Announcing a compelling new short-form video:
On Issue – “Inside the Deep State!
Dear Editor/Broadcaster,
I am pleased to announce that Judicial Watch is now launching an exciting new educational, cutting edge video series I believe many in your audience will find captivating and informative...
And, the first, 4 minute edition is now available HERE!
It’s called On Issue – “Inside the Deep State”…
And it provides vital insights into a topic that grows increasingly salient with every passing day.
Fast-paced and fact-filled “Inside the Deep State,” features JW’s highly respected Director of Investigations, Chris Farrell, laying it all out – in his own captivating and highly informative style.
And he does it all in just under four minutes!
Click here now to watch Inside the Deep State…
And then please feel free to use it however you wish to keep your audience On Issue!
Sincerely,
Carter Clews
OH, WEATHERLY
SHARE NEW SONG FOR
NEW ALBUM
LIPS LIKE OXYGEN
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER
JUNE 27, 2018 - Dallas, TX - Oh, Weatherly have shared "I Think I Want You" the second single and music video off their upcoming album Lips Like Oxygen, out July 27th via Hopeless Records. Fans can watch the single/video on the Hopeless Records YouTube channel: smarturl.it/IThinkIWantYouVisual
Last month the band shared the first single "Here Tonight". They are set to play the Full Sail University Stage at Vans Warped Tour on July 8th in Houston.
Co-produced by Jake Bundrick of Mayday Parade, Lips Like Oxygen is a deeply personal and emotionally revealing debut full-length from Oh, Weatherly. Speaking to the new record, lead singer Blake Roses said, "What this album means to me is more than just music or simply a combination of nice sounding chords."
Following the passing of his father, Blake began channeling his energy and emotions into helping raise his younger sister as well as a budding relationship with his best friend from high school. Following the first Oh, Weatherly tour, Blake's engagement was broken off, thus beginning the process of healing through his music.
"This album is a tribute to the lessons I have learned and to the people who mean/meant most to me," Blake continued. "I do not regret anything I have done in my life and would not take back a single thing. I would not have made it here without these experiences driving me. That being said, I no longer expect anything from anyone but myself."
Lips Like Oxygen is the follow up to Oh, Weatherly's 2017 EP Make You Bright. It is now available for pre-order.
Lips Like Oxygen Track Listing:
1. Here Tonight
2. The Worst Time
3. Chasing California
4. I Think I Want You
5. Burned Out
6. Keep On Listening
7. Dark of the Night
8. Where Have You Been
9. Love and Poetry
10. Soaring
Upcoming Tour Dates:
7/8 - NRG Park - Warped Tour (Full Sail University Stage) - Houston, TX
7/29 - The Prophet Bar - Dallas, TX
Follow Oh, Weatherly:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohweatherly/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ohweatherly
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohweatherly/
=========================================
Chris Farrell: Maxine Waters’ Words are not just Hot Air (VIDEO)
On June 26, Judicial Watch Director of Investigations and Research Chris Farrell appeared on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network to discuss Judicial Watch filing an ethics complaint against Maxine Waters (D-CA).
Tom Fitton: The Cover-ups Here are Obvious
On June 27, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton appeared on “Fox and Friends First” on the Fox News Channel to discuss Peter Strozk testifying in a closed-door hearing and Judicial Watch’s filing of a House ethics complain against Maxine Waters (D-CA).
THE VIEW FROM
T O R R E Y H O U S E
June 2018
An Economy of Quiet
by Jessica Sandrock,
University of Utah graduate in English Literature and lover of Utah's public lands
With a new piece every month, Voices Rising elevates millennial voices through a digital platform to publish diverse forms of storytelling. From poetry and creative nonfiction to song and visual art, we hear from young people grappling with the greatest challenges society faces.
“The large parcel of land [Bears Ears] designated for protection was seen as wasted opportunity. Decreasing protection created opportunity for our economy, which gains through noise—from the blasting of rock to the consistent roar of engines....
This spring I joined a backpacking trip to Bears Ears. We walked along the roads, and as the cars passed by, I didn't envy the convenience of driving to every site. Instead I soaked up those moments in between their passing, where I could breathe the atmosphere of quiet that has surrounded the rocks for longer than our human existence. One evening I heard, for the first time, the fluttering of bat wings. Their chirps were barely louder than our breathing as they echolocated their prey in the unpolluted soundscape. I listened, while trying to permanently etch the shifting colors of the red rock during sunset into my memory.”
by Amy Irvine
Coming November 2018!
