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“And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry and to tell the traveling public, get on board, do your business around the country, fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Go down to Disney World in Florida, take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed.”

-- President George W. Bush

News and Opinion

U.S., Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, increase corruption in Middle Eastern and North African states selling them vast quantities of weapons with little oversight

Western nations, primarily the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, have helped increase corruption among Middle Eastern and North African states by selling them vast quantities of weapons with little oversight, according to a new report by Transparency International. The resultant corruption, the report says, has worsened the region’s many conflicts, weakened military coherency, boosted extremism, and “formed a narrative for violent extremist groups.”

Many of the 17 countries listed in the report are already notoriously corrupt, and increasing military spending without adequate oversight, the report states, means defense budgets are not being spent to meet countries’ strategic needs, weapons are increasingly trafficked over porous borders and the governments’ domestic legitimacy — already battered by 2011’s revolts — are further undermined.

Furthermore, if the countries selling advanced weapons fail to take greater responsibility for where their products end up, said Katherine Dixon, head of Transparency International’s Defense and Security Program, they could exacerbate the risk of future conflicts.

“This is one of the most unstable and conflict riven regions in the world,” Dixon said in a summary of the report, which draws on two years of research. “Over a quarter of the world’s most secretive defense spending is in the Middle East. Corruption puts international security at risk, as money and weapons can be diverted to fuel conflict.” ...

The region’s overall lack of accountability in arms purchases — and sellers’ unwillingness to abide by international export controls to unstable countries — means many weapons are ending up in the hands of militant groups such as the Islamic State, Syrian rebel groups, Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels in Yemen, fueling conflict in the region.

“If they haven’t got strong corruption controls, and they haven’t got strong oversight, then I think it’s hard to be sure what’s going to happen in the future to those weapons,” Dixon said.

Dixon argues that if Western governments are truly interested in dealing with the roots of radicalization, examining corruption in the arms trade would be a very good place to start.

Days of Revolt: Neoliberalism as Utopianism

A new generation of Neocon assholes is ready to lead yet another reign of error. Duck! Jim Lobe does a great job, sounding the alarm.

Neocons Launch 2016 Manifesto

A mostly neoconservative group of national-security analysts have published perhaps the first comprehensive outline of what they believe a Republican foreign policy should look like as of Inauguration Day 2017. It’s titled “Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World.” Although it concedes that “there are limitations on American power,” according to the book’s “Forward” by former George W. Bush speechwriter, Peter Wehner, all of the contributors

…understand, too, that with the right leadership and policies in place, the United States can once again be a guarantor of global order and peace, a champion of human rights, and a beacon of economic growth and human flourishing. There is no reason the 21^st century cannot be the next American Century. …Choosing to Lead offers perspectives and recommendations on how to make the next American Century happen. In doing so, we believe it will serve the world as well as the United States of America.[Emphasis added.]

If you sense a rebirth of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), you’re probably not far off, although Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol, who co-founded PNAC, are not among the large number of contributors. PNAC published two volumes, Present Dangers and Rebuilding American Defenses, that together formed a neocon manifesto for the Republican presidential candidate in the 2000 election in which the organization initially backed John McCain.

The new compilation is the product of the John Hay Initiative, named after Theodore Roosevelt’s chief diplomat, and brings together many of the foreign-policy advisers to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. The Initiative is co-chaired by Eliot Cohen (a charter member of PNAC), former Romney adviser Brian Hook, and Eric Edelman (who succeeded Doug Feith as undersecretary of defense under George W. Bush and has since served as co-founder and director—with Kagan and Kristol—of PNAC’s lineal descendant, the Foreign Policy Initiative). The 200 “experts” connected to the Initiative have reportedly advised almost all of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates.

The Initiative has made no secret of its hope that a successful Republican presidential candidate will appoint many of its members to senior policy-making positions (much as PNAC’s charter members, such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliott Abrams, were all rewarded with senior posts under George W. Bush.

'US soft-power diminished as a result of failed regime change efforts'

This is a really interesting article worth clicking the link and reading in full:

The battle for Turkey: can Selahattin Demirtas pull the country back from the brink of civil war?

