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This evening's music features blues and folk musician Taj Mahal. Enjoy!

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

-- Ronald Reagan

News and Opinion

It's been a big week for the squeals of the guilt-ridden elites desperately worried about how their image has been tarnished by their actions - first Ben Bernanke and now Eric Holder:

Holder, Too Late, Calls for Transparency on DOJ Torture Investigation

Former attorney general Eric Holder on Wednesday called for the public release of details of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into CIA abuse of detainees, saying it would show the world how hard his prosecutors tried to bring Bush-era torturers to justice.

“I’d love to be able to just throw on the table all the work that was done by John Durham, and let people see how seriously we took the responsibility that we had to figure out whether criminal charges could be brought,” Holder said at a reception for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. ...

Holder’s sincerity, however, is debatable, for at least two reasons.

For one, the Department of Justice under his watch began fought against the release of documents related to the Durham investigation that had been requested under the Freedom of Information Act by New York Times reporter Charlie Savage

Savage had requested documents including summaries of interviews with about 100 witnesses and a memo by Durham explaining why in the end no charges were filed.

Just last month, a federal judge tentatively ruled that Savage was entitled to some but far from all of what he had requested, and nothing has yet been made public.

And for another, it’s a little late. He’s not the attorney general anymore. (He stepped down in April.) When I asked Holder if he would make such a request to a judge, he said. “It won’t be for me to decide now.”

They only waterboarded 3 detainees. We now see that it depends on your definition of "waterboard." One is left to wonder how many variations on the theme of waterboarding the too-clever-by-half people working for Vice President Dark Side were able to come up with and how many more people they will eventually have to admit to torturing. While we're at it, perhaps there's enough wiggle-room in the term "detainee" to allow for countless others to have been tortured but never admitted. Though we've known it all along, here is more evidence that our government is run by a bunch of prevaricating sociopaths.

Torture by another name: CIA used 'water dousing' on at least 12 detainees

Interrogators used a technique that elicits a drowning sensation and lowers body temperature on many more detainees than the agency admits to waterboarding

At least a dozen more people were subjected to waterboard-like tactics in CIA custody than the agency has admitted, according to a fresh accounting of the US government’s most discredited form of torture.

The CIA maintains it only subjected three detainees to waterboarding. But agency interrogators subjected at least 12 others to a similar technique, known as “water dousing”, that also created a drowning sensation or chilled a person’s body temperature – sometimes through “immersion” in water, and often without use of a board.

New lawsuits, recently released documents and the Senate’s landmark torture report indicate that at least 13 men in total experienced “water dousing”. Those familiar with their cases and an interrogator cited in the Senate report consider water dousing’s departure from waterboarding to be “a distinction without a difference”.

Water dousing, however, added an element of hypothermia. Some detainees reported their CIA captors dousing them with “cold or refrigerated” water, then wrapping them in similarly frigid sheets of plastic, keeping their temperatures low.

“CIA cable records often describe the detainees as naked after the water dousing, while other records omit such detail,” the Senatereport states.

Lawyers for some of the detainees said they were prevented by classification rules from discussing the treatment of their clients, a limitation they said helps the CIA in continuing to define waterboarding narrowly. Even beyond the dousings, there is some evidence to suggest that the CIA performed more waterboardings than it has thus far admitted.

Laura Pitter of Human Rights Watch, who has investigated torture for the group, said the CIA was being “entirely disingenuous” in claiming it only waterboarded three people.

“First, more than three people were waterboarded,” she said. “But second, the CIA used water to torture detainees in a variety of ways that cannot escape classification as torture. Whether on a board or on the floor, they induced near suffocation using water. And whether you call it ‘waterboarding’ or ‘water dousing’, that’s torture – plain and simple.”

Life After Guantanamo: Exiled In Kazakhstan

Civil Liberties Groups Call For Congressional Inquiry into Assassination Program

Following The Intercept’s publication of a cache of secret documents on the U.S. military’s drone assassination program, civil rights organizations are calling for an immediate congressional inquiry and heightened oversight of the use of armed drones.

