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This evening's music features blues singer Etta James. Enjoy!

"Meanwhile, “liberals” act like Obama’s the greatest president ever, even though he left the US economy far worse for most Americans, was a warmonger, and engaged in the largest immunization of corporate crime in at least 90 years.

He talks pretty but the man is scum. Scum to the bone. He took Bush’s America and regularized most of it and made some parts worse: kicking out more Hispanics, being far worse on whistleblowers, continuing to sign continuations of the AUMF and so on."

-- Ian Welsh

News and Opinion

State Dept. Fails to Differentiate Syria, Yemen Bombings

State Department spokesman Retired Adm. John Kirby spent a substantial amount of time tripping over his words at the last two department briefings when asked about Saudi Arabia’s weekend attack on a funeral home in Yemen, and the ever-growing civilian death toll in that war. ...

On Wednesday, Kirby was again pressed on the question of Saudi bombings and US backing for the Saudi war, arguing that the Saudis’ efforts to not kill civilians would be “diminished” if the US wasn’t arming and heavily supporting the conflict.

This confused reporters, who asked him to elaborate, but Kirby would only conclude that “it’s important to remember that not every strike they take hits civilian targets.” Recent studies have suggested that somewhere in the realm of a third of Saudi airstrikes, however, have ended up hitting civilian targets, which isn’t a great ratio.

Kirby’s difficulty in squaring the putative differences between Yemen and Syria, along with his outright failure to make a serious effort to justify US backing for the Yemen War, likely mirrors the growing disquiet within the State Department, where a good number of their lawyers have been warning the US could find itself named a “co-belligerent” in the Saudi war and face legal liability for all the civilians the Saudis are killing. This makes every public statement potentially part of future legal proceedings, and is forcing officials to be very careful in choosing their words, or in Kirby’s case, in stumbling over them.

US Lawmaker Urges Halt to Arms Sales to Saudis, Citing Yemen War Crimes

Rep. Ted Lieu (D – CA), a former lawyer in the US Air Force, today urged the Obama Administration to suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and to suspend cooperation with them on the war in Yemen, saying that the growing civilian death toll in the country “appears to be the result of war crimes.”

Rep. Lieu said that the toll gives the appearance the Saudis are either intentionally targeting civilians or they are not distinguishing between civilians and military targets, noting that either one would amount to a war crime.

Lieu cited the White House promise that it is “reviewing support” to the Saudi coalition in the Yemen War, and urged them to halt all arms sales at least until that review in completed. Such promised reviews, of course, very rarely “complete,” or produce any public statement from the administration that they ever actually happened.

I guess providing the Saudis with weapons, training and support services (like aerial refueling of their fighter aircraft) don't count as having entered the war? ... Not to mention the drone strikes allegedly against al-Qaeda in Yemen? What's up with that Guardian headline writers?

US enters Yemen war, bombing Houthis who launched missiles at navy ship

The United States has launched its first strike on Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen in retaliation for days of attacks on a navy warship, becoming an active combatant in a brutal war led by Washington’s ally Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon announced late on Wednesday that it struck and destroyed three radar sites controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen. The sites were described as being involved in two missile attacks over the past four days on the destroyer USS Mason, operating out of the Bab al-Mandeb waterway between Yemen and east Africa.

There was no immediate word on any casualties from the US attack on the radar sites, which the Pentagon noted came with the direct authorization of Barack Obama.

“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. ...

While the US has conducted lethal attacks in Yemen against al-Qaida forces throughout Obama’s presidency, killing civilians as well as US nationals, Wednesday’s reprisal strikes were Washington’s first against the Houthis.

Syria: Vladimir Putin holds western allies especially the US responsible for Syria crisis

Russia, US to Hold New Syria Talks Over Weekend

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry have agreed to organize a new round of Syrian peace talks this weekend in Switzerland, the first high-level diplomacy on Syria since the Obama Administration recently announced it was cutting all ties with Russia over the matter.

