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This evening's music features Kansas City jazz and blues piano player, singer and bandleader, Jay McShann. Enjoy!

“Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance.”

-- Barack Obama

News and Opinion

Why Obama Should Pardon All Leakers and Whistleblowers — Not Just Edward Snowden

Of course President Obama should pardon Edward Snowden — and Chelsea Manning, too. ...

But the unfortunate truth of our times is that Obama is not going to pardon Snowden and Manning. His administration has invested too much capital in demonizing them to turn back now. However, there are other leakers and whistleblowers for whom the arguments in favor of pardons are not only compelling but politically palatable, too. Their names are Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, and Thomas Drake. All of them were government officials who talked with journalists and were charged under the Espionage Act for disclosures of information that were far less consequential than the classified emails that Hillary Clinton stored on her server at home or the top-secret war diaries that David Petraeus shared with his biographer and girlfriend. Petraeus, a former general and CIA director, got a fine for his transgressions. Clinton got a presidential nomination.

Consider this: Kiriakou, a CIA agent who criticized the agency’s use of torture, was thrown into prison because he provided a journalist with the name of one covert officer, although the name was never published. Kim, a State Department official, pleaded guilty to talking to Fox News reporter James Rosen about a single classified report on North Korea that an official later described as a “nothing burger.” Sterling, a CIA officer, talked to New York Times reporter James Risen about a botched operation against Iran that went wrong because of bungling by the agency. Drake, who worked at the NSA, faced multiple felony charges after he talked to a Baltimore Sun reporter about fraud and abuse in a bloated surveillance program. All of them went to prison except Drake, who was able, in the end, to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, though he lost his job and security clearance and now works at an Apple store.

There is an imperative to apologize to Kim, Sterling, Kiriakou, and Drake that has nothing to do with justice (though justice should be sufficient incentive). It is possible that a crackpot grifter will be elected president of the United States in seven weeks time. Obama needs to start dramatically disavowing the excesses of his presidency, so that Donald Trump, if he wins in November, will not be able to use the continuity card to do even worse things with the excessive powers that Obama was able to arrogate for the Oval Office. (Trump would still do terrible things, of course, but he would at least have a harder time citing Obama as precedent.) One of the most insidious domestic legacies of Obama’s presidency is his unprecedented crackdown on officials who talked to journalists about embarrassing issues or policies the government wanted to keep secret — and this needs to be forsaken, now.

Calls to Treat Terror Suspects as "Enemy Combatants" Push U.S. Toward Totalitarianism

Both Russia and Assad deny bombing a UN aid convoy in Syria

A UN aid convoy delivering food and supplies to a rebel-held town in northern Syria was targeted in an airstrike late Monday as a week-old ceasefire, negotiated by the United States and Russia, spectacularly collapsed.

A barrage of bombs rained down on the convoy of 31 trucks, belonging to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, as it unloaded food parcels in the rural area of Urem al-Kubra. All of the trucks were clearly marked and their route had previously been shared with all parties to the Syrian conflict.

12 people were killed in the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights; most of them were drivers. The UN confirms that least 18 of the convoy's 31 trucks were hit, in addition to a warehouse.

It has yet to be confirmed whether the trucks were shelled or bombed. But the bigger uncertainty is that no one has claimed responsibility. ...

Just hours after the attack, the US State Department accused Russia of failing to uphold its ceasefire duties and of failing to inspire restraint in Damascus — though US officials did not directly accuse Russian planes of carrying out the bombardment. In a statement, the State Department vowed to "reassess the future prospects for cooperation with Russia" in Syria. ...

Russia denied that its warplanes conducted the airstrike and Syria also denied responsibility.

Washington’s Hawks Push New Cold War

Secretary of State John Kerry’s Syria agreement with Lavrov ... has sparked virtual open warfare in Washington. The “Cold War Bloc,” which includes Defense Secretary Ash Carter and House Speaker Paul Ryan, is extremely angry.

