The Evening Blues - 12-20-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: James Carr

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul singer James Carr. Enjoy!

James Carr - Freedom Train

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

-- George McGovern


News and Opinion

Trump shocks allies and advisers with plan to pull US troops out of Syria


Donald Trump is reported to have ordered a full, rapid withdrawal of over 2,000 US troops in Syria, declaring victory over the Islamic State, and taking allies and his own advisers by surprise.

Pentagon and state department officials were left scrambling to interpret an abrupt change in course from the US policy decided over the summer to keep forces in Syria to ensure the “enduring defeat of Isis” and act as a bulwark against Iranian influence. Senior officials were informed of the president’s decision on Tuesday night, and after news reports of the U-turn surfaced on Wednesday morning. ...

Later on Wednesday morning, the White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, put out a more nuanced statement saying that troop withdrawal marked the start of the “next phase” in the struggle with Isis, and suggested they could return if necessary. “Five years ago, Isis was a very powerful and dangerous force in the Middle East, and now the United States has defeated the territorial caliphate,” Sanders said. “ We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”

The state department declined to comment, for “operational and security reasons”, on a Reuters report that its personnel in Syria had been told to evacuate within 24 hours. US state department and aid workers are heavily involved in the stabilisation effort in Raqqa and other towns recaptured from Isis. ...

Trump’s own national security adviser, John Bolton, is adamantly opposed to the decision, for different reasons. At the UN general assembly in September Bolton declared: “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” A diplomatic source described Bolton as “livid” about the president’s decision.

Trump Pledges to Withdraw U.S. Ground Troops from Syria—But Global Powers & Deadly Air Forces Remain

Anti-War Voices: Of Course Trump Should Withdraw US Troops From Syria... and Afghanistan and Yemen and Iraq and...

Even as the Pentagon stammered and the retired generals, ex-CIA chiefs, and war hawks from both major political parties took to the cable news to warn against the prospect of less war—or at least U.S. involvement in them—peace groups on Wednesday afternoon applauded news reporting that President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Syria. "President Trump is absolutely right to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria," said Paul Kawika Martin, senior director for policy and political affairs at Peace Action, in response to reporting from the New York Times and others.


"President Obama deployed U.S. soldiers to Syria in violation of international law," he said, "and the ongoing U.S. presence there only serves to prolong the war and fuel the risk of confrontation with Russia, Iran, and other parties to the conflict." A troop withdrawal, Martin added, does not mean the U.S. cannot have a role in helping the Syrian people or securing a better future for the nation. "The U.S. can and should pursue a more active role in negotiations aimed at securing a political solution and a lasting peace in Syria, and should step up funding for humanitarian aid," Martin said. "President Trump should also rethink his administration's callous, discriminatory refugee policies and immediately increase the number of refugees allowed into the United States rather than continuing to shut our doors to Syrians fleeing a war that the U.S. has played such a significant role in."

The anti-war and human rights group CodePink also applauded the prospect of all U.S. troops leaving Syria. "We believe the U.S. withdrawal from Syria is a positive contribution to the peace process," said the group's co-founder Medea Benjamin. A withdrawal, she added, also "decreases the tensions between the United States and Iran that could have escalated the dangerous proxy wars that have been victimizing the Syrian people."

Putting focus on the war's countless victims, Benjamin said her group is calling "on all foreign powers that have been involved in Syria’s destruction, including the United States, to take responsibility for rebuilding this nation and providing assistance to the Syrian people, including the refugees, who have suffered so tragically for over seven years."

Benjamin said she further hopes that the decision will also mark the start of further reevaluation of U.S. troops stationed around the world. "This is particularly true in Afghanistan," she said, "where some 16,000 US soldiers are engaged in a war that is beginning its 18th year, and in neighboring Iraq, where the U.S. says it will maintain its presence with 5,200 troops stationed in the country. President Trump should continue to stand up to the neocons and the military-industrial complex that profit from endless war by bringing these troops home as well."

Trump Orders US Withdrawal From Syria In 30 Days

Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria

The announcement on Wednesday that the U.S. will withdraw all remaining troops from Syria within the next month looked at first like a rare victory for Donald Trump in his admittedly erratic opposition to senseless wars of adventure. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” the president tweeted with an unmistakable air of triumph.

