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After a Flood of Donations, an Alabama Group Can Now Fund Three Times as Many Abortions as Last Year

A month ago, Amanda Reyes was working in relative obscurity, trying to protect women’s reproductive rights in a state that was always hostile to them and was becoming increasingly more so. Then, Alabama’s assault on abortion rights reached a new height last week, as Gov. Kay Ivey signed the most restrictive abortion ban in the […]

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After months of work, Tor Browser is now stable on Android.

Tor Browser 8.5 brings the highest degree of privacy and censorship-circumvention available to Android users. https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-85

No One Should Ever Listen to Anything Rahm Emanuel Has to Say About Politics

Monday marked Rahm Emanuel’s official last day as mayor of Chicago, and America’s third-largest city is better off for it.

After eight years in office, Emanuel secured his legacy as a neoliberal archetype for urban governance and is leaving behind a city mired in a vast array of crises, spanning public education, gun violence, debt, police brutality, housing and economic inequality. Yet rather than take responsibility for his disastrous reign in Chicago, he has instead embarked on a rebranding tour to makeover his public image. The mainstream media is, unsurprisingly, complicit in this rehabilitation, but we should not be fooled.

On Tuesday, the Atlanticannounced that Emanuel had taken a new position as a contributing editor at the magazine. This announcement coincided with Emanuel’s debut story for his new job, “It’s Time to Hold American Elites Accountable for Their Abuses.”

For those who have any familiarity with Emanuel’s background—a former investment banker turned Democratic Party operative, turned centrist architect, turned presidential chief of staff, turned mayor known for prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest over working-class residents—such an article premise is preposterous. Still, it’s worth interrogating why Emanuel’s foray into becoming a Serious Pundit is so abhorrent.

Emanuel is correct in his analysis that the 2016 election illustrated how fed up American voters are with the rule of elites in our society. Donald Trump won by riding a wave of this anger straight to the White House, whereas Hillary Clinton represented the very system of elite supremacy many voters blamed for helping stack the cards against them. But if Clinton was successfully painted as an avatar for this biased system, Emanuel has in many ways been its guru.

After all, it was Emanuel who, while serving in the Clinton administration, helped write NAFTA, the trade agreement which fueled offshoring of jobs, wage stagnation, upward redistribution of income and the collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States. He similarly helped push through welfare reform, legislation that spiked extreme poverty and cut off a lifeline for millions of working-class Americans, as well as the 1994 crime bill which incited the mass incarceration crisis.

After leaving the White House in 1998, Emanuel dove into the world of investment banking where, over the course of four years, he made a staggering $16 million—more than 10 times what an average American will earn over their entire lifetime.

During his time as head of the DCCC in the late 2000s, Emanuel focused on pushing the Democratic Party further to the right, recruiting conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who worked toimplement austerity, deregulate Wall Street and oppose healthcare expansion. Later while serving as President Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel took a hard line against union workers during the auto bailout and worked diligently to convince Obama not to pursue Obamacare—a plan that would ultimately provide healthcare coverage to millions of Americans.

And as mayor of Chicago, Emanuel has continued his lifelong political project of advancing corporate-friendly policies while ignoring the needs and demands of the poor and politically unconnected. He closeddown public schools and mental health clinics, oversaw a police department rife with abuse, fought public-sector unions, lavished corporate giants with tax breaks while raising regressive fines and fees, privatized public services, presided over horrific levels of gun violence and locked community groups and neighborhood leaders out of democratic decision-making in favor of his friends in high finance and corporate America. 

In other words, Rahm Emanuel represents the very system of elite governance that he blames in his Atlantic article for creating our current political crisis—which should make us very suspect of the solutions he proposes.

So, what does Emanuel actually say will help get America out of our current status quo? Perhaps enact policies that would rein in the industries such as banking and finance that have wreaked havoc upon the economy? Or provide social programs like universal healthcare and a jobs guarantee that would help lift millions out of poverty and provide a safety net for struggling families? Nope.

Popular programs like as Medicare for All, breaking up large financial institutions and providing guaranteed employment are being embraced by a number of 2020 Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But Emanuel instead uses his new perch as a columnist to preach empty bromides about “justice” and “standing up for middle-class interests and values.” In fact, Emanuel says he doesn’t think embracing bold new policies is the answer, dismissingly stating that “Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program.”

