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"Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military."

-- Vladimir Putin

News and Opinion

US Believes Russia Has Started Airstrikes in Syria

The United States believes that Russia has started carrying out airstrikes in Syria in the vicinity of Homs, an American official told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that Moscow gave the US a one-hour advanced notice of its operations.

The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the information on the airstrikes was preliminary and declined to give any details, including on the number of strikes or the aircraft used. ...

As part of its preparations, Moscow has already sent military experts to a recently established command center in Baghdad which is coordinating air strikes and ground troops in Syria, a Russian official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the center is used to share information on possible air strikes in Syria. ...

Putin's spokesman said the vote by the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, meant Moscow would be practically the only country in Syria to be conducting operations "on a legitimate basis" and at the request of "the legitimate president of Syria".

Russia Urges US to Join Baghdad-Based Anti-ISIS Intel Sharing Program

Reports over the weekend of Iraq agreeing to intelligence sharing deals with Russia have been confirmed, with the first Russian military experts reports to have arrived now, and Russia openly discussing a plan to create a Baghdad-based “information center” for the sake of fighting ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.

Russian spokesman Sergey Peskov said that it was “no secret” that Russia had invited the US to take part in the new information center, but that so far the US had not participated at all in such discussions. Nor, indeed, is there any indication they’re going to.

Indeed, US officials yesterday indicated that they’re going to greatly reduce their information sharing with Iraq following the Iraqi government deal with Russia, with one official griping that Iraq was already “well-served” with US intelligence and shouldn’t have accepted the Russian offer.

Obama Versus Putin at the U.N.

Well now, there's an alliance that didn't last long, though it seems likely that Netanyahu and his cronies' characterization of their meeting with Putin producing an alliance was probably a grotesque exaggeration in the first place...

Israel not coordinating with Russia in Syria, defense minister says

Israel is not coordinating its operations in Syria with Russia, Israel’s defense minister said Tuesday, despite officials indicating cooperation between Jerusalem and the Kremlin as Moscow ramps up its involvement in the war-torn country.

Moshe Ya’alon made the comments a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly expressed unhappiness with an Israeli strike on Syrian army positions following the landing of an errant shell in the Israeli Golan Heights. ...

Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow last week to discuss Russia’s military involvement in Syria and keep Israel from tangling with Russia during forays into the country to stymie planned or weapons transfers to Hezbollah.

Ya’alon said Netanyahu told Putin that Israel had no interest in trying to depose the Bashar Assad regime, an ally of Russia.

“We are not involved and we don’t have any interest to intervene in the civil war in Syria, but we have to keep our interests,” he said Netanyahu told the Russian leader.

“Whoever tries to violate our sovereignty, we’ll strike them, whoever tried to transfer advanced armaments to terrorist groups, particularly Hezbollah, we’ll strike them, and whoever tries to transfer chemical weapons to terrorist groups, or Hezbollah, we’ll strike them,” Ya’alon said.

Saudi Arabia says there is 'no future' for Assad in Syria

Saudi Arabia has called on Bashar al-Assad to give up power or be removed by force, raising the global stakes at a time when the Russians are shipping troops and military hardware to Syria in an effort to prop up its beleaguered leader.

The threat was made on Tuesday by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel Al-Jubeir.

“There is no future for Assad in Syria,” Jubeir told journalists at the UN general assembly. “There are two options for a settlement in Syria. One option is a political process where there would be a transitional council. The other option is a military option, which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power.”

“This could be a more lengthy process and a more destructive process but the choice is entirely that of Bashar al-Assad.” The foreign minister did not specify how Assad would be forcibly removed, but pointed out that Saudi Arabia is already backing “moderate rebels” in the civil war.

UN-Brokered Deal May Speed Syria’s Disintegration

While the ongoing civil war means any formal partition is likely many years off, the recent UN-brokered ceasefire and transfer agreement in certain parts of Syria, centering on government-held territory and parts of al-Qaeda’s Idlib Province, seems to be speeding the sectarian separation of the country.

The truce in question set the stage for a deal on significant population transfers, allowing the Syrian government to withdraw Shi’ite villagers from areas no longer defensible deeper into their own territory, while al-Qaeda was allowed to move forces out of Zabadani, deep in Syrian government territory, back toward their own power base. ...

Similar transfers, less organized, have been going on in ISIS-held territory for months, as ISIS advances inevitably lead to an exodus of non-Sunnis from a territory, while occasions where ISIS has lost territory to Kurdish forces has similarly seen the Sunni Arabs fleeing deeper into ISIS territory. As the war continues, it seems increasingly to be boiling down to a de facto split along several different lines, with less and less chance of any side “winning” the war outright. The question may simply be how long they will continue to throw troops at one another until they are resigned to a stalemate and settlement.

Grifters proliferate

The problem with the twenty-four hour news cycle is that everything being reported comes and goes too quickly to connect the dots. I noted a number of stories during the past several weeks that should have raised all kinds of red flags, particularly if considered together, but they frequently received such limited media coverage and were gone so quickly that there was hardly any reaction to them, which is precisely what the government relies on. People concerned about the state of permanent war overseas coupled with the decline of civil liberties within the United States should be looking at how the National Security State is evolving as it is happening right out in the open. But they should also be concerned about the collusion of the media with the government propaganda organs to shape a narrative designed to have a short shelf life, knowing that the story will quickly disappear and there will be little or no feedback.

There were a large number of stories relating to reported Russian support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. For those who have not been following it, Moscow has begun airlifting what it initially described as humanitarian supplies to a military airfield it prepared in Latakia, near its naval base at Tarsus. The materiel in question inevitably included some military equipment together with advisers, but the underlying assumption made by both Washington and the compliant media was that the Russian involvement in Syria constituted some kind of “threat.” That assessment was based on the presumption that the United States has a right to do whatever it wishes to overthrow Syria’s government while the Russians have no right whatsoever to attempt to support it.

Syria is not exactly on Russia’s doorstep but it is not that far away from Russia’s troubled Central Asian region while Damascus and Moscow have had treaty arrangements going back many years. After the initial “how dare they” shock, insider reports emanating from the White House suggested that there was a battle going on internally between those in the National Security Council who wanted to tighten the screws on the Russians to force them to back down and those who wanted to take advantage of Moscow’s initiative to seek a negotiated settlement that would permit Bashar al-Assad to gracefully retire to Dubai and create a unity government of sorts that could resist the real bad guys represented by ISIS and al-Qaeda. That would mean that Russia might be presenting not a threat but rather an opportunity, offering Washington a way out of the quagmire just as it did back in 2013 when it brokered an arrangement to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile. A negotiated agreement would be the sensible thing to do and would be regarded as such if sense were all that common in the White House.

Eventually the push to cooperate with the Russians gained substantial momentum when it was revealed that back in 2012 Moscow was floating a proposal for a negotiated deal that would have include Bashar al-Assad stepping down, an initiative which could have saved many tens of thousands of lives and might have spared Europe its current refugee crisis. But the proposal was turned down by Obama and other western leaders, apparently because they believed incorrectly that the Syrian government was about to fall anyway. ...

The Obama White House enabled a war to bring about regime change in Syria, thereby unleashing a monster named ISIS and is now failing utterly in either of it stated objectives to replace the al-Assad government or defeat the terrorists. It now needs Russian help desperately to extricate itself but it may turn out to be too hubristic to do what needs to be done.

Saudis Face Growing Criticism for Huge Civilian Toll in Yemen War

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia was struggling to get out in front of a helicopter attack in northern Yemen straight. Attack helicopters came across the Saudi border into a Shi’ite town, killing 30 civilians. Though the Saudis initially touted the incident as killing “rebels,” they later denied it ever happened.

On Monday, their attention turned south, with Saudi warplanes launching a series of airstrikes against a wedding party in Mocha, killing another 131 civilians in one of the single deadliest incidents of the entire war and leading to a flurry of international condemnation.

Saudi officials figured out by Tuesday this huge toll was a problem, and followed the well-tested strategy of simply claiming it didn’t happen, but the reality is that with massive civilian killings by Saudi aircraft a near daily occurrence, the denials are less credible than ever, and claims by the Saudi Foreign Ministry of their care in avoiding civilian deaths ring insultingly hollow.

Saudis Face Mounting Pressure Over Civilian Deaths in Yemen Conflict

... There have ... been signs that the Obama administration could face more questions over its military support of the air campaign. On Tuesday, Representative Ted W. Lieu, Democrat of California, sent the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a letter citing reports of civilian deaths and requesting that the United States “cease aiding coalition airstrikes in Yemen until the coalition demonstrates that they will institute proper safeguards to prevent civilian deaths.” ...

In a letter sent Tuesday to Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the coming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Lieu requested that the Defense Department clarify whether American officials knew how many civilians had died as a result of coalition airstrikes, whether civilians were being targeted and what types of assistance the United States was providing to the coalition.

In an interview, Mr. Lieu, who served in the Air Force as a judge advocate general, said it was unclear from news reports whether the coalition was “grossly negligent or intentionally targeting civilians.”

“There is clearly no military value in a wedding party,” he added.

How America’s Drone War in Yemen Strengthens al-Qaeda

Jillian Schwedler, a political-science professor in New York, spent several years during the 1990s living, traveling, and conducting interviews in Yemen, where she traversed unmarked roads in all-terrain vehicles. “What strikes me now,” she writes in a new essay about the country, “is how most Islamists saw jihadi groups as having no place in Yemeni politics.”

Some people in Yemen who once opposed attacks on foreign countries like the United States are becoming more willing to give terrorists like al-Qaeda space to operate. In her expert opinion, America’s drone war is largely responsible for that shift.

President Bush began the drone war. President Obama radically expanded it. Both have defended its legitimacy. Whether one believes the war to be moral or not, Schwedler points out, “the reality for Yemenis is that the United States uses drone strikes regularly to run roughshod over Yemeni sovereignty in an effort to stop a handful of attacks—most of them failed—against U.S. targets. The fact that corrupt Yemeni leaders consent to the attacks makes little difference to public opinion.”

The drone strikes have killed some terrorists, along with innocent men, women, and children. Washington, D.C., policymakers consider the operations a success if they can check individual names off a kill list, but they neglect a longer-term consequence: Al-Qaeda is able to operate in more spaces than ever before as the population becomes increasingly hostile to the United States.

The US Is Neck-Deep in Yemeni Blood

So what has been the result of the six-month long
pummeling of Yemeni civilians by Saudi warplanes?  5,000 killed, over 2,300 civilians dead, ports blockaded, creating a colossal humanitarian crisis.  Infrastructure leveled, port cities destroyed, this war of attrition that Yemenis are being subjected to feels more like a punishment than anything, and once it’s all over it will take decades to put their country back together. 

So why should any of this matter to US citizens?  Because, lack of media attention notwithstanding, the US government is providing arms and strategic advice to the Saudis, midair refueling, as well as helping to choose enemy targets.  The New York Times reported earlier this month of a $1 billion US weapons giveaway to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to calm the Saudis over the Iran nuclear deal but more than likely to aid the Saudis in the slaughter of Yemenis, and reinforce the Saudis regional dominance.  Indeed, assistance to Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen is the price the US is paying for Saudi support of the Iran deal. ...

US support for the Saudi bombardment of Yemen has a stench of auto-interventionism to it. We do it because they’re our allies, because it advances some ridiculous and chimerical “grand strategy” against Iran and because the short-range is the only goal US officials ever seem to see. There was no public debate over the merits of supplying the Saudis with arms and strategists, it just happened. But as the civilian death toll spikes ever higher, more eyebrows begin to raise. 2,300 dead civilians can’t be ignored, especially by the country whose government is supplying the weapons. Is our alliance with Saudi Arabia worth so much that our government would sacrifice so many civilians? Is the fear of some imaginary future massacre by a nuclear Iran so great that it’s morally permissible to be complicit in the actual massacre of thousands of real people? Who’s inflicting terror upon whom here? At what point does the death toll become so high that someone with any political clout at all finally says enough is enough? Saudi consent over the Iranian nuclear deal can’t be worth this bloodbath, and if our government feels the need to participate in the Saudi war against Yemeni civilians, maybe it’s time to reconsider our alliance with them. Would the Saudi war against Yemen be as brutal without aid from the United States? It might be hard to say with any certainty, but one thing that is certain is that they sure as hell wouldn’t be dropping US bombs from US warplanes onto U.S.-approved targets. Whatever the short-term interests there are for the US in this fight, the long-term consequences of complicity in the massacre of civilians may emerge sooner than we think.

Putin and Obama or Tom & Jerry? Discussing UNGA with Slavoj Zizek

US judge dismisses September 11 victims' case against Saudi Arabia

A US judge on Tuesday dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks, who accused the country of providing material support to al Qaeda.

US district judge George Daniels in Manhattan said Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.

“The allegations in the complaint alone do not provide this court with a basis to assert jurisdiction over defendants,” Daniels wrote.

Mahmoud Abbas lists alleged Israeli violations before 'bombshell' UN speech

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has circulated a hard-hitting critique of alleged Israeli violations of the 20-year-old Oslo accords and subsequent agreements ahead of his speech to the UN general assembly in New York later on Wednesday.

The comprehensive matrix of claimed violations, seen by the Guardian, was compiled in July and has been shared with US and European officials, among others, and is expected to form the basis of Abbas’s speech.

Covering issues from water rights, tax collections and transfer of monies, to settlement building, house demolitions and the continued Israeli military occupation which gives Israel “exclusive control of 62% of the West Bank”, the document argues that “Israel has failed to honour the accords as it has violated many of its provisions”. ...

A further flavour of what Abbas might say was supplied in an article he wrote for the Huffington Post calling for multilateral international efforts to push forward the peace process outside of US stewardship. ...

The UN speech has been heavily trailed – including by Abbas himself, who hinted he intended to “drop a bombshell” at the general assembly. That led to speculation by some Palestinian officials that Abbas might announce he was nullifying the Oslo agreement in whole or in part. ...

A recent poll indicated that a majority of Palestinians want Abbas to resign and dissolve his self-rule government, the Palestinian Authority, as a majority have said they no longer believe a two-state solution is realistic.

The poll last week undertaken by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research suggested two-thirds of Palestinians want Abbas to step down. The same poll also showed 57% of Palestinians support a return to an armed intifada in the absence of peace negotiations, up from 49% three months ago.

Commission That Toppled Guatemala President to Be Replicated in Honduras

The Organization of American States said on Monday it will create a mission to tackle graft in Honduras, where protestors have been pushing for an anti-corruption body like one that helped bring down the president of neighboring Guatemala earlier this month.

OAS secretary-general Luis Almagro unveiled the planned Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (or MACCIH by its acronym in Spanish) alongside Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez (pictured above at the United Nations), whom the protestors have been urging to resign.

The MACCIH will be led by a legal expert and would establish an international panel of judges and prosecutors to supervise, advise, and support Honduran authorities investigating corruption, the Washington-based OAS said in a statement.

An anti-graft body backed by the United Nations and known as the CICIG has played a key role in uncovering corruption in Guatemala, which this month led to the resignation and arrest of President Otto Perez Molina, whom prosecutors accuse of involvement in a customs scam. Perez has denied any wrongdoing.

Raul Castro Tells Obama He Must Lift Cuban Embargo — and Return Guantanamo

President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro met for the second time this year, on Tuesday in New York, convening for a little over a half hour on the sidelines of the UN's General Assembly. ...

During his speech before the General Assembly on Monday, Obama called on Congress to lift an American embargo that has been hoisted on the communist nation for over 50 years. Such a step faces strong opposition from many American legislators, including Florida Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba. ...

Castro also repeated demands that land occupied by an American naval base in Guantanamo Bay be returned to Cuba. Though Obama has announced intentions to empty the prison there of detainees, he has not said it will be handed over to Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla added that continued US control of Guantanamo was "illegal," adding that "this is a high priority in the process of normalization."

Black Activists Host Venezuelan President Maduro in Harlem

Catalan head indicted for calling referendum on split from Spain

Catalonia's Supreme Court indicted the acting head of the Catalan regional government on Tuesday after he pushed ahead with a referendum on independence from Spain last year despite such a vote being ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

The preliminary charges of disobedience, abuse of authority and usurping authority are leveled at Artur Mas, the most visible face of Catalan separatist aspirations, just two days after his party won a regional election.

Secessionist parties on Sunday secured an absolute majority in the regional parliament, although they won 48 percent of the votes cast.

Mas will testify in court in October for pressing on with a non-binding referendum on independence last November after it was suspended by the Constitutional Court, backed by Spain's national government.

The 'Athens Affair' shows why we need encryption without backdoors

In a meticulous investigation, longtime NSA reporter James Bamford reported at the Intercept Tuesday that the NSA was behind the notorious “Athens Affair”. In surveillance circles, the Athens Affair is stuff of legend: after the 2004 Olympics, the Greek government discovered that an unknown attacker had hacked into Vodafone’s “lawful intercept” system, the phone company’s mechanism of wiretapping phone calls. The attacker spied on phone calls of the president, other Greek politicians and journalists before it was discovered.

According to Bamford’s story, all this happened after the US spy agency cooperated with Greek law enforcement to keep an eye on potential terrorist attacks for the Olympics. Instead of packing up their surveillance gear, they covertly pointed it towards the Greek government and its people. ... The new Snowden revelations also note that NSA had about 60 “Fingerprints” — ways to identify data — from telecom companies and industry groups that develop lawful intercept systems, including Ericsson, as well as Motorola, Nokia and Siemens.

It’s the exact nightmare scenario security experts have warned about when it comes to backdoors: they are not only available to those that operate them “legally”, but also to those who can hack into them to spy without anyone’s knowledge. If the NSA can do it, so can China, Russia and a host of other malicious actors.

The White House is reportedly close to coming to a decision on their official policy on encryption. Despite the FBI and NSA’s best efforts to convince them that they should push for a law mandating backdoors - a catastrophe for human rights, cybersecurity and the US economy - the White House may be on the verge of openly condemning the FBI’s approach, according to the Washington Post.

This would be great news for everybody. However, they have yet to come to a final decision. To help them, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a host of other groups (including Freedom of the Press Foundation, where I work) have launched a White House petition calling on the Obama administration to do the right thing on encryption: strongly support everyone’s right to use it.

FBI and DEA under review for use of NSA mass surveillance data

The Justice Department is investigating the FBI’s use of information taken directly from mass surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA)’s collection of telephone metadata. ...

Another ongoing Justice Department investigation is examining the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)'s use of “parallel construction.” ...

Parallel construction is a controversial investigative technique that takes information gained from sources like the NSA's mass surveillance, covers up or lies about the sources, and then utilizes them in criminal investigations inside the United States. The information was passed to other federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). ...

Both the FBI and DEA, which operate under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, are under review by the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). The details of the NSA’s mass metadata collection program were first publicly revealed in 2013 by contractor Edward Snowden. The DEA’s use of parallel construction was revealed by Reuters a few months later.

Today @Snowden joined Twitter, and here's the world's response. pic.twitter.com/d6HgVvdRsf

— Twitter (@twitter) September 29, 2015

Apple under fire after removing drone-strikes information app from its store

Tracking the number of deaths caused by US drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia? There’s an app for that. Or rather, there was – until Apple removed it from its app store.

Metadata+ was launched in early 2014 by Josh Begley, a data artist and research editor for The Intercept. It used data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to send push notifications to its users whenever someone was killed by a US drone.

The app was rejected five times under its original name of Drones+, before Apple approved it as Metadata+. A year and a half on, the app has been removed from the App Store, with Begley telling users the cause was “excessively crude or objectionable content” – referring to a specific clause in Apple’s developer rules.

The app used text and maps rather than images of the deaths that it reported, so it could not be considered to be even moderately crude.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White has a new recipe for fudge!

SEC Touts Inflated Numbers to Look Way Tougher Than It Is

Faced with unrelenting criticism from financial reform groups for failing to enforce the securities laws, SEC Chair Mary Jo White has defended herself with numbers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recorded 755 different enforcement actions yielding $4.1 billion in monetary penalties in 2014, she boasted in a speech this February — “the highest number of cases in the history of the Commission.”

But the numbers she cited were “deeply flawed,” according to a study that will soon be published in the Cornell Law Review. The commission’s methodology allows for double- and even triple-counting some offenders — along with counting fines ordered by other agencies, and penalties that are never collected.

If you weed out the systematic over-counting and artificial boosts, the SEC’s enforcement levels have not significantly changed since 2002, despite the multitude of lawbreaking that led to the 2008 financial crisis, according to the study.

An interesting read, it provides a fascinating view of how politicians in vassal states view their relationship with the empire.

'Our Prime Minister Doesn't Like Barack Obama': Canada-US Relations Go Under the Microscope

In one of the liveliest exchanges of the last English-language debate in the Canadian federal election, both opposition leaders blasted Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his handling of Canada's relationship with the US. ...

A question on what Harper's failure to convince Obama to build the Keystone XL Pipeline meant for the future of US-Canada relations prompted fiery responses from all three party leaders.

Harper said Obama would make the decision based on his own assessment of America's interests, and attempted to shift the discussion to the other ways the Canadian government was working with the US. He brought up the fight against IS, the Ebola crisis, and the development of joint regulations in response to climate change, as examples.

But NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau seized the opportunity to criticize Harper's approach.

Mulcair recalled Harper telling a reporter in 2011 that the pipeline should be "no-brainer" and in 2013 that he wouldn't "take no for an answer."

"Well, guess what? The answer was no, and you weren't able to do anything about it," said Mulcair, to laughs from the audience. ...

Trudeau, meanwhile, railed against Harper for "criticizing and haranguing" Obama on Keystone.

"Canadians are sitting around worried about their jobs because we have a prime minister who doesn't like Barack Obama," said Trudeau.

Harper, in turn, claimed to have a "great relationship" with the US administration and with Obama — prompting another bout of laughter from listeners.

He called the notion of bad blood between the two leaders "just an invention", adding that what would be truly damaging to Canada's relationship with the US would be to pull out of the joint military mission against IS because it was built on the policies of former President George W. Bush.

Jeremy Corbyn: I would never use nuclear weapons if I were PM

Labour leader also reiterates his opposition to £100bn renewal of the ‘obsolete’ Trident weapons system in BBC interview

Jeremy Corbyn would instruct the UK’s defence chiefs never to use the Trident nuclear weapons system if he became prime minister in 2020, the new Labour leader has confirmed.

Corbyn made his statement in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in which he said he had a mandate from his election to oppose the replacement of Trident and the use of nuclear weapons.

It is likely Corbyn will come under pressure from those who will question why he would not even fire back at nuclear weapons being trained on the UK. He said: “I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons. I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible.” ...

Corbyn said: “There are five declared nuclear weapon states in the world. There are three others that have nuclear weapons. That is eight countries out of 192; one hundred and eighty-seven countries do not feel the need to have nuclear weapons to protect their security. Why should those five need them to protect their security? We are not in the cold war any more.

“I don’t think we should be spending £100bn on renewing Trident. That is a quarter of our defence budget. There are many in the military that do not want Trident renewed because they see it as an obsolete thing thing they don’t need. They would much rather see it spent on conventional weapons.”

Rank-and-File Teachers Object As Nation's Biggest Union Weighs Early Clinton Endorsement

A rumored presidential endorsement by the nation's largest union is exposing a rift between rank-and-file members who are "feeling the Bern" and leadership who appear more willing to err on the Clinton side of caution.

Various news reports have indicated that an announcement by the 3-million strong National Education Association is expected sometime this week.

According to an email obtained by Politico, the NEA PAC, the union’s political arm, is planning to hold an upcoming vote "recommending Hillary Clinton for the presidential primary" on the grounds that the former Secretary of State "is the best positioned candidate to win both the Democratic primary and general election," citing her "unmatched organizational strength, ground game, and fundraising ability to defeat the candidate of the Koch brothers." ...

This early endorsement is being defended by NEA leadership as a means of securing a more "significant role," according to the internal email, in the next administration’s public education policymaking.

However, it has spurred outright protest from many of the organization's rank-and-file members who argue that a primary endorsement excludes the majority's input, particularly those who support Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination.

Bernie Sanders Tells the Truth: Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on His Surging Campaign

This is an interesting dissection of Hillary Clinton's account of her involvement in the destruction of Syria as Secretary of State. It's well worth reading in full, here's a taste to get you started:

The Wicked War on Syria: Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words

Key leaders from around the world are present at the United Nations this week to discuss critical issues; one of the most pressing is Syria. How did we get to this point with half the Syrian population (almost 12 million) displaced and under-populated but huge areas of Syria now controlled by ISIS, Al Qaeda (Nusra) and other fanatical fundamentalist groups?

Hillary Clinton’s 2014 book Hard Choices reveals important information about the first years of the Syrian conflict and how we got where we are today. Clinton’s account conveys the perception, priorities and bias at the top level of the Obama Administration. It describes policy differences within the administration and the common assumptions and goals which have led to the current disastrous situation.

Clinton’s chapter on Syria is titled “Syria: A Wicked Problem”. It documents how the US and regional allies tried to overthrow the Damascus government. The “wicked problem” is that there was no easy way. Attack directly? Train proxy army? Supply the armed opposition with weapons secretly or publicly? Apply “No Fly Zone”? Bomb Damascus? These are the questions considered. The dominance of neoconservative mentality in Washington and western media is demonstrated by the fact that foreign demands that “Assad must go” are rarely questioned despite the fact it’s in clear violation of international law and the UN Charter.

Clinton’s unwillingness to let go of the “regime change” requirement regarding a sovereign state, coupled with a moralistic but biased outrage, suggests someone who does not respect international law and could be dangerous as President: hypocritical, prejudiced and self-righteous.

In Win for KXL Opponents, 'Desperate' TransCanada Shifts Strategy

In a move that environmental activists and local landowners hope puts another nail in the Keystone XL coffin, pipeline giant TransCanada announced Tuesday it will withdraw lawsuits seeking to gain access to the property of landowners who oppose the project.

Jane Kleeb, director of the advocacy group Bold Nebraska, called the decision "a major victory for Nebraska landowners who refused to back down in the face of bullying by a foreign oil company."

In a press statement on Wednesday, the pipeline giant said it was switching course and would file an application with the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) to seek approval for the Keystone XL route through the state—an approach it previously tried to avoid. The company said it is withdrawing its current eminent domain actions and is taking steps to terminate constitutional court proceedings in Holt County, Nebraska.

Environmental Activists Continue to Face Interrogations at US-Canada Border

Three members of the radical environmental organization Deep Green Resistance and two other individuals were detained for more than seven hours at the Peace Arch border crossing between Washington State and British Columbia on their way to Vancouver to attend a talk by author and activist Chris Hedges last Friday, September 25. They were questioned about the organizations they were involved in, their political affiliations, and their contacts in Canada before being turned away by Canadian border agents. Upon re-entering the United States they were then subjected to another round of questioning by US border agents. The car they were traveling in as well as their personal computers were searched.

The interrogation comes on the heels of an FBI inquiry into Deep Green Resistance last fall in which more than a dozen members of the group were contacted and questioned by FBI agents. Several months later the group’s lawyer, Larry Hildes, was stopped at the same border crossing and asked specifically about one of his clients, Deanna Meyer, also a Deep Green Resistance member. During the 2014 visits, FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents showed up at members’ places of work, their homes, and contacted family members to find out more about the group. Meyer, who lives in Colorado, was asked by a DHS agent if she’d be interested in “forming a liaison.” The agent told her he wanted to, “head off any injuries or killing of people that could happen by people you know.” Two of the members detained at the border on Friday were also contacted by the FBI last fall. ...

It’s not only Deep Green Resistance members who have had trouble getting across the border. Environmental activists who were part of a campaign in Texas opposing  the Keystone XL pipeline were the targets of an FBI investigation in 2012 and 2013 and have also been denied entry into Canada. At least one of those activists, Bradley Stroot, has been placed on a selective screening watchlist for domestic flights.

Nearly all of the activists involved are US citizens who have not had issues traveling to Canada in the past, leading them to believe that the recent FBI investigation and interest in their activities has landed them on some kind of federal watchlist.

Police in Peru Shoot Dead at Least Two Activists as Anti-Mining Protests Turn Violent

Police in Peru killed at least two activists during protests at the site of a major new mine in a remote region of the Andes on Monday, according to the government. Local reports said three people were killed and as many as 15 injured during the clashes.

The deaths occurred at the giant Las Bambas copper mine, in the district of Challhuahuacho, after hundreds of villagers attempted to forcibly enter the $7.4 billion complex owned by the Chinese company MMG.

Peru is the world's third biggest producer of copper. Las Bambas, which is due to begin operations early next year, is set to become one of the top three copper mines in the world, says the company, producing 400,000 tons a year.

The construction of Las Bambas has been met with significant opposition from the surrounding towns. The latest protests, which began on Friday, mixed demands for more jobs at the mine with fears that its environmental plan will not protect their farmlands and a local river from contamination, the authorities said. ...

Evert Silva, the doctor in charge of the town's clinic, told VICE News that 15 protestors with serious injuries, including bullet wounds, were evacuated to hospitals in the city of Cusco.

"It was a very large crowd and it was out of control," Silva said. "The police were overwhelmed."

Also of Interest

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

Tax avoidance by corporations is out of control. The United Nations must step in

Has Pope Francis just cast the first vote in the US presidential race?

EU Court Advocate General Deals Severe Blow to NSA Surveillance

Kinda vituperative and dissmissive, but, if you can get past that, this guy has a few good points worth paying attention to:

Bernie-Style Socialism is Still a Hand-Out to Capitalists

A Little Night Music

Joe McCoy - Evil Devil Woman Blues

Kansas Joe McCoy - Pile Driver Blues

Kansas Joe McCoy - What's The Matter With You?

Kansas Joe McCoy - My Babe, My Babe

Kansas Joe McCoy - I'm Alright Now

Kansas Joe McCoy - The World's A Hard Place To Live In

Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie - Joliet Bound

Kansas Joe McCoy - Something Gonna Happen To You

Kansas Joe McCoy - One More Greasing

Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe - Wild About My Stuff

Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe - When The Levee Breaks

Harlem Hamfats - Weed Smoker's Dream

The Harlem Hamfats - Don't Start No Stuff

Rosetta Howard & the Harlem Hamfats - The Candy Man

Harlem Hamfats - Oh! Red

Harlem Hamfats with Frankie 'halfpint' Jaxon - Wet It

The Harlem Hamfats - We Gonna Pitch A Boogie Woogie

Harlem Hamfats - My Garbage Man

Rosetta Howard and the Harlem Hamfats - Rosetta Blues

The Harlem Hamfats - Little girl

The Harlem Hamfats - Empty Bed Blues

The Harlem Hamfats - I'm in so much trouble

Johnny Temple w/Harlem Hamfats - Hoodoo Women