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“When the wise man points at the Moon, the idiot looks at the finger.”

-- Confucius

News and Opinion

Hayden: Russian email hack is 'honorable state espionage'

Michael Hayden, a former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency, thinks Russia’s actions involving a Democratic party email leak were fair play.

“I have to admit my definition of what the Russians did is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage,” Hayden, now a principal at the Chertoff Group, told an Oct. 18 audience at The Heritage Foundation. “A foreign intelligence service getting the internal emails of a major political party in a major foreign adversary? Game on. I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement earlier this month that condemned Russia for the attacks. "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process," the statement asserted.  "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

It could be argued Russia has gone beyond espionage and has mounted an influence campaign targeting the presidential race. But Hayden said that’s not how he sees it.

“I think they’re doing it to mess with our heads, to erode confidence in our political process,” he said of Russia. “I think they’re doing it because [Putin is] convinced we do this to him all the time. We don’t.”

Julian Assange has lost his web privileges, so who's running Wikileaks?

WikiLeaks announced on Monday that Assange’s internet access at the Ecuadorian embassy had been cut off on Sunday, but said the group had set in motion “contingency plans” as a result.

WikiLeaks did not give further details as to what those contingency plans might be, but the lack of internet access has not stopped the publication of more leaked emails this week, including those from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, raising the question of just who is running WikiLeaks. ...

As well as potentially impacting the day-to-day running of WikiLeaks, having his internet access removed could affect Assange personally. “I have certainly felt that having an internet connection helped alleviate the strain on Julian caused by not being able to leave the Ecuadorian embassy,” said Vaughan Smith, a friend of Assange and founder of the Frontline Club in London, where he gave Assange refuge in 2010, before moving him to his country home in Norfolk, England. Smith said he was unsure if Assange still had access to the internet, but said other options were likely open to him.

Mackey's headline is a little off. Here let me fix it.

Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Help Hillary in U.S. Election

Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Preserve Neutrality in U.S. Election

The government of Ecuador confirmed on Tuesday that it had decided “to temporarily restrict access” to the internet inside its embassy in London, effectively cutting off Julian Assange, the editor of Wikileaks, who has lived there since he was granted political asylum in 2012. ...

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, told the Russian government’s news channel RT last month that a victory for Clinton would be better for the United States, and the world, but a Trump win could produce benefits for left-wing parties in Latin America.

“Obviously, for the U.S., it would be better if Hillary won. I know her personally and have a great deal of respect for her,” Correa told RT.

“But, seriously, Trump would be better for Latin America,” he continued. “When did progressive governments come to power in Latin America? With Obama or with Bush? Bush’s primitive policies were rejected so much that it caused reaction in Latin America. Trump would do the same: maximize the contradictions.”

“So, for the good of the U.S. and the world, and because of my personal esteem for her,” Correa concluded, “I want Hillary to win.”

‘Nothing to See Here’ Is Pundit Takeaway on DNC Leaks

Leaks from Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails have been trickling in for the past week. The leaks—along with previous DNC emails—provide intimate details about the inner workings of the campaign that may well soon elect the most powerful person on Earth.

The response from some journalists has been to analyse, dissect and find the most newsworthy bits. For others, the reaction has been to dismiss and downplay, turning the often cynical meatgrinder of American politics into a snooze barely worthy of discussion.

Call that second group the “are you surprised” crowd. ...

But this whole “surprised” line is a complete red herring. Who has ever claimed they were surprising, and what does surprise or lack thereof have to do with anything?

Something doesn’t have to be shocking or surprising to be newsworthy, much less objectionable. Indeed, the routine banality of Clinton and her aides colluding with the DNC to undermine Sanders, and cozying up to Wall Street, makes it more consequential, not less. The “why is this shocking?” tic is a rhetorical gimmick meant to downplay revelations that, while perhaps assumed, had heretofore not been backed by specific evidence.

The fact that Clinton is cozy with much of the press, told climate change activists to “get a life,” and touted TPP in front of Goldman Sachs despite going on to oppose it in public may have been assumed, but now it’s something we know to be true. This, on its face, is significant.

FBI Agents Say Comey ‘Stood In The Way’ Of Clinton Email Investigation

According to an interview transcript given to The Daily Caller, provided by an intermediary who spoke to two federal agents with the bureau last Friday, agents are frustrated by Comey’s leadership.

“This is a textbook case where a grand jury should have convened but was not. That is appalling,” an FBI special agent who has worked public corruption and criminal cases said of the decision. “We talk about it in the office and don’t know how Comey can keep going.”

The agent was also surprised that the bureau did not bother to search Clinton’s house during the investigation.

“We didn’t search their house. We always search the house. The search should not just have been for private electronics, which contained classified material, but even for printouts of such material,” he said.

“There should have been a complete search of their residence,” the agent pointed out. “That the FBI did not seize devices is unbelievable. The FBI even seizes devices that have been set on fire.”

Another special agent for the bureau that worked counter-terrorism and criminal cases said he is offended by Comey’s saying: “we” and “I’ve been an investigator.” ...

“Comey was never an investigator or special agent. The special agents are trained investigators and they are insulted that Comey included them in ‘collective we’ statements in his testimony to imply that the SAs agreed that there was nothing there to prosecute,” the second agent said. “All the trained investigators agree that there is a lot to prosecuted but he stood in the way.”

FBI: Clinton FOIA Requests Went Through ‘Shadow Govt’ in State Dept

The FBI’s latest releases on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has raised eyebrows on a number of fronts, including noting that the then-Secretary of State Clinton “blatantly” and routinely ignored security protocols, to the embarrassment of top diplomats.

The documents also revealed the existence of a group within the State Department referred to as “the Shadow Government,” which included an unknown collection of high-ranking State Department officials who aimed to totally control Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Congressional inquiries related to Secretary Clinton. ...

This adds to concerns the State Department tried to heavily manage the Clinton releases to Clinton’s political advantage, with another document in the release revealing Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy “pressured” the FBI to retroactively declassify certain documents on Clinton’s email server to avoid scrutiny, and may have offered the FBI certain other concessions in return.

"Ramshackle" Battle to Retake Mosul from ISIS Led by U.S. Despite Obama Vow Against Boots on Ground

Thousands flee Mosul to Syrian refugee camps

Thousands of civilians have fled Mosul and its surrounding region to crowded refugee camps in war-torn Syria, aid officials have said, as Iraqi forces continued to advance on the most populous city under Islamic State control.

At least 5,000 people, mostly women and children, have arrived at the overcrowded al-Hol refugee camp across the border in Syria over the last 10 days, and 1,000 more are waiting on the border, the charity Save the Children said, citing its workers on the ground.

“These families arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs and find almost nothing to help them,” said Tarik Kadir, the organisation’s head of Mosul response operations. “The camp is bursting at the seams and risks being overwhelmed. Conditions there are among the worst we’ve seen, and we expect thousands more people to be on their way soon.”

Since the operation began on Monday, more details have emerged of the suffering of civilians in Mosul, where an estimated 5,000-6,000 Isis fighters are based. Residents say the militants are using civilians as human shields and preventing them from fleeing the city. ...

Concerns are mounting over the potential civilian toll of the conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was prepared even for the potential use of chemical weapons in the campaign.

Man-made catastrophe brewing in Mosul

Fears Mosul Invasion Will Spark ISIS Surges Elsewhere

The Malaysian government has announced that it is putting border security on alert today, saying that the Iraqi invasion of the ISIS-held city of Msoul could lead to an exodus of Malaysian ISIS fighters back to their home country, where they might launch attacks.

They’re just one of many countries with the same concern. European Union officials are expressing disquiet about the exact same thing, fearing that the huge numbers of European recruits to ISIS are going to start surging back into the European continent, adding enormous manpower to ISIS factions inside Europe which, while small, have launched some very high-profile attacks. ...

Perhaps the most immediate loser in Mosul sparks an exodus of ISIS fighters, however, is Syria, in which ISIS still has meaningful territory, and could quickly upset the balance of power in places of Deir Ezzor, where the Syrian military is struggling to keep ISIS from overrunning their defenses.

Damascus, allies see risks in Mosul campaign

The Syrian army and its allies see a risk that Islamic State will regroup in eastern Syria as it is forced from the Iraqi city of Mosul in a U.S.-backed operation, posing new risks for President Bashar al-Assad.

Both the Syrian army and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have warned of what they have called a U.S. plan to open a path of retreat for Islamic State from Iraq into Syria. A Pentagon spokesman called the claim "ludicrous". ...

A senior official in the alliance fighting in support of Assad told Reuters the arrival of large numbers of extra IS fighters in Syria from Iraq would present new dangers to Syrian government-held pockets of territory in Deir al-Zor, to the ancient city of Palmyra, and to other areas further west.

IS would also be able to reinforce the Syrian city of Raqqa, its main other urban center after Mosul.

"There is a danger that Iraq will witness a victory and Syria a crisis - a victory in Iraq will be a the expense of a new crisis in Syria," said the official, a non-Syrian, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Syria: First Lady Asma al-Assad accuses West of dividing Syrians

What will Erdogan be this Halloween? An eerie dentist, of course! (Click the link if you don't get the pun.)

PM: Turkey Warplanes Will Participate in Bombing Mosul

In the lead-up to the invasion of the Iraqi city of Mosul, Iraqi and Turkish officials have been loudly and publicly sparring over the matter of Turkish military involvement, with Iraqi officials insisting they are unwelcome, and Turkey insisting that Iraq doesn’t just get to decide that.

New reports from Turkish PM Binali Yildirim suggest a deal has been reached with the US-led coalition so that Turkish warplanes will be involved in airstrikes against ISIS in Mosul during the military operation. This may allow Turkey to claim an involvement and save face. ...

Erdogan has cited historical Turkish territorial claims on Mosul as part of the need to play a role in the battle, and insists the Iraqi government is not equal to his. Having Turkish forces conduct some token airstrikes may allow them to participate without showing up the Abadi government.

Vietnam Endorses US Intervention in Asia-Pacific

Ever insinuating itself into long-standing maritime boundary disputes around the South China Sea, the Obama Administration had long centered their “Asia pivot,” and the need to “confront” China militarily, on the Philippines. Recent Philippines official comments suggest they aren’t welcoming that role.

But maybe Vietnam is about to supplant the Philippines as the regional excuse for US involvement, with Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh today publicly endorsing US “intervention” in the region as a way to add to regional peace and stability. ...

A half dozen nations have conflicting claims in the South China Sea, and the US has made it a matter of policy to back the claims of every nation so long as they conflict with China. Though the islands in the sea are by and large uninhabited, there is considerable interest in the maritime rights because of potential undersea oil reserves.

Study: Face Recognition Systems Threaten the Privacy of Millions

A broad coalition of over 50 civil liberties groups delivered a letter to the Justice Department’s civil rights division Tuesday calling for an investigation into the expanding use of face recognition technology by police. “Safeguards to ensure this technology is being used fairly and responsibly appear to be virtually nonexistent,” the letter stated. The routine unsupervised use of face recognition systems, according to the dozens of signatories, threatens the privacy and civil liberties of millions — especially those of immigrants and people of color.

These civil rights groups were provided with advance copies of a watershed 150-page report detailing — in many cases for the first time — how local police departments across the country have been using facial recognition technology. Titled “The Perpetual Lineup,” the report, published Tuesday morning by the Georgetown Center on Privacy & Technology, reveals that police deploy face recognition technology in ways that are more widespread, advanced, and unregulated than anyone has previously reported. ...

Of the 52 agencies that acknowledged using face recognition in response to 106 records requests, the authors found that only one had obtained legislative approval before doing so. Government reports have long confirmed that millions of images of citizens are collected and stored in federal face recognition databases. Since at least 2002, civil liberties advocates have raised concerns that millions of drivers license photos of Americans who have never been arrested are being subject to facial searches — a practice that amounts to a perpetual digital lineup. This report augments such fears, demonstrating that at least one in four state or local law enforcement agencies have access to face recognition systems.

Maryland's use of facial recognition software questioned by researchers, civil liberties advocates

A five-year-old program in Maryland that lets police compare images of unidentified criminal suspects with millions of motor vehicle records using increasingly advanced facial recognition software has come under fire from civil liberties advocates, who say such programs lack transparency and infringe on privacy rights.

Police have used the Maryland Image Repository System with little fanfare since 2011. But the program has attracted increased scrutiny since the American Civil Liberties Union in California released documents last week showing the system was used to monitor protesters during the unrest and rioting in Baltimore last year. ...

