Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features a significant, often overlooked figure in early recorded blues music, Perry Bradford. Enjoy!

“This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.”

-- Winston S. Churchill

News and Opinion

Standing Rock celebrates after Army Corps announces it will look at other routes for Dakota Access Pipeline

Construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline was halted Sunday night after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement that would allow the pipeline to cross beneath Lake Oahe, threatening the water supply of the Standing Rock Indian reservation downstream.

In a statement, the Army Corps said it made the decision because the Sioux tribe in that region of North Dakota — along with hundreds of allied protesters at the site over the past several months — had repeatedly expressed concerns that the pipeline posed a risk to its water and treaty rights. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing,” the statement reads.

The celebrations may be short-lived, however. President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year, and on Thursday his team saidhe supports the pipeline project. The Sioux Tribe said Sunday it hopes the incoming administration respects the decision going forward.

Standing Rock Sioux Chair Hails Army Corps of Engineers Decision to Reroute Dakota Access Pipeline

Trump supports Dakota pipeline – but claims it's not due to his investment in it

Donald Trump has said he supports a controversial oil pipeline that runs next to a Native American reservation in North Dakota – a project that the president-elect is personally invested in.

A briefing from Trump’s transition team said that the real estate magnate supports the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and that his backing “has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans”.

Financial disclosure forms released earlier this year show that Trump has a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, and Phillips 66, which will hold a share of the project once completed. ...

The financial relationship has run both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, gave $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee after the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination.

However, Trump’s transition team dismissed any conflict of interest. “Those making such a claim are only attempting to distract from the fact that president-elect Trump has put forth serious policy proposals he plans to set in motion on day one,” said a briefing note that was sent to campaign supporters.

Mary Sweeters, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, said Trump’s support showed that “crony capitalism will run his administration”.

Tara Houska: Denying #DAPL Permit is "Momentous Occasion," But We Must Remain Vigilant

Bill McKibben: The victory at Standing Rock could mark a turning point

Indigenous organizers are some of the finest organizers around the globe – they’ve been key to everything from the Keystone fight to battling plans for the world’s largest coal mine in Australia. If we manage to slow down the fossil fuel juggernaut before it boils the planet, groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth will deserve a great share of the credit. Right now, for instance, Canada’s First Nations are preparing for “Standing Rock North” along the route of two contested pipelines out of Canada’s tarsands. But in the Dakotas it’s been particularly special: they’ve managed to build not just resistance to a project, but a remarkable new and unified force that will, I think, persist. Persist, perhaps, even in the face of the new Trump administration.

Trump, of course, can try and figure out a way to approve the pipeline right away, though the Obama administration has done its best to make that difficult. (That’s why, instead of an outright denial, they simply refused to grant the permit, thus allowing for the start of the environmental impact statement process). But if Trump decides to do that, he’s up against people who have captured the imagination of the country. Simply spitting on them to aid his friends in the oil industry would clarify a lot about him from the start, which is one reason he may hesitate.

In any event, though, time is measured somewhat differently in the dispute between this continent’s original inhabitants and the late-coming rest of us. For five hundred years, half a millennia, the same grim story has repeated itself over and over again. Today’s news is a break in that long-running story, a new chapter. It won’t set this relationship on an entirely new course – change never comes that easily. But it won’t ever be forgotten, and it will influence events for centuries to come. Standing Rock, like Little Big Horn or Wounded Knee, or for that matter Lexington Green and Concord Bridge, now belongs to our history.

Standing Rock: authorities will retreat from bridge if protesters agree to terms

North Dakota authorities have said they will move away from a key bridge near the main Dakota Access pipeline protest camp by Sunday afternoon if demonstrators agree to certain conditions. ...

Authorities will move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge by 4pm on Sunday, they said, if protesters stay south of the bridge in the Oceti Sakowin camp, where thousands are camped out in protest against the four-state, $3.8bn pipeline, and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting with law enforcement.

Authorities also asked protesters not to remove barriers on the bridge, which they have said was damaged in a late October confrontation that led to several people being hurt, including one serious arm injury. Protesters also are not supposed to walk, ride or fly drones north of the bridge, Laney said.

Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault has been asking for the bridge blockade to be removed, the Bismarck Tribune reported, saying he would to talk to Governor Jack Dalrymple in person. A date for that meeting has not been set.

"Financial Disaster": Could Dakota Access Pipeline Lose Its Contracts with Oil Companies on Jan. 1?

Trump's Advisers Want to Privatize Native Lands for Big Energy: Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump's advisers are aiming to privatize Native American reservations that contain about a fifth of the nation's oil and gas, Reuters reports.

Two chairmen of Trump's Native American Affairs Coalition told the outlet that they want to put those lands into private ownership, a proposal that would upend historic policies put into place to preserve Indigenous sovereignty. The plan would deregulate drilling, which the coalition says would benefit the tribes who currently have the rights to use the land, but do not own it. In addition to holding about 20 percent of the nation's oil and gas, the lands also include vast coal reserves—all worth an estimated $1.5 trillion.

Chair Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, told Reuters, "We should take tribal land away from public treatment. As long as we can do it without unintended consequences, I think we will have broad support around Indian country."

Coming just as Native American water protectors cautiously celebrate a hard-fought victory against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the proposal is another example of Trump's incendiary and divisive policies. Trump has also officially expressed his support for DAPL, making opponents wary that he would reverse any orders that blocked construction on the 1,172-mile project once he gets into office.

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and a member of the Navajo Nation, told Reuters, "Our spiritual leaders are opposed to the privatization of our lands, which means the commoditization of the nature, water, air we hold sacred. Privatization has been the goal since colonization—to strip Native Nations of their sovereignty."

Trump's transition team reportedly did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Washington Post Won’t Retract McCarthyistic Smear

We still don’t have any sort of apology or retraction from the Washington Post for promoting “The List” — the highly dangerous blacklist that got a huge boost from the newspaper’s fawning coverage on Nov. 24. The project of smearing 200 websites with one broad brush wouldn’t have gotten far without the avid complicity of high-profile media outlets, starting with the Post.

On Thursday — a week after the Post published its front-page news article hyping the blacklist that was put out by a group of unidentified people called PropOrNot — I sent a petition statement to the newspaper’s executive editor Martin Baron.

“Smearing is not reporting,” the RootsAction petition says. “The Washington Post’s recent descent into McCarthyism — promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government — violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge the Washington Post to prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it.” ...

The reply came from the newspaper’s vice president for public relations, Kristine Coratti Kelly, who thanked me “for reaching out to us” before presenting the Post’s response, quoted here in full:

“The Post reported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was one. The Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot’s list of organizations that it said had — wittingly or unwittingly — published or echoed Russian propaganda. The Post reviewed PropOrNot’s findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course of multiple interviews.”

... As for the Post vice president’s defensive phrasing that “the Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot’s list,” the fact is that the Post unequivocally promoted PropOrNot, driving web traffic to its site and adding a hotlink to the anonymous group’s 32-page report soon after the newspaper’s story first appeared. As I mentioned in my reply to her: “Unfortunately, it’s kind of like a newspaper saying that it didn’t name any of the people on the Red Channels blacklist in 1950 while promoting it in news coverage, so no problem.”

[See also Naked Capitalism's lawyer has sent a letter to WaPo demanding retraction and apology: We Demand That The Washington Post Retract Its Propaganda Story Defaming Naked Capitalism and Other Sites and Issue an Apology - js]

Isis loses control of Libyan city of Sirte

The drawn-out capture of Sirte, the last major Islamic State (Isis) stronghold in Libya, has been completed after months of fighting and a stubborn resistance by snipers.

Rida Issa, a spokesman for the Misrata brigades, said they had led forces backed by US airstrikes to take the last Isis-held buildings in the city. He said the brigades “control all of Sirte’s Ghiza Bahriya neighbourhood and are still securing the area”.

Isis fighters clinging on in a few dozen buildings in the district had earlier on Monday surrendered to Libyan forces, and at least three women had left militant-held ground, officials said.

In recent days, dozens of women and children had left the last group of buildings controlled by militants, Libyan forces said. But several women carried out deadly suicide attacks on Friday as they were being granted safe passage with their children.

Isis commanders were also captured trying to escape by sea, along with some Tunisian fighters.

The battle for Mosul stalls

The startling progress of the first few weeks of the campaign to take Iraq’s second city, the terror group’s last urban stronghold in Iraq, has given way to a numbing reality: Isis will not surrender Mosul, and Iraq’s battered military will struggle to take it.

Since Iraqi forces entered Gogali, a light industrial neighbourhood, in mid-November, the advance has slowed. “When we started, we were talking weeks,” said Hussein. “Now, we hope it will be by early in the new year. But these guys are not cowards. They kill as easy as they breathe.”

Forces deployed beyond nominal frontlines, marked by heaped piles of dirt, are around five miles from the Nour mosque, where the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself the leader of a caliphate nearly 30 months ago. But every street and sector towards the mosque – a highly symbolic target of the fight – is claiming an increasing toll in blood and treasure.

Car bombs – of the type that ravaged the dozens of humvees in the makeshift wrecking yards – continue to take a withering toll on the US-supplied vehicles, which form the staple of the Iraqi military’s armour.

The toll they are taking on morale is more difficult to gauge. Iraqi troops stationed in Gogali and the roads leading to it insist they will win the war, no matter how long it takes. Some however concede that they could still be fighting in Mosul’s tunnels and alleyways as late as next summer.

UN Agrees to Stop Reporting Iraqi Casualties After Military Complains

Following complaints from the Iraqi government, the United Nations has agreed to stop recording casualty figures for the ISIS war in Iraq, meaning that November’s report of 1,959 deaths among Iraqi security forces will be the last deaths you’ll be hearing about from them.

Iraqi Army officials claimed the figure was an “exaggeration,” though they’ve offered no death tolls of their own for the fighting. They further accused the UN report of hurting morale by making the death toll known.

Fearing Loss of CIA Backing, Syria Rebels Turn to al-Qaeda, Saudis

President-elect Donald Trump has been very clear since elected that he intends to shift US policy in Syria, saying he fully expects to end the CIA’s program of arming “moderate” rebels, noting that the US doesn’t know who these groups really are, and saying he wants to focus on fighting ISIS.

The rebels have been listening, and with the possible loss of the CIA gravy train that’s been keeping them at least semi-relevant throughout the civil war, the groups are looking for the Saudis to make up the difference, and also looking to get even closer to al-Qaeda.

Despite the US pretense of these groups being “vetted moderates,” most of the rebels are already plenty close with al-Qaeda, with some portions of the Free Syrian Army operating as little more than an auxiliary wing of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, funneling US arms through nominal moderates to the Islamists.

US Furious at UN Over Differing Afghan War Reports

15 years into the Afghan War, Pentagon statements are almost never the final word on what happened. False denials and upbeat predictions that never pan out have left US credibility incredibly low. Time and again, UN reports have contradicted the official US narrative, only to be proven correct, to the embarrassment of the occupation forces.

Patience appears to be wearing thin after 15 years of inconvenient truth getting in the way of the military’s version of events, with both UN and US officials saying relations between the two are “a nightmare,” and that the latest US commander, Gen. John Nicholson, has been considering a serious crackdown on the UN, even recently considering expelling all UN personnel from a military base within Kabul.

The disagreement was a common enough one. US drones had killed a bunch of civilians in the Nangarhar Province, and the Pentagon declared that everyone they killed was ISIS. Locals disputed the US version of events, and the UN concurred that the victims in the house the US blew up were indeed civilians.

Beijing grits teeth in face of Trump's tweets

China shows restraint as it tries to work out if US president-elect is being deliberately confrontational or just out of his depth

Donald Trump’s tweaking of Chinese noses is growing more provocative following Beijing’s criticism of his controversial phone conversation last week with Taiwan’s normally off-limits leader. The US president-elect’s latest intervention, conveyed via Twitter rather than diplomatic channels, includes complaints about China’s regional military buildup and alleged currency manipulation.

China’s official reaction has so far been restrained, but teeth are being firmly gritted in Beijing. Like the rest of the world, Xi Jinping’s government has not yet decided whether Trump is being deliberately confrontational or is simply out of his depth. Beijing initially blamed the Taiwanese for “tricking” Trump into talking to President Tsai Ing-wen – the first acknowledged contact at this level for nearly 40 years. But it has emerged that Tsai kept quiet about the call, expecting it to remain private (as has been usual in the past). It was Trump who bragged about it in public, embarrassing the Chinese.

During the election campaign Trump criticised China’s trade practices as unfair and, like the Obama administration, objected to island-building in disputed areas of the South China Sea deemed illegal by a UN court ruling. But he has also, at times, adopted a more conciliatory, realpolitik stance.

Puzzling over this Jekyll and Hyde act, China is hoping Trump the pragmatic deal-maker will eclipse Trump the hostile rabble-rouser. “For us, for China, we do not comment on his personality. We focus on his policies, especially his policies toward China,” Lu Kang, foreign ministry spokesman, said on Monday. China wanted a “sound and stable relationship [that] accords with the joint interests of both peoples”.

Trump’s Taiwan Phone Call Planned All Along

After Friday’s “hysteria” about President-elect Donald Trump having “blundered” in having a phone call with Taiwan’s president, officials with his incoming government are revealing that the plan was no accident, and had been planned for a long time.

Officials claimed “months of discussion” on the matter, with Trump intending the phone call, the first since President Jimmy Carter cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979, as a deliberately provocative move that sought to underscore his intention to break with tradition.

US relations, and ultimately lack thereof, with Taiwan are a long and complicated story, starting with the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty of 1955, in which the US government recognized the Taiwan-based “Republic of China” (ROC) as the rightful government of mainland China as well as Taiwan, and pledging continued support for them.

The ROC retained this status, and indeed China’s position at the UN Security Council, and the US had no ties with the Chinese government (PRC) until Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China. In 1978, China announced the “united front” policy with the US, which aligned them against the Soviet Union, supporting US operations in Afghanistan, and attacking Vietnam. Eager to reward the PRC for this move, President Carter cut ties with Taiwan’s ROC outright.

Trump is ignoring the Constitution with his pick for secretary of defense

President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint retired Marine General James Mattis as his secretary of defense is proving reassuring to an anxious foreign policy community, even as some worry that the move threatens the longstanding tradition of civilian control of the military. ...

If he assumes the role, Mattis will be the first recently retired military officer to head the Pentagon since George Marshall, more than 60 years ago, something that leaves some observers of civilian-military relations uneasy. By law, a retired military officer has to be out of uniform for seven years to take the job, or else receive a waiver from Congress. ...

Civilian control of the military is inscribed in the Constitution, and it’s rooted in the belief that democratic governance benefits from an independent decision-making structure over military affairs. Civilian leaders help ensure that military decisions are more directly responsible to the public, and that military officials remain insulated from the whims of popular opinion.

“You can’t have a republic, and you can’t have democracy, and you can’t have liberty, if the least democratic institution in society is running society,” said Richard H. Kohn, a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has studied civilian control issues.

Apparently the US Senate cannot distinguish the difference between a nation-state and an ethnicity.

Senate Responds to Trump-Inspired Anti-Semitism By Targeting Students Who Criticize Israel

After Donald Trump's election emboldened white supremacists and inspired a wave of anti-Semitic hate incidents across the country, the Senate on Thursday took action by passing a bill aimed at limiting the free-speech rights of college students who express support for Palestinians.

By unanimous consent, the Senate quietly passed the so-called Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, only two days after it was introduced by Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.

A draft of the bill obtained by The Intercept encourages the Department of Education to use the State Department’s broad, widely criticized definition of anti-Semitism when investigating schools. That definition, from a 2010 memo, includes as examples of anti-Semitism “delegitimizing” Israel, “demonizing” Israel, “applying double standards” to Israel, and “focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations.”

Critics have pointed out that those are political — not racist — positions, shared by a significant number of Jews, and qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Of Nine Tech Companies, Only Twitter Says It Would Refuse to Help Build Muslim Registry for Trump

Every American corporation, from the largest conglomerate to the smallest firm, should ask itself right now: Will we do business with the Trump administration to further its most extreme, draconian goals? Or will we resist?

This question is perhaps most important for the country’s tech companies, which are particularly valuable partners for a budding authoritarian. The Intercept contacted nine of the most prominent such firms, from Facebook to Booz Allen Hamilton, to ask if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry, an idea recently resurfaced by Donald Trump’s transition team. Only Twitter said no. ...

