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This evening's music features blues guitarist Robert Ward. Enjoy!

“To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace.”

-- Confucius

News and Opinion

World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1tn this year

The world’s 500 richest people have increased their wealth by $1tn (£745bn) so far this year due to a huge increase in the value of global stock markets, which are likely to finish 2017 at record highs.

The big increase in the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy comes as billions of poorer people across the world have seen their wealth standstill or decline. The gap between the very rich and everyone else has widened to the biggest it has been in a century and advisers to the super-rich are warning them of a “strike back” from the squeezed majority. ...

The world’s super-rich hold the greatest concentration of wealth since the US Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century, when families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled vast fortunes. There are now 1,542 dollar billionaires across the world, after 145 multimillionaires saw their wealth tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, according to the UBS / PwC Billionaires report. ...

The increase in wealth among the already very rich led to the creation of 2.3 million new dollar millionaires over the past year, taking the total to 36 million. “The number of millionaires, which fell in 2008, recovered fast after the financial crisis, and is now nearly three times the 2000 figure,” Credit Suisse said.

These millionaires – who account for 0.7% of the world’s adult population – control 46% of total global wealth that now stands at $280tn. At the other end of the spectrum, the world’s 3.5 billion poorest adults each have assets of less than $10,000 (£7,600). Collectively these people, who account for 70% of the world’s working age population, account for just 2.7% of global wealth.

2017 in Review: Allan Nairn on Trump’s “Rightist Revolution” & the Social Movements Pushing Back

Heh, Santa must've brought some really good shit if the Secret Service is interested in it.

Secret Service investigates wrapped box of horse manure sent to Steve Mnuchin

Authorities say a gift-wrapped box of horse manure addressed to US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was found near his home in Los Angeles. ...

The Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb squad was called to the home and officers opened the box, finding a pile of horse manure inside. Police said the package had been gift wrapped and was marked as being from “the American people”.

Police said the Secret Service was taking over the investigation.

Saudi Airstrike Hits Central Yemen Market, Killing Dozens

With over 70 civilians killed in the previous two days in Saudi airstrikes against Yemen, Saudi attacks continued apace Tuesday, hitting another marketplace full of civilians, this time in the central city of Taiz.

Locals confirmed that the attacks on the marketplace killed at least 25 civilians, including children, and wounded at least 30 others. Saudi officials as usual offered no details on why a market was attacked.

North Korea likely to pursue talks, South says in rosy New Year forecast

South Korea predicted on Tuesday that North Korea would look to open negotiations with the United States next year in an optimistic outlook for 2018, even as Seoul set up a specialized military team to confront nuclear threats from the North.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new, tougher sanctions on reclusive North Korea on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, a move the North branded an economic blockade and act of war.

“North Korea will seek negotiation with United States, while continuing to pursue its effort to be recognized as a de facto nuclear-possessing country,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a report, without offering any reasons for its conclusion.

The Ministry of Defence said it would assign four units to operate under a new official overseeing North Korea policy, aimed to “deter and respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat”.

U.S. sanctions North Korean missile experts, Russia offers to mediate

The United States announced sanctions on two of North Korea’s most prominent officials behind its ballistic missile program on Tuesday, while Russia reiterated an offer to mediate to ease tension between Washington and Pyongyang.

The new U.S. steps were the latest in a campaign aimed at forcing North Korea - which has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions - to abandon a weapons program aimed at developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. ...

On Tuesday, the Kremlin, which has long called for the United States and North Korea to negotiate, said it was ready to act as a mediator if the two sides were willing for it to play such a role. ...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who made a similar offer on Monday, told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call on Tuesday that “Washington’s aggressive rhetoric” and beefing up of its military presence in the region had heightened tension and was unacceptable, his ministry said. Lavrov underscored the need for “the fastest move to the negotiating process from the language of sanctions”, it said.

Now Russia says the U.S. is meddling in their election

After a year of listening to Americans debate Russian interference in the 2016 election, Russia is now accusing the U.S. of election-meddling, citing a State Department statement expressing “concern” over repression of journalists and opposition leaders in the run-up to the Russian presidential election in March.

“This statement by the State Department, which I’m sure won’t be the last of its kind, represents direct interference in our electoral process,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote in a post on Facebook on Wednesday. “And these people have been expressing outrage over alleged Russian ‘interference’ in their electoral process for an entire year?”

The State Department had joined the European Union in criticizing a decision by Russian electoral officials Monday to ban opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running in the March election. Russia’s Central Electoral Commission officially banned Navalny from running, in a decision that surprised no one. The commission ruled that a past corruption conviction, which Navalny claims was trumped up to silence him, meant he was disqualified.

Allan Nairn: United States Tries—But Fails—to Stop to Stop Hondurans from Protesting Election Fraud

U.S. Spent Weeks Pressuring Honduras Opposition to End Protests Against Election Fraud

On Friday, the U.S. congratulated Juan Orlando Hernández on what it said was his re-election as president of Honduras. The U.S. State Department’s congratulations to Hernández came a month into a standoff between the government and the opposition over the vote tally, and five days after the Honduran electoral commission, which is controlled by Hernández-installed allies, declared him the winner. ...

Despite the U.S. embassy’s calls earlier this month for a “transparent, impartial” and “credible” vote count, the U.S. has been working behind the scenes for weeks urging the Honduran opposition to shut down protests calling for a full recount or a new election.

Salvador Nasralla, the opposition candidate who held the lead when the public vote count was halted, told me on December 7 that U.S. officials “don’t want there to be any demonstrations” — “ellos no quieren que haya manifestaciones,” he said in Spanish.

Nasralla said that he had been meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State John Creamer as well as with Heide Fulton, the acting U.S. ambassador to Honduras who Nasralla said he had spoken to by phone hours before our interview in Tegucigalpa. Creamer is a former top aide to retired Gen. John Kelly, the influential White House chief of staff who has referred to Hernández as a “great guy” and a “good friend.” (Hernández has responded in kind, calling Kelly a “great friend” and “someone who opens many doors.”)

Spain's King Felipe calls on Catalan leaders to avoid confrontation in Christmas message

Spain's King Felipe VI used his traditional Christmas Eve address to call on Catalonia's newly elected parliament to renounce further moves towards secession, after pro-independence parties claimed a narrow victory in last week's regional election.

"The way forward cannot once again lead to confrontation or exclusion that, as we now know, only generates discord, uncertainty, anguish," the Spanish monarch said in a televised speech.

The king gave the address four days after regional parliamentary elections resulted in separatist parties being voted back into power.

How Suing The FCC Over Net Neutrality Works

Minnesota Moves to Sue FCC as Outrage Against Net Neutrality Repeal Soars

Joining the large coalition of states and advocacy groups preparing to take legal action against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its newly passed net neutrality repeal plan, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson announced in an email to supporters on Tuesday that she will take part in a multistate suit against the Republican-controlled agency in an effort to "overturn" its attack on the open internet.

"Net neutrality is essential for consumers and an informed electorate," Swanson wrote. "Without net neutrality, broadband companies are free to block content they don't want you to see, to slow it down and make it harder to access, or to prioritize content based on who pays them money. This will make it more difficult and more expensive for consumers to access the content they want."

Swanson went on to link corporate-backed efforts to roll back net neutrality protections to corporate mergers that are rapidly consolidating sources of news and information into the hands of a few large companies.

"This isn't just a consumer protection issue—it's a democracy protection issue too," Swanson wrote.

Eliminating net neutrality, Swanson observes, would tighten major corporations' stranglehold on information and allow them to "control what content to make prominent or to obscure, including by promoting sites they own or favor. This will influence the information to which voters and the public have access and will impact elections."

"Congress might try to pass a law next year to cement the FCC's repeal of net neutrality," Swanson's email concluded. "If you share my concerns, I hope you will consider contacting your members of Congress to let them know that you support an internet that is free, fair, open, and accessible by everyone."

How the Government Botched the Case Against Cliven Bundy

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Nevada declared a mistrial in the prosecution of Cliven Bundy, his sons Ryan and Ammon, and family supporter Ryan Payne, over charges related to their armed standoff with federal officials in 2014. The government had failed to disclose pertinent evidence to defense lawyers, including FBI reports that said the Bundy family wasn’t dangerous — the latest in a series of embarrassing blunders and egregious misconduct by federal agents and prosecutors. ... The Justice Department and defense lawyers have until December 29 to file briefs arguing whether the judge should allow a new trial against Bundy, his sons, and Payne. Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a review of the case. ...

Last week, The Oregonian reported on the existence of a memo written by a senior BLM official tasked with leading an assessment of the government’s handling of the Bundy standoff, which pointed to a yearslong pattern of incompetence and potentially illegal behavior on behalf of federal agents tasked with protecting public lands.

The sealed document, later posted online, was authored by Larry “Clint” Wooten and painted a picture of a lawless federal agency. During his two years and 10 months examining the Bundy case, which he described as “the largest and most expansive and important investigation ever within the Department of Interior,” Wooten said he observed “a widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical, and legal violations among senior and supervisory staff at the BLM’s Office of Law Enforcement and Security.” Wooten added that the actions of BLM officials in the Bundy case “made a mockery of our position of special trust and confidence, portrayed extreme professional bias, adversely affected our agency’s mission and likely the trial regarding Cliven Bundy and his alleged co-conspirators and ignored the letter and intent of the law.”

In addition to a fostering a “carnival atmosphere,” in which the Bundy defendants, their supporters, and Mormons in general were routinely ridiculed (the Bundys are Mormon), Wooten accused Dan Love, the lead BLM agent, of doing everything in his power to push the Bundy investigation in his preferred direction. “It is my assessment and the investigation showed that the 2014 Gold Butte Trespass Cattle Impound was in part a punitive and ego driven expedition by a Senior BLM Law Enforcement Supervisor,” he said, adding that Love sought to “command the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic trespass cattle impound possible.” Wooten specifically accused senior BLM officials in Nevada of failing to keep the U.S. attorney’s office up to date “on substantive and exculpatory case findings and unacceptable bias indications.” When he “personally informed” acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre and the FBI of the issues, Wooten said, his supervisor “deceptively acted ignorant and surprised.” ...

While so far unable to convict Cliven Bundy, U.S. prosecutors and investigators have at least proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the government really was out to get him.

Scott Walker’s big Foxconn factory deal is going to cost taxpayers a fortune

The new Foxconn factory in Wisconsin is expected to bring about 13,000 jobs to the state, but it might not be worth it after all the escalating costs the taxpayers will have to pick up.

Foxconn, the Chinese company best known for manufacturing Apple products, was originally slated to receive $3 billion in state subsidies for putting a flat-screen plant there, plus $764 million from the Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County, in exchange for a $10 billion investment. But the final legislation demands only a $9 billion investment, while the bill for local taxpayers keeps rising. New infrastructure is needed to accomodate the factory, and the windfall from the loosening of environmental regulations to allow the factory to run could cost Wisconsinites extra in secondary costs.

Puerto Rico Homeowners Brace for Another Disaster: Foreclosures

Lenders to Puerto Rican homeowners have kicked foreclosures into high gear in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, skirting local and federal borrower protections. According to attorneys and experts, lenders have ignored federal moratoria on foreclosures; placed notices of default in newspapers where they’re unlikely to be seen; sent files to homeowners in English rather than Spanish; and required residents to complete tasks that are borderline impossible without electrical power yet fully restored, among other abuses.

The foreclosure horrors add to Puerto Rico’s Dickensian experience of late. Close to 35 percent of the island remains without power after Hurricane Maria, with full restoration not expected until May. At least 100,000 people have left the island. Abandoned pets are everywhere. Government services have been slashed or hobbled. Even one major proposed solution, wiping out Puerto Rico’s debt, will take a personal cost: The bonds represent the life savings of many residents to whom the financial products were aggressively marketed without explanation of the downsides.

Ultimately, the expected wave of foreclosures could prove worse than what happened in the most hard-hit areas in the U.S. mainland during the Great Recession. According to the New York Times, roughly one-third of 425,000 Puerto Rican homeowners have fallen behind on mortgage payments, and with jobs scarce after the hurricane, that number will likely grow. In fact, the economy of the island could collapse, as the Republican tax bill imposes a 20 percent tax on offshore exports — a category that includes Puerto Rican manufacturing.

But if you think America learned lessons from the orgy of illegality that accompanied foreclosures in the United States after 2008, just look to Puerto Rico. Despite new rules to prevent foreclosure fraud, Puerto Rico appears to be Exhibit A in its continuation — and it’s only just beginning.

'She's Fighting': Civil Rights Activist Erica Garner in Critical Condition After Suffering Heart Attack

Erica Garner, the 27-year-old civil rights activist and daughter of Eric Garner, was hospitalized over the weekend and placed in a medically-induced coma after suffering a heart attack on Saturday night. According to Erica's mother, Esaw Snipes-Garner, the cardiac arrest was triggered by an asthma attack.

Since Christmas Eve, one of Erica's co-workers has been live-tweeting updates on her condition and thanking everyone for the outpouring of support that has grown exponentially since Erica's condition was made public.

"Right now, the family is just praying and asking for everyone to keep her in their prayers," Snipes-Garner said in an interview. "She's fighting." ...

Following the death of her father, Erica Garner became increasingly involved in civil rights activism in Staten Island, leading marches and rallies in an effort to call attention to systemic racism and injustice.

Garner stepped into the world of presidential politics in 2016, when she became a prominent supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primary.

In February of 2016, Garner and her young daughter Alyssa were featured in a three-minute Sanders campaign ad detailing how the death of her father compelled her to become more involved in the civil rights struggle.

"I'm never giving up," she said. "I'm never gonna forget, and I don't want the world to forget."

A long article, but well worth reading:

"This is not a symbolic action" - Indigenous Protesters Occupy Oil Platforms in the Amazon

The skiffs arrived a few hours after sundown on September 18, a dark and moonless night in the Peruvian Amazon. They landed at several points along the broad Corrientes River, which flows south over the country’s densely forested border with Ecuador. Hundreds of indigenous Achuar men, women, and children, many carrying ceremonial spears, organized into units by clan and village. They then followed their apus, or chiefs, toward seven targets: the area’s lone paved road, a power plant, and five facilities for the pumping and processing of petroleum. The sites were occupied, their night staff escorted peacefully outside. By morning, the Achuar of the Corrientes controlled the local infrastructure of Lot 192, the country’s largest and most notorious oil block.

Over the next two days, the occupations spread. On the neighboring Tigre and the Pastaza rivers, Kichwa and Quechua chiefs led takeovers of key roads, the only airstrip, and several oil batteries. “This is not a symbolic action — we have completely paralyzed the country’s most important oil field,” declared a spokesperson for several of the indigenous federations backing the protest. ...

“For 45 years, the companies and the state have damaged our waters, soils, and health with impunity,” said Carlos Sandi, an Achuar chief in his early 30s who helped lead the recent protest on the Corrientes. “We will not allow them to continue extracting resources from our territory without a guarantee of prior consultation on the environmental and social impacts.” As demands go, the federations’ insistence on prior consultation is a modest one. Under the Peruvian constitution and international legal conventions ratified by the government in Lima, they already possess the right to prior consultation. But the indigenous people on the five rivers have always fought for basic things, beginning with rights and water. As Lima signs deals on new oil blocks throughout the Peruvian Amazon — including an expected 30-year lease to expand Lot 192 — their fight for the right to live enters its endgame. ...

“The Western culture looks at the forest and sees money, resources to sell,” Aurelio Dahua, the Quechua chief, told me in Andoas.

“The government and company officials are very professional and have studied in the cities. They think they are going to teach us poor nativos how to live. But what kind of knowledge lets you destroy the lungs of the world? Why don’t they find another way to develop this country? Why not help us protect the forest? They know nothing. They are building their own graveyard.”

How did half of the great Florida coral reef system disappear?

The great Florida coral reef system stretches hundreds of miles down the eastern seaboard of the US. It is the world’s third largest, and nearly 1,400 species of plants and animals and 500 species of fish have been recorded there. But last year marine scientists found nearly half the reef was missing. They took the latest satellite images, compared them with precisely drawn 250-year-old British admiralty charts and found them nearly identical.

But where the historic charts showed there had been extensive coral reefs close to the shore in the 1760s, the satellite maps revealed just sea grasses and mud. Only those reefs far from the shore were still intact and alive with fish and plants. So when and why did so much of the world’s third largest reef system just disappear? Natural forces like spells of extreme rainfall and heatwaves may have played some part, but it is more likely that man was responsible. In those 250 years, fishing off the Florida Keys intensified, causeways and cities were built, pollution increased and the flow of freshwater, sediments and nutrients from the land all changed. Any of these factors could have led to the stress and decline of the reef, but it probably took a combination to kill off half the corals.

Something similar to what took place over 250 years off the Florida coast is now accelerating across reefs around the world as natural and new anthropogenic threats emerge and combine with deadly effect. Corals are intolerant both of temperature and salinity change and it just takes a rise of 1C for a few weeks or extreme rainfall for them to begin to die. In the past 20 years, extreme weather linked to El Niño events and climate change has hit the world’s shallow reefs hard.

Abnormally warm water caused the world’s first recorded widespread coral bleaching in 1998. Stretches of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia, and other reefs off Madagascar, Belize and the Maldives, were left white and seemingly dead. Most recovered because corals survive if conditions return to normal. But since then, widespread bleaching and other events have occurred nearly every year, leaving many of the world’s reefs stressed and vulnerable to disease. ...

A vast natural treasure is rapidly being lost. The world’s reefs may only cover 2% of the ocean floor but they are thought to be home to up to a quarter of the world’s 500,000 known species living in the oceans. Aside from providing food for many millions of people, reefs are now recognised as essential to the whole marine ecosystem. Fish spawn and grow around coral, which in turn helps to regulate carbon dioxide levels in the oceans and protects coastal areas from erosion.
Take out any one part of the reef system and the whole is threatened.

Also of Interest

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

The Guantanamo art that makes Washington nervous

The Election Fraud in Honduras Follows Decades of Corruption Funded By the U.S. War on Drugs

Israeli lawmaker insults Palestinians as “insects” and “dogs”

Virginia’s New Socialist Lawmaker: “A Clean Medicaid Expansion Is the Compromise”

How the fight to save a bird species shows how to bridge the red/blue divide

A Little Night Music

Robert Ward - Black Bottom

Robert Ward - Whatever I Receive

Robert Ward - My Love Is Strictly Reserved For You

Robert Ward - I Will Fear No Evil

Robert Ward & Ry Cooder - Your Love Is Real

Robert Ward - You Can't Stop My Lovin' Now

Robert Ward - I'm Gonna Cry A River

Robert Ward - Something For Nothing

Robert Ward - Lord Have Mercy On Me

Robert Ward - I Found A Love

Ohio Untouchables - I'm Tired