This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist and singer Byther Smith.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

Chelsea Manning Faces Solitary Confinement for Having Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn Jenner Issue in Her Cell

Chelsea Manning supporters condemn threat of indefinite solitary confinement

Activists say charges of ‘disrespect’ and ‘disorderly conduct’ are a violation of Manning’s free speech as army insists its behavior is ‘fair and equitable’

Here are the first four official charging documents from the US Disciplinary Barracks (USDB). More coming soon pic.twitter.com/6Zetual5f2

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) August 13, 2015

Almost 40,000 signatures have been added to petitions calling on the US military to drop charges against the army soldier and Guardian columnist Chelsea Manning that could put her into indefinite solitary confinement for violations that include storing a tube of expired toothpaste in her military prison cell.

The charges, in which Manning is accused of “disrespect”, “disorderly conduct” and other violations under the rules of the brig in which she is being held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, have prompted an outpouring of anger from the public. The original petition posted by the internet freedom group Fight for the Future has gained more than 15,000 signatures, together with about 20,000 combined for petitions from Roots Action and Demand Progress.

The last three pages of the USDB charging docs pic.twitter.com/U0MkZu2JiF

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) August 13, 2015

“There’s been a huge response from the public,” said Fight for the Future’s Evan Greer. “Just by threatening Chelsea with solitary confinement for such clearly trivial charges, the military is attempting to silence her and violate her right to free speech.”

Manning has told supporters that the property that was confiscated from her cell included the memoir I Am Malala by Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, a novel featuring trans women called A Safe Girl to Love, the LGBT publication Out Magazine, the Caitlyn Jenner issue of Vanity Fair and a copy of Cosmopolitan that included an interview with Manning.

The property, the military said in newly published documents, was not “properly marked with inmate’s name and registration number”.

Did the U.S. Just Kill 5 Kids in Syria?

A Syrian monitor group says planes from the U.S.-led coalition killed civilians, including five children, in an airstrike near Aleppo this week.

According to a Syrian monitor group, warplanes believed to be part of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition bombed and killed 18 people in the Idlib province town of Atmeh on Tuesday night, close to the Turkish border.

Eight of the alleged fatalities were civilians, including women and children—among them, five young sisters and a three-person family of internally displaced persons. The remaining 10 were said to be fighters belonging to the independent Free Syrian Army brigade known as Jaysh al-Sunnah. One of the brigade’s main bases was apparently destroyed.

If confirmed, this attack would not only scandalize an already fraught year-long campaign against the transnational terror group; it would undoubtedly squander whatever’s left of the trust held by anti-Assad rebels toward Washington. Particularly after the Pentagon this week quietly announced that its $500 million program to “train and equip” rebels to fight the so-called Islamic State widely known as ISIS was being largely sidelined, following the fiasco of seeing all of the 54 initial graduates run off or get killed or captured by al-Qaeda.

The Pentagon confirmed to The Daily Beast that a target “near Aleppo” was struck on August 11, although described it as an ISIS “staging area.” (Ragip Soylu, a Turkish journalist, had earlier obtained confirmation from the coalition that Atmeh is classified as “near Aleppo.”) U.S. Central Command said that it’s currently assessing whether to open an investigation into the bombing, contingent on what eyewitness statements, photographs, and other documents reveal about the sortie. ...

Arabic social media was awash with rumors of the Atmeh strike, encouraged by a series of heartrending interviews conducted by Syrian media activist Hadi al-Abdallah. In one, he talks to a man who says he is the grandfather of the five dead sisters, who ranged in ages from 4 to 10. “Are these girls terrorists?,” the grandfather asks. “Are they carrying machine guns? May God take revenge!”

Growing US Concerns as Turkey Escalates War on Kurds

US officials are expressing growing concern at the Turkish military’s continued escalation of its war against Kurdish factions in the region, and believe they were sold a bill of goods when Turkey attacked ISIS and the Kurdish PKK within hours of one another then sought NATO backing. ...

It seemed like everything the US was hoping for, but officials are now saying ISIS was a “bait-and-switch” tactic by Turkey to get the US to acquiesce to their war against Kurds, particularly in northern Iraq. Though US military officials have expressed anger at the way the war against the Kurds is being carried out, there seems to be no interest in the US changing its policy, and instead they wait for Turkey to go after ISIS.

That’s just not happening. Turkey launched some token strikes on ISIS in the first couple of days of border clashes, and there hasn’t been a peep on the border since. Even the much-vaunted “safe zone,” presented to the US as hurting ISIS, looks to be carved mostly out of Kurdish territory in Aleppo Province. The focus is entirely on Kurds, and to read the Turkish press, there is no war with ISIS.

Hear that distant commotion? It's a stampede of arms dealers ready to peddle their wars wares to Iran...

A message for the US Congress from Switzerland: The Iran deal is done

News that Switzerland has become the first Western country to start lifting sanctions on Iran will no doubt be followed swiftly by reports of other nations (and corporations) seeking some of the Islamic Republic’s soon-to-be-unfrozen billions. Russia and China have already begun talking up arms sales to Tehran; over the weekend, Moscow sent a pair of warships to the port of Anzali, to display Russian naval wares.

For now, the Swiss are easing restrictions on harmless things such as precious metals. But Iran’s military procurers will have made note of recent reports that Switzerland has eased restrictions on arms exports. Swiss-made tanks (known, puzzlingly, as Piranhas) and ammunition are already used widely across the Middle East. How long before munitions makers from Switzerland join the stampede toward Tehran?

But perhaps more important than the specifics of the trade between Switzerland and Iran is the message it sends the US Congress, where a mighty—and mightily futile—bipartisan effort is under way to scuttle the deal. And it is entirely fitting that the message should come from the country that has represented American interests in Tehran for the past 35 years. The message: Move on.

Rights Campaigners and Doctors Face Off With Israel Over Force-Feeding

As jailed Palestinian hunger striker Mohammad Allan falls into coma, physicians and advocates say only way to save his life is to release him

Just weeks after the Israeli government passed a widely-opposed law allowing the force-feeding of prisoners, administrative detainee Mohammad Allan, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days, slipped into a coma on Friday morning while shackled to his hospital bed.

Now, the unconscious 30-year-old Palestinian attorney from the village of Einabus, who has been incarcerated in Israeli custody for nearly a year without charge or trial, finds himself at the center of a growing controversy. The Israeli government is threatening to make Allan a test case for the country's new force-feeding laws and Israeli doctors are so far refusing to carry out the controversial practice, which is considered torture by United Nations experts.

Allan, currently on life support in Barzilai hospital in Askalan, reportedly suffered seizures and breathing difficulties before losing consciousness Friday morning. The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Adalah, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said in a statement that Allan confirmed as recently as August 12 that "he seeks to live, but a life of dignity and freedom."

In a statement released last week, United Nations experts affirmed Allan's right to make this choice: "Hunger strikes are a non-violent form of protest used by individuals who have exhausted other forms of protest to highlight the seriousness of their situations. The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right."

The case is also pitting doctors against the Israeli state, whose lawmakers directly cited the U.S. practice of force-feeding people incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay when justifying the legislation. The Israeli Medical Association has opposed the legislation from the beginning—denouncing the force-feeding as torture, urging physicians not to participate, and currently challenging the law in the courts.

[Way to go, Obama! You're such a beacon of hope to the world's oppressed! - js]

A question worth pondering...

When the Next Crisis Comes, Which Movements Will Seize the Opportunity?

You, too, could be caught in a situation where people are ready for an alternative, yet your group has none to offer.

It’s understandable. We who work for change seem years away from convincing a critical mass of people that it is both stupid and wrong to have a school-to-prison pipeline, or a rate of carbon emissions killing hundreds of thousands of people, or a “national security strategy” that mainly breeds insecurity. ...

I asked a Washington, D.C., friend who works among progressive Democrats what he heard after the Wall Street disaster. Did people in his circle discuss organizing the strong, grassroots anger into a push for major reform? He knew of none. As it turned out, that anger was organized by the right and became the Tea Party. Polls show that even today many people identifying as Tea Party members express hostility to Wall Street.

All this missed opportunity should be seen in the context of Barack Obama’s presidency, since it was he who said, during his candidacy, that the Swedish solution to its own banking crisis had been correct: Seize the banks rather than bail them out. (In a recent New Yorker article on Greece, former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said President Obama told him that the U.S. bailout was against his personal politics.)

[Pfffffftttt!!! Against your personal politics? Pull the other one, Mr. Hamilton Project! -js]

Presidents do what they do, given the existing power realities they face. The lesson for us in the United States is: In 2009 we lacked a powerful movement that had a vision, and was willing to mobilize direct action on behalf of that vision.

Corbyn rolls towards the British Labour Nomination

So, Jeremy Corbyn, who believes in re-industrializing England, re-nationalizing the railroads and various other genuine left-wing policies is cruising towards the Labour nomination, leading every poll. ...

Let us examine why:

1. Neo-liberalism has been in charge in England since Thatcher in the 70s. There were some good years, but the simple fact is that most of the population is no better off than before her, and many are worse off. Neo-liberalism, for most people in Britain, has failed. Incomes are stagnant or down; university tuitions are way up; universal healthcare is being dismantled; the welfare state is mean and stingy; and increasing people can’t afford to buy a home where the jobs are (London). Thatcherism, and Blair’s “new left” has failed.
2. Corbyn talks like an ordinary human being. He has held to the same principles and policies for his entire life, even when times were against him. It is credible that if elected Corbyn will actually implement those policies. Being yesterday’s man is important, because the media is full of stories about how the younger generations are doing worse than their parents and grandparents. Sure, Corbyn wants to do stuff that is out of fashion: but those old-fashioned politics, according to the media, worked better than the new-fangled ones.
3. Labour has lost two elections in a row. Worse, they were wiped out of their Scottish stronghold by the the SNP, who won because the ran to Labour’s left. Contrary to all the squealing from neo-liberals like Blair, the evidence is that Labour lost more seats because it was too right wing than too left wing.

Fighting for Next Generation, Kids File Climate Suit Against US Government

Claiming that the continued development and burning of fossil fuels violates their constitutional rights, 21 young plaintiffs—ranging in age from 8 to 19—filed a landmark climate change lawsuit against the federal government on Wednesday.

"The federal government has known for decades that CO2 pollution from burning fossil fuels was causing global warming and dangerous climate change," said one of the teenage plaintiffs and youth director of Earth Guardians, 15-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez of Colorado. "It also knew that continuing to burn fossil fuels would destabilize our climate system, significantly harming my generation and generations to come."

Despite that knowledge, the government "continued to authorize and promote fossil fuel extraction, production, consumption, and all their associated emissions—to the grave detriment of future generations," added attorney Philip Gregory of the California firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, a counsel to the plaintiffs. ...

As MSNBC reports, the lawsuit "debuts a new legal framework to fight climate change, one that portrays federal support for the development and use of fossil fuels as a violation of the Fifth and Ninth Amendments, as well as the public trust doctrine."

The public trust doctrine ensures "the rights of present and future generations to those essential natural resources that are of public concern to the citizens of our nation," reads the complaint. "These vital natural resources include at least the air (atmosphere), water, seas, the shores of the sea, and wildlife. The overarching public trust resource is our country's life-sustaining climate system, which encompasses our atmosphere, waters, oceans, and biosphere. Defendants must take affirmative steps to protect those trust resources."

Accompanying the youth's legal complaint (pdf) was an "expert declaration" (pdf) from former NASA scientist James Hansen, who first sounded the alarm on climate change in 1988. Hansen's granddaughter, 17-year-old Sophie Kivlehan of Pennsylvania, is among the plaintiffs.

Also of interest:

'Our Central American spring': protesters demand an end to decades of corruption

A life in feuds: how Gore Vidal gripped a nation

Here Are The Wobbly Democrats Who Could Make Or Break The Iran Deal

Bad Intelligence Leading Us to War Again?

Selling Off New York’s Public Libraries