It may be asking too much to demand that companies that have long contracted with the federal government stop doing so altogether; indeed, this would probably cause as much harm and disruption to good public projects as it would help stop the sinister ones.

But the proposed “Muslim registry,” whether it be a computerized list of people from two dozen predominately Muslim nations who enter the country (as revealed in Kris Kobach’s fatuously exposed Homeland Security agenda) or a list of all Muslims in the U.S., is both morally appalling and effectively pointless. In November 2015, asked by a reporter if the country should create “a database or system that tracks Muslims in this country,” Trump replied, “There should be a lot of systems … beyond databases. I mean, we should have a lot of systems.” The New York Times reported that Trump added he “would certainly implement that — absolutely.” At a rally later that week, he told the crowd, “So the database — I said yeah, that’s all right, fine.” The next day, George Stephanopoulos asked Trump, “Are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?” Trump replied, “No, not at all.” Although Trump attempted to walk back these comments during the campaign, a registry of some form is now back on the table, at least as far as Kobach is concerned.

Donald Trump and his intended attorney general signal a dramatic shift for reforms

If and when Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions assumes the role of United States attorney general in Donald Trump’s new administration, he will inherit a Department of Justice that has devoted considerable attention and resources to police reform over the last eight years.

In fact, former Attorney General Eric Holder repeatedly described the Civil Rights Division — which investigates law enforcement agencies that may be discriminatory or violating people’s rights — as the department’s “crown jewel.”

Sessions’ voting record and statements as a senator, however, reveal that he mostly wants the federal government to stay out of policing. And the president-elect, who called himself the “law-and-order” candidate, campaigned on a tough-on-crime, pro-police platform. Their stances signal a dramatic shift in priorities for the nation’s top law enforcement agency at a time when tensions surrounding police shootings show no sign of easing. ...

David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who once testified before Sessions at a Senate hearing on racial bias in 2001, thinks the incoming attorney general could instead shift focus toward other issues, like human trafficking or voter fraud, by shuffling career attorneys between divisions within the Justice Department. “That might change the trajectory of police reform,” he said.

If Sessions’ record in the Senate or as Alabama’s attorney general is any indication, these are all issues he has litigated and feels passionately about.

Hillary Clinton’s “Corrupt Establishment” Is Now Advising Donald Trump

[On the campaign trail] Donald Trump described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”

He asked the country to be “brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment.”

Now, less than four weeks after riding that line to victory, he formally invited the establishment into his administration.

On Friday, Trump announced the creation of a “Strategic and Policy Forum” that will serve to advise him on domestic economic matters. The list of advisers is a who’s-who of corporate elites.

The chairman of the forum is Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone Group, a private equity and investment banking giant. ... Although Schwarzman is a Republican, his company — like so much of Wall Street — spent much of the campaign getting close to Hillary Clinton. ...

Another member of the new advisory group is Larry Fink. Fink is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm. Fink spent years ingratiating himself with top Democrats and was once short-listed as a replacement for the Obama administration’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He even hired former Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to serve on the firm’s board of directors of his firm — and was poised to take over and staff Clinton’s Treasury Department.

[See article for full list of establishment figures that will help Trump "make America Great Again." - js]

Donald Trump’s White House Counsel Is Proud “Architect” of America’s Corrupt Big Money Politics

Don McGahn, soon to be Donald Trump’s White House counsel, bears as much responsibility as any single person for turning America’s campaign finance system into something akin to a gigantic, clogged septic tank.

From 2008 to 2013, McGahn was one of the six members of the Federal Election Commission, the government agency in charge of civil enforcement of campaign finance laws. While there, he led a GOP campaign that essentially ground enforcement of election laws to a halt.

“I’ve always thought of McGahn’s appointment as an FEC commissioner as analogous to appointing an anarchist to be chief of police,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president at Common Cause. “He’s largely responsible for destroying the FEC as a functioning law enforcement agency, and seemingly takes great pride in this fact. McGahn has demonstrated a much stronger interest in expanding the money-in-politics swamp than draining it.” ...

Now, as Trump’s White House lawyer, McGahn will provide crucial advice on the nomination of judges, including to the Supreme Court. While Trump has criticized Citizens United, and called the Super PACs that sprang up in its wake “horrible” and a “total phony deal,” McGahn is a vociferous defender of the ruling.

Trump praised McGahn as possessing “a deep understanding of constitutional law.”

German politicians react to Italy referendum

Renzi resigns - Italian PM quits as populist parties claim victory in referendum

The Italian prime minister resigned Sunday night, after Italy voted no in a referendum on constitutional reform. Matteo Renzi had urged citizens to vote for changes to the constitution that would have reduced the powers of the senate and allowed legislation to pass more easily, but he was defeated by a large margin. ...

The referendum result is a big win for the anti-establishment party called Five Star Movement. Under its leader, former comedian Beppe Grillo, the group campaigned against the reforms and tried to present the vote as a judgement on Renzi’s leadership. The far-right Northern League also claimed the result as a victory. ...

Certainly the result is a shock for Europe, and raises fears that Italy will now enter a period of economic uncertainty. Italy is the third biggest economy in the EU, but fears have been growing over the financial stability of the banks there.

Italy’s Referendum Should Be a Warning to Donald Trump

Populist backlash, which has been running rampant on both sides of the Atlantic, just handed Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi his walking papers in a widely anticipated referendum vote. Renzi pushed for the referendum to reform the legislative system in Italy and said he would resign if it didn’t pass. Voters saw it as a power grab by Renzi and soundly defeated it with just under 60 percent voting against the measure.

Much like Donald Trump’s appeal to the working class in America, Renzi took office in 2014 on an anti-establishment campaign. Ironically, or perhaps not, Renzi used the identical words as Trump, promising to clean out “the swamp.” The swamp in Italy includes the same cronyism, political pay-to-play and entrenched corruption that has Americans outraged and seeking drastic change from the status quo. Opposing voices who triumphed in yesterday’s referendum painted Renzi as too chummy with bankers and financiers, a narrative that is increasingly coming into sharp focus in Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointments. ...

Trump, himself a billionaire, has attempted to justify his packing his administration with millionaires and billionaires by saying these people “know how to make money.” In many cases, however, the money has been made on the backs of the very working class to whom Trump made elaborate promises. While the U.S. legislative system does not function like European Parliaments, a President who makes grandiose promises to the little guy, then works on behalf of the one percent, would suffer a serious loss of credibility in U.S. opinion polls. This could result in backlash against Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.

Austria rejects far right

Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer had been hoping to ride the wave of populism and anti-establishment sentiment sweeping the west to victory in Austria’s presidential election.

But by Sunday afternoon, the polls had closed and the anti-Islam and anti-immigration Freedom Party was forced to concede defeat to independent Alexander Van der Bellen, Austria’s left-leaning now President-elect who advocated tolerance and moderation. Van der Bellen won with 53.5 percent of the vote compared to Hofer’s 46.4 percent — a larger margin of victory than was predicted by pre-vote polls, Reuters reported.

New York Governor blacklists BDS businesses

New York state's highest elected official has created a blacklist of foreign companies that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement, according to the New York Post Friday.

The Office of General Services wrote the list after Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an order in June which barred the New York State Government from investing public funds in firms that back the BDS movement. ...

The businesses on the list are not American, state officials said Friday night. The institutions which the order prevents state agencies from investing include several European banks and businesses.

Jill Stein “escalates” recount bid

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein said Sunday that she would file a federal lawsuit on Monday to force the recount of the Nov. 8 vote to proceed in Pennsylvania, one day after a state court ordered her to pay a $1 million bond.

On Saturday, her lawyers withdrew her state suit, saying petitioners “are regular citizens of ordinary means” and cannot afford to pay the $1 million bond the court required for the recount to proceed. Stein called the high cost “outrageous.”

“Make no mistake: The Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania,” said Stein’s lead recount lawyer, Jonathan Abady, in a statement, the Associated Press reported. “On Monday the Stein campaign will escalate our campaign in Pennsylvania and file for emergency relief in federal court, demanding a statewide recount on constitutional grounds.”

Michigan election recount must begin at noon on Monday, judge rules

Michigan must begin its presidential recount at noon on Monday, a federal judge ruled in a late-night order that could make it more likely the state will complete the count ahead of a 13 December deadline.

In his ruling on Sunday night, judge Mark Goldsmith rejected an effort by state officials to delay the hand-counting of about 4.8m ballots.

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein argued that a law is unconstitutional that requires a break of at least two business days after the Board of Canvassers’ final action on a recount request. Goldsmith found that Stein had “shown the likelihood of irreparable harm” if the count was delayed even by two days and rejected the state’s arguments about the cost to taxpayers. ...

Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette, the Trump campaign and super PACs have filed separate lawsuits asking state courts to prevent the recount, arguing that Stein, as the fourth-place finisher, is not “aggrieved” because she has no chance of winning in a recount.

Sounding 'Death Knell' for Reef, Massive Australian Coal Project Heads Towards Completion

Indian energy giant Adani on Monday achieved a "key milestone" in completing its massive and controversial Carmichael coal mine project in Australia—a project, according to a marine conservation group, "that will super charge climate change and sound the death knell for our Reef."

The achievement comes thanks to Queensland's Coordinator-General giving "the latest, and final, secondary approval" for a permanent rail line and a temporary construction camp.

With those in place, the Australian Associated Press reports, "Construction on Australia's largest coal mine looks set to begin next year."

The Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project in Queensland's Galilee Basin is slated to produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal a year. It would be sent along the rail line to a terminal in Abbot Point, where it would be sent to India to supply power plants. As Reuters writes Monday, it "has faced years of legal delays and rollercoaster coal prices, amid strident opposition from environmentalists opposed to coal mining and concerned at the impact the mine will have on the Great Barrier Reef."

Little-Known Gov. Bank Gave $34 Billion to Overseas Fossil Fuel Projects Under Obama's Tenure

Google's satellite timelapses show the inconvenient truth about our planet

Today, stunning and intensely informative pictures of the Earth’s surface are being taken from space constantly: so comprehensively, for so long, that Google has now created timelapses that show three decades of change.

It induces anxiety to watch, in just a few seconds, a desert in Saudi Arabia turn into a vast agribusiness complex, a lake in Bolivia vanish or cities grow spectacularly in China.

History has become a car crash in speeded-up motion. We can see, in these timelapse satellite videos, how the Earth is being torn apart by human acts. We can also see, in timelapse videos of Arctic ice, great glaciers melt before our eyes. Yet, are human beings capable of assimilating such global perspectives or is our consciousness tragically limited to a pre-space age, even pre-Copernican mentality? Are people only capable of acting on immediate, personal and local concerns, even though images from space can show us the bigger picture?

Extreme scepticism about climate change has proved a vote winner for Donald Trump. Specifically, Barack Obama’s environmental policies have been accused of creating a “war on coal”. Pennsylvania miners were not happy to accept that their traditional jobs were doomed for the greater good. All the images of climate change, the timelapse videos of a crumbling Earth, the crash of glaciers, don’t apparently mean anything compared with the direct experiences people have in their own neighbourhoods. If a truth is inconvenient, ignore it.

Also of Interest

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

The Smear Campaign Against Keith Ellison Is Repugnant but Reveals Much About Washington

The Remarkable Story of Fidel Castro

The Person Who Deciphered the Order to Shoot at Kent State

PropOrNot’s Grandiose Fabrications

Hungary's sharp rightward turn is a warning to America

The Pentagon Wants Eye-Reading Software, X-Ray Tools, and A Virtual Facebook to Fight Terrorism

A Bare-Knuckle Fight Over Recounts

Trump Adviser Kris Kobach Harassed Kansas Voters in His Failed Quest for Mass Election Fraud

Kiev pensioner turns scruffy stairwell into a gilded palace

A Little Night Music

Perry Bradford and the Georgia Strutters - Original Black Bottom Dance

Perry Bradford and His Gang - All That I Had Is Gone

Perry Bradford and His Gang - Lucy Long

Mary Jackson & Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Who'll Get It When I'm Gone

Perry Bradford and His Gang - Kansas City Blues

Sippie Wallace w/ Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Parlor Social De Luxe

Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Fade Away Blues

Ethel Ridley & Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - If Anybody Here Wants a Real Kind Mamma

Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - Memphis, Tennessee

Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools - I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle