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This evening's music features blues rocker Mike Bloomfield. Enjoy!

"Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

-- Frederick Douglass

News and Opinion

Did the U.S. Cover Up Navy SEALs' Beating Death of Afghan Detainee & Pattern of Extreme Abuse?

Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up

The three Navy SEALs stomped on the bound Afghan detainees and dropped heavy stones on their chests, the witnesses recalled. They stood on the prisoners’ heads and poured bottles of water on some of their faces in what, to a pair of Army soldiers, appeared to be an improvised form of waterboarding.

A few hours earlier, shortly after dawn on May 31, 2012, a bomb had exploded at a checkpoint manned by an Afghan Local Police unit that the SEALs were training. Angered by the death of one of their comrades in the blast, the police militiamen had rounded up half a dozen or more suspects from a market in the village of Kalach and forced them to a nearby American outpost. Along the way, they beat them with rifle butts and car antennas.

A United States Army medic standing guard at the base, Specialist David Walker, had expected the men from SEAL Team 2 to put a stop to the abuse. Instead, he said, one of them “jump-kicked this guy kneeling on the ground.” Two others joined in, Specialist Walker and several other soldiers recounted, and along with the Afghan militiamen, they beat the detainees so badly that by dusk, one would die. ...

The SEAL command, though, cleared the Team 2 members of wrongdoing in a closed disciplinary process that is typically used only for minor infractions, disregarding a Navy lawyer’s recommendation that the troops face assault charges and choosing not to seek a court-martial. Two of the SEALs and their lieutenant have since been promoted, even though their commander in Afghanistan recommended that they be forced out of the elite SEAL teams.

Even before the beatings, some of the SEALs had exhibited troubling behavior. According to the soldiers and Afghan villagers, they had amused themselves by tossing grenades over the walls of their base, firing high-caliber weapons at passing vehicles and even aiming slingshots at children, striking them in the face with hard candy.

Abuse of detainees is among the most serious offenses an American service member can commit. ... What happened in Kalach involved just one death in a conflict that has taken thousands of lives, but it had broader consequences. Instead of winning over the local population, the goal of the mission, the reported abuse further alienated villagers. It drove some previously cooperative Afghans to leave for Taliban-controlled areas, residents said.

US military to limit media access to Guantanamo Bay prison

New limits are being imposed on media access to the detention center at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the commander of the military's Southern Command said Thursday, outlining rules that will limit what journalists can see and how often they can visit the already highly restricted site.

Journalists will be allowed to visit the center on tours that will be organized once per quarter, lasting no more than a day, and they will no longer be able to visit inside the two detention center camps where a majority of the 107 current prisoners are held, Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly said in an interview with The Associated Press. ...

David Wilson, a senior editor at The Miami Herald, which covers the detention center extensively, said repeated visits by experienced journalists is critical to observe changes over time and to provide context and they have been unable to do that in recent months as the military has reviewed its media policy.

"The bigger issue in my mind is we are looking at at least four months and now indefinitely where there will have been no independent journalists who have been inside the prisons, who will have had any opportunity to lay eyes on the detainees or ask any relevant questions to the officers in charge," Wilson said.

None of the changes will apply to journalists who come to Guantanamo to cover war crimes proceedings such as those for the five men charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Those men are held in Camp 7, a supermax-like facility that houses 14 prisoners that no journalist has ever been allowed to see.

Pentagon 'to transfer 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners'

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter recently notified Congress about the planned transfer of 17 lower-level detainees, officials familiar with internal deliberations were quoted as saying by the New York Times newspaper.

Separately, a senior US defence official told the AFP news agency: "We found homes for the 17 [detainees]", adding that several countries had agreed to take them in.

All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Syria: As negotiators return to the table, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad defiant as ever

Libyan Parliaments Sign UN Unity Deal

Negotiators from both Libyan parliaments have signed a unity government deal today in Morocco, and are preparing to set up a joint “presidential council” to form a new government which will be endorsed by the UN Security Council and based in Tripoli.

That’s the theory, at least. Though the negotiators on both sides agreed to the terms of the pact, a number of MPs on each side slammed the deal, and some have armed factions prepared to back them against the deal, meaning this could set up another round of fighting over the capital city.

Sanders: Clinton's pursuit of 'regime change' in Libya helped rise of Isis

Bernie Sanders has accused Hillary Clinton of encouraging Islamic extremism in Libya, in a prelude to a Democratic debate on Saturday during which he is expected to go on the attack for the first time over the unintended consequences of the former secretary of state’s more interventionist foreign policy.

Speaking to the Guardian in an extensive pre-debate interview, the senator from Vermont criticised Clinton for carelessly fomenting regime change in Libya “without worrying” about the ensuing instability that has helped Islamic State forces take hold in the country.

“Regime change without worrying about what happens the day after you get rid of the dictator does not make a lot of sense,” Sanders said. ...

Sanders concedes that his vision of the US playing a supporting role in the fight agaisnt Isis rather than leading intervention is close to that of President Obama, but argues a tougher approach with Arab allies in the region is needed.

“The area that I would be a little bit different from Obama is I would put more pressure on Saudi Arabia, on Qatar, which happens to be per capita the wealthiest country on earth,” he said during Tuesday’s interview in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Secret US mission in Libya revealed after air force posted pictures

A secret US commando mission to Libya has been revealed after photographs of a special forces unit were posted on the Facebook page of the country’s air force.

Libya’s air force said 20 US soldiers arrived at Libya’s Wattiya airbase on Monday, but left soon after local commanders asked them to go because they had no permission to be at the base. It was unclear if another branch of the Libyan military had authorized the mission. ...

Wattiya’s proximity to Sabratha, site of the Islamic State’s western Libya base, has heightened speculation that the US is poised to launch strikes on the terror group.

The incident marks the first confirmed deployment of American special forces to Libya since July last year, when Delta Force commandos seized Ahmed Abu Khattala, now on trial in New York accused of the 2012 killing US ambassador Chris Stevens. ...

A new UN-brokered unity government, announced on Thursday, is expected to issue a formal invitation for British, French and US forces to strike Isis in the coming days.

US special ops troops kicked out of Libya

A group of US special operations troops who had traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the conflict-torn country soon after they arrived, the Pentagon said Thursday. ...

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the troops were in Libya "with the concurrence of Libyan officials."

"US military personnel traveled to Libya on 14 December to foster relationships and enhance communication with their counterparts in the Libyan National Army," the official said.

"While in Libya, members of a local militia demanded that the US personnel depart. In an effort to avoid conflict, they did leave, without incident."

Ceasefire in Yemen Faces Collapse as U.S. Continues Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia, Fueling Civil War

Erdogan Vows to ‘Cleanse’ Turkey of PKK as Attacks Kill 25

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today hyped recent military offensives against Kurdish towns in the southeast, which killed at least 25, saying they would continue to “annihilate” PKK forces and the buildings they occupy until Turkey is “cleansed” of the Kurdish rebels.

The attacks were carried out in the towns of Cizre and Silopi, where the Turkish government imposed a full curfew and then began a harsh crackdown, which is both fueling unrest among local civilians and condemnation from the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

HDP local official Ferhat Encu says the military is using the curfews as an excuse to destroy Kurdish towns, and are carrying out “untargeted attacks and shelling” against neighborhoods in those towns, turning it into an all-out attack on the nation’s Kurdish minority.

Crackdown on Kurds: Turkish PM promises more ops, locals fear massacre

Speaking of ethnic cleansing...

Jerusalem Planning Committee Approves New Settlement Expansion of 891 Units

The Jerusalem Planning and Construction Committee has approved another significant expansion in the occupied West Bank this week, signing off on another 891 housing units in the settlement of Gilo. ...

The final vote was delayed because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the US, as Israeli officials hoped to keep the latest expansion out of the headlines. ... The moves to expand Gilo appear to be designed specifically to block the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state.

Russia opens flight data recorder from jet shot down by Turkey

Russia’s defence ministry has publicly opened the black box of the warplane shot down by Turkey last month, a step it hopes will help confirm its assertions that the jet did not stray into Turkish air space and that it was maliciously downed. ...

Russian experts opened the plane’s orange flight recorder on Friday in Moscow in front of reporters and diplomats. Col Andrei Semonov said the device, located near the tail of the plane, had been damaged by the Turkish air-to-air missile as well as by its impact with the ground. Some of its memory chips were visibly broken.

Officials said experts would use specialist equipment to analyse its contents over the weekend before presenting their findings on Monday.

Ukraine will not pay $3bn loan owed to Russia by deadline, says prime minister

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian prime minister, has said his country will not repay a $3bn (£2bn) debt owed to Russia by this weekend after Moscow refused to accept repayment terms already offered to other international creditors.

The moratorium on outstanding debt repayments to Russia effectively means that Ukraine is defaulting on the $3bn debt due on Sunday.

“After Russia refused to accept our offer despite our attempts to reach a restructuring deal, the government is imposing a moratorium on the repayment of the $3bn debt to Russia,” Yatsenyuk said at a televised government session.

He did not indicate when Ukraine would be ready to repay the debt. Moscow has said it will take Ukraine to court if it fails to pay on time.

Jeremy Scahill has another government document, this time revealing details of the spying hardware that is making its way into the hands of (militarized) police forces. There's far too much detail to fairly abstract, but here's a taste:

A Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone

The Intercept has obtained a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. The document, thick with previously undisclosed information, also offers rare insight into the spying capabilities of federal law enforcement and local police inside the United States.

The catalogue includes details on the Stingray, a well-known brand of surveillance gear, as well as Boeing “dirt boxes” and dozens of more obscure devices that can be mounted on vehicles, drones, and piloted aircraft. Some are designed to be used at static locations, while others can be discreetly carried by an individual. They have names like Cyberhawk, Yellowstone, Blackfin, Maximus, Cyclone, and Spartacus. Within the catalogue, the NSA is listed as the vendor of one device, while another was developed for use by the CIA, and another was developed for a special forces requirement. Nearly a third of the entries focus on equipment that seems to have never been described in public before. ...

A few of the devices can house a “target list” of as many as 10,000 unique phone identifiers. Most can be used to geolocate people, but the documents indicate that some have more advanced capabilities, like eavesdropping on calls and spying on SMS messages. Two systems, apparently designed for use on captured phones, are touted as having the ability to extract media files, address books, and notes, and one can retrieve deleted text messages.

Above all, the catalogue represents a trove of details on surveillance devices developed for military and intelligence purposes but increasingly used by law enforcement agencies to spy on people and convict them of crimes. ...

Domestically the devices have been used in a way that violates the constitutional rights of citizens, including the Fourth Amendment prohibition on illegal search and seizure, critics like Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say. They have regularly been used without warrants, or with warrants that critics call overly broad. Judges and civil liberties groups alike have complained that the devices are used without full disclosure of how they work, even within court proceedings.

Senators Want Social Media Firms to Hunt for Terrorists

The last thing the FBI needs, experts say, is a deluge of poorly vetted data. And the potential risk to free-speech rights is considerable. Unlike staffers at tech companies feeling pressured to report content about vague “terrorist activity,” FBI agents are trained to recognize the not-always-clear line between constitutionally protected speech and a legitimate threat.

Nevertheless, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Burr, R-N.C. — eager to do something about ISIS’ social media prowess, whether or not it actually makes sense — have reintroduced a previously rejected provision that would force technology companies to report to the government any instances of “terrorist activity” that they notice online. The measure was stripped out of the 2016 intelligence authorization bill in late September; now it’s being proposed as standalone legislation. ...

The biggest problem could already be too many tips, rather than too few. According to the recent book Chasing Ghosts by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart, 263 U.S. agencies devoted to counterterrorism reportedly follow up on 5,000 “tips” a day, or about 915,000 a year. Since 2001, only 62 involved some sort of plot that may have been directed at the U.S.

“Asking people to report — see something say something — creates this tidal wave of information,” said Michael German, a former undercover FBI agent who now works at the Brennan Center for Justice. “This system that they set up is designed to cast suspicion on a lot of people unnecessarily, which is then impossible to remove.”

Progressive PR firm FitzGibbon shuts after sexual harassment allegations

The public relations firm behind some of the world’s most progressive organizations has dramatically closed after its founder and figurehead received what one staffer described as “an avalanche” of complaints about sexual harassment and assault by his employees.

Trevor FitzGibbon, a major figure in the communications industry, who counts among his clients Amnesty International, Pussy Riot, MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union and WikiLeaks, confirmed in an emailed statement that the company bearing his name was closing after complaints about him. ...

According to several people who heard Thursday’s call, at which the workforce was told their company was being closed, senior managers said they had explored the possibility of keeping the firm going without its founder at the helm. However, when that was not deemed possible, it was decided to close the company.

Google under scrutiny over lobbying influence on Congress and White House

Google has made political donations to 162 members of the US Congress in the latest election cycle, figures show, as concerns grow over the internet giant’s lobbying influence in Washington. ...

Google has reportedly spent more more money on federal lobbying than any other company since 2012. And its political action committee (Pac) has given donations between $1,000 and $10,000 to some 34 senators and 128 members of the House of Representatives in the 2016 cycle, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In the Senate this breaks down as $78,500 to Republicans and $46,500 to Democrats; in the House, as $126,250 to Republicans and $131,500 to Democrats.

Jamie Court, president of the pressure group Consumer Watchdog, said: “Google’s founders had a motto, ‘Don’t be evil’, but they’re oozing evil these days in the political realm. They’ve gone from neophytes to mobsters in Washington. They’ve become brass knuckle influence peddlers and Obama has been their biggest fan.” ...

“If you look back a decade, they have gone from having no presence in DC to being the titan on the block,” Court added. “Now Google is worried that like Standard Oil at the turn of the century it will be busted up. It controls more of the internet than any other US company controls any market except a monopoly, and a vigilant government should be alive to that. But while EU has been highly aggressive, the US looks amateurish by comparison.”

Fire Bad Cops, Let Victims Speak, Turn On Body Cameras: Ben Jealous Calls for Police Reform

Crimes Against Muslim Americans and Mosques Rise Sharply

Hate crimes against Muslim Americans and mosques across the United States have tripled in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., with dozens occurring within just a month, according to new data.

The spike includes assaults on hijab-wearing students; arsons and vandalism at mosques; and shootings and death threats at Islamic-owned businesses, an analysis by a California State University research group has found. ...

“The terrorist attacks, coupled with the ubiquity of these anti-Muslim stereotypes seeping into the mainstream, have emboldened people to act upon this fear and anger,” said Brian Levin, a criminologist at California State University, San Bernardino.

Wow! The knuckle-draggers are frothing:

Virginia Schools Shut Down After Islam Is Included in World Religion Lesson

Parents of pupils at Riverheads High School in Augusta County managed to get themselves so worked up when their children were taught something about Arabic culture — during a World Geography class when they learn about different cultures — that schools across the district had to be closed down.

During a section where students learn about different world religions, teacher Cheryl LaPorte decided to demonstrate the intricacies of Arabic calligraphy, the earliest form of which dates back to the end of the 7th century, by asking the students to try to copy the shahada — the Islamic statement of faith, a basic proclamation that is one of the five Pillars of Islam.

The students were "not asked to translate the statement or to recite it," said Augusta County Superintendent Eric Bond in a statement. Rather, the teacher aimed to give students an "idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy." The exercise was taken from a teacher workbook called World Religions.

However some of the students objected, refused to do the calligraphy, and alerted their parents who claimed LaPorte had tried to "indoctrinate" their children.

And if you're going to indoctrinate students into a religious faith, then it had better be the right one. "She gave up the Lord's time. She gave it up and gave it to Muhammad," said Kimberly Herndon, a mother who organized a protest at a school meeting. ...

The next step was so many angry phone calls and emails to the county school district that officials felt they had to increase police presence at schools, and then felt they had to close them down entirely. A statement from Augusta County Public Schools said the decision to close the schools was based on the "tone and content" of the communications "based on the recommendations of law enforcement."

As Destruction of Philly Public Ed Looms, Kids Are Pawns in Budget Battle

Public education for more than 130,000 Philadelphia children is at stake, as the state legislature remains mired in a stalemate over the long-overdue budget. ...

On Thursday, news outlets reported that state House Republican leaders had put a 24-hour deadline on a new push to support the $30.8 billion spending plan touted by Gov. Tom Wolf and the state Senate.

But education advocates warn that even if a budget finally passes, Philadelphia kids might still pay the price.

Not only has the Republican-controlled legislature "crafted a budget that falls well short of restoring the Corbett-era funding cuts," Jordan continued—referring to former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican who was replaced last fall by Democrat Tom Wolf— but "their budget is tied to proposed changes to the school code that would destroy public education in Philadelphia." ...

The advocacy organization Education Voters of Pennsylvania described the bill as "a state takeover and charter school conversion model that is only for Philadelphia."

As explained by local education activist Steven Singer, the school code legislation would "require the Commonwealth to pick as many as 5 'underperforming' Philadelphia schools a year to close, charterize or just fire the principal and half the staff.

Hmmm... looks like the Democratic establishment is starting to lose the unions.

Citing Urgent Need for 'Political Revolution,' Major Union Endorses Sanders

'Our politics and economy have favored Wall Street, the wealthy and powerful for too long,' says Communications Workers of America

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) on Thursday endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for president in the 2016 election, citing the need for a candidate who will "break with politics-as-usual and fight for America's working people."

The endorsement comes after a three-month voting period, with tens of thousands of the union's 700,000 members casting ballots. Its former president, Larry Cohen, is an adviser to Sanders' campaign. It also comes hours after his chief rival for the nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, picked up the endorsement of billionaire Warren Buffett.

CWA is now the fifth national labor organization to throw its weight behind Sanders, who was also recently endorsed by National Nurses United, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, among other state and local unions.

"CWA members have made a clear choice and a bold stand in endorsing Bernie Sanders for President," said the union's president, Chris Shelton. "I am proud of our democratic process, proud of CWA members, and proud to support the candidate whose vision for America puts working families first. Our politics and economy have favored Wall Street, the wealthy and powerful for too long. CWA members, like voters across America, are saying we can no longer afford business as usual. Bernie has called for a political revolution – and that is just what Americans need today."

Where’s Bernie? Media Ignores Sanders Though He’s More Popular Than Trump

The Intercept searched Nexis’ database of transcripts for news shows on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC from the past 30 days, looking for mentions of Trump or Sanders in the headline or opening paragraph. Nexis doesn’t collect everything, so the results are not reliable for absolute measurements, but they do allow for comparisons. There were 20 hits for Sanders; 690 for Trump. ...

We also did a Nexis search focused on two major newspaper websites: The New York Times and the Washington Post. We looked exclusively at headlines over the past month, finding 22 Sanders headlines in the Times and 64 in the Post. Trump, by comparison, had 145 headline mentions in the Times and 535 mentions in the Post.

Additionally, Google Trends provides some insight into this phenomenon. We did a search of news headlines for both Sanders and Trump over the past month. On an average day, the ratio of Trump-to-Sanders mentions was 29-to-3. On December 9, in the wake of Trump’s call to block Muslims from entering the U.S., the ration was 100-to-5.

The Bernie Sanders Campaign Has Been Punished for Accessing Confidential Clinton Voter Data

The presidential campaign team for Bernie Sanders has been banned from accessing the Democratic National Committee's voter database after staff took advantage of a software glitch to access Hillary Clinton's confidential voter information.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, told the Washington Post that a junior staffer had viewed the information gathered by Clinton's campaign team, but blamed the software company hired by the DNC. ...

Weaver said the Sanders campaign never downloaded or printed any of the data and said the DNC should use a better software vendor.

"Sadly, the DNC is relying on an incompetent vendor who on more than one occasion has dropped the firewall between the various Democratic candidates' data," he said in a statement. "Our campaign months ago alerted the DNC to the fact that campaign data was being made available to other campaigns."

The Sanders team said it was unacceptable that the staffer had accessed the data, and the employee had been fired.

Critics Cry Foul as DNC Cripples Sanders Campaign Operation

Critics are crying foul after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) suspended Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign's access to a crucial voter database just weeks before the first Democratic caucuses.

The penalty stems from a software error that allowed a Sanders staffer to access confidential voter information gathered by the rival campaign of Hillary Clinton, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the incident late Thursday. The staffer has since been fired, the Sanders campaign said. ...

Already, a MoveOn.org petition calling on DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to immediately reinstate the Sanders campaign's access to the 50-state voter file has gathered more than 85,000 signatures. With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary less than two months away, "Shutting down Sanders' tools to reach voters is an infringement on democracy," the petition reads.

And it reeks of favoritism, some charged, coming on the heels of a big day for the Sanders campaign, in which it announced two major endorsements and a historic fundraising milestone. ...

CNN spoke with the fired staffer—national data director Josh Uretsky—who said the breach was an attempt to "understand how badly the Sanders campaign's data was exposed" by the software error.

"We knew there was a security breach in the data, and we were just trying to understand it and what was happening," Uretsky told CNN.

Not Just Oceans and Atmosphere, Rapid Warming Killing World's Lakes

The world's lakes are warming at a faster rate than oceans and atmosphere, a trend that may already have triggered major changes in aquatic ecosystems, according to a new report published in Geophysical Research Letters on Wednesday.

Globally, lakes have been heating up an average of 0.34°C (.61°F) per decade between 1985 and 2009, researchers found. In northern climates, the deepest ice-covered lakes are warming at twice the rate of the atmosphere.

"The widespread warming reported here suggests that large changes in Earth's freshwater resources and their processes are not only imminent but already under way," the study concludes.

When lakes warm, their productivity decreases and they become more likely to form toxic algae or become vulnerable to damage by invasive species. That, in turn, threatens delicate ecosystems within the lake, including fish and other wildlife, which can lead to water insecurity, "substantial economic consequences," and, in some cases, "complete ecosystem loss," the study states. ...

"Lakes hold a large majority of Earth's liquid freshwater, support enormous biodiversity, and provide key provisioning and cultural ecosystem services to people around the world. Climate change is among the greatest threats to lakes," the study states. "The pervasive and rapid warming observed here signals the urgent need to incorporate climate impacts into vulnerability assessments and adaptation efforts for lakes."

A Crude Deal: Lifting Oil Export Ban Means Subsidy Windfall for Oil Industry

Beijing grinds to halt as second ever 'red alert' issued over severe smog

China’s capital city issued a “red alert” for pollution on Friday, hard on the heels of its first-ever such warning earlier in December, as Beijing’s leadership vowed to crack down on often hazardous levels of smog.

Authorities in the Chinese capital warned the city would be shrouded by heavy pollution from Saturday until next Tuesday, prompting the highest-level warning that leads to emergency responses such as limiting car use and closing schools.

After decades of unbridled economic growth, China’s leadership has vowed to tackle heavy air, water and soil pollution, including the thick smog that often blankets major cities. ...

The Beijing Meteorological Service said in a statement vehicle use would be severely restricted, and that fireworks and outdoor barbecues would be banned. It also recommended schools cancel classes.

Here's How Elon Musk Wants to Punish Volkswagen for Cheating

A group of green tech investors is urging California regulators to hand down a kind of alternative sentence for auto giant Volkswagen over its effort to dodge pollution controls: Make it build more electric cars.

Rather than devote huge amounts of time and money to fixing the diesel-powered cars implicated in the emissions scandal, the state should require VW "to accelerate greatly its rollout of zero emission vehicles," the financiers wrote in an open letter to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Not only that, the German automaker should have to produce enough electric cars to reduce tenfold the amount of pollution released by the diesels, they wrote — and it should have to build as many of those cars and batteries in California as possible.

Ion Yadigaroglu, the managing partner of Capricorn Investments and one of letter's organizers, said the signers want regulators "to focus on being creative and not on punishment, and to look at what incredible gains could be made from what is a bad situation." ...

Yadiagaroglu said there was "no direct business interest at stake" for the signers. And in Musk's case, pushing Volkswagen further into the EV market "would create additional competition" for his high-end Teslas.

Also of Interest

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

The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia

America’s Secret African Drone War Against ISIS

WikiLeaks Cables Confirm Collusion Between Vatican and Dictators

Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America

In Moscow, Stein calls for foreign policy of principled collaboration

How Slaves Built American Capitalism

Donald and Darth: how the two leaders compare on key issues

A Little Night Music

Mike Bloomfield - One Way Out

Mike Bloomfield - Blues for Roy

Mike Bloomfield & Nick Gravenites - Blues on the Westside

Mike Bloomfield - If I Ever Get Lucky

Mike Bloomfield & Friends - Born In Chicago

Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper - Really

Mike Bloomfield - Farther Up The Road

Mike Bloomfield - Bad Luck Baby

Michael Bloomfield - Buried Alive In The Blues

Mike Bloomfield & Johnny Winter - It's My Own Fault

Mike Bloomfield with Taj Mahal - One More Mile To Go

Mike Bloomfield - Junko Partner

Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper - Dear. Mr. Fantasy