As we continue our effort to keep you up-to-date on how money corrupts American government and politics, as well as other news of the day, we’re is pleased to publish this daily digest compiled by BillMoyers.com’s Michael Winship.
OMG at OPM: Worse than they thought –> Remember last month, when the government said that hackers attacking computers at the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had gotten access to the records of about four million people? That was just for starters. As reported by Wired magazine, an advisory from OPM issued yesterday announced a breach that affected 21.5 million people: “This includes 19.7 million individuals that applied for a background investigation, and 1.8 million non-applicants, predominantly spouses or co-habitants of applicants.” Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are calling for the resignation of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta. UPDATE: On Friday, Archuelta resigned.
Meanwhile, in news from the hackers on our side –> Lauren McCauley at Common Dreams reports on FBI Director James Comey’s testimony at two Senate hearings this week and writes, “Federal law enforcement agencies are seeking ‘backdoor’ access to encrypted email and devices which, privacy advocates and human rights groups warn, threatens to abolish key internet safeguards and an essential human right.” On Thursday, Comey said that the FBI recently had arrested more than 10 ISIS-inspired potential terrorists: “I do believe that our work disrupted efforts to kill people, likely in connection with July 4th.”
Gerrymander this –> The Washington Post: “The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state legislature must redraw at least eight congressional districts… that had been gerrymandered to favor the GOP.” They’ve got 100 days to hold a special session and come up with a new map.
Greece makes an offer –> The New York Times reports that as details emerge, “it appeared the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was capitulating to demands on harsh austerity terms that he urged his countrymen to reject in the referendum last Sunday, like tax increases and various measures to cut the costs of pensions. But Mr. Tsipras sought a three-year bailout loan totaling 53.5 billion euros (about $59 billion) and asked creditors to commit to discussing restructuring the nation’s massive debt.” Read what Nobel Prize economist (and Moyers & Company guest) Joseph Stiglitz has to say in TIME magazine: “Greece needs unconditional humanitarian aid” — from America.
Mother Jones: You Won’t Believe How Much Money Jeb Bush’s Super-PAC Just Raised –> The pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise pulled in an extraordinary $103 million in the first six months of 2015. And this will give you pause: it came from just 9,900 donors.
Fearful symmetry –> On the day South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse lawn, Travis Gettys at Raw Story parallels the nine deaths at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church that led to the flag banning with the 1961 arrest of the Friendship Nine, “… just weeks before the Confederate battle flag was first hoisted.” The young men were sentenced to hard labor at a South Carolina prison farm for trying to integrate a whites-only lunch counter.
But here comes the next battle. The ThinkProgress headline: “Congressional Republicans Still Refuse To Ban the Confederate Flag.” Also: The Washington Post.
Big Oil’s big lies –> Both Juan Cole at his Informed Comment website and Lindsay Abrams at Salon spotlight “Climate Deception Dossiers,” a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) using internal industry memos that lay out a decades-long pattern of deliberate lies and denials. “While none of the documents released by UCS are new,” Abrams writes, “taken together they show that the world’s oil giants… have been fully aware of their contributions to climate change and the danger that can result, and has at the same time been spending tens of millions to convince the public that that’s not at all the case.”
And congratulations to Willie Nelson –> The red-headed stranger will receive this year’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.
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