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This evening's music features cover versions of songs from Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's repertoire. Enjoy!

“Sovereignty is not given, it is taken.”

-- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

News and Opinion

Assad is assembling 10,000 troops for final assault on Aleppo

An army of 10,000 troops is amassing outside of the besieged city of Aleppo as the government prepares for an unprecedented assault on rebel-held areas of the city after a week of airstrikes and artillery fire has left the city burning and hundreds dead.

According to senior government sources speaking to CNN, the US is now considering how to react to the latest move by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against opposition forces in eastern Aleppo.

The troops, which have been gathering for the last week and are believed to include as many as 3,000 soldiers from Iran, are reportedly preparing for a final ground assault as al-Assad looks to crush rebel positions in eastern Aleppo and retake the strategically important city. ...

Speaking at the Washington Ideas Festival on Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said a complete breakdown in relations with Moscow was a real possibility.

"We are on the verge of suspending the discussion because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously," Kerry said. "It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives."

The US is not yet preparing plans for any military intervention according to sources speaking to CNN, but it is considering all options including military action and economic sanctions.

Russia Dismisses US 'Emotional Breakdown,' Open to Two-Day Ceasefire

Secretary of State John Kerry now says the US is “on the verge” of suspending all talks with Russia related to Syria, saying talks with the Russians are “irrational” and threatening to “pursue other alternatives.” This is believed to mean another influx of CIA weapons to “vetted” Syrian rebels, which almost always ends up meaning the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in practice. ...

Russian officials downplayed the US condemnations and threats, with Deputy FM Sergey Ryabkov saying that they were uninterested in the US “emotional breakdown” over Syria. He suggested a two-day ceasefire proposed by the international community should be explored, but rejected US demands for another week-long pause, citing the last week-long one, only last week, during which Nusra was constantly attacking them.

Syria: US Destroyed Eastern Bridges in Attack on Infrastructure

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement today condemning the US-led coalition for bombing and destroying a pair of bridges in the eastern Deir Ezzor Province, saying they amount to an attack on Syria’s economic infrastructure.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the warplanes that attacked the bridges were from the US coalition.

The Observatory warned that that destruction of the bridges both dramatically impede humanitarian aid deliveries into the area, and would hamper the movement of civilians trying to flee combat areas in the province, which is mostly controlled by ISIS.

An interesting article, rich in detail and worth a full read:

How the US Armed-up Syrian Jihadists

In a detailed report, US Special Forces Sabotage White House Policy gone Disastrously Wrong with Covert Ops in Syria, Jack Murphy, a former Green Beret (U.S. Special Forces), recounts a former CIA officer having told him how the “the Syria covert action program is [CIA Director John] Brennan’s baby …Brennan was the one who breathed life into the Syrian Task Force … John Brennan loved that regime-change bullshit.”

In gist, Murphy tells the story of U.S. Special Forces under one Presidential authority, arming Syrian anti-ISIS forces, whilst the CIA, obsessed with overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad, and operating under a separate Presidential authority, conducts a separate and parallel program to arm anti-Assad insurgents.

Murphy’s report makes clear the CIA disdain for combatting ISIS (though this altered somewhat with the beheading of American journalist James Foley in August 2014): “With the CIA wanting little to do with anti-ISIS operations as they are focused on bringing down the Assad regime, the agency kicked the can over to 5th Special Forces Group. Basing themselves out of Jordan and Turkey” — operating under “military activities” authority, rather than under the CIA’s coveted Title 50 covert action authority. ...

Buried in the text is this stunning one-line conclusion: “after ISIS is defeated, the real war begins. CIA-backed FSA elements will openly become al-Nusra; while Special Forces-backed FSA elements like the New Syrian Army will fight alongside the Assad regime. Then the CIA’s militia and the Special Forces’ militia will kill each other.”

Well, that says it all: the U.S. has created a ‘monster’ which it cannot control if it wanted to (and Ashton Carter and John Brennan have no interest to “control it” — they still seek to use it).

Allies Criticize US Airstrikes Hitting Wrong Targets in Somalia, Afghanistan

A UN warning the US to adhere to its obligations under international humanitarian law came in the wake of a deadly US airstrike in Nangarhar, which the Pentagon announced killed a bunch of ISIS fighters, but which government officials later revealed actually killed at least 15 civilians and wounded 12 others. The Afghan government is already investigating and the UN is calling for an independent inquiry beyond that.

Another incident in Somalia's semi-autonomous Galmudug region, according to officials in Galmudug, appears to have been the result of officials in rival Puntland, another autonomous region, calling in the strike and telling the US that the targets were Shabaab. The US appears not only to have launched the strike without checking with Galmudugi officials, but also publicly took credit for it before they bothered to find out who they actually killed.

Pentagon officials bragged about it as a “self-defense” strike that killed a bunch of al-Shabaab fighters, but Somalia later confirmed that the US strike killed 22 Somali soldiers.

The U.S. is Sending More Troops to Iraq...What Could Go Wrong?

In a really stunning piece of international news, the U.S. is sending 600 troops to Iraq in an attempt to retake the city of Mosul. ...

So, there are a few questions we could ask, such as:

1. Even if we retake Mosul, is this really going to measurably fix the situation in Iraq in the long term?
2. What happens when we leave?
3. When the Iraqi forces prove incapable of maintaining whatever we accomplish, does that mean we can’t leave?

But then again, why even bother asking these questions? It’s clear that Obama, and the entire American political leadership, is just fine with repeating the mistakes of the past, over and over and over, with no concern for the fact that it just doesn’t work.

UN Declines Inquiry Into Saudi Abuses in Yemen

That latest behind-the-scenes negotiations at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva have ended, as with last year, declining to launch an independent investigation into Saudi Arabia’s war crimes in Yemen, leading to a series of very public condemnations from human rights groups.

Last year’s debates of the matter ended with the agreement that the Saudi government and its allies could investigate themselves, which naturally just amounted to a solid year of rubber stamping continued war crimes. The new text, dubbed a “compromise,” will allow a handful of UN investigators to observe the internal investigation, so they can keep track of how it’s going nowhere in real time.

Medea Benjamin: If Americans Can Sue Saudis over 9/11, Drone Victims Should Be Able to Sue U.S.

Congressional Leaders Move to Weaken 9/11 Victims Bill After Override

Just 24 hours after standing up to the White House and intense Saudi lobbying and overriding the veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), the Congressional leadership is already feverishly backtracking and promising to “fix” the bill in such a way as to placate Obama and the Saudis.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – KY) said the changes were worth “further discussion,” while his House counterpart Speaker Paul Ryan (R – WI) promised to outright “fix” the bill in such a way as to prevent “any kind of retribution.”

While there was no real debate in the Senate ahead of the override vote, within the House several opponents were calling for changes that would dramatically weaken the bill to be immediately negotiated, win or lose, and it seems they’re getting exactly that, with everyone all set to knuckle under to warnings of Saudi outrage and “unintended consequences.”

‘They kill people in their homes’: Pakistani to sue CIA for drone strike that killed relatives

Suing governments over terror no sure thing despite U.S. September 11 law

Families of Sept. 11 victims and others who may seek to sue foreign governments accused of supporting terrorism in the United States still face significant legal hurdles, despite a boost from passage of a law allowing such cases to proceed. ...

Passage of the law over a presidential veto could allow relatives and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to move forward with a case they filed more than a decade ago against Saudi Arabia in New York federal court.

Still, it will be hard to prove a foreign nation is responsible for acts of terrorism, said attorneys and professors with expertise in international law, who expected drawn-out legal wrangling. ...

The law says plaintiffs must show the foreign state "knowingly or recklessly provided material support or resources" to designated terrorist groups, not that the countries were simply negligent or looked the other way. ...

Existing tort law requires plaintiffs to prove that support played a "substantial factor" in the victims' injuries, a high bar, said Jimmy Gurule an expert in international criminal law at the University of Notre Dame. ...

"We have a high degree of confidence we can meet that burden. The Saudis think we can't," said Jack Quinn, co-counsel for more than 2,000 family members of Sept. 11 victims.

The FBI Wanted to Target Yemenis Through Student Groups and Mosques

The FBI envisioned infiltrating mosques and Muslim student associations to look for young Yemenis to serve as informants, according to an internal presentation obtained by The Intercept.

The document suggests that agents scour Facebook “to find individuals who are dramatically increasing their levels of piety — that’s the demographic you want.”

“Since we’re looking for young people re-engaging with their Islamic faith,” it continues, “the local MSA [Muslim Student Association] is a great place to start.” ...

The document appears to suggest identifying potential informants solely on the basis of their religious affiliation or national origin, which could violate FBI rules meant to curb profiling and discrimination. ...

“The FBI’s focus on Muslim student groups does not make anyone safer,” said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York who directs CLEAR, an initiative that works with communities affected by counterterrorism policies. “It also comes at the expense of students whose college experience is no longer a time for intellectual exploration and the building of lasting friendships but a paranoid nightmare where certain thoughts are taboo and your classmate might be an informant.”

Five Lawmakers Are Challenging Gag Orders on FBI National Security Letters

The Department of Justice’s policies surrounding lengthy gag orders on secret FBI requests for records are unconstitutional, wrote five members of Congress in a legal brief filed Thursday.

When companies or individuals receive these requests, known as national security letters, they are not typically allowed to share any of the content—or even say that they received such a request—except with an attorney. The FBI does not need to consult a judge to file those requests.

“The FBI’s [national security letter] authority is bound by the law and constitutional limits,” reads the brief, which was signed by U.S Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), and Ted Poe (R-Texas).“It is [our] view that the rules currently in place for reviewing NSL nondisclosure orders do not meet the requirements of the USA FREEDOM Act and are unconstitutional.”

The Department of Justice’s protracted review procedures for freeing targets of the gag orders violate the First Amendment, they argued in the brief, which was filed in support of a years-long case being waged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of an unnamed client.

FBI Says Edward Snowden Is Reason Companies Are Resisting Handing Over Phone Records

Companies became more resistant to the FBI’s collection of their customers’ information following revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to a Department of Justice Inspector General report released Thursday.

Partly because of the stigma around the telephony program, where NSA collected millions of Americans’ phone information, “providers’ resistance” to the orders, and the length of time it took to get the records — sometimes months — the FBI used it much less. It also said it started to use other means instead, including overseas surveillance and the criminal legal system to retrieve information.

It looks like criminals hacked Yahoo, not a country

Yahoo's claim that a state actor is to blame for its massive data breach is being seriously challenged.

U.S.-based cybersecurity firm InfoArmor asserts that the recent hack of Yahoo accounts — 500 million customer records, the biggest known data breach in history — was carried out by a criminal gang known as Group E, which has been responsible for similar attacks on Dropbox, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Andrew Komarov, chief intelligence office of InfoArmor and a Russian native, has been tracking the Eastern Europe-based group for three years and says it has sold the compromised data to at least one state-sponsored party, telling NBC News that the fee was about $300,000.

While NBC has claimed the state-sponsored group "commissioned" Group E to hack Yahoo, Komarov told Reuters: "They have never been hired by anyone to hack Yahoo. They were simply looking for well-known sites that had many users."

Rodrigo Duterte vows to kill 3 million drug addicts and likens himself to Hitler

Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines president, appears to have compared himself to Hitler, saying he would be “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts in his bloody war on crime.

During a press conference in his home city of Davao, the former prosecutor told reporters that he had been compared to a “cousin of Hitler” by his critics

“If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...,” he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews ... there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” ...

Duterte has spent his first three months in office running a campaign to kill all involved in the rampant drugs trade, including alleged addicts, causing outrage from rights groups and foreign governments.

More than 3,500 alleged drug dealers and addicts have been killed, about a third of them in police operations but the majority by armed vigilante militias. Duterte has publicly encouraged civilians to kill addicts and said he will not prosecute police for extrajudicial executions.

Video shows police fatally shooting a 6-year-old autistic boy in the back of a car

Nearly a year after two city marshals in Marksville, Louisiana fired on a car they'd been pursuing, killing an autistic 6-year-old boy inside and wounding his father, police body-cam footage of the shooting has been released.

The shooting took place last November after police pursued Christopher Few following an argument he had with his girlfriend. Few's son Jeremy Mardis was sitting in the back of the car. The 14-minute video doesn't show the full pursuit; instead, it begins as a squad car pulls up and joins several others that have surrounded Few's seemingly stationary vehicle.

Two deputy marshals, Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr., opened fire on Few's car. They later contended that Few had been driving recklessly and rammed their patrol car, putting their lives in danger. They also initially contended there was an outstanding warrant for Few, which investigators said wasn't true.

In the video, which the head of the Louisiana State Police described as the "most disturbing thing" he had ever seen, officers call an ambulance and report the officer-involved shooting. As police approach the vehicle, Few can be seen bleeding and slumped over the side of the white vehicle.

One officer shines his flashlight into the backseat and sees the child's body. "Fuck," the officer says loudly, and then whispers, "there's a kid."

‘We were innocent bystanders’ – protester that was hit by police in El Cajon to RT

The black man San Diego cops shot was holding a vape pen, not a gun

Alfred Olango came to the United States with his family as a refugee from Kampala, Uganda, when he was 12 years old, fleeing persecution from his native country's new regime.

On Tuesday, El Cajon area police shot and killed Olango, 38, in the parking lot of a strip mall, when they mistook the vape pen he was holding for a gun. ...

Olango's sister had dialed 911 requesting emergency assistance because her brother was "not acting like himself" and endangering himself by walking into traffic.

Some news reports, quoting Olango's friends, have suggested that he had had a seizure prior to the incident. ...

Olango, a father of two, had been working as a cook in San Diego and aspired to open his own restaurant one day.

Wisconsin lawmakers urge investigation of Scott Walker after 'John Doe' papers

Nineteen Wisconsin legislators have called for an official investigation into alleged criminal misconduct by the Republican governor Scott Walker, based on their review of court documents leaked to the Guardian.

The legislators, who represent more than half of the Democratic group within the state assembly, have written to the prosecutor for Dane County, which covers the state capital Madison as well as Walker’s home residence.

They urge the district attorney, Ismael Ozanne, to initiate an immediate investigation into what they describe as “serious allegations … of possible crimes”, in order to “protect the public interest in a government that is free of corruption”.

The signatories of the letter, who include assembly minority leader Peter Barca, allege that they have identified ways in which Walker “may have engaged in criminal conduct” that have never before been addressed in any official inquiry.

In particular, they say, the governor may have violated a long-standing prohibition on soliciting and accepting corporate money through so-called “dark money” groups that do not disclose the sources of their income.

“These potential crimes have not previously been raised or considered during the various John Doe proceedings about these issues,” the legislators write.

FEC Stalemate on Banning Foreign Money in U.S. Elections Could Be Ending

The six members of the Federal Election Commission found unusual common ground Thursday in a discussion of foreign money in U.S. politics, informally agreeing to move forward after Republican commissioners have had more time to consider the subject.

This is noteworthy because the FEC’s three Republican commissioners have long voted against almost all initiatives to curb the political power of money, causing repeated 3-3 deadlocks.

“I was pretty pleased to see that [the GOP commissioners] received my specifics pretty warmly,” said Ellen Weintraub, one of the FEC’s Democratic members. “Even if you don’t believe the entire system needs reform, it’s hard to argue that, for example, it would be OK for U.S. corporations totally owned by foreign governments to make unlimited expenditures in U.S. elections.”

The FEC did not vote today on Weintraub’s new proposals. Instead, Matthew S. Petersen, one of the Republican members of the FEC, said he would “noodle through some of these a little bit more, see if … there might be areas of agreement, see if there are counter proposals and get a little bit of a better understanding of the nature of some of these proposals.”

Undermining Democracy, Corporations Pouring Millions into Local Ballot Fights

This election cycle, corporate donors are not just beefing up the war chests of their most-favored politicians. According to a new study, industry is flexing its Supreme Court- approved political power to dominate local democracy, as well.

In the study, Big Business Ballot Bullies (pdf), Public Citizen examined eight state-level ballot initiatives and referenda that have seen an outsized amount of political spending. According to the research, published Wednesday, the corporate-backed campaigns have an average of 10-to-1 financial advantage over their mostly grassroots opponents, with total corporate spending in those races topping $139 million.

"These findings should be deeply disturbing to anyone who is concerned about the power of corporate money to distort our democracy," wrote report author and Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool in a Thursday op-ed.

Big Pharma tycoons Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson have spent the most, each contributing more than $7 million to defeat California's Drug Price Standards Initiative, or Proposition 61, which seeks to lower prescription prices in that state. So far, the industry-backed group opposing that measure has raised more than $86 million.

Colorado's Amendment 69, which would install a universal, Medicare-for-All system for state residents, has won the ire of the insurance industry, with Anthem, United Healthcare, and others spending hundreds of thousands to back the opposition.

Also in Colorado, an anti-fracking measure that would have set a mandatory setback for oil and gas development saw millions of opposition spending, including $6.55 million from Anandarko Petroleum Company, before it failed to make November's ballot.

As Earth Reaches Frightening CO2 Milestone, Bill McKibben Calls for War on Climate Change

Groups Slam Republican AGs Big Oil Collusion to Protect ExxonMobil

Environmental and advocacy groups on Thursday responded to recent reports that Republican attorneys general colluded with fossil fuel lobbyists to shield ExxonMobil from fraud investigations, saying the revelations were a clear case of industry corruption. ...

The corporate accountability group PR Watch, part of the Center for Media and Democracy, on Tuesday published undisclosed notes from secret meetings held in July between the 13 Republican AGs and representatives from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), discussing the ongoing investigation into ExxonMobil's decades-long campaign to suppress climate science. The meetings took place at the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) annual summit in Colorado.

"The recently-exposed collusion between Republican attorneys general and fossil fuel lobbyists exemplifies exactly why we need to kick big polluters out of climate policymaking," said Katherine Sawyer, senior international organizer at Corporate Accountability International. "These attorneys general have a duty to serve the people, not the interests of fossil fuel corporations. It is unconscionable that financial contributions and closed-door meetings may have persuaded these attorneys general to turn a blind eye to Exxon's decades of climate deception."

In an audio recording of one of the meetings, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange introduces leading climate skeptic—and head of Donald Trump's energy team—Myron Ebell, who tells the audience, "So right now the climate inquisition is in retreat," naming a number of the Democratic attorneys general investigating the oil and gas giant with updates on their progress. ...

Jamie Henn, spokesperson for 350.org Action, said the recordings and other reports are "a smoking gun when it comes to fossil fuel industry corruption. These recordings are more evidence that Big Oil is bankrolling Republican attorneys general's attacks on climate legislation and the Exxon Knew investigation. It's just like Big Tobacco, but this time the entire planet is at stake."

Will the internet kill off conspicuous consumption?

In 1899, the American sociologist Thorsten Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class. The phrase was double-edged: Veblen was critical of the wealthy flaunting their wealth, but he recognised that more ordinary people used goods and services to establish “the reputability of the household and its head”. In short, status matters. Today, conspicuous consumption, which defined much of 20th century material culture, is at a turning point.

Over the past 10 years, the internet and the pervasiveness of social media have brought about new channels through which to behave conspicuously. Twenty years ago, a typical way for a wealthy student to show off was to drive to campus in a flashy car; many students today think it’s hip to arrive by city bike, or by sharing a Zipcar or an Uber. Bragging online can then ensure that everybody knows about that special morning ride. If symbolic experiences can be communicated directly online, why bother to possess?

The internet has heightened the prestige of sharing by turning it into a communicable experience. In Veblen’s era, status was attached to the things that one had that others didn’t; the act of pooling goods and services lacked prestige. Visitor accommodations such as Airbnb have grown because it’s no longer a sign of declining status to take in lodgers, especially when such practice allows the crafting (and sharing) of new life narratives. Sharing can make good business sense, too – with the average two-bedroom Airbnb apartment in New York City earning the renter a respectable $3,700+ per month.

Mobility is another key candidate for the sharing economy. In the US cars are idle, on average, 95% of the time. By one estimate, each shared vehicle could take between 10 and 30 privately owned vehicles off of the street – a dynamic that could grow exponentially with the advent of self-driving. Self-driving vehicles promise to have a dramatic impact on urban life, because they could blur the distinction between private and public modes of transportation. “Your” car could give you a lift to work in the morning and then, rather than sitting idle in a parking lot, give a lift to someone else in your family – or, for that matter, to anyone else in your social-media community, neighbourhood or city. This could lead to a condition in which – theoretically - everyone would be able to travel on demand with just one-fifth the number of cars in use today.

Also of Interest

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

Thinking Dangerously in the Age of Normalized Ignorance

Worse than Guantánamo? Ex-prisoner struggles with new life in Kazakhstan

John Helmer: Four MH17 Questions – The Answers to Which Prove the Dutch Police, Ukrainian Secret Service, and US Government Are Faking the Evidence of the MH17 Shootdown

Can Russia Learn From Brazil’s Fate?

The Twilight of the Leisure Class

The Contagion Deutsche Bank Is Spreading Is All About Derivatives

Italian police find stolen Van Goghs 14 years after infamous Amsterdam heist

Has Vancouver found the solution to a super-heated housing market?

A Little Night Music

Led Zeppelin - Gallows Pole

Johnny Cash - Pick a bale of cotton

The scariest cover version of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" is here.

The Lost Fingers - Black Betty

The Byrds - Take a Whiff on Me

Mungo Jerry - Have A Whiff On Me

Bluegrass All-Stars - John Hardy

Manfred Mann - John Hardy

Peter Rowan - When I Was A Cowboy

Wayfaring Strangers - When I Was a Cowboy

Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan, Chris Barber - Good Morning Blues

Nirvana - Where did you sleep last night

Loretta Lynn - In the Pines

Jimmy Witherspoon & Groove Holmes - Take this hammer

The Spencer Davis Group - Take This Hammer

Carl Perkins - Rock Island Line

Creedence Clearwater Revival - The Midnight Special

Phil Wiggins and Mark Puryear - The Midnight Special

Little Richard - Goodnight Irene

Jack White - Good Night Irene