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"There was once a time when claiming a war was really about oil got you branded a conspiracy theorist. Now the US president just outright says it."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Worth a click and a full read.

US troops are staying in Syria to ‘keep the oil’ – and have already killed hundreds over it

While Trump has ordered a partial withdrawal of the approximately 1,000 American troops on Syrian territory — who have been enforcing an illegal military occupation under international law — US officials and the president himself have admitted that some will be staying. And they will remain on Syrian soil not to ensure to safety of any group of people, but rather to maintain control over oil and gas fields.

The US military has already killed hundreds of Syrians, and possibly even some Russians, precisely in order to hold on to these Syrian fossil fuel reserves. Washington’s obsession with toppling the Syrian government refuses to die. The United States remains committed to preventing Damascus from retaking its own oil, as well as its wheat-producing breadbasket region, in order to starve the government of revenue and prevent it from funding reconstruction efforts.

The Washington Post noted in 2018 that the US and its Kurdish allies were militarily occupying a massive “30 percent slice of Syria, which is probably where 90 percent of the pre-war oil production took place.” ...

US military massacred hundreds to keep control of Syrian oil fields. This is not just speculation. CNN made it plain when it reported the following in an undeniably blunt passage, citing anonymous US senior military officials:

“The US military has long had military advisers embedded with the Syrian Democratic Forces near the Syrian oil fields at Deir Ezzoir ever since the area was captured from ISIS. The loss of those oil fields denied ISIS a major source of revenue, a one-time source of funds that has differentiated the organization from other terror groups.

The oil fields are assets that have also been long sought after by Russia and the Assad regime, which is strapped for cash after years of civil war. Both Moscow and Damascus hope to use oil revenues to help rebuild western Syria and solidify the regime’s hold.

In a bid to seize the oil fields, Russian mercenaries attacked the areas, leading to a clash that saw dozens if not hundreds of Russian mercenaries killed in US airstrikes, an episode that Trump has touted as proof he is tough on Russia. That action helped deter Russian or regime forces from making similar bids for the oil fields.

The US forces near the oil fields remain in place and senior military officials had previously told CNN that they would likely be among the last to leave Syria.”

CNN thus acknowledged that the US military had killed up to “hundreds” of Syrian and Russia-backed fighters seeking to gain access to Syria’s oil fields. It massacred these fighters not for humanitarian reasons, but to prevent the Syrian government from using “oil revenues to help rebuild western Syria.” This shockingly direct admission flew in the face of the popular myth that the US was keeping troops in Syria to protect Kurds from an assault by NATO member Turkey.

Blowback: US-armed 'moderate rebels' slaughter Kurds in Syria

US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports

The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country. The most likely destination for US armoured units is a Conoco gas plant near the city of Deir Ezzor, the site of a February 2018 clash between US special forces and Syrian regime-backed militias fighting with Russian mercenaries.

Fox News reported such a deployment was “likely” and that the tanks would come from units already in the Middle East. CNN said it would happen relatively soon.

Trump has justified his decision to stand US troops down to allow a Turkish offensive in north-eastern Syria at the cost of abandoning Kurdish partners, by saying he was “bringing the troops home”. However, it is quite likely it would take more troops to deploy, maintain, supply and protect armoured units in the middle of the eastern Syrian desert than the roughly 1,000 that were in the country before the Turkish invasion. ...

“It would mean walling off eastern Syria as a US zone,” Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington, said of the plan to put tanks around the Conoco plant. “You would have to protect it from the air. You have to supply it and then you have got to protect the road, presumably from Iraq. You can easily see a scenario where we end up with more troops in Syria than we started off with.”

I really enjoyed my conversation with General @MazloumAbdi. He appreciates what we have done, and I appreciate what the Kurds have done. Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

The remark seemed to endorse a population transfer from the Kurdish areas along the border with Turkey southwards to the almost entirely Sunni Arab area of Deir Ezzor. Such a mass displacement of Kurds from their homes would fit with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plans to resettle north-eastern Syria with Syrian Arab refugees to create a buffer zone against Kurdish insurgents. Kurdish refugees in Turkey are already reported to be subject to forcible deportation.

