Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Law enforcement searches of genealogy databases impact millions of Americans. What the sale of GEDMatch to a company with ties to the FBI means for its 1.3 million users—and for the 60% of white Americans who share DNA with those users—remains to be seen. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/genetic-genealogy-company-gedmatch-acquired-company-ties-fbi-law-enforcement-why

We Need a Hollywood President

Climate climate change could cause human extinction by 2050. What would the president do if he or she were in a Hollywood action thriller?

Mayor Pete’s Mysterious Past

Even if he wasn’t doing anything evil at McKinsey & Co, can we trust anyone who worked there at all?

Our main takeaways from today's hearing:

☑️ There’s no such thing as an unhackable phone.

☑️ Lawful access to encrypted phones would take us back to the bad old days.

☑️ End-to-end encryption is here to stay. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-committee-wants-everyone-know-its-concerned-about-encryption

While Sanders Pledges To Vote Against Trump’s Massive War Budget, Warren Is Silent

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only 2020 presidential hopeful who has pledged to vote against—and loudly denounced—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020, a $738 billion military spending bill that would mark a $22 billion increase over last year. The other frontrunner in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is tasked with negotiating the contents of the bill, but has so far remained silent on how she will vote. None of the other Democratic presidential candidates in Congress—Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)—have indicated their voting intention, either.

The initial House version of the NDAA included certain restrictions on how military spending could be used, including measures prohibiting the allocation of funds to an unauthorized war with Iran and stopping U.S. military support for the war on Yemen. But a new compromise bill, released Monday, strips these out. While the compromise offers some concessions, such as paid parental leave for some federal workers, peace campaigners characterize it as a win for the Right. The House and Senate are expected to vote as soon as this week on the bill, which includes authorization for Trump’s proposed “space force” as part of the compromise.

Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, an antiwar organization, tells In These Times the bill is dangerous, failing to rein in the military in any meaningful way. “This NDAA does nothing to end our role in the horrific war in Yemen, doesn't explicitly defund unauthorized war with Iran, doesn't repeal the Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force, and among many other policies that ratchet up the new Cold War with Russia and China, doesn't ban dangerous low-yield nukes that will contribute to a new arms race."

Just Foreign Policy is part of a coalition of antiwar organizations that is contacting lawmakers in the House and Senate, asking them to vote no on the bill.

So far, few have publicly pledged to vote no on the legislation. On December 9, Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) released a statement rejecting the NDAA as a bill of “astonishing moral cowardice.” The statement declares, “Congress should have used this National Defense Authorization Act to stop our endless wars. Instead, this bill does nothing to rein in out-of-control military spending."

“Every member of Congress should vote against this measure,” the statement continues. “There is no pressing reason for Congress to shower Trump, his Saudi friends, and the Pentagon contractors of the military-industrial complex with this $738-billion taxpayer giveaway right now.”

Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) have also pledged to vote against the bill, according to Sperling, who says Just Foreign Policy spoke directly to their staff.

Several of the presidential candidates, including Warren and Sanders, previously pushed for reforms to the NDAA that are not included in the latest version. But none except Sanders has publicly committed to voting no.

While peace campaigners contacted Warren’s office Tuesday asking her to reject the NDAA, the Massachusetts senator has not released a statement. She voted in favor of the NDAA for 2018, which gave Trump a bigger war budget than he had initially requested, but voted no to the NDAA for 2019. Sanders has rejected every NDAA under Trump.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also has not yet told campaigners how she plans to vote, according to Sperling. Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately return a request for comment.

Sperling said that even if Warren ends up voting against the bill, it’s important for politicians to come out early—and strongly—against the NDAA. "It's not only important to vote the right way, but to come out with a strong statement and show leadership early. Members of Congress are looking for guidance from the major national political leaders, and sitting on the sideline can send the signal that defeating endless war is not a priority."

Warren did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Centrists Don’t Want “Party Unity”—They Want to Defend the Wealthy

As the Democratic caucuses and primaries hurtle ever closer, Democratic centrists ranging from billionaire Michael Bloomberg to former President Barack Obama are waging a frantic war to stifle more progressive candidates, i.e. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

In the name of “unifying” to defeat Trump, this centrist deception falsely insists that only a moderate can bring voters together and win in 2020. This argument may sound reasonable at first glance—but it contradicts facts on the ground showing strong support for both progressive candidates and policies.

Polling shows wavering and declining support for would-be centrist standard-bearer Joe Biden, throwing into question his claims of “electability.” And while Pete Buttigieg is polling strongly in Iowa, his numbers among African-American voters—a key Democratic voting bloc—remain persistently low.

While polls are volatile and ever-shifting, some longstanding patterns are clear. Foremost, several leading Democratic candidates—including Bernie Sanders, by substantial margins—consistently beat President Trump by varying degrees, belying the centrist canard that only a moderate can win. Meanwhile, the combined polling of Sanders and Warren consistently demonstrates strong support for a progressive nominee rather than a centrist one. (While Sanders is running on a policy agenda to the left of Warren, they’re both decidedly on the progressive wing.)

Ironically, establishment Democrats insist a progressive nominee can’t win, yet the clear viability of a progressive victory in the primaries and the general election appears to be precisely what they fear.

On issue after issue, from taxing the rich to universal healthcare and free college, a majority of Democratic voters sides with the progressive wing of the party over centrist naysayers. What’s more, analysis by Gabriel Lenz, a political scientist at the University of California, shows that voters are less likely to be scared off by terms like “socialism” if they generally agree with or approve of a candidate. And as Bernie Sanders remains one of the most popular politicians in the country, boasting high approval ratings, there’s ample reason to believe that his left-wing politics would not be the liability many centrists claim.

In the latest move to stop Democrats from embracing a progressive challenge to corporate power, Bloomberg has leaped into the race, plunking down an initial $30 million nationwide ad buy.

Sanders quickly blasted Bloomberg’s multi-million-dollar entry, saying, “We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections. That is why multi-billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election.”

As Common Dreams reports, Sanders’ speechwriter David Sirota noted that "the timing of Bloomberg’s announcement lines up with Sanders’ rise in the polls and a well-reported meeting between the media mogul and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the two wealthiest men in the world alongside Microsoft founder Bill Gates." Sirota added, "Bloomberg began floating the idea of a presidential bid in 2016, just as Bernie was beginning to gain momentum in that race. At the time, Bloomberg disparaged Bernie and his campaign’s challenge to Wall Street."

Obama, who until recently has maintained public neutrality on the Democratic primary, hurled his centrist handwringing into the political sphere, insisting that progressive leaders (read: Sanders and Warren) are pushing the party “too far left.” Politico recently reported that the former president has “said if Sanders held a strong lead in the Democratic primary, he would speak out to prevent him from becoming the nominee.” 

One close adviser to Obama, while refusing to confirm the reports, acknowledged: “The only reason I'm hesitating at all is because, yeah, if Bernie were running away with it, I think maybe we would all have to say something.” The idea that Obama would “intervene” to help prevent a Sanders victory fits a pattern of comments from the former president dismissing progressive candidates or policies as not viable.

The Democratic establishment’s undermining of Bernie Sanders is, of course, nothing new—substantial evidence showed the DNC leadership actively worked to undermine Sanders’ 2016 campaign. This round, establishment Democrats are back at it. In one early salvo, the centrist think tank Center for American Progress published an anti-Sanders video in April criticizing the senator as a “millionaire.”

Clinton loyalist David Brock, a longtime political operative, said he’s had discussions with other operatives about an anti-Sanders campaign and believes it should commence “sooner rather than later,” the New York Times reported last April. In a story depicting centrist moves to stifle Sanders, the Times noted, “His strength on the left gives him a real prospect of winning the Democratic nomination and could make him competitive for the presidency if his economic justice message resonates in the Midwest as much as Mr. Trump’s appeals to hard-edge nationalism did in 2016.”

There is evidence that some Wall Street and corporate powerbrokers who hold sway over the Democratic Party would sit out the 2020 election, or even back Trump to avoid redistributive policies such as the wealth tax. As one senior private equity executive told CNBC anonymously: “You’re in a box because you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, ‘I want to help the party, but [Warren is] going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump.” (While some Wall Street executives singled out Warren, Sanders’ wealth tax would similarly redistribute America’s wealth downward.)   

In truth, the divisive attacks on Sanders and Warren have nothing to do with assuring Democratic unity, or victory. Rather, they serve to defend deeply embedded financial interests and the wealthy donor class on which the mainstream Democratic Party has come to rely. Such wealthy interests are adamantly opposed to the types of policies being advocated by Sanders and Warren—such as Medicare for All and a Green New Deal—that would threaten their concentrated financial and political power.

Both of these supposedly “radical” policies, which centrist candidates routinely denigrate and dismiss, boast robust nationwide support, even across party lines.

More than two-thirds of Americans support Medicare for All, surveys show, while only 20% “outright oppose” this policy. The Green New Deal, meanwhile, registered more than 80% support among voters in 2018.

While many establishment critiques claim Sanders is unelectable because of his unabashedly left agenda, by many measures, he appears more electable than most of the other candidates in the race. Sanders consistently polls better against Trump than everyone but Biden; he consistently raises more money than his opponents and recently shattered campaign records by reaching four million individual contributors and his 2016 performance in key swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin could bode well for a Sanders victory in the general election.

