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This evening's music features the half-brother of Big Bill Broonzy, singer and washboard player Washboard Sam. Enjoy!

“I believe that the progressive supporters of the war have confused a ‘just cause’ with a ‘just war.’ There are unjust causes, such as the attempt of the United States to establish its power in Vietnam, or to dominate Panama or Grenada, or to subvert the government of Nicaragua. And a cause may be just–getting North Korea to withdraw from South Korea, getting Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, or ending terrorism–but it does not follow that going to war on behalf of that cause, with the inevitable mayhem that follows, is just.”

-- Howard Zinn

News and Opinion

Putting the ISIS ‘Crisis’ in Context

“Islamic terrorism wants to destroy our way of life,” Jeb Bush declared. “They have declared war on us, and we need to declare war on them.” Chris Christie intoned, “Our nation is under siege. What I believe we’re facing is the next world war.” Ted Cruz proclaimed, “This nation needs a wartime president. … Our enemies are at war with us.”

This approach disregards what the very incidents that have aroused the fears to which these candidates are appealing tell us about the sources of international terrorism in the West and what determines its extent and severity. It disregards the true nature of any connection between strongholds of extremist groups in the Middle East and terrorism carried out on other continents. ...

The most that one can say so far about ISIS and the attacks in the West to which it has been “linked” is that it served in some way as an inspiration. Or more accurately, it served as the sort of larger cause on behalf of which even people who are driven by more parochial grievances and inward demons like to be associated as they carry out their violent acts. ...

ISIS and its enclave certainly constitute a significant security problem in the Middle East and specifically for Syria and Iraq. But that is a problem distinct from, and should not be conflated with, the countering of terrorist threats in the United States. It would be a big mistake to let a surge of fear about such threats, let alone opportunistic political exploitation of such fear, drive the making of policy on Syria and Iraq.

Any use of military force in that theater ought to be guided instead by lessons from recent experience that are almost too obvious to need restating. One of those lessons is that the toppling or ouster of an undesirable regime or quasi-regime does not necessarily end a security problem but merely marks the start of a new phase of a war.

Another is that as long as there is not the will and the consensus among local populations to form a new and stable alternative political order, the resulting disorder only works to the advantage of extremist groups.

"I Don't Want to Die. This War Is Not My War": A Syrian in France's Largest Refugee Camp Speaks Out

Syria's 'Capital of the Revolution' Returns to Government Control Under a Rare Truce

Hundreds of residents and rebels were being bussed out of the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday, returning it to full government control, under a rare local ceasefire agreement.

The United Nations-backed ceasefire has been more than two years in the making and will see about 750 people leave during the day from the besieged neighborhood of Waer for rebel-held areas in the Hama and Idlib provinces.

Priority will be given to women, children and the severely wounded said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), citing sources on the ground. But the evacuation will also include scores of fighters and their weapons who reject the truce, he said, among them a small group from al Qaeda's Syria wing, the al Nusra Front.

Homs became known as the "capital of the revolution" for being a center of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011.

An interesting article about what Obama and the US neocons are up to with their best friends the Saudi head choppers and dictator wannabe Erdogan:

Destroying Syria to Create Sunnistan

What is the connection between the US bombing of a Syrian military base in Ayyash, Syria, and the Turkish invasion of northern Iraq?

Both of these seemingly isolated events are part of a larger plan to Balkanize the Middle East, to strengthen Washington’s grip on dwindling resources, to draw Russia into a costly and protracted war, and to ensure that ME oil remains denominated in US dollars. Author Joseph Kishore summed it up like this in a recent post at the World Socialist Web Site. He said:

“The basic force behind the war in Syria is the same as that which has motivated the imperialist carve-up of the Middle East as a whole: the interests of international finance capital. The major imperialist powers know that if they are to have a say in the division of the booty, they must have also done their share of the killing.” (“The new imperialist carve-up of the Middle East“, World Socialist Web Site)

Bingo. Ultimately, the war on terror is a public relations fig leaf designed to conceal Washington’s attempt to rule the world. It’s impossible to make sense of goings-on around the globe without some grasp of how seemingly random acts of violence and terror fit within the broader and more comprehensive geopolitical strategy to create a new unipolar world order, to crush all emerging rivals, and to extend US full-spectrum-dominance across the planet.

