Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz pianist and composer Fats Waller. Enjoy!

“Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.”

-- Alan Watts

News and Opinion

Interesting analogy. It unfortunately elides the question of who in this century is playing the starring role previously filled by Hitler's Germany as the exterminator(s) that the refugees are fleeing.

Refugee rhetoric echoes 1938 summit before Holocaust, UN official warns

The dehumanising language used by UK and other European politicians to debate the refugee crisis has echoes of the pre-second world war rhetoric with which the world effectively turned its back on German and Austrian Jews and helped pave the way for the Holocaust, the UN’s most senior human rights official has warned.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, described Europe’s response to the crisis as amnesiac and “bewildering”. Although he did not mention any British politicians by name, he said the use of terms such as “swarms of refugees” were deeply regrettable.

In July, the UK prime minister, David Cameron, referred to migrants in Calais as a “swarm of people”. At this month’s Conservative party conference, the home secretary, Theresa May, was widely criticised for suggesting that mass migration made it “impossible to build a cohesive society”.

In an interview, the high commissioner said the language surrounding the issue reminded him of the 1938 Evian conference, when countries including the US, the UK and Australia refused to take in substantial numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler’s annexation of Austria on the grounds that they would destabilise their societies and strain their economies. Their reluctance, Zeid added, helped Hitler to conclude that extermination could be an alternative to deportation.

Investigators Ready to Go, But Will US Consent to Hospital Bombing Probe?

'We need to know if the rules of war have changed,' says MSF

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Wednesday are waiting for a response from the U.S. and Afghanistan to approve a formal investigation into the bombing of its charity hospital earlier this month.

MSF announced that a formal request has been made to the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate the U.S. military airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan, marking the first time the Commission has been activated since its inception in 1991 under the Geneva Conventions.

"The IHFFC stands ready to undertake an investigation but can only do so based on the consent of the concerned State or States," the commission wrote in a statement Wednesday. ...

"We have received apologies and condolences, but this is not enough. We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour," MSF international president Dr. Joanne Liu said Wednesday. "We need to understand what happened and why."

"We need to know if the rules of war have changed, not just for Kunduz, but for the safety of our teams working in frontline hospitals all over the world," Liu said.

Thousands of Iranian Troops Are Teaming Up With Russia for an Assault on Aleppo

A delegation of Iranian lawmakers arrived in Damascus on Wednesday in the build-up to a joint operation against insurgents in northwest Syria, and said US-led efforts to fight rebels had failed.

The visit, led by the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, came as Iranian troops prepared to bolster a Syrian army offensive that two senior officials told Reuters would target rebels in Aleppo.

The attack, which the officials said would be backed by Russian air strikes, underlined the growing involvement in the civil war of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's two main allies, which has alarmed a US-led coalition opposed to the president that is bombing Islamic State (IS) militants.

"The international coalition led by America has failed in the fight against terrorism. The cooperation between Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Russia has been positive and successful," Boroujerdi was quoted as saying by Iran's state broadcaster IRIB as he arrived at Damascus airport. ...

Iran has sent thousands of troops into Syria in recent days to bolster the planned ground offensive in Aleppo, the two officials told Reuters.

ISIS jihadists love driving Toyotas, US wonders why

US Arms Shipments Fuel Proxy War With Russia Over Syria

The US had ditched a plan to arm Syrian rebel factions over a year ago, but the start of Russian airstrikes against ISIS and other factions has the US going back to that strategy, and throwing large amounts of anti-tank missiles at the various rebel factions in the nation’s west.

The initial shift was because of America’s shift in focus from early Civil War goals of regime change to fighting against ISIS. The groups getting the tow missiles aren’t fighting ISIS, by and large, they’re fighting the government, and by extension the Russians. ...

So the US strategy in Syria is shifting once again, initially focused on regime change, then focused on destroying ISIS, and now, having given up more or less on both of those, they just want to see Russia fail, and the administration seems comfortable with the possibility that US-made weapons will be destroying Russian tanks and helicopters.

Putin Says U.S. Has Mush For Brains

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia criticized the United States and others on Tuesday for what he said was their lack of cooperation with the Russian military campaign in Syria, suggesting that they had “mush for brains.”

Mr. Putin was responding to widespread accusations in the West that Russian warplanes were targeting practically every group opposed to the Syrian government except the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He complained that while the Russian government had asked for the coordinates of the groups that should or should not be attacked, the United States had not responded to either request.

“Recently, we have offered the Americans: ‘Give us objects that we shouldn’t target.’ Again, no answer,” he said. “It seems to me that some of our partners have mush for brains.”

In Washington, defense and military officials have privately described the reluctance to work with Russia as a trust issue. First, they fear that the Russians might use the coordinates to target the groups the Americans do not want attacked. Second, Syrian opposition groups are already suspicious that the United States is coordinating with Russia on the attacks, a perception the Pentagon does not want to feed, the officials said.

Free Syrian Army Plans Suicide Attacks on Russians

Complaining that Russia is portraying all rebel factions, even the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), as terrorists, the FSA forces in Hama say they are planning to carry out suicide bombings against Russian targets, assuming they can find them.

The statement from FSA Captain Rashid al-Hourani said the plan is to “endure the violent aerial bombardment” and then get some people to infiltrate the Syrian military, hoping they can locate the Russians and from there carry out “martyrdom operations” against them.

The plan weakens US protestations that the group is a “moderate” faction that it is appropriate to be throwing advanced weaponry at, but the interest in using suicide attacks reflects the group’s cozy position as an ally of al-Qaeda, who controls much of the territory in nearby Idlib.

Turkey Warns Both US, Russia Against Backing Kurds

While the US and Russia are engaging in a growing proxy war against one another in Syria, the two nations can definitely agree on one thing, they’re both backing the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in their fight against ISIS.

That’s got Turkey furious against both nations, with officials saying they’ve held “high-level meetings” with both to warn them that they have to stop backing the YPG, who they consider terrorists. ... Back in July, Turkey made clear to the US they consider the border town of Jarabulus a “red line” that the YPG mustn’t be allowed to control, and the town has remained under ISIS control even since, as the US shifted its air support toward fighting further east.

While Turkish warnings worked at shifting the US away from ISIS possessions in Aleppo, Russia is backing the YPG in and around Jarabulus. Russia seemingly has no reason to give in to their demands, with Turkey outraged at them either way, which means they may ultimately be a better ally for the YPG in Aleppo than the US would be.

Ankara attacks: senior security officials sacked, says Turkish government

Three top Turkish police officials have been sacked over the weekend’s twin bomb blasts in Ankara as the president paid homage to the 97 people killed in the country’s bloodiest attacks.

The Turkish interior ministry said the officials fired included the head of police for the greater Ankara area, as well as his intelligence and public security chiefs, amid accusations of security lapses.

On Wednesday morning, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid a wreath in front of the city’s railway station where two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Saturday in a crowd of leftist and pro-Kurdish activists attending a peace rally.

The government has said Islamic State is the prime suspect behind the attack, which also injured more than 500.

Without giving further details, Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey had received intelligence indicating that the Ankara attack may be linked to Syria, where Isis jihadis have captured swaths of territory up to the Turkish border.

MH-17: The Dog Still Not Barking

The Dutch Safety Board report concludes that an older model Buk missile apparently shot down Malaysia Airline Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, but doesn’t say who possessed the missile and who fired it. Yet, what is perhaps most striking about the report is what’s not there – nothing from the U.S. intelligence data on the tragedy.

The dog still not barking is the absence of evidence from U.S. spy satellites and other intelligence sources that Secretary of State John Kerry insisted just three days after the shoot-down pinpointed where the missile was fired, an obviously important point in determining who fired it.

On July 20, 2014, Kerry declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

But such U.S. government information is not mentioned in the 279-page Dutch report, which focused on the failure to close off the eastern Ukrainian war zone to commercial flights and the cause of the crash rather than who fired on MH-17. A Dutch criminal investigation is still underway with the goal of determining who was responsible but without any sign of an imminent conclusion.

I was told by a U.S. intelligence source earlier this year that CIA analysts had met with Dutch investigators to describe what the classified U.S. evidence showed but apparently with the caveat that it must remain secret.

Last year, another source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me they had concluded that a rogue element of the Ukrainian government – tied to one of the oligarchs – was responsible for the shoot-down, while absolving senior Ukrainian leaders including President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But I wasn’t able to determine if this U.S. analysis was a consensus or a dissident opinion.

Days of Revolt: The 51 Day War

Israel authorises police to seal off Palestinian areas of Jerusalem

Israeli police will be authorised to seal off Palestinian areas of Jerusalem in response to continuing violence and attacks, part of a package of “aggressive” measures announced by the office of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The controversial measure – approved by Netanyahu’s security cabinet – comes as the Israeli military announced it was preparing to deploy six companies of soldiers to reinforce police, also called for in the same meeting.

Announcing the measures early on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office said he had ordered police to “impose a closure on, or to surround, centres of friction and incitement in Jerusalem, in accordance with security considerations”.

It also announced that a terrorist’s house that has been demolished will not be rebuilt, and that the permanent residency rights of terrorists will be revoked and their property confiscated.

The moves were criticised by Human Rights Watch, which warned that they risked inflaming an already dangerous situation.

Canadian Journalist Wrongfully Imprisoned in Egypt Is Back Home — And Lashing Out at PM Stephen Harper

After nearly two years in an Egyptian prison, former Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy is back home in Canada, just in time to slam the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper handled his case ahead of the federal election next week.

"There are no words to describe how it feels when you are wrongfully convicted and sitting in a cold cell, infested with insects, nurturing a broken shoulder," Fahmy told a room of reporters at a press conference Tuesday at Ryerson University in Toronto. "But when you're there, your only hope is that your prime minister will do everything in his power to get you out of there."

Fahmy, formerly bureau chief for Al Jazeera English in Cairo, and two of his colleagues were arrested by Egyptian authorities in 2013. In a retrial this year that was widely condemned by human rights advocates as an affront to freedom of expression, Fahmy was sentenced to three years in prison for spreading "false news" and for being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist group in the eyes of the Egyptian government.

Fahmy went on to say he felt "betrayed and abandoned" when he realized Harper was not doing everything in his power to get him out. He accused the Harper government of being too soft on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and not appealing to him personally to get him out of prison sooner. Fahmy also blames former foreign affairs minister John Baird for sabotaging his chance at being deported from Egypt, along with his Australian colleague Peter Greste, months before he was eventually pardoned by Sisi last month.

"You do know who I'm not voting for, that's for sure," Fahmy quipped.

Chelsea Manning Is Suing the Government to Get Her FBI File

The imprisoned WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to compel the FBI and the Department of Justice to release documents that they have compiled on her. The suit follows a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that Manning filed last year that the United States government has repeatedly denied.  ...

Manning's activities were first brought to the attention of authorities when a hacker Manning chatted with online reported her to the FBI. Her suit, filed in DC District Court last week, is seeking the release of material that the DOJ and the FBI collected as part of an investigation against her that never led to any criminal charges.

Instead, the former Army intelligence analyst was court-martialed by a military judge in 2013. These DOJ and FBI documents from the parallel investigation, Manning's lawyers argue, should now be made public since Manning has already pled guilty to several crimes, been convicted of others, and is serving jail time.

The government has countered that the documents are related to ongoing law enforcement work, and are therefore not subject to FOIA requests.

Manning's lawyers are calling foul.

"It's improper for the government to deny Chelsea access to these documents when her case has already been tried," said Vincent Ward, one of the attorneys representing Manning. "She's been court-martialed, and the DOJ conducted an overlapping investigation — it's absurd to keep every single one of those documents secret."

Court Reinstates Lawsuit Against NYPD Muslim Spying, Citing History of Racist Scares

In a stunning legal decision issued today, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Muslim-Americans who had been subjected to blanket mass-surveillance by the NYPD Intelligence Division have grounds to sue the department for discrimination. The ruling reverses a 2014 decision by the United States District Court of New Jersey that found the plaintiffs had insufficient legal standing to challenge the surveillance against them, and that the blanket surveillance of Muslim communities itself was not evidence of bias.

Linda Sarsour, Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York, lauded today’s verdict, saying “The courts could not deny that in fact there is reason to believe that the NYPD engages in unwarranted surveillance of Muslims based on their faith alone…We haven’t won yet, but this is a step in the right direction” Sarsour also said the NYPD program had generated widespread fear and paranoia. “This issue has never been just paranoia, this is a reality for Muslim communities,” she added.

In 2011, a landmark investigation by the Associated Press revealed that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had been conducting highly-invasive, suspicion-less surveillance on Muslim-Americans living in and around the New York area. This surveillance, which lasted for years and which involved mapping out Muslim neighborhoods and businesses, building databases on information on ordinary people, and using undercover operatives to infiltrate entire communities, ultimately failed to turn up even one lead related to terrorism.

US defense department eyes Colorado prisons to hold Guantánamo detainees

A team from the US Defense Department’s policy shop will spend three days this week in Colorado to determine if two prisons in the state might indefinitely hold dozens of Guantánamo detainees.

The latest round of planning in Barack Obama’s long-stalled initiative to close Guantánamo Bay currently involves inspecting a federal Supermax in Florence and a state penitentiary at Canon City to determine their eligibility for continuing the detention of men at Guantánamo whom the US will neither charge nor release. ...

Although Obama and his aides typically describe the hunt for a new detention facility as a crucial aspect of their plan to close Guantánamo, human rights campaigners consider it instead an importation of Guantánamo inside the mainland United States.

They note that the practices that led to international outcries to close Guantánamo– indefinite detention without charge far from any active battlefield and military tribunals – will continue at a US domestic facility, making any claim to “closing Guantánamo” purely cosmetic. A previous iteration of the plan, to hold Guantánamo detainees without charge at an Illinois prison, was dubbed “Gitmo North” by human rights groups.

Keiser Report: Avatars Will Replace Humans

'Out of Control' Inequality: Global One Percent Owns Half of World's Wealth

Credit Suisse report shows worldwide inequality growing even faster than experts had predicted

The top one percent of households "account for half of all assets in the world," according to a new report from a leading multinational bank.

The 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report puts worldwide wealth inequality at a level "possibly not seen for almost a century," the researchers write. The data also reveals a declining middle class and that the poorest half of the world's population owns just one percent of its assets. Meanwhile, the number of "ultra-wealthy" people continues to climb.

Credit Suisse's analysis is in line with a warning from the international humanitarian group Oxfam, issued earlier this year, that the richest one percent of people on the planet would own at least half of the world's wealth by 2016.

"The Credit Suisse report shows that inequality is growing faster than we had thought," said Claire Godfrey, global inequality policy lead for Oxfam. "The fact that it has happened this year underlines the urgency of the problem."

Talk of Criminally Prosecuting Corporations Up, Actual Prosecutions Down

A new analysis of federal data from Syracuse University finds that the Justice Department’s criminal prosecutions of corporations fell 29 percent from 2004 to 2014, even as criminal referrals to the Justice Department from other federal agencies have risen.

In fiscal year 2014, the Justice Department brought 237 cases against corporations, the lowest number since 2010, and well below the high-water mark of the decade: 398 cases in 2005. The number of convictions fell to 162, well below the Bush administration average of about 240. ...

[So, um, just which party was it that was supposed to be the party of corporations and rich people? - js]

Just a month ago, the Justice Department, seeking to rehabilitate its image as a diligent enforcer of the law, announced new guidelines for corporate prosecutions, with a focus on individual accountability. But the guideline only pertained to new cases, meaning it could take years to reverse the shrinking trend in the TRAC data.

As it happens, TRAC blames another memo, written by Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip in 2008, for the reduction in prosecution rates. The Filip memo warned prosecutors to “take into account the possible substantial consequences to a corporation’s employees, investors, pensioners and customers” when filing a case.

That preoccupation with collateral consequences has roots in a memo from former Attorney General Eric Holder, back when he was a Justice Department official in 1999.

[Wow, no wonder Covington and Burling kept that corner office warmed up and ready to receive Holder the moment he passed through the golden revolving door! - js]

Distraction

Why Build the Green Party? - Jill Stein

Hypocrisy on parade!

Martin O'Malley Accepted Campaign Cash From the NRA

In one of the more dramatic salvos of the first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday, Martin O’Malley took a swipe at Bernie Sanders, claiming that the Vermont senator “panders to the NRA.”

O’Malley reiterated his opposition to the National Rifle Association towards the end of the debate. Asked which political enemy he is most proud of making, the former Maryland governor  declared proudly: the NRA.

And yet O’Malley accepted $40,000 from the NRA in 2012 as the chair of a national political committee, disclosures show.

The fundraising took place while O’Malley served as the chairman of Democratic Governors Association, a nonprofit group designed to help elect Democrats win statehouses. O’Malley led the DGA as its top fundraiser and was retained as finance chair following his term as chair.

Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders Take Center Stage at First Democratic Debate of 2016 Race

"You know, the Middle East is going up in flames. We have about five failed states right now, going on many more. And we have created ISIS. And the thinking is that we can fix ISIS by doing more of what created ISIS. And there was absolutely no meaningful dialogue about this quagmire that we are plunging into headlong."

"Martin O’Malley’s love for African Americans surprised me, because as—when he was the mayor when I was a kid, I didn’t know. I didn’t feel that. I know a lot of my friends been through the system—and they shouldn’t have gone through the system—because of those—the high, ridiculous amount of arrests that happened while he was mayor. Dudes going to jail for sitting outside on the steps, dudes going to jail for riding their bike on the curb—like, that’s crazy."

The inevitable spinning has begun. The Guardian awards the debate to Hillary and regards Bernie as her enabler:

Hillary Clinton rises above controversy – and a Sanders revolution – at debate

Hillary Clinton has cemented her status as the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting with a commanding and assured performance at the first televised debate of the party’s primary race for the White House. ...

Bernie Sanders, in contrast, stumbled over his past policy on gun control and, in what was a pivotal moment of the debate, opted to give Clinton a pass over the issue that has dogged her campaign. ...

His display of magnanimity defused a politically toxic issue for Clinton and compounded the sense that the debate in Nevada provided a much-needed boost to her campaign.

Sanders Calls Iraq Worst Foreign Policy Blunder in U.S. History as Clinton Backs Militaristic Views

"I had to laugh when Hillary said—you know, as if being appointed secretary of state somehow vindicated her bad decision about Iraq, you know, because she just then went on to make all kinds of other really horrific decisions. And she also tried to justify, you know, her regime change in Libya, creating the failed state that it is, you know, and her position was just defenseless. And it felt like we need to acknowledge what an incredible series of catastrophes Iraq initiated. They’re not over yet. And Senator Clinton and, actually, all of the Democrats on the stage continue to support basically the same failed policy. We need an immediate weapons embargo to—particularly to Syria. Clinton was calling for, essentially, an air war. You know, in calling for a no-fly zone, she’s saying, "Let’s have an air war with Russia," you know, and now we’re talking about a nuclear-armed power. You know, it just felt like she was saying all the wrong things."

The Progressive also awards the debate to Hillary, gives Bernie credit for changing what is possible to bring into the national political dialogue.

In Debate, Hillary and Bernie Define Two Poles

In their closing remarks, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton summed up voters’ choice.

Bernie told the CNN audience what very few candidates, he noted, would admit:

“Nobody up here, certainly no Republican, can address the major crises affecting our country, unless millions of people begin to stand up to the billionaire class that has so much power over our economy and our political life.”

Asked how he would get anything done in Washington, he replied that it will take a massive grassroots movement to retake power from corporations and politicians who are content with historic income inequality, deregulated banks, a disempowered labor movement, increasing child poverty and receding opportunity for the great majority of people.

Hillary Clinton took the opposite tack. Asked if she was a centrist or a progressive, she replied: “I’m a progressive. But I’m a progressive who likes to get things done.”

In her closing remarks, she drove that point home:

“What you have to ask yourself is, 'Who amongst us has the vision for actually making the changes that are going to improve the lives of the American people? Who has the tenacity and the ability and the proven track record of getting that done?'

In other words, do you believe Jim Webb, who told Sanders, rather patronizingly, “Bernie, I don't think the revolution's going to come, and I don't think the Congress is going to pay for a lot of this stuff." Or are you with Sanders’ supporters, millions of whom are taking a flyer on the socialist candidate who is, contrary to all expectations, one of the top two contenders in the Democratic contest for President of the United States? ...

Hillary walked away with first prize. But the most significant win of the evening was for those millions of people in the Sanders revolution, who continue be inspired by a candidate who speaks seriously and credibly about building a movement to retake our democracy.

Glass-Steagall: The True Clinton Legacy

Wall Street on Parade, on the other hand, awards the debate to Bernie on the basis that Hillary is full of crap and beholden to the crap industry. Needless to say, this article is worth clicking the link and reading in full.

The Debate: Can a Democratic Socialist Save Capitalism?

In the minds of millions of viewers, Hillary Clinton came across in last night’s Democratic debate on CNN as polished, articulate and knowledgeable about the issues. But for those of us who understand that the greatest threat to America is not some foreign power but home-grown financial terrorists wielding trillions of dollars in high-risk derivatives in taxpayer-insured banks on Wall Street, she is the same old problem, not the solution.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, on the other hand, who calls himself a Democratic Socialist, was in Congress leading the fight to stop the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and is still leading the charge to restore it before the next financial crash destroys what’s left of the U.S. economy. (The Glass-Steagall Act prohibits insured banks from being affiliated with high risk investment banks or stock brokerage firms.)

It was during the exchange between Sanders and Clinton on the Glass-Steagall Act that the defining difference between the two emerged: Clinton admits to listening to “experts” who told her that the real danger is not the mega banks but “shadow banking.” She said her plan “is more comprehensive” than Sanders and that it would “empower regulators to break up big banks if we thought they posed a risk.”

The above quote from Clinton is fatal to her candidacy. The “experts” she’s listening to apparently don’t know that regulators have had the ability to break up the big banks since the Dodd-Frank reform legislation was passed in 2010. The regulators just don’t have the guts to take on the Wall Street lobby and their sycophants in Congress. Senator Elizabeth Warren has lectured the Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen, in Senate hearings on using that authority instead of allowing Wall Street mega banks to flunk their stress tests and simply come back the next year and try to get a passing grade.

It’s also fatal to Clinton’s candidacy that she’s bought into the idea that shadow banking is the threat and not the Wall Street banks with $1 to $2 trillion in assets. Yes, their shadow banking customers may get into trouble and threaten their balance sheets, or their shadow banking counterparties may get into trouble and threaten their balance sheets, but it’s the mega Wall Street investment banks with insured deposits backed by the taxpayers that ultimately pose the real threat to the stability of the financial system, the U.S. economy, and the already crushing national debt that exploded to resuscitate the economy the last time Wall Street cratered it in 2008 and 2009. ...

Hillary Clinton is wrong on her facts and wrong for America at one of the most dangerous financial moments in our Nation’s history. Her husband signed the legislation in 1999 that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. He has stated that this action had nothing to do with causing the 2008-2009 crash. For Hillary Clinton to restore this vitally needed legislation would eviscerate her husband’s legacy as President. She is a conflicted candidate on that basis as well as because her campaign is being financed by Wall Street powerhouses and their legions of law firms. Sanders is being financed by the little guy who wants to restore democracy in America.

Democratic rivals put climate change firmly on the agenda

Four of the five contenders call for action on the issue despite its relegation to a single question in the final part of the CNN event

Democratic contenders promised repeatedly to take forceful action against climate change in their first presidential debate on Tuesday night – even before they were asked.

Much to the disappointment of campaigners, CNN allocated just one question to climate change, outsourced to a member of the public, and relegated to the final segment of the two-hour encounter.

But four of the five Democratic contenders – with Jim Webb, the former Virginia Senate the sole hold-out – grabbed every chance that came their way to inject climate change into the event.

Bernie Sanders ranked climate change as the single biggest threat to America’s national security. “The scientific community is telling us: if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be inhabitable,” Sanders said. “That is a major crisis.”

Martin O’Malley touted his plan to purge fossil fuels from America’s energy supply within the next few decades.

Hillary Clinton recounted the time she roamed the hallways of a cavernous conference hall in Copenhagen looking for Chinese leaders who could make a deal to cut carbon pollution, and defended her position on the Keystone XL pipeline. ...

The candidates’ attention to the topic, in sharp contrast to CNN, reinforced the importance of climate change for Democratic primary voters.

Bernie Says: No Bones About it, Our Biggest Threat is Climate Change

When asked during the Democratic debate Tuesday night to name the biggest national security threat facing the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders did not bat an eye before answering: "The global crisis of climate change."

"The scientific community is telling us: if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be inhabitable," Sanders said. "That is a major crisis."

Highlighting their more establishment—and hawkish—perspectives, his Democratic rivals responded with more 'on the ground' threats: current frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to nuclear proliferation; former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, named the turmoil in the Middle East; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said a nuclear Iran; and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb mentioned China, cyber warfare, and the Middle East.

Spring coming earlier in US – scientists

Study predicts plants will start budding three weeks sooner by end of century as climate change exerts direct effect on seasonal calendar

By 2100 plants will green up 22.3 days earlier in much of the country, with the biggest jump on spring occurring in the western US.

In the Pacific north-west the researchers expected an even shorter winter with spring kicking in up to 28.5 days earlier by the end of the century.

The findings, published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters, suggest even bigger shifts in the plant calendar due to climate change than had been expected.

Earlier this year another team of researchers suggested that spring was arriving as much as 14 days earlier in most parts of North America because of climate change.

The researchers from the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Programme drew on thousands of records, from frog mating calls to bird migration patterns and tree and plant flowerings, to compare the shift in timing of natural events.

In some parts of the country, including Wisconsin, some flower species, such as wild geranium, were blooming 24 days earlier in 2012 than in 1945.

Also of Interest

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

Dem Debate on Foreign Policy Leaves More Questions Than Answers

Working-class Americans feel screwed. I heard it across the entire country

We’re not as selfish as we think we are. Here’s the proof

US Weapons Drops Arming Unvetted Syrian Rebel Factions

The Destructive U.S.-Backed Campaign in Yemen

Cops Almost Got Away With Torturing Mathew Ajibade to Death

US Violence Breeds a Language of the Grotesque

Does the Nature Conservancy Really Care About Nature?

The CNN Democratic debate transcript, annotated

The Real Reason Global Stocks Are Flashing Red this Morning

A Little Night Music

Fats Waller - Handful of Keys

Jack Teagarden Orchestra, Fats Waller - You Rascal, You!

Fats Waller - The Darktown Strutters' Ball

Fats Waller - If You're A Viper

Fats Waller - Alligator Crawl

Fats Waller and his Rhythm - Blue Because Of You

Fats Waller - All That Meat And No Potatoes

Fats Waller - The Joint Is Jumping

Fats Waller - I've Got My Fingers Crossed

Fats Waller - Louisiana Fairytale (better known as the theme song for PBS' 'This Old House')

Fats Waller - Honeysuckle Rose

Fats Waller - Truckin'

Fats Waller - Viper's Drag

Fats Waller - Lulu's Back In Town

Fats Waller & James P. Johnson - piano duet

Fats Waller - Smarty

Fats Waller - E Flat Blues

Fats Waller - Sugar Blues

Fats Waller - Moppin And Boppin

Fats Waller and his Buddies - The Minor Drag

Fats Waller - Paswonky