If the Democratic establishment’s goal is defeating Trump and winning the White House, the evidence is clear: a progressive candidate such as Sanders or Warren can absolutely win. There is, in fact, no evidence that only a centrist can.

As longtime political analyst—and former Democratic National Committee member—James Zogby recently observed, “Pundits & Dem operatives continue to insist that Bernie Sanders is too angry, too left, or too whatever to win. They’re dead wrong. He has the right tone & right issues to win a broad coalition. What won’t win is dull-edged centrism that can’t excite or convince voters.”

Say no to the search of your devices! Check out EFF's three-pack of "I Do Not Consent" stickers and share them with friends! https://supporters.eff.org/shop/i-do-not-consent-search-device-sticker-3-pack-0

We are living in an age where everything from clothing to furniture to technology is cheap and disposable. The assumption is that nothing lasts, so one might as well buy the cheapest thing and throw it away when it inevitably breaks. Nowhere is this more true than the phone market, but it's something we want to change with the Librem 5.

https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-longevity-solving-the-problem-of-disposable-technology/

Floral foam adds to microplastic pollution problem

First study to examine the environmental effects of floral foam finds the plastic material, which breaks into tiny pieces, can be eaten by a range of freshwater and marine animals and affect their health.

Hayden explains that Russian, Chinese, and Saudi authorities will also seek exceptional access backdoors.

Proposals to get around encryption, like client-side scanning, open the door to abuses by those authoritarian regimes and other bad actors.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side-scanning-breaks-end-end-encryption

The War of a Lifetime

18+ years and a boatful of lies into our imperial adventure in Afghanistan, and what have we got?

The GOP vs Reality

Nothing is true and everything is possible.

The Democratic Case for Impeaching Trump

Why was the U.S. giving money to Ukraine in the first place?

Climate Change Is Fueling a Farming Boom in Alaska

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—Snow is on the mountains. There’s a nip in the October air. Patches of dirt are freezing. But reminders of the past summer’s heat are poking out of the ground at the tiny Grow North Farm.

The dried stalks are leftovers of what might seem an unlikely Alaska crop: dodo plants, a member of the amaranth family, which produces leafy, collard-like greens and grains in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

These plants were cultivated by a Congolese family that, after three years in Anchorage, wanted to bring a taste of home. The crop was wildly successful during Anchorage’s sweltering summer, during which temperatures hit 90 degrees for the first time on record, says Nick Bachman of Anchorage Community Land Trust, the nonprofit that operates Grow North Farm.

“What we found with the dodo was: Just add water,” Bachman says.

This 28,000-square-foot urban farm is surrounded by a gas station, a strip mall, a middle school and rows of apartments. It was carved from a lot that once held an RV park, a remediation and construction project that took years. The farm, with more than 20 independent growers operating plots, opened this spring.

It is not the only new farm in Alaska.

From 2012 to 2017, the number of farms increased by 30% while total U.S. farms dropped by more than 3%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2017 Census of Agriculture. Alaska’s growth is largely in small farms of 1 to 9 acres—up 73% those same years. The value of farm goods sold directly to consumers doubled from $2.2 million to $4.4 million in that time—still less than almost any other state, but growing fast.

Like much of the country, Alaska is gripped by a local-food movement with a range of benefits, including economic opportunities for immigrants and newly settled refugees. Many of the new arrivals were smallscale farmers in their home countries, Bachman says.

But there is a special force behind Alaska’s farming boomlet: climate change.

Alaska is warming twice as fast as the global rate, and changes in the state are accelerating. Of Alaska’s 10 warmest years since the late 1800s, eight have occurred since 2000, according to the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. That doesn’t include 2019, which has smashed heat records.

As Alaska warms, its growing season has lengthened—in Fairbanks, for example, by 45% since 1900, according to a 2009 study—enabling the cultivation of new crops such as corn, cherries and dodo.

Climate change also makes Alaskan farming more urgent.

In May, the Anchorage city government adopted a climate action plan warning that extreme weather events will delay food imports, on which Alaskans have near-total reliance. The plan encourages urban farming and gardening.

Local farming also reduces carbon footprints. Almost all of the small-scale farmers who use the Grow North site, Bachman says, walk there or use public transit. After harvest, farmers sell from the open-air sales stand at the entrance—no fossil-fuel vehicles required.

The farming trend extends to rural Alaska, where there is a higher Native Alaskan population and traditional wild foods are becoming more difficult to obtain. The overheated waters of western Alaska caused mass die-offs of salmon this year, for example, and thinning ice on the rivers and seas makes hunting far more treacherous. Though agriculture is not generally part of indigenous tradition, farms and gardens are now helping fill the gaps.

Farming does have some Alaska-specific challenges. Ashley Taborsky, of the blog Alaska Urban Hippie, has converted her south Anchorage yard to a miniature farm with fencing to moose-proof her young apple and cherry trees. So far, unlike some Alaskan farmers, she has not had bears successfully raid her chicken coop.

There are also advantages.

Alaska, for now, lacks many of the pests that plague southern farms. Relatively cool temperatures and extended summer daylight stimulate sugar production in root vegetables (Alaska carrots are famous for their sweetness) and, sometimes, immense proportions: a giant cabbage weigh—off is a revered ritual at the Alaska State Fair in the Matanuska Valley town of Palmer, with a world-record 138.25-pound specimen winning in 2012.

Matanuska became Alaska’s farming heartland in the 1930s, thanks to a New Deal program that lured Midwestern farmers north. But the 1970s oil boom, combined with the rise of agribusiness in the lower 48, put the farming sector in a slump. Alaskan farmers struggled to compete with imported, massproduced foods and struggled to resist the temptation to cash in, selling off farmland to accommodate the oil-fueled population influx.

Today, Alaska’s oil production is about a quarter of its 1980s peak.

“If oil is declining, then what’s next?” Bachman says. “I think there is a unique opportunity to allow local foods … to become a larger wedge of the economy.”

Bob Shumaker, owner of Black Bear Farms in Palmer and a former president of the Alaska Farmers Union, hopes agriculture expands with a revived northward migration of farmers.

“Everybody down south who’s too hot—move to Alaska,” he says. “It’s great.” 

A Little Malarkey

Joe Biden tells one of his straightforward tales.

If I Were a Rich Girl

These billionaires are selfish idiots...Nothing at all what I’d be like!

From Victories to Union Militancy, 5 Reasons for Workers to Celebrate This Labor Day

Labor Day often gets short shrift as a worker’s holiday. Marked primarily by sales on patio furniture and mattresses, the day also has a more muddled history than May Day, which stands for internationalism and solidarity among the working class. Labor Day, by contrast, was declared a federal holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland, fresh off his administration’s violent suppression of the Pullman railroad strike.

'Hypocrites': Teens Roast UN Climate Talks, Take Over the Streets
https://earther.gizmodo.com/hypocrites-teens-roast-un-climate-talks-take-over-the-1840271423 #climatechange #climatecrisis

Trump Has Quietly Implemented a Far-Right Takeover of the Courts That Will Last Generations

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rammed through eight of President Donald Trump's lifetime judicial picks in just three days this week, accelerating the far-right court takeover that Vox's David Roberts warned is "absolutely going to hamstring efforts to make the U.S. into a responsible, civilized country, for as long as we live."

The latest slew of confirmations, according to Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur, means that Trump and his Federalist Society allies have now hand-picked "about one in every five American federal judges," or 170 judges total.

"Nearly all are in their 40s or 50s with lifetime appointments and positioned to shape American law for generations," Kapur noted on Twitter. "It gets a tiny fraction of attention compared to other stuff he does but this is the Trump legacy that'll echo for generations after he's gone."

The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed one lifetime judicial nominee Tuesday, five Wednesday, and two Thursday. The rapid confirmation of Trump nominees was made possible by McConnell's decision earlier this year to invoke the so-called "nuclear option," which slashed debate time on judicial nominees from 30 hours to just two.

"We're appalled," the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights tweeted Thursday in response to the latest confirmations.

Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts have warned that these right-wing judges will have the power to shape U.S. law on climate, reproductive rights, and other major areas for decades to come. At a rally in Kentucky last month, McConnell bragged that he and Trump are "changing the federal courts forever."

In addition to being overwhelmingly young and far-right, a number of Trump's judicial appointments have also received a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association. One such judge, Federalist Society member Sarah Pitlyk, was condemned as particularly horrifying by rights groups following her confirmation Wednesday.

"Sarah Pitlyk's confirmation to the district court in Missouri is a dream come true for the anti-choice movement and a profound danger to women and families in the state," Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. "Putting judges like Pitlyk on the bench who will spend their lifetime appointments working to roll back reproductive freedom is further proof that Donald Trump is paying back his debts and then some to the anti-choice movement that got him elected."

In the face of the ongoing right-wing takeover of the federal judiciary, advocacy groups are pressuring 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to explain how they would work to reform the nation's court system in order to enact progressive policy changes.

"Without a meaningful plan for court reform any presidential attempts to make needed change will simply by blocked by the courts," said Emma Janger, co-director of the People's Parity Project, a nationwide network of progressive attorneys and law students.

As Common Dreams reported in October, advocacy group Demand Justice launched a campaign urging Democratic presidential contenders to emphasize the importance of the federal courts and tell the public how they plan to break the right's stranglehold on the judiciary.

"The GOP has hijacked our nation's courts," said Demand Justice, "and voters need to hear plans to fight back."

This story was first posted atCommon Dreams.