Let’s look at the particulars: On Sunday, US warplanes bombed a Syrian military base east of Raqqa killing three Syrian soldiers and wounding thirteen others. The incident took place in the village of Ayyash in Deir Ezzor Province. Coalition spokesman US Colonel Steve Warren denied US involvement in the deadly raid despite the fact that the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed ‘that the air strike hit the military camp’. According to the observatory, ‘This is the first time that a strike from the US-led coalition killed Syrian government troops.’ Warren’s denial, which is the reflexive Pentagon response to any claim of culpability, suggests that the attack was a deliberate provocation intended to trigger retaliatory strikes from Russia that would, in turn, justify a larger commitment of US troops and weaponry to the 4 and a half year-long Syrian war. Whether the airstrikes got the greenlight from the White House or from rogue elements acting independently at the Pentagon is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the attack on Syrian troops, a full 30 miles from their designated target, was no mistake. It’s also worth noting, that according to South Front military analysis, the US bombing raid coincided with a “a full-scale ISIS offensive on the villages of Ayyash and Bgelia.” In other words, the US attack provided sufficient air-cover for ISIS terrorists to carry out their ground operations.

Was that part of the plan or was it merely a coincidence?

There's some interesting history in this article. Here's a taste:

Why Syria’s Options Are So Bad

Syria may be a dictatorship today, but it didn’t necessarily have to be that way. Syria had a brief tryst with democracy in the early years of its independence from French colonial rule after World War II, but that experiment was quickly snuffed out by American interference.

In 1949, before the birth of the CIA, two U.S. secret agents, Stephen Meade and Miles Copeland – both later CIA officers – helped the Syrian military pull off a coup. That coup triggered a series of coups and countercoups, with the U.S. frequently changing sides.

Then in 1956, with Syria moving closer to Egypt and its president Gamal Abdel Nasser, with his ideas of neutralism and a pan-Arab United Arab Republic that Cold War America could not bear, President Dwight Eisenhower initiated Project Wakeful, an unsuccessful covert action for regime change in Syria, to be followed by Operation Wappen in 1957, which failed just as badly: the CIA agents were caught in the act and thrown out of Syria. [See John Prados, Safe
for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, p.163-4.]

So, the U.S. government played a role in preventing popular democracy from taking root in Syria. Instead, Syrian authoritarianism was preserved. However, even as a dictatorship, Syria could have become something of an ally. But Washington prevented that too.

[See article for more.]

Israel Key Link in Exporting ISIS Oil

Iraq Claims to Have Captured 60% of Ramadi

Though the official Pentagon statement only confirmed gains along the outskirts, Iraq’s military is claiming they’ve captured some 60% of the Anbar Province capital city of Ramadi, believing they’ll retake the entire city in short order.

Iraq’s Joint Military Command said the 60% included the former military headquarters in northern Ramadi, as well as other portions of the city’s south and west. They reported dozens of ISIS fighters killed, but refused to comment on casualties among Iraqi troops.

Afghanistan security 'undermined by efforts to crush Pakistani militants'

Afghan president says ‘unintended consequence’ of action against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan was that Afghanistan was now full of foreign jihadis

The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani said operations against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in the wake of last year’s killing of more than 130 schoolchildren in the city of Peshawar had created “unintended consequences” and additional security challenges for his country.

He said Afghan special forces had been forced to launch more than 40 operations against the TTP and that the country was now a hotbed of international jihadis. “Al-Qaida, Daesh [Isis] and terrorists from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Middle East are all, unfortunately, present on our soil,” he said.

Afghanistan’s enduring security crisis was highlighted once again on the eve of Ghani’s arrival in Islamabad when dozens were killed during a Taliban attack on Kandahar airport, a major civilian and military hub in the country’s south. The upsurge of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan that followed the revelation in late July that the movement’s former leader, Mullah Omar, had died more than two years before has proved a major setback to efforts by Ghani to improve ties with Pakistan.

He had hoped, that in return for a series of concessions, Islamabad would use its influence to broker talks with Taliban representatives. But the succession dispute within the Taliban triggered by news of Omar’s death ensured only one such meeting was ever held. The spike in insurgent attacks heaped pressure on Ghani not to continue engaging with an eastern neighbour many Afghans believe supports the rebels.

Yemen Announces Ceasefire for Next Week’s Peace Talks

Pro-Saudi Yemeni leader Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi has announced there will be a week-long ceasefire, beginning on December 15 and going through December 21, meant to coincide with planned UN peace talks. The Shi’ite Houthis have also agreed to the deal, if the Saudi airstrikes stop as well.

Ceasefires in Yemen are always a dicey proposition, and both sides are likely to be very tentative in the early hours. Hadi’s faction captured the city of Aden, their temporary capital city, in July when they dishonored a week-long ceasefire in the first few hours.

Putin: 'foreign experts' will examine black box from jet shot down by Turkey

Moscow has recovered the black box of the Russian jet downed by Turkey and will analyse it with foreign specialists, President Vladimir Putin has said.

“I ask you not to open it for the time being,” Putin told Sergei Shoigu at a meeting where the defence minister received the black box, Russian news agencies reported.

“Open it only together with foreign experts, carefully determine everything.” ...

Shoigu said the territory where the Russian jet was shot down had been “liberated” by Syrian special forces, allowing them to recover the black box from what had been a rebel-held area.

Putin said an analysis of the black box would help determine the downed jet’s flight path and position, which Ankara and Moscow have furiously disagreed upon.

The IMF Joins the New Cold War

The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century. In the past, it has been able to take the lead in organizing bailout packages for governments by getting other creditor nations – headed by the United States, Germany and Japan – to participate. The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments. ...

But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). When IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would use the proceeds to step up his nation’s civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the East – the Donbass. ...

Ukraine has refused to pay not only private-sector bondholders, but the Russian Government as well.

This should have blocked Ukraine from receiving further IMF aid. ... Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that recently cut off Crimea’s electricity. ...

By doing so, it announced its new policy: “We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies.” This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit.

Special offer: IMF propping up Ukraine, changing rules on money lending

Ukraine conflict has left more than 9,000 dead, says UN

More than 9,000 people have died in 21 months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, even as a new ceasefire has largely held and contributed to a sharp decline in casualties since mid-August, according to the UN.

A report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said 9,098 people including combatants and civilians have died in the conflict since April last year. The total is up from 7,883 in the previous quarterly report released in September. More than 20,000 have been injured, up from 17,610.

Gianni Magazzeni, a senior UN official involved in the report, said the increases were due to counts made by the Ukrainian interior and defence ministries, not numbers killed between the two reports. “We tried to bring the figures … in line with available information at the present time,” he said.

Meanwhile, the empire brags about its love for the Ukrainian fascists:

US Troops Show Solidarity with Ukraine Through Training

The U.S. School That Trains Dictators and Death Squads

House Votes Overwhelmingly to Tighten Visa Restrictions for US Visitors

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to tighten restrictions on travel to the United States by citizens of the 38 nations who are allowed to enter the country without obtaining a visa.

The bill, the second major piece of security legislation approved in the chamber since the November 13 Paris attacks, passed by 407 to 19.

Among other things, the measure would require visitors from the visa waiver countries, which include much of western Europe, to obtain a visa to travel to the United States if they had been to Syria, Iraq, Iran, or Sudan during the past five years.

'The illusion of security': No-fly list draws scrutiny from left and right

As Obama calls for a ban on gun purchases by those on the terrorist watch list, even staunch gun-control advocates raise concerns about a document that has mistakenly included leading politicians, military veterans and babies

Closing the No-Fly List loophole is a no-brainer. #DoSomething pic.twitter.com/UzbNQbUnor

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 8, 2015

On the surface, it seems sound logic to prevent weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. Yet there are many on both the left and right of the political spectrum who question the president’s faith in the no-fly list. Even some diehard opponents of private gun ownership suggest that Obama has chosen the wrong line of attack.

Drawn up by the FBI in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the no-fly list is widely held in disrepute. It contains 700,000 names, according to one estimate, and has mistakenly included infants, US military veterans and politicians including Edward Kennedy and John Lewis. Critics describe it as unwieldy, unfocused and unlikely to achieve its aims – a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

“The public can’t have any confidence in the list itself,” said Tim Sparapani, a privacy consultant at SPQR Strategies. “It should be a very small list of people with the means, motive and opportunity to create havoc with travel. It seems to have been hastily assembled and not properly scrubbed.” ...

“It cannot be effective because there is no sense of due process for individuals to get on and off the list,” Sparapani continued. “Any list that’s had as many reported problems as this one calls into question how useful it is.” ...

Until the list is fixed, opponents hold, it should not be used to curb freedoms. “It’s better for the government to focus on known terrorists and have a tiny list than have a bloated list that comprises hundreds of thousands of individuals and diverts attention and resources away from the target,” Sparapani added. “It is the illusion of security without the enhancement.”

Canada Launches Inquiry Into Murdered Aboriginal Women and Opens the Door to Repealing 'Racist' Indian Act

Speaking in front of representatives of indigenous communities from across Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised "nothing less than a total renewal of the relationship between Canada and First Nations Peoples."...

But while Trudeau reiterated five campaign promises, aimed at rebooting that strained relationship, his government wasn't ready to commit to reforming the legislation that governs Ottawa's relationship with many Aboriginals across the country — the Indian Act.

Of those commitments that the government did make on Tuesday, all five were met with raucous applause from the regional chiefs.

The most immediate was the commitment to launch an inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women that will aim to address the root causes, societal factors, government failings, and general circumstances that have contributed to, as Trudeau phrased it on Tuesday morning, that "national tragedy" of violence against indigenous women. ...

Aboriginal women in Canada are six times more likely to be the victim of murder than non-Aboriginal Canadians, according to Statistics Canada. Given that Aboriginal men are even more likely to be murdered than non-Aboriginal men, calls have also been made to expand the inquiry for all Aboriginals, not just women.

Supreme court ruling against affirmative action would be 'devastating' – activists

In late 2013, student frustration at the University of Michigan over the decline in the school’s black student population boiled over, when activists launched the “Being Black at the University of Michigan” (BBUM) campaign. Black enrollment at the institution has dropped from 7% in 2006 to about 4.5% this year.

And despite race-neutral efforts to recruit minorities, African American students on campus say the school’s recruitment of minorities has fallen short since the state banned affirmative action through a ballot initiative in 2006.

As the US supreme court considers a challenge to the use of race in admissions Wednesday, academics and experts are pointing to the University of Michigan as an example of the challenges of admissions without consideration of race. ...

The case the justices will hear Wednesday involves a years-long challenge by Abigail Fisher, a white student from Texas who was denied admission to the state university’s Austin campus in 2008. Fisher has argued the university’s policy of considering race in its admissions policy violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

As Footage of Police Violence Is Made Public, Pressure Builds on Chicago Officials

The Chicago Police Department has an extensive and troubling legacy of violence. Over the last five years, Chicago officers have fatally shot 70 people, more than any other big-city police department in the U.S., according to the Better Government Association, a watchdog group in Illinois. “The Chicago victims were nearly all male,” wrote the BGA’s Andrew Schroedter. “Most were black. More than half of the killings occurred in six South Side police districts.”

Earlier this year, an investigation by The Guardian uncovered a so-called black site, Homan Square, where police tortured multiple black Chicagoans. And in May, Chicago became the first city in the country  to create a reparations fund for victims of police torture, earmarking $5.5 million for victims of former police commander Jon Burge, who ran a gang within the department that inflicted tactics including electrocuting the testicles of men in custody, and cutting off their oxygen flow with plastic bags.

Considering the overwhelming record of abuse, many protestors remain dissatisfied with the dismissal of a few figures within the law enforcement apparatus, and are pushing for the resignation of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, the city’s top prosecutor. ...

Alvarez has been defensive of police conduct in the past. During a cringeworthy 2012 interview on 60 Minutes — the segment was titled “Chicago: The false confession capital” — Alvarez stood by police in two infamous cases in which black men were coerced into giving false testimony and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. ...

Along with protestors, some political figures have joined in questioning Alvarez’s ability to hold law enforcement accountable.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Commissioner Jesus Garcia, and U.S. Congressman Luis Gutierrez — who recently endorsed Alvarez for reelection — have all turned against her. Preckwinkle and Garcia explicitly called for her resignation, while Gutierrez withdrew his support.

New Poll Shows Majority of Chicagoans Want Rahm Gone

Fifty-one percent of Chicago voters want to see Mayor Rahm Emanuel resign from his post, a new survey has found.

The survey, commissioned by local newsletter The Insider and published on Tuesday, found that a scant 18 percent of respondents approve of how the mayor is handling his job while a full 67 percent disapprove.

The one-day poll, conducted on Saturday by the Chicago firm Ogden & Fry, surveyed the climate in Chicago as the city was still reeling from the scandal surrounding the October 2014 police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald and the alleged attempt to bury footage of the incident.

@donnabrazile @CNN let's discuss failures of @RahmEmanuel #ResignRahm #RahmMustGo & his cover up, call out DEMS too pic.twitter.com/xvdULzFLrM

— Lindamarie (@Linda1746) November 29, 2015

Bernie Sanders refuses to answer questions about ISIS. Bad move?

Bernie Sanders really, really wants to talk about poverty and inequality and the US economy, to the exclusion of other top issues.

That’s become increasingly apparent since the Paris terrorist attacks and mass shootings in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino, Calif., have raised foreign policy and guns on the national agenda.

Take Tuesday’s appearance by Senator Sanders (I) of Vermont at the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested and riots erupted after Mr. Gray’s death last spring.

After touring the area, Sanders mentioned the devastating poverty and rundown housing he had seen. He said the landscape resembled that of a “third world country. ...

But the Baltimore Sun noted that his words were partly overshadowed by a verbal spat with reporters over the subject of the Islamic State.

Prior to the press conference, a Sanders aide said that subject was off-limits, due to the nature and setting of the West Baltimore tour. Reporters being reporters, they ignored that dictum and asked about IS anyway.

Sanders “appeared agitated and ended the press conference,” according to the Sun’s John Fritze.

Obama's "Legacy of Inaction" on Campaign Finance Reform Exposed

As the 2016 presidential campaign season hits full stride with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in from outside funding groups, democracy reformers are zeroing in on the one person they say could stem the flow of money into electoral politics: U.S. President Barack Obama.

"President Obama has no one to blame but himself for his failing legacy on money in politics," said Kurt Walters, campaign manager at Rootstrikers, a project of the national grassroots group Demand Progress that focuses on the corrupting influence of anonymous, unlimited political spending. "It's cynical even by Washington standards—Obama has said for six years that he's outraged at Citizens United but hasn't bothered to do anything to combat the decision's effects."

Both on the campaign trail and in the halls of Congress, Obama has repeatedly denounced the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling. During his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama lambasted the justices over the decision, saying that it would "open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections."

However, according to a report (pdf) published by Rootstrikers on Tuesday, the president has failed to live up to this rhetoric and instead has only enabled the unprecedented flow of money into the current election cycle. 

Britain Really, Really Hates Donald Trump

Nothing unites British people more than contempt for a perceived idiot. And that's exactly what happened overnight on Tuesday, with an outpouring of scorn, then fury, for US presidential candidate Donald Trump following his latest bigoted comments.

By Wednesday morning around six people a second were signing a UK government petition to ban Trump from the UK for hate speech after he proposed a blanket ban on Muslims entering the US during a speech aboard an aircraft carrier on Monday. 

The government must respond to any petition that gains more than 10,000 signatures, and when one gains more than 100,000 signatures — which the Trump petition reached just after midday, within 22 hours of being posted — it is considered for debate in parliament.

.@jk_rowling He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! #Voldetrump pic.twitter.com/NjFYBITwP1

— Decider (@decider) December 8, 2015

Could US Legally Bar Muslims From Country?

"It violates the Constitution. It’s discrimination on the basis of religion, which is prohibited by the Constitution," said Suzanna Sherry, a professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

Trump's plan is "a troubling proposal," also potentially breeching the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, said Kevin R. Johnson, dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis. "It’s really amazing in its breadth and hostile in its unconstitutionality."

"Our entire legal and regulatory system is based on nondiscriminatory policy," said Jonathan Turley. The George Washington University legal scholar wrote in his blog Tuesday that Trump’s call for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the United States "would violate a host of domestic and international protections." And, he told VOA, "Instead of being a country that has long defended religious freedom, we would become the scourge of religious freedom." ...

"We do not have the best history when it comes to this country,” said UC-Davis’ Johnson, author of "The Huddled Masses Myth," a book about U.S. immigration and civil rights. "In some ways, you could view this as a revival of the now-discredited Chinese exclusion laws."

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first of several legislative maneuvers to block Chinese immigrants. Later, the Immigration Act of 1924 created quotas that favored white Europeans over people from Asia and Africa, a policy curtailed in 1965. In subsequent decades, the U.S. government, fighting Soviet-style communism, welcomed Cubans as political refugees but discouraged Haitians as economic refugees, because "it was important for us to repudiate a communist regime on our doorstep," Akhil Reed Amar, a Yale University law professor said.

Israeli PM to meet Donald Trump despite outcry over call for Muslim ban

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has confirmed he will meet Donald Trump despite an international outcry over the Republican presidential frontrunner’s suggestion that Muslims should be banned from entering the US.

The meeting – scheduled before Trump’s remarks triggered outrage in the US and globally – is due to take place on 28 December and is certain to be controversial in a country where a large minority of Israeli citizens are Muslims of Palestinian origin. Dozens of Israeli MPs have called for the invitation to be rescinded.

Visits by US presidential candidates to Israel are often seen as much a part of their campaigning as stumping in Iowa or New Hampshire. The decision to go ahead with the meeting comes 24 hours after Trump’s comments and after the Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on the Republican’s remarks in light of his planned visit. Trump will not, however, be visiting neighbouring Jordan as had earlier been suggested.

Pentagon: Trump’s Call to Ban Muslims a Threat to National Security

Concerns about politicians looking to dramatically erode civil liberties and concerns about military interference in politics are running up against each other today, as Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook publicly lashed Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump for his call to ban Muslims from the country. ...

It is virtually unheard of for the Pentagon to issue a statement criticizing a politician during election season, particularly a front-runner for president, and even though the statement mostly just echoes what everyone else is saying, it raises concerns about whether the Pentagon is going to be more proactive in defining the acceptable limits of civilian political discourse during the 2016 campaign.

The details of this article are quite amazing, it's worth a full read just to see the depravity and corrupting influence of the merchants of death's enterprise.

Greenpeace exposes sceptics hired to cast doubt on climate science

Sting operation uncovers two prominent climate sceptics available for hire by the hour to write reports on the benefits of rising CO2 levels and coal

An undercover sting by Greenpeace has revealed that two prominent climate sceptics were available for hire by the hour to write reports casting doubt on the dangers posed by global warming.

Posing as consultants to fossil fuel companies, Greenpeace approached professors at leading US universities to commission reports touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal. The views of both academics are well outside mainstream climate science.

The findings point to how paid-for information challenging the consensus on climate science could be placed into the public domain without the ultimate source of funding being revealed.

Naomi Klein Decries Climate Deal as Extraordinarily Dangerous; Backs Defiance of French Protest Ban

The World-Changing Choice Between Sanders and Clinton On The Climate

We’re close to an international climate agreement that most agree will be both a major step forward and insufficient to avert a catastrophe. Energy will quickly turn to what should be our next steps. The rival Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns lay out two possible paths: continued incremental advancement versus ambitious goals and sweeping agendas.

The pragmatic vs. idealistic divide is a hallmark of the Democratic primary and the party itself. But when it comes to the climate, the debate is not a theoretical one. Time is running out, and the path we choose makes, literally, all the difference in the world. ...

Last month Sanders sponsored the “Keep It In The Ground Act” which would “ban future fossil fuel leases on our public lands.” He would ban offshore drilling, Arctic drilling, natural gas fracking, new natural gas pipelines, mountaintop removal coal mining and nuclear power plant license renewals.

Clinton has yet to offer as many details, but what she has released indicates relatively modest goals. Her plan talks up investments in renewables, especially a pledge to install “half a billion solar panels” by the end of her first term. Notably, she doesn’t enumerate any additional federal spending to meet the goal, though she expresses support for more “public investment in clean energy” and a continuation of tax incentives. Her more creative ideas seek to reduce regulatory hurdles, such as “awards for communities that successfully cut the red tape” and knocking down “barriers that prevent low-income and other households from using solar energy to reduce their monthly energy bills.” ...

Asked at a town hall meeting in July about “fossil fuel extraction on public lands,” Clinton responded, “not until we got the alternatives in place … We still have to run the economy, we still have to turn on the lights.” That answer hints at another big difference between the two: Clinton seeks a more gradual transition in hopes of avoiding economic shocks to the system. Sanders hopes to avoid economic complications by pairing his quick, deep carbon pollution cuts with a massive public works investment in clean energy jobs and infrastructure generally.

Bad news, bears: Yellowstone grizzlies poised to lose protection from hunting

State and federal wildlife officials are set to strip grizzly bears of their protection from hunting around Yellowstone national park, with a plan that would remove one of the species’ last populations from the endangered species list.

leaked letter from Dan Ashe, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, to state officials notes there is a “mutually understood process that will allow the Service to proceed with a proposed delisting” for grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region

Yellowstone grizzlies were placed on the federal endangered species list in 1975, at a time when the population had declined to 136. It has now rebounded to between 674 and 839 in counts taken last year, with occupied habitat increasing by more than 50%. ...

Under a plan being considered by the FWS, the bears would be delisted under a number of conditions, including that numbers not be allowed to fall below 600 “unless necessary to address human safety issues”. Allowed mortality rates for the bears would be increased as their numbers grow, with up to 10% of adult females and 22% of adult males allowed to be killed via hunting and other methods if the population exceeds 747.

Also of Interest

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

Turkey’s human wave assault on the West

The Incredible Shrinking President

Why Do They Hate Us? It’s No Mystery

How does Trump do it? Understanding the psychology of a demagogue's rally

Hatred of Israel was reported motive for CA attack, but US press politely ignores the story

Bernie Sanders likens West Baltimore to 'Third World' country

Will Any Presidential Candidate Connect Federal Tax Policy and Police Killings?

Paris Plastered With Wanted Posters For 'Climate Criminals'

A Little Night Music

Washboard Sam - Washboard Swing

Washboard Sam - Diggin' My Potatoes

Washboard Sam - River Hip Mama

Washboard Sam - Ladies Man

Washboard Sam - Evil Blues

Washboard Sam - Who Pumped the Wind in my Doughnut?

Washboard Sam - Maybe You'll Love Me

Washboard Sam - Let Me Play Your Vendor

Washboard Sam - Easy Riding Mama

Washboard Sam - I'm Gonna Keep My Hair Parted

Washboard Sam - Barbecue

Washboard Sam - Back Door

Washboard Sam - Soap And Water Blues

Washboard Sam - All By Myself

Washboard Sam - I Just Couldn't Help it

Washboard Sam - Gonna Hit The Highway

Washboard Sam - Phantom Black Snake

Washboard Sam - The Big Boat