Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer, songwriter and harmonica player Willie Cobbs. Enjoy!

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-- H.L. Mencken

News and Opinion

Gitmo Detainee Awaits Justice in Moroccan Prison, With Little Help From the U.S.

When Younous Chekkouri was released from Guantánamo this September, his 13 years of imprisonment did not end.
Despite assurances from the State Department to his lawyers that his native Morocco would not detain or prosecute him, Chekkouri was taken into custody upon arriving there, and within a week was jailed in the notorious Salé prison, where he remains today, potentially facing charges that he is a member of an al Qaeda-linked Moroccan terrorist group.

Chekkouri was captured by Pakistani authorities at the end of 2001, and the United States, believing him to be a foreign fighter, sent him to Guantánamo. The U.S. government also previously maintained that Chekkouri belonged to the Morrocan Islamic Combatant Group, often referred to by its French acronym, GICM.

He was never charged with a crime, however, and in 2010, an interagency review board cleared Chekkouri for release, and withdrew the claim about GICM when Chekkouri challenged his detention in Guantánamo in federal court in Washington D.C. Chekkouri’s lawyers had said that the only evidence linking him to the group had come from detainees who had been tortured.

Chekkouri’s lawyers with the international human rights group Reprieve believe that the U.S. government could do more to help clear Chekkouri’s name.

Canada welcomes its first 162 Syrian refugees, in stark contrast with the United States

'You Are Home:' Justin Trudeau Welcomes Syrian Refugees to Canada

The 163 refugees who arrived Thursday night in Toronto came on a military plane from Beirut, but others have been trickling in for weeks on commercial flights. They landed at Pearson International Airport, where they went through a special terminal set up for their welcome. They received coats, toys and other gear to handle the winter.

Earlier, Trudeau told workers and volunteers gathered to welcome the refugees at the airport of the importance of the event.

"This is a wonderful night where we get to show not just a plane load of new Canadians what Canada is all about but we get to show the world, how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations.

"Tonight they step off the plane as refugees, but they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada. With social insurance numbers. With health cards and with an opportunity to become full Canadians," he said.

"This is something that we are able to do in this country because we define a Canadian not by a skin color or a language or a religion or a background, but by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams that not just Canadians but people around the world share.

"How you will receive these people tonight will be something they will remember for the rest of their lives but also, I know, something you will remember for the rest of your lives. And I thank you deeply for being a part of this. Because this matters. Tonight matters."

Canada in Iraq : The Hidden War

New AUMF proposals to combat ISIS revive debate, but may not resolve differences

A flurry of new proposals to authorize military force against the Islamic State are breathing new life into a longtime debate on Capitol Hill.

But even a call to action by President Obama may not be enough to get any of them through Congress.

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) began circulating a new draft authorization for use of military force on Thursday to sanction three years’ worth of hostilities against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, while Reps. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced companion legislation to a Senate proposal that would give the administration the authority to fight the Islamic State for three years.

Those measures — along with a far more expansive and open-ended AUMF proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this month — are part of the congressional response to the San Bernardino shootings, which has put extra urgency behind the drive to quash ISIS. ...

But many members and even congressional leaders are balking at the idea.

“Many just don’t want to get on the record here,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who along with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) authored the three-year AUMF that is the counterpart to the Rigell-Welch bill. “In this case with our most fundamental responsibility here in Congress, that’s just an excuse, and we need to go on record.”

The United States has thus far justified its campaign against ISIS under the 2001 AUMF that Congress passed to green-light operations against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration and several influential congressional leaders have not backed off of that legal justification – despite Obama’s call for Congress to use its authority if they are serious about fighting the Islamic State.

This is an excellent article, with lots of good background information and is worth clicking the link for a full read>

Who Will Fight the Islamic State?

In the many strategies proposed to defeat the Islamic State (IS) by presidential candidates, policymakers, and media pundits alike across the American political spectrum, one common element stands out: someone else should really do it. The United States will send in planes, advisers, and special ops guys, but it would be best – and this varies depending on which pseudo-strategist you cite – if the Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Sunnis, and/or Shias would please step in soon and get America off the hook.