On one point, Emanuel is crystal clear, saying, “The answer certainly isn’t socialism.” In his view, a more egalitarian politics that confronts market fundamentalism head-on just amounts to a more powerful “bureaucracy.” Such slights at a left-wing approach to government are nothing new, but it’s telling that Rahm Emanuel—a scion of neoliberalism—feels the need to decry a socialist turn in the Democratic Party.

Emanuel can see the tectonic shifts occurring in the party he’s spent his political career pushing in a centrist direction. Socialism is rising in popularity, including in Emanuel’s hometown of Chicago where six democratic socialist city council members were just elected to office. It’s no surprise that he would be dismayed by such a development that stands as a direct repudiation of his time in office.

Whereas Emanuel carried out a “trickle-down” economic program that provided benefits to the top while poor neighborhoods were starved of resources, the new class of socialist leaders is advocating massive new taxes on the rich to fund social programs. If the Chicago’s 2019 elections are any indication, with progressives and socialists taking power across the city, Emanuel’s approach to governance has been proven an abject failure. Which is all the more reason he shouldn’t be taken seriously as a political authority.

We have only just begun to experience Emanuel’s new career in punditry. Tuesday also saw the announcement that he will join ABC News as a contributor. We can expect that he will continue to laud right-wing Democrat Joe Biden for his “discipline” on the campaign trail while attacking progressives such as Rep. Ilhan Omar and warning the party against taking clear stands on issues such as healthcare and the climate. After all, this is exactly the type of tired, backward-looking take he was hired by these corporate media outlets to provide.

But for working people in Chicago and across the country, Rahm Emanuel’s centrist political vision has by now been fully discredited. Let’s make sure to never forget that.    

The Librem One suite of online services (Chat, Social, Tunnel, & Email) wouldn't be possible without the amazing work of countless Free Software developers all around the world.

Here's a primer on the stellar projects we work with to make it possible:

https://puri.sm/posts/how-purism-works-upstream-and-gives-back/

Red States Are Paying Planned Parenthood Millions for Suing Them

State legislators from Georgia to North Dakota have been trying to one-up each other in passing increasingly draconian abortion legislation, all under the guise of seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade. None of these laws is likely to survive legal challenges, let alone reverse the Supreme Court precedent establishing the right to an abortion. But […]

Puerto Rico Got Rid of Its Coal Ash Pits. Now the Company Responsible Is Moving Them to Florida.

This story was originally published by Grist and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.  This past January, Itiba De Jesus moved to St. Cloud, in Osceola County, Florida, in search of affordable housing and land to expand her sustainable agriculture project. She has lived in Florida for 17 years but grew up in Puerto Rico. […]

The Short Case for Making College Free and a Universal Right

free col•lege

noun

1. A radical expansion of federal funding to make higher education a public good

“College shouldn’t just be a privilege for those who can afford [it]. Like K-12 education, college is a basic need that should be available for free.”

—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), outlining her plan for free public college

How would we do this? How much would it cost?

Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run brought free college back into the national debate. His College for All Act, introduced in 2017, would provide federal and state funding to cover tuition at all public colleges and universities—for about $70 billion annually.

This time around, Bernie isn’t the only contender calling for debt-free diplomas. In April, Elizabeth Warren released a sweeping plan to eliminate tuition, expand assistance for housing and books, wipe out most student debt, and cut off federal funding to for-profit colleges. That plan comes in at $1.25 trillion over 10 years, paid by a proposed wealth tax.

Student debt is one of like 1.25 trillion problems right now. Is free college the priority?

It’s worth remembering that federal land-grant universities were first created in the midst of the Civil War— not exactly a chill time in our history. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed a visionary piece of legislation championing accessible higher education for all—including liberated slaves, in intent though not always in practice—to provide a foundation for tackling the challenges facing the nation.

For nearly a century after federal land-grant colleges were first established, many public institutions were free, or nearly so. During the past three decades, states have slashed their higher ed funding and university administrators have embraced the idea that campuses should be run like businesses. But in the past five years, there’s been a push by cities and states—blue and red alike—to make public and community colleges tuition-free again. Add the fact that two leading presidential contenders are pushing free college and the concept might not be as fringe as you’d think.

Why should we make college free, even for those who can afford it?

Some politicians would rather expand assistance only for low-income students, rather than subsidize a program that could end up benefiting people like Lori Loughlin’s kids.

But means-tested programs tend to be politically vulnerable, attacked by the Right as charity for the poor. Universal programs, on the other hand, are often more popular. To say that things like housing, healthcare and education should be publicly subsidized sends the message that they are good for society as a whole. The pursuit of knowledge shouldn’t be treated like a business—it is the right of every person.

This is part of “The Big Idea,” a monthly series offering brief introductions to progressive theories, policies, tools and strategies that can help us envision a world beyond capitalism. For past In These Times coverage of free college in action, see, "The Fight For Free College Moves to the States," "A Brief Case for Cancelling All Student Loan Debt," "These Students Are Leading a Movement for Free College in the United States," and "Why Can’t College Be Free?"

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The Migrant Agenda

Behind their dastardly plan to enter the country and destroy it from the inside!

#Rewild a quarter of #UK to fight #ClimateCrisis, campaigners urge | #Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/21/rewild-quarter-uk-fight-climate-crisis-campaigners-urge

#Wildlife #Ecology #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

If You Keep Passing These Bills, I’m Just Going to Keep Talking About My Abortion

The men who pass these backdoor bans on abortion have no idea how it works.

The Experts Explain Abortion

Let’s all listen to the true authorities on reproductive rights: some old white men!

Security Advisory: Kernel and Firmware Updates for Intel MDS Vulnerability

https://puri.sm/posts/security-advisory-kernel-and-firmware-updates-for-intel-mds-vulnerability/

The Weapons Industry Lobbyist Advising Joe Biden

Stuart Eizenstat, a long-time player in Democratic politics, is advising Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Eizenstat told Politico he "planned to advise the campaign on foreign policy,” according to journalist Theodoric Meyer, and Eizenstat also confirmed the position via email to In These Times. The former Vice President has made attempts to publicly distance himself from lobbyists, but Eizenstat has worked as both a powerful political adviser and corporate lobbyist, representing weapons sellers and fossil fuel companies to the government.

Eizenstat was chief White House domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter, ambassador to the European Union and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Bill Clinton administration, and Special Adviser on Holocaust Issues during the Barack Obama administration. He has cashed in on this public sector experience with corporate clients. As a lawyer and lobbyist at the firm Covington & Burling, Eizenstat has represented fossil fuel companies Shell, BP and Noble Energy, as well as defense contractors Caterpillar, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Boeing and the notorious private security firm Blackwater.

In March, Eizenstat, alongside his peer group of Washington influence peddlers, spoke at the annual conference organized by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful bipartisan pro-Israel lobbying group. Roughly 18,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to hear pro-Israel talking points from lawmakers, lobbyists and war profiteers. In a pamphlet from AIPAC on its lobbying agenda, attendees were asked to “urge Senators” to support specific bills, including legislation condemning the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “Put Congress on record as opposing the anti-Semitic BDS movement, which threatens U.S. companies and American consumers,” the pamphlet read.

On a panel at the AIPAC conference on March 24, Eizenstat called BDS “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” He said, “The BDS movement’s main threat, in my opinion, is not that it will hamper U.S. investment in Israel. It’s not that it will hamper bilateral trade. It is that it will erode support for Israel by painting Israel as a colonial country, an oppressor, and it will peel away public support in Europe and in the United States.”

Eizenstat added that the anti-BDS legislation “is very careful to say it does not preclude any company, any individual from criticizing Israeli policy. Don’t like the settlements? You can say so. There’s no bar on it. It only bars commercial implementation ... it has nothing to do with free speech.”

Many speakers at AIPAC have uniform talking points, and one of them is criticism of the BDS movement. The narrative that Israel is under attack from all sides has been used to undermine—and criminalize—people concerned about the human rights of Palestinians. At AIPAC in 2016, Biden said, “We will continue to push back against the cause here in the United States for people to boycott, disinvest or sanction Israel.”

The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment from In These Times.

