The Evening Blues - 9-12-19



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Mable John

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Little Willie John's undeservedly less well known sister, Mable John. Enjoy!

Mable John - My Name Is Mable

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”

-- Kurt Vonnegut


News and Opinion

Another war criminal writes a memoir. Jon Schwarz' review is worth a read. Here's a taste:

A Memoir From Hell: Samantha Power Will Do Anything for Human Rights Unless It Hurts Her Career

“The Education of an Idealist” — a new memoir by Samantha Power, America’s ambassador to the U.N. from 2013 to 2017 — could have been among the greatest books ever written about politics. ...

However, you’ll learn literally nothing from Power about these subjects:

• The Obama administration’s massive campaign of drone strikes across the world. Power was there from the beginning, starting out in 2009 on Obama’s National Security Council as senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights.

• The three major Israeli attacks on Gaza during Obama’s time in office.

• How the U.S. and our Gulf allies accidentally (?) ended up arming an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which Russia claimed motivated it to back the Syrian government more heavily.

• Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen, which began in 2015 with America’s committed logistical support, including targeting intelligence and aerial refueling of fighter aircraft.

• Obama’s decision not to prosecute the men and women who built and ran black sites where prisoners were tortured during the George W. Bush administration.

• Power’s chummy hijinks with Henry Kissinger, one of the 20th century’s varsity war criminals. In 2014, she tweeted a picture of herself buddying up with Kissinger at a baseball game. She later received a prize both named after and personally awarded by Kissinger.

...

During her Senate confirmation hearings, she explains, she was confronted by an essay she wrote in 2003. ... “U.S. foreign policy has to be rethought,” she said. “It needs not tweaking but overhauling. We need a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States, [including] the CIA-assisted coups in Guatemala, Chile, and the Congo; the bombing of Cambodia; and the support for right-wing terror squads in Latin America.”

As Power describes it in “The Education of an Idealist,” she simply refused to be responsive to GOP questions about this. Asked “Do you believe the United States has committed or sponsored crimes?” by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., she just repeated that “the United States is the greatest country on earth.”

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

The U.S. government concluded within the past two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying have been discovered on American soil, the Trump administration did not rebuke the Israeli government, and there were no consequences for Israel’s behavior, one of the former officials said.

The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cellphones into giving them their locations and identity information. Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture the contents of calls and data use. The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates — though it’s not clear whether the Israeli efforts were successful. ...

Based on a detailed forensic analysis, the FBI and other agencies working on the case felt confident that Israeli agents had placed the devices, according to the former officials, several of whom served in top intelligence and national security posts.

Greece and Turkey Are Playing Dangerous War Games on the Aegean Sea

The Greek armed forces are tasked with intercepting and repelling aerial and naval incursions by an increasingly erratic and aggressive Turkey, a dysfunctional relationship at the heart of NATO’s security architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Every day, the fighter jets of the two regional powers engage in mock dogfights over Greece’s eastern borders, maneuvering for “technical kills,” where one pilot locks his missiles onto his adversary’s aircraft, with only the push of a button separating this dangerous dance from war. Sometimes it has proved deadly: Last December, a Greek Mirage pilot was killed in an aviation accident while intercepting Turkish jets. ...

Indeed, tensions between Greece and Turkey are not new, but the discovery of rich deposits of liquid and gas petroleum in the Eastern Mediterranean is changing the balance of power in the region at a time when Turkey’s apparent drift away from NATO is causing alarm in Washington and Athens. ...

Over the past few years, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel have held an escalating series of large-scale military drills aimed at enhancing cooperation between their air and naval forces, while simultaneously pushing forward with an ambitious scheme to construct a pipeline transporting the newly discovered oil and gas to markets in the European Union. The aim is to strengthen relations between allies, while reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian energy resources, but it’s impossible to divorce these moves from the broader strategic picture of regional powers unsettled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bellicose rhetoric and growing image as a source of regional instability.

