Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 18/06/2022: GhostBSD 22.06.15, Manjaro 21.3, and New FreeBSD Core Team Elected



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • VideoThe Future Internet - Invidious

        Renewing website domains, paying for web hosting, and having them expire are all going to be a thing of the past. Using IPFS (Inter-planetary File System) is a way to store websites decentralized and without any money. How fast or how slow it will be, is determined by how popular it is with IPFS nodes.

      • HackadayHackaday Podcast 173: EMF Camp Special Edition

        With Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams enjoying some time off, Managing Editor Tom Nardi is flying solo for this special edition of the Hackaday Podcast. Thanks to our roving reporter Jenny List, we’ll be treated to several interviews conducted live from EMF Camp — a European outdoor hacker camp the likes of which those of us in the United States can only dream of. After this special segment, Hackaday contributors Al Williams and Ryan Flowers will stop by to talk about their favorite stories from the week during what may be the longest Quick Hacks on record. There’s a few extra surprises hidden in this week’s program…but if we told you everything, it would ruin the surprise. Listen closely, you never know what (or who) you might hear.

    • Kernel Space

    • Applications

      • Ubuntu HandbookThis App Let You Configure Camera Exposure, White Balance, HDR & More in Linux | UbuntuHandbook

        Has a webcam connected in your Linux PC or laptop? Here’s a graphical tool to configure the camera exposure, white balance, brightness, contrast, power line frequency, gamma, etc.

        It’s cameractrls, a new open-source tool that provides Python CLI and GUI (GTK, TK) to set the Camera controls in Linux. It can set the V4L2 controls and it is extendable with the non standard controls.

        Currently, it has a Logitech extension (Led mode, led frequency), Kiyo Pro extension (HDR, HDR mode, FoV, AF mode, Save), Systemd extension (Save and restore controls with Systemd path+service).

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • TecAdminSetup Selenium with Python and Chrome on Fedora – TecAdmin

        Selenium is a versatile tool, which is widely used for automating browser-based tests. It can be used to automate tests for web applications and web services. Selenium supports a number of programming languages, including Java, C#, Python, and Ruby.

        This makes it possible to write tests in the language that you are most comfortable with. In addition, Selenium has a large user community that provides support and help when needed.

        This tutorial will help you to configure the environment for Selenium with Python and Chrome on Fedora. We will discuss an example written in Python.

      • ID RootHow To Install Draw.io Desktop App on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Draw.io Desktop App on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Draw.io is a cross-platform graph diagramming web application sketching written in HTML5 and JavaScript that is free and open source. The service will allow us to develop drawings, graphics, and more without the need for expensive and heavy software.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Draw.io Desktop App on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

      • Barry KaulerEasyOS: Simple frugal install steps and update fix

        The guys testing updating EasyOS to 4.1 have reported failure at the reboot, where there is a report 'easy'sfs' cannot be found: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=59851#p59851

        So, I am going through the steps of a frugal install to a internal drive partition, version 3.4.7, then I will update it to 4.1.

        I have chosen sda6, which has a ext4 filesystem. Created a folder 'easyos' in it, then copied the three files for version 3.4.7 to it:

      • Make Use OfHow to Update to the Latest Raspberry Pi OS

        Need to update your Raspberry Pi to the latest version of its default operating system, but can't work out how to do it?

        Since Raspbian was replaced by Raspberry Pi OS, things have changed a little.

        Here’s what you need to know about updating the Raspberry Pi OS.

      • Trend OceansHow to Install ImageMagick or Imagick PHP Extension in Linux - TREND OCEANS

        ImageMagick or Imagick, is a popular image editing tool to create, edit, compose, or convert digital images into another format. It supports over 200 formats, including PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, HEIC, SVG, PDF, DPX, EXR, and TIFF.

        It provides various editing tools such as resizing, flipping, mirroring, rotating, distorting, shearing, and transforming images, adjusting image colors, applying multiple special effects, drawing text, lines, polygons, ellipses, and Bézier curves.

        Today, you will learn how to install ImageMagick as an extension for PHP scripts in a few simple steps.

      • Install OTRS Ticketting System on Rocky Linux - kifarunix.com

        Welcome to our tutorial on how to install OTRS ticketting system on Rocky Linux. OTRS, an acronym for Open Source Ticket Request System, is a flexible ticket request and process management system for customer services, Helpdesk, and IT services. OTRS ships with a comprehensive list of features that you can check them on the OTRS feature list page.

      • How to install Terraform on Fedora 36 - NextGenTips

        Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool that provides a consistent CLI workflow to manage hundreds of cloud services. Terraform codifies cloud APIs into declarative configuration files.

        In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to install Terraform on Fedora 36.

        Infrastructure as code (IAC) tools allow you to manage your infrastructure with a configuration file rather than through a graphical interface. IAC allows you to build, change and manage your infrastructure in a safe, consistent, and repeatable way by defining configurations that you can version, reuse and share.

      • How to update EasyOS

        Page created June 18, 2022. Instructions are for EasyOS 4.1 or greater.

        A significant feature of EasyOS is the ease of updating to new versions, and rollback to older versions and snapshots, and roll-forward again.

        Here is how to do an update: on the desktop there is an icon labeled "update"; click on that, and the latest version of EasyOS is downloaded and installed. You then reboot, and that's it, you have updated.

    • Games

      • HackadayDOOM Ported To Sega Naomi Arcade Hardware

        Porting DOOM to new hardware and software platforms is a fun pastime for many in the hacker scene. [DragonMinded] noticed that nobody had ported the game to the Sega Naomi arcade hardware, and set about doing so herself.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • New KDE Goals: submission stage is now open! | Adam Szopa

          I’m super excited to finally announce the start of the submission process for the brand new KDE Goals!

          Starting today, you can submit a new proposal on the workboard and shape the future direction of the KDE community.

          This stage in the process lasts 4 weeks, but don’t wait until the last moment! Submit early, and use the remaining time to listen to feedback, refine and update the proposal. Only the submission with good descriptions will move to the next stage: the community vote.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)GIMP 2.10.32 is on the Microsoft Store!

          Until now, GIMP was only officially distributed for Windows as an installer provided on our download page.

          In particular, the GIMP team never distributed it via the Microsoft Store. This changes today!

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • New Releases

      • LinuxiacManjaro 21.3 Ruah Released with Polished Desktop Environments

        The new Manjaro 21.3 Ruah won’t wow you with novelty. Instead, it’s all about the desktop experience. Here’s what’s new!

        Manjaro is a Linux distribution that has boldly made its way into desktop Linux in recent years, winning the loyalty of a large number of users. Manjaro provides easy use for everyone, solely aimed at Linux desktop users.

        The new Manjaro 21.3 Ruah was released today, still standing on the strong shoulders of Arch Linux and six months after the release of the previous Manjaro 21.2 Qonos.

      • Manjaro 21.3.0 Ruah released! - Releases - Manjaro Linux Forum

        Since we released Qonos end of last year all our developer teams worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it Ruah.

