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“The trouble [with injustice] is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.”

-- Arundhati Roy

News and Opinion

FAIR (an excellent media criticism site) weighs in with a report on media reaction to Max Blumenthal's politically motivated weekend arrest. This is undoubtedly the most horrifying and spooky story any American will read tonight. Worth a click and a full read:

Max Blumenthal Arrest Exposes Hypocrisy of Western Media and ‘Human Rights’ NGOs

Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, a prominent journalistic critic of US policy toward Venezuela,  was arrested by DC police on Friday, October 25, in connection with a protest at the Venezuelan embassy, and held incommunicado. But if you rely on corporate media, or even leading “press freedom” groups, you haven’t heard about this troubling encroachment on freedom of the press.

Blumenthal is a bestselling author whose work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, CJR, The Nation and Salon. DC police arrested him at his home on a five-month-old arrest warrant, charging him with simple assault for his attempt to deliver food to the besieged Venezuelan embassy; he was held for two days, and for the first 36 hours was not allowed to speak with a lawyer. (In an interview with FAIR, Blumenthal noted that keeping arrestees—generally poor and African-American—from speaking with lawyers or family is par for the course in the DC criminal justice system.) As of this writing, there has been no mention of Blumenthal’s arrest in outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and Reuters that constantly publish Venezuela-related content, or by the big “press freedom” NGOs.

When freelance US journalist Cody Weddle was detained in Venezuela for 12 hours, it made headlines in the New York Times (3/6/19), Washington Post (3/6/19),  Miami Herald (3/6/19), USA Today (3/6/19), Guardian (3/6/19), UK Telegraph (3/6/19),  NPR (3/10/19), ABC (3/9/19) and Reuters (3/7/19). That’s not exhaustive, but you get the picture. In Weddle’s case, the human rights industry also responded immediately. Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch tweeted about Cody Weddle’s detention, as did Reporters without Borders (RSF). The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also put out a statement immediately (3/6/19). There has been nothing from them about Blumenthal. ...

Nobody should have a problem with Weddle’s arrest or Ramos’ detention getting the widespread attention they did. (The content in the reports about Venezuela is a separate issue.) What should anger anybody who isn’t consumed with hypocrisy is the point Ben Norton, writing in Grayzone (10/28/19), made about Blumenthal’s arrest:

If this had happened to a journalist in Venezuela, every Western human rights NGO and news wire would be howling about Maduro’s authoritarianism. It will be revealing to see how these same elements react to a clear-cut case of political repression in their own backyard.

Blumenthal’s arrest is another example of the legal harassment of US government critics, including  WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning–whose plights have similarly been neglected by Western media and NGOs that claim to support press freedom (FAIR.org, 11/3/18, 4/1/19). ...

The lack of coverage of his arrest “is totally consistent with media coverage of the siege of the Venezuelan embassy,” Blumenthal told FAIR. “The violence, racism, sexism of the Venezuelan opposition—none of it was reported in the mainstream US press.” Aside from alternative outlets like Democracy Now! (10/30/19) and the World Socialist Website (10/30/19), one had to turn to Russian state media to find coverage of Blumenthal’s arrest. A Sputnik article (10/30/19) about the case cited damaging exposés Grayzone has published about Guaidó inner circle, one of which recently led to the resignation of right-wing economist Ricardo Hausmann from Guaidó’s shadow administration.

Here’s an idea for media outlets and NGOs concerned about the appeal of Russian public relations efforts: start doing your jobs by holding your own authoritarian politicians and politicized police forces to account.

Mainstream Journalists Who Refuse To Defend Dissident Journalists Are Worshippers Of Power

Alternative media circles have been buzzing for the last two days ever since news broke about the arrest of Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal, who was reportedly jailed for two days after a SWAT-style police team showed up threatening to break his door down last Friday. ... Strange as it is, alternative media figures are the only people talking about an opposition journalist being arrested on highly suspicious grounds in a highly suspicious way. Mainstream media reporters have been completely ignoring this story.

“Arrest and caging of opposition US journalist Max Blumenthal reminds me (and others I know) of the worst of Russia,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames. “Except there, when oppo journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested, most big-name Russian journalists—including Putin-friendly—publicly supported Golunov. Here—silence.”

This silence is unsurprising at this point, because this same media class has for years been either mute or vocally favorable on the persecution of another dissident journalist, Julian Assange. Ambitious young journalists are made well aware that the very easiest way to demonstrate your loyalty to the media-owning plutocratic establishment is to participate in the relentless smear campaign against the WikiLeaks founder which has worked its way into virtually all political sectors of the western world, and the very easiest way to lose standing within the plutocratic media is to defend him. ...

It isn’t true that if you allow authority to come after dissident journalists they’ll necessarily end up coming after you. That’s only true if you intend at some point to publish something that those in power don’t want you to publish. If you’ve closed the door to the possibility of your ever doing that, then you know that there is no risk to you, so there’s no need to defend dissident journalists when their reporting sees them targeted for legal persecution by the powerful. Which is exactly what mainstream reporters who fail to defend Assange and Blumenthal are telling us about themselves: they’ve closed that door and chosen the side of power, come what may.

This is where the silence comes from. It isn’t that those who work in mainstream news media lack an understanding that at some point power structures may shift and you’ll want to report facts that are inconvenient for the powerful without fear of imprisonment; these people all watched Donald Trump get elected. They already know that things can take a very dark turn in the future for where power is located, and they’ve already decided they don’t care and will always side with the powerful going forward. If the election of Donald Trump wasn’t enough to show these people that it’s a good idea to make sure the press can continue to hold power to account in the future, then nothing will. They’re not ignorant, they’re subservient. They’ve made a lifelong commitment to continue to worship at the altar of power, no matter what form that power takes.

If we were to re-write the “First they came” poem to describe the current war on dissident journalism we’re seeing in 2019, it would go more like this:

First they came for Assange, and I did not speak out,
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.

Then they came for Blumenthal, and I did not speak out,
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.

Then they came for all the other dissident journalists, and I did not speak out,
Because I will never be a dissident journalist.

They never came for me,
Because I have chosen to serve power.

Journalist Arrested By D.C. Police As Political Retaliation

Kurds Reject Syrian Call to Merge SDF With Army to Resist Turkey

Syria’s Defense Ministry issued a statement on Wednesday calling on the Kurdish SDF to unite with the Syrian Army as part of a full restructuring, saying that Syrians, Arab and Kurd alike, should unite to resist the “one enemy” that is Turkey. ...

The Kurdish SDF issued a statement quickly rejecting the idea of a merger, however, saying that they believe a unity of forces can only come after a political settlement on the status of Kurdish territory.

In essence, the Kurds are using the SDF as leverage to try to get a guarantee for their long-sought autonomy. The danger is that the Kurds are in a precarious position, with the Turkish invasion focused heavily on them. At the same time, the US-armed SDF is the last bargaining chip the Kurds really have to get that autonomy deal.

Majority of Germans want Turkey kicked out of NATO

A majority of Germans believe that Turkey should be expelled from NATO over Ankara's military offensive in northern Syria that began in October, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The YouGov survey, commissioned by news agency dpa, interviewed over 2,000 adult Germans between October 25 and 28 and found that that 58% believe Turkey should be removed from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the intergovernmental military alliance of 29 European and North American countries. Only 18% were against the idea.

A larger proportion of Germans wanted the German government to take a tougher stance against Turkey, with 61% in favor of economic sanctions against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's country while 69% supported a complete ban on arms exports.

The German government has limited arms sales to Turkey since Erdogan launched the military offensive in northern Syria on October 9 — but there is no total ban on arms sales to the country, as previously vowed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"Washington has used the Armenian genocide as a bargaining chip with Turkey"

Turkey rips two House resolutions, summons US ambassador

Turkey's government on Wednesday knocked two resolutions passed by the House this week after U.S. lawmakers voted to punish Turkey over its invasion of northern Syria and to recognize the killing of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire as a genocide.

In a statement to members of the nation's ruling party, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey "strongly condemns" the resolution passed Tuesday to sanction Turkey's government over its assault against Syrian Kurdish forces, which is unlikely to see progress in the GOP-held Senate despite Republican support in the House, according to The Associated Press.

A second resolution recognizing as genocide the 1915-1917 killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire would also be ignored by Turkey's government, he reportedly added.

"We are saddened that a slander against our country is being accepted by a country's parliament," Erdogan reportedly said of the genocide resolution, adding: "We would consider this accusation the biggest insult towards our nation."

Bill introduced to give special immigrant visas to Kurds who helped US in Syria

A Democratic congressman, with support from a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, has introduced a bill to provide special immigrant visas to Syrian Kurds who partnered with the United States in the fight against ISIS. The bill from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) comes as Syrian Kurdish forces face an incursion from Turkey, which started after President Trump decided to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria early this month.

“There’s a lot of severe consequences of the president’s decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, and one of the worst is the immediate impact on our partners, allies, people who fought alongside us, who made great sacrifice to help us in our mission against ISIS,” Crow, an Army Ranger veteran, said in an interview with The Hill. ...

The bill would give special immigrant status to Kurds and other Syrians who partnered with the U.S. government in Syria, as well as their spouses and children. It would authorize 4,000 special immigrant visas for qualifying Syrians per year. Similar special immigrant visa programs already exist for Iraqis and Afghans who assist U.S. troops in those countries.

Main backers of Iraqi PM Abdel Mahdi drop support

Iraqi regime responds to mass protests with brutal crackdown

The Iraqi police and security services have killed at least 250 people and injured thousands more in a brutal crackdown against the mass protests that first erupted earlier this month. In Karbala, 18 people were killed and 122 injured on Monday night. Three people died in Nasiriya as a result of injuries sustained earlier in the month. The strikes and protests against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government, which are uniting workers across religious affiliation despite the confusion deliberately stoked by Iraq’s divisive political system, are the largest in decades. Centered in the country’s majority Shia population, the ostensible base of the ruling parties that make up Mahdi's fragile coalition, the protests have shaken the regime to its core.

They reflect the enormous anger over endemic poverty, rampant unemployment, the lack of the most basic services and the systemic corruption that has pervaded Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation and the bitter sectarian conflicts instigated by Washington as part of its divide-and-rule strategy, which have devastated the country. ... Abdul Mahdi has made no attempt to meet the protesters' demands for jobs, better living conditions and an end to corruption. He has dismissed their grievances with contempt, saying there is no “magic solution.”

Yet Iraq is OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer. It has the fifth-largest crude oil reserves in the world and last year took in more than $100 billion in oil revenues. But far from benefiting the Iraqi people, the cash went straight into the hands of international oil companies and their bribed hirelings in Iraq’s political and business circles. According to Transparency International, Iraq is the world’s 12th most corrupt state.

Mahdi imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and closed down the internet and social media in a bid to stop the protests from spreading. In addition, he ordered the deployment of heavily armed soldiers, members of Iraq’s elite counterterrorism squads and riot police to stop demonstrators from marching on Tahrir Square in downtown Baghdad and on the Green Zone, the heavily fortified center of the Iraqi government and location of the US and other Western embassies, as well as the numerous military contractors that prop up the regime. Snipers were positioned on rooftops to pick off protesters and masked death squads were deployed to go to the homes of known activists and assassinate them. Thousands are believed to have been injured as a result of the security forces’ use of live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon.

The initial wave of protests stopped for two weeks for the Shia religious festival of Arbaeen before resuming last Friday, when demonstrators in various parts of the country demanded the government’s resignation. “We’re here to bring down the whole government, to weed them all out,” protesters shouted. They added, “We don’t want a single one of them. Not [Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed] Halbousi, not [Prime Minister Adel] Abdul Mahdi. We want to bring down the regime.”

Chile pulls out of hosting APEC and COP 25 due to protests

How Pinochet's economic model led to the current crisis engulfing Chile

Analysts have correctly interpreted the wave of protests as a reflection of discontent with the material, political and social inequalities engendered by the economic model imposed by the country’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet. That model deregulated markets and privatised social security systems, and was widely emulated by other countries in the region. Now the Piñera government has the chance to transform the exhausted Chilean model and lay the foundation of a real welfare state, giving Chile a chance to become a genuinely developed country – not one which has merely seen an increase in GDP per capita.

Chile is notorious for its income inequality: the gap between rich and poor has widened in recent years as the combined wealth of its billionaires is equal to 25% of its GDP. But inequality is multidimensional: Chile’s employment rate languishes at 55%, while employment conditions are so precarious that 50% of the workforce cannot possibly accumulate enough savings to fund a minimally adequate pension.

Thirty per cent of formal contracts are short-term and last an average of just 10 months, interspersed with lengthy periods of unemployment, leaving workers one step away from poverty if they become ill or unemployed. They feel excluded and ignored by political power, which is highly concentrated among the elite. They feel cheated and exploited by firms and retailers, who have fixed prices for basic consumer goods.

Many Chileans live with high levels of debt and thus pay more for the same services (such as higher education or healthcare) than rich people, who get discounts because they can pay in cash. But perhaps most importantly, they feel discriminated against and humiliated in all these areas as they battle with inadequate public services that fail to level the playing field. ...

The legacy of Pinochet’s economic model underlies existing social protection systems largely because political elites have refused to contemplate structural changes. A significant proportion of contributions to social systems must now go towards sharing risk equally among the population so that rich and poor can receive the same level of care in hospitals, receive pensions that are a guarantee of old-age security and have the same chances of obtaining a good education. This is the basic premise of public services as they exist in every developed country in the world.

Chilean president cancels Apec and climate summits amid wave of unrest

Chile’s embattled president has been forced to cancel two major international summits after government concessions failed to defuse weeks of violent protests that have seen thousands of arrests, left at least 20 dead and sent shock waves across Latin America.

Sebastián Piñera made the announcement on Wednesday morning, telling reporters Chile would no longer be able to host November’s Apec trade summit and the COP25 UN climate conference the following month. ...

Piñera blamed the “difficult circumstances” Chile was facing for the decision and said his government’s primary concern had to be “fully restoring public order, security and social peace”.

“This has been a very difficult decision – which has caused us great pain – because we understand perfectly the importance [of the events] for Chile and for the world,” Chile’s centre-right president said.

Colombia launches military offensive after killing of five indigenous leaders

Colombia’s government has launched a military offensive to hunt down the gunmen responsible for the massacre of five indigenous leaders in the south-western province of Cauca. The president, Iván Duque, travelled to the region on Wednesday along with his defence and interior ministers to condemn the massacre and oversee operations to root out armed groups that plague the conflict-ridden Cauca province.

The government blamed dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc), a now-demobilised leftist rebel group, for the attack on Tuesday, in which assailants threw grenades and opened fire on a convoy of armoured SUVs carrying the indigenous leaders.

Among the victims was Cristina Bautista, the leader of the semi-autonomous Tacueyó reservation and her unarmed indigenous guardsmen. Six other people were wounded in the aftermath, as the attackers fired on an ambulance that arrived at the scene. An initial investigation suggested that the massacre came in response to the capture of three Farc dissidents by local indigenous guardsmen. ...

“The government says the right things, but doesn’t do anything,” said Eduin Marcelo Capaz, the human rights coordinator of a local indigenous council. “Duque will say whatever he has to to cover up his government’s ineffectiveness and disinterest in protecting us.”

“When will the massacre end?” tweeted the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (or Onic), going on to report that 121 indigenous people have been murdered since Duque took office in August last year.

House votes to endorse Trump impeachment inquiry

For only the third time in the history of the modern presidency, the US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to formalize impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States.

In a largely party-line vote of 232-196, the House embarked on a path that seemed likely to lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment – if not necessarily his removal from office. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, presided over the vote and marked it with a bang of her gavel.

Republicans held ranks to vote uniformly against the process, while two Democrats crossed party lines to join them. The House’s sole independent, former Republican Justin Amash of Michigan, voted to advance the resolution.

The vote set rules for the public phase of the inquiry, laying out a road map for impeachment that could produce dramatic televised public hearings within two weeks and a vote on impeachment itself by the end of the year.

Ro Khanna Condemns GOP For Attacking Civil Servants to Shield Trump As House Votes on Impeachment

White House blocked effort to condemn Russia for seizing Ukraine ships, Congress told

The White House blocked the US state department from issuing a statement condemning Russia for seizing Ukrainian military vessels, according to a state department official, in the latest example of the strain the Trump administration is under in pursuing conflicting policies towards the two countries.

The revelation on Wednesday came from Christopher Anderson, who was a senior aide to the special envoy on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, in November 2018, when Russia fired on and captured three Ukrainian vessels in the Sea of Azov off the Crimean peninsula.

“While my colleagues at the state department quickly prepared a statement condemning Russia for its escalation, senior officials in the White House blocked it from being issued,” Anderson said in his prepared remarks to congressional committees holding impeachment hearings. “Ambassador Volker drafted a tweet condemning Russia’s actions, which I posted to his account.”

In the face of silence from the White House, the then US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, condemned Russian behaviour, after which the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, followed suit. Trump voiced concern but did not blame Moscow.

New impeachment milestone

NEW depositions coming up with some big names, a source familiar w/ impeachment inquiry tells me:

John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis slated for 11/4

AND

John Bolton, former national security advisor, for 11/7

— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) October 30, 2019

Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper, has responded to the House request for his testimony, saying "Bolton is not willing to appear voluntarily." Cooper added: "I stand ready at all times to accept service of a subpoena on his behalf."

— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) October 30, 2019

Bolton Warned Me About Giuliani's Role in Ukraine, State Department Official Will Testify

A top State Department official will testify Wednesday that former National Security Advisor John Bolton warned him about Rudy Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine in the early summer. Bolton called President Trump’s personal lawyer a barrier to improved relations with Ukraine in a June meeting, according to the prepared remarks of Christopher Anderson, a senior diplomat deeply involved in U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

“He cautioned that Mr. Giuliani was a key voice with the President on Ukraine, which could be an obstacle to increased White House engagement,” Anderson plans to tell the House impeachment inquiry, according to copies of his prepared remarks circulated before his appearance on Tuesday.

Anderson is set to become the latest U.S. official to describe Bolton’s dim view of Giuliani’s role in Ukraine policy to the impeachment inquiry, which is focused on whether Trump pressured Ukraine to launch politically helpful investigations into Democratic targets. Bolton once slammed Giuliani as “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” according to the reported testimony of his former senior aide Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top adviser on Europe and Russia.

Democrats are eyeing Bolton as a potentially devastating witness against the president — if he can be persuaded to appear.

Spooky. The ghost of 2008 lurks in the hedges.

New York Fed’s Repo Loans Are Foaming the Hedge Fund Runways

There is growing evidence that the New York Fed, the Wall Street feeding tube team of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is using its massive new repo loan operations to securities firms (primary dealers) to foam the Wall Street runways to try to avoid a crash landing as money gushes out of hedge funds by the tens of billions of dollars.

According to a report at eVestment, investors pulled $29.37 billion from hedge funds in the third quarter of this year, bringing the total year-to-date to an eyebrow-raising $76.86 billion. That’s more than twice the amount that was withdrawn in all of last year. Hedge funds are highly-leveraged, so $76.86 billion in withdrawals could translate into hundreds of billions of dollars of liquidations in stock and bond markets. The report further notes that this is the “sixth consecutive quarterly outflow.”

Supporting the thesis that a surge in hedge fund withdrawals at least partly explains the liquidity crisis on Wall Street that has prompted the Fed to restore its money funnel, the Financial Times reported on October 1 that the CFO of a “top-10 US bank” told it that “We have plenty of liquidity. We are just choosing not to lend it out overnight to hedge funds.”

Keiser Report: Money burning unicorns & shale slowdown

Jayapal Calls Out 2020 Democrats Who Attack Medicare for All With 'Arguments of Republicans and Insurance Companies'

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, author of gold-standard Medicare for All legislation in the House, took centrist 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to task Wednesday for parroting Republican Party and insurance industry talking points in their attacks on single-payer healthcare. "It is very frustrating to have your own party making the arguments of Republicans and insurance companies," Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview with The American Prospect's David Dayen.

The Washington Democrat said some members of her party who are vying for the presidential nomination are not being "accurate in their representations" of Medicare for All. Jayapal didn't name names, but the interview comes two weeks after South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) each went on the offensive against Medicare for All during the 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Ohio.

The attacks on Medicare for All that have been particularly misleading, said Jayapal, are those that focus on the plan's supposedly exorbitant cost while ignoring the price tags of the incremental alternatives offered by Biden and Buttigieg.

"It is absolutely absurd to subject Medicare for All to a different standard of scrutiny," Jayapal told the Prospect. "Instead of saying, 'Wow, Medicare for All costs too much, how are you going to pay for it,' the question to every candidate should be, 'What is your plan to bring down healthcare costs over the next ten years? And what is your plan to universally cover everybody, because none of the other plans do that.'"

Jayapal added that the debate about whether Medicare for All would raise taxes on the middle class is a "red herring" that distracts from the goal of guaranteeing comprehensive healthcare to all at a lower overall cost.

More than 1,000 homeless people died in Los Angeles county last year

More than 1,000 homeless people died in Los Angeles county in 2018, double the number of deaths from six years ago. The increase is a stark illustration of the region’s severe housing crisis, advocates said.

The LA county public health department reported this week that 1,047 homeless people died last year, a number that has steadily increased every year since 2013, when 536 people died. The leading causes of death were coronary heart disease, which accounted for 22% of deaths, followed by alcohol and drug overdose at 21%, transportation-related injuries at 9%, homicides at 6% and suicides at 5%.

The data sheds light on a worsening public health emergency in the county, where officials estimate there are now 59,000 people homeless, including more than 44,000 people who are living unsheltered – in cars, tents, or makeshift quarters. The report also follows a string of high-profile attacks against homeless people in the area, including the killing of Darrell Fields, a beloved musician who was burned to death in his tent on Skid Row.

“We’ve got three people a day dying on the streets,” said Adam Rice, an organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA Can), a group that had worked closely with Fields. “It is a complete failure of leadership. Darrell didn’t need to die. None of these people needed to die. The reason this is happening is because there’s not proper housing.”

Soaring rents and a major shortage of affordable housing have pushed people out of their homes in the area, with more than half of unsheltered adults in a recent count saying they were experiencing homelessness for the first time. The county estimated that there are now 8,800 homeless families.

Is Joe Biden an Azerbaijani asset?

Sanders Campaign, Progressives Rip Biden Super PAC: 'Enough of the Wealthy and Powerful Buying Candidates and Elections'

Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign took aim at opponent Joe Biden Wednesday for giving tacit blessing to the formation of a super PAC, called "Unite the Country," which was officially launched this week. In an email to supporters Wednesday morning, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir took issue not only with the name of the new Biden super PAC—calling it "a bad choice"—but also the kind of politics it represents.

"While there may be disagreements between candidates in this race about whether or not it’s okay to have a super PAC," Shakir wrote, "on this issue the country is already pretty united: People have had ENOUGH of the wealthy and powerful buying our candidates and elections."

Paperwork for Unite the Country was filed Tuesday by former Biden aide Larry Rasky, a fundraiser for the former vice president whose emails asking for donations reportedly included in April the statement that Biden would "not work with a super PAC or take PAC money for his campaign." ...

Biden, speaking on Tuesday to MSNBC host and wife of former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan Andrea Mitchell, said that the super PAC—where a small group of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations can dump unlimited amounts of cash for their preferred candidate, unfettered by maximum donations—was itself an example of "grassroots support." ...

During an interview Monday with The Real News, Norman Solomon—a frequent Common Dreams contributor— said that the Biden campaign rationalizations for the support of the super PAC was yet another example of the former vice president's campaign priorities being out of step with the energy of the modern Democratic Party.

"I think the major factor for why Biden has gradually been falling in the polls is by the way that he campaigns and speaks and the contradictions in his claims versus his record," said Solomon. "And those contradictions are very much played out in his current effort to rationalize taking huge money or accepting the huge money going into super PACs on behalf of his campaign." ...

In comment to reporters Tuesday, Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz said that the former vice president was forced to accept help from the super PAC because of what Schultz implied was an unfair advantage by candidates with organic, grassroots support.

"Our campaign was at a disadvantage in that Joe Biden didn't walk in with his own email list," said Shultz. "Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, in particular, has built their email list at a national level for years and years with millions and millions and millions of dollars of investment."

Current Affairs Editor: In Bernie Sanders vs Elizabeth Warren crucial distinctions must be made

Biden Plan 'Preserves Corporate Greed' Rotting Nation's Healthcare System, Says Sanders Campaign

Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign on Wednesday highlighted the potentially deadly flaws in former Vice President Joe Biden's healthcare plan and accused him of "once again peddling dishonest insurance company talking points" after Biden's team launched its latest attack on Medicare for All.

"Biden's proposal preserves the corporate greed and corruption that rots our healthcare system, and his plan leaves millions of Americans uninsured," said Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir after the Biden campaign issued a statement condemning Medicare for All and questioning the "credibility" of Sanders and others who support it.

"Will Joe Biden tell the American people how many more of them he's willing to allow to go bankrupt?" Shakir asked. "How many more people would die because they don't get to a doctor in time? We need to have the guts to stand up to corporate greed. That's what this election is about."

Team Sanders also called out Biden for reversing course and greenlighting the creation of a super PAC to help fund his cash-strapped campaign.

Today: @JoeBiden attacked @BernieSanders for supporting Medicare for All. https://t.co/6AlH5Q9yfy

Also today: we learned that the new Biden super PAC is led by a former Biden aide who is now the CEO of a lobbying firm representing healthcare clients: https://t.co/Ndqwfiu7Ws

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) October 31, 2019

Krystal Ball to Dems: Suck less and we won't vote 3rd party

Twitter to End Paid Political Advertising on Platform, CEO Says

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday announced that the social media site would no longer have paid political advertisements, a move sure to shake up the digital landscape that earned him praise from progressives.

"Wow," tweeted activist Edward Snowden. "Big move by @jack, and a bigger contrast to @Facebook's increasingly problematic policy positions."

In a series of tweets, Dorsey laid out the reasons for the decision and made clear that the policy would only apply to paid advertisements.

"This isn't about free expression," said Dorsey. "This is about paying for reach."

"They're drawing a clear line between paid reach and earned, organic reach," said NBC journalist Ben Collins.

Under the new rules, as indicated by Dorsey, a campaign presumably could post an advertisement video or photo to its own account—just not pay to promote it. The final policy will be announced on November 15 and implemented on November 22.

"A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet," Dorsey explained. "Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money."

Dorsey appeared to take a subtle shot at competitor Facebook, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a recent hearing that political advertisements on that platform did not need to be truthful. In response, activists bought an ad that shows members of the Republican Party supporting the congresswoman's Green New Deal; Facebook approved the ad.

"It's not credible for us to say: 'We're working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want!'" said Dorsey.

Rex Tillerson denies Exxon misled investors over climate crisis

Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil and former secretary of state in the Trump administration, has denied in court that the oil and gas giant committed fraud by concealing from investors the true financial impact of the climate crisis. Tillerson told the New York supreme court that Exxon had acted properly over disclosing its financial exposure to climate-related regulations while he was chief executive.

Leticia James, the New York state attorney general, is suing Exxon over claims it misled investors over the costs associated with the climate crisis. Exxon is accused of misleading investors over the business risks caused by regulations to address the climate crisis. The company is accused of covering up the costs it will incur from government rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The case represents just the second time a climate case has gone to trial in the US.

New York’s lawsuit accuses Exxon of using a public “proxy cost” of up to $80 per ton of carbon emissions to account for regulations that would limit planet-warming emissions, while internally using figures of $40 a ton, or nothing at all, to allow it to make more environmentally damaging investments. An Exxon spokesman has previously said that it properly applies two different metrics – a “proxy cost”, intended to reflect the impact of all climate policies on global demand, and a greenhouse gas cost which relates to actual levies placed on fossil fuel projects in a certain jurisdiction.

Under questioning, Tillerson said: “We don’t know how else to model what future policy impacts might be. But whatever policies are, ultimately they come back to either your revenues or your costs.” ... Tillerson said he did not remember the climate costs being a determining factor in any decision made during his decade-long tenure at the helm of Exxon, which ended in 2016.

No One Asked Rex Tillerson About His Fake-Ass Email Account at the Exxon Trial

Rex Tillerson took the stand Wednesday in New York’s high-profile lawsuit against ExxonMobil, and prosecutors didn’t even ask him about his alter ego, “Wayne Tracker.” Tillerson used that name to email his underlings about climate change when he served as CEO of Exxon from 2006 until the end of 2016. But instead of asking him about that correspondance, prosecutors grilled President Trump’s former Secretary of State on whether Exxon defrauded investors by using different calculations to account for the cost of future climate change regulations.

That’s the crux of New York’s case: The state claims Exxon kept one set of public numbers to account for the future costs of greenhouse gas regulations, and another, much lower set, to make business decisions.

During his time at Exxon, Tillerson semi-officially went by “Wayne Tracker” — “Wayne” is Tillerson’s middle name, but there’s no word on why he used “Tracker” — and he admitted to using the email address, wayne.tracker@exxonmobil.com, for much of his official business. Tillerson left the email account that used his actual name, rex.w.tillerson@exxonmobil.com, for his assistant to sort through. He just got too many emails on that account, he said.

But when New York subpoenaed his emails, the company had deleted them in what it said was a routine sweep. New York was widely expected to argue that, because the email account contained information relevant to the investigation, Exxon shouldn’t have deleted them. The prosecution focused on proving that Exxon lied to investors about the different sets of numbers.

New Study: 300 Million Face Severe Risk of Climate-Fueled Coastal Flooding by 2050

'Step Up or Step Aside': With California Engulfed in Flames, Climate Activists Occupy Nancy Pelosi's Office

Over 50 young climate activists from California staged a sit-in at the Capitol Office of Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, chastising the Democratic Speaker of the House for failing to act boldly on climate even as their home state is engulfed by wildfires made worse by the planetary crisis. After taking over Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) office earlier in the day, the climate activists from the Sunrise Movement proceeded to Pelosi's office where they displayed signs reading "What Is Your Plan?" and sang "Which Side Are You On?"

"Democratic leadership is failing to treat this like the emergency that it is," organizer Claire Tacherra-Morrison said in a statement. "Business-as-usual is killing us." ...

Firefighters across the state, one protester said, "are trying to contain some of the fastest-moving fires that we've seen in the West Coast" while Pelosi is "putting the lives of Californians and U.S. citizens in continued and escalating danger by not rising to meet the active dangers posed by climate change."

According to climate scientists, the warming of the planet that's been accelerated by the hundreds of billions of tons of carbon released each year by oil and gas companies is making extreme weather changes and events more frequent, leading to a longer wildfire season in California.

To truly serve Californians who for three years in a row have watched as wildfires burned through thousands of acres in their state, Pelosi must back a Green New Deal, the Sunrise Movement said. Thanks to the grassroots group's pressure campaign, more than 100 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors to Green New Deal legislation, the 10-year plan to transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

But Pelosi has not committed to holding a vote on the proposal and has not endorsed it herself. ...

"We're putting Congressional Democrats on notice," added Tacherra-Morrison. "If you don't stand up for us, we'll vote you out in 2020."

As Rich Hire Private Firefighters, Housekeepers Go to Work in Fire Zone & Prisoners Fight CA Blazes

The devastating California wildfires are exactly what climate scientists warned us about pic.twitter.com/NZqWSRydbC

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 30, 2019

California wildfires: new blaze threatens Reagan library amid extreme winds

California battled wildfires fueled by fierce winds across the state, including a new blaze that swept dangerously close to the Ronald Reagan presidential library in the Simi Valley near Los Angeles. The fire is one of several that firefighters are battling in the north and south. Meanwhile more than a million people across the state remained in darkness amid widespread power shutoffs.

Meteorologists had warned southern California could see extreme winds on Wednesday that would severely complicate the efforts to control several blazes, including a fire near the Getty Museum in Los Angeles that had prompted evacuations on Monday. Winds gusts topped 50mph (80km/h) in some southern California areas before dawn. The Simi Valley fire spread quickly and prompted the evacuation of the Ronald Reagan presidential library and nearby homes. ...

In the wine country north of San Francisco, winds topped out at 70mph (112km/h) and began to ease early on Wednesday, but forecasters said fire danger would remain because of continuing breezes and very dry air. Firefighters said they made progress overnight in tackling the Kincade fire, which had burned 86 homes and charred an area more than twice the size of San Francisco.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted podcast - American Horrors: Regime Change in Iraq to the Rise of ISIS

Chile protesters: 'We are subjugated by the rich. It's time for that to end'

Who Is Supposed To Define U.S. Foreign Policy - Hint: It Is Not The Borg

Trump Reveals Plans for Nationwide Crackdown, More Militarized Police

To Fix Racial Gerrymander, North Carolina Republicans Considered a Map That Could Have Elected an All-White Slate

The Presidential Town Hall on Mass Incarceration Was a Historic Moment and a Missed Opportunity

Environmentalists Slam 'Climate Criminal' Rex Tillerson for Spreading More Lies During Testimony in Exxon Trial

Barack Obama's hypocrisy on woke politics

Bill Maher Urges Dems To Ignore Progressives

A Little Night Music

Tabby Thomas - Hoodoo Party

The Duponts - Screamin' Ball (At Dracula Hall)

The Brian Sisters - The Boogie Woogie Man

Oogie Boogie's Song

The Moontrekkers - Night of the Vampire

Big Jay McNeely - Psycho Serenade

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Little Demon

Charles Sheffield - It's Your Voodoo Workin'

Otis Spann - Must Have Been The Devil

Elvis Presley - Devil in Disguise

Round Robin - I'm The Wolf Man

Link Wray - The Shadow Knows