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"As I look around this room and up on the platform, I want to say thank you for letting me crash your family reunion. I’m afraid I’ve blown his cover. I actually like Dick Cheney."

-- Joe Biden

News and Opinion

U.S. First Shields its Torturers and War Criminals From Prosecution, Now Officially Honors Them

As Vice President, Dick Cheney was a prime architect of the worldwide torture regime implemented by the U.S. government (which extended far beyond waterboarding), as well as the invasion and destruction of Iraq which caused the deaths of at least 500,000 people and more likely over a million. As such, he is one of the planet’s most notorious war criminals.

President Obama made the decision in early 2009 to block the Justice Department from criminally investigating and prosecuting Cheney and his fellow torturers, as well as to protect them from foreign investigations and even civil liability sought by torture victims. Obama did that notwithstanding a campaign decree that even top Bush officials are subject to the rule of law and, more importantly, notwithstanding a treaty signed in 1984 by Ronald Reagan requiring that all signatory states criminally prosecute their own torturers. Obama’s immunizing Bush-era torturers converted torture from a global taboo and decades-old crime into a reasonable, debatable policy question, which is why so many GOP candidates are now openly suggesting its use.

But now, the Obama administration has moved from legally protecting Bush-era war criminals to honoring and gushing over them in public. Yesterday, the House of Representatives unveiled a marble bust of former Vice President Cheney, which — until a person of conscience vandalizes or destroys it — will reside in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol. ...

In other news, U.S. officials this week conceded that a man kept in a cage for 13 years at Guantanamo, the now-37-year-old Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri, was there due to “mistaken identity.” As Joe Biden said yesterday, “I actually like Dick Cheney.”

Bush, Biden joke and praise Cheney at his bust unveiling

At a ceremony that took on the air of a Republican family reunion complete with laughs, hugs and selfies, Dick Cheney was hailed Thursday as his bust was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol.

Former President George W. Bush repeatedly highlighted Cheney's accomplishments in his administration and said he was especially grateful that Cheney decided to be his vice president -- after initially heading the vice presidential search committee. ...

Vice President Joe Biden was also in attendance -- and drew laughs with his comments about Cheney.

"As I look around this room and up on the platform, I want to say thank you for letting me crash your family reunion," Biden said. "I'm afraid I've blown his cover. I actually like Dick Cheney."

The truth about corporate lies

The other day, after resetting my online banking password, I received a message in all caps: “CONGRATULATIONS!” I like to imagine the ripple of applause spreading from desk to desk as news of my triumph arrived at the bank’s headquarters. Meanwhile, Facebook has started sporadically thanking me “for being here”, as if I were Mark Zuckerberg’s most dependable friend. ...

There simply is no human being at Facebook who feels grateful, even fleetingly, when I log in. The radical economist Charles Eisenstein noticed something similar about a beer ad. “Every day, I drive past a billboard for Coors Light with the slogan ‘Coors Rocks Harrisburg’,” he wrote, in a brilliant essay entitled The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies. “Now, does anybody actually believe that Coors does in fact ‘rock Harrisburg’? No. Does the Coors corporation itself believe it? No. Does anyone believe that Coors believes it? No. It is a lie, everyone knows it is a lie, and no one cares.” ...

Eisenstein makes a convincing case that it matters. When daily life requires turning a blind eye to the falsity of countless things we’re told, it weakens the power of language to sort truth from fiction. “Increasingly, words don’t mean anything any more,” he writes. “Because we are lied to all the time, in ways so routine they are beneath conscious notice, even the most direct lies are losing their power to shock.” Unwittingly, we grow more tolerant of untruths and semi-truths, making it easier (among other things) for our political leaders’ dubious schemes to pass without serious challenge.

Obama is a world-class liar.

Obama: ‘No Boots on the Ground’ Just Meant No Battalions

Throughout a year and a half of war against ISIS, President Obama’s “no boots on the ground” pledge has been repeatedly revised by officials, initially insisting it meant no troops, then no combat troops, and now, according to President Obama, it simply meant no battlion-level deployments.

Obama now insists he never had any intention not to send combat troops to Iraq and Syria, and that the American people always understood he simply meant deployments would be small and limited to company-sized deployments or smaller. ...

