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This evening's music features early blues singer Victoria Spivey. Enjoy!

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus — the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”

-- Simone Weil

News and Opinion

Not-guilty verdicts for first six people on trial in J20 protests

The first six people to face trial in Inauguration Day protests that turned destructive were acquitted of all charges, a victory not only for the defendants but also for advocates who argued the government overreached in its effort to prosecute more than 200 people arrested as they marched through the nation’s capital.

Following a nearly four-week trial and two full days of deliberations, a D.C. Superior Court jury delivered not-guilty verdicts Thursday on multiple charges of rioting and destruction of property. The defendants — including a nurse for cancer patients, a freelance photographer and a college student — joined throngs of protesters who took to the streets on Jan. 20 to protest Donald Trump’s election. ...

Jennifer Armento, 38, a Philadelphia woman who was among the six, said the verdict “shows the country that the jury was unwilling to do what the government wanted them to do, which was criminalize dissent.” Oliver Harris, 28, a Drexel University doctoral student who was charged, said the acquittal was “the only just verdict.” He called his arrest and trial “repeatedly traumatizing.” ...

In a statement released after the verdict, the U.S. attorney’s office said prosecutors continue to assert that a riot occurred on Inauguration Day and the “destruction impacted many who live and work in the District of Columbia, and created a danger for all who were nearby.”

“We appreciate the jury’s close examination of the individual conduct and intent of each defendant during this trial and respect its verdict,” the office said in the statement. “In the remaining pending cases, we look forward to the same rigorous review for each defendant.

Feds to pursue charges against 188 Trump inauguration protesters

Federal prosecutors announced they will move forward with cases against 188 additional inauguration protesters in spite of the fact that the first six were acquitted of all charges on Thursday. More than 20 trials for the other 188 people will begin in January and continue throughout next year.

Watch this. It's long but it's worth it.

Mark Blyth - Why People Vote for Those Who Work Against Their Best Interests

Now what could possibly go wrong with this plan?

US making plans for 'bloody nose’ military attack on North Korea

America is drawing up plans for a “bloody nose” military attack on North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons programme, The Telegraph understands.

The White House has “dramatically” stepped up preparation for a military solution in recent months amid fears diplomacy is not working, well-placed sources said.

One option is destroying a launch site before it is used by the regime for a new missile test. Stockpiles of weapons could also be targeted.

The hope is that military force would show Kim Jong-un that America is “serious” about stopping further nuclear development and trigger negotiations.

Stopping Armageddon

American arrogance and President Donald Trump’s delusional worldview have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Before it is too late, American citizens must make overwhelmingly clear that we do not want millions of Americans or others to perish in a reckless attempt by the Trump administration to overthrow the North Korean regime or denuclearize it by force.

We would rather accept a nuclear-armed North Korea that is deterred by America’s overwhelming threat of force than risk a US-led war of choice, one that would almost surely involve nuclear weapons. Yet National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster has explicitly said that Trump rejects “accept and deter.” The danger from Trump could not be greater.

“Accept and deter” is not appeasement. It is the moral and practical requirement of survival. Appeasement would be the case if North Korea were demanding the surrender of the United States or South Korea, but that’s not the case. North Korea argues that it needs nuclear arms to protect the regime from the threat of a US attack. According to North Korea, it seeks a “military equilibrium,” not a surrender of the United States or South Korea.

Sad to say, North Korea’s fears of a US-led overthrow are realistic at this moment in history. Creating the conditions for North Korea’s eventual denuclearization would require trust-building over many years of patient diplomacy and interaction, including US diplomatic recognition of North Korea. The United States faces a trap of its own making. For decades, this country has forcibly overthrown regimes it deemed to be hostile to US interests. North Korea fears that it is next.

Undoing the New Deal: Clinton Rolled Back the Deal, Obama Blew an FDR Moment

This is also well worth your time to read in full. Here's a teaser to get you started:

Forget Coates vs. West — We All Have a Duty to Confront the Full Reach of U.S. Empire

So, which side are you on? #TeamWest or #TeamCoates? Choose fast, preferably within seconds, and don’t come to this gunfight with a knife. No, like some nerdy Rambo, we want you greased up and loaded with ammo: your most painful character smears, your most “gotcha” evidence of past political infractions, a blitzkrieg of hyperlinks and, of course, an aircraft carrier of reaction GIFs. That’s pretty much how the online debate has played out ever since Cornel West published his piece in The Guardian challenging Ta-Nehisi Coates, an article you either regard as an outrageous injustice or an earth-shattering truth bomb, depending on which team you have chosen.

We see it differently. We see this debate as a political opportunity, one that has far less to do with either of these brilliant men and everything to do with how, at a time of unfathomably high stakes, we are going to build a multiracial human rights movement capable of beating back surging white supremacy and rapidly concentrating corporate power. As women, both Black and white, both American and Canadian, we see the question like this: What are the duties of radicals and progressives inside relatively wealthy countries to the world beyond our national borders? A warming world wracked by expanding and unending wars that our governments wage, finance, and arm — a world scarred by unbearable poverty and forced migration?

Though West directed his criticisms at Coates, these are by no means questions for Coates alone. They are urgent challenges for all of us who see ourselves as part of social movements and intellectual traditions that yearn for a world where justice and dignity abound. ...

Let’s also take it as a given that West’s piece was flawed and painted Coates with too broad a brush. ... But that does not change the fact that West raises crucial points when he critiques Coates for having too little to say about the impact of U.S. military and economic policies abroad, for failing to place U.S. experiences in a broader context of U.S. imperial power, and for casting Barack Obama as the continuation of the legacy of Malcolm X (whom West describes as “the greatest prophetic voice against the American Empire,” while Obama is “the first Black head of the American Empire”). ... Where we differ is that we don’t think these criticisms apply just (or even especially) to Coates. Nor do we think this debate should be viewed as an exclusively Black discussion. ...

Is it even possible to be a voice for transformational change without a clear position on the brutal wars and occupations waged with U.S. weapons? Is it possible to have a credible critique of Wall Street’s impact on Black and other vulnerable communities in the U.S. without reckoning with the predatory and neocolonial impacts of the global financial system (including Washington-based institutions like the International Monetary Fund) on the debt-laden economies of African countries?

Did Obama Arm Islamic State Killers?

Did Barack Obama arm ISIS? The question strikes many people as absurd, if not offensive. How can anyone suggest something so awful about a nice guy like the former president? But a stunning report by an investigative group known as Conflict Armament Research (CAR) leaves us little choice but to conclude that he did.

CAR, based in London and funded by Switzerland and the European Union, spent three years tracing the origin of some 40,000 pieces of captured ISIS arms and ammunition. Its findings, made public last week, are that much of it originated in former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe, where it was purchased by United States and Saudi Arabia and then diverted, in violation of various rules and treaties, to Islamist rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The rebels, in turn, somehow caused or allowed the equipment to be passed on to Islamic State, which is also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, or just the abbreviation IS.

This is damning stuff since it makes it clear that rather than fighting ISIS, the U.S. government was feeding it.

But CAR turns vague when it comes to the all-important question of precisely how the second leg of the transfer worked. Did the rebels turn the weapons over voluntarily, involuntarily, or did they somehow drop them when ISIS was in close proximity and forget to pick them up? All CAR will say is that “background information … indicates that IS [Islamic State] forces acquired the materiel through varied means, including battlefield capture and the amalgamation of disparate Syrian opposition groups.” It adds that it “cannot rule out direct supply to IS forces from the territories of Jordan and Turkey, especially given the presence of various opposition groups, with shifting allegiances, in cross-border supply locations.” But that’s it. ...

The report implies a level of incompetence that is not just staggering, but too staggering. How could such a massive transfer occur without field operatives not having a clue as to what was going on? Was every last one of them deaf, dumb, and blind? Not likely. What seems much more plausible is that once the CIA established “plausible deniability” for itself, all it cared about was that the arms made their way to the most effective fighting force, which in Syria happened to be Islamic State. ...

If America were any kind of healthy democracy, Congress would not rest until it got to the bottom of what should be the scandal of the decade: Did the U.S. government wittingly or unwittingly arm the brutal killers of ISIS and Al Qaeda? However, since that storyline doesn’t fit with the prevailing mainstream narrative of Washington standing up for international human rights and opposing global terrorism, the troublesome question will likely neither be asked nor answered.

Pentagon confirms U.S. ground operations in Yemen

The Defense Department on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time "multiple ground operations" in Yemen, while noting that the Islamic State has doubled in size in the war-torn country, where an insurgency by Houthi rebels has allowed terrorist groups to seek haven.

"U.S. forces have conducted multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes in 2017," said a statement from the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time "multiple ground operations" in Yemen, while noting that the Islamic State has doubled in size in the war-torn country, where an insurgency by Houthi rebels has allowed terrorist groups to seek haven.

"U.S. forces have conducted multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes in 2017," said a statement from the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

The goal is to "disrupt the ability of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS-Yemen to use ungoverned spaces in Yemen as a hub for terrorist recruiting, training and base of operations to export terror worldwide."

Before Wednesday's statement, the extent of the U.S. counterterrorism operations in Yemen was unknown under the Trump administration, with only sporadic acknowledgement of U.S. military operations there. Unlike the campaign in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State, the Defense Department did not provide regular updates on either air or ground operations in Yemen.

Republicans Circulate Flyer About ISIS While Rushing Opaque Surveillance Bill

While Congress is still reeling from a last-minute push to pass the GOP tax bill, House Republicans tried to ram through a bill that would reauthorize major surveillance programs, with language that may have actually expanded what the National Security Agency and FBI are allowed to do.

A last-minute amendment Tuesday night left privacy activists scrambling to understand the details of the bill, fearing a possible vote as early as Thursday morning. The Rules Committee later announced that it would postpone its meeting on the bill — meaning that it wouldn’t imminently come to vote — but leadership could still try to force it through by attaching it to a budget resolution.

Trying to drum up support for the bill, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes, R-Calif., circulated a two-page flyer with enlarged images of Islamic State fighters and Haji Iman, ISIS’s former finance minister who was killed by U.S. forces in 2016. “VOTE YES ON H.R. 4478,” the flyer reads. “HAJI IMAN would still be plotting to kill Americans without Section 702.” On the second page, the flyer goes on to say that 702 surveillance over a two-year period helped locate Iman. ...

The bill would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire at the end of the year. The law was originally passed to legalize the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping under the Bush administration and serves as the basis for some of the NSA’s largest surveillance programs.

Nikki Haley: "This vote will make a difference on how Americans look at the UN"

UN votes resoundingly to reject Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as capital

The United Nations general assembly has delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump, voting by a huge majority to reject his unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The vote came after a redoubling of threats by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who said that Washington would remember which countries “disrespected” America by voting against it.

Despite the warning, 128 members voted on Thursday in favour of the resolution supporting the longstanding international consensus that the status of Jerusalem – which is claimed as a capital by both Israel and the Palestinians – can only be settled as an agreed final issue in a peace deal. Countries which voted for the resolution included major recipients of US aid such as Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although largely symbolic, the vote in emergency session of the world body had been the focus of days of furious diplomacy by both the Trump administration and Israel. But only nine states – including the United States and Israel –voted against the resolution. The other countries which supported Washington were Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras.

Twenty-two of the 28 EU countries voted for the resolution, including the UK and France. Germany – which in the past has abstained on measures relating to Israel – also voted in favour. Thirty-five countries abstained, including five EU states, and other US allies including Australia, Canada, Colombia and Mexico. Ambassadors from several abstaining countries, including Mexico, used their time on the podium to criticise Trump’s unilateral move.

The U.N. doesn't care about Trump's threats

In a stinging rebuke, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly, 128-to-9, to reject Trump’s decision earlier this month to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Thirty-five countries abstained. Before the vote, Trump had threatened to cut “billions” in international aid to countries that dared to vote against the U.S.

“Let them vote against us,” Trump said. “We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

Neither, apparently, did they.

In the end, the U.S. was opposed by longtime allies like Germany and the UK, and by strategic partners and major recipients of U.S. foreign aid like Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan and Jordan.

Israel Tackles Existential Threat Posed by 16-Year-Old Palestinian Girl

On Wednesday, an Israeli military court extended the detention of Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old girl who has become the face of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank for many who follow the weekly protests in her village through social media. The girl was arrested in an overnight raid of her family’s home in the village of Nabi Saleh early Monday.

The arrest, and images of the less-than-daring raid released by the Israeli police to broadcasters, appeared to be an effort to placate far-right Israelis who were angered by video recorded last Friday, as the Palestinian teenager and a female cousin forced two heavily armed Israeli soldiers from her front yard, slapping and kicking them.

The outrage was stoked by Israelis who claimed that the confrontation with the soldiers had been staged to generate sympathy, and made no mention of the fact that the incident took place after an Israeli soldier shot Ahed’s 15-year-old cousin in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet during a demonstration against the ongoing military occupation. The girl’s father, Bassem, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that his daughter, who will be 17 in January, was angry because her cousin Mohammed had been shot and it was unclear at the time if he would survive. (Over the weekend, doctors removed the bullet from the boy’s skull and he was placed in a medically induced coma.) ...

As the Haaretz correspondent Anshel Pfeffer observed following the girl’s arrest, “what no one could explain was why, if indeed there was a valid reason to apprehend her, was she not taken into custody on Friday? Unless, that is, the real charge against her is having made Israeli soldiers look impotent on camera.”

Israeli army responds to fresh protests with live fire

More than 80 Palestinians have been injured in fresh protests across the West Bank, two weeks after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, according to the Red Crescent.

At least three people were injured with live bullets, more than 20 with rubber-coated steel bullets and 40 by tear-gas inhalation in Wednesday's protests called for by the Palestinian Authority, several political parties and trade unions.

The confrontations with the Israeli army unfolded after Day of Rage rallies were staged in various areas of the occupied West Bank including Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jericho.

Trump administration approves lethal arms sales to Ukraine

The Trump administration has approved the largest U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014. The move was heavily supported by top Trump national security Cabinet officials and Congress but may complicate President Trump’s stated ambition to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Administration officials confirmed that the State Department this month approved a commercial license authorizing the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million. These weapons address a specific vulnerability of Ukrainian forces fighting a Russian-backed separatist movement in two eastern provinces. There has been no approval to export the heavier weapons the Ukrainian government is asking for, such as Javelin antitank missiles. ...

A State Department spokesperson, speaking on background, said that although the United States has now licensed the commercial export of lethal weapons to Ukraine, the U.S. government has not sold or given weapons directly to Ukraine. There’s never been any official policy on such sales one way or another, the spokesperson said, adding that this license was granted on a case-by-case basis. There were licenses granted for small commercial sales of small arms to Ukraine before this year.

Another senior Trump administration official said that Trump personally approved the decision to allow the issuing of the license after being presented a decision memo by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. ...

“We have crossed the Rubicon, this is lethal weapons and I predict more will be coming,” said one senior congressional official. It’s likely no mere coincidence that Canada also approved lethal defense sales to Ukraine this week, which would happen only if the Canadian government knew the United States was on board, the official said.

Catalonia Regional election: will it end the political quagmire the region has found itself in?

Catalonia polls close after voters turn out in force

The consensus among observers, commentators and journalists appears to be building, and it’s not looking pretty for Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid. Has his decision to call this snap Catalan election backfired?

With over 50 pct of Catalan vote counted, pro-independence parties have absolute majority.
This makes uncomfortable viewing for PM Rajoy.

— Sonya Dowsett (@ReutersSonyaD) December 21, 2017

Catalonia election set to give victory to pro-independence parties

Catalan pro-independence parties look set to hold on to their absolute majority in Thursday’s snap regional elections, dealing a severe blow to the Spanish government, which called the polls in the hope of heading off the secessionist threat. With 90% of the votes counted, the three separatist parties are on course to win 70 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament even though the centre-right Citizens party appears to be the single party with the most seats.

Together for Catalonia, the party led by deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, is expected to take 34 seats, the Catalan Republican Left 32 and the far-left, anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy four. Between them, they will have enough seats to reassemble the parliamentary majority that put them into office after the 2015 elections. The Citizens party, which has taken a fiercely anti-independence stance, is on track to win 36 seats, the Catalan socialist party 17, Catalunya en Comú-Podem (the Catalan version of the anti-austerity Podemos party) eight and the conservative People’s party four.

The vote, which has pitted secessionists against unionists, attracted a record turnout of 80%, dispelling fears that holding the election on a weekday rather than the usual Sunday would hit turnout appeared to have been unfounded. Puigdemont has been campaigning from Belgium after fleeing to Brussels on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial in Spain over possible charges of rebellion, sedition and misuses of public funds. ...

Speaking as the count neared completion, the vice-president of the grassroots pro-independence Catalan National Assembly declared victory and demanded the release of the Catalan leaders who have been jailed pending investigations into their roles in the referendum and independence declaration.

Life expectancy in US down for second year in a row as opioid crisis deepens

Life expectancy in the US has declined for the second year in a row as the opioid crisis continues to ravage the nation. It is the first time in half a century that there have been two consecutive years of declining life expectancy.

Drug overdoses killed 63,600 Americans in 2016, an increase of 21% over the previous year, researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics found.

Americans can now expect to live 78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 years. The US last experienced two years’ decline in a row in 1963, during the height of the tobacco epidemic and amid a wave of flu. “We do occasionally see a one-year dip, even that doesn’t happen that often, but two years in a row is quite striking,” said Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch with the National Center for Health Statistics. “And the key driver of that is the increase in drug overdose mortality.”

Especially disconcerting, said Anderson, was preliminary data researchers received about overdoses in 2017: “It doesn’t look any better.” Together, the drug overdose epidemic and a plateau in improved mortality rates from cardiovascular disease are “affecting the entire national picture”.

“We haven’t seen more than two years in a row in declining life expectancy since the Spanish flu – 100 years ago,” said Anderson. “We would be entering that sort of territory, which is extremely concerning.”

DACA Recipients’ Message to Democrats: Stop Playing with Our Lives, and Pass a Clean DREAM Act Now

With A Paltry CHIP Extension and No DREAM Act in Spending Bill, Republicans Hurtle Toward a Shutdown

It's been 82 days since Congress let funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program expire. For months legislators have promised the public they would get it done — certainly by end of the year — working on a deal that would reauthorize the program for the next five years, at the cost of $8 billion.

But in a stunning turn of events, the House released a continuing appropriations bill Wednesday that would keep the government open and extends CHIP funding only until the end of March, at the extraordinary cost of $2.8 billion. In order to avoid a government shutdown, legislators have until midnight on Friday to fund the government.

In addition to shorting CHIP, the bill also does not grant legal protections to so-called Dreamers, children brought to the United States without documents whose legal status is in jeopardy. House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been pressing Republicans to include the DREAM Act as part of the spending measure. Without it, Republicans will need to find the votes to keep the government open on their own.

Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi told The Intercept that Democrats are whipping their members to vote against the continuing resolution.

Whether Democrats would refuse to vote on a continuing resolution that extends CHIP funding for only three months remains unclear.

Devastating climate change could lead to 1m migrants a year entering EU by 2100

Climate change will drive a huge increase in the number of migrants seeking asylum in Europe if current trends continue, according to a new study.

The number of migrants attempting to settle in Europe each year will triple by the end of the century based on current climate trends alone, independent of other political and economic factors, according to the research. Even if efforts to curb global warming are successful, the number of applications for asylum could rise by a quarter, the authors predict. ...

Climate change is predicted to result in more droughts, floods, heatwaves, and other extreme weather, as well as more intense storms and rising sea levels. These effects are likely to render agriculture more difficult, if not impossible, across swathes of the globe, including sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.

These effects will also be felt in Europe, but its lower base temperatures, relative prosperity and advanced infrastructure mean the damage could be contained, and make it an attractive destination for migrants.

Migration, or attempted migration, to Europe has increased markedly in the last decade, with leading causes including the war in Syria, turmoil in north Africa and the middle East, and a burgeoning young population with few economic prospects in many regions of Africa and the middle East.

Nebraska regulators deny TransCanada request on Keystone XL route

Nebraska regulators on Tuesday denied TransCanada Corp’s request to amend its route application for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. state, a potential setback for the company as it seeks to head off legal challenges.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) issued an approval for the line in late November, removing what appeared to be the last big regulatory obstacle for the long-delayed project, which has been backed by U.S. President Donald Trump. But the commission’s approval was not for the route TransCanada had singled out in its application. Instead, the commission approved an alternative route that shifts it closer to an existing pipeline right-of-way down the eastern side of the state, a move opponents of the pipeline have said violates state statutes.

TransCanada filed a motion last month with the commission seeking permission to retrospectively amend the route application, a move that a company official said was intended to prevent lawsuits that could delay the project. The commission on Tuesday voted 5-0 against the motion. ...

Ken Winston, a lawyer for environmental group the Sierra Club, said he saw the ruling as a win for pipeline opponents. “The fact that they’re having to consider an alternate route and that their motion was denied continues to make it more complicated for TransCanada. And any time it’s more complicated, that’s a victory for us,” he said.

Also of Interest

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

Trump’s Gross Hypocrisy on Yemen War

Delusional Self-Interest in Trump’s Jerusalem Move

The Republican Tax Bill Codifies a New Gilded Age

Despite Record Levels, the Stock Market Is Actually Shrinking in Size

A Little Night Music

Victoria Spivey - Any Kind A Man

Victoria Spivey - Don't Trust Nobody Blues

Victoria Spivey - My Handy Man

Victoria Spivey - Blood Hound Blues

Victoria Spivey with Sonny Boy Williamson - Black Snake Swinger

Victoria Spivey & Lonnie Johnson - Steady Grind

Victoria Spivey w/Red Allen's NY Orchestra - How do They Do It That Way?

Victoria Spivey - Murder In The First Degree

Victoria Spivey - Your Worries Ain't Like Mine

Victoria Spivey - Detroit Moan

Victoria Spivey - One Hour Mama

Victoria Spivey - Christmas Morning Blues