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“Every empire ... tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

-- Edward W. Said

News and Opinion

Would Turkey Be Justified in Kidnapping or Drone-Killing the Turkish Cleric in Pennsylvania?

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan places the blame for this weekend’s failed coup attempt on an Islamic preacher and one-time ally, Fethullah Gulen (above), who now resides in Pennsylvania with a Green Card. Erdogan is demanding the U.S. extradite Gulen, citing prior extraditions by the Turkish government of terror suspects demanded by the U.S.: “now we’re saying deliver this guy who’s on our terrorist list to us.” Erdogan has been requesting Gulen’s extradition from the U.S. for at least two years, on the ground that he has been subverting the Turkish government while harbored by the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. is refusing, with Secretary of State John Kerry demanding of Turkey: “Give us the evidence, show us the evidence. We need a solid legal foundation that meets the standard of extradition.”

In light of the presence on U.S. soil of someone the Turkish government regards as a “terrorist” and a direct threat to its national security, would Turkey be justified in dispatching a weaponized drone over Pennsylvania to find and kill Gulen if the U.S. continues to refuse to turn him over, or sending covert operatives to kidnap him? ...

That question, of course, is raised by the fact that the U.S. has spent many years now doing exactly this: employing various means – including but not limited to drones – to abduct and kill people in multiple countries whom it has unilaterally decided (with no legal process) are “terrorists” or who otherwise are alleged to pose a threat to its national security. Since it cannot possibly be the case that the U.S. possesses legal rights that no other country can claim – right? – the question naturally arises whether Turkey would be entitled to abduct or kill someone it regards as a terrorist when the U.S. is harboring him and refuses to turn him over.

Turkey in Crisis: Understanding the Erdogan/ Gulen Split

Turkish authorities arrest more than 6,000 people after failed coup attempt

Turkish authorities are continuing to crack down on suspected dissidents in the wake of Friday night's attempted military coup, when plotters commandeered jets, tanks, and helicopters in a failed bid to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than 6,000 military personnel and other individuals have been detained, including 2,700 judges, according to Reuters. On Sunday, an arrest warrant was issued for Erdogan's top military aide.

"This virus, like a cancer, spread to all the state institutions," Erdogan said at the funeral for one of the victims, promising to purge the state of traitors. ...

On Saturday, Erdogan said those behind the coup would pay a heavy price, but that it was "a gift from God" because it "will be a reason to cleanse our army." Erdogan has also floated the possibility of reinstating the death penalty, which was abolished in Turkey in 2004.

Turkey – after the coup, the crackdown

Europe and US urge Turkey to respect rule of law after failed coup

European politicians and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, have called on Turkey to respect the rule of law amid a purge of state institutions in the aftermath of this weekend’s botched coup.

Speaking at a meeting of Kerry and the EU’s 28 foreign ministers – including the UK’s Boris Johnson – the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the group intended to send a strong message to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We call for the full observance of Turkey’s constitutional order and we as European Union stress the importance of the rule of law,” Mogherini said. “We need to have Turkey respect democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms.” ...

As Turkish authorities consider restoring the death penalty, which was outlawed in 2004, Mogherini stressed such a move would rule out EU membership.

“No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty,” she said, noting that Turkey was a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European convention on human rights, which bans capital punishment.

Turkey’s President Survives Coup Attempt, Thanks in Part to Social Media He So Despises

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, remains in power on Saturday after quelling an attempted coup by military officers who seized control of state television the night before, and then proceeded to shell the parliament in Ankara, deploy troops on major bridges in Istanbul and put tanks on the streets of both cities. ...

After the officers claimed control of the country in a statement they forced a presenter to read on TRT, the state broadcaster, the country’s internet and phone networks remained out of their control. That allowed Erdogan to improvise an address to the nation in a FaceTime call to CNN Turk, a private broadcaster the military only managed to force off the air later in the night, as the coup unraveled. In his remarks, the president called on people to take to the streets.

Given that Erdogan’s government has shuttered privately owned television news channels that have been critical of him in the past year, he had reason to be thankful that CNN’s Turkish outlet was still on the air when he needed it.

Minutes later, the president repeated his plea for protesters to defend democracy on his own Twitter feed. ...

Restrictions on social networks in the country are common, and Erdogan himself blamed Twitter for popular resistance to his government’s crackdown on protests against the destruction of Gezi Park, a green space in the center of Istanbul, in 2013.

US-NATO Border Confrontation with Russia Risks Nuclear War and Loss of European Partners

DESVARIEUX: So, Michael, we just heard President Obama pledging his allegiance to protecting Europe. Does Europe really need protecting, though?

HUDSON: Well, as soon as Obama made those words, there was a fury of European statements saying that Obama and NATO was making Europe less secure. The French prime minister, Francois Hollande, says that we don't need NATO. NATO has no role to play in our Russian relations. That leaders of the two major German parties, both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, said that NATO was warmongering. Gorbachev came out and said the world has never been closer to nuclear war than it is at present. William Perry, the former head of the Pentagon in the mid-90s, said that NATO was threatening and trying to provoke atomic war in Europe.

And one of Russia's leading military strategists said here's what the problem is: NATO wants to move bombers and atomic weapons right up to the border of Russia. That means that if they launch over us, we have only a few seconds to retaliate. President Putin a little while ago had given a speech saying that Russia doesn't really have a land army. In fact, today, no country in the world, in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, has a land army that can invade anywhere. Try to imagine America being invaded by Canada, or by Mexico on its borders. You can't imagine it. Impossible. No democracy can afford a land army anymore because the costs are so high that the costs of mounting a land war will just impoverish the economy.

As a matter of fact, what NATO is trying to do is to goad Russia into building up an army so it can undercut its economy by diverting more and more resources away from the economy towards the military. Russia's not falling for it. Putin said that Russia has no intention of mounting a land army. It is unthinkable that it could even want to invade the Baltics or Poland. But Putin did say we have one means of retaliation, and that's atomic bombs. Atomic weapons are basically defensive. They're saying, we don't need an army anymore. Nor does any country need an army if they have an atomic weapon, because if you attack us we'll wipe you out. And we'll be wiped out, too, but you're never going to be able to conquer us. And no country, really, can conquer any other country. Russia can't conquer Europe.

So the effect, Putin and the Russian leaders have said, look, if they suppose that an American plane goes a little bit off, like, you know, the ships try to provoke things, we don't know whether it's an atomic attack at all. We can't take a risk. If there's a little bit of a movement against us, we're going to launch the hydrogen bombs, and there goes Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Brussels. That's why you're having all of these warnings. And Europe is absolutely terrified that Obama is going to destabilize. And even more terrified of Hillary getting in, who's indicated she's going to appoint a superhawk, the Cheney protege Flournoy, as Secretary of Defense, and appoint Nuland, Victoria Nuland, as Secretary of State.

And all throughout Europe--I've been in Germany twice in the last two months, and they're really worried that somehow America is telling Europe, let's you and Russia fight. And basically it's a crisis.

The H-Bombs in Turkey

Among the many questions still unanswered following Friday’s coup attempt in Turkey is one that has national-security implications for the United States and for the rest of the world: How secure are the American hydrogen bombs stored at a Turkish airbase?

The Incirlik Airbase, in southeast Turkey, houses NATO’s largest nuclear-weapons storage facility. On Saturday morning, the American Embassy in Ankara issued an “Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens,” warning that power had been cut to Incirlik and that “local authorities are denying movements on to and off of” the base. Incirlik was forced to rely on backup generators; U.S. Air Force planes stationed there were prohibited from taking off or landing; and the security-threat level was raised to FPCON Delta, the highest state of alert, declared when a terrorist attack has occurred or may be imminent. On Sunday, the base commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, and nine other Turkish officers at Incirlik were detained for allegedly supporting the coup. As of this writing, American flights have resumed at the base, but the power is still cut off.

According to Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, underground vaults at Incirlik hold about fifty B-61 hydrogen bombs—more than twenty-five per cent of the nuclear weapons in the NATO stockpile. The nuclear yield of the B-61 can be adjusted to suit a particular mission. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had an explosive force equivalent to about fifteen kilotons of TNT. In comparison, the “dial-a-yield” of the B-61 bombs at Incirlik can be adjusted from 0.3 kilotons to as many as a hundred and seventy kilotons.

'Yes' - New UK PM when asked if she is prepared to nuke "100,000 innocent men women and children"

Saudi Ties to 9/11 Detailed in Documents Suppressed Since 2002

After years of political wrangling, the suppressed section of a 2002 congressional report that detailed possible ties between the Saudi government and the 9/11 terrorist attacks was released today. ... The suppressed pages, redacted in parts, detail circumstantial evidence of ties among Saudi government officials, intelligence agents, and several of the hijackers.

“While in the United States, some of the September 11th hijackers were in contact with or received assistance from, individuals who may be connected with the Saudi government,” reads the report, which added that FBI sources believed at least two of those individuals were Saudi intelligence agents.

The report also mentions that numbers found in the phonebook of Abu Zubaydah, a detainee currently held in Guantánamo, could be traced to a company in Denver, Colorado, connected to former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar bin Sultan. ...

While the report does not find any smoking gun pointing to official Saudi involvement, it does highlight one consistently troubling theme of the kingdom’s response to the attacks: its refusal to cooperate with investigators seeking to uncover information about the hijackers. As the report notes, “In testimony and interviews, a number of FBI agents and CIA officers complained to the [inquiry] about a lack of Saudi cooperation in terrorism investigations both before and after the September 11th attacks.”

Iraqi Shi’ite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Tells Followers to Target US Troops

Influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has had his plate full leading a protest movement calling for major reforms, but in comments to followers today instructed them that US ground troops inside Iraq are “a target for us,” the latest indication the US could quickly find itself facing a Shi’ite insurgency on top of the ISIS war in Iraq.

This isn’t a surprise, as Sadr has been loudly opposed to US deployments of ground troops into Iraq, warning that his followers would resist any attempt to return to the days of the American occupation, during which US troops repeatedly targeted Sadrists.

The timing of the comments, less than a week after the most recent Pentagon announcement of another large deployment to Iraq, suggests that Sadr’s patience for the growing US force is wearing thin, and that, having already gone far beyond the “cap” the Abadi government set on US troop numbers, he doesn’t care to see more troops arriving uncontested.

Israeli Attorney General: Effort to Legalize Settlements Unconstitutional

Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit today warned that a bill which aims to retroactively legalize the illegal West Bank settler outpost of Amona was blatantly unconstitutional, all but closing the door on Israel’s far-right government continuing to spurn court orders to demolish it.

Amona was illegally built on privately owned Palestinian land in 1995, and the Israeli High Court ruled it illegal in 2006. After years of spurning court orders to do something about it, the High Court finally gave the government under December of 2016 to demolish the site and return it to its legal owners.

Canadian Priest Gambled Away $500,000 in Syria Refugee Aid

Canadian priest Amer Saka has bee suspended from his Hamilton, ON diocese and arrested on charges of stealing some $500,000 in aid money earmarked for the resettlement of Syrian refugees, and squandering it on gambling.

Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, the head of the church, confirmed that Saka had called him and admitted to gambling away the money. Saka was deeply involved in a program that was sponsoring and helping refugees resettle into Canada.

Six wealthiest countries host less than 9% of world's refugees

The six wealthiest countries in the world, which between them account for almost 60% of the global economy, host less than 9% of the world’s refugees, while poorer countries shoulder most of the burden, Oxfam has said.

According to a report released by the charity on Monday, the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, which together make up 56.6% of global GDP, between them host just 2.1 million refugees: 8.9% of the world’s total.

Of these 2.1 million people, roughly a third are hosted by Germany (736,740), while the remaining 1.4 million are split between the other five countries. The UK hosts 168,937 refugees, a figure Oxfam GB chief executive, Mark Goldring, has called shameful.

In contrast, more than half of the world’s refugees – almost 12 million people – live in Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, despite the fact these places make up less than 2% of the world’s economy.

Oxfam is calling on governments to host more refugees and to do more to help poorer countries which provide shelter to the majority of the world’s refugees.

Cornel West: Justice and Accountability Necessary to End Tension over Killings by Police

Baltimore police lieutenant is the latest cop acquitted in the death of Freddie Gray

A Baltimore judge found a police lieutenant charged in the death of Freddie Gray not guilty on all counts on Monday, the latest non-conviction for the cops involved in the April 2015 incident.

Monday's verdict from Judge Barry Williams was handed down against 42-year-old Brian Rice, the most senior police officer put on trial for the 25-year-old black man's death more than a year ago. Rice opted for a bench trial, meaning a judge rather than a jury decided the verdict.

Rice was facing up to 15 years in prison on charges that included involuntary manslaughter, office misconduct, and second-degree reckless assault.

The officer had relayed orders to two cops on bike patrol to chase after Gray fled on foot from an area in West Baltimore. Once Gray was detained in handcuffs and shackles, Rice helped to secure him into the police vehicle, where he eventually sustained the spine and neck injuries that killed him.

Baltimore cops arrest 65 anti-brutality protesters for blocking freeway

Baltimore cops arrested 65 marchers who blocked part of a freeway during an anti-police brutality protest on Saturday night.

Ten of the 65 people arrested were juveniles, and four people were still in jail as of Sunday morning, according to Baltimore Bloc, the group that organized the protest.

Video from the protest showed demonstrators forming a line across Interstate 83, blocking traffic. One of the organizers wore a t-shirt saying "I am Freddie Gray," a reference to the 25-year-old man who died last April from spinal cord injuries after riding in the back of a Baltimore police van.

Highway shutdown Baltimore. #Afromation pic.twitter.com/9qBIlHoiu2

— Action.Brotha.Jedi (@BmoreDoc) July 16, 2016

Baton Rouge officers ambushed by gunman with radical views

Baton Rouge staggered into a new week of violence as a black separatist killed three police officers. ... By Monday, key details started to emerge about both the shooter, 29-year-old Gavin Long of Missouri, and his victims.

Col Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana state police said on Monday morning that Long “certainly was seeking out police officers” and that he had ambushed his victims. “His movements, his direction, his attention was on police officers,” Edmonson told the Associated Press.

Long’s personal history is marked by radical twists: he was a military veteran who took a series of ideological turns, and eventually joined a fringe group called the Washitaw Nation of Mu’urs.

He grew up in Kansas City and served as a US marine from 2005 to 2010, including about seven months in Iraq. ...

After Micah Johnson – a veteran, like Long – shot and killed five police officers in Dallas on 7 July, Long posted a video claiming to be in Dallas. In the video, he criticized protesters in Baton Rouge for being too peaceful.

Three Police Officers Shot Dead in Baton Rouge Two Weeks After Officers Killed Alton Sterling

Obama says Black Lives Matter. But he doesn't ensure they do

Just days after several violent, deadly attacks on black people at the hands of the police, ABC invited families, organizers, officers and more to join Barack Obama in a town hall to discuss race relations in America. The idea was to offer space for reconciliation and those in attendance were told that we would have an opportunity to engage in a conversation on trust and safety in our communities. ...

Each of us was strategically seated. The seating arrangement didn’t allow for meaningful conversation, but instead created a carefully manipulated environment that placed black grief and pain front and center and little more. The president was uniquely positioned at that moment to discuss the beginnings of a strategy to save black lives from police violence and terror – but he didn’t.

We witnessed members of our movement rustle with anxiousness when he minimized our experiences. He exclaimed that Black Lives Matter, but didn’t follow up with substantive ways to ensure they do. It was disturbing to watch. Some of us left in tears.

We are disappointed and frustrated that the hour-long town hall didn’t offer an opportunity for significant engagement – or the chance to talk about solutions. Instead, we were silenced. ABC used the faces of the black community to exhibit a watered-down message of hope and reconciliation. And Obama collaborated.

As President Obama approaches the end of his final term, we urge him to take bold and meaningful executive action to invest in alternative strategies to improve accountability and security to protect black communities.

Instead of investing in local police, we ask the administration to defund police departments that have continuously violated the civil and human rights of black people and take an iterative approach to creating new systems.

New York Media Struggles to Name the Most Dishonest Presidential Candidate

In what feels like scenes from an edgy political satire film, New York media are now alternately casting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as the most dishonest presidential candidate in the annals of political history. Tragically for the country, there are legitimate grounds for making either case.

On the very eve of the Republican National Convention, where the party of Lincoln is expected to choose real estate billionaire Donald Trump as their candidate for the highest office in the United States, the New York Times ran a front page article yesterday in its highest circulation Sunday edition, characterizing Trump’s career as an “operatic record of dissembling and deception.” ...

Three days before the New York Times ran its devastating article on Trump, John Cassidy of the New Yorker reported the following:

“…over the past three months, Clinton has seen her support fall by ten percentage points in the CBS/Times poll. This decline has been accompanied by a further drop in her approval rating, which was already very low by historical standards. In the new survey, just twenty-eight per cent of respondents said that they had a favorable opinion of Clinton, a decline of five points compared with last month. The percentage of people who said they considered Clinton ‘not honest and trustworthy’ hit sixty-seven per cent, a new high.”

How could a leader possibly lead when two-thirds of the nation believes she is “not honest.” How surreal is it when a nation of 324 million people, with historical giants among its former Presidents, cannot flush out two candidates with the minimal requirement of telling the truth to compete for Commander in Chief, leader of the free world and uniter of a country torn by hatred and serial mass killings? The general assessment is that we can thank the amoral corporate financing of candidates, against which only billionaires can compete, for our nation’s race to the bottom of the political dung heap.

Donald Trump and the Revolt of the Proles

Liberals and progressives love to point across the aisle and accuse their opponents of racism, misogyny and xenophobia, but that’s not what the Trump campaign is all about. And that’s not what Brexit was about. While it’s true that anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in Europe and the US, the hostility has less to do with race than it does jobs and wages. In other words, Brexit is a revolt against a free trade regime in which all the benefits have accrued to the uber-rich while everyone else has seen their incomes slide, their future’s dim and their standard of living plunge. As Vincent Bevins of the Los Angeles Times said:

“Both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years”…“since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”

Fake liberals like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have been big proponents of free trade and thus contributed greatly to this groundswell revolution against condescending elites and technocrats whose ultimate goal is to level the playing field so that workers in the developed countries compete nose to nose with underpaid wage slaves in China, Vietnam and across Asia. ...

More and more people know that this this is the real objective of free trade, to lower wages and crush organized labor in order to boost profits. And this is why the media has been unable to undermine public support from Brexit or Trump, because the issues impact working people and their standard of living DIRECTLY. The majority of voters now believe that these elite-backed policies are destructive to their interests and a threat to their survival. That’s why they remain indifferent to the media’s charges of racism.

Commondreams says that some progressives votes can be bought with a suitable Vice Presidential pick. John Nance Garner used to say that the Vice Presidency wasn't worth a warm bucket of piss.

Democratic "Unity" on Edge as Progressives Await Clinton's VP Pick

The notion of "Democratic unity" remains tenuous at best as many progressives are holding out support for presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton until her chosen running mate is announced.

Meanwhile, many attendees of the Netroots Nation Conference in St. Louis, Missouri held a series of unexpected protests at the annual convention this weekend, underscoring how divided and skeptical members of the Left remain despite declarations to the contrary.

"For many progressives, and Democrats in general, it's a wait-and-see moment around [Clinton's] vice presidential pick," Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) told the Guardian in an interview during the conference.

Calling the decision "a proxy for what we can expect from her administration," Taylor added: "If she picks someone like Elizabeth Warren who has this track record of fighting for the issues that people care about ... that will be a signal that will energize greatly the Democratic base."

Alternately, Taylor warned that a more moderate pick would "do the opposite."

Cornel West: Why I Endorse Green Party's Jill Stein Over "Neoliberal Disaster" Hillary Clinton

Feds Monitoring Activists on Facebook Ahead of Republican Convention

A “threat assessment” issued jointly by the FBI, Secret Service, and Department of Homeland Security warns law enforcement to be on the lookout for “potential indicators” of “violent anarchist extremist activity.” The indicators include “pilfering construction sites” for rocks, pipes, or bricks and “movement of newspaper containers and trashcans to create barricades” — but also carrying spray paint, eye drops, or wearing “clothing bearing anarchist symbols.”

The document, obtained by The Intercept, is dated July 7 and marked “For Official Use Only.” It says that the agencies had “no information to indicate a specific, credible threat to or associated with” the convention but also warns of the potential for a “lone wolf” terrorist attack or violence from Donald Trump supporters or people coming to protest him.

The only specific group identified in the document is described as “a known anarchist extremist network known as the Resist the Cleveland RNC,” which “is assisting anarchists by providing logistical support, training, and a communications platform for anarchist activities including anarchist extremist violence.” It notes that “known anarchist extremists” from Cleveland and elsewhere “have discussed the 2016 RNC and made plans to travel to Cleveland.”

The only evidence of the “network” provided is a link to a public Facebook page that describes itself as “dedicated to spreading information about the resistance to the 2016 RNC.” People have posted articles and basic information about the convention, links to the National Lawyer’s Guild and local medics, and events like “Stand Together Against Trump March and Rally,” “Art Making,” and “Circle the City with Love.” A second page cited in the report is titled “resistRNC Cleveland 2016 Transport Squad” and mainly consists of links to news articles about the convention and occasional requests to coordinate housing or rides.

A recent post on the page says, “This is not a organization. At all. This is just a page to share information.”

Ohio's open-carry gun law comes under fire ahead of GOP convention

The head of Cleveland's police union has asked Ohio Governor John Kasich to temporarily suspend a state law that allows people to openly carry weapons during the four-day Republican National Convention that starts on Monday.

The request follows deadly shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and comes amid heightened concerns that the RNC will be a target for extremists of many kinds.

During an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Association, called on Kasich to declare a state of emergency and suspend open-carry laws in the wake of the shooting in Baton Rouge that left three officers dead and three others wounded. ...

Loomis is reportedly in the process of putting the request together to submit it to the governor's office. In anticipation, Kasich's office put out a statement explaining that he does not have the authority to suspend state laws. ...

"I don't care what the legal precedent is," Loomis later told Reuters. "I feel strongly that leadership needs to stand up and defend these police officers."

@GeorgeTakei @azmoderate pic.twitter.com/tbFaWuWkjN

— Edgeoforever?? (@edgeoforever) July 17, 2016

Tamir Rice's mother on Donald Trump: 'I wish he wasn't coming here'

Samaria Rice has one message for Donald Trump, the tycoon who is in Cleveland this week to be anointed as the Republican party’s candidate for president: “I wish he wasn’t coming here.

“Donald Trump doesn’t really care about the murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and other young men,” Rice said, sitting on a bench close to the spot where, in November 2014, her 12-year-old son was shot dead by a white Cleveland police officer as he played with a plastic pellet gun.

“I don’t really think that he has a need to care, because I don’t believe that he cares for African American people anyway,” she said.

Rice, 39, has taken a decision to leave town when the Republican national convention begins on Monday. As an expected 50,000 people descend on Cleveland, she will be in New York, mourning with the family of Eric Garner on the two-year anniversary of the 43-year-old’s death in police custody.

New Rules Could Help Big Oil Escape Scrutiny at Fossil Fuel Auctions

Lawmakers are attempting to make it even easier for fossil fuel companies to bid on public land auctions without facing disapproval from climate advocates, a move that green groups say buckles to corporate interests.

Earlier this week, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources approved a bill that would require lease sales for offshore drilling to be held online rather than in person, as the Obama administration gears up to do the same with an onshore public land auction originally slated for a sell-off in Washington, D.C. ...

The decision follows several instances in which oil and gas auctions were disrupted by activists calling for the government to end new leases and keep fossil fuels in the ground.

In a statement released Thursday, Friends of the Earth charged that "Moving the auctions online serves one purpose: to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to take control of our public lands, shielded from public scrutiny and input."

"Now the administration has a clear choice: take action in keeping with our international climate commitments or cater to the fossil fuel industry," the group said.

Seems Like Fox News Didn't Like the Joke About Its Crappy Climate Coverage

"What will it take for Fox News to admit that humans are changing the climate?"

That's the question posed in a new satirical television ad which aims to use a bit of humor to call out the network's fueling of climate distortion "to the nation's physical and economic peril."

Produced by environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Fenton Communications, the ad shows a supposed Fox News anchor discussing extreme weather events without drawing any links to climate change as water increasingly rises over her head.

An FoE press statement says the network rejected the ad, but that the group still expects it to be viewed many times thank to social media users sharing it with the hashtag #FOXFoolsOnClimate.

Colorado Fracking Study Blames Faulty Wells for Water Contamination

Methane contamination of Colorado water wells from nearby fossil fuel development is likely due to faulty oil and gas well construction rather than hydraulic fracturing, according to a new study of aquifer contamination in the state.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, is the latest to pinpoint the sources and pathways of methane reported in residential drinking water near drilling sites, a concern to many communities as the fracking boom has spread across the country.

Environmental activists have asserted that fracking opens fissures underground along which methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, migrates from fossil fuel reservoirs into aquifers. Industry has maintained that residents' water already contained methane before oil and gas activity began.

The Colorado study builds on several others published in the last few years, examining water from Texas to Pennsylvania. They all indicate methane can bleed from oil and gas wells if the metal casings inside the wellbore are not cemented completely or sealed deep enough underground.

"The bottom line here is that industry has denied any stray gas contamination: that whenever we have methane in a well, it always preexisting," said Avner Vengosh, professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University, who read the paper but was not involved in the study. "The merit of this is that it's a different oil and gas basin, a different approach, and it's saying that stray gas could happen."

Also of Interest

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

Black Lives Matter activists say FBI told them not to protest GOP Convention

Personnel: a potential Achilles’ heel of progressive electoral politics

Two Delegates Propose Banning Corporate Lobbyists From the RNC, Get Crushed

Democrats struggle for unity as protesters swarm Netroots convention

How Extrajudicial Executions Became ‘War’ Policy in Washington

Justice department 'uses aged computer system to frustrate Foia requests'

Turkey was already undergoing a slow-motion coup – by Erdogan, not the army

Erdogan is Using This Failed Coup to Get Rid of the Last Vestiges of Secular Turkey

This article will make you go hmmmm...

The Tale of Uncle Tsarnaev, CIA Chief Graham Fuller and a Turkish Islamist Who Lives in USA

'It was always a pretty racist town': residents on the Baton Rouge's north side – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Lonesome Sundown - You're Playing Hookey

Lonesome Sundown - No Use To Worry

Lonesome Sundown - Don´t Say a Word

Lonesome Sundown - I Had A Dream Last Night

Lonesome Sundown - My home is a prison

Lonesome Sundown - Lonesome whistler

Lonesome Sundown - Black Cat Bone