Leaked Doc Shows 'Toxic Trade Deal' Putting Environmental Safeguards on the Chopping Block
'This sustainable development proposal is anything but sustainable.'—Ilana Solomon, Sierra Club

A leaked of draft of negotiating text from a pending EU-U.S. trade deal shows that the bloc is ready to empower corporate polluters while going back on its promise to uphold environmental protections, groups on both sides of the Atlantic warn.

The text is of the sustainable development chapter of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and was published Friday by the Guardian—the same day negotiators wrapped up the 11th round of talks on the deal in Miami.

The Guardian reports that the text "contains only vaguely phrased and non-binding commitments to environmental safeguards"—that's despite a promise (pdf) issued in January that the EU would seek to "safeguard basic rules that protect people's rights at work and the environment." The UK paper adds, "No obligations to ratify international environmental conventions are proposed, and ways of enforcing goals on biodiversity, chemicals and the illegal wildlife trade are similarly absent."

Christian fundamentalists’ plot against the Constitution: What Kim Davis’s newly unearthed emails reveal
Kim Davis may be a footnote to history. But new revelations offer a frightening glimpse into fundamentalists' minds

Thanks to Kentucky’s open records law, the Associated Press has obtained the emails county clerk Kim Davis sent just before she went to jail late this summer. And yes, they are every bit as unhinged as you imagined they’d be. In case you forgot, Davis is the God-loving homophobe who courageously denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky two months ago.

The emails are interesting if only because they show just how crazy (and dangerous) fanatics like Davis are, particularly if they happen to work as public servants. Here’s Davis in her own words:

The battle has just begun…It has truly been a firestorm here and the days are pretty much a blur, but I am confident that God is in control of all of this!! I desire your prayers, I will need strength that only God can supply and I need a backbone like a saw log!!…They are going to try and make a whipping post out of me!! I know it, but God is still alive and on the throne!!! He IS in control and knows exactly where I am!!…September 1 will be the day to prepare for, if the Lord doesn’t return before then. I have weighted the cost, and will stay the course.

Study Finds Almost All Sanitary Cotton Products Contaminated with Probable Carcinogen

85 percent of sanitary cotton products tested in a new study were contaminated with glyphosate, which was recently ruled a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization and is the main ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, used worldwide.

Roundup is applied to cotton plants “when the bud is open and the glyphosate is condensed and goes straight into the product,” one of the researchers reported.

The studied products were purchased in Argentina, which receives them from Brazil, including via the US.

Superyacht Getaway Subs And Luxury Bomb Shelters: The Elite Are The Most Paranoid Preppers Of All

When it comes to “prepping”, many among the elite take things to an entirely different level.  As you will see below, the elite are willing to pay big money for cutting edge home security measures, luxury bomb shelters and superyacht getaway submarines. Some of the things that the elite are demanding for their own protection go beyond even what we would see in a James Bond film, and serving the prepping needs of the elite has become a multi-billion dollar business.  Meanwhile, the media outlets that the elite own continue to mock the rest of us for getting prepared.  All the time we see headlines like this one that appeared in a major American news source: “Preppers: Meet the paranoid Americans awaiting the apocalypse“.  Well, if we are paranoid for setting aside some extra food and supplies for the future, what does that make the people that you will read about in this article?

The elite live in a world that is completely different from the world that you and I live in.  In wealthy enclaves of major global cities such as London, elitists are willing to shell out massive amounts of money to ensure that everyone else is kept out.  The following comes from an article that was just published a few hours ago by the London Evening Standard entitled “The paranoid world of London’s super-rich: DNA-laced security mist and superyacht getaway submarines“…

Business is booming because billionaires are a paranoid bunch. Take one who recently moved to Mayfair. ‘He wanted everything, from protection from cyber hacking through to physical intrusion and kidnapping,’ says Bond Gunning. ‘We ended up installing fingerprint-activated locks for family members and programmable keys for staff that limit the time they are allowed into the property and the rooms they are able to enter and exit.

‘Inside and outside we installed 24-hour monitored CCTV cameras that are so hi-tech they can tell the difference between a dog, cat and a person. In the garden there are thermal-imaging cameras that can detect heat sources in the undergrowth. One thing intruders can’t hide is the heat of their bodies.

‘Should an intruder evade the cameras or ignore the warnings they automatically broadcast, the property itself is protected by bulletproof glass and alarm sensors in all rooms. There is a bullet, gas and bombproof panic or safe room, with its own food and water, medical supplies and communications, and an impregnable supply of fresh air. Just in case the family cannot make it there in time, key rooms are sealed by reinforced shutters.’

Why Russia is Serious About Fighting Terrorism and the US Isn’t
Russia achieved more in days than the US has in years.

Russia in the few days it has been of fighting terrorism in Syria has achieved far more than the US coalition. According to the New York Times, Russia’s fighter jets are conducting nearly as many strikes in a typical day as the American-led coalition has been carrying out each month this year, a number which includes strikes conducted in Iraq - not just Syria.

Whilst the US has been bombing ISIS for over a year, ISIS has only grown and gained more ground in Syria. A few months ago ISIS took over the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, a UNESCO world heritage-listed site. 

In spite of the fact that the US government acknowledged ISIS cannot be defeated without ground troops, they have refused to work with the Syrian military, the only force on the ground commanded by the only UN-recognized government in the country, and the only force capable and willing to fight ISIS. 

Why America Will Never Hear the Entire Benghazi Story

The underlying story of Benghazi is one that cannot and will not be talked about in any open session of Congress. This means that Thursday’s hearing featuring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was nothing but an exercise in futility.

It is the story of a covert CIA operation that was operating from a separate facility in the Benghazi compound that was simply known as the “Annex.” Some two dozen CIA case officers, analysts, translators and special staff were a part of this operation and its security was provided by CIA Global Response Staff (GRS), who had entered the country under diplomatic cover.

The CIA’s mission included arms interdiction — attempting to stop the flow of Soviet-era weapons to Central Africa — and very possibly the organization of Libyan arms shipments to vetted insurgent groups on the ground in Syria.

Obama Administration Is Cutting Aid to the Palestinians by $80 million

The State Department has notified Congress of its intention to reduce economic aid for the West Bank and Gaza Strip from $370 million to $290 million in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the website Al-Monitor. As violence in the region escalates, congressional sources describe the move as a “message” to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

From Al-Monitor:

The news of the 22% cut from the department’s initial request follows mounting criticism from Congress about Palestinian “incitement” in the rash of stabbing attacks that have left at least 10 Israeli civilians dead over the past three weeks.

“We need to dial up pressure on Palestinian officials to repudiate this violence,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Why Today Is a Critical Moment for the Clean Power Plan

Friday marked a major milestone in Obama administration climate policy with the publication of the final version of the Clean Power Plan in the Federal Register. The plan is now open to both legal challenges and a final round of public comment before possibly becoming the nation’s most sweeping climate regulation in 2016.

The Clean Power Plan, which will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants that burn fossil fuels, faces a flood of lawsuits as at least 24 states and a host of coal and power industry opponents seek courts to declare it unconstitutional.

Public comment on the plan, the final version of which was announced by the Environmental Protection Agency over the summer, is open until Jan. 21, 2016.