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“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

-- Voltaire

News and Opinion

Pentagon Ignored Evidence of Civilian Casualties in ISIS Strikes, Human Rights Group Says

U.S. authorities overseeing the war against the Islamic State in Syria have failed to respond to evidence of hundreds of civilian casualties resulting from coalition airstrikes and potential violations of the laws of war, according to a startling new account from Amnesty International.

In a press release issued Tuesday night, Amnesty said it has presented the Pentagon with evidence that 11 coalition airstrikes in Syria over the past two years appear to have led to the deaths of as many as 300 civilians — and that so far that evidence has been met with silence.

“U.S. authorities have provided no response to a memorandum Amnesty International sent to the Department of Defense on September 28 to raise questions about the conduct of coalition forces in Syria,” the group claimed.

“We fear the U.S.-led coalition is significantly underestimating the harm caused to civilians in its operations in Syria,” Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s Beirut regional office, said in a statement. “Analysis of available evidence suggests that in each of these cases, coalition forces failed to take adequate precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Maalouf added that some of the strikes in question “may constitute disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks.”

Is the US Headed Towards War in Syria?

Why Hillary Clinton's plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict

Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.

The former strategists spoke to the Guardian as Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump warned that Clinton’s proposal to establish “safe zones” to protect beleaguered Syrian civilians would “lead to world war three”.

The proposal of no-fly zones has been fiercely debated in Washington for the past five years, but has never attracted significant enthusiasm from the military because of the risk to pilots from Syrian air defenses and the presence of Russian warplanes.

Many in US national security circles consider the risk of an aerial confrontation with the Russians to be severe. ...

Those who have patrolled no-fly zones over the relatively freer skies of Bosnia and Saddam-era Iraq fear that a President Clinton would oblige the US to what one retired US air force three-star general described as an indefinite “air occupation”. Such a move would risk the lives of US pilots – and dare confrontation with a Russian military which is more aggressive than it has been in years.

Critics of the plan also question how using US military power to establish and police a safe space for beleaguered Syrian civilians would contribute to the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad – the explicit goal of US policy in Syria.

“If she is not politically posturing, it’s going to be a disaster. I hope it’s political posturing,” said John Kuehn, a retired navy officer who flew no-fly zone missions over Bosnia and Iraq. Kuehn who called denying an adversary its airspace “the cocktail party military application of power of choice”.

Intelligence Director “Wouldn’t Put It Past” Russia to Fire at U.S. Aircraft in Syria

Hillary Clinton has proposed establishing a no-fly zone in Syria, but Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Tuesday that such a move could lead Russia to shoot down U.S. planes.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft if they felt that was threatening to their forces on the ground,” Clapper said during a talk at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Russia recently deployed mobile S-400 and S-300 missile batteries to Western Syria, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and cruise missiles. Clapper signaled that they posed a threat to American planes should the U.S. try to institute a no-fly zone in Syria.

“The system they have there is very advanced, very capable,” said Clapper, “and I don’t think they’d do it – deploy it – if they didn’t have some intention to use it.”

Trump: Clinton’s Syria Plans Would Lead to World War Three

In a new foreign policy interview, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump warned that his opponent Hillary Clinton’s plans for military action in Syria if elected would lead to World War Three because of the risk of the conflict quickly including Russia. ...

Pentagon officials have sounded similar concerns, with Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warning that even establishing a no-fly zone would require the US to commit massive military force to Syria, and would have a major potential to lead to direct military conflict with Russia. ...

As usual, the Clinton campaign did not address the substance of the concerns, but rather condemned Trump, insisting he is “parroting Putin” by arguing against a war with Russia, and that he is “unfit” for the presidency.

The American Blob is already oozing into Syria

With the election of a militarist-inclined Hillary Clinton looking all but certain, the Blob — White House aide Ben Rhodes' apt name for the permanent D.C. foreign policy establishment — is quickly coalescing around a new consensus that existing U.S. intervention should be dramatically scaled up, as Eric Levitz writes. The central policy for this effort is a no-fly zone to be enforced by American air power.

This is a seriously risky policy that stands little chance of meaningfully ameliorating the humanitarian disaster in Syria. But there's virtually nothing at this point that can be done to stop it. ...

The general public apathy towards low-key military interventions gives the American president huge latitude to bomb and deploy special forces basically anywhere in the world — which is often devastating to the targeted communities. But the moment that creates large numbers of U.S. casualties, a political backlash is certain. Hillary Clinton, whose 2008 presidential campaign was lost because she supported the invasion of Iraq, probably realizes this, however grudgingly.

Ultimately, the Blob does not really care about carnage in Syria. Its overwhelming priority is the use of military force, which it views as good by definition. The civil war there is just a convenient pretext. Non-military means to stop violence will be downplayed or ignored — just like the last several consecutive failures of military intervention were, and the probable upcoming failure of the Syrian intervention will be.

Satan 2

On Tuesday, Russia released the first photos of the new nuclear missile. The Satan 2 (or the RS-28 Sarmat to give the missile its less terrifying name) will replace Russia’s current nuclear weapon, the SS-18, which is now almost 30 years old, built during the final years of the Soviet Union and not capable of matching today’s sophisticated missile defence systems. During a period of strained relations with much of the West, Russia seems to be looking to beef up its weapons system. President Putin recently suspended a treaty with Washington that would have seen Russia dispose of Plutonium originally intended for nuclear weapons.

To get a sense of the power and capabilities of Satan 2, it’s best to look at the figures:

• 10,000 – the number of kilometres Satan 2 can travel, according to the Daily Mail, meaning it can reach all of Europe, as well as the east and west coasts of the U.S.
• 7 – kilometres per second is how fast the Satan 2 can travel, meaning it could reach London from Moscow in under 6 minutes
• 40 – megatons, which makes it 2,000 times more powerful than the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during world war 2
• 16 – nuclear warheads meaning it would be capable of destroying an area the size of Texas, or the whole of France.
• 2018 – when the new missile is expected to go into service.

Russia cancels Spanish fuel stop for Syria-bound warships

Russia has withdrawn a request for a flotilla of warships to refuel in Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta, after Nato allies criticised Madrid for assisting warships they believe could be used to target civilians in Syria.

The Russian embassy in Madrid gave no reason for the change of heart.

In a statement the Spanish foreign ministry said: “The Russian embassy has just informed us that it is withdrawing the request for permission for stopovers for these ships and these stopovers have therefore been cancelled.”

The refuelling plan had drawn criticism from the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, senior European parliamentarians, and defence figures.

The Spanish were accused of hypocrisy for potentially letting the warships refuel, after signing statements last week accusing the Russians of war crimes in Syria, and tweeting support for the “liberation of Syria” during a conference in Paris on Tuesday.

"Its like a game of Risk" - Mosul offensive driven by power politics

NATO Seeks More Troops in Continued Eastern Europe Buildup - Troops Would 'Send Message' to Russians and Trump

Since the increase in tensions with Russia began in 2014, NATO has been sending ever growing numbers of troops to their eastern frontier with Russia, with military officials predicting an imminent Russian invasion for months. Even though no one thinks that’s going to happen anymore, NATO is still pushing for more troops. ...

With the US openly talking about starting a war with Russia, the continued deployments seem far from a purely defensive measure. Diplomats also suggested it was only partly about sending a message to Russia, and that the real point of the latest push is to get a bunch of nations involved as a “message” to US presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has complained the US is spending too much defending Europe and that Europe isn’t doing enough on its own.

That underscores the cynical nature of the deployments, and indeed the sort of thing adding to the sense of NATO being obsolete, that they feel they can afford to organize major deployments just for the sake of scoring political points in member nations’ elections.

Philippines’ Duterte threatens to throw out U.S. troops

The volatile Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte last week announced his “separation” from the United States, although he subsequently backtracked to say he did not want to cut economic and military ties.

But on Tuesday he was at it again, saying he hated having foreign troops in the Philippines and telling the United States not to treat his country “like a dog with a leash,” the Reuters news agency reported.

He also questioned the 10-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed in 2014, which expanded military ties between the two nations and enabled the United States to deploy conventional forces in the Philippines for the first time in decades, rotating through five bases. The deal was heralded as a key element of President Obama’s strategic rebalance to Asia.

“You have the EDCA — well forget it, if I stay here long enough,” he said. “I do not want to see any military man of any other nation except the Filipino. That’s the only thing I want.”

In the Philippines, a president is allowed only a single six-year term in office, and Duterte did not specify what he meant by staying long enough. ...

If U.S. troops eventually were forced out of the Philippines, it is unclear where else they could deploy to effectively monitor the South China Sea, experts said, with Singapore and Malaysia quite far south and Vietnam very unlikely to welcome them.

FM: Turkey May Invade Iraq If Threatened - Insists Turkey Has 'Natural Right' to Invade

Tensions between Turkey and Iraq continue to rise, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced today that his country reserves the right to invade Iraq “if there is a threat posed to Turkey,” and that this would include a substantial number of ground troops.

Cavusoglu insisted that invading Iraq is Turkey’s “most natural right.” Turkey presently has about 500 troops in Iraq, which they’ve had for around a year. The Iraqi government has repeatedly demanded Turkey withdraw, but Turkish officials have insisted they will stay and participate in the war against ISIS. ...

Turkey is now claiming that they believe the PKK is heavily involved in the fight against ISIS, and has designs on setting up a base of operations in the Yazidi city of Sinjar, threatening the military response to prevent a PKK presence there.

Kurdish Forces Expelling Arab Families From Kirkuk After ISIS Attack

UN officials are expressing concern about growing evidence of “collective punishment” being carried out by Kurdish security forces against Arab families in the city of Kirkuk, with a new purge apparently having begun in the wake of last week’s ISIS attack.

Reports from aid workers in Kirkuk suggest that several hundred Sunni Arab families have, in the past couple of days, been contacted by Kurdish security forces and informed they have to leave or face being “forced” out of town, accusing them of being part of an ISIS “sleeper cell.”

On Friday, ISIS attacked several targets around Kirkuk, killing a number of security members. The operation was seen as an attempt to divert Kurdish security forces from participating in the ongoing invasion of Mosul.

'Paranoid' North Korea won't stop building nuclear weapons – US spy chief

Persuading “paranoid” North Korea to stop building nuclear weapons is probably a lost cause and efforts to cap its capability are the best hope, according to the US director of national intelligence.

James Clapper’s comments on Tuesday come amid mounting concern that the North is moving closer toward having a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the American mainland. It has conducted two atomic test explosions in 2016 and more than 20 ballistic missile tests.

The US has long insisted that it will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and the state department said on Tuesday there had been no change in policy.

Clapper said that while North Korea has yet to test its KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile, the US already operated on the assumption that Pyongyang potentially had the capability to launch a missile that could reach parts of the United States, particularly Alaska and Hawaii.

“I think the notion of getting the North Koreans to denuclearise is probably a lost cause,” Clapper said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He added that the best the US could probably get is some kind of a cap on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.

Food crisis in Yemen

18 Months In, Saudis Deny Yemen Naval Blockade Is Even Happening

In March of 2015, Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen with an eye toward installing the former Hadi government back in power. As part of the invasion, they imposed a full-scale naval blockade on the nation, which was a huge deal because Yemen imports the vast, vast majority of its food from abroad.

Heavily criticized as a major human rights problem, and just one of many in the Saudi war, Saudi Arabia has totally not only denied that the naval blockade amounts to a war crime, but insists the naval blockade never happened, insisting that the huge fleet of ships is just there to ensure that cargo is “legal” before it enters Yemen.

Saudi Maj. Gen. Ahmed Assiri insisted that calling it a naval blockade “gives the wrong impression,” despite it doing exactly what a naval blockade does, and despite Saudi coalition officials referring to it as such earlier in the war. Assiri also claimed the UN was allowed to use airplanes to deliver aid to the capital city of Sanaa, which would be a thing if the Saudis hadn’t heavily bombed the airport to prevent aid planes from landing earlier in the war.

Gambia is latest African nation to quit international criminal cour

The Gambia has announced its withdrawal from the international criminal court, accusing the tribunal of the “persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”.

The announcement late on Tuesday came after similar decisions this month by South Africa and Burundi to abandon the troubled institution, set up to handle the world’s worst crimes.

Sheriff Bojang, the information minister, said in an announcement on state television that the court had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders” while ignoring crimes committed by the west.

He singled out the case of the former British prime minister Tony Blair, whom the ICC decided not to indict over the Iraq war.

“There are many western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC and not a single western war criminal has been indicted,” he said.

The withdrawal, he said, “is warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called international criminal court, is in fact an international caucasian court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”.

Documents show AT&T secretly sells customer data to law enforcement

Telecommunications giant AT&T is selling access to customer data to local law enforcement in secret, new documents released on Monday reveal.

The program, called Hemisphere, was previously known only as a “partnership” between the company and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for the purposes of counter-narcotics operations.

It accesses the trove of telephone metadata available to AT&T, who control a large proportion of America’s landline and cellphone infrastructure. Unlike other providers, who delete their stored metadata after a certain time, AT&T keeps information like call time, duration, and even location data on file for years, with records dating back to 2008.

But according to internal company documents revealed Monday by the Daily Beast, Hemisphere is being sold to local police departments and used to investigate everything from murder to Medicaid fraud, costing US taxpayers millions of dollars every year even while riding roughshod over privacy concerns.

AT&T Is Spying on Americans for Profit, New Documents Revea

Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why. ...

Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public. ...

But those charged with a crime are entitled to know the evidence against them come trial. Adam Schwartz, staff attorney for activist group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that means AT&T may leave investigators no choice but to construct a false investigative narrative to hide how they use Hemisphere if they plan to prosecute anyone.

Once AT&T provides a lead through Hemisphere, then investigators use routine police work, like getting a court order for a wiretap or following a suspect around, to provide the same evidence for the purpose of prosecution. This is known as “parallel construction.” ...

The federal government reimburses municipalities for the expense of Hemisphere through the same grant program that is blamed for police militarization by paying for military gear like Bearcat vehicles. ...

While telecommunications companies are legally obligated to hand over records, AT&T appears to have gone much further to make the enterprise profitable, according to ACLU technology policy analyst Christopher Soghoian.

Groups to Yahoo and US Government: You Owe Us Answers on Spy Ops

Civil liberties advocates are demanding answers for Yahoo's spying operation revealed earlier this month, as news emerges that the government order behind the email scan will likely remain classified.

Obama administration officials told Reuters on Tuesday that the government is hesitant about releasing the order to a wider audience on the grounds that it is a national security matter. The statement came as dozens of advocacy groups sent a letter (pdf) to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for the order to be declassified to determine if it violated both constitutional and international human rights, among other laws.

"We believe such a massive scan of the emails of millions of people, particularly if it involves the scanning of email content, could violate [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], the Fourth Amendment, and international human rights law," the coalition of more than 30 groups wrote.

The order asked Yahoo to scan its customers' emails for a certain digital "signature" allegedly associated with a foreign power. With the order still classified, the signature currently remains unknown.

Justice Department Overhauls Team in Police Murder of Eric Garner

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has replaced the New York team investigating the 2014 police killing of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old black man whose arrest and deadly chokehold were captured on video—a move that could "jump-start the long-stalled case and put the government back on track to seek criminal charges," the New York Times reports.

FBI agents investigating whether Garner's civil rights were violated when New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Daniel Pantaleo locked his elbow around Garner's throat and dragged him to the ground were replaced by other agents from outside the state, the Times reports, citing anonymous officials. And federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have also been taken off the case.

The investigation had stalled for years due to internal conflict, as lawyers with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department called for charges to be filed against the officers involved while FBI agents opposed doing so.

Garner's widow, Esaw Garner, told the New York Daily News that she was cautiously pleased with the development, stating, "I'm hoping they follow through with it and do what they need to do to put this officer away. He needs to suffer the consequences of his actions."

She added that a federal indictment against Pantaleo could have a far-reaching impact on policing tactics in communities of color. "If they would just put away one—not even all of them, just one—then the other ones would think about what they're doing before they do it," she said.

The American Dream has moved to Canada

The chances of achieving the American dream are almost twice as high in Canada as in the U.S.

One of America’s foremost young economists, Stanford’s Raj Chetty, highlighted that finding in a lecture at London School of Economics Monday, which offered a mini-survey on economics of social mobility. It was the first of three lectures he’s set to deliver on the topic this week. ...

Only about 7.5 percent of U.S. children born to parents in households in the bottom 20 percent of earners rise to the highest level of American earners. That’s lower than the rate in other developed nations such as Denmark (11.7) , the United Kingdom (9 percent), and Canada (13.5 percent). ...

“These are actually quite large differences in upward mobility across countries,” he said. “One way to think about it is your chances of achieving the American dream are almost two times higher if you’re growing up in Canada than in the United States.”

Donald Trump is no outsider: he mirrors our political culture

We love to horrify ourselves with his excesses, and to see him as a monstrous outlier, the polar opposite of everything a modern, civilised society represents. But he is nothing of the kind. He is the distillation of all that we have been induced to desire and admire. Trump is so repulsive not because he offends our civilisation’s most basic values, but because he embodies them.

Trump personifies the traits promoted by the media and corporate worlds he affects to revile; the worlds that created him. He is the fetishisation of wealth, power and image in a nation where extrinsic values are championed throughout public discourse. His conspicuous consumption, self-amplification and towering (if fragile) ego are in tune with the dominant narratives of our age.

As the recipient of vast inherited wealth who markets himself as solely responsible for his good fortune, he is the man of our times. The US Apprentice TV show which he hosted tells the story of everything he is not: the little guy dragging himself up from the bottom through enterprise and skill. None of this distinguishes him from the majority of the very rich, whose entrepreneurial image, loyally projected by the media, clashes with their histories of huge bequests, government assistance, monopolies and rent-seeking. ...

Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy. You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt? Turn to the demagogue who rages into this political vacuum, denouncing the forces he exemplifies. The problem is not, as Trump claims, that the election will be stolen by ballot rigging. It is that the entire electoral process is stolen from the American people before they get anywhere near casting their votes. When Trump claims that the little guy is being screwed by the system, he’s right. The only problem is that he is the system. ...

Because this story did not begin with Trump, it will not end with Trump, however badly he may lose the election. Yes, he is a shallow, mendacious, boorish and extremely dangerous man. But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped of its pretences.

Clinton’s WikiLeaks strategy: Doubt, delay, distract

The emails are full of potential damage for Hillary Clinton. She weighed the political implications of policies. She is close to Wall Street. Her aides gathered information to discredit a woman who’d accused her husband of rape.

So how has she so far remained largely unscathed by the unprecedented release of hacked emails? It’s one part a deliberate strategy of casting doubt on the authenticity and distracting from the content of the emails, one part fatigue by Americans who already have seen tens of thousands of Clinton’s emails and one part a whole lot of luck.

With Clinton leading in both national polls and battleground-state surveys, the Democrat is in some ways trying to run out the clock on the election.

The WikiLeaks emails do threaten to reinforce voter doubts about Clinton’s honesty. But her strategy – refuse to confirm the authenticity of the emails, blame Russia for the hack and say little else – has so far successfully defused the impact by avoiding any talk that would keep voters looking at the content of the messages. Her undisciplined opponent has taken care of the rest. ...

“If the Trump stuff was not occurring, this (the emails) would be one of the biggest stories in presidential history,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who ran party nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 Ohio campaign. “It’s like a great movie released the same weekend as ‘Star Wars.’ ”

Dear Liberals: Trump is Right

While the liberatti of the corporate media’s Ministry of Truth wax obnoxious about the mortal danger of Trump’s lack of faith in the sacred cow of US elections, they studiously ignore the material reality of the entire electoral system from the infrastructure to the polling and financial architecture. Taken in toto it’s hard to argue with the simple fact that the country that spreads democracy around the world at the barrel of a gun has merely the hollowed-out husk of a democracy at home. And whether it’s Trump that says it, or a talking unicorn that shoots rainbows from its eyes, the fact remains.

Trump being a reprehensible degenerate real estate vulture does nothing to change the fact that US elections are undeniably manipulated. And so, when President Obama in his characteristic disregard for reality, proclaims that there is “no evidence at all” to support Trump’s allegations that the elections are rigged, one has to wonder whether Obama is merely lying, as per usual, or if he genuinely believes that. Either way, it epitomizes the self-satisfied mytho-religion at the heart of the established order in the United States; the myth that the rulers rule with the consent of the governed. ...

According to the findings of the Brennan Center – an organization widely seen as being liberal – there is ample reason to be concerned about the integrity of the ballots and vote counts. So why then does Obama and nearly every other Democrat (and Republican!) feign outrage at Trump’s suggestion that the election results are not to be believed? Perhaps it’s because elections are the principal mechanism by which the ruling class is validated. ...

And, naturally, liberals backing the Queen of Chaos have conveniently ignored the release of DNC emails proving that the Democratic primary was rigged in favor of Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. There’s far too much cognitive dissonance created by simultaneously recognizing the reality of how this election has already been stolen, and still supporting Hillary Clinton. Orwellian doublethink seems to be a prerequisite for being a card-carrying liberal Democrat these days. Not only must they ignore how Clinton stole the nomination from Sanders, they must also ignore the steaming piles of evidence proving the entire election is a sham; Debord and Baudrillard would be so proud.

Most Americans do not feel represented by Democrats or Republicans – survey

As they go to the polls in a historic presidential election, more than six in 10 Americans say neither major political party represents their views any longer, a survey has found.

Dissatisfaction with both Democrats and Republicans has risen sharply since 1990, when less than half held that neither reflected their opinions, according to research by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

The seventh annual 2016 American Values Survey was carried out throughout September among a random sample of 2,010 adults in all 50 states.

Both party establishments have been rattled by the outsider challenges of Donald Trump, who was successful in winning his party’s nomination, and Bernie Sanders, who was not. In a year that seems ripe for third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green party are seeking to capitalise but have fallen back in the polls in recent weeks.

Sixty-one per cent of survey respondents say neither political party reflects their opinions today, while 38% disagree. Nearly eight in 10 (77%) independents and a majority (54%) of Republicans took this position, while less than half (46%) of Democrats agree. There was virtually no variation across class or race.

Megan Ming Francis: The Candidates Should Discuss Predatory Capitalism

Speaking of predators, there is the appearance that Bernie's followers are being sold a bill of goods in order to drive donations and turnout for Clinton and Democrats. Check out this Nation article and the caveat that indicates that funds are being raised - so far $2.4 million this week from half a million contributions - on the basis of a speculation that Bernie will be given a role in the Senate that is far from guaranteed.

What a bunch of brazen opportunists, Sanders included.

It’s Paul Ryan Versus Bernie Sanders, and Sanders Is Winning

Paul Ryan tried to scare some enthusiasm into Republicans by invoking the image of an empowered Bernie Sanders.

Instead, he empowered the senator from Vermont—and gave millions of Sanders backers nationwide something to get excited about.

At a gathering of Young Republicans on October 14, the speaker of the House spent most of his time not mentioning Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. But Ryan did encourage Republicans to turn out in order to thwart what he refers to as “the liberal progressive” agenda. To make his point, the speaker warned, “If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?”

Republicans in the room and around the country took little note of the speaker’s attempt to save his down-ballot partisans. But progressives—especially those who had supported Sanders in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination—embraced Ryan’s comment. While it remains unclear whether Sanders would chair the Budget Committee or the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, there is little doubt that the democratic socialist from Vermont would be a powerful player in a Democratic Senate. ...

Sanders saw an opening, and he grabbed it. The senator took to Twitter—“I heard what @SpeakerRyan said: If the GOP loses the Senate, I’ll be the Budget chairman. Sounds like a good idea…”—and urged his 3.76 million followers to donate to Democrats who are seeking to overturn Republican majorities in the Senate and in the House chamber where Ryan presides. The Sanders team launched a “We Heard You Paul!” appeal to small donors.

Ryan’s remark has turned into such a goldmine for progressive politics that the Sanders camp is now thanking the speaker.

Kaine says Clinton would seek updated war-making powers

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said in an interview published Monday that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would quickly ask Congress for fresh legal authority to make war on the so-called Islamic State and other terrorist groups around the world.

“Hillary has said that that’s something she wants to do very early in her administration,” the Virginia senator said. He made his remarks in an interview with “The Axe Files,” hosted by David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Obama.

Kaine said the former secretary of state will press lawmakers to rewrite the Sept. 14, 2001, Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that set the stage for the invasion of Afghanistan and has underpinned the entire war on terrorism. Obama has invoked the measure to argue that his undeclared but escalating war on ISIS is legal, a position Kaine had previously dismissed as an “Alice in Wonderland” strategy.

Clinton believes that “it’s time for us to take that now-outdated authorization, and really think about what we are confronting, and work together to reach some legislative-executive accord about what it is we’re doing,” Kaine told Axelrod. “It’s time for Congress to get back in the game and refine and revise that authorization.”

Donald Trump has close financial ties to Dakota Access pipeline company

Trump’s financial disclosure forms show he invested in Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial pipeline, and its CEO donated to his campaign

Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive.

Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. The information was disclosed in Trump’s May filing to the Federal Election Commission, which requires candidates to disclose their campaign finance information on a regular basis.

The financial relationship runs both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, has given $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee since the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination. ...

Trump is therefore indirectly linked to Dakota Access, a $3.8bn pipeline development that will funnel oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

I think that this article dramatically overstates Hillary T. Fracking-Queen's commitment to fully and adequately respond to climate change and take the needed emergency actions to mitigate the dangers that are upon us. It seems to me a great mistake to take her campaign (public positions) at face value. Also, like lots of other outlets, Insideclimatenews here ignores third party candidates, including Jill Stein who has far more ambitious plans to address climate change. That said, the article does note a significant difference between bad and worse.

What's at Stake for the Climate in the 2016 Election?

Following the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the gulf between the candidates has never seemed deeper, perhaps most alarmingly so on climate change.

The election shapes up as the most significant possible choice when it comes to climate policy. Clinton, though not committed to a swift transition away from fossil fuels, vows to build on the climate policies of the Obama administration and live up to U.S. commitments to the Paris accord. Trump, in contrast, pledges to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency and "cancel" the Paris agreement.

More fundamentally, the election is a choice between one candidate who accepts the global scientific and political consensus on the causes and cures for climate change, and one who rejects both. ...

Peter Clark, a paleoclimatologist at Oregon State University who co-authored a study in Nature Climate Change that calculated the global warming that already is inevitable, said the decisions made in the next few years will have profound consequences. "If we delay any longer, we're just committing ourselves to greater impact, and greater economic costs," he said. "We are falling off the cliff as far as what we need to do to combat emissions."

350 Action's May Boeve on Young Voters & Climate Movement

Pennsylvania Ruling on Eminent Domain Puts Contentious Pipeline Project on Alert

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has unanimously ruled unconstitutional a section of state law that lets companies seize private land for certain natural gas projects, with potentially major implications for one of the biggest proposed pipelines in the state.

Under the original rule, passed in 2012, any company has the authority to take private land through eminent domain for the purpose of storing natural gas underground.

The justices decided on Sept. 28 that this section of the law unconstitutionally lets private companies profit from taking people's land with no direct or obvious benefit to Pennsylvanians. The oil and gas companies argued the projects could benefit the state by creating new jobs, for example, but the justices were not convinced.

"The Commonwealth does not claim, nor can it do so reasonably, that the public is the 'primary and paramount' beneficiary when private property is taken in this manner," the justices wrote. "Instead, it advances the proposition that allowing such takings would somehow advance the development of infrastructure in the Commonwealth. Such a projected benefit is speculative, and, in any event, would be merely an incidental one and not the primary purpose for allowing these types of takings." The high court's decision reversed a lower court's ruling that upheld this part of the rule. ...

Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas and is in the middle of a pipeline boom to move much of the state's fracked gas and drilling byproducts to East Coast and international markets. Companies are proposing at least a dozen gas-related pipelines, many with plans to cross private land. The recent decision dealt only with underground natural gas storage, but it could have repercussions for the way eminent domain is applied to one of the biggest proposed pipelines in the state: Sunoco Logistics' Mariner East 2 project.

The $2.5 billion Mariner East 2 project would secure Pennsylvania's position as an East Coast hub for natural gas liquids distribution. It's an expansion of Sunoco Logistics' Mariner East 1 pipeline, which sends propane across Pennsylvania and ethane to a terminal near Philadelphia for export to Europe. That original line runs about 300 miles, from eastern Pennsylvania to outside Philadelphia.

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