Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Halloween music. Enjoy!

"Take all your overgrown infants away, somewhere
And build them a home, a little place of their own
The Fletcher Memorial Home
For incurable tyrants and kings

They can appear to themselves every day
On closed circuit TV
To make sure they're still real
It's the only connection they feel

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Reagan and Haig
Mr. Begin and friend, Mrs.Thatcher, the Paisley
(Hello Maggie!)
Mr. Brezhnev and party, the Ghost of McCarthy
And the memories have mixed and now adding color
(Who's the bald chap?)
A group of anonymous Latin American meat packing glitterati

Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
They can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles
And please themselves by playing games for a while
Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead

Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
With their favorite toy
There'll be good girls 'n' boys
In the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial
Wasters of life and limb
Is everyone in?"

-- Pink Floyd

News and Opinion

Shaker Aamer, the Last Remaining British Guantanamo Detainee, Has Been Released

The US military will today repatriate 46-year-old Shaker Aamer to the United Kingdom, marking the most high-profile detainee release in the nearly 14-year history of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

In an unprecedented move, the US Department of Defense publicly announced a month ago that it planned to transfer Aamer, a Saudi national whose wife and children are British, back to the UK after notifying Congress about his release as required by law. Aamer, who is looked upon by other detainees as their leader, has never been charged with a crime. He was often held in solitary confinement at Guantanamo in a camp designated for noncompliant detainees, and he has said in court filings and letters to his attorneys that he was routinely tortured during the 13 years he has been held captive by the US military, a claim that Guantanamo officials have denied.

Cori Crider, Shaker's US attorney and strategic director at the international legal charity Reprieve, said: "We are, of course, delighted that Shaker is on his way back to his home and his family here in the UK. It is long, long past time. Shaker now needs to see a doctor, and then get to spend time alone with his family as soon as possible." ...

Last January, the White House said that Obama was prioritizing Aamer's case following discussions Obama held with UK Prime Minister David Cameron. But nothing happened for months, sparking the ire of members of British Parliament who took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to blast the Obama administration for failing to establish a concrete timeline for Aamer's release.

Details of possible security restrictions governing Aamer's repatriation remain unknown.

Freedom for Shaker Aamer: After 13 Years Behind Bars, British Prisoner Released from Guantanamo

Shaker Aamer lands back in UK after 14 years in Guantánamo Bay

Shaker Aamer, released after 14 years incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay where he was beaten by his American military jailers, has touched down on British soil at Biggin Hill airport in south-east London.

The last British detainee at the US military prison in Cuba landed at 1pm on Friday in a private jet which then taxied into a hangar.

His wish was to be met only by lawyers. A private reunion with his wife, Zin Siddique, was expected to take place later, when he would also see his four children. He has never met his youngest, who was born on the day he was flown to Guantánamo Bay.

His father-in-law, Saeed Siddique, 73, speaking earlier at his south-west London home, said: “It was his wish, he said, no one come to the airport except lawyers.”

Siddique added: “It is a delightful day for all of us. It’s really a miracle. But I have to say we never gave up hope that we would see him again.” He said Aamer would go directly to hospital on his arrival. “I don’t know when I will see him. It’s up to his lawyers.” Asked when Aamer would see his wife and children, he said: “Everybody is happy, but I don’t think they will see him today.” ...

Cori Crider, Aamer’s US lawyer and strategic director at Reprieve who last saw him at the beginning of October, described him as being “more upbeat than I have seen him in years”. ...

He was very concerned about his health, had been on a number of prolonged hunger strikes, and had health issues. A number of doctors had come forward to offer to assist him, she added, and he wanted a thorough medical checkup, as he did not trust military doctors.

Asked if he would talk publicly about his experiences, she said he was a “very outspoken prisoner”.

“I think he will make up his own mind about it, and really, woe betide the person who tries to silence Shaker Aamer,” she said. It would be up to him “how much of his story and the terrible things he witnessed that he wants to tell”.

We Won't Torture Anymore: APA Tells U.S. to Withdraw Psychologists from Nat. Sec. Interrogations

U.S. to send Special Operations ground forces to Syria

The United States is set to deploy troops on the ground in Syria for the first time to advise and assist rebel forces combating ISIS, multiple officials said Friday.

A senior administration official said that the U.S. would be deploying "fewer than 50" U.S. Special Operations forces to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS with logistics and are planning to bolster their efforts.

The deployment of U.S. Special Operations forces is the most significant escalation of the Americans military campaign against ISIS to date.

The U.S. Special Operations forces will first be deployed to northern Syria to help coordinate local ground forces and U.S.-led coalition efforts to fight ISIS, the senior administration official said.

The U.S. will also boost its military footprint in confronting ISIS in Syria by deploying A-10 and F-15 fighter jets to an airbase in Turkey. And the U.S. is also eying the establishment of a Special Forces task force in Iraq to boost U.S. efforts to target ISIS and its leaders. President Barack Obama has also authorized enhancing military aid to Jordan and Lebanon to help counter ISIS.

The U.S. has bombed targets in Syria since September 2014 without stopping ISIS, and it has largely failed in a mission to recruit and train moderate rebels in Syria to take on the terror group. ... The troop deployment also comes as Russia has upped its military involvement in Syria.

While Condemning Assad, U.S. Bombs Afghan Hospital & Backs Devastating Saudi War on Yemen

Syria Is a Clusterf*ck, and It's About to Get Worse for the U.S.

I am getting ominous 1965 flashbacks again. Robert McNamara and Creighton Abrams are starting to appear in my mind's eye, pointing down a long, dark tunnel at the lights of an oncoming train.​

The debate over the proposed steps, which would for the first time position a limited number of Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria and put U.S. advisers closer to the firefights in Iraq, comes as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter presses the military to deliver new options for greater military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The changes would represent a significant escalation of the American role in Iraq and Syria. They still require formal approval from Obama, who could make a decision as soon as this week and could decide not to alter the current course, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are still ongoing. It's unclear how many additional troops would be required to implement the changes being considered by the president, but the number for now is likely to be relatively small, these officials said.

​"The number for now…"

Those are two words—"for now"—that could be full of blood. There could be hundreds of American kids interred in those two words—"for now"—along with god knows how many Syrians and Iraqis. Once, we allegedly learned the folly of involving ourselves in a distant civil war. Now, we seem primed to involve ourselves in two of them. Our role seems to have been designed in a funhouse mirror.

What's at Stake for Iran in Syria?

Syria peace talks pin hopes for end to war on Iran and Saudi Arabia

The broadest peace talks since the start of the Syrian war are getting under way in Vienna, with Iran joining arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and the US to try to orchestrate an end to one of the most dangerous global conflicts in decades.

While all regional stakeholders appear set to take a seat at the table, neither the Syrian government nor opposition have been invited, with any hope of a solution riding mainly on their respective regional patrons: Iran for the Assad regime and Saudi Arabia for those who oppose him.

In the runup to the talks there was no discernible change to the intractable regional positions of either side and hopes of meaningful progress appear slim. ... At every turn, there is a lack of common ground. Even where there has been an overriding cause – fighting Islamic State – there is disagreement on how to do so and even on who, and where, it is.

Regional military officials continue to insist that Russia has focused at least 85% of its bombing raids on the armed opposition to Assad, instead of Isis further east.

Meanwhile, US attempts to re-enfranchise Iran as a good faith neighbour after the successfully negotiated nuclear deal have been roundly rebuffed by Riyadh, Qatar and the Gulf states, whose representatives are also travelling to Vienna. A senior Gulf diplomat said: “They are inviting the vultures to the banquet table. And they expect them to wear napkins and be nice to the waiters.”

Iran Signals Readiness to Compromise at Syria Talks

With new talks on Syria opening in Vienna, all eyes were on Iran, who was invited to take part for the first time. The Iranian delegation made a show of flexibility, insisting the nation doesn’t demand Assad retain power in Syria forever and would support a transition on certain terms.

Being flexible and reasonable seems very much out of place in Vienna, however, as US and Saudi officials both showed up to the talks with their typical chips on their shoulders, and demands for immediate, unconditional regime change in Syria that no one realistically thinks is going to happen.

Saudi Arabia couched their demands, the same as ever, as directed at Iran, claiming they’d no longer allow Iran to support the Assad government.

Russia in Syria: Air strikes pose twin threat to Turkey by keeping Assad in power and strengthening Kurdish threat

Russian planes carried out 71 sorties and 118 air strikes against Islamic fighters in Syria over the past two days compared to just one air strike by the US-led coalition – and this single strike, against a mortar position, was the first for four days.