Don’t get your hopes up. Just about everything in these initial reports is either wrong or misleading. One, the U.S. did not defeat the Islamic State: The Syrian Arab Army, aided by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah militias did. Two, hardly was ISIS the only reason the U.S. has maintained a presence in Syria. The intent for years was to support a coup against the Assad government in Damascus—in part by training and equipping jihadists often allied with ISIS. For at least the past six months, the U.S. military’s intent in Syria has been to counter Iranian influence. Last and hardly least, the U.S. is not closing down its military presence in Syria. It is digging in for an indefinite period, making Raqqa the equivalent of the Green Zone in Baghdad. By the official count, there are 503 U.S. troops stationed in the Islamic State’s former capital. Unofficially, according to The Washington Post and other press reports, the figure is closer to 4,000 — twice the number that is supposed to represent a “full withdrawal” from Syrian soil.

It would be nice to think Washington has at last accepted defeat in Syria, given it is preposterous to pretend otherwise any longer. Damascus is now well into its consolidation phase. Russia, Iran, and Turkey are currently working with Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, to form a committee in January to begin drafting a new Syrian constitution. It would also be nice to think the president and commander-in-chief has the final say in his administration’s policies overseas, given the constitution by which we are supposed to be governed. But the misleading announcement on the withdrawal of troops, followed by Trump’s boastful tweet, suggest something close to exactly the opposite. As Trump finishes his second year in office, the pattern is plain: This president can have all the foreign policy ideas he wants, but the Pentagon, State, the intelligence apparatus, and the rest of what some call “the deep state” will either reverse, delay, or never implement any policy not to its liking.

[See article for examples of the deep state reversing, delaying or never implementing policies not to its liking. - js]

The Bombings Will Continue: Phyllis Bennis Warns U.S. Military Role in Syria Is Not Actually Ending

Pentagon Says 35 Killed in Trump’s First Yemen Raid — More Than Twice as Many as Previously Reported

On January 30, 2017, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced that the Pentagon had conducted a “very successful” special operations raid against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. The raid resulted in the deaths of “an estimated 14 AQAP members” and one U.S. service member, later identified as Navy Seal William “Ryan” Owens, Spicer said. A Pentagon spokesperson briefed reporters on the operation the same day, also saying that the raid had killed 14 Al Qaeda operatives. In the weeks that followed, the raid would become the subject of tremendous controversy, as conflicting media reports debated whether it had yielded significant intelligence, as the administration claimed, and whether it had killed an intended high-level target. But when it came to the death toll, the initial press coverage largely parroted the administration’s estimate.

But according to a classified report by the Joint Special Operations Command Center for Counterterrorism Studies, the Pentagon privately assessed that the raid had killed more than twice as many people as it had initially said. “The battle damage assessment (BDA) included approximately 35 enemy killed in action (EKIA) and one ZU-23 anti-aircraft weapon destroyed,” according to a heavily redacted copy of the report obtained by The Intercept under the Freedom of Information Act. The operation also “resulted in one friendly KIA,” meaning someone “killed in action,” presumably Owens, “with minimal civilian casualties,” the report notes.

Those numbers contradict on-the-ground reporting, which found that most of the dead were villagers who mistook the SEALs for members of a Yemeni rebel group known as the Houthis, their local adversaries. Those killed included at least six women and 10 children under the age of 13, residents said. In the days after the raid, the Pentagon admitted “regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed,” but did not update its casualty estimate. Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich told The Intercept by email that the figure of 35 enemy dead was the result of a lengthier formal assessment.

It is unclear how the Pentagon came up with either number. The estimate of 35 enemy fighters killed in action differs significantly from independent estimates of the death toll, even when women and children are included. Villagers in al-Ghayil gave the Bureau of Investigative Journalism a list of 25 names of residents killed in the raid, nine of whom were said to be children under the age of 13. Human Rights Watch collected a list of 23 names and ages of villagers who had died; a witness told the group that two other people had also died, but he could not remember their names. ...

Among the dead was 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki, the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and radical cleric who the Obama administration claimed had an operational role in Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman — who was not accused of being affiliated with Al Qaeda — was killed in a drone strike at the age of 16 shortly after his father’s death, but the Obama administration later said that he was not the target.

Russia may have nuclear arms in Crimea, hacked EU cables warn

Brussels has launched an investigation into the apparent hacking of the EU’s diplomatic communications network after thousands of sensitive cables were made public, including descriptions of Donald Trump as a “bully” and Crimea as a “hot zone” where nuclear weapons may be present. The dump of confidential cables on a public site laid bare the concerns of EU diplomats and officials over the Trump administration and its dealings with Russia and China.

Among the reports made public was a warning on 8 February that Crimea had been turned into a “hot zone where nuclear warheads might have already been deployed”. ... In public, neither the EU nor the US has suggested there is any evidence of the presence of nuclear weapons. ...

A second cable, detailing a discussion held on 16 July between European officials and Xi Jinping, quotes the Chinese president as comparing Trump’s “bullying” of his government over trade to a “no-rules freestyle boxing match”. The account further quoted the Chinese president vowing that his country “would not submit to bullying” from the US, “even if a trade war hurt everybody”. ...

A cable in March quoted EU officials speaking of “messaging efforts” to mitigate “the negative attitude to the EU [of the Trump administration] in the beginning, which had created a lot of insecurity”. Caroline Vicini, the deputy head of the EU mission in Washington, suggested that diplomats from member states continued to describe the US as “our most important partner”. The cable also recommended bypassing Trump by dealing with Congress.

The notes, covering three years of diplomatic activity, had apparently been posted online by hackers, where they were discovered by a security company called Area 1, who passed the information on to the New York Times.

Hackers access sensitive EU diplomatic cables

Russian whistleblower died of natural causes, rules coroner

A coroner has ruled that a Russian millionaire died of natural causes when he collapsed outside his home in Surrey. Nicholas Hilliard QC ruled that Alexander Perepilichnyy died of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome while out jogging. The finding, which was made at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, disappointed associates of the whistleblower who are convinced he was murdered and possibly poisoned.

Hilliard said he could not “completely eliminate all possibility” that Perepilichnyy was the victim of foul play. But he said “there is no direct evidence that he was killed or any compelling circumstantial evidence either”. He added: “In my judgment it is likely he died of natural causes.” The coroner said it was possible a “novel unknown substance” was used to murder the Russian exile. He made clear, however, that “if he was killed in this way it left no trace which could be picked up at postmortem”.

The ruling brings to a close a bitter six-year battle that has pitted Perepilichnyy’s widow, Tatiana, and Surrey police against an insurance company and the Kremlin critic Bill Browder. It also featured the controversial use of a government gagging order to prevent sensitive documents from being revealed.

Perepilichnyy, 44, was found dead near his home in Weybridge, Surrey, in November 2012. The inquest heard that he had spent the previous two days in Paris with his Ukrainian lover.

The businessman had fled Russia and relocated with his family to the UK after falling out with a group of powerful clients, the inquest heard. In the UK he blew the whistle on alleged organised crime in Moscow, and passed details to the Swiss authorities. He also cooperated with Browder’s Hermitage Capital investment fund to expose a £142m money-laundering operation. In the months before his death he held several meetings with Hermitage representatives. Browder, a human rights campaigner, accused Surrey police on Wednesday of bungling the case and destroying vital evidence.

Yellow vest protesters back #GyroBleus police slowdown

Brazil fails to replace thousands of doctors who left after Cuba spat

Brazil has failed to replace nearly one third of the thousands of Cuban doctors who exited the country after a diplomatic spat, as many new recruits failed to turn up for work, the health ministry has said.

Brazil’s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, had criticized Cuba’s involvement in a government healthcare program, saying that Cuban doctors were being used as “slave labor” because Havana took 75% of their salaries. In response, Cuba’s government pulled out of the cooperation agreement, which provided medical care for millions of Brazilians in poor and remote areas, leaving more than 8,000 doctor positions vacant.

While Brazil said last month it had filled more than 90% of the vacancies, 2,439 out of 8,411 new recruits had failed to report to their work locations by a Tuesday deadline, a health ministry spokeswoman said. The positions will be opened up for new applications on 20 and 21 December, she said.

Israel Tampered With Video of Strike That Killed Two Palestinian Boys, Investigators Say

A painstaking reconstruction of a series of Israeli airstrikes that killed two Palestinian boys on the roof of a building in Gaza City this summer suggests that Israel’s military tampered with its own surveillance footage of the attack, possibly to conceal evidence that the children were visible to the drone pilots who carried out what were supposed to be nonlethal “warning strikes.”

The visual investigation of the July 14 killing of Luai Kahil and Amir al-Nimra, both 14, was carried out by Forensic Architecture, a research group based in London that works with communities affected by state violence (and has previously partnered with The Intercept), and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that documents Israel’s abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories it has controlled since 1967.

Forensic Architecture created a detailed visual timeline of the incident, which offers compelling evidence that a video report shared on Twitter by the Israel Defense Forces in the immediate aftermath of the attack distorted the sequence of strikes to give the false impression that the roof was unoccupied when the missile that killed the boys was fired.

Using open-source visual evidence — including a rooftop selfie taken by the boys shortly before the airstrike that killed them, timestamped security camera footage of the sequence of Israeli strikes, witness video of the mangled bodies of the two boys after they had been torn apart by shrapnel from what Israel described as the first in a series of four “warning strikes,” and a YouTube cooking video recorded by three children in a nearby kitchen during the attack — Forensic Architecture concluded that the Israeli army had misleadingly substituted footage of the third missile strike for what it described as the first impact, which had killed the boys.

Former Blackwater guard convicted for 2007 massacre of civilians in Baghdad

A former security guard for the US firm Blackwater has been found guilty of murder for his role in a notorious massacre of unarmed civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007.

Nicholas Slatten, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder by a federal jury in Washington on Wednesday after five days of deliberations. Slatten was convicted of killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, 19, an aspiring doctor who was one of more than a dozen civilians killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad’s Nisour square on 16 September 2007.

While escorting a diplomatic convoy, Blackwater guards opened fire in the bustling square with sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers – allegedly without provocation – leaving at least 14 civilians dead and at least 18 wounded. The Iraqi government says the toll was higher.

The shooting deepened the resentment of Americans in Iraq four years after US forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and raised questions about the expanded use of armed contract guards by the US government.

Freedom of info: UK police forced to reveal docs between Washington & London on WikiLeaks

Facebook let companies read and delete your private messages

“We don’t sell data to anyone,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress in April. What he didn't mention is that Facebook gives data away via secret deals with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players — often without consent, according to a New York Times investigation published Tuesday. Based on hundreds of internal Facebook documents, the report provides an inside look at the intrusive access provided to select partners — including Netflix, Microsoft, Spotify, Amazon and Apple — by the social network.

The revelations also highlight once again the company’s lack of transparency and accountability when it comes to the collection, process and sharing of user data. The documents show that Facebook gave partners the ability to read, write and delete messages, as well as access the names and contact details of friends — all without explicit consent.

Facebook has denied it has done anything wrong, saying there is no evidence the data has been misused. ... Facebook signed a consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2011, barring the social network from sharing user data without explicit permission. The company says its data deals did not breach that agreement because they viewed their partners as extensions of the company, experts disagree.

Sanders, Feinstein Demand Congress Ditch Effort to Criminalize Pro-Palestinian BDS Campaign

U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Wednesday urged congressional leaderships not to include in a must-pass spending bill a measure that would suppress free speech rights by criminalizing boycotts of Israel. "While we do not support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, we remain resolved to our constitutional oath to defend the right of every American to express their views peacefully without fear of or actual punishment by the government," the senators wrote (pdf) to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The measure is the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), a revised version of which is being pushed by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU, wrote last week that while the new iteration leaves out possible jail time as punishment "for American companies to participate in political boycotts aimed at Israel and its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories when those boycotts were called for by international governmental organizations like the United Nations," the legislation still represents "a full-scale attack on Americans' First Amendment freedoms," as violators could still face criminal financial penalties of up to $1 million.

"Even as amended," adds Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, "the bill would impose fines on American companies, nonprofits, and their representatives for refusing on human rights grounds to do business in settlements." He continues:

Yet firms operating in Israeli settlements both benefit from and contribute to serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, and the bill would mean those acting to end complicity in serious abuses—the only way they can meet their responsibilities under the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights—could find themselves guilty of a crime.

In their letter to Senate leadership, Sanders and Feinstein note that the measure would extend "U.S. legal protection to the very settlements the United States has opposed as illegitimate and harmful to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace for more than 50 years." "At a time when the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government is pursuing policies clearly aimed at foreclosing the two-state solution, it is deeply disappointing that Congress would consider choosing to penalize criticism of those policies," they continue.

Before Criminal Justice Reformer Is Even Sworn In, St. Louis Prosecutors Have Joined a Police Union

St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s 27-year tenure was marked most famously by his failure to win an indictment of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014. He didn’t know it at the time, but that moment, and his hostile press conference announcing the decision, inspired a nationwide effort to reform prosecutorial offices by running criminal justice reformers to serve as district attorneys, not just public defenders. In the summer of 2018, that movement eventually swallowed up McCulloch, when reformer Wesley Bell beat him in a primary.

