This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player and singer Shakey Jake Harris.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

We're a year into the unofficial war against Isis with nothing to show for it

This Saturday marks one full year since the US military began its still-undeclared war against Islamic State that the government officials openly acknowledge will last indefinitely. What do we have to show for it? So far, billions of dollars have been spent, thousands of bombs have been dropped, hundreds of civilians have been killed and Isis is no weaker than it was last August, when the airstrikes began.

But don’t take it from me – that’s the conclusion of the US intelligence community itself. As the Associated Press reported a few days ago, the consensus view of the US intelligence agencies is that Isis is just as powerful as it was a year ago, and they can replace fighters faster than they are getting killed.

Like it does for every stagnant and endless war, this inconvenient fact will likely will only lead others to call for more killing, rather than an introspection on why continuing to bomb the same region for decades does not actually work. Perhaps we’re not firing missiles at a high enough rate, they’ll say, perhaps we need a full-scale ground invasion, or perhaps we need to kill more civilians to really damage the enemy (yes, this is an actual argument war mongers have been making). ...

For now, there are already plans to launch more drone strikes in Libya, increased air power in Syria and who knows what is in store for Iraq. What the next year will bring as US presidential candidates vie for who can be “tougher” against Isis is anyone’s guess. ...

One year on, we’re now seemingly farther away from Congressional authorization for this war than we’ve ever been. This time last year, there were a range of op-eds from legal experts across the political spectrum explaining that a sustained war against Isis is plainly illegal if Congress does not vote on it. Now, that’s virtually been forgotten. Most news organizations don’t bother bringing up the subject anymore, and even the nascent talk in Congress has all but evaporated.

White House Legal Justification for Syria War Nebulous as War Broadens

At one point, the Obama Administration wanted a Congressional authorization for their war against ISIS. They openly bragged about the vague language allowing them to do more or less anything, and never got Congress to agree. Still, the war continues. ... People are increasingly asking what the current justification is, particularly as the Syrian part of the war broadens, with more targets and more enemies. ...

When they’re attacking al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, the justification is the 2001 AUMF for the Afghan War, because it’s al-Qaeda. When they’re fighting ISIS, it’s sort of the same, on the grounds that ISIS is sort of al-Qaeda, even though they’re actually not.

Who is to blame for the rise of ISIL?

In this Head to Head special from Washington DC, Mehdi Hasan challenges retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, on the rise of ISIL, the War on Terror, torture, and how to deal with Iran.

Flynn was the former head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and a commander of J-SOC, the ghost military unit whose squads hunted Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan all the way to Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. With no panel or audience, we ask him whether the US is to blame for creating ISIL and whether the War on Terror has become a crusade.

White House legal strategy for ISIS fight gets blurry

President Obama has shifted his legal rationale for justifying military force to defend Syrian rebel forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as the prospect has increased that they could come into conflict with Syria’s government. ...

The administration now says it will also rely on Article II of the Constitution as the legal backing for air strikes against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s forces if Assad attacks the rebel groups. ...

Legal scholars said using Article II to justify defensive actions as protecting the rebel groups from Assad is a stretch.

“That means nothing. That’s pretty bad when you have to cite Article II…You have to be more specific than that,” said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former Congressional Research Service researcher.

He and other legal experts say Article II has been interpreted to allow a president to “repel sudden attack” against U.S. troops, the U.S.mainland, and its interests.

Using it to defend Syrian rebels would not fit under that previous interpretation, he said.

“Invoking Article II is question-begging,” agreed Stephen Vladeck, law professor at American University.

Vladeck said Article II has also been interpreted to allow the U.S. to defend its “assets.”

However, he said “by that logic any person or piece of military equipment used by anyone on a side of a conflict with which we agree is all of a sudden covered by Article II. And that cannot be right.”

Pentagon Rethinking Syrian Rebel Training Strategy

A year and $500 million later, the Pentagon finally introduced its first rebels into Syria. The plan was to create a faction of tens of thousands, a new pro-US rebel faction for Syria. The reality was 54 guys, who crossed into Syria and almost immediately were routed by al-Qaeda.

That’s got some in the Pentagon rethinking things, with some downplaying the importance of a program once presented as the end-all, be-all strategy for winning in Syria. Others are suggesting they simply need to change a few things nad get the process going more efficiently.

No matter how much rethinking they’re doing, however, they’re not going to stop blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on the pipe dream of creating this force, and officials say two new classes of rebels have begun training as well. They didn’t indicate how many were in either class, however.

Oh no, there's not going to be any blowback attributable to aligning with Turkey in its war on ISIS the Kurds...

US Consulate Hit As Multiple Attacks Rock Turkey

Violence flared in Turkey on Monday as gunmen opened fire on the US consulate in Istanbul, hours after a car bombing elsewhere in the city and the killing of five members of the security forces in the country's southeast.

The consulate attack began when two assailants, reported to be a man and a woman, shot at the building in the northern Sariyer district before fleeing when police returned fire. The woman has now been apprehended, according to local media.

Earlier, an explosive-laden vehicle was detonated at a police station in the Sultanbeyli area of the city, causing it to catch fire and partially collapse. At least ten people were injured in the blast, including three members of the police, state-run Anadolu Agency said, adding that militants later fired on officers at the scene, fatally wounding one officer. Police killed two of the gunmen in resultant clashes.

There have been no claims of responsibility for either attack and it is unclear if they are linked, but the violence comes after Turkey launched a two-pronged "war on terror" that officials say is focused on the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and so-called Islamic State (IS). The extreme left Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), which carried out a 2013 suicide bombing at the US Embassy in Ankara, has also been targeted in the campaign.

No More Torture: World’s Largest Group of Psychologists Bans Role in National Security Interrogations

First Step for Reform: APA Votes to Bar Psychologists From Colluding in Torture

The American Psychological Association (APA) on Friday voted overwhelmingly to bar its members from participating in the interrogation of U.S. prisoners on foreign soil, officially ending the association's complicity in torture of detainees and taking the first step out of "the dark side."

All but one member of the APA's 173-person Council of Representatives voted to end the association's collusion with the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies in abusive interrogations as well as the so-called "noncoercive" kind now being carried out by the Obama administration.

Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib military psychologist Col. Larry James cast the sole dissenting vote. There were also seven abstentions and one recusal. ...

The vote was met with a standing ovation. The ban states that psychologists "shall not conduct, supervise, be in the presence of, or otherwise assist any national security interrogations for any military or intelligence entities, including private contractors working on their behalf, nor advise on conditions of confinement insofar as these might facilitate such an interrogation."

Bernie Sanders sidelined in Seattle as Black Lives Matter activists invade stage

The Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders was shoved aside by several Black Lives Matter activists and eventually had to leave an event in Seattle without giving his speech.

Sanders was just starting to address several thousand people gathered shoulder to shoulder at Westlake Park when two women took over the microphone. Organizers could not persuade the two to wait and agreed to give them a few minutes.

As Sanders stepped back the women spoke about Ferguson and the killing of Michael Brown and called for four minutes of silence.

When the crowd asked the activists to allow Sanders to speak, one activist called the crowd “white supremacist liberals”, according to event participants.

After waiting about 20 minutes Sanders himself was pushed away when he tried to take the microphone back. Instead he waved goodbye, left the stage with a raised fist salute and waded into the crowd. He shook hands and posed for photos with supporters for about 15 minutes and then left.

The rally at Westlake Park had been organized as a birthday celebration for social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

'Bringing People Together' Big Time as Sanders Attracts Tens of Thousands

Overflow crowd is estimated at nearly 30,000 people in Portland

It was by far the largest turnout for any presidential candidate this year, as nearly 30,000 people rallied in Portland, Oregon on Sunday evening for Bernie Sanders, filling the city's Moda Center to capacity with thousands more directed to overflow areas to watch the event on large screens.

"Whoa. This is an unbelievable turnout," said the U.S. senator and presidential candidate after taking the podium.

With a populist message and a continued upward trend in early state and national polling, Sanders has been breaking his own attendance records over recent weeks and months, attracting overflow crowds in liberal bastions like New England and the northwest, but also in more conservative states like Texas, New Orleans, and Arizona. ...

By contrast, as the Washington Post points out, the largest crowd yet attracted by Hillary Clinton's campaign was estimated at 5,500, which came at her formal New York kickoff event in June. None of the Republican candidates have seen crowds anywhere near what Sanders is getting.

Despite the ability of a few protesters to shut down an earlier campaign stop in Seattle on Saturday, the Sanders campaign continues to build traction with its far-reaching and inclusive populist message regarding economic inequality, social justice, and a broad call for a "political revolution" centered on getting big money out of politics, fighting corporate greed, and combating human-caused climate change. Additionally, Sanders has thus far gone further than other candidates in making criminal justice reform and racial inequities central issues of his platform.

Also of interest:

Going Bankrupt Like Trump Did Is for High Rollers, Not Homeowners

Psychologist’s Work for GCHQ Deception Unit Inflames Debate Among Peers

DeRay McKesson: Ferguson and beyond: how a new civil rights movement began – and won't end

​How to Shoot Down a Drone

10 Steps to Wean US Foreign Policy Off Militarism

America's Empire of Bases

Chris Hedges: Evoking the Wrath of Nature