The Russian air campaign in Syria is far more intense than the US-led attempt to contain the “Islamic State” (Isis) that has focused on helping the Syrian Kurds and attacking Isis-controlled oil facilities in eastern Syria. Countries affected by the Syrian conflict sense that its nature is changing and are seeking new strategies to take account of this.

The US says it will increase the number of its air strikes and possibly make limited use of special forces to target Isis leaders. The problem for the US is that, aside from Syrian-Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which number about 25,000 fighters, it does not have an effective partner on the ground in Syria capable of identifying and giving the coordinates of targets to attack. Russia is providing an air force for the Syrian army, the largest military force in Syria and one which, unlike the Kurds, is not confined to one corner of the country.

Turkey is seeking an effective way to respond to two developments in Syria this year that are much against its interests. One is the start of Russian air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad on 30 September which makes Turkey’s policy of removing the Syrian leader, even if he is to be allowed to stay for a transition period, look unrealistic. The Russian presence also makes any direct Turkish military intervention increasingly risky. ...

Turkey’s policy towards the war in Syria has been a complete failure. Its aim was to get rid of Mr Assad and his regime, but both are still power. Even more seriously, whatever Ankara’s intentions at the start of the conflict in 2011, it did not dream that four years later the Syrian Kurds, 10 per cent of the Syrian population, would have established a de facto state they call Rojava in north-east Syria which runs along half of Turkey’s 550-mile Syrian Kurdish border.

Turkish Elections: Will Erdogan Garner a Majority This Time?

Attacks on the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections

As the November 1 elections approach — a “snap” election called by the AKP in hopes of regaining a Parliamentary majority — press freedom advocates are concerned that the increasing raids on media outlets and attacks on journalists represent a dire threat to Turkish democracy. ...

Since the June elections, 40 journalists have been detained while working — a sixfold increase from last year. Twenty of these journalists, mostly Kurdish, remain behind bars — including Iraqi-Kurdish VICE News fixer Mohammed Rasool, who has spent more than 60 days in a high-security prison following his arrest with two foreign journalists in the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir. In Istanbul, the offices of Hürriyet — the paper often seen as the flagship of Turkish media — were raided and twice vandalized after the paper was accused of being sympathetic to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Soon afterward, Ahmet Hakan, a senior editor at Hürriyet, was attacked by armed thugs outside his home.

In addition to targeted attacks silencing journalists, the Erdogan government has issued media gag orders, which many in Turkey see as attempts to distort public discourse. Following the twin bombings on October 10 that exploded at a peace rally in Ankara, leaving 102 dead in the worst terrorist attack in Turkish history, President Erdogan ordered a complete media ban on all “news, reports, criticism, and similar publications in print, visual, social media and the Internet pertaining to the investigation of the bombing.” Although the Turkish government attempted to blame the PKK for the bombing, Turkish newspapers have confirmed that one of the bombers was Yunus Emre Alagöz, the brother of Sheikh Abdulrahman Alagöz who killed 34 people in a similar attack in the border town of Suruç earlier this year. Official records state that both brothers had been under police surveillance since 2013, when their families contacted the authorities expressing fears that their sons had joined the Islamic State.

The media blackout on all information pertaining to the attacks helped create a narrative that PKK and HDP groups were behind the attack, despite the fact that they were in fact the groups targeted at the rally. ... A survey by the Gezici Research Company, a greater percentage of the Turkish public believes that the PKK was behind the deadly bombings than blames ISIS. By demonizing the Kurdish parties and steering public attention away from the negligence of the Turkish government in preventing the attacks, the press ban served the interests of the Erdogan government.

Do you suppose that the US media will bring the fact that Obama has been flat out lying through his teeth about US boots-on-the-ground involvement to the attention of Americans? Oh well, it probably doesn't matter. Americans have been trained to shrug their shoulders at shit like this just as their "representative" Senator Corker does, saying that it's "just the way the government is set up," like it's some sort of immutable fact of nature.

US Has Secretly Been in Combat in Iraq for Months

Apparently determined to protest the charge of “mission creep” in the war, officials are now conceding that they’ve been engaged in secret ground combat for months now, and therefore this isn’t mission creep, but rather a transition to public admission of what they’ve been doing all along.

Officials also made reference to a US special operations office being run out of the Kurdish capital of Irbil, saying the matter was kept so highly classified that even the name of the office itself is considered a state secret that won’t be released.

Sen. Bob Corker (R – TN), head of the Foreign Relations Committee, downplayed the seriousness of the White House carrying out a secret ground war even as they were publicly telling the American people that no ground combat would ever happen in Iraq, saying “it’s the way our government is set up.”

Corker did however express concern about the lack of information given to Congress about the scope of the special operations ground combat, saying that Congress isn’t “even close to fully knowledgeable as to what is happening.”

Israeli Police Repeatedly Raid East Jerusalem Hospital, Seeking Shot Teen

Israeli police have carried out multiple raids against a hospital in occupied East Jerusalem over the past two days, seeking the location of a 15-year-old Palestinian protester who they’d shot, and who they accuse the hospital of “unlawfully” hiding.

Police are insisting they have evidence the hospital has treated “hundreds”of injured patients who participate in the “rioting” against the government, and also claimed to have secured files relating to the 15-year-old in question, vowing to see him indicted.

Several hospitals have reported similar pressure to provide evidence against their wounded patients, and the hospitals are calling on the International Red Cross and other aid agencies to prevent Israel from using raids as an attempt to coerce them into providing their records.

New Probe Reveals NSA Targeted Entire Staffs of EU Governments

A German government-sanctioned special investigation has exposed a "clear breach" of intelligence-sharing agreements—including illegal surveillance of European authorities—between the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and its German counterpart, known as the BND.

The news magazine Der Spiegel reported (German) the development on Friday, after having seen a copy of the 300-page report from former federal judge Kurt Graulich, who was appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel in July to investigate the NSA's activities within Germany. Graulich is due to formally submit the report next week to the German Parliament.

In examining a list of so-called "selectors" or "catchwords" given to the BND by the NSA, Graulich uncovered a "surprisingly large number" of European targets said to have been disallowed by Germany's BND on the grounds that they violated European or German interests. The list of 39,000 keywords—many of them email addresses and phone numbers—included government institutions in two-thirds of all EU member states and commercial enterprises, according to a translation of Der Spiegel's reporting.

According to Sputnik International:

Nearly 70 percent of the screened selectors concerned the authorities of EU countries, says the report.

"Whole staffs of European governments were the target of American spying. Nearly 16 percent of the selectors were related to telecommunications subscribers in Germany, which are protected by the Basic Law against spying through their own intelligence services," [Der Spiegel] reported.

Privacy Groups Challenge Director of National Intelligence to Uphold Transparency Promise

More than 30 privacy and civil liberties organizations are challenging Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to uphold the promise he made Tuesday to increase transparency in the intelligence community.

Specifically, they are asking Clapper to provide more information about how many Americans are “incidentally” spied on in the course of foreign intelligence gathering under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“Disclosing this information is necessary, we believe, to enable informed public debate in advance of any legislative reauthorization efforts in 2017,” said the letter from the Brennan Center for Justice, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Government Accountability Project, and more than two dozen other organizations.

Clapper announced a new 16-page plan to share more information  on Tuesday, and said he would be hosting a live Tumblr chat about it in the coming weeks. ...

Despite efforts by lawmakers, activists, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, no one knows just how many of American’s calls, texts, and social media messages end up in the foreign intelligence dragnet. Nor do we know how often the FBI searches for American persons in the database, or the policies mandating how agencies have to notify people when information swept up in 702 collection will be used against them in court.

New DOJ Docs Confirm Stingrays Can Ensnare Bystanders

Confirming long-held suspicions by privacy advocates, newly obtained U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) documents reveal that the secretive police surveillance devices known as Stingrays are capable of recording phone conversations and spying on mobile device users within the vicinity of a target.

Stingrays mimic cell phone towers to trick nearby mobile devices into connecting with them in order to pinpoint and tracked users' locations, a surveillance tactic that has reportedly been employed during recent anti-police brutality protests.

Now, the ACLU's investigation has turned up damning evidence that the surveillance technology has an even greater reach than the DOJ has previously admitted.

Internal DOJ documents (pdf) obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed two years prior show that Stingrays are "capable of intercepting the contents of communications" of cell phones that connect to the faux tower signal, including recording outgoing numbers dialed and possibly intercepting conversations and texts by wirelessly changing a device's firmware. The memos caution agents not to collect such information, "as that would entail surveillance on the calling activity of all persons in the vicinity of the subject."

