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This evening's music features r&b singers Delbert McClinton and James Peterson. Enjoy!

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”

-- Thomas Jefferson

News and Opinion

Why are whistleblowers being prosecuted as spies?

Taliban Chief Targeted by Drone Strike in Pakistan, Signaling a U.S. Shift

Afghanistan — After months of failed Pakistani efforts to broker peace talks with the Taliban, an American drone strike against the leader of the Afghan militants signaled a major break with precedent as the United States circumvented Pakistan in an effort to disrupt the strengthening insurgency, officials said on Sunday.

The Afghan intelligence agency said Sunday that the Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had been killed in the strike in the restive Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The United States announced the strike Saturday but could not confirm that Mullah Mansour had been killed. ...

Even if Mullah Mansour was not killed, the attack was significant, as it is believed to be the first American drone strike in Baluchistan, the de facto headquarters of the Afghan Taliban, after years of such attacks in other Pakistani and Afghan areas. ...

The strike in Baluchistan was also seen as a signal that the Obama administration was growing less patient with Pakistan’s failure to move strongly against the Taliban insurgency. While Pakistan’s powerful military establishment has quietly cooperated with the C.I.A.’s campaign of drone strikes against Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban in the northwestern tribal areas, it has refused past requests from the spy agency to expand the drone flights into Baluchistan, former American officials said.

Pakistan expresses concern over drone strike

The Ambassador of the United States Mr. David Hale was called in today by the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Syed Tariq Fatemi, to express concern over the drone strike on Pakistani territory on Saturday, 21 May 2016.

In the meeting, Mr. Tariq Fatemi pointed out that the drone strike was a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and a breach of the United Nation's Charter that guarantees the inviolability of the territorial integrity of its member states. He also emphasized that such actions could adversely impact the ongoing efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) for facilitating peace talks between the Afghan Government and the Taliban.

Obama Urged to Stop Funding Honduran Military as Questions Grow over US Role in Berta Caceres' Death

Obama moves toward greater transparency on the use of lethal force

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post reports that the Administration is preparing to publish an account “of how many militants and noncombatant civilians it has killed since 2009” in counterterrorism operations outside of “areas of active hostilities,” including (according to DeYoung) in Yemen, Somalia and Libya. The “pending announcement” will also reportedly “be accompanied by additional information” regarding the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) that the President issued in May 2013 on “Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities.” ... DeYoung further reports a DoD spokesperson as representing that “[w]hile not all strikes are announced or publicly acknowledged in real time, information on all of our [DoD] strikes taken outside areas of active hostilities will be aggregated for release in future annual releases.”

Unfortunately, DeYoung leaves a misimpression about the areas, such as Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, that are covered by the PPG. She writes that these are places where the United States conducts airstrikes but does not consider itself officially at war, in contrast with nations such as Iraq and Syria, which “have been added to the list of designated war zones,” and “where the military and the international laws of war impose somewhat different rules.

That’s not correct. The U.S.’s use of force against, e.g., al Qaeda, AQAP, the Taliban, and ISIL, is virtually all undertaken as part of a “war,” or, more precisely (and to use the modern, Charter-based terminology), an armed conflict; and the same international laws of war apply to the conduct of those armed conflict in all such areas. The distinction between “areas of active hostilities” and other areas is entirely a case of internal Executive branch nomenclature, for the (primary) purpose of identifying those nations in which the PPG applies — and where it does not. That is to say, President Obama has insisted upon standards in areas outside “areas of active hostilities” that are more restrictive than those imposed by the laws of war; but the latter set of laws apply to all aspects of the U.S.’s armed conflicts, without regard to whether they take place in a nation in which hostilities are in some sense “active.” As far as international law is concerned, there are not a “different set of rules.”

Obama's Hiroshima Visit Will Give New Meaning to Meaningless Publicity Stunts

America's trusted political pundits are all hot and bothered by Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Hiroshima. Will our Nobel Peace Prize-bedazzled president apologize for his nation's "pragmatic" decision to drop an atomic bomb on a city with no real military value? (No.) ...

Barack Obama will not apologize during his visit to Hiroshima is because Barack Obama is "really good at killing people," according to a book which quotes a rather boastful Barack Obama. This is coming from a president who sends heavily-armed flying robots to far away lands in order to hunt nameless military-aged brown people. It's a bit unpleasant, but it's all for the greater good -- much like the atomic payloads we dropped on Japan all those many years ago.

What will Obama do instead? Simple:

With the end of his last term in office approaching in January, Obama will "highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.

And as he reads from the gospel of nonproliferation in Hiroshima, Obama will continue his $1 trillion upgrade of America's nuclear arsenal. Say what you will, but the man is a seasoned multitasker.

Rebel chief linked to Al-Qaeda & ISIS freely visits US, State Dept says it ‘didn’t know’

Brother of Guantánamo Diary Author Barred from Entering U.S.

The brother of a prominent Guantánamo Bay prisoner was denied entry to the United States this weekend as he attempted a trip to advocate for his brother’s release.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi is one of the most famous of the 80 men left at Guantánamo. Last year, Guantánamo Diary, his brutal memoir of imprisonment and torture by the United States and its counterterrorism allies became a bestseller. Held in Guantánamo for nearly 14 years without being charged with a crime, Slahi is scheduled to go before the prison’s Periodic Review Board on June 2. The interagency panel will review his case and could possibly recommend his release.

Mohamedou’s younger brother, Yahdih Ould Slahi, lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, and has been trying to secure his brother’s freedom for years. He was planning to come to the United States to meet with journalists and for a series of public events ahead of the review board hearing.

Yet when Yahdih, a German citizen, arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on Saturday, May 21, he was immediately taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol. He was held overnight, questioned for hours, and then sent back to Germany on Sunday evening.

“He was asked questions about his family, his brother, and what he knew about why his brother was in Guantánamo,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It was a harrowing, stressful, and exhausting experience.”

Two dozen Guantánamo detainees poised for release under Obama deals

The Obama administration has quietly seeded the diplomatic bed for its next push to transfer detainees out of Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian has learned, as Barack Obama aims to reduce the prison’s population before leaving office.

According to US officials, the administration has deals in place to send approximately two dozen longtime Guantánamo detainees to about half a dozen countries.

While it is unclear if the transfers will occur in one wave, as with the April transfer of nine detainees to Saudi Arabia, there is an expectation that the departure of 22 or 23 men will occur by the end of July. There are currently 80 men detained at Guantánamo, the lowest number since the US opened the wartime prison in 2002.

All the detainees for whom US diplomats have secured arrangements to leave Guantánamo have been officially approved for transfer, either by a 2010 internal review process or through quasi-parole hearings known as Periodic Review Boards.

The US holds 28 detainees approved for transfer, so the men’s departure would nearly empty Guantánamo of such designated detainees, substantially clearing a backlog that has lasted years.

Europe migrant crisis: Greek authorities evacuate Idomeni refugee camp

Greek Police Begin Evacuation of Thousands of Migrants from Idomeni

The Greek authorities begun the process of evacuating Idomeni, a sprawling makeshift camp housing thousands of migrants on its northern border with Macedonia, in a dawn operation on Tuesday.

Hundreds of Greek riot police sealed off the camp to journalists and activists, but police could be seen in the distance clearing tents and moving people onto buses as helicopters flew overhead.

More than 8,000 people, including many women and children, have been camped out at the makeshift site for weeks hoping for the border to reopen.

Idomeni was once a brief stopping point on the so-called "Balkan Route" traversed by hundreds of thousands of migrants last year but became a bottleneck after Macedonia closed its border in March and erected a wire fence, effectively sealing the way west. At one point more than 12,000 people lived there.

Despite sporadic clashes between police and migrants camped out at the site in recent weeks the Greek authorities said on Tuesday morning that the process had so far been peaceful and that force would not be used during the operation.

Tony Blair: I underestimated Iraq's destabilising forces

Tony Blair has admitted he profoundly underestimated the forces that were going to be unleashed in Iraq after the war, and says his understanding of the Middle East is much deeper now than at the time of the invasion in 2003. ...

Blair has made similar admissions of culpability before but these remarks, weeks before the July publication of the Chilcot report into the war, are likely to be seen as his chief line of defence.

Speaking at an event sponsored by Prospect magazine in Westminster, he said: “For sure we underestimated profoundly the forces that were at work in the region and would take advantage of change once you topple the regime. That is the lesson. The lesson is not complicated. The lesson is simple. It is that when you remove a dictatorship out come these forces of destabilisation whether it is al-Qaida on the Sunni side or Iran on the Shia side.” ...

He said he regretted the way Saddam Hussein was removed, but still called for more western troops on the ground in Syria and Iraq to defeat Isis. ...

He said the west had “not yet taken on board that there is no way of defeating these people without defeating them on the ground. Airstrikes are not going to defeat Isis. It does not mean it has to be our forces all the time – it could be that our forces are in support. But be in no doubt, if you want to defeat these people you are going to have to wage a proper ground war against them. The only question for us is whether we are prepared to.”

Islamic State Is Reportedly Rounding Up Civilians to Use As Human Shields in Fallujah

The Islamic State has reportedly moved civilians to the center of Fallujah, attempting to use residents of the Iraqi city as shields to ward off government recapture, according to humanitarian officials and local leaders.

Fallujah, a mere 40 miles from Baghdad in Anbar province, has remained in the hands of IS since early 2014, after it became the first large city to fall to the militants. On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced an offensive to retake it, saying "the Iraqi flag will soon be flying in the sky of Fallujah." The decision followed a series of deadly suicide bombings carried out by IS in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.

On Monday, government forces and Shiite militias attacked the city, backed by airstrikes from the US-led anti-IS coalition. Abadi said on Sunday that Sunni tribal fighters would take part in the fighting, but it was unclear to what extent they were involved. As shells and air strikes rained down on the city, few civilians were able to leave, and many were moved to central areas by IS militants.

"ISIS has been moving families into the center of the city as shields, and to stop the bombardment from Iraqi and coalition forces, but the bombardment has gone ahead," said Nasr Muflahi, Iraq country director at the Norwegian Refugee Council, using an acronym for the extremist group.

ISIS Bombs Syrian Coastal Cities: Attacks Targeted Civilians in Cities With Major Russian Bases

In some of the deadliest coordinated attacks of the entire Syrian Civil War, ISIS carried out a series of suicide attacks around the major Syrian coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh, killing at least 148 people, overwhelmingly civilians, and wounded huge numbers of others. ...

The attacks were aimed at cities housing the largest Russian bases in Syria, with a major air base outside Jableh, and Russia’s only permanent naval base in the Mediterranean. Because of the Russian presence, these cities have extremely tight security, and have rarely been targeted in the war.

In attacking them, ISIS showed the capability of hitting pretty much anywhere in the country, though they chose in this case to attack civilians in those cities as opposed to going after the Russian forces therein.

Former Officials See ‘Seeds of Fascism’ in New Israeli Govt

Every new government in Israel represents a rightward shift in recent years. After the dissolution of Ehud Olmert’s centrist government 2009, Israel saw a right-far-right coalition installed, replaced in 2013 by a simply far-right coalition. The new coalition is moving the bar even farther right.

Things have gotten so bad within Israel that one normally hawkish top military affairs commentator on Israel’s Channel 2 news urged his children to leave the country, saying he is genuinely afraid for their future, while former defense minister Ehud Barak warned the new government meant Israel is “infected by the seeds of fascism.”

Brazil political crisis: New government loses key minister amid corruption allegations

Second Freddie Gray Trial Ends in Acquittal, Surprises No One

Officer Edward Nero, one of six Baltimore police officers facing charges over the arrest and death of Freddie Gray last year, was acquitted of all charges on Monday. It was the first verdict to be handed down in the case, after the trial of another officer ended in a hung jury last year.

Today’s verdict, delivered by Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams, was hardly a surprise to those who have followed the case. Prosecutors had sought to prove that Gray’s arrest was not only illegal, but that Nero’s role in it amounted to assault — a bold legal move that experts said stood little chance of convincing a judge. ...

The indictment of Nero and his colleagues came last year as protests over Gray’s death raged in West Baltimore. But while the indictments were hailed as a sign that justice is possible and helped ease tensions on the streets, many question whether we can really expect police officers to be held accountable in court. ...

Even when a police stop is determined to be unlawful — and proving that is not easy — arguing that police misconduct is criminal is virtually impossible, said Darius Charney, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. That’s because the law, particularly with regard to “stop and frisk” practices, gives officers ample discretion.

Pastor: Acquittal in Freddie Gray Case Highlights Deep Distrust in Legal System in Black Community

Freddie Gray: activists left frustrated after Baltimore officer acquitted

It was 2.30pm, several hours after Judge Barry Williams rendered a not guilty verdict on all of the charges against police officer Edward Nero for his role in the arrest and death of Gray. ... Even on a normal day, news travels quickly here but the extra police presence and the return of the TV news camera crews all seeming to wait for a riot accelerated the pace. ...

“Today’s verdict is upsetting but not at all surprising to anyone who has been paying attention to police brutality cases all over the country, or to anyone who has been paying attention to Marilyn Mosby’s office,” the activist group Baltimore Bloc wrote in a statement, arguing that to “seek justice for Freddie Gray” would mean “upsetting the status quo” where Mosby’s office prosecutes “people like Freddie Gray every day. We do not expect justice for Freddie or for Baltimore to come from a prosecutor’s office or a courtroom”.

Shaun Young, a photographer who was arrested here at the Penn North subway stop on the anniversary of Gray’s arrest and knows the indignities of the legal system, thinks “it wouldn’t have been in the best interest of the government to have Nero found guilty.”

“A government employee was tried against the same government that paid for the trial, using another government employee to prosecute and was found not guilty by another government employee all in defense of policies put in place by that same government,” he said, incredulous.

That resignation that comes from the sense that the system is rigged is in some respects the flip side of the rage that erupted in these streets last year. Many in Baltimore were full of fury because they had been treated in the same way as Gray on too many occasions and they felt the same thing could happen to them. But like Gray, so many in Baltimore have come not to expect anything more from the legal system.

The Occupy movement has grown up — and looks to inflict real pain on big banks

Capitalizing on populist anger toward Wall Street, a coalition of more than 20 labor unions and activist groups plan to announce on Tuesday the launch of a new campaign to reform the financial industry.

The group, Take On Wall Street, plan to combine the efforts of some of the Democratic Party’s biggest traditional backers, from the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO to the Communications Workers of America. The group says it will aim to turn the public’s lingering anger at the financial sector into policy initiatives that could change the way that Wall Street works.

Among its biggest targets will doing away with a law that allows private equity managers to pay lower taxes through something known as the “carried interest loophole.” These managers receive a share of profits for any gains they create for their clients, and this income is treated as long-term capital gains and taxed at a lower rate. ...

In addition to the issue of carried interest, the group expects to galvanize support for breaking up the big banks and reviving a version of the Glass Steagall Act, which prevented the combination of commercial and investment banks. It is also expected to push for a transaction tax, which would force some Wall Street traders, particularly high-frequency traders, to pay a fee every time they buy or sell a stock or bond.

As Hillary Clinton Defends Her Role in 2009 Coup, Is U.S. Aid to Honduras Adding "Fuel to the Fire"?

Sanders to DNC: Forget Your Fancy Dinners, Real Democracy is 'Messy'

As he outlined his progressive agenda on Monday, Bernie Sanders said the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia could get "messy," adding: "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle."

Sanders spoke with the Associated Press as he announced his picks for the Democratic National Committee's platform drafting panel—which included a group of renowned progressive activists, scholars, and lawmakers such as Dr. Cornel West, Rep. Keith Ellison, and Native American activist Deborah Parker—and called on the party to allow newcomers a platform at the convention.

The Vermont senator said:

We are bringing in a lot of new people into the political process, people who have never gone to a convention before, and they hope very much that their voices will be heard. The leadership of the Democratic Party has a very fundamental choice to make. And that choice is do we open the doors to many, many million of people—often working-class people, people who are working maybe two or three jobs to make ends meet—to young people who have never perhaps voted in their lives? Do we say, 'hey, come on in, we're delighted to have you, we're excited to have you, this is great for the Democratic party.'

Or do we say, 'hey, you know, you're not really one of us. We're too busy going to fancy fundraisers at $50,000 a plate, and you're really not what this party wants.' That's the choice.

"I think if they make the right choice and open the doors to working-class people and young people and create the kind of dynamism that the Democratic Party needs, it's going to be messy," Sanders continued. "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic Party should go."

Bernie Sanders Supporter SLAYS Condescending CNN Pundit With Facts

Clinton's 'Broken Promise' on California Debate Called 'Insult' to Voters

Bernie Sanders said he was 'disappointed but not surprised by Secretary Clinton’s unwillingness to debate' ahead of 'most important primary' of this year's nominating process

Bernie Sanders calls it an "insult" to the people of California while many others consider it a promise broken.

With no apparent upside for her campaign and despite an agreement earlier this year, Hillary Clinton has said she will not participate in a debate with Sanders in California ahead of that state's crucial primary next month.

"We believe that Hillary Clinton's time is best spent campaigning and meeting directly with voters across California and preparing for a general election campaign that will ensure the White House remains in Democratic hands," Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director, said in a statement.

Despite not yet securing the nomination, Clinton irked many of her rival's supporters, especially those in states who have not yet voted in the primary, by claiming the nominating process was essentially "already done." Voters in California—in addition to those in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota—head to the polls on Tuesday, June 7.

Too chicken ... https://t.co/9Yi9EaJnMP

— marcin joachimiak (@realmarcin) May 24, 2016

The San Francisco Chronicle, which had offered to co-host a debate in the state, described Clinton's decision as a "broken promise" while a spokesperson for Fox News, which had hoped to produce the event, said the network was "disappointed that Secretary Clinton has declined our debate invitation, especially given that the race is still contested and she had previously agreed to a final debate before the California primary."

#Slogans4Hillary Willing to Debate Anytime, Anywhere. (Except for this month, in California.)

— Which Hillary (@WhichhHilllary) May 24, 2016

Trump: I may ask Congress to formally declare war to fight terror

President Donald Trump would have no problem asking Congress for a declaration of war to fight terrorism, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in an interview that will air Monday evening.

“It wouldn’t bother me at all doing that,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. “We probably should have done that in the first place.” ...

“I’ll study the facts, but I think right now I would have no problem with doing it because we are at war. By the way, the world is at war.”

More evidence (as if more were needed) that Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected and do anything to promote the interests of the 1%. There's far more detail than can be fairly abstracted and the article is well worth reading in full.

Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal

Back in April, just before the New York primary, Hillary Clinton’s campaign aired a commercial on upstate television stations touting her work as secretary of state forcing “China, India, some of the world’s worst polluters” to make “real change.” She promised to “stand firm with New Yorkers opposing fracking, giving communities the right to say ‘no.'”

The television spot, which was not announced and does not appear on the official campaign YouTube page with most of Clinton’s other ads, implied a history of opposition to fracking, here and abroad. But emails obtained by The Intercept from the Department of State reveal new details of behind-the-scenes efforts by Clinton and her close aides to export American-style hydraulic fracturing — the horizontal drilling technique best known as fracking — to countries all over the world.

Far from challenging fossil fuel companies, the emails obtained by The Intercept show that State Department officials worked closely with private sector oil and gas companies, pressed other agencies within the Obama administration to commit federal government resources including technical assistance for locating shale reserves, and distributed agreements with partner nations pledging to help secure investments for new fracking projects.

The documents also reveal the department’s role in bringing foreign dignitaries to a fracking site in Pennsylvania, and its plans to make Poland a “laboratory for testing whether US success in developing shale gas can be repeated in a different country,” particularly in Europe, where local governments had expressed opposition and in some cases even banned fracking.

The campaign included plans to spread the drilling technique to China, South Africa, Romania, Morocco, Bulgaria, Chile, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Indonesia, and Ukraine.

Colorado's Tenacious Anti-Fracking Movement Explores "Last-Ditch Options"

Left with few options for stopping the scourge of oil and gas drilling in their state, Colorado residents are turning to creative forms of resistance in what the Denver Post calls "a last-ditch push for protection" against fracking.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in early May that state rules promoting oil and gas development trump local attempts to restrict or ban drilling near homes and schools. As such, residents who live near proposed drilling sites "said they see few options" for stopping new projects, the Post reported. 

But tenacious Coloradans—who came out en masse earlier this month for Break Free protests against fossil fuels—aren't giving up the fight.

In and around Parachute and Greeley, where proposed projects could put 53 new wells within municipal limits and a fracking waste facility on the banks of the Colorado River, residents are looking to the state's new "urban mitigation" rule—under which extraction must minimize impact using higher sound walls, quiet rigs, and pipeline instead of trucks to move oil and gas out to markets—for possible relief.

"In Colorado, you can't stop the drilling," said Carl Erickson, chairman of the citizen group Weld Air and Water. "This is a last-ditch effort." ...

Coloradans best chance for curtailing oil and gas drilling, however, may come at the ballot box in November. Community groups are currently gathering signatures for three ballot initiatives aimed at establishing 2,500-foot buffers and boosting local power to regulate oil and gas activity near people.

"The only recourse we ordinary citizens have is to collect signatures on petitions for statewide ballot amendments to the Colorado Constitution, which, if voted in, supersede existing legislative law," wrote Longmont resident Judith Blackburn in a letter to the editor published in the Times-Call over the weekend. 

Also of Interest

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

Destroying Medicare to Save ObamaCare: Hillary Clinton’s “Public Option” Plan

Did the Clinton Foundation Have a Storefront Accountant Like Madoff?

Meet the Hawks for Hillary!

'I'm not with her': why women are wary of Hillary Clinton

The 7 Biggest Myths and Lies About Social Security

A Little Night Music

James Peterson - Don't Let the Devil Ride

Delbert McClinton - Squeeze Me In

James Peterson - Born in Alabama

James Peterson - Every Shuteye Ain't Sleep

Delbert McClinton - Shaky Ground

James Peterson - Ain't Enough Gas To Get Over The Line

Delbert McClinton + Kacey Jones - You're the reason our kids are ugly