332664-scarborough-to-gop-stand-the-hell-up-to-trump

– Dems ask Justice Dept, FBI to ‘preserve any and all files’ on Comey firing.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/332679-dem-lawmakers-ask-justice-dept-fbi-to-preserve-any-and-all-files-related-to

– FBI in turmoil over Comey firing, scramble on for new chief.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-succession-idUSKBN18606G

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/09/omey-firing-fbi-tears-238190

– Timeline: How the Comey saga played out at the FBI.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/332665-timeline-how-the-comey-saga-played-out-at-the-fbi

– Commentators mostly agree: Firing Comey was positively Nixonian.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/commentators-mostly-agree-firing-comey-positively-nixonian-014845404.html

May 10, 2017 Wednesday

– Trump Defends Comey Firing In Early-Morning Tweetstorm.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tweets-comey-firing

– In Trump’s Twitter feed, Comey news is good news

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/trump-twitter-comey-trnd/index.html

– Capitol Hill was roiled by the aftershocks of President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-comeys-ouster-democrats-press-for-independent-probe-of-russias-meddling-in-election/2017/05/10/88c45624-3529-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

– Pence: Comey’s firing wasn’t due to Russia probe.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/mike-pence-james-comey/index.html

– McConnell: ‘Too much is at stake’ for new investigation after Comey firing.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/congress-james-comey/index.html

– Comey’s ouster raises questions about Russia probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/comey-misstated-key-clinton-email-evidence-at-hearing-say-people-close-to-investigation/2017/05/09/074c1c7e-34bd-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

– The Comey firing is already backfiring on Trump. It’s only going to get worse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/05/10/daily-202-firing-fbi-director-comey-is-already-backfiring-on-trump-it-s-only-going-to-get-worse/5912635de9b69b209cf2b7fb/

– (Opinion) No, Firing Comey Won’t Prove Trump’s Undoing. The president has wormed his way out of far worse jams.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/10/no-firing-comey-wont-prove-trumps-undoing-215122

– (Opinion) Michael R. Bloomberg: After Comey, Justice Must Be Served.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/after-comey-justice-must-be-served

– What Wall Street Is Saying About FBI Director Comey’s Ouster.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/what-wall-street-is-saying-about-fbi-director-comey-s-ouster

– Graduates at Florida university turn backs in protest of DeVos speech.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-education-devos-idUSKBN18625L

– U.S. government posts $182 billion surplus in April confounding market expectations for a deficit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-budget-idUSKBN1862KV

– Bid to revoke Obama methane rule fails in surprise U.S. Senate vote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-idUSKBN18620F

– Trump meets Russia foreign minister amid Comey controversy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-idUSKBN1861V4

– Trump Bars U.S. Press, but Not Russia’s, at Meeting With Russian Officials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-russia-meeting-american-reporters-blocked.html

– Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas documents from Michael Flynn in Russia probe – the first subpoena the committee has announced in its Russia investigation. The subpoena comes after Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, alerted the panel that he would not provide documents in response to their April 28 request.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-intelligence-committee-subpoenas-documents-from-flynn-in-russia-probe/2017/05/10/d8153e8a-35d0-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN186309

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/flynn-subpoena/index.html

– Paul Ryan rejects calls for special prosecutor in Russia investigation.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/332868-paul-ryan-rejects-calls-for-special-prosecutor-in-russia-investigation

– The Department of Homeland Security will reportedly ban laptops on all inbound flights from Europe.

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/332822-us-to-ban-laptops-on-all-inbound-flights-from-europe-report

– Comey called Trump ‘crazy’ after Obama wiretapping claims.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/fbi/332882-comey-called-trump-crazy-report

– Wyden Announces Hold On Treasury Nominee Until Administration Produces Documents on Russian Dealings With Trump Associates.

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-announces-hold-on-treasury-nominee-until-administration-produces-documents-on-russian-dealings-with-trump-associates-

– Here’s the presidential order of succession — just in case.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/presidential-order-succession-case-article-1.2973129

May 11, 2017 Thursday

– Trump admits asking Comey if he was under investigation for ties to Russia, contradicting previous statements on his decision to fire him.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/11/donald-trump-james-comey-firing-russia-investigation

– Trump says he was going to fire ‘showboat’ Comey regardless of recommendation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-says-fbi-director-comey-told-him-three-times-he-wasnt-under-investigation-once-in-a-phone-call-initiated-by-the-president/2017/05/11/2b384c9a-3669-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-showboat-fbi.html

– Acting F.B.I. Chief Contradicts White House on Russia and Comey.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-chief-russia-trump.html

– (Opinion) President Trump just decimated the White House’s entire Comey narrative. In one fell swoop, Trump totally contradicted his three top spokespeople and offered a polar-opposite version of events than they had provided.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/11/president-trump-just-decimated-the-white-houses-entire-comey-narrative/

– Republican Strategy Firm in Maryland Raided by FBI.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-11/republican-fundraising-firm-in-maryland-raided-by-fbi-reports

– FBI agents change their Facebook profile photos to James Comey – a gesture normally reserved for slain colleagues.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-agents-james-comey-change-profile-photos-a7730496.html

– Attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia are calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election.

http://www.newsweek.com/20-attorneys-general-call-special-prosecutor-russian-election-interference-607752

– The Feds have ‘Trump tapes’ akin to Nixon’s ‘Watergate tapes’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/332939-the-feds-have-trump-tapes-akin-to-nixons-watergate

– Senate Democrats demand answers from Rod Rosenstein about involvement in Comey firing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/11/schumer-to-rod-rosenstein-your-reputation-is-at-risk-is-it-true-you-threatened-to-quit/

– Trump signed an executive order launching a commission to review alleged voter fraud and voter suppression, building upon his unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

http://time.com/4776675/donald-trump-voter-fraud-commission-executive-order/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-creates-panel-investigate-voter-fraud/

– Texas seeks unprecedented federal money to defund Planned Parenthood.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/11/texas-federal-financing-defund-planned-parenthood-healthcare

– U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed an agreement recognizing the landmark Paris climate accord at a meeting of Arctic nations in Alaska on Thursday, but said President Donald Trump was not rushing to decide whether to leave or weaken U.S. commitments to the pact.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-arctic-summit-idUSKBN1870FT

– More Price Hikes Likely for Government Insurance Markets.

http://yanoonews.com/trending/more-price-hikes-likely-for-government-insurance-markets.DAsBVwcKW1QGVVYMVAVWVgMHWARRWgNW.html

– ICE announces major anti-gang operation, mostly US citizens arrested.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/ice-gang-arrests-operation/index.html

– New Orleans removes Confederate monument under cover of darkness after receiving death threats.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/new-orleans-removes-confederate-statues-monuments-a7731216.html

– Hawaiians warned not to travel to Texas because of controversial immigration law. Some say the new law is akin to racial profiling

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hawaii-texas-warning-aclu-police-documents-check-a7730671.html

– Muslim family racially abused by Trump supporter on Texas beach.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslim-family-beach-abuse-video-trump-supporter-racism-a7730911.html

– The Trump Administration was ordered by a federal judge to disclose a memo drafted under the guidance of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that allegedly served as an outline to make the president’s travel ban look like it wasn’t aimed at Muslims.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-11/trump-ordered-to-turn-over-giuliani-memo-in-travel-ban-suit

May 12, 2017 Friday

–  Trump warns ousted FBI chief not to leak to media, threatens ‘tapes’, suggesting there might be tapes of conversations between the two men that could contradict his account.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKBN1881YJ

– In private meeting just after Trump took office, Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty. Comey demurred.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html

– (Opinion) American Fascism, in 1944 and Today. “And in my view, he [vice president Henry A. Wallace] predicted President Trump.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/opinion/american-fascism-trump.html

– Dems escalate talk of Trump impeachment.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/trump-impeachment-democrats-rhetoric-238307

– In blow to Trump, GE backs NAFTA and plans growth in Mexico.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-mexico-ge-idUSKBN18829I

– HUGE CYBER-ATTACKS reported WORLDWIDE.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39901382

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-hospitals-idUSKBN18820S

https://www.cnet.com/news/england-hospitals-hit-by-ransomware-attack-in-widespread-hack/

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-hospitals-ransomware-idUSKBN1882O2

– Kremlin says may retaliate against U.S. over expulsion of Russian diplomats.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-idUSKBN1881SV

– ‘What is wrong with you?’ Michelle Obama savages Trump’s gutting of her legacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/12/michelle-obama-trump-school-lunches-childhood-obesity

– Attorney general calls for prosecutors to ‘charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense’, in a major reversal of Obama-era policies.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/12/jeff-sessions-prison-sentences-obama-criminal-justice

– (Opinion) The Dakota pipeline is already leaking. Why wait for a big spill to act?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/dakota-access-pipeline-leaking-big-spill

– Two scientists resign from EPA roles in protest at Donald Trump’s climate change stance.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/epa-scientists-resign-trump-climate-change-protest-a7733601.html

– One Republican’s ‘shameful’ plan to save money: Turn 82,000 non-English-speaking kids over to ICE.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/11/one-gop-lawmakers-plan-to-save-money-turning-non-english-speaking-kids-over-to-ice/

– Trump Doubles Down on Idea of Ending White House Press Briefings.

http://time.com/4777982/donald-trump-end-press-briefings/

– James Comey Declines to Testify Before Senate Intelligence Committee.

http://time.com/4778010/james-comey-testify-senate-intelligence-committee/

– Schiff demands Trump turn over Comey ‘tapes’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/adam-schiff-donald-trump-comey-tapes-238321

– WikiLeaks Offers $100K Reward for Trump-Comey ‘Tapes’.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-comey-tapes-wikileaks-reward-608568

– The Trump Tapes: What We Know.

http://www.newsweek.com/comey-donald-trump-tapes-tweets-russia-surveillance-fbi-obama-608361

– White House won’t say if Trump secretly recorded Comey.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-wont-say-trump-secretly-recorded-comey-182652479.html

– Amid FBI fallout, Trump escalates war against media and Comey.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/donald-trump-war-against-james-comey-media-twitter-238313

– ‘Looking Like a Liar or a Fool’: What It Means to Work for Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/us/politics/trump-sean-spicer-sarah-huckabee-sanders.html

– Senate panel investigating Russia outraged by Comey firing.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/senate-trump-russia-probe-comey-firing-238340

– Trump lawyers: Tax returns show no income, debt tied to Russia ‘with a few exceptions’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/donald-trump-tax-returns-russia-lawyers-238322

May 13, 2017 Saturday

– Trump pledges to move quickly to name new FBI director.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKBN1881YJ

– Comey, chaos … crisis? Trump enters new territory after most explosive week yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/13/donald-trump-james-comey-fbi-explosive-week

– Trump at Liberty University commencement: ‘In America, we don’t worship government; we worship God’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/13/trump-at-liberty-university-commencement-in-america-we-dont-worship-government-we-worship-god/

– Senate’s Russia investigation is moving faster than its Watergate counterpart 44 years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/believe-it-or-not-senates-russia-investigation-is-moving-faster-than-its-watergate-counterpart-44-years-ago/2017/05/13/8e3f8bcc-3746-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

– (Opinion) Trump must be impeached. Here’s why.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-must-be-impeached-heres-why/2017/05/13/82ce2ea4-374d-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

– Judge orders government to turn over documents from Rudy Giuliani on travel ban.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/13/judge-orders-government-to-turn-over-documents-from-rudy-giuliani-on-travel-ban/

– Ex-Justice Department officials call for independent counsel in Russia probe.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/13/james-comey-firing-fbi-former-justice-department-prosecutors-special-prosecutor/101633160/

– Trump Impeachment Inevitable, Historian Says.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-impeached-comey-fired-fbi-608708

– North Korea fires missile: South Korea military.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKBN1890UO

– U.S. fails to reassure Europe, Japan over ‘Trumponomics’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-usa-mnuchin-idUSKBN1890FP

– NHS ‘robust’ after cyber-attack.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39909441

– Ransomware attack reveals breakdown in US intelligence protocols, expert says.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/13/ransomware-cyber-attack-us-intelligence

– Cyberattack Shows Growing Danger of Ransomware.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/hack-ransomware-scam-cyberattacks.html

– Trump Still Seethes Over Lack of Credit for Election Win.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/us/politics/election-is-over-but-trump-still-cant-seem-to-get-past-it.html

– What an Immigrant Murder in Kansas Says About America.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-11/what-an-immigrant-murder-in-kansas-says-about-america

– Protesters spell out ‘RESIST’ at Trump golf course.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/333291-protestors-spell-out-resist-at-trump-golf-course

– Gingrich urges Trump: ‘Close down the press room’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/333244-gingrich-urges-trump-close-down-the-press-room

May 14, 2017 Sunday

– James Clapper: democratic institutions are ‘under assault’ by Trump. Former national intelligence director hammers the president’s actions, calling James Comey’s firing ‘another victory for Russia’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/14/james-clapper-donald-trump-russia-james-comey-firing

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/14/politics/james-clapper-russia-collusion/index.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dni-clapper-comey-uneasy-dinner-president/story

– NBC/WSJ Poll: Just 29 Percent Approve of Trump’s Firing of James Comey.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/nbc-wsj-poll-just-29-percent-approve-trump-s-firing-n759196

– Schumer: block any nominee to lead the FBI until an independent prosecutor is named to oversee an investigation into Russia’s interference into last year’s presidential election.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/14/schumer-fbi-chief-prosecutor-238368

– Alt-right’s Richard Spencer leads torch-bearing protesters defending Confederate statue.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/alt-rights-richard-spencer-leads-torch-bearing-protesters-defending-lee-statue/2017/05/14/766aaa56-38ac-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

– GOP wins in reversing Obama-era rules on guns, environment.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/gop-wins-reversing-obama-era-rules-guns-environment-47400707

– High court could soon signal view on Trump immigration plans.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/high-court-signal-view-trump-immigration-plans-47400741

– Businesses brace for Monday as ransomware threat lingers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-hospitals-idUSKBN18820S

– U.S. lawmakers ask Trump to turn over any Comey tapes.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKCN18A0TU

– G.O.P. Senators Pull Away From Trump, Alarmed at His Volatility.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/14/us/politics/trump-republican-senators.html

– Republicans plan massive cuts to programs for the poor.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/14/republicans-cuts-programs-food-stamps-welfare-veterans-238314

– Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/under-trump-inconvenient-data-is-being-sidelined/2017/05/14/3ae22c28-3106-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html

– Songwriter: ‘If you’re a Trump supporter, don’t come to my show’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333369-songwriter-if-youre-a-trump-supporter-dont-come-to-my-show

– Muslim hate crimes: Reports of Islamophobic incidents in the US soared again in 2016.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslim-hate-crimes-increased-2016-islamophobia-donald-trump-latest-a7735141.html

May 15, 2017 Monday

– Morning Joe says FBI close to exposing the president: ‘It’s a criminal issue — and Trump knows that’.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/morning-joe-says-fbi-close-to-exposing-the-president-its-a-criminal-issue-and-trump-knows-that/

– TRUMP REVEALED HIGHLY CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER and ambassador.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/15/donald-trump-shared-classified-information-russia-white-house-report

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-russia-classified-information-isis.html

– In travel ban case, U.S. judges focus on discrimination, Trump’s powers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-idUSKCN18B0RB

– U.S. Supreme Court lets North Carolina voter law die, rebuffing a Republican bid to revive a strict voter-identification law that a lower court found deliberately discriminated against black voters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-election-idUSKCN18B1QB

– Trump expands policy that bans US aid for overseas abortion providers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/trump-abortion-rule-mexico-city-policy

– (Story) They hate the US government, and they’re multiplying: the terrifying rise of ‘sovereign citizens’.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/sovereign-citizens-rightwing-terrorism-hate-us-government

– Woodward and Bernstein say Comey firing is different than Watergate.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woodward-bernstein-say-comey-firing-different-watergate-132623513.html

– New Yorkers Protest the President Inside Trump Tower’s Private Public Spaces.

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/new-yorkers-protest-the-president-inside-trump-tower-s-private-public-spaces-944069187584

– White House refuses to say if Comey tapes exist.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333461-white-house-refuses-to-say-if-comey-tapes-exist

– McMaster dodges reporters, saying ‘This is the last place in the world I wanted to be’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333510-mcmaster-bumps-into-press-makes-quick-exit

– Cyberattack Spreads in Asia; Thousands of Groups Affected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/world/asia/china-cyberattack-hack-ransomware.html

– White House pushes back against report Trump shared classified info with Russians.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/trump-classified-russia-pushback-238415

– Trump’s handling of classified info brings new chaos to White House.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/trump-russia-classified-information-238417

– Commentary: Focusing on Trump’s Coming Deep Cuts in Basic Assistance for Struggling Families – and Deep Tax Cuts for the Top.

http://www.cbpp.org/federal-budget/commentary-focusing-on-trumps-coming-deep-cuts-in-basic-assistance-for-struggling

– Indian Americans Reckon With Reality Of Hate Crimes.

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/15/471270843/indian-americans-reckon-with-reality-of-hate-crimes

– Ford Motor to slash workforce by about 10 percent: WSJ.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-motor-layoffs-idUSKCN18C03P

– Analysis: Trump intel sharing likely to leave allies anxious.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-trump-intel-sharing-likely-leave-allies-anxious-030728421.html

– Ex-intelligence leaders: ‘Nightmare’ if Trump leaked to Russia.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/trump-secrets-russia-isis-238421

– Emoluments Clause projected onto Trump’s DC hotel.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/333546-emoluments-clause-projected-onto-trumps-dc-hotel

– (Opinion) When the World Is Led by a Child. At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html

May 16, 2017 Tuesday

– Trump defends sharing information with Russians. In a series of early-morning posts on Twitter, he said he had the “absolute right” to give “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety” to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/trump-intelligence-russia-classified.html

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333550-trump-i-had-absolute-right-to-share-facts-with-russia

– TRUMP PRESSURED COMEY TO END INVESTIGATION OF MICHAEL FLYNN. ‘I hope you can let this go,’ Trump said, according to notes taken by Comey and described by associates.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/notes-made-by-former-fbi-director-comey-say-trump-pressured-him-to-end-flynn-probe/2017/05/16/52351a38-3a80-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-tweets-idUSKCN18C19Y

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/politics/trump-james-comey-memo/index.html

– Israel was source of classified information Trump shared with Russia, say officials. Israel will think twice before sharing sensitive info.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/trump-russia-leak-israel-source-classified-information-say-officials-a7739496.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/trumps-disclosure-endangered-spy-inside-isis-israel-officials/story

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-mossad-chief-israel-will-think-twice-before-sharing-sensitive-info/

– Chaffetz: I’m ready to subpoena for Comey memo.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/politics/congress-reactions-trump-michael-flynn-memo/index.html

– Trump might have obstructed justice if Comey’s allegation is true, legal analysts say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/legal-analysts-trump-might-have-obstructed-justice-if-comeys-allegation-is-true/2017/05/16/24f17d0c-3a83-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– Waters: Comey memo helps ‘cement’ Trump’s impeachment.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/333738-waters-comey-memo-helps-cement-trumps-impeachment

– McConnell: No concerns about Trump’s handling of classified info.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/333666-mcconnell-no-concerns-about-trumps-handling-of-classified-info

– (Opinion) Trump can do whatever he wants. God help us.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-can-do-whatever-he-wants-god-help-us/2017/05/16/67c2283e-3a6a-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– (Opinion) Under Trump, Everything Is Wrong in Washington.

http://www.newsweek.com/under-trump-everything-wrong-washington-609994

– (Opinion) Trump Should Worry: Comey Memo Describes a High Crime.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-17/trump-should-worry-comey-memo-describes-a-high-crime

– Tempers Flare and Confusion Swirls at Rattled White House.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/white-house-staff.html

– Trump’s aides heard ‘yelling’ in White House office as presidency descends into chaos.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-white-house-aides-yelling-russia-leaks-us-president-oval-office-sergey-lavrov-a7738161.html

– Following advice, potential FBI chiefs steer clear of job under Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKCN18C2PI

– White House scrambles to limit damage after latest bombshell.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333691-white-house-scrambles-to-limit-damage

– Top House Intel Dem: Comey memo paints ‘alarming portrait’ of potential Trump interference.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/333754-top-house-intel-dem-comey-memo-paints-alarming-portrait-of-potential-trump

– Press freedom group rips Trump for suggesting Comey jail reporters.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/333746-press-freedom-group-rips-trump-for-suggesting-comey-jail-reporters

– White House rocked by allegation Trump tried to shut down FBI’s Flynn probe.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/16/trump-comey-flynn-shutdown-238467

– Trump’s Russia problem grows, leaving Washington breathless, stunned.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article150905047.html

– King: Trump approaching ‘obstruction of justice,’ impeachment.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/16/angus-king-trump-obstruction-238475

– McCain: Trump scandals reaching ‘Watergate size and scale’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/333755-mccain-trump-scandals-reaching-watergate-size-and-scale

– Trump tries to brush off Russia leak scandal as nations begin to question US trust.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-leak-scandal-president-brushes-off-while-others-question-trust-a7739666.html

– (Other) A GOP senator’s guide to a Trump scandal: 1) Say you’re ‘troubled.’ 2) Keep walking.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gop-senators-guide-to-a-trump-scandal-1-say-youre-troubled-2-keep-walking/2017/05/16/1b0ff5ec-3a66-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html

– Trump and Erdogan Meet at White House Amid Tensions Over Arming Kurds in Syria. Turkish Leader Calls Trump His ‘Dear Friend,’ Despite Decision To Arm Syrian Kurds.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-erdogan-meet-white-house-amid-tensions-over-arming-kurds-n760266

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/16/528614863/turkish-leader-calls-trump-his-dear-friend-despite-decision-to-arm-syrian-kurds

– Feds Subpoena Records for $3.5M Mystery Mortgage on Manafort’s Home.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-subpoena-records-3-5m-mortgage-manaforts-home-n759866

– Price’s Remarks On Opioid Treatment Were Unscientific And Damaging, Experts Say.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/16/528614422/prices-remarks-on-opioid-treatment-were-unscientific-and-damaging-experts-say

– Trump challenges London Mayor Sadiq Khan to IQ test.

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-36299929/donald-trump-challenges-sadiq-khan-to-iq-test

– CNN analyst: ‘We’re in impeachment territory’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/333765-cnn-analyst-were-in-impeachment-territory

May 17, 2017 Wednesday

– More Republicans back independent probe of possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, spurred by a memo from former FBI Director Comey.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKCN18D1XT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/hill-republicans-show-growing-concern-over-trump-controversies/2017/05/16/57dd4f14-3aad-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

– Putin offers transcript to prove Trump did not pass Russia secrets.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-putin-idUSKCN18D1EA

– Trump claims ‘no politician in history’ has been ‘treated worse or more unfairly’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-claims-no-politician-in-history-has-been-treated-worse-or-more-unfairly/2017/05/17/f9c59056-3b1c-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

– Two moderate Senate Republicans [Collins and Murkowski] suggest the need to consider a special prosecutor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/trump-comey-and-russia-how-key-washington-players-are-reacting/two-moderate-republicans-suggest-the-need-to-consider-a-special-prosecutor/

– Trump Gave Russians Secrets News Orgs Are Being Asked To Withhold.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-uncovered/trump-gave-russians-secrets-news-orgs-are-being-asked-withhold-n760811

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-uncovered/trump-gave-russians-secrets-news-orgs-are-being-asked-withhold-n760811

– ‘Erdoğan’s bodyguards’ in violent clash with protesters in Washington DC.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/17/erdogans-bodyguards-in-violent-clash-with-protesters-in-washington-dc

– The Right Builds an Alternative Narrative About the Crises Around Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/trump-scandal-conservatives-media.html

– (Opinion) The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/opinion/25th-amendment-trump.html

– (Opinion) No, the 25th Amendment Isn’t the Way to Boot Trump. Sorry, Congress: If you believe Trump needs to go, you’re going to have to do it yourselves.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-17/no-the-25th-amendment-isn-t-the-way-to-boot-trump

– (Opinion) Republicans must impeach Trump — for their own good.

http://theweek.com/articles/699462/republicans-must-impeach-trump–good

– Household Debt Makes a Comeback in the U.S. In the first quarter of 2017, consumer debt rose to $12.73 trillion, exceeding its peak in the third quarter of 2008.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/household-debt-united-states.html

– The Comey memo was also about Trump’s request to arrest reporters. Journalists call it ‘crazy and scary.’

https://www.yahoo.com/news/comey-memo-also-trumps-request-arrest-reporters-journalists-call-crazy-scary-160122212.html

– Restive Dems amplify calls for impeachment.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333872-restive-dems-amplify-calls-for-impeachment

– Senate Intel panel asks Comey to testify publicly.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/333838-senate-intel-panel-asks-comey-to-testify-publicly

– Obstruction? Impeachment? A look at the legal challenges Trump could face.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article151061997.html

– Congressman calls for Trump’s impeachment on House floor.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/al-green-impeachment-call/index.html

– Paul Ryan: ‘I do’ have confidence in Trump.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/paul-ryan-news-conference/index.html

– GOP blocks House vote on independent Russia-Trump investigation.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/17/gop-blocks-house-vote-independent-russia-trump-probe/101796632/

– Defense secretary backs plan to spin off air traffic control.

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/333903-defense-secretary-backs-air-traffic-control-spin-off-plan

– Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly jokes Trump should use saber on the press.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/333876-homeland-secretary-to-trump-use-that-saber-on-the-press

– Sheriff David Clarke says he’s accepted DHS job as a deputy secretary of Homeland Security.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333899-sheriff-david-clarke-says-hes-accepted-dhs-job

– Previous Homeland Security officials condemn Sheriff David Clarke taking role.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333935-sheriff-david-clarkes-predecessors-slam-news-that-he-accepted-role-in

– US: Immigrant arrests soar under Trump because of a surge in the detention of immigrants who have no criminal convictions.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/us-more-immigrants-arrested-fewer-deported-under-trump/

– Dow Falls 370 Points, the biggest loss since September; Bonds Rally on Trump Turmoil; volatility spiked higher as the turmoil surrounding the Trump administration roiled financial markets around the globe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-16/yen-climb-to-weigh-on-japan-stocks-gold-gains-markets-wrap

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-controversies-rattle-stock-markets-worldwide/2017/05/17/3e564680-3b0d-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– Fox News unable to find Republicans ‘willing to go on camera’ to defend Trump following explosive Comey memo.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-comey-memo-fox-news-brett-baier-republican-guests-russia-investigation-michael-flynn-a7740906.html

– Officials put Trump’s name in ‘as many memo paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-intelligence-reports-white-house-read-them-mentioned-name-president-a7740726.html

– Trump denounces media as White House goes quiet on Comey.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333917-trump-denounces-media-as-white-house-goes-quiet-on-comey

– 6 Million With Pre-Existing Conditions Could Be Hit Hard Under GOP Plan.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/6-million-pre-existing-conditions-could-be-hit-hard-under-n761146

– The deputy attorney general has appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller AS SPECIAL COUNCIL to oversee probe of Russian interference in election.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/333947-former-fbi-director-robert-mueller-to-lead-russia-investigation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/deputy-attorney-general-appoints-special-counsel-to-oversee-probe-of-russian-interference-in-election/2017/05/17/302c1774-3b49-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/17/justice-department-taps-former-fbi-director-robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation/101806472/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html

– The worst job in Washington right now: Working for Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-worst-job-in-washington-right-now-working-for-trump/2017/05/17/a3d9ec00-3b17-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html

– Conservatives begin to whisper: President Pence.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/17/mike-pence-president-trump-238525

May 18, 2017 Thursday

– Trump blasted the appointment of Robert Mueller to be the special prosecutor overseeing the investigation into Russia’s meddling into the 2016 election, calling the probe “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/trump-tweets-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller-appointment-238543

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/18/trump-claims-to-be-victim-of-witch-hunt-following-appointment-of-special-counsel-in-russia-case/

– Kochs boost Trump tax plan.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/koch-brothers-trump-tax-plan-238530

– Michael Flynn ‘refuses to hand over documents to Russia investigation’ despite subpoena.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/michael-flynn-subpoena-russia-investigation-refusal-senate-intelligence-a7743231.html

– Former top counsel for the NSA and the CIA: Special prosecutor Robert Mueller ‘will take Donald Trump from frying pan to fire’ over Russia investigation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/robert-mueller-donald-trump-special-prosecutor-frying-pan-fire-russia-investigation-former-fbi-a7742071.html

– Roger Ailes, architect of conservative TV juggernaut Fox News, is dead at 77.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/roger-ailes-architect-of-conservative-tv-juggernaut-fox-is-dead-at-77/2017/05/18/b5b9e73a-3bc7-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/18/roger-ailes-dead-fox-news-ceo-chairman

– Roger Ailes Isn’t Dead, He Lives on in Trump, Sexual Harassment Suits and Alternative Facts.

http://www.newsweek.com/roger-ailes-isnt-dead-he-lives-trump-sexual-harassment-suits-and-alternative-611543

– House Majority Leader McCarthy told colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief the full Senate in a closed session.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/deputy-attorney-general-rod-rosenstein-will-brief-the-full-senate-in-a-closed-session/2017/05/18/41de8548-3bd4-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– Trump loyalists pay little heed to revelations rocking DC.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/trump-loyalists-pay-little-heed-to-revelations-rocking-dc/

– U.S. academic groups oppose Trump’s visa-vetting plans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visa-idUSKCN18E35H

– Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-contacts-idUSKCN18E106

– Trump, striking a defiant tone, denied colluding with Russia during his 2016 campaign or asking former FBI Director James Comey to drop a probe into his former national security adviser.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKCN18E1P7

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/18/trump-to-hold-news-conference-at-white-house-as-political-crisis-deepens/

– Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the full Senate he knew before he wrote his controversial memo that Comey would be fired.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/deputy-attorney-general-rod-rosenstein-will-brief-the-full-senate-in-a-closed-session/2017/05/18/41de8548-3bd4-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– FCC votes to dismantle net neutrality as critics cry ‘war on open internet’.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/net-neutrality-vote-fcc-open-internet

– Trump supporters blame leaks, conspiracy for his woes.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-supporters-blame-leaks-conspiracy-woes-210602825–politics.html

– Chaffetz will resign, raising doubts about Trump probe.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/utahs-chaffetz-expected-leave-office-end-june-165533680–politics.html

– Vice President Pence has a growing credibility problem.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/18/vice-president-pence-has-a-growing-credibility-problem/

– European leaders fear Trump’s political chaos is undermining U.S. power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/european-leaders-fear-trumps-political-chaos-is-undermining-us-power/2017/05/18/2152eee2-3a47-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html

– Mueller to ask Congress to step back Russia investigations.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334181-mueller-to-ask-congress-to-step-back-russia-investigations-report

– Appointment of Mueller could complicate other probes into alleged Russian meddling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/appointment-of-mueller-could-complicate-other-probes-into-alleged-russian-meddling/2017/05/18/f75b8a36-3be5-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

– Trump meets with lawyers at the White House.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/trump-lawyers-white-house-238579

– $110 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis Has Jared Kushner’s Personal Touch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/world/middleeast/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-arms-deal-lockheed.html

– What Donald Trump Needs to Know About Bob Mueller and Jim Comey. The two men who could bring down the president have been preparing their entire lives for this moment.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/18/james-comey-trump-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller-fbi-215154

May 19, 2017 Friday

– FCC security guards manhandle reporter, eject him from meeting for asking questions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/19/fcc-security-guards-manhandle-reporter-eject-him-from-meeting-for-asking-questions/

– Trump diehards dismiss Russia scandal: ‘Show me the proof – or get off his case’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/19/trump-russia-the-promise-scandal-proof

– Rosenstein: I stand by Comey memo; he stands by his memo that was initially used as the reason for former FBI Director James Comey’s firing.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/334240-rosenstein-i-stand-by-comey-memo

– Dem frustration grows with Rosenstein, saying Rosenstein refused to answer “simple yes-and-no questions,” fueling concerns that the Trump appointee overseeing the Justice Department probes may be influenced by the White House.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/334234-dem-frustration-grows-with-rosenstein

– Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html

– Kushner Family Woos Investors With Visas, Trump Name.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/kushner-trump-china-green-cards.html

– White House adviser close to Trump is a person of interest in Russia probe. Investigation into Russian meddling reaches highest level of government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russia-probe-reaches-current-white-house-official-people-familiar-with-the-case-say/2017/05/19/7685adba-3c99-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

– Trump-Russia probe now includes possible cover-up, Congress is told.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article151565947.html

– Russia probe reaches current White House official, people familiar with the case say.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article151563807.html

– Washington Post Fact Checker’s ongoing database of the false and misleading claims by Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/

– Trump said to favor move that could destabilize Obamacare. Trump has told advisers he wants to end payments of key Obamacare subsidies, a move that could send the health law’s insurance markets into a tailspin.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/19/donald-trump-end-payments-obamacare-subsidies-238616

– Sheriff David Clarke Is Determined to Suspend Habeas Corpus and Shred the Bill of Rights.

https://www.thenation.com/article/sheriff-david-clarke-is-determined-to-suspend-habeus-corpus-and-shred-the-bill-of-rights/

– Trump Is a Cornered Megalomaniac—and That’s a Grave Danger to the Country.

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-is-a-cornered-megalomaniac-and-thats-a-grave-danger-to-the-country/

– Maduro to Trump: ‘Get your dirty hands off Venezuela!’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-usa-idUSKCN18F2HB

– Russian officials bragged they could use Flynn to influence Trump.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-russia-influence/index.html

– James Comey to testify in public Senate intelligence committee hearing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/19/james-comey-testify-us-senate-russia-election-trump

– Israeli Intelligence Furious Over Trump’s Loose Lips. Israeli intelligence officials were shouting at their American counterparts in meetings, furious over news that Trump may have compromised a vital source of information on the Islamic State and possibly Iran.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/19/israeli-intelligence-furious-over-trumps-loose-lips-russia-iran-syria/

– White House looking at ethics rule to weaken special investigation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-mueller-idUSKCN18F2KK

May 20, 2017 Saturday

– Trump awarded with Saudi Arabia’s highest civilian honour within hours of landing in the country.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-latest-saudi-arabia-highest-civilian-honour-king-abdulaziz-al-saud-collar-gold-a7746566.html

– Under fire at home, Trump reaps Saudi arms deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-gulf-arrival-idUSKCN18G06K

– U.S., Saudi firms sign tens of billions of dollars of deals as Trump visits.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-usa-trump-deals-idUSKCN18G05P

– Saudi leaders hail Trump visit as ‘reset of regional order’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/20/trump-visit-hailed-by-saudi-leaders-as-reset-of-regional-order

– Twitter leader laments social media role in Trump’s election.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/twitter-leader-laments-social-media-234906014.html

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/technology/evan-williams-medium-twitter-internet.html

– A cancer patient wonders: ‘Will the government still have my back?’

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cancer-patient-wonders-will-government-still-back-090024209.html

– Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said that he has been threatened with lynching following his call for President Trump’s impeachment.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/334417-congressman-threatened-with-lynching-after-calling-for-trumps\

– Corporate A-Listers Descend on Riyadh for Trump’s CEO Summit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-20/corporate-a-listers-descend-on-riyadh-for-trump-s-ceo-summit

– Conservative Media’s Alternative Take on Trump and Russia.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/conservative-media-s-alternative-take-trump-russia-n761941

May 21, 2017 Sunday

– McMaster does not deny details of Trump’s discussion with Russian officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/21/mcmaster-does-not-deny-details-of-trumps-discussion-with-russian-officials/

– Trump summons Muslim nations to confront ‘Islamic terror of all kinds’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-and-gulf-nations-agree-to-crack-down-on-terror-financing/2017/05/21/e1222b34-3dfd-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

– Trump’s Islam Speech in Saudi Arabia Follows a Long History of Verbal Attacks and Policies Targeting Muslims in America and Abroad.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-saudi-arabia-trump-islam-612995

– ‘Trump has declared war’: journalists denounce any attack on press freedom. Trump’s apparent suggestion that the FBI should ‘consider putting reporters in prison’ prompts call to action from journalists increasingly under attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/21/trump-threat-reporters-press-freedom

– ‘Spiteful and petty’: Maine governor bans signs to Obama-designated monument.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/21/katahdin-woods-waters-obama-monument-signs-banned

– Chicago launches campaign in response to Trump’s immigration policies.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/politics/one-chicago-campaign/index.html

– At Notre Dame, Pence attacks campus ‘political correctness’. Students walk out of Pence’s commencement speech.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/21/students-walk-out-mike-pence-notre-dame-commencement

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/21/pence-pc-freedom-of-speech-238655

– Tillerson held a news conference with the Saudi foreign minister in Riyadh but he left the American media behind.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/05/21/tillerson-no-reporters-press-238658

– Netanyahu says all government ministers must attend Trump’s arrival.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-ministers-must-meet-trump/index.html

– (International) Trump’s White House: A Vortex of Scandal, Chaos and Absurdity.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-white-house-descends-into-chaos-and-scandal-a-1148569.html

– (International) A Danger to the World: It’s Time to Get Rid of Donald Trump.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-is-a-menace-to-the-world-opinion-a-1148471.html

– (International) Trump and Saudi Arabia: Have we reached peak hypocrisy yet?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/trump-and-saudi-arabia-have-we-reached-peak-hypocrisy-yet/article35076477/

– (International) After Riyadh Speech, Trump Comes to Israel as a Messianic Opportunist.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.790790

– Trump to propose big cuts to safety-net in new budget, slashing Medicaid and opening door to other limits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-to-propose-big-cuts-to-safety-net-in-new-budget-this-week/2017/05/21/62c01f44-3e34-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html

 May 22, 2017 Monday

– Trump tells Israel Iran will never have nuclear weapons.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39973197

– Ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn ‘defies Senate Russia inquiry’.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40004300

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN18I1U9

– Supreme Court rules North Carolina congressional districts unconstitutional.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/supreme-court-north-carolina-congressional-dsitricts-238673

– Republicans used race to redraw North Carolina voter maps.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40002569

– Scandal-plagued Fox News hit with more lawsuits in U.S. court.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fox-lawsuits-idUSKBN18I2F6

– Mississippi lawmaker calls for lynchings after removal of Confederate symbols.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/22/mississippi-confederate-symbols-karl-oliver-lynching-comments

– White House proposes slashing funds to clean up toxic sites despite EPA’s pleas.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/22/toxic-sites-environment-cleanup-trump-budget-plan

– Trump’s plans to cut food stamps could hit his supporters hardest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/22/trumps-plans-to-cut-food-stamps-could-hit-his-supporters-hardest/

– White House pitches budget as welfare reform. The Trump administration wants to take an ax to the safety net in order to balance the budget.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/trump-budget-what-is-in-it-238679

– Groups sue FDA over food additive rule.

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/334575-groups-sue-fda-over-food-additive-rule

– Sinkhole opens in front of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/334555-sinkhole-opens-in-front-of-trumps-mar-a-lago-resort

– Israelis fear Trump might ‘blurt out’ something that’s not easy to ‘fix’.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article151902907.html

– Americans Say U.S. Moral Values at a Seven-Year Low.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-22/americans-see-u-s-moral-values-at-a-seven-year-low

– Trump brings up Russian meeting during Israel event.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-i-never-mentioned-the-word-or-name-israel-to-russians/

– Manafort, Stone Turn Over Russia Documents to Senate Intel Committee.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/manafort-stone-turn-over-russia-documents-senate-intel-committee-n763141

– Trump Effect Inspires Radical Christians in Military.

http://www.newsweek.com/christian-fundamentalists-us-armed-forces-national-security-threat-613428

– Lockheed Martin secures $28 billion in Saudi contracts.

http://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2017/05/22/Lockheed-Martin-secures-28-billion-in-Saudi-contracts/4211495470735/

– Robert Reich: Our European Allies Are Appalled by Trump.

http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-our-european-allies-are-appalled-trump-613342

– Texas will allow adoption agencies to reject parents on religious grounds.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/05/22/Texas-will-allow-adoption-agencies-to-reject-parents-on-religious-grounds/9581495460144/

– Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-asked-intelligence-chiefs-to-push-back-against-fbi-collusion-probe-after-comey-revealed-its-existence/2017/05/22/394933bc-3f10-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

– (Analysis) The three most damaging paragraphs from the revelation about Trump pushing back against the FBI.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/22/the-three-most-damaging-paragraphs-from-the-revelation-about-trump-pushing-back-against-the-fbi/

– Trump close to choosing outside counsel for Russia investigation. Trump is moving rapidly toward assembling outside counsel to help him navigate the investigations into his campaign and Russian interference in last year’s election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-close-to-choosing-outside-counsel-for-russia-investigation/2017/05/22/8709f62e-3f22-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

– Trump’s budget: major slashes to social programs – but $1.6bn for the wall.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/22/donald-trump-budget-proposal-2018-social-care-border-wall

– Trump Seeks $3.6 Trillion in Cuts to Reshape Government,

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-23/trump-seeks-3-6-trillion-in-spending-cuts-to-reshape-government

– MANCHESTER, ENGLAND EXPLOSION AND BLAST AT POP CONCERT.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/police-report-deaths-following-apparent-blast-at-concert-in-manchester/2017/05/22/2b6bfd1e-3f43-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manchester-explosions-latest-news-updates-arena-ariana-grande-bangs-police-a7750381.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-40007886

May 23, 2017 Tuesday

– Trump FY2018 budget officially unveiled.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN18I26X

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/23/trump-proposes-dramatic-changes-to-federal-government-slashing-safety-net-programs-that-affect-up-to-a-fifth-of-americans/

– Trump seeks to slash $3.6 trillion of spending in austere budget.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN18I26X

– Trump budget keeps pledges: Cuts for poor, more for military.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-sending-congress-4-1-trillion-budget-073622842–finance.html

– Former CIA Director John Brennan told House Russia investigators Tuesday that Russia “brazenly interfered” in US elections, including actively contacting members of the President Donald Trump’s campaign — but he stopped shy of dubbing it “collusion.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/john-brennan-house-intelligence-committee/index.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN18J2DE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-director-warned-russian-security-service-chief-about-interference-in-election/2017/05/23/ebff2a7e-3fbb-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html

– DNI Dan Coats, speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, would not comment on reports that Trump had asked Coats and NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers to push back on the FBI’s probe into whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dan-coats-wont-say-whether-trump-asked-him-to-deny-russian-collusion/

– Trump retains Marc Kasowitz as private attorney for Russia probe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-counsel-idUSKBN18J30W

– (Other) Soldiers on UK streets as threat raised to critical after Manchester bombing.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/23/salman-abedi-police-race-to-establish-if-manchester-suicide-bomber-acted-alone

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manchester-bombing-critical-terrorist-threat-theresa-may-upgrades-from-severe-latest-news-a7752336.html

– Trump advisers call for privatizing some public assets to build new infrastructure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/trump-advisers-call-for-selling-off-old-assets-to-build-new-infrastructure/2017/05/23/657aa2c6-2f53-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html

– Trump told his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte that Washington has sent two nuclear submarines to waters off the Korean peninsula, the New York Times said, comments likely to raise questions about his handling of sensitive information.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-submarines-idUSKBN18K15Y

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/us/politics/trump-duterte-phone-transcript-philippine-drug-crackdown.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-kim-jong-un-a-madman-with-nuclear-weapons-according-to-transcript-of-duterte-call/2017/05/23/211d1474-3fe8-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

May 24, 2017 Wednesday

– The Congressional Budget Office reports the bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would cause 23 million people to lose healthcare coverage by 2026 while de-stabilizing health insurance markets in some states and making it hard for sick people to buy insurance.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-cbo-idUSKBN18K2X2

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/us/politics/cbo-congressional-budget-office-health-care.html

– CBO sees premiums rising 850 percent for poor elderly under House health bill.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/24/the-three-numbers-you-need-to-understand-the-cbo-report-on-republicans-health-care-bill/

– Trump said he would save jobs at Carrier. The layoffs start July 20.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/24/here-is-the-number-of-jobs-carrier-is-moving-to-mexico-after-trump-said-hed-save-them/

– Ben Carson calls poverty ‘a state of mind’ during interview.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/24/ben-carson-calls-poverty-a-state-of-mind-during-interview/

– Theresa May to tackle Donald Trump over Manchester bombing evidence. Prime minister will raise concerns at Nato summit that intelligence leaks from the US have damaged investigation. It was the latest of a series of leaks to US journalists that appeared to come from inside the US intelligence community.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/24/theresa-may-to-tackle-donald-trump-over-manchester-bombing-evidence

– Marchers in Chicago claim McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, supports low wages for workers and allows sexual harassment, ‘just like Donald Trump’.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/24/mcdonalds-chicago-protest-low-wages-harassment-trump

– Montana GOP candidate accused of assaulting reporter on eve of special election.

http://thehill.com/media/335052-reporter-alleges-that-montana-gop-candidate-bodyslammed-him

– Dem rep: Abuse, violence against the press ‘hallmarks in Trump era’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/335062-dem-rep-abuse-violence-against-the-press-hallmarks-in-trump-era

– Thousands protested Trump visit in Belgium.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/335050-thousands-protested-trump-visit-in-belgium

– AG Sessions did not disclose Russia meetings in security clearance form, which requires him to list “any contact” he or his family had with a “foreign government” or its “representatives” over the past seven years.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/jeff-sessions-russian-officials-meetings/index.html

– White House, DOJ miss Senate deadline to provide James Comey memos, records.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/24/white-house-doj-break-senate-deadline-provide-james-comey-memos-records/102119744/

– How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-a-dubious-russian-document-influenced-the-fbis-handling-of-the-clinton-probe/2017/05/24/f375c07c-3a95-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

May 25, 2017 Thursday

– Trump chastises fellow NATO members, demands they meet payment obligations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-told-in-brussels-that-west-should-focus-on-values-not-only-interests/2017/05/25/7aa1865c-40cd-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

– Montana GOP candidate charged after allegedly body-slamming reporter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/gop-candidate-cited-for-assault-as-newspapers-pull-endorsements/2017/05/25/eb416990-413b-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html

– U.S. warship challenges South China Sea claims, the first such challenge to Beijing in the strategic waterway since Trump took office.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-southchinasea-navy-idUSKBN18K353

– Senators make new push to rein in Trump’s military powers.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/25/trump-military-powers-senate-response-238817

– (Other) Fears for economy as number of EU migrants leaving Brexit Britain surges.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/immigration-figures-down-policies-general-election-2017-a7754796.html

– Trump asks Justice Department to look into recent foreign intelligence leaks by US officials.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/nato-trump-intel-sharing/index.html

– How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative. Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and posted some on his blog.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-alleged-russian-hacker-teamed-up-with-florida-gop-operative-1495724787

– Georgia Law Will Allow Carry of Handguns at Public University Tailgate Events.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2711782-georgia-law-will-allow-carry-of-handguns-at-public-university-tailgate-events

– (Opinion) The Trump Administration’s Troubling State of Mind.

http://carsonwatch.org/2017/05/25/trump-administrations-troubling-state-mind/

– FEDERAL APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS BLOCK ON TRUMP’S TRAVEL BAN, administration will appeal to Supreme Court.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/4th-circuit-travel-ban/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/federal-appeals-court-largely-maintains-freeze-of-trumps-travel-ban/2017/05/25/395aa394-365b-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-idUSKBN18L2IO

– U.S. lawmakers to fight massive Trump Saudi arms deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-arms-congress-idUSKBN18L2XN

– Wall Street hits record highs, helped by consumer stocks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-idUSKBN18L1HC

– Gazette opinion: We’re pulling our endorsement of Greg Gianforte.

http://billingsgazette.com/opinion/editorial/gazette-opinion-we-re-pulling-our-endorsement-of-gianforte/article_34d90b42-545b-5e10-9355-605b7c5cb11f.html?=dtgrsdz&utm_content=bufferb95a6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC

– Trump calls Germans ‘very bad’ and promises to stop car imports.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/25/president-trump-calls-germans-very-bad-and-promises-stop-car-imports-report/102162310/

– Jared Kushner now a focus in Russia investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jared-kushner-now-a-focus-in-russia-investigation/2017/05/25/f078db74-40c7-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html

– Republican Charged With Assault Claims Win in Montana Special Election.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/polls-close-montana-s-suddenly-famous-special-congressional-election-n764866

May 26, 2017 Friday

– Trump travel ban fight heads toward Supreme Court showdown.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-idUSKBN18M2C7

– In shakeup, Trump to set up ‘war room’ to repel attacks over Russia probe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-warroom-idUSKBN18M2FU

– Trump son-in-law had undisclosed contacts with Russian envoy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-kushner-exclusive-idUSKBN18N018

– Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret channel with Kremlin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

– Senate Intelligence Committee requests Trump campaign documents.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/26/senate-intelligence-committee-requests-trump-campaign-documents/

– Tillerson declines to host Ramadan event at State Department.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-ramadan-usa-tillerson-exclsu-idUSKBN18M2IE

– Texas governor draws criticism for joke about shooting journalists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-governor-guns-idUSKBN18N009

– Chinese jets intercept U.S surveillance plane.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-military-idUSKBN18M25L

– ‘The Germans are bad, very bad’: Trump’s alleged slight generates confusion, backlash.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumps-alleged-slight-against-germans-generates-confusion-backlash/2017/05/26/0325255a-4219-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html

– Zbigniew Brzezinski is dead at 89.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/zbigniew-brzezinski-dead-national-security-adviser-to-carter.html

– Secret court rebukes NSA for 5-year illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article152947909.html

– G7 summit: Leaders pressure Trump on climate change pact – but President makes no promises.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-g7-climate-change-failure-paris-agreement-angela-merkel-a7758561.html

– Trump Administration Conflicts Of Interest: How Gary Cohn Could Sell U.S. Infrastructure To Goldman Sachs.

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/trump-administration-conflicts-interest-how-gary-cohn-could-sell-us-infrastructure

– Six of the worst cuts in Trump’s budget.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/six-of-the-worst-cuts-in-trumps-budget/2017/05/26/632e6796-40ba-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

– Hillary Clinton hints Donald Trump will be ‘impeached for obstruction of justice’ in unprecedented attack on president.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-impeachment-latest-hillary-clinton-attack-nixon-wellesley-commencement-speech-address-a7758311.html

– (Opinion) The U.S. has a homegrown terrorist problem — and it’s coming from the right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-has-a-homegrown-terrorist-problem–and-its-coming-from-the-right/2017/05/26/10d88bba-4197-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

May 27, 2017 Saturday

– G7 talks: Trump isolated over Paris climate change deal.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40069636

– Leaders issue G7 declaration with U.S. a holdout on climate change.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/27/trump-paris-climate-deal-238883

– Man, known as a white supremicist, shouting ‘anti-Muslim slurs’ fatally stabs two men in Portland.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/27/man-shouting-anti-muslim-slurs-fatally-stabs-two-men-in-us

– AP FACT CHECK: Trump tells tall tales even without Twitter.

http://m.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/AP-FACT-CHECK-Trump-tells-tall-tales-even-11177929.php

– Trump complained of trouble setting up golf courses in EU during Brussels visit.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335412-trump-complained-of-trouble-setting-up-golf-courses-in-eu-during

– Thousands of Americans will die unnecessary deaths if AHCA becomes a reality.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/335250-thousands-of-americans-will-die-unnecessary-deaths-is-ahca

– Ex-CIA Director: CIA would consider Kushner actions ‘espionage’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/335398-ex-cia-director-if-kushner-set-up-secure-line-with-russia-cia

– Noose left outside of Hirshhorn museum in Washington.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/335422-noose-left-outside-of-hirshorn-museum-in-washington

– Trump Returns to Crisis Over Kushner as White House Tries to Contain It.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/us/politics/trump-returns-to-crisis-over-kushner-as-white-house-tries-to-contain-it.html

– Trump tells ‘confidants’ U.S. will leave Paris climate deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climate-idUSKBN18O00J

May 28, 2017 Sunday

– After summits with Trump, Merkel says Europe must take fate into own hands.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-merkel-idUSKBN18O0JK

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/world/europe/angela-merkel-trump-alliances-g7-leaders.html

http://www.dw.com/en/merkel-europe-can-no-longer-rely-on-us-and-britain/a-39018097?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

– (Analysis) Why Merkel’s comments matter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/28/thanks-to-trump-germany-says-it-cant-rely-on-america-what-does-that-mean/

– European allies see the two sides of Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit-trump-allies-analysis-idUSKBN18O0BP

– The Trump handshake: how world leaders are fighting back. Emmanuel Macron and others have noted that US president’s handshake is a claim to superiority, and are fighting him in kind.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/28/the-trump-handshake-how-world-leaders-are-fighting-back

– (Opinion: DW Germany) A dangerous travelling salesman.

http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-a-dangerous-travelling-salesman/a-39017379

– Trump attacks ‘fake news’ following Kushner reports.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-kushner-idUSKBN18O0G0

– Back at the White House, Trump unleashes a Twitter rant about fake news, leaks and ‘the enemy’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/28/trump-returns-home-from-abroad-with-a-twitter-rant-about-fake-news-leaks-and-the-enemy/

– U.S. might ban laptops on all flights into and out of the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-airlines-electronics-idUSKBN18O0KL

– By backing Saudi Arabia’s vision of the Middle East, Trump may be sowing the seeds of conflict.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/by-backing-saudi-arabias-vision-of-the-middle-east-trump-may-be-sowing-the-seeds-of-conflict/2017/05/27/3afcda92-4181-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html

– ‘Brave and selfless’ Oregon stabbing victims hailed as heroes for standing up to racist rants.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/28/brave-and-selfless-oregon-stabbing-victims-hailed-as-heroes/

– These 8th-graders from New Jersey refused to be photographed with Paul Ryan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/these-8th-graders-from-new-jersey-refused-to-be-photographed-with-paul-ryan/2017/05/28/ca46b116-43b9-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html

– Florida could pave new changes in ‘stand your ground’ laws.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-could-pave-changes-stand-ground-laws-130111550.html

– (Opinion) Trump seems happy to destroy the planet. Only China and India can save us now.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-climate-change-paris-accord-destroy-planet-india-china-a7760731.html

– Homeland Security chief says back-channel talks with Russia would be ‘normal…and acceptable’.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/homeland-security-chief-back-channel-talks-russia-normaland/story?id=47680534

– Mattis: Fight against ISIS has shifted to “annihilation tactics”.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fight-against-isis-has-shifted-to-annihilation-tactics-mattis-says/

May 29, 2017 Monday

– ‘Atlanticist’ Merkel rams home frustration with Trump after summits.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-merkel-trump-idUSKBN18P0VV

– Angela Merkel Stopped Relying on President Trump Only After Failing to Reason With Him.

http://time.com/4797241/angela-merkel-us-german-tensions-g7-summit/

– Even Angela Merkel’s political rivals are on her side against Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/29/even-angela-merkels-political-rivals-are-on-her-side-against-trump/

– U.S. may put emergency tariffs on solar imports.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-solar-wto-idUSKBN18P1JL

– North Korea fires Scud-class ballistic missile.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKBN18O0R3

– Trump condemns fatal Oregon stabbings; says victims stood against hate

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-muslims-portland-idUSKBN18P1XR

– Portland Republican says party should use militia groups after racial attack. Asked if this meant Republicans making their own security arrangements rather than relying on city or state police, Buchal said: “Yeah. And there are these people arising, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/29/portland-attack-republican-james-buchal-militia-groups

– Portland knife attack: tension high as ‘free speech rally’ set for weekend.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/28/portland-knife-attack-free-speech-rally–sunday

– Texas Republican ‘threatens to shoot Democrat’ over immigration protest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/29/hundreds-pro-sanctuary-cities-protesters-texas-house

http://time.com/4797381/texas-anti-sanctuary-city-bill-protests/

– Bullet damage suspected in Ky. newspaper vandalism.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/335557-bullet-damage-suspected-in-ky-newspaper-vandalism

– White House plan would minimize civil rights efforts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-plans-to-minimize-civil-rights-efforts-in-agencies/2017/05/29/922fc1b2-39a7-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html

– This is what Betsy DeVos thinks about people who oppose her school-choice vision.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/29/this-is-what-betsy-devos-thinks-about-people-who-oppose-her-school-choice-vision/