Violence continues along Turkey-Syria border despite recent diplomatic efforts

This Could Be Trump’s Next Disaster in Syria

As Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan divide northeast Syria up between them at the expense of America’s abandoned Kurdish allies, President Trump returned to his favorite frame of reference when discussing the Syrian conflict: securing oil. ... Trump appears to be referring to a scheme which in its current incarnation revolves around the deployment of around 200 American special operations forces troops to a base or bases in Syria’s restive eastern province of Deir Ezzor, currently the site of a sustained and complex ISIS insurgency.

Cold Warriors and Iran hawks within the Trump administration, notably the circle around the controversial Syria envoy James Jeffrey, have long pushed the idea of using Deir Ezzor as a base to “confront Iran,” and as a means to deny Bashar Assad’s government the use of Syria’s most productive oil fields. “It may seem weird to those outside Washington, D.C.,” Nicholas Heras, Syria analyst at the Centre for a New American Security think tank, told VICE News, “but there is a strong current of opinion within the think-tank scene, but also and more importantly among senior members of the Trump administration, particularly in the State Department, headed by Secretary of State Pompeo, a noted Iran hawk before he entered the executive branch, that the United States can have its cake and eat it too in eastern Syria.” ...

Jeffrey, Trump’s embattled Syria envoy, has reportedly assured local Deir Ezzor journalist and activist Omar Abu Leyla that American forces will stay in Deir Ezzor for the long haul, protecting the local Arab tribes from both a resurgence of ISIS and the return of Assad’s authority, beefed up by Iranian-backed militias viewed with deep antipathy by the local population. ...

Surrounded by a hostile and growing ISIS insurgency, cut off from resupply by both the Iraqi government and Iranian-backed militias within Syria, and Russian forces keen to win back Assad’s control of these vital oil resources, American forces will face what Brett McGurk, former envoy to the Coalition to Defeat Daesh, has termed a “Fort Apache” scenario. Strangers in a hostile land, their security will depend on whatever demoralized, exiled fragments of the SDF survive Turkish assault and a local tribal militia of dubious loyalty and effectiveness. ...

As Jeffrey faced Congress, where he was forced to defend his record in the face of bipartisan opposition and stern condemnation of every NATO partner aside from Turkey, the Pentagon attempted to sell a vague version of this scheme to the American people. As a serious policy proposal, it is unlikely to last beyond the end of the month. As an attempt to salvage something from what may be the greatest failure of American diplomacy in a decade, it will be the merest footnote on a sad and cautionary tale to future U.S. governments and American allies alike.

Truth About Syria/Turkey Situation & U.S.Illegal Occupation

Germany, US threaten war amid Russia-Turkey summit on Syria

In Washington, where a bitter debate is unfolding over Trump’s Middle East policy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened war with Turkey, a NATO ally and major regional military power. Asked for his reaction to the Turkish military offensive against the Kurds, Pompeo replied: “We prefer peace to war. But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action.” The most aggressive proposal, however, came from Berlin, where Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called for a massive European Union (EU) force to occupy northern Syria, supposedly working in coordination with Russia and Turkey. “My proposal is that we would set up an internationally controlled safe zone, involving Turkey and Russia,” she said. “I believe that would be a strong political and diplomatic response of the European powers in NATO.”

Tens of thousands of troops from Germany, Britain, France and other EU states would be mobilized under this proposal, in the largest EU overseas occupation force in decades. Roderich Kiesewetter, a former German army staff officer serving as a foreign policy specialist for Kramp-Karrenbauer’s Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 troops would be involved. ...

This proposal testifies to the vast shift to the right in official European politics over the last decade. For the first time since the fall of the Nazis in 1945, Berlin is proposing an international military operation; previously, it supported wars launched by Washington, Paris or other powers. Since Berlin began to remilitarize its foreign policy, however, shortly after Washington backed off from bombing Syria in 2013, politicians and right-wing extremist academics have ceaselessly promoted militarism to try to overcome deeply rooted popular opposition.

Amid a military buildup across Europe, France and Sweden have announced timelines for restoring the draft. Collectively, the EU powers have pledged to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their militaries over the coming years. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s remarks show that this buildup aims not to make Europe safe for democracy against foreign invasion, but to prepare the EU powers to wage their own neocolonial wars in oil-rich regions key to their strategic interests.