But winning the office and reforming the system are two different tasks, and now Bell is facing extraordinary resistance from dogmatic front-line prosecutors — even before he has been sworn in. This week, prosecutors in the office took the unusual step of voting in secret to join a police union.

At a meeting on Monday with the St. Louis Police Officers Association, or SPLOA, prosecutors and investigators rushed a vote to join the labor union known for representing cops who have brutalized and murdered civilians. The group has encouraged targeting people who oppose its defense of those cops, once tweeting an article listing 46 St. Louis-area businesses that signed a letter protesting the acquittal of cop Jason Stockley in the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith. The tweet, later deleted, read: “For what it’s worth … a list of STL businesses that hate cops and sympathize with vandals, brought to you by a tabloid birdcage liner that hates cops and sympathizes with vandals.” ...

McCulloch’s spokesperson Ed Magee told The Intercept that his boss did not push the unionization effort. ... In Philadelphia, after reformer Larry Krasner took over as district attorney, he fired a number of intransigent prosecutors. Magee said the prosecutors in St. Louis were trying to avoid a similar fate. In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, McCulloch said the move came out of concern among his staff that Bell would either clean house or keep them from moving up. He said the idea didn’t come up when he was in office because “they knew I’d been an advocate for my employees as long as I’ve been there.”

A columnist for the St. Louis American, a weekly newspaper geared toward the city’s black community, condemned the alliance between prosecutors and the police, writing, “The St. Louis Police Officers Association (SLPOA) is a ‘labor union’ in the same way the Ku Klux Klan is a ‘fraternal organization.’ The description is technically correct as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.”

The First Step Act Is Not Sweeping Criminal Justice Reform — and the Risk Is That It Becomes the Only Step

On Tuesday, the Senate passed The First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill with broad bipartisan support, in an 87-12 vote. The legislation, when enacted, would enable some federal inmates to seek early release, while also granting federal judges greater freedoms with regards to minimum sentences in certain cases, among other minor reforms. The bill will now go to the House of Representatives, where it expected to pass, and then to President Donald Trump’s desk. The bill has been hailed as an historic effort; in a sense, it is. Its enactment would constitute one of the most significant federal reform efforts in decades. For the bill to pass under the presidency of Trump, an open supporter of a racist law-and-order approach to criminal justice, would make the First Step Act an even greater success. ...

To call the First Step Act limited would be an understatement. The legislation could make a crucial material difference to the lives of thousands of incarcerated people — something that should not be dismissed ­— but it would hardly make a dent in America’s mass incarceration problem. If the bill is actually a first step toward a more robust process of ending mass incarceration policies, that would be one thing. But, all too often, when the bar for progressive legislation is set low in the service of compromise with intransigent Republicans, tepid reform becomes the extent of the fight, not a pathway to more profound change. Just consider the never-ending battle over the Affordable Care Act.

If Democrats want to prove that they are more committed to justice than to realpolitik, no time should be wasted celebrating the success of the Koch-backed, Trump-endorsed First Step Act. More comprehensive criminal justice reform must be an agenda priority for the Democrat-controlled House. If not, conservatives will once again set the fulcrum of debate, and this minor reform will be framed as radical.

Federal Reserve raises interest rates despite pressure from Trump

The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates again on Wednesday despite intense, and unprecedented, pressure from Donald Trump to leave rates unchanged.

After a two-day meeting the central bank announced rates would rise a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%, the ninth such move since late 2015 and further signaling the Fed’s confidence in the US economy.

The closely watched Fed fund rates is used to benchmark interest rates worldwide, and the Fed’s move is parsed by investors worldwide for signals about the strength of the US economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 70 points after the announcement to finish the day down 1.49%, while the S&P 500 lost 39.2 points, or 1.54%. US stocks are on course for their biggest December decline since 1931, the depths of the Great Depression.


Advocates Call on Jayapal to Release Draft Text of House Single Payer Bill

Single payer advocates are calling on Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) to share the draft text of HR 676 with the single payer movement for review and input. Jayapal is the new lead sponsor of HR 676, which for the past fifteen years was sponsored by former Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan).

“Some of your public statements recently have caused concern,” the single payer advocates wrote in a letter to Jayapal. “In particular, statements about your desire to align the text with the Senate bill, S 1804, which is inferior to HR 676. Indeed, the Senate Bill is so deficient that many in the single payer movement cannot support it unless it is significantly revised. We want the House Bill to remain strong and fully supported by the entire single payer movement as the gold standard that the Senate must measure up to.”

“We urge you to release a draft copy of the new legislation before the end of the year so people can have input before it is made final,” they wrote. “We are being asked to mobilize support for the new HR 676, but we cannot support a bill we have not seen.”

“We understand that you are rewriting HR 676 before you introduce it in 2019. It is important to us that HR 676 not be weakened in this process, but be made stronger. We ask that you release a draft of the text of the revised HR 676 so that longtime single payer advocates can read it and share our views with you before the bill is introduced.”



the horse race



Russia Controls African Americans’ Minds Says NY Times



the evening greens


There's No Such Thing as a 'Global Warming Pause'

Yet another team of researchers has concluded that the much-debated global warming ‘pause’ which preoccupied climate science around the turn of the century simply did not happen. If their work continues to win support from other researchers, it will leave those who have argued that the pause was real with some explaining to do.

Some scientists have argued that there was a pause, or hiatus, in the rate of global warming recorded from 1998 to 2013, and that this cast doubt on the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the available evidence showed the world had continued to warm. Other researchers said variously that the pause had never started, or blamed changes in the trade winds. Many said the pause (or its absence) were anyway irrelevant, because the long-term global warming trend was continuing unabated.

Some argued that the “missing” heat had been absorbed by oceans, a few that volcanic discharges might have masked sunlight, some that it was simply evidence of a natural cycle, others that in a longer time series the apparent slowdown became invisible.

Now an international team of climate researchers, after re-analysing existing data and studies, says there has never been a statistically significant pause. This conclusion holds, they say, whether considering the supposed pause as a change in the rate of warming in observations, or as a mismatch in rate between observations and expectations from climate models. Their findings are published in two papers in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In other words, they say, there is no reason to doubt that warming continued as mainstream climate scientists argued it would, nor to doubt the methods they used, including climate modelling. But there are reasons to ask why the non-existent pause was so enthusiastically promoted by some scientists and others.

'Significant First Blow to Plastic Pollution Monster' as EU Reaches Landmark Deal on Single-Use Products

In a landmark deal celebrated by campaigners as "a significant first blow to the plastic pollution monster," the European Union (EU) on Wednesday reached an agreement to dramatically scale back single-use plastics across the continent. "Citizens across Europe want to see an end to our throwaway culture and politicians have taken the first step," Meadhbh Bolger, a resource justice campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said on behalf of the Rethink Plastic alliance. "The time is ripe for Europe to transition away from single-use plastics to reusables."


The rules negotiated by reprensentatives from the European Parliament, Council, and Commission would ban several single-use plastic products—including cotton buds, straws, plates, cutlery, beverage stirrers, balloon sticks, oxo-degradable plastics, and expanded polystyrene food containers and beverage cups. Additionally, they would feature schemes to make manufacturers pay for cleanup costs, require member states to track and set targets for fishing gear, and mandate labels for plastic products and the environmental impacts of littering. However, they also include a "vague" and non-binding goal to cut consumption of food containers and cups, and delays for beverage container policies.


Also of Interest

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

Israel boycott fight roils Democrats in year-end spending debate

Michael Isikoff Cuts His Losses at ‘Russian Roulette’

The working class and the environmental crisis

Here’s what the prison reform bill actually does — and doesn’t do

Emails Show Political Group No Labels Gave Work to Firms Linked to Founder’s Husband

Critics Say Bernie Sanders Is Too Old, Too White, and Too Socialist to Run for President in 2020.

Der Spiegel says top journalist faked stories for years


A Little Night Music

James Carr - The Dark End of the Street

James Carr - Everybody Needs Somebody

James Carr - That's What I Want To Know

James Carr - These Ain't Raindrops

James Carr - Pouring Water On A Drowning Man

James Carr - That's How Love Turned Out For Me

James Carr - Only Fools Run Away

James Carr - I'm A Fool For You

James Carr - You got my mind Messed Up

James Carr - You Don't Want Me


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joe shikspack's picture

@lotlizard

when i saw that story yesterday, i thought, "well it's good to see that it's not just americans that do this crap."

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lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack  
https://medium.com/@micheleanderson/der-spiegel-journalist-messed-with-t...

Relotius has received accolades for his daring quest to live among us for several weeks. And yet, he reported on very little actual truth about Fergus Falls life. In 7,300 words he really only got our town’s population and average annual temperature correct, and a few other basic things, like the names of businesses and public figures, things that a child could figure out in a Google search. The rest is uninhibited fiction (even as sloppy as citing an incorrect figure of citywide 70.4% electoral support for Trump, when the actual number was 62.6%), which begs the question of why Der Spiegel even invested in Relotius’ three week trip to the U.S., whether they should demand their money back from him, and what kind of institutional breakdown led to the supposedly world-class Der Spiegel fact-checking team completely dropping the ball on this one.

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Azazello's picture

and Michael Hudson.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYxJjaIWl2Q width:500 height:300]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

thanks, i didn't get a chance to check out max today. heh, so deutschebank is going down. i wonder who wants to own trump's debt.

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WindDancer13's picture

A diplomatic source described Bolton as “livid” about the president’s decision.

I was also very happy hear that Sanders and Feinstein have made a move again Cardin's sneak attack on Freedom of Speech. Although, I cringe at the thought of the soon to appear disparagement of Sanders as being ant-Israel. That illogical spew never seems to get old with the right and some left wing purists.

Assange: That almost seemed like good news for a moment, until the line was dropped about having to get "written consent." Meanwhile, he is not forgotten. Unity4J has some excellent videos that center around Assange's plight as well as the state of journalism.

This one answers the question I had about how Assange could be charged under the US Espionage Act when he is neither a citizen of the US nor was he working in the US.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

joe shikspack's picture

@WindDancer13

yep, i was delighted to hear that bolton was pissed. it may turn out that trump's action doesn't come to much, but just to hear that bolton's blood pressure (assuming that he has blood) went up significantly, is a schadenfreude moment.

i am also quite gratified that trump and feinstein are pushing back against that ignorant, bought-off twerp cardin. i hope that they are able to fight him (and more pertinently, his sponsors owners) off.

thanks for the unity4j vids!

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WindDancer13's picture

@joe shikspack

I would also love to see this:

gratified that trump and feinstein are pushing back against . . . cardin.

Maybe it was a wishful thinking thing?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Unabashed Liberal's picture

has resigned--the world is coming to an end!!! Biggrin

The 'Deep State' is finally making it's true intention (soft coup) known. Now, we'll just have to see what the Dems do with it. Nancy & Chuckie just held a press conference--she spouted her usual word salad. So, we'll see what's up, soon enough. All Chuckie could say is "Trump Shutdown." Approximately 9 appropriation bills were passed a couple months ago, so, at most, funding for one quarter of government operations/functions will be affected, if a CR is not passed by tomorrow evening.

We're trying to pack, but had to take a break due to heavy rain storms and lightening, which we take fairly seriously. Definitely not looking forward to traveling tomorrow, but it can't be avoided.

Hope by next week we'll know which furbaby is ours. In anticipation, created a Twitter account for her, yesterday. While Mr M is still recuperating, and the Pup's a baby, figure that I'll mostly have time to post Tweets about her, and, hopefully, about expanding/advocating for the expansion of Traditional Medicare--as opposed to "managed care," and the denial of medical procedures and services due to setting up a capitation system, such as Medicare Advantage.

Thanks for tonight's EB. Will swing back later to finish reading.

Hey, hope folks are enjoying better weather than we're experiencing--noticed that there's a slight warming trend covering much of the Lower 48 for much of Christmas week. Won't seem as much like Christmas, but, maybe travel may be less of a hassle (if the rain subsides).

Everyone has a nice evening!

Bye

Blue Onyx

"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust.

They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made."

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

joe shikspack's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

wow, the mad dog's final straw was syria, i guess.

heh, perhaps congress will have to declare war on syria in order to force trump's hand. (though i doubt it, i'm sure that the pentagon and their allies at state will have plenty of ways to foil any intention that trump has at ending the u.s. involvement in the conflict.)

i hope that your travels go well and your new puppy is wonderful beyond words.

heh, the weather here is soggy and getting colder, in the next few days we are supposed to have temps in the 20's at night, so we will have frozen mud in the morning. Smile

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snoopydawg's picture

So, Was There Any Election Meddling in the US?