The last Syrian ceasefire collapsed last month after seven days, with the main incident during the pause a US airstrike which attacked a Syrian Army base. Two days later, Syria withdrew from the talks and attacked eastern Aleppo, held by al-Qaeda-linked rebels. Russia, which had previously negotiated joint US strikes against the Nusra Front in Aleppo, instead joined Syria in the strikes, since the US was unwilling to cooperate.

Since then, US officials have angrily condemned the strikes against Nusra as war crimes, and demanded international action against Russia for having done so. The talks appear to mark at least the temporary end to US threats against Russia.

Talk of a no-fly zone over Aleppo distracts from more realistic plans to save those dying and starving in Syria

The proposal put forward in Parliament to shoot down Russian and Syrian aircraft over Eastern Aleppo in a bid to end the bombardment of this part of the city is wholly unrealistic. The West is not going to risk a war against a nuclear power and its Syrian ally in order to help the 250,000 to 275,000 civilians trapped there. To pretend anything else is empty bombast detached from the realities on the ground. The danger of such wild schemes is that they divert attention from more realistic plans to save the besieged from further suffering and death. ...

In most rebel-held districts in Syria and Iraq rebels of whatever stripe do not want civilians to depart because they act as human shields. In some cases, they are forcibly prevented from doing so and those that get out have to pay large bribes, as has happened in Mosul and Raqqa in recent months. An organised withdrawal from East Aleppo under the auspices of the UN may be the best option for the civilians remaining there, but the collapse of the Russian-US ceasefire shows how difficult it will be to arrange.

Are there alternative scenarios if not solutions? In Syria there usually are because there are so many players inside and outside the country, all claiming hypocritically to be acting in the interests of the Syrian people but invariably consulting their own interests first, second and third. It is difficult to see where any outside force willing to break the siege will come from. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, normally so belligerent on behalf of the Syrian insurgents, has been surprisingly mute about the fate of Aleppo. This is probably because he is more concerned with the threat from the Syrian Kurds and on fostering goods relations with President Putin with whom he has just signed a gas deal.

A further aspect of the Syrian crisis tends to be underestimated in the West which is over-obsessed with Russian intervention. Iran and Shia communities in Iraq and Lebanon see the struggle for Syria as a struggle for their own existence. They provide many of the fighters attacking East Aleppo and they are not going to give up until they win.

Journalist James Risen: CIA Torture Methods Caused Long-Term Psychological Harm to Former Prisoners

The ‘guinea pig’ for U.S. torture is languishing at Guantanamo

The poster child of the American torture program sits in a Guantanamo Bay prison cell, where many U.S. officials hope he will simply be forgotten. But blood always leaves a stain, and the mark on our conscience and law will remain until we reckon with the case of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, known to the world as Abu Zubaydah. ...

Recently, the public got a brief glimpse of Zubaydah. For the first time since his arrest, he appeared for a few minutes on a video broadcast from Guantanamo. A dozen journalists and human rights advocates huddled in the District to watch as he appeared silently on the screen; no recording devices were permitted. The ostensible purpose of the appearance was a “hearing” to consider whether Zubaydah might finally be released. But this proceeding was mere political theater.

To begin with, Zubaydah had no counsel at the hearing. ... Unable to appear on his behalf, his legal team asked the Periodic Review Board, composed of a cross-section of national security officials, to consider a summary of the report on the torture program prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee. That summary, based on a review of more than 6 million pages from inside the CIA, provides the most detailed account of Zubaydah’s torture and the mistakes and misrepresentations made about him. The Review Board refused to read it. They said it was too long.

At the public portion of this hearing, Zubaydah was not merely silent, but silenced. The public did not hear Zubaydah speak because the government would not allow him to respond publicly to the allegations against him. Instead, Zubaydah was permitted to speak only in the closed session, and a government representative, who had met him only briefly a few weeks before the hearing, was assigned to read a half-page statement, which was prepared for Zubaydah and pre-approved by the government for the public session.

Dismissing Zubaydah’s express repudiation of terrorism, the government insisted in its official allegations against him that Zubaydah “probably retains an extremist mindset” and “possibly” or “might” or “could” be dangerous. Even the fact that he has consistently been highly cooperative during his imprisonment was twisted to suggest he was simply honing his skills as a terrorist.

Chelsea Manning emerges from solitary confinement after suicide attempt

I'm back. I'm OK. I'm resting and trying to get back in the groove of things. #solitaryconfinement

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) October 12, 2016

Chelsea Manning has emerged from seven days of solitary confinement as punishment for having tried to take her own life during a spell of despair related to her treatment as a transgender woman at the hands of her military jailers. ...

Manning’s re-emergence puts to an end several days of jitters among her supporters who were alarmed by the sudden lack of communication with the prisoner. ...

Manning said that she was put into solitary last Tuesday, less than 15 minutes after she was served with a written notice of her punishment for the July suicide attempt. “I received written notification of the findings on Tuesday afternoon and was then placed in solitary less than 15 minutes later,” she said.

She was taken down to a so-called “segregation” cell where she was held in isolation, despite the fact that she had already indicated that she intended to appeal against the punishment.

Law Enforcement Might Be Sweeping Up Your Private Data Without a Warrant

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon to publish second independence referendum bill

Nicola Sturgeon is to publish a draft bill next week calling for a second Scottish independence referendum in a direct challenge to Theresa May’s hardline stance on Britain leaving the EU.

The first minister told the Scottish National party conference in Glasgow she had a powerful political mandate to defend Scotland’s vote in favour of remaining in the EU in June’s vote.

But, she said, the UK government’s recent rhetoric and policies on immigration and remaining within the EU single market made it clear the Tory party had now been taken over by its “rampant” and xenophobic right wing.

To applause, Sturgeon told the prime minister: “Hear this: if you think for one single second that I’m not serious about doing what it takes to protect Scotland’s interests, then think again.”

Sturgeon then won a standing ovation when she announced that the draft Scottish independence referendum bill would be published next week – earlier than her officials had previously signalled.

The poor darlings, they suffer so...

World's billionaires lose £215m each as global economy struggles

The world’s billionaires saw their wealth shrink by an average of £215m each last year, as economic headwinds made themselves felt.

A report published on Thursday by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that falling commodity prices helped put billionaires under pressure at a time of stalling growth in technology and finance, the motors of wealth creation.

The study’s authors found that Asia is creating a new billionaire every three days, but the US billionaire population only grew by five in 2015. Europe’s wealthiest individuals were proving the most resilient, the report said.

In 2015, the global billionaire population effectively increased by 50 to 1,397, according to the study, but the total wealth of these individuals fell by $300bn (£246bn) from $5.4tn to $5.1tn, an average loss of £215m per person.

Just Four Months Ago, New Wells Fargo Chief Said No Changes in Sales Strategy

Wells Fargo’s new CEO, Tim Sloan, told a leading industry trade publication in June 2016 that the bank’s aggressive sales culture and “cross-selling” targets was perfectly appropriate and “is not going to change.” This was years after top executives at the bank knew that thousands of their employees were were responding to those sales targets by generating fake accounts.

Sloan is replacing John Stumpf, who stepped down on Wednesday amid the ongoing scandal, for which the company has been fined $185 million by federal regulators and faces investigations from the Departments of Justice and Labor. ...

That strategy has changed, after Wells Fargo revealed it fired 5,300 employees over the past five years for illegally opening unwanted accounts in customers’ names, often forging signatures or using phony e-mail addresses to do it. Senior management set a “cross-selling” target of eight accounts per household, urging line-level employees to get checking account customers to open a savings account, or a credit card, or a wealth management account.

When Sloan made these statements in June, thousands of Wells Fargo employees had already been fired for creating fraudulent accounts. Wells Fargo eliminated all product sales goals for their retail bank branches on October 1 of this year.

Like Stumpf, Sloan profited from the touting of company sales goals in annual reports and investor calls, which boosted Wells Fargo’s share price between 2010 and 2015.

Twin Cities janitors declare victory in union fight after 44-month campaign

Maricela Flores, a 43-year-old immigrant from Mexico, was so unhappy at her job as a janitor at a Target store just outside Minneapolis – unhappy about having to work seven days a week, about being paid $8 an hour, about not having health coverage or paid sick days – that she did something unusually risky. She went on strike even though she was not part of a labor union.

When Flores, a mother of five, walked out in February of 2013, she was one of just eight janitors from stores in the Twin Cities to go on strike that day to demand better conditions. Flores was relieved not to get fired.

Now, 44 months later and after a highly unorthodox organizing drive that included six more one-day strikes, Flores and other janitors who clean Target, Macy’s and Best Buy stores in the Twin Cities are declaring victory. On Thursday, they will announce that 600 janitors have won union recognition and will soon start collective bargaining in the hope of winning higher pay, health coverage and other improvements. ...

Flores hopes that her new union, Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union, will bring important gains when it bargains with the retailers’ cleaning contractors. “We want fair work scheduling, health insurance, higher wages,” Flores said in Spanish. “All these things would allow me to be more involved in the daily lives of my children and to have a better quality of life.”

San Francisco cops disproportionately target minorities, DOJ says

San Francisco’s police department disproportionately targets minorities for arrests and traffic stops, according to a U.S. Department of Justice review released Wednesday.

The report comes as the department is still reeling from a racist and homophobic texting scandal and a series of questionable police killings, including the fatal shooting in May of 27-year-old Jessica Williams, a black woman who was suspected of stealing a car. Police Chief Greg Suhr stepped down hours later amid angry protests over Williams’ death.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee asked the Justice Department to step in and investigate the department’s practices in February, and the Justice Department found enough material to fill 432 pages. The issues range from the department’s reliance on outdated policing practices, to having inadequate methods of reporting use-of-force incidents, to their failure to address racial bias.

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature

American music legend, wanderer of famous neighborhoods, and sometime Chrysler spokesman Bob Dylan won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature Thursday morning. The 75-year-old is the first American to win the honor in two decades.

The Nobel Committee singled out Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Hacked Emails Show Hillary Clinton Repeatedly Praised Wal-Mart in Paid Speeches

When a group of labor activists demanded in 2014 that Hillary Clinton use her influence with Wal-Mart — where she sat on the board of directors for six years — to raise workers’ wages, Clinton’s top aides turned to Wal-Mart’s former top lobbyist for advice on how to respond.

And in a series of highly paid appearances after leaving the State Department, Clinton praised the company’s practices and spoke fondly of its founder in speeches that were kept secret from the public.

Wal-Mart, America’s largest private employer, has become a top target of progressives because of its aggressive union-busting and notoriously low wages and lack of benefits. But emails documenting a continued warm relationship between Clinton and the massive retailer are among thousands posted by Wikileaks over the past week from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s gmail account.

One emailed document is an 80-page list prepared by Clinton’s own research department, detailing the most potentially damaging quotes from the secret speeches. The last four pages are devoted to Wal-Mart.

Keiser Report: Hillary Speeches

WikiLeaks Fallout: Donna Brazile to America, Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes

After the prior Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned in disgrace in July after Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks released emails showing that the DNC had actively engaged in derailing the presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders to tip the field to Hillary Clinton, the woman who replaced Wasserman Schultz as Interim Chair of the DNC, Donna Brazile, is under the gun for putting her finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton.

On March 12, 2016, Brazile was serving in the dual capacity as a Vice Chair of the DNC and a contributor to CNN. The recent WikiLeaks release of emails shows that on that date at 4:39 p.m., Brazile sent an email to Jennifer Palmieri, Communications Director for the Hillary Clinton campaign, titled: “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”

The title clearly conveys that Brazile was referring to questions that would be asked the very next day at the March 13, 2016 CNN Democratic Town Hall at Ohio State University in Columbus. Only Clinton and Sanders were scheduled to appear on stage, as other Democratic challengers had dropped out. ...

The DNC now has no choice but to dump Brazile as its Interim Chair if it wants to have a shred of credibility going into the November election. Article 5, Section 4 of the DNC Charter mandates the following: “The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.” Brazile must go for the same reasons Wasserman Schultz had to go: overt bias to tip the scales to benefit Hillary Clinton during the primary process.

Wikileaks Reveals How Wall Street Buys Influence in the Democratic Party

If Trump leaks are OK and Clinton leaks aren't, there's a problem

In the final month of the race, the Clinton and Trump campaigns’ main attack points now revolve around several major leaks that have put their opposing candidate on the defensive. Both campaigns or their supporters have been actively encouraging leaks about the other side, while claiming leaks involving them are either illegitimate or illegal.

Either way, it’s yet another example of why leaks are very much in the public interest when they can expose how presidential candidates act behind closed doors – and the motivations of the leakers shouldn’t prevent news organizations from reporting on them. ...

On the Clinton side, the campaign and its surrogates have spent the past week trying to delegitimize the latest WikiLeaks release of campaign manager’s John Podesta’s emails, while heavily pushing the Trump taxes and video stories. Several people caught up in the leak have slyly insinuated that some could be faked by alleged Russian hackers, while providing no proof that they’ve been altered. The Clinton campaign has been calling WikiLeaks a “Russian front” even though US intelligence officials don’t even think that is the case. ...

It should go without saying that allegations that Russian hackers have been the source of several of the leaks involving Clinton and Democrats is a legitimate story worth pursuing. But concocting Putin-Trump-WikiLeaks collusion conspiracy theories and making large leaps in logic without any direct evidence, like Clinton-aligned journalist Kurt Eichenwald recklessly has, does a disservice to actual journalism.

Wikileaks Dump Shows Clinton Campaign Was Tipped Off Before State Dept. Released Emails

here has been a lot of speculation about possible cooperation between Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the State Department over the disclosure of her emails from her tenure as Secretary of State. That speculation now appears to be somewhat confirmed by an email included in the latest data dump by Wikileaks.

The email, dated March 17, 2015, was sent by Heather Samuelson and it warns top Clinton campaign officials about a pending release of State Department emails in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch.  The FOIA request sought information about the discussions between the State Department and Clinton Foundation regarding speeches given by former President Bill Clinton during his wife’s time at the State Department. ...

Samuelson’s email provides evidence that she received information about the pending State Department release several days before the material was turned over to Judicial Watch on or about March 26, 2015. ... She then provided a detailed summary of the specific documents that the State Department was required to release that might be a concern for the campaign.

Subsequent emails included in the chain show top Clinton campaign officials, including Cheryl Mills, Jennifer Palmieri, and John Podesta planned to speak with an official from Bill Clinton’s office to further discuss the email release.

This is worth a full read:

One of the most repeated facts about Haiti is a lie

When the geologist Peter Wampler first went to Haiti, in 2007, he didn’t expect to see many trees. He had heard that the country had as little as 2 percent tree cover, a problem that exacerbated drought, flooding and erosion. As a specialist in groundwater issues, Wampler knew that deforestation also contributed to poor water quality; trees help to lock in rich topsoil and act as a purifying filter, especially important in a country where about half of rural people do not have access to clean drinking water. ...

Over the next five years, as Wampler crisscrossed the country for his research, he began to undergo a cognitive dissonance. “I heard that 2 percent number quoted everywhere,” he said. “All the news outlets had this narrative that it’s the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has 2 percent forest cover. But I’d been to these mountainous areas and seen forest cover that was more than 2 percent. I could see it with my own eyes.” ...

Wampler, a professor at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, uses geographic information systems and satellite imagery frequently in his work, and he decided to employ them to satisfy his curiosity about the trees in Haiti. He enlisted several students and began gathering high-resolution imagery of the island from LandSat, the database operated by the United States Geological Survey. Stitching together images from 2010 and 2011, he formed a mosaic that covered the entire country. He combined the images in three wavelengths to highlight vegetation and then trained a computer to spot trees in the images. To check the accuracy, he manually compared the computer’s automated analysis to random samples chosen from Google Earth.

When the results came back, his first thought was that he had to do the whole process again. “Let’s check this 10 times to make sure it’s right,” he told his colleagues. According to their analysis, Haiti’s forest cover was more than 32 percent, a number similar to the coverage in the United States, France, and Germany, and far higher than in Ireland and England. Wampler had discovered a rarity in today’s world: a good-news environmental story in one of the planet’s poorest countries. But then he had a troubling thought: “People won’t like this.” “It doesn’t fit the narrative” that poverty causes deforestation and deforestation exacerbates poverty, he said. ...

Paul Robbins, a political ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called the environmental movement’s blaming of the poor for deforestation an “obsession” that is both “ironic” and “empirically questionable.” In West Africa, for example, the idea that local communities have caused deforestation is orthodoxy among development and environmental policymakers, but analysis of historical data and first-person accounts rarely support it.

Impacted Communities Take Fight Against Dakota Access to Corporate Heads

Activists from oil-impacted communities around the country are descending on Energy Transfer Partners' corporate offices in Houston, Texas, to protest the company's Dakota Access Pipeline and other controversial pipeline projects.

Despite ongoing, growing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the federal government's repeated requests that Energy Transfer Partners halt its construction, the company has reiterated its intention to continue building the pipeline, undaunted.

Wednesday's action is a part of nationwide protests against the corporate powers behind Dakota Access. The demonstration will see members from communities affected by the fossil fuel industry from Richmond, Calif., Chicago, Ill., the Gulf Coast, and others joining local Texas organizers to voice their collective opposition to Energy Transfer Partners' pipeline projects, and to push for a just transition to renewable energy.

The scene on the streets in #HoustonTX at @BEA4Impact & @tejasbarrios #solidarity action calling @EnergyTransfer to demand #NODAPL #NOTPPL pic.twitter.com/dE7MT8pU7o

— Delaware Sierra Club (@desierraclub) October 12, 2016

Flint Water Crisis: Snyder's "Unconscionable" Use of Millions in Taxpayer Money for Criminal Defense Fees Questioned

One resident of Flint, Michigan—a city still grappling with a lead-contamination crisis—is asking a grand jury to look into whether Gov. Rick Snyder illegally used $2 million in taxpayer money for his legal fees related to the disaster.

"After what has happened in this city, it's just a slap in the face," said 46-year-old Keri Webber, adding that she finds it "unacceptable and unconscionable" for city residents to "pa[y] for the defense of the very man at the center of the whole issue."

Webber is represented in the case, filed Tuesday in the Ingham County Circuit Court, by attorney Mark Brewer, a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. She says her husband and 16-year-old and 21-year-old daughters are suffering from health effects from the lead-poisoned water.

The Associated Press reports:

The Republican governor has approved two contracts for outside Flint-related legal services worth $3.4 million, including $2 million for "records management issues and investigations" and $1.4 million to defend against civil lawsuits.

The complaint questions the $2 million contract.

According to the complaint, the Detroit News reports, "Snyder did not have the proper legal authority to enter into the contract and violated a constitutional prohibition against public officials engaging in transactions that create a conflict of interest."

Also of Interest

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

Hillary Clinton’s Axis of Evil

Much of What You Think You Know About the Yemen War … Is Wrong

How a Facial Recognition Mismatch Can Ruin Your Life

Obama’s Department of Justice’s Prime Job Is to Immunize Rich Wrongdoers

New email shows Brazile may have had exact wording of proposed town hall question before CNN

New WikiLeaks emails show more negative remarks against Bernie Sanders from Clinton campaign

Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans

Treaties, Pipelines and the Election

A Little Night Music

Etta James - (Baby Baby) Every Night

Etta James - Hickory Dickory Dock

Etta James - In The Basement

Etta James & Dr.John - I'd Rather Go Blind

Etta James - I Just Want To Make Love To You

Etta James - Tell Mama

Etta James - Woman

Etta James - I Sing The Blues

Etta James - At Last