Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Jazz multi-instrumentalist and singer Slim Gaillard. Enjoy!

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die."

-- Jean-Paul Sartre

News and Opinion

Dear Yemeni people,

Your deaths are our jobs program.

Thanks for your help.

- Barack, Hillary and the whole humanitarian crew.

'This Is Our War & It is Shameful:' Journalist Andrew Cockburn on the U.S. Role in the War in Yemen

AMY GOODMAN: Last August, Red Cross President Peter Maurer went to Yemen. He said Yemen, after five months, looks like Syria after eight years—no, he said Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years.

ANDREW COCKBURN: Yes, isn’t that a shocking, a shocking—I mean, that—we’ve heard so much about Syria, and yet, you know, the Saudis have been on fast-forward—and us—I have to keep reminding us of that. We—our war in Yemen has been on fast-forward. And we’ve, you know, just done devastating damage to the country. And I quote in my piece—you know, I asked a senior State Department official, "What was the Saudi plan when they started this bombing campaign? What was the strategy for the bombing?" And he got a bit exasperated. He said, "Plan? There was no plan. They simply bombed anything and everything." Anything might be a military target. You know, trucks on the highway, that became a military convoy. And when they did find a military target, they bombed it and bombed it and bombed it again. So, it seems indiscriminate, although, interestingly, I mean, we’ve had these recent atrocities of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, the fourth one they hit, that they hit last week, plus the schools. But there was another. There was an important bridge, which was a sort of route to carrying food supplies, essential supplies up from the port, up from Hudaydah. They hit that, as a way, you know, effective means of increasing the hunger level and the general distress level in Sana’a. So, this is a very, very, very cruel war that we are helping to wage.

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has spoken out against U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. ... Senator Murphy went on to say that Congress can put an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Now, what about this, Andrew Cockburn? Is this about Yemen, or is this simply about President Obama supporting the U.S. arms industry?

ANDREW COCKBURN: Well, it’s very little to do with Yemen, because we—you know, it’s clear we don’t care about Yemen. I mean, there’s little groups in the State Department and elsewhere who do, maybe. But, no, we don’t care much about Yemen, and we don’t care if we destroy it. What we do care about is the health and well-being of the U.S. arms industry. ... We have 7,000 people on the production line at the Boeing plant in St. Louis working on this huge Saudi F-15 order. And I’ve seen a figure that, across the country, in terms of subcontractors doing the bits that go in to make these planes, perhaps as many as another 30,000 or 35,000 workers around the country. This is a huge number of jobs and a huge amount of money. So, in a way, given the sort of values system that we have here today, it’s really no surprise that we’re doing this.

US Arms Makers Invest in a New Cold War

The U.S. military has won only a single major war since the end of World War II (the Gulf War of 1990-91). But U.S. military contractors continue to win major budget wars in Congress nearly every year, proving that no force on earth can resist their lobbying prowess and political clout. ...

Think tanks like the Lexington Institute are prime movers behind the domestic propaganda campaign to revive the Cold War against the diminished Russian state and justify weapons programs like the F-35.

As Lee Fang observed recently in The Intercept, “The escalating anti-Russian rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign comes in the midst of a major push by military contractors to position Moscow as a potent enemy that must be countered with a drastic increase in military spending by NATO countries.”

Thus the Lockheed-funded Aerospace Industries Association warns that the Obama administration is failing to spend enough on “aircraft, ship and ground combat systems” to adequately address “Russian aggression on NATO’s doorstep.” The Lockheed- and Pentagon-funded Center for European Policy Analysis issues a stream of alarmist reports about Russian military threats to Eastern Europe.

And the highly influential Atlantic Council — funded by Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines, and even the Ukrainian World Congress — promotes articles like “Why Peace is Impossible with Putin” and declares that NATO must “commit to greater military spending” to deal with “a revanchist Russia.” ...

Last fall, Washington Business Journal reported that “if anyone is benefitting from the unease between Russia and the rest of the world, it would have to be Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. The company is positioned to make large profits off what could very well be an international military spending spree by Russia’s neighbors.”

Lockheed continues to pump money into the American political system to ensure that it remains the nation’s largest military contractor. From 2008 to 2015, its lobbying expenditures exceeded $13 million in all but one year. The company sprinkled business from the F-35 program into 46 states and claims that it generates tens of thousands of jobs.

Among the 18 states enjoying a claimed economic impact of more than $100 million from the fighter jet is Vermont — which is why the F-35 gets the support even of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

As he told one town hall meeting, “It employs hundreds of people. It provides a college education for hundreds of people. So for me the question is not whether we have the F-35 or not. It is here. The question for me is whether it is located in Burlington, Vermont or whether it is located in Florida.”

Surprise! (Not)

Obama Extends Libya War, Will Keep Warships Off Libyan Coast

On August 1, the Obama Administration ordered attacks on ISIS in the Libyan city of Sirte, starting another American war. Officially, Congress was informed that this would be a 30-day operation, but even when it started officials were conceding that there really was no “end point” for the war in any plans.

Unsurprisingly we’re now 30 days in, and there’s still no end point, so President Obama felt obliged to confirm a 30-day extension of the war, with officials saying it was done at the recommendation of senior military leaders. As before, this stated length is little more than a bureaucratic placeholder, and there is no reason to believe the war won’t just continue on indefinitely.

Officials also say that US warships, including one that was scheduled to be redeployed off the coast of Iran to “keep an eye on Iran” aren’t going anywhere, and will remain parked off the coast of Libya. Indications are that one of the warships, the USS Carney, is close enough to be seen from the shore.

Turkey Won’t Accept Any Ceasefire With Syrian Kurds

Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik today ruled out any situation in which the government agreed to a truce with the Syrian Kurdish YPG, insisting that Turkey is a “sovereign state” and that it was impossible for them to enter into any agreement with a terrorist organization, which it considers the YPG. ...

Turkish officials have indicated that the goal of their invasion is to “cleanse” a 90-km strip of territory in northern Syria, along their border. The border itself in this strip is primarily controlled by ISIS, but areas further south, controlled by the Kurds, are also clearly being targeted.

In that regard, the 90-km strip comment isn’t particularly helpful, as it doesn’t clarify how far south that strip extends. Turkish officials are already claiming 400 square kms have been taken, and this is just the immediate surroundings of Jarabulus. Indications are that the forces are headed quite far south, into Manbij and al-Bab.

Russia Echoes US Call for Turkey to Stop Attacking Syrian Kurds

Echoing similar comments from top US officials, the Russian Foreign Ministry today called on the Turkish military to stop all attacks on Syria’s Kurdish YPG, as well as on any other factions which are currently involved in fighting against ISIS.

Like the US, Russia has been keen to support the Kurdish YPG in the past in fights against Islamist rebel factions, particularly ISIS. Unlike the US, this has largely not been restricted to areas Turkey finds acceptable, and while Russia and Turkey have just recently had a rapprochement with one another, Russia likely doesn’t feel as obliged to keep them placated as the US does.

White House Congratulates Itself on Modest Refugee Milestone

The White House announced Monday that it had reached its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States by the end of October, nearly five years after the war in Syria began.

The announcement was quickly met with self-congratulating fanfare. “We are pleased to announce that we will meet this goal more than a month ahead of schedule,” said Susan Rice, a White House National Security adviser.

Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, praised the number as a “six-fold increase from last year.” And Sen. Dick Durbin, D.-Ill., called it a “milestone” in confronting “the humanitarian crisis of our generation.”

But the White House’s announcement Monday was overshadowed by commitments from European allies, who are dramatically stepping up their support. The German government announced Sunday that it was preparing to accommodate 300,000 asylum seekers this year, in addition to nearly half a million last year. France has said they will resettle 30,000 refugees over the next couple years, and Canada has resettled the same number since November.

According to Oxfam, the U.S. is falling far short of the number of refugees it should be accepting. Based on an index calculated by the size of the economy and population, the U.S. is only doing 7 percent of its “fair share,” while its allies shoulder most of the burden, according to the charity organization.

[Heh, the US "makes up" for shifting its fair share of accommodating refugees onto allies by taking on far more than its fair share of the job of creating refugees. - js]

The "most transparent administration ever," strikes again.

US Special Ops Training in Latin America Tripled, Docs Reveal

U.S. Special Operations Forces training missions to Latin America tripled between 2007 and 2014, newly obtained documents by a human rights advocacy organization reveal, offering further evidence that it is "the golden age" of secret operations by these elite fighters.

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) says the uptick happened during "a period when overall military aid to the region was decreasing" and as overall transparency about these forces, which include the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, and Rangers, is waning.

