This evening's music features folk musician Ry Cooder.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

Former US military personnel urge drone pilots to walk away from controls

Letter from 45 retired and former military members call on pilots at Creech and Beale air force bases to refuse to carry out duties as they ‘profoundly violate’ law

Forty-five former US military personnel, including a retired army colonel, have issued a joint appeal to the pilots of aerial drones operating in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and elsewhere, calling on them to refuse to carry out the deadly missions.

In a joint letter, the retired and former military members call on air force pilots based at Creech air force base in Nevada and Beale air force base in California to refuse to carry out their duties. They say the missions, which have become an increasingly dominant feature of US military strategy in recent years, “profoundly violate domestic and international laws”.

“At least 6,000 lives have been unjustly taken by US drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, the Philippines, Libya and Syria. These attacks are also undermining principles of international law and human rights,” the authors write.

Among those who signed the letter are retired US army colonel Ann Wright, who resigned in 2003 over the invasion of Iraq. She is joined by several anti-war veterans and former members of diverse ranks from the air force, army, navy and marines.

The new protest comes as the US military is facing a crisis in its armed drone program as a result of a steady decline in the numbers of trained pilots available to fly the missions. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the air force was planning to cut the number of its daily drone flights from 65 to 60 as a result of the drain of pilots.

DIA Director Calls ISIS War ‘Quagmire,’ But Removed Term From Congress Testimony

While other Pentagon officials, both civilian and military, delivered pessimistic comments on the ongoing ISIS war in testimony to Congress this week, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s spying wing, apparently had a lot more to say, and was convinced to keep his complaints out of the comments to Congress.

DIA Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart reportedly used the word “quagmire” repeatedly in discussing the ISIS war, particularly as it relates to Iraq, and had included the term in his planned testimony to Congress, before other Pentagon aides convinced him he had to remove the term for being “too political.”

Your tax dollars at work:

Millions of US Dollars May Have Gone to 'Ghost Schools' in Afghanistan

The United States has often touted the education sector as one of the major success stories of post-war rebuilding in Afghanistan, but it now appears that the numbers used to bolster that claim may have been inflated — and that some US taxpayer dollars may have gone to fund "ghost schools" that don't actually exist.

The US has spent more than $100 billion on development in the country, and USAID, the government agency that provides economic and humanitarian assistance, has cited a substantial increase in Afghan student enrollment, claiming that attendance climbed from 900,000 in 2002 to more than 8 million in 2013.

But when the Afghan ministers of education and higher education spoke recently to the country's Parliament, they claimed that their predecessors in the administration of Hamid Karzai had inflated enrollment statistics, Warren Ryan, a spokesperson for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told VICE News.

SIGAR released a report today that calls into question $769 million that has been disbursed in Afghanistan's education sector, and probes the reliability of the data that the US uses to oversee and fund education in the country.

Currently, there's no way to tell how much of the $769 million has contributed to legitimate programs and how much may have gone to "ghost schools," Ryan said. According to Afghan media outlets, the education ministers said that the data overstated the number of active schools in the country, raising questions about where American taxpayer dollars may be flowing. The ministers also alleged that former officials embezzled money, manipulated statistics, and tampered with university entrance exams, according to the SIGAR statement.

Manitoba Apologizes for Forcibly Removing Indigenous Children From Their Families

A Canadian provincial government has apologized for the forced removal of thousands of Indigenous children from their parents over two decades, a practice judges and advocacy groups have long called "cultural genocide."

From the early 1960s to the 1980s, social workers took children from First Nations, Inuit and Métis families, without their consent, and placed them in foster care or adoptive homes. The practice became known as the "Sixties Scoop." By the 1970s, approximately one third of Indigenous children were in care across Canada, with 70 percent of them transferred to white families who seldom understood their culture or background.

Thursday afternoon, after drum ceremonies and testimony from victims, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger stood up in the provincial legislative chamber and said: "Today as Premier I would like to apologize on behalf of the province of Manitoba for the Sixties Scoop."

Selinger acknowledged that the removals constituted "a practice of forced assimilation" that "must now be recognized for the harm it caused and continues to cause."

Many now view the practice as a continuation of Canada's longstanding campaign to assimilate Indigenous children into the white majority, stripping them of their language, culture and identities. The scoop took off as the government began to wind down Canada's residential school system, which placed Indigenous children in church-run institutions that actively suppressed their traditions. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has apologized for the schools, which became notorious for physical and sexual abuse, but neither the federal government, nor any other Canadian province has apologized for the scoop that followed.

'Turncoat Dems' in House Blasted as Fast Track Fight Heads Back to Senate

Drawing the swift ire of progressives around the country, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday took a step to revive President Barack Obama's faltering corporate trade agenda, passing Fast Track, or Trade Promotion Authority, in a 218-208 vote.

Twenty-eight Democratic lawmakers voted in favor of Fast Track, which would make it easier for Obama to ram through controversial trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership, reducing the role of Congress to an up-or-down vote on such mammoth agreements. ...

"Our disappointment with the president is profound," said Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica on Thursday. "Sadly, we have come to expect Republicans to sell out the environment for the pursuit of corporate profits. But we expect more regard for environmental protection and respect for working families from President Obama and the Democrats who supported this bill."

[I wonder why they expect more from Obama and the Democrats. What part of "corporate whores" do they fail to understand? - js]

#FastTrack is now back in the Senate. Call your Senator today and tell him or her to #StopFastTrack 1-855-712-8441 pic.twitter.com/pnQi2KLkLf

— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) June 19, 2015

As Ocean Warms, 'Extensive and Unprecedented' Toxic Algae Blooms

A gigantic, toxic algal bloom that stretches from southern California to Alaska has forced numerous fisheries along the West Coast to shutter, in an unprecedented development that scientists warn could portend what's to come as the world's oceans continue warming due to climate change.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said this week it is mobilizing scientists to gather more data on the bloom, which it called "extensive" and "harmful."

"While localized blooms of marine algae that naturally produce domoic acid are common in spring, the bloom that began earlier this year has grown into the largest and most severe in more than a decade," warned the agency. "Sardines, anchovy, and other fish that feed on the algae and other microorganisms known as plankton can accumulate the toxin, in turn poisoning birds and sea lions that feed on them." ...

"For this type of algae, we believe this is certainly the biggest bloom we've seen on the west coast and perhaps anywhere ever," Michael Milstein of NOAA Fisheries told Common Dreams. "It's extensive and unprecedented in terms of geographic scope and severity of bloom, particularly in hot spots along the coasts."

Milstein said there could be a link between the giant algal bloom and global warming. "What we can say is that this is the type of condition we would expect to see more often with climate change."

Also of interest:

Inside the mind of Bernie Sanders: unbowed, unchanged, and unafraid of a good fight

The Theology of American National Security

Obama’s Libya Fiasco

“Progressive” Obama: He’s Melting, He’s Melting

Orwell, Huxley and America’s Plunge into Authoritarianism

Chris Hedges: America’s Electoral Farce