News Release Archive - 2015

​​CNN reports: “The Obama administration released early Thursday the full text of the highly anticipated Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, kicking off a 90-day period for congressional review. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a 12-nation deal that touches on 40 percent of the global economy.”

SEAN FLYNN, sflynn at wcl.american.edu
Flynn is associate director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law. He said today: “Today’s release of the TPP agreement confirms that its Investor State Dispute Settlement — ISDS — chapter would expand the rights of private companies to challenge limitations and exceptions to copyrights, patents, and other intellectual property rights in unaccountable international arbitration forums. The text contains broader provisions than are being used by Eli Lilly to challenge Canada’s invalidation of patent extensions for new uses of two medicines originally developed in the 1970s. The TPP includes a new footnote, not previously released as part of any other investment chapter and not included in the U.S. model investment text — clarifying that private expropriation actions can be brought to challenge ‘the cancellation or nullification of such [intellectual property] rights,’ as well as ‘exceptions to such rights.’ This expands the range of challenges that can be brought by companies against intellectual property limitations and exceptions.

“Instead of combating the ability to bring cases such as Eli Lilly’s, the TPP’s investment chapter invites them. Any time a national court — including in the U.S. — invalidates a wrongfully granted patent or other intellectual property right, the affected company could appeal that revocation to foreign arbitrators. The new language would also make clear that private companies are empowered by the treaty to challenge limitations and exceptions like the U.S. fair use doctrine, or individual applications of it. Adoption of this set of rules in the largest regional trade agreement of its kind would upset the international intellectual property legal system and should be subject to the most rigorous and open debate in every country where it is being considered.” See: “FAQ on ISDS and Intellectual Property” and “How the Leaked TPP ISDS Chapter Threatens Intellectual Property Limitations and Exceptions.”

KATHRYN JOHNSON, KJohnson at afsc.org, @katjohnsondc
Johnson is the policy impact coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee. She said today: “It’s finally clear why the administration hid its proposals for the Trans Pacific Partnership behind closed doors for so long. This pact puts corporations firmly in the driver’s seat shaping health, environmental and economic policies around the globe.

“The text released this morning clearly demonstrates what we have long feared: The TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions would enable investors from any of the TPP countries to challenge environmental and public health laws, regulations and court decisions in international tribunals that circumvent the U.S. and any other country’s judicial system. Right now, a number of smaller Free Trade Agreements and Bilateral Investment Treaties already grant these powers to transnational corporations — and they are being used to attack clean air rules in Peru, mining laws in El Salvador, a provincial fracking moratorium in Canada and a court decision against the oil giant Chevron in Ecuador, among many other examples. Expanding this system throughout the Pacific Rim would only increase the occurrence of these challenges.

“The ISDS provisions alone are reason to sink the entire TPP deal, but that’s just one of the concessions that the over 600 corporate advisors to the negotiations have inserted that will guarantee corporate profits while harming the rest of us. Under the TPP, U.S. exports of fracked natural gas would automatically be deemed in the public interest, bypassing certain environmental and economic reviews, if going to any of eleven TPP countries throughout the Pacific Rim — including Japan, the world’s largest importer of natural gas. While corporations reap a profit, AFSC’s work around the world has shown us who bears the brunt of the human cost of climate change — the poorest and the most marginalized communities.

“In addition, the TPP is full of language designed to delay the introduction of low-cost generic medications and that enables pharmaceutical companies to challenge members’ public health programs’ cost-saving mechanisms. This threatens to increase health care prices and reduce access to medicine for residents of member countries, once again lining the pockets of the wealthy off the backs of the poor.

“The TPP may benefit some Wall Street executives, but it is a disaster for the environment and for public health and it must be stopped.”

Effects of gerrymandering in FL, MI, OH, PA, VA, WI

DREW SPENCER, dspencer at fairvote.org, @fairvote
Legal director at FairVote, Spencer said today: “Electoral reform played a big role in the 2015 elections this year. Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment requiring that redistricting be done according to certain criteria by a bipartisan commission, and advocates of public financing of campaigns had big wins in Seattle and in Maine. Maine will also have a big push for electoral reform next year, when it will vote on whether to elect all state and congressional offices with ranked choice voting, allowing voters to rank candidates in order of choice, something voters successfully did in municipal elections in six different states this year (California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, Maine, and Massachusetts).”

ADAM SMITH, adam at everyvoice.org, @EveryVoice
Smith is communications director at Every Voice, which just released the statement, “Maine, Seattle Voters Pass Money-In-Politics Reforms to Empower Everyday People,” which states: “Voters in Maine and Seattle approved initiatives Tuesday to raise the voices of ordinary people in the political process and reduce the influence of wealthy special interests. These victories show that states and cities aren’t waiting on a gridlocked Washington, D.C. to fix our broken campaign finance system and are instead taking matters into their own hands. …

“In Maine, by a vote of 55-45, voters approved an initiative to strengthen the state’s landmark Clean Elections system that will strengthen disclosure and enforcement requirements and restore the small-donor public financing system, so candidates can run competitive campaigns for office. Mainers voted to preserve the nation’s most blue-collar legislature and ensure that farmers, waitresses, and factory workers are still able to run and win elected office without having to rely on lobbyists and wealthy special interests. …

“Across the country in Seattle, where they have all-mail ballots, early results show Initiative 122 will easily cruise to victory. Voters there said ‘Yes’ to creating a first-in-the-nation system that will democratize city elections by giving every voter a chance to invest in political campaigns through a ‘Democracy Voucher’ program. The initiative also limits contributions for city contractors, closes the revolving door, and increases transparency and accountability.”

REESE ERLICH, ReeseErlich2 at hotmail.com, @ReeseErlich
Freelance foreign correspondent Erlich is just back from the Mideast. His piece “How Putin Is Wooing America’s Closest Syrian Allies: Now Obama wants to help the Kurds? Russia’s already there,” was just published by Politico and states: “Stung by Vladimir Putin’s military intervention, Obama last week foreswore his previous refusal to put boots on the ground, announcing he’s sending a small contingent of U.S. special operations commandos to help America’s close allies, the Syrian Kurdish rebels. But to scant notice, the Kurds are receiving increased support from Russia as well — and are about to open an office in Moscow — in what has become a high-stakes poker game for influence in the region.

“While previously the Kurds sought closer ties only with the U.S., now ‘we welcome a strategic relationship with both the U.S. and Russia,’ Sherzad Yazidi, a representative of the Rojava administration living in Sulimaniya, told me on a recent trip to the region. ‘One wouldn’t be at the expense of the other.'” Erlich’s books include Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence, and Empire.

KAREN KWIATKOWSKI, ksusiek at shentel.net, @karen4the6th
Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kwiatkowski worked until the Spring of 2003 in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia office. She retired during the week of what she calls the “lie-based and illegal invasion of Iraq.”

In a recent interview on RT, Kwiatkowski stated: “I think they are looking for an excuse to up the ante, to send more troops and to have a crisis of some sort. Clearly the president has been lying, and so has Ash Carter, about what their real intentions are. So, in my opinion, I think this is provocative and I think it is calculated to put our troops in danger.”

Kwiatkowski writes for LewRockwell.com and just wrote a piece titled “The Death of a Charming Charlatan,” about Ahmed Chalabi, which states: “In 2003, the canaries were warning about the lies told by the President, the Vice President, and political appointees throughout Washington to justify an American strategy in Iraq, complete with hundreds of billions in lending and ‘investment,’ and the permanent destruction of a political system and its army.  While some of us could see a future far darker, far more dangerous, and far more destructive than being welcomed by children throwing flowers and candy at American soldiers — most could not. Chalabi was a useful part of why that was.”

The Miami Herald reports: “Haiti Election Results Delayed Until Thursday.”

JAKE JOHNSTON,  johnston at cepr.net, @JakobJohnston, or via Dan Beeton, beeton at cepr.net
Johnston is a research associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research and lead blogger for its “Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch” blog. Also, see @accuracy Haiti list.

Johnston just returned from Haiti where he witnessed electoral procedures on October 25 and interviewed a number of political party representatives, current and former members of the Haitian government, representatives of the United Nations mission inHaiti, and others. He is the author of the recent articles for VICE News, “LandmarkHaiti Elections Go Ahead Without Violence” and “Recent Murders in Port-au-Prince Are a Bad Omen for Haiti’s Election.”

He said today: “Though an improvement from August legislative elections when one in six polling centers were ransacked, the October 25 presidential election was marred by widespread allegations of fraud on the part of the government.

“For the international community, a successful election in Haiti is one that is free from violence, but will the massive fraud documented by local observers be overlooked?

“Over 900,000 accreditation passes were given to political party observers, which allowed representatives to vote even without being on the electoral list. Few of the record 54 candidates who were participating could actually use them and so many turned around and sold them.

“The system for monitoring the vote turned into a black market for vote buying, where those with the most money were most able to take advantage. And it was entirely predictable.

“With preliminary results yet to be announced, the legacy of the U.S.’ intervention’ in the 2010 election is impacting the current process as parties jostle for a spot in the runoff, believing that decisions are once again being made behind closed doors and not at the ballot box.”

The New York Times is publishing a three-part series Beware the Fine Print, including, “Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice” and “In Arbitration, a ‘Privatization of the Justice System’.” The third part is forthcoming.

The Times reports: “On Page 5 of a credit card contract used by American Express, beneath an explainer on interest rates and late fees, past the details about annual membership, is a clause that most customers probably miss. If cardholders have a problem with their account, American Express explains, the company ‘may elect to resolve any claim by individual arbitration.’

“Those nine words are at the center of a far-reaching power play orchestrated by American corporations, an investigation by The New York Times has found. …

“More than a decade in the making, the move to block class actions was engineered by a Wall Street-led coalition of credit card companies and retailers, according to interviews with coalition members and court records. Strategizing from law offices on Park Avenue and in Washington, members of the group came up with a plan to insulate themselves from the costly lawsuits. Their work culminated in two Supreme Court rulings, in 2011 and 2013, that enshrined the use of class-action bans in contracts. The decisions drew little attention outside legal circles, even though they upended decades of jurisprudence put in place to protect consumers and employees. …

“Among the class actions thrown out because of the clauses was one brought by Time Warner customers over charges they said mysteriously appeared on their bills and another against a travel booking website accused of conspiring to fix hotel prices.”

DEAN CLANCY, dfclancy at gmail.com, @DeanClancy
Clancy is a tea party-aligned former White House and congressional aide, and current partner at Adams Auld LLC, who writes on U.S. health care, budget, and constitutional issues. He is a former VP at FreedomWorks, a former policy aide to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and a former senior budget official in the Bush White House (2004 to 2006).

Clancy recently wrote the piece “Conservatives Should Oppose Forced Arbitration,” which states: “The pro-market right should join the consumer advocates in opposing pre-dispute mandatory arbitration as a violation of liberty and an infringement of the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial.”

JOANNE DOROSHOW, joanned at centerjd.org, @centerjd
Doroshow is founder and executive director of the Center for Justice & Democracy and author of The Case for the Civil Jury: Safeguarding a Pillar of Democracy. She said today: “This Supreme Court has turned a 1924 law intended to make arbitration between companies easier, into a mechanism for denying individuals the right to a jury trial.

“Forced arbitration clauses impact virtually every aspect of your life, from buying a car to credit card agreements to your employment. They even wipe out the right to go to court for many civil rights violations. The constitutional right of a citizen to sue has been fundamentally taken away.

“Virtually every company is insisting on forced arbitration clauses and class action bans, so the individual has no negotiating power to keep these clauses out. These are not voluntary agreements. Even if you’re aware of these clauses, which most people are not, there’s virtually no recourse.

“One hope is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this year released a 700-page report on the importance of class actions, clearly showing the relief they provide to consumers, which arbitration does not. The CFPB has a rule proposal pending which could provide meaningful reform. Let’s hope the forces behind class action bans and forced arbitration are unable to stop CFPB from doing the right thing.”

See from the Center: “CFPB Considers Proposal to Ban Arbitration Clauses that Allow Companies to Avoid Accountability to Their Customers” and “FAQ: Vanishing Rights and Remedies Under Forced Arbitration.” Also, see the Center for Justice & Democracy’s letter on forced arbitration being used by nursing home corporations on the elderly.

The practice of consumers signing contracts that virtually no consumers read was (somewhat crudely) satirized on South Park in the episode “HumancentiPad.” [partial video on Youtube]

USA Today reports: “The 100 largest U.S. CEO retirement packages are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American families, according to the report by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies watchdog groups.”

SCOTT KLINGER, sklinger at foreffectivegov.org, @scottklinger1
​Klinger is the director of revenue and spending policies at Center for Effective Government, which co-published the study titled “Tale of Two Retirements.”

He said today: “We examined the retirement assets of the Fortune 500 CEOs. … One CEO, David Novak from YUM Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC), has $234 million in his retirement account, yet hundreds of thousands of YUM’s low-wage restaurant workers have no retirement at all.

“All this happens when people are more reliant on Social Security than ever, and the government has just announced no cost-of-living increases for retirees next year.​ …

“The CEOs’ extraordinary nest eggs are not the result of extraordinary performance. They are the result of rules intentionally tipped to reward those already on the highest rungs of the ladder.”

The report revealed that “Fortune 500 CEOs have $3.2 billion in special tax-deferred compensation accounts that are exempt from the annual contribution limits imposed on ordinary 401(k)s. In 2014, these CEOs saved $78 million on their tax bills by putting $197 million more in these tax-deferred accounts than they could have if they were subject to the same rules as other workers. These special accounts grow tax-free until the executives retire and begin to withdraw the funds.

It also found that “the ten largest CEO retirement funds — all held by white males — add up to $1.4 billion, compared to $280 million for the 10 largest held by female CEOs, and $196 million for the 10 largest held by CEOs who are people of color. Among ordinary Americans, 62 percent of working age African-Americans and 69 percent of Latinos have no retirement savings, compared to just 37 percent of white workers.”

MATT STANNARD, matt at commonomicsusa.org, @commonomicsUSA
Stannard is policy director at Commonomics USA and just wrote the piece: “Postal Banks Are People’s Banks: 6 Things You Need To Know About Postal Banking,” which states: “It’s being called ‘Bernie’s Brilliant Idea,’ and Bernie Sanders’ embrace of postal banking is indeed brilliant, both in timing and substance. But while his insurgent presidential campaign may give a credible boost to USPS financial services, Sanders’ endorsement is far from sufficient. To make postal banking happen requires a broad, mass coalition willing to keep pushing the issue regardless of the outcome of the 2016 elections. …

“The demand for postal banking incurs two advantages: It offers working people their own bank at a time when nearly 100 million Americans lack access to affordable financial services, but it also interrupts the relentless attack on the Post Office by conservatives and privatizers. The USPS doesn’t spend taxpayer money, and would run at a profit but for the poisonous provision of the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act of 2006, which requires it to fund its pensions decades into the future. Postal banking, for extremely low fees and lending rates, would make the USPS financially solvent while providing a ‘public option’ for those unable or unwilling to utilize private banks or expensive alternative services. …

“Nations all over the world have postal savings banks, and the United States had a successful postal bank from 1911 to 1967. At one time, as many as 10 percent of Americans used postal banks; unsurprisingly, it was lobbying from big banks that shut the program down by urging Congress to stop allowing postal banks to offer competitive interest rates. The emergence of postal banking as a 2016 electoral issue stems from a campaign that began early last year with a short, persuasive piece written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who cited a report by the Postal Inspector General recommending that the USPS offer financial services — from check cashing and small loans to financial counseling and bill paying — as both a public service and business opportunity for the U.S. Post Office.”

Diane Ravitch writes: “Arne Duncan’s Race to the Bottom: Our national test fixation isn’t just bad for kids — it doesn’t even work.”

Outgoing Secretary of Education Duncan said yesterday: “I’ve said on a number of occasions that we should expect scores in this period to bounce around some … this is really hard work, and big change never happens overnight. And, as the President recently said, ‘This is a decades-long or longer proposition.'”

KEVIN KUMASHIRO, kkumashiro at usfca.edu, @kevinkumashiro
Kumashiro is dean of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco, and author of numerous books, including Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture.

He said today: “The release Wednesday of the 2015 Nation’s Report Card shows declines in student test scores in reading and mathematics, and stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric of high-stakes testing as the panacea for public education. Just four days prior, the Council of Great City Schools released their report that documents the extent to which students nationwide are being overtested, not only in the number of tests, but also in the time spent on testing and test prep, and what is worse, shows no evidence that all of this time, attention, and resources spent on testing has led to any significant gains in learning or achievement. None of this should be surprising: research was clear even before NCLB [No Child Left Behind] and RTTT [Race to the Top] that a testing regime would do little to improve education, and sure enough, what we have seen all too clearly is that a preoccupation with testing leads to a narrowed curriculum, particularly in the highest needs schools that already show low test scores.

“As if in anticipation of this bad news, the U.S. Department of Education on Saturday announced a ‘Testing Action Plan‘ that some have praised as a significant reversal of federal overreliance — particularly by the Obama/Duncan administration — on test-and-punish policies that scapegoated teachers and distracted attention from the systemic problems in education. But does this call for ‘fewer and smarter’ tests actually change what is fundamentally wrong with current ‘reforms’?

“Unfortunately the Department continues to call for annual testing and for making high-stakes decisions based on student growth (gains in test scores), including evaluations of teachers and teacher-preparation programs, despite the critique by researchers that such use of ‘value-added modeling’ has proven to be neither valid nor reliable for such decision-making. Giving states some flexibility in how to use such test data does not address this more fundamental validity problem. In fact, states are increasingly showing skepticism over the assessments for the Common Core State Standards, which the test-makers themselves are telling us have not yet been proven valid as assessment instruments.

“This fall, as Congress works to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and as the Department prepares for the appointment of a new Secretary, the American public should demand that education experts be involved in developing better assessments and better uses of those assessments​.​”

See on incoming Education Secretary John King: “Department of Education: From Disaster to Disaster?“

NBC News reports: “Doctors Without Borders said a hospital it runs in Yemen was destroyed by Saudi airstrikes — the second attack this month on the medical charity.

“The aid group — also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) — said ‘several’ airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition struck its facility in Saada Province beginning at around 10:30 p.m. Monday.”

SHEILA CARAPICO, scarapic at richmond.edu, @SCarapico
    Carapico is a professor of political science and international studies at the University of Richmond in Virginia. In the spring, she wrote the piece “A Call to Resist Saudi (and U.S.) Aggression in Yemen,” She recently appeared on “WBEZ’s Worldview program,” “Saudi Arabia escalates attacks in Yemen.”

SAIF AL-OLIBY, saifaloliby at gmail.com, @saifoliby
Al-Oliby, is a journalist and translator at the Yemen Observer and a freelance journalist and fixer based in Sana’a.

He said today: “During my trip with Matthieu [Aikins of Rolling Stone] to Sa’adah, we were hosted at the Ghomhori hospital and we were told that it was the only safe place to stay in and that we would not be struck because of the presence of the MSF team.” See Aikins’ piece “Yemen’s Hidden War.”

Al-Oliby continued: “I have personally been in touch with the MSF International Communication Officer in Yemen Malak Shaher who confirmed yesterday that they share the right GPS coordinates of the places MSF is found with the operations room of the Saudi-led coalition every week.

“She said literally, ‘MSF confirms the right GPS coordinates of Haydan hospital were shared with the coalition forces. There are sent every week to the coalition operations room, last time the 24th of October. Haydan hospital was destroyed by airstrikes of the Saudi-led coalition on October 26.’

“Regarding the health system, it is literally devastated everywhere in Yemen due to the ongoing conflict and to the sea, air and land blockades imposed by the coalition forces and the siege imposed by warring parties in many of the conflict areas which forced a large number of hospitals to shut down.

“Fuel shortages and lack of medical supplies are part of the reasons behind hospitals closures. Many of the still-operating hospitals do only provide emergency aid. Some other hospitals are not able to receive any patients other than the war wounded.”

SUE UDRY, sue.udry at defendingdissent.org, @defenddissent
Executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending Dissent Foundation, Udry said today: “On Tuesday, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. Civil liberties, consumer rights and privacy groups have been fighting against similar legislation, and defeating it for over five years. Tuesday’s vote comes despite the opposition of tech companies, cyberlaw professors, and hundreds of thousands of everyday people who called, emailed and even faxed their lawmakers in protest.”

The Washington Post reports: “The Obama administration and lawmakers in both parties have been seeking for years to enact information-sharing legislation, and it now seems likely to become law.”

A protest is scheduled for today at 6:30 in front of the Capitol.

Udry added: “Congress just can’t seem to help itself from rushing in with fake solutions to flood the government with our private information in the vain hope of stopping something bad.

“Members of Congress who voted for CISA can’t explain how the bill will protect us from cyber attacks, because it won’t. Instead, the bill offers a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ deal between corporations and the government that encourages corporations to share massive amounts of private customer information with the government in exchange for legal immunity from lawsuits. No wonder the Chamber of Commerce supports it.

“Beyond the harmful data-sharing provisions, the bill neutralizes the Freedom of Information Act by giving the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence jurisdiction over responses to FOIA requests. This sets a dangerous precedent for further undermining FOIA at the intelligence community’s will. Senator Leahy (D-VT) introduced an amendment to mitigate that provision, which did not pass.”

PATRICK EDDINGTON, PEddington at cato.org, @PGEddington
    Eddington is policy analyst in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute. He just tweeted: “Senate Passes CISA, The Surveillance Bill Masquerading As A Cybersecurity Bill; Here’s Who Sold Out Your Privacy [link].”

Eddington recently wrote the piece “Legislative Cyber Threats: CISA’s Not the Only One,” which states: “These bills are classic examples of Washington politicians feeling like they need to ‘do something’ to meet the ‘cyber threat.’ In the case of the OPM [Office of Personnel Management] hack, Congress and the agencies do need to up their cyber defense game — but not by engaging in dubious (if not downright reckless) ‘cyber information sharing’ schemes or offering bills that would actually increase, not decrease, the public’s vulnerability to online threats.

“The OPM hack, like the Sony hack last year, was the product of poor security practices — and the means of preventing those kinds of security failures are well known but insufficiently ingrained in the culture of the affected organizations. The government needs to get the basics of online security right, and stop trying to impose an Orwellian, one-size-fits-all approach to cyber defense for the rest of us.”

NBC News is reporting: “Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin ‘direct action on the ground’ against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against them remains elusive.”

The Guardian reports today: “Iran says it will attend international talks over Syria’s future in Vienna this week.”

CHARLES GLASS, charlesglassarticles at gmail.com
Glass was recently in Syria for the New York Review of Books and was on assignment in Iraq for Harper’s Magazine. His latest book is the just-released Syria Burning: ISIS and the Death of the Arab Spring. He was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent and recently wrote the piece “In the Syrian Deadlands.”

He said today: “The problem is that the two main parties backing the factions in Syria — the United States and Russia — have not budged from their positions. Russia’s position is that Bashar al-Assad must remain as president, and the American position is that Bashar al-Assad must go as president. And they haven’t seemed to have reconciled these two points of view. …

“If you look at a map of the Arab world, there are about 22 members of the Arab League stretching from Mauritania all the way to the borders of Iran. Almost every one of those countries is an American client state. Only one is a Russian client state. That’s Syria. …

“On the surface, the United States is fighting against the Islamic State mainly because it went into Iraq. They didn’t seem to mind it when they were just in Syria. But they’re still allowing Turkey to keep its border open for men and supplies to come into the Islamic State. And they still — if they’re fighting the Islamic State, they’re still allowing the Saudis to provide the Islamic State and…other similar jihadist groups [like] al-Qaeda to receive weapons, including anti-tank weapons, from the Saudis. And this is fine with American policy and consistent with it, or they’ve simply lost control over the course of events.” See interview with Democracy Now! here and here.