Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Bosses Are Charged with Breaking the Law in Over 40% of Union Campaigns

Labor unions are more popular than they’ve been in over 15 years. Yet a record-low number of workers belong to them. The gap between the public perception of unions and their actual membership illustrates just how difficult it’s become for workers to organize.

Yes, Trump’s Impeachment Is a Partisan Pursuit—Just As It Should Be

Turn on the news and you’ll likely hear GOP talking heads hammering on about how the impeachment inquiry into President Trump amounts to a “partisan witch hunt.” While some of Trump’s defenders may point to bipartisan support for former President Richard Nixon’s impeachment, that critique misses an important point: impeachment only serves a real function if there is a partisan split.

Without the Republican Party behind him, Trump would likely have been incapable of committing (and covering up) high crimes and misdemeanors, or the suborning of the republic. He would be as isolated as Nixon, who, unlike Trump, had no adoring party behind him to march upon the capital. If there is no partisan conflict, there is no danger. Term limits, or elections, are the tools used to oust a president who has no party behind him. It’s only when we can’t rely on elections—or indeed, be all that sure a majority of voters will defend the republic—that we need to resort to impeachment.   

The real case for impeachment is when there isn’t a bipartisan majority in Congress behind it. If impeachment is bipartisan, it’s beside the point: the republic will survive and elections or term limits will be enough to remove such a weakened president. The function of impeachment is to save the republic from a chief executive who can blow past these limits, because he has a loyal party behind him and so much of the country may well be indifferent as to whether he suborns the republic or not.

To think otherwise is to commit the error of George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley, one of the four constitutional law professors who testified before the House impeachment inquiry (and the one chosen by the GOP). Turley’s argument suggests we can only impeach a President who is willing to behave. More specifically, he argued against impeachment until there is testimony from all the “key witnesses,” namely, the palace guard of Republicans at the top of a party solidly behind Trump. It’s disingenuous to say that Republican appointees to the bench, more and more of them Trump’s own, will force these witnesses to testify. Even if these judges would enforce the subpoenas to show up, it is even more doubtful they would later override claims of executive privilege—or even get to the issue before Trump is done with a second term (should he win).

By the time the courts did enforce the testimony, if they ever did, there would be much less of a republic left to suborn. What Turley fails to grasp is that the entire Republican Party is behind Trump in flipping the bird at the Constitution and the rule of law. There is no reason Trump’s own appointees—who are all conservatives—will betray a rogue president who has the backing of his party. In effect, Turley’s argument holds that the more Trump can get away with suborning the republic, the more Congress loses the right to impeach him.

Trump is upfront with the voters: he said in 2016 that he would not accept the legitimacy of any election that he lost, promised to use his best effort to put Hillary Clinton in prison and openly called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the aid of his election. And, knowing all of this, people voted for him. Given our cockeyed Electoral College system, you could argue that Trump has a “mandate” under the Constitution to suborn the Constitution. Is it proper to impeach Trump for doing what people expected him to do—namely, to subvert the election process in 2020 so that only his election can be deemed “legitimate”? And, as shown by that “perfect” call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the prospect of losing in 2020 has already started to concentrate his mind. He has reason to believe that he has a mandate, or at least permission, from the people to undermine the republic in just the way he said he would in the 2016 campaign.

Of course, in many other countries, Trump would not even be a legitimate president since he lost the popular vote to Clinton by three million votes. He is “legitimate” only because of the Electoral College—but not otherwise under the Constitution’s own democratic norms. That makes impeachment even more defensible, for it means the Constitution, thanks to the Electoral College, includes structural bias in favor of those most likely to overthrow it: candidates like Trump who lose the popular vote and who are therefore most threatened by democratic norms.

What is the case in a democracy for removing Trump when he campaigned to commit high crimes and misdemeanors?

Well, the best case for impeachment is that the Constitution does not allow the will of the people to abandon the rule of the people. Elected leaders must follow the law, and abide by the Constitution—even the president. If they betray their responsibility and abuse their power, these leaders must face repercussions, and elections are not enough to ensure they’re removed from office. After all, most Americans didn’t vote for Trump, not just because he lost the popular vote but also because 100 million people sat the election out—nearly half of all eligible voters. The minority that supported Trump should not protect him from facing judgment under constitutional law.

So it is with impeachment: but it is a terrible judgment on the impeachers. For the impeaching party now defending the Constitution is also culpable for getting us to this state. It was the Democratic Party that lost much of its working-class base to Trump. And it’s that loss that makes Trump as dangerous as he is. Yet Trump’s impeachment would be in the interests of these very voters—because the best hope of the working class is the defense of the republic: it is always government of, by and for the people.   

Amnesty International calls Google and Facebook a threat to human rights. We believe that centralization of power in hands of #GAFAM is indeed extremely dangerous. #privacy #decentralization matter for a free society!
https://gizmodo.com/amnesty-international-google-and-facebook-are-a-threat-1839982963

First identified comet to visit our solar system from another star

Comet 2I/Borisov is a mysterious visitor from the depths of space -- the first identified comet to arrive here from another star. Hubble images capture the comet streaking though our solar system and on its way back to interstellar space. It's only the second interstellar object known to have passed through the solar system.

Deadly 'superbugs' destroyed by molecular drills

Motorized molecules activated by light target and drill through highly antibiotic resistant bacteria and kill them within minutes. The molecules can open bacteria to attack by drugs they previously resisted. The strategy could be applied to bacterial infections or diseases on the skin, in the lungs or in the gastrointestinal tract.

Pretty scary...

Ring camera hacker harasses Mississippi 8-year-old in her bedroom - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/12/she-installed-ring-camera-her-childrens-room-peace-mind-hacker-accessed-it-harassed-her-year-old-daughter/

Trump Just Gave the Israel Lobby What It’s Been Asking For. Here’s Why That’s So Dangerous.

This article first appeared on Electronic Intifada.

Just days after U.S. President Donald Trump spewed vicious anti-Semitic rhetoric, Israel lobby groups are celebrating his executive order taking aim at supporters of Palestinian rights.

Israel and its most extreme defenders are not bothered by the president’s anti-Jewish rhetoric as long as it comes wrapped in unquestioning support for Israel.

Trump’s order, which he signed Wednesday, is evidence of that support. It is also a dangerous escalation of the attack on basic free speech rights.

Initial reporting by The New York Times claimed that the order “will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students.”

Asserting that Jews belong to a separate national grouping has long been a theme of anti-Semitic white supremacist ideology – and it promotes the anti-Jewish smear of “dual loyalty.”

On Wednesday, Jewish Insider published what it says is the text of the actual order.

It is more subtle; it states that “Discrimination against Jews” may give rise to a violation of US civil rights law “when the discrimination is based on an individual’s race, color, or national origin.”

But the core of the order is that it meets the demands of Israel lobby groups who wish to criminalize Palestine solidarity organizing – especially on U.S. college campuses – by conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish bigotry.

It states that it “shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act] against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism.”

There’s nothing wrong with fighting anti-Semitism. Indeed that is necessary. But that’s not the purpose here.

Rather, the president’s order officially adopts language in the so-called State Department definition of anti-Semitism, based on that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

This controversial definition, promoted by Israel and its lobby, includes claims that it is anti-Semitic to say Israel’s foundation is a “racist endeavor” or “applying double standards” to Israel by requiring from it “behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Crucially, the definition claims that “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is anti-Semitic. This does define Jews as a “nation.”

It also means the government could claim that is a form of anti-Semitism to call for a single, democratic state in historic Palestine, in which Jews and Palestinians have equal rights – because Israel would no longer exist as a “Jewish state.”

In other words, the definition conflates bigotry against Jews, on the one hand, with criticism of Israel and its racist state ideology Zionism, on the other.

Even the definition’s lead author, former American Jewish Committee executive Kenneth Stern, strongly opposes efforts to enshrine it in legislation or university rule books, arguing that this would unconstitutionally infringe on free speech.

With this executive order, however, Trump has given the Israel lobby a way to circumvent the legislative process while opening the door for accelerated attacks on Palestinians and those who organize for their rights.

The order states that “the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination … will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.” In other words, mere accusations of anti-Semitism against critics of Israel on campus are likely to result in lengthy inquisitions by the government.

Regardless of the outcome of such investigations, the prospect of being put through such an ordeal by the government is unpalatable to enough people that it will chill free speech and academic freedom.

“A baldfaced attempt to silence the movement”

For years, lobby groups have pushed U.S. politicians to pass legislation effectively defining criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish bigotry – and therefore identifying all Jews with Israel.

Two bills to this effect were hurried through last year only to stall in Congress over First Amendment concerns – and because of significant organizing by student activists and civil rights groups.

For nearly a decade, as Palestine activism on campuses grew, Zionist groups began filing complaints under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

In these complaints, Israel supporters claimed that universities failed to protect Jewish students by not cracking down on Palestine solidarity activism.

The strategy was pioneered by Kenneth Marcus, who led the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, an Israel lobby group unaffiliated with Brandeis University.

The complaints were eventually thrown out by the Obama administration, citing lack of evidence.

However, Marcus is now in charge of the Office for Civil Rights – the body that investigates such complaints.

Last year, he announced that the Department of Education will apply standards that conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Jewish bigotry.

He also re-opened a complaint against Rutgers University that had been thrown out by the US government in 2014.

Marcus has even called for students to be criminally prosecuted for protesting Israel.

Dima Khalidi, director of the civil rights group Palestine Legal, has previously warned that with Marcus leading the Office for Civil Rights, he would “do from the inside of the Department of Education what he has failed to do from the outside.”

On Tuesday, Khalidi called the executive order “a baldfaced attempt to silence the movement for Palestinian rights on college campuses.”

She added that “rather than providing any new protections to Jewish students against the rampant and deadly anti-Semitism of a resurgent white nationalism,” the order “aims to define the contours of what we can say about Palestine and Israel.”

“We won’t abide, and it will be challenged,” Khalidi remarked.

Fear and outrage

On Wednesday, US Congress member Bobby Rush condemned Trump’s move as a way to “stifle the speech of those they [the Trump administration] disagree with.”

The Illinois Democrat added: “What’s worse, is their exploitation of anti-Semitism in order to do so. [Trump] does not care about Jewish safety. Period.”

The Admin. that claims to care so much about free speech on college campuses is now looking to stifle the speech of those they disagree with.
What's worse, is their exploitation of antisemitism in order to do so. @realDonaldTrump does not care about Jewish safety. Period. https://t.co/wKDj0fpnBM

— Bobby L. Rush (@RepBobbyRush) December 11, 2019

Notably, none of the major Democratic presidential candidates – including Bernie Sanders – has so far weighed in on Trump’s executive order.

Students, activists and civil rights defenders expressed outrage and concern, while warning university administrations not to cave in to intimidation.

"Trump has never cared about stopping antisemitism – this Executive Order is about silencing Palestinians and the people who speak up with them.” @AlissaShirahttps://t.co/UgjMUi41fk

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) December 11, 2019

As we respond to Trump's antisemitic attempt to redefine Jews as a "nationality we have to remember this is also directed at shutting down Palestinian student activism on college campuses and protecting the Israeli government from critique. We need to resist this together.

— Rebecca Pierce #BlackShabbat (@aptly_engineerd) December 11, 2019

Anti-BDS groups failed to claim Palestine activism was discriminatory because authorities recognized the difference btwn racism & political speech. Now they're redefining Jewish identity just so they can render that speech as racism. Palestinians are anti-Semites by exec. order. https://t.co/mnlfrC4SYo

— Amjad Iraqi (@aj_iraqi) December 11, 2019

My prediction: This executive order itself will be toothless but universities will be scared or opportunistic enough to clamp down on BDS work themselves. Also, this will fire up the "we're not antisemitic, we just think Jews should be in their own country ��" crowd (ie fascists)

— Tovarisch (@nwbtcw) December 11, 2019

Israel’s supporters, meanwhile, are hailing the move.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, welcomed the order, telling The New York Times that Jewish students are being marginalized on campuses.

