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This evening's music features bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. Enjoy!

"It is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place."

-- Donald Rumsfeld (On photographs from Abu Ghraib prison.)

News and Opinion

Pentagon Releases Photos of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Pentagon today released 198 photos related to its investigations into abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...

These photos appear to be the most innocuous of the more than 2,000 images that the government has fought for years to keep secret. Lawyers for the government have long maintained that the photos, if released, could cause grievous harm to national security because they could be used for propaganda by groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The legal case has stretched on for more than a decade, since 2004, when the American Civil Liberties Union first sued to obtain photos beyond the notorious images that had been leaked from the prison at Abu Ghraib.

It has been reported that some of the 2,000 images show soldiers posing with dead bodies, kicking and punching detainees or posing them stripped naked next to female guards. The 198 photos that were released today do not show any of this.

Wow, "I'd bring back a Hell of a lot worse than waterboarding," and "we should be putting people into Guantanamo," are enthusiastic applause lines in fascist Republican America.

Trump Leads GOP Charge Embracing Torture: "I’d Bring Back a Hell of a Lot Worse Than Waterboarding"

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine

There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.

It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.

Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq. ...

After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank. ...

Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. ...

It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.

NATO to Mass Troops Along Russia Frontier; Biggest Buildup Since Cold War

In a move sparked by the latest Pentagon plans for a major increase in US military spending, NATO defense ministers are preparing to meet later this week to work out the details of a massive new deployment along the Russian border, with plans to up to 40,000 NATO personnel to head to the area

The Baltic states and some other NATO members have been playing up the idea of a Russian invasion of Europe for over a year now, and while nothing ever came of it, they keep adding troops to the area, with the latest deployment to be the largest NATO deployment since the Cold War.

The Pentagon’s spending hike itself came on the pretext of “Russian aggression,” though the US of course outspends Russia on its military by roughly a factor of 10.

Syria war: 30,000 Syrian refugees mass at Turkish border

EU Demands Turkey Let Syrian Refugees In, But Keep Them Away From Europe

In a pair of statements adding to the confusing EU refugee policy, top officials made two separate statements demanding that Turkey let more Syrian refugees across the border, and demanding that Turkey keep the refugees away from Europe.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini insisted that last week’s pledge of some $3 billion in new aid was meant to ensure they could host all the refugees, and demanded Turkey reopen the border. ...

EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, by contrast, insisted that there was “no doubt” Turkey could do more to stop the refugees, and that a November deal obliges them to do something to prevent refugees from reaching EU soil.

Syria Says Any Foreign Troops Would Return 'in Coffins'

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem [...] said government forces were "on track to end the conflict" following the recent gains around Aleppo.

"Like it or not, our battlefield achievements indicate that we are headed toward the end of the crisis," he told a press conference in Damascus. He called on rebel fighters to "come to their senses" and lay down their weapons.

The advance of Syrian troops and the blistering Russian airstrikes in Aleppo and elsewhere led to the breakdown of indirect peace talks launched earlier this week in Geneva, with the opposition saying there was no point in negotiating under fire. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura hopes to resume the talks by Feb. 25, but it's unclear if either delegation will return.

Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the opposition, meanwhile said it is ready, in principle, to send ground troops to Syria, albeit in the context of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State group.

But al-Moallem warned that Saudi or other foreign troops entering his country would "return home in wooden coffins," a line he repeated three times during the one-hour press conference.

War in Syria: "Thank God the Russians intervened"

UN report: Syrian government actions amount to 'extermination'

Detainees held by the Syrian government are dying on a massive scale amounting to a state policy of extermination of the civilian population, a crime against humanity, United Nations investigators has said.

The UN commission of inquiry called on the security council to impose sanctions against Syrian officials in the civilian and military hierarchy responsible for or complicit in deaths, torture and disappearances in custody, but stopped short of naming individuals.

In their report released on Monday, the independent experts said they had also documented mass killings and torture of prisoners by two jihadi groups, al-Nusra Front and Islamic State, constituting war crimes.

“Over the past four and a half years, thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of warring parties,” the commission of inquiry on Syria said.

“The killings and deaths described in this report occurred with high frequency, over a long period of time and in multiple locations, with significant logistical support involving vast state resources. There are reasonable grounds to believe that the conduct described amounts to extermination as a crime against humanity."

Erdogan: US Should Choose Between Turkey, Kurdish Forces

In comments published Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Washington should choose between Turkey and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, as its partner.

That came after envoy Brett McGurk's visit to Kobani, where the PYD's military wing, aided by U.S.-led airstrikes, drove back Islamic State militants a year ago. Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist group because of its affiliation with Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

Erdogan said: "How can we trust you? Is it me that is your partner or is it the terrorists in Kobani?"

State Dept: US Not Planning on New Israel Peace Process

The US State Department has responded to the Israeli Channel 2 report from Saturday night claiming that Secretary of State John Kerry was planning a visit in the next few weeks to try to kickstart peace talks with the Palestinians.

The State Department denied the claim, saying that not only is Kerry not coming to Israel any time soon, but that the US has no plans to try another peace bid at all, saying the US just wants less violence on both sides.

France announced late last month a plan for a new round of peace talks, threatening to recognize Palestine unilaterally if Israel doesn’t start making some serious concessions. Israel expressed outrage at that, though the US was largely silent, which seems to be the source of the speculation that the US was going to try an alternate track.

US Warns Netanyahu Against Spurning Aid Package in Hopes of Better Deal

Senior US officials speaking in the Israeli press over the weekend warned the Netanyahu government against rejecting a proposed massive increase in military aid, saying the pledge was already the biggest single aid pledge by far and wasn’t going to get better.

Exact details of the offer still aren’t clear, but the US is expected to pledge in excess of $80 billion to Israel over the next 20 years, along with a one-off pledge of several more billion dollars in military subsidies as reparations for the Iran nuclear deal.

That this is a huge increase over the previous 20-year deal seems lost of Netanyahu, who based on some tensions with the White House has suggested that Israel might reject the “memorandum of understanding” until January of 2017 and try to get even more out of the next US president.

The Empire Files: A Hidden War - The Empire's Border Part II

Twitter Says There’s No “Magical Algorithm” to Find Terrorists

Twitter announced on Friday that it has shut down over 125,000 user accounts for promoting violent threats or terrorist acts, mostly having to do with ISIS, in less than a year.

At the same time, the company made it clear that there is no automated way of distinguishing between protected speech and what it considers violations of its rules.

“As many experts and other companies have noted, there is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited information and guidance,” the company said. ...

Just last month, top national security officials parachuted into Silicon Valley to meet with technology executives and ask for technology “that could make it harder for terrorists to use the internet … or easier for us to find them when they do.”

German plan to impose limit on cash transactions met with fierce resistance

A plan to introduce a limit on cash transactions in Germany has been met with fierce resistance across the country.

Proposals to ban cash payments of more than €5,000 (£3,860) to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism were revealed by the German finance ministry last week. They face opposition from a broad alliance of political parties as well as the country’s bestselling newspaper.

The Bild published an open letter on Monday entitled “hands off our cash”, which, in keeping with the analogue theme, it encourages readers to sign, cut out and post to the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble.

Political groups ranging from the Green party to the liberal Free Democrats to rightwing Alternative für Deutschland have condemned the proposed measures, which also include a ban on €500 notes, as an attack on data protection and privacy.

“Cash allows us to remain anonymous during day-to-day transactions. In a constitutional democracy, that is a freedom that has to be defended,” tweeted the Green MP Konstantin von Notz.

Leaked police files contain guarantees disciplinary records will be kept secret

Contracts between police and city authorities, leaked after hackers breached the website of the country’s biggest law enforcement union, contain guarantees that disciplinary records and complaints made against officers are kept secret or even destroyed.

A Guardian analysis of dozens of contracts obtained from the servers of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) found that more than a third featured clauses allowing – and often mandating – the destruction of records of civilian complaints, departmental investigations, or disciplinary actions after a negotiated period of time.

The review also found that 30% of the 67 leaked police contracts, which were struck between cities and police unions, included provisions barring public access to records of past civilian complaints, departmental investigations, and disciplinary actions.

Samuel Walker, a professor in criminology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, said there was “no justification” for the cleansing of officers’ records, which could contain details of their use of force against civilians.

“The public has a right to know,” Walker said. “If there was a controversial beating, we ought to know what action was actually taken. Was it a reprimand? A suspension?”

Chris Hedges: Flint’s Crisis Is About More Than Water

The crisis in Flint is far more ominous than lead-contaminated water. It is symptomatic of the collapse of our democracy. Corporate power is not held accountable for its crimes. Everything is up for sale, including children. Our regulatory agencies—including the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality—have been defunded, emasculated and handed over to corporate-friendly stooges. Our corrupt courts are part of a mirage of justice. The role of these government agencies and courts, and of the legislatures, is to sanction abuse rather than halt it. ...

Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Gitta Sereny in “Into That Darkness,” Omer Bartov in “Murder in Our Midst,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago,” Primo Levi in “The Drowned and the Saved” and Ella Lingens-Reiner in “Prisoners of Fear” argue that the modern instrument of evil is the technocrat, the man or woman whose sole concern is technological and financial efficiency, whose primary measurement of success is self-advancement, even if it means piling up corpses or destroying the lives of children. ...

We churn out millions of these technocrats or clerks in elite universities and business schools. They are trained to serve the system. They do not question its assumptions and structures any more than Nazi bureaucrats questioned the assumptions and structures of the “Final Solution.” They manage the huge financial houses and banks such as Goldman Sachs. They profit from endless war. They orchestrate the fraud on Wall Street. They destroy the ecosystem on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. They are elected to office. They are empty shells of human beings who stripped of their power and wealth are banal and pathetic. They are not sadists. They do not delight in cruelty. They are cogs in the machinery of corporate power. ...

Humanity as an idea, as the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has pointed out, is itself mortal. It can be extinguished along with millions of human beings. “Barbarism is not the inheritance of our prehistory,” Finkielkraut reminds us. “It is the companion that dogs our every step.”

Sanders and Trump rallies showcase election's anti-establishment spirit

The anti-establishment wave dominating the 2016 US election surged forward in New Hampshire on Sunday as the two clear frontrunners in the state for the Democratic and Republican nominations spoke at packed rallies within an hour of each other.

On the coast, senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont roused an audience of 1,220 at a community college in Portsmouth with his call for a “political revolution” to overcome the corporate campaign donations he claims are corrupting Washington.

A few miles inland, billionaire businessman Donald Trump, who is largely funding his own campaign without the help of Super Pacs, spoke to a similarly enthusiastic crowd about what it would take to “make America great again”.

It is perhaps the only point of policy on which these two diametrically opposed candidates agree, but their challenge to the political orthodoxy has kept both firmly at the top of opinion polling with less than two days before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton, who lags Sanders in New Hampshire by an average of 13 percentage points in recent polls, left the state entirely on Sunday after a Saturday night event in the same converted gymnasium where Sanders rallied a larger and more boisterous crowd.

Sanders: Revolution Needed from Below

Flint water crisis: residents say Hillary Clinton ‘coming for the entertainment’

Hillary Clinton has made every effort to make Flint her own. The water crisis afflicting this predominantly black Michigan city – ignored by Washington politicians for years – has become another battlefield in a progressive war between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Race, class and the environment matter again in an issues-based, neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Looking past Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire, where Sanders is tipped to win, and toward the March primary states where she will be counting on African American support, Clinton made a symbolic campaign stop here on Sunday. ...

Interviews with residents before, during and after Clinton’s visit revealed fear of a candidate helicoptering in on the campaign trail, attempts to salvage a modern economic and environmental crisis that is Flint’s own, and few answers for a city being abandoned by its residents.

“Don’t jump on a cause just to get votes,” said Flint Lives Matter organiser Calandra Patrick, as Clinton’s jet arrived in town. “It doesn’t matter to me if she makes an appearance or not – it doesn’t matter to me one bit.”

Arnette Rison III, a 47-year-old independent contractor, put Clinton’s visit in starker terms: “If she’s bringing 35,000 hydroelectric filters, I’ll love her for it. But that’s not what she’s about to do.”

Sanders Blasts Michigan Officials for Denying Undocumented People Clean Water

Senator Bernie Sanders blasted the state of Michigan after reports circulated that undocumented immigrants living in Flint, Michigan have been denied clean drinking water. "This is a humanitarian crisis," the presidential candidate declared.

The comments came after the Detroit Free Press reported earlier this week that Flint's roughly 1,000 undocumented immigrants have faced significant barriers accessing the bottled water now being distributed throughout the city. According to both immigrants and advocates, some people have been turned away because they lacked proper identification, while many others do not even bother because they don't speak English and fear being deported.

In a strongly-worded statement on Saturday, the senator from Vermont called it "outrageous and totally unacceptable that aspiring Americans and others in Flint cannot get the clean drinking water they desperately need."

"No one should live in fear of being deported for getting a bottle of water for their family," Sanders continued. "All people, including immigrants, should have access to clean and drinkable water, regardless of immigration status or lack of identification."

Corporate Media Endorses Clinton to Defend Their Own Interests

Iowans claim instances when Sanders was shorted delegates

Keane Schwarz is certain he knows the outcome of the vote in his precinct: He was the lone caucusgoer in Woodbury County No. 43.

But the Iowa Democratic Party's final results state that Hillary Clinton won one county delegate and Bernie Sanders received zero.

"I voted for Bernie," Schwarz, 36, of Oto, told The Des Moines Register. “It was really suspicious … I’m actually pretty irate about it.”

Some complaints that Iowa Democrats have shared with the Register about discrepancies in caucus results appear to be valid. ...

Sanders’ backers are more likely than Clinton’s to think the political system is rigged, polling has found. So it might not come as a surprise, especially since he lost by a hairsbreadth, that some think the Democratic caucus system is rigged. It also doesn't help the optics that the state party chairwoman drove around for years in a car with “HRC2016” license plates.

Clinton defends Albright and Steinem apologises as sexism claims dominate Democratic race

The feminist writer Gloria Steinem apologized on Sunday for remarks about young women who support Bernie Sanders, not long after Hillary Clinton defended Madeleine Albright over her comment that there is “a special place in hell” for women who do not support Clinton.

Steinem posted her apology to Facebook, writing that she “misspoke” on Friday when on a talk show she spoke about women who support Clinton’s rival in the Democratic presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders.

Appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Steinem said women “get more activist as they grow older. And when you’re younger, you think: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’”

Also on Sunday, Clinton said that the remark Albright delivered at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” was nothing new. Albright has used it at least since 2008, when she supported Clinton’s first run for president, against Barack Obama. ...

Clinton appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday and described Albright’s comment as a “light-hearted but very pointed remark”.

On Eve of NH, Sanders Wins Women Voters

Bernie Sanders is not only ahead of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, where the next U.S. presidential primary will take place on February 9, he is also leading her among female voters and proves more electable against Republican rivals, several new surveys show.

A tracking poll released Monday by UMass Lowell/7News shows that the senator from Vermont leads Clinton by 16 points among likely Democratic voters, claiming 56 percent support to Clinton's 40 percent support. ...

Last week, an NBC News/Wall Street/Marist survey showed Sanders leading Clinton among female Democrats in the Granite state, claiming 56 percent support to Clinton's 40 percent. Those results were published just days before feminist icon Gloria Steinem and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright scolded young female voters for siding with Sanders, describing their support for the senator as sexist and shallow.

Their remarks did little to stem the tide of voters, male and female alike, increasingly turning to Sanders' "political revolution." At a rally in Portsmouth on Sunday night, Sanders spoke to another one of his now-signature huge crowds, telling an audience of 1,220 at Great Bay Community College, "Our most important task is to revitalize American democracy."

Flint isn’t an anomaly. We’re heading toward a national water crisis.

Flint’s man-made water disaster is an outrageous tragedy and a human health crisis. And unfortunately, it’s not an isolated case. It’s one instance in a pattern of government failures to take water testing seriously and respond to evidence of water pollution.

In 2009, federal data revealed that water being delivered to tens of millions of Americans contained illegal concentrations of dangerous chemicals. That contamination has led to widespread ill-effects such as rashes and elevated risk of various diseases, and hundreds of thousands of Clean Water Act violations. At congressional hearings that year, EPA officials pointed to failed political leadership under the Bush administration. President Obama promised to turn a new leaf.

Sadly, there have since been numerous high-profile cases of contamination, such as in Toledo, Ohio, in 2014, where agricultural runoff and crumbling infrastructure led to an algal bloom in Lake Erie that made the city’s drinking water unsafe. Also in 2014, in West Virginia, a chemical spill contaminated the Elk River, the tap water supply for hundreds of thousands of people. This past August, 3 million gallons of contaminated water were released into the Animas River in Colorado, resulting in lead levels 3,500 times normal and arsenic levels 300 times normal, affecting many communities and farms.

Then there are the horrific, under-reported cases of water contaminated by drilling and fracking for natural gas and oil, another ongoing man-made disaster where politics has trumped providing safe drinking water.

This past year, the EPA released a draft of its national fracking drinking water study with a headline that they did not find evidence of widespread, systemic contamination. Scientists and advocates cried foul, as the substance of the report contradicts that claim and in fact shows many instances and mechanisms of contamination. Now the EPA’s independent science advisory body has forcefully echoed that criticism and called for detailed accounting and inclusion of the three investigations.

These cases, along with Flint and many others, demonstrate an epidemic of credibility and trust that is putting people at greater and greater risk.

NY Governor Sounds Warning After Radioactive Water Leaks from Indian Point Nuclear Plant

Monitoring well reported radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000 percent

Radioactive water has reportedly contaminated the groundwater surrounding the Indian Point nuclear power plant, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday.

A statement issued from Cuomo's office reported evidence that "radioactive tritium-contaminated water leaked into the groundwater" beneath the facility, which sits on the bank of the Hudson River, just 25 miles north of New York City in Buchanan.

Indian Point owner Entergy "reported alarming levels of radioactivity at three monitoring wells, with one well’s radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000 percent," the statement reads. "The facility reports that the contamination has not migrated off site and as such does not pose an immediate threat to public health." ...

According to the Guardian, "There have been many tritium leaks at the plant in recent years, though Saturday’s leak appears to be the most serious so far."

No Questions About Climate Change at GOP Debate Sponsored by Big Oil

There were no questions about climate change or global warming in the debate in St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.

The debate was sponsored by Vote4Energy, a campaign of the American Petroleum Institute.

Droughts in the hops heartland of Yakima Valley threaten to curb the supply of craft beers

According to many observers, 2016 could be the year in which craft beer is hit by the mother of all hangovers – in the shape of a significant hop shortage.

Last year, Washington State’s Yakima Valley – which produces about 75% of America’s hops – was hit by droughts and what should have been a bumper harvest was anything but. Even if the season was not quite the disaster some had predicted, growers still struggled to fully exploit their expanded acreage and sustain certain hop varieties.

The timing could not have been worse. Globally, the demand for aromatic US hops such as Simcoe, Citra and Amarillo – which impart vivid, tropical fruit-flavours, to pale ales and IPAs – has never been higher. With that clamour now far outstripping supply, a further spike in the price of US hops is expected.

Those who continue to drink big, powerful IPAs can expect to see this reflected in the price of a pint at the pumps; if breweries can source the relevant hops. Many new and smaller breweries will simply not be able to buy such hops cost-effectively.

Also of Interest

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

The Absurd Identity Politics of Establishment Pundits Critiquing Bernie Sanders

Here’s What Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speaking Contract Looks Like

The Vampire Squid Tells Us How to Vote

In NH Debate, Hillary Clinton Touted Henry Kissinger, War Criminal, as Character Reference

Oil price and Isis ruin the Kurds’ dream of riches

Top Hillary Clinton Advisers and Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare

Bernie Sanders may win big this week. The Guardian panelists share why he has their vote

Refugee Camps Are Factories for Terrorists? Not Really.

A Little Night Music

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - Rock me Mama

Arthur Crudup - My Baby Left Me

Arthur Crudup - I'm gonna dig myself a hole

Arthur Crudup - Cool Disposition

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - Mean Ol' Frisco Blues

Arthur Crudup - Who's Been Foolin' You

Arthur Crudup - She's got no hair