Wyoming Governor
May Day 1971: Daniel Ellsberg on Joining Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn at Historic Antiwar Direct Action
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the 1971 May Day protests, when tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., and brought much of the capital to a standstill through acts of civil disobedience. The mass demonstrations terrified the Nixon administration, and police would arrest over 12,000 people — the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who attended the May Day protests, says it was part of a wave of popular discontent about the war that mobilized millions. “There was a movement of young people who felt that what was happening in the world … was wrong, had to change, and they were ready to risk their careers and their lives to try to change it. And we need that right now,” Ellsberg says. He recently spoke with Amy Goodman at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers. We play excerpts from that conversation, which also included National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot
What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.
But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.
Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.
One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”
Is There a Case for Legalizing Heroin?
In 2013, the Columbia psychologist and drug-addiction researcher Carl Hart published a book that was a specific kind of success: it made him into a public character. The book, “High Price,” is in part a memoir of Hart’s adolescence in a poor Miami neighborhood, documenting the arrival of cocaine there in the eighties. Two cousins, whom as a child he’d looked up to, are exiled from their mother’s house for using cocaine, move into a shed in her back yard, and steal her washer and dryer to pay for drugs. The narrative of Hart’s ascent, to the Air Force, graduate school in neuroscience, and, eventually, Ivy League tenure, is interspersed with evidence from his career as an addiction researcher, in which he spent years paying volunteers to use drugs in a controlled hospital setting and observing the results. Hart argues that the violence and despair that defined the crack epidemic had more to do with the social conditions of Black America than they did with the physical pull of drugs. The book begins with his father beating his mother with a hammer after drinking. Hart’s view is that the attack was not about alcohol. “As we now know from experience with alcohol, drinking itself isn’t a problem for most people who do it,” Hart wrote. “The same is true of illegal drugs, even those we have learned to fear, like heroin and crack cocaine.”
CENSORED: Toensing, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and diGenova, former U.S. Attorney & Special Counsel | Video: 9 Minutes 38 Seconds
Toensing’s resume includes Chief Counsel of the Senate intelligence committee, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and lawyer for whistleblowers on government misconduct.
Joe diGenova served as Special Counsel to the House of Representatives, Chief Counsel to the Senate Rules Committee, and former United States attorney for the District of Columbia. He also was Independent Counsel investigating the improper search of then-candidate Bill Clinton’s passport file by the George H. W. Bush administration. And in 1997, he was Special Counsel investigating the Teamsters Union.
“Over the years, the ABA puts out all sorts of statements about do not condemn lawyers because they’re representing people at Guantanamo Base who are terrorists. This is in the great tradition of American lawyers representing the most despised defendants, because under our Constitution, even the worst person is entitled to a quality defense. But that doesn’t apply to lawyers who represent Donald Trump or support Donald Trump or come out and speak on his behalf.” ~ Joe diGenova speaking to Sharyl Attkisson, the embodiment of Girl Power in journalism.
Are fully vaccinated liberals afraid to remove their masks because they’ll look like Republicans?
There might finally be an answer to what many believe is inexplicably weird and contradictory mask-wearing guidance from the CDC: Liberals are afraid to remove their masks in case it might make them look like Republicans.
The report from the DCist “overheard of the week” column alleges that two masked women were walking in downtown Washington D.C discussing the recent update to the CDC guidance when one apparently said, “I guess I’m vaccinated so I don’t have to wear a mask outside but… I really don’t want people to think I’m a Republican.”
Earlier this week, the CDC announced updates to their face veiling guidelines, which are alleged to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The new guidelines say vaccinated individuals can forgo the face mask when they are outside unless they are in crowds of people.
Stone Says He Took ‘Not a Dime’ From Anyone Seeking Trump Pardon
The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Stone offered to help Joel Greenberg, a former Florida tax collector who’s expected to plead guilty this month, get a pardon from President Donald Trump before he left office. The pardon was never granted.
The report was based on alleged text messages between Stone and Greenberg, as well as an alleged written confession by Greenberg saying that he and Gaetz, a Florida Republican and Trump ally, paid for sex with women as well as with a 17-year-old girl.
Stone, who was himself pardoned by Trump after being being convicted of lying to Congress and tampering with witnesses in an effort to protect the president during the Russia probe, said in a text message late Friday that his communications with Greenberg were “clipped out of context.”
“I told Greenberg he would need a lawyer (I am not a lawyer) and that he should be prepared to wire a $250,000 retainer to the right lawyer if he could find one,” Stone said. “I made no effort whatsoever to secure a pardon for Mr. Greenberg and I took not a dime from him or anyone else seeking a pardon.”
To be tracked or not? Apple Is now giving us the choice
By Brian X. Chen, The New York Times Company
If we had a choice, would any of us want to be tracked online for the sake of seeing more relevant digital ads?
We are about to find out.
On Monday, Apple released iOS 14.5, one of its most anticipated software updates for iPhones and iPads in years. It includes App Tracking Transparency, a new privacy tool that could give us more control over how our data is shared.
Here’s how it works: When an app wants to follow our activities to share information with third parties such as advertisers, a window will appear on our Apple device to ask for our permission to do so. If we say no, the app must stop monitoring and sharing our data.
A pop-up window may sound like a minor design tweak, but it has thrown the online advertising industry into upheaval. Most notably, Facebook has gone on the warpath. Last year, the social network created a website and took out full-page ads in newspapers denouncing Apple’s privacy feature as harmful to small businesses.
A big motivator, of course, was that the privacy setting could hurt Facebook’s own business. If we choose not to let Facebook track us, it will be harder for the company to see what we are shopping for or doing inside other apps, which will make it more difficult for brands to target us with ads. (Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has disputed that his company’s business will be hurt by Apple’s policy.)
“This is a huge step in the right direction, if only because it’s making Facebook sweat,” said Gennie Gebhart, a director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights nonprofit.
But, she added, “One big question is: Will it work?”
Gebhart and other privacy experts said Apple’s new feature might not be enough to put an end to shady tracking on iPhones. It could simply push developers and ad-technology firms to find loopholes so they can continue tracking people in different ways, she and others said.
Doctors prescribe more opioids to COVID-19 ‘long haulers,’ raising addiction fears
COVID-19 survivors are at risk from a possible second pandemic of opioid addiction, given the high rate of painkillers being prescribed to these patients, health experts say.
A new study in Nature found alarmingly high rates of opioid use among COVID-19 survivors with lingering symptoms at Veterans Health Administration facilities. About 10% of COVID-19 survivors develop a mysterious condition known as long COVID, struggling with often disabling health problems even six months or longer after a diagnosis.
For every 1,000 long COVID patients who were treated at a Veterans Affairs facility, doctors wrote nine more prescriptions for opioids than they otherwise would have. They also wrote 22 additional prescriptions for benzodiazepines, which include Xanax and other addictive pills used to treat anxiety.
Although previous studies have found many COVID-19 survivors — also known as long haulers — experience persistent health problems, the new study is the first to show they’re using more addictive medications, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the lead author.
(READ) FBI releases Seth Rich-related documents | “The records appear to suggest that someone could have paid for his death.”
Courtesy: Democratic National Committee
The FBI has released documents pertaining to the 2016 unsolved murder of Seth Rich, a Democrat National Committee (DNC) worker.
The records appear to suggest that someone could have paid for his death.
There was much speculation after Rich’s murder that he — rather than “Russia” — was the person who had leaked sensitive, internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
Among other things, the documents included emails exposing numerous scandals related to Hillary Clinton. They also showed that the DNC was taking steps that favored Clinton over her challenger, Bernie Sanders.