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This evening's music features Delta bluesman Big Joe Williams. Enjoy!

"In a single generation, the Internet has given to virtually every person on the face of the earth the ability to communicate with fellow human beings on virtually any topic, at any time, and in every nook and cranny on the globe. This magnificent invention has done this without succumbing to government control."

-- Bob Barr

News and Opinion

Glenn Greenwald: Is Facebook Operating as an Arm of the Israeli State by Removing Palestinian Posts?

There's one small error in this article that should be mentioned. Greenwald refers to Ayelet Shaked as the "pro-settlement Justice Minister," when in actuality, she is the pro-genocide Israeli Justice Minister. If you follow the link and see an example of what she posted on Facebook, it gives a different complexion to her claims of Palestinian incitement.

Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments

In September of last year, we noted that Facebook representatives were meeting with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the ground that they constituted “incitement.” The meetings — called for and presided over by one of the most extremist and authoritarian Israeli officials, pro-settlement Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked — came after Israel threatened Facebook that its failure to voluntarily comply with Israeli deletion orders would result in the enactment of laws requiring Facebook to do so, upon pain of being severely fined or even blocked in the country.

The predictable results of those meetings are now clear and well-documented. Ever since, Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders:

Shortly after news broke earlier this month of the agreement between the Israeli government and Facebook, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to the social media giant over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed “incitement.” She said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests.

Needless to say, Israelis have virtually free rein to post whatever they want about Palestinians. Calls by Israelis for the killing of Palestinians are commonplace on Facebook, and largely remain undisturbed. As Al Jazeera reported last year, “Inflammatory speech posted in the Hebrew language … has attracted much less attention from the Israeli authorities and Facebook.” One study found that “122,000 users directly called for violence with words like ‘murder,’ ‘kill,’ or ‘burn.’ Arabs were the No. 1 recipients of hateful comments.” Yet there appears to be little effort by Facebook to censor any of that.

[See full article for details of how the U.S. government uses pressure on Facebook to ban individuals. - js]

Iran's enemies to blame for unrest, says supreme leader, as nine die overnight

Iran’s supreme leader has blamed the Islamic Republic’s enemies for nationwide unrest, as authorities cracked down with increasing intensity on protesters, leading to nine deaths overnight. “In the events of the past few days, the enemies of Iran are deploying every means at their disposal including money, arms and political and intelligence support to coordinate making troubles for the Islamic establishment,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first public remarks since protests began on Thursday.

Videos posted on social networks suggest riot police and protesters are becoming more confrontational. In a sign that the rhetoric is also hardening, Esmail Kowsari, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, vowed that the elite forces would crush those he said were disturbing the country’s security. In the event that the unrest continued, “the authorities will undoubtedly make a decision and finish the business”, Kowsari said.

Demonstrations, the largest seen in Iran since its disputed 2009 presidential election, resumed on Tuesday evening for the sixth consecutive day. The protests began on Thursday when opponents of Iran’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, gathered in north-eastern Iran to demonstrate over economic grievances. They then spread nationwide and took on more of an anti-regime dimension, including anti-Khamenei chants. An intervention by Rouhani on Sunday, when he acknowledged the discontent, failed to quell the anger. Monday night’s disturbances were the most violent so far. ...

Another senior official directly blamed Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, for the demonstrations. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, told a Lebanese Arabic-language TV channel that the number of messages on social networks sent online via Saudi Arabia showed the country was involved. He warned that Iran would retaliate with “an appropriate response” in due course.

Glenn Greenwald on Iran Protests: Trump Tweets “Time for Change” While Backing Dictators Worldwide

There's Something Different About These Iran Protests

In a matter of days, protests in Iran have quickly spread across the country, taking the government by surprise and leaving analysts and pundits alike confused. Part of the reason many have been caught off guard is because these protests appear quite different from their 2009 predecessor—in terms of size, leadership and objective. ...

The current protests appear much more sporadic, with no clear leadership and with objectives that have shifted over the course of the past four days. According to witnesses I've spoken to, the protests were initiated in Mashhad by religious hardliners who sought to take advantage of the population's legitimate economic grievances to score points against the Hassan Rouhani government, which they consider too moderate. But they quickly lost control over the protests as the economic message has resonated with a broader segment of the population than they expected. Frustrations with corruption and falling living standards appear to have given way to much sharper political slogans—such as "Death to the dictator!" and "Down with the Islamic Republic!"

Few have been more surprised by all of this than Iran's reformists. The absence of slogans and chants invoking Green leaders such as Mousavi, Karroubi or former President Mohammad Khatami gives credence to their claims that they are not a driving force behind these protests. In fact, no major reformist figure has come out in favor of the protests, and some activists have even spoken out against them. ... The fact that reformists—who have been at the center of most of the large-scale protests in Iran for the past two decades—appear to be neither driving nor even particularly involved presents a new political phenomenon in Iran.

The protestors likely include some disillusioned Rouhani supporters. But remember that Rouhani won re-election with 57% of the vote (and 70% voter participation) only seven months ago. That means it's more likely that the core of the demonstrators are of a different ilk. Their uncompromisingly anti-regime slogans suggest they may belong to the segment of the population who tends not to vote, doesn't believe the system can be reformed and either never subscribed to or has lost hope in the idea of gradual change. Add to that those who have joined the protests out of a sense of economic desperation and humiliation.

After 'Advocating Killing Iranians' for Years, Neocon Bill Kristol Called Out for Faux Concern

Weekly Standard founder and Iraq War booster Bill Kristol has emerged in recent days as a self-styled defender of the Iranian people as their country's anti-regime protests continue to intensify. But during a panel discussion on MSNBC Tuesday, National Iranian American Council president Trita Parsi questioned how much Kristol really cares about Iranians, given his long record of calling for military actions that would potentially leave many thousands (or even millions) of them dead.

Reacting to Kristol's call for the U.S. to "respect the Iranian people's desire for freedom," Parsi said: "With all due respect, Bill, you've been arguing to bomb Iran for so long that I don't know if you're really respecting the Iranian people. You've been advocating killing Iranians."

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle attempted to come to Kristol's defense, insisting that he is "not advocating to kill anyone, let's make that very clear." "No, on the contrary, there has been all of this argument for taking military action against Iran instead of actually having the nuclear deal that has been working," Parsi responded.

Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, argued following the exchange that Kristol's history is enough to show that he "is no more qualified to speak about freedom in Iran than an arsonist is to promote fire safety."

Kristol is just one of a number of American neoconservatives who have jumped at the opportunity to call for U.S. intervention in Iran in the midst of growing internal tensions. Often portrayed as an effort to "help" the Iranian people—just as the Iraq War was framed as a fight for "democracy"—critics have argued that hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton are simply looking to exploit Iran's domestic turmoil for their own war aims.

'Worrying' clampdown on human rights: UN condemns Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia faces new calls to release the dozens of people detained since September in what has been condemned as a “worrying” clampdown on human rights. More than 60 prominent clerics, writers, academics, religious figures, journalists and activists are reported to have been detained in the kingdom in a wave of arrests that began in September.

In a statement on the second anniversary of Saudi Arabia’s last mass execution, of 47 adults, UN human rights experts and groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have decried the latest crackdown on dissent, which began after Prince Mohammed bin Salman became the new crown prince in June. In a statement, five UN experts condemned a “worrying pattern of widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests and detention” through the Gulf kingdom’s use of counter-terrorism and security laws.

“We are witnessing the persecution of human rights defenders for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly, association and belief, as well as in retaliation for their work,” the experts said. “The government has ignored repeated calls by UN experts and others to halt these violations, rectify them, and prevent their recurrence.”

South Korea offers to hold talks with North after Olympics olive branch

South Korea has proposed holding high-level talks with North Korea next week, a day after the regime’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said he was prepared to send a delegation of athletes to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang.

In a cautious indication of progress in inter-Korean relations after a year of tensions over Pyongyang’s ballistic missile programme, South Korea’s unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon, said the offer reiterated “our willingness to hold talks with the North at any time and place, and in any form”. Cho proposed that the two Koreas meet next Tuesday at the border village of Panmunjom, where they last held high-level talks in December 2015.

“We hope that the South and North can sit face to face and discuss the participation of the North Korean delegation at the Pyeongchang Games, as well as other issues of mutual interest for the improvement of inter-Korean ties,” Cho told reporters in Seoul, according to Yonhap news agency. “We think that the suspended inter-Korean communication channels should be immediately restored. We propose that the two Koreas discuss details of talks including agenda items and the composition of delegations ... at the truce village.”

North Korea has yet to respond to the offer, and the US president, Donald Trump, said on Tuesday he was withholding judgement on the offer to talk.

Kim Jong-un’s Overture Could Drive a Wedge Between South Korea and the U.S.

Beyond a New Year’s declaration by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, that he would move to the mass production of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles in 2018 lies a canny new strategy to initiate direct talks with South Korea in the hope of driving a wedge into its seven-decade alliance with the United States.

Mr. Kim, perhaps sensing the simmering tension between President Trump and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, called for an urgent dialogue between the two Koreas before the opening of the Winter Olympics in the South next month.

The strained relationship between the allies has been playing out for months, as Mr. Moon, a liberal, argued for economic and diplomatic openings with the North, even as Mr. Trump has worked hard to squeeze the North with increasingly punishing sanctions. Mr. Moon also angered Mr. Trump and his aides in recent months by suggesting he holds what he called a veto over any American pre-emptive military action against the North’s nuclear program.

Until now Mr. Kim has largely ignored Mr. Moon, whom the North Korean media has portrayed as a spineless lackey of the United States. But the dramatic shift in tone and policy, toward bilateral talks between the two Koreas, suggests that Mr. Kim sees an opportunity to develop and accentuate the split between Mr. Moon and Mr. Trump, betting that the United States will be unable to mount greater pressure on the North if it does not have South Korean acquiescence.

The gambit may work. Hours after Mr. Kim’s speech, Mr. Moon’s office welcomed the North’s proposal, in a way that could further aggravate tensions with the United States.

Trump says U.S. has gotten 'nothing' from Pakistan aid

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States has “foolishly” handed Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years while getting nothing in return, and pledged to put a stop to it.

“They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.”

A National Security Council official on Monday said the White House does not plan to send $255 million in aid to Pakistan “at this time” and said “the administration continues to review Pakistan’s level of cooperation.” In August, the administration had said it was delaying the payment.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja M. Asif, wrote on Twitter “We will respond to President Trump’s tweet shortly inshallah...Will let the world know the truth...difference between facts & fiction.”

The police killed more than 1,000 people this year. Every frame of this video is from one of those sites of violence. pic.twitter.com/rXsGZZuoYX

— Josh Begley (@joshbegley) December 30, 2017

NYC will shutter part of its’ notorious Rikers Island prison this summer

The mayor of New York City will take the first step in closing the notorious Rikers’ Island this summer. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the first of nine detention centers at New York’s biggest jail will close in the summer of 2018, moving some 600 inmates off the island. The mayor has promised to close the facility entirely in the next decade. ...

The city’s been under pressure to close the jail, which has been racked by controversy. In 2015, the New Yorker reported a story about Kalief Browder, a teenager from the Bronx who spent three years on Rikers awaiting a trial for stealing a backpack. Browder suffered from mental illness after spending about two years in solitary confinement while in jail. He killed himself in 2015.

Cases like Browder’s and story after story of violence in the facility have brought increased scrutiny to Rikers, with many advocates pushing for the closing of the jail. In March of 2017, DeBlasio announced a plan to close the jail within a decade, while eyeing other spots to open new jails within the city limits.

California rings in new year with broad legalization of marijuana

The arrival of the new year in California brought with it broad legalization of marijuana, a much-anticipated change that comes two decades after the state was the first to allow pot for medical use. The US’s most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.

Pot is now legal in California for adults 21 and older, and individuals can grow up to six plants and possess as much as an ounce of the drug.

But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California won’t be easy, at least initially. Only about 90 businesses received state licenses to open on New Year’s Day. They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational pot will not be available right away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licenses needed to get state permits. Meanwhile, Fresno, Bakersfield and Riverside are among the communities that have adopted laws forbidding recreational marijuana sales.

In 1996, over the objections of law enforcement, President Clinton’s drug tsar and three former presidents, California voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes. Twenty years later, voters approved legal recreational use and gave the state a year to write regulations for a legal market that would open in 2018.

Today, 29 states have adopted medical marijuana laws. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Since then, five more states have passed recreational marijuana laws, including Massachusetts, where retail sales are scheduled to begin in July.

Trump Administration Bricked On at Least Half of Its Executive Orders in 2017

The Trump Administration has either failed to complete or is keeping from the public more than half of the reports that President Donald Trump assigned to the administration through his early and prolific use of the executive order. Of the reports it did complete, many were turned in well past the assigned due date and only “complete” in the sense that they consist of words on paper.

In his first year in office, Trump ordered 95 separate reports, performance reviews, instructions, or other activities to be carried out by executive branch agencies. The Intercept has been reviewing these orders for the last year. We found that 48 of the 95 actions were completed, in many cases after the due date stipulated in the order. Federal agencies have yet to complete another 20. In 27 cases, the agency was unresponsive to our requests for information.

The executive orders were intended to form the building blocks of Trump’s governing strategy. They covered everything from defeating the Islamic State, to instituting signature policies on immigration and cybersecurity, to fashioning the administration’s position on regulatory reform and energy independence. That the executive branch has completed just half of the tasks the president had ordered suggests that the administration isn’t running like the “fine-tuned machine” Trump has boasted about.

Trump had a field day with the environment while you were on vacation

The Trump administration finished its year of rolling back an unprecedented number of environmental regulations by slipping in another handful in the final days of 2017 while we were on vacation. This long — and successful — year for President Donald Trump on environmental deregulation happened with the help of several industry-aligned execs he appointed to head up government agencies, who’ve undone much of the regulatory work put forward by former President Barack Obama. ...

On the final business day of 2017, the Department of the Interior announced it would repeal a contested 2015 rule put forward by the Obama administration, that added a layer of federal regulations to any fracking that took place on federal lands. ...

Also rescinded at the 11th hour of 2017 was a set of regulations aimed at preventing another disastrous spill in offshore drilling operations. ... The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement got rid of rules that called for independent inspectors, licensed by the government agency, to inspect safety equipment. Instead, drillers will abide by a set of safety standards set by industry groups. They also did away with a rule that required companies to conduct testing within 120 days of any equipment failure. There’s now no time limit for inspecting shoddy equipment, the Washington Post reports. ...

The Obama administration said the federal government could prosecute oil, gas, wind, and solar companies for killing migratory birds. But the Friday before Christmas, the Department of the Interior issued a new interpretation of a law, essentially freeing companies of liability for accidentally killing birds in uncovered oil pits or by putting up unmarked power lines.

Trump Rolls Back Offshore Oil Safety Regulations

Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn

The Trump administration’s plan to shrink four land-based national monuments has provoked howls of anguish from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some businesses, such as the outdoors company Patagonia. Accompanying changes to protected monuments in the oceans – vastly larger areas than their land-based counterparts – have received less attention, but could have major consequences for the livelihoods and ecosystems dependent upon the marine environment.

Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, has recommended to Donald Trump that three sprawling marine monuments, one in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific, be either opened up to the commercial fishing industry or reduced in size, or both.

In 2009, George W Bush created the Pacific Remote Islands national monument around seven islands and atolls in the central Pacific. The monument, subsequently expanded by Barack Obama to become what was the largest marine protected area in the world, comprises “the last refugia for fish and wildlife species rapidly vanishing from the remainder of the planet”, according to the Fish & Wildlife Service, boasting creatures such as sea turtles, dolphins, whales, sharks and giant clams.

Zinke noted that the monument, which spans more than 490,500 sq miles, protects largely untouched coral reefs and marine species but also pushed out Hawaiian and American Samoan fishers who previously used long lines and huge scoop-like nets in the area. The interior secretary said the monument should be shrunk to an unspecified new shape and allow regional authorities to oversee commercial fishing in the monument.

Trump has been handed similar recommendations for Rose Atoll, a 10,000 sq mile ecosystem in the south Pacific that was protected in 2009, with Zinke adding there is “no explanation” as to why there can’t be commercial fishing in America’s only protected area of the Atlantic, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts.

2017 was the hottest year on record without an El Niño, thanks to global warming

2017 was the second-hottest year on record according to Nasa data, and was the hottest year without the short-term warming influence of an El Niño event:

^{Global surface temperature data 1964–2017 from NASA GISS, broken out by years with El Niño warming influence, La Niña cooling, or neutral, with linear trends for each category. Trends are 0.17–0.18°C per decade for each category.}

In fact, 2017 was the hottest year without an El Niño by a wide margin – a whopping 0.17°C hotter than 2014, which previously held that record. Remarkably, 2017 was also hotter than 2015, which at the time was by far the hottest year on record thanks in part to a strong El Niño event that year.

Also of Interest

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

Shaun King: We Lost a Lot in 2017. Here’s Where We Can — and Can’t — Look for Progress in 2018.

Documents Reveal the Complex Legacy of James Angleton CIA Counterintelligence Chief and Godfather of Mass Surveillance

A Little Night Music

Big Joe Williams - Don't You Leave Me Here

Big Joe Williams - Tell my mother

Ruby McCoy & Big Joe Williams - Rising Sun Blues

Big Joe Williams - Worried Man Blues

Big Joe Williams - Bottle Up And Go

Big Joe Williams - North Wind Blues

Big Joe Williams - Highway 49

Big Joe Williams - Throw The Boogie Woogie

Big Joe Williams - She Left Me A Mule To Ride