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"The 2016 Republican presidential primary was rigged. It wasn’t rigged by the Republicans, the Democrats, Russians, space aliens, or voters. It was rigged by the owners of television networks who believed that giving one candidate far more coverage than others was good for their ratings. ... The 2016 Democratic presidential primary was rigged. It wasn’t rigged by bankers, misogynists, Russians, Republicans, or computer hackers. It was rigged by the Democratic National Committee and its co-conspirators in the media, many of whom have helpfully confessed (in case it wasn’t obvious) in emails leaked from the DNC and from John Podesta. The DNC chose Hillary Clinton and worked hard to make sure that she “won.” Nobody has produced a hint of evidence as to who leaked the emails that added unnecessary confirmation of this rigging, but they should be thanked for informing us, whoever they are."

-- David Swanson

News and Opinion

Hillary Clinton: Putin, WikiLeaks, Trump Plot to Hack the Election

It didn’t take long for the final presidential debate in the US to be shifted to the Clinton campaign’s favorite topic: accusing the Trump campaign of being involved in a Russian plot to hack the US election to his benefit. Indeed, it didn’t even wait until the brief foreign policy segment.

During questions about immigration, the moderator asked a question of Hillary Clinton regarding her comments at a closed-door speech to a Brazilian bank about open borders. Clinton quickly and dramatically changed focus, noting that the quote came from WikiLeaks and declaring “what’s really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans.”

She went on to declare that it was “clearly” Russian President Vladimir Putin behind the WikiLeaks releases, and insisted that the entire intelligence community had confirmed Putin was doing so “to influence our election.” She then demanded Republican nominee Donald Trump “admit” to it.

The Democrats’ Joe McCarthy Moment

The Democrats, who bore the brunt of the Red-baiting during the earlier Cold War, are now playing the roles of Senators Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon in smearing anyone who won’t join in the Russia-bashing as “stooges,” “traitors” and “useful idiots.”

When Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has one of his few lucid moments and suggests that the U.S. should cooperate with Russia rather than provoke more confrontations, he is denounced from many political quarters. But these attacks against Trump are most feverish from Democrats looking to give Hillary Clinton a boost politically and a diversionary excuse for her Wall Street speeches that she tried so hard to keep hidden until they were released by WikiLeaks from hacked emails of her longtime adviser John Podesta.

The Obama administration’s intelligence community has claimed, without presenting evidence, that Russian intelligence was behind the Democratic Party hacks as a way to influence the U.S. election, a somewhat ironic charge given the long history of the U.S. government (and its intelligence community) engaging in much more aggressive actions to block the election of disfavored politicians abroad and even to overthrow democratically elected leaders who got in Washington’s way.

Rather than seeking to explain Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street bigwigs and other special interests, Podesta and other Democrats have simply piled on the Russia-bashing with suggestions that Trump is consorting with America’s enemies. In Wednesday night’s debate, Clinton referred to Trump as Vladimir Putin’s “puppet.” ...

While the Democrats may consider this strategy very clever ... by whipping up a new set of whipping boys – the “evil” Russians and their “ultra-evil” leader Vladimir Putin – the Democrats are setting in motion passions that could spin out of control and cause a President Hillary Clinton to push the two nuclear powers into a crisis that – with a simple misjudgment on the part of either nation – could end life on the planet.

It’s Russia & RT! Team Clinton knows who’s to blame for Podesta leaks

If the US hacks Russia for revenge, that could lead to cyberwar

What’s the CIA’s brilliant plan for stopping Russian cyber-attacks on the US and their alleged interference with the US election? Apparently, some in the agency want to escalate tensions between the two superpowers even more and possibly do the same thing right back to them.

NBC News reported late last week that the CIA is working up blueprints for an “unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia”, and it sounds a lot like they’re planning on leaking documents on Vladimir Putin, just as the Russians are accused of doing to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. ...

Hacking foreign governments – including political parties – is a US pastime, as even the former ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden openly admitted this week. ... It’s the leaking of documents that is relatively new. The US, of course, has a long history of interfering in foreign elections as well, as Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor detailed last week. That’s not to excuse Russia’s alleged actions, but everyone feigning shock and horror over this needs to take a deep breath because we are rapidly spiraling towards not just a digital cold war, but perhaps something far worse.. ...

Assuming the CIA plans are real, why on earth do all these national security geniuses think this is a good idea? Countless politicians have spent the last four months saying how “unprecedented” and “dangerous” Russia’s actions are, so now the magic solution is to do it back to them? Who thinks that once the US leaks some documents back on Putin that he’ll suddenly be like ‘oh, you got me, I guess we’ll stop!’ The more likely scenario is that this half-baked idea will escalate the cyber tensions rather than act as a deterrent.

Air Force Chief Sees Decades More of US Wars

In comments today at a spouse and family forum, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein discussed the growing number of airmen being deployed abroad for longer periods of time, saying that this problem is going to continue for decades to come.

“We’ve been deploying now for 15 years, we’ve probably got 15, 20 years to go,” Gen. Goldfein warned. This wasn’t just about the current wars, either, as the general laid out some of the new deployments against new enemies, citing a “resurgent Russia and China” as driving future deployments. ...

Top military brass have regularly talked up long wars in the future as part of their efforts to get more funding for future conflicts. The difference in today’s comments were very specific timetables, and setting out Russia and China as potential targets in those future conflicts.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces close in on Mosul after making quick gains

Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi special forces have advanced to within around six miles of the city of Mosul, after launching a major three-pronged attack early on Thursday against dug-in Islamic State militants.

Hundreds of armoured vehicles including tanks and humvees began a large-scale offensive at around 6am local time, the Kurdish peshmerga general command said in a statement. Their target was a series of villages to the north and north-east of Mosul held by Isis fighters.

Heavy guns and artillery trundled towards the frontline village of Nawaran, nine miles north of Mosul, which the peshmerga seized within an hour. ...

On Wednesday, Maj Gen Gary Volesky, the commander of the US 101st Airborne Division in charge of land forces involved in counter-Isis operations, said there were signs that Isis leaders in the city were starting to flee.

“We have seen movement out of Mosul,” he said, speaking to the Pentagon from Iraq. “We’ve got indications that leaders have left. A lot of foreign fighters we expect will stay as they’re not able to exfiltrate as easily as some of the local fighters or local leadership, so we expect there will be a fight.”

The media are misleading the public on Syria

For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it.

This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants’ hold on the city could be ending.

Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. “Turkish-Saudi backed ‘moderate rebels’ showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars,” one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. ...

This does not fit with Washington’s narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a “liberated zone” for three years but is now being pulled back into misery.

Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made up of “rebels” or “moderates,” not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS. Turkey has for years been running a “rat line” for foreign fighters wanting to join terror groups in Syria, but because the United States wants to stay on Turkey’s good side, we hear little about it. Nor are we often reminded that although we want to support the secular and battle-hardened Kurds, Turkey wants to kill them. Everything Russia and Iran do in Syria is described as negative and destabilizing, simply because it is they who are doing it — and because that is the official line in Washington.

Clinton Reaffirms Commitment to No-Fly Zone in Syria

Iran 'wanted Egypt at Syria talks' as Middle Eastern alliances shift

The Iranian foreign minister personally requested that Egypt attend last weekend’s key Syria talks – a move that has sparked concerns that Cairo is being wooed away from its traditional pro-western stance in the region.

Talks convened by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, in the Swiss city of Lausanne last Saturday evening failed to agree on a common strategy with Russia to end the conflict in Syria, now in its sixth year.

The Guardian has seen emails indicating that the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, asked Kerry for Cairo’s team to attend the Lausanne talks. When the US secretary of state proposed six-nation talks to “see if a new reasonableness can manifest itself” in Syria, Zarif replied: “Why not Egypt too?”

Iran agreed to attend the talks only once it had secured places for the foreign ministers of Egypt and Iraq at the discussions. Both countries back the pro-Assad stance of Iran but Egypt is seen as significant because it is the most populous Sunni Arab nation in the Middle East.

Iran was also keen not to be outnumbered by an anti-Assad coalition – comprising Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States – at the Lausanne talks.

Russia tells UN it will pause bombing of eastern Aleppo

Russia has told the UN it will stop bombing eastern Aleppo for 11 hours a day over four days, but the proposal was described as insufficient to bring about a wider deal to make militants leave the besieged city.

As a unilateral ceasefire was declared by the Syrian military in Aleppo on Thursday, the UN Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said he welcomed the daily pauses to allow medical evacuations.

However, he said the ceasefire package required militants from the banned Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group to agree to leave and the Syrian government to guarantee that the local administration would remain in charge.

The UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said he hoped the first of “several hundred” sick and wounded people would be brought out on Friday to government-held western Aleppo or rebel-held Idlib, according to their choice. ...

State media earlier said the Syrian army had opened exit corridors in two designated areas in the Bustan al-Qasr quarter and near the Castello Road in northern Aleppo, where waiting green buses were shown on state television.

Turkey claims air raid killed up to 200 Kurdish fighters in Syria raid

A Turkish air raid killed as many as 200 Kurdish militia members north of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Wednesday, according to the Turkish military.

Turkish military officials say they hit 18 targets with 26 airstrikes in the areas under the control of Kurdish militia, destroying their headquarters, ammunition dumps and shelters.

The statement said one Free Syrian Army fighter died and another one was injured in a series of clashes with the PYD/PKK.

ACLU Wants 23 Secret Surveillance Laws Made Public

the ACLU has identified 23 legal opinions that contain new or significant interpretations of surveillance law — affecting the government’s use of malware, its attempts to compel technology companies to circumvent encryption, and the CIA’s bulk collection of financial records under the Patriot Act — all of which remain secret to this day, despite an ostensible push for greater transparency following Edward Snowden’s disclosures.

The opinions were written by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. On Wednesday, the ACLU and the Yale Law School Media Freedom Clinic filed a motion with the court requesting that those opinions be released.

“The people of this country can’t hold the government accountable for its surveillance activities unless they know what our laws allow,” said Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “These secret court opinions define the limits of the government’s spying powers. Their disclosure is essential for meaningful public oversight in our democracy.”

NYPD admits 'we failed' in police shooting of mentally ill Bronx woman

New York police department officials have conceded that something went wrong in the lead-up to a sergeant fatally shooting a mentally ill 66-year-old black woman in her own home in the Bronx Tuesday night. ...

The woman, Deborah Danner, had schizophrenia and police had visited her home on prior occasions for disturbances. According to police, they were responding to a call from a neighbor that Danner was acting in an “irrational manner” when the shooting occurred.

Danner was holding a pair of scissors when sergeant Hugh Barry entered her residence, police said. Barry was able to convince Danner to put down the scissors and leave the home with him when she allegedly picked up a bat and began swinging it at the Sergeant’s head.

Barry fired two shots from his service weapon, and Danner was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Police said that Barry was equipped with a less-lethal Taser weapon, which he did not deploy. Barry has been placed on modified duty, and was stripped of his gun and badge while the incident is investigated by the NYPD’s force investigation division.

Halloween Comes Early as Bloomberg Tries to Scare Kids With Debt Monster

Bloomberg (10/14/16) decided to get into the Halloween spirit by warning our kids about the national debt. The piece is headlined “A Child Born Today Comes Into the World With More Debt Than You.” Bloomberg was going to headline the piece, “Kids Worried That Universe Is Closer to Destruction Than When Parents Were Born,” but they decided it would be too scary.

[Bloomberg says]:

Under current law, US inflation-adjusted debt per person is expected to reach the $66,000 milestone by April 2026, based on Bloomberg calculations of Congressional Budget Office and Census Bureau data.

It adds that the debt would be considerably larger as a result of Donald Trump’s tax cuts and slightly larger as a result of Hillary Clinton’s tax and spending programs.

OK, folks, you should be able to guess why this Bloomberg piece is a silly joke. That’s right, it only takes the debt side of the ledger. It’s almost impossible to exaggerate how absurd this is.

It is an absurdity that no business would ever engage in. I suspect that Microsoft has much more debt than the restaurant down my street. If Bloomberg business coverage was like this piece, it would be highlighting Microsoft’s massive debt. Furthermore, it would be warning that Microsoft’s debt is likely to be even larger in a decade. Fortunately, Bloomberg doesn’t report on Microsoft this way, because it has serious business reporters. They would report on Microsoft’s debt in relation to its assets, and its debt service in relation to its revenue or profits. Bloomberg could report on the government debt in this way, but it wouldn’t have the same effect for Halloween.

With Debate Framed for Chopping Safety Net, Lawmakers Denounce 'Measly' Social Security Increase

Described even in corporate media stories as "measly" and "tiny," Social Security's 2017 cost of living adjustment for the over 65 million Americans who rely on the benefits will be a 0.3 percent increase, the federal government announced Tuesday. For the average recipient, that will amount to an increase of less than $4 per month, the Associated Press notes. ...

Nancy Altman, founding co-director of Social Security Works, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), says the way the cost-of-living adjustment is figured, using the Consumer Price Index from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, is flawed. Many organizations who seek to expand Social Security say the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) would be a better measure.

Reacting to Tuesday's adjustment announcement, Sanders said, "Seniors and disabled veterans need more help than a few extra dollars in their monthly checks." ...

As for the presidential candidates' "starkly different views of the program," that's likely to come up Wednesday evening for the third and last presidential debate of 2016.

That's because "entitlement and debt" is among the six topics chosen by debate moderator Chris Wallace.

"While this has a clear meaning to policy wonks," argues economist Dean Baker, "it is likely that most viewers won't immediately know that 'entitlements' means the Social Security and Medicare their parents receive. It's a lot easier for politicians to talk about cutting wasteful 'entitlements' than taking away seniors' Social Security and Medicare."

According to Baker, "Those organizing the debate want to see Social Security and Medicare cut, so they are framing the topic in a way that cuts to these programs will seem like the only reasonable answer."

Worth a full read...

Goldman Sachs Top Lawyer Is Part of a Secret Banking Cabal as CEO Blankfein Denies One Exists

There’s a new mantra making the rounds of Washington and Wall Street. No matter how big the lie you’re caught in, no matter how much documented evidence exists against you, just deny, deny, deny. That’s how Democratic National Committee Interim Chair Donna Brazile handled the email released by WikiLeaks showing that she leaked a debate question to Hillary Clinton; that’s how Hillary Clinton handled revelations about sending classified government material over an unclassified server in the basement of her home; and that’s how Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is handling the widespread public perception that there’s a banking cabal meeting in secret to plot its continued dominance over the interests of the average U.S. citizen.

Yesterday, CNBC’s David Faber interviewed Blankfein and asked about the suggestion that Donald Trump had made on October 13 in a speech in West Palm Beach, Florida that there is an international banking conspiracy undermining the sovereignty of the United States. Faber asked Blankfein: “So am I to take it that you weren’t meeting in secret with international banks and Hillary Clinton to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty?” Blankfein responded: “We could parse that clause by clause, but to every clause, the answer is no, we weren’t doing it. We weren’t meeting in secret and we certainly weren’t plotting destruction.”

The first half of Blankfein’s answer is flatly false and he knows it. The big Wall Street banks do meet in secret and have been doing it for decades. His own General Counsel, Gregory Palm, part of the Management Committee at Goldman Sachs, is part of the secret cabal.

Just five days before Blankfein made his false denial, Bloomberg News’ reporters Greg Farrell and Keri Geiger had landed the bombshell report that the top lawyers of the biggest Wall Street banks had been meeting secretly for two decades with their counterparts at international banks. ... The Bloomberg report indicates that the meetings are secret and that this is the first time their existence has been reported to the public. ... Secret summits that are by invitation-only, have no boards or bylaws, no public minutes would certainly appear to be both violations of anti trust law as well as fueling the public perception of conspiratorial meetings.

Wells Fargo under criminal investigation in California over sales practices scandal

California’s attorney general is conducting a criminal investigation into whether employees at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo bank committed identity theft in the sales practices scandal that has rocked the bank, documents released on Wednesday show.

A search warrant and supporting affidavit released by the California department of justice show that agents sought evidence related to allegations that bank employees created up to 2m bank and credit card accounts without customers’ approval in order to meet sales goals. ...

Copies obtained by the Associated Press under a public records request show her office sought the names of customers who had accounts opened without their permission, the names of employees who opened the accounts and their managers, and fees associated with the improperly opened accounts.

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer Says Top Priority for Next Year Is Giant Corporate Tax Cut

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, likely to be majority leader next year if Democrats take back the Senate, told CNBC Tuesday that one of his top two 2017 priorities would be an enormous corporate tax cut.

Speaking of himself in the third person, Schumer said that “we’ve got to get things done. … The two things that come, that pop to mind — because Schumer, Clinton, and Ryan have all said they support these — are immigration and some kind of international tax reform tied to a large infrastructure program.” ...

Revenue-starved Democratic leaders have broadly hinted they are prepared to cave, either for a “holiday” period or permanently. ...

Hillary Clinton has not publicly supported such a plan. However, during a private October 13, 2014, speech to the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, Clinton told the audience that “A number of business leaders have been talking to my husband and me about an idea that would allow the repatriation of the couple trillion dollars that are out there. And you would get a lower rate — a really low rate — if you were willing to invest a percentage in an infrastructure bank.”

A Peek Into the Clinton Campaign in Damage Control Mode, From the Podesta Emails

When Hillary Clinton ame under attack last February for her 2001 vote in favor of a bankruptcy bill that made it more difficult for poor people to discharge their debts, she defended herself by saying she did it for women and children. ...

[Clinton responded to being confronted by a 2004 Bill Moyers video interview with Elizabeth Warren]:

“I was deluged by women’s groups and children’s advocates groups to do everything I could to make sure that child support and women’s precarious financial situation in case of divorce or not being able to get the kind of funding they needed from a partner or a spouse in bankruptcy would not be endangered,”she said. “So I did go to work on behalf of all these women’s groups and children’s groups because they needed a champion. And I got that bill changed.”

But behind the scenes, her campaign soon discovered they had a problem on their hands: They couldn’t find evidence of pressure from women’s and childrens’ groups in favor of the bill — because there was none. Those groups were in fact ferociously opposed. So the Clinton team went into damage control mode, trying to back the candidate up — without compounding the mistake, but without admitting it, either.

The emails that describe their response are among thousands of emails posted by Wikileaks over the past week from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account.

[See article for discussion of email chain. - js]

Marco Rubio Warns Republicans: Don't Talk About Wikileaks

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is warning his fellow Republicans not to talk about the Wikileaks dump of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta, breaking with the example set by Donald Trump.

"I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of Wikileaks," said Rubio in a statement to NBC News. "As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process and I will not indulge it." ...

"I want to warn my fellow Republicans who may want to capitalize politically on these leaks," he said. "Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow it could be us."

Early voting lines are so long, people are fainting.

To the surprise of few and the consternation of many, thousands of voters in Georgia waited for hours to cast their vote during the state’s first two days of early voting. Is this a harbinger of the voting difficulties to come in this election?

In four of the most populous counties in the state, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb, Georgians have been forced to wait for over two hours to vote, and in Gwinnett County at least three people collapsed while waiting in line due to heat exhaustion. ...

In 2011, Georgia reduced early voting from 45 days prior to the election to only 21. And in this election cycle Gwinnett County currently has only one early voting location. Cobb County has only two voting locations. As we get closer to the election more polling locations are supposed to open up. But, until then, no one should be surprised about the large turnout of early voters. Especially considering that early voting days have been cut by more than half and that polling locations are few and far between.

These new voting regulations and restrictions are anti-democratic. The images of Georgians waiting for hours to vote three weeks before the election demonstrates not only the significance of this election, but the effectiveness of Georgia’s voter suppression methods.

Madonna pledges oral sex for Clinton voters

“If you vote for Hillary Clinton,” Madonna told the crowd at Madison Square Garden, “I will give you a blow job.”

“And I’m good,” the 58-year-old “Like a Virgin” singer, an outspoken supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, said to cheers from the audience.

“I’m not a tool. I take my time,” Madonna boasted.

Feds: Only Those Committed to Destroying Planet Can Bid on Fossil Fuel Leases

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Wednesday rejected land leases purchased at public auction in February by climate activist and author Terry Tempest Williams, refunding William's payment and revoking the leases because the environmentalist publicly vowed to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

"We are disappointed in the agency's decision to hold us to a different standard than other lessees," Williams and her husband, Brooke Williams, responded to the BLM's decision in a statement. "The agency claims that it cannot issue the leases because we did not commit to developing them. The BLM has never demanded that a lease applicant promise to develop the lease before it was issued. In fact, a great many lessees maintain their leases undeveloped for decades, thereby blocking other important uses of the lands such as conservation and recreation."

Williams payed $2,500 ($1,680 plus a $820 processing fee) for 1,120 acres of federal land in rural Utah back in February as part of a climate action in which 100 environmentalists disrupted a fossil fuel auction, calling attention to the Obama administration's continued leasing of public lands for oil and gas drilling even as the climate crisis worsens.

Officers Withdrawn from North Dakota Following Arrest of Madison Elected Official

Alliance of 600,000 British Doctors Calls for 'Imperative' Coal Phase-Out

A coalition representing Britain's 600,000 doctors and health workers on Wednesday called for a rapid phase-out of coal, saying it was an "imperative" measure and that climate change and air pollution were both "major health threats."

"Ending the use of coal is a simple, no-regrets public health intervention. The rapid phase-out of coal fired stations is an imperative first step. Coal is the most carbon-intensive source of power generation, and is a key focus for reducing the risks of climate change," the U.K. Health Alliance on Climate Change said in a report.

"Climate change and air pollution are both major health threats," the report, A Breath of Fresh Air, states. "They share a common driver: the combustion of fossil fuels. Pollution from coal plants alone costs the U.K. as much as £3.1bn [roughly $3.8bn] each year in human health impacts."

Pollution also disproportionately impacts children and can cause diseases ranging from lung cancer to stroke, killing 40,000 people a year in the country. In a press release (pdf) for the report, Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health fellow Jonathan Griggs calls it the "silent killer," and notes that the phasing out of coal would constitute a "double win for tackling the twin health threats of air pollution and climate change."

Although the U.K. government promised almost a year ago that it would phase out coal by 2025, the groups raised concerns over the seeming lack of preparation to do so, with no consultation documents published since the plan was announced, the groups note.

The Debates Are Over, and No One Asked About Climate Change

Climate change—or, more accurately, climate disruption—is the greatest existential threat of our time. It threatens the economy, national security and health, exacerbates poverty and racism, and threatens to undermine or compound virtually all other issues discussed on the stage tonight. ...

Despite this, and despite the fact that the world has endured 16 consecutive months of record-breaking heat, not one of the debate moderators saw fit to ask about it in any of 2016’s general election debates.

Making this omission even worse: In the 2012 presidential debates, there were zero questions about climate change as well. Indeed, it was not even mentioned by either Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama. In over eight hours of presidential debates spanning four years, there were only four utterances of the term “climate change” on the most important political stage. All by Hillary Clinton, all in passing. All entirely unsolicited.

Also of Interest

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

Is Disclosure of Podesta’s Emails a Step Too Far? A Conversation With Glenn Greenwald and Naomi Klein

Rigged

WikiLeaks says Kerry pressured Ecuador on leaks; State Dept. denies

Extreme Unction: Illusions of Democracy in Vegas

A Perpetual Killing Field in the Worst Place on Earth

How war dehumanises everyone it touches

The sharing economy is creating a Dickensian world

Inside the Secret Society of Wall Street's Top In-House Lawyers

A possible ninth planet may be the reason for a tilt in our solar system

Even Stephen Hawking is unsure about what AI means for us

A Little Night Music

Cash McCall - We've Come A Long Way Together

Cash McCall - You Mean Everything To Me

Cash McCall - That Lucky Old Sun

Cash McCall - You Ain't Too Cool

Cash McCall - It's Wonderful (To Be In Love)

Cash McCall - Let's Try It Over

Cash McCall - I Can't Quit You Baby

Cash McCall - S.O.S.

Cash McCall - When You Wake Up

Cash McCall - Don't Change on Me