"There's a question of who is being subjected to this kind of facial recognition search in the first place," David Rocah, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Maryland said. "Is it only Black Lives Matter demonstrators who get this treatment? Are they drawing those circles only in certain neighborhoods? The context in which it's described here seems quintessentially improper."

Alvaro Bedoya, the Center on Privacy & Technology's executive director said research shows that facial recognition software is less accurate when identifying African-American faces, making it "least accurate for the population that the Baltimore police is most likely to use it on."

Argentina: hundreds of thousands of women set to protest against violence

Hundreds of thousands of women in Argentina are expected to join a national protest over violence against women on Wednesday, after a horrifying attack in which a 16-year-old girl was raped and tortured.

Organizers of the “women’s strike” have called for every woman in the country to stop work, study and other activities for an hour at 1pm. ...

The protest – marked with the Twitter hashtag #MiércolesNegro, or Black Wednesday – was prompted by the abduction of Lucía Pérez, a schoolgirl who was drugged, raped and tortured earlier this month in the coastal city of Mar del Plata.

The cruelty of her attack was such that Pérez suffered a cardiac arrest, according to prosecutor María Isabel Sánchez, who described it as “an act of inhuman sexual aggression”. ...

But Pérez’s murder is just the latest in a harrowing sequence of “femicides”, crimes usually committed by husbands, boyfriends, family members or acquaintances of the victim. In more than one case, the woman has been set on fire by her partner.

Government statistics show that crimes against women have risen 78% since 2008 in Argentina, a rise that may be partly attributable to growing awareness of the phenomenon, but has prompted a national debate over sexist attitudes.

"The Police Killings No One Is Talking About": Native Americans Most Likely to be Killed by Cops

More results of Hillary's Handiwork in Honduras:

Leader of Honduran Campesino Movement Assassinated

A prominent Honduran leader of a rural land rights movement was killed on Monday night in what supporters claim was an assassination organized by wealthy landowners.

Jose Angel Flores, president of the Unified Campesinos Movement of the Aguan Valley, or MUCA, had been under police protection since March, teleSUR reported, after the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights ordered the Honduran state to protect him from death threats in 2014.

Former MUCA president Johnny Rivas, who hosts a radio show on the local station Radio Progreso, blamed "death squads chasing peasant families fighting for land rights" for the murder.

Of Flores' organization, teleSUR wrote: "MUCA has been on the forefront of alternative food production and economic development projects in the Aguan on land recovered through large-scale land occupations. The movement struggles to strengthen food sovereignty while continuing to demand comprehensive agrarian reform." ...

Honduran Indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, who was assassinated in March, also devoted her life to fighting for land rights. Violence against land defenders is on the rise across Latin America, and Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries for activists in the world. ...

The U.S. continues to funnel millions of dollars in military funding to the Honduran government, despite the targeted assassinations and other human rights abuses.

Top Marx: socialist magazine Jacobin's staffers unionize

Uniting theory with practice, the Marxists at Jacobin magazine are finally getting some solidarity of their own. Staffers at the glossy socialist journal have unanimously moved to unionize and join the NewsGuild of New York.

After six years banging the drum of class war, all seven of Jacobin’s full-time staffers signed union cards, winning recognition from management.

“By unionizing relatively early in the life of Jacobin, we hope to institutionalize the socialist principles that have guided the magazine’s development,” read the workers’ mission statement. ...

“We didn’t decide to organize because we were all suffering under the crushing heel of management – Jacobin is a very egalitarian place and it’s relatively young,” said associate editor Micah Uetricht, who’s been at the magazine for two years. “But the values we’re putting forward, that workers deserve a say in their working conditions and a formal structure to pursue such things, is of a piece with the larger politics of the magazine.”

Blackstone’s Tony James Touting What Looks Like Hillary’s Scheme to Gut Social Security

Readers may recall that Bill Clinton planned to privatize Social Security in the second term of his Presidency. The Monica Lewinsky scandal derailed his plan.

As the Clintons knew, only a Democrat can dismantle Social Security. Hillary looks to be picking up where Bill left off. As David Sirota describes in a must-read story, Hillary is planning to introduce mandatory retirement accounts, a scheme that Hillary has mentioned in high concept form earlier. As details emerge, this “enrich Wall Street at the expense of everyone else” program is even more attractive to pet Democratic party constituencies than the 1.0 version of going after Social Security directly. No one in the Clinton or George W. Bush administration was so audacious as to cut in private equity and hedge funds in the way this variant would.

But Hillary, and her major advisor on the plan who is also on her short list of Treasury Secretary candidates, Blackstone CEO Tony James, are too adept to label these required savings accounts as a stealth replacement for Social Security.The plan, as described in Sirota’s article parallels the way the contributions are made now to Social Security, with both employers and employees required to put aside a percentage of payroll…but not in the form of Social Security taxes, but in individual retirement accounts that in turn are put in “pooled plans run by professional managers”.

If you look at James’ speech, what he is proposing sounds innocuous, a supposed additional 3% of worker savings. But that is a nearly 25% increase over what workers are paying into Social Security now. Moreover, most experts agree that to the extent that Social Security needs fixing (30 forecasts are fraught), some not very onerous tweaks would do the trick. First and foremost would be to eliminate the payroll tax ceiling.

It’s not hard to see the long-term game plan. Social Security will be cut due to purported need to keep the budget balanced while funding bombing runs in the Middle East. It will be turned from a universal social safety net more and more into a welfare program. That in turn makes it easier to make more cuts, since its core supporters will be further and further down the food chain.

Moreover, the canard is the assumption that James makes: “…if these savings are invested correctly and earn a good return for the retiree.” Tell me how this happens in a world of ZIRP, NIRP, low growth, high private debt levels, and equity prices increasingly dependent on unsustainable stock buybacks?

Half of 18- to 35-year-old Americans prefer meteor apocalypse to Donald Trump presidency, A Third prefer ‘Giant Meteor’ to Hillary Clinton presidency

Young Americans are so dissatisfied with the options in the US presidential election that nearly one in four would rather have a giant meteor destroy the Earth than see Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House.

The tongue-in-cheek question was intended to gauge young Americans’ level of unhappiness about their choices in the 8 November election, said Joshua Dyck, co-director of UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll alongside Odyssey Millennials.

Some 53% of the 1,247 people aged 18 to 35 said they would prefer to see a meteor destroy the world than have Republican Trump in the Oval Office, with some 34% preferring planetary annihilation to seeing the Democratic former secretary of state win.

Some 39% said they would prefer that Barack Obama declare himself president for life than hand over power to Clinton or Trump, with 26% saying the nation would do better to select its next leader in a random lottery.

The Real Vote Rigging: Republicans Make It Harder for Millions to Vote in 2016 Election

Hacked Emails Prove Coordination Between Clinton Campaign and Super PACs

The fact that political candidates are closely coordinating with friendly Super PACs — making a mockery of a central tenet of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — is one of the biggest open secrets in Washington.

Super PACs are only allowed to accept unlimited contributions on the condition that the money is spent independently of specific campaigns. The Federal Election Commission hasn’t reacted for a variety of reasons, including a lack of hard evidence, vague rules, and a partisan divide among the commissioners so bitter they can’t even agree to investigate obvious crimes.

But newly disclosed hacked campaign documents published by WikiLeaks and a hacker who calls himself Guccifer 2.0 reveal in stark terms how Hillary Clinton’s staffers made Super PACs an integral part of her presidential campaign.

[See article for long list of evidence from emails. - js]

The emails show consistent, repeated efforts by the Clinton campaign to collaborate with Super PACs on strategy, research, attacks on political adversaries and fundraising. The cache also reveal meetings between the campaign and Priorities USA Action [the largest pro-Clinton Super PAC], and that campaign officials have helped with the group’s fundraising.

Super PACs, known technically as “Independent Expenditure-Only Political Committees,” are a direct result of the Citizens United court decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of the decision, proclaimed that deregulating outside money would have no corrupting effect upon candidates because there would be strict firewalls between candidates and outside groups.

The “post-truth” election has put a strain on the world's fact-checkers

Even as the public and the media seem to emphasize temperament over truth this election cycle, there’s never been a bigger appetite for fact-checking. Traffic is flowing to fact-checking sites, particularly on the nights when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton face off on the debate stage. Since the first debate in September, sites like Factcheck.org and PolitiFact, the Tampa Bay Times’ fact-checking unit, have nearly doubled their traffic compared to roughly the same period in 2012, according to internal metrics.

Some fact-checkers question the origins of the heightened interest in their work, suggesting it may stem from a sort of schadenfreude effect — a desire to catch the candidates in fibs rather than a genuine interest in learning about their policies. Other fact-checkers are encouraged by the high voter interest in their checks.

“One of the themes that seems to come from this campaign is that we’re in some sort of post-truth era and that fact-checking doesn’t matter anymore,” said Eugene Kiely, director of Factcheck.org. But since both candidates are generally viewed as untrustworthy, he said he takes the increased traffic to his site as a positive. “If there’s a majority of voters out there who care about whether the candidates are honest, that, to us, is a good sign.”

Fact-checkers in 2016 have had a field day with Trump, but Clinton has made wonky statements too. Kessler, together with Washington Post staff reporter Michelle Lee, commonly grades statements from one to four “Pinocchios” — four being the most egregious falsehood. This cycle, the pair have rated Clinton with at least 47 Pinocchio statements, many related to the candidate’s private email server, Kessler said. Trump has at least 81 Pinocchio ratings.

Something awful will happen in Vegas and it resolutely refuses to stay there ...

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton face fear and loathing at third debate

Las Vegas is due to witness its most surreal showdown since Mike Tyson repeatedly bit Evander Holyfield’s ear in the middle of a heavyweight boxing match, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off in the third and final debate before the presidential election.

For Trump, Wednesday night’s debate may be the last opportunity to salvage the dwindling support that in recent weeks has seemingly placed the election increasingly out of the Republican nominee’s reach.

The encounter at the University of Las Vegas comes as both campaigns are beset by controversy in the final stretch of the most unusual presidential campaign in modern history.

Clinton has been forced to contend with the illegal hacking of her campaign chairman’s emails, leaked in tranches by WikiLeaks in what the US government has described as the work of Russian intelligence. ...

The debate, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, will focus on six topics: debt and entitlements, immigration, economy, the supreme court, foreign hotspots and fitness to be president. But as in the last two debates between Trump and Clinton, policy is expected to take a back seat to the unpredictable behaviour associated with Trump.

Amy Goodman showed us the perils of standing up to the fossil fuel industry

For far too long, the world had been ignoring the North Dakota anti-pipelines protests. Then the Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman captured private security forces (employed by a fossil fuel company) sicking dogs on Native Americans during a peaceful demonstration against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which encroaches on their sacred lands and waters. For that, she nearly went to jail. ...

Authorities said Goodman didn’t deserve press protections because her opinions made her an “activist” instead of a journalist. Are we to punish every journalist who calls out state violence as he or she sees it? How could you not have an opinion in the face of such brutality? Should Walter Cronkite have gone to prison for his words about Vietnam? ...

Monday, a North Dakota judge dropped the charges due to lack of probable cause. It’s a win for freedom of the press, but intimidation by the fossil fuel industry and its government allies is far from over. Native leaders at the Standing Rock camps know this all too well, as they continue to face arrests by North Dakota police and pressure by Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline. ...

It’s also a fight that’s playing out around the world wherever communities stand up to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests destroying our communities and climate. We see it in the murder of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras. We see it in the Philippines, where anti-mining activists are being murdered by paramilitary groups. According to a report by Global Witness, 185 environmental activists in 16 countries were killed last year and the number is just going up.

Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman–No Thanks to Corporate Media

North Dakota District Judge John Grinsteiner stood up for the First Amendment by dismissing “riot” charges against Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!, 10/17/16). That’s more than you can say for most of Goodman’s corporate media colleagues.

After Goodman reported on the use of pepper spray and attack dogs against Native American demonstrators opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (Democracy Now!, 9/4/16), North Dakota State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson charged her with criminal trespassing. Realizing that he couldn’t make that charge stick, he sought to charge her instead with participation in a “riot”—based on Erickson’s contention that Goodman “was not acting as a journalist” because “everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions” (FAIR.org, 10/15/16).

Few corporate media journalists took note of a fellow reporter being charged with trespass for doing her job (FAIR.0rg, 9/15/16). When the prosecutor upped the ante by trying to build a criminal charge based on his perception of a reporter’s point of view, this still did not provoke much attention—let alone outcry—from outlets whose lucrative commercial enterprises are dependent on the protection of the First Amendment. ...

If there are any regretful reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post, the broadcast or cable news outlets, or any of the other media properties that neglected to cover Goodman’s case when she stood accused of thoughtcrime, they can make up for it by reporting on the still-pending case of documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg, who is facing up to 45 years in prison based on three felony counts derived from her reporting on the Dakota Access protests (Reuters, 10/13/16). The First Amendment you save may be your own.

'I Was Doing My Job': Climate Reporter Facing 45 Years Speaks Out

The filmmaker facing a lengthy prison sentence for documenting a nonviolent civil disobedience action last week has spoken out on behalf of journalism, the First Amendment, and the global climate movement. 

Deia Schlosberg, an independent filmmaker and climate reporter, was arrested last week in Walhalla, North Dakota for filming the unprecedented #ShutItDown protest held in solidarity with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. 

"When I was arrested, I was doing my job," Schlosberg said in a statement released Tuesday. "I was reporting. I was documenting. Journalism needs to be passionately and ethically pursued and defended if we are to remain a free democratic country. Freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, is absolutely critical to maintaining an informed citizenry, without which, democracy is impossible."

Saying she believes the charges "are unjust," Schlosberg offered a passionate defense of independent journalism that's covering the most important issues of our time:

I am a climate reporter; my specialty is following the story of how humankind is creating a grave problem for civilization by continuing to flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases through the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes. I don't think there is nearly enough reporting on climate change nor the movement of people around the world working to lessen the impacts of climate change.

It is the responsibility of journalists and reporters to document newsworthy events, and it is particularly important for independent media to tell the stories that mainstream media is not covering. The mainstream did not break the story on fracking nor did it break the story about what is happening at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, nor the stories told in my most recent film with Josh Fox, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change. Accordingly, I felt I had a duty to document the unprecedented #ShutItDown climate action, which stopped all Canadian oil sands from entering the United States. Canadian oil sands importation is a controversial issue that is not getting the coverage it warrants, especially considering that the extraction and use of oil sands has a profound impact on every person on this planet.

Scientists investigate death of 10,000 endangered 'scrotum' frogs in Peru

Scientists are investigating the mysterious deaths of at least 10,000 endangered frogs, in a river which leads into South America’s most famous lake on Peru’s border with Bolivia.

The dead Titicaca water frogs were found along a 50km (30 mile) stretch of the Coata river, a tributary which flows into the 8,372 sq km Lake Titicaca, according to Peru’s wildlife and forestry service Serfor.

Researchers are trying to find out what killed the amphibians in such numbers. The Titicaca water frog (Telmatobius culeus) is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN red list on threatened species, and is endemic to the lake.

The world’s largest aquatic frog, weighing up to two pounds, has large folds of skin, which give it a wrinkly appearance – it is jokingly referred to as the Titicaca scrotum frog. The skin increases its surface area so the amphibian can absorb more oxygen.

Previous studies had shown high levels of heavy metals in the lake caused by mining tailings from both formal operations and illegal gold mining in surrounding rivers, he said. They include lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, iron and zinc.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Conventional thinking will not solve the climate crisis

Here’s Who Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Are Bringing to Tonight’s Debate

Here’s Why Goldman Paid Clinton a Bundle for That Speech

The Cyber-War on Wikileaks

Coca-Cola Marketing Guru Secretly Worked Behind the Scenes to Brand Hillary as a Super Hero

Hillary Clinton and Syria: Stupidity or Something Worse?

Iraq’s ‘ramshackle’ Mosul offensive may see Isis defeated but it will expose deep divisions between the forces involved

Saudi Arabia sets record with mammoth $17.5 billion bond issue

The Death of the Two-State Solution

How Chicago Police Convinced Courts to Let Them Track Cellphones Without a Warrant

The FDA's excuses: New documents reveal why the agency says marijuana isn't medicine

2016 wildlife photographer of the year - winners in pictures

JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth love story to be published next year

A Little Night Music

Hot Lips Page & His Band - Lafayette

Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page - The Hucklebuck

Hot lips Page - I won't be here long

Hot Lips Page - You Stole My Wife, You Horse Thief

Hot Lips Page - The Blues Jumped The Rabbit

Hot Lips Page - The Devil's Kiss

Hot Lips Page & his Orch. - They Raided The Joint

Hot Lips Page's Swing Seven - Uncle Sam Blues

Hot Lips Page - Harlem Rumbain' the Blues