Ed Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness turns 50 this fall, and its illustrious, difficult author, still revered in America’s redrock country, is due for both a celebration and a talking to. Amy Irvine is the perfect woman for the job. In Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, Irvine speaks to a man who helped shape the American idea of wilderness, and inspired us to act on its behalf, to resist threats to it. But this iconic author’s ideas are dated—even offensive, to some. And so Irvine speaks to this, helps to make contemporary the white male narrative that is still very much at the heart of today’s wilderness movement—even as it celebrates the lens through which Abbey taught so many to love the wild remains of the nation. From a quiet solitude to a roaring cabal, Ed Abbey has met his match in Amy Irvine.
Amy Irvine is a sixth-generation Utahn and long-time public lands activist. Her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, received the Orion Book Award, the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, and Colorado Book Award. Her essay “Spectral Light,” was a finalist for the Pen Award in Journalism, and her recent essay, “Conflagrations: Motherhood, Madness and a Planet on Fire,” appeared among the 2017 Best American Essays’ list of Notables. Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA Program of Southern New Hampshire University, in the White Mountains of New England.
Help us publish voices for the land | Donate today
We often say we believe in the power of story—it's front and center in our website and drives everything we do as a nonprofit publisher. In the wake of Justice Kennedy's announced retirement, we're reminded that story is ultimately the most potent political tool. We're here to help change the narrative, away from stories of fear and hate towards narratives of fierce hope. Torrey House Press exists to elevate voices speaking for deserts, mountains, prairies, oceans, and the plants and creatures sharing wild beauty with us. It's no small task, and you can help. Buy a book, share a book, make a donation. Help us publish voices for the land.
A bit about Barbara:
Barbara grew up in the small Utah town of Roosevelt. She graduated from Union High School in 2013 and came to Salt Lake to attend the University of Utah. She is currently majoring in English and working as a copy editor for the Daily Utah Chronicle. Barbara is passionate about non-profit work: for the past two years she's volunteered at Literacy Action Center, a nonprofit focused on helping adults learn to read, write, and do simple math. Her interests are fairly broad—rock-climbing, podcasts, opera, anything goes! Last summer she studied abroad in London, and this May spent two weeks traveling in China. Barbara looks forward to learning more about conservation and publishing from Torrey House Press!
A bit about Brooke:
Brooke grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. She holds a degree in environmental policy from Colorado College and recently graduated from the Environmental Humanities Program at the University of Utah. Brooke was with Torrey House Press as the Environmental Humanities Graduate Fellow for two years. She plans to continue exploring the role of storytelling in regional climate justice movements, and will be biking across Alaska this summer collecting personal stories. She feels most at home among the aspens of the Wasatch or the red rock of Southern Utah.
A bit about Regina:
Regina is former councilwoman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and former co-chairwoman of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. She currently works as the Education Director at the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, Colorado. A contributor to Red Rock Stories and Edge of Morning, Regina's insight will be invaluable to Torrey House Press's mission.
June 30: Final day to register with earlybird pricing for the Writing Place: The Animas River Region Writing Workshop with Jonathan P. Thompson, author of River of Lost Souls, and Kirsten Johanna Allen, Publisher and Editor at Torrey House Press. The workshop will be held July 16 at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. Earlybird cost is $75 for adults. Youth workshop for those 18 and under is free.
July 17, 6:00 p.m.: Reading, discussion, and book signing at Rumors Coffee and Tea House (Crested Butte, CO).
August 3, 6:00 p.m.: Reading, discussion, and book signing at Bright Side Bookshop (Flagstaff, AZ)
July 14, 8:00 a.m.: Visit the Torrey House Press table at the Downtown Farmers Market (SLC, UT)
July 29: Tom Fleischner, Edie Dillon, Gwen Heistand, and Sarah Juniper Rabkin will be reading from Nature Love Medicine at the historic Parsons Lodge in Yosemite National Park's beautiful Tuolumne Meadows. Come hear these important words as part of the High Sierra Natural History Celebration. (Yosemite, CA)
JUNE NEWS AND EVENTS
(l-r) People packed Salt Lake's Patagonia outlet on June 12 to hear panelists Alastair Bitsoi, Brooke Larsen, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, and Stephen Trimble discuss their contributions to Red Rock Stories. Margaret Mizushima (moderator), Emily Littlejohn (author of A Season to Lie) and Scott Graham (author of Yosemite Fall) at the June 20 book reading and signing event at BookBar in Denver, CO.
On June 12, the conversation about Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments continued in Salt Lake City's Patagonia outlet. A panel consisting of Red Rock Stories editor Stephen Trimble, climate organizer Brooke Larsen, journalist Alastair Bitsoi, and former councilwoman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk discussed the fight to protect Utah's land. As part of the discussion, each read excerpts from their essays in Red Rock Stories.
In back-to-back events June 20, 21, and 22, author Scott Graham appeared in three different Colorado cities for readings and signings of his newest book, Yosemite Fall (National Park Mystery Series #4). If you have yet to join archaeologist Chuck Bender as he grapples with life-threatening danger and growing into fatherhood, all while in the expansive beauty of our national parks, you can get all of the National Park Mystery Series paperbacks 33% off at the Torrey House Press store when you use the code MYSTERY at checkout. Be prepared to get comfortable—on the edge of your seat!
Yearning for a great read?
Use the code NEWSLETTER to get 20% off your order!
Join the strong stories movement at Torrey House Press. Donate today to keep important books and cutting-edge community conversations coming your way.
After Singapore, Is Iran the Next US Target?
by Mel Gurtov
Predictably, both sides at the Singapore summit are claiming victory. Kim Jong-un, having shared the stage with Donald Trump, can say that North Korea is now recognized de facto as a nuclear-weapon state. Trump can (and did) say that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, though he has already backtracked from that statement with a notification to Congress that uses the North Korean threat to justify continued sanctions. Both men claim to be great negotiators and just great guys—again, as Trump actually did say of Kim. Of course, the reality is that the nuclear issue has not been buried, and the process for bringing about normal relations between the US and North Korea remains to be determined.
Most experts seem to believe that Kim got the better of Trump, mainly because Kim did not deviate from the longstanding North Korean position that it is willing to “denuclearize” provided the US offers security guarantees. Which raises a few questions. Given that the US objective is “complete, irreversible, verifiable denuclearization,” why was Trump willing to agree simply to Kim’s “commitment” to denuclearization? Why did Trump decide to suspend US military exercises in Korea, a gift to both North Korea and China, made even sweeter by his referring to the exercises as “provocative”? Why did Trump fail to go along with John Bolton’s insistence that a denuclearization agreement should cover every aspect of uranium enrichment and plutonium processing, missiles, and chemical and biological weapons? Why, finally, was Trump so lavish in praise of Kim—and so unwilling to condemn a dictatorship whose human rights record is horrendous and amply documented?
The answer to these questions may have as much to do with US policy on Iran as with policy on North Korea.
Iran on Their Minds
Starting well before Trump’s election and continuing thereafter, Israelis targeted him as their ticket to combating Iran. Obama’s bitter relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, his criticisms of Saudi Arabia, and his determination to conclude a nuclear deal with Tehran gave the Israelis reason to hope that they might ally with the Saudis as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in confronting Iran. Personal ties between Israeli officials and Trump’s team, and money from the UAE and Qatar that apparently was funneled into Trump’s campaign, facilitated infiltrating and influencing a very inexperienced new administration. By the time Trump took office, policies favorable to Israel and its Arab neighbors were top priorities.
Prior to the Trump-Kim summit meeting in Singapore, the conventional wisdom was that overturning the Iran deal would make dealing with North Korea much harder for Trump. Iran actually warned the North Koreans not to trust Trump. But as the summit approached I came to a different conclusion: Trump would want to stabilize the North Korea situation—put it on the back burner for a while—in order to prepare for more forcibly confronting Iran. The North Koreans may even have sensed that, and took advantage by pushing for a final statement bereft of details. And Donald Trump, ever on the lookout for a winning photo-op and diversion from domestic problems, was willing to go along. Reportedly, he spent less than 30 minutes in actual negotiation with Kim Jong-un.
What might have been Trump’s calculation? For his own political and personal reasons, protecting Israel and Saudi Arabia is much more important to him and his far-right supporters than protecting South Korea and Japan. As he sees it—judging from remarks during and since his presidential campaign—the South Koreans and the Japanese are in a position to do a great deal more for their security and economy. They should be paying more for US military protection, and South Korea should be preparing for the exit of US troops. Japan and South Korea should also be buying more American weapons and rectifying their trade surpluses with the US. (Until they do, Japan will not be exempted from the US sanctions on Iran that affect oil imports, and South Korea may have to renegotiate the KORUS trade agreement.) Should North Korea begin denuclearizing—which, contrary to Trump’s claim at a June 21 campaign-style rally, has neither begun nor yet been negotiated—Trump insists they contribute all the aid necessary for North Korea’s economic development. If South Korea and Japan were to decide to go nuclear, that would be just fine with Trump: It would enable him to end the US commitment to extended deterrence.
Weakening, if not jettisoning, traditional US alliances has become a central element in the Trump foreign policy. Trump made his priorities clear when, within one week, he turned his back on the G-7 group and personally assailed Canada’s prime minister (supposedly in order not to appear weak at the Singapore Summit) while making promises to Kim Jong-un that left the South Koreans and the Japanese out on a limb. Encouraging Japan to develop a “normal” military role in East Asia and leaving South Korea to find a new comfort zone with North Korea would free Trump to focus on his much higher priority, namely, providing whatever the Israelis and Saudis want to isolate and destabilize Iran. Their priority can be seen in Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, the US decision to drop out of the UN Human Rights Council in protest of “bias” against Israel, US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and support of its intensified and criminal bombing in Yemen, his pretense of having a serious peace plan that would accommodate Palestinian concerns, his siding with Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar, the efforts by his representatives to obtain financial support from the Gulf states for Trump’s election, and Trump’s letter (officially unacknowledged) to Persian Gulf allies demanding that they relieve the US of its financial burden (“$7 trillion,” he said with typical exaggeration) in Syria and Iraq.
The US Threat to Iran
On May 21 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed Iran policy in the comfort of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. One could hear the cheers all the way to Tel Aviv and Riyadh. But just about everywhere else, the speech was widely and properly criticized on several grounds: for not really representing “Plan B” after Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, for not being a strategy at all, for in fact threatening regime change, and for making impossible demands on Iran that could lead to war.
Here are my takeaways from Pompeo’s speech.
The Threat: Very much in the spirit of “maximum pressure” on North Korea, Pompeo declared: “The Iranian regime should know that this is just the beginning. After our sanctions come into full force, it will be battling to keep its economy alive. Iran will be forced to make a choice — either fight to keep its economy off life support at home or keep squandering precious wealth on fights abroad. It will not have the resources to do both.” What Pompeo did not explain is how, in the words of the European Union’s foreign affairs specialist, “walking away from the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear deal] has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of JCPOA. There is no alternative to the JCPOA.”
The Objective, Regime Change: “The West often treats President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif as apart from the regime’s unwise, terrorist and malign behaviors. Yet, Rouhani and Zarif are your elected leaders. Are they not the most responsible for your economic struggles? Are these two not responsible for wasting Iranian lives through the Middle East? It is worth the Iranian people considering.”
The Oversell: “We will ensure freedom of navigation on the waters in the region. We will work to prevent and counteract any Iranian malign cyber activity. We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the world and crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East.” Really? “Dominate the Middle East”? Sounds like a version of the yellow peril argument.
The Impossible Demands: Pompeo listed twelve demands (see at the end) and gave every indication that the list is “all or nothing.” There is no chance Iran will meet any of the demands, which are nonnegotiable. The list amounts to a throwaway designed to rationalize deeper sanctions and a hoped-for disruption of Iran society. Pompeo said the sanctions would be the heaviest in history. Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post (May 21) that “having pulled out of the JCPOA without our allies, it is far from clear why they would cooperate with us on more ambitious undertakings.” In fact, European allies are discussing ways to get around the US sanctions, and Iran’s decision on going nuclear is on hold. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted that the US position is “merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions & failed policies—dictated by corrupt Special Interest—it repeats the same wrong choices and will thus reap the same ill rewards. Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for post-US JCPOA solutions.”
In Conclusion
In a nutshell, Trump is all in when it comes to currying favor with Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They, along with Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, are the real winners in Singapore. The spineless Republicans will mostly hold their noses and say nothing, partly because they belong to the Israeli Lobby and partly because they have learned not to criticize this president no matter how much he sells out the country. Consequently, the opportunity President Obama created with the nuclear deal with Iran to find common ground on other Middle East issues has been squandered. Meantime, Trump will continue dissembling about what he accomplished in Singapore, maintaining that North Korea is dismantling its nuclear and missile establishment so as to pretend the issue is being resolved. There’s big trouble ahead.
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The 12 US Demands:
· Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.
· Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor.
· Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.
· End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.
· Release all US citizens as well as citizens of US partners and allies.
· End support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
· Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization and reintegration of Shia militias.
· End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a peaceful, political settlement in Yemen.
· Withdraw all forces under Iran's command throughout the entirety of Syria.
· End support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region and cease harboring senior al-Qaeda leaders.
· End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps-linked Quds Force's support for terrorists and militant partners around the world.
· End its threatening behavior against its neighbors, many of whom are US allies, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.
--end--
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