A statement issued Thursday by Amnesty International said the documents “raise serious concerns about whether the USA has systematically violated international law, including by classifying unidentified people as ‘combatants’ to justify their killings.” In subsequent comments to The Intercept, Naureen Shah, director of Amnesty’s Security & Human Rights Program, reiterated that the revelations “warrant congressional inquiry,” stating that “there is potential evidence here of decisions being made to hide the actual impact of drone strikes from the public, and to falsely characterize a rapidly expanding global killing program as something limited and precise.”

Among the revelations included in the documents, provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source, are that U.S. drone strikes routinely kill far more people than their intended targets, that drone operators frequently conduct strikes based on unreliable evidence, and that individuals killed in strikes whose identities are unknown are posthumously counted as “enemies killed in action,” without any evidence that they had actually been combatants.

The disclosures have undermined the Obama administration’s claim that its strikes are being conducted with respect for civilian life. “A review of the lethal force program must be transparent and include disclosure of the United States’ compliance with its legal obligations,” said Hina Shamsi of the ACLU’s National Security Project. ... In a post on the ACLU’s website, Shamsi added, “These eye-opening disclosures make a mockery of U.S. government claims that its lethal force operations are based on reliable intelligence and limited to lawful targets.”

Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program's Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them

Democracy Now has a good interview with Jeremy Scahill about the recent Intercept report on Drones. Unfortunately they have done something peculiar with their embedding, so if you want to see it, click on the link above.

Snowden and Ellsberg hail leak of drone documents from new whistleblower

American whistleblowers hailed the release on Thursday of a collection of classified documents about US drone warfare as a blow on behalf of transparency and human rights.

In an astonishing act of civil courage, one American just shattered an unspeakable lie. https://t.co/2H81IMKPha pic.twitter.com/OwIqygfpqJ

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 15, 2015

The documents anchored a multi-part report by the Intercept on the Defense Department assassination program in Yemen and Somalia. Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other rights groups said the report raised significant concerns about human rights violations by the US government, and called for an investigation. ...

“It’s pretty remarkable stuff,” said Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“In some ways it reconfirms and illuminates much of what we knew, or thought we knew, about a lot of these programs, like that the administration firmly prefers kill over capture despite claiming the opposite, and that there’s not ‘a bunch of folks in the room’, as Obama calls it – that there’s a clear, bureaucratic process for this.

“It clearly shows, as we’ve known, that the United States does not know who it’s killing.”

Ramstein 'involved US drone programs,' says former US drone operator

A former US drone operator says the US Ramstein airbase in Germany had a key role to play in US drone strikes. Brandon Bryant was answering questions from a parliamentary committee investigating the NSA.

"All data, every small bit of information, that was transferred between the plane and the team, went through the Ramstein airbase," Bryant told the committee's members. However, the drones were not directly steered from Ramstein, the former US sensor operator for drones said. ...

The German government also knew of the operations at Ramstein, according to Bryant. "We were told that we were working together with the government," he said. The German government could pass on a mobile number to the US, which could then be used to execute a person, Bryant told the committee.

US tank enters ruined Afghan hospital putting 'war crime' evidence at risk

A US tank has forced its way into the shell of the Afghanistan hospital destroyed in an airstrike 11 days ago, prompting warnings that the US military may have destroyed evidence in a potential war crimes investigation.

In a statement on Thursday, the medical charity, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said they were informed after Thursday’s “intrusion” that the tank was carrying investigators from a US-Nato-Afghan team which is investigating the attack.

“Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear,” MSF said.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported intrusion, which came as new evidence emerged that US forces operating in the area at the time of the attack knew that the facility was a hospital.

US Analysts Knew Bombing Target Was Hospital

American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on an Afghan hospital days before it was destroyed by a U.S. military attack because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned. ...

The special operations analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications that intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official who is familiar with some of the documents describing the site. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and may have housed heavy weapons.

After the attack — which came amidst a battle to retake the northern Afghan city of Kunduz from the Taliban — some U.S. analysts assessed that the strike had been justified, the former officer says. They concluded that the Pakistani, believed to have been working for his country's Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, had been killed.

No evidence has surfaced publicly suggesting a Pakistani died in the attack, and Doctors without Borders, the international organization that ran the hospital, says none of its staff was Pakistani. The former intelligence official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity. ...

The new details about the military's suspicions that the hospital was being misused complicate an already murky picture and add to the unanswered questions about one of the worst civilian casualty incidents of the Afghan war. They also raise the possibility of a breakdown in intelligence sharing and communication across the military chain of command.

Russian Jets and Syrian Troops Are Attacking Aleppo

Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters launched an offensive south of Aleppo on Friday, expanding their counter-attack against rebels across western Syria with support from Russian air strikes.

The assault means the army is now pressing insurgents on several fronts near Syria's main cities in the west, control of which would secure President Bashar al-Assad's hold on power even if the east of the country is still held by Islamic State (IS).

Aleppo, a commercial and industrial hub near the border with Turkey, was Syria's largest city before its four-year civil war, which grew out of protests against Assad's rule.

Control of the city, still home to 2 million people, is divided between the government and rebels.

"This is the promised battle," a senior government military source said of the offensive backed by hundreds of Hezbollah and Iranian forces which he said had made some gains on the ground.

Russia Assures Turkey They Aren’t Arming Syrian Kurds

Russian Deputy FM Mikhail Bogdanov today issued a statement assuring Turkey that they have not provided any arms to the Syrian Kurdish YPG faction, after days of public Turkish condemnations to that effect. Russia insisted their military aid to Syria centers on the government.

Russia has reportedly given some air support to the YPG in its offensive in the Aleppo Province against ISIS, centering on an effort to take the ISIS-held town of Jarabulus. The US had previously been trying to help the YPG in this area, but backed off amid Turkish objections.

Turkey shoots down unidentified drone near Syrian border

Turkish warplanes shot down an unidentified drone in Turkish air space near Syria on Friday, amid confusion about its nationality.

A US official said Washington suspected that the drone was Russian but the defence ministry in Moscow said all of its planes in Syria had safely returned to base and that all its drones were operating “as planned”.

The Lebanon-based pro-Syrian Al-Mayadeen TV quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying that no Syrian or Russian warplane or drone was shot down over Turkey.

The downing of the drone highlights the risks to Turkey, a member of Nato, as Syrian, Russian and US coalition aircraft fly combat missions so close to its borders.

The Turkish military said its jets had shot down the aircraft after it continued flying despite three warnings, in line with its rules of engagement. Broadcaster NTV said it had come 3km (1.9 miles) into Turkish air space.

“It’s a drone. We are trying to identify its nationality,” said a senior Turkish government official.

'US responsible for refugee crisis, it should pay the bill' - Vaclav Klaus, fmr Czech president

Angela Merkel backs deal offering Turkey up to €3bn to tighten its borders

EU leaders at refugee crisis summit agree to give political support to draft deal which includes offering Ankara visa-free travel to Europe for Turks from 2016

Angela Merkel has given her backing to a multi-billion euro EU action plan aimed at encouraging Turkey to cooperate on tighter border controls in an effort to drastically curb the number of refugees and migrants entering the EU.

A late-night summit of EU leaders in Brussels agreed to give its political support to the draft aid deal, including offering Ankara up to €3bn (£2.2bn) to improve the care of refugees, visa-free travel to Europe for Turks from 2016, the resumption of frozen negotiations on Turkey’s EU membership bid, along with other sweeteners in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to gain Turkish cooperation.

While EU officials were adamant no concrete promises had been made to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, beyond an offer of about €500m in aid from the EU’s budget, the German chancellor was insistent that a much larger sum had been considered and stressed it was only realistic to think in terms of much larger amounts due to the scale of the crisis.

“In future we have to be stronger in burden sharing if we consider the fact that they [Turkey] have been virtually left alone in the past,” she said, saying that the question of a much larger figure of €3bn had “played a role” during summit negotiations. ...

Merkel has already talked openly of the need to provide extensive funds not just to care for refugees and provide humanitarian aid, but to help to secure borders and to fight people smuggling rings.

"Humanitarian bomber" Ambassador Samantha Power opens up her mouth again and (surprise!) another lie pops out... naturally CNN took it upon itself to repeat that lie.

US Falsely Claims Iran Missile Test a ‘Violation’ of UN Resolution

Just a day after Iran’s Guardian Council approved the P5+1 nuclear deal, the US is already showing extremely bad faith, with Ambassador Samantha Power claiming Iran had violated a UN resolution with a recent missile test.

The resolution in question is 1929, which was itself created in response to the already resolved nuclear issue. The resolution forbids Iran from developing ballistic missiles for delivering nuclear warheads.

The US is falsely treating this as a ban on all ballistic missile improvements, even though the missile Iran tested is simply an improved version of the Shahab-3 missile, with better accuracy, and is not designed for nuclear arms.

West Bank Jewish Shrine Set Ablaze as Abbas Calls for Calm

Palestinians set fire to a Jewish shrine in the West Bank on Friday as the Islamist group Hamas called for a day of rage against Israel, with tensions still running high after two weeks of violence.

Israel's military said about 100 people converged on the tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph, which is located in the Palestinian city of Nablus. They were pushed back by Palestinian security forces who arrived on site, but not before setting parts of it ablaze. ...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in his clearest call yet to end the renewed violence, condemned the attack. He ordered the damage to be repaired and opened an investigation into the arson.

Israel Furious After US Calls Crackdown on Palestinians ‘Excessive Force’

Israeli Ministers Condemn 'Foolish' State Department

With the US State Department desperately trying to avoid making any conclusive statements on Israel, the suggestion that it was at least possible that Israel is using “excessive force” in their bloody crackdowns on Palestinian protesters took two days of wiggle words to emerge.

The State Department was feverishly backpedaling today, insisting they never meant to suggest Israel had done wrong under any circumstances, though Israeli officials are still furious, and wasting no time in lining up to condemn the US on the matter. ...

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked went on to note that the NYPD routinely kills people, suggesting Israel is using them as a standard for the crackdown.

Fox News analyst arrested for lying about working as a CIA agent

A Fox News guest terrorism analyst was arrested on Thursday after a grand jury indicted him on charges of falsely claiming to have been a CIA agent for decades, US prosecutors said.

Wayne Simmons, 62, of Annapolis, Maryland, bogusly portrayed himself as an “Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Officer” for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1973 to 2000, the US Attorney’s Office for Virginia’s Eastern District said in a statement.

Simmons allegedly tried to use that claim to get government security clearances and work as a defense contractor. At one point he was deployed overseas as an intelligence adviser to senior military officers, the statement said. ...

He has appeared on Fox News, a unit of 21st Century Fox Inc , as a guest analyst on terrorism since 2002 and has a wide presence among conservative groups, a profile on Amazon.com said.

Austerity kills. Hameron must be proud of his handiwork.

The UN Is Investigating the UK Over Its Treatment of People With Disabilities

United Nations investigators are currently in the United Kingdom conducting an examination of the state's treatment of people with disabilities after allegations that new welfare cuts have repeatedly violated human rights and possibly caused thousands of deaths.

The investigators will specifically examine whether the British government has committed "systematic and grave violations" of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). This will make the UK the first country in the world to be investigated in this manner. ...

Figures released in August in response to Freedom of Information requests showed that 2,380 people died between 2011 and 2014 after having their benefits stopped and being told they were fit to return to work. A further 7,200 died after being placed in groups aimed at preparing them to return to work. ...

"It's a cost cutting exercise," Peter Purton, equal rights policy officer at the Trade Unions' Congress said. "It's all the consequences of the government austerity program that has been running since 2010 and will continue for another four years at least. It's popular, [the government have] had the media on their side because all this talk about working people, working families, means that people who aren't working are therefore scroungers. Large numbers of disabled people are particularly affected by a relentless attack. "

Keiser Report: Global Sock Puppetry

Seniors Face Year of Increased Hardship as Social Security Benefits Stagnate

According to an October 15 Associated Press article, the federal government has decided not to increase benefits this year for Social Security recipients:

The government says there will be no benefit increase next year for millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees.

It’s just the third time in 40 years that benefits will remain flat. All three times have come since 2010....

The announcement will affect benefits for more than 70 million people - that’s more than one-fifth of the nation’s population.

The total includes almost 60 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children who get Social Security benefits.

The government asserts that it made the decision based on the recent decline in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), an inflationary statistic calculated by the US Department of Labor.

[Section omitted documenting that the Labor Department's CPI report showed that energy cost drops drove down the CPI while food and all items besides food and energy increased in cost. - js]

Given a rational assumption that seniors spend less on gas than younger people and a greater percentage of their income on food, medical care, and other expenditures such as shelter - particularly if an elderly person is living on a fixed income such as Social Security - they are confronting real inflation on most of their expenses. This means that the government is speciously denying older Americans in financial need an adjustment in Social Security that reflects their actual purchasing needs.

Four Words That Have the Federal Reserve in a Panic: “Pushing on a String”

Yesterday, the U.S. Treasury auctioned one-month Treasury bills at a zero percent interest rate. By late afternoon, the bills were trading in the secondary market at a negative yield of 0.0152.

As the above chart shows, short term Treasury bill rates today are tracking a pattern similar to that of the Great Depression. That spike in the yield in the above chart in 1937 came as a result of the Federal Reserve increasing bank reserve requirements – a credit tightening – which sent the economy into a further leg of the downturn and more deflation. After the tightening in 1937, GDP fell by 10 percent and unemployment returned to 20 percent. ...

Instead of deliberating when to hike rates, some Fed watchers say the U.S. central bank is highly likely to be deliberating a problem known as “pushing on a string.” ... Investopedia defines “pushing on a string” this way: “If the core demand doesn’t exist to induce people to part with their money, it can’t be forced through monetary policy. Trying to do so is like trying to ‘push on a string.’ ”

So exactly what happened to weaken the demand of consumers in the United States despite seven straight years of accommodative zero bound interest rate policy from the Fed? The consumer demand went – along with their purchasing power – into the pockets of the 1 percent, through an institutionalized wealth transfer scheme on Wall Street.

In a decent country, this revelation would be the nail in the coffin of this Obama corporate whore's nomination and would engender whirlwinds of media coverage that would reflect badly on Obama.

FDA Nominee Helped Medical Industry Find and Pay Faculty for “Regulatory Consulting”

Dr. Robert Califf, whose nomination by President Obama to lead the Food and Drug Administration has come under scrutiny over his extensive ties to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, previously directed a business that specializes in helping health care companies hire faculty members and other academic researchers to influence regulatory decisions.

Ethics forms and business incorporation documents show that from 2006 through this year, Califf served as a board member and consultant to Faculty Connection LLC. The company boasts that its team of “practicing university-based physicians and researchers” provides “regulatory consulting,” including expertise in FDA briefing reviews and other regulatory submissions to the agency.

A promotional video posted by Faculty Connection displays images of Califf and boasts that the firm has “served over 175 different pharma, biotech medical device firms.” The video says the firm helps “faculty who want to work with industry” negotiate with health care industry sponsors, along with providing liability protection and record-keeping services.

Through Faculty Connection, Califf has worked with Amgen, AstraZeneca, Daichi Sankyo, Medscape, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi SA over the last year. 

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders top Republicans in fundraising

Presidential campaigns released their fundraising totals for the third quarter of 2015 on Thursday. The results included a few surprises, as the pace of the 2016 presidential primary gets ready to pick up in the fall. Most notable were the stunning take from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, the surprisingly low-budget campaign of Donald Trump and the continuing financial advantage that top Democratic candidates had over their Republican rivals.

The two Democratic frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Sanders, each out-raised all of their Republican rivals. Clinton raised $29.4m, edging Sanders who had $26.2m. Both far outpaced Ben Carson, the top GOP fundraiser at $20.8m, in the past quarter and were even further ahead of other top Republicans as well.

Unsurprisingly the two Democratic candidates raised this in entirely different ways. An eye-popping 77% of Sanders’ contributions come from small donors and the frugal socialist’s campaign ended the quarter with $27.1m cash on hand. Sanders had more than 650,000 donors of whom only 270 have given the maximum amount of $2,700. Further, his campaign said it was keeping up its frenetic fundraising pace. Sanders has received 97,800 contributions totaling some $3.2m since the first Democratic debate on Tuesday.

The only candidate to end with more cash available than Sanders was Clinton, who had nearly $33m available. However the former secretary of state relied heavily on high-dollar donations with more than 80% of her donors giving over $200, the reverse of the ratio for Sanders.

Forecasters predict El Niño will deliver changes to winter weather across the US

El Niño this winter will leave a big, wet but not necessarily snowy footprint on much of the United States, including parched California, forecasters said Thursday.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration issued its winter forecast and “the driver of this winter’s outlook is El Niño”, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s climate prediction center.

El Niño changes weather worldwide, mostly affecting the United States in winter. The weather pattern happens every few years when the Pacific Ocean warms up around the equator. This year’s is one of the strongest El Niños on record.

NOAA expects a cooler and wetter winter for the south. For California, more precipitation than usual is expected during the critical time that its reservoirs usually fill, but there’s no guarantee. Only northern tier states, the Ohio Valley states and Alaska should be dry.

While California’s drought is likely to lessen in January, even the wettest winter on record – 33 years ago – didn’t have enough rain to wash out the current four-year drought, said NOAA hydrologist Alan Haynes of the California Nevada River forecast center.

Forecasters see a milder, warmer winter north of the Mason-Dixon line and for all of California and Nevada. Texas and the deep south are forecast to be cold.

Toyota Says Most of Its Vehicles Will Be Emissions Free by 2050

Japan-based Toyota set out a goal of reducing its global carbon emissions by 90 percent from both its vehicles and its factories by 2050. It hopes to do so by using more renewable energy to run its plants, cutting power consumption by simplifying production methods, selling more gas-electric hybrids — and relying more and more on the hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology it's rolling out in the new Mirai sedan.

"We believe that hydrogen will become a thoroughly ingrained and adaptable part of society as we move into the next couple of decades," Toyota spokesman John Hanson said.

Fuel cells use hydrogen — the most basic element in the universe — to produce electric power by combining with oxygen, giving off water in the process. Hanson said Toyota expects nearly all of its vehicles will be either powered by fuel cells, batteries, or hybrid-electric engines, phasing out nearly all conventional internal-combustion engines in its cars, sport-utility vehicles, and light trucks. ...

But shifting to hydrogen will require new infrastructure to pump the gas, which is famously explosive and held in a Mirai's fuel tank under 10,000 pounds per square inch of pressure. Hanson said Toyota has designed a "robust" fuel system, and manufacturers have agreed to a single, standard nozzle for refueling.

Toyota is lending money to energy companies to help them build, maintain and operate the first stations for the first few years, Hanson said. The company will support construction of at least 20 new hydrogen stations in California by the end of 2015 and another 20 in 2016; it's also looking at building at least 12 stations in five Northeastern states.

