This evening's music features one man band, Elmon Mickle who recorded as T-Model Slim and Driftin' Slim.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

With US Accountability MIA, Poland to Make Payout for Torture of CIA

Though US officials involved in the program have faced zero accountability, Poland readies to pay $250,000 for its role in rendition and torture program

The people of Poland are expressing outrage on Friday as news spread that their own government is on the verge of paying more than $250,000 to victims of CIA torture which took place at an agency black site in the country even as the U.S. government refuses to acknowledge the crime or take responsibility for the grave human rights abuses that took place under the Bush administration.

The European Court of Human Rights imposed the penalty against Poland for its role in the torture of two individuals— Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri—both of whom were rendered by the CIA to a secret location in Poland in the wake of 9/11 attacks. Taken into custody overseas as "suspected terrorists," the men remain detained by the U.S. government in the offshore prison at Guantanamo Bay.

According to the Associated Press, "It irks many in Poland that their country is facing legal repercussions for the secret rendition and detention program which the CIA operated under then-President George W. Bush in several countries across the world after the 9/11 attacks. So far no U.S. officials have been held accountable, but the European Court of Human Rights has shown that it doesn't want to let European powers that helped the program off the hook."

The use of the word "alleged" in this headline is inexcusable. http://t.co/rL8NsQ33VD #CIA #torture

— Jameel Jaffer (@JameelJaffer) May 15, 2015

Islamic State Seizes Control of Ramadi to Claim Major Victory in Iraq

Islamic State (IS) fighters scored a major victory in Iraq on Sunday, driving the last remaining government forces from Ramadi and decisively capturing the provincial capital of Anbar province, despite a recent spate of US airstrikes intended to keep the city from falling completely into militant hands.

IS fighters ransacked the local military headquarters, seized a large weapons cache, and executed several government loyalists, according to the New York Times, which cited information from security officials and tribal leaders.

"The city has fallen," Muhannad Haimour, a spokesman for Anbar's governor, reportedly said.

Tensions Run High as Israeli Revelers Parade Through Palestinian Neighborhoods on Jerusalem Day

As tens of thousands of Jewish Israelis flooded into Jerusalem on Sunday to celebrate the reunification of the city under Israeli rule following the defeat of the Arab armies during the Six-Day War in 1967, hundreds of Palestinians from the Old City and surrounding Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem were forced behind barricades to make way for the revelers.

In a contested city that holds great religious and political significance for both Israelis and Palestinians, Jerusalem Day inflames tensions like no other event. This year's celebration marked 48 years since the Israeli victory. Palestinians were forced to close their shops along the main streets running through sections of the Old City's Muslim Quarter, with the shopkeepers looking on from behind metal gates and lines of heavily armed police as Israelis streamed pass waving flags on their on their way to the Western Wall. ...

Last Monday, Israel's High Court rejected a petition by two NGOs to change the route of the march, moving it away from the Muslim Quarter. In a statement released Sunday, Tag Meir, an Israeli anti-racism group, said the annual march had become a "focus for extremists," that is full of "racist slurs and insults, destruction of property and physical violence against the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem." ...

Naftali Bennett, chairman of the Bayit Yehudyi (Israeli Home) party, made an appearance at the Western Wall during the festivities. Bennett's pro-settlement religious nationalist party wields significant power after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acceded to many of their demands in last-minute negotiations to form a coalition government that has slid even further to the right of the political spectrum.

"Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people forever," Bennett said Sunday, according to the Israeli News site Arutz Sheva. "The world cannot divide Jerusalem. Soon, in our days, Jews will be able to enter and pray on the Temple Mount because the Temple Mount is ours."

Obama Gave Up on Ukraine, Press Simply Ignored It

On Tuesday, May 12th, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in Sochi Russia, to respond to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s recent statements promising renewed war against Donbass, which were made first on April 30th, “The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea,” and which were repeated on May 11th, by his saying, “I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport, because it is our land.” In other words, Poroshenko had repeatedly made clear that he plans a third invasion of Donbass, and, ultimately, also to invade and retake Crimea. (The Western press, however, had not reported any of these threats that were being made by Poroshenko.)

Kerry responded:

“ I have not had a chance – I have not read the speech. I haven’t seen any context. I have simply heard about it in the course of today [which would be shocking if true]. But if indeed President Poroshenko is advocating an engagement in a forceful effort at this time, we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.”

None of this was reported by Western ‘news’ media. Even Russia’s own Sputnik News, which was Russia’s main English-language medium reporting on Kerry’s comment, ignored this shocking assertion by the U.S. Secretary of State contradicting the nominal leader of the Ukrainian Government that the U.S. itself had installed in February 2014.

The Obama Administration now had slammed Poroshenko down on the key issue of whether to resume the war against Ukraine’s former Donbass region, and also slammed him on whether Ukraine should invade Crimea, which is Russian territory and would therefore mean a war against the Russian armed forces. America’s stooge-regime in Kiev was here being taken to the woodshed about the advisability of yet another Ukrainian invasion of Ukraine’s former southeastern breakaway regions, Donbass and, even Crimea. ...

Consequently, clearly, now, Obama is on-board with the “Plan B” for Ukraine, which Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel had put into place, the Minsk II Agreement, which brought about the present ceasefire, which now has become clearly the utter (even accepted by Kerry) capitulation of Obama’s Plan A on Ukraine, which plan Nuland had been carrying out. Kerry’s public statement there was a public slap in the face to his own #2 official on Ukraine; and it could not have been asserted by him if he were not under Obama’s instruction that the previous plan, to exterminate or drive out all the residents of Donbass, was no longer worth trying, and that the Hollande-Merkel plan would be America’s fall-back position.

Anti-Police Brutality Activists: Body Camera Guidelines No Panacea — and Might Make Things Worse

This morning, to much buzz nationwide, a coalition of over 30 privacy and civil rights organizations released a statement of shared principles outlining their vision for the future use of police body cameras. The coalition statement argues that body camera footage documenting police interactions with the public “can have a valuable role to play in the present and future of policing,” but insists that safeguards be put in place to ensure that body cameras do not become a “tool for injustice.” Signatories include ACLU, the NAACP, Color of Change and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ...

Some observers are concerned such recommendations may be counterproductive, especially if used to legitimize a technology that in the end will likely be left up to the self-regulation of police departments or their local government allies across the country.

“[A]ll this energy towards accountability … can be flipped into increased surveillance in communities of color and increased budgets to police,” activist Andrew Padilla told investigative journalist Raven Rakia last year. Padilla, who films civilian-police encounters as part of CopWatchNYC, pointed out that body cameras “record civilians. In cop watch, you record police.”

“Police shouldn’t have any control of the footage,” says Rakia, who focuses on the criminal justice system. “As you see with CCTV cameras everywhere, its very hard to get footage of police … a lawyer might be able to for a case, but for the public and press it’s very difficult. The police and the DA have complete control over footage and only use it to their advantage.” ...

With pending legislation on police body cameras in 13 states that does not meet the standards of the coalition guidelines, and news of an upcoming U.S. Senate hearing on the use of body cameras, many anti-police brutality activists fear the debate over the use of body cameras has been cut off in progressive circles preemptively, putting those who face police brutality every day under more surveillance and in more danger.

Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m every minute, says IMF

‘Shocking’ revelation finds $5.3tn subsidy estimate for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments

Fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m every minute of every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments.

The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution as well as to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change. ...

The IMF... said that ending the subsidies to fossil fuels would cut global carbon emissions by 20%. That would be a giant step towards taming global warming, an issue on which the world has made little progress to date.

Ending the subsidies would also slash the number of premature deaths from outdoor air pollution by 50% – about 1.6m lives a year.

Also of interest:

How the US Treasury Department Promotes Israel's Propaganda Lines

Thomas Drake: We're all foreigners now when it comes to surveillance

Gyrocopter Pilot Flew for Reform, Might Land in Prison