Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul singer James Carr. Enjoy!

“If you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.

It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.”

-- Glenn Greenwald

News and Opinion

Obama claims he wants drone strike transparency. But he's said that before

Instead of making promises, maybe the White House should stop fighting tooth and nail about virtually every tiny disclosure of the drone program in court

Spurred on by worries about his legacy, Barack Obama is reportedly looking for ways to reduce government secrecy barriers he created that have made drone strikes and other prominent “counter-terrorism” programs so unaccountable to the public before he leaves office in 14 months.

He “wants to make available to the public as much information as possible about US counter-terrorism operations and the use of force overseas,” the White House said in a statement to The Hill this week, which originally reported the story about the latest potential policy change. ...

Their constant battle to keep every kernel of information about the drone program secret over the past six years is why it’s so hard to take their claims at face value. This is a White House which infamously promised to be the most transparent in history and instead became one of the most secretive; the executive branch promised similar things in 2013 after a major speech where Obama laid out new “rules” for drone strikes, and in a State of the Union address where he promised to be more transparent.

More than two years later, almost all of the “promises” he made have been ignored or disregarded by the administration. The administration reportedly immediately issued waivers for at least one of the rules in Pakistan and then in Yemen, the two countries where the vast majority of CIA drone strikes take place (the rules never even applied to Afghanistan).

The few actions the administration has taken – finally acknowledging in public that drone strikes exist and releasing one of the many legal memos discussing when drones can assassinate American citizens – were only spurred on by constant news reports and leaks, coupled with lawsuits that forced their hand.

As US Dodges Hospital Bombing Probe, Aid Group Calls Global Silence 'Embarrassing'

It's been more than 30 days, and still 'no state has been willing to stand up for the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war'

One month after the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more, the Obama administration refuses to submit to an independent inquiry while the aid group charges that the lack of global outcry over the incident has become deafening.

"The silence is embarrassing," MSF executive director Joanne Liu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview on Monday. "We have seen an erosion over the years of international humanitarian law. Enough is enough. We cannot keep going like this."

The medical charity has appealed to 76 governments asking for backing for an impartial investigation to clarify what went wrong at the facility in Kunduz—one of the few emergency trauma centers in northeastern Afghanistan—and to prevent any future such tragedy.

"Yet today, as we mourn the killing of our staff and patients, none of the 76 countries have stepped forward to show their support for an independent investigation by the Humanitarian Commission," said MSF-USA executive director Jason Cone at a commemoration in New York City's Union Square on Tuesday. "No state has been willing to stand up for the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war."

Including—and perhaps most egregiously—the United States.

Corker weighs AUMF measure for ISIS war - ‘No Urgency’

Lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee want a closed briefing on the Obama administration’s Syria policy before deciding whether to pursue a vote to approve the ongoing U.S. campaign against the Islamic State.

In an interview, Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said that while he remains open to writing an Authorization of Military Force for the conflict with ISIL, he feels no urgency until and unless the administration tells him they need additional authorities. As the committee weighs a vote, panel members are hoping to be briefed late this week by officials from the State Department and Special Forces.

“We’ve scheduled a detailed briefing this week and if additional authorities are needed it’s something we’ll look at it,” Corker said. “It appears to me that the people that have been added into a conflict are still conducting operations against ISIS. And everyone in the administration that's been up here ... feels like they have the authority they need to take on ISIS.”

Cameron Not Abandoning Plans for UK Parliament Vote on Syria Strikes

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s high-profile defeat after seeking parliamentary authorization for a war against Syria in 2013 may still sting, but his government still insists they are hoping to eventually hold another vote seeking the same authorization they failed to get last time. ...

The more complicating factor, however, is the lack of political support for another war, with the vehemently antiwar Jeremy Corbyn now leading the Labor Party, and likely to put even more effort into blocking the effort than his predecessors would.

Despite parliament explicitly barring Britain from any strikes against Syria, the Cameron government has occasionally launched strikes against ISIS inside Syria, claiming those warplanes were “embedded” with Canadian forces that were attacking Syria. Now that Canada is withdrawing outright, this flimsy excuse will no longer be available.