The idea of seeing other-than-American boots on the ground, like Washington’s recently deep-sixed scheme to create some “moderate” Syrian rebels out of whole cloth, is attractive on paper. Let someone else fight America’s wars for American goals. Put an Arab face on the conflict, or if not that at least a Kurdish one (since, though they may not be Arabs, they’re close enough in an American calculus). Let the U.S. focus on its “bloodless” use of air power and covert ops. Somebody else, Washington’s top brains repeatedly suggest, should put their feet on the embattled, contested ground of Syria and Iraq. Why, the U.S. might even gift them with nice, new boots as a thank-you. ...

The Pentagon has long been in favor of arming
both the Kurds and whatever Sunni tribal groups it could round up in Iraq or Syria. Various pundits across the political spectrum say much the same.

They may all mean well, but their plans are guaranteed to fail.

[See the article for a group by group analysis of the impending failure. - js]

The Obama/Clinton/Sanders/Cruz/Rubio/Pentagon/et al. solution – let someone else fight the ground war against IS – is based on what can only be called a delusion: that regional forces there believe in American goals (some variant of secular rule, disposing of evil dictators, perhaps some enduring U.S. military presence) enough to ignore their own varied, conflicting, aggrandizing, and often fluid interests. In this way, Washington continues to convince itself that local political goals are not in conflict with America’s strategic goals. This is a delusion.

Heh, everybody is having that delusion that somebody else is going to fight a war for their goals...

60% of U.S. millennials support troops to fight ISIS. Less than 20% would go themselves

A majority of U.S. young adults support sending ground troops to fight Islamic State militants, though fewer than one in five would be willing to serve themselves, according to a Harvard University poll released on Thursday.

Some 60 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 told Harvard's Institute of Politics they either "strongly" or "somewhat" supported sending ground troops to combat militants who have seized territory in Syria and Iraq, as well as orchestrated or inspired deadly attacks in California. ...

Despite their support for sending troops, 85 percent of respondents told pollsters they would "definitely" or "probably" not be willing to join the military.

U.S. Remains Tight with Saudis In Spite of Support for Terrorism

Air Force Aims to Double Number of Drone Squadrons

Early US uses of drones centered on CIA assassination schemes, but in recent years both surveillance and attack drones have become a proper part of the US military arsenal. The Air Force already has eight drone squadrons, and today announced plans to double that to 16.

Assuming they can get the money out of the Pentagon, the new squadrons would add 3,000 Air Force personnel, including 700 new drone pilots. The talk is of basing the squadrons out of Langley AFB in Virginia or Davis-Monthan in Arizona, allowing them to work more closely with intelligence gathering units.

Drone Strikes Are Creating Hatred Toward America That Will Last for Generations

It’s a sick myth that Islamic extremists attack the United States or other nations because they “hate our freedom.” They attack us for our foreign policy. In 2006, the United States National Intelligence Estimate reported that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq made the problem of terrorism worse by creating a new generation of terrorists. And since then, top ranking military and counter-terrorism authorities such as General Stanley McChrystal, General Mike Flynn and George W. Bush’s counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke say that drone strikes in particular are creating more terrorists than they’re killing. If we want to stop terrorist attacks, we should stop the barbaric blind bombings that are fueling radicalization.

It’s worth noting here that counter-terrorism experts with whom I’ve spoken have said that the sort of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies proposed by several Republican presidential candidates also helps inflame and incite terrorism. So we should also stop that immediately, not just as a matter of upholding our national moral and legal values but because it’s strategically destructive. Yet Republican and Democratic politicians appear fairly united on continuing drone strikes and, if anything, disagree about how much to increase their intensity. Experienced, knowledgeable military advisors have said that drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill. So what possible reason do we have for continuing them?