"You can't have the car without the infrastructure, and we're helping to make that happen," he said.

Canada's Liberals Knew Their Campaign Co-Chair Worked for Pipeline Company

Canada's Liberal party knew Dan Gagnier was working as co-chair of the Liberal campaign while he worked as a consultant for major pipeline company TransCanada.

The business relationship between Gagnier and TransCanada has been ongoing since the spring, the company told VICE News Thursday. The Liberals told VICE News they knew Gagnier was advising TransCanada on provincial issues while he was their campaign co-chair.

Gagnier stepped down as Liberal campaign co-chair Wednesday after the Canadian Press reported that he had advised TransCanada on how to lobby the government if the NDP or the Liberals won the Canadian election on Oct. 19. ...

When the news broke Wednesday, it raised questions about how the Liberals would manage the energy file in Canada if elected, with NDP leader Thomas Mulcair saying they could try to hide "behind a fresh face, but it is the same old Liberal Party."

"They are all about helping themselves," Mulcair said Thursday. "... It's an extraordinary opportunity for everyone in Canada, including those here in Quebec, that this is the same old Liberal Party of the sponsorship scandal."

In 2004 it was revealed that a program overseen by Jean Chretien's Liberals paid public funds to Liberal-affiliated advertising firms. The sponsorship scandal is often credited with leading to the Liberal defeat and Conservative win in the 2006 election.

Stephen Harper’s fossil fuel gamble may have backfired

The Conservative prime minister pledged to make the country an ‘energy superpower’, but with the election ahead and many Alberta residents struggling to make ends meet, a promise has become a liability for Harper

It’s 11.30am in the pumping heart of Canada’s tar sands industry, on a day when local crude is trading at a rock-bottom $29 a barrel. For the down-and-out men and women heading down to the free lunch in the basement of a Fort McMurray church, it’s hard to see a way back up.

“It’s depressing not having work. I used to make $3,400 a week. Now look at me. I’m eating in a soup kitchen,” said Brian Earl, a construction worker.

This is life on the downturn in a country which prime minister Stephen Harper once promised to make an “energy superpower”, and on the eve of the 19 October general election, it is one issue the Conservative leader definitely does not want to talk about.

Harper linked Canada’s future prosperity to natural resources exploitation when he came to power in 2006, championing the expansion of the Alberta tar sands.

But last year’s crash in global oil prices – and Harper’s failure to build the Keystone XL pipeline – have injected uncertainty into the long-term future of Alberta’s vast carbon reserves, and turned the old ambition of becoming an “energy superpower” into an election liability for the prime minister.

In the closing stretch of the campaign, the Conservative leader has very deliberately pivoted to identity issues – niqab veiling and hotlines for “barbaric cultural practices” – to avoid talking about energy and the economy, analysts said.

Also of Interest

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

Lies, damn lies and presidential statements about war

Obama Won’t Admit the Real Targets of Russian Airstrikes

America's embrace of Islamophobia is new – but not surprising

Pluto as we know it now: Nasa report unwraps enigma of dwarf planet

A Little Night Music

Taj Mahal - Fishing Blues

Taj Mahal - The Calypsonian

Taj Mahal - Shady Grove

Taj Mahal - Queen Bee

Taj Mahal + Gregg Allman - Statesboro Blues

Todd Rundgren & Taj Mahal - She Caught The Katy

Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder - By & By

Taj Mahal - Corrina

Etta James & Taj Mahal - Mockingbird

Taj Mahal - Cakewalk into town

Taj Mahal - Bacon Fat

Taj Mahal - Checking Up On My Babe

Taj Mahal - Hoochi Coochi Coo

Taj Mahal & The Hula Blues - Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own

Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabaté - Catfish Blues

Taj Mahal - Lonely Avenue

Taj Mahal - 11/26/89