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"History is laden with belligerent leaders using humanitarian rhetoric to mask geopolitical aims. History also shows how often ill-informed moralism has led to foreign entanglements that do more harm than good."

-- Samantha Power

News and Opinion

How the US Created Middle East Mayhem

To this day, it remains difficult to take in the degree to which the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq destabilized the Greater Middle East from the Chinese border to Libya. Certainly, as the recent Republican and Democratic
presidential debates suggest, Americans have some sense of what a disaster it was for the Bush administration to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to take out Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein. The gravity of the decision to occupy and garrison his country, while dismantling his party, his institutions of state, and much of the economy, not to speak of his military, can hardly be overemphasized. In the process, it’s clear that the U.S. punched a giant hole through the oil heartlands of the planet. The disintegrative effects of those moves have only compounded over the years. Despite the many other factors, demographic and economic, that lay behind the Arab Spring of 2011-2012, for instance, it’s hard to believe that it would have happened in the way it did, had the invasion of Iraq not occurred.

Though you’ll seldom find it mentioned in one place, in the ensuing years five countries in the region – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen – all disintegrated as nation states. Three of them were the focus of direct American interventions, the fourth (Yemen) was turned into a hunting ground for American drones, and the fifth (Syria) suffered indirectly from the chaos and mayhem in neighboring Iraq. All of them are now embroiled in seemingly unceasing internecine struggles, wars, and upheavals. Meanwhile, the phenomenon that the Americans were ostensibly focused on crushing, terrorism, has exploded across the same lands, resulting among other things in the first modern terrorist state (though its adherents prefer to call it a “caliphate”).

Those two invasions also loosed another deeply destabilizing phenomenon: 24/7 counterinsurgency from the air and the “manhunting” drone that was so essential to it. At first, this was an American phenomenon as U.S. Air Force planes with their “smart” weaponry and CIA and Air Force
drones, all hyped for their “surgical precision,” began cruising the skies of the Greater Middle East, terrorizing parts of the backlands of the region. ... But here’s the truly grim reality of the Greater Middle East today: what the Americans started didn’t end with them. The skies of the region are now being cruised by French,
British,
Jordanian, United Arab Emirates, Kuwaiti, Qatari, Bahraini, Moroccan, Egyptian, Saudi, and Russian planes and drones, all emulating the Americans, all conducting “counterinsurgency,” all undoubtedly blasting away civilians. ... And can the Iranians, the Chinese, and others, all now building or purchasing drones, be far behind? We are, it seems, already on a Terminator Planet.

Hey looky, here's how the great morass of Middle East Mayhem perpetuates itself - Exhibit A - "Hillary the Clueless Humanitarian"...

Hillary’s Libya Post-War Plan Was ‘Play It by Ear’

She still defends the invasion as ‘smart power at its best.’ But war backers like Clinton had no plan for securing the country, says ex-Pentagon chief Bob Gates.

When Hillary Clinton appears before Congress’s special committee on Benghazi Thursday, she’ll likely be asked all the wrong questions.

Clinton will be peppered with queries about why she kept a private email server, what caused the 2012 attacks on the U.S. special consulate in Benghazi, and how come U.S. forces didn’t respond more quickly to the strikes. But the really important issues—the questions longstanding followers of the U.S. and NATO intervention want answered—are: Why did Hillary Clinton push for strikes that contributed to the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi? And why didn’t the Obama administration bother to plan for the all-too-predictable chaos that came next?

In 2011, as the United States considered intervention, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among those who pushed for intervention—without resolving just how Libya would be governed after Gaddafi, according to a senior defense official who was part of the decision-making process. Obama advisers like Samantha Power and Susan Rice also made the case alongside Clinton. They argued the U.S. had a moral obligation to save lives in Benghazi facing a threatened genocide by Libyan dictator Gaddafi. The only strategy spelled out publicly was that the Europeans’ newly formed “Libyan Transitional Council” would be at the forefront of the effort. Washington was “leading from behind,” to use a famous phrase from the era.

As then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who opposed the U.S. intervention, frustratingly explained to The Daily Beast: “We were playing it by ear.”