He downplayed concerns that the order would re-classify American Jews, though noted that it adopts the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism:

(2/5) I've seen a draft of the EO & I can tell you it:
➡️Protects Jews and other religious minorities from discrimination under Title VI, but does NOT break new ground on identifying Jews as a protected class
➡️Adopts @TheIHRA definition of #antiSemitism

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) December 11, 2019

AIPAC, a leading Israel lobby group, also praised Trump’s order:

We appreciate @realDonaldTrump's decision to give the @usedgov the authority to counter discrimination against Jewish students.
For far too long Jewish students have been targeted, harassed and silenced on campus for supporting the Jewish state.

— AIPAC (@AIPAC) December 11, 2019

Seffi Kogan, an official at the American Jewish Committee, deflected criticism by claiming that it would be entirely appropriate to assert that all Jews are part of a “Jewish nation”:

Fellow Jews:
Let's set aside the first amendment concerns for a moment (though they are important considerations!).
Let's set aside how we feel about the President.
I'm a member of the Jewish nation, aren't you? https://t.co/Czg8PZWW9Q

— Seffi Kogen (@seffikogen) December 11, 2019

And Christians United for Israel – a group whose support for Israel is rooted in a theology that yearns for Jews to be gathered in one place where they will killed in a coming apocalypse – also applauded Trump’s executive order.

Desperation

While civil rights groups and student activists prepare to challenge Trump’s order, it can also be viewed as an indication of the Israel lobby’s desperation.

The legislation that lobby groups hoped to push through Congress has been hampered by relentless resistance.

Students have been at the forefront of Palestinian rights advocacy and expanding the boycott campaign, in spite of sweeping anti-BDS measures passed by state lawmakers and attempts by universities to shut down speech in support of Palestinians.

Activists should not be cowed by threats from university officials, Israel lobby groups or the president. Rather, the executive order and the fight to come validate that the movement for Palestinian rights is a force to be reckoned with.

Thinking about how Trump’s exec order is a direct response to the incredible, principled, strategic, and powerful divestment campaigns that SJP students have been leading on campuses across the country. @NationalSJP and @jvplive students are incredible �� #BDSpic.twitter.com/J1eiGhdyC9

— Maya Edery (@mayaj_30) December 11, 2019

Trump’s exec order is a dangerous move to stifle free speech, but as a founder of two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, I can say that despite the decade-long threat to shut us down, our movement just keeps getting stronger, larger and more diverse. https://t.co/NanBzCUfpp

— Randa MKW (@randawahbe) December 11, 2019

“As a founder of two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters,” tweeted graduate student and activist Randa Wahbe, “I can say that despite the decade-long threat to shut us down, our movement just keeps getting stronger, larger and more diverse.”

Supporting structures of wind turbines contribute to wind farm blockage effect

Much about the aerodynamic effects of larger wind farms remains poorly understood. New work looks to provide more insight in how the structures necessary for wind farms affect air flow. Using a two-scale coupled momentum balance method, researchers theoretically and computationally reconstructed conditions that large wind farms might face in the future, including the dampening effect that comes with spacing turbines close to one another.

Even in Bankruptcy, Coal Companies Can’t Stop Selling Out Workers

After key environmental protections were rolled back by the executive order of President Donald Trump in March 2017—including the Obama-era Clean Power Plan—coal magnate Robert E. Murray cheered the news. “I think it’s wonderful, not just for the United States coal industry, our miners and their families, but it’s wonderful for America,” said Murray, then-CEO of Murray Energy, the largest privately owned coal company in the United States. Murray had aggressively lobbied for the rollbacks, and In These Timespublished photos of his secret meeting, earlier that month, to deliver a four-page rollback wish list to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. It was sealed with a hug between the two.

Murray has portrayed himself as a champion of coal miners against environmentalists. “I live among these people,” he told theGuardian just before Trump signed the order. “These are the people who fought the wars and built our country and they were forgotten by Democrats who had gone to Hollywood characters, liberal elitists and radical environmentalists.”

But Murray Energy’s 2019 bankruptcy filings tell a different story. Authored by Murray’s nephew and new CEO, Robert Moore, they point to other coal companies that “used bankruptcy to reduce debt and lower their cost structures by eliminating cash interest obligations and pension and benefit obligations.” Reneging on workers’ hard-earned pensions and benefits has left competitors “better positioned to compete for volume and pricing in the current market.”

The language suggests Murray Energy intends to follow the example of companies like Westmoreland Mining and Blackjewel, using bankruptcy to evade coal miners’ healthcare and pension costs. In a particularly dastardly case, in 2007, Peabody Coal created Patriot Coal, a doomed-to-fail spinoff company, and dumped 10,000 retirees there; they lost their pensions after Patriot promptly filed for bankruptcy. But these bankrupt companies still manage to make good on their debts to banks and hedge funds.

Gary Campbell, 37, a member of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and worker at the Murray Energy-owned Marion County Coal Company in West Virginia, is scared for fellow workers who have retired. “The retirees are too old to go back to work,” Campbell says. “So what happens when they can’t afford their house payment or car payment or medical bill? They’re being thrown to the curb. It’s horrible to see people treated like this.”

There’s no question that coal workers face an uncertain future, but a phaseout of coal is a necessity: Coal is the highestcarbon-emission fuel source. A 2015 study found that to prevent the worst effects of climate change, the vast majority of fossil fuels—including 92% of U.S. coal reserves—must stay in the ground. That precarity will be felt most by the poor and working class who, unlike Robert E. Murray, won’t be able to retire to a secluded mansion when heat and natural disasters threaten their homes.

The way to champion coal workers is not to save the industry from environmental regulation, as Murray would like us to think, but to ensure a just transition from a fossil fuel economy—something coal companies have no interest in, but environmentalists and labor unions do. The Green New Deal resolution put forward in February 2019 by Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) calls for the United States “to achieve netzero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.” Such a shift could bring coal miners dignified, union jobs in another sector—whether it’s coal cleanup, renewable energy, public transportation, healthcare or another field.

Stanley Sturgill, a retired UMWA coal miner and climate justice activist, advocates a just transition away from fossil fuels as part of a Green New Deal. “As far as a just transition, the only way to look at it is you have to find something equal or better paying than [the jobs] they’ve got right now,” Sturgill says. And it will be workers, not companies, who become the critical leaders in this process.

The just transition can start immediately: Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal, has repeatedly called on climate activists to support the 2019 American Miners Act (AMA), supported by UMWA. It would protect the pensions of more than 100,000 coal miners whose retirement fund was depleted by the 2008 crash and rescue the healthcare of miners whose companies went bankrupt.

The AMA is only a first step. In a just world, a full transition would include not only the dignified union jobs called for by the Green New Deal resolution, but shut down the coal companies and redistribute their assets to workers before they can go bankrupt and abandon their obligations—or further harm the climate.

At the very least, the Robert Murrays of the world should be recognized for what they are: enemies of the working people who, as Campbell puts it, “made them their fortune.” Coal companies treat their workers just as they treat the earth: something to extract value from, then discard.

A Brief History of the American Empire

And what to do next.

Getting Spoiled

The Democrats giving Trump whatever he wants for Christmas.

Choose Your Own Advent-ure

Wow, floss behind every window!

Victory! A new law has forced San Diego to suspend its face recognition program at the end of the year. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/victory-san-diego-suspend-face-recognition-program-cuts-some-ice-access

The EU Just Rolled Out A New Green Deal
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-eu-just-rolled-out-a-new-green-deal-1840372906 #climatechange #climatecrisis

Why Did Democrats Give Trump a Win on NAFTA 2.0?

On Tuesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Democrats had reached a deal with the Trump administration to advance the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), also referred to as “NAFTA 2.0.” In explaining the deal, she said: "There is no question of course that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA."

Punching holes in opaque solar cells turns them transparent

Researchers in Korea have found an effective and inexpensive strategy to transform solar cells from opaque to transparent. Existing transparent solar cells tend to have a reddish hue and lower efficiency, but by punching tiny holes on crystalline silicon wafers, it allows light through without coloring. The holes are then strategically spaced, so the human eye is unable to 'see' the pattern.

The Future Is Calling, and It Says Act Now or We're All Fucked
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-future-is-calling-and-it-says-act-now-or-were-all-1840369289 #climatechange #climatecrisis

Mountain goats' air conditioning is failing, study says

A new study says Glacier National Park's iconic mountain goats are in dire need of 'air conditioning.'