Since 1984 the PKK, which most western governments consider a terrorist organisation, has been waging an armed insurgency that aimed at first to prise much of southeastern Turkey from the Turks, though autonomy has latterly become the goal. In a conflict that has taken more than 40,000 lives, destroying communities and families from central Anatolia to the Armenian border, Demirtas is advocate-in-chief for the peaceful solution that many on the government side – and some on his own – demonstrably do not want. And those Kurdish sceptics of peace may include his own elder brother, Nurettin, who served 12 years in a Turkish jail for membership of the PKK’s youth wing and is now believed to be fighting somewhere in Syria or Iraq. (Demirtas professes ignorance of his brother’s precise whereabouts.)

In 2014, Demirtas helped found the Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), the latest in a long line of Kurdish nationalist parties – with the crucial difference that this one has become a major player on the national stage. In the general election of this June, the HDP became the first such party to surpass the 10% threshold required for parliamentary representation. The HDP’s 13% of the vote secured it 80 seats out of 550 in the Ankara parliament, and prompted the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to insist on a rerun that is to be held on 1 November.

One of the reasons why Demirtas has caused Erdogan much anxiety is that he is more than simply a Kurdish nationalist. He is pushing for a wider liberalisation of the country that would change conditions for all Turkish citizens, empowering minorities and ending the monolithic “national” identity on which Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP), have built 13 years of electoral success.

Narendra Modi and even Vladimir Putin would recognise Erdogan’s majoritarian tactics – if not its religious and ethnic nuances. Erdogan’s belief is that Turkey is made up overwhelmingly of ethnic Turks who are also pious Sunni Muslims; Demirtas has identified all those who do not fit in as his natural constituency. Nothing less than the future of Erdogan and his conception of Turkey are up for consideration when more than 50 million voters go to the polls, and Selahattin Demirtas is a big reason why.

Turkey Election: Could Bitterly Divided Nation be Only a Few Steps Away from a Dictatorship?

Fears that if President Erdogan wins a simple majority of 276 seats in the 550-seat parliament, he will establish an authoritarian presidential system

Turkey goes to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary election that threatens to increase polarisation in a country that is already deeply divided.

At stake is the extent to which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has ruled Turkey since 2002, can establish one-party rule and near monopoly of political power.

The election is still in the balance, but inside Turkey the campaign has widened the fault lines between Kurds and Turks, secular and Islamic, Sunni majority and Alevi minority. Abroad, the results may determine the degree to which Turkey becomes further embroiled in the civil war in Syria and Iraq. ...

The election campaign has been extraordinarily violent with demonstrators attacking HDP offices and opposition newspapers. Murat Yetkin, a leading journalist on the liberal and secular daily Hurriyet, recalls how mobs twice attacked the office of his newspaper in September, smashing all the windows. A columnist was later assaulted and had his nose and ribs broken.

This week workers were constructing sturdier defences in the forecourt of the building, but there is a sense that all institutions critical of Mr Erdogan are under permanent siege. ...

The result of the election on Sunday is unpredictable, but it has already unleashed or exacerbated powerful divisive forces. Mr Erdogan may want to bring these under control after the election, but he will find it difficult to do so.

Turkey hearts ISIS and can't bear it when those nasty Kurds beat up their favorite terrorists.

Erdogan: Turkey May Hit Syrian Kurds to Block Advance Against ISIS

After incidents earlier this week of Kurdish YPG forces coming under fire in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad from across the border in neighboring Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan advised Kurds to “pull yourself together” because more attacks are coming if they attempt any further gains against ISIS. ...

Increasingly bellicose in the lead up to Turkish elections, President Erdogan has increasingly positioned the nation as the military guarantor of ISIS, railing simultaneously against Russia and the US for baking various anti-ISIS measures they see as benefiting the Kurds.

My goodness, poor Sir John's feet must be burning from the friction caused by all the foot dragging:

Chilcot report to be published next summer after security checking

Sir John Chilcot has announced that he is to publish his report into the Iraq war next June or July, giving government officials up to three months to carry out national security checks on its findings.

In a letter to the prime minister, who had expressed frustration with the delays to the report, the former Northern Ireland office permanent secretary said he would finally complete his work seven years after Gordon Brown set up the inquiry.

Downing Street reacted with disappointment to Chilcot’s timescale. David Cameron said he was “immensely frustrated” by the delay on behalf of families who lost loved ones in the war.

In a letter of reply to Chilcot, Cameron said: “I recognise that you have a significant task, but would welcome any further steps you can take to expedite the final stages of the inquiry.”

