Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz singer and composer Cab Calloway. Enjoy!

"Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors... After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration [G.W. Bush administration] has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

-- Major General Antonio M. Taguba

News and Opinion

Somebody has something to hide - and that something looks like criminal acts performed by the CIA.

Documents Confirm CIA Censorship of Guantánamo Trials

In January 2013, during the military trial of five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, a defense lawyer was discussing a motion relating to the CIA’s black-site program, when a mysterious entity cut the audio feed to the gallery. A red light began to glow and spin. Someone had triggered the courtroom’s censorship system.

The system was believed to be under the control of the judge, Col. James Pohl. In this case, it wasn’t.

Later, Pohl said the censorship was the work of an “OCA,” short for “Original Classification Authority.” ... Many have speculated that Pohl’s “OCA” is in fact the CIA. That speculation is now confirmed with the release of three new documents by The Intercept. The documents show the evolution of secret rules governing what is and is not allowed to be discussed before the military court at Guantánamo. ...

Much of what the CIA sought to keep out of open court effectively constrained the detainees’ ability to give an account of their own torture at the hands of the CIA and officials from other countries where they were held.

At first, these prohibitions were broad, but they grew narrower over time. The oldest guidance document, from 2008, prohibits talking about “conditions of confinement of detainees” and “treatment of detainees,” although “general allegations of torture are unclassified.” By this time, the CIA had released three of the names of detainees subjected to waterboarding. Though the CIA continues to insist those three were the only ones waterboarded, the claim is tenuous at best. According to the 2008 guidance, no other detainee could talk about waterboarding. Anyone who did, wrote the CIA, was lying, and even the existence of those lies was secret. ...

In other words, even the alleged lies of other detainees who claimed to have been waterboarded were designated top secret and “sensitive compartmentalized information,” a higher-level classification than top secret alone. And yet many of these allegations, which the CIA’s guidance kept out of the tribunals for years, were later shown to have merit.

Guantanamo: US authorities transfer 15 inmates to United Arab Emirates

15 Guantanamo detainees were just released — the most ever during Obama's presidency

The Pentagon announced on Monday that 15 Guantanamo detainees have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates — the largest single release of captives held at the detention facility during Barack Obama's presidency.

Some of the detainees were cleared for transfer in 2010 by an interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force, while the release of others was approved by a parole board established in 2013. None of the freed detainees have ever been convicted of a crime.

"The United States is grateful to the Government of the United Arab Emirates for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the Pentagon said in a statement. "The United States coordinated with the Government of the United Arab Emirates to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures." ...

Sixty-one detainees now remain at Guantanamo. Twenty are also cleared for release or transfer. Fourteen are former CIA prisoners and "high-value detainees" like accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Two of those 14 detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Majid Khan, the only US resident held at Guantanamo, will have parole board hearings in the coming weeks to determine whether they too can be transferred.

Can Dundar: no faith in Turkish judiciary

US Nukes in Turkey at Risk of Seizure by Terrorists

Last month’s failed military coup in Turkey raised new discussions about long-standing US deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in the Incirlik Air Base, and continues to spark concern about the security of such arms. Today, a report by the Stimson Center termed the arms to be “at risk” of seizure.

The report cautioned that it is “unanswerable” if the US could have kept control of the weapons if the coup had turned into a protracted civil conflict, at opposed to being resolved in less than half a day, adding that the “significant safeguards” the US has in place can’t add up to total certainty.

Report co-author Laicie Heeley concluded that keeping the US nuclear weapons just 70 miles from the Syrian border amounts to “a roll of the dice,” warning they are a liability to NATO in Europe with no potential utility on the European battlefield.

"What Would She Do in Iraq?": As Clinton Slams Trump for ISIS Speech, We Look at Her Own Positions

DM: Russia Close to Joint Aleppo Operations With US

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shogu is reporting a “very active phase of negotiations” with the United States, which has brought the two sides close to a deal on joint operations in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, aimed at ending the siege of large parts of the city.

Aleppo is split between government-held districts and a rebel-held half, held by the Nusra Front, which has recently made gains and is attempting to block off the government-held west. Shogu warned that the people under Nusra rule in the east aren’t any better off, saying they are “hostages” to the faction, a long-time al-Qaeda affiliate which recent rebranded itself.

Aid Worker in Aleppo Says Joint U.S.-Russian Airstrikes Would be “Diabolical”

A British aid worker based in rebel-held East Aleppo says that reported plans by the United States and Russia to conduct joint airstrikes against the city are “ludicrous and diabolical,” and, if carried out, would have a disastrous impact on civilians living there.

Tauqir Sharif, 29, speaking to The Intercept from a hospital in Aleppo, says that Russian and Syrian government airstrikes on the city are creating nightmarish conditions for ordinary people. The addition of American forces to the mix would compound the misery of civilians, while giving the impression that the United States was openly siding with the Assad government. ...

In recent months the United States has repeatedly signaled plans to strike opposition forces in Syria, largely due to fears that al Qaeda-linked groups were making gains in the conflict. Last week’s successful rebel offensive to break the siege included members of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – a former al Qaeda franchise that recently dissociated itself from the group – but that is still viewed as hostile by U.S. officials.

Despite the presence of such groups in the rebel coalition, Sharif says that Western perceptions of an uprising dominated by jihadists are misplaced.

“Most rebels here do not see America as an enemy. They see Russia, Assad and Iran as their enemies and they are fighting all these groups while at the same time also fighting ISIS. If America were to start bombing them now it would be ludicrous and diabolical. It would create an even greater disaster for the people of Aleppo,” he says.

Russia is now bombing Syria from Iran

Russian warplanes have bombed Syria from a base in Iran for the first time on August 16, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. The bombing raids from a base in western Iran mark a new level of cooperation between Russia and Iran, which are both fighting in Syria to support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. ...

Russia has been flying bombing missions from an airbase in Syria since late last year, but according to Russian state-owned broadcaster RT, its runway is too short to fit fully loaded Tu-22M3. The Russian military is refurbishing the Hmeynim airbase and lengthening the runway, RT said, so that heavier bombers can take off from it in the future.

Until now, the only way to get Russia's medium and large bomber aircraft over Syria was to take off from Russian bases, which means a round-trip of at least 4,000 km (2,500 miles). Using Hamedan in Iran means having to fly less than half that distance, which could mean carrying more bombs.

Tuesday's airstrikes have hit ammunition and fuel depots, training camps, control centers and "a significant number of militants," the ministry said, adding that the bombers were escorted by Su-30SM and Su-35S fighters from Hmeynim and all aircraft returned to base.

Doctors Without Borders Hospital Bombing in Yemen Earns Rare Saudi Rebuke at State Department

After the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition bombed a hospital in Yemen supported by Doctors Without Borders on Monday, the U.S. State Department offered a rare condemnation of the coalition’s violence.

“Of course we condemn the attack,” said Elizabeth Trudeau, a spokesman for the State Department.

The State Department has previously deflected questions about coalition attacks by referring reporters to the Saudi government — even though the U.S. has supplied the coalition with billions of dollars of weapons, and has refueled Saudi planes.

Trudeau also stressed that “U.S. officials regularly engage with Saudi officials” about civilian casualties — a line that spokespeople have repeated for months. Saudi Arabia has nevertheless continued to bomb civilian sites, including homes, markets, factories, and schools.

Yemen: deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike on MSF hospital kills at least 11

Saudi Warplanes Bomb Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Yemen, Killing 15

Already facing growing criticism from yesterday’s attack on a school in the Saada Province, Saudi Arabia appears to have doubled-down on its air campaign against the north, bombing a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in the Hajjah Province, and killing 15 more civilians. ...

MSF reported that the GPS location of the hospital had been shared with the Saudis, and that its location was well known. Despite this, after the hospital was bombed, rescue workers struggled to reach the site, as warplanes continued to fly overhead, raising fears of additional strikes.

The dangerous alliance between Hillary Clinton's Democrats and neocons: Fear of Trump is cementing a strange relationship

Earlier this month, Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a TV ad that should give pause to anyone hoping to avoid foreign policy catastrophe in coming years. As part of her ongoing effort to court disaffected Republicans, independents and assorted apolitical centrist types, the ad featured a number of purported experts solemnly attesting to the unreliability and volatility of Donald Trump.

Among these characters was Max Boot. One of the chief intellectual architects of the Iraq War, Boot has emerged from richly earned ignominy and ostracization to enjoy a sudden career revival, in large part thanks to liberals eagerly touting his Trump-bashing op-eds and media appearances. The logic behind lavishing Boot with such effusive praise, these Dems presumably reckon, is to show that hostility to the wildman GOP nominee crosses party lines.

Bashing Trump may well be a worthwhile exercise, but what gives George W. Bush-era ideologues such as Boot — who helped orchestrate the most cataclysmic military intervention in decades — any credibility to level the charges? If anything, criticism from this set should make voters less confident in the disreputability of Trump. It’s valid to suppose that Trump presents unforeseen dangers to the republic, but to bolster this point, why highlight the fact that the most destructive operators of the past 15 years are so vehemently against him? It doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Clinton’s campaign may perceive some short-term advantage in brandishing these dubious endorsements, but the long-term ramifications are potentially dire. By rehabilitating the likes of Boot, Democrats effectively invite such people back into the fray of respectable discourse. They are once again seen as neutral, duly-credentialed “experts” whose intonations are worth dutifully listening to. By association, Hillary’s tacit approval allows these neoconservatives to accrue renewed prestige and eventually insinuate themselves back into positions of power.

Liberals likewise have taken to feverishly sharing blusterous anti-Trump columns written by Robert Kagan, another agitator for the Iraq invasion. It wasn’t so long ago that these very same liberals would have regarded men like Kagan and Boot as pariahs — intolerable scoundrels who put the country on the path to war under false pretenses.

Gays Against Guns activists begin campaign with 'die-in' at BlackRock HQ

Dozens of gay activists began a campaign of civil disobedience against gun companies and their investors on Monday by holding a “die-in” at the headquarters of BlackRock, one of the largest corporate shareholders of gun companies’ stock.

Holding placards bearing photos of some of the victims of gun violence, protesters occupied the lobby of BlackRock’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan for almost an hour on Monday afternoon demanding that the investment firm divest from gun stocks.

The Gays Against Guns protesters, who have said they are prepared to break the law to force action on gun control, accused BlackRock of being part of a “corporate machine profiting from gun death”.

Dressed in white T-shirts spray painted with the “Gays Against Guns” slogan, the protest group – formed in the wake of the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando earlier this summer – held placards stating: “Gun$ sell. People die. $tock soars.”

BlackRock held $8.4m worth of Smith & Wesson shares and $7.7m worth of Sturm, Ruger & Co stock, according to the latest annual report of its Aerospace & Defence ETF. In the report the firm states: “The leisure products industry, which is how firearms manufacturers are categorized, contributed meaningfully to index performance.”

Akai Gurley settlement: New York to pay $4m to family of police shooting victim

New York City has reached a settlement of more than $4m with the family of an unarmed man fatally shot by a police officer in a darkened stairwell in November 2014, the attorney for the family said on Tuesday.

The city is paying $4.1m and the New York City housing authority is contributing $400,000 to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 28-year-old Akai Gurley.

The city’s law department called the settlement a “fair resolution of a tragic matter”.

Former officer Peter Liang was on patrol when he opened a stairwell door at a public housing building and suddenly fired. The bullet ricocheted and hit Gurley. Liang will pay $25,000 to Kim Ballinger, the mother of Gurley’s daughter, as part of the settlement.

Liang was sentenced to five years’ probation and 800 hours of community service; he later apologized to Gurley’s family.

Racial tensions flare in Saskatchewan after shooting of Indigenous man

After an afternoon spent swimming in a Saskatchewan river, five friends piled into the car for the 50-minute ride home.

As they headed to the Red Pheasant First Nation, a tyre blew out. They pulled into a nearby farm, hoping to find someone who could help them. ...

“All of a sudden some guy, he just came out and he just smashed our windshield,” said Eric Meechance, one of the car’s occupants.

Panicked and struggling to see past the cracked windshield, the driver tried to leave the farmyard. Instead, he struck a parked vehicle, Meechance told local radio station News Talk 650.

Meechance and the driver got out and ran for safety. Seconds later gunshots rang out. The farmer had a gun, Meechance told the Canadian Press. “He wasn’t shooting to scare us. He was shooting to kill.”

He later found out that his friend, Colten Boushie, 22, had been fatally shot in the vehicle. ...

A 54-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder and is expected to appear in court later this week.

Man fatally shot in Saskatchewan was looking for help with flat tire

Racial tensions are flaring in Saskatchewan after the fatal shooting of a First Nations man who relatives say was just looking for help with a flat tire. Colten Boushie, 22, was killed Tuesday after the vehicle he was in drove onto a farm in the rural municipality of Glenside, west of Saskatoon. ...

A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise $10,000 to help Boushie's family cover funeral expenses.

Another GoFundMe page has been set up to help [the wife of Boushie's alleged murderer]. The hope is to raise $35,000. ...

First Nations leaders say the RCMP news release about the shooting was biased.

The first police news release said that people in the car had been taken into custody as part of a theft investigation.

Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said the RCMP statement "provided just enough prejudicial information" for people to draw the conclusion that the shooting was somehow justified.

"The messaging in an RCMP news release should not fuel racial tensions," he said.

Chief Clint Wuttunee of the Red Pheasant First Nation said the media's initial portrayal of the event, based on the RCMP release, made the incident sound like a crime was about to be committed by the passengers in the car.

The FSIN wants a review of the RCMP's communication policies and writing guidelines.

Healthcare giant Aetna is pulling out of Obamacare

The healthcare firm Aetna, one of the five biggest insurers in America, announced Monday during an earnings call that it is pulling out of the vast majority of Obamacare state health exchanges. ... The company complained that participation in the exchanges have cost it $200k in pretax losses for the second quarter.

But only four months ago, CEO Mark Bertolini and Aetna were praising the exchanges: "We had strong growth on the public exchanges and we raised guidance for the year, so I think it was all and all a very solid quarter," Bertolini said on CNBC. ...

One thing happened in the meantime: Aetna made a play to merge with fellow healthcare titan Humana — following another attempted merger from big-five firms Cigna and Anthem — and the Department of Justice shut them down, filing an antitrust suit against all four firms in federal court. ...

An analyst for Jefferies told the Hartford Courant this month that Aetna may use its participation in the Obamacare markets as a bargaining chip to get its merger approved.

GOP lays out case for charging Clinton with perjury

A pair of leading House Republicans on Monday laid out detailed instructions for the Justice Department to file perjury charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

More than a month after first requesting the department open a criminal probe into Clinton for alleged misstatements she made under oath, the GOP heads of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees told a federal prosecutor specifically where they believed Clinton had lied to Congress about her email setup at the Department of State.

In at least four separate occasions during a marathon appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the lawmakers alleged, the former secretary's claims were at odds with what the FBI has now discovered to be the truth about her private server.

"Although there may be other aspects of Secretary Clinton’s sworn testimony that are at odds with the FBI’s findings, her testimony in those four areas bears specific scrutiny in light of the facts and evidence” provided by FBI Director James Comey, Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Channing Phillips. Goodlatte leads the Judiciary Committee and Chaffetz runs the Oversight Committee.

Monday’s letter is a sign that Republicans are committed to pressuring the Justice Department to act against Clinton, even after it notably declined to prosecute her for mishandling classified information.

This is a longer piece, rich with details and worth a read.

Why the Presidential Debates Will Suck Even Though They Don’t Have To

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have theoretically agreed to three debates. But the value of those debates will be dramatically limited because the Commission on Presidential Debates, which runs them, is a private organization controlled by elites from the two major parties whose goal is to protect their standard-bearers.

And under the guidance of the commission, presidential debates have become echo chambers for the two major party candidates to repeat familiar talking points and lob rehearsed one-liners, rarely deviating from their scripts.

Each cycle, the CPD decides not just the time and location of the debates, but the format and who will ask the questions. Meanwhile, the Republican and Democratic campaigns also negotiate a joint Memorandum of Understanding laying out a host of details about how the candidates are to be treated. Although the CPD claims that the MOUs are not binding on the organization, the contracts themselves specify that if the commission does not abide by them, the campaigns reserve the right to seek an alternative sponsor.

That means Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will find the terms to their liking — and the American public will be cheated out of its best chance to see the major candidates engage in a robust discussion of the issues facing the country.

'Bipartisan Fraud': Debate Rules Shut Out Third-Party Candidates

The U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday released the polls it will use to determine which candidates will take to the stage in September for their first presidential debate—and shut out third-party candidates in the process.

The Hill reports:

Candidates will need to hit an average of 15 percent in polls conducted by ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, Fox News, and NBC/Wall Street Journal. The 15 percent threshold had been announced months ago, but the commission released its polling selections on Monday after consultation with Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup.

As of Monday, neither Libertarian Gary Johnson nor the Green Party's Jill Stein had enough support to get a spot onstage alongside Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, which open debate advocates say amounts to a fraud of bipartisanism.

One such advocacy group, RootsAction, launched a petition on Monday calling for the executives at ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcasting, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Univision, and Telemundo to present debates including all four candidates, even if the commission—or Trump or Clinton—wants otherwise.

"If Trump or Clinton balk, let them know you're happy to leave their podium empty," the petition states.

Matt Taibbi on Trump’s Position on NATO, Russia & his Campaign Head’s $13 Million Scandal in Ukraine

An interesting, longish article worth a read. Here's a tease:

The dark history of Donald Trump's rightwing revolt

Over the last year, that establishment has been united by one thing: opposition to Donald Trump. Republican voters may have succumbed to a temporary bout of collective insanity – or so Trump’s critics on the right believe – but the party’s intelligentsia remain certain that entrusting the Republican nomination to a reality television star turned populist demagogue has been a disaster for their cause and their country. Whatever Trump might be, he is not a conservative.

That belief is comforting, but it is wrong. Trump is a unique character, but the principles he defends and the passions he inflames have been part of the modern American right since its formation in the aftermath of the second world war. Most conservative thinkers have forgotten or repressed this part of their history, which is why they are undergoing a collective nervous breakdown today. Like addicts the morning after a bender, they are baffled at the face they see in the mirror.

But not all of the right’s intellectuals have been so blind. While keepers of the conservative flame in Washington and New York repeatedly proclaimed that Trump could never win the Republican nomination, in February a small group of anonymous writers from inside the conservative movement launched a blog that championed “Trumpism” – and attacked their former allies on the right, who were determined to halt its ascent. In recognition of the man who inspired it, they called their site the Journal of American Greatness. ...

JAG condensed Trumpism into three key elements: economic nationalism, controlled borders and a foreign policy that put American interests first.

These policies, they asserted, were a direct challenge to the views of America’s new ruling class – a cosmopolitan elite of wealthy professionals who controlled the commanding heights of public discourse. This new ruling class of “transnational post-Americans” was united by its belief that the welfare of the world just happened to coincide with programmes that catered to its own self-interest: free trade, open borders, globalisation and a suite of other policies designed to ease the transition to a post-national future overseen by enlightened experts. In the language of JAG, they are the “Davoisie”, a global elite that is most at ease among its international peers at the World Economic Forum in Davos and totally out of touch with ordinary Americans. ...

But there is another way of interpreting the history of the American right, one that puts less emphasis on the power of ideas and more on power itself – a history of white voters fighting to defend their place in the social hierarchy, politicians appealing to the prejudices of their constituents so they can satisfy the wishes of their donors, and the industry that has turned conservatism into a billion-dollar business.

This is the explanation preferred by leftwing critics, who typically regard the Republican party as a coalition fuelled by white nationalism and funded by billionaires. But this line of attack also has a long history on the right, where a dissenting minority has been waging a guerrilla war against the conservative establishment for three decades. Now the unlikely figure of Donald Trump has brought in a wave of reinforcements – over 13 million in the primaries alone. Their target is the managerial elite, and their history begins in the run-up to the second world war, when a forgotten founder of modern American conservatism became a public sensation with a book that announced the dawning of a civilisation ruled by experts.

Soros hacked, thousands of Open Society Foundations files released online

The Earth Just Experienced the Hottest Month on the Books. Period.

On Monday it was confirmed that the Earth has broken an ominous climate milestone amid a wave of troubling records: July 2016 was the hottest recorded month—ever.

According to new NASA data, the global mean surface temperatures last month were 0.84° Celsius (1.51° Fahrenheit) above average and was the warmest July in their data set, which dates back to 1880.

This marks the 10th straight month to set a new monthly warming record, based on NASA's analysis. "Every month so far this year has been record hot," reported Climate Central's Andrea Thompson. "In NASA's data, that streak goes back to October 2015, which was the first month in its data set that was more than 1C hotter than average." ...

The year 2015 was declared the hottest on record and scientists have said that 2016 will likely be even hotter. Announcing NASA's July data, climate scientist Gavin Schmidt had this to say about the likelihood of another record-smashing year:

July data are out, and what do you know, still 99% chance of a new annual record in 2016. pic.twitter.com/ndSsbYuedA

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) August 15, 2016

NASA Study Nails Fracking as Source of Massive Methane 'Hot Spot'

A NASA study released on Monday confirms that a methane "hot spot" in the Four Corners region of the American southwest is directly related to leaks from natural gas extraction, processing, and distribution.

The 2,500-square mile plume, first detected in 2003 and confirmed by NASA satellite data in October 2014, is said to be the largest concentration of atmospheric methane in the U.S. and is more than triple a standard ground-based estimate. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a highly-efficient greenhouse gas—84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and a significant contributor to global warming.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded primarily by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), surveyed industry sources including gas processing facilities, storage tanks, pipeline leaks, and well pads, as well as a coal mine venting shaft.

It found that leaks from only 10 percent of the individual methane sources are contributing to half of the emissions, confirming the scientists' suspicions that the mysterious hotspot was connected to the high level of fracking in the region. ...

"NASA's finding that the oil and gas industry is primarily responsible for the 'hot spot' is not surprising," stated the Western Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm. "In fact, the researchers found only one large source of methane not related to oil and gas operations: venting from the San Juan coal mine. This discovery renders attempts to point the finger at other potential emissions sources, like coal outcrops and landfills, definitively refuted."

The Empire Files: Chevron vs. the Amazon - Inside the Killzone

Amazon chiefs visit British Museum as part of dam-building protest

Amazonian leaders, in Britain to protest against the construction of several large dams which they say will destroy the lives of thousands of indigenous people, will on Tuesday be shown head-dresses and other objects made by their tribe more than 150 years ago.

The two chiefs of the Munduruku civilisation, which has flourished peacefully for centuries by fishing and farming along the banks of the great Tapajós river and its tributaries in the rainforests of central Brazil, will visit the massive storeroom of the British Museum in London, where a collection of 50 objects brought to Britain by a Victorian merchant are kept. ...

The leaders have welcomed the museum visit but say that their people’s future is now at stake. If the dams are built, said general chief Arnaldo Kaba Munduruku, they will destroy a way of life that has barely changed from the time that the British collector, Richard Carruthers, was living in Rio de Janeiro and exploring Brazil’s interior. ...

Carruthers left Brazil in 1837 and his collection of objects was given to the museum in 1854. Since then, the Munduruku’s contact with Europeans has been less than happy. Most recently, giant German technology company Siemens has provided equipment for several mega-dams which have had massive ecological effects in the Amazon. ...

Siemens, says Greenpeace, has been a key player in the last four mega-dams built in the Brazilian Amazon. “During the one-hour meeting, the delegation showed a Siemens UK director pictures of the devastation caused by a previous mega-dam built in the Amazon, for which a company partly owned by Siemens supplied key components,” said Sara Ayech, forests campaigner for Greenpeace UK.

“Siemens needs to make a decision about whether they want to remain part of the problem or become part of the solution. They are a leader in renewable energy and have the expertise and muscle to help Brazil boost its energy security without trashing the Amazon rainforest,” she said.

Also of Interest

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

My top candidate for elite jackass of the year. I'd make a parody this, but it would be redundant:

Elite Journalist Says: "This isn't the year for ideological purity. Don't vote for Jill Stein"

Milwaukee Riots Round-up of “Systemic Causes”

Alan Dershowitz’s “Advice” to Black Lives Matter

PricewaterhouseCoopers faces 3 major trials that threaten its business

Hackers claim to auction NSA source code

Putin's praise for Trump may mask 'conflicted' feelings, Kremlin watchers say

In Rudy Giuliani’s Universe, 9/11 Is Everything and Nothing

Spotting the Havoc Wreaked by Climate Change

As Renewables Soar, Oil Industry Launches New PR Offensive

Are Climate-Related 'Hot Blobs' Spreading and Killing Marine Life Worldwide?

A Little Night Music

Cab Calloway - Jumpin Jive

Cab Calloway - Minnie the Moocher

Cab Calloway & his Band - Geechy Joe

Cab Calloway and His Orchestra - Reefer Man

Cab Calloway - Kickin' The Gong Around

Cab Calloway - Calloway Boogie

Betty Boop & Cab Calloway - The Old Man Of the Mountain