Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. Enjoy!

"The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business."

-- Lyndon B. Johnson

News and Opinion

CIA Director Says Next President Could Order Agency to Torture And It Might Comply

CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday that the next president could remove the restrictions President Obama has put on the use of drones overseas – and that CIA might comply with an order to commit torture.

In April, Brennan told NBC News that the CIA would refuse an order to resume its torture program. But on Wednesday, speaking at a Brookings Institute event, he said he was just speaking on his own behalf.

“If a president were to order, order the agency to carry out waterboarding or something else, it’ll be up to the director of CIA and others within CIA to decide whether or not that, that direction and order is something that they can carry out in good conscience,” he said. ...

Brennan did not acknowledge that Congress last year turned Obama’s anti-torture executive order into law, explicitly banning waterboarding and other forms of torture — and restricting the CIA in particular to interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual.

ACLU Gears Up to Fight Donald Trump’s Long List of Unconstitutional Proposals

The American Civil Liberties Union is preparing to fight a deluge of unconstitutional acts should Donald Trump become president. ...

In a 27 page memo released Thursday, the ACLU accuses Trump of “police-state tactics” and says his proposals on counterterrorism, border security, and women’s rights would routinely violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments. ...

The ACLU, which is the nation’s largest public interest law firm, is a non-partisan organization, so it does not endorse candidates. It made clear on that a review of Hillary Clinton’s policies was “forthcoming,” but singled out Trump’s policies as especially dangerous.

There's lots of interesting information in this article, far more than can be fairly abstracted. It's worth a full read.

How a modest contract for ‘applied research’ morphed into the CIA’s brutal interrogation program

The architect of the CIA’s brutal interrogation program was hired for the job through a secret contract in late 2001 that outlined the assignment with Orwellian euphemism.

The agency “has the need for someone familiar with conducting applied research in high-risk operational settings,” the document said. The consultant would be in a unique position to “help guide and shape the future” of a vaguely described research project “in the area of counter-terrorism and special operations.”

In fact, the CIA already had a specific consultant in mind, and the agreement to pay $1,000 a day to psychologist James E. Mitchell subsequently expanded into an $81 million arrangement to oversee the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other harrowing techniques against al-Qaeda suspects in secret agency prisons overseas.

The abuses of that program have been documented extensively over the past decade, but the initial contracts between the CIA and the psychologists it hired to design the torturous interrogation regimen were surrendered by the agency for the first time earlier this month as part of an ACLU lawsuit.

Here are the contracts:

James E. Mitchell

John B. Jessen

The contracts “substantiate that these guys had significant latitude in the design and implementation of the program,” said Steven Watt, a senior attorney with the ACLU’s human rights program. “The CIA incentivized these guys to profit from torture.”

Behold the handiwork of Hillary Bloodyhands in her incredible foreign policy success!

Protests erupt in Libya as UN government rolls out red carpet

A wave of protests have erupted in Tripoli against the country’s United Nations-backed government, overshadowing its success in finally occupying the prime minister’s office three months after arriving in the capital.

The people’s anger at the government’s failure to tackle shortages of electricity, water and money, coupled with endemic militia violence, saw tyres set alight in several districts and roads blocked on Tuesday.

Seemingly oblivious to the anger on the streets, a red carpet was rolled out for the seven-man presidency of the Government of National Accord as the members entered the official prime minister’s office, ending the 103 days they spent confined to Tripoli naval base amid fears of militia violence.

Since arriving on March 30 the GNA, led by prime minister Fayez Al Sarraj, has failed to end Libya’s civil war, which began in July 2014. The capital’s administration is dislocated and basic services are breaking down.

Fuel delivery shortages mean power plants cannot generate enough electricity. Tripoli districts are rationed to one hour of power in twelve, causing anger as the capital swelters in baking heat. ...

Second to the issue of power shortages is that of money. Last month the Central Bank of Libya took delivery of 112 million dinars in banknotes, but fearing inflation local banks only issue small amounts. “My father spent six hours waiting in a line outside his bank, and all he was given was 300 dinars (Dh780)," said one Tripoli engineer.

Bread prices have risen five-fold in recent months, while the Libya Observer online newspaper reports the dollar selling at 4.35 dinars on the black market, compared to 1.3 dinars at the official rate.

Meanwhile, there are daily skirmishes over city territory, with recent battles seeing Tripoli militias fighting those from Misurata.

US to Export $40 Billion in Arms in FY2016

US Vice Admiral Joe Rixey announced today that the official estimate from the Pentagon is that US arms makers will export $40 billion in weapons abroad in fiscal year 2016, which ends in October. This is slightly down from the $46.6 billion exported the previous year.

The decline, according to Rixey, is the result of a “burdened” system whereby export approval is taking longer than expected, citing complaints from companies that multi-billion dollar deals with Qatar and Kuwait are stuck in the hopper awaiting approval. Those two alone would’ve had the export figure at $47 billion.

Why is the Capitalist West Fighting with Capitalist Russia?

US Split Over Proposal to Cooperate With Russia on ISIS War

Recent discussions of the US possibly exploring some direct cooperation with Russia on the war against ISIS in Syria have come amid a shift by US officials on al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which they’d previously been pushing Russia to avoid targeting. ...

Acrimony toward Russia appears to be driving a lot of resistance to that effort, with reports that there is considerable opposition to the plan by both intelligence officials and some in the Pentagon arguing that the US and Russia have opposite goals in Syria and such a partnership can’t work. ...

The Pentagon was said to be opposed to the CIA’s regime change stand, however, so their reluctance to work with the Russians likely reflects longstanding distrust, as well as the reality that keeping Russia at Cold War-level arm’s length has allowed them to push for major budget increases. It would be a lot harder for the Pentagon to argue war with Russia is imminent if they’re directly cooperating with them.

Bashar Al-Assad Says U.S. Is 'Not Serious' About Defeating ISIS

A defiant Bashar al-Assad expressed confidence that Syria's bloody war could be won within months, saying Russia's intervention has helped tip the scales toward victory. ...

According to Assad, the "very frank" relationship he has with Putin is rooted in their shared values and common interest: defeating terrorists.

The Syrian president claimed that's far from true of the U.S., which he accused of not truly wanting to see ISIS' defeat.

"They're not serious," Assad said.

He dismissed "illegal" U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria as "counterproductive" and ineffective — compared to the "legal" firepower lent by Russia.

[Note NBC's scare quotes. Apparently the geniuses at NBC News haven't yet discovered international law or the UN Charter. -js]

"The reality is telling that, since the beginning of the American airstrikes, the terrorism has been expanding and prevailing," Assad explained. "It only shrinked when the Russians intervened."

He attributed that to a lack of political will from the U.S. — and a different end goal.

"We wanted to defeat those terrorists, while the United States wanted to manage those groups in order to topple the government in Syria," Assad said.

United Nations Assailed in Report by Kosovo Rights Panel

The United Nations received a stunning rebuke on Wednesday from a human rights panel attached to its troubled Kosovo peacekeeping mission, which described the panel’s efforts to make the mission accountable for rights violations as “a total failure.”

The 49-page report by the Human Rights Advisory Panel, part of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, or Unmik, contains extraordinarily strong language criticizing the mission’s handling of civilian grievances, including failures to investigate disappearances and killings as well as negligence in the mass lead poisoning of displaced Roma, also known as Gypsies, at United Nations camps.

The report’s conclusions are a potential source of embarrassment for the United Nations, which regularly assails governments for a lack of accountability and defends victims whose human rights have been violated in conflict zones around the world.

“Due to Unmik’s unwillingness to follow any of the Panel’s recommendations and Unmik’s general intransigence,” the report said, the panel’s own work had “obtained no redress for the complainants.”

“As such, they have been victimized twice by Unmik: by the original human rights violations committed against them and again by putting their hope and trust into this process,” it said.

Posters Pop Up Across Pakistan Urging Military Coup

Large posters bearing pictures of Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Raheel Sharif, have begun popping up all across Pakistan in recent days, with residents of many cities reporting such posters appeared on major highways in large numbers “overnight.”

The posters call for Gen. Sharif, whose term as army chief is due to end in November, to launch a military coup, ousting the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and replacing it with a cabinet of technocrats, with himself as the new dictator.

Move On Pakistan, which has its logo on the posters, defended the effort, insisting “dictatorship is much better than this corrupt government,” and that there is no guarantee Gen. Sharif’s successor, to be appointed in November, would make as good a dictator as he would.

Old Towns of Djenné: precious mud village could disappear, Unesco warns

A world heritage site in central Mali that features elaborate pre-Islamic mud houses is in danger of deteriorating because it cannot be protected adequately in the face of insecurity, according to Unesco.

The Old Towns of Djenné includes four archeological sites with nearly 2,000 houses whose decorative facades have remained intact since the 3rd century BC. The buildings are among the most famous in Mali, a country that also boasts the ancient town of Timbuktu.

The world heritage committee said insecurity was preventing measures to safeguard the site against the deterioration of construction materials, urbanisation and erosion.

Mali faces a threat from Islamist militants, as well as volatile separatist politics in the north.

Edmond Moukala, head of Unesco world heritage in Africa, said concerns were raised when a team visiting the site this year found signs of deterioration.

Rape, murder, famine — and $2 million for Washington PR firms

By almost any objective measure, the fledgling nation of South Sudan is a disaster. Reeling from a violent power struggle that's left an estimated 50,000 people dead just in the past three years and with a gross domestic product of just $2,000 per capita, it's one of the world's poorest, most unsafe nations.

Last week, as it celebrated the fifth anniversary of its independence from Sudan, the capital Juba was rocked by new violence between government forces and militias, which reportedly killed almost 300 people and displaced thousands before a ceasefire on Monday. ...

More than 5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the World Food Programme, and many of them face "unprecedented levels of food insecurity". One in five South Sudanese have fled their homes, according to international development organization Mercy Corps.

But while the government of president Salva Kiir Mayardit claims it doesn't have enough money to fix these problems, it was able to spend $2.1 million on lobbying and public relations firms in Washington from 2014 through the end of 2015. The money went to efforts to buff up its image, keep US aid flowing, and stave off harsher sanctions in response to its atrocities.

That cash has gone to people including former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts and R&R Partners, the agency famous for the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" campaign. A chunk of South Sudan's money went to lobbying giant Podesta Group, led by high-profile Democratic Party fundraiser Tony Podesta — brother of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign chairman, John, who also led President Obama's transition team and was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff. Among the Podesta operatives who worked on the South Sudan account were former high-level officials of Bill Clinton's Defense Department and Hillary Clinton's State Department.

UN accused of failing as north-east Nigeria at risk of famine

The UN has been accused of failing to act quickly enough to save hundreds of thousands of lives in northern Nigeria where a food crisis already killing hundreds of people a day is poised to become the most devastating in decades.

Nigerian authorities, who maintain tight control over humanitarian and media access to the region, have also been accused of deliberate negligence and attempting to conceal the scale of the crisis.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has categorised 4.4 million people in the Lake Chad region as “severely food insecure” – meaning they are in need of urgent food aid.

Toby Lanzer, UN assistant secretary general and OCHA’s regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, said: “This is about as bad as it gets. There’s only one step worse and I’ve not come across that situation in 20 years of doing this work and that’s a famine.” ...

Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency has left Borno’s farmland – which previously fed Nigeria – devastated and abandoned. This will be the region’s third year without a harvest.

The hunger crisis is claiming lives even in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and the hub of humanitarian and security forces in the region. The city has doubled in size in two years and now hosts 2.4 million displaced people. Food prices are soaring in the markets, where it now costs $100 (£75) to buy a large bag of rice.

Ex-Seattle Police Chief Condemns Systemic Police Racism Dating Back to Slave Patrols

ACLU Sues Baton Rouge Police for Violating Rights at Alton Sterling Protests

'Peaceful protestors were violently attacked and arrested, assault weapons pointed at them with fingers on the triggers, some dragged across the cement, their clothes ripped off of them'

Baton Rouge police showed excessive force when they arrived at this weekend's Black Lives Matter demonstration in riot gear and bearing machine guns, the lawsuit (pdf) alleges. The officers also violated protesters' First Amendment rights when they used "physical and verbal abuse and wrongful arrests to disperse protestors who were gathered peacefully to speak out against the police killing of Alton Sterling," the ACLU wrote. ...

Lawyers for the rights groups filed a temporary restraining order against the police "to prevent them from interfering with people’s constitutionally protected right to gather peacefully moving forward," the ACLU reports.

ACLU of Louisiana executive director Marjorie Esman argued: "The police didn't do their job in Baton Rouge, again. They are bound to protect us from harm, to keep us safe, to do everything possible before throwing someone to the ground or pulling the trigger. Yet Alton Sterling is on the long list of Black people killed needlessly by our nation's police, and protests in his honor have turned into circuses of violence where the First Amendment is tossed aside."

Footage of California police killing unarmed teen prompts claim of 'trigger-happy' officers

Police in California have released graphic body-camera footage of officers repeatedly shooting an unarmed teenager, including multiple shots that were fired as the adolescent was gravely wounded, lying on his back and barely moving. ...

Officers privately showed the video to Noble’s family last Friday but had initially refused to release the video to the public until the investigation was complete.

“They just wanted to shoot him,” said Darren Noble, Dylan’s father, after watching the footage. “They’re just trigger-happy.”

After watching the footage, Noble’s family launched legal action against the city alleging that the shooting was “an inexcusable use of excessive force”.

The man who led the Brexit campaign is now Britain's chief diplomat

Along with a new prime minister, the UK has a new foreign minister: Boris Johnson, the newly appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

The last time Johnson, whose full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, made headlines was just a few weeks ago. He'd just gotten majorly screwed by his old friend Michael Gove, who thwarted his plans for Conservative Party leadership at the final hour. A despondent-looking Johnson – former mayor of London, and leading campaigner for Brexit – appeared at a luxury hotel in London to tell his crestfallen supporters that he wasn't the right person to guide Britain through its divorce from Europe.

Now he's back, with a big new job under the equally new Prime Minister Theresa May.

Yes, Johnson does speak fluent French and Italian, and as one person on Twitter pointed out "has a good grasp of German and Spanish." He was, after all, a correspondent from multilingual Brussels in his previous career as a journalist. Regardless, his reputation for controversy and gaffes makes putting him in charge of diplomatic relations a strange choice. ...

He once compared presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to "a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital" and likened the former secretary of state to Lady Macbeth.

I wish it was a joke, but I fear it isn't. Exit upon exit. pic.twitter.com/8qmlSkQNRj

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) July 13, 2016

'Maybe the Brits are just having us on': the world reacts to Boris Johnson as foreign minister

The world of politics, diplomacy and celebrity has reacted with a mixture of amusement and horror to the news that Boris Johnson has been appointed Britain’s new foreign secretary.

Johnson himself said he was “excited” to take up the new role , which will involve travelling the globe, meeting foreign leaders and representing Britain on the international stage.

However, his track record when it comes to interacting with other cultures is patchy to say the least, and politicians around the world will no doubt be intrigued by the prospect of working with a man who once wrote a poem about the Turkish president having sex with a goat.

In the US, the official reaction was one of carefully restrained laughter.

When State Department spokesman Mark Toner heard the news, he struggled to keep a straight face – a broad smile breaking out more than once – before saying the US “looked forward” to working with Johnson. ...

In Germany, the chancellor, Angela Merkel, declined to comment on May’s surprise decision to appoint Johnson when asked by reporters.

#BorisJohnson wird britischer #Außenminister. pic.twitter.com/BNPsewYKHe

— Patrick Appel (@AppelPatrick) July 13, 2016

Eddie Glaude & Son: Leave Ballots Blank, Because Voting for the Status Quo Threatens Our Lives

Progressives Have Raised Expectations, and Democrats Have Fought Desperately to Lower Them

When Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008, expectations were high.

What occupied the minds of the president-elect's advisers, however, was not how to live up to those expectations, but how to temper them. ...

With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, though, the environment seemed ripe for a move in the direction of a recovery that would both offer robust assistance to Americans harmed by the economic crisis and set the stage for a shift toward a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Quickly, the president squashed these hopes. Turning to such figures as Robert Rubin — the "godfather" of Wall Street deregulation during the Clinton years — and Timothy Geithner, Rubin's protégé, President Obama, in the words of Matt Taibbi, "pulled a bait-and-switch on us." ...

[Hillary Clinton] has filled the role played by Democrats over the last several decades: She has done her best to lower expectations, to temper goals, and to insist that nothing will get done without compromising with the right. And loyal Democrats have largely followed her lead, not just by defending the status quo, but also by attacking any attempts to alter it.

Single-payer healthcare will "never, ever come to pass," Clinton declared. Criticism of Clinton's Wall Street fundraising, said Clinton supporter Barney Frank, is akin to "McCarthyism." Sanders's healthcare plan is, according to pundit Ezra Klein, "vague and unrealistic."

Perhaps the most egregious attempts to discredit the Sanders agenda, though, have been those that have accused Sanders, either implicitly or explicitly, of running a racist and sexist campaign.

Joan Walsh of The Nation has been a persistent peddler of this narrative, arguing at one point that Sanders, his commitment to economic justice for all aside, has risked becoming "the messiah of an angry white male cult."

Smears of this kind are telling: They are an attempt to obscure the fact that Sanders has been winning among young women and young people of color, and is favored by those who make less money. This demonstrates that the divide between Clinton and Sanders supporters is largely about age and class, not race and gender.

Sanders has raised the expectations of millions, particularly the young, the future of progressive politics in the United States.

And Democrats have, per usual, done their best to lower expectations, to insist that the goals of the Sanders campaign are unreachable, that the best we can hope to do is manage the decline.

The job of the left is, and always will be, to combat this perception.

TPP Opponents Take Aim at Pelosi: Let's Build a Firewall of Resistance

Social change network CREDO Action has amplified its call to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling for "an onslaught of grassroots opposition" coupled with a "firewall" of Democratic resistance in the House of Representatives to prevent the trade deal from being rammed through Congress.

In a video released Wednesday, CREDO combines footage of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaking out against the TPP, and urges viewers to sign a petition that calls on House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to help stop a "lame-duck" vote on the TPP.

The footage of Clinton is from her joint rally with Sanders on Tuesday, when she got his endorsement. 

She says in the video: "And we're going to say no to attacks on working families and no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership."

The footage of Reid shows the senator saying the TPP "puts us at a disadvantage. So the answer is not only no, but hell no," while Warren—already featured in a separate anti-TPP video released last week by CREDO—says the deal "would tilt the playing field even more in favor of multinational corporations and against working families." ...

As of this writing, the petition has over 60,000 signatures.

Despite widespread opposition to the deal and mobilization by progressive groups, including CREDO, the Democratic Party platform committee last weekend failed to adopt an anti-TPP amendment. 

Evangelical Christians rallying behind Donald Trump, poll finds

Evangelical voters, long a key conservative voting bloc, are rallying behind Donald Trump, according to a survey that found 78% of rank-and-file white evangelicals say they plan on voting for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

The survey, conducted by Pew Research Center from 15-25 June, found that support for Trump among white evangelicals tops even that of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, including more than one-third of the demographic that says they “strongly” support his candidacy. Presumptive Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, garnered the support of a mere 17% of white evangelical Protestants, but enjoyed the support of more than two-thirds of religiously unaffiliated registered voters: Clinton leads among voters who expressed no religious preference 67% to Trump’s 23%. ...

The survey represents good news for Trump, whose policy history, including past embraces of abortion rights, same-sex marriage and religious tests to enter the US, and personal peccadilloes – three marriages and statements referring to avoiding sexually transmitted infections as his “own personal Vietnam” – turned off many evangelical leaders during the Republican primaries.

I will be making the announcement of my Vice Presidential pick on Friday at 11am in Manhattan. Details to follow.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2016

Pacific Islands Nations Consider 'Pioneering' Treaty to Ban Fossil Fuels

Pacific Island nations are reportedly considering the world's first treaty to ban fossil fuels, which would require signatories to work toward renewable energy targets and prohibit any expansion of fossil fuel mines.

The leaders of 14 nations on the front lines of climate change are considering the treaty after an annual summit in the Solomon Islands known as the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF). The treaty would establish a "Pacific framework for renewable energy" and require "universal access" to clean energy by 2030. It would also bind leaders not to approve any new coal or other fossil fuel mines nor provide subsidies for extraction or consumption.

"They seemed convinced that this is an avenue where the Pacific could again show or build on the moral and political leadership that they've shown earlier in their efforts to tackle climate change," PIDF climate change adviser Mahendra Kumar told the Guardian on Thursday. ...

As Common Dreams reported in May, five Pacific Islands that make up part of the Solomon Islands' archipelago have already been lost to rising seas and coastal erosion associated with climate change. Residents have also been forced to relocate due to encroaching waters.

In 2015, the Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of the most vulnerable Pacific Islands nations, demanded a moratorium on new coal mines.

Desertification: an ecological reality or a dangerous myth?

Local people, usually herders and pastoralists with too many animals, strip the vegetation, blow the soils away and temperatures climb as the merciless sun shines down on the newly reflective landscape. Often, hunger and conflict ensues. This is a powerful metaphor – a morality tale – for what humankind is doing to the earth, and the answers to this simple narrative can seem as equally simple: move people and their animals into settlements, fence-off land and plant trees. ...

It is quite a shock, then, to be presented with an abundance of evidence that desertification doesn’t happen, at least not in the way it has been explained. ... The so-called desertification of the Sahel that created the scare happened for quite other reasons, and wasn’t irreversible. What’s more, the standard policies to reverse desertification generally do more harm than good, both to the environment and to people.

This is the thesis of a new book by 20 experts in the field. The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands is a collection of essays edited by Roy Behnke and the veteran drylands expert Mike Mortimore. Published with the help of the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development and Tufts University in the US, it pulls no punches.

“The opening chapters of this book examine something that never occurred but was widely believed to have existed – the late 20th century desertification crisis in the Sahel,” begins the book. The notion of widespread, catastrophic environmental degradation was, the authors say, a non-event. And the great Sahelian droughts of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s did not happen because unintelligent local people were over-exploiting their land but because of global climate changes brought about by fluctuations in the composition of atmospheric greenhouse gases and particulates.

[See article for more detailed explanation of climate effects. -js]

The notion of desertification has three characteristics of a compelling story. It’s “dramatic enough to command attention; simple enough to be easily grasped; and general enough to satisfy diverse interest groups,” claims the book. “The institutionalisation of desertification within the UN system has fostered the conviction that the concept must be relevant to something important.”

Sadly, the opponents of desertification still have no such simple narrative. They are saying that reality is messy and the answers are not environmental, they are political. Essentially, we should stop seeing local communities as the source of the problems.

The CDC isn't super worried about Zika at the Olympics

Four African countries are at the highest risk of a Zika outbreak if one of their athletes or travelers is infected with the virus during the upcoming Summer Olympics in Brazil, according to American health officials.

A risk analysis published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said factors common to Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Yemen could lead to a sustained spread of Zika in those countries.

There isn't a "substantial" amount of travel by people from these countries to Zika-affected countries aside from their participation in the Games, and they all have the "environmental conditions and population susceptibility to sustain mosquito-borne transmission of Zika virus," said a CDC news release. ...

The probability of visitors being infected with the mosquito-borne virus is low since the Games are happening during what is winter in Brazil, when the mosquito population is lower because of the cooler and drier conditions, said the CDC news release.

Also of Interest

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

Let Us Speak of Hope for the Future

From field to fork: the six stages of wasting food

If NATO and the EU are the forces of peace and stability, who needs warmongers?

GOP’s Last Line of Anti-Trump Defense

GOP Ups Ante on Clinton’s Israel Pander

Picking Up James Comey’s Pieces — What He Did, What He Should Have Done & Why

Citigroup Has More Derivatives than 4,701 U.S. Banks Combined; After Blowing Itself Up With Derivatives in 2008

Readers recommend playlist: songs about Elvis

A Little Night Music

Sonny Boy Williamson - Bring It On Home

Sonny Boy Williamson - I`m A Lonely Man

Sonny Boy Williamson - Don't Start Me Talkin'

Sonny Boy Williamson - Getting out of town

Sonny Boy Williamson II - Little Village

Sonny Boy Williamson II - Eyesight To The Blind

Sonny Boy Williamson II - Help Me