While welcoming the fact that the end of the inquiry was now in sight, he said he knew the families of those who served in Iraq would also be “disappointed that you do not believe it will be logistically possible to publish your report until early summer”.

'We have enough soldiers': Iraq 'never asked' US for ground ops against ISIS

Pentagon: We’re in Combat in Iraq

After months of parsing the definition of the word combat in public statements, the Pentagon appears to have formally given up on the pretense that the Iraq War is purely “advisory” for ground troops, with Col. Steve Warren declaring in a briefing to reporters “we’re in combat.”

Col. Warren went on to say “of course it’s combat,” and “that’s why we all carry guns,” a frank assessment that belies the long-standing attempts to portray what was happening there as something less, an effort which was still going on as recently as Monday.

The White House still seems to be trying to mince words, declining to cleanly label the mission as combat, even though the Pentagon already is, on the ground that it’s “different” from other combat operations in the past in Iraq. They also attempted to paint the slain US special forces soldier from last week as having made a decision himself to get involved in fighting during an “advisory” mission.

Russian Intel Chief: Risk of ISIS, Taliban Breakaways Invading Central Asia

In comments today, Russian FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov warned that there is a growing concentration of ISIS fighters, along with Taliban groups that may have split with the leadership and planned to join ISIS, along the Afghan northern border, making the risk of invasions of Central Asia “tangible.”

The comments likely are meant to add impetus to the Russian Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes multiple former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan, and Russia has particularly cited concerns about Tajikistan’s security, because of Taliban interests in the area around Kunduz.

Saudis: Unfair to Criticize MSF Hospital Strike Until Investigation

Saudi Ambassador Abdullah al-Mouallimi expressed outrage today that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement criticizing the Saudi airstrikes which destroyed the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in a residential district of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

As has often been the case in situations where a Saudi airstrike fueled international outcry, the Saudis retroactively denied carrying out any airstrikes in the area. Mouallimi suggested that the Shi’ites Houthis who control the district attacked it themselves for no reason.

Judge sticks with decision to release Guantanamo force-feeding videos

With some sharp words for the Obama administration, a federal judge on Tuesday declined to second-guess an earlier decision ordering the release of videos of a Guantanamo detainee being force-fed.

While acknowledging that more appeals are on the way in the long-running case, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said in her nine-page decision that nothing has happened to change her mind about the videos.

“What the government is really saying is that its classification system trumps the decisions of the federal courts as to the public's access to official court records,” Kessler wrote. “In other words, the Executive Branch (in this case, the military) purports to be a law unto itself.”

Kessler added that “the Government’s justifications for barring the American public from seeing the videotapes are not sufficiently rational and plausible to justify barring release of the videotapes.”

How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden

Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers developed rationales intended to overcome any legal obstacles — and made it all but inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not capture him.

The legal analysis offered the administration wide flexibility to send ground forces onto Pakistani soil without the country’s consent, to explicitly authorize a lethal mission, to delay telling Congress until afterward, and to bury a wartime enemy at sea. By the end, one official said, the lawyers concluded that there was “clear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under U.S. and international law.” ...

The lawyers decided that a unilateral military incursion would be lawful because of a disputed exception to sovereignty for situations in which a government is “unwilling or unable” to suppress a threat to others emanating from its soil.

Invoking this exception was a legal stretch, for two reasons. Many countries have not accepted its legitimacy. And there was no precedent for applying it to a situation in which the United States did not first ask Pakistan, which had helped with or granted consent for other counterterrorism operations. But given fears of a tip-off, the lawyers signed off on invoking the exception.

There was also a trump card. While the lawyers believed that Mr. Obama was bound to obey domestic law, they also believed he could decide to violate international law when authorizing a “covert” action, officials said. ...

The lawyers also grappled with whether it was lawful for the SEAL team to go in intending to kill Bin Laden as its default option. They agreed that it would be legal, in a memo written by Ms. DeRosa, and Mr. Obama later explicitly ordered a kill mission, officials said. The SEAL team expected to face resistance and would go in shooting, relying on the congressional authorization to use military force against perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The law of war required acceptance of any surrender offer that was feasible to accept, the lawyers cautioned. But they also knew that military rules of engagement in such a situation narrowly define what would count. They discussed possible situations in which it might still be lawful to shoot Bin Laden even if he appeared to be surrendering — for instance, if militants next to him were firing weapons, or if he could be concealing a suicide vest under his clothing, officials said.

Runaway Surveillance Blimp Deflates Raytheon’s Hopes to Sell More

In what may be the most bizarre and public crash of a multi-billion dollar Pentagon boondoggle ever, a surveillance blimp flying over an Army base in Maryland broke loose Wednesday afternoon, its 6,000-foot long tether wreaking havoc on the countryside before it finally came down in pieces in Pennsylvania.

The giant airship — 80 yards long and about the size of three Goodyear blimps — was one of a pair that represented the last gasp of an 18-year, $2.7 billion-dollar program called JLENS or “Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.”

There were once supposed to be 36 of them, their high-resolution 360-degree radar coverage up to 340 miles in any direction protecting the nation from cruise missiles.

But costs inflated, doubts about their utility mounted, and the program was scaled back and almost killed. ...

Finally, the Army agreed to launch two of them, for a three-year test. They were hovering at a height of 10,000 feet just off Interstate 95, about 45 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., and about 20 miles from Baltimore. In theory, they could track moving objects from North Carolina to Boston, or an area the size of Texas. With only two in the air, they effectively cost about $1.4 billion each — a lot, even by advanced weapons standards.

Idiots at work:

NATO Mulls Sending Yet More Troops to Russian Border

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, there are once again conversations going among NATO diplomats and military leaders about planning to deploy even more troops along the Russian frontier, with some plans potentially including as many as 4,000 additional ground troops. ...

The new plans are subject to rare debate, with the US as usual leading the push for ever more troops, and Germany leading the opposition, with German officials saying they don’t want to treat Moscow “as a permanent enemy” because of the dispute over Ukraine.

Indeed, with the Ukraine Civil War in a state of ceasefire for almost 9 months now, it seems a flimsy excuse for more NATO escalations in the region,and predictions of a Russian invasion of Europe have clearly not panned out. This has not shifted the goals of NATO’s hawks to get more troops into Eastern Europe, but may be wearing through the patience of everyone else.

China Just Scrapped Its One-Child Policy

China has decided to scrap its decades-old one child policy, according to a Communist Party communique announced by state media today. Xinhua News reported that every couple would now be allowed to have two children.

The one-child policy was first implemented in 1979 as a method of curbing population growth, though the rules have been relaxed in recent years, and certain regions and ethnic groups were exempt. The Communist Party believe it has prevented 400 million births across the past three decades.

The policy meant that boys — seen as more likely to provide for parents in old age — were long prioritized, leading to reports of baby girls being killed after birth or aborted. This has led to a skewed gender ratio, and estimates show that males could now outnumber females in China by more than 60 million.

The effects of the policy also mean that China's population of 1.3 billion is rapidly aging. By 2050, more than a quarter of citizens will be over 65 years old, presenting an unprecedented challenge for the country's youth.

Allegations of Major Human Rights Abuses Keep Piling up for the Mexican Government

There is evidence suggesting that Mexican federal police shot and killed unarmed civilians in two incidents this year in which 50 people died, the US-based group Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.

The group also accused the government of failing to properly investigate either incident, both of which took place in the western state of Michoacán — the first in the city of Apatzingán in January and the second outside the small town of Tanhuato in May.

"Faced with evidence of atrocities, the government's response has been to deny or downplay the magnitude of the problem," Daniel Wilkinson, the group's Americas director said in a statement.

The two bloody events, the statement claimed, feed into a wider "human rights crisis" in Mexico already illustrated by the better known cases of the alleged massacre by the military of disarmed gunmen in Tlatlaya in June 2014, as well as the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa college three months later.

"It appears we're looking at two more major atrocities by Mexican security forces," Wilkinson said. "While the government insists that police acted appropriately in both cases, what witnesses describe clearly involves extra-judicial killings."

The new spotlight on the cases in Apatzingán and Tanhuato comes at a time when the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto is struggling to convince the international community in general that it is taking allegations of widespread human rights abuses seriously. 

Globalizing banksters and their flunkies are worried about another potential outbreak of democracy in Britain:

US warns Britain: If you leave EU you face barriers to trading with America

Trade representative Michael Froman says UK would face same tariffs and barriers as China, Brazil or India in the event of Brexit

The United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, the US trade representative, Michael Froman, said – the first public comments from a senior US official on the matter.

Voters are due to decide by the end of 2017 whether the UK should remain in the EU, and opinion polls show rising support for leaving the bloc.

Froman’s comments on Wednesday undermine a key economic argument deployed by proponents of exit, who say Britain would prosper on its own and be able to secure bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners.

The US is Britain’s biggest export market after the EU, buying more than $54bn (£35bn) in goods from the UK in 2014.

“I think it’s absolutely clear that Britain has a greater voice at the trade table being part of the EU, being part of a larger economic entity,” Froman told Reuters, adding that EU membership gives Britain more leverage in negotiations.

“We’re not particularly in the market for FTAs with individual countries. We’re building platforms … that other countries can join over time.”

Kickbacks, Conflicts and Darkness: Welcome to Your “Modern” Stock Market

Chances are pretty high that among the daily lexicon of most Americans, you are not going to hear the words “maker-taker.” And yet, outside of the debate about preventing Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail banks to create another epic taxpayer bailout in the future, the maker-taker debate is one of the hottest on Wall Street. On Tuesday of this week, the glacially-slow to respond Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held a full day hearing on the “maker-taker” model and other stock market structure dysfunctions.

In simple terms, maker-taker is another wealth extraction tool used by Wall Street firms to pick the public’s pocket in the name of stock market liquidity. In more complex terms, brokers servicing retail clients and institutions (like those managing your pension money) are incentivized to send their customers’ stock limit orders to trading venues that will pay them a rebate (on the premise that they are “making” liquidity) while traders who trade on those limit orders are charged a fee (on the premise they are “taking” liquidity). Thus the maker-taker model.

[A limit order is an order to buy or sell a stock at a specific price or better. A buy limit order can only be executed at the limit price or lower, and a sell limit order can only be executed at the limit price or higher. A limit order is not guaranteed to execute. (definition from the SEC) - js]

Finance Professor Larry Harris, of the USC Marshall School of Business, told the SEC panel on Tuesday that “fees charged to access standing limit orders are essentially kickbacks that exchanges charge people who want to trade with their clients who offer limit orders. In any other context, collecting such fees would constitute a felony. Although legal in the security markets, they are impediments to fair and orderly markets. They need to go away.” ...

Despite multiple Congressional hearings since author Michael Lewis published his 2014 book Flash Boys, and went on 60 Minutes to state that the U.S. stock market is rigged, the SEC has done essentially nothing to correct these and many other abuses in today’s stock market structure. Traditional stock exchanges, that are supposed to be self-regulatory bodies, are still charging enormous fees to allow high-frequency trading firms to co-locate their computers next to the stock exchange computers to gain a speed advantage. The stock exchanges are still selling a faster direct feed of trade data to those who can afford the steep price.  Discount brokers are still selling their own customers’ stock orders to dark pools run by some of the biggest Wall Street banks in an unseemly system known as “payment for order flow,” a practice used by Bernie Madoff and which raises serious questions as to whether the broker is routing orders for best execution for the customer or greatest profit advantage to itself.

South Carolina sheriff fires deputy seen manhandling teenage girl in video

A South Carolina police officer captured on video this week pulling a female student from her desk in a school classroom and tossing her to the floor has been fired, the county sheriff says.

Ben Fields, who had been suspended without pay since Monday, is no longer a deputy with the Richland County sheriff’s department, sheriff Leon Lott announced on Wednesday after his department completed an internal investigation.

“He was wrong and so was his action. It’s not what I expect of my deputies,” Lott said. “He picked a student up, and he threw a student across the room. Based on that, that is a violation of our policy.”

“I do not feel the proper procedure was used at that point, and that’s what caused me my heart burn, and my issues with this. The maneuver that he used was not based on the training or acceptable.”

The Department of Justice is reviewing the incident for any potential civil rights violations; Lott has asked the FBI to investigate Fields’ actions for any criminal violations.

Student Loan Borrowers To Pay More Under Tentative Budget Pact

Americans with federal student loans will pay more under the tentative budget deal struck on Monday by the White House and congressional leaders, thanks to a provision that would allow debt collectors to robocall and otherwise hassle borrowers on their cell phones.

Consumers with cell phones who haven't given companies permission to bombard their mobile devices with texts, pre-recorded messages or calls made using auto-dialers are typically protected under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

But the measure in the potential budget deal (Section 301) would amend existing law to allow companies to use auto-dialers when they call borrowers' cell phones -- even when federal student loan borrowers haven't consented to them, and even if the borrowers will be charged for them. Creditors already have the authority to auto-dial borrowers' land lines without consent. 

“Boehnerland” Lobbyists Win Right to Bombard Student Borrowers With Robocalls

Deep inside the 114-page budget deal that passed the House Wednesday, legislative leaders tucked in a provision that will free debt collectors to bombard student loan borrowers with unlimited robocall and automated text messages where it hurts most — on their mobile devices — even when they are asked to stop.

The change is a major victory for the debt collections industry, which has retained a small army of lawyers and lobbyists for years to weaken the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the law that protects people from unwanted robocalls and pre-recorded messages.

It’s also a big win for the small network of lobbyists within outgoing Speaker John Boehner’s inner circle, a cadre nicknamed “Boehnerland” by D.C insiders.

Marc Lampkin, Boehner’s former general counsel and close personal friend, is a lobbyist with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a law firm that has led the charge on Capitol Hill and with the Federal Communications Commission requesting liability exemptions from the TCPA on behalf of student loan servicing giant Nelnet. Barry Jackson, Boehner’s chief of staff for nearly twelve years, also works at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. ...

President Barack Obama also supports changing the law to allow more automated calls by debt collectors.

Consumer advocates are livid that congressional leaders, including Boehner, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate leaders, would agree to such a deal.

Hillary Clinton: death penalty used 'too frequently' in the US

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton does not support abolishing the death penalty, but questioned the frequency with which it is applied.

At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Clinton said the federal government needs to take a “hard look” at capital punishment, which she said has been “too frequently applied” in an “indiscriminate way”.

“I do not favor abolishing however, because I think there are certain egregious [cases] that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty,” Clinton said in Manchester on Wednesday. ...

Her remarks on the death penalty, though cautiously phrased, amount to a rare foray by Clinton into a subject that she has generally sidestepped. ...

In response to Clinton’s remarks on Wednesday, Martin O’Malley said capital punishment is “fundamentally at odds with our values”.

“The death penalty is racially biased, ineffective deterrent to crime, and we must abolish it,” said O’Malley, who as governor of Maryland abolished the death penalty in the state in 2013. “Our nation should not be in the company of Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in carrying out the majority of public executions.”

Slamming War on Drugs, Sanders says Let States Make Pot Legal

Bernie Sanders on Wednesday evening slammed U.S. drug policy and called for the lifting of the federal prohibition on marijuana.

The presidential hopeful made the remarks at a town hall meeting at George Mason University.

"In the United States we have 2.2 million people in jail today, more than any other country. And we’re spending about $80 billion a year to lock people up. We need major changes in our criminal justice system—including changes in drug laws," the U.S. Senator from Vermont said.

He said that in 2014, there were 620,000 marijuana possession arrests. "That is one arrest every minute," he said. Sanders also cited an ACLU report that showed that there were over 8 million marijuana arrests from 2001 to 2010, almost 9 in 10 of which were for possession.

"And let us be clear," he continued, "that there is a racial component to this situation. Although about the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana, a black person is almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person."

"Too many Americans have seen their lives destroyed because they have criminal records as a result of marijuana use. That’s wrong. That has got to change," he said to applause.

Amid Flood of Dark Money, Groups Make Simple Request of FEC: 'Do Your Job'

Decrying the unprecedented flow of so-called "dark money" into the U.S. political process, a coalition of civic and religious organizations, environmentalists, and academics on Tuesday submitted comments to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), calling on the agency to—put simply—do its job.

"Since the 2010 Citizens United decision, each election cycle has seen dramatic changes in the campaign finance environment," the groups declared in comments (pdf) that press the FEC to address critical regulatory shortfalls. "Yet, the rules and regulations of the Federal Election Commission have not kept pace."

In fact, they continued, "Today's flood of dark money in federal elections via both electioneering communications and independent expenditures is almost wholly the creation of the Federal Election Commission and the Commission should take responsibility for correcting this problem."

While Citizens United undoubtedly "opened a floodgate of outside spending," the groups wrote, the FEC's failure to update its rules accordingly—or, in the case of disclosure rules, to actually defy both the law and the Supreme Court decision itself—has only intensified the problem.

VW emissions cheat estimated to cause 59 premature US deaths

Recall of affected cars by the end of 2016 would avoid more than 130 further early deaths, research shows

Nearly 60 people will die prematurely from the excess air pollution caused by Volkswagen cheating emissions tests in the US, according to a new study.

The first peer-reviewed estimate of the public health impacts of VW’s rigging of tests for 482,000 diesel cars in the US found that if the company recalls all the affected cars by the end of 2016, more than 130 further early deaths could be avoided.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters on Thursday, concluded that most of the 59 premature deaths were caused by particulate pollution (87%) with the rest caused by ozone exposure (13%). Most of the deaths were estimated to have occurred on the east and west coasts of the US.

The number of deaths was reached by looking at the amount of extra pollution emitted between 2008 and 2015 by the VW cars fitted with the defeat devices.

NOAA Stiff-Arms House Science Committee Subpoena Questioning 'Hiatus' Study

The agency refused to turn over scientists’ emails about a study that debunks a theory favored by climate deniers, including committee chair Lamar Smith.

Citing confidentiality and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chose not to turn over all the documents demanded in a subpoena from the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

The committee, which oversees federally-funded scientific research, had issued its subpoena seeking "all documents and communications" related to a recent NOAA study that disputes the global warming "hiatus,” a concept favored by those who deny climate science because it indicated global warming had paused or slowed since 1998.

Committee chair Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), a vocal climate denier, has led a series of inquiries of climate scientists and organizations, questioning their research or methods.

The committee issued the subpoena on Oct. 13 and gave NOAA until Tuesday to respond. The agency responded with a letter that cites the many scientific briefings, datasets and studies it gave the committee over the past few months, but said it would not turn over emails and other deliberative research communications. ...

The NOAA paper, published in June in the prestigious journal Science, found the trend resulted from a data error and virtually disappeared when the scientists updated their analysis of global surface temperature measurements.

Thousands Flee Flash Floods in Somalia As El Niño Intensifies Rainy Season

Flash floods are forcing thousands of people from their homes and shelters in Somalia, with the recent heavy rains pushing the United Nations to call for $30 million to prepare for a rainy season expected to be more severe than usual as a "Super El Niño" descends onto the globe.

Flood waters have damaged latrines, destroyed people's belongings, and cut off roads as rivers over-flooded in the country's Shabelle basin, which includes areas around the capital Mogadishu. Makeshift shelters for displaced people were also destroyed and local airports were reportedly affected. The rains began earlier this month impacting an already vulnerable situation in a country where more than 1 million people are already displaced.

"The situation is very concerning as El Niño conditions come amid an already fragile humanitarian situation, where about 3.2 million people are in need of life-saving and livelihood support," said Peter de Clercq, the humanitarian coordinator for Somalia. He added, "We are already seeing significant displacement, and humanitarian funding levels are critically low."

Also of Interest

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

Over 16,000 Alleged Terrorists Believed Dead, Yet Many Remain Watchlisted

Inside the Zagros Mountains, the forgotten region of ?Iranian Kurdistan

Campaign 2016 as a Demobilizing Spectacle

“All Knew That This Interest Was Somehow The Cause of the War”

Open Grave: Western Media Memory Hole Pre-Dug for Turkey

We are the most unequal society in the developed world: As bad as you think income inequality is, it’s so much worse

The 6 Reasons China and Russia Are Catching Up to the U.S. Military

A Little Night Music

James Harman - It's Too Late Brother

James Harman - I Got News For You

James Harman Band - Stranger blues

James Harman - Phonebill Blues

James Harman - Two Sides To Every Story

James Harman - Three Way Party

James Harman - Bonetime

James Harman - Mad About Something

James Harman (US) - Crapshoot + Leavin' For Memphis

James Harman Band - That's Not Your Baby

James Harman - Back Door Rhumba

James Harman - Convenience Store Party Bag

James Harman Band - Icepick's Confession

James Harman Band - Grit Soup

James Harman - Extra Napkins

James Harman Band - Memory Foam Mattress Blues

James Harman - Night Ridin' Daddy

James Harman - Green Snakeskin Shoes

James Harman - Tall skinny mama

James Harman - Cholo

James Harman - Do not Disturb