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"Like those occasional corrections buried in the New York Times, the media’s new obsession with “fake news” is a way to make their own reporting seem more legitimate."

-- Jeffrey St. Clair

News and Opinion

A Clinton Fan Manufactured Fake News That MSNBC Personalities Spread to Discredit WikiLeaks Docs

Back in October, when WikiLeaks was releasing emails from the John Podesta archive, Clinton campaign officials and their media spokespeople adopted a strategy of outright lying to the public, claiming – with no basis whatsoever – that the emails were doctored or fabricated and thus should be ignored. That lie – and that is what it was: a claim made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for its truth – was most aggressively amplified by MSNBC personalities such as Joy Ann Reid and Malcolm Nance, The Atlantic’s David Frum, and Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald.

That the emails in the Wikileaks archive were doctored or faked – and thus should be disregarded – was classic Fake News, spread not by Macedonian teenagers or Kremlin operatives but by established news outlets such as MSNBC, the Atlantic and Newsweek. And, by design, this Fake News spread like wildfire all over the internet, hungrily clicked and shared by tens of thousands of people eager to believe it was true. As a result of this deliberate disinformation campaign, anyone reporting on the contents of the emails was instantly met with claims that the documents in the archive had been proven fake.

The most damaging such claim came from MSNBC’s intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance. As I documented on October 11, he tweeted what he – for some bizarre reason – labeled an “Official Warning.” It decreed: “#PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done.” That tweet was re-tweeted by more than 4,000 people. It was vested with added credibility by Clinton-supporting journalists like Reid and Frum (“expert to take seriously”). ...

When Nance – MSNBC’s “intelligence analyst” – issued his “Official Warning,” he linked to a tweet that warned: “Please be skeptical of alleged #PodestaEmails. Trumpists are dirtying docs.” That tweet, in turn, linked to a tweet from an anonymous account calling itself “The Omnivore,” which had posted an obviously fake transcript purporting to be a Hillary Clinton speech to Goldman Sachs. Even though that fake document was never published by WikiLeaks, that was the entire basis for the MSNBC-inspired claim that some of the WikiLeaks documents were doctored.

But the person who created that forged Goldman Sachs transcript was not a “Trumpist” at all; he was a devoted supporter of Hillary Clinton. In the Daily Beast, the person behind the anonymous “The Omnivore” account unmasks himself as “Marco Chacon,” a self-professed creator of “viral fake news” whose targets were Sanders and Trump supporters (he specialized in blatantly fake anti-Clinton frauds with the goal of tricking her opponents into citing them, so that they would be discredited). When he wasn’t posting fabricated news accounts designed to make Clintons’ opponents look bad, his account looked like any other standard pro-Clinton account: numerous negative items about Sanders and then Trump, with links to many Clinton-defending articles. ...

Even though it was clear from the start to any rational and honest person that there was zero evidence that any of the WikiLeaks documents were doctored, and even though (as Chacon himself says) nobody minimally informed (let alone supposed “intelligence experts”) should have been fooled by his blatant Fake News, none of the journalists who lied to the public about these WikiLeaks documents have even once acknowledged what they did. ... MSNBC has repeatedly proven that it tolerates Fake News and outright lies from its personalities as long as those lies are in service of the right candidate (when Democrats were smearing Jill Stein as a Kremlin stooge, Reid’s program aired Nance’s lie to MSNBC viewers that Stein had previously hosted her own show on RT: an utter fabrication that MSNBC, to this day, has never corrected or even acknowledged despite multiple requests from FAIR).

Hillary Clinton warns fake news can have 'real world consequences'

Hillary Clinton issued a call to action against the “epidemic” of fake news in a rare public appearance since her unexpected loss to Donald Trump.

The Democratic presidential nominee warned that the proliferation of false news stories online can have “real world consequences”, alluding to an incident over the weekend in which a man opened fire at Comet Ping Pong after reading a false news story that purported the DC pizzeria was harboring children as part of a sex ring led by Clinton. No one was injured.

“This is not about politics or partisanship,” Clinton said, during a tribute to departing Senate minority leader Harry Reid. “Lives are at risk. Lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days to do their jobs, contribute to their communities.”

“It is a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly.”

Washington Post admits article on ‘Russian propaganda’ & ‘fake news’ based on sham research

US Military: We Deliberately Bombed a Hospital

The U.S. military said Thursday that it intentionally bombed a hospital in Mosul, Iraq as part of its efforts to "eradicate" Islamic State (ISIS) fighters.

The attack on the Al Salam hospital complex took place Wednesday at the request of Iraqi forces, with coalition aircraft using "precision-guided munitions," Air Force Col. John Dorrian, spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, told reporters.

He said "it's very difficult to ascertain with full and total fidelity" that there were no civilian casualties, whether in the building targeted or elsewhere within the hospital complex.

ISIS fighters, Dorrian said, "were using the facility to fire heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the Iraqi security forces in the area." The strike on the "normally protected facility" allowed the Iraqi forces "to fall back to a more defensible position," he said.

US Hawks Lay Out Plan for Getting Into a War With Iran

United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), an organization packed to the gills with a bipartisan who’s who of hawkish figures, held an event on the “Future of Iran Policy” in Washington DC. Unsurprising, given the list of attendees, the future they envision is war, and lots of it.

The event headlined by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R – FL) and former Sen. Joe Lieberman saw calls to “restore coercion” against Iran, with several figures advocating that the US accept the limits of sanctions alone by sinking Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf.

This call, pushed by Lieberman and Foundation for Defense of Democracies head Mark Dubowitz, who sought to parlay those intermittent events in which the US warships parked off Iran’s coast complain Iran’s boats, inside Iran’s territorial waters, are “too close” by simply attacking and sinking those boats at every opportunity. ...

The group has been described as primarily funded by Sheldon Adelson and Thomas Kaplan, and has also received legal support from the Obama Administration, as in 2014 when the Justice Department ordered a judge to cancel a defamation suit by a Greek shipper against UANI on “state secrets” grounds. This was the first time in history that a case not directly involving the US government or a defense contractor was ended because of the state secrets privilege.

No Evidence, But Pentagon Tries to Convince Turkey Iran Killed Their Troops

A late November attack on Turkish soldiers in northern Syria, which killed four troops, was initially and falsely blamed on a Syrian airstrike by Turkish officials. Turkey met with Russia over the matter, who confirmed that this wasn’t the case, and indeed that the indication was that the attack wasn’t an airstrike at all, but an ISIS suicide bombing.

ISIS was quick to take credit for the bombing the day it happened, so it wasn’t clear why Turkey needed a solid week to concede that their initial claim of an airstrike was wrong. The Pentagon, however, is trying to sell Turkey on the idea that everyone is wrong and Iran attacked them for no apparent reason.

Unnamed Pentagon officials quoted in the Turkish press offered no evidence of Iranian involvement, but noted that the site of the attack, which again apparently was an ISIS suicide attack, was sort of close to some places where Shi’ite militias are located, and since Iran is a Shi’ite state “it might be Iran.”

Israeli Army Admits Tweeted Hezbollah Map Actually Fake

Having passed it around to foreign diplomats as a real thing, and tweeted it on Tuesday with the claim it proved Hezbollah’s “war crimes,” the Israeli military today was forced to admit that a map of “Hezbollah positions” around southern Lebanon was actually totally fabricated by the military itself, and not based on any intelligence.

The tweeted image claimed to have been “declassified,” and was hyped as proving Israel’s massive intelligence-gathering capabilities in southern Lebanon, in anticipation of Israel’s next invasion. Officials also say it was presented to foreign diplomats as proof Hezbollah poses a threat to Israeli territory. ...

Officials dismissed complaints about them making things up, insisting that the map was illustrative of the sort of thing Hezbollah might well being doing.

Syria: thousands of Aleppo residents leave war zone after Syrian army suspends its advance

Aleppo bombarded despite Russian statement on halt to operations

Aleppo’s besieged east came under sustained attack overnight despite a Russian statement saying combat operations would be halted, raising questions about the Kremlin’s commitment to a ceasefire deal and its leverage over its Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad.

Residents of east Aleppo said a number of neighbourhoods had been subjected to relentless bombardment overnight and on Friday morning, including rocket attacks, helicopter bombings and gunfire. ...

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had said on Thursday evening that the Syrian military would halt all activity in Aleppo to allow civilians to leave the besieged districts that are still under rebel control. ...

Assad’s forces are within sight of a key victory in the war, now in its sixth year, having seized more than two-thirds of east Aleppo, including the historic Old City. Their defiance of the Russian pledge for a brief ceasefire highlights their confidence that reclaiming the city is within reach, and the limits of Moscow’s influence over the actions of its allies on the ground.

“Aleppo will completely change the course of the battle in all of Syria,” Assad said in an interview with the Syrian newspaper al-Watan.

Rebel fighters in the city have pledged to continue fighting the regime’s advance, committing to a last stand in the face of overwhelming odds and despite reports that some factions want to leave to spare the civilians in the city. “Absolutely none of the revolutionary factions will leave Aleppo,” said Bassam Mustafa, a member of Noureddine al-Zinki’s political office.

Fuel to the fire: Obama grants waiver for arms supply to US-backed fighters in Syria

Bipartisan Bill Would Forbid US Funding ISIS, al-Qaeda Affiliates

The Stop Arming Terrorists Act (SATA) has been introduced today in the House of Representatives by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D – HI). The bill is a bipartisan effort, co-sponsored by Reps. Peter Welch (D – VT), Barbara Lee (D – CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA), and Thomas Massie (R – KY) which would forbid the US government from using taxpayer dollars to arm, fund, or train terrorist organizations.

Rep. Gabbard noted that it has been against the law for years for individual Americans to fund terrorist organizations, but that the US has been routinely doing so for years in Syria, providing arms to many terrorist-linked groups within Syria’s rebellion.

The bill appears aimed primarily at ending the CIA program smuggling arms to Syrian rebels, something President-elect Donald Trump has also expressed support for. The bill singles out ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (the “rebranded” version of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front) and forbids support to them, their allies, or foreign nations who are themselves providing support for the groups.

Putting the refugee crisis back on the agenda

Oh looky, Hillary, Samantha Power and Susan Rice are a spent political force, but their legacy lives on in the misery of millions.

Italy has become the front lines of Europe’s refugee crisis

The ongoing migrant and refugee crisis in the Mediterranean set two records this year: More than 174,000 people made the dangerous journey by boat to Italy, and 4,700 more died along the way.

Both records stand in stark contrast to overall migrant and refugee arrivals into Europe overall, which have dropped off dramatically year over year. But as of early December, the number of migrants landing on Italian shores was 13 percent higher than the previous year, with the overwhelming majority landing on Sicily and the smaller island of Lampedusa. More startling is that there have been about 1,000 more migrant and refugee deaths on the Mediterranean this year than there were in 2015, the year the previous record was set.

The flow of migrants and refugees may have slowed in 2016, but it’s far from over, and Italy, by way of the Mediterranean, has become the central entry point into Europe. The majority of people arriving there come via Libya, but are originally from sub-Saharan African countries. According to the latest UNHCR estimates this year, 36,000 came from Nigeria, 20,000 from Eritrea, and 12,000 from Sudan.  ...

But the biggest factor driving people to Italy is the situation in Libya, said Ewa Moncure, a spokesperson for Frontex, the European coast guard and border agency.

“Libya is a fallen state,” Moncure said. “There’s no effective law enforcement in the country and different groups control different parts of the coast and act as they wish.

US Navy Refuses Pentagon Orders to Budget for Spending Cuts

Ordered by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to prepare a budget that incorporates $17 billion in cuts over the next five years, the Navy is outright refusing to do so, with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus declaring the cuts to be “intolerable.”

At the center of the issue is that the Pentagon wants the cuts to center on major new shipbuilding programs, while the Navy is determined to see the number of ships they are fielding at any given time grow. This eagerness for more ships has led the Navy toward programs like the Littoral Combat Ship, a small coastal ship that officials have argued is mostly useless, but does count as a ship in between its many breakdowns.

Wikipedia’s NSA lawsuit heads to federal appeals court

The publishers of Wikipedia and several civil rights groups will head to a federal appeals court Thursday to challenge a National Security Agency surveillance program that mines Americans’ internet communications.

A key hurdle for the groups will be to provide convincing evidence that their emails and other communications are among those collected in bulk by the NSA.

A lower court previously dismissed the lawsuit, which challenges the NSA surveillance program Upstream, on grounds that the groups were unable to prove their communications were among those intercepted and instead were relying on speculation about how the spying system is used. ...

In briefs submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, ACLU attorneys argue that, because of the sheer volume of internet communications Wikimedia receives and transmits every year and the broad scope of the NSA program, it’s plausible to believe at least some of its communications have been intercepted, copied and reviewed by the government.

“Wikimedia’s communications traverse every major internet circuit entering or leaving the United States and Upstream surveillance requires that the NSA copy and review all international text-based communications transiting the circuits it is monitoring, including Wikimedia’s communications,” ACLU attorneys wrote.

State of Georgia accuses Homeland Security of attempted hack

Georgia's Secretary of State is accusing someone at the Department of Homeland Security of illegally trying to hack its computer network, including the voter registration database.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, copied to the full Georgia congressional delegation, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp alleges that a computer with a DHS internet address attempted to breach its systems.

Kemp writes: "On November 15, 2016, an IP address associated with the Department of Homeland Security made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Georgia Secretary of State's firewall. I am writing you to ask whether DHS was aware of this attempt and, if so, why DHS was attempting to breach our firewall." ...

“At no time has my office agreed to or permitted DHS to conduct penetration testing or security scans of our network," writes Kemp. "Moreover, your department has not contacted my office since this unsuccessful incident to alert us of any security event that would require testing or scanning of our network.”

The South Korean president has been suspended amid a corruption scandal

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been stripped of her powers after parliament voted overwhelmingly to impeach her on Friday — though it could take as long as six months for a court to validate the vote.

The suspension of Park comes after six weeks of protests which reached a tipping point last weekend when organizers claim as many as 1.5 million people lined the streets of the capital Seoul to call for an end to the corruption and cronyism that continues to dog South Korea’s political system.

The motion to impeach Park — which accused her of “extensive and serious violations of the Constitution and the law” — passed the National Assembly on Friday by 234 to 56 according to speaker Chung Sye-kyun, meaning that over 60 of Park’s own Saenuri party members voted to impeach her.

If Trump Nominates John Allison as Bank Supervisor at the Fed, It Will Be a Triumph for Charles Koch and the Loony Ideas of Ayn Rand and Greenspan

On December 4 the Wall Street Journal reported that President-elect Donald Trump was considering the following three individuals for Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve for Bank Supervision: John Allison, the long serving head of BB&T bank and a Board Member of the right-wing Cato Institute which was half owned by the Koch brothers for decades; Paul Atkins, a consultant, former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a Visiting Scholar at the right-wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, which has heavy ties and financial backing from the Koch brothers. Also under consideration, and as far removed as one could possibly get from the other two, Thomas Hoenig, Vice Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Thomas Hoenig would deliver America from the stranglehold of the Ayn Rand lunatic fringe and the libertarian propaganda swamp that the Federal Reserve’s been thrashing about in since Ayn Rand’s devoted disciple, Alan Greenspan, chaired the Fed for a staggering 18 years, through four Presidents, from 1987 to 2006. Atkins would dig the Ayn Rand swamp deeper while Allison would try to elevate it to become the formal creed of every college and university in America – something he and the Koch brothers are well on their way to doing already.

Charles Koch and his related foundations have famously funneled tens of millions of dollars into the economic programs at public universities, frequently mandating the approval of faculty hires and curriculum to push free markets and deregulation. In partnership with that effort, the bank that Allison formerly headed from 1989 to 2008, BB&T, was providing lavish gifts to the schools while mandating that Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, be taught and distributed to students. ...

Rand’s philosophy is that the selfish desires of the individual should have no restraints by government; the poor deserve their lot and should receive no tax support from other citizens while the rich have a right to unrestricted power. Thanks to the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Koch brothers have pumped into political campaigns, think tanks, economic courses on campus, combined with BB&T flooding the books of Ayn Rand to campuses across America, the nation is living this Randian/Greenspandian nightmare today. Currently, we are looking at a billionaire President surrounded by a cabinet and advisors of billionaires with three former military generals serving as the Praetorian Guard. Adding to the Orwellian irony, corporate-owned media continues to call Trump the “populist” President.

One of Trump's more awful picks has been disappeared.

Trump Transition Team Announces a Hire, Then Denies It Ever Happened

The Intercept reported earlier this week that Veronica Birkenstock, who runs a recruitment firm that secures visas for cheap temporary foreign workers, had been appointed to President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Labor transition team.

We knew this because Birkenstock’s name appeared on a list of individuals in an announcement on the Trump transition’s website on Tuesday.

But by Thursday, her name had disappeared from the team’s website.

Asked what had happened to Birkenstock, a spokesperson for the transition team responded: “This individual was never part of the team and has no role.”

Donald Trump Is Just Another Handmaiden to Capital

Look beyond the shiny objects, the bread and circus that enthuse base supporters and infuriate opponents. The truth is that Donald Trump, if you cut through this clutter, will tell you exactly who he is. And he’s a bog-standard corporate Republican.

Listen to the other bog-standard corporate Republican who introduced him last week at a Carrier plant in Indiana, Vice President–elect Mike Pence. “He picked up the phone,” Pence said, referring to negotiations with Carrier’s parent company that ultimately led to it maintaining less than half its presence in the state, temporarily. “He talked about our plans, our plans to make America more competitive, to reduce taxes, to roll back regulations, to put American jobs and American workers first again.”

Notice that you did not hear about tariffs, or threats to cancel federal contracts. Donald Trump has said no company will outsource jobs from the United States without consequences. But here are the consequences, from Trump’s mouth later at that Carrier event: “We’re lowering our business tax from 35 percent, hopefully down to 15 percent…. The other thing we’re doing is regulations.”

Look out corporations, Donald Trump won’t rest until you pay less on your earnings and get a free pass to pollute and endanger your workers! ...

Incidentally, Trump’s two-issue agenda matches Paul Ryan’s, who has consistently put cutting regulations and taxes atop his legislative priorities.

Faux-Populist Trump Wages All-Out War on American Workers

President-elect Donald Trump, a supposedly populist candidate who rose to power on promises made to frustrated American workers, has now seemingly launched what Politico is describing as an outright "war on unions."

Labor leaders and advocates across the nation are rallying in support of United Steelworkers Local 1999 president Chuck Jones, after Trump publicly attacked the Indiana union leader for calling him out for lying about the number of Carrier jobs the incoming president claimed to have saved from being outsourced to Mexico.

"An attack on [Jones] is an attack on all working people," Richard Trumka, president of the nation's largest union federation AFL-CIO, declared Thursday.

The hashtag #ImWithChuck has drawn a groundswell of support for Jones, including from national labor groups and prominent progressive politicians Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who called Jones personally on Thursday to "commend him for holding the president-elect accountable."

Trump's Labor Pick, Fast-Food CEO Andrew Puzder, Opposes Minimum Wage Increase & Paid Sick Leave

Andrew Puzder criticized as 'cruel and baffling' choice for labor secretary

Labor unions and law enforcement officials have condemned President-elect Donald Trump’s “cruel and baffling” nomination of fast food executive Andrew Puzder for labor secretary on Thursday.

“Trump has once again shown how out-of-touch he is with what working Americans need,” said Service Employees International Union (SEIU) head Mary Kay Henry, calling the appointment “anti-worker extremism”. Trump hurts “working families, including those who elected him” with the nomination, she wrote on behalf of the union.

Their comments come as decades-old allegations of spousal abuse against Puzder have resurfaced, which may further complicate his nomination. ...

In a forceful indictment of Puzder’s credentials, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman said that under Puzder, CKE “stole” from low-wage workers.

“Andrew Puzder presided over a fast-food chain that repeatedly stole workers’ hard-earned wages,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “The fact that Mr Puzder has now reportedly been selected to lead the same agency that uncovered wage theft at his restaurants is a cruel and baffling decision by President-elect Trump.” ...

Puzder opposes an increased minimum wage and a lower threshold for overtime pay, both of which would raise costs at the restaurant company’s main businesses: hamburger chains Hardees and Carl’s Jr. ...

Puzder also drew controversy last year with Carl’s Jr Super Bowl ads starring scantily clad models devouring hamburgers, which he characterized as patriotic at the time.

“I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis,” he told Entrepreneur magazine. “I think it’s very American,” he said. “I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”

Far-right Dutch politician convicted of inciting discrimination over immigration comments

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders was convicted on Friday of inciting discrimination, but no penalty was handed down. The conviction stems from an incident in 2014 when Wilders addressed supporters chanting that they wanted “Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!” Moroccans in the Netherlands by replying that he would “take care of that.” ...

Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis told the court that he was not imposing a custodial sentence as he felt the conviction was penalty enough for a democratically elected politician.

However that may not necessarily be the case. Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) will contest national elections in three months time and the party currently holds a narrow lead in a nationwide poll. Over the course of this trial — which Wilders called a politically motivated “charade” — the party’s popularity has increased.

Pentagon Slams Colin Kaepernick in Pearl Harbor Tweet, Then Deletes It

The head of the U.S. Pacific Command decided for some reason that Wednesday’s commemoration of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago was the right moment to take a swipe at San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“You can bet that the men and women we honor today — and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago — never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played,” Adm. Harry Harris asserted. ...

The Department of Defense twitter account then tweeted video of Harris’s comments, with the text “#PACOM Commander: Pearl Harbor vets ‘never took a knee. never failed to stand’ during National Anthem.”

At some point after that, the Defense Department deleted the tweet, although it still can be seen via archive.org.

A Pentagon spokesperson said it had been deleted because reaction to it “suggested that that tweet had been perceived by some as an official DoD endorsement of a position on a political or social issue. … Based on that we made the decision to take it down.”

Ohio 'heartbeat' abortion bill could be test case for overturning Roe v Wade

The Ohio state legislature threw down the gauntlet this week to the supreme court, passing a new anti-abortion “heartbeat” bill that would ban terminations from as early as six weeks, the most severe restrictions in the country.

Ohio politicians say they were motivated to push through the bill by Donald Trump’s win, believing they might find a more friendly US supreme court that would uphold the law.

If passed by Governor John Kasich, the bill could serve as a test case for the limits of constitutional protections of abortion, and even for overturning the landmark decision Roe v Wade, which enshrines a woman’s right to choose abortion until the fetus is “viable” (between 24 and 28 weeks gestation). ...

Many other states have also tried to get “heartbeat bills” through in the past. North Dakota and Arkansas state legislature passed similar laws in March 2013, however the eighth circuit appellate court ruled them unconstitutional in 2015 and the laws were never enacted.

Ohio lawmakers have considered their own bill in the past. But lawmakers said that Trump’s election and a free seat on the supreme court gave them new impetus for the bill and make it more likely that the bill would be upheld in the courts.

Green Party's Jill Stein on Obstacles to Vote Recount: "This is Not What Democracy Looks Like"

Veterans at Standing Rock Ready to Take Clean Water Fight to Flint

The veterans who deployed to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation in North Dakota to support the water protectors in their battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline are now looking to take their successful mobilization to another community fighting for clean water: Flint, Michigan.

"We don't know when we are going to be there but we will be heading to Flint," U.S. Army veteran Wes Clark Jr., one of the organizers of the veteran action in Standing Rock, told MLive earlier this week. "This problem is all over the county. It's got to be more than veterans. People have been treated wrong in this county for a long time."

Since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Sunday that it would not allow the Dakota Access Pipeline an easement to tunnel under the Missouri River, many have speculated that the arrival of the thousands of veterans that weekend may have spurred the government agency into action.

Activists hope that veterans—who also played a role in several 20th century leftist protest movements—will bring similar success to the embattled community of Flint, which still does not have access to clean drinking water.

Washington State Lauches Suit Against Monsanto for Toxic PCB Pollution

Washington on Thursday became the first U.S. state to file a lawsuit against Monsanto for damages related to the company's production of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Monsanto was the only U.S. company to produce the toxic industrial chemicals from 1935 to 1979, when they were banned by the Toxic Substances Control Act.

The company "knew for decades that PCBs were toxic and knew that they were widely contaminating all natural resources and living organisms" yet "concealed these facts and continued producing PCBs until" the Congressional action, the suit (pdf), which cites several internal company memos, states.

"Monsanto knew the dangers of PCBs yet hid them from the public to generate profits," declared Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a press statement announcing the legal action. "I will hold Monsanto accountable for its actions," he said.

PCB pollution is pervasive and long-lasting—a concern given that the Environmental Protection Agency deems PCBs a probable carcinogen, and they have been linked to other serious health effects.

"Monsanto is responsible for producing a chemical that is so widespread in our environment that it appears virtually everywhere we look—in our waterways, in people, and in fish—at levels that can impact our health," added Gov. Jay Inslee in the press statement.

Africa is being choked. But corporations leave their grime on us all

It’s a scene taken as typically African: polluted, bedraggled, unhealthy. Yet this has only ever been made possible by the exploitation of Africa’s people – the bedrock of European development. Today the exploitation continues. This week five west African countries, Nigeria included, announced plans to end the practice of European oil companies and traders exporting “African quality” diesel.

“Dirty fuel” has earned the name because it is imported diesel with sulphur levels as high as 3,000 parts per million when the European maximum is 10ppm. To be clear, “African quality” fuel, is fuel not fit for European humans. Racism has always been about the sanctioning of exploitation. How else can one justify one nation siphoning the wealth of another thousands of miles away if not by believing “those people” are inferior and thus “deserving” of servitude?

For commodities traders Trafigura (which a year ago were able to pay 600 staff more than half a billion pounds in bonuses), and Vitol (whose chief executive is Conservative donor Ian Taylor), their defence is a simple one: there’s nothing illegal about the practice. Yet in 2013, nearly 20,000 people died from air pollution in Ghana alone. It takes a breathtaking level of moral bankruptcy to happily profit from an enterprise that kills thousands. We do well to remember that corporations are not intangible entities but are made up of people capable of ignoring the human costs of their bid for greater wealth.

This can’t be rationalised as something only the dispossessed of the world suffer – those “others” who aren’t “us”, but who are all the same clamouring to escape brutalising poverty, and who don’t understand that “we”, in Europe, are full. No: to the corporations happy to exploit us all, impoverished immigrant or impoverished northerner, it’s much of a muchness. We exist in solidarity as cannon fodder in a clamour to increase capital. The fight is not with each other, but with the Goliaths of global capital.

Also of Interest

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

Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Spies

Syria and the Bodyguard of Lies

'Everything is over now': the last survivors in Yemen's ground zero

Phone-Cracking Cellebrite Software Used to Prosecute Tortured Dissident

Big Media’s Contra-Cocaine Cover-up

Trump’s Second Gilded Age: Overcoming the Rule of Billionaires and Militarists

Job Market Nearing Full “Recovery?” Here’s a Dose of Reality

US government scrambles to respond to surge of migrants at Mexico border

Trump's cabinet picks: here are all of the appointments so far

A Little Night Music

Maceo Parker - Make it funky

Maceo Parker - Chicken

Prince & Maceo Parker - Pass the Peas

James Brown + Maceo Parker - Soul Power 74

Maceo Parker - Basic Funk 101

Maceo Parker & The JB'S - Chameleon

Prince with Maceo Parker and Larry Graham - Red House

Maceo Parker Live Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa