Chris Hedges's Blog, page 590

AP: Trump Never Intended to Honor Iran Pact

WASHINGTON—It was all there on paper in black and white, down to the precise number of centrifuges: the terms of a potential “fix” that President Donald Trump had demanded for the United States to stay in the Iran nuclear deal.

Dragged kicking and screaming into five months of negotiations, America’s closest allies in Europe had finally agreed in principle to the toughest of Trump’s demands. They conceded that some expectation could be put into place in perpetuity that Iran should never get closer than one year from building a bomb. All that was left was to figure out creative language for how that constraint would be phrased that everyone could support.

Trump walked away from the deal anyway. Announcing the U.S. was out, he called the 2015 pact his predecessor brokered “defective at its core” and said the U.S. would immediately re-impose sanctions lifted under the deal.

“We can’t allow a deal to hurt the world,” Trump added Wednesday, as the world scrambled to figure out what comes next.

Behind the scenes, though, the Trump administration had been actively preparing for a pullout since January, when Trump declared that he would withdraw if an “add-on” deal wasn’t reached. To many U.S. officials, it was as clear then as now that the president would not be swayed to accept even a toughened-up version of the accord.

This account of how Trump withdrew from the deal draws on interviews Wednesday with a dozen White House officials, senior State Department officials, foreign diplomats and outside advisers to the Trump administration involved in the negotiations. Most were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Trump had just celebrated the anniversary of becoming president in January when he issued his ultimatum: If there’s no fix to the deal by May 12, the U.S. would be out. There was no chance that three of the deal’s members—Iran, Russia and China—would consider changes, so Trump focused on the Europeans—Germany, the U.K. and France—in hopes that the rest would go along once a fix was agreed to by the rest.

“This is a last chance,” Trump said.

Right away, a team led by Brian Hook, the State Department’s policy chief, began intensive negotiations with the Europeans on the issues Trump insisted must be fixed: new penalties on Iran’s ballistic missile inspections, expanded access for U.N. nuclear inspectors and an extension of the restrictions on Iran’s enrichment beyond the current life of the deal.

Before long, the U.S. found the Europeans were amenable to dealing with the first two. The third was a nonstarter. After all, the terms of the 2015 deal explicitly say that the restrictions “sunset” over time. Any extension without Iran’s explicit consent would put the Europeans themselves in breach of the deal.

A supplemental agreement was drafted, and tweaked, and tweaked again, even as negotiations continued about what mechanism to use to hold the Iranians to the restrictions indefinitely. At least one draft included footnotes specifying that the same nuclear parameters in the 2015 deal should continue to be in place: no more than 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges, no uranium stockpiles larger than 300 kilograms, no enrichment beyond 3.67 percent and no advanced centrifuges, according to an individual who read the draft.

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At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley led a parallel effort to get France and the U.K. to toughen up on other Iranian behavior, such as its support for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and for Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen. Haley’s argument to the Europeans: Helping us with these side issues can only help you make your case to Trump to stay in the deal.

But at the White House, senior staffers were skeptical that anything would satisfy Trump. After all, the president had already told aides he refused to waive sanctions on Iran again. So White House and National Security Council staff began laying the groundwork for a U.S. withdrawal, even as the negotiations with the Europeans were underway.

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As the May deadline drew closer, the Europeans grew increasingly alarmed that Trump seemed determined to scrap the deal. And so began a parade of visits by their leaders to the White House to make the case in person.

First came French President Emmanuel Macron, the European leader closest to Trump. Not only did he raise the issue during a state visit, but he also took the extraordinary step of hammering the point in a speech to a joint session of Congress.

“We signed it, both the United States and France,” Macron said of the pact. “That is why we cannot say we should get rid of it like that.”

The Germans followed days later, with Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasizing Europe’s openness to working with Trump to crack down more comprehensively on Iran. The closing pitch was left to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who even appeared on Trump-friendly “Fox & Friends” to urge him not to walk away.

Johnson and the others came to Washington armed with clever solutions to the remaining hang-up over extending restrictions on Iran permanently. The Europeans were firm on one point: They could not unilaterally impose on Iran what it had not agreed to in the deal. But there were ideas to use other mechanisms that don’t expire, such as supervision of Iran’s civil nuclear needs, to ensure it stayed within the bounds and didn’t approach a bomb.

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By the time Johnson arrived, it became clear that the negotiations, while still ongoing, were futile. And on Monday, Trump tweeted that he’d announce his decision at 2 p.m. Tuesday — almost a week before his deadline.

His decision was kept closely quarantined until the end, with even most White House, State Department and Treasury Department officials unsure what he’d decided. The State Department and Treasury prepared three versions of the public statements and technical guidance that would have to be released with his decision: one for staying in, one for full withdrawal and one midway option in which only some sanctions would be immediately re-imposed, potentially preserving the possibility that the U.S. could later reverse course and stay in.

Trump’s administration also didn’t explicitly tell the Europeans he was withdrawing. In a call with Macron just ahead of his announcement, Trump made clear he was still ardently opposed to the deal but left Macron guessing about precisely what he would do.

He and the other Europeans learned when everyone else did: on Tuesday, when Trump appeared on live television in the Diplomatic Reception Room and said he was out.

“The fact is this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump said. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

700,000 Rohingya Refugees Returning to Myanmar Face Bitter Choices

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees fled their homes in Myanmar for Bangladesh last August, following brutal attacks by the military against the minority group’s villages in Rakhine state. After their months of living in limbo in Bangladeshi refugee camps, the Myanmar government claims they can return, but they’re facing an uncertain future back in their native country—not to mention the near-term threat of the monsoons approaching the camps where some continue to live.

The Muslim Rohingya have faced persecution from the majority-Buddhist Myanmar government since the 1970s, but the recent exodus occurred, as the Council on Foreign Relations explains, “after a militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility for attacks on police and army posts.”

As the Bangkok Post reported May 5, Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate the refugees, but given the violence the Rohingya faced simply for their religious beliefs, some refugees are hesitant to return without a guarantee of safety.

Myanmar’s Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation that the refugees will be safe “if they stay in the areas designated for them” in Myanmar. His comments renewed fears that the returning Rohingya will be forced to stay indefinitely in the model villages built for them, and continue to face a level of violence the U.N. equates with ethnic cleansing.

The general also referred to the Rohingya as Bengali, which, as the Bangkok Post explains, reflects “a widespread belief in Myanmar that the Rohingya are immigrants from Bangladesh despite a longstanding presence in Rakhine.”

Not that the conditions in the Bangladeshi camps are much better. As filmmaker and human rights activist Jeanne Hallacy explained in an interview with Consortium News: “… when you walked around the camp, all of the adults had this deep sense of suffering and trauma because they had experienced such heinous human rights abuses before they fled. It was unlike any refugee camp I have ever seen in my work as a journalist.”

Now, the remaining inhabitants of the refugee camps are stuck between two equally terrifying options: taking the Myanmar government’s word that they’ll be safe in the new refugee villages, or waiting for the passing of the monsoon season, which is quickly approaching the camps in Bangladesh. The Guardian reports, “As many as 200,000 refugees are estimated to be at direct risk from landslides or floods and require urgent evacuation, separate assessments by the Bangladesh government and aid groups have concluded.”

 

Republicans Override Democrats’ Objections, Confirm Federal Judge

WASHINGTON — The political battle over President Trump’s judicial nominees escalated on Thursday when the Senate took the rare step of confirming the nomination of a Wisconsin attorney to serve as a federal judge despite the objections of one of his home-state senators.

The Senate voted along party lines to confirm Milwaukee attorney Michael Brennan to fill an opening on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The tally was 49-46. The seat has been open for more than eight years, the longest for the nation’s appellate courts.

The Senate gives lawmakers a chance to weigh in on a judicial nominee from their home state by submitting a blue-colored form called the “blue slip.” A positive blue slip signals the Senate to move forward with the nomination process. A negative blue slip, or withholding it altogether, signals a senator’s objection and almost always stalls the nomination.

Until this year, it had been nearly three decades since the Senate confirmed a judge without two positive blue slips. Brennan’s confirmation marked the second time it has happened this year. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., declined to return her blue slip.

The move to go ahead with a hearing for Brennan and a vote on the floor had Democrats complaining that Republicans were eroding one of the few remaining customs in the Senate that forced consultation on judicial nominations. They also noted that Republicans used the blue slip to block one of President Barack Obama’s nominees for the very same judgeship.

“I’d admonish my friends on the other side of the aisle, this is a very dangerous road you’re treading,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “As everyone knows, the winds of political change blow swiftly in America. The minority one day is the majority the next.”

The warning was reminiscent of the one that Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell issued when Democrats changed the rules to lower the threshold necessary to end a filibuster for district and circuit court judges. Under the change, the Senate can cut off debate with a simple majority rather than 60 votes.

At the time, the Kentucky Republican said, “You’ll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Democrats’ complaints were based on an incorrect understanding of the blue slip’s history.

“The blue slip courtesy is just that — a courtesy,” Grassley said.

He said past chairmen of the committee had rarely used negative or unreturned blue slips as unilateral vetoes. The most recent exception was Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who was chairman during the first six years of Obama’s presidency.

“That was his prerogative,” Grassley said.

Still, Democrats counter that the blue slip has been in use for more than a century, and until this year, only a handful of judges had won confirmation without two blue slips.

Grassley said that under his tenure, the blue slip will be used to ensure the president consults with home-state senators, but not as a veto for appellate court nominees. He said he was satisfied in Brennan’s case that the White House consulted with both of Wisconsin’s senators before the president nominated him.

Republicans have made it a priority to confirm the president’s nominees, particularly those who will serve on federal appeals courts. It’s a top issue with social conservatives leading into this year’s midterm elections. With Democrats slow-walking many of Trump’s nominees, McConnell said last October that the blue slip process should not be used to “blackball” nominees.

For Democrats, it was particularly galling that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., used his blue slip to object to Obama nominee Victoria Nourse to serve on the 7th Circuit. She eventually withdrew from consideration.

“It’s an appalling double standard,” Schumer said.

Johnson said more than 1 million of the state’s residents had voted for him, and he had no role whatsoever in the nomination of Nourse, “so I decided not to return the blue slip.”

He said he does not believe the blue slip should be used as an absolute veto, though.

“The blue slip from my standpoint should primarily be used just as the advice and consent of one senator expressing an opinion on a judge from their state,” Johnson said.

Republicans went ahead with a committee hearing and a vote for David Stras of Minnesota to serve as a circuit judge earlier this year despite one of his home-state senators, former Democratic Sen. Al Franken, declining to return his blue slip. But Franken resigned about four weeks before the Stras confirmation vote.

The Senate has confirmed 35 of Trump’s judicial nominees so far, and Republicans are anxious to keep going.

“I have pleaded with McConnell to work nights, to work Saturdays and weekends, and put the pressure on the Democrats. And we’ve got to have every Republican around and even cancel a recess so we can clear the calendar of these important nominees,” Grassley said during an appearance on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee issued a report after the vote voicing their alarm about the pace of confirmations. They said Trump will likely secure confirmation for 21 circuit court nominees in less than 16 months in office. By comparison, it took Obama 33 months to secure that many circuit court confirmations.

“President Trump and Senate Republicans have been rushing nominees through the Senate at a breakneck pace by changing the process for consideration and eliminating traditions that had been followed for over a century,” the Democrats said.

The focus on circuit judges by both sides reflects their critical role. The Supreme Court generally hears arguments in fewer than 100 cases a year while the circuit courts hear thousands of cases.

 

Coral Island Freshwater Faces Threat of Pollution

For atoll dwellers across much of the world, the island freshwater on which they depend may be in jeopardy within a couple of decades.

The combination of sea level rise and ever more extreme storm conditions – each a consequence of global warming and climate change – could make many of the world’s coral atolls uninhabitable  within one human generation.

Although many of the low-lying islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans are two metres above sea level, and although in the gloomier scenarios sea levels will rise a metre by 2100, the freshwater resources of such islands are likely to be polluted by the invading seas by about 2050, according to new research.

Worldwide, there are thousands of inhabited atolls and cays, with reaches of coral above the reef waterline long colonised by vegetation, to provide shelter for birds, small animals and people.

But as the icecaps and glaciers melt, in response to ever greater greenhouse gas emissions from factory chimneys, power stations and vehicle exhausts, to drive up the planetary thermometer, more freshwater will flow into the oceans, which will anyway expand as temperatures rise.

And since global warming is likely to be accompanied by greater extremes of tropical cyclone and windstorm, islanders everywhere will become increasingly vulnerable.

US scientists report in the journal Science Advances that they decided to look in fine detail at the consequences for one group of atoll-dwellers on Roi-Namur, in the Kwajalein atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

There are around 1,100 low-lying islands in 29 atolls in the group, and these are home to hundreds of thousands of people. But not, possibly, for much longer.

Dual risk

The researchers considered the projections for gradual sea level rise but focused also on the dynamics of waves as the seas continue to rise, and as ever higher waves driven by ever more energetic storms wash over the low coral structures.

And as these waves batter the coral above the high tide line, so does the likelihood grow that brine will get into the bedrock and poison the natural bedrock aquifers filled with rainwater on which the islanders rely.

Coast-dwellers and people of the lowest-lying islands have the most to lose from climate change, starting with the ground on which they live. Sea level rise has already been identified as a threat for one small settlement off the coast of the US mainland, and future sea level rise could threaten many in the wider Pacific and sweep away tourist investments in the Indian Ocean.

Such findings matter not just for the Marshall Islanders: there are settled atolls in the Caroline, Cook, Line and Society Islands, in the Maldives, the Seychelles and the Hawaiian Islands. All could be vulnerable.

Little choice

“The tipping point when potable groundwater on the majority of atoll islands will be unavailable is projected to be reached no later than the middle of the 21st century,” said Curt Storlazzi, of the US Geological Survey, who led the research.

The damage from flooding to the islands’ homes, stores and workshops, combined with the loss of freshwater, will start to make human habitation difficult in many such islands by between 2030 and 2060, and go on doing so.

Either the islanders must find the money to secure their water supply and protect their homes, or they must abandon their homelands. What oceanographers call overwash – the great waves that occasionally splash right across the narrow atolls – will become more frequent, and more damaging.

“The overwash events generally result in salty ocean water seeping into the ground and contaminating the freshwater aquifer. Rainfall later in the year is not enough to flush out the saltwater and refresh the island’s water supply before the next year’s storms arrive, repeating the overwash events,” said Stephen Gingerich of the USGS, a co-author.

Some Civil Rights Lawsuits May Be Endangered Under Trump

In announcing a $2.85 million settlement in an age discrimination lawsuit today, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s acting chairwoman congratulated her civil rights agency.

“I am very proud of the relief the EEOC has obtained here … to ensure that applicants and workers do not face this sort of discrimination in the future,” Victoria Lipnic, a longtime commissioner appointed as acting chairwoman by President Donald Trump last year, said in a statement.

But Lipnic actually voted against bringing the lawsuit in the first place.

It’s an example of the kind of ambitious civil rights lawsuit that may not happen once Trump’s other nominees are confirmed and the five-member commission swings from a Democratic majority to a Republican one.

Back in 2015, the commission’s general counsel wanted the go-ahead to sue Seasons 52, part of the Darden family of restaurants, for systematically discriminating against job applicants over the age of 40 at restaurants nationwide.

Lipnic and the other Republican commissioner voted against filing suit, while three Democrats voted for it, clearing the path that led to the nearly $3 million settlement.

In the end, more than 135 job applicants gave testimony that Seasons 52 managers asked them their age and made comments such as, “Seasons 52 girls are younger and fresh,” according to the commission. The settlement also requires the company to change its hiring processes and pay for a compliance monitor to make sure it doesn’t discriminate anymore.

A Seasons 52 spokesman said in an email: “We are pleased to resolve this EEOC matter. Putting this behind us is good for Seasons 52, good for our team members and good for our shareholders.” Its parent company, Darden, also owns the Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse chains.

After Lipnic was appointed acting chairwoman in early 2017, a Reveal review of commission votes found that she voted against pursuing 20 lawsuits in her previous seven years as a commissioner. The other Republican commissioner serving with her voted against more than twice as many cases.

If a majority of the commission votes against bringing a lawsuit, the agency’s findings of discrimination may never become public. The commission discloses its investigations only if there is a lawsuit or if an employer agrees to it as part of a prelitigation settlement, which is rare.

Republicans and business groups have criticized the commission for pursuing large-scale, systemic cases, favoring a focus on reducing the commission’s backlog of individual complaints.

A Republican majority on the commission may lead it in that direction, but two Trump nominees still are awaiting Senate confirmation. One of them, retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Gade, once called the idea of women in ground combat “laughable,” though he said his views have changed.

Trump also nominated a new general counsel, Sharon Fast Gustafson, who has signaled that she may be less aggressive in filing lawsuits and pursuing national systemic cases. If she is confirmed and steers away from cases such as the one against Seasons 52, they might not even come to the commission for a vote.

Trump’s ‘Disruption’ of the Status Quo Misses the Mark

On the same day that President Trump recklessly pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran, the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels fired the informational equivalent of a heat-seeking missile at the Trump presidency.

Taken together, these events clarify the nature of what Trump has inflicted on our country.

Trump is regularly described as a “disrupter.” Those who praised him for this believed he would disrupt ways of doing business in Washington that have frustrated the citizenry for decades. The political status quo was so awful, the idea went, that blowing up the system would inevitably be better than keeping it intact.

But we are discovering that Trump is destroying the very aspects of governing that prevent rash mistakes and hold abuses of power in check. Trump chooses to roll the dice on nuclear weapons, and rather than “drain the swamp,” he is on his way toward giving us one of the most corrupt periods in our history.

Of all the decisions Trump has made, abandoning the Iran treaty is the most dangerous and consequential. Trump has slapped our closest European allies in the face and walked away from defined limits on Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons on the empty hope that as the Great Negotiator, he could secure a better deal. In the process, he has brought us significantly closer to war in the Middle East — the very sort of conflict Trump repeatedly said the United States should avoid.

What ties together many of Trump’s choices (the knee-capping of the Affordable Care Act and the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iran deal) is a desire to eradicate President Obama’s achievements. Alas, another of Obama’s achievements on his chopping block is the former president’s success in running an administration remarkably free of corruption.

Even before Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, released his explosive chronicle of firms that paid money into a shell company run by Trump’s lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen, the president had torn down the guard rails against venality. It began with his refusal to release his tax returns and to separate himself completely from his own enterprises. There have been reports about members of Trump’s family mixing personal business with government business, and some of Trump’s Cabinet members — EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt heads the list — seem to take their ethical guidance from the top.

The Avenatti memo, the reliability of which was confirmed by journalists’ inquiries and public statements from some of the entities on it, raises the issue of potential corruption to a new level. And the fact that one of the firms that paid into Cohen’s shell corporation was Columbus Nova brings the money question into direct contact with Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The biggest client of Columbus Nova, which paid about $500,000 to Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC, is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. In a statement, Columbus Nova insisted that this consulting fee had nothing to do with Vekselberg, although exactly what Cohen has to offer beyond his relationship with Trump is, to be very polite about it, unclear.

And several corporations with business before the Trump administration also made payments into Cohen’s delightfully named (“Essential” to what?) operation. They included Novartis Investments, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant; Korea Aerospace Industries; and AT&T. Again, it’s hard to imagine they were bowled over by Cohen’s genius. Perhaps it’s a tribute to entrepreneurship that Essential Consultants, formed on Oct. 17, 2016, to funnel a payoff to Daniels, has enjoyed such rapid growth.

Yes, there is much more to learn here, and we know by now never to assume that any development in this saga can be seen as the beginning of the end. We have no idea yet how this story will end or who, except perhaps for Mueller, will write its conclusion.

But we know enough to conclude that (1) the Russia connection to Trump World runs very deep and Mueller is no doubt exploring its many tributaries; (2) if Trump is profoundly altering Washington, it is to make the most old-fashioned forms of influence peddling more common and more blatant; (3) we need to figure out if any of the money sloshing around has found its way to Trump; and (4) Trump will play as fast and loose with fundamental changes in policy as he does with ethics and the truth.

All four are worrying. The last is also scary.

Judge Faces Recall Vote Over Light Sentence in Sexual Assault

Aaron Persky, the judge who ruled in one of the most controversial and publicized sexual assault cases in recent American history, raised eyebrows this week over a comment he made that compared the case to the historic Brown v. Board of Education, which held that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.

Persky, who is facing a June recall vote for what critics said was a shamefully short sentence in the trial of Brock Turner, had the option to sentence the college athlete to a maximum of 14 years in prison but chose to give the convicted felon just six months instead. Turner was released after only three months. A change.org petition to recall Persky received over 1 million signatures. Persky told reporters at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., that removing him from his post would weaken the justice system.

“Brown v. Board of Education was unpopular in many states,” he said at the press conference. “Imagine for a moment if those federal judges had been faced with judicial recall in the face of that unpopularity.”

“We ask judges to follow the rule of law, not the rule of public opinion,” he added.

Buzzfeed reports:

Persky faced national criticism in response to his 2016 decision to sentence Turner to six months in jail for three counts of felony sexual assault. Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting another student while she was unconscious, served three months of the sentence.

The perceived leniency of the sentence sparked outrage and debate over sexual assault. It became national news after Buzzfeed News published the letter Turner’s victim read aloud in court.

Stanford Law School Professor Michele Dauber is leading the recall effort because, she said, Persky has exhibited “a long pattern of bias in favor of privileged men.”

Dauber said Persky “has repeatedly abused his discretion on behalf of abusers. As a result, voters in this county have lost confidence in his ability to be fair.”

“In Brown, the Supreme Court bravely ruled with the powerless against the powerful,” she added. “In Brock Turner’s case, Persky did the exact opposite.”

If Persky is recalled, it will be the first time in 86 years that such a removal has occurred in California. Voters will decide June 5 whether or not Persky stays in his position.

Persky does have some defenders within the legal community. Margaret Russell, a law professor at Santa Clara University, told CBS News that “there’s absolutely no evidence that he has engaged in misconduct.” Russell, along with 94 other legal scholars, issued a statement arguing that recalls “must be limited to cases where judges are corrupt or incompetent or exhibit bias,” which they do not believe applies to Persky.

Dauber strongly disagrees. She told CBS News, “The judges in California, under our Constitution, are accountable to the voters they serve.” She has referenced several other occasions when Persky handed lenient sentences to male college athletes accused of sexual assault and violent behavior toward women.

CBS News continues:

She and other recall organizers argue that Persky treated the victim’s sexual assault too lightly and appeared overly concerned with the effect of the case on Turner, an athlete on scholarship who had a promising swimming career ahead.

They argued that Persky exemplifies the criminal justice system’s mistreatment of sexual assault victims. Dozens of elected officials across the country have endorsed the recall effort, including New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

“No one should be subjected to sexual assault or harassment. And when it occurs, and victims come forward, the justice system must treat them fairly and with respect and dignity,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “Judge Persky did not do that and should be held accountable.”

In Judge Persky’s tone-deaf interview he fails to express concern for Emily Doe, stands by his sentence for #BrockTurner, and portrays himself as the victim. “you have to ask yourself, am I really the face of rape culture?”

uh, yes.

VOTE YES JUNE 5!https://t.co/qCetuNZw4h

— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) April 20, 2018

California’s Teacher Pension System Targets Gun Sellers

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif.—One of the largest public pension funds in the nation voted Wednesday to use its financial might to pressure gun retailers across the country to stop selling military-style assault weapons and accessories like rapid-fire “bump stocks” used at the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.

The $222.5 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System said it will try to unseat board members at companies that resist and could dump its stock in those retailers if they still refuse to conform to laws already in effect in California.

The fund plans an accompanying publicity drive to leverage the student-led nationwide push following the February massacre at a Florida high school. Fund officials also are lobbying other pension funds and investors to join their drive. The system funds pensions for more than 900,000 public school educators and their families.

Aside from outlawing bump stocks and restricting assault-style weapons, California bans sales of magazines holding more than 10 bullets and assault rifles that can rapidly be reloaded.

Opponents said the board is setting a dangerous precedent.

If Congress and other states won’t act to prevent schools “from becoming killing fields, then let’s take the battle to where the money is,” said state Treasurer John Chiang, a Democrat who led the push and is running for governor in next month’s primary election.

The board acted as Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation that would require the nation’s largest public pension system to similarly pressure retailers to stop selling military-style weapons and attachments. The $350 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System declined to do so in March.

Both the teachers and public employee funds had already divested from assault weapon manufacturers after the 2012 slayings at a Connecticut elementary school.

San Diego area teacher Jessica Moore told board members Wednesday that her job now includes plotting exit routes and comforting children during lockdowns. “I think in terms of taking a bullet for them,” she said tearfully.

Retired teacher and San Diego gun control advocate Carol Landale urged the board to “hit the gun industry in the pocketbook.”

“I do not want my dollars invested in an industry that sells weapons that kill children,” Landale said.

Gun Owners of California executive director Sam Paredes in an email called Chiang’s support “a desperate move by a desperate politician trying anything to gain attention.”

Firearms Policy Coalition spokesman Craig DeLuz said: “Lawmakers are moving beyond unconstitutionally regulating guns and towards using the force of government to bully and coerce the market. This isn’t a slippery slope; it’s a cliff that hostile government actors are forcing people and businesses to walk off.”

The teachers’ fund invests about $465 million in 10 retailers, but the bulk — $344 million — is in Walmart, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart is among retailers that already stopped selling assault weapons and bump stocks, and Chiang could not say what more he wants the company to do. Sen. Anthony Portantino of La Canada Flintridge, who is carrying the related legislation, said recent changes by Walmart and other retailers show the power of public pressure.

Board member Paul Rosenstiel said the fund’s investment represents less than 1 percent of Walmart’s stock and questioned devoting $280,000 for two staff members to coordinate the fund’s lobbying effort. But he went along when the fund’s chief investment officer, Christopher Ailman, said he is working to recruit other funds to join the effort.

“We are going to do our part,” said the fund’s investment committee chairman, Harry Keiley. “Sadly, it will not end the horrific violence in America’s public schools but…we did what we could.”

Cohen on the Hot Seat for Selling Insight Into Trump

WASHINGTON—Already under investigation for a payment to a porn star, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney is facing intensifying legal and ethical scrutiny for selling his Trump World experience and views at a hefty price to companies that sought “insight” into the new president.

One company, pharmaceutical giant Novartis, acknowledged Wednesday it paid Michael Cohen $1.2 million for services, though they ended after a single meeting. Others, including some with major regulatory matters before the new administration, acknowledged payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars over at least several months.

The corporate ties could suggest Cohen was peddling his influence and profiting from his relationship with the president. They also raise questions about whether Trump knew about the arrangement.

Cohen’s corporate ties were first revealed in a detailed report released by an attorney for pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels. The report alleged that Cohen used a company he established weeks before the 2016 election to receive the payments from a variety of businesses — including $500,000 from one associated with a Russian billionaire. Financial documents reviewed by the Associated Press appear to back up much of attorney Michael Avenatti’s report.

Cohen’s lawyers said late Wednesday that much of the information released by Avenatti was “completely inaccurate.” They told a New York judge that Avenatti made statements “in an apparent attempt to prejudice and discredit Mr. Cohen” as he seeks to intervene in a civil case Cohen brought stemming from April 9 raids on his home and office. The raids were carried out by federal agents looking for evidence in a criminal probe.

The lawyers wrote that some of the information Avenatti published Tuesday did appear to come from Cohen’s actual bank records.

Aventti responded on Twitter, saying the attorneys “fail to address, let alone contradict, 99% of the statements in what we released. Among other things, they effectively concede the receipt of the $500,000 from those with Russian ties.”

Asked about the reports of the payments to Cohen Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence said on NBC News that it was a “private matter” and “something I don’t have any knowledge about.”

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Bloomberg News Wednesday that Trump was “unaware” of the payments to Cohen.

Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s outside legal team, announced Thursday that he was resigning from his law firm in “light of the pressing demands of the Mueller investigation.” Previously he had said he was taking a temporary leave of absence.

Three companies confirmed the payments, including Novartis and AT&T, both saying Cohen’s Essential Consultants was hired to help them understand the new president during the early days of the Trump administration. Novartis said in a statement that it paid Cohen $100,000 a month for a yearlong contract, thinking the longtime New York legal “fixer” with few Washington ties could advise on health care matters. After a single meeting they decided “not to engage further.”

Some of the companies that engaged Cohen also had contact with Trump personally. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson met with him during the transition and has visited the White House as the company has sought approval to absorb Time Warner. The current CEO of Novartis attended a dinner with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year, though the company stressed that the agreement with Cohen’s company predated his time as CEO and he was not involved with the deal.

Public records show that Cohen he is not a registered lobbyist, but he could enter these relationships without violating federal lobbying laws if he did not seek to influence Trump on the companies’ behalf.

Still, Public Citizen President Robert Weissman said Cohen’s consulting work sounds more like pay-to-play lobbying.

“It stretches the imagination that the work was just for advice. There is no reason that he would have any blinding insights,” Weissman said.

Some of the dealings have caught the attention of the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. A spokesman for Novartis said the company was contacted in November by Robert Mueller’s office regarding its agreement with Essential Consultants, which expired this year.

AT&T also said it was contacted last year by Mueller’s office “regarding Michael Cohen.” The company said it “cooperated fully, providing all information requested in November and December of 2017.” AT&T added that its consulting contract with Cohen expired at the end of the year and it has received no questions since.

Cohen also used the company to pay a $130,000 payment to Daniels just before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the president. Cohen is under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, but has not been charged.

Cohen has told associates that Avenatti’s claims are overheated, and he has maintained that he has not done anything wrong, according to a person familiar with the attorney’s views but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Cohen, who until January 2017 worked for the Trump Organization, was a fixture in the company’s headquarters in Trump Tower in the weeks before the president took office. Ex-campaign officials did not recall Cohen or Trump ever discussing Cohen’s plans to launch consulting firm, according to three ex-campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General said Wednesday it was investigating how allegations about Cohen’s banking records became public, a response to the memo released by Avenatti.

Inspector general counsel Rich Delmar said the agency’s actions stem from its authority as the federal agency that analyzes banking records for potential illegal activity. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions must monitor their customers’ activities and report suspicious transactions to the government. But that information is supposed to remain confidential.

Avenatti, who has not disclosed where he got his information or released any documents, declined to comment on the probe. But he has called on Cohen and Trump to release their banking records and has urged the Treasury Department to release a so-called suspicious activities report on Essential Consultants.

According to Avenatti’s memo, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire, and his cousin, Andrew Intrater, “routed” eight payments totaling about $500,000 to Cohen’s company between January and August 2017. The payments were made by Columbus Nova, an American investment company, Avenatti alleges.

Andrey Shtorkh, a spokesman for Vekselberg said in a statement that Vekselberg did not have a “contractual relationship” with Cohen or his firm.

Columbus Nova’s lawyer, Richard Owens, said the company hired Cohen after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 as a business consultant “regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures,” but that it had nothing to do with Vekselberg.

At the time of the payments, there was an FBI counterintelligence investigation, which special counsel Mueller took over last May, into Russian election interference and any possible coordination with Trump associates.

Vekselberg was targeted for U.S. sanctions by the Trump administration last month. He built his fortune, currently estimated by Forbes at $14.6 billion, by investing in the aluminum and oil industries. More recently, he has expanded his assets to include industrial equipment and high technology.

AT&T said in a statement that Essential Consultants was one of several firms it “engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration.” Avenatti alleged that the company made four $50,000 payments to Cohen totaling $200,000 in late 2017 and early 2018. AT&T said Cohen’s company “did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.”

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Richard Lardner in Washington, and Jake Pearson and Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.

The U.S. Is Being Sleepwalked Into War With Iran

Editor’s Note: The following article was first published on May 3 and is being printed now in light of the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal. 

In mid-May, super-war hawks Donald J. Trump (worried about the Mueller investigation), John Bolton, Trump’s new unconfirmed national security advisor, and new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are likely to pull out of the Iran nuclear accord. This would open the way for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Congressional allies to push for armed conflict with Iran.

“Don’t do it,” declare our allies, Britain, France, and Germany—signatories to the Iran accord along with China and Russia. “Don’t do it,” say former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense from both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Don’t do it,” says Trump’s own Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, and Trump’s chief of staff, General John Kelly.

“Don’t do it,” say outspoken former top Israeli national security and intelligence officials berating Netanyahu.

All of the above say Iran is in compliance with the accord’s demand to stop its nuclear arms program and allows thorough inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. All parties agree that if Trump disrupts this accord, even more havoc will break loose in that volatile region. This is what both Israel and some Persian Gulf nations may desire, as long as the U.S. bears the burden of this reckless action and plunges into another deep quagmire to add to those in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

You’d think that the Israeli government couldn’t play Uncle Sam a sucker to fight yet another war—this one against Iran with American soldiers and money. But the three warmongers, named above, are driving U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Congress regularly disregards its constitutional duties and follows the lead of AIPAC lobbyists.

Both Trump and Netanyahu paint Iran as the most dangerous terrorist state in the world. Really? It wasn’t the Iranian regime that illegally cost over one million Iraqi civilian lives and blew that country apart. It was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney becoming major war criminals whose actions cost the lives of over 5,000 American soldiers, injured or made sick well over 100,000 more, and wasted trillions of dollars continuing to this day.

Iran wants its sphere of influence.  The country has memories. For example, in 1953, the U.S. overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister and reinstalled the dictatorial Shah who ruled despotically for the next 26 years. In 2002, George W. Bush targeted Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, referring to them as the “axis of evil.”  Iran saw what he did to Iraq and didn’t want to take chances by surrendering its security perimeter.

The U.S. has Iran militarily surrounded on its eastern, western, and southern borders.  Israel has working spies in Iran, creating secret sabotage and mayhem.  Israel, which has illegally bombed civil war-wracked Syria (no threat to Israel) dozens of times, has recently hit locations known to have Iranian advisors to Bashar Assad, Syria’s ruler, while fighting ISIS, along with U.S. forces there.  Iranians have been killed in these raids.

So who is the aggressor here?  Unlike Israel’s many invasions and military incursions, Iran, a poor country, has not invaded any country for over 250 years. Iraq’s dictator invaded Iran in 1980, with U.S. backing, costing Iran an estimated 500,000 lives.

No country, save the U.S. Empire, has the chutzpah that Netanyahu possesses because he knows the U.S. government and the mass media will embrace his expanding push for U.S. militarism in the Middle East.

Note the interview by NPR’s Steve Inskeep of Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, on May 1, 2018.  Inskeep was trying to be firm with Mr. Dermer, who was going beyond any evidence that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program.

The ambassador was showcasing the theft of old Iranian documents from an Israeli nighttime raid on an Iranian warehouse.  (The New York Times called these documents about a long-suspended program “Mr. Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran”).  When that ploy didn’t work, he tried to tell Inskeep that Iran will get to a nuclear bomb by staying with the deal because existing restrictions will be removed someday and the existing inspections are “a joke.”  He also condemned Iran for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The ambassador’s flailing accusations could have, but did not, set the stage for Inskeep to ask the following obvious question:

“Mr. Ambassador, Israel has long had a nuclear weapons program, with an estimated 150 or more nuclear bombs at the ready.  Also, your country has rejected belonging to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so you can avoid any international inspectors provided by this global agreement. Your critics would say, ‘Who are you to complain about Iran, which is afraid of not only your bombers made in America, but also your large nuclear bombs and warheads?’”

As in years past, the Israeli government won’t tell the globally recognized truth about having nuclear weapons. Instead, the ambassador would have uttered the boilerplate evasive reply that Israel would not be the first to use nuclear weaponry in the region.

For decades, Israeli leaders and emissaries have come to the U.S. for congressional speeches, for interviews on the Sunday network talk shows and in the print media. Questions about Israel’s nuclear bombs have not been juxtaposed with Israel’s desire for the U.S. to overthrow the Iranian regime or bomb Iranian installations. Trump’s war hawk in the White House, John Bolton, wants to go further. In the past, Bolton has urged Israel to militarily annex the Palestinian West Bank, presumably as a twofer.

Will enough American people, including knowledgeable retired national security and military officials, stand up to stop this slide toward another conflagration that will likely produce blowback in the U.S.?