US says 'premature' for Syrian govt & opposition to meet in Russia

Russia: Rival Syrian Rebels Giving Details on ISIS Targets

Russian military officials suggested a dramatic shift in their Syrian war strategy is taking place this week, having secured a pledge of cooperation from certain unnamed secular rebel factions in Syria, who are providing them with targeting details on strikes against ISIS.

This could be a major shift, not just in giving Russia more targeting intelligence, but some de facto allies other than the Assad government, which may give a significant boost to their long-standing effort to cobble together a new “unity government” in Syria that would include secular rebels to unite against ISIS.

Pentagon: Interaction With Russian Plane Not a Real ‘Exercise’

Russian officials announced a three minute “interaction” between US and Russian planes inside Syria, with air crews practicing for scenarios in which the two nations’ warplanes are in close encounters in Syrian airspace, dubbing it a brief “joint exercise.”

Pentagon officials confirmed the interaction, and basically the entirety of the Russian story, but in an apparent effort to continue to be disagreeable about the matter, they insisted that the 3-minute-long test did not officially count as a “military exercise” by US standards.

Was Ahmad Chalabi Behind the Fall of Saddam Hussein?

Jon Schwarz thinks that the world class grifter Chalabi is getting too much credit for pushing the Bush administration, the cheerleading press, the political elites and the war industry into a war that they desperately wanted.

In Defense of the Late Ahmad Chalabi

Ahmad Chalabi, the George W. Bush administration’s favorite Iraqi — at least until the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 — has just died in Baghdad at age 71.

According to the headline of his New York Times obituary, Chalabi “pushed for U.S. invasion.” The Washington Post‘s headline says he “helped spur U.S. invasion,” and Reuters explains that he “pushed Bush to invade Iraq.”

And it’s true, Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress provided a big chunk of the “intelligence” the Bush administration used to make their case for the invasion. Chalabi was also a source for much of the New York Times‘ atrocious reporting on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and was mentioned by name when the Times was finally forced to apologize. Moreover, he couldn’t have been much more in your face about it afterwards, charmingly explaining in 2004 that “We are heroes in error. As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.”

But if Americans want to blame someone for the Iraq War, we should be looking closer to home — at Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and ourselves. As former CIA officer Robert Baer put it: “Chalabi was scamming the U.S. because the U.S. wanted to be scammed.”

How the AKP Used Violence to Win Turkish Elections

I wonder how far $4.5 Billion a year (until forever) would go towards rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, etc.

Netanyahu Is Bringing a $4.5 Billion-a-Year Arms Wish List to Obama

sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns to the White House next week seeking to boost annual U.S. military aid to an estimated $4.5 billion and, his former ambassador to Washington says, unapologetic about trying to sink the U.S.-led Iran nuclear deal.

“It’s not going to be warm and fuzzy,” said Michael Oren, an Israeli lawmaker who was Netanyahu’s U.S. envoy for five years. “It’s about what we need to defend ourselves and what we need to deter Iran.”

Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to the Republican-led Congress opposing the Iran accord so strained ties with President Barack Obama that he was told he wouldn’t be welcome at the White House. Now that the deal has been approved, both men have reasons to focus during this visit on areas of agreement, such as strengthening Israel’s defense capabilities. Few expect resolution of their ideological differences over Iran and peace efforts with the Palestinians before Obama’s term ends.

“There is a real opportunity to at least steady this very rocky relationship in its final year,” said Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Wilson Center in Washington, who served as a Middle East negotiator under Democratic and Republican presidents. “I think this administration would like to leave office with the channel changed.”

Europe, Still Angry at U.S. Spying, Prepares to Increase Its Own

Just as the United States is taking a first step toward placating European privacy concerns about U.S. surveillance, several European countries are passing laws dramatically expanding their own spy programs.

The House last month passed the Judicial Redress Act, intended to extend some privacy protections to foreign citizens. Meanwhile, the French Senate just passed one of the broadest international surveillance bills in the world and several other European countries are moving in a similar direction. ...