That means Stingrays "spy on innocent bystanders," ACLU senior staff attorney Linda Lye wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

Court Rejects ACLU’s Plea to End Collection of Telephone Data Early

An appellate court panel will not be abruptly ending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone call data, as the American Civil Liberties Union asked them to.

The ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals deferred to Congress, which in June gave the NSA 180 days to shut it down. So the deadline remains November 29.

The appellate panel ruled in May that the domestic collection of information about who is calling who, when, and for how long was not authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, as the NSA had argued. It said the program was too broad, that information about every American’s phone call behavior wasn’t “relevant to an authorized investigation.”

The ACLU argued in court that the Second Circuit should end the program early, asking for a preliminary injunction. The Court disagreed.

David Graeber: debt and what the government doesn't want you to know

Offshoring the Economy: Why the US is on the Road to the Third World

On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer and I challenged the erroneous idea that jobs offshoring was free trade in a New York Times op-ed.  Our article so astounded economists that within a few days Schumer and I were summoned to a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, DC, to explain our heresy. In the nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years.

That was 11 years ago, and the US is on course to descend to Third World status before the remaining nine years of my prediction have expired.

The evidence is everywhere. In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks. ... Only the top One Percent or less (mainly the 0.1%) has experienced growth in income and wealth. ... Note that these declines have occurred during an alleged six-year economic recovery from 2009 to the current time, and during a period when the labor force was shrinking due to a sustained decline in the labor force participation rate. On April 3, 2015 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 93,175,000 Americans of working age are not in the work force, a historical record. Normally, an economic recovery is marked by a rise in the labor force participation rate. John Williams reports that when discouraged workers are included among the measure of the unemployed, the US unemployment rate is currently 23%, not the 5.2% reported figure. ...

The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring. Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.

The departure of well-paid US manufacturing jobs was soon followed by the departure of software engineering, IT, and other professional service jobs. ...

When manufacturing jobs depart, research, development, design, and innovation follow. An economy that doesn’t make things does not innovate. The entire economy is lost, not merely the supply chains.

The economic and social infrastructure is collapsing, including the family itself, the rule of law, and the accountability of government.

"How the Other Half Banks": Author Says America's Two-Tiered Banking System is a Threat to Democracy

Black man fearing US police will kill him flees to Canada

An American citizen has applied for asylum in Canada because he says he fears police in the United States will kill him because he is black, the refugee board said Thursday.

Kyle Lydell Canty, 30, filed a refugee claim soon after arriving in Vancouver in September.

According to public broadcaster CBC, he told an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing on October 23: "I'm in fear of my life because I'm black.

"This is a well-rounded fear," he said, citing the police shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri and the death of Eric Garner in New York City at the hands of police as examples of black people in the United States "being exterminated at an alarming rate."

An IRB spokeswoman said Canty submitted a significant amount of evidence to the board including media reports, and videos of his interactions with police in six US states where he lived before coming to Canada, including one where he was arrested for trespass in Salem, Oregon after he spent two hours talking on the phone and using free Wi-Fi at a bus station.

He argued that he was harassed or targeted by US police because of his race.

Anonymous plans to reveal names of about 1,000 Ku Klux Klan members

The ‘hacktivist’ collective wrote that the identities of white supremacist group members will be revealed next month on anniversary of their anti-Klan operation

The “hacktivist” collective Anonymous have vowed to release the names of “about 1,000” Ku Klux Klan members as part of an ongoing operation against the white supremacist group in the US.

The names were obtained after Anonymous gained access to a Klan twitter account, according to a tweet from the Operation KKK, as Anonymous have named the anti-Klan operation.

We've gained access to yet another KKK Twitter account. Using the info obtained, we will be revealing about 1000 klan member identities.

— Operation KKK (@Operation_KKK) October 22, 2015

Operation KKK’s Twitter account said that the name-dump will coincide with the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the group’s cyber-war with the Klan following a grand jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

In November 2014, a local Missouri chapter of the KKK distributed fliers threatening violence against activists. The fliers warned protesters in Ferguson that they had “awakened a sleeping giant”.

In response, Anonymous declared war on the white supremacy group.