Air Force Office Tells Drone Whistleblower’s Mom She Is On ISIS ‘Hit List’

The United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations sent officers to the home of the mother of a drone whistleblower to inform her she was on an Islamic State “hit list.” The officers indicated her information was compromised in the Office of Personnel Management hack, however, the drone whistleblower’s attorney sees this as a clear example of retaliation.

Brandon Bryant is a former drone pilot, who has been outspoken on the role the U.S. Air Force plays in carrying out CIA drone strikes, testified to the German parliament on October 15. He specifically offered testimony about the Ramstein air base in Germany as being integral to the U.S. drone program. Hours later, the Air Force sent two men who represented themselves as OSI officers to speak to Brandon’s mother. ...

Jesselyn Radack, an attorney for Bryant and the national security and human rights director for the Whistleblower and Source Protection Project at ExposeFacts, told Shadowproof, “Given Mr. Bryant’s testimony to the German parliament and the government’s swift response, this is witness tampering. It is also further whistleblower retaliation, and amateurish at best.”

It is very peculiar that the OSI claims it sent officers to personally meet with someone to talk about their identity being compromised. Radack has clients like NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who had their information compromised, and they were notified with a boilerplate letter advising them on what had happened. ...

In March, Radack asked the government what officials planned to do to protect Bryant. She wanted to know about the State Department’s involvement in ensuring nothing happened. All the government could do is urge Bryant to quit “bragging” on social media about his past history as a drone pilot.

Putin & Assad hold surprise meeting in Moscow

Assad Makes a Moscow Visit to Personally Thank Putin for Russian Airstrikes

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a surprise visit to Moscow on Tuesday evening to personally thank Russia's Vladimir Putin for his military support, in a development that underlined how Russia has become a major player in the Middle East.

It was Assad's first foreign trip since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria that has also bolstered Assad's forces. ...

Putin said he hoped progress on the military front would be followed by moves towards a political solution in Syria, bolstering Western hopes Moscow will use its increased influence on Damascus to cajole Assad into talking to his opponents. ...

"First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving Syria," Assad told Putin.

"If it was not for your actions and your decisions the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater territory."

Assad, who looked relaxed, emphasized how Russia was acting according to international law, praising Moscow's political approach to the Syrian crisis which he said had ensured it had not played out according to "a more tragic scenario."

U.S., Russia sign Syria air safety deal but keep quarreling over war aims

American and Russian senior military officials signed an agreement Tuesday spelling out safety rules their nations’ aircraft are to follow in the contested skies over Syria, but the two governments continued to snipe at each other’s goals in the Middle East country.

Pentagon officials said the accord was a narrow, technical “memorandum of understanding” that in no way signals U.S. approval of the new Russian air campaign to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s embattled army. ...

Kremlin leaders, for their part, said that Pentagon negotiators had rejected opportunities to share intelligence, exchange targeting information and take other more robust steps to attack Islamic State militants from the air in Syria. ...

In addition to Russian and American aircraft, the accord covers the planes of eight other countries that have joined the U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria: France, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More than 90 percent of the raids have been conducted by American bombers. ...

“The signing of the document in no way changes the Russian principled position,” the Defense Ministry said. “Our military forces in Syria are operating at the request of the legitimate authorities of that country, while the projection of force by the United States and the counter-ISIL (a common acronym for the Islamic State) coalition led by Washington on the territory of Syria is without the consent of Damascus and, in the absence of any relevant U.N. Security Council resolution, represents negligence of international law.”

Does Russia-U.S. Disagreement Over Assad Benefit ISIS?

Syrian Arab militias dispute they received U.S. airdrop of ammunition

More than a week after the Pentagon announced that it had dropped 50 tons of ammunition to Syrian Arabs to support a new offensive against Islamic State extremists, it’s uncertain who exactly it reached.

Leaders of two principal Arab militias said they hadn’t received any arms aid and doubted that any Arab forces had.

“We didn’t get anything,” Sheikh Humaydi Daham al Hadi, the head of the Shammar tribe, told McClatchy in an interview at his palatial compound in Syria’s Hasaka province. “Maybe our partners, the Kurds did,” a reference to the People’s Protection Units, the YPG militia, which, with the help of U.S. air power, now dominates much of northeastern Syria. ...

“The airdrop, again, was for the Syrian Arab Coalition,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Tuesday. “It was successful. It went where it was intended, to the people who were intended to receive it.” ...

Hours before the first airdrop, the YPG, at U.S. behest, announced formation of a new Kurdish-Arab-Christian military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces. It included the YPG, the al Sanadid Forces, and Burkan al Furat, a joint Kurdish-Arab group known in English as the Euphrates Volcano Operations Room, which ostensibly includes Abu Issa’s Raqqa Revolutionaries. In addition, it named Assyrian Military Council, a Christian group.

But the list included in the announcement by YPG senior official Polat Can included groups that are obscure or may not yet have been formed. ... On Oct. 12, Can, who is the YPG liaison to the U.S. coalition fighting the Islamic State, said his group had received the airdrop and that more materiel was expected to be dropped in coming days. He said he expected the shipment to be shared with Arab fighters.

Turkey: Syria’s Assad Can Stay in Power for Six More Months

Adding to the growing number of Western nations backing away from demands for immediate regime change in Syria, Turkish officials today insisted that they are willing for Assad to stay in power for six more months, so long as it is purely “symbolic.” ... Turkey says they’re talking to the US and other allies about this “plan” for Syria, and expects the US to sell the idea to Russia. ...

At this point, Russia is likely too committed to supporting Assad to revisit their old idea, and will probably resent Turkey suddenly dictating six month deadlines to them on the matter. With pro-US rebels talking up suicide attacks against Russia, it will likely be a hard sell to convince Russia that the “moderate” rebels are suitable allies at any rate.

Trudeau Tells Obama He's Pulling Canada Out of Bombing Campaign Against the Islamic State

Justin Trudeau, who won a sweeping majority government on Monday, will pull Canada's fighter jets out of Iraq and Syria just over a year after Ottawa began the bombing campaign.

Canada's new prime minister informed President Barack Obama of his decision over the phone on Tuesday afternoon, he told a press conference in Ottawa.

While Trudeau said that the American president understood his need to follow-through on his promise to withdraw Canada's air force from the mission, the White House nevertheless indicated on Tuesday morning that it wanted Canada to continue dropping bombs.

In the White House's read-out of the call, there is no mention of Trudeau's decision to pull Canada's CF-18 fighter jets.

While Trudeau wouldn't give a timeline, he said he would bring Canada's planes home in a "responsible way."

The leader of the Liberal Party, who won a staggering victory on Oct. 19, had promised repeatedly during the campaign that he would withdraw Canada's offensive capabilities from the fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants.

US Army’s Intelligence Network Down During Afghan Hospital Attack

A decade and about $5 billion in, the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS), the Pentagon is still struggling with the all-purpose intelligence network that’s supposed to share all the latest data on all the latest wars in real time. Today, officials revealed the DCGS was down during the recent attack on the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz. ...

Despite the revelation potentially being the latest in a series of excuses for the attack, the Pentagon is downplaying the incident, refusing to discuss any impact it might have had on the bombing, and reiterating their confidence in the ongoing internal investigation into the attack.

US: Newly Deployed Troops Led to ‘Hasty’ Strike on MSF Hospital

With myriad stories about the US attack on the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz already discredited, Afghan claims of coming under fire from the site, which officials are still referring to as a “Taliban base,” are also out the window, with officials now conceding that there is no evidence of any fire coming from the hospital.

US officials are also shifting gears on their narrative too, presenting the special forces units deployed outside of the hospital, and who ultimately okayed the strike, as “new” to the area, having been deployed from elsewhere in Asia. Pentagon officials referred to the incident as a “hasty response” to an Afghan request.

In Midst of War, US Approves $11 Billion in Combat Ships to Saudi Arabia

Defying the international call for an arms embargo over war crimes concerns, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced Tuesday it has approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell warships to Saudi Arabia, which has been waging war against Yemen for more than six months.

"The selling of arms in the middle of a war will obviously send the message that the Saudis can do whatever they want and get away with it," Farea Al-Muslimi, Beirut-based Yemeni writer and visiting scholar with Carnegie Middle East Center, told Common Dreams. ...

The tentative deal comes despite mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners—including the United States—are responsible for widespread war crimes in Yemen.

A report released by Amnesty International earlier this month concludes: "Damning evidence of war crimes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which is armed by states including the USA, highlights the urgent need for independent, effective investigation of violations in Yemen and for the suspension of transfers of certain arms."

What's more, the announcement came just days after the U.S. Navy admitted that Saudi-led warships are enforcing a naval blockade that is "slowing" aid to Yemen, which is facing critical shortages of food, water, and life-saving medicines.

Iran's supreme leader gives tentative approval to nuclear deal

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given his qualified approval to the nuclear accord agreed with major powers, but added conditions that could complicate its implementation.

In a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, Khamenei said Iran would not take major steps to dismantle its nuclear programme until the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), closed an investigation into the country’s alleged past work on the design of nuclear weapons.

The intervention is problematic for Rouhani’s government, which is in a hurry to implement the nuclear deal so that Iran can benefit from sanctions relief before legislative elections in late February. On Wednesday, it announced that it was close to a deal with Russia to export its stockpile of enriched uranium in return for imports of natural uranium.

Khamenei also stipulated that sanctions, or even the threat of sanctions, from abroad could be grounds for walking away from the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA).

“Any comments suggesting the sanctions structure will remain in place or [new] sanctions will be imposed, at any level and under any pretext, would be a violation of the JCPOA,” the letter, published on Khamenei’s official website, said.

Anger at Netanyahu claim Palestinian grand mufti inspired Holocaust

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has attracted a storm of criticism for an incendiary speech in which he accused the second world war Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem of “inspiring the Holocaust”.

The comments in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, in the context of the current violence between Israelis and Palestinians, were condemned as incorrect by historians and the Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog for trivialising the Holocaust. ...

In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November 1941. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’” According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”

Among those questioning Netanyahu’s interpretation of history was Prof Dan Michman, the head of the Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University and head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. He said that while Hitler did indeed meet the mufti, this happened after the Final Solution began.

Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Prof Dina Porat, told the Israeli news website Ynet that Netanyahu’s claims were incorrect: “You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It’s not true.” ...

Netanyahu’s incendiary comments come amid a rising death toll and accusations of incitement on both sides, with Israelis pointing to comments made by Palestinian officials and inflammatory material on social media, and Palestinians equally accusing Netanyahu’s government of fanning the flames and pointing to anti-Palestinian material also on social media.

Elderly Palestinian woman dies as Israel blocks access to hospitals

Israel’s security crackdown in East Jerusalem is causing fatal delays in treating injured Palestinians, including an elderly woman who died after she was held up for an hour at a checkpoint while on her way to hospital.

The Israeli closures of Palestinian neighbourhoods – including roadblocks where motorists and pedestrians are searched, some near hospitals – are also delaying staff reaching their places of work, the directors of six Palestinian hospitals in occupied East Jerusalem said.

Palestinian officials said Israeli border police set up 29 roadblocks and internal checkpoints in East Jerusalem in the past week after the government authorised new measures to try to quell an escalation in violence. ...

Hoda Muhammad Darwish, 65, was suffering severe breathing problems after accidentally inhaling tear gas fired during clashes on Monday and was being rushed to hospital by her family when they were stopped at a new checkpoint outside their East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya.

Her son tried to bypass the dozens of cars lined up at the checkpoint but Israeli forces fired live bullets into the air and forced the Darwish family to wait in line. The family pleaded with the soldiers, who saw the woman struggling to breathe, but they delayed them until she was nearly dead, said Muhammad Abu Al Hummus, a spokesman for the Issawiya local residents committee.

The journey to the Makassed Hospital in the nearby A-Tur neighbourhood that would normally take no longer then 10 minutes took one hour.

“We were sorry to see that a woman who could have easily been saved has died at a checkpoint,” said Rafiq Husseini, the director of Makassed Hospital, one of six under the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network.

Professor Hopes To Return After Being Fired for “Disrespectful” Tweets Against Israel

A year after he was fired by the University of Illinois over concerns about the “civility” of his criticism of supporters of Israel, Steven Salaita says that, despite the emotional trauma he suffered as a result of his ordeal, he hopes to find a way to return to a teaching position at the school.

“The response to my firing has really emboldened a lot of people there, and I’ve gotten almost unanimous support from faculty at the school,” Salaita said in an interview. “On some level, to be honest, it would be a little weird coming to work at a campus where I’ve been the source of so much controversy. But ultimately, I’d see it as a victorious moment, not just personally, but for the principle of free speech in American academia.”

There is a legal effort underway to bring Salaita to that moment. In August, an amended complaint was filed against the school by lawyers from the law firm Loevy & Loevy and the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group focused on civil liberties and human rights. The complaint amends a lawsuit first filed in January 2015 on Salaita’s behalf seeking his reinstatement plus financial damages. In the new complaint, Salaita’s lawyers argue that school administrators hid or deleted emails that constituted evidence related to his termination. The lawyers are also anticipating the disclosure of more information about the impact of donor pressure on his termination during the forthcoming discovery phase of the case.

In the meantime, Salaita has returned to academia after nearly a year out of work, accepting this past July a visiting position as the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut for the 2015-2016 academic year. This month, he also released a new book, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and Limits of Academic Freedom, which attempts to contextualize his own case within the broader struggle for academic freedom of speech in the United States.

This is a really interesting article worth taking a good look at:

Should Growing Up in Compton Be Considered a Disability?

Virgil started feeling unsafe sometime around 4th grade. That's when he remembers his mother telling him and his twin brother, Philip, to stay inside after school. The family had recently moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and remaining indoors, their mother told them, was the best way to avoid getting hit by a stray bullet from one of the gun battles that regularly erupted outside their apartment in Compton, California.

Six years later, Virgil and Philip — not the boys' real names — say they've lost track of how many times they've had to run from gunfire, dodge gangs, and contend with overzealous police. Just last year, Phillip witnessed one of his closest friends get shot in the head. Between the two of them, the 10th graders have already lived through more violence than many soldiers. And they've been shuffled through all three high schools in the Compton Unified School District (CUSD) in the past year — Virgil for fighting and insubordination, Phillip for chronically bad grades.

The brothers are now two of the plaintiffs in an unprecedented lawsuit that seeks to force schools to address trauma students face and the effects it has on their ability to learn. The suit, filed on behalf of five current students and three teachers at CUSD, could revolutionize the way children are taught in public schools. ...

The suit, Peter P. vs. Compton Unified, would require the government to recognize "complex trauma" — repeated exposure to violence, neglect, or pain — as a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If the suit is successful, it would force public institutions, including schools, to accommodate those impacted by trauma under Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act, the same law that requires schools to build ramps for kids in wheelchairs and provide reading interventions to those with dyslexia. ... It's a test case designed to push the courts to redefine regular exposure to trauma as a bona fide disability.

If successful, it may open a flood gate of reform in public schools as thousands or perhaps millions of students would require "accommodations" to address their learning needs. The suit could force districts to hire more counselors, train their staffs to understand the latest brain science, and overhaul their disciplinary tactics so that schools focus less on punitive punishments and more on keeping students in school — even if the students act violently themselves. ...

"Everything we used to know about trauma's impact on the brain was based on people coming back from wars," Marleen Wong, associate dean and clinical professor at the USC School of Social Work says. "But now we are seeing studies coming out of gang-impacted and violent neighborhoods, as well as studies looking at trauma after school shootings — and what we are seeing is devastating."

The growing body of scientific literature shows that children who endure trauma before adolescence struggle to learn in school because their brains and brain function — memory, ability to focus, response to punitive measures — are measurably different from those of students who don't experience high levels of trauma.

Seattle teacher and activist Jesse Hagopian comments on his appearance on the PBS Newshour:

PBS News Hour: “At a school with a history of social protest, this teacher is leading an opposition to ‘excessive testing’”

A couple of weeks ago, Gwen Ifill and the PBS News Hour crew flew to Seattle. They spent one day following me and one day following the richest person who ever lived, Bill Gates, to ask us about our ideas on education reform. I was simply shocked to hear that they would be running an interview with me in tandem with one from Bill Gates. That’s because most of the media believes that teachers are the last people you should talk to about education – what would we know about teaching and learning? It is common practice to only ask Billionaires – who have never attended a public school – what to do about education. But I was granted this important opportunity to explain how standardized testing is destroying education and why we are in the midst of the largest uprising against high-stakes testing in U.S. History. The program aired nationally on Tuesday evening and was able to capture many of the insights I have gained in working with so many others in building this movement.

"Little Guantanamos" in the United States

Starbucks and Fiat May Be Forced to Repay $30 Million Each in Tax

Starbucks and Fiat today both face the prospect of being made to pay back as much as 30 million euros ($34m) in tax to two European countries.

The European Commission (EC) has ordered the Netherlands and Luxembourg to recover millions in back taxes from the companies, where it held that the countries had granted "selective tax advantages" to the multinational companies, thereby breaching European Union (EU) state aid rules.

The ruling has been seen as part of a clampdown on tax avoidance, following the EC's June plan to reform corporate taxation across the continent.

Concluding its investigations into the companies, it was announced in Brussels on Wednesday that the Netherlands is to recover 20 to 30 million euros from Starbucks, and Luxembourg is to recover the same amount from Fiat, "in order to remove the unfair competitive advantage they have enjoyed and to restore equal treatment with other companies in similar situations," according to the European Commission.

Apple, Google and Twitter among 22 tech companies opposing Cisa bill

Twenty-two of the world’s top technology companies are firmly against the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) now on the floor of the Senate, according to a new poll by internet activists Fight for the Future.

The poll lists Apple, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia as opposing the legislation while Comcast, HP, Cisco and Verizon are among the 12 companies who back or have remained silent on the bill. Cisa is aimed at tightening online security but has been criticised as infringing on civil liberties and privacy.

The bill could come up for a preliminary vote as early as Wednesday. Within the Senate itself, Cisa has both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition. US Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was succinct in his distaste for the legislation before the body on Tuesday afternoon, addressing his comments to President Barack Obama: “I heard for days that this bill would have prevented the OPM [Office of Personnel Management] attack,” Wyden said. “After technologists reviewed that particular argument, that claim has essentially been withdrawn.

“There is a saying now in the cybersecurity field, Mr President: if you can’t protect it, don’t collect it. If more personal consumer information flows to the government without strong protections, my view is that’s going to be a prime target for hackers.”

Even the Department of Homeland Security, designated the entry point for all the information from the bill, has come out strongly against it, saying that it “could sweep away important privacy protections”.

Obama Names Lisa Fairfax to SEC, a Vote for Wall Street Reform

In a victory for financial reformers who want to lessen Wall Street’s influence on regulatory policy, the White House on Tuesday nominated Lisa Fairfax, a law professor from George Washington University, to fill an open Democratic seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission vacated by current Commissioner Luis Aguilar.

The Administration opted for an academic recommended by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and favored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over their initial choice, Keir Gumbs, a corporate lawyer with the high-powered firm Covington & Burling, which represents numerous financial institutions. The selection is an affirmation of Warren’s strategy of making it difficult and painful for Obama to pick nominees with ties to Wall Street.

Gumbs, a former SEC staffer, allegedly gave CEOs tutorials on how to avoid disclosing their corporate political spending while at Covington. He also represented the American Petroleum Institute before the SEC. He was seen as a corporate-friendly ally for Chair Mary Jo White, who would help marginalize the more reform-minded Democrat on the panel, Kara Stein. That’s why White lobbied to replace Aguilar with a moderate.

But activist groups like Rootstrikers and Public Citizen whipped up opposition to Gumbs, leading to the White House agreeing to vet additional candidates without ties to corporate America. Word of Fairfax’s potential appointment leaked in September.

Fairfax is an expert on shareholder activism: the efforts by investors to force changes in corporate behavior after acquiring large blocks of shares. ... If she proves a strong advocate for reform and an ally to Kara Stein, it puts White on the hot seat and will make her plans to weaken the commission more untenable.

Right-Wing Think Tank Shills for Payday Lenders on New York Fed Website

The New York Federal Reserve Board, charged with overseeing Wall Street banks, turned over its normally staid official blog this week to a highly contentious argument in defense of high-cost payday lenders, who are partially funded by the same big firms the Fed is supposed to be regulating.