The Judicial Redress Act passed in the House would give the Department of Justice the power to identify allied countries, presumably in Europe, where citizens would be allowed to sue U.S. agencies that mishandle their private data. ... Despite all that, European officials continue to find U.S. privacy protections inadequate. Most recently, the EU Court of Justice this month invalidated the safe harbor data-sharing framework between the United States and Europe because it concluded that U.S. intelligence agencies were meddling in the “fundamental rights of persons” by indiscriminately vacuuming up Europeans’ data.

But instead of reining in their own spy agencies as they would have the U.S. do with the NSA, European countries are doing the opposite.

Privacy activists across the EU see a “race to the bottom” going on. “While the U.S. has been a bad example, EU countries have been adopting similar or worse measures in the past years,” writes Estelle Masse, a policy analyst for digital rights organization Access Now.

Governments in 14 countries around the world have passed new laws giving domestic intelligence agencies increased surveillance powers since June 2014, according to a new study released last week by Freedom House.

More fun in the great 'Merkin Demockery:

The Lesson of CISA’s Success, or How To Fight a Zombie

If the zombie horror genre teaches us anything, it is never to celebrate too soon. Beware the hubris of a character who walks from the graveyard victorious, failing to anticipate an undead hand pushing up through the soil. And so it was with defeat of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA — a surveillance bill introduced under the pretext of cybersecurity, which died in the Senate in 2012. “Victory over cyber spying,” announced the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Too soon. The bill now stomps through Congress with unswerving resilience toward the president’s desk, in the form of CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act.

Last week the Republican-controlled Senate passed CISA by a vote of 74-21. CISPA had failed in a Democratic Senate. The bills are near-identical, a disconcerting reminder that if powerful lobbies want legislation passed, opponents face a Sisyphean task in keeping the laws — with cosmetic changes and slightly altered names — off the books. When it comes to cybersecurity legislation, where populist paranoia about non-specific “cyber threats” is high and technical expertise among lawmakers is low, corporate lobbyists and government data-mongers have a persuasive upper hand. The zombie metaphor has been widely applied to CISA because the bill arose as CISPA-undead, and CISPA itself had been proposed and killed twice over. But the horror analogy goes further: CISA is lumbering, imprecise, and — like many fictional zombies — a monstrous manifestation of a popular social anxiety.

Like CISPA, CISA claims to protect against cyberattacks by enhancing information sharing between private corporations and federal government agencies. CISA supposedly protects individuals’ privacy more than CISPA would have, because the data sharing goes via the Department of Homeland Security, not directly to the National Security Agency. But it is not remotely clear that DHS will scrub private information before sharing data with other agencies, or even that it would have time to do so — near-real-time sharing with the NSA is written into the legislation. DHS itself admitted that CISA can’t and won’t protect user privacy.

Under the dangerously vague rubric of a potential “cyber threat,” the bill could allow immediate sharing of our data — including names, search histories, addresses — between firms and the government. It is the very meaning of a surveillance state: a corporate-government nexus under which no personal data is shielded. The CISA bill will now head to the House, where it will be reconciled with two similar cybersecurity bills already passed there — the Protecting Cyber Networks Act and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act. Privacy advocates have little to be hopeful for in this process. The Senate bill is very similar to the House bills; few differences need negotiating, and the Republican House is unlikely to take issue with the Senate-approved CISA.

National Geographic lays off staff following 21st Century Fox merger

National Geographic informed employees Tuesday it would lay off about 9% of its staff, months after announcing it would partner with Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox as part of an expanded joint venture.

That would amount to about 180 people out of the total 2,000 employees under the new partnership with Fox.

In September, 21st Century Fox announced a for-profit venture in which it paid $725m for control of the National Geographic Society, to create National Geographic Partners, which includes National Geographic Channels. ...

[Former] Editor-at-large, veteran National Geographic photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols rarely sets foot in the offices of National Geographic, so he said he doesn’t understand why the staff cuts, which comprised a mix of buyouts and layoffs, were deemed necessary.