– Portland mayor wants ‘Trump free speech’ rally cancelled after attack.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/335564-portland-mayor-calls-for-free-speech-rally-cancelation-after-attack

– Trump to reverse Obama’s Cuba policy.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/335547-report-trump-to-reverse-obamas-cuba-policy

– Ted Cruz: Trump should withdraw from Paris climate pact.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/29/opinions/withdraw-paris-accord-opinion-cruz/index.html

– The Denver Post has cut ties with Terry Frei after the journalist tweeted that he was “very uncomfortable with a Japanese driver winning the Indianapolis 500 during Memorial Day weekend.”.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/29/media/terry-frei-denver-post-indy-500-tweet/

May 30, 2017 Tuesday

– Trump escalates clash after tense summits. Trump criticized Germany’s trade and spending policies, intensifying a clash between the allies and immediately earning himself the moniker “destroyer of Western values” from a leading German politician.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-germany-trump-idUSKBN18Q138

– Trump’s communications director Mike Dubke is leaving the job, the White House said on Tuesday, as the president considers wider staff changes to try to prevent more political damage from probes into Russia and his presidential campaign.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKBN18Q179

– Merkel wants to foster India ties, softens message on U.S. as Trump scolds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-india-idUSKBN18Q0ZJ

– South Korean President Moon Jae-in has ordered a probe after the Defence Ministry failed to inform him that four more launchers for the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system had been brought into the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-south-thaad-idUSKBN18Q0I3

– Group linked to NSA leaks says will release more data in July.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-shadow-brokers-idUSKBN18Q22V

– Kentucky newspapers suffer twin threats amid rising anti-media climate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/30/kentucky-newspapers-attack-anti-media

– (Opinion) Donald Trump is not blameless when white supremacists slaughter people.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/30/donald-trump-portland-attack-not-blameless-white-supremacists

– How Trump and the GOP-led Congress swiftly dismantled Internet privacy rules.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-congress-dismantled-federal-internet-privacy-rules/2017/05/29/7ad06e14-2f5b-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html

– (Other) A guide to the 5 major probes of Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/trump-russia-investigations/

– All but two countries are in the Paris climate agreement. The U.S. could be the third.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/paris-climate-agreement-withdrawal/

– U.N. chief warns if U.S. pulls back, others will fill leadership role.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-un-idUSKBN18Q2MD

– Pentagon successfully tests ICBM defense system for first time.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea-missiletest-idUSKBN18Q2CU

– North Korea warns of ‘bigger gift package’ for U.S. after latest test.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-kim-idUSKBN18P23J

– Former Trump adviser Flynn to turn over some documents subpoenaed by Senate panel.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-idUSKBN18Q2ML

– Portland man accused of fatal train stabbing has outburst in court. ‘You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism!’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/30/portland-stabbing-anti-muslim-jeremy-joseph-christian-court

– White House drafts rule to roll back ‘contraception mandate’ for health coverage.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/30/trump-contraception-mandate-religious-groups-healthcare

– Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice is fired — but not for the killing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/30/cleveland-police-officer-who-fatally-shot-12-year-old-tamir-rice-is-fired/

– Trump’s Personal Lawyer Refuses to Cooperate With Congressional Inquiries.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/us/politics/michael-cohen-russia-investigation.html

– Trump’s personal lawyer becomes focus of Russia investigation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-lawyer-russia-investigation-michael-cohen-focus-probe-information-a7763911.html

– White House mounts staunch defense of Kushner.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335680-white-house-mounts-staunch-defense-of-kushner

– Trump ‘likes his intelligence briefings filled with pictures’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-latest-pictures-intelligence-briefings-new-report-a7763831.html

– Trump: Change Senate rules ‘immediately’ to pass GOP plans.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-change-senate-rules-changed-immediately-pass-gop-plans-155809610.html

– Transgender Wisconsin Student Can Use Boys’ Bathroom, Federal Court Says.

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/transgender-wisconsin-student-can-use-boys-bathroom-federal-court-says-n766436

– After Stabbing, Portland’s Mayor Wants 2 Right-Wing Demonstrations Canceled.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/30/530716682/after-stabbing-portlands-mayor-wants-2-right-wing-demonstrations-canceled

– 49 shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend — and that’s a sign of progress.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/05/30/49-shot-chicago-memorial-day-weekend/102314944/

– Right-Wing Polls Show Trump’s Plunging Approval Ratings.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-ratings-impeachment-odds-white-house-russia-scandal-617650

– (Editorial) Show HUD’s Budget Cuts the Door.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/opinion/hud-budget-cuts-ben-carson.html

– Real-Life ‘House of Cards’: Debt Ceiling Crisis Looms for Trump.

http://www.newsweek.com/real-life-house-cards-debt-limit-crisis-617705

– GOP taps anti-Clinton strategy to damage Elizabeth Warren early.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article153446694.html

– Nearly Half of Donald Trump’s Twitter Followers Are Fake Accounts and Bots.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-twitter-followers-fake-617873

– Viral flap over whether Trump has gotten sudden boost in Twitter followers.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article153467119.html

May 31, 2017 Wednesday

– TRUMP TO PULL OUT OF PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-trump-idUSKBN18R1J4

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/31/donald-trump-withdraw-paris-climate-change-agreement

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/climate/trump-quits-paris-climate-accord.html

– Pullout ‘monumentally irresponsible:’ experts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-trump-reaction-idUSKBN18R2FT

– China and EU strengthen commitment to Paris deal with US poised to step away. Beijing and Brussels to set up new alliance to reduce global carbon emissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/31/china-eu-climate-lead-paris-agreement

– (Analysis) Paris climate deal: exasperated world leaders prepare to move on without US.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/31/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-deal-agreement-us

– Musk Threatens to Leave Trump’s Business Councils, Joins CEOs Pushing to Stay in Paris Deal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-31/musk-leads-ceos-full-court-press-on-paris-as-trump-weighs-exit

– Majority of Americans in every US state supports Paris climate deal Trump is poised to withdraw from.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-paris-climate-deal-agreement-poll-support-popularity-americans-states-a7765626.html

– Germany says Theresa May is ‘complicit’ in Donald Trump’s policies that put Europe’s security at risk.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/germany-theresa-may-donald-trump-complicit-us-policies-europe-security-risk-eu-paris-agreement-a7764661.html

– China Sees an Opening in Rift Between Trump and Germany.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/world/europe/china-sees-an-opening-in-rift-between-trump-and-germany.html

– Trump’s climate decision could be felt for generations.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/trumpo-paris-climate/index.html

– Cracks widen in US-Europe alliance.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/donald-trump-angela-merkel-europe-climate/index.html

– Financial firms lead shareholder rebellion against ExxonMobil climate change policies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/31/exxonmobil-is-trying-to-fend-off-a-shareholder-rebellion-over-climate-change/

– Man arrested at Trump’s Washington hotel after guns found in car. He reportedly told police he is a military veteran suffering from PTSD and chose to stay at the hotel because he likes President Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-washingtondc-arrest-idUSKBN18R2AR

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/335746-man-with-guns-arrested-at-trump-international-hotel

– Poll: Support for Trump impeachment rises. Forty-three percent of voters want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, up from 38 percent last week.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/31/trump-impeach-polling-238947

– CNN fires Kathy Griffin after Trump beheading photo.

http://thehill.com/homenews/335791-cnn-fires-kathy-griffin-over-trump-beheading-photo

– Fired FBI director James Comey plans to testify publicly in the Senate to confirm bombshell accusations that Trump pressured him to end his investigation into a top Trump aide’s ties to Russia.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/fbi-comey-testimony/index.html

– NRA lobbyist: Guns equalizer for ‘the blacks’.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nra-lobbyist-guns-equalizer-blacks-47748624

– Gov. Brown: ‘The rest of the world is against’ Trump.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/31/jerry-brown-donald-trump-paris-climate-change-deal-238993

– Trump urges GOP senators to pass new Obamacare repeal bill that adds saved money.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/31/trump-tweet-obamacare-repeal-bill-senate-238977

– Fox News holds off MSNBC for May ratings win.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/335811-fox-news-continues-to-dominate-cable-ratings-despite-surging-msnbc

– Recipients Fear Cuts to Food Stamps and Disability Aid in Trump Budget.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/us/politics/food-stamps-disability-benefits-trump-budget.html

– House Russia investigators subpoena Flynn, Cohen.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/house-russia-investigators-subpoena-flynn-cohen/index.html

– The home of Cleveland Cavaliers superstar forward LeBron James was found with racist graffiti on the front gate.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2712774-lebron-james-home-reportedly-vandalized-with-racist-graffiti

– Portland train suspect: ‘I hope everyone I stabbed died’.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/us/portland-train-stabbing-what-happened/index.html

– Americans Like Obamacare Better Than GOP Plan, Kaiser Family Foundation Poll Finds.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/americans-obamacare-better-gop-plan-poll-finds-n766656

– White House is no longer taking questions on Trump and Russia. Press secretary says all questions about investigation will be referred to Trump’s lawyer.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/31/donald-trump-russia-investigation-sean-spicer-no-questions

– Trump administration approves tougher visa vetting, including social media checks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visa-idUSKBN18R3F8

JUNE

June 1, 2017 Friday

– UKIP leader Nigel Farage is ‘person of interest’ in FBI investigation into Trump and Russia.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/01/nigel-farage-is-person-of-interest-in-fbi-investigation-into-trump-and-russia

– The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/republican-senators-paris-climate-deal-energy-donations

– Trump delays moving U.S. embassy to Jerusalem despite campaign pledge.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-idUSKBN18S5H8

– Fearing Trump’s next move, liberals urge Supreme Court conservative Kennedy to stay.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-kennedy-idUSKBN18S4LT

– Our ugly racism’s newest artifact: The noose left at the African American Museum.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/our-ugly-racisms-newest-artifact-the-noose-left-at-the-african-american-museum/2017/06/01/fc0cdc98-46b6-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html

– (Opinion) The Scope of Hate in 2017.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/hate-crime-lebron-james-college-park-murder.html

– Putin Hints at U.S. Election Meddling by ‘Patriotically Minded’ Russians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/world/europe/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-hacking.html

– Maybe Private Russian Hackers Meddled in Election, Putin Says.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/world/europe/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-hacking.html

– Vatican official: US exiting Paris deal would be ‘slap in the face’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335946-vatican-official-paris-deal-exit-would-be-a-slap-in-the-face

– Top Dem: Nunes violating Russia recusal with subpoenas.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/335942-schiff-nunes-issuing-subpoenas-a-violation-of-recusal

– Did Trump, Kushner, Sessions Have An Undisclosed Meeting With Russian?

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/did-trump-kushner-sessions-have-undisclosed-meeting-russian-n767096

– Bloomberg: ’55 percent chance’ Trump will win reelection.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/335844-bloomberg-55-percent-chance-trump-will-win-reelection

– (Opinion) How Trump’s Chaotic Presidency Threatens the Economy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-01/how-trump-s-chaotic-presidency-threatens-the-economy

– Senators asked Comey to investigate AG Jeff Sessions for possible perjury.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/sessions-russian-ambassador-letter/index.html

– Portland, LeBron, the Smithsonian nooses: America’s ugly week of hate.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/us/lebron-james-smithsonian-portland-stabbings-hate/index.html

– Top 5 States With Homeless People In US: 23% Rise In Vagrant Population In A Year In Los Angeles.

http://www.ibtimes.com/top-5-states-homeless-people-us-23-rise-vagrant-population-year-los-angeles-study-2546333

– TRUMP PULLS U.S. OUT OF PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD. World’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter will remove itself from global treaty as Trump claims accord ‘will harm’ American jobs. ‘A reassetion of America’s Sovereignty’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-trump-idUSKBN18R1J4

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40127326

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-confirms-us-will-quit-paris-climate-deal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-announce-us-will-exit-paris-climate-deal/2017/06/01/fbcb0196-46da-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/climate/trump-paris-climate-agreement.html

– (Editorial) Our Disgraceful Exit From the Paris Accord. Here’s what Trump’s decision on the climate change pact says to the world: America cares little about science, its allies and competitiveness.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/trump-paris-climate-change-agreement.html

– Critics lament Trump climate move.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-quotes-factbox-idUSKBN18S6KQ

– Deal cannot be renegotiated: EU leaders.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-eu-idUSKBN18S6GN

http://www.politico.eu/article/france-germany-and-italy-paris-deal-cannot-be-renegotiated/

– U.S. and global leaders react to Trump’s exit from Paris climate change pact.

http://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/trump-paris-climate-change-agreement-reaction/

– World leaders accuse Trump of turning his back on the planet.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/world/trump-paris-agreement-world-reaction/index.html

– World leaders condemned Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement on climate change.

http://www.dw.com/en/world-reacts-to-us-withdrawal-from-paris-agreement/a-39088295

– Trudeau tells Trump Canada is disappointed by withdrawal from Paris climate deal.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-mckenna-trump-paris-deal-1.4142211

– Is Trump abandoning US global leadership?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40127896

– Can China be a world leader on climate change?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/can-china-be-a-world-leader-on-climate-change/article35184534/

– Musk to quit Trump advisory councils.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-musk-idUSKBN18S6EO

– Goldman’s Blankfein criticizes U.S decision to leave Paris climate deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-goldman-sachs-idUSKBN18S6MC

– Apple CEO says he pleaded with Trump to stay in the Paris climate accord, “but it wasn’t enough.”

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-cook-memo-condemns-trump-paris-climate-accord/

– Obama slams Trump for leaving Paris climate agreement. ‘Trump rejects future’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/barack-obama-slams-donald-trump-paris-climate-239032

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/335975-obama-trump-will-reject-the-future-by-pulling-out-of-paris-accord

– Trump makes Europe (feel) great again.

http://www.politico.eu/article/trump-makes-europe-feel-great-again/

– UN climate negotiator slams White House for having “no idea” how Paris Agreement works.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-agreement-climate-trump-united-nations/

– Washington, California, New York band together to form climate alliance.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/climate-alliance-washington-california-new-york-239038

– US mayors, governors vow to stick with Paris accord.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/us/trump-climate-deal-cities-states-defying/

– EPA begins offering buyouts to cut staff.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336023-epa-begins-offering-buyouts-to-cut-staff-report

– Right-wing media cheer Trump withdrawing United States from the Paris climate agreement.

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/06/01/right-wing-media-cheer-trump-withdrawing-united-states-paris-climate-agreement/216746

– Trump administration asks Supreme Court to revive travel ban.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-idUSKBN18T09Z

– Disaster Agency To Weather Hurricane Season With No Leader, Proposed Cuts.

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/531012881/disaster-agency-to-weather-hurricane-season-with-no-leader-proposed-cuts

June 2, 2017 Friday

– Exit from Paris pact threatens U.S. global stature, European officials say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trumps-tangle-with-europe-leads-the-continent-to-find-partners-elsewhere/2017/06/02/429b1c0c-4599-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html

– (Analysis) Paris withdrawal is the visceral expression of Trump’s worldview.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paris-decision-underscores-the-visceral-expression-of-trumps-worldview/2017/06/02/69adf632-47b7-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html

– France’s President Emmanuel Macron has become the principal spokesman of political moderates around the world, squaring off against Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-macron-flexes-newfound-international-star-power/2017/06/02/f7c61778-47a9-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html

– Angela Merkel Slams Donald Trump’s Decision to Quit Paris Accord.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/angela-merkel-slams-donald-trumps-decision-to-quit-paris-accord-1496396241

– EU to bypass Trump administration after Paris climate agreement pullout.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/02/european-leaders-vow-to-keep-fighting-global-warming-despite-us-withdrawal

– Trump’s tangle with Europe leads the continent to find partners elsewhere.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trumps-tangle-with-europe-leads-the-continent-to-find-partners-elsewhere/2017/06/02/429b1c0c-4599-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html

– World pledges to save ‘Mother Earth’ despite Trump’s snub to climate pact.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKBN18T1M0

– City halls and landmarks turn green in support of Paris climate deal. Local government buildings in New York, Boston, Washington DC, Montreal and Paris lit up after US withdrawal from accord.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/02/city-halls-and-landmarks-turn-green-new-york-washington-montreal

– How Cities and States Reacted to Trump’s Decision to Exit the Paris Climate Deal.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/02/climate/trump-paris-mayors.html

– Bucking Trump, These Cities, States and Companies Commit to Paris Accord.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/climate/american-cities-climate-standards.html

– (Opinion) Donald Trump Poisons the World.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html

– (Opinion) Abandoning Paris climate deal marks Trump’s return to angry populism.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/02/donald-trump-paris-deal-analysis-populism

– White House confirms it is considering stopping James Comey from testifying in Senate hearing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-comey-russia-testimony-block-senate-hearing-kellyanne-conway-latest-news-a7769821.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN18T1WZ

– Bloomberg pledges $15M to UN to cover US climate share.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/336143-bloomberg-pledges-15-million-to-un-to-repay-us-climate-debt

– ‘Washington can’t stop Americans’: Michael Bloomberg pledges to pay US share of Paris climate funding.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/02/washington-cant-stop-americans-michael-bloomberg-pledges-pay/

– US has nothing to apologize for on climate change, says defiant EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/02/us-paris-climate-deal-epa-chief-scott-pruitt

– Pence says climate change is just an issue for the left.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mike-pence-climate-change-us-vice-president-paris-agreement-issue-left-for-some-reason-donald-trump-a7769081.html

– Antarctic sends message to Trump about global warming in shape of iceberg the size of Delaware.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/antarctic-donald-trump-global-warming-paris-agreement-delaware-size-iceberg-climate-change-decision-a7766456.html

– White House orders agencies to ignore Democrats’ oversight requests. Trump’s aides are trying to shut down the release of information that could be used to attack the president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/02/federal-agencies-oversight-requests-democrats-white-house-239034

– Nunes intervenes in Russia probe, despite having stepped aside. Nunes issued three subpoenas — which Democrats called a violation of his recusal.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/devin-nunes-intervenes-russia-investigation-239026

– Nunes-led House Intelligence Committee asked for ‘unmaskings’ of Americans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nunes-led-house-intelligence-committee-requested-unmaskings-of-americans/2017/06/02/5c098dc0-47bc-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html

– Special counsel investigation includes Manafort, may expand to Sessions.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/336168-russia-special-counsel-investigation-includes-manafort-may

– Putin Tells Megyn Kelly: U.S. Hackers Could Have Framed Russia.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-tells-megyn-kelly-u-s-hackers-could-have-n767641

– GOP strategists plot anti-media strategy for 2018 elections.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article154106459.html

– First Rule of Far-Right Fight Club: Be White and Proud. Fringe Groups Revel as Protests Turn Violent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/us/politics/white-nationalists-alt-knights-protests-colleges.html

June 3, 2017 Saturday

– Demonstrations held for and against Trump across the U.S.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/demonstrations-held-for-and-against-trump-across-united-states/

– Trump files for extension on his 2016 taxes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-files-for-extension-on-his-2016-taxes/

– Trump Plans to Shift Infrastructure Funding to Cities, States and Business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/trump-plans-to-shift-infrastructure-funding-to-cities-states-and-business.html

– Third noose this week found at DC construction site.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/336241-third-noose-this-week-found-at-dc-construction-site

– UN refugee agency head pleads for funding from Trump administration.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/336221-un-refugee-agency-head-pleads-for-funding-from-trump-administration

– Globe heaps scorn on Trump for Paris exit.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/336176-globe-heaps-scorn-on-trump-for-paris-exit

– TERRORIST ATTACKS IN CENTRAL LONDON.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40146916

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/03/london-bridge-closed-after-serious-police-incident-reports

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/03/london-bridge-incident-armed-police-respond-several-people-mown/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-bridge-borough-market-attack-incident-terror-terrorist-police-what-happened-latest-live-a7771636.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/police-declare-major-incident-on-london-bridge-after-van-reported-to-hit-pedestrians/2017/06/03/6d1854c0-48a7-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html

– In pictures: London attacks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2017/jun/04/london-bridge-attack-in-pictures

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40147256

– Trump tweets for his travel ban as drama unfolds in London.

http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-security-trump-idUSKBN18U0YC

– Trump criticised for using London attacks to promote his own Muslim travel ban.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/04/trump-criticised-for-using-london-attacks-to-promote-his-own-muslim-travel-ban

– Oath Keepers militia will attend Portland ‘free speech’ rally, says leader.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/03/oath-keepers-militia-portland-free-speech-rally

(Investigation) How a ‘shadow’ universe of charities joined with political warriors to fuel Trump’s rise.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-a-shadow-universe-of-charities-joined-with-political-warriors-to-fuel-trumps-rise/2017/06/03/ff5626ac-3a77-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html

 June 4, 2017

– Trump berates London mayor over response to terror attacks. Trump criticises London Mayor Sadiq Khan and uses attack to justify travel ban before mayor’s spokesman calls tweet ‘ill-informed’ and deliberately out of context.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/04/trump-berates-london-mayor-sadiq-khan-terror-attacks

– Trump reacts to London terror by stoking fear and renewing feud with mayor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-reacts-to-london-terror-by-stoking-fear-and-renewing-feud-with-mayor/2017/06/04/2811bcce-4931-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html

– World leaders call for unity after London attack. Trump tweets the complete opposite.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/04/world-leaders-call-for-unity-after-london-attack-trump-tweets-the-complete-opposite/

– Trump criticized for tweet on London mayor after bridge attacks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-trump-idUSKBN18U0YC

– Is Donald Trump ‘Trying to Provoke a Domestic Terror Attack’ With London Tweets?