The latest source of tension between the NATO allies is Turkey’s dispatch of drill ships, escorted by warships, into Cypriot waters. Greece is treaty-bound to defend Cyprus’s territorial integrity, and Turkish encroachment on the island republic’s territory is a source of growing anxiety for Athens. Though only Cyprus’s Greek-led government is internationally recognized, Turkey has occupied the northern half of the island for 45 years, and claims the right to drill for oil in Cyprus’s waters, a stance that has led to condemnation from both the EU and the U.S.

Erdogan's recent purchase of advanced Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles saw Turkey expelled from the F-35 fighter jet program. Erdogan, however, appears unfazed by NATO’s disciplinary actions and has expressed interest in purchasing the alternative Russian SU-57 jet. He’s also continued his threats to invade Northeast Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed alongside fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces. Within this context, the growing defense relationship between the United States and Greece, manifest in the donation of equipment, enhanced training, and increasing use of strategically attractive facilities like the combined air and naval base at Souda Bay in Crete, can be interpreted as a potential fallback option in case America’s relationship with Turkey is damaged beyond repair.

Turkey Accuses US of ‘Stalling’ Syria Safe Zone

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusogu issued a statement on Tuesday accusing the US of “stalling” on establishing a safe zone across northeastern Syria, even though the US and Turkey are already conducting joint patrols in the area.

Cavusoglu says that the goal is to push the Syrian Kurds out of the area, and if the US doesn’t start working with them to make it happen, Turkey is prepared to unilaterally do so.

Will U.S. & Iran Resume Talks After John “Bomb Iran” Bolton Is Ousted as National Security Adviser?

Bolton exit followed bust-up over mooted Trump-Rouhani meeting

Donald Trump and his top officials reportedly discussed the possibility of easing sanctions on Iran on Monday, as a means of engineering a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, at this month’s UN general assembly.

According to the account by Bloomberg News, the then national security adviser, John Bolton, argued forcefully against such a meeting, a day before his abrupt departure from the White House.

His removal followed deep differences with Trump over the president’s wish to score some quick diplomatic successes, by meeting Rouhani, the Taliban and other US adversaries.

According to the Bloomberg account, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, argued for a lifting of sanctions as a means of restarting negotiations with Iran. Asked on Wednesday on whether he would meet Rouhani, Trump said: “We’ll see what happens.” ...

On Wednesday, Trump criticised Bolton for his positions on a range of foreign policy issues, stretching back to his role in advocating the 2003 Iraq invasion. “He made some very big mistakes,” the president said. “John is known as a tough guy. He’s so tough, he got us into Iraq.” Bolton had been “way out of line” on Venezuela policy and was “not getting along with people” in the administration, Trump added.

John Bolton Fired Over Libya Policy Or Taliban?

US Forces May Have Committed War Crimes in Syria: UN Report

A new report out Wednesday from United Nations investigators says that U.S. forces may have committed war crimes in Syria.

Released by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, the report catalogs how the eight-year conflict "continues to torment civilians who bear the brunt of hostilities," as operations carried out by the U.S.-led international coalition, militants, and Russia-backed pro-government forces have left essential infrastructure obliterated, civilians killed, maimed, and uprooted, and communities in "near complete destruction."


The powers providing support for the warring parties, the report says, "bear a shared responsibility for the crimes committed against millions of Syrian women, men, and children." ...

Advocacy groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously pointed to the ongoing tally of Syrian civilian deaths at the hand of the U.S.-led coalition, and said the true death toll is likely far higher that what the coalition acknowledges.

Noura Erakat: Netanyahu’s Proposed West Bank Annexation Is Logical End to Israel’s Apartheid Policy

Outcry as Bolsonaro's son questions value of democracy in Brazil

The rumbustious son of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has come under heavy fire from across the political spectrum after claiming rapid political change was unachievable “through democratic means”. Carlos Bolsonaro – a politician and social media fanatic known for his incendiary and often unintelligible tweets – sparked the maelstrom on Monday evening with a 43-word post on Twitter.

“The transformation Brazil wants will not happen at the speed we yearn for through democratic means,” he tweeted to his 1.3 million followers.

That comment triggered an immediate outcry in a country that only emerged from two decades of dictatorship in 1985 and whose current leader is a notorious pro-torture admirer of that military period and other authoritarian regimes. “Yes, I’m in favour of a dictatorship,” Jair Bolsonaro once told Brazil’s congress.

The conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper condemned Carlos Bolsonaro’s “vile statement” and demanded an urgent statement from his father on the matter. “If this was just any old fruitcake publishing such freedom-destroying nonsense on the internet … there would be no reason to worry. But the one going public to flirt with coup-mongering … was one of the sons of the president of the republic,” the broadsheet complained in an editorial.

Writing in Rio’s O Globo newspaper, commentator Bernardo Mello Franco called the comment a deliberate attempt to fire up Bolsonaro’s base and disguise his shortcomings as president amid a slump in support. “Carlos Bolsonaro said what his dad thinks,” Mello Franco warned, pointing to the “authoritarianism in the [family’s] blood”.

Operation Yellowhammer is a hammer blow against the idea that Britain is a well-governed nation

Fears of no-deal chaos as ministers forced to publish secret Brexit papers

A no-deal Brexit could result in rising food and fuel prices, disruption to medicine supplies and public disorder on Britain’s streets, according to secret documents the government was forced by MPs to publish on Wednesday. A five-page document spelling out the government’s “planning assumptions” under Operation Yellowhammer – the government’s no-deal plan – was disclosed in response to a “humble address” motion.

The content of the document was strikingly similar to the plan leaked to the Sunday Times in August, which the government dismissed at the time as out of date. That document was described as a “base case”; but the new document claims to be a “worst-case scenario”.

The document, which says it outlines “reasonable worst case planning assumptions” for no deal Brexit, highlights the risk of border delays, given an estimate that up to 85% of lorries crossing the Channel might not be ready for a new French customs regime. ... The reliance of medical supplies on cross-Channel routes “make them particularly vulnerable to severe extended delays”, the report says, with some medicines having such short shelf lives they cannot be stockpiled. A lack of veterinary medicines could increase the risk of disease outbreaks, it adds.

On food supplies, supplies of “certain types of fresh food” would be reduced, the document warns, as well as other items such as packaging. It says: “In combination, these two factors will not cause an overall shortage of food in the UK but will reduce availability and choice of products and will increase price, which could impact vulnerable groups.” Later, it adds: “Low income groups will be disproportionately affected by any price rises in food and fuel.”

On law and order it warns: “Protests and counter-protests will take place across the UK and may absorb significant amounts of police resource. There may also be a rise in public disorder and community tensions.” ...

The government refused to comply with the second part of MPs’ request, which demanded the release of messages relating to the suspension of parliament sent by Johnson’s senior adviser, Dominic Cummings and various other aides on WhatsApp, Facebook, other social media and both their personal and professional phones.

Boris Johnson Lied to the Queen to Get Parliament Suspended, Court Rules

A court in Scotland added to the unending Brexit mess on Wednesday, by unanimously ruling Prime Minister Boris Johnson lied to the queen in order to suspend Parliament, a move it has labeled unlawful. The ruling doesn't mean an immediate recall for Parliament, which was suspended amid chaotic scenes Monday night. Instead, an emergency hearing in the Supreme Court on Tuesday will make a final ruling.

In a summary of their findings, the Court of Session judges unanimously said Johnson's decision to suspend was motivated by the “improper purpose of stymieing Parliament.”

“The Court will accordingly make an Order declaring that the Prime Minister's advice to HM the Queen and the prorogation which followed thereon was unlawful and is thus null and of no effect,” they added. ...

The Edinburgh appeal court’s ruling overturned a ruling by the same court last week that said Johnson’s suspension was lawful. A court in London has also ruled Johnson’s suspension was lawful. The Supreme Court will assess both cases next week, together with a similar challenge brought in Northern Ireland.

'Enemies of the state': The anti-terrorism laws that undermine our freedoms

Healthcare Ad Spending Exceeds $65 Million in 2019 as Insurance Industry Ramps Up Effort to Kill Medicare for All

An Axios analysis released Wednesday found that spending on healthcare advertisements has exceeded $65 million in 2019 as dark money organizations, the insurance industry, and Big Pharma ramp up their campaigns against Medicare for All and other proposed reforms.

"More than half of all issue advertising this year has been on healthcare," according to Axios, "and that spending will only increase as the 2020 campaign gets closer."

Doctor Patient Unity, a dark money group that purports to represent doctors but doesn't publicly disclose its members, has been the biggest spender on healthcare ads this year, Axios found. The group has spent $26 million to date in 2019 into an effort to defeat bipartisan legislation aimed at curbing surprise medical bills. The organization sent mailers to the Michigan district of Republican Rep. Tim Walberg earlier this month warning that billing reform efforts in Congress are "the first step towards Socialists' Medicare for All dream."

Axios also reported that One Nation, a GOP dark money group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was among the top five groups that spent the most on healthcare in 2019. In June, the Republican organization launched a nationwide $4 million television, radio, and digital ad campaign against Medicare for All.

Barb Kalbach, president of the board of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund, wrote in a Guardian op-ed Wednesday that massive ad spending by dark money groups and the insurance industry shows they are "hanging on for dear life to a business model that returns obscene profits for insurance executives at the expense of cancer patients, cardiac patients, and people struggling to pay for their insulin."

California landmark workers' rights bill sends waves through gig economy firms

California legislators passed a first-of-its-kind bill targeting contract workers late Tuesday night, in a move that will potentially revolutionize the ways gig economy giants such as Lyft and Uber engage with employees. The bill, known as AB5, paves the way for workers in the so-called gig economy to get holiday and sick pay and has garnered attention across the US and beyond, largely owing to the size of California’s workforce. Its passage positions California to be “the national leader on this critical issue”, Steve Smith of the California Labor Federation said.

“Misclassification is not something that just happens in California, it happens everywhere,” he said. “The trend towards cheating workers out of basic protections has been accelerating in recent years. We think this is significant for us here in California, but its national significance cannot be understated.”

Several Democratic presidential candidates have supported the measure, including the US senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California.

Trade groups and “gig economy” firms that rely heavily on contractors have sharply criticized the bill. Uber said in a phone call with reporters on Wednesday it will seek to avoid reclassifying drivers as employees under AB5. “AB5 does not automatically reclassify any rideshare drivers from independent contractors to employees,” Uber’s chief legal officer Tony West said. “AB5 does not provide drivers with benefits, nor does it give drivers the right to organize. In fact, the bill currently says nothing about rideshare drivers.”

Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft have proposed a potential ballot referendum that could be presented to California voters next year and would exempt drivers for ride-hailing services from the scope of the bill. Uber, Lyft and the delivery firm DoorDash, which has also made freelance drivers the backbone of its business, earmarked $90m (£73m) for a planned November 2020 ballot initiative that would exempt them from the law. Labor advocates say that initiative is likely to fail.

Trump Reportedly Wants to Destroy Homeless Camps in California. Officials Say He Doesn’t Have a Clue.

The Trump administration reportedly wants to raze homeless tent cities across California and send people living in them to temporary government facilities. But local legislators want another solution instead: cash for more affordable housing. On Tuesday, a delegation from the Trump administration visited Los Angeles’ “Skid Row,” one of the largest entrenched homeless encampments in the United States. The officials’ visit happened as the Washington Post reported that officials might move to push some of California’s homeless people, including those in L.A., into new or rehabbed homelessness facilities. But it’s not yet clear whether such a proposal would be legally viable.

It’s also not clear whether California cities would even want what Trump’s reportedly offering. San Francisco Mayor London Breed — who runs a city with massive homelessness crisis the president has criticized in the past — said she’d rather have housing support for homeless people than an initiative that would potentially destroy their belongings. ...

During a rally in Ohio last month, Trump also said that “nearly half of all the homeless people living in the streets in America happen to live in the state of California," Trump told the crowd. “What they are doing to our beautiful California is a disgrace to our country.” ...

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, told USA Today he sensed the Trump administration would do more harm than good if it got involved. "My first reaction is that it felt like internment camps for people experiencing homelessness," he told the paper. "The president doesn’t seem to have any grasp of the homeless crisis not only in California but around the country."

Supreme court's action to allow Trump to deny asylum reverses years of US policy

The supreme court ruled on Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to enforce nationwide restrictions that would prevent most Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the US. The administration announced in July a new policy that would deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on their way to the US without seeking protection there first, therefore affecting almost all migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border.

The justices’ order late Wednesday temporarily undoes a lower-court ruling that had blocked the new asylum policy in some states along the southern border.

Most people crossing the southern border are Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty. They are largely ineligible under the new rule, as are asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and South America who arrive regularly at the southern border.

Groups challenging the policy in court say that it violates the US refugee act and the UN refugee convention guaranteeing the right to seek asylum to those fleeing persecution. The shift reverses decades of US policy. The administration has said that it wants to close the gap between an initial asylum screening that most people pass and a final decision on asylum that most people do not win.



the horse race



On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, Bernie Sanders Calls for End to Endless War

Sen. Bernie Sanders marked the anniversary of the September 11th attacks on Wednesday by calling for the nation to get off the path of never-ending war it's pursued since the start of the so-called war on terror.

"Instead of staying focused on those who attacked us," Sanders said in a statement, "the Bush administration chose to declare a global 'war on terror' in order justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror has turned into an endless war."

And that, Sanders continued, has had deleterious effects, including a $6 trillion price tag and a weakening of U.S. democracy. Endless war has also unleashed blowback—"it has produced more terrorists," he said.

"If we do not move decisively to end America's longest war," Sanders wrote on Twitter, "we will soon see servicemembers fight and die in Afghanistan and around the world in a conflict that was started before they were born.'"

A new approach to global engagement is necessary, said Sanders.

"We must envision a new form of American engagement: one in which we lead not in war-making but in finding shared solutions to shared global challenges," he said. "U.S. power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but to bring people together around our common humanity."

Sanders is one of the Democratic White House hopefuls that has signed a pledge affirming his intention of ending the "endless war." Rolled out earlier this year by the veteran-led grassroots organization Common Defense, signers promise they will "act to bring the Forever War to a responsible and expedient conclusion."

While frontrunner Joe Biden has not added his name, other 2020 Democrats have: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Joe Biden Is Demanding Financial Transparency While Concealing His Own Wealth

Former Vice President Joe Biden is telegraphing that he plans to attack his rivals on the debate stage for a lack of transparency into their finances. Biden is expected to go after Sen. Elizabeth Warren in particular, Bloomberg reported, for failing to disclose details of private income during the 1990s and 2000s from the types of companies that she now lambasts for “rigging the system.” Warren, as a law professor, did consulting work for private companies that involved her bankruptcy expertise, including advising Dow Corning in 1995, involving a major settlement with women harmed by breast implants. Warren has released her tax returns dating back to 2008.

Biden may be looking to hammer her for hypocrisy, but his charge of a lack of transparency is badly undercut by his own financial opacity — not decades ago, but in the last two years. Since leaving the White House, Biden, long proud of his wealth ranking near the bottom of the U.S. Senate, began delivering high-dollar speeches to well-heeled clients and raked in book revenue that elevated him well into the upper class. He earned some $15.6 million in the last two years alone, according to financial disclosures released by his campaign.  It is typical for presidential candidates to voluntarily release their tax returns, with the exception of Donald Trump. Despite those releases, the details of how Biden, whose career has been partially dedicated to enabling financial secrecy in Delaware, made a significant portion of that money remains a mystery.

The Bidens have used their home state’s financial privacy laws to shield his income from public view, by setting up two tax- and transparency-avoidance vehicles known as S corporations. He and his wife Jill Biden called them CelticCapri Corp. and Giacoppa Corp., respectively, and, according to the Wall Street Journal, have reported more than $13 million in profits the previous two years that weren’t subject to specific disclosure or self-employment taxes. As CNBC has described, money Biden made from book deals and speeches flowed into the S corporations and was then remitted to Biden and his wife as “distributions” rather than salary. When money is funneled through an S corporation, the recipient doesn’t owe Social Security or Medicare taxes on it, nor can the source of revenue be traced. (In addition to the distributions, the Bidens drew relatively small salaries from the S Corporations: under half a million dollars, for which they owed self-employment taxes.)

The use of S corporations by politicians is known as the Gingrich-Edwards loophole, named for Newt Gingrich and John Edwards, who have deployed it in the past. The strategy has become popular among Republicans, but Democratic politicians typically avoid it, given its capacity to appear hypocritical. Warren, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, the Journal has reported, all shied away from the strategy when it came to reporting income from books and speeches.



the evening greens


Trump’s Fish and Wildlife pick under scrutiny for previous work for Monsanto

Donald Trump’s nominee to handle endangered species, whose experience and political ties have been questioned by environment experts, came under scrutiny from Senate Democrats on Wednesday for potential conflicts of interest.

Aurelia Skipwith, the interior department’s deputy assistant secretary of fish, wildlife and parks, previously worked for the agrochemical giant Monsanto, as well as another agriculture business and her fiance’s consulting firm, Gage International.

Skipwith’s nomination to run the US Fish and Wildlife Service follows a trend of former industry advocates selected to run the government. The interior department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are both run by former lobbyists.

Tom Carper, the Senate environment committee’s ranking Democrat, said Skipwith had not responded to a letter with questions about how she would avoid being involved in decisions that would benefit her past employers until the night before the hearing, and even then her answers were incomplete.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has already made one decision in favor of Monsanto, rescinding a ban on farms within national wildlife refuges using bee-killing pesticides and the genetically modified crops that can withstand them. Skipwith told lawmakers she had no part in that decision.

Another Flint? Newark, NJ, Faces Public Health Crisis over Lead Contamination in City’s Water Supply

Europe's marine sanctuaries are no more than 'paper parks'

Europe’s marine wildlife sanctuaries are no more than “paper parks” that are failing to protect the seas, a report from conservationists has said. European seas, from the North East Atlantic ocean to the Adriatic, are in a “poor condition”, with coastal states failing to meet targets to protect marine wildlife, a report by WWF has concluded.

Under EU law, coastal states are obliged to create marine protected areas to protect specific species or habitats. The report found that only 1.8% of Europe’s seas are covered by marine protected areas, with management plans. “This effectively makes them paper parks,” WWF said in a statement on its report that assessed progress in the EU’s 23 coastal states.

The requirement to create marine protected areas is part of the EU’s efforts to meet international targets to ensure that 10% of the world’s oceans are protected by 2020 – a goal campaigners believe is too weak to ensure thriving seas and oceans in the long-term.

Janica Borg, lead author of the study, said it was impossible for Europe to meet the 2020 target. “Without urgent action to implement effective plans for nature conservation or restoration, with proper restrictions against extractive activities, nearly all EU MPAs will fail to support our ocean’s resilience in the climate emergency” she said.

The study found that 19 of 23 member states were falling behind on developing management plans while 11 had not announced any plan at all. The patchy effort means that wildlife in the Baltic, North Sea and Mediterranean remains vulnerable to overfishing, bottom trawling, drilling for oil or gas, or noise coming from wind turbines being hammered into the seabed. Scientists revealed last year that destructive fishing is worse in wildlife zones than outside them.

Scientists use IVF procedures to help save near-extinct rhinos

Scientists have successfully created two embryos of the near-extinct northern white rhino in a landmark effort to save the species.

The international team of researchers and conservationists drew on IVF procedures to create the embryos from fresh eggs collected from the two remaining female rhinos and frozen sperm from dead males.

The achievement, announced at a press conference in Italy on Wednesday, paves the way for specialists to transfer the embryos into a surrogate mother – a southern white rhino – in the near future.

“Today we achieved an important milestone on a rocky road which allows us to plan the future steps in the rescue programme of the northern white rhino,” said Thomas Hildebrandt, head of the BioRescue project at Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. ...

Northern white rhinos have been in decline for decades. By 2018 the population had dwindled to two remaining females, Najin and Fatu at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, who are the last of their kind in the world.


Also of Interest

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

UK Security Services Neutralized Country’s Leading Liberal Newspaper

The FBI Was Deeply Involved in CIA Black Site Interrogations Despite Years of Denials, Guantánamo Defense Lawyer Says

On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, Media Worry About ‘Premature’ End to Afghan War

Lawmakers aim to twist Trump’s arm on Yemen — and check his cozy ties to Saudi Arabia

Andrew Bacevich, Ending War, American-Style

Boeing's travails show what's wrong with modern capitalism

The Air Force is investigating how white phosphorus rockets ended up all over a Tucson road

Netanyahu Hints Trump Peace Plan Will Allow Israel to Annex Key West Bank Territory

Justin Trudeau fires starting gun for Canada's general election

The Wall Street Campaign to Stop Elizabeth Warren Officially Began on September 10, 2019

New Report on Trans Mountain Pipeline Highlights 'Dangerous' Construction Hot Spots

Underpopulated Italian region offers visitors €25,000 to move in


A Little Night Music

Mable John - It's Catching

Mable John - Love Tornado

Mable John - Your Good Thing (is About to End)

Mable John - Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Mable John - Looking For A Man

Mable John - Running Out

Mable John - If You Give Up What You Got

Mable John - Who Wouldn't Love a Man Like That

Mable John - Don't Get Caught

Mable John - Wait You Dog

Mable John - No Matter How She Done It


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joe shikspack's picture

i have to run out of town this evening, i'll catch up with you all later.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

i have to run out of town

Can't afford to take uber? Bike? Horse or are you just getting some exercise?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh, for as long as i sat in traffic on I-95 (which they closed for hours tonight) i probably should have gone the exercise route. Smile

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Jimmy Dore pointed out how both parties have been war mongers over the years and Nancy P makes that clear as she says that the ouster of Bolton was bad for the continuity of US foreign policy. Yea like Obama's wars.

This comment is based on Max Blumenthal's work which is typically reported on the site The Grey Zone.

I have been impressed with Max Blumenthal's reporting ever since he reported from Israel during the 2014 war on Gaza

He has been doing excellent reporting from Nicaragua and Honduras and other places. This article by Kevin Gostola on Max and other's trip to syria which is freaking out the pro war faction

I know more than the average American, but not that much, and there were many things new in the article for me.

FAMILIAR FACTION OF REGIME CHANGE ADVOCATES LASH OUT AT JOURNALISTS REPORTING FROM SYRIA

Max has produced solid work

Verso Books published Blumenthal’s book, The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump, in April. He received praise from Reza Aslan, Gabriel Byrne, Andrew Cockburn, Juan Cole, Chris Hedges, Oliver Stone, and Asa Winstanley.

The book examined how the United States funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan and drew the Soviet Union into a prolonged war then allowed these same militants to become threats to the safety and security of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian countries. Through extensive research, it argued America’s efforts to nation-build and overthrow regimes have made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism and the rise of ultra-nationalism, including Islamophobia.

I only recently noticed Molly Crabapple from her cartoon work with AOC. She didn't like Max and others reporting from Syria

Journalists Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal were condemned for traveling to Damascus, Syria, to report on recent developments in the country.

The attacks came from a select but influential group of individuals, who resent the manner in which Khalek and Blumenthal have undermined that narrative for supporting regime change operations by Western forces and the militia groups aligned with them.

Both have been targeted before by these individuals who have forced or attempted to force the cancellation of their speaking events or render them toxic to publishers so their journalism does not reach a wider audience. This resentment is a product of an obsession that involves exaggerating their influence in order to justify a campaign that convinces people they should be viewed as pariahs.

Molly Crabapple is a New York artist and writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, CNN, and Vanity Fair. She equated their journalism to Nazi propaganda.

“This is some Goebbels shit,” Crabapple declared. “Prancing around Syria on a government luxury tour, posting tourist photos near torture centers, and mocking Syrian refugees who can never return to their country without risking being tortured to death.”

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joe shikspack's picture

@DonMidwest

great to hear from you again! i hope all is well.

thanks for the shadowproof article. i remember molly crabapple for some of the artwork that she did during occupy and later at some guantanamo hearings. i can't say that i have much use for her unsubstantiated attack on blumenthal and khalek.

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snoopydawg's picture

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question. No. nope. Nu uhh! Get real..

There’s no question that this push will still see major resistance among Senate Republicans, who so far have largely supported giving Trump unfettered authority — especially when it comes to Iran. The question is whether Democratic leadership will prioritize this issue enough in final negotiations.

“Democrats do have a ton of power in this situation,” Hassan El-Tayyab, with anti-war lobby Friends Committee on National Legislation. “They control in the House. But internally the talk was all defeatist.”

Will Democrats prioritize the humanitarian crisis in Yemen?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have been very public about Yemen being a high priority in negotiations. But neither have drawn red lines around the policy. Khanna, however, has said he has gotten assurances from Smith as well as Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer that this is a top priority.

Trump is threatening to veto the house budget if it includes getting out of Yemen? Well why not? Trump is basically rewriting the rules for the presidency anyway with help from the Supreme Court and little opposition from the democrats so why not just do what he wants?

Hmm..

ON THURSDAY, after a summer of extreme heat, the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis convened to hear from a group of people especially affected by climate change. They were not members of low-income communities or communities of color, people who have been hit by hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters. They were current and former professional athletes, appearing to testify on how climate change impacts winter sports and tourism industries.

The 10-member special committee, chaired by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is tasked with investigating the impacts of climate change to develop the policy ideas necessary to pass “ambitious actions that are on scale with the problem” following the 2020 election. As long as Republicans control the Senate, there is virtually no chance of any meaningful legislation passing. “The goal is to lay down the factual basis for taking action, so that if we are in charge in 2021, we don’t have to go through 18 months of investigatory hearings,” Schatz told The Atlantic in July.

Broadly speaking, Democratic leaders have resisted calls for a more urgent push toward a Green New Deal by assuring climate activists that they are on their side, and that they’re hard at work on the problem. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to create the kind of panel demanded by activists with the Sunrise Movement and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., explaining that the standing committees with current jurisdiction could handle the legislation. To buck them, she created a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, but declined to give it subpoena authority or otherwise empower it. Nearly a year later, it’s fair to ask: Do Democrats indeed have it under control?

Of course Nancy neutered the committee that is supposed to be addressing climate change. She wouldn't want to look like she seriously wanted to do something about it. Retire now, Nancy. Go spend time with your grandkids and tell them how you did absolutely nothing and they might want to be thinking of ways to survive in a city under water.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

capitol hill is only 62 feet above sea level.

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