Nichols said the important issue is whether National Geographic will continue to fund the kind of hard, long-term reporting about issues facing the planet that he and other veterans are accustomed to.

“You can’t do that with a for-profit company,” he said. “You have to have philanthropy subsidize long-term assignments.

“It used to be that people bought magazines. People don’t buy magazines anymore.”

Portugal: What is at Stake?

Portugal is now entering phase two of the global implementation of neoliberalism. At the global level, the neoliberal economic, social and political model is defined by the following traits: precedence of market logic in the regulation not just of the economy but of society as a whole; privatization of the economy and liberalization of international trade; demonization of the state as regulator of the economy and a promoter of social policies; concentration of global economic regulation in two multilateral institutions, both of them in the hands of European/North American capitalism (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund), to the detriment of the UN agencies that used to oversee the global picture; deregulation of financial markets; replacement of state economic regulation (hard law) by self-regulation controlled by multinational companies (soft law). Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the model has presented itself as the only possible alternative with regard to social and economic regulation, its ultimate goal being to turn domination into hegemony – in other words, to lead the very social groups who are harmed by the model into thinking it was all in their best interests. In fact, the model did extremely well over the last thirty years, namely by being adopted by two major social-democratic parties in Europe (Tony Blair’s British Labour Party and Gerhard Schröder’s German Social-Democratic Party) and by presiding over the logic of European institutions (both the Commission and ECB).

But every social model is subject to contradictions and resistance. This one is no exception, and in fact its consolidation has suffered a few setbacks. For example, the Transatlantic Partnership has yet to become a reality, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership may fail to do so. When confronted with the fact that the model is not yet fully consolidated, its protagonists (with financial capital hovering in the background) tend to react more or less savagely, depending on their assessment of the imminent danger. Here are a few examples. There was the emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), aimed at introducing a measure of nuance into the model of economic globalization. There has been violent reaction, with Brazil and Russia in particular being the target of intense neutralization policies. The Greek crisis, which would have been called a minor crisis back if the present model had not gained dominance in Europe, was considered a threat because of the possibility of its spreading to other countries. The humiliation of Greece was the beginning of the end of the EU as we know it. The possibility of a U.S. presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, claiming to be a socialist (i.e., a European social democrat) does not pose any serious danger for the moment, and the same may be said of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as general secretary of the Labour Party. As long as they are not viewed as a danger, they will not be the object of violent reaction.

What about Portugal? The President of the Republic’s intemperate reaction to the proposal for a leftist government led by the Socialist Party and with the participation of the Left Bloc and the Communist Party seems to indicate that the neoliberal model – which became firmly entrenched in Portugal over the last four years – views this political alternative as a serious danger, hence the violent reaction. We should keep in mind that what we have here is merely the semblance of ideological polarization. Portugal’s Socialist Party is one of the most moderate social democratic parties in Europe. So what we are really talking about is the defense, at all costs, of vested interests, whether long established or on the rise. The neoliberal model is opposed to the state for only as long as it is unable to hijack the state, because it most definitely needs the latter to ensure concentration of wealth and to hijack the highly profitable business opportunities thus generated. Let us bear in mind that, according to the model, politicians are economic players whose stint in politics is crucial in terms of looking after their own economic interests.

But the attempt to hijack the state reaches way beyond the political system. In fact, it has to encompass every single existing institution. For example, there are institutions of paramount importance, such as the Court of Auditors, which oversees multi-million business deals. It is equally imperative to hijack the justice system and see to it that it uses double standards: severity when investigating and punishing crimes allegedly committed by politicians on the left, and benign negligence with regard to crimes committed by those on the right. There are historical precedents for such hijacking. As I wrote some twenty years ago, “Throughout our century, courts have always been, from time to time, the subject of controversy and keen public scrutiny. We need only recall the courts of the Weimar Republic right after the German revolution (1918), with their double standards for punishing far right and far left political violence.” At the time it was all about political crimes, whereas these days we are faced with economic crimes.

The Co-ops Collapse: How GOP & HMOs Undercut Obamacare's Nonprofit Option, Leaving 500K Uninsured

Banks and corporations are being liberated from the rule of law, and are ripping the world apart.

What have governments learnt from the financial crisis? I could write a column spelling it out. Or I could do the same job with one word. Nothing.

Actually, that’s too generous. The lessons learned are counter-lessons, anti-knowledge, new policies that could scarcely be better designed to ensure the crisis recurs, this time with added momentum and fewer remedies. And the financial crisis is just one of multiple crises – in tax collection, public spending, public health, above all ecology – that the same counter-lessons accelerate.

Step back a pace and you see that all these crises arise from the same cause. Players with huge power and global reach are released from democratic restraint. This happens because of a fundamental corruption at the core of politics. In almost every nation, the interests of economic elites tend to weigh more heavily with governments than those of the electorate. Banks, corporations and land owners wield an unaccountable power, that works with a nod and a wink within the political class. Global governance is beginning to look like a never-ending Bilderburg meeting. ...

So the self-hating state proclaims that it has no power, while destroying its own capacity to legislate – internationally and at home. As if the last financial crisis had not occurred, and as if unaware of what caused it, George Osborne, in his most recent speech to the City of London, told his audience of bankers that “a central demand in our renegotiation is that Europe stops costly and damaging regulation”. David Cameron has boasted of running “the first government in modern history that at the end of its parliamentary term has less regulation in place than there was at the beginning.” This, in a world of accelerating complexity and booming corporate crime, is pure recklessness. But fear not, they say, economic power no longer needs be subject to the rule of law. It can regulate itself.

Some of us have long suspected that this is bunkum with bells on. But until now, suspicion is all we’ve had. Today, the first global review of self-regulation is published. It was commissioned by Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, but it covers every sector from payday lenders to dog breeders. And it shows that in almost all cases – 82% of the 161 schemes it assessed – voluntary measures have failed.

Mirable Dictu! Jail time for a Wall Street thug? Could it actually happen?

US high-frequency trader convicted in first US 'spoofing' case

A jury has convicted a high-frequency trader of commodities fraud and “spoofing”, in the US government’s first criminal prosecution of the banned trading practice.

The verdict in the trial of Michael Coscia, owner of New Jersey-based Panther Energy Trading, may prompt prosecutors to pursue market manipulation cases and spur some high-speed traders to review their strategies, in which orders are sometimes executed or canceled within milliseconds after they are entered. ...

Coscia was accused of entering large orders into futures markets in 2011 that he never intended to execute. His goal, prosecutors said, was to lure other traders to markets by creating an illusion of demand so that he could make money on smaller trades, a practice known as spoofing. ...

The trial spanned seven days, but the jury in Chicago convicted Coscia on six counts of commodities fraud and six counts of spoofing, all of the charges he had faced, after deliberating for just about an hour.

Each count of commodities fraud carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each count of spoofing carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1m fine. A sentencing hearing was set for next year.

Koch Brothers Talk Criminal Justice Reform, But Pay for “Tough on Crime” Political Ads

It’s a story political journalists couldn’t resist. Reporters at the New York Times, Politico, Yahoo News, and other outlets have been rhapsodizing lately about how the ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers are “braving the spotlight” and joining forces with “tree-hugging liberals” to dedicate themselves to the cause of ending America’s over-incarceration crisis.

Meanwhile, however, Koch money continues to finance election-year efforts that promote tough-on-crime politics.

Koch money is helping finance advertisements across the state of Pennsylvania calling for judges to hand out tougher sentences. In Louisiana, Koch money is supporting the gubernatorial bid of Republican David Vitter, who is now campaigning explicitly against criminal justice reform with a new ad that warns that President Obama’s clemency project will release “dangerous thugs.”

Koch Industries has been widely hailed for donating to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and partnering with groups such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Earlier this year, the Kochs helped launch the Coalition for Public Safety, a bipartisan group focused on educational events on the issue of criminal justice that now provides funding to the Center for American Progress and other left-leaning groups. ...

But there is little evidence to show that the Koch political network has made criminal justice a litmus test for candidates or a priority for their vast political machinery.

The Koch political network does a great deal to publicly evaluate politicians on a narrow set of issues, including legislative score cards and pledges signed by candidates.

Those efforts are all still largely centered on climate change, tax and regulatory policies, with no mention of criminal justice reform.

Hillary Clinton pledges to make gun control a 'voting issue' for Democrats

Hillary Clinton is attempting to make gun control and reducing gun violence a key part of her presidential campaign, as a once politically sensitive campaign issue moves front and center in the wake of the Charleston church massacre in June.

“Thirty-three thousand people a year die from something,” the Democratic frontrunner said at a campaign event at Grinnell College in Iowa on Tuesday night. “Shame on us if we don’t respond.”

The frequency and force with which she and the other Democratic presidential candidates discuss gun control marks an evolution on an issue that was once a near-taboo for Democrats on the campaign trail. Since a 21-year-old white supremacist killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, Clinton has wrapped toughening the nation’s gun laws into her standard stump speech.

It also marks a rare policy on which Clinton is to the left of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is closely chasing the frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Seattle Voters Approve First-in-the-Nation 'Democracy Vouchers'

Voters in Seattle, Washington on Tuesday approved a first-in-the-nation "democracy voucher" ballot initiative that could serve as a national model on campaign finance reform.

Initiative 122 (I-122), which was endorsed by nearly every Seattle City Council candidate and enjoyed the support of dozens of local and national progressive groups, passed 60-40, according to the King County Elections Office.

Supporters say the innovative public campaign financing program could give everyday voters more control over the city's elections while limiting the power of corporate and special interests.

The initiative states that for each city election cycle, or every two years, the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC) will mail four $25 vouchers to each voter. They can only be used in Seattle campaigns for mayor, city council and city attorney. The SEEC will release money to the candidates that agree to follow I-122's rules, which include participating in three debates and accepting lower contribution and spending limits.

The measure also prohibits elected officials and their high-level staff from lobbying the city government within three years of leaving office and enacts limits on campaign contributions from people or entities that have contracts with the city.

Leading Fight Against Money in Politics, Maine Voters Back Clean Elections

Maine voters on Tuesday reaffirmed their desire to keep the influence of big money out of politics by passing the Clean Elections Initiative, a move that campaigners say serves as a "flare to a nation" desperate to "reclaim control of our democracy" in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

According to the Bangor Daily News, the Initiative passed 55 to 45 percent. The measure strengthens the state's Clean Election Act by bolstering financing for the state's Clean Election Fund, increasing penalties for violations of campaign finance disclosure rules, amending ad disclosure rules to require the disclosure of a campaign's top three funders, and allowing a candidate to apply for additional funds.

When Maine voters passed the Clean Election Act in 1996, it marked the first statewide system for the public financing of elections in the nation.

EPA Used Monsanto’s Research to Give Roundup a Pass

The Environmental Protection Agency concluded in June that there was “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. and the world, is an endocrine disruptor. ...

But the EPA’s exoneration — which means that the agency will not require additional tests of the chemical’s effects on the hormonal system — is undercut by the fact that the decision was based almost entirely on pesticide industry studies. Only five independently funded studies were considered in the review of whether glyphosate interferes with the endocrine system. Twenty-seven out of 32 studies that looked at glyphosate’s effect on hormones and were cited in the June review — most of which are not publicly available and were obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request — were either conducted or funded by industry. Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force. One study was by Syngenta, which sells its own glyphosate-containing herbicide, Touchdown.

Who pays for studies matters, according to The Intercept’s review of the evidence used in the EPA’s decision. Of the small minority of independently funded studies that the agency considered in determining whether the chemical poses a danger to the endocrine system, three of five found that it did. One, for instance, found that exposure to glyphosate-Roundup “may induce significant adverse effects on the reproductive system of male Wistar rats at puberty and during adulthood.” Another concluded that “low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity.” And a review of the literature turns up many more peer-reviewed studies finding glyphosate can interfere with hormones, affecting such things as hormonal activity in human liver cells, functioning of rat sperm, and the sex ratio of exposed tadpoles.

Yet, of the 27 industry studies, none concluded that glyphosate caused harm. ...

Independent scientists may come up with different results than industry-funded ones for a variety of reasons, including how a study is designed or carried out. But Michelle Boone, a biologist who served on an EPA panel that evaluated the safety of atrazine, another pesticide, told The Intercept that analysis of those results is an area particularly ripe for bias. “Once you have industry intimately involved in interpreting the data and how it’s written up, it’s problematic.

Justin Trudeau Is Bringing Stephen Harper’s Emissions Plan to the Paris Climate Talks

On the eve of his swearing in, Canada's next prime minister already has climate critics on his doorstep.

On Thursday, climate protesters are planning a "climate welcome" outside Canada's prime ministerial residence, 24 Sussex Drive, to remind Justin Trudeau of his commitment to the environment. During the election, Trudeau dazzled Canadians with big talk of bringing the provincial premiers to the Paris climate conference on November 30 and keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius, but environmentalists point out he is going to Paris with outgoing prime minister Stephen Harper's lackluster emission targets in hand.

One of the climate protesters who plans to be outside Trudeau's door Thursday says the world is looking to Canada's next leader to pull his weight on climate change, but he's already behind on his targets.

"There's an ambition gap between where politicians are and where they need to be," said Cameron Fenton, an organizer with climate group 350.org. "And there's an expectation for Trudeau to close that gap."

Originally submitted to the United Nations in May by outgoing prime minister Stephen Harper, Canada's current climate commitment, known as an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Paris talks aim to set a legally-binding international agreement for greenhouse gas reduction, but Trudeau is not planning to set new emissions reduction targets until after the talks are over. The government intends to "take action on climate change by convening a First Ministers meeting after the Paris Conference," Liberal spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said in an email.

China underreporting coal consumption by up to 17%, data suggests

Revelation may mean China has emitted close to a billion additional tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year

China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, has been dramatically underreporting the amount of coal it consumes each year, it has been claimed ahead of key climate talks in Paris.

Official Chinese data, reported by the New York Times on Wednesday after being quietly released earlier this year, suggests China has been burning up to 17% more coal each year than previously disclosed by the government.

The revelation – which may mean China has emitted close to a billion additional tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year – could complicate the fight against global warming ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Paris, which begins on 30 November.

In 2012 China consumed 600m more tonnes of coal – or more than 70% of the United States’ annual total – than previously disclosed, according to the revised data. ...

The report came as Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, said his country had a duty to humanity to bring its emissions under control.

Speaking during a visit to China by the French president, François Hollande, Li said: “For a great many years, we consumed too much energy and resources to achieve our development, and this model has since become unsustainable.”

Also of Interest

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

The horror of the Calais refugee camp: ‘We feel like we are dying slowly’

Like it or not, Turkey is now President Erdogan’s state

The New Yorker Doesn’t Factcheck What ‘Everyone Knows’ Is True

Obama’s Abuse of ‘Espionage’ Act

How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk

Prosecutors are addicted to the War on Drugs: Inside law enforcement’s rabid defense of mandatory minimums

5 things that wouldn’t be happening if America were a functioning democracy

About That Democratic Socialism Thing

A Little Night Music

James Carr - That's The Way Love Turned Out For Me, Life Turned Her That Way

James Carr - She's Better Than You

James Carr - At the dark end of the street

James Carr - These Ain't Raindrops

James Carr - You got my mind Messed Up

James Carr - I Don't Want To Be Hurt

James Carr - Freedom Train

James Carr - Search Your Heart

James Carr - To Love SOmebody

Stronger Than Love - James Carr

James Carr - Lovable Girl

James Carr - These Arms Of Mine

James Carr - I'm Gonna Send You Back To Georgia

James Carr - Dixie Belle

James Carr - Love Attack

James Carr - A Losing Game