        This release features the final release of Calamares v3.2. Partition module gained more support for LUKS partitions. Users module now has lists of forbidden login- and host-names, to avoid settings that will mess up the install.

      • Tor 0.4.7.8 is ready

        Last night I built and pushed the Tor RPM(s) for 0.4.7.8. This is a security update, so please make sure that you upgrade your relays and bridges.

        You can know more about the Tor's RPM respository at https://support.torproject.org/rpm/

    • BSD

      • GhostBSD 22.06.15 ISO is now available | GhostBSD

        After five months, this new ISO is more than overdue. It contains many bug fixes, security fixes, feature improvements, software updates, and OS updates. For details, see the changelog below.

      • FreeBSDNew FreeBSD Core Team Elected
        Dear FreeBSD Community,
        
        

        The FreeBSD Project is pleased to announce the completion of the 2022 Core Team election. Active committers to the project have elected your Twelfth FreeBSD Core Team.

        Baptiste Daroussin (bapt) Benedict Reuschling (bcr) Ed Maste (emaste) Greg Lehey (grog) John Baldwin (jhb) Li-Wen Hsu (lwhsu) Emmanuel Vadot (manu) Tobias C. Berner (tcberner) Mateusz Piotrowski (0mp)

        Let's extend our gratitude to the outgoing Core Team members for their service over the past two years (in some cases, many more) :

        George V. Neville-Neil (gnn) Hiroki Sato (hrs) Warner Losh (imp) Kyle Evans (kevans) Mark Johnston (markj) Scott Long (scottl) Sean Chittenden (seanc)

        The Core Team would also like to thank Allan Jude (allanjude) for running a flawless election.

        To read about the responsibilities of the Core Team, refer to https://www.freebsd.org/administration.html#t-core

        Regards,

        Moin (bofh), Core Team Secretary
    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Make Use OfClosed Source vs. Open Source Hardware Drivers: Why It Matters

        Computer device drivers are what enable your operating system to tell the hardware inside your computer and the peripherals that you've plugged in what to do.

        Like apps and operating systems, these hardware drivers can consist of openly available source code hidden behind binary blogs and a lengthy end-user license agreement.

        So, what are the differences between closed and open-source hardware drivers? Furthermore, how do these differences impact you?

      • OpenSource.comHow Wordle inspired me to create a 3D printing wiki the open source way | Opensource.com

        You decide to buy a 3D printer. You do your research, and you settle on an open system that uses resin as its material. You spend a nice chunk of money, and after a few weeks of waiting, it finally arrives.

        You unbox it. It's gorgeous. You do some small assembly, pour in the liquid resin, and you're ready to go. You fire up the software. It asks you to type in the correct parameters for the material. You check the bottle but you can't see any parameters. You check online, but still can't find anything.

        A bit confused, you write an email to the manufacturer, asking if they could point you in the right direction. The manufacturer tells you they also don't know the parameters, but they are pretty sure they exist, and you should try to guess them yourself. Baffled, you start wondering whether this is really what resin printing is like, or if you've been duped by this company.

      • peppe8oAdd an OLED display to Raspberry PI Pico with MicroPython

        OLED displays with Raspberry PI Pico allow a cool way to show your program’s data and present them with a more flexible device

        In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use an I2C OLED display (SSD1306) with Raspberry PI Pico. Please note that, if you have an LCD display, you must refer to my Using I2C LCD display With Raspberry PI Pico and MicroPython tutorial.

      • Raspberry PiCoolest Projects Global 2022: Celebrating young tech creators & creative ideas

        Congratulations to the thousands of creators from 46 countries who participated in Coolest Projects Global 2022. Their projects awed and inspired us. Yesterday STEM advocate and television host Fig O’Reilly helped us celebrate each and every one of these creators in our online event. Check out the gallery to see all the amazing projects.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • blag is now available in Debian | Bastian Venthur's Blog

        Last year, I wrote my own blog-aware static site generator in Python. I called it “blag” – named after the blag of the webcomic xkcd. Now I finally got around packaging- and uploading blag to Debian. It passed the NEW queue and is now part of the distribution.

      • Adding Spaces Horizontal Bar to NeoChat - GSoC'22 post #3

        This is my third post during Google Summer of Code 2022.

        During the first week of coding period, I tried my hands at adding a horizontally scrolling bar on top of room list, which would show user's joined spaces.

        The first ended in failure, because I was used to using setContext() for controlling QML via C++. NeoChat uses a different method of exposing classes though. Tobias helped me understand the method NeoChat uses.

        I gave the thing another try and got some success this time.

        I added a new role in roomlistmodel, named IsSpaceRole. This calls the function isSpace() from neochatroom. The function checks room creation event and determines if a given room is space or not.

      • Perl / Raku

        • Decode Hexdump

          Those who know me personally, are aware that my background is Mathematical as I did Degree in Mathematics Honours in the year 1993-95. During my early days with COBOL and Pascal, I never dealt with Unicode or played with bytes. Even when I moved to C, I was still no where near it. Those with Degree in Computer Science always stay ahead in the understandings of these low level key aspects of programming.

          Fortunately or unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to work with Unicode. Having said, It always was there in the back of my mind, one day I will conquer the battle. Few weeks ago, I had conversation with a senior member of Perl Community with regard to an issue in one of the CPAN module, that I currently maintain. I was pleasantly surprised to see how comfortable he was playing with Unicode and debugging using hexdump. I decided to get hold of it rather than delaying it any further.

  • Leftovers

    • Counter PunchSongs of Oz

      Öz means “self” in Turkish—a fitting label for someone running for political office, since narcissism is generally a prerequisite for candidates. When I lived in Germany I often shopped at a Turkish supermarket called Öz-Gida: “on your own.”€  A wealthy television star who also married into a vast fortune, Dr. Oz is not exactly doing it on his own. He’s getting by—by the narrowest of margins in the Republican primary—with more than a little help from his “friend,” Donald Trump.

      Airbrushing out the floating two dots gives us Oz, which, in the American psyche, gleams with magical possibility, conjuring a fantasy land in which the road is paved with yellow bricks—ersatz gold. But Oz also evokes the charlatan rehabilitated when the truth emerges after the curtain has been pulled back on his fumbling machinations. Even after the revelation of fraud, the fantasy continues:€  Dorothy can be returned home in a hot air balloon to her Kansas home. America can be made great again.

    • Counter PunchHating Kids the American Way

      Why would any parent risk this? Why would any parent eschew vaccines that have saved children’s lives for decades? The unhelpful but accurate response in that people are nuts. More thoughtfully, I’d say that mistrust of science has attained the epidemic proportions of a mass psychosis. Many of those who benightedly believe covid vaccines endanger them more than the virus also doubt the reality of climate change. In fact, to protect their lethal product from righteous outrage at its role in the climate collapse, oil and gas companies deliberately, over decades, cast aspersions on science and thus sowed the poisoned seeds of doubting it.