Imperialist circles in both America and Europe are outraged at the military and financial advantages that could accrue to Russia, Iran and China from their defeat in Syria. One recent essay from the US Brookings Institution think tank complained: “The prospect of lucrative reconstruction deals has triggered a deluge of interest from governments and firms looking to profit from Syria’s devastation. The regime’s closest allies, Russia and Iran, have been the most prominent beneficiaries of the Syria reconstruction gold rush, with China not far behind.”

How Macri has failed to turn Argentina's economy around

Chile protests: UN to investigate claims of human rights abuses after 18 deaths

The UN high commission on human rights is sending a team to Chile to investigate allegations of human rights abuses against demonstrators, amid a swell of furious street protests over inequality, falling wages and the rising cost of education and healthcare.

“Having monitored the crisis from the beginning I have decided to send a verification mission to examine reports of human rights violations in Chile,” the high commissioner and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced on Twitter.

This week, Bachelet said she was “deeply disturbed and saddened to see violence, destruction, deaths and injuries in Chile”.

Since the unrest erupted on 19 October, the military and Carabineros police forces have made 2,410 arrests throughout the country – 200 of which involved minors – and 535 people have been injured, according to Chile’s human rights commission, INDH. At least 18 people have died in the violence.

The INDH confirmed that it was compiling 55 legal cases related to five homicides and eight instances of sexual violence involving both police and military agents, which will be investigated by Chile’s public prosecution service. A special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate alleged human rights violations in 13 districts of Santiago.

Abby Martin interview starts about 20 minutes into video:

Useful Idiots: Abby Martin on Hillary's NeoMcCarthyism and 'Gaza Fights for Freedom

Johnson seeks 12 December election after shelving 'do or die' Brexit pledge

Boris Johnson has abandoned his “do or die” pledge to leave the EU by 31 October and will plead with MPs next week to give him a pre-Christmas general election. The prime minister wrote to Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday night saying he would give parliament one last opportunity to scrutinise his withdrawal agreement bill and “get Brexit done” by 6 November. But he will also table a motion under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act next Monday asking for an early general election. It will require the backing of two-thirds of MPs to succeed.

Johnson’s letter says: “An election on 12 December will allow a new parliament and government to be in place by Christmas. If I win a majority in this election, we will then ratify the great new deal that I have negotiated, get Brexit done in January, and the country will move on.”

Downing Street sources claimed that if MPs reject Johnson’s request, he will pull the withdrawal agreement bill and continue “campaigning” for a general election every day. “We will not allow MPs to continue holding this country hostage,” the source said.

Labour appear to be poised to reject the government’s request, but Jeremy Corbyn told the BBC on Thursday night that no final decision would be made until the EU27 has agreed a Brexit delay. “We’ll know tomorrow what the extension will be and I can answer that question tomorrow. What I’m saying now is: take no deal off the table,” he said. ...

He said: “We are not resisting the chance to have an election. We want an election because we want to take our case to the people of this country but we do not want this country to be in any danger of crashing out of the EU without a deal because of all the damage that will do to jobs, services and trade all over this country.”

Much more at the link:

Media Ignore Unmasking of Twitter Exec as British Psyops Officer

A recent investigation from independent news outlet Middle East Eye (9/30/19) uncovered that a senior Twitter executive is, in fact, an officer in the British Army’s 77th Brigade, a unit dedicated to psychological operations (psyops), propaganda and online warfare. Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company in 2013, is its head of editorial for the Middle East and North Africa. While both Twitter and the British Army attempted to distance themselves from the implications of the report, it is unclear why MacMillan would have this role if not to manipulate and propagandize the public. (The British Ministry of Defense describes psyops as a way of getting “the enemy, or other target audience, to think and act in a way which will be to our advantage”—BBC, 6/20/08.)

For media so committed to covering news of foreign interference with US public opinion online (see FAIR.org, 8/24/16, 12/13/17, 7/27/18), the response was distinctly muted. The story did not appear at all in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News or virtually any other mainstream national outlet. In fact, the only corporate US outlet of any note covering the news that a person deciding what you see in your Twitter feed is a foreign psyops officer was Newsweek, which published a detailed analysis from Tareq Haddad (10/1/19). When asked by FAIR why he believed this was, Haddad agreed it was major news, but downplayed the idea of media malevolence, suggesting that because it was a small British outlet breaking news involving a British officer, US media may have overlooked it.

Yet the bombshell was also largely downplayed in the UK press as well, with only the Independent, (9/30/19), the London Times (10/2/19) and the Financial Times (9/30/19) producing reports on the news, bland and even-toned as they were. There was no other reporting of it in the national press, including in the BBC or the Guardian, the latter having already “gotten rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way,” according to one current employee.

Furthermore, the news was the focus of alarmed reports in alternative media (Moon of Alabama, 9/30/19; Consortium News, 10/2/19), as well as from foreign government-owned outlets that have been labeled propaganda mills, and have been demoted or deleted from social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Turkey’s TRT World (10/1/19), Venezuela’s TeleSur English (10/1/19), Iran’s Press TV (9/30/19), and Russia’s Sputnik (9/30/19) and RT (9/30/19) all immediately covered the scandal, suggesting the lack of Western coverage was a political rather than a journalistic choice.

Justice Dept. investigation of Russia probe is criminal in nature, person familiar with case says

The federal prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William P. Barr to examine the origins of the FBI’s probe of President Trump’s 2016 campaign is conducting an investigation officials consider criminal in nature, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Barr tapped Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham in May to review the FBI’s investigation, looking specifically at whether the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” in the probe of possible coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia were “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the matter said then. Durham’s appointment came amid calls from Trump and his allies to investigate the FBI personnel and those in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office involved with the probe of Trump’s campaign. At the time, the Justice Department inspector general was conducting a similar probe.

The significance of officials deeming Durham’s probe “criminal” is difficult to determine by itself. Durham’s appointment was noteworthy because he, unlike the inspector general, is a federal prosecutor with the ability to convene a grand jury that could compel witnesses to testify or charge people with crimes if Durham felt that was necessary.

It was not immediately clear whether officials’ consideration of his work as criminal represented a shift in the seriousness of his investigation or whether a grand jury had been convened. People familiar with the probe declined to say when precisely officials gave it that designation, what specific crimes or people Durham was homing in on, or what evidence he has found. ... Federal law enforcement generally needs some indication a crime has occurred to open a criminal investigation — though the standard for doing so is low, and the decision is not reviewed by a court.

House Homeland Security Chair Demands Sergeant at Arms 'Take Action' Against Republicans Who Stormed Impeachment Hearing

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, demanded on Wednesday that the chamber's sergeant at arms "take action" against the dozens of Republican lawmakers who stormed a secure impeachment hearing room with their cellphones, a brazen violation of House rules.

In a letter (pdf) to House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, the chamber's chief law enforcement official, Thompson called Republicans' coordinated attempt to disrupt House Democrats' impeachment inquiry "a blatant breach of security" that "violates the oath of all members of Congress sign to gain access to classified information" and "contravenes security controls established by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the protection of classified information."

"This unprecedented breach of security raises serious concerns for committee chairmen, including me, responsible for maintaining SCIFs [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities]," Thompson wrote. "As such, I am requesting you take action with respect to the members involved in the breach."

Thompson's letter came after the GOP's disruption effort was finally tamped down. All told, the Republican stunt delayed by five hours the testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper, a witness in House Democrats' impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

As Buzzfeed reported, a dozen of the House Republicans who took part in Wednesday's stunt are members of the House Intelligence, Judiciary, or Foreign Affairs Committees, meaning they already had access to the impeachment hearing that they decried as overly secretive.

Worth a click if you want to see the top of the slide.

Fed Ups Its Wall Street Bailout to $690 Billion a Week as Media Snoozes

Yesterday the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) announced that the giant money spigot it turned on for Wall Street on September 17 would be growing exponentially beginning today.