Many of the missions these forces took part in, WOLA's Sarah Kinosian and Adam Isacson explain, were trainings called Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET). While 12 JCETs trained 560 foreign personnel in 2007, the number zoomed up to 36 JCETs training 2,300 personnel in 2014.

Kinosian and Isacson write:

JCETs do more than train U.S. forces. They teach Latin American co-participants military tactics while also "gaining regional access with a minimal footprint," according to the documents. The reports highlight that "[JCET] activities often enhance U.S. influence in host countries."

The highest number of missions—21—took place in Honduras. Most of those occurred from 2011 to 2014, a period when "when serious allegations levied against Honduran security forces—murder, torture, rape and extortion—went uninvestigated and unpunished," Kinosian and Isacson write.

Nearly as many—19—missions took place in El Salvador, where the trainings may have been for a group of units ostensibly taking to the streets to fight that country's war on gangs, and who have "been credibly accused of extrajudicial executions, crime scene manipulation, and enforced disappearances, among other crimes."

Kinosian and Isacson write: "Over the past eight years, nearly 4,000 U.S. Special Forces personnel have trained nearly 13,000 Latin American security force personnel at a cost of $73 million."

All this means, they add, that the public needs to ask some questions about the missions, namely, who exactly is the U.S. training? Are they implicated in human rights abuses? Is it now the U.S. military crafting U.S. foreign policy? And where is the public oversight?

Dilma Rousseff on Ouster: This is a Coup That Will Impact Every Democratic Organization in Brazil

Brazil Fallout Begins as Leftist Leaders Denounce 'Coup Against Latin America'

The fallout from former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment on Wednesday began almost immediately, as now-official President Michel Temer kicked off a neoliberal agenda and leftist Latin American governments recalled their ambassadors to protest what they said was an attempt to stifle populism and peace. ... Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and El Salvador withdrew their ambassadors in Brazil.

"This coup d'etat isn't just against Dilma. It is against Latin America and the Caribbean. It is against us," said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. "This is an attack against the popular, progressive, leftist movement."

El Salvador also released a statement that warned Rousseff's ouster "represented a serious threat for Latin America's democracy, peace, justice, development, and integration."

Meanwhile, as Brazilians expressed anger over Rousseff's impeachment and about the country's economy, Temer signaled he would push ahead with a far-reaching conservative agenda focused on privatization and cuts to social welfare programs.

Protests Erupt in San Juan as Obama Forms Unelected Control Board to Run Puerto Rico

Obama Appoints Social Security Critic to Fix Puerto Rico’s Budget

Andrew Biggs, an American Enterprise Institute resident scholar and architect of conservative efforts to cut and privatize Social Security, has been named by President Obama to a seven-member fiscal oversight board for the debt-ridden U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. That board, which will work out restructuring for over $70 billion in debt, has widespread authority to institute additional austerity on the island’s citizens, including potential reductions in public pensions. And Biggs appears to be the only member of the board that has significant experience with social insurance.

The president gets to freely choose one of the seven fiscal oversight board members; the other six must come from approved lists provided by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. ...

Biggs worked in the White House’s National Economic Council when President George W. Bush made a push to privatize Social Security. He was active in that effort, and then in 2006 Bush nominated Biggs to become a deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA). The New York Times editorial board called Biggs “a zealous advocate of privatizing Social Security,” and when Democrats in the Senate would not confirm Biggs, Bush appointed him during a Congressional recess. He served there until 2009.

Biggs has continued to push for his version of Social Security reform since leaving the Social Security Administration. ... Biggs told the L.A. Times’ Michael Hiltzik that he still believes that Social Security benefits should be means-tested, or cut for higher-wage earners. He also wants to raise the retirement age when benefits kick in.

At AEI, Biggs’ biography says that he “studies Social Security reform, state and local government pensions, and public sector pay and benefits.” Biggs has, in fact, consistently endorsed cutting public pensions and refunding payouts to taxpayers.

Democrats used a cheat sheet to deal with Black Lives Matter, leak reveals

Democrat lawmakers were given their very own "do's and don'ts" cheat sheet on what to do when approached by a Black Lives Matter activists, according to an internal memo that was leaked from Minority House leader Nancy Pelosi's server.

The document, which was obtained and posted online by the mysterious hacker Guccifer 2.0, was sent by Troy Perry, a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee staffer, to the rest of the committee staff in November 2015. ...