      And yet…antivaxxers have been around a long time. As long as vaccines have, which takes us back a few centuries to the life-saving arrival of the smallpox shot. What’s different now is that social media amplifies their madness. This does not mean our dysfunctional empire needs an official Censor or Ministry of Truth. That lousy idea only makes things worse. If weirdos want to mouth off on Facebook and make idiots of themselves squawking about how the tetanus vaccine belongs to a pedophile Dem plot to turn children into lizard people, that’s their insane prerogative. Withholding that vaccine, however, shouldn’t be.

    • Counter PunchUS Constitution: Bad Medicine for Children

      Similarly, local authorities allowed dangerous levels of lead to persist in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, and other cities. Lead damages the brain of young children and recently was shown to have contributed to lowered IQs in 170 million Americans who are now adults.

      The constitutions of only a few governments speak of people’s right to health or healthcare. Without offering specifics, the U.S. Constitution mentions a duty to “promote the general welfare.” The Constitution provides for political freedoms, but concentrates on devices aimed at diffusing political power. Examples are checks and balances, federalism, and separation of powers.

    • Counter PunchBuckle Up! The Arctic’s Sizzling

      Record-smashing Arctic temperatures may brighten the outlook for those who thrive, actually enjoy, disaster scenarios, but the great majority of people only get off on disasters in a movie theater, not in the wide open spaces at the top of the world. Even Hollywood itself could never possibly capture the moment, the drama, the heightened level of deep concern of flabbergasted scientists, as temperatures in the Arctic skyrocket.

      What’s happening?

    • cgm and oh god i was so very stupid

      I kept coming across Reddit comments about the "Curly Girl Method" but kind of just ignored it because honestly it sounds like bullshit.

    • Science

      • HackadayNASA Mission Off To Rough Start After Astra Failure

        When Astra’s diminutive Rocket 3.3 lifted off from its pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 12th, everything seemed to be going well. In fact, the mission was progressing exactly to plan right up until the end — the booster’s second stage Aether engine appeared to be operating normally until it abruptly shut down roughly a minute ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, orbital mechanics are nothing if not exacting, and an engine burn that ends a minute early might as well never have happened at all.

      • Discourses of climate delay

        Skeptical Science is a good collection of arguments against many common myths among climate change deniers. Those same old climate change denial myths are still going strong and unfortunately still need to be debunked again and again.

    • Hardware

      • HackadayHacking A New Display Into A Fluke 8050A Multimeter

        Old lab equipment was often built to last, and can give decades of service when treated properly. It’s often so loved that when one part fails, it’s considered well worth repairing rather than replacing with something newer. [Michael] did just that, putting in the work to give his Fluke 8050A multimeter a shiny new display.

      • HackadayWooden You Like To Hear A CNC-Cut Phonograph Record?

        Say what you will about [Thomas Edison], but it’s hard to deny the genius of his self-proclaimed personal favorite invention: the phonograph. Capturing sound as physical patterns on a malleable medium was truly revolutionary, and the basic technology that served as the primary medium of recorded sound for more than a century and built several major industries is still alive and kicking today.

      • Back panel settings



        I know that Donald Norman famously argued against this pattern in The Design of Everyday Things using the example of some stereo (or whatever it was) that looked simple on the outside but hid away some arguably pretty everyday stuff mixed into a complicated array of thingamajigs under a panel.

        His main schtick is that every function should have one widget, a one-to-one mapping. And that’s great for everyday things, but not for systems. And arguably Emacs or a browser or even a VCR is a system. (I think some stereos are systems too.) The VCR I had in my first apt had a wonderful UX with easy&common button and weird power-user buttons on the back. The same pattern that was such a catastrophe on Norman’s stereo ended up being implemented better and worked better on the VCR. (My take is that that stereo had culled too much, i.e. been too trigger happy with what it moved behind the panel, while the VCR did a better job at making the front panel reasonably complete for basic stuff.)

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Counter PunchGrowing Discontent With Beijing's COVID Policies

        The Whack-A-Mole approach to fighting COVID and achieving zero spread is as ridiculous as it is frustrating. In Beijing, certain buildings are put into strict lockdown on the flimsiest of evidence while residents in those less than 10 meters away can go about their business unhindered. This unbending approach is driven by not by health concerns but politics. President Xi Jinping and his backers believe that the defeat of COVID is vital for his reputation and continued leadership. It has caused unnecessary food shortages and financial insecurity for those forced to stay at home for a King Cnut-like policy that cannot succeed.

        Economic growth is taking a battering. If this crisis continues Xi’s coronation, “seizure of the throne” to secure an unprecedented third term at a November congress may not transpire as smoothly as planned. In both the economy and fighting COVID, Xi has concentrated power on himself, and away from the Politburo Standing Committee that allowed some, albeit limited, policy flexibility or at least debate on issues. No marches or demonstrations on the streets but there is unease among the public. For the first time since 1980 Chinese people are experiencing an overly intrusive government demanding mass testing and lockdowns. This is reminiscent of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962).€  That drive to ovetake the steel output of the United Kingdom and establish a purer form of communism than in the Soviet Union led to widespread starvation. The country knows only too well the pitfalls of one man setting the agenda.

      • Common DreamsGroups Tell EPA 'Damning Admissions' on Neonics Should Result in Full Ban

        Advocacy groups on Thursday responded to the Biden administration's new conclusions about how a trio of popular neonicotinoid pesticides threaten endangered species with calls for a total ban on the products.

        "Now that the EPA has completed its analysis, the only question is whether it will muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

      • Common Dreams'Barbaric' System Saddles Over 100 Million in US With Healthcare Debt

        An investigation published Thursday reveals that healthcare debt is "far more pervasive" in the United States than previously known, currently impacting 41% of U.S. adults and more than 100 million people across the country.

        "We've built a healthcare system that is more effective at extracting money from people than caring for them."

    • Security

      • HackadayYour Building’s RFID Access Tags Might Be Really Insecure

        [Gabe Schuyler] had a frustrating problem when it came to getting into his building’s garage. The RFID access system meant he had to remove his gloves while sitting on his motorcycle to fish out the keytag for entry. He decided to whip up a better solution with less fuss.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Counter PunchBoston's Colonial Universities Grab Land for Profit, War, and Medical Apartheid

        Universities on Turtle Island, as la paperson€ writes, “are land-grabbing, land-transmogrifying, land-capitalizing machines.” Indigenous land theft, and profits from slavery, enabled these universities to be built in the first place – and they€ still collect profits€ from stolen lands.[1]

        With this accumulated capital, major US universities have become colonial real estate agents. Harvard University, notably, owns€ land all over the world€ – from vineyards in Washington state to farmlands in Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, and€ Romania.[2]€ Harvard’s land-grabbing machine has harmed Indigenous communities,€ poisoning their water and crops€ in Brazil, and€ denying access to burial sites and pasture land€ in South Africa.

      • The NationThe January 6 Hearings Are Mired in an Attempt to Refurbish the GOP Brand

        The congressional hearings into the January 6, 2021, aborted coup continue to offer the drama of a meticulous reconstruction of a crime—but the tenor of the proceedings has radically changed. While the first hearings last Thursday ran on prime time and reached a large audience of more than 20 million, the subsequent hearings have aired during the workday and are geared toward hard-core political insiders. The star of the first hearing was Officer Caroline Edwards, who offered a gripping and dramatic account of the violence she witnessed in the assault on the Capitol.

      • The NationThe US and Europe Aren’t Interested in Diplomacy

        Can you even remember when it began? Doesn’t it seem like forever? And the timing—if forever can even be said to have timing—has been little short of miraculous (if, by miraculous, you mean catastrophic beyond measure). No, I’m not talking about the January 6 attack on the Capitol and everything that led up to and followed it, including the ongoing televised hearings. I’m talking about the war in Ukraine. You know, the story that for weeks ate the news alive, that every major TV network sent their top people, even anchors, to cover, and that now just grinds along somewhere on the distant edge of our newsfeeds and consciousness.

      • Democracy NowTrump’s Lawyer John Eastman Asked for Pardon After Giving Illegal Advice to Overturn Election

        During Thursday’s third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann described in recorded testimony his call with John Eastman, the lawyer advising former President Trump on the plan to overturn the 2020 election. The call took place on January 7, one day after the deadly insurrection. “He started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal. And I said to him, 'Are you out of your F—ing mind?' Right? I said, 'I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: orderly transition. … I don't want to hear any other F—ing words coming out of your mouth no matter what, other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me,'” said Herschmann. Eastman later emailed Rudy Giuliani and requested that he be included on a list of potential recipients of a presidential pardon. Eastman's email stated, “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works.”

      • Democracy Now“Hang Mike Pence!”: Jan. 6 Hearing Shows Trump Targeted VP, Knew Plan to Overturn Vote Was Illegal

        We air highlights from the third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which revealed that President Trump pressured Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 election results even though he knew it was illegal. The hearing included testimony from Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, who said the plan’s main architect, attorney John Eastman, actively admitted his strategy violated the law, and yet continued anyway. Right-wing legal expert Michael Luttig advised Pence against following Trump’s orders, calling Trump and his supporters a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”

      • Counter PunchWelcome to a Science-Fiction Planet

        Noam Chomsky: He accepted a gentleman’s agreement, which is not that uncommon in diplomacy. Shake-of-the-hand. Furthermore, having it on paper would have made no difference whatsoever. Treaties that are on paper are torn up all the time. What matters is good faith. And in fact, H.W. Bush, the first Bush, did honor the agreement explicitly. He even moved toward instituting a partnership in peace, which would accommodate the countries of Eurasia. NATO wouldn’t be disbanded but would be marginalized. Countries like Tajikistan, for example, could join without formally being part of NATO. And Gorbachev approved of that. It would have been a step toward creating what he called a common European home with no military alliances.

        Clinton in his first couple of years also adhered to it. What the specialists say is that by about 1994, Clinton started to, as they put it, talk from both sides of his mouth. To the Russians he was saying: Yes, we’re going to adhere to the agreement. To the Polish community in the United States and other ethnic minorities, he was saying: Don’t worry, we’ll incorporate you within NATO. By about 1996-97, Clinton said this pretty explicitly to his friend Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whom he had helped win the 1996 election. He told Yeltsin: Don’t push too hard on this NATO business. We’re going to expand but I need it because of the ethnic vote in the United States.

      • Counter PunchLetter From Crimea: Of Pushkin, Pasternak and Putin

        On my last full day in Moscow I planned to spend the morning with Alexander Pushkin and the afternoon with Boris Pasternak—well, if not with them personally, at least in museums dedicated to their writing lives. Pushkin lived at the beginning of the 19th century—he was Russia’s Lord Byron, if you will—and Pasternak, who wrote Dr. Zhivago, lived in the late 20th century. What interested me about both men—in the age of Putin, when dissent is criminalized—is that they managed to survive tsar and commissar banishment and exile and still make their voices heard.

        Pushkin: Russia’s Byron

      • Counter PunchThe Nuclear Weapons Treaty Ban in the Footsteps of 1982’s Million-Person March

        Last Sunday marked the 40th€ anniversary of the June 12, 1982 million-person march in New York City for a “freeze” on nuclear weapons building, followed two days later by a mass nonviolent action at the consular offices of nuclear weapons states. Some 1,700 people, myself included,€ were arrested€ as we sat in the street blockading the nuclear-armed consulates, confronted by horse-mounted cops literally chomping at the bit while we nervously stared up at the menacing police singing We Shall Not be Moved.

        We were moved out of the street that day in 1982, but the movement wasn’t deterred. We’ve pushed on for decades in spite of ridicule, harassment, and imprisonment, seeing to the slashing of the U.S. nuclear arsenal from over 60,000 in those days, to today’s approximately 5,000 — an amount still grotesque enough to incinerate and contaminate most of the living beings on Earth.

      • Common DreamsAmid 'Heightened' Fears of Nuclear War, Dem Lawmakers Urge US to Join Arms Summit

        Amid the looming threat of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, a group of U.S. congressional Democrats on Friday urged the Biden administration to send delegates to a key upcoming nuclear disarmament summit in Austria.

        In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—the four co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group—urged the State Department to send senior officials to participate in the 2022 Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference, which is set to begin in Vienna next week.

      • Counter PunchShould The Left Support Biden in Ukraine?

        Matthew Duss is a leading figure 0n the American political left. However, the left is fragmented, and so we have to qualify this and say he is an important voice in one part of the left—the “connected” left. He is a foreign policy advisor to the independent Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders is allied with the Democratic Party, which gives Duss some access to the foreign policy debate inside that party. This can be considered a good thing. We certainly need as many “connected” progressive voices as we can get.

        It is also true that progressives, among others, can come to conclusions that are swayed by their environment (in this case the Democratic Party) and thus not be as objective as they should be. Also, in times of struggle, keeping to a clear and analytical mind is hard for all of us. Duss faces this problem on the issue of Ukraine.

      • Counter PunchPortents of War

        I don’t know why I am so obsessed with the war in Ukraine. I have no family or friends there and I’d be hard pressed to name a single Ukrainian I have known. Apart from higher gas prices – which hardly affect me since I don’t drive much – I’m untouched by the conflict. And yet I am very moved, even stricken by it. Is it compassion for those killed, wounded, and made homeless, or something else?

        Empathy runs in the family — to a point. My mother could be cutting, even cruel about her children’s appearance or behavior, but if a bus went off a cliff in India, tears would well-up and she would say “Oy Gut! Those poor things!”, to which I’d reply with unwelcome logic: “Mom, those people are 8,000 miles away and complete strangers! You can’t mourn every death in the world.” She’d look at me, shake her head, cluck her tongue, and repeat, “Poor things.”

      • Counter PunchSummit of the Americas Flops While Workers Summit Exposes Cracks in the Imperial Façade

        Valentín, who had been born in Mexico and spent most of his working life in the United States, had seen the border from both perspectives. He commented about Biden’s summit that although the US is rich in resources, industry, and agriculture, “it wants it all,” which pretty much sums up what imperialism is about.

        Historical debt to Mexico

      • ScheerpostCraig McNamara Reveals the Truth Behind the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

        On this week's "Scheer Intelligence," the author of “Because Our Fathers Lied” lays bare agonizing truths about the America his father helped to shape.

      • MeduzaThe Ukrainian artist admired by Picasso After being saved from a Russian-bombed museum, Maria Prymachenko’s paintings caught the world’s attention — and not for the first time

        On February 26, Russian troops shelled the village of Ivankiv in Ukraine’s Kyiv region, destroying a local museum that contained works by Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. Local residents managed to save 12 paintings, and Prymachenko’s art was soon being admired all over the world; the paintings have gone for hundreds of thousands of dollars at art auctions and become a symbol of Ukraine's fight for peace. Meduza tells the story of Maria Prymachenko and her bright, surreal artwork.

      • MeduzaHundreds of civilians are trapped in the besieged Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk. The assault has drawn comparisons to Azovstal, but this time could be different.

        On June 15, Russian officials announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians from the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk. The corridor led evacuees to the city of Svatove, which is on the territory of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LNR). Russia’s Defense Ministry rejected Ukraine’s request to organize an evacuation route to Lysychansk, which is under Ukrainian control.

      • Meduza‘A devaluation of human life’: Alexey Sidnev spent 15 years working to improve elder care in Russia. Then an anti-war statement cost him his job.

        Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, Alexey Sidnev, the founder of a network of geriatric centers called Senior Group, took a stand against it: he and a number of other NGO representatives wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin demanding he put a stop to the war. Two months later, Sidnev was fired from his own company. Sidnev is a pioneer of Russian social entrepreneurship; he’s been working since the mid-2000s to reinvent what it means to care for the elderly in Russia. Meduza special correspondent Sasha Sivtsova spoke with Sidnev about Senior Group’s mission, competition from the state, and how the war and pandemic have changed elder care in Russia.

      • Meduza‘In public there are only jingoistic voices’ How Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to divide Putin’s elites

        Nearly four months into Moscow’s all-out war against Ukraine, Russian troops are making relative gains in the Donbas. By all appearances, however, the Kremlin has failed to realize the invasion’s original goals. And peace talks with Kyiv have ground to a halt. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, Russian elites have splintered into three camps — a “peace party,” a “war party,” and a “silent party” that somehow includes heavyweights like Moscow’s mayor and the prime minister. Meduza’s special correspondent Andrey Pertsev reports.

      • Counter PunchThe Case for Stopping the Ukraine-Russia War

        Stopping the war would:

        €· End mounting injuries and deaths in Ukraine of all combatants, noncombatants, the elderly, children and people with disabilities

      • Counter PunchJimmy Carter Wasn't All Bad

        1. Created the Department of Energy. The DOE provided the administration with the bureaucratic chops with which to formulate and implement what could have been a comprehensive, long-term national energy strategy. Had Carter’s aggressive gas mileage standards continued to be pursued by subsequent administrations, we would today—almost 50 years later—be dramatically less dependent on Saudi oil.

        2. Created the Department of Education. Despite howls from anti-government groups who opposed yet another federal agency, the decision to carve out Education from the already over-burdened Department. of Health, Education and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services) was a bold and necessary one.

      • ScheerpostA January 6th Spectacle Won’t Save Democracy

        On the surface, the hearing is a powerful example of democracy in action, but what happened on January 6th and what it means for democracy is hindered by the establishment news media and political …

      • Counter PunchWhy Does the United States Have a Military Base in Ghana?

        In 2021, the research institute of Pratt’s Socialist Movement produced—along with the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research—a€ dossier€ on the French and U.S. military presence in Africa. That dossier—“Defending Our Sovereignty: U.S. Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity”—noted that the United States has now established the€ West Africa Logistics Network€ (WALN) at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana. In 2019, then-U.S. Brigadier General Leonard Kosinski€ said€ that a weekly U.S. flight from Germany to Accra was “basically a bus route.” The WALN is a cooperative security location, which is another name for a U.S. military base.

        Now, four years later after the signing of the defense cooperation agreement, I spoke with Kwesi Pratt and asked him about the state of this deal and the consequences of the presence of the U.S. base on Ghanaian soil. The WALN, Pratt told me, has now taken over one of the three terminals at the airport in Accra, and at this terminal, “hundreds of U.S. soldiers have been seen arriving and leaving. It is suspected that they may be involved in some operational activities in other West African countries and generally across the Sahel.”

      • Counter PunchLeaders of the Americas and the Caribbean Miss Historical Opportunity to Deal Blow to US Imperialism

        On May 5th, Telesur reported that “CARICOM will not attend Summit of the Americas with exclusions”. In the same report, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the US, Ronald Sanders, was quoted as saying, “The Summit of the Americas is not a meeting of the United States, and it cannot decide who is invited and who is not.”

        Unfortunately, behind the scenes there was much wrangling to steer CARICOM off course and ensure that they towed the Master’s line. Some did not even bother to explain their complicity, while others sought to excuse their attendance, claiming that they would use the platform to denounce the US position. However, the exclusion of three nations, and the boycotting of the Summit by six others, rendered the Summit even more ineffectual than previous Summits, and a diplomatic disaster for the Imperial hegemon. Former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, rightly called the Summit a “stillborn” event, stating that “The latest version of the misnamed Summit of the Americas is born dead by the absence of several brother presidents who reject the arbitrary and unilateral exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua by the United States.”What a Shame Anti-imperialist organizations throughout the region were calling for a full boycott. It seemed so clear what had to be done. Although decisive and unified action against the Empire’s ruthless repression alludes us, with so many yard fowls in our midst, this was surely a red line that everyone could agree should not be crossed. Surely, it was clearly understood that the US did not have the authority, as Sanders pointed out, to enforce this type of exclusion, amounting to blatant and unacceptable victimization. It was not a difficult stand to take, even for the yard fowls. It did not require any degree of militancy, since it is simply preposterous that the US should exclude certain nations at its whim. But alas, once again US hegemony and white supremacy had such a grip on the conceptually incarcerated minds of our misleaders that even this crude and blatant disregard for the rights of sovereign nations was to be ignored. The Master tells them to jump and they cry ‘how high’. What a shame.

      • Counter PunchTrump’s Repeated Deceptions

        Fully 74 million Americans voted for a president in 2020 whose attorney general, William P. Barr, testified before the Jan. 6 House committee probing the Capitol mob riot that Trump was “detached from reality” for consistently spreading the lie that he beat Joe Biden, who wound up with seven million more votes than the incumbent.

        Barr and White House and Trump campaign staffers tried many times to tell the president that he lost the election, but he would have none of it, according to their testimony. The unknown: Whether Trump actually believed his ruse because of a warped mental state or trusted from the get-go that his falsified scenario would be believed because of voters’ loyalty to him.

      • Counter PunchOnly in Top Gun Can the Military Solve All of Our Problems

        Meanwhile, a real-life drama is unfolding in Washington around the massive resources we put into the real U.S. military, where the stakes are much different than in the movies.

        The world of€ Top Gun€ is simple: the hero, Maverick, dispatches a€ nameless enemy€ with his fighter jet, and all is well. In the original€ Top Gun, the hero literally rides off into the sunset.

      • Counter PunchCelebrating Juneteenth With Bold New Ideas

        The day became known as “Juneteenth,” a holiday still celebrated today in black communities across the United States.

        Yet more than 150 years after slavery, black wealth still lags centuries behind white wealth.€ A report€ by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found that it would take 228 years for black families to amass the amount of wealth white families already own today.

      • ScheerpostReport: US Secretly Reviews and Approves Many Israeli Airstrikes in Syria

        The latest Israeli airstrikes on Syria disabled the Damascus International Airport

      • ScheerpostMBS and Putin: Why Talk to One and Not the Other?
    • Environment

      • The Revelator14 New Environmental Books to Kickstart Your Summer Reading List
      • The NationWhat Stands Between Us and Environmental Health?
      • The Nation“Handshake Activism” Won’t Defuse the Climate Emergency

        This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration cofounded by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation strengthening coverage of the climate story.

      • Common DreamsClimate Summit Ends in 'Unconscionable' Failure as Rich Nations Turn Backs on Poorest

        As international delegates left Germany Friday following the Bonn Climate Change Conference, climate campaigners called the talks, which lasted 10 days this month, an "utter failure" for neglecting to establish plans to support the Global South in adapting to the planetary crisis—months after developing countries demanded aid at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland.

        "It is unconscionable that developed countries continue to kick the issue of financing for loss and damage down the road—first COP26, now Bonn," said Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, referring to the impacts of the climate crisis which developing nations have already suffered and demanding that the issue get badly-needed attention at upcoming talks.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Wall Street's Climate Promises

        You could be forgiven for thinking that Wall Street has experienced a climate epiphany. Bank of America brags about its environmental credentials; Citigroup's new CEO announces on her first day that achieving net-zero emissions is a top priority. The onslaught has convinced many in even the left-leaning media that Wall Street will lead the way to a better, greener version of capitalism.

      • Counter PunchThe Climate Case for Taxing Wealth
      • Counter PunchRoaming Charges: A River Ran Through It

        Hillsides collapsed. Culverts crumpled. Bridges were shorn from their abutments, twisted and heaved into the river. It ate the northern loop road, swallowing a huge chunk between the Gardiner Arch and Mammoth Hot Springs–a road I’ve driven maybe 75 times. Large sections are gone now, chunks of asphalt tumbling toward Livingston. Bankside houses slid into the raging waters. € Water mains ruptured. Sewer pipes broke. Treatment plants inundated. The 100-year floodplain was swamped from Gardiner to Billings, whisking away Chevys, sheds and black angus at 82,000 cubic feet per second.

        They called it a 1000-year flood. It will probably happen four more times in the next 50 years. At Billings, the river was rushing at 20,000 cubic feet per second faster than it had ever flowed before. The river, unbridled by dams, asserted itself, demonstrated in real, terrifying time the consequences of climate change–deep system changes that are already at work and defy mitigation. The pugilistic, wolf-trapping, bear-baiting Governor of Montana was vacationing in Tuscany. No one really wanted him to come back.

      • Energy

        • DeSmogBusiness Secretary Rejects Climate Denier’s Bid to Revive Fracking

          The UK government has rejected a petition by a climate science denier to overturn the country’s ban on fracking.€ 

          The news will come as a set-back to the campaign being waged by politicians, commentators and pressure groups to restart the controversial technology .

        • DeSmogSupermarkets Urged to End Russian Diesel Sales and Stop ‘Pumping for Putin’

          British supermarkets are facing criticism for continuing to sell Russian diesel at their petrol stations almost four months after the invasion of Ukraine began.€ 

          Campaigners have plastered at least 4,000 “Pumping for Putin” stickers on petrol pumps to raise awareness and urge the retailers to end their trade in Russian oil, according to organisers.

        • DeSmogFirst Nations Are ‘The Magic Sauce’ for Getting Gas Projects Built, Says LNG Insider

          Efforts by oil and gas companies to build massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on B.C.’s west coast have faced prohibitively high costs, scathing critiques from climate activists, and fierce opposition from some Indigenous communities.€ 

          But LNG producers have a strategy for navigating those barriers: make First Nations the public face of support for new fossil fuel infrastructure.€ 

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Pro PublicaSyndicated Conservation Easements: The Tax Scam That Won’t Die

          For the past six years, government officials have tried ever harder to kill a type of tax avoidance scheme that the Internal Revenue Service has branded “abusive” and among “the worst of the worst tax scams.” The IRS has pursued tens of thousands of audits and warned of hefty penalties facing anyone who exploits it. The Justice Department has targeted top promoters of what it calls “fraudulent” deals with criminal charges and civil lawsuits, yielding several guilty pleas and a civil settlement. In Congress, Democrats and Republicans have united to sponsor legislation to abolish the practice.

          But the industry has fought back with a coterie of lobbyists, including a onetime member of Congress long viewed as a liberal lion, Henry Waxman. The battle shows how even on those rare occasions when both parties agree to take action, well-funded interests can frustrate a solution.

    • Finance

      • Common Dreams'We Won't Be Silent or Unseen Anymore': Poor People's Campaign to Lead DC Assembly

        The Poor People's Campaign plans to hold a "generationally transformative and disruptive gathering of poor and low-wealth people, state leaders, faith communities, moral allies, unions, and partnering organizations" in the U.S. capital on Saturday, June 18.

        "The time has come for us to have a Third Reconstruction."

      • Counter PunchBreaking Even in the Gig Economy

        An average gallon of gas in the US now costs over $5, and the cost of food has risen dramatically as well.€  Plane tickets, as well as the fees charged by rental car agencies in much of the world, have doubled or tripled in price.€  The cost of housing — whether buying or renting — has risen at a far higher rate than anything.€  These are all regular stories in the news.

        The impact of these more recent developments on the cost of traveling in particular seem to warrant a little revisit to the topic of the current state of the gig economy, for that classic little subset of the gig economy known as touring performers.€  It occurred to me how much things have changed at this point when I realized, without having consciously made any decisions, that my orientation towards booking the next tour had changed dramatically from what it was even just a few years ago.

      • The NationWhy Canceling Student Debt Should Be a Universal Benefit

        Two major student debt stories have hit the headlines in recent days. First, the Department of Education announced that it is canceling $5.8 billion in loans held by 560,000 former students of Corinthian Colleges, Inc, a for-profit college chain that lied to and defrauded low-income students. Second, news outlets reported that President Biden is close to announcing a plan to cancel $10,000 in student loans for individual borrowers to address the $1.7 trillion crisis. This relief will likely be means tested—offered only to those earning less than $150,000 per year. This piece was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

      • ScheerpostIf Poverty Is a Moral Issue, Then the U.S. Is Bankrupt

        The Poor People’s Campaign, ahead of its June 18 gathering, is calling out the false pro-corporate rhetoric on poverty, wages, and inflation. Causes of inflation.

      • Counter PunchHow Our Consumption is Killing Poor Kids in Los Angeles

        “Last fall, ports around the world were congested due to disruption caused by the pandemic, so we brought together port operators, shipping companies, and labor to ease the bottlenecks,” said Biden to a beleaguered group of port workers. “And as a result, over the holidays last, 97 percent of all the packages were delivered on time and on shelves when you went Christmas shopping. Remember, we weren’t going to have anything on those shelves. You all did it.”

        Various issues at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for 40% of all goods imported into the United States, mounted during the pandemic. The finger-waving was intense. Port workers blamed shipping companies and truckers, truckers blamed the ports, and the government and shipping companies blamed the supply chain itself. Ships were unable to unload their cargo, some anchored off the coast of Long Beach and Orange County for months on end. Blame aside, at its core, the mess was the consequence of a marketplace that is fully dependent on foreign imports to survive.

      • Counter PunchKeeping Workers Poor is Bad for Business

        But we don’t just get unfairness when a boss can grab more in a year than a worker could make in over six centuries. We get bungling and inefficient businesses.

        Management science has been clear on this point for generations, ever since the days of the late Peter Drucker.

      • Common DreamsOpinion | Beware of Republicans Trying to Cut Your Social Security Benefits

        Republican politicians are scared to death. They seek to create a smoke-filled room to provide political cover. Of what issue are they so terrified? Social Security.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Counter PunchWhere is the Governor?

        His staff is tight lipped, talk of his personal security, really? Does he need such security in Europe or Africa? Not likely. His team tries to covey that he is in contact, but the reality is he has left the people in these communities trying to grasp with a Governor who is a no-show to a disaster of nature’s making, that has some homeless, broke and scared.

        If I were to guess I would say the Governor was somewhere that was not easy to come back from, say in Africa, out trying to kill another trophy animal. Something endangered or part of a life trophy list like an elephant of giraffe.

      • FAIRA Socialist in WaPo’s Suburbs

        After Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the country’s third-most powerful democratic socialist may be a former elementary school teacher you might never have heard of.

      • The NationWhat Makes Bill de Blasio Run… for Congress?

        The 109th mayor of New York City sits in a souvenir T-shirt and running shorts, grinning over a salad bowl. No nervous aides or police flank him. He excuses himself briefly from the Park Slope café to fetch his phone charger.

      • Pro PublicaFacebook, Twitter, TikTok Failing to Take Down Dangerous “Ballot Mule” Wanted Poster Memes

        The dummied-up flyer bore the hallmarks of a real WANTED poster. A grainy photo of a woman outside an election office in the suburbs of Atlanta stamped with the word “WANTED.” An image of a sheriff’s badge and the phone number for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. The implication was clear: The woman was being sought by the local sheriff for voter fraud.

        The flyer was fake, and though the sheriff’s office eventually called it out, the false poster went viral, amassing tens of thousands of shares, views and threatening comments on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok and raising fears that harm could come to the unidentified woman.

      • The NationDemocrats Can Break the “Midterm Curse”

        Conventional wisdom holds that Democrats are doomed to defeat in this year’s midterm elections. It is an article of faith that the party that controls the White House automatically loses seats in the next election, so much so that members of the Biden administration are already hiring lawyers in anticipation of needing to fend off investigations by a Republican-led Congress. But such an outcome is not a foreordained law of nature, and Democrats have previously defied the odds—most notably in 1998. The lessons from that contest offer valuable insight about how to maintain Democratic control of the House of Representatives this year.

      • Counter PunchWill CNN Put Trump Back in the White House?

        There is no doubt that inflation is a real problem. Higher prices for gas, food, rent, and other items has taken a big bite out of many families’ paychecks. It certainly warrants serious attention from CNN and the rest of the media.

        But inflation is not the whole story of the economy. We also have an unemployment rate that is near 50-year low. That is a really big deal, because the vast majority of families work for most of their income.

      • ScheerpostGlenn Greenwald : Joe Biden’s Submissive — and Highly Revealing — Embrace of Saudi Despots

        Biden's immediate abandonment of his 2020 vow to turn the Saudis into "pariahs," and his increasing support for the regime, shows the core deceit of U.S. propaganda.

      • FAIRHelen Zia on Vincent Chin Legacy, Alec Karakatsanis on Chesa Boudin Recall
      • Telex (Hungary)“The great powers should not try to solve their historical sins with some ridiculous kneeling” – Hungarian State Secretary for Religious and Ethnic Relations
      • ScheerpostU.S. Senate – From Partisan (GOP) Swamp to a Bipartisan Graveyard for Democracy

        Since January 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed 412 bills (See:€ Congress.gov) and sent them to the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate hasn’t acted. “What?” you s…

      • Counter PunchWatergate's Golden Anniversary

        In the turbulent months that followed the break-in, it was Sussman who guided Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they pursued the facts, Sussman who edited their copy. He thought he would be their co-author on the eventual book, but they excluded him when they got their contract for All the President’s Men. Sussman was also excluded from the movie, and did not hide his resentment. According to the€ Times€ obit by Richard Sandomir, Sussman told an interviewer in 2007€ € that he had not read All the President’s Men, adding, ‘I don’t have anything good to say about either one of them.'”

        Over the years Barry Sussman was undoubtedly told by well-meaning friends that hating Woodward and Bernstein was “eating him up,” that he should put his resentment aside and “move on” and “not be consumed by negativity” and so forth. But Sussman didn’t seek the healing power of forgiveness, and there he was, on his way out the door, flipping off the men who burned him.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Pro PublicaA Sheriff’s Captain Called Our Investigation an “Entertaining Piece of Fiction.” An Inspector General Disagrees.

        Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies disproportionately contact, cite and arrest Black students in the Antelope Valley, according to a new report by the county Inspector General’s Office. And those students are also disproportionately suspended and expelled at higher rates than other racial groups, the report said.

        The analysis was spurred by a yearlong investigation into allegations of racial discrimination in Antelope Valley high schools by LAist and ProPublica. Reviewing data for the 2018-19 school year, our investigation found that Black teenagers accounted for 60% of deputy contacts in Lancaster high schools, although they made up only about 20% of the enrollment in those schools.

      • Scheerpost‘Absolutely Terrifying’: Criminal Defense Attorneys Warn About Impacts of Roe Reversal

        The head of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said exposing people to new criminal penalties for abortions “opens up the floodgates to overcriminalization and mass incarcer…

      • TechdirtMichigan Starts Dismantling Its Forfeiture Reforms To Make It Easier To Steal Cash From People At Airports

        I guess it’s time to pay get robbed by the piper. The state of Michigan has periodically enacted forfeiture reforms, often in response to bad press or lawsuit losses.

      • Counter PunchA Response to Jezebel by Leaders of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights

        She cites so many misleading and misinformed points, it is difficult to know where to start, so we’ll start at the very bottom, where we believe the core problem emanates.

        The article’s final line conveys extreme hopelessness, as reflected in its declaration that “the cards have already been played, and Roe is about to tumble.” Had we not known that this article was written by a feminist for a feminist publication, we might have thought it was written by an extreme anti-abortion activist. What is the benefit of making such a discouraging claim, unless to dampen the intentions of all pro-abortion activists, encouraging them to step back, sit down, and do nothing to try to stop The Supreme Court from overturning Roe without a fight? Is that what she really wants?

      • Counter PunchChildren Raised by Same Sex Parents are Thriving

        Proponents argued that the available research did not support such a claim, and that any differences in child outcomes could be due to discrimination against same-sex parents. At the time of the Obergefell decision, rigorous quantitative research on sexual and gender minority parenting was relatively sparse and mostly limited to small nonprobability samples. Since then, researchers have made significant advances largely due to the growing availability of high quality data from nationally representative household surveys and national population registers.

        This new generation of research consistently shows that children raised by same-sex parents do at least as well as children raised by different-sex parents. In her review of research on sexual- and gender-minority families conducted between 2010 and 2020, Corrine Reczek concluded that “studies using new nationally representative population-based survey data … consistently [show] that children in same-sex households experience similar health, behavioral, and educational outcomes compared to children in different-sex households.”

      • DeSmogCanada Steps Up Surveillance of Indigenous Peoples To Push Fossil Fuel Pipelines Forward

        Canadian police and security forces have intensified their surveillance and harassment of Indigenous people in recent months in an effort to clear the way for the construction of two long-distance oil and gas pipelines in British Columbia, earning the condemnation of international human rights observers.€ 

        “The Governments of Canada and of the Province of British Columbia have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders and peaceful protesters to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en Nations from their traditional lands,” the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) wrote in an April 29 letter.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Tv shows, TPB/Swearnet, And struggles with CGI

        Ive been entertaining doing a one off audio log. Just 5 minutes of me introducing myself and talking about a subject. It would be neat to try and convince some other capsuleers to do the same. "The Voices Of Gemini".

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Common DreamsWTO Deal on Vaccine Patents Decried as a 'Sham' Dictated by Rich Nations, Big Pharma

          The World Trade Organization's 12th Ministerial Conference ended Friday with an agreement on patent rights that campaigners said would do virtually nothing to address vast global inequities in coronavirus vaccine and treatment access, a failure they attributed to relentless obstruction by rich countries and the pharmaceutical industry.

          Reached after marathon negotiations, the narrow deal clarifies governments' ability to use compulsory licensing to ramp up vaccine production without the consent of patent-holding pharmaceutical companies. The agreement also temporarily eases restrictions on the export of vaccines produced under compulsory licenses.

        • FAIR‘A Handful of Billionaire Companies Have Monopoly Control Over Life-Saving Medicines’

          Janine Jackson interviewed Lori Wallach about vaccine equity for the June 10, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

      • Trademarks

        • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer)Biden Administration tries to claim “trademark infringement” to shut down parody of racist border patrol incident. – BaronHK's Rants

          United States Government tries to claim “trademark infringement” to shut down parody of racist border patrol incident.

          The Biden Administration would very much like you to forget that the incident in which the Border Patrol very “heroically” and in a “life saving” and “professional manner”, hog-tied black people from horseback happened.

          They are claiming that a “challenge coin” that parodies the incident is unlawful because of “trademarked brands” owned by the United States federal government.

      • Copyrights

        • EFFCopyright "Small Claims" Quasi-Court Opens. Here's Why Many Defendants Will Opt Out.

          Even if this were a perfect process, there is bound to be confusion when a whole new regime for demanding money springs up. And the rules surrounding the CCB are far from perfect, so we want to hear from people who are hauled before the CCB. If you feel you’ve been wronged by the CCB process, please email info@eff.org and let us know.

          The Copyright Office calls the CCB a “voluntary” system. Copyright holders can choose to bring infringement cases in the CCB as an alternative to federal court. And those accused of infringement (called “respondents” here, rather than defendants) can opt out of a CCB proceeding by filing forms within a 60-day window. If a respondent opts out, the CCB proceeding goes no further, and the rightsholder can choose whether or not to file an infringement suit in federal court. But if the accused party doesn’t opt out in time, they become bound by the decisions of the CCB. Those decisions mostly can’t be appealed, even if they get the law wrong.

          Although cases will vary, we think most knowledgeable parties will choose to opt out of the CCB process—again “knowledgeable.” The concern about this system mostly hurting regular users, website owners, and small businesses that don’t have staff who have been watching the CCB unfold cannot be understated. Every reason a knowledgeable party might decide to opt out is also a complicated legal issue that the average person should not be expected to know.

        • EFFOur Digital Lives Rest on a Robust, Flexible, and Stable Fair Use Regime

          In other words, as the digital world has grown, so has the reach of copyright protections. At the same time, copyright and related laws have changed: terms have expanded, limits (like registration) have shrunk, and new rules shape what you can do with your stuff if that stuff happens to come loaded with software. Some of those rules have had unintended consequences: a law meant to prevent piracy also prevents you from fixing your own car, using generic printer ink, or adapting your e-reader for your visual impairment. And a law meant to encourage innovation is routinely abused to remove critical commentary and new creativity.

          In the age of copyright creep, fair use, which allows the use of copyrighted material without permission or payment in certain circumstances, is more vital than ever. A robust and flexible fair use doctrine allows us to make use of a copyrighted work to make new points, critiques, or commentary. It allows libraries to preserve and share our cultural heritage. It gives us more freedom to repair and remake. € It gives users the tools they need to fight back, in keeping with its core purpose—to ensure that copyright fosters, rather than inhibits, creative expression

          The Supreme Court has an opportunity to ensure that the doctrine continues to do that essential work, in a case called Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith. At issue in the case is a series of prints by Andy Warhol, which adapt and recontextualize a photograph of the musician Prince. While the case itself doesn’t involve a digital work, its central issue is a fair use analysis by the Second Circuit that gets fair use and transformative works fundamentally wrong. First, it assumes that two works in a similar medium will share the same overarching purpose. Second, it holds that if a secondary use doesn’t obviously comment on the primary work, then a court cannot look to the artist’s asserted intent or even the impression reasonable third parties, such as critics, might draw. Third, it holds that, to be fair, the secondary use must be so fundamentally different that it should not recognizably derive from and retain essential elements of the original work.

        • EFFEFF Warns Another Court About the Dangers of Broad Site-Blocking Orders

          The brief, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, defends Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based global cloud services provider.

          United King Film Distribution - a movie, television, sports and news content producer and provider - sued the creators of Israel.tv, which had streamed content on which United King held copyrights. After the people behind Israel.tv failed to appear in court, United King won a shockingly broad injunction not only against them but also claiming to bind hundreds, maybe thousands of intermediaries, including nearly every Internet service provider in the US, domain name registrars, web designers, shippers, advertising networks, payment processors, banks, and content delivery networks.

          United King then sought to enforce that injunction against CDN/reverse proxy service Cloudflare, demanding that Cloudflare be held in contempt of court for refusing to block the streaming site and stop it from ever appearing again.



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