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"When scrutiny is lacking, tyranny, corruption and man's baser qualities have a better chance of entering into the public business of any government."

-- Jacob K. Javits

News and Opinion

Hostile BBC Interview of a Saudi Loyalist Shows Prime Journalistic Duty: Scrutiny of One’s Own Side

The ongoing atrocities by Saudi Arabia and its “coalition partners” in Yemen reflect powerfully — and horribly — on both the U.S. and U.K. That’s true not only because those two countries in general are among the closest allies of the Saudi regime, but also because they are specifically lavishing Saudi despots with the very arms and intelligence being used to kill large numbers of Yemeni civilians.

The American and British governments have long been overflowing with loyalists to the Saudi regime. ... One of those many Saudi regime loyalists, conservative British MP Daniel Kawczynski, appeared on BBC’s Newsnight program on Friday night and was mercilessly grilled by host James O’Brien about support for the Saudi war in Yemen by both the British government and the country’s private-sector weapons manufacturers. ...

Each time he’s confronted with questions about the war crimes committed by the side his own government arms and supports, Kawczynski ignores the topic and instead demands to know why the BBC isn’t focused instead on the bad acts of the Houthis, the rebel group the Saudis are fighting, which the Saudis (dubiously) claim is controlled by Iran. Over and over, when O’Brien asks about the role the U.K. Government is playing in Saudi war crimes, Kawczynski tries to change the topic by demanding that the BBC instead talk about Iran and the Houthis: “You have an agenda at Newsnight and you don’t want anyone to dispute the way in which you are covering this war. You have an agenda against the Gulf States coalition. … Why haven’t you shown any coverage of the massacres … by the Houthi tribes?”

After noting that the BBC has reported on Houthi violence, O’Brien explains this crucial point about his focus on Saudi crimes:

Because the investigation is into whether or not weapons sold by British companies have been used in the commission of war crimes possibly committed by Saudi Arabia. … The Houthis are not our allies and are not our customers. Therefore, the public interest of British journalism is not served at this point by investigating what they have or have not been doing. We sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Embedded in O’Brien’s explanation is a vital point: The primary role of journalists is to expose and thus check abuses committed by their own nation and its allies. ...

This ought to be so obvious as to be axiomatic. But the opposite is true: The vast, vast majority of media coverage in the West — and of foreign policy discourse generally in the U.S. — is devoted to some formulation of “hey, look at all the bad things that our enemy tribe, the one way over there, is doing.” It’s impossible to quantify with precision, but as someone who pays a great deal of attention to American media and “foreign policy expert” discussion in the U.S., I’d estimate that 95 percent of that discourse is devoted to the supposed bad acts of adversaries of the U.S., with maybe 5 percent devoted to the bad acts of the U.S. itself and its closest allies. It’s exactly the opposite of the “public interest” standard O’Brien accurately defends.

The UN Says US Drone Strikes in Yemen Have Killed More Civilians Than al Qaeda

American drones strikes may have killed as many as 40 Yemeni civilians over the past year, the UN reported on Monday, offering a tally of the human cost of the long-running US campaign against al Qaeda in Yemen, which has continued amid the chaos of country's current war.

The data on drone strikes came from the latest report on Yemen issued by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner For Human Rights (OHCHR), which compiled accounts of human rights violations from July 1, 2014 to June 30 of this year.

The US first launched armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over Yemen in 2002, but the bulk of strikes carried out by the aircraft have taken place since since 2011. According to figures maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Drone War program, at least 101 people have been killed by confirmed drone strikes in Yemen, plus 26 to 61 others killed by "possible extra drone strikes." Between 156 and 365 civilians have also been killed in other covert missions since 2002, according to the group.

If accurate, the UN's estimates would represent a significant rise in confirmed civilian casualties in the country as a result of drone strikes.

"OHCHR received reliable information indicating that as many as 40 civilians, including a child, may have been killed during the period under review as a result of drone attacks in Al-Baida, Al-Jawf, Marib and Shabwah," the OHCHR report states.

It's interesting that the NYT's coverage avoids mention of the alleged involvement of Obama admin insider and notorious liar, James Clapper.

Analysts Detail Claims That Reports on ISIS Were Distorted

A group of intelligence analysts have provided investigators with documents they say show that senior military officers manipulated the conclusions of reports on the war against the Islamic State, according to several government officials, as lawmakers from both parties voiced growing anger that they may have received a distorted picture about the military campaign’s progress.

The Pentagon’s inspector general, who is examining the claims, is focusing on senior intelligence officials who supervise dozens of military and civilian analysts at United States Central Command, or Centcom, which oversees American military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Bridget Serchak, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s inspector general, confirmed that the investigation is focused on Centcom’s intelligence command. “The investigation will address whether there was any falsification, distortion, delay, suppression or improper modification of intelligence information,” she said in an email on Tuesday. ...

The Pentagon’s inspector general would not examine disputes over routine differences among analysts, and so it is highly unusual that an investigation would be opened about the intelligence conclusions in an ongoing war. The allegations raise the prospect that military officials were presenting skewed assessments to the White House and lawmakers that were in sharp contrast with the conclusions of other intelligence agencies.

Emails Show Close Ties Between Heritage Foundation and Lockheed Martin

When the Pentagon decided in 2009 to cut funding for Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor fighter jet — a weapons system with cost overruns in the billions of dollars that has rarely seen combat — the Heritage Foundation fought tooth and nail to restore taxpayer money for the planes.

Heritage depicted its support for the F-22 as a matter of vital national security. But what the public didn’t know is that Lockheed Martin, a corporate donor to the conservative think tank, met with Heritage officials on nearly a monthly basis to discuss the F-22 and other defense industry priorities.

Internal emails leaked online show at least 15 meetings in 2008 and 2009 between officials at Heritage and Lockheed Martin, including one with Bill Inglee, who at the time served as a senior lobbyist at Lockheed Martin.

The emails also suggest that Heritage continued courting Lockheed Martin for donations, listing the company repeatedly in Excel spreadsheets used to collect pledges from past donors. Lockheed Martin gave $40,000 to Heritage in 2008, bringing its total contribution to $341,000, according to those documents.

Is US Setting Up a Proxy War Against Russia in Syria?

After a solid year of the US-led coalition unsuccessfully fighting ISIS in Syria, nothing has been so unwelcome to the administration than recent media indications that Russia is looking to fight ISIS too, and in the complicated mess of factions that is Syria, two international anti-ISIS movements could quickly find themselves in a proxy war with one another. ...

The “fight” has to be on America’s terms, even if the terms the US has laid out publicly don’t make any sense, with the US nominally trying to destroy ISIS, destroy al-Qaeda, and destroy the Syrian government all at the same time, installing some non-existent pro-US faction in their place.

The reality of US policy is quite different, of course, with retired Gen. David Petraeus urging the US to more overtly start backing al-Qaeda as their preferred regime of choice in the nation, something Russia probably isn’t going to go for. Other members of the US coalition got there first, however, as despite public denials reports have been around for months that Turkey’s military has been aiding al-Qaeda in their gains in northwest Syria.

With that, the US opposition to Russia becomes more apparent, and sets the stage for a proxy battle by “US allies,” predominantly the al-Qaeda-led Islamist bloc, and the Russian-backed Syrian government, for the right to be the official internationally endorsed face of the war against ISIS, with Syria as the prize.

US State Dept spox almost cracks over ISIS and Syria regime change charges

Demining Experts Called to Croatia's Border as Migrants Reroute

Barred from Hungary, hundreds of migrants walked through cornfields into the European Union (EU) via Serbia's western border with Croatia on Wednesday, opening up a new front in the continent's migration crisis.

Croatian demining experts have now also been sent to the region, called in by police concerned at the threat posed by minefields left over from Croatia's 1991-95 war. Eastern Croatia, on the border with Serbia, saw fighting as Croatia split from federal Yugoslavia.

Hundreds of people, some of whom identified themselves as Iraqi, trekked through fields near the official Sid border crossing between Serbia and its fellow former Yugoslav republic, an EU member since 2013.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday that migrants entering the country will be allowed to pass through and continue their journey to western Europe, confirming around 150 people had entered from Serbia overnight.

"Croatia is entirely ready to receive or direct those people where they want to go, which is obviously Germany or Scandinavian countries," Milanovic told parliament. "They will be able to pass through Croatia and we will help, we're getting ready for that possibility," he added.

Drowned Migrant Cartoon Pisses People Off — Just as 'Charlie Hebdo' Likely Intended

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is stirring up controversy once again with a series of cartoons about Europe's migrant and refugee crisis. Its most recent edition features images of drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, including a cartoon that shows him face-down in the sand, alongside a grinning Ronald McDonald-like figure.

