Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Facebook: Just an innocent content platform, promise!
What’s coming up on Sunday Kos:
- Here we go again—Campaign press already obsessing over white working-class voters, by Eric Boehlert
- Sincere question for Mitt Romney: Why did you bother running for Senate if not to stand up to Trump, by Ian Reifowitz
- International Digest: Radical-right Hindu nationalists win landslide victory in Indian elections, by Daily Kos Elections
- The deluge of recent anti-trans policies has one goal: erasing trans people, by Aurora Morris
- Marching with Pride; armed with history, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Is the rise in tornadoes tied to climate change? Scientists aren't sure—yet, by Sher Watts Spooner
- Congress will investigate the unindicted criminal in the White House while also chewing gum, by Frank Vyan Walton
- How do we avert the inevitable plutocrat-driven civil war? by Egberto Willies
- What's behind the abortion bans? White supremacy requires white babies—lots of them, by Susan Grigsby
- America is in a moral decline, by Mark E Andersen
• Bill aims at reducing marijuana production in Oregon: Five years after Oregonians made recreational pot legal, the state is producing far more than lawmakers think is wise. The bill, which passed the state House of Representatives Thursday night and has already passed the Senate, would give the Oregon Liquor Control Commission more leeway to deny new pot-growing licenses based on supply and demand. So much legal pot is on the Oregon market that one estimate says it would take six years to smoke or eat it all at current rates of sale. The bill isn’t just focused on cutting back the growing stockpile but also preventing a diversion of unsold marijuana onto the black market, thus avoiding a crackdown by federal prosecutors. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who intends to sign the bill, said, “The harsh reality is we have too much product on the market.” The AP reports that Oregon has one of the highest supply-demand imbalances among the 10 states that have legalized recreational marijuana since 2012. The liquor commission has issued 1,123 producer licenses since legalization.
MIDDAY TWEET
• International law expert Oona Hathaway at Just Security blows apart John Bolton’s “proxies” rationale for going to war against Iran:
The President’s National Security Advisor John Bolton has long been beating the drums of war with Iran. Those drums are growing louder. In the last month, Bolton has repeatedly threatened that Iran’s support for its “proxies” could bring “a very strong response”—even military force. By threatening military action against Iran in retaliation for the acts of groups it supports, Bolton is trying to frame a war on Iran as a justified—even righteous—act of self-defense even if he cannot prove that Iran itself has participated in any attacks. Such a war would, however, be illegal.
• Meanwhile, the international watchdog agency that monitors such matters says that Iran remains in full compliance with the nuclear accord signed n 2015: Under that multilateral agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran has curtailed its nuclear program in exchange of a lifting of economic sanctions. So far, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency in its latest quarterly report, Iran is in complete compliance with the JCPOA. But the Trump regime has unilaterally withdrawn from the seven-nation agreement unanimously endorsed four years ago by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 2231. The White House has gradually reimposed its old sanctions and added some new ones. In response, Iran announced last month that, come July, it plans to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium beyond what the JCPOA allows. It has already increased its capacity to do that enriching, but only up to the approved 3.67% level. At that level, it can be used in a power plant fuel but not nuclear weapons, which require enrichment in the 90% range. But even how much uranium enriched to that level is limited by the accord.
• Students at San Francisco’s George Washington H.S. unhappy with mural: Titled “The Life of Washington,” the mural painted by Victor Arnautoff has been in the hallways of the high school for 83 years. But perhaps not for much longer. Washington High School’s Reflection and Action Group, an ad-hoc committee formed by students, school employees, local artists, historians, and American Indians from the community, note that the mural “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy [and] oppression.” Two panels in particular are offensive,they say. One shows Washington pointing westward over the dead body of an Indian, face down on the ground. The other shows slaves working the fields of Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon. Because the it “traumatizes students and community members,” the group concluded that “the impact of this mural is greater than its intent ever was.” They want it removed.
• Brookline, Massachusetts, is first city to approve free menstrual products in public restrooms:
The free hygiene products will also go a long way in breaking down the stigma surrounding periods, said Town Meeting member Hadassah Margolis. “Anything men can do, I can do bleeding,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.
The bylaw will take effect on July 1, 2021, giving the town time to fund and install the required dispensary machines. Those machines discourage users from taking many hygiene products at once, although the students said the ultimate goal is to ensure there are products available to those in need.
• U.S. CO2 emissions rose 2.7% last year, the second-highest since 2000: Greenhouse gas emissions overall probably rose between 1.5% and 2.5% in 2018, according to the Rhodium Group. That means U.S. emissions are 10.7% to 11.6% below 2005 levels. This compares with the 17% reduction in GHG emissions that the U.S. has pledged to meet its 2020 Copenhagen Accord target. The large rise in emissions in 2018 comes after years of an overall downward trend. "As other countries weigh decisions about meeting their Paris climate commitments, they are watching the U.S.—the world's largest economy and second-biggest carbon emitter—for signs it will make a real dent [in] emissions," said Hannah Hess, co-author of the analysis. "From a diplomatic and political perspective, this data underscores how difficult meeting the targets will be."
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: "That's not how law works" can now either mean you're dumb, or that there are no laws. Settling it at the ballot box now means defeating gaslighting, Russian interference & unlimited dark money. Plus Irreverent Testimony’s closeup on the CO trifecta.