In 2012, Eizenstat lobbied Congress and the Obama administration for Caterpillar on “U.S. government relations regarding a report by the United Nations' Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories,” according to lobbying disclosures. Caterpillar sells bulldozers to Israel that the country uses to kill Palestinians and demolish their homes. At the time, the UN was conducting an investigation into Israeli settlements and voted to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. An independent UN expert called for a boycott on companies profiting from settlements, including Caterpillar.

While Eizenstat did not disclose his Caterpillar work at the recent AIPAC conference, he did mention lobbying for another U.S. company doing business in Israel: Noble Energy, a Texas oil company. In 2011, Eizenstat lobbied on taxes for drilling for natural gas in the Mediterranean, according to lobbying filings.

“One of the great natural gas finds in the world is found off of the Israeli Mediterranean,” he told the AIPAC audience. “And yet, except for Noble, there are very few other American companies that are willing to contest and try to get bids for that implicitly because they’re concerned with the impact that it would have in their doing business with the Arab countries.”

Eizenstat declined to answer follow-up questions from In These Times.

At AIPAC, months after the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Eizenstat baselessly pinned anti-Semitism on Muslims and the left.

Eizenstat described anti-Semitism as “part of the BDS effort,” and also downplayed the threat of white supremacist violence in the U.S. “We live in a dreamland over here," he said. "I mean, okay, we have the Tree of Life synagogue and so forth, but we have nothing like [what] one billion European Jews are facing with 15 million Muslims. A small percentage, but a very hard core who are part of this whole BDS thing are doing this. It’s frightening. It’s really frightening.”

In private emails from 2015 released by WikiLeaks, Eizenstat characterized the BDS movement differently: “Their ability to get supporters on U.S. campuses and in European public opinion and EU foreign ministers (e.g. labeling West Bank products) comes not from anti-Israel or anti-Semitic views, but because of sincere concerns with Israeli settlement policy,” he wrote to Hillary Clinton’s chief foreign policy advisor, Jake Sullivan.

Eizenstat is something of an expert on sanctions—and has used his influence in a variety of scenarios. In 2017, he lobbied for BP on legislation sanctioning Iran, North Korea, and Russia in “support for the export of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.” In 2012, he lobbied for BP on the same issue for an Iran sanctions bill. From 2007 to 2008, he lobbied for Shell on “economic sanctions matters.”

For Raytheon in 2015, Eizenstat lobbied the U.S. on Poland’s missile defense system. In 2010, he represented the private security company formerly called Blackwater, then called Xe, now called Academi, on government contracts. The company was under scrutiny from the Senate over actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two soldiers working for Paravant, a shell company of Blackwater and a Raytheon subcontractor, killed two Afghan civilians in 2009.

Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill wrote in 2010 about the company’s relationship with the government, “What we are seeing clearly is the Obama administration not only using Blackwater in sensitive operations globally, but actively defending the company’s continued existence as a government contractor in good standing.”

Biden's new slogan—“Not You. Not Me. But We."—sounds similar to the Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaign’s slogan: “Not me. Us.” Biden is running in a Democratic field where candidates are being encouraged by activists to avoid corporate cash. His adviser, Eizenstat, a Democratic darling of fossil fuel companies and defense contractors, has made his career doing just the opposite.

Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen

Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, arrived at a market in the Yemeni village of Mastaba on March 28, 2016, to find large craters, destroyed buildings, debris, shredded bits of clothing and small pieces of human bodies. Two weeks earlier, a warplane had bombed the market with two guided missiles. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report says the missiles hit around noon on March 15, killing 97 civilians, including 25 children.

“When the first strike came, the world was full of blood,” Mohammed Yehia Muzayid, a market cleaner, told HRW. “People were all in pieces; their limbs were everywhere. People went flying.” As Muzayid rushed in, he was hit in the face by shrapnel from the second bomb. “There wasn’t more than five minutes between the first and second strike,” he said. “People were taking the injured out, and it hit the wounded and killed them. A plane was circling overhead.”

Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s richest countries, has been bombing Yemen, the fifth-poorest nation in the world, since 2015—with support from the United States. Their mission is to topple the Houthis, an armed political movement that overthrew Yemen’s president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a Saudi ally, in February 2015. Saudi Arabia (a Sunni monarchy with an oppressed Shiite minority) feared that the Houthi movement in Yemen (who are Zaydis, a Shiite sect) was acting as an arm of its regional foe, Iran, in an effort to take power right across its southern border. While the Houthis have never been controlled by Iran, Iran delivers arms to the movement.

Under President Barack Obama’s administration and, now, President Donald Trump’s, the United States has put its military might behind the Saudi-led coalition, waging a war without congressional authorization. That war has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, destroyed or damaged more than half of Yemen’s health facilities, killed more than 8,350 civilians, injured another 9,500 civilians, displaced 3.3 million people, and created a humanitarian disaster that threatens the lives of millions as cholera and famine spread through the country.

U.S. arms merchants, however, have grown rich. Fragments of the bombs were documented by journalists and HRW with help from Mastaba villagers. An HRW munitions expert determined the bombs were 2,000-pound MK-84s, manufactured by General Dynamics. Based in Falls Church, Va., General Dynamics is the world’s sixth most profitable arms manufacturer. One of the bombs used a satellite guidance kit from Chicago-based Boeing, the world’s second-most profitable weapons company. The other bomb had a Paveway guidance system, made by either Raytheon of Waltham, Mass., the third-largest arms company in the world, or Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., the world’s top weapons contractor. An In These Times analysis found that in the past decade, the State Department has approved at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts for these four companies.

The war in Yemen has been particularly lucrative for General Dynamics, Boeing and Raytheon, which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi weapons deals. All three corporations have highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their reports to shareholders. Since the war began in March 2015, General Dynamics’ stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon’s from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing’s from about $150 to $360.

Lockheed Martin declined to comment for this story. A spokesman for Boeing said the company follows “guidance from the United States government,” while Raytheon replied, “You will need to contact the U.S. government.” General Dynamics did not respond to inquiries. The State Department declined to comment on the record.

The weapons contractors are correct on one point: They’re working hand-in-glove with the State Department. By law, the department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs must approve any arms sales by U.S. companies to foreign governments. U.S. law also prohibits sales to countries that indiscriminately kill civilians, as the Saudi-led military coalition bombing Yemen

did in the Mastaba strike and many other documented cases. But ending sales to Saudi Arabia would cost the U.S. arms industry its biggest global customer, and to do so, Congress must cross an industry that pours millions into the campaigns of lawmakers of both parties.

THE CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL

Saudi coalition spokesperson Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri told the press that the Mastaba market bombing targeted a gathering of Houthi fighters. But because the attack was indiscriminate, in that it hit both civilians and a military target, and disproportionate, in that the 97 civilian deaths would outweigh any expected military advantage, HRW charged that the missile strikes violated international law.

According to an In These Times analysis of reports by HRW and the Yemeni group Mwatana for Human Rights, the Saudi-led coalition (including the United Arab Emirates [UAE], a Saudi ally that is also bombing Yemen) has used U.S. weapons to kill at least 434 people and injure at least 1,004 in attacks that overwhelmingly include civilians and civilian targets.

“Most of the weapons that we have found and been able to identify in strikes that appear unlawful have been U.S. weapons,” Motaparthy says. “Factories have been hit. Farmlands have been hit with cluster bombs. Not only have they killed civilians, but they have also destroyed livelihoods and contributed to a dire humanitarian situation.”

“The [U.S. government is] now on notice that there’s a high likelihood these weapons could be used in strikes that violate the laws of war,” Motaparthy says. “They can no longer say the Saudis are targeting accurately, that they have done their utmost to avoid civilian casualties.”

According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the United States may not authorize arms exports to governments that consistently engage in “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 stipulates that exported weapons may only be used for a country’s defense.

“When a country uses U.S.-origin weapons for other than legitimate self-defense purposes, the administration must suspend further sales, unless it issues a certification to Congress that there’s an overwhelming national security need,” says Brittany Benowitz, a former defense adviser for former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). “The Trump administration has not done that.”

A HUNDRED-BILLION-DOLLAR CLIENT

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has ordered U.S.-made offensive weapons, surveillance equipment, transportation, parts and training valued at $109.3 billion, according to an In These Times analysis of Pentagon announcements, contracts announced on defense industry websites and arms transfers documented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That arsenal is now being deployed against Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s precision-guided munitions are responsible for the vast majority of deaths documented by human rights groups. In These Times found that, since 2009, Saudi Arabia has ordered more than 27,000 missiles worth at least $1.8 billion from Raytheon alone, plus 6,000 guided bombs from Boeing (worth about $332 million) and 1,300 cluster munitions from Rhode Island-based Textron (worth about $641 million).

About $650 million of those Raytheon orders and an estimated $103 million of the Boeing orders came after the Saudi war in Yemen began.

Without these ongoing American-origin weapons transfers, the Saudi coalition’s ability to prosecute its war would wither. “We can stop providing munitions, and they could run out of munitions, and then it would be impossible to keep the war going,” says Jonathan Caverley, associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College and a research scientist at M.I.T.

The warplanes the United States delivers also need steady upkeep. Since the war began, the Saudis have struck deals worth $5.5 billion with war contractors for weapons maintenance, support and training.

“The Saudi military has a very sophisticated, high-tech, capital-intensive military that requires almost constant customer service,” Caverley says. “And so most of the planes would be grounded if Lockheed Martin or Boeing turn off the help line.”

"JUST A PILIING UP OF STUFF"

The U.S.-Saudi relationship has its roots in the 1938 discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, and President Franklin Roosevelt’s energy-for-security deal with the Saudi monarchy. Today, in addition to oil, U.S.-Saudi relations are cemented by a geopolitical alliance against Iran—and by weapons deals.

Arms exports accelerated under Obama. By 2016, his administration had offered to sell $115 billion in weapons and defensive equipment to Saudi Arabia—the most of any administration in history.

Those arms exports “used to be more of a symbolic thing, just piling up the stuff,” says William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

But experts also say selling the Saudis so many arms incentivized the Arab monarchy to use them in devastating fashion.

“If a country, like Saudi Arabia or the UAE, has no commitment to human rights—whether stated or in practice—it’s no wonder that those countries would eventually misuse U.S.-sold weapons by committing war crimes,” says Kate Kizer, the policy director of Win Without War. “The U.S. government should be assuming these weapons of warfare will eventually be used in a conflict, even if one isn’t going on at the moment.”

With the Saudi invasion of Yemen in 2015, the U.S.-Saudi arms pipeline became deadly. Despite reports that U.S. bombs were killing civilians, the Obama administration’s support for the Saudi war drew only muted criticism in Washington.

“It was Obama’s war, and there was a lot of reluctance in Congress to take this on, particularly among Democrats,” says Shireen Al-Adeimi, a Yemeni American activist and professor at Michigan State University. Still, advocates with groups like Win Without War, Just Foreign Policy and the Yemen Peace Project worked to raise public awareness of the war’s horrors, lobbying Congress and the White House.

In May 2016, Obama canceled the delivery of 400 Textron cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. In December 2016, two months after a Saudi airstrike hit a funeral hall and killed more than 100 people in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, he halted the sale of 16,000 precision guided bombs from Raytheon, a deal worth $350 million. Those two decisions accounted for only a fraction of overall arms sales to the Saudis, and the flow of most weapons continued unchecked.

TRUMP'S BIG PHOTO OPP

When Trump took office in January 2017, he made it a priority to strengthen the U.S.-Saudi relationship, which had taken a hit after Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. As part of that bid, Trump reversed Obama’s decision to halt the $350 million Raytheon order.

Trump’s first overseas visit, in May 2017, was to Saudi Arabia, a jaunt to strengthen the alliance against Iran and get Saudi Arabia to sign on to Trump’s plans for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. During that visit, the United States agreed to sell Saudi Arabia $110 billion in American weapons, with an option for a total of $350 billion over the next decade.

Trump boasted his deals would bring 500,000 jobs to the United States, but his own State Department put the figure at tens of thousands.

On May 20, 2017, Trump and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud presided over Boeing’s and Raytheon’s signings of Memorandums of Agreement with Saudi Arabia for future business. Raytheon used the opportunity to open a new division, Raytheon Saudi Arabia. “This strategic partnership is the next step in our over 50-year relationship in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Raytheon CEO Thomas A. Kennedy told shareholders. “Together, we can help build world-class defense and cyber capabilities.”

The ink was barely dry before $500 million of the deal was threatened by a bill, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in May 2017, to block the sale of bombs to Saudi Arabia. In response, Boeing and Raytheon hired lobbying firms to make their case.

In the end, five Democrats—Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Mark Warner (Va.)—broke with their party to ensure arms sales continued, in a 53-47 vote. The five had collectively received tens of thousands in arms industry donations, and would receive another $148,032 in the next election cycle from the PACs and employees of Boeing and Raytheon. Nelson and McCaskill pulled in $44,308 and $57,230, respectively. Weapons firms are aided by a revolving door with the Trump administration. Then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former General Dynamics board member, warned Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that the Rand Paul bill would be a boon for Iran. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan served as a senior vice president of Boeing prior to coming to the Defense Department, though it’s unclear whether he’s championed U.S.-Saudi arms deals.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, in 2018, State Department staff, voicing concerns about the war on Yemen, asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to certify that civilian deaths were being reduced. Their concerns were overridden by the department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, which argued such a move could put billions of dollars in future arms sales in jeopardy. The bureau is led by Charles Faulkner, a former Raytheon lobbyist.

CONGRESS WAKES UP

In October 2018, the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia took center stage in Washington, when Saudi agents murdered and dismembered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their country’s consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi, a Saudi Washington Post columnist, had been critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The murder forced Congress to reckon with Salman, who, as defense minister, had launched the Saudi war on Yemen alongside a vicious crackdown on human rights activists. Suddenly, leading members of Congress, including Graham and other defenders of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, were alarmed at the prospect of selling more arms to Salman.

“The Khashoggi murder really broke the dam on congressional outrage about what the administration’s conduct has been [toward Saudi Arabia],” says Kate Gould, former legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

This spring, the Senate and House passed a bill championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) requiring the United States to stop giving the Saudi coalition intelligence and to prohibit the in-air refueling of Saudi warplanes. It was the first time in U.S. history that both chambers of Congress invoked the War Powers Act, designed to check the president’s war-making powers by requiring congressional authorization to deploy troops overseas. Trump vetoed the bill on April 16.

Arms expert William Hartung says the current political climate makes new deals unlikely: “It’d be very difficult [right now] to push a substantial sale of offensive weapons like bombs. Anything that can be used in the war is probably a non-starter.”

Still, billions of dollars of approved weapons are already in the pipeline. If congressional anger at the Saudis wanes, the arms spigot could reopen.

In February, a bipartisan group of senators—including Graham and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)—introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act of 2019, which would halt future sales of ammunition, tanks, warplanes and bombs, and suspend exports of bombs that had been given a prior green light.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) wants to go even further. In January, he introduced legislation that would ban all weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, as well as maintenance and logistical support. The bill has 29 cosponsors (most of them Democrats).

“The bottom line is: We know for a fact that they’re bombing school buses, bombing weddings, bombing funerals, and innocent people are being murdered,” McGovern told In These Times. “The question now is: Are we going to just issue a press release and say, ‘We’re horrified,’ or is there going to be a consequence?”

McGovern says that if a measure like his is not passed, “other authoritarian regimes around the world will say, ‘Hey, we can do whatever the hell we want.’”

To pass such bills, Congress members will have to muscle past the arms industry. In Lockheed Martin’s 2018 annual report, the company warned, “Discussions in Congress may result in sanctions on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” For Jehan Hakim of the Yemeni Alliance Committee, the ongoing war comes down to the influence of money in Washington.

“We talk to family back home [in Yemen] and the question they ask is, ‘Why? Why is the U.S. supporting the Saudi coalition?’” Hakim says. “Profiteering is put before the lives of humans.”

Nashwa Bawab and Marco Cartolano contributed research and fact-checking.

This investigation was supported by the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting. 

Spot the Differences!

Where does life begin?

Spot the Differences!

Where does life begin?

#GMAFIA 😆
Very nice word to refer to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Apple

From @todd at #LibrePlanet presentation on " The future of computing and why you should care"

Watch: https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-future-of-computing-and-why-you-should-care/

China wants us to forget the horrors of Tiananmen as it rewrites its history | Louisa Lim and Ilaria Maria Sala | Opinion | The Guardian https://prismo.xyz/posts/c69e42ff-8ac8-4dc3-b50d-ac88012455cb