The Defense Department is in near open disobedience: when asked in a press teleconference if the military would abide by the terms of the agreement and share information with the Russians after the completion of the seven-day ceasefire, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, the commander of the U.S. Air Forces Central Command, which is directing the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, responded: “I think … it would be premature to say we’re going to jump right into it. And I’m not saying yes or no.”

But President Obama wants to define some sort of a foreign policy historical “legacy” (and so does Kerry). And the President probably suspects (with good cause possibly) that his legacy is set to be trashed by his successor, whomsoever it be – the minute he steps down from office. ...

Which brings us to the complex question of the current demonization of Russia by the Cold War Bloc (which includes Hillary Clinton) in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Gregory R. Copley, editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs has described the situation as one in which the U.S. Establishment is deliberately and intentionally “sacrificing key bilateral relationships in order to win [a] domestic election,” adding “in my 50 odd years covering the US government, I have never seen this level of partisanship within the administration where a sitting president actually regards the opposition party as the enemy of the state.”

In short, the stakes being played here – in demonizing Russia and Putin – go well beyond Syria or Ukraine. They lie at the heart of the struggle for the future of the U.S.

Syrian airstrikes hit UN aid convoy

UN suspends all aid convoy movements in Syria after airstrike

The United Nations has suspended aid convoys in Syria after an airstrike hit a fleet of trucks carrying food to a rebel-held area near Aleppo on Monday.

The UN humanitarian aid spokesman Jens Laerke said: “As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being, pending further assessment of the security situation.”

He said the UN had only recently received permission from the Syrian government to deliver aid to besieged areas of the country.

The decision came as foreign ministers in the International Syria Support Group – including US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov – met in New York before the start of the 71st UN general assembly. Speaking after the meeting, Kerry insisted that a week-old ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US was not dead despite a surge of Syrian government bombing.

CIA-Armed ‘Moderates’ in Syria Included al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front

A new report citing former CIA officers has revealed that the agency was knowingly providing weapons, including tow missiles to fighters that were effectively part of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, continuing to arm “moderates” so long as they at least nominally kept their moderate names. ...

The report concludes that the FSA was quickly becoming a cover name for Nusra, a fact which apparently didn’t phase the CIA, which was just as eager to use this pretense, so long as they were arming a group that was fighting against the Syrian government.

This has been a long-standing issue with the CIA’s operations in Syria, as they were entirely Assad-centric, and dismissive of fighting against ISIS. It quickly put them at cross-purposes with the Pentagon, whose own operations were focused on ISIS, and oftentimes saw the CIA undermining their efforts.

This new understanding of the FSA also explains Friday’s fiasco, in which US special forces were chased out of the Syrian town of al-Rai by US-backed and Turkey-backed FSA fighters threatening to “slaughter” them as infidels. Turkey has long been seen as cozy with Nusra anyhow, and likely didn’t care about the connections, while the FSA fighters, who were fine taking weapons from the CIA, rightly saw the US troops as a different force entirely, and one with a significantly different agenda.

Syria's wheat crop halved this year to new low

Syria's wheat harvest nearly halved to 1.3 million tonnes this year, the lowest in 27 years, as fighting and poor rainfall further degraded the farming sector and the nation's ability to feed itself.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad was forced to tender this summer for an unprecedented 1.35 million tonnes of imported wheat from political ally Russia to ensure supply of the flat loaves that are a staple for the Syrian people.

Before the five-year-old civil war, Syria was a wheat exporter producing four million tonnes in a good year and able to export 1.5 million tonnes.

Now wheat and bread have become an integral part of the war, with wheat farms, seed distribution, milling and bakeries all affected.

The Damascus government subsidises bread for the areas it controls and aid agencies offer supported prices in some areas, but Syrians in other parts of the country suffer bread shortages and high prices.

"You know why most people carry weapons? Because of bread," said Mahmoud al Sheikh, a health worker from a besieged part of Damascus. "Hunger makes people sell themselves to the armed groups so they can eat and bring food to their families."

US-Led Strike on Syrian Army Included British, Danish, Australian Jets

British, Danish and Australian warplanes took part in the U.S.-led coalition's airstrike Saturday that reportedly killed more than 60 Syrian government troops and threatened to unravel the "cessation of hostilities," military officials said Monday.

The Syrian army and a key rebel leader declared that the cease-fire had collapsed and blamed each other for violations, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was working for a possible extension of the seven-day-old cessation period that ended Monday.

Robert Parry dishes up a withering critique of the US major news media propaganda outlets. It's long but worth the read:

America’s Worldwide Impunity

After several years of arming and supporting Syrian rebel groups that often collaborated with Al Qaeda’s Nusra terror affiliate, the United States launched an illegal invasion of Syria two years ago with airstrikes supposedly aimed at Al Qaeda’s Islamic State spin-off, but on Saturday that air war killed scores of Syrian soldiers and aided an Islamic State victory.

Yet, the major American news outlets treat this extraordinary set of circumstances as barely newsworthy, operating with an imperial hubris that holds any U.S. invasion or subversion of another country as simply, ho-hum, the way things are supposed to work.

On Monday, The Washington Post dismissed the devastating airstrike at Deir al-Zour killing at least 62 Syrian soldiers as one of several “mishaps” that had occurred over the past week and jeopardized a limited ceasefire, arranged between Russia and the Obama administration.

But the fact that the U.S. and several allies have been routinely violating Syrian sovereign airspace to carry out attacks was not even an issue, nor is it a scandal that the U.S. military and CIA have been arming and training Syrian rebels. In the world of Official Washington, the United States has the right to intervene anywhere, anytime, for whatever reason it chooses.

President Barack Obama even has publicly talked about authorizing military strikes in seven different countries, including Syria, and yet he is deemed “weak” for not invading more countries, at least more decisively.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has vowed to engage in a larger invasion of Syria, albeit wrapping the aggression in pretty words like “safe zone” and “no-fly zone,” but it would mean bombing and killing more Syrian soldiers.

As Secretary of State, Clinton used similar language to justify invading Libya and implementing a “regime change” that killed the nation’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and unleashed five years of violent political chaos.

If you were living a truly democratic country with a truly professional news media, you would think that this evolution of the United States into a rogue superpower violating pretty much every international law and treaty of the post-World War II era would be a regular topic of debate and criticism.

US-made bombs used in Saudi strikes on MSF hospital in Yemen

Saudi Arabia using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus in Yemen

Saudi Arabia appears to be using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in its war in Yemen, based on images and videos posted to social media, raising concerns among human rights groups that the highly incendiary material could be used against civilians.

Under U.S. regulations, white phosphorus sold to other countries is to be used only for signaling to other troops and creating smoke screens. When the munition explodes, it releases white phosphorus that automatically ignites in the air and creates a thick white smoke. When used against soldiers or civilians, it can maim and kill by burning to the bone. ...

“The United States expects any recipient of U.S. military assistance to use those items in accordance with international law and under the terms and conditions of any U.S. transfer or sale,” said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues.

The official said the department was looking into reports of Saudi forces’ improperly using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions. “If a country is determined to have used U.S.-provided weapons for unauthorized purposes, the U.S. will take appropriate corrective action,” the official said. ...

The United States has used white phosphorus against fighters, including in 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq, and sporadically in Afghanistan over the course of the war there. In 2009, Israel used the weapon in populated areas in the Gaza Strip.

Greece: Migrants flee burning camp on Lesbos island

Thousands flee as blaze sweeps through Moria refugee camp in Greece

Thousands of refugees detained at one of Greece’s biggest camps, Moria on the island of Lesbos, have fled the facility amid scenes of mayhem after some reportedly set fire to it on Monday.

Up to 4,000 panic-stricken men, women and children rushed out of the installation, which is surrounded by a barbed wire fence, following rumours of mass deportations to Turkey. ...

No one was reported to have been injured in the blaze. But damage was widespread with more than 90 tents and dozens of prefabricated housing units going up in flames and vast numbers of refugees losing their meagre belongings to the inferno. By Tuesday witnesses described the camp as resembling a war zone.

As the scale of the destruction became apparent, the Greek government prepared to dispatch two ferryboats to host detainees in the island’s port until other accommodation could be found. Close to 100 unaccompanied minors, who had controversially been housed at the overcrowded centre, were to be evacuated to a camp on the mainland, officials said.

Greece’s citizen protection minister, Nikos Toskas, said outside aid was also vital.

“The Europeans have to send us real [help] not five blankets that they call ‘international solidarity’,” he said on Greek radio, complaining that non-governmental organisations, the recipient of €80m (£69m) in EU funds so far, had failed to use the money properly. “To a great degree, they did not correspond to what they had promised the EU [when] it gave them the money.”

Weapons Makers Hold Lavish Lovefest for Pentagon Official Who Manages Arms Sales

Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey was the guest of honor at a reception Wednesday hosted by the Senate Aerospace Caucus, a group of more than a dozen senators who “work to ensure a strong, secure, and competitive American aerospace sector,” according to their mission statement online. The event in a sumptuous Senate reception room was cohosted by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the lobbying group for weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

Rixey is the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the Pentagon agency charged with overseeing the Pentagon’s relations with the militaries of U.S. allies. ... When foreign countries want to buy U.S. weapons, the DSCA finds them — either in U.S. stockpiles, but more often by signing lucrative contracts with defense contractors. According to Rixey, over the past year, the DSCA has approved upwards of $47 billion in such contracts, for weapons transfers to countries like Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. ...

Rixey was joined by caucus co-chairs Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., who praised the industry for its role in overseas weapons sales on both foreign policy and economic grounds. As they spoke alongside representatives from the weapons industry, guests were treated to an open bar, and an assortment of food that included artisan cheeses, chocolate covered strawberries, and macarons. ...

The 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act was meant to stop lobbyists from treating lawmakers and government officials to fancy dinners, or lavish parties. But the law had many loopholes — including a notorious “toothpick rule” allowing them to serve as much finger food as guests can eat.

Thailand's government is using child 'Cyber Scouts' to monitor dissent

The Thai government is recruiting its own citizens to spy on each other on social media — and even rewarding child "Cyber Scouts" when they tell authorities about any insulting comments they see others making about the country's royal family.

According to a new report released Monday by the human rights watchdog group Privacy International, the information being gathered is helping Thai police bring charges of "lèse majesté" — a long-standing law in Thailand in which anyone who "defames, insults, or threatens" the top members of the royal family faces s prison term of up to 15 years.

Following the 2014 coup led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, there was a significant increase in the level of online surveillance carried out by the National Council for Peace and Order, the junta created to govern Thailand. The introduction of an updated Computer Crime Act in 2014 gave police wide-ranging authority to monitor online activity.

What the junta can't do through technology, it's attempting to do through incentives and intimidation. Among the report's more disturbing findings is the continued recruitment of children to spy on the online activity of friends and family. The initiative, called Cyber Scouts, was initially launched in 2010, with the Royal Thai National Police offering 500 Baht ($15) to anyone providing information on anti-coup protesters.

Today's Cyber Scouts, however, don't get any money. Instead they earn points for successfully ratting out neighbors in hopes of being featured on the Cyber Scouts website.

Could Cellphone Alerts Used to Search for New York Bombing Suspect Open Door for Attacks on Muslims?

How New York City Crowdsourced a Manhunt

At approximately 8 am Monday morning, as many New Yorkers were beginning their day, heading to work or school, their cellphones vibrated, notifying them of an incoming message: “WANTED: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28-yr-old male. See media for pic. Call 9-1-1 if seen.” ...

While New York City’s Wireless Emergency Alert system has been used more than a half dozen times over the last few years, Monday marked the first time it had been activated as a means to encourage the public to aid the police in the search for a wanted man.

Standing before reporters Monday afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the use of the system, saying that it “definitely contributed to the successful apprehension of the suspect.”

Others, however, were less enthusiastic about the alert, arguing that it lacked specificity, that it dangerously deputized an entire city, and that the experience of seeing waves of commuters suddenly and simultaneously enlisted in a law enforcement manhunt had a creepily Orwellian feel. ...

Speaking to the press Monday, de Blasio suggested that he might be willing to use the system again. His newly appointed police commissioner, James O’Neill, welcomed the idea, indicating that crowd-sourced, technology-driven manhunting is here to stay.

Wage gap between white and black Americans is worse today than in 1979

Black Americans today earn even less relative to their white counterparts than they did in 1979, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

The report, released by the left-leaning thinktank on Tuesday, shows that the gap between wages of both black and white men and black and white women has widened over the last 36 years.

Black men’s average hourly wages went from being 22.2% lower than those of white men in 1979 to being 31% lower by 2015. For women, the wage gap went from 6% in 1979 to 19% in 2015.

“The finding that stands out the most, our major result, is that the racial wage gaps were larger in 2015 than they were in 1979. That’s huge because the impression people have, in general, is we know there’s still racism in this country, but we think or at least believe that it’s getting better,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the EPI’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy and one of the report’s authors.

The EPI report comes a week after the US Census Bureau found that in 2015, median income for white Americans went up 4.4% and that of black Americans went up by 4.1%. While everyone’s income went up in 2015, a large racial divide remains. The median household income for white Americans in 2015 was $63,000. That’s 70% more than the median household income of black Americans, which was $36,898.

Video in Tulsa police shooting shows black man was unarmed with hands up

An unarmed black man killed by a white Oklahoma police officer can be seen on video walking away from officers and toward his SUV with his hands up before he approaches the driver’s side door, where he drops to the ground after being shocked with a stun gun and then fatally shot.

In Tulsa, the police helicopter footage was among several clips released on Monday showing the shooting of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher and its aftermath. A man in the helicopter that arrives above the scene as Crutcher walks to the vehicle can be heard saying: “Time for a Taser.” He then says: “That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.”

Police chief Chuck Jordan announced before the video and audio recordings were released that Crutcher had no weapon on him or in his vehicle when he was shot on Friday. It’s not clear from the footage what led Betty Shelby, the officer who fired the fatal shot, to draw her gun or what orders officers might have given Crutcher. ...

After the shooting, Crutcher could be seen lying on the side of the road, blood pooling around his body, for nearly two minutes before anyone checked on him. When asked why police did not provide immediate assistance once Crutcher was down, MacKenzie said: “I don’t know that we have protocol on how to render aid to people.”

Millennials Arrested at Paul Ryan's Office Denouncing GOP's Politics of Hate

Decrying the GOP's "dog-whistle racism," which they say has contributed to the rise of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a group of young people risked arrest during a surprise sit-in at the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday morning.

"Paul Ryan has a choice," the millennial-led campaign All Of Us 2016 said ahead of the action, which saw 11 arrests. "Will [he] reject dog-whistle racism or, like Trump, will he keep encouraging Americans to hate each other?"

Over 50 years, 25-year-old Waleed Shahid told Common Dreams in an interview, the GOP has employed a "divisive, cynical strategy to make Americans hate and fear each other" while simultaneously allowing the uber-wealthy and corporate entities to "horde more and more power."

"I'm 25, I'm Muslim-American, and I'm pretty sick and tired of seeing the normalization of racism that the Republican Party has brought to the United States," said Shahid, who was taking part in his first-ever civil disobedience action.

Trump, Shahid added, is less of an outlier than an outgrowth of such divisive politics—"he's taken the dog-whistle politics and turned it into a bullhorn"—and in turn, as a senior party leader and Trump supporter, Ryan bears some responsibility for the real estate mogul's continued success.

Hillary Clinton makes last-ditch appeal to millennial voters

The first sustained applause line in Hillary Clinton's appeal to millennial voters Monday came when she mentioned the man whose passion among youth voters is still the envy of Clinton backers.

"I worked with Bernie Sanders on a plan—" Clinton began, before being interrupted by a loud cheer from the students in the crowd at Temple University. After the Bern had been felt and the applause died down, Clinton was able to finish her point about her proposal to dramatically change students' relationship to college costs. ...

Clinton's platform includes a lot of the specific issues that galvanize millennials, like a focus on green energy and criminal justice. ...

Recent polling has shown Clinton's efforts to win millennial minds hasn't worked. So in Philadelphia Clinton tried to capture their hearts.

Clinton lacks the passionate support among young voters candidates like Sanders and President Obama enjoyed. A dip in Clinton support among the millennial set (from 24 percent to just 5 percent lead in August according to Quinnipiac surveys) has been a boon to Republican nominee Donald Trump, largely because they're turning to third party candidates like libertarian Gary Johnson and Green party nominee Jill Stein. ...

Clinton campaign aides fault the media and Trump for the dip in her support among younger voters.

[Of course it couldn't be that Clinton is the problem. - js]

Ralph Nader: Bernie Sanders' Opposition to Third Parties is Why His Movement is in Disarray

Clinton hasn't won over millennials. And no, sexism isn't to blame

Hillary Clinton is having a harder time beating Donald Trump than she bargained for. According to a recent poll, a staggering 44% of millennials say they’ll be voting for either Green party candidate Jill Stein or Libertarian Gary Johnson. The chief reason for Clinton’s dip in these polls is not – as Barack Obama claimed on Sunday – that she’s a woman (though sexism does have a lot to answer for). It’s because Clinton has assumed a third of the electorate – millennials – would vote for her out of fear of her opponent.

Simply put, we want more. ...

So what is it that millennials actually want? Around 70% favor wealth redistribution, one Gallup poll found, and many are eager to avoid six-figure debt for things like education and routine visits to the doctor’s office. The Movement for Black Lives released a detailed policy agenda this summer with plenty of ideas for senior Clinton staffers, and round-the-clock protests against the Dakota Access pipeline should give them a sense for where young Americans stand on new fossil fuel infrastructure and violations of indigenous rights.

For the most progressive and diverse generation in history, Trump represents virtually everything our generation is against. Clinton represents everything that hasn’t worked for us. Her embrace of politics as usual these last few months could cost her the election, putting Trump in the White House and emboldening his most dangerous supporters. Either way, Trumpism will grow so long as elites are setting the political agenda.

Chromium-6: 'Erin Brockovich' chemical threatens two-thirds of Americans

In the 2000 biographical film about a legal clerk who brings a major utility company to its knees for poisoning residents of Hinkley, California, Erin Brockovich ended on a Hollywood high note with a $333m settlement from PG&E. But chromium-6 contamination of America’s drinking water is an ongoing battle the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is losing.

Nearly 200 million Americans across all 50 states are exposed to unsafe levels of chromium-6 or hexavalent chromium, a heavy metal known to cause cancer in animals and humans, according to a new report released Tuesday by the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Environmental Working Group (EWG). ...

Drinking water in Phoenix, Arizona, has the highest concentration of chromium-6 contamination. Of the 80 water samples taken across the city – water that serves 1.5 million people – 79 showed average concentrations of 7.853 ppb. California scientists have recommended a public health goal of 0.02 ppb, but industry pressure led to the adoption in 2014 of a legal safe limit of 10 ppb.

“More than two-thirds of Americans’ drinking water supply has more chromium than the level that California scientists say is safe – a number that’s been confirmed by scientists in both New Jersey and North Carolina,” according to Walker.

“Despite this widespread contamination, the US currently has no national drinking water standard for chromium-6.”

Dr Andrews said: “Part of the reason behind writing this report is really highlighting how our regulatory system is broken – in its ability to incorporate new science, and its ability to publish and update drinking water standards.”

Big Bank 'Greenwashing' Exposed as Major Climate Week Sponsors Fund Fossil Fuels

Big bank sponsorship of Climate Week 2016, which kicked off Monday in New York City, "amounts to little more than greenwashing," according one environmental organization, given financial institutions' business-as-usual investment in fossil fuels.

Indeed, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) charges three major sponsors—Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of the West (BNP Paribas)—with "helping [to] drive the climate crisis" through their ongoing funding of extreme fossil fuels such as coal and tar sands oil.

Citing its own 2016 report, Shorting the Climate, which was released in June, RAN notes that between 2013 and 2015, those three entities put $9.89 billion into coal mining companies, $30.7 billion into the largest coal power producers, $74.91 billion into companies building LNG export terminals in North America, and $77.3 billion into companies exposed to extreme oil. Furthermore, among the 25 major global banks analyzed in Shorting the Climate, JPMorgan Chase was the number one investor in two extreme fossil fuel subsectors: liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals and extreme oil.

Bank of America is a "Platinum Sponsor" of Climate Week, while JP Morgan Chase and Bank of the West are listed as "Affiliate" and "Supporting" sponsors, respectively.

"Given their current investments in climate-wrecking activities, their sponsorship of 'Climate Week NYC' amounts to little more than greenwashing," said RAN climate and energy program director Amanda Starbuck on Monday. "If these banks aspire to be climate leaders, they must accelerate their exit from coal, and commit to getting out of extreme oil and fracked-gas terminals as well."

AFL-CIO to Planet Earth: Drop Dead

Last week, the AFL-CIO put out a statement from its president, Richard Trumka, under the headline “Dakota Access Pipeline Provides High-Quality Jobs.” The rhetoric was standard flackery for energy conglomerates, declaring “it is fundamentally unfair to hold union members’ livelihoods and their families’ financial security hostage to endless delay.”

In sharp contrast to the AFL-CIO’s top echelon, some unions really want to restrain climate change and are now vocally opposing the Dakota pipeline.

Communications Workers of America has expressed solidarity with members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe “as they fight to protect their community, their land and their water supply.”

At National Nurses United, Co-President Jean Ross cites “an obligation to step up climate action to protect public health and the future for the generations to follow us.”

Ross said: “We commend the leaders and members of the Standing Rock Sioux, the many First Nation allies who have joined them, and the environmentalists and other supporters who have participated in the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline.”

As for the AFL-CIO’s support for the pipeline, NNU’s director of environmental health and social justice was blunt. “We’re deeply disappointed in our labor federation siding with those that would endanger and harm the land, the water, the lives of the people along the pipeline path and the health of the planet itself in the name of profits,” Fernando Losada said.

He added that the Dakota pipeline is part of “a drive to extract fossil fuel that is untenable for the future of the planet.”

Also of Interest

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

Messages From ISIS Territory Ask Forgiveness for Murder, Paint Bleak Picture of Life

Chelsea E Manning: Yes, I'll get gender surgery. But I may still be punished for my suicide attempt

The Washington Post is wrong: Edward Snowden should be pardoned

The US Public Don’t Care If Politicians Lie

The FBI Accused Him of Terrorism. He Couldn't Tie His Shoes.

Death By A Thousand Cuts: documentary charts the dangers of deforestation

The Philosophy of Decline and Collapse

Make Six Figures? There's a Decent Chance You've Got Almost Nothing in the Bank

Congressman Unwittingly Launches “You Are Welcome Colin Kaepernick” Meme

Oktoberfest: the world's largest beer festival – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Jay McShann - Vine Street Boogie

Walter Brown With Jay Mcshann's Band - Slow Down Baby

Jay Mcshann - Blue Devil Jump

Jay McShann & His Sextette w/Jimmy Witherspoon - Strange Woman Blues

Charlie Parker & Jay Mcshann - Swingmatism

Jay McShann - My Chile

Jay McShann - On the Sunny Side of the Street

Walter Brown w/ Jay McShann's Orch. - Sloppy Drunk

Jay McShann - Swinging the Blues 1981