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-trying-provoke-domestic-terror-attack-london-tweets-620547

– Amid turmoil, Trump spends weekend at golf club.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/336263-amid-turmoil-trump-spends-weekend-golfing

– Is there a neo-Nazi storm brewing in Trump country? Can national socialism (Nazism), repackaged as ‘white identity’ politics, earn votes in rural counties that voted for Trump?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/04/national-socialism-neo-nazis-america-donald-trump

– Trump supporters confront counter-protests in Portland, Oregon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oregon-protests-idUSKBN18V0J0

– ‘Alt-right’ Portland rally sees skirmishes with counter-protesters.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/04/portland-oregon-alt-right-rally-antifa

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alt-right-rally-counter-protestors-joey-gibson-donald-trump-portland-oregon-a7772801.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/right-wing-free-speech-rally-draws-massive-counter-protests-in-portland/2017/06/04/12971892-496f-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– (Opinion) Homegrown Terrorism and Why the Threat of Right-Wing Extremism Is Rising in America.

http://www.newsweek.com/homegrown-terrorism-rising-threat-right-wing-extremism-619724

– James Comey Senate testimony: America braces for a historic political moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/04/james-comey-senate-testimony-donald-trump-russia-flynn

– Deutsche Bank ignores U.S. Trump/Russia query.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutsche-bank-trump-idUSKBN18V11Q

– Putin denies having compromising information on Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-putin-idUSKBN18V16E

– Trump praises Saudi Arabia and claims he put Nato nations in place about defence spending.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-nato-saudi-arabia-terrorism-extremism-defence-spending-a7772391.html

– U.S. Takes Step Towards Embrace Of Gulf Plan To Destabilize Iran.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-takes-step-towards-embrace-of-gulf-plan-to-destabilize_us_59338775e4b0649fff2119ff

– Canada calling: tech industry lures workers north in wake of Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/04/canada-tech-industry-recruit-americans-silicon-valley-trump

 June 5, 2017 Monday

– Trump renews feud with London mayor over terror attack, rails at courts for blocking travel ban.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40163567

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/05/donald-trump-attack-courts-travel-ban-london

– London attack: Every mayor in America thanks Sadiq Khan for his leadership, in sharp contrast with Trump.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/london-attack-trump-sadiq-khan-us-mayors-thank-leadership-contrast-a7773981.html

– London mayor: We won’t let Trump ‘divide our community’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336409-london-mayor-we-wont-let-trump-divide-our-community

– Will Trump Visit U.K? After Attack on Sadiq Khan, Theresa May Faces Calls to Cancel State Trip.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-uk-visit-sadiq-khan-621215

– Acting US ambassador to China resigns over Trump’s Paris decision.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/336428-acting-us-ambassador-to-china-resigns-over-trumps-paris-decision-report

– (Opinion) Tweets unworthy of office.

http://thehill.com/opinion/bill-press/336451-tweets-unworthy-of-office

– Cancel Trump state visit, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan, after London attack tweets.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/05/donald-trump-attack-courts-travel-ban-london

– Media war amps up: AP fact-check says Trump can’t be trusted.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336341-media-war-amps-up-ap-fact-check-says-trump-cant-be-trusted

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/AP-FACT-CHECK-Attack-draws-visceral-Trump-11195713.php

– Trump vows to impose travel ban ‘in any event’ despite pending Supreme Court judgement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-muslim-ban-travel-extreme-vetting-supreme-court-judges-us-president-customs-border-a7773271.html

– Trump Grows Discontented With Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/us/politics/trump-discontent-attorney-general-jeff-sessions.html

– White House formally backs plan to send 30,000 federal workers to private corporation, separating the nation’s air traffic controllers and those who work on a $36 billion modernization program from the Federal Aviation Administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/white-house-formally-backs-plan-to-send-30000-federal-workers-to-private-corporation/2017/06/05/b8ce5546-4987-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– (Analysis) It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/

– 5 Arab States Break Ties With Qatar after a visit to the region by Trump.

– Most Americans in poll oppose Trump’s decision to scrap Paris climate plan, think it will hurt U.S. globally.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/05/post-abc-poll-nearly-6-in-10-oppose-trump-scrapping-paris-agreement/

– White House won’t block Comey testimony.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336397-white-house-wont-use-executive-privilege-to-block-comeys-testimony

– Media war amps up: AP fact-check says Trump can’t be trusted.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336341-media-war-amps-up-ap-fact-check-says-trump-cant-be-trusted

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/AP-FACT-CHECK-Attack-draws-visceral-Trump-11195713.php

– NSA Report Suggests Russia Might Have Hacked Voting System.

http://www.newsweek.com/who-won-election-nsa-report-suggests-russia-might-have-hacked-voting-system-621213

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/05/russia-us-election-hack-voting-system-nsa-report

– Kushners Hunting Hard for a $250 Million Loan to Pay Back Chinese Investors.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-05/kushners-hunting-hard-for-a-loan-to-pay-back-chinese-investors

– Republicans use ‘alt-right’ Portland rally to recruit new members.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/05/portland-alt-right-rally-republican-recruit-james-buchal

June 6, 2017 Tuesday

– Theresa May: Donald Trump wrong to criticise Sadiq Khan.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40172537

– Sean Spicer says Trump’s tweets should be seen as official White House statements.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tweets-official-statements-president-sean-spicer-white-house-says-a7776326.html

– Donald Trump ‘plans to live-tweet former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-comey-testimony-live-tweet-plans-senate-hearing-president-twitter-a7776046.html

– Nikki Haley warns US may pull out of UN Human Rights Council over ‘anti-Israel bias’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/nikki-haley-un-human-rights-council-anti-israel-bias-ambassador-arab-countries-saudi-arabia-a7775381.html

– Trump’s blocking of Twitter users violates U.S. Constitution: rights institute.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-twitter-idUSKBN18X2LR

– Accused leaker Reality Winner called Trump an ‘orange fascist’ on Twitter.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/reality-winner-twitter-account/index.html

– Climate change progress at Trump’s EPA is grinding to a halt, workers reveal.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/06/climate-change-work-trump-epa

– Trump Takes Credit for Saudi Move Against Qatar, a U.S. Military Partner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/world/middleeast/trump-qatar-saudi-arabia.html

– Siding against ally Qatar, Trump injects US into Arab crisis.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-arab-leaders-complained-qatar-123707789–politics.html

– Trump takes aim at key anti-ISIS ally Qatar in tweets.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/trump-takes-aim-key-anti-isis-ally-qatar/story

– McConnell whips Senate GOP back in line on Obamacare repeal.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/06/senate-republicans-obamacare-repeal-timing-239186

– Trump sons call Russia probe a ‘hoax’ and ‘witch hunt’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/06/donald-jr-eric-trump-russia-investigation-239182

– Donald Trump Jr. joins father in bashing London mayor.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/06/donald-trump-jr-sadiq-khan-london-mayor-239176

– Abstinence education advocate named to HHS post.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/336620-abstinence-education-advocate-named-to-hhs-post

– Court asks EPA to justify pausing Obama pollution rule.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/336613-court-asks-epa-to-justify-pausing-obama-pollution-rule

– Consumer bureau defenders brace for House vote on Dodd-Frank rollback.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/336599-consumer-bureau-defenders-brace-for-house-vote-on-dodd-frank-rollback

– Top Intel Dem: Russian attacks on election systems ‘broader’ than reported.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/336545-top-intel-dem-russian-election-interference-broader-than-whats-been-reported

– (Opinion) Making Ignorance Great Again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/opinion/trump-gop-paris-climate-accord.html

– Comey Said to Stop Short of Saying Whether Trump Obstructed Justice.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-06/comey-said-to-share-details-of-trump-conversations-in-testimony

– Oil lobby met with Interior secretary at Trump hotel on day rule was changed.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/investing/oil-lobby-trump-hotel-api/index.html

– White House won’t say if Trump has confidence in AG Sessions.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-sessions-spicer-confidence/index.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/06/jeff-sessions-white-house-attorney-general/102559238/

– Sessions offered to resign after tensions grew with Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-offered-in-recent-months-to-resign-as-attorney-general/2017/06/06/030366fc-4b17-11e7-bc1b-fddbd8359dee_story.html

– Trump Funneled Cancer Charity Money to His Businesses, Associates: Report.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-funneled-kids-cancer-charity-money-businesses-621927

– White House, allies scramble for ways to offset potential damage from fired FBI Director James Comey’s highly anticipated congressional testimony. Trump’s White House and its allies are crafting a strategy aimed at undermining Comey’s credibility.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-allies-scramble-for-ways-to-counter-comey/ar-BBCaMwZ

– Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey’s testimony.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-furious-and-frustrated-will-join-allies-in-attacking-comey-testimony/2017/06/06/171e6d00-4acf-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Surprised that nooses are being left around D.C.? Be prepared for more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/surprised-that-nooses-are-being-left-around-dc-be-prepared-to-see-more/2017/06/06/824c817a-4ad4-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Trump administration wants to sell the Washington Aqueduct. The White House’s passion for privatization includes a little-noticed plan regarding the historic conduit, which could mean higher water bills.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/trump-administration-wants-to-sell-the-washington-aqueduct/2017/06/06/9c9035dc-47a9-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html

– The Ku Klux Klan wants to rally in Charlottesville. Now this college town is on edge again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-ku-klux-klan-wants-to-rally-in-charlottesville-now-this-college-town-is-on-edge-once-again/2017/06/06/ee5cba5c-4a4c-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Ethics office won’t probe Trump domestic emoluments issue.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/06/06/ethics-office-trump-shaub-murray-239219

– House Dem drafting articles of impeachment for Trump.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/336677-house-dem-drafting-articles-of-impeachment-for-trump

– Nunes won’t say if he stepped aside in Russia probe. Nunes announced in April he was temporarily stepping aside from leading the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections, citing a series of ethics complaints filed against him.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/devin-nunes-russia-probe/index.html

– (Opinion) The Lawless Presidency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/opinion/the-lawless-presidency.html

June 7, 2017 Wednesday

– Intelligence officials Rogers, Coats say they won’t discuss private talks with Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-director-rogers-and-intelligence-director-coats-said-they-wont-discuss-specifics-of-private-conversations-with-trump/2017/06/07/e74f7fbe-4b88-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/politics/senate-intelligence-hearing.html

– INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS’ OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/outrageous-contempt-of-congress/

– ‘I need loyalty’: James Comey’s riveting prepared testimony about what Trump asked him, annotated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/07/i-need-loyalty-james-comeys-riveting-prepared-testimony-about-what-trump-asked-him-annotated/

– Comey Set to Detail Pressure From Trump on Russia Inquiry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/politics/james-comey-statement-testimony.html

– Trump’s aides are quickly learning they speak for the president at their own peril.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-undercuts-his-aides-by-contradicting-their-statements/2017/06/06/1ae3155a-4ad2-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Iran Lashes Out at Saudis and U.S. as Gulf Tensions Rise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/world/middleeast/iran-parliament-attack-khomeini-mausoleum.html

– Trump picks white-collar crime lawyer to replace Comey at FBI. Christopher Wray represented Governor Chris Christie in the so-called Bridgegate scandal over massive traffic jams created as political punishment for a local mayor.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKBN18Y1K2

– Democrats to sue Trump over conflicts of interest.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/democrats-donald-trump-sue-conflict-of-interest-239262

– Ex-intel chief Clapper: Watergate ‘pales’ compared to Russia probes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/russia-investigations-trump-watergate-239233

– Obama ethics czar: Comey details read ‘like trial testimony’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336784-obama-ethics-czar-comey-details-like-trial-testimony

– Comey’s dramatic account on Trump rocks Washington.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/336848-comeys-dramatic-account-rocks-washington

– Trump feels ‘totally vindicated’ by Comey testimony, lawyer says.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336834-trump-totally-vindicated-by-comey-testimony-lawyer-says

– Comey account could fuel obstruction accusations against Trump: legal experts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-obstruction-idUSKBN18Z068

– I helped prosecute Watergate. Comey’s statement is sufficient evidence for an obstruction of justice case.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-watergate-prosecutor-comey-lays-out-sufficient-evidence-for-an-obstruction-of-justice-case/2017/06/07/a12964a4-4be3-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Michigan state House approves carrying concealed guns without permit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-michigan-idUSKBN18Z03Y

– Debt limit showdown looms sooner as wealthy bet on Trump tax cut.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-debt-idUSKBN18Y39H

June 8, 2017 Thursday

– JAMES COMEY TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS, says he and agency were defamed, accuses White House of ‘Lies’

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/politics/james-comey-testimony-hearing.html

– Comey blasts White House for ‘lies, plain and simple’.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239294

– Comey says he shared notes in hopes of a special counsel.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/comey-testimony-trump-senate-hearing/2017/06/07/afadf87c-4bd0-11e7-bc1b-fddbd8359dee_story.html

– Comey accuses White House of lies, does not say Trump obstructed justice.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN18Z0HC

– Comey says Trump fired him to undermine FBI Russia investigation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN18Z0HC

– Comey Says Concern Trump Would Lie Led Him to Write Memos.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-08/comey-urged-to-set-the-record-straight-on-dealings-with-trump

– Comey calls for release of memos, any recordings of White House conversations.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-comey-calls-for-release-of-memos-possible-recordings-of-white-house-conversations/

– (Analysis) Seven takeaways from Comey’s extraordinary testimony so far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/08/6-takeaways-from-james-comeys-extraordinary-testimony-about-trump/

– James Comey testimony takeaways: He plays political hardball.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/08/key-takeaways-james-comey-testimony/102625928/

– Trump: ‘We are going to fight and win’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336968-trump-we-are-going-to-fight-and-win

– ‘We are under siege,’ Trump tells religious right group as Comey testifies.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/08/trump-to-religious-right-we-are-under-siege/102630804/

– (Opinion) Sorry Dems, Comey’s words too weak to impeach Trump.

– Dow hits record high in the midst of Comey hearing.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/08/investing/wall-street-stock-market-comey-hearing-trump/index.html

– House passes sweeping bank deregulation bill to replace Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and reduce oversight put in place after 2008 financial crisis.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/bank-deregulation-house-239313

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-banks-idUSKBN18Z2T2

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/337004-house-passes-sweeping-bill-to-strip-post-recession-banking-rules

– Trump attorney disputes Comey testimony, slams leak.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-attorney-idUSKBN18Z2L0

– Senate G.O.P. Nears a Health Bill, but the Right May Balk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/politics/senate-health-bill-may-alienate-gop-conservatives.html

– Debt Ceiling Is Again a Battleground, This Time with Republicans in Charge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/politics/debt-ceiling-borrowing-limit.html

– Jerry Falwell Jr. says he will be part of a Trump education initiative.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/jerry-falwell-jr-trump-education-task-force-239309

– The tweet that got James Comey to go to the press.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/james-comey-leaking-memo/index.html

– Pro-Trump media claims vindication in Comey hearing.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/08/media/conservative-media-james-comey-hearing/index.html

– (Opinion) James Comey is no showboat. The former FBI director is a giant of a man with an even bigger heart.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/08/james-comey-bigger-than-russia-donald-trump-testimony-column/102562824/

– Dem senator: Trump should testify under oath.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/336983-dem-senator-trump-should-testify-under-oath

June 9, 2017 Friday

– Trump calls Comey a ‘leaker’ and claims ‘vindication’ after Senate hearing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-claims-vindication-from-comey-testimony-calls-him-a-leaker/2017/06/09/4dc20c48-4d06-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/us/politics/trump-comey.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN1901FJ

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/09/trump-comey-239344

– (Opinion) The most chilling line of Comey’s testimony.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-most-chilling-line-of-comeys-testimony/2017/06/09/fc4b9322-4d12-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html

– Trump Accuses Comey of Lying Under Oath at Senate Hearing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/us/politics/trump-comey.html

– House Intelligence Committee leaders ask White House for any Comey tapes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/09/house-intelligence-committee-leaders-ask-white-house-for-any-comey-tapes-239366

– U.S. aims to trim its U.N. peacekeeping bill after Trump’s calls to slash.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-budget-usa-idUSKBN1902IU

– Trump targets illegal immigrants who were given reprieves from deportation by Obama.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-deportations-exclusiv-idUSKBN1902I4

– Coalition of 13 states to challenge Trump on vehicle emission standards.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-autos-idUSKBN19027I

– China says it is vigilant as two U.S. bombers fly over South China Sea.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-southchinasea-idUSKBN1900YY

– Trump willing to counter Comey claims under oath.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN1901FJ

– U.S. seeks to dismiss lawsuit against Trump over foreign payments.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-lawsuit-idUSKBN19103Q

– Florida governor signs bolstered ‘stand your ground’ law making it easier for defendants in the state to successfully claim they were protecting themselves when they commit violence.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-guns-idUSKBN19033X

– ‘Nonsense’: Powerful Republican denounces White House information shut-out.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-trump-idUSKBN1902TW

– After Comey bombshells, evangelicals rally firmly behind Trump.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article155387034.html

June 10, 2017 Saturday

– Walls don’t fix migration problems, Merkel says on Mexico visit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-germany-idUSKBN1910RW

– Germany’s Merkel lends support to Mexico over NAFTA. Tension over trade has surfaced under Trump and his “America First” policy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-mexico-idUSKBN19106G

– Protesters rally against Islamic law in dozens of U.S. cities, but critics believe anti-Muslim hatred is behind the condemnation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-islam-protests-idUSKBN1910RC

– Anti-Muslim rallies across US denounced by civil rights groups.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/10/anti-muslim-rallies-across-us-denounced-by-civil-rights-groups

– Anti-Sharia marches, counter-protests lead to fighting and arrests.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/anti-sharia-marches-counter-protests-planned-us/story

– Trump wages battle against regulations, not climate change.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Trump-wages-battle-against-regulations-not-11210445.php

– Trump Can Take Payments From Foreign Governments, Justice Dept. Says.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-09/trump-can-accept-payments-from-foreign-governments-u-s-argues

http://time.com/4813739/justice-department-donald-trump-payments-foreign-governments/

– Feinstein calls for investigation of ‘all matters related to obstruction of justice’.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/10/politics/dianne-feinstein-chuck-grassley-judiciary-committee-investigation/index.html

– Mueller staffing up Russia probe while Trump lawyer declares victory.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/10/politics/robert-mueller-russia-investigation-team/index.html

– (Editorial) The GOP’s Obamacare sabotage continues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-obamacare-sabotage-continues/2017/06/09/c0469574-4d40-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html

– Russia tells U.S. not to strike Syrian pro-government forces again.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-usa-idUSKBN1910Y9

– Trump rebuffs bipartisanship, banks on base to tame turmoil.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-rebuffs-bipartisanship-banks-base-tame-turmoil-47958119

– Rallies Against Sharia Law Draw Counter-Protests.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rallies-against-sharia-law-draw-193523142.html

June 11, 2017 Sunday

– U.S, G7 partners remain at odds on climate at environment meeting.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-environment-idUSKBN1920N8

– Wall Street’s ‘Dr. Doom’ reviews the ‘Trump bump’ (audio).

http://soundcloud.com/reuters/the-exchange-henry-kaufman?in=reuters/sets/the-exchange

– Trump calls Comey ‘cowardly’ and suggests he acted illegally.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/11/trump-comey-leaks-239388

– Senators sound calls to release Comey ‘tapes’ as Trump attacks ‘cowardly’ leak.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump-tapes-leak

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/06/11/senator-says-trump-should-turn-over-comey-tapes/

– Trump attorney won’t rule out firing Mueller.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/11/trump-mueller-special-counsel-239396

– Los Angeles Pride Parade morphs into ‘Resist March’ against Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-pride-losangeles-idUSKBN1920GF

– (Analysis) Some Trump supporters want a holy war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/06/11/some-trump-supporters-want-a-holy-war/

– RNC Chairwoman McDaniel urges an end to congressional Russia-Trump probes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/11/trump-russia-mcdaniel-comey-239389

– Senate GOP sees path to ObamaCare repeal.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/337199-senate-gop-sees-path-to-obamacare-repeal

– A neo-Nazi with explosives and a framed photo of Timothy McVeigh is not a threat, judge rules.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/11/a-neo-nazi-with-explosives-and-a-framed-photo-of-timothy-mcveigh-is-not-a-threat-judge-rules/

– Trump May Scrap Britain Visit Amid Sinking Popularity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/politics/trump-uk-visit.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/donald-trump-state-visit-to-britain-put-on-hold

– Role of Trump’s Lawyer Blurs Public and Private Lines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/politics/trump-lawyer-marc-kasowitz.html

– Senior US prosecutor Bharara reveals he was fired by Trump after receiving several unusual calls from him and refusing to take a third call’.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40243184

– There’s ‘absolutely evidence’ to begin obstruction of justice case on Trump: Bharara.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/absolutely-evidence-begin-obstruction-justice-case-bharara/story

– Trump defends foreign income: Obama sold books to universities abroad.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/10/trump-foreign-government-income-obama-books

– D.C., Maryland to sue Trump over foreign payments to his businesses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-and-maryland-to-sue-president-trump-alleging-breach-of-constitutional-oath/2017/06/11/0059e1f0-4f19-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– Trump gives Priebus until July 4th to clean up White House.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/11/donald-trump-reince-priebus-deadline-239411

June 12, 2017 Monday

– Trump-Era Political Violence Deterring Democratic Candidates. America’s cold civil war is heating up, with countrywide reports of incidents of political violence.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-violence-democrats-death-threats-624361

– New threats to public lands endanger America’s unique wildlife corridors as Trump pushes for development.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/12/public-lands-wildlife-corridors-migration-routes

– Another U.S. appeals court rules against Trump’s revised travel ban ahead of Supreme Court showdown.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling-court-idUSKBN19321K

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/federal-appeals-court-upholds-freeze-on-trumps-travel-ban/2017/06/12/035893c4-4f91-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html

– Appeals court cites Trump tweets in ruling against travel ban.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/337442-appeals-court-cites-trumps-tweets-in-ruling-against-travel-ban

– (Opinion) Donald Trump’s Cabinet Meeting Was Soviet and Surreal.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-cabinet-meeting-weirdest-fdr-accomplished-more-twitter-sessions-russia-624683

– Republican Greg Gianforte sentenced to community service for assaulting Guardian reporter.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/12/republican-greg-gianforte-sentenced-assaulting-guardian-reporter

– (Opinion) My Lawyers Got Trump to Admit 30 Lies Under Oath.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-12/trump-s-history-of-lies-according-to-biographer-timothy-o-brien

– Trump to be sued by Maryland and Washington DC attorneys general over foreign payments to his hotels.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-dc-maryland-lawsuit-alleging-breach-constitutional-oath-conflict-interest-companies-a7785281.html

– Alex Jones doubles down on Sandy Hook conspiracy theory in ‘disgusting’ Megyn Kelly interview. Some people have called for a boycott of the network.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alex-jones-megyn-kelly-interview-infowars-sandy-hook-parents-response-conspiracy-theories-a7786656.html

– US politician introduces Covfefe Act to preserve Trump tweets.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/covefe-act-trump-twitter-bill-introduced-democrats-stop-president-deleting-tweets-a7786676.html

– House panel considers bill easing gun silencer restrictions.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/12/gun-silencer-restrictions-house-jeff-duncan-239440

– Cabinet members give Trump unusual tribute as heads of his executive branch agencies hailed the opening five months of Trump’s administration while the President himself listened on closely.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/politics/trump-cabinet-tribute/index.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-cabinet-idUSKBN19400P

– Secret Service Has No Audio Copies or Transcripts of Any Tapes Recorded within Trump’s White House.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-service-has-no-audio-recordings-or-transcripts-made-in-trump-white-house-1497291979

– Mattis turned down White House calls to go on ‘Fox & Friends’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/337391-mattis-turning-down-white-house-calls-to-go-on-fox-friends

– Trump surrogates go after Mueller.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/12/trump-special-counsel-robert-mueller-surrogates-239447

– Trump upends the global order.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/337205-trump-upends-the-global-order

– JP Morgan pulls NBC ads over Alex Jones interview: report.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/337524-jp-morgan-pulls-nbc-ads-over-alex-jones-interview-report

– Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Need To Do More Than Just Criticize Trump

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/bernie-sanders-says-democrats-need-do-more-just-criticize-trump-2551139

June 13, 2017 Tuesday

– Deputy Attorney General says only he has the power to fire special counsel on Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jeff-sessions-set-to-testify-this-afternoon-before-senate-intelligence-committee/2017/06/13/ac5321bc-4fc6-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– How Trump could fire the special counsel (if he were foolish enough to try).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/06/13/how-trump-could-fire-the-special-counsel-if-he-were-foolish-enough-to-try/

– The GOP is working stealthily to shred health and financial protections for ordinary Americans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-is-working-stealthily-to-shred-health-and-financial-protections-for-ordinary-americans/2017/06/13/4ee9f190-4f8a-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html

– Sessions Denies Collusion With Russians as ‘Detestable Lie’.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/us/politics/jeff-sessions-testimony.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/13/jeff-sessions-russia-collusion-senate-testimony

– Sessions refuses to say whether he spoke to President Trump about Comey’s handling of Russia investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jeff-sessions-set-to-testify-this-afternoon-before-senate-intelligence-committee/2017/06/13/ac5321bc-4fc6-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN19415A

– (Analysis) 4 takeaways from Sessions’s feisty testimony to Congress about Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/13/4-takeaways-from-jeff-sessionss-feisty-testimony-to-congress-about-russia/

– (Analysis) Sessions’s testimony highlights Trump’s deep lack of interest in what Russia did in 2016.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/06/13/sessionss-testimony-highlights-trumps-deep-lack-of-interest-in-what-russia-did-in-2016/

(Analysis) Sessions defends Jeff Sessions. But what about Donald Trump?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/13/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-defends-donald-trump-james-comey-fbi/102808224/

– Democrats Fuming Over Sessions Refusal to Answer Questions.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/democrats-fuming-over-sessions-refusal-answer-questions-n771656

– Most Trump real estate now sold to anonymous buyers.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/13/trump-property-buyers-make-clear-shift-secretive-llcs/102399558/

– Bernie Sanders: America is ‘drifting toward authoritarianism’.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/13/bernie-sanders-america-drifting-toward-authoritarianism/102820546/

– 11 states sue Trump’s DOE over stalled energy-use limits.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/11-states-sue-trump-administration-energy-standards-48014247

– Election databases in several states were at risk during 2016 presidential campaign.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-databases-in-several-states-were-at-risk-during-2016-presidential-campaign/

June 14, 2017 Wednesday

– CONGRESSMAN SHOT. Gunman fires on Republican lawmakers at baseball practice.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-shooting-idUSKBN1951M1

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/337717-report-shooting-near-congressional-baseball-game-practice-field

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise-congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html

– Gunman repeatedly criticized Republican lawmakers for favoring ‘super rich’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/law-enforcement-officials-identify-shooter-at-congressional-ballgame-as-illinois-man/2017/06/14/ba6439f4-510f-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– Virginia Shooting Suspect Was Distraught Over Trump’s Election, Brother Says.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/virginia-shooting-suspect-james-hodgkinson.html

– The GOP baseball shooting is the 154th mass shooting this year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/14/the-gop-baseball-shooting-is-the-154th-mass-shooting-this-year/

– Some on right blame anti-Trump rhetoric for shooting.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/14/congress-baseball-shooting-blame-anti-trump-239549

– Roger Stone blames shooting on ‘climate of hate’ toward Trump.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/337857-roger-stone-blames-climate-of-hate-against-trump-for-shooting

– Conservative voices blame Alexandria shooting on Democrats and the left.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/06/14/conservative-voices-blame-alexandria-shooting-on-democrats-and-the-left/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/targeted-republicans-gun-laws-alexandria-virginia-baseball-shooting.html

– Fox host links shooting to ‘hateful’ Dem rhetoric.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/337859-fox-news-host-links-lawmaker-shooting-to-politicians-and-celebrities

– Their Own Targeted, Republicans Want Looser Gun Laws, Not Stricter Ones.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/targeted-republicans-gun-laws-alexandria-virginia-baseball-shooting.html

– (Analysis) After the shootings, calls for unity amid recriminations and finger-pointing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-the-shootings-calls-for-unity-amid-recriminations-and-finger-pointing/2017/06/14/93fb667e-511a-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– Shooting Is Latest Eruption in a Grim Ritual of Rage and Blame.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/baseball-shooting-is-latest-eruption-in-a-grim-ritual-of-rage-and-blame.html

– Trump admin amends travel ban date to keep legal battle alive.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-immigration-idUSKBN1952Z1

– MUELLER INVESTIGATING TRUMP FOR POTENTIAL OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/337864-mueller-investigating-trump-for-potential-obstruction-of-justice

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN195385

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-trump-for-possible-obstruction-of-justice/2017/06/14/9ce02506-5131-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/14/donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice-investigation-fbi-mueller

– Congress again pushing US toward brink of financial calamity.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/337832-congress-again-pushing-us-toward-brink-of-financial

– Senate overwhelmingly passes Russia sanctions deal with new limits on Trump, the most significant GOP-imposed restriction on the White House to date.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/14/senate-passes-russia-sanctions-trump-limits-239553

– (Opinion) The GOP’s fantastically anti-democratic quest to kill health care in the dark.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-fantastically-anti-democratic-attempt-to-kill-health-care-in-the-dark/2017/06/14/0903e284-5134-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– Free health clinics make a comeback amid fear of what Trump will do to Obamacare.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article155845034.html

June 15, 2017 Thursday

– Special Counsel Interview List Is Said to Point at Trump Inquiry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/mueller-trump-special-counsel-investigation.html

– Trump blasts report on obstruction of justice probe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN195385

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice-russia-charge-phony-twitter-putin-impeachment-latest-a7791281.html

– On Twitter, Trump decries obstruction probe tied to ‘phony’ Russia collusion story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/15/on-twitter-trump-decries-obstruction-probe-related-to-phony-story/

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/trump-obstruction-of-justice-239583

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice-russia-charge-phony-twitter-putin-impeachment-latest-a7791281.html

– Gun Attack Is Unexpected Test for Movement Sanders Founded.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters.html

– Day after shooting, Pelosi blasts ‘sanctimony’ of Republicans.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/nancy-pelosi-scalise-shooting-republicans-239593

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/15/politics/nancy-pelosi-steve-scalise/index.html

– Lobbyist for Russian interests says he attended dinners hosted by Sessions.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/15/lobbyist-russian-interests-jeff-sessions-testimony

– Senators From Both Parties Criticize Secrecy on Health Bill. Senate leaders are writing legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act without a single hearing on the bill and without an open drafting session.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/us/politics/secrecy-surrounding-senate-health-bill-raises-alarms-in-both-parties.html

– Pence hires outside counsel to deal with Russia investigations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-hires-outside-counsel-to-deal-with-russia-probe-inquiries/2017/06/15/c40ef55c-51f5-11e7-a973-3dae94ed3eb7_story.html

– Putin quips he’s ready to grant asylum to ex-FBI chief Comey.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-usa-comey-idUSKBN1961F6

– Dems bridle as some in GOP blame shooting on the left.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Dems-bridle-as-some-in-GOP-blame-shooting-on-talk-11223292.php

– AP-NORC poll: Just 1 in 5 support Trump’s move to fire Comey.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-most-us-072057227.html

– Trump, facing deepening probes, revives attacks on Clinton, calls reports he’s under investigation for obstruction of justice ‘phony.’

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/trump-obstruction-of-justice-239583

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/338012-trump-why-is-clinton-not-investigated-but-i-am

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-hillary-clinton-phones-destroyed-hammer-bleach-emails-tweets-claims-obstruction-justice-a7792646.html

– Rattled by shooting, lawmakers want more personal protection. Some Republican lawmakers are seeking to carry personal firearms into the Capitol, a proposal that is alarming Democrats.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/congress-baseball-shooting-carry-guns-239613

– Trump signs executive order on apprenticeships.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/trump-apprenticeship-executive-order-239590

– Rand Paul denounces ‘new entitlements’ in emerging health bill.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/337970-rand-paul-denounces-new-entitlements-in-emerging-health-bill

– Trump sells Qatar $12bn of weapons after accusing it of funding terror.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-qatar-weapons-deal-12-billion-day-accuse-terrorism-saudi-arabiaqatar-signs-loa-for-the-a7790956.html

– Trump to change Cuba policy by limiting travel and business transactions rolling back Obama-era regulations that allowed travel and trade after decades of frosty communication between the two countries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/15/donald-trump-cuba-miami-barack-obama/102890876/

– Homeland Security rescinds Obama plan for some undocumented parents.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-idUSKBN197073

– Lobbyist for Russian interests says he attended dinners hosted by Sessions.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/15/lobbyist-russian-interests-jeff-sessions-testimony

– Special counsel is investigating Jared Kushner’s business dealings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-jared-kushners-business-dealings/2017/06/15/5d9a32c6-51f2-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

– US sending almost 4,000 extra forces to Afghanistan, Trump official says.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/15/us-troops-afghanistan-trump-administration

– Trump Tried to Convince NSA Chief to Absolve Him of Any Russian Collusion: Report.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-tried-convince-nsa-chief-mike-rogers-russia-investigation-fake-report-626073

June 16, 2017 Friday

– Trump Confirms He’s Under Investigation on Twitter, attacks Rosenstein in tweets.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/16/trump-appears-to-confirm-obstruction-investigation-attack-rosenstein-in-morning-tweet-rant/

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-under-investigation-russia-scandal-probe-attorney-general-626611

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/16/donald-trump-confirms-investigation-obstruction-of-justice

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-lashes-bad-conflicted-russia-investigators-48077689

– Trump says he’s ‘canceling’ Obama Cuba policy and renewal of sanctions.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-idUSKBN1970EC

– Germany threatens retaliation if U.S. sanctions harm its firms.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-germany-idUSKBN197156

– Emmanuel Macron Rivals Trump’s ‘America First’ With Plan To Make Europe Great Again.

http://www.newsweek.com/emmanuel-macron-buy-european-act-make-europe-great-again-donald-trump-america-626537

– Rosenstein Considering Recusal From Russia Probe.

http://www.newsweek.com/rosenstein-brand-doj-recuse-626732

– 10 Crazy Things Trump Has Done Since June 16, 2015.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-campaign-anniversary-scandals-gaffes-626650

– Poor Americans face tough choice: food or home: Harvard study.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-idUSKBN1971Y7

– Officer acquitted in shooting Philando Castile, whose traffic stop was live-streamed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/16/minn-officer-acquitted-of-manslaughter-for-shooting-philando-castile-during-traffic-stop/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html

– Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, hires his own lawyer in Russia probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/16/trumps-personal-lawyer-michael-cohen-hires-his-own-lawyer-in-russia-probe/

– Trump releases personal financial disclosure report.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-16/trump-s-latest-financial-disclosure-shows-hotel-s-millions

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/politics/trumps-financial-disclosures.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-retains-assets-worth-at-least-14-billion-new-disclosure-shows/2017/06/16/c0bc4caa-52b9-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html

– Trump owes lenders at least $315 million, disclosure shows.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ethics-idUSKBN1972XM

– Trump Attacks Rosenstein in Latest Rebuke of Justice Department.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/politics/trump-investigation-comey-russia.html

– Newtown-area NBC station won’t air Megyn Kelly’s interview with Alex Jones.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article156706944.html

– (Opinion) The Toxic State of America.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/opinion-toxic-political-climate-fueled-u-s-shootings-a-1152470.html

June 17, 2017 Saturday

– Americans lament Cuba becoming ‘forbidden island’ again. Trump on Friday ordered tighter restrictions on Americans traveling to the Caribbean island.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-americans-idUSKBN1980TL

– Castro slams Trump’s ‘hostile rhetoric’ toward Cuba.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/338247-castro-slams-trumps-hostile-rhetoric-toward-cuba

– ‘This is violence against Donald Trump’: rightwingers interrupt Julius Caesar play.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/17/trump-supporter-interrupts-controversial-julius-caesar-play-in-new-york

– Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke rescinds acceptance of Homeland Security post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/17/milwaukee-sheriff-david-clarke-rescinds-acceptance-of-homeland-security-post/

– Black gun owners worried by acquittal in Castile shooting.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/another-police-shooting-acquittal-worries-black-gun-owners-154924899.html

– Six resign from presidential HIV/AIDS council because Trump ‘doesn’t care’.

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/338296-six-resign-from-presidential-hiv-aids-council-because-trump-doesnt

– Help wanted: Why Republicans won’t work for the Trump administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/help-wanted-why-republicans-wont-work-for-the-trump-administration/2017/06/17/61e3d33e-506a-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html

– In rural America, fewer immigrants and less tolerance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-rural-america-fewer-immigrants-and-less-tolerance/2017/06/16/7b448454-4d1d-11e7-bc1b-fddbd8359dee_story.html

June 18, 2017 Sunday

– In first, NATO war game defends Baltic weak spot,  rehearsing for a possible scenario in which Russia might try to sever the Baltic states from the rest of the Western alliance.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-suwalki-gap-idUSKBN1990L2

– North Korea accuses U.S. authorities of ‘mugging’ its diplomats at NY airport.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-diplomats-idUSKBN1990NV

– Russia criticizes U.S. for ‘anti-Cuban’ approach, says it sides with Cuba.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-cuba-idUSKBN1990A3

– Lockheed nears $37 billion-plus deal to sell F-35 jet to 11 countries.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airshow-paris-f-idUSKBN1990S8

– U.S. warplane downs Syrian army jet in southern Raqqa province.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-idUSKBN1990XI

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/18/syria-aircraft-shoot-down-239697

– As U.S. Adds Troops in Afghanistan, Trump’s Strategy Remains Undefined.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/world/asia/us-troops-afghanistan-trump.html

– Trump lawyer says president not under investigation, despite tweets. “The fact of the matter is the president has not been and is not under investigation,” Sekulow said on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN1990O7

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lawyer-insists-there-is-no-obstruction-investigation–but-then-hedges/2017/06/18/9acef104-543b-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html

– Alex Jones cries foul ahead of interview with ‘Medusa’ NBC host Megyn Kelly.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/18/alex-jones-megyn-kelly-nbc-interview-sandy-hook-trump

– Third noose found hanging near major Washington museums.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/18/noose-found-hanging-washington-museum

– Some gun owners are disturbed by the Philando Castile verdict. The NRA is silent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/18/some-gun-owners-are-disturbed-by-the-philando-castile-verdict-the-nra-is-silent/

– Trey Gowdy replaced Chaffetz as head of House oversight. Will he investigate Trump?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trey-gowdy-now-has-the-house-oversight-gavel-but-will-he-investigate-trump/2017/06/18/597885c0-52c0-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html

– $1.5 million ad campaign to pressure 5 GOP senators to vote against health-care overhaul.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/06/18/new-ad-campaign-to-pressure-five-gop-senators-to-vote-against-health-care-overhaul/

– The radical idea behind Trump’s EPA rollbacks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/18/pruitts-predecessors-pan-epa-originalism-philosophy-239669

– One dead, 10 injured as van strikes crowd near mosques in London.17-year-old Muslim girl assaulted and killed after leaving Virginia mosque.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/van-strikes-crowd-outside-mosque-in-london-one-person-is-arrested/2017/06/18/5a93993e-5489-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fairfax-loudoun-police-searching-for-missing-17-year-old-reported-to-have-been-assaulted/2017/06/18/02e379ac-5466-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

June 19, 2017 Monday

– New in Trump probe: an expert in flipping witnesses.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-lawyers-idUSKBN19A1CM

– Cuba calls Trump speech on island ‘grotesque spectacle’.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-foreignminister-idUSKBN19A21R

– Russia Warns It Will Target U.S. Warplanes in Syrian Airspace.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/world/middleeast/russia-syria.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-shoot-down-all-flying-objects-in-syria-us-regime-warplane-isis-terror-a7797101.html

– GOP data firm left 198 million Americans’ voter info unprotected.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/19/deep-root-analytics-voter-information-exposed-239718

– NYPD increasing presence around places of worship.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/338446-new-york-increasing-police-presence-around-places-of-worship

– Too hot to handle: Study shows Earth’s killer heat worsens.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article156930004.html

– Three-quarters of the world’s population could face deadly heatwaves within next 80 years, scientists warn.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/heatwaves-deadly-populations-faces-century-global-warming-climate-change-report-a7797721.html

– Energy chief: Carbon dioxide not prime driver of warming.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article156938834.html

– Rick Perry denies that humans are the main cause of climate change.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/19/trumps-energy-secretary-just-denied-that-man-made-carbon-dioxide-is-the-main-driver-for-climate-change/

– Republican health bill: Democrats pledge Senate standstill over secrecy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/19/republican-healthcare-bill-senate-secrecy

– Off-camera, no audio broadcast: White House keeps undermining press briefing.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/19/media/white-house-press-briefing-donald-trump-media/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/business/sean-spicer-press-briefing-off-camera.html

June 20, 2017 Tuesday

– Obamacare repeal imminent in Congress: Pence.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN19B2OP

– U.S. senators want Congress to OK military action in Syria.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-military-idUSKBN19B2MM

– US shoots down second Iran-made armed drone over Syria in 12 days.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/20/us-iran-drone-shot-down-syria

– (Opinion) Trump’s silence after the London mosque attack speaks volumes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/20/donald-trump-silence-london-mosque-attack-speaks-volumes

– A Russian jet came within feet of a U.S. reconnaissance plane, the Pentagon says.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/20/a-russian-jet-came-within-feet-of-a-u-s-reconnaissance-plane-the-pentagon-says/

– The New Face of Trump’s Legal Team Is the Christian Right’s Pit Bull.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-20/the-new-face-of-trump-s-legal-team-is-the-christian-right-s-pitbull

– US sends supersonic bombers in show of force against N. Korea.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-sends-supersonic-bombers-show-force-nkorea-48153532

– Trump seeks sharp cuts to federal housing aid, except for program that brings him millions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trump-seeks-sharp-cuts-to-housing-aid-except-for-program-that-brings-him-millions/2017/06/20/bf1fb2b8-5531-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

– EPA just gave notice to dozens of scientific advisory board members that their time is up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/20/trump-administration-to-decline-to-renew-dozens-of-scientists-for-key-epa-advisory-board/

– Republicans Say Karen Handel’s Georgia Election Victory Is Referendum On Donald Trump.

http://www.ibtimes.com/republicans-say-karen-handels-georgia-election-victory-referendum-donald-trump-2555187

‘I Need More Mexicans’: A Kansas Farmer’s Message to Trump.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-20/-i-need-more-mexicans-a-kansas-farmer-s-message-to-trump

– The NRA is pushing to eliminate concealed carry permits in NC and across the country.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/mcclatchys-america/article157143914.html

June 21, 2017 Wednesday

– Most Americans say Republican healthcare plan will be harmful: Reuters/Ipsos poll.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-poll-idUSKBN19C2LO

– Draft of Senate health-care bill would roll back Obamacare taxes, rejigger subsidies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-health-care-draft-repeals-obamacare-taxes-provides-bigger-subsidies-for-low-income-americans-than-house-bill/2017/06/21/3f2226ee-56bd-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

– Trump: GOP healthcare plan will have ‘heart’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/338896-trump-gop-healthcare-plan-will-have-heart

– The Republicans who decried Obamacare secrecy are now writing legislation in secret.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-who-decried-obamacare-secrecy-now-writing-legislation-in-secret/2017/06/21/05ff180c-55f2-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html

– Trump: GOP is 5-0 on special elections.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/338897-trump-gop-is-5-0-on-special-elections

– Pelosi takes heat after Dem loss.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/338826-pelosi-takes-heat-after-dem-loss.

– Bloomberg: Trump will win reelection because ‘the Democratic Party is going to be torn apart’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/338747-bloomberg-trump-will-win-reelection-because-democratic-party-will-be-torn

– Russia cancels talks after US imposes new sanctions over Ukraine conflict.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/21/russia-cancels-us-talks-ukraine-sanctions

– Congressional Black Caucus refuses to meet with Donald Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/21/donald-trump-congressional-black-caucus-no-meeting

– Former police officer acquitted in fatal shooting of black man in Milwaukee.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/21/sylville-smith-shooting-dominique-heaggan-brown-acquitted

– ACLU suing DC police over arrests during Trump’s inauguration.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/338812-aclu-files-lawsuit-against-dc-police-for-inauguration-protest

– Data of nearly all registered US voters left unsecured for weeks in RNC trove.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/21/data-voters-republican-national-committee

– Russian government actors tried to hack election systems in 21 states, Homeland Security official says.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/homeland-security-official-russian-government-actors-potentially-tried-to-hack-election-systems-in-21-states/2017/06/21/33bf31d4-5686-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

– Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wants to cut 4,000 employees from the department.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/interior-chief-wants-to-shed-4000-employees-in-department-shake-up/2017/06/21/791cadd0-56a7-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

– DeVos picks private student loan chief to head government loan program.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/06/21/devos-picks-private-student-loan-chief-to-head-government-loan-program/

– Scientists predict a Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ the size of New Jersey this summer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/21/scientists-predict-a-gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-the-size-of-new-jersey-this-summer/

– Trinity College closes Conn. campus in response to ‘threats received.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/06/21/trinity-college-closes-conn-campus-in-response-to-threats-received/

– Iowa newspaper to Trump: ‘Now is not the time for a rally’.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/338814-iowa-newspaper-asks-trump-not-to-rally-ahead-of-iowa-rally

– Fox News covers Trump speech live, other networks use regular programming.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/338902-fox-news-covers-trump-speech-live-other-networks-use-regular

– (Opinion) Accommodating Trump.

http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/columnists/michael-gerson-accommodating-trump/article_a1d04eb2-568e-11e7-bc15-0334ddf44b7a.html

June 22, 2017 Thursday

– AFTER SECRECY, SENATE GOP RELEASES BILL TO END OBAMACARE WITH DEEP CUTS TO MEDICAID.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/senate-health-care-bill.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN19D13F

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/338947-senate-gop-releases-obamacare-repeal-bill-with-deep-cuts-to-medicaid

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/22/senate-healthcare-bill-draft-republicans-trump-obamacare

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trumpcare-healthcare-bill-republicans-obamacare-repeal-replace-mitch-mcconnell-vote-date-a7803276.html

– Fate of healthcare bill uncertain.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/healthcare-trumpcare-senators-opposition-republicans-vote-against-rand-paul-latest-news-updates-a7803626.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN19D13F

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-gop-leaders-set-to-unveil-health-care-bill/2017/06/22/56dbe35c-5734-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

– What the Senate bill changes about Obamacare.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/obamacare-senate-bill-compare/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/22/us/senate-health-care-bill.html

http://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/gop-senate-health-care-bill-explained/

– Obama says Senate health care bill has ‘fundamental meanness’, calling the Republican bill a massive transfer of wealth to the richest people in America with a “fundamental meanness” at its core.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/22/gop-health-care-bill-barack-obama-reaction-239870

– Healthcare groups issue scathing criticism of Senate bill.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/339054-healthcare-groups-issue-scathing-criticism-of-senate-bill

– Senate health bill could leave millions uninsured, increase costs for sick, seniors.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article157582379.html

– Insurers to Senate: Proposal could harm 74M on Medicaid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/gop-health-care-bill-the-latest-news-and-reactions/insurers-to-senate-proposal-could-harm-74m-on-medicaid/

– Senate bill would gut critical public health funding this fall.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/gop-health-care-bill-the-latest-news-and-reactions/bill-would-gut-critical-public-health-funding-this-fall/

– (Editorial Board) [TrumpCare] A Travesty on a Fast Track. Republicans prepare to separate millions of Americans from health insurance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-22/the-senate-health-bill-is-a-travesty-on-a-fast-track

– (Editorial Board) Senate health bill hazardous to America. Mitch McConnell’s plan makes Congress the true death panel: Our view

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/22/senate-health-bill-hazardous-editorials-debates/421148001/

– (Opinion) Senate Republicans ready themselves for a massive theft from the poor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-republicans-ready-themselves-for-a-massive-theft-from-the-poor/2017/06/22/902a1a96-5777-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

– (Analysis) Shifting Dollars From Poor to Rich Is a Key Part of the Senate Health Bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/upshot/shifting-dollars-from-poor-to-rich-is-a-key-part-of-the-senate-health-bill.html

– Trump Says He Did Not Record Meetings With Comey, has no tapes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/trump-comey-tapes.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/22/trump-says-he-has-no-recordings-of-his-comey-talks-239862

– Trump Turns Iowa Rally Into Extended Venting Session.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/politics/trump-iowa-rally-venting-session.html

– Trump slams Mexico, reaffirms pledge to ‘build the wall’.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339091-trump-slams-mexico-reaffirms-pledge-to-build-the-wall

– Trump says he doesn’t want a ‘poor person’ to be in charge of US economy. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has a net worth of about $2.5bn.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-poor-person-economy-commerce-secretary-rich-cabinet-appointments-a7803096.html

– Capitol Police drag disabled protesters out of wheelchairs during Trumpcare protests. Forty-three people were arrested in connection with the protest.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/healthcare-protests-disabled-woman-dragged-away-police-without-wheelchair-photos-video-a7803456.html

– Lawsuit accuses Trump of violating federal records law.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/22/trump-federal-records-law-lawsuit-239849

– (Opinion) NRA’s ‘Second Amendment Remedies’ are endangering our democracy.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/339039-nras-second-amendment-remedies-are-endangering-our-democracy

– Coats Tells House Investigators Trump seemed obsessed with the Russia probe and repeatedly asked him to say publicly there was no evidence of collusion.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coats-tells-house-investigators-president-trump-seemed-obsessed-russia-probe-n775756

– Most terrorists in U.S. are right-wing, not Muslim.

http://www.newsweek.com/right-wing-extremism-islamist-terrorism-donald-trump-steve-bannon-628381

– Trinity College Professor Flees State Amid Death Threats Over Inflammatory Social Media Posts.

http://time.com/4829459/johnny-williams-trinity-college-professor-social-media-comments/

– With Billions Of Dollars At Stake, A Panel Full Of Defense Contractors Is Shaping Defense Policy.

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/major-defense-contractors-panel-will-direct-billion-dollar-defense-decisions

– Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say.

http://time.com/4828306/russian-hacking-election-widespread-private-data/

– Detroit Judge Stops Deportation of More Than 100 Iraqi Christians.

http://time.com/4829694/detroit-judge-iraq-christians-deport/

– Gunman in ‘Pizzagate’ Shooting Is Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison. Restaurant owner Alefantis said. “This guy’s going to jail and Infowars continues to push this conspiracy, as do many others.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/pizzagate-attack-sentence.html

June 23, 2017 Friday

– Hacking Democracy: Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/

– ‘Can He Do That?’: Putin’s instructions: Damage Clinton, help elect Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/can-he-do-that-trump-podcast/

– (Editorial Board) The Senate’s Unaffordable Care Act.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/opinion/senate-obamacare-repeal.html

– Trump says ‘we’ll have to see’ if Mueller should step down from Russia probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/23/trump-says-well-have-to-see-if-mueller-should-step-down-from-russia-probe/

– Press briefing crackdown worries Trump allies.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/339080-new-press-briefing-restrictions-worry-trump-allies

– Lawmakers offer bills giving them gun rights in every state.

http://thehill.com/video/lawmaker-interviews/339125-watch-lawmakers-offer-bills-giving-them-gun-rights-in-every-state

– Trump’s Lies – every outright lie the president has told publicly since taking the oath of office.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

– Manafort Financial Deals Are Under Scrutiny by F.B.I.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/us/politics/paul-manafort-jeffrey-yohai.html

– Mistrial in Shooting of Black Driver by Cincinnati Officer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/us/raymond-tensing-samuel-dubose-cincinnati.html

– What does Italy’s Berlusconi like about Trump? His wife.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-berlusconi-trump-idUSKBN19E1T3

– Trump, Putin and Erdogan behave like autocratic rulers: Germany’s Schulz.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-schulz-idUSKBN19F002

– California just added four more ‘discriminatory’ states to its travel ban.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/23/california-just-added-four-more-discriminatory-states-to-its-travel-ban/

– Gowdy: Oversight panel won’t pursue Russia, obstruction probes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/23/house-oversight-no-russia-investigation-trey-gowdy-239904

– For third time in a week, prosecutors fail to convict a cop.

http://www.newsweek.com/why-police-get-acquitted-628737

– Missouri Women on Birth Control Could Be Denied Jobs. Legislation would allow employers and landlords to discriminate against women who use birth control or have had abortions.

http://www.newsweek.com/womens-rights-birth-control-abortion-missouri-discrimination-628538

– Trump Is Reckless, Erratic And Incompetent, According To Business Leaders Around the World.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-reckless-erratic-dictator-business-leaders-say-cnbc-survey-628569

– Trump signs VA Reform Bill designed to make it easier to fire Department of Veterans Affairs employees.

http://time.com/4830585/donald-trump-va-reform-veterans-accountability-act/

– Biggest Layoffs In US As Boeing Cuts Jobs Months After Trump Vowed More Employment At South Carolina Factory.

http://www.ibtimes.com/biggest-layoffs-us-boeing-cuts-jobs-months-after-trump-vowed-more-employment-south-2556521

– (Opinion) Get Cancer Now, Before Congress Cuts Your Insurance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/opinion/obamacare-cancer-pre-existing-conditions.html

June 24, 2017 Saturday

– Pence meets with Koch brother in Colorado.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/339283-pence-stops-by-koch-brothers-conference-in-colorado

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/24/vice-president-pence-meets-billionaire-charles-koch/425861001/

– Chief lieutenants in the Koch brothers’ political network lashed out at the Senate Republican health care bill on Saturday as not conservative enough.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article158058964.html

– ‘Handmaids’ protest Mike Pence’s ‘Focus on the Family’ remarks in Colorado Springs.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/23/handmaids-protest-mike-pence-focus-on-the-family-remarks-in-colorado-springs/22680732/

– http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/pence-tells-focus-on-the-family-it-has-an-unwavering-ally-in-trump/

– Number of refugees entering US drops by half under Trump.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339298-refugees-entering-us-cut-by-half-under-trump

– ‘White Terrorism’ and Donald Trump: Why Has the President Slashed the Grant for Group Combating KKK?

http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-alt-right-neo-nazis-life-after-hate-628829

– Overruling diplomats, U.S. to drop Iraq, Myanmar from list of the world’s worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trafficking-childsoldiers-exclusi-idUSKBN19E2JY

– Medicaid Cuts May Force Retirees Out of Nursing Homes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/science/medicaid-cutbacks-elderly-nursing-homes.html

– Trump launches fresh attack on Obama, asks ‘why no action’ on Russian election meddling.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-hacking-election-investigation-latest-barack-obama-choke-a7806771.html

– America faces a new wave of homegrown political violence and terrorism if its divisions continue.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-america-political-division-violence-terrorism-threat-a7803826.html

June 25, 2017 Sunday

– Gay Pride Marchers With Jewish Flags Told To Leave Chicago Parade, were told not to display Star of David flags because other people found them ‘offensive.

http://www.newsweek.com/gay-pride-marchers-jewish-flags-told-leave-chicago-parade-628879

– Conservative Koch network criticizes U.S. Senate healthcare bill.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-koch-idUSKBN19G0V3

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/24/koch-network-withholding-support-of-senate-health-care-bill-pushing-for-changes/

– White House’s new strategy: Blame Obama for failing to stop Russia collusion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/25/white-house-blames-obama-for-failing-to-stop-russia-collusion/

– Trump accuses Clinton of colluding with Democrats to defeat ‘Crazy Bernie Sanders’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/06/25/trump-accuses-clinton-of-colluding-with-democrats-to-defeat-crazy-bernie-sanders/

– ‘They’re sentencing me to death’: Medicaid recipients on the Republican healthcare plan.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/25/medicaid-republican-healthcare-plan-affordable-care-act

– New York Gay Pride marchers target Trump as San Francisco parties.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-pride-idUSKBN19G0WL

– White House Pushes Military Might Over Humanitarian Aid in Africa.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/world/africa/white-house-pushes-military-might-over-humanitarian-aid-in-africa.html

– Bloomberg’s Next Anti-Washington Move: $200 Million Program for Mayors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-mayors-trump.html

– Analysis indicates partisan gerrymandering has benefited GOP.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-analysis-shows-gerrymandering-benefited-gop-2016-48262678

– Pro-Trump supporters rally in DC.

http://thehill.com/homenews/339418-pro-trump-supporters-rally-in-dc

June 26, 2017 Monday

– TRUMP’S TRAVEL BAN RESTRICTION PARTIALLY LIFTED BY SUPREME COURT. Curbs on Entry From Six Countries Can Take Partial Effect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-travel-ban-case.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40409490

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-immigration-idUSKBN19H1OR

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/trump-travel-ban-supreme-court-block-partially-lifted

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-allows-limited-version-of-trumps-travel-ban-to-take-effect-will-consider-case-in-fall/2017/06/26/97afa314-573e-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html

– SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS in major church-state decision.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-sides-with-religious-institutions-in-a-major-church-state-decision/2017/06/26/f6187a2a-5a13-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/26/supreme-court-churches-state-funds-239957

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/supreme-court-playgrounds-church-and-state-missouri.html

– CBO: SENATE HEALTH BILL WOULD LEAVE 22 MILLION MORE PEOPLE UNINSURED.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/imminent-cbo-report-could-prove-pivotal-for-senate-republicans-health-care-bill/2017/06/26/cb8d61e2-59f7-11e7-a9f6-7c3296387341_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/senate-health-care-bill-republican.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/26/cbo-senate-health-care-bill-239967

– Republicans say CBO can’t be trusted to evaluate health bill. Are they right?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/heres-how-well-the-cbo-did-at-forecasting-the-last-big-health-care-bill/

– Trump Meets India’s Leader, a Fellow Nationalist Battling China for His Favor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/donald-trump-narendra-modi-india.html

– FBI questioned Trump campaign adviser Carter Page at length in Russia probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-has-questioned-trump-campaign-adviser-carter-page-at-length-in-russia-probe/2017/06/26/1a271dcc-5aa5-11e7-a9f6-7c3296387341_story.html

– Kushner adds defense attorney Abbe Lowell to Russia-investigation legal team.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/26/kushner-adds-defense-attorney-abbe-lowell-to-russia-investigation-legal-team/

– Trump asks for apology over Russia probes because those probes, which are ongoing, have not publicly turned up any proof of coordination between Trump associates and the Russian government.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/26/trump-tweets-apology-russia-investigations-239951

– Sharp Rise in Levels of Earth-Scorching Carbon Dioxide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/climate/carbon-in-atmosphere-is-rising-even-as-emissions-stabilize.html

– Mayors group opposes GOP ‘concealed carry’ gun bills.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/26/mayors-conference-oppose-concealed-carry-gun-bills-239965

– Three-quarters of world has little or no confidence in Trump, Pew study finds.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/trump-world-global-pew-research-study

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/poll-shows-us-tumbling-in-worlds-regard-under-trump/2017/06/26/87a4f1bc-5857-11e7-840b-512026319da7_story.html

– Poll: Canadians’ favorable opinion of US drops.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/339600-poll-more-canadians-disapprove-of-us-than-in-at-least-35-years

– White House says Syria’s Assad is preparing another chemical attack, warns he would pay a ‘heavy price’.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/26/white-house-says-syrias-assad-preparing-another-chemical-attack-warns-of-heavy-penalty/

June 27, 2017 Tuesday

– Facing revolt on healthcare bill, Senate Republicans delay vote until after July 4 recess.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/us/politics/republicans-struggle-to-marshal-votes-for-health-care-bill.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-republican-idUSKBN19I11V

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-delay-idUSKBN19I2IY

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-republicans-scramble-to-keep-alive-plans-to-overhaul-obamacare/2017/06/27/c8ea4c02-5b37-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html

– Supreme Court’s recent unity faces looming test.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-termcloser-idUSKBN19I2LS

– 3 Words From the Supreme Court Put Refugees in Limbo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/us/trump-travel-ban-refugees-supreme-court.html

– U.S. top court tosses lower court’s ruling against religious school subsidies. The justices ordered Colorado’s top court to reconsider the legality of school “voucher” programs in light of Monday’s ruling that churches and other religious entities cannot be categorically denied public money even in states whose constitutions explicitly ban such funding.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-religion-idUSKBN19I1RT

– Once on the outside, conservative Koch network warms to Trump.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-koch-idUSKBN19I137

– Trump renews attack on ‘Fake News CNN’ after retraction of Russia story, resignation of journalists.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/27/trump-renews-attack-on-fake-news-cnn-after-retraction/

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/three-cnn-journalists-resign-over-retracted-trump-russia-story

– White House urges viewing of anti-CNN video ‘whether it’s accurate or not’. Video was made by an infamous rightwing activist known for using heavily edited videos to push conservative pet causes.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/27/white-house-cnn-video-james-o-keefe

– Trump lawyer’s firm steered millions in donations to family members, files show.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/27/trump-lawyer-jay-sekulow-donations

– A Time Magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-time-magazine-with-trump-on-the-cover-hangs-in-his-golf-clubs-its-fake/2017/06/27/0adf96de-5850-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

– Time asks Trump Organization to remove fake cover from golf clubs.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339741-time-mag-asks-trump-org-to-remove-fake-cover-from-golf-clubs

– Grover Norquist complained his daughter had to pay sales tax. Twitter users responded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/27/how-america-punishes-working-women-for-getting-married/

– Ransomware virus strikes across the globe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-attack-idUSKBN19I1TD

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/ransomware-hackers.html

– Google faces years of EU oversight on top of record antitrust fine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-outlook-idUSKBN19I2MO

– Watchdog group sues EPA to access communications with Icahn.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biofuels-idUSKBN19I2KC

– Trump brand to exit Toronto skyline after buyout deal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-trump-hotel-idUSKBN19I2CB

– Canada’s Secret to Resisting the West’s Populist Wave.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/world/canada/canadas-secret-to-resisting-the-wests-populist-wave.html

– Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta testifies in House Russia probe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-podesta-idUSKBN19I2Z1

– Trump’s ‘flirtation with torture’ undermines human rights warns UN official.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-torture-extremism-fight-isis-al-qaeda-terror-un-human-rights-zeid-raad-al-hussein-a7810661.html

– The U.N. Is Giving up on Trump.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/27/united-nations-donald-trump-antonio-guterres-china-215315

– Trump’s EPA chief met with chemical CEO before dropping pesticide ban.

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/energy-environment/339783-trumps-epa-chief-met-with-chemical-ceo-before-dropping

– Trump administration to propose repealing rule giving EPA broad authority over water pollution.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/27/trump-administration-to-propose-repealing-rule-giving-epa-broad-authority-over-water-pollution/

– GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte raised $116K day after assaulting reporter.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/339781-gianforte-raised-116000-day-after-assaulting-reporter

– North Korea: Trump’s ‘America First’ policy is like Nazism.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/339782-north-korea-trumps-america-first-policy-is-like-nazism

– Reporter accuses White House of ‘inflaming’ media tensions in heated exchange.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news-other-administration/339708-reporter-accuses-white-house-of-inflaming

– Lawmakers wary of Trump escalation in Syria.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/339761-lawmakers-wary-of-trump-escalation-in-syria

– House panel votes to privatize air-traffic control.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/27/house-panel-votes-privatize-air-traffic-control/429632001/

– An ICE agent visited a restaurant. About 30 employees quit the next day. The owner blamed the Trump administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/06/27/an-ice-agent-visited-a-restaurant-about-30-employees-quit-the-next-day-its-owner-says/

– Ten Commandments Installed At Arkansas State Capitol; ACLU Plans Lawsuit.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/27/534558892/ten-commandments-installed-at-arkansas-state-capitol-aclu-plans-lawsuit

 June 28, 2017 Wednesday

– Pro-Trump groups take no prisoners in rush to help an embattled president.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-super-pacs-idUSKBN19J2GI

– With U.S. healthcare bill in disarray, Republicans demand revamp.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN19J2E5

– FBI questions U.S. employees of Russian cyber firm Kaspersky Lab.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-kasperskylab-probe-idUSKBN19J2IX

– Senate committee wants U.S. states to publicize hacking details.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-congress-idUSKBN19J28W

– Newly erected Arkansas Ten Commandments monument destroyed.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40434571

– New computer virus spreads from Ukraine to disrupt world business.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-attack-idUSKBN19I1TD

– Widespread uncertainty as U.S. travel ban start looms.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-immigration-guidelines-idUSKBN19J2W2

– California Supreme Court upholds cap-and-trade law. “This is the final step in this case to affirm California’s innovative climate program, including its carbon auctions, which serves as a vital safeguard to ensure polluters are held accountable for their pollution.”

– Moscow prepares retaliation for U.S. seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-idUSKBN19J2LP

– (Opinion) Canada’s Ruthlessly Smart Immigration Policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/canada-immigration-policy-trump.html

– $35,000 a plate: Donald Trump starts fundraising for 2020 re-election. Reporters were barred from hearing his remarks. Trump rips media, mocks Pelosi.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/29/35000-a-plate-donald-trump-starts-fundraising-for-2020-re-election

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/28/trump-fundraiser-pelosi-ossoff-240078

– Trump greeted by protesters at campaign fundraiser.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339974-trump-greeted-by-protesters-at-campaign-fundraiser

– House panel approves $696.5B defense policy bill.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/339997-house-panel-approves-6965b-defense-policy-bill

– Armed Services votes down amendments on Trump travel, profits.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/339996-armed-services-votes-down-amendments-on-trump-travel-profits

– NSA director frustrated Trump won’t accept Russia interfered in election.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339929-nsa-director-frustrated-trump-wont-accept-russia-interfered-in

– Trump claims GOP has a ‘big surprise’ on healthcare.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/339881-trump-claims-gop-will-have-a-big-surprise-on-healthcare

– Trump attacks Amazon for not paying ‘internet taxes’ in rant at Washington Post.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-amazon-taxes-washington-post-fake-news-internet-a7813341.html

– Haley touts cuts to UN peacekeeping funds.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/339991-haley-brags-about-cuts-to-un-peacekeeping-funding

– Haley says American foreign policy is now totally unpredictable, and that’s a good thing.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/28/nikki-haley-and-trumps-doctrine-of-diplomatic-chaos/

– German audience cheers as US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross speech is cut off.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/germany-audience-us-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-cut-off-berlin-europe-donald-trump-a7812981.html

 

June 29, 2017 Thursday

– Rules for New Travel Ban Set: Grandma, No; Stepsister, Yes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/us/politics/homeland-security-prepares-to-issue-travel-restrictions.html

– Hacks Raise Fear Over N.S.A.’s Hold on Cyberweapons.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/technology/ransomware-nsa-hacking-tools.html

– Angela Merkel predicts showdown with U.S. over climate at G-20.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/angela-merkel-predicts-showdown-over-climate-at-g-20/2017/06/29/76bf6678-5a84-11e7-aa69-3964a7d55207_story.html

– (Opinion) ‘America first’ is becoming America alone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/06/28/america-first-is-becoming-america-alone/

– Syrian doctor hit by Trump travel ban takes up studies in Canada instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/29/syrian-doctor-hit-by-trump-travel-ban-takes-up-studies-in-canada-instead

– Trump denounced after assailing woman TV host in personal terms.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-brzezinski-idUSKBN19K2D1

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/29/media/mika-brzezinski-donald-trump-tweet/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/29/trump-angrily-lashes-out-at-morning-joe-hosts-on-twitter/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/it-is-really-not-normal-both-sides-condemn-trump-for-vulgar-tweet-about-tv-host/2017/06/29/ce1030e4-5ce4-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html

– GOP lawmakers blast Trump’s ‘Morning Joe’ tweets.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/29/politics/lawmakers-react-trump-tweet-joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-morning-joe/index.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/29/trump-targets-morning-joe-hosts-in-tweet-240085

– Europe to Trump: Bring it on.

http://www.politico.eu/article/europe-to-trump-bring-it-on/

– New CBO estimate predicts steep Medicaid reductions in second decade of health bill.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/gop-health-care-debate-turns-to-stark-question-help-vulnerable-americans-or-help-the-rich/2017/06/29/02d96318-5cd1-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html

– (Analysis) Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump has never ‘promoted or encouraged violence.’ She is very wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/29/sarah-huckabee-sanders-says-trump-has-never-encouraged-any-form-of-violence-she-is-very-wrong/

– Tillerson blows up at top White House aide.

– How Rex Tillerson Is Wrecking the State Department. I worked in Foggy Bottom for 6 years. I’ve never seen anything like this.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/29/how-rex-tillerson-destroying-state-department-215319

– U.S. Treasury Department announces new sanctions to increase pressure on North Korea.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/29/treasury-announces-new-sanctions-to-increase-pressure-on-north-korea/

– Lawmakers applaud after panel approves language revoking war authority, a 2001 law giving the president authority to undertake war against al Qaeda and its affiliates unless a replacement provision is created.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/340066-lawmakers-applaud-after-panel-approves-language-revoking-war-authority

– The travel ban going into effect would have saved zero lives from terrorist attacks in the last 20 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/06/29/the-travel-ban-going-into-effect-would-have-saved-zero-lives-from-terrorist-attacks-in-the-last-20-years/

– House Democrats launch election security task force to study how the government can lock Russian hackers out of the 2018 elections,

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/29/democrats-election-security-task-force-russian-hackers-240113

– Hawaii challenges Trump stance on Supreme Court travel ban ruling.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/29/hawaii-challenges-trump-ban-240122

– GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-operative-sought-clinton-emails-from-hackers-implied-a-connection-to-flynn-1498770851

http://www.businessinsider.com/russian-hackers-michael-flynn-hillary-clinton-emails-2017-6

– A chilling National Rifle Association ad gaining traction online appears to be ‘an open call to violence’.

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

– Trump’s voter fraud commission asked all 50 secretaries of state to provide him with “publicly-available voter roll data” including voters’ full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of social security numbers, voter history, felony convictions, and other identifying information.

https://thinkprogress.org/voter-fraud-letter-97dcfc51eb48

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/29/trumps-voter-fraud-commission-wants-to-know-the-voting-history-party-id-and-address-of-every-voter-in-america/

June 30, 2017 Friday

– (Reply to Trump; Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough) Donald Trump is not well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-not-well/2017/06/30/97759ee0-5d0f-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40458145

– TV hosts charge Trump is unstable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-brzezinski-idUSKBN19L23I

– Morning Joe co-hosts accuse White House of blackmail over tabloid story.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/30/mika-brzezinski-joe-scarborough-donald-trump

– Did Trump Break the Law Over Alleged ‘Morning Joe,’ ‘National Enquirer’ Blackmail Threats?

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-morning-joe-blackmail-enquirer-630536

– (Opinion) Trump loves attacking women’s looks. And America rewards him for it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/29/trump-insults-to-women-mika-brzezinski-misogny

– Trump Suggests Repealing Health Law Now and Replacing It Later.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/us/politics/trump-health-law-affordable-care-act.html

– Trump repeal idea would lead to 26 million uninsured.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/30/trump-repeal-obamacare-effects-cbo-240140

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/news/economy/obamacare-repeal-trump/index.html

– 20 states refusing to provide voter data to Trump election panel.

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/340289-19-states-refusing-to-provide-voter-data-to-trump-panel

– States and Trump voter fraud commission set for showdown.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/340311-states-push-back-on-requests-from-voter-fraud-commission

– Conservative outlets get more official seats in White House briefing room.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/06/30/conservative-outlets-gain-white-house-seats-240152

– Trump’s trade plan sets up global clash over ‘America First’ strategy.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/30/trump-america-first-trade-plan-clash-240123

– (Opinion) Understanding Republican Cruelty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/opinion/understanding-republican-cruelty.html

– GOP unveils bill to allow political activity by churches.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/317656-gop-lawmakers-unveil-bill-to-water-down-law-limiting-churches

– GOP operative looking to obtain Clinton emails cited Trump campaign aides.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/340340-gop-operative-looking-to-obtain-clinton-emails-cited-trump-campaign

– New NRA Video Fuels American Extremists, Says Former CIA Analyst.

http://www.newsweek.com/cia-analyst-says-new-nra-video-fuel-american-extremists-630280

– Science division of White House office left empty as last staffers depart.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/science-division-of-white-house-office-now-empty-as-last-staffers-depart/

All images in this article are from the author.