The New York Fed will now be lavishing up to $120 billion a day in cheap overnight loans to Wall Street securities trading firms, a daily increase of $45 billion from its previously announced $75 billion a day. In addition, it is increasing its 14-day term loans to Wall Street, a program which also came out of the blue in September, to $45 billion. Those term loans since September have been occurring twice a week, meaning another $90 billion a week will be offered, bringing the total weekly offering to an astounding $690 billion. It should be noted that if the same Wall Street firms are getting these loans continuously rolled over, they are effectively permanent loans. (That’s exactly what happened during the 2007-2010 Wall Street collapse: some teetering Wall Street casinos received, individually, $2 trillion in cumulative loans that were rolled over for two and one-half years – without the authorization or even awareness of Congress or the American people. One bank, Citigroup, received over $2.5 trillion in Fed loans, much of them at an interest rate below 1 percent, at a time when it was insolvent and couldn’t have obtained loans in the open market at even high double-digit interest rates.)

This latest announcement from the Fed comes on the heels of an October 11 announcement that it is launching a program to buy up $60 billion a month in Treasury bills and that program will last into “at least” the second quarter of next year.

What the New York Fed is doing is unprecedented in U.S. history and yet you will find no mention of it on any front page of a newspaper today.

"State of Emergency": Special Report on California’s Criminalization of Growing Homeless Encampments

#NoMusicForICE: 300+ Musicians Pledge to Boycott Amazon-Sponsored Events and Partnerships Over Contracts With US Agencies

More than 300 musicians on Thursday pledged not to participate in exclusive partnerships with Amazon or events sponsored by the company unless it severs ties with law enforcement and government agencies that enforce the Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies.

The pledge came in an open letter published on the website of digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, which is still collecting signatures.

"We will not allow Amazon to exploit our creativity to promote its brand while it enables attacks on immigrants, communities of color, workers, and local economies," the letter declares. "We call on all artists who believe in basic rights and human dignity to join us."

The letter highlights human rights concerns involving particular federal agencies—Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement—and outlines the artists' demands of Amazon:

• Terminate existing contracts with military, law enforcement, and government agencies (ICE, CBP, ORR) that commit human rights abuses;
• Stop providing Cloud services and tools to organizations (such as Palantir) that power the U.S. government's deportation machine;
• End projects that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon's facial recognition product; and
• Reject future engagements with aforementioned bad actors.

"It has recently come to light that Amazon Web Services, an Amazon subsidiary with known ties to ICE and law enforcement, is hosting a festival marketed as an experience 'where music, technology, and art converge,'" reads the letter. "We the undersigned artists are outraged that Amazon continues to provide the technical backbone supporting ICE's human rights abuses."

TikTok app poses potential national security risk, says senior Democrat

Chuck Schumer, the most senior Democrat in the Senate, has urged the government to investigate TikTok, describing the China-owned social media app as “a potential counter-intelligence threat we cannot ignore” and warning it could be used to interfere in US elections.

TikTok, which allows users to share short videos online, has enjoyed wild success since it launched in 2017, and has been downloaded more than 1bn times. Schumer and Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, co-wrote a letter to the acting director of national intelligence on Wednesday. ...

They wrote: “TikTok reportedly censors materials deemed politically sensitive to the Chinese Communist party, including content related to the recent Hong Kong protests, as well as references to Tiananmen Square, Tibetan and Taiwanese independence, and the treatment of the Uighurs.

“The platform is also a potential target of foreign influence campaigns like those carried out during the 2016 election on US-based social media platforms.”

Jill Stein: Hillary Clinton called me a 'Russian asset'. The establishment is losing its grip

Like her attack on Tulsi Gabbard, Hillary Clinton’s accusation that I am a “Russian asset” is a ludicrous, unhinged conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. It’s also an attempt to deflect attention from the role of Clinton’s campaign in her own defeat. This desperate blame game is not an encouraging sign that the Democratic party will muster a winning strategy to oust the disastrous Trump administration in 2020. Equally alarming, the Clinton camp’s attempts to shift responsibility for their electoral failure to “Russian assets” has fueled a new era of McCarthyism - a toxic brew of warmongering, political repression and censorship now poisoning our public discourse.

By continuing to blame everyone else for their loss, the Clinton camp is suppressing serious reflection on the problems with their own campaign. These ranged from the “Pied Piper” strategy of urging media allies to elevate Donald Trump to front-runner status, to the sabotage of Bernie Sanders by Clinton surrogates in the DNC. The deflection strategy also seeks to cover over a key factor in Clinton’s loss: her record of serving Wall Street, promoting corporate trade deals that hurt working people, and supporting endless war and regime change disasters.

Confronting the real reasons for Clinton’s loss would open a much-needed conversation about why the Democratic establishment opposes progressive policies that are broadly popular - such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free public higher education, and other programs to improve working people’s lives. They would have to reckon with the unpopularity of their disastrous foreign policy of global military domination. These discussions would threaten not only the mega-donors funding the Democratic party machine, but also the power of the Clinton-Obama neoliberals who made their careers serving those donors. ...

Hillary Clinton has every reason to worry about the establishment’s grip on power. Her desperate “Russian asset” smears will not hold back the rising tide of discontent. But they have lifted the veil on the disturbing US descent into McCarthyism. Let’s hope this will be a wake up call, triggering a much needed rethinking of the atmosphere of political repression that now threatens our democracy.

Buttigieg Copying Hillary’s Losing Strategy To A Tee

'Utterly Disqualifying': Pete Buttigieg Panned for Praising Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

Progressives on Thursday piled on Pete Buttigieg—the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate—for praising former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in an interview with Cosmopolitan.

While explaining possible reforms "to stop the descent of the Supreme Court into becoming yet another political body," Buttigieg said that "one of them would be to have 15 members, but 5 of them can only be seated if the other 10 unanimously agree. The idea here is you get more justices who think for themselves. Justices like Justice Kennedy."

Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith called Buttigieg's remarks "utterly disqualifying for me as a primary voter."

Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court last year, paving the way for President Donald Trump to nominate and the Republican-held Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Critics of Kennedy swiftly called attention to his record of judicial rulings.

"Pete Buttigieg's model Supreme Court justice is a guy who was appointed by Reagan, consistently worked to gut workers' rights and voting rights, and resigned to allow Donald Trump to appoint Kavanaugh," tweeted The Nation's national affairs correspondent Jeet Heer.

Brian Tashman, a researcher at the ACLU, pointed out that Kennedy "voted to uphold Trump's Muslim ban, voted for the Janus decision gutting labor unions, and voted to uphold voter suppression in Husted."

Saagar Enjeti: Is Biden campaign in free fall?

"That's Not How We Defeat Trump": Biden Campaign, Reversing Course, Will Work With Super PACs

Former Vice President Joe Biden's 2020 Democratic presidential campaign on Thursday announced that they would accept support from super PACs, a reversal of a stance that had lasted through the primary season and is shared by his top rivals.

In response to the news, Faiz Shakir, campaign manager for the democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), sounded a note of disappoiontment.

"The former Vice President has been unable to generate grassroots support, and now his campaign is endorsing an effort to buy the primary through a super PAC that can rake in unlimited cash from billionaires and corporations," said Shakir.

As Common Dreams reported Thursday, plans are underway by Biden allies to start a super PAC for the beleaguered front-runner. Biden has struggled to raise money; a CNN report Thursday showed the former vice president has less than $9 million cash on hand. Sanders has $33.7 million.

Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told NBC in a statement Thursday afternoon after the CNN story broke that the campaign was still oppposed to super PACs—at least ideologically. She left the door open to accepting their support due to fears of running against President Donald Trump in a hypothetical general election match-up.

"Until we have these badly needed reforms, we will see more than a billion dollars in spending by Trump and his allies to re-elect this corrupt president," said Bedingfield. "And let's be clear: Donald Trump has decided that the general election has already begun."

Bedingfield did not explain why Biden would need a super PAC in the primary, where he will not face Trump. Instead, the Biden aide focused on the future.

Breaking News: Tulsi won't seek reelection, going all in on 2020

'Too Many Lives Were Ruined': Bernie Sanders Releases Plan for Federal Legalization of Marijuana

Sen. Bernie Sanders released an expansive plan on Thursday to as president legalize marijuana and ensure the benefits of legalization are felt across all communities, especially those affected by the war on drugs. "We will legalize marijuana and vacate and expunge past marijuana convictions," the Vermont senator, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominaion, said in a statement announcing the policy. ...

The proposal would legalize marijuana in the first 100 days of a Sanders administration, vacate and expunge all past marijuana convictions, and "ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, especially African-American and other communities of color."

The plan would also aim to stop marijuana from turning into a business like tobacco by structuring the industry like a non-profit, prohibiting advertising targeting youth, and preventing "consolidation and profiteering."

ACLU Celebrates Settlement Ending Unconstitutional Efforts to Silence Pipeline Protesters in South Dakota

The ACLU and environmental activists celebrated Thursday after reaching a settlement agreement with South Dakota's Republican Gov. Kristi Noem and state Attorney General Jason Ravnesborg to end what critics called "their unconstitutional attempts to silence pipeline protestors."

The settlement is a result of a lawsuit filed by the national ACLU, the group's state chapter, and the Robins Kaplan law firm challenging provisions from various state laws, including South Dakota's "Riot Boosting" Act, which threatened activists with up to 25 years in prison. It follows a federal court ruling last month that temporarily blocked enforcement of the provisions.

"The state's anti-protest efforts were plainly unconstitutional," Stephen Pevar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, said in a statement Thursday.

"This settlement helps ensure that no one has to fear the government coming after them for exercising their First Amendment right to protest," he said. "This settlement should also serve as a lesson for other legislatures considering similar anti-protest efforts."

South Dakota's unconstitutional anti-protest efforts echoed the suppression of past social movements.

The state's quick retreat should serve as a lesson for other legislatures considering similar efforts to silence dissent.https://t.co/070NNPkLoi

— ACLU (@ACLU) October 24, 2019

Brendan Johnson, a partner with the Robins Kaplan law firm, said Thursday that "by equating peaceful organization and support of protest with 'riot boosting' and incitement to riot, the government stifled our clients' abilities to speak out against the Keystone XL pipeline." Johnson's firm and the ACLU represented the Sierra Club, Dakota Rural Action, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and NDN Collective, as well as two individuals from those groups.

"South Dakota knew these laws couldn't stand up to our legal challenge so rather than face embarrassment they decided to capitulate," one of the individual plaintiffs, IEN's Dallas Goldtooth, said of the settlement, which still needs final approval from a federal court.

Nuclear Industry's $23 Billion Bailout Request Shows Why It Should Have 'No Role to Play' in Solving Climate Crisis: Study

A proposed bailout of the U.S. nuclear power industry that could cost taxpayers $23 billion over the next 10 years is a perfect example of why the climate crisis needs solutions that focus on renewable resources, green advocacy group Friends of the Earth said Thursday. "The dying nuclear industry wants a massive bailout at the expense of taxpayers and the climate," the group's senior policy analyst Lukas Ross said in a statement.

Friends of the Earth commissioned a study (pdf) on the Nuclear Powers America Act of 2019, a nuclear industry-backed bill making its way through Congress that would continue subsidies for the industry for decades. Vermont Law School fellow Mark Cooper, who authored the study, wrote that the consequences of continuing tax credits for the industry would have the effect of making other potential technologies unviable for reducing emissions.

"Subsidizing nuclear keeps reactors on-line and crowds out the alternatives," said Cooper. "It slows the transition to an electrical grid based on low-carbon distributed resources."

While renewables are a major part of the push from climate activists and advocates to solve the climate crisis, using nuclear power to reduce emissions has been floated as a potential piece of the Green New Deal. The technology was notably left out of the legislation by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a decision that Popular Mechanics writer Avery Thompson hailed in February as a "great idea." ...

The proposed nuclear industry bailout, warns Cooper in the new report, is an attempt to reverse economic trends that have never been favorable to nuclear power standing by itself. The industry, Cooper said, hasn't earned the right to be considered as a realistic solution to the climate crisis or U.S. energy needs. "Nuclear has failed for over 50 years to control its costs, even with help from massive subsidies, and alternatives are available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a much lower cost," wrote Cooper.

'Evil economics': William Barber condemns proposed plastics facility in Cancer Alley

For the second time in two months the moral revival campaigner and civil
rights leader the Rev William Barber has visited an area of toxic pollution in Louisiana known colloquially as “Cancer Alley” as he places the fight for clean air there at the centre of a national protest movement.

The North Carolina-based activist, thrust on to the national stage after the success of the Moral Mondays protests in his home state, joined a group of local demonstrators in St James parish, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, on Wednesday as they rallied against a proposed plastics manufacturing facility nearby.

The sprawling, $9.4bn site in the parish’s fifth ward, pushed by the Taiwanese petrochemicals giant Formosa, would consist of 14 separate plants across 2,300 acres of land and, if approved, would be allowed to roughly double the amount of toxic emissions in the parish from 1.6m lb to 3.2m.

The proposed construction, known as the Sunshine Project, has won the support of local and state officials, including Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, with the promise of 1,200 permanent jobs as well as thousands of temporary construction jobs. It would be built in the parish’s fifth district, which is 85% African American. ...

“It comes down to greed,” Barber said. “You could take an area like Cancer Alley and focus on things that would fix the environment and put people to work cleaning up the mess. But it’s almost as if people decide ‘we just want money’. And then they decide who can we make the money off of that will give us the least resistance. It’s evil economics.”

Lots more detail at the link.

Top U.S. Toxicologist Was Barred From Saying PFAS Cause Disease in Humans. She’s Saying It Now.

The widespread environmental contaminants known as PFAS cause multiple health problems in people, according to Linda Birnbaum, who retired as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program earlier this month. ... Thousands of scholarly articles have linked the chemicals to at least 800 health effects. Some of the health problems found in humans — including elevated cholesterol levels, liver dysfunction, weight gain, reproductive problems and kidney cancer — have been shown to increase along with the levels of the chemicals in blood. Extensive research also shows that children with higher levels of PFAS have weakened immune responses.

Yet while she was leading the NIEHS, a division of the National Institutes of Health, whose mission is “to discover how the environment affects people, in order to promote healthier lives,” Birnbaum was not allowed to use the word “cause” when referring to the health effects from PFAS or other chemicals. “I was banned from doing it,” said Birnbaum. “I had to use ‘association’ all the time. If I was talking about human data or impacts on people, I had to always say there was an association with a laundry list of effects.” Birnbaum said this restriction “was coming from the office of the deputy director. His job hinged on controlling me.” Birnbaum also said that the Trump administration has recently begun coordinating its messaging on PFAS.

Association, the coincidence of a chemical exposure and disease, and causation, in which a health problem happens as the result of the exposure, are different. Because many factors, including chance and genetics and exposures to other substances, can influence the development of disease, the term “cause” is used rarely and cautiously in the field of environmental health. But Birnbaum, who has studied PFAS compounds for decades, believes the global contaminants have cleared that high bar.

Also of Interest

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

Ilhan Omar Explains Why She Endorsed Bernie Sanders — and Why She Blames Mark Zuckerberg for Enabling Threats Against Her

DOJ inquiry into 2016 election becomes criminal investigation

Whitewashing Neoliberal Repression in Chile and Ecuador

Chile in Flames: The Neoliberal Model in Crisis Throughout the Region

What Protests in Lebanon, France, Chile and Ecuador Have In Common

“We Want To Keep The Oil”

Syria - The Kurds Want To Play On Both Sides

How Europe’s Greedy Lending to Africa Is Driving the Migration Wave That Fuels the EU’s Xenophobic Politics

John Kiriakou: Jeffrey Sterling’s ‘Unwanted Spy’

Jill Stein Smashes Hillary & Defends Julian Assange

Hunter Biden Cries When Asked About Ukraine Corruption

Historic Bill in US House Would Create Specific Protections for Climate Refugees

Wildfire rages in northern California as power shutoffs sweep the state

Media Failed to Connect Climate Crisis and Utility Blackouts

Trump accuser says she has documents corroborating sexual assault claims

A Little Night Music

Lucky Peterson - Who's Been Talking

Lucky Peterson - Bad Condition

Lucky Peterson - Up from the Skies

Lucky Peterson - Let's Go Get Stoned

Lucky Peterson - Driving Wheel

Muddy Waters Tribute featuring Lucky Peterson - I'm Ready

Lucky Peterson - Every Second A Fool Is Born

Lucky Peterson - Talkin' Loud And Saying Nothing

Wynton Marsalis Quintet with Lucky Peterson - C.C. Rider

Lucky Peterson - Got My Mojo Workin'