It’s curious that while one part of the Mueller team has indicted Russia, another cadre has been spending its time focusing on how Middle Eastern countries pumped cash in Washington in an attempt to sway policy under President Trump’s administration. Various witnesses affiliated with the Trump campaign have been questioned about their conversations with deeply connected individuals from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

It has also been revealed that the crown princes of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE were eager to help Trump win the election. It is now known that Joel Zamel was equally eager to lend his services, a man with deep ties to Israeli intelligence was in close contact with the Trump team because one of his companies, Psy Group, had drawn up a plan to use social-media manipulation to help Trump clinch the Republican nomination. The company sent former senior campaign aide Rick Gates that proposal.

However, against the background of the massive campaign aimed at identifying those actually responsible for the interfering in democratic process of the United States, one can’t help but to be completely puzzled by the reluctance of the Muller team to reveal the role that Israel played in this matter.

Complet ... um, no. I'm not puzzled by this at all.

Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress, calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that’s just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence. So if you happen to be interested in instances of foreign influence on US elections, there are places to look.

Where was the uproar from Americans when that happened? Bibi's basically told Obama that he had the right to speak to congress about Obama's treaty with Iran and congress welcomed him with open deposit slips. Did anyone in congress speak out against that? I don't remember.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

Where was the uproar from Americans when that happened? Bibi's basically told Obama that he had the right to speak to congress about Obama's treaty with Iran and congress welcomed him with open deposit slips. Did anyone in congress speak out against that? I don't remember.

well, high-ranking dems in the administration opened fire on netanyahu and attempted to signal the israeli electorate that the u.s. would prefer that they elect somebody other than bibi.

so, the u.s. "interfered" in the israeli elections, but the interference didn't seem to produce the results that the administration desired. on the other hand, the israeli interference in the u.s. elections seems to have been quite effective.

How Netanyahu's speech to Congress has jeopardised US-Israel relations

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snoopydawg's picture

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

well, actually not.

but isn't he charismatic?

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enhydra lutris's picture

restrictions on single use plastics. Too bad nothing like that will ever happen in the US outside of a few enclaves.

Though the US won't ever be truly "out of Syria" it was good, while surprising, to hear that Trump was ordering them out. Even more shocking is DiFi siding with the first amendment in the BDS confrontation. Is there something in the water supply?

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

one could hope that the eu's action would perhaps have knock on effects here, perhaps by causing a massive drop in the scale of plastic production it might raise the cost of producing plastic products. or, perhaps, it could cause americans to recognize that such a political outcome is possible and encourage activism in that direction.

well, one can hope.

have a great evening!

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WindDancer13's picture

@enhydra lutris

Something I remembered from a class I took waaaay back when:

How much oil is used to make plastic?
(The article is from a dot gove site, so I pasted the whole thing.)

Although crude oil is a source of raw material (feedstock) for making plastics, it is not the major source of feedstock for plastics production in the United States. Plastics are produced from natural gas, feedstocks derived from natural gas processing, and feedstocks derived from crude oil refining. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is unable to determine the specific amounts or origin of the feedstocks that are actually used to manufacture plastics in the United States.

Petrochemical feedstock naphtha and other oils refined from crude oil are used as feedstocks for petrochemical crackers that produce the basic building blocks for making plastics. EIA data can only identify those oil-derived feedstocks specifically designated as petrochemical feedstock by petroleum refineries in EIA’s refining surveys, which break out into Naphtha For Petrochemical Feedstock Use and Other Oils For Petrochemical Feedstock Use. However, the petrochemical industry also consumes large quantities of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL), which may be produced by petroleum refineries or natural gas processing plants.

In 2017, 86% of the HGL produced in the United States were byproducts of natural gas processing, and the remaining 14% were from crude oil refineries. The HGL produced by U.S. petroleum refineries contain both alkanes and olefins. Alkanes can be used as feedstock for petrochemical crackers, whereas refinery olefins, primarily propylene, but also minor quantities of ethylene and butylenes, can be used as direct inputs into plastics manufacturing. Because the petrochemical industry has a high degree of flexibility in the feedstock it consumes and because EIA does not collect detailed data on this aspect of industrial consumption, it is not possible for EIA to identify the actual amounts and origin of the materials used as inputs by industry to manufacture plastics.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

joe shikspack's picture

@NCTim

great version of a great tune. i agree with him that james carr did the definitive version of his song, though i have always liked this one, too:

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NCTim's picture

@joe shikspack Dan Penn had a hand in writing Dark End of the Street, along with You Left the Water Running, I'm Your Puppet, Do Right Woman…

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -