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This evening's music features jazz and blues banjo player Ikey Robinson. Enjoy!

"I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together."

-- Ronald Reagan

News and Opinion

Seymour Hersh weighs in with a very interesting article. Apparently the elite of the military have little confidence in Obama, and they are doing business their own way.

The Pentagon's Secret Relationship With Assad

Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped.

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’

‘Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Germany, Israel and Russia were in contact with the Syrian army, and able to exercise some influence over Assad’s decisions – it was through them that US intelligence would be shared. ... Obama didn’t know, but Obama doesn’t know what the JCS does in every circumstance and that’s true of all presidents.’

Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions. There was no direct contact between the US and the Syrian military.

Syrian peace deal without Assad? 'Like talking about the crucifixion without mentioning Christ'

Neocons Object to Syrian Democracy

The Washington Post’s editorial board is livid that President Barack Obama appears to have accepted the Russian position that the Syrian people should decide for themselves who their future leaders should be – when the Post seems to prefer that the choice be made by neoconservative think tanks in Washington or other outsiders.

So, in a furious editorial on Friday, the Post castigated Secretary of State John Kerry for saying – after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow – that the Obama administration and Russia see the political solution to Syria “in fundamentally the same way,” meaning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could stand for election in the future.

The Post wrote: “Unfortunately, that increasingly appears to be the case — and not because Mr. Putin has altered his position. For four years, President Obama demanded the departure of Mr. Assad, who has killed hundreds of thousands of his own people with chemical weapons, ‘barrel bombs,’ torture and other hideous acts. Yet in its zeal to come to terms with Mr. Putin, the Obama administration has been slowly retreating from that position.”

The Russian position, which Obama finally seems to be accepting, is that the Syrian people should be allowed to choose their own leaders through fair, internationally organized elections, rather than have outside powers dictate who can and who can’t compete in a democratic process. Obama’s previous stance was that Assad must be prevented from running in an election.

Think Tank: Most Syrian Rebel Groups Ideologically Similar to ISIS

A new report from the Centre on Religion and Geopolitics, a think tank that is part of the “Tony Blair Faith Foundation,” is warning that the military defeat of ISIS, while nominally desirable in and of itself, will do materially nothing to stop the Islamist takeover of the region.

The report says a third of the rebel factions, representing roughly 60% of rebel fighters, are ideologically similar to ISIS, and that 15 different rebel factions would eagerly step in and fill the vacuum if ISIS was defeated militarily.

At Democratic Debate, Candidates Embrace Military Solutions in Foreign Policy

Pentagon ponders cyberwar on ISIL

The Pentagon is considering increasing the pace and scope of cyberattacks against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), arguing that more aggressive efforts to disable the extremist group’s computers, servers and cellphones could help curtail its appeal and disrupt potential terrorist attacks.

Military hackers and coders at Cyber Command, based at Fort Meade, Md., have developed an array of malware that could be used to sabotage the militants’ propaganda and recruitment capabilities, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions.

But closing off the extremists’ communications faces resistance from the FBI and intelligence officials. They warn that too sweeping an effort to constrict Internet, social media and cellphone access in Syria and Iraq would shut a critical window into the militants’ locations, leadership and intentions.

Moreover, a shutdown of communication nodes could affect humanitarian aid organizations, opposition groups, U.S.-backed rebels and others caught up in the Syrian civil war. A virus could spread to computers outside the country.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will meet with his cybercommanders this week at the Pentagon to examine options, including jamming and viruses, that could be used to target the Sunni Muslim group’s communications, according to the officials.

ISIS threatens Saudi Arabia over Islamic coalition

ISIS threatened to attack Saudi Arabia for "colluding with crusaders" after the oil-rich kingdom said it had established a 34-state Islamic military coalition to target the militants.

In a weekly publication documenting its military activities, the extremist group described as "morons and fools" the 34 members of the coalition which Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said will be headquartered in Riyadh to coordinate mutual anti-terrorism assistance across the Islamic world.

"With permission from Allah, this alliance will be the beginning of the collapse of the governments of the oppressive tyrants in the lands of Islam," said an article entitled "Mohammed bin Salman's alliance of surprised allies".

Rights Group Says Disregard for Civilian Life by US and Saudi Arabia Is 'Appalling'

The United States has been party to numerous apparent war crimes committed by the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, yet—along with all nations responsible—is violating international requirements to investigate bombings of homes, schools, and refugee camps, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared on Monday.

Coming just hours after peace talks concluded with no clear resolution to the nearly nine-month-old conflict, he report finds that the coalition launched six "apparently unlawful airstrikes" in residential areas of Sanaa, Yemen's capital, that killed a total of 60 civilians during September and October. One September 13 bombing of a home in Sanaa's old city, which is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, killed 18 civilians and wounded far more. ...

The coalition stands accused of numerous other war crimes, including 10 unlawful bombings between April and August in Ibb, Amran, Hajja, Hodaida, Taizz, and Sanaa that were also documented by HRW. And earlier this month, Amnesty International investigated five coalition bombings of schools between August and October, calling them a "flagrant attack on [the] future of Yemen's children."

The coalition has also bombed medical facilities, markets, schools, power plants, refugee camps, factories, and warehouses storing humanitarian supplies. From the beginning, Yemenis have fastidiously documented the human impacts of the bombings and rising violence, including through the online campaign #KefayaWar, or "Enough War" in Arabic.

Protests Erupt in Turkey as Military Campaign Intensifies in Country's Southeast

Armed clashes persisted on Sunday across Turkey's southeast, where an operation by Turkish forces intensified on the sixth day of a campaign that security sources said had resulted in the death of 110 Kurdish militants.

Protests erupted in Istanbul and Diyarbakir, the biggest city in the country's southeast, with hundreds demonstrating against the military operations. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.

Although rooted in the countryside, militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have shifted focus in recent years to towns and cities in the southeast, digging trenches and setting up barricades in streets to keep security forces away.

Security sources and residents said around 300 houses in Cizre had been damaged by the clashes and undetonated mortar shells lay inside buildings.

Electricity was cut in many neighborhoods in Silopi as power transformers were damaged. Food and drinking water were running scarce, residents said.

I thought that this was a pretty amazing interview:

Mandy Patinkin Wants Us To Exercise Our Humanity

Senator pressures Navy to take action against admiral in charge of SEALs

A U.S. senator said Friday that he would block the nomination of the Navy’s second-ranking civilian leader until the service reconsiders its decision not to punish a prominent admiral accused of retaliating against several whistleblowers.

The move by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) escalates the pressure on Navy leaders to take action against Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, the commander in charge of the service’s SEAL teams and other elite units.

The Washington Post reported in October that the Navy was poised to promote Losey even though Pentagon investigators had determined that he illegally retaliated against staff members who he mistakenly suspected were whistleblowers.

Hasty, Fearful Passage of Cybersecurity Bill Recalls Patriot Act

Congress easily passed a thinly disguised surveillance provision — the final version of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA — on Friday; it was shoehorned into a must-pass budget bill to prevent a government shutdown before the holidays.

Born of a climate of fear combined with a sense of urgency, the bill claims to do one thing — help companies share information with the government to heed off cyber attacks — and does entirely another, increasing the U.S. government’s spying powers while letting companies with poor cyber hygiene off the hook. It’s likely to spawn unintended consequences.

Some critics felt its passage was in some ways eerily similar to when the USA Patriot Act, one of the most expansive surveillance bills in recent U.S. history, was made into law shortly after September 11, 2001.

In both cases, Congress had little time to even read the bills, making it inevitable that many would vote without being fully informed. And the result is the same — increased power and less accountability for the intelligence community. ...

But as national security writer Marcy Wheeler points out, this time around the intense urgency may have come less from the intelligence community and more from the Chamber of Commerce and some corporations, which will benefit from the way CISA lets corporations “that don’t fix their security issues” off the hook. Wheeler wrote that a provision in CISA may essentially prevent the government from suing companies for not living up to their privacy policies, as the FTC has in the past, as long as they share information about cyber threats — and even if their cybersecurity negligence led to the breach.

Video raises questions over Chicago police account of fatal shooting

The intersection of 71st and Merrill on Chicago’s south side was quiet on the late night of 19 June 2015, as most of the city slept through another warm summer night.

But when the clock passed midnight, the block lost its quiet. Footsteps quickened and bodies began darting around the intersection when police arrived to investigate an emergency call about men in the area with guns, according to police. One of the men on that block was 22-year-old Alfontish “Nunu” Cockerham, who died days later as a result of police gunfire.

Footage of the incident obtained by the Guardian, and the first-hand account of a witness on the scene, raise questions about the night, as a spotlight continues to shine on the Chicago police department.

In the police narrative of that night, Cockerham pointed a gun at the cops, prompting them to shoot, according to police charging documents. According to an incident report, Cockerham was charged with aggravated assault for pointing a gun. However, the video – captured by a security camera at a payday lending business on the block – does not show Cockerham pointing a gun at police.

Instead, the grainy video shows an object that appears to be a gun materialize on the ground a couple of feet away from where witness Natasha Mclemore said the officer fired his shots. If Cockerham did point the gun, he would have had to have done it before entering the frame of the camera.

People Are Waking Up to the Darkness in American Policing, and the Police Don’t Like It One Bit

If you’ve been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming – and it’s all the fault of activists.

In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a “new nationwide crime wave” thanks to “intense agitation against American police departments” over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS’s Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn’t about reform but something far more sinister. “They’ve been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers,” he insisted. Even the nation’s top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of “a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year.” ...

While it’s too soon to tell whether there has been an uptick in violent crime in the post-Ferguson period, no evidence connects any possible increase to the
phenomenon of police violence being exposed to the nation. What is taking place and what the police and their supporters are largely reacting to is a modest
push for sensible law enforcement reforms from groups as diverse as Campaign Zero, Koch Industries, the Cato Institute, The Leadership Conference, and the ACLU (my employer). Unfortunately, as the rhetoric ratchets up, many police agencies and organizations are increasingly resistant to any reforms, forgetting whom they serve and ignoring constitutional limits on what they can do.

Indeed, a closer look at law enforcement arguments against commonsense reforms like independently investigating police violence, demilitarizing police forces, or ending “for-profit policing” reveals a striking disregard for concerns of just about any sort when it comes to brutality and abuse. What this “debate” has revealed, in fact, is a mainstream policing mindset ready to manufacture fear without evidence and promote the belief that American civil rights and liberties are actually an impediment to public safety. In the end, such law enforcement arguments subvert the very idea that the police are there to serve the community and should be under civilian control.

And that, when you come right down to it, is the logic of the police state.

Chris Hedges: The Creeping Villainy of American Politics

The threefold rise in hate crimes against Muslims since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks and the acceptance of hate speech as a legitimate form of political discourse signal the morbidity of our civil society. The body politic is coughing up blood. The daily amplification of this hate speech by a commercial media whose sole concern is ratings and advertising dollars rather than serving as a bulwark to protect society presages a descent into the protofascist nightmare of racism, indiscriminate violence against the marginalized, and a blind celebration of American chauvinism, militarism and bigotry.

The mounting attacks on Muslims, which will become a contagion when there is another catastrophic terrorist attack, are only the beginning. There is a long list to be targeted, including undocumented workers, African-Americans, homosexuals, liberals, feminists, intellectuals and artists. We are entering a new dark age, an age of idiocy and blood. These hatreds, encoded in American DNA but understood as politically toxic by the liberal wing of the capitalist class, have been embraced by an enraged and disenfranchised white underclass. Our failure to curb this hate speech will haunt us. Once a civil society tolerates the intolerant, as Karl Popper wrote, “the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

The anti-Muslim virus begins slowly. Step by step the hate talk moves from insults, stereotyping and untruths to incendiary calls for vigilantes to attack women wearing the hijab, men wearing kufis, mosques, Islamic centers and schools, and Muslim-owned businesses. It makes sense to many in the white underclass—especially because they have been sold out by the liberals who preach tolerance—that the violent purging of a demonized group from U.S. society can cure the society’s malaise and restore safety and American “greatness.” But soon all marginalized groups will be at risk. Such a process is what happened in the Weimar Republic. It is what happened in Yugoslavia. It is what happened in Israel.

Spain: Prime Minister Rajoy faces struggle to form government after historic elections

Spain's Ruling Conservatives Win Election — But Fall Short of Majority

The People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy won Spain's general election on Sunday, exit polls showed, although it will have to rely on other parties if it is to govern for another four-year term.

The PP is seen winning between 114 and 124 seats in the 350-strong parliament, 52 to 62 seats short of the 176 seats needed for an absolute majority. ...

The opposition Socialists are seen coming second with 79 to 85 seats while newcomer parties, anti-austerity Podemos and moderate, free-market Ciudadanos, would come third and fourth respectively.

Podemos would garner between 70 and 80 seats and Ciudadanos would win between 46 and 50 seats, the exit polls showed.

If confirmed, such results would give way to coalition-building talks that could go over many weeks as no easy pact appears in reach. The Spanish constitution does not set a specific deadline to form a government after the election.

Many potential outcomes are possible, including a center-right pact between the PP and Ciudadanos, a center-left alliance between the Socialists and Podemos, a minority administration, or fresh elections.

Bravo Podemos! A small step that may turn into a large faultline shattering the Eurozone's crisis-denial & austerian contempt for democracy.

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) December 21, 2015

Elite Lawyers Now Selling Caribbean Tax Havens as Havens From Terror, Too

At a swanky Washington, D.C., reception for the ultra-rich hosted by shameless Washington fixer Lanny Davis earlier this month, Timothy Harris, the prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, announced that his country would be suspending its economic citizenship program — at $250,000 a pop — for Syrians, ostensibly due to security concerns.

The subtext couldn’t have been more clear. Indeed, CS Global Partners, a British legal firm that specializes in securing economic citizenship for the super-wealthy in the Caribbean and elsewhere, sponsored the reception where Harris made his announcement and used his decision to rebrand these island nations as a “safe haven” from terrorism, as well as a tax haven.

“Dual nationality is, simply, the 21st century’s insurance policy,” Micha Emmett, a global managing director at CS Global, said in a statement.

Is the DNC Unfairly Targeting the Sanders Campaign?

Clinton Campaign Walks Back Her Claim That Trump Was Featured in ISIS Recruitment Videos

In Saturday night’s 3rd Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton sought to emphasize her line that Donald Trump has become “ISIS’s best recruiter” by suggesting that the extremist group was using Trump in their recruiting videos, a claim which has now been widely discredited by fact-checkers and ISIS experts, and which prompted Trump to call Clinton a liar on the Sunday-morning talk-show circuit.

However, it’s also worth noting that extremist expert Seamus Hughes told Reuters that ISIS's official propaganda channels haven’t mentioned Trump or his comments at all, and as the Associated Press notes, ISIS-linked attackers typically point to Western airstrike campaigns in Syria as their primary motivation.

Lindsey Graham drops out of race for Republican presidential nomination

US senator Lindsey Graham said on Monday he is dropping out of the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, leaving 13 candidates in the party’s still-crowded field.

The Empire Files: Ralph Nader & Abby Martin on the Corporate Elections

Senate Passed Bill Expediting Fossil Fuel Extraction on Native American Land Two Days Before Paris Agreement

Indigenous peoples' rights nearly did not make it into the global deal signed at the United Nations COP21 climate summit in Paris, serving as one of the more controversial sticking points in the road toward the signing of the Paris Agreement. Eventually, though, the Paris Agreement came to include five mentions of the importance of protecting indigenous rights with regards to climate change.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate has decided to grant indigenous people a different set of rights altogether: the right to have oil and coal extracted from their ancestral lands in a streamlined manner. The rights to do so would be granted in a bill that passed unanimously in the Senate two days before the Paris Agreement.

Sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the Indian Tribal Energy Development and Self-Determination Act Amendments of 2015's (S.209) passage in the Senate received no media coverage besides a press release disseminated by Barrasso's office and by the office of co-sponsor U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). ...

The Senate bill's passage came in the aftermath of a years-long lobbying effort by corporate interests, led in the forefront by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber published a letter praising the bill after it passed in the Senate and also deployed a team of lobbyists to advocate for the bill in all three quarters of 2015 and all four quarters of 2014 for the bill's predecessor, S.2132.

Tester has $15,001 to $50,000 worth of coal utility giant American Electric Power's stock holdings and both Tester and Barrasso have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry throughout their political careers.

Most polluted US nuclear weapons building site plans for influx of tourists

Thousands of people are expected next year to tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, home of the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor and the most polluted US nuclear weapons production site.

Hanford, near Richland, about 200 miles east of Seattle in south-central Washington state, is the newest national park.

Visitors will not, however, be allowed anywhere near the country’s largest collection of toxic radioactive waste. ...

At Hanford, the main attractions will be B Reactor and the ghost towns of Hanford and White Bluffs, which were evacuated by the government to make room for the Manhattan Project. ...

Nine reactors were built at Hanford and operated during the Cold War. That work created more than 56m gallons of radioactive waste that the government still spends more than $1bn a year to maintain and clean up.

Activist actor James Cromwell arrested in power plant protest

James Cromwell has been arrested after protesting against a power plant in New York State.

The Oscar-nominated star of Babe and L.A. Confidential locked himself together with two other protesters after claiming the Competitive Power Ventures facility in Orange County, a short distance to the north of New York City, will cause both dangerous toxins and lower property values in the area.

The 75-year-old was part of a 30-strong group who formed the demonstration. He was arrested with five other members and went peacefully after being charged with disorderly conduct.

Also of Interest

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

Congress Just Put Iranian-Americans and Others At Risk for Becoming Second-Class Citizens

“Hillary just terrified everyone”: Edward Snowden slams Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy in third debate

The Real Obstacle to Syrian Peace

Terrorism needs your help. Do you really want to lend a hand?

Making a Mess of Things

The War for the British Labour Party: Re-selecting Socialism

A Little Night Music

Banjo Ikey Robinson - Pizen Tea Blues

Ikey Robinson - A Minor Stomp

Ikey 'Banjo' Robinson - Get Off Stuff

Ikey Robinson + Hot Antic Jazz Band - Ikey´s Blues

Jabbo Smith + Ikey Robinson + Hot Antic Jazz Band - Yes Yes Yes

Ikey Robinson, Ted Bogan, Howard Armstrong - Darktown Strutters Ball

The Hokum Boys - Gin Mill Blues

The Pods of Pepper - You've Had Your Way

Hokum Trio - You've Had Your Way

Jabbo Smith and his Rhythm Aces - Take your Time

Jabbo Smith's Rhythm Aces - Boston Skuffle

Clarence Williams' Jug Band - Chizzlin' Sam

Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon w/Ikey Robinson - Let's Knock A Jug

Jabbo Smith & His Rhythm Aces - Sau-Sha Stomp

The Hokum Boys - I Had to Give Up Gym

Howard Armstrong, Ted Bogan, Ikey Robinson - Railroad Blues