 06 December 19 Starving Amongst Supporters
We have a very loyal, longstanding readership. Our subscribers morally support what we do and believe in our work. But here we sit among tens of thousands of our supporters with a significant funding shortfall.
You have an opportunity now to get onboard.
Marc Ash
Sure, I'll make a donation!Founder, Reader Supported News Update My Monthly Donation
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06 December 19
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "The Constitution says a lot of things. Some things the Constitution says are at odds with others. On occasion, those differences have to be reconciled."
The framers were sure that all power should be derived from the people. They were also sure that the power of the voters should not be limitless. We see that in the creation of the Electoral College and, yes, in assigning to Congress the right and responsibility of impeachment. Those expressions can at times be at odds. At those moments when impeachment is necessitated, a delicate balance is essential.
In totality, the constitutional experts who testified as to the appropriateness of impeachment at this moment in US history found that impeachment was clearly warranted. In fact, urgently.
The practical balance is between the political component and the constitutional requirement to confront high crimes and misdemeanors on the part of the president. Fortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Democratic leadership wants to address the political problem by getting it over with as far out from the 2020 presidential election as possible. It’s an imperfect but not necessarily fatally flawed plan. They can do that and still succeed — if they don’t further complicate the process.
It bears noting that there is little indication that the vast majority of Trump’s curiously loyal base is in any mood to abandon him, regardless of what evidence the Democrats come up with. As long as that’s the case, the chances that any Senate Republicans will vote to convict and remove him from office are slim to none. In that context, the impeachment of Donald Trump really is a constitutional duty.
Do Not Bury the Mueller Report
Forgetting the Mueller Report as a matter of political expediency flies in the face of the constitutional duty of impeachment. If you’re impeaching because it must be done, then you must necessarily include the special counsel’s voluminous evidence of felonious high crimes. To ignore that would defeat the purpose. If the Ukrainian affair is easier for the voters to understand, then make that the focal point of the presentation. But do not bury the Mueller Report, that’s foolhardy. Skill here matters.
Enforce the Subpoenas
A number of current and former Trump administration officials are not yet testifying before Congress for reasons that appear unlikely to be tolerated by the courts. Again, those subpoenas and witness testimonies can be pursued without derailing the Democrats’ preferred timeline. Publish the Articles of Impeachment, hold the vote, and go to trial in the Senate. However, on a separate track enforce the subpoenas and compel the witnesses to testify. The testimonies may not come in time for the Senate trial, but when they do come you can be sure they will matter. Get the testimony on the public record.
In Narrative Form
Sure, the Republicans can acquit Trump in a Senate trial. But if John Bolton follows that up shortly with bombshells, the Republican exit strategy becomes a lot more complicated.
If the Democrats want to push an expedited timeline, they can do that. But they should not bury the Mueller Report, and they should absolutely pursue the subpoenas and witness testimonies. Bolton, McGahn, and others can testify; Parnas and Fruman are already charged; Giuliani may well be. Donald Trump is out there creating ever more mayhem as each day passes.
This is going to be a long, fluid battle. Don’t throw anything of value away. Keep all options on the table, before the Senate trial and after.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, left, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg at a town hall-style event in South Bend, Indiana, June 23, 2019. (photo: Mark Felix/The New York Times)
South Bend's Police Chief, Close Ally of Pete Buttigieg, Promotes Officer Involved in Controversial Choking Death
Akela Lacy, The Intercept
Lacy writes: "A South Bend, Indiana, police officer who was involved in the controversial 2012 death of a man in police custody was promoted in October at the recommendation of Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, a close ally of Mayor Pete Buttigieg."
READ MORE
Identical Facebook posts attacking the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, across a number of alt-right Facebook accounts. (photo: The Guardian)
Akela Lacy, The Intercept
Lacy writes: "A South Bend, Indiana, police officer who was involved in the controversial 2012 death of a man in police custody was promoted in October at the recommendation of Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, a close ally of Mayor Pete Buttigieg."
READ MORE
Identical Facebook posts attacking the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, across a number of alt-right Facebook accounts. (photo: The Guardian)
Christopher Knaus, Michael McGowan, Nick Evershed and Oliver Holmes, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "A Guardian investigation reveals a covert plot to control some of Facebook's largest far-right pages and harvest Islamophobic hate for profit."
Villereal and Devito weren’t the only ones. Over the past two years, a group of mysterious Israel-based accounts has delivered similar messages to the heads of at least 19 other far-right Facebook pages across the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Austria, Israel and Nigeria.
A Guardian investigation can reveal those messages were part of a covert plot to control some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages, including one linked to a rightwing terror group, and create a commercial enterprise that harvests Islamophobic hate for profit.
This group is now using its 21-page network to churn out more than 1,000 coordinated faked news posts per week to more than 1 million followers, funnelling audiences to a cluster of 10 ad-heavy websites and milking the traffic for profit.
The posts stoke deep hatred of Islam across the western world and influence politics in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US by amplifying far-right parties such as Australia’s One Nation and vilifying Muslim politicians such as the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
The network has also targeted leftwing politicians at critical points in national election campaigns. It posted false stories claiming the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Jews were “the source of global terrorism” and accused the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, of allowing “Isis to invade Canada”.
The revelations show Facebook has failed to stop clandestine actors from using its platform to run coordinated disinformation and hate campaigns. The network has operated with relative impunity even since Mark Zuckerberg’s apology to the US Senate following the Cambridge Analytica and Russian interference scandals.
When the Guardian notified Facebook of its investigation, the company removed several pages and accounts “that appeared to be financially motivated”, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“These pages and accounts violated our policy against spam and fake accounts by posting clickbait content to drive people to off-platform sites,” the spokesperson said. “We don’t allow people to misrepresent themselves on Facebook and we’ve updated our inauthentic behaviour policy to further improve our ability to counter new tactics.”
But this comes too late for some of the network’s victims. Australia’s first female Muslim senator, Mehreen Faruqi, felt the full force of the network in August last year, when 10 of its pages launched coordinated posts inciting their 546,000 followers to attack her for speaking in parliament against racism.
The posts prompted what Faruqi described as a “horrific feeding frenzy of racism, fake news and hate”, soliciting vile comments like “put your burka on – and shut the fuck up!”, “deport the whining bitch” and “Revoke citizenship and Deport”.
Faruqi said the network represented a “new level of far-right organisation and coordination”, and she places the blame squarely on social media companies.
“By allowing racist and misleading posts, social media giants like Facebook … are profiteering from the proliferation of hate speech and abuse,” Faruqi said.
Alex Jones. (photo: NBC)
Josh Owens, The New York Times
Owens writes: "I dropped out of film school to edit video for the conspiracy theorist because I believed in his worldview. Then I saw what it did to people."
I began listening to Jones’s radio show — the flagship program of what is now a conspiracist media empire with an audience that until recently surpassed a million people — in the last days of George W. Bush’s presidency. The American public had been sold a war through outright fabrications; the economy was in free fall thanks to Wall Street greed and the failure of Washington regulators. Most of the mainstream media was caught flat-footed by these developments, but Jones seemed to have an explanation for everything. He railed against government corruption and secrecy, the militarization of police. He confronted those in power, traipsed through the California redwoods to expose the secretive all-male meeting of elites at Bohemian Grove and even appeared in two Richard Linklater films as himself, screaming into a megaphone.
An Uber car. (photo: iStock)
Uber Received Nearly 6,000 US Sexual Assault Claims in Past 2 Years
Shannon Bond, NPR
Bond writes: "How safe is your Uber ride? That question has dogged the company for years, as it has faced complaints from passengers and drivers alleging they have been sexually assaulted in an Uber."
READ MORE
Shannon Bond, NPR
Bond writes: "How safe is your Uber ride? That question has dogged the company for years, as it has faced complaints from passengers and drivers alleging they have been sexually assaulted in an Uber."
READ MORE
In this Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019 photo, Border Patrol agents stop two men thought to have entered the country illegally, near McAllen, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)
Border Patrol Lied About How a Sick Teenager Died in Their Custody
Robert Moore, Susan Schmidt and Maryam Jameel, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant, was seriously ill when immigration agents put him in a small South Texas holding cell with another sick boy on the afternoon of May 19."
Robert Moore, Susan Schmidt and Maryam Jameel, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant, was seriously ill when immigration agents put him in a small South Texas holding cell with another sick boy on the afternoon of May 19."
A coyote, listening intently. (photo: Marcia Straub/Getty)
Trump Administration OKs 'Cyanide Bombs' Despite Indiscriminate Killing of Thousands of Animals a Year
Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "The Trump administration today announced it will reauthorize use of sodium cyanide in wildlife-killing devices called M-44s."
Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "The Trump administration today announced it will reauthorize use of sodium cyanide in wildlife-killing devices called M-44s."
These “cyanide bombs” received approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency despite inhumanely and indiscriminately killing thousands of animals every year. They have also injured people.
“This appalling decision leaves cyanide traps lurking in the wild to threaten people, pets and imperiled animals,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The EPA imposed a few minor restrictions, but these deadly devices have just wreaked too much havoc to remain in use. To truly protect humans and wildlife from these poisonous contraptions, we need a nationwide ban.”
The EPA allows use of the devices by Wildlife Services, the animal-killing program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The EPA also authorizes M-44 use by state agencies in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico and Texas.
A federal court recently approved a ban on M-44 use by Wildlife Services across more than 10 million acres of public land in Wyoming. The Wyoming ban is as part of an agreement resulting from a lawsuit brought by the Center and other wildlife advocacy groups.
In August the EPA issued an interim decision renewing sodium cyanide registration. Then a week later, it withdrew that interim decision for more discussions with Wildlife Services. Today’s announcement reauthorizes use of the devices.
More than 99.9 percent of people commenting on the proposal asked the EPA to ban M-44s, according to analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Environmental Law Center.
In response to concerns raised by wildlife-advocacy groups and others, EPA added some modest restrictions. For example, the devices cannot be placed within 300 feet of a public road or pathway, increased from 100 feet. Two elevated warning signs must be placed within 15 feet of each device, decreased from 25 feet. And no devices can be placed within 600 feet of a residence unless the landowner gives permission.
None of the restrictions will prevent killing of nontarget wildlife, however.
“While it is encouraging that the EPA is taking at least some minimal action to protect the public from deadly M-44s, updating a few use restrictions –– nearly impossible to enforce and commonly ignored –– fails to meaningfully address the problem,” said Kelly Nokes, Shared Earth wildlife attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. “EPA is blatantly ignoring its fundamental duty to protect the public, our pets and native wildlife from the cruel, lethal impacts of cyanide bombs lurking on our public lands. We will continue to hold our federal government accountable to the law, and will continue our fight for a ban on M-44s once and for all.”
“Tightening up use restrictions is turning a blind eye to the reality of M-44s,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense. “In my 25 years working with M-44 victims I've learned that Wildlife Services' agents frequently do not follow the use restrictions. And warning signs will not prevent more dogs, wild animals and potentially children from being killed. They cannot read them. M-44s are a safety menace and must be banned.”
“USDA’s rampant, well-documented noncompliance with existing use restrictions has made clear that additional restrictions will not adequately protect the public, pets and wildlife from these deadly cyanide bombs,” said Carson Barylak, campaigns manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
According to Wildlife Services’ own data, M-44s killed 6,579 animals, mostly coyotes and foxes, in 2018, down from 13,232 animals in 2017. Of these, more than 200 deaths were nontarget animals, including a bear, foxes, opossums, raccoons and skunks. These numbers are likely a significant undercount of the true death toll, as Wildlife Services is notorious for poor data collection and an entrenched “shoot, shovel, shut up” mentality.
Background
M-44 devices spray deadly sodium cyanide into the mouths of unsuspecting coyotes, foxes and other carnivores lured by smelly bait. Anything or anyone that pulls on the baited device can be killed or severely injured by the deadly spray.
In response to a 2017 lawsuit brought by the Center and its allies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to analyze impacts of M-44s on endangered wildlife by the end of 2021. Another 2017 lawsuit by the wildlife advocates prompted Wildlife Services in Colorado to temporarily halt the use of M-44s while it completes a new environmental analysis on its wildlife-killing program.
Last year the EPA denied a 2017 petition authored by the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians that asked for a nationwide ban on M-44s.
M-44s temporarily blinded a child and killed three family dogs in two incidents in Idaho and Wyoming in 2017. A wolf was also accidentally killed by an M-44 set in Oregon that year. In response, Idaho instituted an ongoing moratorium on M-44 use on public lands, and Oregon this year passed legislation banning them in the state.
