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This evening's music features blues and r&b singer and guitarist Joe Louis Walker. Enjoy!

“To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law of human psychology, or human nature. And it will not be repealed by our wishes, nor will it be merciful to our blindness.”

-- William Pickens

News and Opinion

Doctors Without Borders leaves north Yemen because of 'indiscriminate bombings' by US-backed Saudis

Doctors Without Borders, one of the largest medical charities, has decided to evacuate its staff from all six hospitals it supports in northern Yemen, because it cannot guarantee their safety from "indiscriminate bombings" by the Saudi-led coalition.

The group, also known by its French acronym MSF, said it made the decision after Monday's attack on Abs Hospital in Yemen's Hajjah Governorate that killed 19 people, including one MSF staff member. The departure of MSF doctors and staffers will leave northern Yemen in an even more dire humanitarian situation.

Since the suspension of peace talks in Kuwait between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi forces fighting against it, the bombing campaign has intensified. MSF said it has lost confidence in the coalition's ability to avoid such fatal attacks. The Abs attack is the fourth on an MSF facility in under a year, and the deadliest thus far. ...

Saudi officials have insisted that their warplanes and those of allied nations, which are getting air-to-air refueling and targeting support from the US, have targeted only military sites.

UK govt urged to kick Saudi Arabia off UN human rights council for Yemen brutality

Amid Fresh Yemen Killings, UN May Re-Blacklist Saudi Arabia

The U.N. is ready to place Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies attacking Yemen on the organization's blacklist for abusing and killing children after the coalition attacked a school, a hospital and family home within four days, killing more than 35 civilians, a report by Foreign Policy magazine said Wednesday.

The threat is likely to come in the form of a letter from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office to the Saudi government as early as Thursday, the magazine was told by unnamed senior officials at the United Nations.

In June, Saudi Arabia reacted angrily to a decision to blacklist the coalition after a U.N. report found the alliance responsible for 60 percent of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen last year. Ban later took the coalition off the list after threats to cut off funding to U.N. aid programs. ...

However, Foreign Policy reported that officials say the mood in the U.N. has shifted in the past week and Ban’s top advisors, including Leila Zerrougui, are now brandishing the threat to shame the coalition if they fail to rein in their bombs.

Syrian Rebels Quickly Endorse Rebranded Nusra Front

While everyone seems to have been pretty clear on the fact that last month’s “rebranding” by long-time al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, which renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, was just a cynical effort to forestall joint US-Russian operations against them, the move appears to have been sufficient to net them a whole new collection of “moderate” rebel allies.

While a lot of the rebels publicly expressed sympathy for them even as an al-Qaeda affiliate, there were relatively few eager to overtly ally with them in Aleppo before the name change. Now, they’re awash in new partners, and Nusra leaders claim they’ve never been stronger. ...

At the same time, it’s not like Nusra is really distancing itself from al-Qaeda in anything but a nominal way. Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, is the one who publicly proposed the rebranding strategy as a way to gather allies and form an Islamic “emirate” of their own.

Worth a thousand words: Can one photo change the course of the Syrian war?

"In fact one of the depressing things about the Syrian war is that it's a proxy war. There are all these powers playing against each other there, but none of them are being hurt. Iran is not being hurt, Russia's not being hurt, the United States is not being hurt, even Turkey is not being hurt by that war. They can keep people dying in Syria for another ten years - and may well do it."

Turkey and Iran Reach Agreement on Conditions for Syria Peace

In a stunning diplomatic surprise, Turkey and Iran have announced a preliminary agreement on fundamental principles for a settlement of the Syrian conflict.

The dramatic turn in the diplomacy of the Syria War was revealed in Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s regular weekly speech to the ruling AKP Party in the parliament and confirmed by a senior Iranian foreign ministry official Tuesday.

Both Yildirim’s speech and the Iranian corroboration were reported Tuesday by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and Al-Hayat, Arabic-language newspapers published in London, but the potentially pivotal development has been unreported thus far in Western news media.

The new negotiations between Iran and Turkey are the result of a major policy shift by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan toward diplomatic cooperation with Russia and Iran on Syria and away from alignment with the United States and its Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Turkey has been coordinating military assistance to the armed opposition to the Assad government – including jihadists and other hardline extremists – with Saudi Arabia and Qatar since early in the war. However, Erdogan began searching in May for an alternative policy more in line with Turkey’s primary strategic interest in Syria: containing the threat of Kurdish demands for a separate state. ...

It is also possible that Turkey may be planning to use the threat of allying with Russia and Iran on Syria to force the United States to reduce its own reliance on Kurdish forces in Northern Syria – the main issue dividing US and Turkish policies toward the conflict. But Yildirim had already hinted last month – before the failed military coup in Turkey and the launching of a new offensive by al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front around and in Aleppo – at Turkey’s intention to revise its policy toward Syria in order to prevent Kurdish forces in Syria from establishing their own mini-state.

Congress Seeks to Establish Russia as Permanent Enemy

The Cold War provided a solid generation of unfettered government growth in the US on the pretext of the Russian threat, and over the past few years American officials have relished at the new round of tensions with Russia, and the budget-busting spending it has permitted.

They’re hoping to make that permanent, with a new bill called the STAND for Ukraine Act aiming to make temporary measures imposed during Ukraine’s regime change permanent, and hamstring all future governments from a diplomatic rapprochement with Russia.

While there’s a lot of taxpayer money to be frittered away on preparing for war with Russia, however, those aren’t the only moneyed interests at play here. The US-Russia Business Council is fighting vigorously against the bill, and the sanctions, with ExxonMobil’s agreed to $500 billion drilling deal with Rosneft at risk if the sanctions become permanent. ...

This puts two wildly influential lobbying powers, America’s military contractors, and its oil industry, directly at odds with one another, and with massive sums of money ultimately at stake.

Putin visits Crimea amid military buildup on Ukraine border

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine are heating up even more as President Vladimir Putin landed in Crimea on Friday to meet with his security council just after Moscow announced it's putting advanced anti-aircraft missiles there.

Over the last week, the number of heavy weapons deployed near the front lines in eastern Ukraine has doubled, part of a pattern of Russia ramping up its military presence in the region throughout the summer. An estimated 40,000 soldiers have been stationed there, on top of aircraft and the anti-missile defense system. ...

US officials and observers are not entirely convinced that Putin is planning a new offensive, saying the latest moves might be part of routine troop rotations, or efforts to instill patriotism ahead of the parliamentary elections in September.

"It's highly unlikely that the Russians are truly planning some major offensive," Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia at New York University, told the New York Times. "We're looking at a classic strategy of building up tension."

In Crimea, Putin is slated to meet with security officials in the territory, and make an appearance at a children's summer camp.

Report: U.S. Transfers Nukes From Turkish Airbase to Romania

The U.S. has started transferring American nuclear weapons stationed at an airbase in southeastern Turkey to Romania, the independent Euractiv website reported on Thursday.

The reported move comes after a U.S.-based think tank said on Monday that the stockpile at Incirlik airbase, which consists of some 50 nuclear bombs, was at risk of being captured by "terrorists or other hostile forces."

"It's not easy to move 20 plus nukes," a source told Euractiv, adding that the transfer to the Romanian base of Deveselu has posed technical and political challenges. The report noted that the move has especially enraged Russia.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry strongly denied that any U.S. nuclear weapons were transferred to Romania.

US delayed $400m payment to Iran until American prisoners released

The US government confirmed on Thursday it initially withheld a $400m cash payment to Iran in January to maintain leverage over the release of American prisoners.

A spokesman for the state department insisted the payment eventually made in August was not a ransom, and that negotiations over the release of four US prisoners were conducted separately from the settlement of a decades-old account pertaining to a failed arms deal with Iran.

The new statement followed a report in the Wall Street Journal stating that the delivery of the cash was contingent upon the American prisoners being freed. The events, which occurred in January, have recently been seized upon by Republicans as evidence that the Obama administration made a ransom payment to Iran in order to secure their release.

“What the State Department admitted today was the dictionary definition of a ransom payment and a complete contradiction of what they were saying just two weeks ago. Hillary Clinton’s support for this dangerous blunder, which has put a price on the head of every American citizen, shows once again she does not have the judgement to be president,” RNC spokesperson Michael Short said in a statement.

The White House has virulently disputed the characterization, pointing out that the transfer was announced in January.

The NSA Leak Is Real, Snowden Documents Confirm

On Monday, a hacking group calling itself the “ShadowBrokers” announced an auction for what it claimed were “cyber weapons” made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software, part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.

The provenance of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered with the NSA’s virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency.

The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character string, “ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.