Michael Strain, a resident scholar at the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, co-authored the piece. ... The article, “Reframing the Debate About Payday Lending,” begins by almost taunting the many critics of payday lenders, who charge low-income borrowers upwards of 400 percent interest for short-term loans (typically due within two weeks, or the next “payday”).

“Except for the ten to twelve million people who use them every year, just about everybody hates payday loans,” Strain and his co-authors write, dramatically mischaracterizing what drives users to the services. Payday loan users typically have few alternatives to maintain their bill payments, especially as banks have denied them lending services. It is not love that motivates them; it is desperation.

Payday lenders thrive the most where banks have the fewest locations, according to a 2013 Milken Institute report. In fact, it’s a two-step process: banks abandon low- and moderate-income communities, ceding the field to payday lenders who they fund. Mega-firms like Wells Fargo Bank of America, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Bank provided $1.5 billion in financing to the payday loan industry, as of 2011.

The New York Federal Reserve regulates many of the activities of these big banks, which profit from the continued success of payday lenders.

Hosting arguments defending payday lending, featuring work from a leading conservative think tank, undermines any semblance of independent oversight.

Jim Webb drops bid for Democratic nomination – but not for presidency

Jim Webb has dropped his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The former Virginia senator said on Tuesday, however, that should current frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump become the Democratic and Republican candidates, he would be able to win election to the White House as an independent.

Appearing in downtown Washington at the National Press Club, Webb said: “I am withdrawing from any consideration of being the Democratic party’s nominee for the presidency.”

Regarding the widely reported possibility of his mounting a third-party run, he said: “I am not going away. I am thinking through all of my options.”

Webb later told reporters he had “no doubt if I ran as an independent, we would have significant financial help”, and expressed his confidence that he could beat Clinton and Trump.

He also vehemently criticized the Democratic party “hierarchy”, alleging it had rigged the primary process on behalf of Clinton.

Biden’s evolving position on the Osama bin Laden raid

Vice President Biden seemed to change his account on Tuesday of the role he played in the White House debate surrounding the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. This time he recalled telling President Obama that he strongly supported sending in a team of Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qaeda leader.

"As we walked out of the room, walked upstairs, I told him my opinion: I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts," Biden said Tuesday at a George Washington University forum.

With Biden mulling a run for the presidency, his latest account seems designed to buttress his qualifications to serve as commander-in-chief. But the vice president, who has a reputation as a voice of caution when it comes to committing American forces, seems to have contradicted his earlier memories of the final meeting before the bin Laden raid.

Biden's revised account puts him in the same camp as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state and Biden's chief rival if he runs, who has long said that she supported sending in special operations forces to raid bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.

Joe Biden passes on presidential bid — but says he won’t be “silent”

Putting an end to months of public indecision and frenzied speculation, Vice President Joe Biden has decided not to enter the 2016 presidential contest, he announced in a White House Rose Garden appearance Wednesday afternoon. The move brings to an end a 45-year political career bookended by personal tragedy.

Though he will not participate as an active candidate, Biden vowed he will “not be silent” about the nation’s future and that of the Democratic party. ...

Biden’s withdrawal substantially boosts Clinton’s odds of securing the Democratic nomination; polls show that the majority of his support accrues to her when Biden is removed from the field.

Sanders Joins Call for DOJ Investigation into Exxon's Climate Coverup

Petroleum company may have violated federal law by funding decades-long misinformation campaign on climate change, senator says

Arguing the oil giant's behavior may "ultimately qualify as a violation of federal law," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday joined a chorus of voices calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an official fraud investigation into Exxon Mobil's decades-long efforts to suppress the scientific connection between carbon emissions and climate change.

"Based on available public information, it appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harm to the public, and spent millions of dollars to obfuscate the facts in the public discourse. The information that has come to light about Exxon’s past activities raises potentially serious concerns that should be investigated," Sanders wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

"Exxon Mobil knew the truth about fossil fuels and climate change and lied to protect their business model at the expense of the planet," Sanders added in a statement.

Sanders, who is running for president in 2016 as a Democrat, cited a recent investigation by Inside Climate News that revealed Exxon may have known about climate change and the role of fossil fuels in exacerbating global warming as far back as 1977 and spent millions of dollars funding a misinformation campaign to cast doubt on scientific information as it emerged to the public.

The resulting harm to the environment and public health are akin to the effects of the tobacco industry, which similarly denied the dangers of cigarettes for years, Sanders said. That industry was ultimately tamed by convictions through the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

What Trudeau’s Liberal Victory Means for Canada’s Oil Sands

Monday night's Liberal sweep of the country with a 185-seat majority means the incoming government can set the agenda on a number of issues, including fossil fuel extraction. The pressure on Trudeau will come from two sides: Canadian oil companies clamoring for more pipelines to meet what they say will be increased production, and the fast-approaching Paris conference, which will turn up the heat on Canada to sign a binding legal agreement on emissions reductions to prevent catastrophic climate change. ...

Like his predecessor, Trudeau too is a fan of Keystone XL. And he's on the fence on Energy East, refusing to either support or oppose it.To add to that, less than a week before the election, news broke that Liberal national campaign co-chair Dan Gagnier, who has since resigned, gave lobbying advice to major Canadian pipeline company TransCanada — the company behind both the Keystone XL and Energy East proposals. ...

However, one notable difference from the Conservative agenda is Trudeau's stance on Northern Gateway, which faces perhaps the largest and loudest opposition of any proposed pipeline, rivaled only by opposition to Keystone XL. Trudeau has said the Great Bear rainforest is "not a place for a crude oil pipeline," and has floated the idea of banning tanker traffic along the north coast of BC, which would effectively kill Northern Gateway. ...

On climate change overall, Trudeau told voters he would phase out fossil fuel subsidies, instead investing in hundreds of millions into clean energy technologies. The Liberals would also increase funding toward "green" infrastructure by $6 billion in the first four years of governance.

And the party pledged to meet with provincial leaders within 90 days after the Paris summit to establish a cross-Canada plan to combat climate change, with a goal of reducing emissions.

But that's about where the Liberal platform ends on climate change.

Sunscreen contributing to decline of coral reefs, study shows

A common ingredient found in sunscreen is toxic to coral and contributing to the decline of reefs around the world, according to new research.

Oxybenzone, a UV-filtering chemical compound found in 3,500 brands of sunscreen worldwide, can be fatal to baby coral and damaging to adults in high concentrations, according to the study published on Tuesday in the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

The international research team that conducted the study, led by Craig Downs, found the highest concentrations of oxybenzone around coral reefs popular with tourists, particularly those in Hawaii and the Caribbean. ...

Oxybenzone alters coral DNA, makes coral more susceptible to potentially fatal bleaching and acts as an endocrine disruptor, causing baby coral to encase itself in its own skeleton and die, according to the findings.

Between 6,000 and 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen lotion winds up in coral reef areas each year, much of which contains oxybenzone.

The damaging effects were seen in coral in concentrations of oxybenzone as low as 62 parts per trillion, which is equivalent to a drop of water in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the researchers.

Also of Interest

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

Kunduz hospital attack: how a US military ‘mistake’ left 22 dead

Even corporate America wants campaign finance reform to stop crony capitalism

The tide is turning against Zionist extremism

Hillary Syria Fact Check: "Safe Zones" Equals "Ground Troops"

Teen Who Hacked CIA Director’s Email Tells How He Did It

The Banking Industry's Transparent Attempt to Weaken the CFPB

A Little Night Music

T-Bone Walker - Goin' to Chicago

T Bone Walker - Hey Baby

T Bone Walker + Shakey Jake - Call me when you need me

T Bone Walker - T-Bone Shuffle

T Bone Walker - Mean old world

T-Bone Walker - She Is Going To Ruin Me

T-Bone Walker - Alimony Blues

T-Bone Walker - Go back to the one you love

T-Bone Walker - Too lazy to work and too nervous to steal

T-Bone Walker - I Know Your Wig Is Gone

T-Bone Walker-Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You

T-Bone Walker - The Hustle Is On

T-Bone Walker - Guitar Boogie

T-Bone Walker- Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong

T-Bone Walker - Hey Baby

T-Bone Walker - Long Skirt Baby Blues

T-Bone Walker - Glamour Girl

T Bone Walker - Pony Tail

T Bone Walker - Louisiana Bayou Drive