Texas police officer wins immunity from prosecution over fatal shooting

A police officer in Texas who was being criminally prosecuted for shooting dead an unarmed black man has persuaded a judge to throw out the charge against him by arguing that he enjoyed immunity under the US constitution.

Charles Kleinert, who killed Larry Jackson Jr while serving as a City of Austin police officer, will no longer face a manslaughter trial after a federal judge ruled on Thursday that Kleinert had protection from state charges because he also worked for a federal taskforce.

Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that Kleinert was shielded by the supremacy clause of the constitution when he shot Jackson in the neck during a struggle at the end of a pursuit in July 2013. Kleinert, 51, was indicted for manslaughter by a grand jury last year. He claimed that he fired his pistol accidentally and had intended instead to strike Jackson with the weapon.

Yeakel said the Texas courts had no jurisdiction over Kleinert because he had been investigating an unrelated bank robbery for his federal task force when he began to chase Jackson, and because he believed his actions against the 32-year-old “were no more than was necessary and proper”.

The decision was described as a “complete outrage” by Adam Loewy, an attorney for Jackson’s family, who said he planned to respond by pleading with the US Department of Justice to bring an unlikely federal prosecution against Kleinert.

More than 20 women detained in Texas immigration facility begin hunger strike

More than two-dozen women at an immigration detention centre in Texas began a hunger strike on Wednesday in protest at the conditions and their ongoing incarceration, a civil rights group said.

Grassroots Leadership published 17 letters from the women and said that at least 27 began their protest by refusing dinner at the T Don Hutto residential center in Taylor, near Austin.

In the letters, some of the women express fears they will be in danger if they are forced to return to Central America. Other concerns include inedible food, poor medical care, inadequate legal representation, harsh treatment from officials and a capricious process that sees some cases resolved far more quickly than others. ...

Hutto – a former state prison – switched from a family detention centre to a women-only facility in 2009 after a settlement following lawsuits over conditions for children that were brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

It is run by a private company, the Corrections Corporation of America. A CCA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about the hunger strike and conditions. A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday that the agency is not aware of any strike: “ICE takes the health, safety, and welfare of those in our care very seriously and we continue to monitor the situation. Currently, no one at the T Don Hutto Detention Center was identified as being on a hunger strike or refusing to eat.”

Television News Network Lobbyists Are Fundraising for Hillary Clinton

Fundraising disclosures released this month and in July reveal that lobbyists for media companies are raising big money for establishment presidential candidates, particularly Hillary Clinton.

The giant media companies that shape much of the coverage of the presidential campaign have a vested stake in the outcome. From campaign finance laws that govern how money is spent on advertising to the regulators who oversee consolidation rules, the media industry has a distinct policy agenda, and with it, a political team to influence the result.

The top fundraisers for Clinton include lobbyists who serve the parent companies of CNN and MSNBC.

The National Association of Broadcasters, a trade group that represents the television station industry, has lobbyists who are fundraising for both Clinton and Republican candidate Marco Rubio. ...

CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, is represented on Capitol Hill by Steve Elmendorf, an adviser to Clinton during her 2008 campaign, who is also known as “one of Washington’s top lobbyists.” He’s lobbied on a number of issues important for media companies like CNN, including direct-to-consumer advertising policy. Elmendorf, according to disclosures, has raised at least $141,815 for Clinton’s 2016 bid for the presidency.

Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal, which includes cable networks NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC, has a number of lobbyists on retainer who are working to raise cash for the Clinton campaign, including Justin Gray, Alfred Mottur, Ingrid Duran and Catherine Pino.

Probe Demanded into Exxon's Unparalleled Climate Crime

A broad coalition of community groups along with prominent leaders from the nation's top civil rights, environmental, and indigeneous people's movements on Friday sent a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a federal investigation into allegations that oil giant ExxonMobil knew about the role fossil fuels played in driving climate change since the 1970s but concealed that information—and later sought to discredit those issuing warnings—in order to protect its own financial interests.

Addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the letter cites recent reporting by the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News—both of which offered devastating details into the manner and scope of the decades-long public deceit—and argues that a DOJ probe is warranted to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against the energy behemoth.

"Given the damage that has already occurred from climate change—particularly in the poorest communities of our nation and our planet—and that will certainly occur going forward, these revelations should be viewed with the utmost apprehension," the letter states. "They are reminiscent—though potentially much greater in scale—than similar revelations about the tobacco industry."

...

"Despite Exxon’s wealth and power, people were eager to sign on to this statement," McKibben said on Friday. "Anyone who’s lived through 25 years of phony climate debate, or who’s seen the toll climate change is already taking on the most vulnerable communities, has been seething at these revelations. It reminds me of the spirit at the start of the Keystone battle." ...

Initiating a public petition campaign to bolster their call for the DOJ probe, McKibben sent a letter to members of 350.org on Friday morning in which he stated "very few things truly piss me off," but that in his mind it seems that no corporation has ever "done anything bigger and badder" than what ExxonMobil has done in this case.

Chevron’s key witness admits lying in Ecuador pollution trial

Cows Are the Next Great Threat to Tanzania's Endangered Species

"We used to see elephants, giraffe, zebra," said Musa. "Nowadays, we never see them."

Musa was my guide in Tanzania and he and I were driving between two of the country's most important national parks — Tarangire and Lake Manyara. The stretch of land that connects them is known as a wildlife corridor, used by large mammals to move from one park to the other. ...

Tanzania has 21.3 million cows, accounting for 82 percent of rural livestock, according to the country's Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development (MSFD). That count came four years ago, and according to the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), cattle populations have increased steadily at a rate of 5 percent percent a year over the last ten years. ...

While global attention has largely focused on the impacts of animal poaching and the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn, the increase in the number of livestock has become an underappreciated threat to Tanzania's endangered species. Huge herds of cattle have all but decimated many wildlife habitats, while increased droughts from climate change have forced pastoralists to to seek new pastures, even encroaching into protected national parks.

It's a threat that Silvia Ceppi understands all too well. Ceppi, a conservation biologist with Instituto Oikos, an non-profit organization that promotes sustainable wildlife management practices. She explains that this vast number of cattle, especially those in areas surrounding national parks, have placed a severe strain on wildlife ecosystems.

"There is a total depletion of mineralized topsoil because of constant grazing," she said. "This reduces the diversity of the grasses, meaning we are losing species that simply cannot reproduce."

No grass means no food for the plethora of Tanzania's wild herbivores, like zebras, wildebeest, elephants, giraffe, and rhinos.

Vast Amazon wildfire destroys forest in Brazil and threatens uncontacted tribe

The blaze, which has burned for two months on indigenous land and spread across 100km at its peak, is suspected to have been started by illegal loggers

Brazilian rangers, firefighters and indigenous communities are battling against a wildfire that has blazed for two months and devastated some of the last Amazonian forest in the northern state of Maranhão, including part of the territory of an uncontacted tribe.

The fire – which has spread across 100km at its peak – is thought to be the biggest in Indian territory for decades and has prompted the local government to declare a state of emergency.

It comes amid rising tension between indigenous “forest guardians” and illegal loggers, prompting speculation among officials and environmentalists that the blaze may have been started deliberately.

According to Greenpeace, the fire has already consumed 45% of the 413,000-hectare (1m acre) Indigenous Territory of Arariboia, despite the efforts of 250 firefighters. ...

Almost all of Maranhão’s forests have been cleared. Those that remain are on indigenous lands or in nature reserves. Loggers enter these areas illegally, cut down trees and then launder the timber for sale to the UK and other foreign markets.

Also of Interest

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

Why Is The Daily Beast’s Russia Critic Silent About So Many Hideous Abuses?

What ancient Egypt tells us about a world without religious conflict

New allies in northern Syria don’t seem to share U.S. goals

American Drone Assassinations May Violate International Law, Experts Say

A Little Night Music

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs - Haunted House

Big Jay McNeely - Psycho Serenade

Screamin Jay Hawkins - Little Demon

LaVern Baker - Voodoo Voodoo

Tabby Thomas - Hoodo Party

Redbone - The Witch Queen Of New Orleans

James Harman - Lonesome Moon Trance

Fleetwood Mac Peter Green - Black Magic Woman

Jimmie Driftwood - He Had A Long Chain On

Del McCoury - The Ghost of Eli Renfro

The Chieftains w/Mick Jagger - Long Black Veil

Howlin' Wolf - Moaning at Midnight

Otis Spann - It Must Have Been The Devil

William Clarke - Evil

Omar and the Howlers - Mississippi Hoodoo Man

Muddy Waters - I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man

Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein

Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper

Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London