Under the subheading "Tactics," Perry writes: "When approached by BLM activists," do "listen to their concerns" but "don't offer support for concrete policy positions."

So what are the "concrete policy positions" that Democratic lawmakers are being advised to withhold their support from?

Perry writes that "though police abuses are a central component, the founders view the movement more broadly." Other issues or demands he identifies include reforming the criminal justice system, "an end to police brutality and the killings of unarmed African Americans," collecting data on police shootings, and the demilitarization of the police.

A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter wrote in an email to VICE News that they were "disappointed" by the language used in the document. "We are disappointed. We deserve to be heard, not handled," the spokesperson said. "We expect that our elected officials will stop pacifying and take us seriously."

Georgetown University to give preferential admissions to descendants of slaves

Georgetown University is ready to atone for its sins – and wants to start by formally apologizing for the school's past reliance on slavery.

President of the Washington DC-based school John J. DeGioia will deliver the apology on Thursday afternoon – and announce a number of initiatives designed to start making right on the wrongs of the past.

For example, the university plans to establish an institute dedicated to the study of slavery, launch an admissions program which will award preferential status to descendants of slaves, and erect a monument in memory of the slaves who worked, were bought and then sold for the benefit of Georgetown.

The committee stopped short of offering scholarships for those descendants

Georgetown, a private research university, was founded in 1789 and is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit higher education institution in the country.

Imprisoned ex-Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal denied hepatitis C treatment

The internationally known imprisoned former Black Panther and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has had his request for a life-saving hepatitis C treatment denied by a federal judge. ...

Abu-Jamal sued the state of Pennsylvania to receive anti-viral medication for hepatitis C after he was hospitalized in critical condition last year. Officials told him he was not sick enough to be eligible for the treatment, which has a 90-95% cure rate but costs $1,000 per dose, and is taken once a day for 12 weeks.

On Wednesday US district court judge Robert Mariani said Abu-Jamal’s lawsuit wrongly targeted the warden and the prison system’s medical chief, and should have named the four members of the state’s hepatitis C committee instead. Abu-Jamal’s lawyers say the committee did not exist at the time the lawsuit was filed. ...

Even as the judge denied Abu-Jamal’s request he still found that the evidence and testimony presented in the case demonstrate that Pennsylvania’s hepatitis C protocol for inmates fails to meet constitutional standards.

Newly obtained evidence in Abu-Jamal’s case revealed that Pennsylvania treats just about five of more than 6,000 prisoners who are infected with hepatitis C.

Military Insiders and War Profiteers Will Be Reviewing Private Prisons for Homeland Security

The DHS declared on Monday that it will review its widespread use of for-profit immigrant detention centers, in what amounts to an implied acknowledgment that human rights abuses plague its prisons, some of which house mothers with their children. ...

However, a critical aspect of the DHS announcement has gone overlooked. The federal agency’s plan is contingent on a review process initiated by the so-called “Homeland Security Advisory Council.” ... The Advisory Council that will steer this process is a roll call of war profiteers, torture defenders, human rights abusers and private sector heavyweights. Meanwhile, as Bob Libal, the executive director of the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership, noted in an interview with AlterNet, “There is a severe lack of any immigrant or immigrant advocacy representation on the committee. I don’t think there is anyone who has been impacted by detention, let alone private detention.”

[Click the link for more details on the rogue's gallery (including Retired Marine General John Kelly who defended U.S. torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay - whaddya bet that he'll be sensitive to the issues that refugee-detainees are experiencing?) that will be reviewing the use of private prisons by Der Homeland Security. - js]

Want Apple to pay its taxes? Strengthen US tax laws

The international tax system is only as strong as its weakest link. This is the clear message that the European Commission sent on Tuesday when it announced that Apple will have to repay as much as €13bn ($14.5bn) in back taxes due to illegal Irish tax breaks it has received.

Tax justice advocates across the globe lauded the decision as a big step toward tax fairness. Unfortunately, an immediate critical response from US lawmakers, coupled with a slick and disingenuous public relations play from Apple CEO Tim Cook, suggests that American taxpayers will probably continue to pay the price for Apple’s tax dodging for some time to come. This is a shame, because the commission’s goal of ending tax haven abuse is one in which the United States should, and ultimately must, be a full participant. ...

Billions of dollars of Apple’s income have flowed almost tax free through Ireland’s tax system. The European Commission estimates that in 2014, one of Apple’s Irish affiliates paid a tax rate of just 0.005% on its Irish profits. The commission ruling sensibly finds that this arrangement violates the EU’s “state aid” rules, giving Apple an unfair competitive advantage, recognizes that Irish taxpayers are potentially not the only victim of Apple’s tax avoidance and makes it clear that prompt action by US lawmakers could ensure that America sees its fair share of Apple’s big tax bill.

But therein lies the rub: while the financial cost of multinational corporations’ offshore tax avoidance has long been clear (US-based Fortune 500 firms have more than $2.4tn parked offshore and are avoiding up to $695bn in US taxes), American lawmakers have demonstrated little appetite for enacting reforms needed to collect tax on this runaway cash.

Apple boss expects to repatriate billions to the US next year

Apple boss Tim Cook expects the iPhone maker to repatriate huge offshore profits to America next year, paying billions of dollars in deferred taxes to the US Treasury.

In an interview with RTE radio, he gave a summary of the company’s 2014 tax affairs, saying: “We paid $400m [in tax] to Ireland, we paid $400m to the US. And we provisioned several billion for the US for payment as soon as we repatriated.

“Right now I would forecast that we repatriate next year. So it is not true that we would pay just $400m, or even just $800m, the number is materially larger.”

The revelation that Apple plans to repatriate some of its offshore profits and pay its huge US tax bills next year comes as a surprise given Cook’s previous refusal to countenance such a move.

Like many large US multinationals, Apple has for decades been pooling its non-US profits outside of America. Under loopholes in the tax laws, corporations can defer US taxes continually so long as income is not repatriated to America.

In July, Apple told investors its cash pile held offshore had reached $214.8bn (£162.2bn). This is the largest of any US company.

Cook’s surprise U-turn on repatriating foreign profits comes days after Apple was accused by competition regulators at the European commission of receiving state aid from Ireland.

Canova Loss Tests Strategy of 'Our Revolution'

Clinton's embrace of Republicans will harm her own party's future

Clinton gave a speech in Ohio on Wednesday with yet another former Bush official, James Clad. The speech was billed as touting “American exceptionalism”, one of the more repellent nationalistic concepts that Republicans have used to shame progressives in the past. She spoke mostly about foreign policy, a subject in which Clinton – with her penchant for supporting foreign wars and beefed up US military presence everywhere – seemingly has more in common with mainstream Republicans than the Obama administration. ...

But it’s not just the outreach and compliments to normally detestable Republicans that are the problem. Clinton and the Democratic leadership are latching onto abhorrent concepts and arguments that Republicans have been deploying for decades.

Take House Democrats, for example, who on Tuesday called on the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign for its alleged ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. What a great idea! It’s not like calling for a law enforcement investigation into your political enemies for nebulous connections to the Kremlin has ever backfired before.

And then there’s the Clinton campaign’s response to questions about large donations to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments that seem to coincide with the state department approving large weapons deals to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The Clinton camp has essentially been arguing that since there’s no evidence of quid pro quo, there’s nothing wrong. Many commentators (including a lot of ethics experts) have said that this comes very close to corruption, and it sounds an awful lot like the GOP’s long-held defense of Citizens United.

Courting the Right, Smearing the Left: The Ethos of the Clinton Campaign

Throughout the 2016 Democratic primary, left-wing critics of Hillary Clinton, including Bernie Sanders, were repeatedly smeared as racists, sexists, and class-reductionists — or some combination of the three — by surrogates of the former Secretary of State, and by the former Secretary of State, herself.

Clinton and her team, for instance, accused Sanders of making everything "about an economic theory," claimed that "black lives don't matter much to Bernie Sanders," and attempted to paint Sanders as someone who "perpetuates sexist and misogynistic stereotypes."

And prominent figures within the so-called liberal media were happy to pile on. It was repeatedly implied by the pro-Clinton commentariat that the campaign of Bernie Sanders represented little more than a left-wing version of the Trump phenomenon: We were told by such luminaries as Joan Walsh that Sanders derived his support primarily from white males looking to reassert themselves in a rapidly diversifying society. Walsh warned that if Sanders continued his attacks on the Democratic Party and its standard-bearer, he risked becoming not the leader of a mass progressive movement, but "the messiah of an angry, heavily white, and male cult." ...

But even after Clinton emerged victorious—indeed, even after Sanders (to the dismay of many of his supporters) formally endorsed Clinton—the attacks continued, and, in many ways, they intensified. Perhaps it won't surprise you that Joan Walsh is still doing her best to accuse "the anti-Clinton left" of "misogyny, homophobia, [and] transphobia."

Last month, adding to the archive of left-punching, conservative writer and ardent Clinton supporter James Kirchick enthusiastically denounced those he called "the Hillary Clinton-loathing, Donald Trump-loving useful idiots of the left." ...

Among those apparently deserving of the label "progressive Trump fan" are Glenn Greenwald, Rania Khalek, Zaid Jilani, Julian Assange, Jill Stein, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, all of whom, according to Kirchick, are "captive to a crude and one-dimensional anti-Americanism."

The one sin that unites these progressive commentators, journalists, and political figures with Trump is, in other words, that they all dare to question the morality of America's use of force abroad.

By linking left-wing criticism of American foreign policy with Trumpism, Kirchick is attempting, as Eric Levitz has noted, to delegitimize ideas without having to put forward anything resembling a coherent argument. Instead, Kirchick dubiously portrays Trump as an anti-imperialist (which he's not) to smear actual anti-imperialists.

Wikileaks ‘benefited Russia at expense of West’ - NYT claims

Hillary Clinton may have sent even more classified info through email

Over the past two months, the FBI turned over to the State Department seven DVDs containing emails and other material retrieved from Hillary Clinton's private, unsecured email servers. At least one of those DVDs contained communications that were deemed to be classified.

A Justice Department attorney made the disclosure during a hearing Wednesday in US District Court in Washington, DC, part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit VICE News filed against the FBI for a wide range of records the bureau recovered from Clinton's server.

During the 45-minute hearing, DOJ attorney Jennie Kneedler said the FBI sent the State Department two DVDs on July 21: one containing 14,900 documents, and the other containing an unknown number of classified records. It's unclear whether any of those classified documents are the same communications that have already been identified and reviewed by the State Department, or if they're an entirely new batch of records. Attorney Ryan James, who is representing VICE News, said Kneedler did not further elaborate. ...

On August 5, the FBI sent five more DVDs to the State Department. One of the DVDs, the FBI believes, contains some or all of the 30,000 emails that Clinton's aides turned over to the State Department in late 2014. It's unknown what types of records are on the other four DVDs, but US District Court Judge Randolph Moss ordered the government attorneys to disclose that information and provide a timetable for the release of the records by September 23.

Donald Trump just owned Mexico's president

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the past. But following a hastily arranged meeting between the two men on Wednesday afternoon in Mexico City, Peña Nieto was amenable to even the Republican nominee's most controversial policy proposals, which include plans to build a massive border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

On a stage with two podiums and the Mexican flag inside the presidential palace, Peña Nieto stood next to Trump and told reporters that that there had been "misinterpretations" by Mexicans about Trump. He said they had felt "attacked," perhaps a reference to the speech where Trump accused Mexico of sending criminals and rapists across the border. Peña Nieto continued, saying he "believed in [Trump's] sincere intention to build a relationship that will bring improvements for our societies."

Peña Nieto's deference to Trump, who Mexicans have burned in effigy and pummeled in the form of piñatas, drew instant rebuke from past Mexican presidents. His predecessor Felipe Calderón said Peña Nieto committed a "historic mistake," and said that he should have demanded an apology from Trump for his past remarks. Instead, Peña Nieto made an extraordinary effort to find common ground with the Republican nominee.

Donald Trump sets harsh tone on immigration: mass deportations, biometrics, 'no amnesty'

There will be no softening. That was the message from Donald Trump Wednesday evening in an angry, impassioned speech detailing his plan on immigration.

Despite suggestions from Trump and his campaign team over the last two weeks that there could be a "softening" to his approach towards undocumented immigrants, particularly otherwise law-abiding families living in this country, the Republican nominee made clear "to the world," as he said, that he was as hard as ever.

"You cannot smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized," Trump said over his 74 minute speech at full volume. "Those days are over." A pivot, this was not.

Trump laid out a ten-step plan that greatly resembled the plan that he laid out—to great controversy—at the outset of his candidacy over a year ago. Solving this issue, he yelled, was a "matter of life and death" and told that crowd that "together, we can save America itself."

The first pillar of the plan will be to "build a great wall along the southern border," he said to enthusiastic chants from the crowd of "build that wall."

"On day one, we will begin working on intangible, physical, tall, power, beautiful southern border wall," he said. "We will use the best technology, including above and below ground sensors. That's for the tunnels." He added that Mexico will pay for it "one hundred percent."

'Like Visiting a Cemetery': Millions of Honeybees Dead After Zika Pesticide Spraying

Millions of honeybees are dead in Dorchester County, South Carolina, and local beekeepers say the mass death was a result of the county spraying the area with the controversial pesticide naled on Sunday afternoon in an effort to combat Zika-spreading mosquitoes.

"The pattern [of bee death] matched acute pesticide poisoning," the Washington Post reported, and added:

A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester's own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

A single apiary in Summerville, South Carolina lost 2.5 million bees in 46 hives, according to a local resident's comments on Facebook. Kristina Solara Litzenberger said that visiting the apiary after the spraying "was like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness."

"[W]ithout honeybees we have no food," Litzenberger added." ...

Beekeepers are supposed to be warned prior to any pesticide spraying, so that they can cover their hives to protect them. But local bee owners say they were not given any warning about Sunday's spraying, according to the local news station WCBD—and this was also the first time the community was subjected to aerial spraying, rather than spraying from trucks.

In grand-gesture stage of presidency, Obama seeks stamp on environment

On Thursday, President Obama will touch down on Midway Atoll, a sliver of land in the North Pacific so removed from other human development that it feels like the edge of the universe. For more than two years, he has been hoping to visit a place like this, even though his former senior counselor John D. Podesta told him America’s most pristine marine reserves are “the middle of nowhere.”

But here, surrounded by the ocean and a population of seabirds so vast that it dictates when planes can fly certain times of year, Obama will celebrate his most dramatic action yet to safeguard the planet against climate change.

The president will use the Midway visit to tout his decision last week to expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to more than half a million square miles, making it the largest ecological preserve on earth. ...

With less than half a year left in office, Obama may have fully entered the grand-gesture phase of his presidency — the time when outgoing presidents seek to broker last-minute peace deals, finalize regulations and deliver sweeping farewell addresses.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who helped design the boundaries of the monument in consultation with the White House, said the fact that Obama hails from Hawaii helped inform the president’s approach to the issue.

[Does this "grand gesture" (how many fingers is Obama holding up?) make you forget Obama opening up the Arctic for drilling, expediting every pipeline project except Keystone XL making KXL irrelevant, or his "all of the above" energy policy? - js]

Pope Francis says destroying the environment is a sin

Pope Francis has called for urgent action to stop climate change and proposed that caring for the environment be added to traditional Christian works of mercy such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick.

In a message to mark the Catholic church’s World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation that he launched last year, Francis said the worst impact of global warming was being felt by those who were least responsible for it – refugees and the poor.

The pontiff used the occasion to revive many of the powerful issues he highlighted a year ago in his provocative encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, and his latest message seems certain to rankle conservatives.

Francis described man’s destruction of the environment as a sin and accused mankind of turning the planet into a “polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth” ...

The pope asked people to reflect on a society that lacked concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature. He called for consumers to modify their modern lifestyle by reducing waste, planting trees, separating rubbish and making more use of car pooling.

Also of Interest

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

U.S. Strategy to Fight ISIS Has Set Off a New Conflict in Syria

Our Man in Damascus: the CIA, Syria and the Rendition of Maher Arar

There’s almost no chance our elections can get hacked by the Russians. Here’s why.

In Wasserman Schultz Case, Obama and Clinton Seem to Wink at the Law

#VeteransForKaepernick Trend Shows Freedom Means More than Flag to Many Who Serve

What’s Really Behind the Election

Oldest fossils on Earth discovered in 3.7bn-year-old Greenland rocks

A Little Night Music

Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart - Hellzapoppin'

Slim Gaillard - Groove Juice Special

Slim Gaillard - Dunkin' Bagel

Slim Gaillard - Communication

Slim Gaillard - Potato Chips

Slim Gaillard - Dynamite

Slim Gaillard Quartette - Atomic Cocktail

Slim Gaillard & His Trio - Chile & Beans O'Vootee

Slim Gaillard Trio - Laguna

Slim Gaillard - Hit That Jive Jack & Zoom Zoom Zoom

Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart - Chinatown my Chinatown

Slim Gaillard - Flat Foot Floogie

Slim Gaillard - Sukiyaki Cha Cha