SECONDDATE plays a specialized role inside a complex global system built by the U.S. government to infect and monitor what one document estimated to be millions of computers around the world. Its release by ShadowBrokers, alongside dozens of other malicious tools, marks the first time any full copies of the NSA’s offensive software have been available to the public, providing a glimpse at how an elaborate system outlined in the Snowden documents looks when deployed in the real world, as well as concrete evidence that NSA hackers don’t always have the last word when it comes to computer exploitation. ...

SECONDDATE is a tool designed to intercept web requests and redirect browsers on target computers to an NSA web server. That server, in turn, is designed to infect them with malware. SECONDDATE’s existence was first reported by The Intercept in 2014, as part of a look at a global computer exploitation effort code-named TURBINE. The malware server, known as FOXACID, has also been described in previously released Snowden documents.

NSA Leaks: Irresponsibility or the Result of a Mole?

Speculation of a Russian “plot” is unsatisfying, and well short of a complete explanation for what happened, given that these tools appear to be “the keys to the kingdom” and perhaps the most advanced hacking tools on the planet. Experts say this sort of collection wouldn’t just be sitting around for some random hacker group, state-run or otherwise.

Or at least it shouldn’t. The competing theories right now for how the code got out of the NSA in the first place are that the agency either indeed just left a bunch of highly secret kit on some server by mistake, which would be wildly irresponsible, or that the whole “hacking” story is a cover, and the code leak is actually the result of a mole who made off with it.

Pinochet's widow under investigation on suspicion of swindling millions

Lucia Hiriart, the widow of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, is under investigation for allegedly swindling the Chilean treasury of millions of dollars by selling properties designated as community centers.

A report by Chilean prosecutors also accuses Hiriart, 93, of siphoning funds from the NGO she ran, CEMA Chile, to pay General Pinochet’s living expenses in the United Kingdom while he was under house arrest following his arrest in 1998.

Chile’s minister of public property, Víctor Osorio, told the Guardian that prosecutors are preparing to file formal charges over allegations that CEMA Chile misappropriated millions of dollars in government funds.

During her 43 years at the head of the organisation, Hiriart oversaw the sale of dozens of government properties which had been donated to the foundation. Chilean officials say that profits from the sales were transferred abroad or simply disappeared. ...

The CEMA Chile foundation was founded in 1954 as a vehicle for charitable works by the country’s first ladies. Hiriart took over following the bloody 1973 military coup that put her husband in power, acting as the group’s president and then president-for-life until she resigned the position last week.

Bolivia opens new military academy to combat US 'imperial oppression'

President Evo Morales said the new academy was Latin America’s answer to the US School of the Americas and its dark history supporting right-wing dictatorships during the Cold War.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales has inaugurated a military academy he promised will help push back US imperialism in Latin America and the world.

"While the empire's military schools teach how to dominate the world, this school will help us learn to free ourselves from imperial oppression," Morales told soldiers gathered at the school for the opening ceremony on Wednesday. "We'll be a school for the defense of the people, and not the empire."

According to the Bolivian newspaper Página Siete, the institution's "anti-imperialism" diploma will be a mandatory requirement for promotion to the rank of captain within the Bolivian army.

President Morales said the School of the Anti-Imperialist Commando, located in the eastern Bolivian town of Warnes, will begin work with 100 pupils and will be open to soldiers from other Latin American countries.

The original idea came from the Venezuelan president and onetime regional leftist icon, Hugo Chávez, who financed the construction of the building before his death in 2013. ...

Latin America's left still harbours a deep disgust for that US school that trained many Latin American officers in their abuse-filled battles against guerrillas during the Cold War, and has since been renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

In Historic Shift, U.S. Government to End Use of Deadly, Costly, Negligent Private Prisons

Federal decision to phase out private prisons has limited impact, activists say

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it would begin “phasing out” the use of private prisons for federal prisoners citing superior safety and rehabilitation outcomes at state-run facilities. ...

The move has been widely hailed by advocates as one that could signal positive change for about 22,000 federal inmates across 13 facilities, but many have also paused to note that the Justice Department decision only affects about a quarter of inmates and detainees held in US private facilities.

“While the Justice Department’s announcement is a step in the right direction, much more action is needed to scrub private prisons from our criminal justice system,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, an online racial justice organization. ...

“Refugees, children, parents and everyday people seeking a better life are routinely locked up, abused and even killed by corporate-run immigrant detention facilities and despite the evidence, the Department of Homeland Security refuses to shut them down,” said Greisa Martinez, advocacy director for United We Dream Action, an immigrant rights activist organization. She added that today’s decision is “yet more evidence of why Hillary Clinton must commit to use executive authority to provide relief to immigrants in her first 100 days, should she become president”

The Justice Department Is Done With Private Prisons. Will ICE Drop Them Too?

The Justice Department's announcement on Thursday that it would seek to end the use of private contractors to run its federal prisons was a monumental one that quickly sent private prison stocks plunging and drew praise from dozens of human and civil rights groups that for years had been denouncing abuse and neglect in private facilities.

In a memo explaining the decision, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates wrote that private prisons “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources,” “do not save substantially on costs,” and “do not maintain the same level of safety and security” as facilities operated by the Bureau of Prisons.

But as the criminal justice community began to take stock of the news, many also expressed hopes that the DOJ would not be the only government agency to cut ties with the private companies, which also operate state prisons and immigration detention centers.

Advocates directly called on the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which is responsible for holding a growing number of detainees with pending immigration cases or awaiting deportation — to end its multimillion-dollar relationship with the private corrections industry.

Private Prisons May Be Phased Out, But Industry Leaves Trail of Bodies from Medical Neglect & Abuses

'Good to Be King': The Very Good Loans Key Lawmakers Get from Wall Street Banks

A new study identifies "a direct channel through which financial institutions contribute to the net worth of members of the U.S. Congress"—especially those ostensibly tasked with overseeing those very Wall Street entities.

The paper from London Business School professors Ahmed Tahoun and Florin Vasvari, which is based on a "unique dataset" provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), finds that members of Congress sitting on the finance committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives "report greater levels of leverage and new liabilities as a proportion of their total net worth, relative to when they are not part of the finance committee or relative to other congressional members."

The authors write that their analysis was "motivated in part by anecdotal evidence suggesting that some U.S. politicians, who are in a position to potentially affect the future performance of financial institutions that lend to them, have allegedly received preferential treatments from lenders." ...

The researchers conclude by confirming that indeed, data indicates that "finance committee members may use their oversight and legislative power to potentially extract benefits from financial institutions." ...

Look here to see the members of the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, and the House Financial Services Committee, all cited in the paper.

Gawker.com to shut down next week after acquisition by Univision

Gawker.com, the flagship site of Gawker Media, will cease publication on Monday, according to a statement by Gawker Media founder Nick Denton delivered to staff on Thursday and reported by the site.

The other Gawker Media publications, including Jezebel (women’s issues), Gizmodo (tech), io9 (science fiction, fantasy and science), Kotaku (gaming), Deadspin (sports), Jalopnik (all things automotive) and Lifehacker, are expected to continue publication after Univision’s acquisition of the company. It’s been reported that Univision has agreed to keep 95% of the company’s nearly 300 employees in the United States and Hungary, to take over the leases for its office space in New York City and Budapest and to honor the recent union contract.

Univision confirmed in a statement that it would not be acquiring Gawker.com as part of the deal. Denton sent a note to staff late Thursday, indicating that he would not be part of the acquisition and would be ending his time in the “news and gossip business”. Though Gawker.com will remain an asset of the bankrupt and defunct Gawker Media organization, Denton said that the archives will remain online and held out hope for “a second act” for the site at a later date.

Liberal Hate for the Green Party

Liberals are no longer going through the motions of criticizing the Democrat. Instead they openly show love for Hillary Clinton and disdainfully pile on Stein and Baraka with fury. The blog Wonkette called Jill Stein “cunty” and “a mendacious nihilist piece of shit.” The site Very Smart Brothas declared that a vote for Stein was akin to putting it in the trash. They also threw in a dig at Cornel West because he dared to criticize Barack Obama. The Huffington Post chose to deride Green Party convention delegates because they ate at McDonald’s. Gawker tried to link Ajamu Baraka to holocaust denial. His unassailable human rights credentials didn’t mean much when the media decided to go into attack mode.

The list is long and will get longer between now and Election Day. The degree of antipathy is actually quite useful. It tells us why the Green Party is so important and why liberals are such a dangerous enemy.

They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They spend years wringing their hands because Republicans control state legislatures but when the recently released DNC emails show that the party starves local races of money they say nothing. When they spoke up at all they made a big deal about a spurious Russian hacker connection to Donald Trump.

There is no longer any pretense of claiming a desire for systemic change or even calling themselves progressives. They are “with her” — as the slogan goes — and her illegal activities and record of mass killing don’t dissuade them from supporting her.

Liberals don’t want the Democrats to change. They cling to a bizarre hope for reform, nibbling around the edges while keeping the criminals in charge. They prefer to look down their noses at Trump supporters or consider themselves the cool kids in the high school clique. When they have an opportunity to make history and begin the process of dismantling the hold of the Democratic Party they instead become quite vicious on their behalf.

Liberals have sided with the ruling classes and resist anyone pointing out the truth. While they falsely accuse Jill Stein of being anti-vaccine, even after she clearly stated she was pro-vaccine, American police departments keep up their body count. The United States risks war with China and Russia and unemployment is still high. But they say nothing about any of those issues. They cheerlead for Hillary Clinton just as they did for Barack Obama and will say nothing against her once she is in office.

Jill Stein dismisses perception she is anti-vaccines as 'ridiculous'

Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein has sought to quash a “ridiculous” perception that she is anti-vaccines, during a televised town hall meeting where she denounced both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Stein, a Massachusetts physician, has recently been plagued by accusations that she rejects the mainstream scientific view that vaccines are fundamentally safe. She has said that there are “real questions” about corporate influence over vaccines and that there is “widespread distrust of the medical-industrial complex”.

But in a CNN town hall event on Wednesday, Stein said her statements have been taking out of context and that previous concerns over mercury in vaccines have now been resolved.

“I think there’s kind of an effort to divert the conversation from our actual agenda, because the idea that I oppose vaccines is completely ridiculous, or that I’m anti-science,” Stein said.

Few (If Any) Progressives on Clinton's Transition Team

Clinton Foundation won't accept foreign money if Hillary wins

The Clinton Foundation will no longer accept corporate and foreign donations if Hillary Clinton becomes president, according to The Associated Press.

Former President Bill Clinton announced the plan to staffers Thursday, the AP said, citing anonymous participants at the meeting. A formal announcement is expected soon.

Under the proposed changes, the family's charitable group would only accept donations from U.S. citizens and independent charities.

Bill Clinton said the foundation will continue its work and would refocus its efforts after an overhaul that could take a year. He added that the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual summit that brings together influential world leaders, would hold its final meeting next month in New York City regardless of the election's outcome.

Clinton also said he would also step down from the board of the foundation, according to the report. He was accompanied daughter Chelsea Clinton at the meeting. ...

According to the AP, Bill Clinton denied that the changes were brought about by outside pressure, but said they were motivated by the need to eliminate any concerns if his wife wins the White House.

Paul Manafort resigns as Trump's campaign manager after week of staff shakeups

Donald Trump's embattled campaign manager Paul Manafort stepped down from his position Friday morning, capping off yet a chaotic week of staff reshuffling and ending his five-month stint of running the Republican nominee's operation.

"I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today," Trump said in a statement. "[In] particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success." ...

Manafort was a controversial figure nearly as soon as he came on board the Trump campaign in March. A veteran GOP operative, Manafort was hired to bring some adult supervision to the campaign and help Trump clinch the nomination through the end of the primary process. But in recent days, details have emerged about Manafort's connections to foreign authoritarian leaders, in particular his work for Ukraine's pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Nude Donald Trump Statues Unveiled in 5 Major U.S. Cities

Statues of a veiny, naked Donald Trump appeared in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland and Seattle on Thursday morning.

Anarchist group INDECLINE took credit for the statues, releasing a video of the process of creating the bright, unflattering images of the Republican presidential nominee. They titled the project The Emperor Has No Balls, a play on the idiom "the emperor has no clothes," and highlights the part of Trump's anatomy that is missing from the artwork.

@realDonaldTrump They are erecting this statue of you in major cities. LOVE IT pic.twitter.com/AE8liJaM8K

— Democratic Patriot (@puppymnkey) August 18, 2016

Went to #Trump rally. NOTHING BIG. Disappointed. So sad. #emperorhasnoballs thanks @indeclineofficial #madrespect pic.twitter.com/NCHqjcVPCv

— Stacey Ransom (@hld4ransom) August 19, 2016

Donald Trump Casts Himself as Mr. Brexit, Mistaking Depth of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in U.S.

Donald Trump tried to reassure his millions of Twitter followers on Thursday that all is not lost. He did so by giving himself a new nickname: Mr. Brexit.

They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2016

Although he did not explain what parallels he sees between his faltering campaign for the American presidency and the results of the British referendum vote in favor of an exit from the European Union, just minutes later, the London editor of the conservative website Breitbart, Raheem Kassam, suggested that Trump was referring to the surprise victory of the anti-immigrant Leave campaign despite a raft of bad poll numbers.

Kassam did not say if he based this reading of Trump’s tweet on any inside information — but the message was posted one day after the Republican candidate put Breitbart’s chairman, Stephen Bannon, in charge of his campaign.

@NeilTurner_ @realDonaldTrump @KatrinaPierson @donlemon #Emperorhasnoballs haha #smalldick pic.twitter.com/yWEsJS4r1F

— Ben Hurr (@BenBhur2011) August 18, 2016

Alaskan village threatened by rising sea levels votes for costly relocation

The residents of a small coastal Alaskan village have voted to move to the mainland because of rising sea levels, but they may not have the funds to do it.

The 600-person village of Shishmaref, located on an island just north of the Bering Strait, has for decades been ravaged by erosion tied to climate change, leading residents to seek a more sustainable place to live.

But the community is racked by poverty, making it difficult to relocate, which is estimated to cost $180m.

Officials held a special election on Tuesday so residents could vote on whether to relocate or to stay and add environmental defenses. The vote was relatively close, with 89 for relocating and 78 to remain.

But both choices came with a steep price tag. The most recent estimate on relocating, from a 2004 Army Corps of Engineers study, was $180m. Officials said it would cost $110m for the environmental protections needed for the community to safely stay in one of Alaska’s most eroded coastal areas.

Devastating Floods in Louisiana Are the Sign of Things to Come

'We are protectors, not protesters': why I'm fighting the North Dakota pipeline

Our elders have told us that if the zuzeca sape, the black snake, comes across our land, our world will end. Zuzeca has come – in the form of the Dakota Access pipeline – and so I must fight.

I am Sicangu/Oglala Lakota, born in Rosebud, South Dakota, and writing from the frontline of the movement against the pipeline in Cannon Ball. I have been holding this ground with my Standing Rock Sioux tribe relatives since the spring. I am defending the land and water of my people, as my ancestors did before me.

The $3.8bn pipeline project is proposed to carry approximately 470,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from our Bakken oil fields, 1,172 miles through the country’s heartland, to Illinois. The pipeline will cross the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers, where it threatens to contaminate our primary source of drinking water and damage the bordering Indigenous burial grounds, historic villages and sundance sites that surround the area in all directions. Those sites that were not desecrated when the area was flooded in 1948 by the construction of the Oahe dam are now in danger again.

This week, I have witnessed pipeline construction tear its way toward the waters of the Missouri river which flow into the Mississippi, threatening to pollute the aquifer that carries drinking water to 10 million people. I have seen where their machines clawed through the earth that once held my relatives’ villages. I have watched law enforcement officials protect the oil industry by dragging away my indigenous brothers and sisters who stood up for our people. ...

This pipeline poses threats strikingly similar to those posed by the now defeated Keystone XL, but has received a fraction of the attention from mainstream media and big environmental groups. On 26 July, we were surprised to learn that the North Dakota permits were approved by the US Army Corps of Engineers to run the pipeline within a half-mile of our reservation. My tribal leaders have said that this done without consulting tribal governments, and without a meaningful study of the impacts it will have. This is a violation of federal law and, more importantly, of our treaties with the US government – the supreme law of the land.

Also of Interest

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

America Is Complicit in the Carnage in Yemen

Where Would U.S. Olympians Get the Idea They Could Lie With Impunity?

Hillary and the War Party

Liberal Myths: Would Al Gore Have Invaded Iraq?

Revealed: The Secret Donor Behind “Children of Israel,” the Ghost Corporation Funding GOP Super PACs

Roaming Charges: Prime Time Green

Hillary Clinton Says Colin Powell Told Her to Use Personal Email

US Targeted Killing Rules Conflate Legality and Politics

Sanders Condemns Obscene Levels of Inequality Documented in New CBO Report

Lost cities #10: Fordlandia – the failure of Henry Ford's utopian city in the Amazon

A Little Night Music

Joe Louis Walker - Don't You Know

Joe Louis Walker - Blues of the month club

Joe Louis Walker - Shake For Me

Joe Louis Walker - High Blood Pressure

Joe Louis Walker - I'm On To You

Joe Louis Walker - City of Angels

Joe Louis Walker - Too Drunk to Drive Drunk

Joe Louis Walker - Jazz San Javier 2015