With US deployments by and large limited to numbers in the dozens or low hundreds, the administration seems to be gambling it can avoid serious debate about its repeated escalations. At the same time, the promise of “no battalions” is all but meaningless, since the deployments are happening with such regularity that they are building up into the thousands in short order.

Troops? You call those troops? Why, there aren't enough of them to call them boots! Heck, it's not like they are going to disturb much sand as they move across the desert. I'm just sending a largely insignificant number of people that are going to squeeze the hell out of the tens of thousands of IS terrorists and win the war for the allies.

Obama says additional U.S. forces will help "squeeze" Islamic State

President Barack Obama said his decision to send more U.S. special forces to combat Islamic State in Iraq is not an indication that the United States is headed for another invasion like the one in 2003 that locked it in a long, violent conflict.

Obama has said his strategy to fight the militant group in Iraq and Syria does not include U.S. ground combat troops, but this week, the Pentagon announced it would send a new force of special operations troops.

"When I said no boots on the ground, I think the American people understood generally that we're not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert," he said in an interview with CBS that aired on Thursday.

"But what I've been very clear about is that we are going to systematically squeeze and ultimately destroy ISIL and that requires us having a military component to that," Obama added, using a common acronym for the militants. The interview was taped on Wednesday.

US still using ISIS for political means – Iraqi security official

Ooops, looks like somebody didn't check to see whether his imperial troops were welcome...

Iraq PM says would consider foreign troop deployment 'act of aggression'

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday no foreign ground troops had been requested from any country and that their deployment would be considered an "act of aggression".

"A Blemish on British Political History": Anti-War Activist Decries UK Vote to Bomb Syria

Germany Is The Latest Country to Approve Military Campaign Against Islamic State in Syria

Germany's parliament voted on Friday morning to join international military action against the Islamic State in Syria.

The country will not fight or carry out air strikes but will provide support to international allies in the form of six Tornado reconnaissance jets, tanker aircraft, and a frigate to help protect the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

Up to 1,200 troops will also de deployed as part of the German government plans, which were supported by a huge majority of 445 votes to 146 against.

Kerry: We Can Defeat ISIS in Months if Assad Goes

In new comments today at a European security conference, Secretary of State John Kerry again played up the idea that a political transition in Syria, which he reiterated would have to mean the immediate removal of President Bashar Assad, would be a game-changer for the ongoing war.

Incredibly, Kerry termed the removal of Assad not only a “boon for everyone,” but claimed that ISIS would be totally destroyed “in a matter of months” with this transition toward a rebel-dominated government. ...

This is also the closest anyone in the administration has come to a timetable for defeating ISIS, preposterous though it may be. The “matter of months” claim is likely considered harmless by the administration since there is no real chance of Assad voluntarily turning over the government to pro-US rebels.

Obama displays a touching concern for Russia's interests:

Obama: Putin Has to Oust Assad or Face ‘New Afghanistan’

In his latest conference in Paris, President Obama once again slammed Russia for not embracing US demands to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, saying it would lead Russia to be bogged down in a “new Afghanistan.

“I think Mr. Putin understands that, with Afghanistan fresh in the memory for him, to simply get bogged down in an inconclusive and paralyzing civil conflict is not the outcome that he’s looking for,” Obama insisted.

MSF accuses Saudi-led coalition of bombing clinic in Yemen

Médecins Sans Frontières has accused the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen of bombing one of its mobile clinics, wounding nine people including two staff members.

The international charity said it had provided the coalition with the GPS coordinates of the clinic in the besieged city of Taiz, the scene of intense fighting between forces backed by the coalition and troops loyal to the Houthis. ...

MSF said the coalition first bombed a park just 1.2 miles (2km) from the clinic on Wednesday. The charity informed the coalition that it was operating a facility nearby, but the clinic itself was bombed shortly afterwards.

It was the fourth such attack on an MSF facility in recent weeks. Earlier this week, the Syrian government bombed an MSF-supported hospital in Homs with a “double-tap” barrel bombing, and the coalition bombed another hospital in the Houthi-dominated province of Sa’ada in October. That attack came just weeks after an MSF hospital in Kunduz in Afghanistan was levelled by American airstrikes.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for an investigation into the Yemen bombing.

CIA runs shadow war with Afghan militia implicated in civilian killings

Months after the Obama administration declared combat operations over in Afghanistan, the CIA continues to run a shadow war in the eastern part of the country, overseeing an Afghan proxy called the Khost Protection Force, according to local officials, former commanders of that militia and Western advisers.

The highly secretive paramilitary unit has been implicated in civilian killings, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force in controversial night raids, abuses that have mostly not been previously disclosed. ...

Reports surfaced last year that the CIA was dismantling its Afghan paramilitary units, especially the 4,000-strong KPF, amid the broader drawdown of U.S. forces. But a visit to Khost last month revealed that although there is coordination with the security directorate — the NDS — the CIA is still directing the KPF’s operations, paying fighters’ salaries, and training and equipping them. American personnel were gathering biometric data of alleged suspects, according to witnesses, former KPF commanders and local officials who regularly meet with the force and their American overseers.

One commander, who left the force last month, said that CIA operatives regularly hold planning sessions and that in October he received his salary directly from them. “The orders came from the Americans,” he said. They were “the real bosses.”

“Only in name is the KPF linked to the NDS,” said Mohammad Qadin Afghan, a provincial council member and former KPF fighter who maintains close ties to the force. “They still work for the CIA.”

Civilian Deaths Raise Questions About C.I.A.-Trained Forces in Afghanistan

A series of home raids by C.I.A.-trained Afghan counterterrorism forces in the last month resulted in the deaths of at least six innocent civilians, according to Afghan government officials, reviving an issue that has been a chronic source of tension between Afghanistan and the United States.

The deaths happened over the course of three raids in the restive eastern province of Khost, the officials said, including a Nov. 20 episode in which a husband and wife were killed with two American advisers present. The raids were conducted by the Khost Protection Force, one of the regional units known as counterterrorism pursuit teams, set up by the C.I.A. to fight the Taliban, the Haqqani network and Al Qaeda.

The C.I.A. has trained thousands of Afghan forces for such missions — around 3,500 in the Khost Protection Force alone. But from the start, some senior Afghan officials have considered them a problem, accused of human rights abuses and seen as largely unaccountable.

The C.I.A. began dismantling or shrinking the teams as the agency began a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan in recent years. And control of the pursuit teams was officially shifted to the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, from the C.I.A. two years ago, at the request of Afghan officials.

But some now say the remaining Afghan counterterrorism forces are still largely unaccountable to the government.

State of Emergency in France: 2,200 Police Raids, 3 Closed Mosques, Hundreds of Muslims Detained

Venezuelan voters set to call time on Chávez's 'Bolivarian revolution'

Venezuela’s self-styled socialist experiment faces its toughest test yet this weekend in a parliamentary election held amid crippling inflation and spiralling crime that appear to have turned the tide against the late Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution”.

Polls show the opposition stand to win a majority of seats in the country’s unicameral National Assembly but President Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s handpicked successor, has said that he would “not hand over the revolution” if the ruling party loses at the polls.

Opposition candidates are leading by 25-30% in most races, despite what critics say has been a campaign skewed by government intervention on behalf of ruling party candidates, a lack of access to media and incidents of violence. ...

Venezuela’s fortunes have fallen fast and hard. According to a study by researchers at Venezuela’s top three universities released last month, a full 75% of Venezuelan homes now live in poverty, compared to 27% two years ago.

That has fueled frustration with Maduro and the revolution he vowed to continue. And while the country is deeply polarized politically, standing in long queues to find scarce subsidised goods such as nappies, cooking oil and many medicines is a daily routine of survival that crosses party lines.

US Senate approves bill to cripple Obamacare and Planned Parenthood

The US Senate has approved legislation aimed at crippling two of their favorite targets: Barack Obama’s health care law and Planned Parenthood.

With a House rubber stamp expected in days, the bill approved on Thursday would be the first to reach the president’s desk demolishing his 2010 health care overhaul, one of his proudest domestic achievements, and halting federal payments to the national women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood.

Congress has voted dozens of times to repeal or weaken the health law and has also repeatedly voted against Planned Parenthood’s funding, but until now Democrats thwarted Republicans from shipping the legislation to the White House.

Although Obama will veto the legislation, its passing means republicans will be able to repeal the statute if they triumph in next year’s presidential and congressional elections. They lack the two-thirds House and Senate majorities needed to override vetoes, assuring that the bill’s chief purpose will be for campaign talking points.

“Tax Extenders” Bill Swells Massively Under Lobbyist Onslaught

A blockbuster tax cut deal, with a 10-year cost of $889 billion and counting, is deep into negotiations on Capitol Hill, proving that Congress doesn’t care about the deficit as long as the right groups get the giveaways.

Virtually every year, Congress packages a series of over 50 tax breaks — a mix of gifts to businesses, commuters, homeowners, Puerto Rican rum manufacturers, thoroughbred horse owners, etc. — and extends them for a short period.

For lobbyists, what is known in Washington as the “tax extenders” bill is like Christmas and a birthday wrapped into one. ... A House rule has made the bill even more enticing than ever. That’s because new federal spending must be “offset” by corresponding cuts or revenue raisers — but new tax cuts don’t. ...

The details are fluid and still under negotiation, and the whole thing could still fall apart. But the final bill could cost as much as $889 billion over 10 years, with over 70 percent of that going to business tax breaks.

Even by Washington standards, that’s real money. For context, the highly controversial 2009 stimulus package, meant to dig America out of the deepest recession in nearly a century, cost $787 billion.

The bill would extend most of the traditional 50-odd tax breaks for a year, at a 10-year cost of around $45 billion. But it would also make six corporate tax breaks permanent, costing a whopping $667 billion.

[Click the link for much more detail. - js]

Donald Trump Tells Pro-Israel Crowd He Can’t Be Bought, Gets Booed

Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition on Thursday, Donald Trump once again demonstrated how he is not your typical presidential candidate.

“You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” Trump told members of the Sheldon Adelson-funded hardline pro-Israel lobbying organization.

He went on to mock rival Jeb Bush for taking money from interest groups and then toeing their line. “That’s why you don’t want to give me money, OK, but that’s OK, you want to control your own politician. That’s fine, good,” he concluded.

And then, unlike the candidates who do want the coalition’s money, Trump broke with GOP orthodoxy, questioning Israel’s commitment to peace, calling for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusing to call for Jerusalem to be Israel’s undivided capital — provoking a wave of boos from the audience. ...

Refusing to call for an undivided Jerusalem is almost unheard of— even among Democrats.

Then-senator Barack Obama made that call during his 2008 campaign, and then-senator Hillary Clinton did it in 2007.

This year, Trump’s rivals Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both want the U.S. Embassy to be moved to Jerusalem to cement its status as undivided.

'Fukushima Fingerprint': Highest-Yet Radiation Levels Found Off US Coast

Radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has been detected at an increased number of sites off U.S. shores, including the highest level in the area detected to date, scientists announced Thursday.

While the levels are still too low to be considered a threat to human or marine life by the government's standards, tests of hundreds of samples of Pacific Ocean water reveal that the Fukushima Daiichi plant has continued to leak radioactive isotopes more than four years after the meltdown—and must not be dismissed, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler. ...

One sample collected roughly 1,600 miles west of San Francisco revealed the highest radiation level detected to date off the West Coast, the researchers said in a post on the project's website. "[In] one cubic meter of seawater (about 264 gallons), 11 radioactive decay events per second can be attributed to cesium atoms of both isotopes. That is 50 percent higher than we've seen before."

Climate Change and Inequality Are Driving War and Catastrophic Conflicts from Syria to Africa

How the Toxic Trade Deal You've Never Heard Of Could Kill the Climate

TiSA seeks to place 'corporate handcuffs' on government attempts to steer away from fossil fuels

As world leaders attempt to hammer out a global climate deal in Paris this week, trade officials are meeting in Geneva to continue negotiations on the mammoth Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)—and according to secret documents published Thursday, "the objectives of each could not be more diametrically opposed."

The latest publication by WikiLeaks exposes new threats from TISA, the least well-known of the so-called Big Three "strategic neoliberal trade deals being advanced by the Obama administration." ...

In his analysis of the Annex on Environmental Services, Friends of the Earth trade analyst Bill Waren warns that "[i]n the alleged interest of making trade easier, environmental regulations are at risk of being 'harmonized down' to the lowest common denominator, and public services of an environmentally-sensitive nature are in danger of being privatized."

Meanwhile, the Energy Related Services Annex Proposal: Questions and Answers document indicates TISA would "recklessly undermine urgent work worldwide to reduce dangerous carbon emissions, create clean energy jobs, and increase energy security for economies everywhere," according to Victor Menotti of the International Forum on Globalization.

Denouncing TISA as the "Free Fracking Agreement," Menotti says that under the deal, "popular policies like requiring public input for big projects, approving building in sensitive areas, or hiring local labor, are all stealthily made vulnerable to being attacked." ...

"Regardless of the outcomes of the Paris climate talks, if TISA was passed it would massively reduce the ability of national governments to make the sort of rational choices about energy production that would move us further towards a low carbon economy," Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said on Thursday.

In 'Starting Place' for Justice, Coal Baron Found Guilty Over Notorious Mine Blast

Don Blankenship's "legacy of poisoning Appalachia will persist long after his name has been forgotten."

Coal baron Donald L. Blankenship, who became the face of corporate turpitude when 29 of his company's workers were killed in a 2010 mine blast, was convicted of a federal charge Thursday in a verdict that Appalachian activists said was no more than a "starting place" for justice.

Blankenship, 65, was found guilty of conspiracy to violate mine safety laws and faces up to one year in prison. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin called the verdict "a landmark day for the safety of coal workers."

The former Massey Energy CEO, once described as the "poster boy for malevolent big business," was also cleared of two lesser charges of lying to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials about the company's safety procedures.

The verdict received a quieter reaction from those on the ground in the Appalachian region where the coal industry has left a trail of exploitation and waste. As award-winning environmentalist Maria Gunnoe said, "Either way there is no justice for the men that lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch Explosion, nor will there be justice for the families that lost so much more than just coal miners. The time has come that there is no other choice but to convict these obvious criminals."

Bob Kincaid, president of the Coal River Mountain Watch, added, "Don Blankenship's conviction doesn't feel like victory but in the grand scope of more than a century of the coal industry's abuse of the people of Appalachia, it may mark a stating place....My heart aches for all those who suffered and died under Blankenship's avaricious lash. The jury showed him more mercy than he has ever shown anyone in his entire existence on this planet."

Also of Interest

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

Killer Drone News Blackout Continues As Mainstream Media Ignore Air Force Whistleblowers

This is a Dumb War

Black Lives Matter Activists Blocked From Entering Trump Campaign Rally

The Clinton Files: Those White House Coffee Klatsches

Prayer Comes Under Fire in Wake of San Bernardino Shootings

Report: ISIS in Libya training to fly planes

France likely to close more than 100 mosques

Raúl M Grijalva: Climate change will continue to hurt America if we do nothing

A Little Night Music

Johnnie Johnson Band - Tossin' and Turnin'

Johnnie Johnson - Johnnie's boogie

Johnnie Johnson - Real Good Woman

Johnnie Johnson - Key To The Highway

Johnnie Johnson - Tanqueray at the 1993 DC Blues Festival

Johnnie Johnson - I'm Goin' Fishin'

Johnnie Johnson - Movin' Out

Johnnie Johnson - Please Send Me Someone To Love

Johnnie Johnson - Stepped In What?

Johnnie Johnson & John Lee Hooker - I Want To Hug You

Johnnie Johnson - Honky Tonk Train Blues

Johnnie Johnson w/Ry Cooder - Honky Tonk

Johnnie Johnson, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards - Mean Old World

Johnnie Johnson - Ry Cooder - Slow Blues

Johnnie Johnson, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards - jam

Johnnie Johnson - Bio

Johnny Copeland & Johnnie Johnson - Medley

Ry Cooder w/Johnnie Johnson - Riot In Cell Block 9