The Digger

Save   A House committee voted Tuesday to end the emergency war powers that Congress gave the presidency after 9/11. Inder Comar says it’s urgent to complete that repeal process.      Special to Consortium News T o any defender of democracy and the rule of law, the threat at hand is plainly existential. A U.S. war with Iran would destroy countless lives and likely constitute an international crime. And it would herald a new phase of America’s wars in which any pretense of peace is abandoned and a militarized economy, society and culture is the open and avowed goal of the state and its political system. To prevent this, the 2001 Authorization  for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, must  be repealed or struck down, as soon as possible. On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee  voted for the repeal  in a move led by  Rep. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF in 2001.  R

"There were several lessons to take from last month’s Spanish elections, some special to Spain, others that resonate continent wide. Since the 28-member European Union is preparing to vote on the makeup of the European Parliament at the end of May, those lessons are relevant. On the surface the outcome seemed pretty straightforward: Spain’s Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) picked up lots of seats—but not enough to form a government—the country’s traditional center-right Popular Party (PP) took a pounding, the ultra-right edged into parliament and the center did well. But Spain’s politics are as complex as the country’s geography, and certainly not as simple as the  New York Time’s  analysis that the outcome was a “strong pro-European Union vote” that will allow Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez “to tackle Spain’s neglected economic challenges.” For starters, the majority did not vote for the EU, but, to the contrary, against the devastation the huge trading bloc has infl

You may also want to check out Caitlin Johnstone's  "Professional Assange Smearers Finally Realize His Fate Is Tied To Theirs,"  in which she says she was "gobsmacked" (love that word) to see Rachel Maddow finally, apparently, figuring out what charging Assange with espionage means to journalism. She notes that    This same pundit was just a couple of months ago not just smearing but outright lying about Assange, deceitfully telling her audience that the new legal rings closing around Assange were about his 2016 publications then instructing viewers not to Google anything about it because they’ll get computer viruses. Caitlin is heartened by Maddow's turnaround, although I must say, with the above example of Maddow's treacheries, her developing narrative seems destined to be a doozie, revelatory of the preposterous twisting of stories common to our media more than much truth - beyond rank self-interest, that is. I guess it's a start, though.