Wikipedia article of the day for June 2, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for June 2, 2019 is Gioachino Rossini.
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) was an Italian composer known for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote his most popular works including the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, building on the traditions of masters such as Domenico Cimarosa. He also composed opera seria works such as Otello, Tancredi and Semiramide. All of these show innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims, later cannibalized for Le comte Ory, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell (William Tell). He retired from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Saudi Arabia says firm stand needed to deter Iran, Iraq demurs

Saudi Arabia's King Salman told an emergency Arab summit on Friday that decisive action was needed to stop Iranian "escalations" following attacks on Gulf oil assets, as U.S. officials said a military deployment had deterred Tehran. The right of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to defend their interests after the attacks on oil pumping stations in the kingdom and tankers off the UAE were supported in a Gulf Arab statement and a separate communique issued after the wider summit.

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Nissan's technology could pay in Renault-FCA deal -sources

BEIJING/TOKYO, May 30 (Reuters) - Nissan's advanced technologies including platforms and electric powertrains could give it leverage in a merger involving Renault and Fiat Chrysler, thanks to a royalty system it has with the former, two people with knowledge of the matter said. A merged Renault-Fiat Chrysler could face an extra hurdle each time it uses technology developed by Nissan Motor Co or Mitsubishi Motors Corp, while the two Japanese automakers stand to gain a client in Fiat Chrysler (FCA) , one of the people said. Nissan's technology, particularly in electrification and emissions reduction, could give it some sway in the $35 billion potential tie-up between Renault and FCA, even as its stake in the newly formed company would be diluted.

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Trump Shakes Fox News Reporter’s Hand, Thanks Him for Asking Question He Likes

President Trump took a break during a Thursday morning press gaggle to personally acknowledge and thank a Fox News reporter for always treating him “fairly” and giving him a question he liked.Prior to departing for a quick trip to Colorado, the president stopped to speak with reporters on the White House lawn, using much of his time to rail against Robert Mueller’s public statement and to walk back his Twitter admission that Russia helped get him elected. At one point, however, Fox News White House correspondent Kevin Corke asked the president about China, which caused Trump to approach Corke to praise him.“Come here, I want to shake your hand,” the president exclaimed while reaching out his hand. “Come here. You treated me fairly. Thank you, thank you.”Other reporters, likely thinking Trump was done with Corke after the mutual admiration session, began shouting additional questions, prompting Trump to get in additional shots at the media while heaping more praise upon Corke.“I want to ask [sic] a real reporter’s question,” he blared. “We’ll answer a real reporter’s question, okay?”This is just the latest example of the president treating Fox News employees as though they are part of his team while shunning the rest of the “Fake News” media. In recent weeks, however, while the president has continued to trumpet Fox’s opinion hosts and commentators, he’s taken pointed shots at the network’s hard-news anchors, reporters, and analysts he feels aren’t sufficiently deferential to him. Corke, it would appear, does not fall into that category.The White House correspondent, meanwhile, has a history of uncritically amplifying and supporting commentary from alt-right conspiracy-theory zealots. Back in March 2017, he mass-deleted tweets promoting unverified far-right conspiracies (such as a claim that Hillary Clinton had bisexual trysts) after The Daily Beast spotted several of them. And earlier this year, the reporter excited the QAnon community with a since-deleted tweeted hyping up a photo of a coffee cup with the letter Q on it.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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William Barr: Obama DOJ officials did not commit treason 'as a legal matter'

Attorney General William Barr said he does not believe Obama-era Justice Department officials who oversaw the Russia investigation committed treason “as a legal matter.”

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Robert Mueller made clear: he couldn't have indicted Trump even if he wanted to

In his first comments since his report was released, Mueller underlined that responsibility for tackling presidential wrongdoing lies with Congress If Mueller’s parting words as special counsel had a familiar ring, it is because they echoed, often verbatim, statements that appear in his lengthy report.’ Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/APFor those who hoped that Robert Mueller’s first public comments since his report was released would do what it failed to – free us from a demagogue who has taken American democracy hostage – Wednesday must have come as a disappointment. If Mueller’s parting words as special counsel had a familiar ring, it is because they echoed, often verbatim, statements that appear in his lengthy report.And yet in his characteristically restrained manner Mueller did, I believe, seek to set the record straight on his report’s most contested conclusion:“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”In the minds of many, the report’s conditional form, “If we had had confidence …”, suggested that Mueller and his team had failed to reach closure on whether Donald Trump had, in fact, obstructed justice. The language bespoke ambivalence – some actions by the president supported a finding of obstruction, others did not. The evidence was not dispositive. Reasonable persons could reach different conclusions.This is precisely how the attorney general, William Barr, spun the report. Claiming to have carefully reviewed the full 448 pages of findings, Barr announced that the report did not make a case for obstruction. No matter that nothing in the Mueller report could possibly have led Barr to conclude otherwise. His memo of 8 June 2018, when Barr was essentially lobbying to replace Jeff Sessions as head of the justice department, makes clear that the would-be attorney general was not about to endorse Mueller’s findings. Indeed, that’s why he was chosen for the job.The memo, noted by the press but barely analyzed, makes for extraordinary reading. Over 18 single-spaced pages, Barr attacks Mueller’s “Obstruction” Theory – the scare quotes appear in the original – as “fatally flawed” and “legally unsupportable”, liable to do “lasting damage to the presidency”. For Barr, James Comey’s firing was legally irrelevant, as would have been the ordered firing of Mueller. Indeed, no firing decision by the president – even if designed to derail an investigation of his own alleged crimes – can possibly qualify as obstruction for the simple reason that the president’s powers over such matters are plenary.And so, when Barr concluded, in his four-page memo on 24 March, that the Mueller investigation failed to support a case for obstruction, he had not, as some have suggested, caved in to pressure from the White House. He was simply repeating a conclusion he had boldly framed 10 months before the ink had dried on special counsel’s report.Alas, the report, once Barr permitted its released, appeared not to directly challenge this highly tendentious spin. By framing his conclusions in a conditional – “If we had had confidence” – Mueller let stand the notion that the evidence pointed in different directions and that no definitive conclusion could be reached on the matter.On Wednesday, Mueller sought to correct matters – without actually saying anything new. In an age of hysterical megaphoning, Mueller’s muted messaging sounded almost quaint. So what did we hear? Nothing we hadn’t heard before – if we’ve been listening closely. But have we?Mueller reminded us that his report “did not make a determination” as to whether the president committed a crime, but not because the evidence wasn’t there. It was, and in abundance. The only reason Mueller did not seek indictment was because the special counsel’s office “is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, was bound by that department policy”. That policy holds that a president “cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office”. Indicting the president was therefore “not an option we could consider”.This stunning statement was all there in the report, but it bears repeating. The only thing standing between Trump and an indictment is his status as president. The special counsel’s refusal to take a position on the president’s criminality had nothing to do with the quality of his evidence or the soundness of his theory. It merely reflected a stubborn, if untested, constitutional barrier to prosecution. No wonder more than 400 former federal prosecutors have signed an open letter saying Trump would face “multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice” if he were a private citizen. Their conclusion follows directly from Mueller himself.Then there is Mueller’s parting statement: “The constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” However elliptical the formulation, the message resonated with three more Democratic presidential hopefuls, who on Wednesday announced their support of impeachment hearings against Trump.Whether it is politically wise for the Democrats to seek Trump’s removal is an open question. Such political calculations appear foreign to Mueller. But on Wednesday he repeated his clear belief that it is their responsibility to follow the process that the constitution dictates. * Lawrence Douglas is the James J Grosfeld professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought, at Amherst College, Massachusetts

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Anchors From Fox and Chinese State TV Hold Live Debate on Trade

By AMY QIN from NYT World https://nyti.ms/2JJzMBd

Trump would be 'in handcuffs' if not president, says Democrat Warren

Democratic White House hopeful Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that if Donald Trump were not protected by his presidential status, he would be "in handcuffs and indicted" for obstructing the investigation into Russia's 2016 election interference. The progressive US senator from Massachusetts, one of the leading Democrats for the party's 2020 nomination, was the first presidential candidate to speak out in favor of launching impeachment proceedings against Trump. Warren had called for an impeachment inquiry the day after the April 18 publication of special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report on Moscow's election interference.

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New Mexico town gets death threats after halting crowd-funded border wall

A New Mexico mayor on Thursday said he and his staff received multiple death threats after they briefly halted construction of a crowd-funded, private border wall by a group that then urged supporters to tell the city to "stop playing games," and alleged it was tied to drug cartels. The Florida-based group has raised $23 million via crowd-funding site GoFundMe.com to build private border walls to halt smuggling and a surge in undocumented migrants, after funding for President Donald Trump's promised wall was blocked. Perea described the tactics of We Build the Wall as a "cheap blow," and the American Civil Liberties Union accused it of pursuing a "white Nationalist" agenda.

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Escalating Iran crisis looks a lot like the path US took to Iraq war

The U.S. went to war in Iraq in 2003 based on flawed intelligence supported by hawkish policy makers. Is it doomed to repeat the error with Iran?

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