[See next article below for the answer to the question of why the drone strikes continue. - js]

Defense Contractors Laud Themselves for Steering Candidates Toward Militarism

A group formed this year by executives and lobbyists for the defense contracting industry is taking credit for “driving the national debate on foreign policy during the 2016 presidential election,” and in particular for getting Republican presidential candidates to call for escalating military action in Syria.

In an email to supporters over the weekend, Mike Rogers, the founder of Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security, hailed the group for “Pushing candidates on national security.”

He illustrated the group’s impact with “highlights from many of our Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire forums showcasing the candidates’ views on defeating ISIS.”

As we’ve previously reported, APPS was formed by current and former officials from Raytheon, BAE Systems, SAIC and other major defense contractors. Lobbyists who  represent the defense industry are also involved.

Citing ISIS, Pentagon Steps Up Call for New Overseas Bases

From the formation of AFRICOM in 2006, the Pentagon has had designs on having permanent bases in and around Africa, and since 9/11 they’ve been building up their presence across the Middle East. That constant growth is continuing, but now with ISIS as the excuse.

Citing ISIS’ regional ambitions, the Pentagon is renewing its push for the bankrolling of a string of new bases, some of them massive, permanent bases in war-torn countries, that would put additional US forces across myriad sites from Spain to Afghanistan.

One of the most ambitious bases would be in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Pentagon wants a “hub” for its bases across the region. The establishment of a permanent, major base in Irbil would all but guarantee that the US would be brought into any attempted secession by the Kurdistan government, which has been openly talking of secession for years.

Putin vows to 'immediately destroy' any target threatening Russia in Syria

Vladimir Putin has vowed Russia’s military will “immediately destroy” any target threatening them in Syria, representing a strong warning to Turkey following its shooting down of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border.

Speaking at a meeting with senior commanders in Moscow, Putin said the military should respond with full force to any “further provocations”, adding that additional aircraft and air defence weapons have been sent to the Russian base near Latakia.

“I order you to act in the toughest way,” the Russian president said. “Any targets threatening the Russian groups of forces or our land infrastructure should be immediately destroyed.” ...

Putin said Russian military action in Syria was essential to protect Russia from extremists based there, adding that fending off that threat is the main goal of the air campaign he launched on 30 September. The campaign took advantage of western disarray and galvanised efforts to end the four-and-a-half-year war.

Syrian Rebels Agree on Peace Talks, But Only If Assad Goes

Saudi Arabia-hosted talks by a number of Syrian rebel factions ended today with a joint statement of principles, calling for a “pluralistic regime” to replace to existing one, conceding it could involve some members of the Assad government, but Assad had to unconditionally leave power.

The Riyadh talks conspicuously lacked a number of high-profile rebel factions, including every single Kurdish group. Ahrar al-Sham, the largest participating group, and whose leadership is linked to al-Qaeda,, walked out on the talks near the end. ...

Other factions claimed Ahrar al-Sham still signed off on the closing statement, but this is being disputed by some other groups.

The Rise of the American-Muslim Totalitarian State

Muslim-Americans are living in a totalitarian police state with worsening harassment, profiling, and surveillance. The United States’ government may claim liberty and justice for all; however, in practice, towards Muslims, it exhibits all four major characteristics of a totalitarian state: a war on terror that targets Muslims abroad, a totalitarian police state at home, public executions by drones and gulags outside the rule of law, and a strong reliance on propaganda and political demagoguery.

The hallmark of fascism was state oppression of certain targeted non-privileged groups. Today, Muslims are bearing the brunt of America’s totalitarian police state.

Despite FBI records showing that since 9/11, Muslims have committed far less domestic terror attacks than white supremacists, it is the American-Muslim community that is under unprecedented levels of surveillance and government intrusion. Muslims in America are unquestionably experiencing a fascist system of surveillance, operating at the same level that East Germans faced under the Stasi spy agency. Researcher, Arun Kundnani, has shown how the FBI has one counterterrorism spy for every 94 Muslims in the U.S., which approaches Stasi’s ratio of one spy for every 66 citizens. ...

Federal judges recently ruled that suspicion-less surveillance of Muslims is permissible under the U.S. Constitution. The NYPD has admitted that Mosques, student groups, restaurants, even grade schools, have all been under surveillance. By rapidly increasing both government policies of secrecy and surveillance, Mr. Obama’s government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing its citizens’ power to watch their government.

The threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism has been largely manufactured, so that the so-called War on Terror can promote multi-billion dollar, corporate-sponsored militarism abroad and the erosion of two hundred-year-old civil liberties at home.

Fascism is on the rise in France, too:

'Anything but Le Pen': French turn to tactical voting to stop far right

When the far-right Front National made a historic breakthrough in the first round of French regional elections last weekend, the port of Calais was one of its greatest success stories. Marine Le Pen, fighting to win control of the vast northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, ran a campaign warning of the dangers of the migrant question in Calais where about 4,500 refugees and migrants hoping to stow away to England are forced to sleep rough in a fetid, state-sanctioned shanty town called “the new jungle”.

After calling Calais a “martyr town” that was “under siege” from migrants, and warning that locals now felt like foreigners in their own land, Le Pen won a remarkable 49% of the vote in Calais, nine points higher than her average across the region. On the Beau-Marais estate, which was once a communist stronghold, one polling station saw Le Pen take 70% of the vote.

Now in a desperate bid to stop Le Pen winning this weekend, the Socialist party has pulled out of the race in the north, leaving only Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing former employment minister, Xavier Bertrand, facing the far-right Front National. Leftwing voters in what was once a leftwing heartland, now face what many call a grim choice “between the plague or cholera”. They either follow the Socialist party’s extraordinary plea to vote for Bertrand to stop Le Pen, or they risk a Le Pen victory if they don’t vote at all. Several polls show that, with the left behind him, Bertrand could easily win this weekend. ...

France votes on Sunday in the final round of regional elections, after the far-right Front National’s historic breakthrough in the first round. The anti-immigration, anti-European party topped the poll with 27.7% overall and came top in six out of 13 regions.

Surveillance, Paranoia, and Life Under a State of Emergency in France

Joel Domenjoud knows he sounds paranoid, but recent events have made him reconsider what his government is capable of.

Last month, one day after the environmentalist filed an official request for France to lift the ban on the Paris climate marches that had been months in the making, Domenjoud got a phone call from police saying he was being put under house arrest.

That morning, Domenjoud said he had noticed a man and a woman following him, about 15 meters behind. He jumped on a bus and took the Métro into Paris where he waited for news at a friend's house. At 3 pm his neighbor called saying their apartment building was full of police looking for him. By 4:30 he was signing his house arrest papers at the police station.

Domenjoud is one of at least 24 activists who had their movements restricted by the government for allegedly defying a ban on protests that France enacted in the wake of the Paris attacks last month. ...

What's different for climate activists organizing protests around the COP21 is that France's new state of emergency doesn't distinguish between legal activism and terrorism, making them targets of raids and arrests before they've done anything illegal, said Juliette Rousseau, an organizer with Coalition Climat 21, a group representing a range of activists from the radical left to the World Wildlife Fund.

Right-wing wurlitzer caught spreading propagandistic lies again. Why is it called "Pajamas Media?" Because they can't wear their pants - they're on fire.

A Muslim American Veteran Was Widely Smeared With a Fabricated Story About ISIS Charges

A right wing blog called “Pajamas Media” published an article on November 24 claiming that Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was arrested in Turkey for being an ISIS operative. Written by Patrick Poole, a professional anti-Muslim activist and close associate of Frank Gaffney, the article asserted that Long “finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison — arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell.” Its only claimed sources were anonymous: “U.S. and Turkish officials confirmed Long’s arrest to PJ Media, saying that he was arrested along with eight others operating along the Turkish-Syrian border. So far, no U.S. media outlet has reported on his arrest.”