The cartoons are provoking a range of reactions. Some see a cruel mockery of the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees now fleeing war zones to reach Europe. Others see a searing indictment of European apathy in the face of a humanitarian crisis. ...

#CharlieHebdo Welcome to the migrants, so close to the goal...promotional offer: kids menu 2 for the price of 1" pic.twitter.com/LjqTUnBVAZ

— Abu Basim (@islamaideology) September 12, 2015

The magazine's most recent issue shows it's still not afraid of controversy. In perhaps the most shocking cartoon of the issue, the Syrian toddler Kurdi is shown in shorts and a T-shirt face-down on the shoreline beside a billboard [with a Ronald McDonald caricature] advertising a "two for one" kids menu. ...

Charlie Hebdo's new cover "Proof that Europe is Christian - Christians walk on water - Muslim kids drown" speechless pic.twitter.com/xsbZ5fjwNz

— Rim (@SimplyRim) September 13, 2015

The final page of the most recent edition of Charlie Hebdo, under a regular section called "The covers you avoided," features a particularly stark example of the magazine's "black humor." The cartoon — written by an artist who survived the January attack — runs with a caption that reads: "Proof that Europe is Christian." The image shows Jesus walking on water while another, smaller figure wearing shorts drowns. Jesus says: "Christians walk on water." The drowning boy is captioned: "Muslim children sink."

That cartoon is accompanied by an editorial that slams European leaders for hypocrisy. "If Europe's truly as Christian as it claims to be, it should welcome all these exiles with open arms," it read.

Nun who vandalized uranium bunker resentenced to time served

An 85-year-old nun and two fellow Catholic peace activists have been resentenced to time served for vandalizing a storage bunker that held much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium.

Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed (bohr-CHEE' OH-bed') were originally convicted of felony sabotage for their 2012 actions in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where they cut through fences and sneaked into the most secure area of the Y-12 National Security Complex. Once there, they hung banners, prayed and hammered on the outside wall of the bunker to symbolize a Bible passage that refers to the end of all war: "They will beat their swords into ploughshares."

Rice was sentenced to nearly three years in prison while Walli, 66, and Boertje-Obed, 60, were each sentenced to just over five years.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the sabotage charge in May, leaving a conviction on the lesser charge of injuring government property. When they were released from prison in June, the anti-nuclear activists had already served two years.

Violence Rages for Third Consecutive Day at Jerusalem Holy Site

Israeli security forces armed with tear gas and stun grenades clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians for the third consecutive day at a contested Jerusalem holy site.

The clashes started Sunday shortly after Israeli security forces raided the complex outside the al-Aqsa Mosque in advance of the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashana. An Israeli police spokesman said authorities were trying to secure the site for Jewish worshipers, and to "prevent riots by Arabs."

Jewish nationalists have been pushing the Israeli government to allow Jewish prayer on the compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and considered the holiest site in Judaism. The al-Aqsa mosque, revered by Muslims as one of the three holiest sites in Islam, also sits atop the site.

In 2000, a visit to the Temple Mount by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sparked a massive Palestinian uprising, also known as the Second Intifada, which lasted five years and left thousands dead. Since then, violence has flared up there regularly, most recently in July.

Turkey Is Investigating a Major Media Group for Alleged 'Terrorism Propaganda'

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into Dogan Media Group, a part owner of CNN's sister network in Turkey, for alleged "terrorism propaganda," authorities said on Tuesday, a move likely to deepen concern about the media's freedom to criticize government policy.

The investigation comes just days after the offices of one Dogan newspaper, the mass circulation Hurriyet, was attacked by pro-government crowds who accused it of sympathizing with the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin confirmed the investigation into Dogan but declined to give any details.

Turkey's Anadolu Agency said the inquiry was launched after a complaint from a pro-government newspaper, which cited the publication of uncensored photographs of dead Turkish soldiers and an interview with someone who later joined the PKK.

Warren Diggs: I Was Beaten By Same Officer Who Tackled James Blake

Greek election 2015: Golden Dawn rises on austerity-driven despair

Short, squat and strident, Nikos Michaloliakos draws thunderous applause as he exhorts the crowd to stand up and say “No!” Days before Greeks go to the polls, the Golden Dawn leader does not want his message to go unheard.

“No to the memorandums. No to illegal immigration,” he roars as he punches the air before a backdrop emblazoned by his party’s swastika-style motif. “We won’t allow them to make us a minority in our own country!”

Until March, the seemingly avuncular Michaloliakos was in prison on charges of running a criminal gang masquerading as a political organisation. But six months is a long time in politics.

As he spits into the microphone, his face contorted with fury, his voice tremulous and his supporters cheering him on, it is clear the neo-fascist leader is on a roll. Golden Dawn is having a good election. ... In successive opinion surveys, the virulently anti-immigrant, antisemitic, anti-EU party has emerged as Greece’s third-biggest political force – the sole certainty in an election that has defied expectation in almost every other way. ...

In rallies, including the one held at Michaloliakos’s speech in the seaside town of Megara on Monday, euphoric supporters speak of a “double-digit” victory, with the party gaining 10% or more on a wave of outrage over their country’s economic collapse and perceived invasion by thousands of “illegal migrants”.

Varoufakis on Corbyn’s campaign & tragedy of Greek finance plan

The Elite's Childlike Commitment to Austerity

The landslide victory of left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn for Labor Party leader in the United Kingdom has many establishment types bent out of shape. The Blair-wing of the party was literally obliterated, with Corbyn drawing more than four times the votes of his nearest competitor. After giving the country the war in Iraq and the housing bubble whose collapse led to the 2008-2009 recession and financial crisis, the discontent of the Labour Party's rank and file is understandable. ...

Just last week, E.J. Dionne, an unusually thoughtful Washington Post columnist, commented on the rise of outsiders like Corbyn:

And I think the collapse - the economic collapse in 2008 and the trouble everybody's having to get their footing again is that the heart of these problems - in good times, moderate-right parties can defend capitalism, moderate-left parties can spread around money and redistribute it, but when capitalists behave badly, the center-right has trouble defending the economic establishment and the moderate-left faces a harder left. You see it in Syriza, to some degree Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, the - who's a left-wing frontrunner to lead the Labour Party in Britain. They all have strong grounds for attacking the system.

The irony here is that Dionne has the situation exactly reversed. In more normal economic times, when the economy is near its potential, the only way moderate-left parties can finance new programs is either through new taxes or by cutting other spending. The economy is up against its capacity constraints, so there are no free lunches. By contrast, in the current situation where there are large numbers of idle workers and productive capacity, the government actually can spread money around without worrying about where it will get it. Again, the problem is too little demand, so we don't have to worry about pulling resources away from somewhere.

The problem faced by the moderate-left parties in this story is not a real economic constraint, but rather their failure to understand economics. They apparently prefer to believe stories their parents told them about the evils of debt rather than trying to understand how the economy actually works. For this incredible level of intellectual laziness, these parties and candidates deserve the contempt they are getting from the electorate.

All eyes on Federal Reserve as it prepares for interest rate announcement

Under intense security and privacy, 12 people are gathering in Washington DC to make decisions that could change the lives of everyone in the US – and much of the rest of the world.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will on Wednesday and Thursday thrash out a decision on whether to raise US interest rates, which have been held at near-zero since the 2008 financial crisis.

If rates do rise, it will likely lead to higher mortgage, car and personal loan and credit card rates in the US, and spark central banks throughout the rest of the developed world to also consider raising their interest rates.

For months, economists had been expecting a rate rise (dubbed “liftoff” by Fed officials) at this meeting, but their enthusiasm has waned markedly following last month’s global stock market panic over the health of the Chinese economy.

The decision will be announced by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen at a highly anticipated press conference in Washington on Thursday. Even if rates aren’t raised, every word that she says – and how it reflects the committee’s confidence in the US economy – has the potential to significantly move global markets.

Fiat Chrysler and auto workers' union reach tentative deal for 40,000 staff

After 48 hours of negotiations, the United Auto Workers and Fiat come up with a contract agreement that would make tiered wages ‘go away’

The United Auto Workers union and Fiat Chrysler have reached a tentative deal on a new contract for about 40,000 US factory workers that will serve as a template for pacts with General Motors and Ford.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed on Tuesday. Fiat Chrysler’s US hourly workers must vote to ratify the agreement before it can take effect.

The president of UAW, Dennis Williams, said the agreement met the union’s goals but still kept Fiat Chrysler competitive. His three goals for the four-year contract were to give entry-level workers a path to higher pay, reward members for sacrifices they made while Fiat Chrysler struggled financially, and deal with escalating health care costs.

“We believe that we have met those goals, but ultimately our membership will make the final decision,” Williams said on Tuesday evening.

The union was seeking hourly pay raises for long-serving workers who had not had one in a decade. It also wanted to narrow or close the wage gap for new hires, who start at about half the $29 an hour that long-serving workers are paid.

The UAW agreed to the two tiers of pay when then-Chrysler was near bankruptcy in 2007. But Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, agreed with the union that tiered wages were unfair. Marchionne said negotiators came up with a carefully crafted agreement “whereby that issue will go away”.

There are some interesting details that make this article a good read. Corbyn is clearly a more talented political creature than the establishment was expecting.

Corbyn puts voters' questions to Cameron in first PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn has moved to end the “theatrical” nature of prime minister’s questions by tabling a series of questions to David Cameron submitted by 40,000 people who responded to his call for ideas.

The new Labour leader calmly asked the prime minister in a non-confrontational way about the housing crisis in the rental sector, the government’s cuts to tax credits and mental health.

Cameron, who has been thinking hard how to respond to his rival’s more consensual style, reportedly described the exchanges as “different … more civilised than usual”.

The policy-heavy questioning by Corbyn is likely to stabilise his position after a difficult start to his leadership when he failed to appoint any women to shadow the great offices of state and declined to sing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain commemoration event at St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday.

Bernie Sanders rejects 'vicious' attack over his support for UK Labour leader

Democratic presidential candidate accuses Super Pac associated with Hillary Clinton of crude slur after it reportedly criticised his support for Jeremy Corbyn

An uneasy truce between Democratic presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders broke down on Tuesday as the Vermont senator accused a group associated with the former secretary of state of a “vicious” attack on his support for new British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

In a war of words that heralds a new phase in the hitherto relatively polite Democratic primary campaign, Sanders was reportedly criticised over his backing of Corbyn – the leftwing socialist who came from nowhere to win a landslide victory in the Labour leadership contest on Saturday – by Correct the Record, a so-called Super Pac that raises unlimited sums from wealthy donors to support Clinton.

Sanders has spoken little about his foreign policy during the campaign but responded angrily to the attack on Tuesday, suggesting it was a crude slur more worthy of Republican opponents than a fellow Democrat.

Neither Correct the Record nor the Clinton campaign responded to requests for comment on the alleged attack on the Vermont senator, who has featured little in the former first lady’s speeches, especially compared with the bitter infighting the Republican primary has seen so far. ...

Nevertheless the comparison with Corbyn could raise problems in future for Sanders, who is generally less radical than his leftwing British counterpart, particularly on foreign policy, and is seeking to find out more about his positions.

Wall Street Journal’s Scary Bernie Sanders Price Tag Ignores Health Savings

The screaming headline on Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal reads “Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’s Proposals: $18 Trillion.” This would comprise “the largest peacetime expansion of government in American history,” the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper warns. ...

But how did the Journal arrive at $18 trillion? They added up the 10-year price tags of seven programs Sanders has endorsed in his candidacy for president. It turns out that $15 trillion of the $18 trillion, or 83 percent of the total, comes from just one of these programs: establishing a single-payer health care system.

The $15 trillion figure is derived from an analysis of a similar single-payer bill, H.R. 676, introduced in 2013 by Rep. John Conyers. Gerald Friedman, a labor economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, conducted the analysis.

What the Wall Street Journal won’t tell you is that $15 trillion in national health spending over 10 years would represent a massive savings for the United States. Right now we spend at twice that rate for health care. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in fiscal year 2013 alone, the U.S. spent $2.8 trillion on total health expenditures, not including the $250 billion tax break employers get for providing health insurance to their workers.

Accounting for cost inflation in health care and extending that out for 10 years, on our current trajectory we would spend more than $30 trillion, compared to the $15 trillion of a single-payer plan, which would totally supplant it.

Arctic sea ice shrinks to fourth lowest extent on record

Ice coverage in the Arctic this year shrunk to its fourth lowest extent on record, US scientists have announced.

The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, said the ice reached a low of 4.41m sq km (1.70m sq miles) on 11 September in what experts said was a clear indicator of climate change.

Sea ice melt is closely tied to warmer weather over the region, which can be affected by climate change and short-term weather variability. The weather patterns recorded over the summer were favourable to a low ice extent, the NSIDC said.

The lowest sea ice extent ever recorded was in 2012, followed by 2007 and 2011 respectively. This year’s date comes four days earlier than the average minimum from 1981 to 2010. In March it was reported that last winter’s sea ice maximum hit a record low.

Dr Jeremy Wilkinson, senior scientist at the British Antarctic Survey said: “This is undoubtedly an indicator of climate change. Even though it’s the fourth lowest on record it’s an ongoing downward trend that has been monitored for many years. For sea ice to melt you need a warmer atmosphere and a warmer ocean so these changes reflect the changes in the ocean and the atmosphere.”

US and Australian taxpayers pay billions a year to fund coal – report

Ending subsidies, that amount to almost a quarter of the sale price in some cases, would hugely reduce carbon emissions, new research reveals

Coal subsidies are costing US and Australian taxpayers billions of dollars a year, according to a new report.

The research examined the subsidies given to coal production in the US’s largest coal field, the Powder River Basin, and found they totalled $2.9bn (£1.9bn) a year. This equates to $8 per tonne, almost 25% of the sale price.

Ending the subsidies would lead to cuts in coal use equivalent to shutting up to 32 coal-fired power stations, the researchers found, leading to a large reduction in carbon emissions.

“The fossil fuel industry has gamed energy market consumers, with numerous subsidies evident over the long term,” said Tim Buckley, at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, who worked on the report. “Any discussion of cost competitiveness of renewable energy and energy efficiency needs to take into account the decades of extensive subsidies evident for the coal industry and that, in many cases, remain in place today.” ...

The subsidies given to coal companies included tax breaks, cheap leases, government-funded infrastructure including railways and ports and allowing inadequate funding of clean-up operation after mining ends.

Pope Francis faces challenge persuading US's Catholic leaders on climate change

When the US supreme court legalised same-sex marriage in June, the leader of America’s Catholics erupted in white-hot fury, condemning the historic decision as “a tragic error”.

When a week or so earlier, it fell to Archbishop Joseph Kurtz as leader of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to deliver the official welcome to Pope Francis as he issued his sweeping indictment of the global economic order and its effects on the poor and the environment, the response was several degrees cooler.

Kurtz, while ostensibly endorsing the pope’s call to action, did not join the leader of his faith in condemning pollution as a sin. He did not echo the pope’s call for an urgent phasing out of fossil fuels. And Kurtz most definitely did not join the pope in attributing climate change largely to human activities, and calling out powerful vested interests for seeking to conceal the evidence of climate change. In fact, Kurtz did not mention climate change at all. ...

It is hard to divert leaders of the Catholic church in the US from their preoccupations with private lives – marriage, reproduction and abortion – and persuade them to take up the very public cause Francis is seeking to ignite with his denunciation of capitalism and inequality, campaigners said.

“I think a lot of bishops have difficulty talking about something like climate change,” said Lonnie Ellis, the associate director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, which has been working with the church leadership to mobilise around the encyclical and the Pope’s visit. “It hasn’t sunk in yet that climate change is a tremendous moral issue that is hurting people around the world right now. That is going to take a little bit of time to sink in.”

Also of Interest

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

FBI Keeps Telling Purely Theoretical Encryption Horror Stories

What if the mega-rich just want rocket ships to escape the Earth they destroy?

The burden of paying back Puerto Rico's debt should not fall on the island's poor

Revealed: how Indigenous Australian storytelling accurately records sea level rises 7,000 years ago

Batman confronts police racism in latest comic book

U.S. training helped mold top Islamic State military commander

As Global Consumption Skyrockets, 'Full Footprint' Felt by Millions

'Now is the Time for Boldness': Naomi Klein, Notable Canadians Call for System Overhaul

The Conflict of Interest Culture Among GMO Advocates

A Little Night Music

Little Walter Jacobs - Little Walter's Jump

Little Walter - Mellow Down Easy

Little Walter - My Babe

Hound Dog Taylor & Little Walter - Wild About you baby

Little Walter - Juke

Little Walter - Boom, Boom Out Goes the Lights

Little Walter - Key To The Highway

Little Walter - Fast Boogie

Little Walter - Blues With A Feeling

Little Walter - Too Late

Little Walter - Roller coaster

Little Walter - Last Night

Little Walter - Crazy Mixed Up World

Little Walter - Dead Presidents

Little Walter - Blue Light

Little Walter - Can't Hold Out Much Longer

Little Walter - I Hate To See You Go

Little Walter - Temperature

Little Walter - Rocker

Blue Midnight: The Film Biography of Little Walter