Long’s purported arrest as an ISIS operative was then widely cited across the internet by Fox News as well as right-wing and even non-ideological news sites. Predictably, the story was uncritically hailed by the most virulent anti-Muslim polemicists: Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Ann Coulter, and Sam Harris. Worst of all, it was blasted as a major news story by network TV affiliates and other local media outlets in Oklahoma, where Long is from and where his family — including his sister and ailing mother — still reside.

But the story is entirely false: a fabrication. Neither Long nor his wife or daughter have been arrested on charges that he joined ISIS. He faces no criminal charges of any kind in Turkey.

Instead, he and his family are being detained at the Geri Gonderme Merkezi deportation center in Erzurum, Turkey, evidently because he was placed years ago by the U.S. on its no-fly list. And the U.S. Embassy in Ankara has been working continually with Long’s family to secure his release, and, if he chooses, his return to the U.S.

A press officer with the Bureau of Consular Affairs, who asked to be identified only as “a State Department official,” contradicted the Pajamas Media claim. “We are aware of Mr. Long’s case and are providing consular assistance. At this time, we are not aware that he has been formally charged with a crime,” the official told The Intercept.

Russia to sue Ukraine over outstanding loan

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered his government to sue Ukraine if the ex-Soviet republic defaults on its $3 billion (2.7 billion euros) debt to Russia.

Speaking during a meeting with ministers of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's cabinet, Putin reportedly told Finance Minister Anton Siluanov: "Go ahead, take them to court."

Siluanov said Ukraine had 10 days after the Eurobond falls due on Dec. 20 to either repay the $3 billion or accept
Putin's restructuring proposal
for the debt to be paid back in $1 billion installments, backed by Western guarantees, over three years.

Medvedev said in an interview on state television Wednesday he had a sense that "they won't pay it back because they are crooks," accusing Western countries to "interfere" in the matter.

Racist pig Scalia's despicable comments are without factual merit. Surprise!

Supreme court's affirmative action comments are 'dead wrong' experts say

A US supreme court justice’s suggestion this week that black students may benefit from attending “lesser schools” isn’t supported by academic research of affirmative action policies, experts said on Thursday. ...

[The pig pontificated from the bench of America's highest court of "Justice":] “One of the [legal] briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.”

But experts said Scalia’s comments are couched in the so-called “mismatch theory”, a controversial concept that has been “thoroughly discredited”, said Richard Lempert, law professor at the University of Michigan.

“Study after study tells us that whether one looks at graduation rates or future earnings, minorities admitted to more selective schools with an assist from affirmative action do at least as well as and more often better than they could have been expected to do had they gone to less selective institutions,” Lempert told the Guardian.

Indeed, Lempert and his colleagues conducted a meticulous study that examined nearly three decades of data on how affirmative action polices had worked at UM. The study found that minority students who entered the university through the affirmative action policy earned as much over their careers as white students from Michigan.

With a vast pool of research, along with several briefs submitted to the court, Lempert said Scalia’s perceptions were “far off the mark” of what expert organizations and researchers have found.

Scalia’s analysis is “dead wrong”, Lempert said.

Little Lawsuit Against Uber Just Got Bigger — And Could Take Down The Sharing Economy

What began as a small lawsuit brought by four former Uber drivers against the tech-titan just expanded into a potentially industry-crippling class action suit that could force the company to rethink its entire business model.

Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan first filed suit against Uber back in 2013, on behalf of four Uber drivers in San Francisco who wanted the company to reimburse them for their business expenses. Uber claims it's not required to pay for things like gas, insurance, and car-maintenance since drivers are not employees, but rather independent contractors.

This past September, US District Court Judge Edward Chen granted the suit class-action status, clearing the way for drivers across the state to be included. ...

The ongoing case is viewed as a bellwether for the future of the driver-Uber relationship. And for the past two years, Liss-Riordan has been locked in a public relations brawl with the company over the preference of the company's drivers. After Uber presented the court with testimony of 400 drivers who claimed to want to remain independent contractors, Liss-Riordan's went and found 50 of those drivers who claimed they actually would want to be employees after all, and misunderstood the questionnaire Uber asked them to fill out.

The case is being closely watched because it could have wide ranging impact on the so-called "sharing economy." Dozens of major tech companies like Taskrabbit, HomeJoy, and Uber competitor Lyft also structure their worker relationships the same way.

Donald Trump is no longer funny, he's dangerous, says Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has condemned Donald Trump, calling him shameful, dangerous and declaring: “I no longer think he’s funny.”

Clinton launched her attack on the billionaire Republican frontrunner during an appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday, sparking loud applause from the audience. ...

“I think for weeks, you know, you and everybody else were just bringing folks to hysterical laughter and all of that,” Clinton told the host. “But now he has gone way over the line. And what he’s saying now is not only shameful and wrong – it’s dangerous.” ...

Despite the backlash Trump’s divisive rhetoric seems to have struck a chord with Republican voters. More Republicans favor his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States than oppose it, according to a poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. In a New York Times CBS News poll released on Thursday the real estate mogul received support from 35% of Republican primary voters nationally.

The poll also found that seven in 10 likely Republican primary voters believed Trump was well-equipped to confront the threat of terrorism, with four in 10 “very confident” he could respond to the threat.

Hillary Clinton Called Out for Hypocrisy on Islamophobia

While denouncing Donald Trump's racist rhetoric, Clinton has retained a campaign surrogate who previously called for the internment of some Muslim-Americans

Eleven advocacy organizations on Thursday accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of sending "mixed messages" on Islamophobia by denouncing fellow 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump's racist rhetoric, yet retaining retired general Wesley Clark as a campaign surrogate—despite his previous call to intern some Muslim-Americans.

Clark, a longtime ally to Clinton, recently spoke in Iowa on her behalf for Veteran's Day.

This is the same retired general who, in a July interview with MSNBC, called for "disloyal Americans" to be placed in internment camps in the style of the World War II era. ...

Thursday's letter argues that Clark's campaign role raises questions about Clinton's sincerity in denouncing Trump's plan to ban Muslims who are not U.S. citizens from entering the country. Echoing Clark, Trump defended his proposal by comparing it to President Franklin Roosevelt's decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II.

Trump Not an Outlier in US Policy Towards Muslims

Donald Trump: 'I'm starting to win the debate on barring Muslims from US'

Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate developer and former reality TV star who is whipping up a storm in the 2016 presidential election, told a crowd of police officers in New Hampshire on Thursday night that he was starting to win the debate about cutting off all Muslim immigration into the US.

As the fall-out continues from his highly contentious proposal to close the country to all incoming Muslims for a temporary period in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Trump audaciously claimed that the nation was starting to swing behind him. “We have people talking, I’ll tell you that,” the Republican frontrunner said, “and they’re talking very positively.” ...

The Republican frontrunner made his remarks at the Sheraton hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the New England Police Benevolent Association was voting to endorse him as its presidential candidate. After he received the endorsement from the police union, Trump promised that he would “never, ever let the police and law enforcement in this country down”. ...

Inside the hotel, police officers packed into the ballroom to see Trump were generally in support of his plan to shutdown the country to incoming Muslims. Heather Ross, 43, a New Hampshire state law enforcement officer, said that she thought it was a good idea.

“Our own country’s security needs to come first. It’s too bad if it hurts people’s feelings,” she said.

The Donald, Ascendant

The implausibility of inheritance braggart and aspiring demagogue Donald Trump leading a ‘people’s revolution’ against the forces of insider deals and social cohesion tells a peculiarly American story. In the tradition of measuring political and economic acuity by the size of one’s bank account, Mr. Trump inherited a real estate fortune and used repeated trips to bankruptcy court to screw those foolish enough to lend him money out of all they were worth. As fortune smiles upon those who help themselves, wealth and position provide the residual of divine origin in the American imagination, the quality of grace bestowed. That these same bankruptcy courts treat Mr. Trump’s supporters of limited means as shirkers misusing ‘the system’ to fraudulently discharge moral obligations written in the blood of the prophets is further testament to this divine origin.

The initial panic from establishment Republicans and liberals over Donald Trump’s political ascendance is due to what he makes explicit about American politics. Nativist and racist demagoguery is the fallback position of American political rhetoric. Ronald Reagan began his first winning run for the Presidency in Philadelphia, Mississippi to signal that restoration of White privilege, as if it had ever gone away, aligns with neo-corporatist ascendance. Bill Clinton ‘ended welfare as we know it’ and implemented the racist and regressive carceral policies of ‘three strikes and you’re out,’ mass incarceration and demonization of the poor and people of color through the barely veiled cry of ‘personal responsibility.’ Donald Trump may be more explicit than his recent predecessors, but he is no more of an opportunist. ...

As with the fights, mayhem and shootings that accompany store openings on Black Friday, the people have been primed and they are ready to buy something, anything, which signals an end to the existing order. ...

For those who slept through the early years of Democrat Barack Obama’s first term, not since the early-mid twentieth century has such an explicit class dynamic been recreated in circumstances of widespread economic dispossession. The liberal Obama sided with bankers, Wall Street, various and sundry corporatists and the neo-liberal, neo-conservative Washington establishment with only a political strategist’s interest in the declining circumstances of the overwhelming majority of citizens. Mr. Obama’s ‘mortgage relief’ programs taunted desperate citizens with promises of help when their intent was to slow foreclosures for the exclusive benefit of corrupt bankers. The automaker bailouts restored dysfunctional corporate management while institutionalizing the lower pay and benefits of newer auto workers. A more cynical and feckless formula for political disillusion has rarely been conceived. ...

Donald Trump is frightening for the place in history that his ascendance represents and not for who he is. In 2009 Democrats had the opportunity to change the course of history by redirecting political economy to support the people who comprise it. Seven years of bank bailouts, scam public interest programs, abusive ‘trade’ deals, domestic surveillance and racist / classist police repression later and they are the face of everything wrong with late-stage capitalism. And here is the kicker— this was very easy to predict.

Americans weaned themselves off oil in the 1970s crisis. We can do it again

Before the oil crisis, the federal government had no real energy policy. Decades of cheap oil helped fuel the economic boom after the second world war. Until the early 1970s, few policymakers believed this would change. But between October 1973 and March 1974 the price of oil quadrupled, thanks to the October war between Israel and her neighbors, the rising power of Opec and the boycott organized by a group of Arab states. ...

The energy policies that followed the oil shock had two remarkable qualities. They were overwhelmingly bipartisan: an otherwise-hostile democratic Congress quickly passed Richard Nixon’s emergency conservation measures, including a nationwide 55mph speed limit; the next democratic Congress adopted the Ford administration’s 1975 energy bill establishing mandatory fuel economy standards. Over the next 13 years, average automotive fuel economy rose 81%. ...

But the second striking feature of these policies is that many were driven by a mistaken belief that the world was running out of oil. ... The energy policies of the 1970s were obviously not designed to reduce carbon emissions. Few policymakers took climate change seriously before the summer of 1988, when Senate hearings during a Washington heatwave created a media sensation. Some of the post-1973 policies – like the promotion of coal-fired power plants – probably boosted carbon emissions. Yet on balance, the policies triggered by the illusory fear of oil depletion have done more to curb carbon emissions than any post-1990 policies meant to address global climate change.

The level of decarbonization that the US achieved after the oil crisis is remarkable. In the decade before 1973, US carbon emissions rose an average of 4.1% a year; since 1973 emissions have grown just 0.2% a year. If we had continued on our pre-1973 “business as usual” trend, today the US would be emitting four times as much carbon pollution as it currently does. ...

Today we need a new round of deep decarbonization to forestall climate change. Americans rose to face a similar challenge 40 years ago; they must simply decide to do so again.

Climate Justice Movement "Extremely Disappointed" in COP21 Draft's "Failure to Step Up"

Decrying Draft Deal that 'Fails Humanity,' COP21 Protesters Draw Red Line

People from around the world on Friday stretched a large "red line" through the COP21 summit to register their outrage at politicians' failure to strike an ambitious draft climate deal—and to call for social movements in Paris and internationally to continue to take to the streets.

"Once again, world leaders have shown they lack the political courage, decency, and integrity to stand up for the needs of the most impacted communities around the world in the biggest ecological crisis of our time," Ananda Lee Tan, a Vancouver-based organizer with Climate Justice Alliance, told Common Dreams over the phone from Paris.

"Our assessment is that, again, it is left up to us," Lee Tan added. "We know it is people and communities that have to lead us out of this ecological crisis." ...

Key demands from civil society groups remain unresolved or unaddressed, including, as summarized by John Cushman of Inside Climate News: "the responsibility of richer and poorer nations in cutting emissions; the ambition reflected in the treaty’s long-term goals, and the pathways toward reaching them. And, as ever, the thorniest is who pays." ...

"Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that a just deal in Paris is inconceivable," said Lucy Cadena, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator, in a statement responding to the latest draft. "If this text indicates what will be agreed here, we will be left with a deal that fails humanity."

"This text dismantles the core foundations of the UN climate convention," Cadena continued. "The pillars of a just agreement—ambition and equity—have been completely undermined. After all the warm words of developed countries on a 1.5 degree limit, the new text contains no obligation to stay under this threshold. Shockingly, the text could allow for carbon emissions to continue until 2099."

"A Rogue Company": Leading Glaciologist on Exxon's Climate Change Cover-Up

Sanders Introduces Carbon Tax

Legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday is being heralded by a number of organizations who say it marks a needed step towards transitioning away from fossil fuels and supporting climate justice.

The legislation, the Climate Protection and Justice Act (pdf), would cut total emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; institute a carbon tax, the proceeds of which would go to the bottom 80% of households making less than $100,000/year; and establish a Climate Justice Resiliency Council that would provide grants to areas "disproportionately affected by climate impacts or other hazards that lead to negative public health effects, exposure, or environmental degradation."

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sanders said, "It is absolutely vital that we do what many economists tell us we must and that is put a price on carbon. It is the simplest and most direct way to make the kind of cuts in carbon pollution that we have got to make if we are going to successfully transition away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy."

The bill, as well as other legislation introduced by Sanders this week—the American Clean Energy Investment Act of 2015 and The Clean Energy Worker Just Transition Act—garnered praise from environmental campaigners including Friends of the Earth, Environmental Action, and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

"Unlike Cap and Trade’s false solutions," said Brent Newell, Legal Director of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, "this Act will aggressively reduce climate pollution, redirect money back to the public, and support those communities most in need."

Also of Interest

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

NYT Rewrites Scalia to Make Him Sound Less Racist

US Nuclear Weapons Complex Leaves 'Legacy of Death on American Soil'

Abbas claims Palestinians are facing a new 'nakba'

The exciting adventures of President Trump's Hair

Conservatives should blame capitalism for the 'war on Christmas'

A Little Night Music

Willie Cobbs - Eating Dry Onions

Willie Cobbs - I'll Love You Only

Willie C. Cobbs - My Little Girl & Mistreated Blues

Willie Cobbs - Kiss Me One More Time

Willie Cobbs - Butler Boy Blues

Willie Cobbs - Slow Down Baby

Willie Cobbs - You're So Hard To Please

Willie Cobbs - Worst Feeling (I Ever Had)

Willie Cobbs - Come On Home

Willie Cobbs - Reconsider Baby

Willie Cobbs - Don't Leave Me Baby

The Allman Brothers Band - You Don't Love Me

Willie Cobbs - Hoppin' Bird