is liberal democracy threatened by recursively self-improving technology?

guardian |  The BBC Reith Lectures in 1967 were given by Edmund Leach, a Cambridge social anthropologist. “Men have become like gods,” Leach began. “Isn’t it about time that we understood our divinity? Science offers us total mastery over our environment and over our destiny, yet instead of rejoicing we feel deeply afraid.”

That was nearly half a century ago, and yet Leach’s opening lines could easily apply to today. He was speaking before the internet had been built and long before the human genome had been decoded, and so his claim about men becoming “like gods” seems relatively modest compared with the capabilities that molecular biology and computing have subsequently bestowed upon us. Our science-based culture is the most powerful in history, and it is ceaselessly researching, exploring, developing and growing. But in recent times it seems to have also become plagued with existential angst as the implications of human ingenuity begin to be (dimly) glimpsed.

The title that Leach chose for his Reith Lecture – A Runaway World – captures our zeitgeist too. At any rate, we are also increasingly fretful about a world that seems to be running out of control, largely (but not solely) because of information technology and what the life sciences are making possible. But we seek consolation in the thought that “it was always thus”: people felt alarmed about steam in George Eliot’s time and got worked up about electricity, the telegraph and the telephone as they arrived on the scene. The reassuring implication is that we weathered those technological storms, and so we will weather this one too. Humankind will muddle through.

But in the last five years or so even that cautious, pragmatic optimism has begun to erode. There are several reasons for this loss of confidence. One is the sheer vertiginous pace of technological change. Another is that the new forces at loose in our society – particularly information technology and the life sciences – are potentially more far-reaching in their implications than steam or electricity ever were. And, thirdly, we have begun to see startling advances in these fields that have forced us to recalibrate our expectations.

A classic example is the field of artificial intelligence (AI), defined as the quest to enable machines to do things that would require intelligence if performed by a human. For as long as most of us can remember, AI in that sense was always 20 years away from the date of prediction. Maybe it still is. But in the last few years we have seen that the combination of machine learning, powerful algorithms, vast processing power and so-called “Big Data” can enable machines to do very impressive things – real-time language translation, for example, or driving cars safely through complex urban environments – that seemed implausible even a decade ago.

And this, in turn, has led to a renewal of excited speculation about the possibility – and the existential risks – of the “intelligence explosion” that would be caused by inventing a machine that was capable of recursive self-improvement. This possibility was first raised in 1965 by the British cryptographer IJ Good, who famously wrote: “The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.” Fifty years later, we find contemporary thinkers like Nick Bostrom and Murray Shanahan taking the idea seriously.

Presstitutes Have Become Nose-Blind to The Fascist Brothel's Stench...,

truth-out |  Earlier this week, an Associated Press (AP) story showed that a disproportionate number of Clinton's meetings with private citizens at the State Department were with large donors to the Clinton Foundation. At the very least, these stories ought to spark a serious media conversation about money, politics and philanthropy. Instead, much of the media, especially the wide array of Clinton loyalists all over the industry, have been quick to dismiss the story as part of an anti-Clinton agenda.

The media industry, which many claim is out to get Clinton, is actually made up mostly of donors to the Clinton Foundation. These donors are also actively supporting Clinton's campaign with donations and even fundraising. Indeed, while Clinton's potential conflicts of interest at the State Department are thought-provoking, her financial ties to Big Media are a concern in their own right. These close ties are especially unsettling on the heels of a primary season in which the corporate media attacked Bernie Sanders constantly, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was caught manipulating the media on Clinton's behalf.

It is understandable that many want to avoid criticizing Clinton, out of fear of giving the reckless, racist, authoritarian Donald Trump fodder to attack her. However, this type of suspension of critical thinking will not prevent a Trump presidency; Trump will attack Clinton no matter what "fodder" is or isn't provided. However, the backlash against any critique of Clinton's donor relationships may have long-term political consequences. Every time liberals do cartwheels trying to defend Clinton on this issue, they are undercutting their own fundamental arguments against Citizens United and the influence of the likes of the Koch brothers.

Consider a recent op-ed by Joy Ann Reid in the Daily Beast, in which Reid claims the AP's reporting on the Clinton Foundation is just another "fake scandal" and a product of the "media's general Hillary Clinton loathing." There is no story, she argues -- just a spiteful media with an anti-Clinton agenda.

Reid's claims about Clinton being treated unfairly by the press are hard to accept. Reid -- one of her biggest advocates -- has been able to, within a five-day window, make this very case on the most recent episode of Meet the Press, during her own Sunday morning television show on MSNBC and in her aforementioned column. Reid's media appearances are just one example of how members of the media have come out to defend Clinton against every critique she has faced. Paul Begala, a former staffer for Bill Clinton, argued on CNN that the media has a "different standard for Clinton" and that the story was "politics at its worst." James Carville, another former staffer for President Bill Clinton suggested on MSNBC that "someone is going to hell," for criticizing the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton's "media problem" is not that the relationship is too adversarial, but that it is too compromised. How can we trust the dominant media to cover Clinton's potential conflicts of interest, when they are complicit in their own conflict of interest with the candidate? It is no wonder the "pay for play" allegations against Clinton at the State Department have largely been dismissed by pundits as, to quote Chuck Todd, just the way "American politics" works.

Tell Me With Whom You Walk, and I Will Tell You Who You Are...,

thiscantbehappening |  The Times editorial notably does not recognize the American “version” of dynasty now being played out in the carnival of this election season, the Clinton Dynasty. The editorial alludes to something fishy about Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, being named the vice presidential candidate in the upcoming November elections. Murillo is an internationally recognized poet and author; she speaks four languages and does a popular daily radio show. In the 1970s, she was an assistant to La Prensa editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro assassinated by dictator Somoza. Given Ms. Clinton’s role vis-à-vis her husband and given the Kirchners in Argentina, is such a woman as vice president a sign of corruption or a sign of the times?

The Times editorial’s hypocrisy and its inadequate representation of history blunts any legitimate criticism the editorial may raise. The charge that President Ortega has lined up his ducks un-democratically for his November re-election campaign is hard to take seriously when, here in the mecca of fair democracy, we witnessed the dynastic Clinton machine and its mainstream media stooges like Chris Matthews run over the Bernie Sanders insurgency with the equivalent of tanks. Power tends to protect and promote itself everywhere.

Finally, there’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s after-the-fact full acceptance of the 2009 military coup that overthrew duly-elected, left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. Benghazi was a debacle; this was a cynical decision [2] that harked back to the past and supported wealthy, oppressive elements in Honduras. The coup was followed by a huge rise in murder and violence aimed at the poor and the left, including the assassination of well known environmental activist Berta Caceres and others. This is infuriating for those of us aware of, or tangentially involved in, the politics of Central American in the 1980s.

The Times editorial's final sentence amounts to a classic imperial threat. Remember, before the Contras, in the 1920s and 1930s it was the US Marines. Here's their threat: "The course of Mr. Ortega's own political history should serve as reminder that overthrowing a government can be the citizens' response when all other avenues for dissent are shut." Beware! With a little help from friends in Washington and Miami, the ghost of Ronald Reagan could rise like a shining city on a hill. Again, raising the hypocrisy factor, more and more frustrated elements feel we're arriving at an analogous quandary of shrinking avenues for effective dissent here against out-of-control militarism in the cacophonous, first-world culture of the USA.

Courting the Right, Smearing the Left, the Ethos of Granny Goodness Unmistakable Fascism

commondreams |  Last month, adding to the archive of left-punching, conservative writer and ardent Clinton supporter James Kirchick enthusiastically denounced those he called "the Hillary Clinton-loathing, Donald Trump-loving useful idiots of the left."

"In this weirdest year," Kirchick wrote, "there may be no weirder phenomenon than the rise of the progressive Donald Trump supporter."

Among those apparently deserving of the label "progressive Trump fan" are Glenn Greenwald, Rania Khalek, Zaid Jilani, Julian Assange, Jill Stein, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, all of whom, according to Kirchick, are "captive to a crude and one-dimensional anti-Americanism."

The one sin that unites these progressive commentators, journalists, and political figures with Trump is, in other words, that they all dare to question the morality of America's use of force abroad.

By linking left-wing criticism of American foreign policy with Trumpism, Kirchick is attempting, as Eric Levitz has noted, to delegitimize ideas without having to put forward anything resembling a coherent argument. Instead, Kirchick dubiously portrays Trump as an anti-imperialist (which he's not) to smear actual anti-imperialists.

"For champions of the bipartisan consensus on issues of national security and globalization," Levitz writes, "Trump is an awfully convenient figurehead for challenges to the status quo."

Far from innovative, Kirchick's tactic of using Trump to dismiss legitimate critiques of Hillary Clinton has become commonplace within American political discourse. And shamefully, the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party has silently capitulated to this framework.

Such a state of affairs is immensely revealing, in several ways.

First, it demonstrates clearly the striking ideological bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment. As Neera Tanden, a long-time Clinton confidante, made clear in a recent interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush, loyal partisans are not at all concerned with addressing—or even acknowledging—the critiques of Hillary Clinton offered by independent progressives. Instead, they are concerned primarily with optics and deflection.

Tanden, while acknowledging that Sanders "brought a lot of really important issues to the floor," lamented that "Sanders was prosecuting a much tougher character attack" than the one Clinton faced in 2008. She also observed—contradicting the facts—that Sanders's attacks did "significant damage to Hillary's negatives," implying that Sanders is responsible for the perception that Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy.

Of course, as Ben Spielberg has observed, "If legitimate critiques damage a candidate's approval rating, the problem isn't the person making the critiques."

But Tanden's narrative is consistent with the message put forward by the Clinton campaign throughout the primary: The very act of pointing to Clinton's record, the story goes, is tantamount to, as Clinton herself put it, "an artful smear."

A Generation of Fascism Feebly Pretending at Democratic Political Governance

HuffPo |  The financial calamity of 2008 laid bare ugly problems in the global economic order. The mess has now festered into a political crisis that jeopardizes the link between market-driven economies and representative democracy.

So argues Martin Wolf, the most influential living British economics writer, in a Wednesday column for the Financial Times titled “Capitalism and Democracy: The Strain is Showing.” Fixing the economic norms most English-speaking people refer to as “capitalism,” Wolf argues, will be difficult. But a first step requires rethinking what elites have referred to for three decades as “free trade” or “globalization.”

“Those of us who wish to preserve both liberal democracy and global capitalism must confront serious questions,” Wolf writes. “One is whether it makes sense to promote further international agreements that tightly constrain national regulatory discretion in the interests of existing corporations. My view increasingly echoes that of Prof Lawrence Summers of Harvard, who has argued that ‘international agreements [should] be judged not by how much is harmonised or by how many barriers are torn down but whether citizens are empowered.’ Trade brings gains but cannot be pursued at all costs.” 

The global economic order of the past three decades has privileged a few elites ― who have seen their incomes and political power expand ― at the expense of a far greater number of working people ― who have seen their incomes stagnate and their political influence wane. Global economic rules allow jobs to be offshored and capital to be reallocated in ways that do not benefit the vast majority of people who vote in elections. The idea that markets promoting individual choice are compatible with democratic forms of government has become an open question, according to Wolf.

These words are an intellectual assault on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ― two major international pacts spearheaded by President Barack Obama. Public controversy surrounding TTIP is largely constrained within the European Union at the moment, but the TPP has become one of the most important issues of the 2016 U.S. presidential election ― though it rarely receives coverage on cable news. 

The TPP is modeled on the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization treaties that preceded it. The deal would grant corporations the right to challenge the laws and regulations of sovereign governments before a secretive international tribunal. Labor unions, environmental activists and other representatives of civil society would not be afforded the same privilege. The agreement is widely viewed as an effort to give multinational corporations greater influence over political decision-making.

why is populism here to stay? ISDS investor-state dispute settlement

buzzfeed |  Imagine a private, global super court that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will.

Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole country for daring to interfere with its profits, demanding hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars as retribution.

Imagine that this court is so powerful that nations often must heed its rulings as if they came from their own supreme courts, with no meaningful way to appeal. That it operates unconstrained by precedent or any significant public oversight, often keeping its proceedings and sometimes even its decisions secret. That the people who decide its cases are largely elite Western corporate attorneys who have a vested interest in expanding the court’s authority because they profit from it directly, arguing cases one day and then sitting in judgment another. That some of them half-jokingly refer to themselves as “The Club” or “The Mafia.”

And imagine that the penalties this court has imposed have been so crushing — and its decisions so unpredictable — that some nations dare not risk a trial, responding to the mere threat of a lawsuit by offering vast concessions, such as rolling back their own laws or even wiping away the punishments of convicted criminals.

This system is already in place, operating behind closed doors in office buildings and conference rooms in cities around the world. Known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, it is written into a vast network of treaties that govern international trade and investment, including NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Congress must soon decide whether to ratify.

These trade pacts have become a flashpoint in the US presidential campaign. But an 18-month BuzzFeed News investigation, spanning three continents and involving more than 200 interviews and tens of thousands of documents, many of them previously confidential, has exposed an obscure but immensely consequential feature of these trade treaties, the secret operations of these tribunals, and the ways that business has co-opted them to bring sovereign nations to heel.

The BuzzFeed News investigation explores four different aspects of ISDS. In coming days, it will show how the mere threat of an ISDS case can intimidate a nation into gutting its own laws, how some financial firms have transformed what was intended to be a system of justice into an engine of profit, and how America is surprisingly vulnerable to suits from foreign companies.

The series starts today with perhaps the least known and most jarring revelation: Companies and executives accused or even convicted of crimes have escaped punishment by turning to this special forum.

face the facts - populism is here to stay...,

theconversation |  We are witnessing what I have termed The Global Rise of Populism. Populism, once seen as a fringe phenomenon relegated to another era or only certain parts of the world, is now a mainstay of contemporary politics across the globe, from the Americas to Europe, from Africa to the Asia Pacific.

Populism – a political style that features 1) an appeal to “the people” versus “the elite”; 2) the use of “bad manners” that are allegedly “unbecoming” for politicians; and 3) the evocation of crisis, breakdown or threat – isn’t going anywhere. It is here to stay. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we can do something about it.

First, “the elite” is on the nose in many parts of the world. Mainstream parties are increasingly seen as incapable of channelling popular interests, governments are viewed as being in thrall to global finance, and experts are increasingly distrusted and questioned. In many cases, this cynicism is justified.

Populists posit themselves as representing a break from the status quo. They claim to be able to return power to “the people”. This message has great resonance at this particular historical juncture, where faith in institutions has been badly shaken.

Second, the shifting media landscape favours populists. In a time of communicative abundance, populists deliver a simple, often headline-grabbing message that plays to mass media’s desire for polarisation, dramatisation and emotionalisation.

This allows them to “break through” the constant noise and grab free media attention. There is no better example of this than Trump, whose single tweets inspire media frenzy, or, on a local level, the Australian media’s willingness to report every utterance of Hanson since her election.

Also, many populists have been at the forefront of using social media to communicate “directly” with their followers. The examples of Italy’s Five Star Movement, the US Tea Party and Hungary’s Jobbik are instructive here. This type of engagement is something on which mainstream parties have tended to be woefully behind the times.

Third, populists have become more savvy and increased their appeal in the past decade. In fields of candidates who often seem to be cut from a very similar cloth, populists stand out by offering a performance that seems more authentic, more appealing and often downright more entertaining than other politicians.

New DNC Chair Says Outrage Over Clinton's Pay-To-Play Is "Attempt To Criminalize Normal Behavior"

zerohedge |  Donna Brazile, the new DNC Chair, appeared on ABC's "This Week" and declared that pay for play like "someone who is a donor...saying I want access" is just an attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal."  Specifically, when asked about pay for play allegations against the Clinton Foundation, Brazile responded as follows:

"First of all, Martha, the way I look at it, I’ve been a government official. So, you know, this notion that, somehow or another, someone who is a supporter, someone who is a donor, somebody who’s an activist, saying I want access, I want to come into a room and I want to meet people, we often criminalize behavior that is normal. And I don’t see what the smoke is."

Brazile also took the opportunity to ramp up the rhetoric against Julian Assange saying that the DNC was a "victim of a cyber crime led by thugs" seeking to "destabilize our democracy."  

"There was Russian involvement in this to destabilize not just our institution, the Democratic Party, but our democracy itself."

When asked whether she was concerned about recent TV interviews where Julian Assange had promised additional Hillary disclosures, Brazile said:

"The smoking gun is that we're interviewing somebody who's involved in a cyber crime and not calling him a criminal."

Just to clarify Brazile's position, trading "access" to the Secretary of State in return for donations from questionable international characters and misappropriating DNC funds is in no way criminal but revealing such information to the public is.  So as long as we're kept in the dark there is no crime.  Got it.  Thanks.

swole patrol say "examine what Trump said, re-examine the relationship"

shtfplan |  It seems that Donald Trump’s recent speech urging black Americans to vote for him because of failing Clinton and Obama policies has not fallen on deaf ears.

African Americans, who have for decades voted en masse for democrat party candidates to the tune of 90% support or more, have finally realized that just because a politician says he or she is going to do something doesn’t mean it will actually happen.

We’re sure you remember Obama’s promises of free health care, free education, more jobs and better communities. That not even the first black American President was able to improve the lives of minorities may have finally woken some people up.

The following interview with New Black Panther Quanell X requires no further commentary – he breaks it down quite succinctly:

Let me say this to the brothers and sisters who listened and watched that speech… We may not like the vessel [Donald Trump] that said what he said, but I ask us to truly examine what he said.
Because it is a fact that for 54 years we have been voting for the Democratic Party like no other race in America. And they have not given us the same loyalty and love that we have given them. We, as black people, have to reexamine the relationship. We’re being pimped like prostitutes and they’re the big pimps pimping us politically… promising us everything and we get nothing in return. We gotta step back now as black people and we gotta look at all the parties and vote our best interests.
…
I want to say and encourage the brothers and sisters… Barack Obama, our president, served two terms… the first black president ever… but did our condition get better?  Did financially, politically, academically with education in our community… did things get better? Are our young people working more?
The condition got worse.

FACT: Nessa Diab a phoine muhuggah...,

unclesamsmisguidedchildren |  There are some facts about Colin Kaepernick that you should know. 1) He recently converted to Islam, 2) His girlfriend,  DJ Nessa Diab, is a prominent activist in Black Lives Matter and is Muslim. She is also a fan of the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro.

Our writer James Tuttle has already given you the skinny from his and another veteran’s perspective. Now Tank and I want to talk about the underlying agenda propagated by these  so-called “Activists.”

Oppression- the real kind- from Tank

Mr. Kaepernick, you have no clue what Oppression feels like. I know exactly what it feels like. I can tell you as a communist survivor who almost saw his family sent to prison because of bringing a drawing of the birth of Christ and telling my 1st grade kids about Jesus. 

I remember clearly watching my father being beaten by Castro henchmen right in front of my grandma’s house… all because we were coming to America.

I remember having only a glass of sugar with water because no one would hire my father or mother for fear they would receive the same discrimination. 

I understand you embrace communist/socialist ideas, yet I do not see you giving away all of your millions of dollars to charity. And if you hate it here so much, why aren’t you fleeing to North Korea or Cuba?

You are a new Moslem convert who supports an ideology that has kept women oppressed for thousands of years, without even the right to vote or participate in any leadership role without permission of their father or husband. 

You talk about ‘oppression’ from the white men, yet your own white parents have given you a college education  and life of  “white privilege.”

History shows that blacks sold blacks into slavery.  Today, the ‘human trade’ as they call it now is predominantly run by Moslem Arabs: the diamond slavery is a huge example. 

It shows that no matter how many millions you have, you can still be a slave in your own plantation.

the coward Gattine hiding from Gov. LePage behind long Cathedral skirts...,

PressHerald |  Since Friday, many lawmakers, including a growing listnumber of Republicans, have called on the governor to seek professional treatment. Democratic leaders have asked him to resign. Senate Republican leaders said Monday that they met with the governor to discuss “corrective action.”

Westbrook’s Mayor Colleen Hilton, a Democrat, was among many who condemned the governor’s recent words and actions. Along with City Council President Brendan Rielly and School Committee Chairman James Violette, Hilton last week addressed an “Open Letter to the People of Maine.”

“Once more Governor LePage has humiliated himself and the Office of the Governor,” it read. “He continues to again embarrass the citizens of this wonderful state. Unfortunately, the current target of his inappropriate outbursts is Drew Gattine, a respected member and leader of our community, the City of Westbrook, and a highly respected member of the Maine State Legislature.

“Drew Gattine is what we want in a Maine leader. He is totally dedicated to helping others, has integrity and a strong ethical compass, is willing to lead with humor and humility, is articulate and is open to dialogue with those who disagree with him.”

Rielly also confirmed that the town hall had been canceled and said that a rally for decency was scheduled for Riverside Park at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Westbrook, a mostly blue-collar mill city of about 18,000 residents, has seen its demographic makeup shift in recent years. Many immigrants and refugees have settled in the city, in large part because of affordable housing, and recent events have created racial and ethnic tension.

After it was learned this month that Adnan Fazeli – an Iranian refugee who became an Islamic State radical – had lived in Westbrook, Muslims in the same housing complex were targeted with anonymous typed notes that read, “All Muslims are Terrorists should be Killed.”

Westbrook, like many communities, also has been hit hard by the heroin and opiate epidemic. Following a rash of overdose calls, the city’s police department accepted an offer by Maine’s attorney general to equip officers with more doses of the life-saving drug Narcan.

In 2014, Westbrook had 11,770 registered voters, made up of 38 percent Democrats, 22.9 percent Republicans, 4.5 percent independent and 34.6 unenrolled,according to the secretary of state. When LePage was re-elected in 2014, he received 41 percent of the votes cast in Westbrook.

House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, criticized LePage for wanting to schedule the town hall event in Gattine’s hometown.

Granny Goodness: “Black Americans, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES and letting me use you again!"

rawstory |  “You’re accusing Hillary Clinton of pandering to African-American voters — and yet Donald Trump has yet to lay out and enumerate his plans to create jobs, to deal with the crime issues that he’s talking about,” Welker told Burns, who has acted as a surrogate for Trump. “So how can African-American voters feel as though he is validly trying to address some of their top concerns when he has not spoken directly to them and to their communities?”

“Tell me: where are your ancestors from?” Burns asked her. 

“I have a lot of ancestors,” Welker replied. “Let’s just stick on the topic, though.”

“When you talk to one black family, you’re not talking to all black families,” said Burns, who is black. “We need to quit talking as though when you talk to ‘the African-American community’ as though that resonates with all –”

“But he’s not talking to them at all, Pastor Burns, that’s my point,” she interjected. 

“That’s not true. He’s talking to Americans!” Burns yelled. “And we as African-Americans are Americans. We are American. We are American. and we deserve to have the same respect as all Americans. When Donald Trump talked about jobs, he didn’t talk to white America — he talked to America. And that’s the problem we have in this society.”

While Trump drew criticism last week for making his pitch to African-American voters in front of all-white audiences, Burns did so on Monday for posting the drawing of Clinton, along with the caption, “Black Americans, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES and letting me use you again..See you again in 4 years.”

is zika the first front in the 21st century biowar?

FP |  A main element of the biological revolution will be its impact on security in the broadest sense of the term, as well as on the more specific realm of military activity. Both of these are part of the work being done by various laboratories around the globe, including here in the United States at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, where I serve as a senior fellow.

Some of the most promising advances made at JHU APL and elsewhere involve man-machine interfaces, with particular emphasis on brain-machine connections that would allow the use of disconnected limbs; more rapid disease identification in response to both natural and man-made epidemics; artificial intelligence, which offers the greatest near-term potential for both positive benefit and military application (i.e., autonomous attack drones); human performance enhancement, including significant reduction in sleep needs, increases in mental acuity, and improvements in exoskeleton and skin “armor”; and efficient genome editing using CRISPR-Cas, a technology that has become widely available to ever smaller laboratory settings, including individuals working out of their homes.

The most important question is how to appropriately pursue such research while remaining within the legal, ethical, moral, and policy boundaries that our society might one day like to set, though are still largely unformed. Scientists are like soldiers on patrol in unmarked terrain, one that is occasionally illuminated by a flash of lightning, revealing steeper and more dangerous ground ahead. The United States needs to continue its research efforts, but, equally important, it needs to develop a coherent and cohesive biological strategy to guide those efforts.

But national biological research efforts will also have international implications, so over time there will need to be international diplomacy to set norms of behavior for the use of these technologies. The diplomacy that went into developing the Law of the Sea, and is under consideration in the cyberworld, could serve as a useful model.

A major challenge for such diplomacy is that individual nations, transnational organizations, or even individuals will soon have access — if they don’t already — to biological tools that permit manipulation of living organisms. The rise of low-cost synthetic biology technologies, the falling cost of DNA sequencing, and the diffusion of knowledge through the internet create the conditions for a breakout biological event not dissimilar to the Spanish influenza of roughly a century ago. In that plague, by some estimates, nearly 40 percent of the world’s population was infected, with a 10 to 20 percent mortality rate. Extrapolated to our current global population, that would equate to more than 400 million dead.

I didn't serve, I was used...,

tomdispatch |  By 2008, congressional legislation had been written -- the Veterans’ Mental Health and Other Care Improvement Act -- directing the VA to develop a plan to evaluate all patients for pain. When the VA objected to Congress dictating its medical procedures, Big Pharma launched a “Freedom from Pain” media blitz, enlisting veterans’ organizations to campaign for the bill and get it passed.

Those painkillers were also dispatched to the war zones where our troops were physically breaking down under the weight of the equipment they carried. By 2010, a third of the Army’s soldiers were on prescription medications -- and nearly half of them, 76,500, were on prescription opioids -- which proved to be highly addictive, despite the assurance of experts like Rollin Gallagher. In 2007, for instance, “The American Veterans and Service Members Survival Guide,” distributed by the American Pain Foundation and edited by Gallagher, offered this assurance: “[W]hen used for medical purposes and under the guidance of a skilled health-care provider, the risk of addiction from opioid pain medication is very low.”

By that time, here at home, soldiers and vets were dying at astonishing rates from accidental or deliberate overdoses. Civilian doctors as well had been persuaded to overprescribe these drugs, so that by 2011 the CDC announced a national epidemic, affecting more than 12 million Americans.  In May 2012, the Senate Finance Committee finally initiated an investigation into the perhaps “improper relation” between Big Pharma and the pain foundations. That investigation is still “ongoing,” which means that no information about it can yet be revealed to the public.

Meanwhile, opioid addicts, both veterans and civilians, were discovering that heroin was a cheaper and no less effective way to go.  Because heroin is often cut with Fentanyl, a more powerful opioid, however, drug deaths rose dramatically.

This epidemic of death is in the news almost every day now as hard-hit cities and states sue the drug makers, but rarely is it traced to its launching pad: the Big Pharma conspiracy to make big bucks off our country’s wounded soldiers.

It took the VA far too long to extricate itself from medical policies marketed by Big Pharma and, in effect, prescribed by Congress. It had made the mistake of turning to the Pharma-funded pain foundations in 2004 to select its Deputy National Program Director of Pain Management: the ubiquitous Dr. Gallagher. But when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency finally laid down new restrictive rules on opioids in 2014, the VA had to comply. That’s been hard on the thousands of opioid-dependent vets it had unwittingly hooked, and it’s becoming harder as Republicans in Congress move to privatize the VA and send vets out with vouchers to find their own health care.

Details of Clinton Pay-to-Play Will Be Withheld Until After Election

RT |  Earlier this week, the Associated Press (AP) has revealed that more than half of all Clinton's meetings with the people outside the government, when she was secretary of state, were with donors to her private foundation.

"At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press," the investigating journalists reported, saying that "it's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president."

In total, the Clinton Foundation received as much as $156 million from those 85 donors, who contributed financially either personally or through companies or groups, according to AP. At least 20 of those donors gave more than $1 million each, the report added.

Some of Clinton's emails that she failed to turn over to the US government, but were released after a Freedom of Information Act request, suggest the charitable foundation might have possibly rewarded its donors with special access and influence inside the State Department. The social media reacted with a #PayToPlay hashtag, with Twitter users angered by the Democratic candidate's alleged "corruption."

Clinton Victory Fund Laundering and Squidding $$$

zerohedge |  Is the Hillary Victory Fund using state democratic committees to launder donations from wealthy individuals to the Democratic National Committee?  Evidence gathered by Bloomberg would certainly seem to suggest so.

So how does it work?  Campaign finance laws specifically restrict the amount of money any single person can give to individual candidates ($2,700), a party's various state committees ($10,000) as well as a party's national committee ($33,400).  In theory, therefore, that would imply a person would be capped out at $46,100 if he contributed the max his Presidential candidate, his party's national committee and his party's state committee.  But, that's just a narrow "interpretation" of the "intent" of the campaign finance laws and Hillary isn't really all about "intent"...just ask FBI Director Comey.  

So, the Hillary Victory Fund has come up with a clever way to use state democratic committees (of which there are 33) as money-laundering tools to effectively increase the amount that can be contributed to the Democratic National Committee from $33,400 to $363,400 (it's only like 1,000% more than intended).

How do they do it?  Well, the rules say that a single person can only contribute $10,000 to any one State.  That said, they don't restrict people from contributing $10,000 to multiple states.  Moreover, there are no restrictions on transfers of funds from Democratic State Committees to the Democratic National Committee.  See where we're going with this?

Effectively the Hillary Victory Fund acts as a "bundler" which collects large donations from wealthy investors.  Per the diagram below, contributions are then maxed out to "Hillary For President" and the "Democratic National Committee."  Any remaining funds are then spliced up and sent in $10,000 increments to the 33 different State Democratic Committees.  That said, the state committees simply act as flow through entities which subsequently pass the contributions from the Hillary Victory Fund along to the Democratic National Committee.  Isn't that neat?

The beauty of this system, of course, is that once the money is aggregated at the Democratic National Committee it becomes very "flexible."  The DNC can then use that money to support Hillary and/or any of a number of contentious races in any state it wants (e.g. battleground states).

Clinton Corruption Conspicuously Obvious to the Casual Observer

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maine governor: people of color are the enemy

HuffPo | Perhaps Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) thought he had been too subtle in expressing his views on black and Hispanic people in the past. How else to explain what he said in a Friday press conference while discussing a threatening, expletive-filled voicemail that he’d left for a state legislator?

LePage was widely criticized earlier this year for claiming men with names like “Smoothie, D-Money and Shifty” were coming into his state to deal drugs. Earlier this week, he said he keeps a binder with mugshots of all the drug dealers arrested in Maine, and he claimed that 90 percent of the people in that binder were black or Hispanic.

Note that 95 percent of Maine residents are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

On Friday, LePage first denied that Maine police officers were racially profiling people ― an obvious concern if they really are arresting almost exclusively people of color for drug crimes.

Then the governor suggested that people of color in Maine were “the enemy.”

PressHerald | LePage later invited a Portland Press Herald reporter and a two-person television crew from WMTW to the Blaine House, where during a 30-minute interview the governor described his anger with Gattine and others, told them he had left the phone message and said he wished he and the lawmaker could engage in an armed duel to settle the matter.

“When a snot-nosed little guy from Westbrook calls me a racist, now I’d like him to come up here because, tell you right now, I wish it were 1825,” LePage said. “And we would have a duel, that’s how angry I am, and I would not put my gun in the air, I guarantee you, I would not be (Alexander) Hamilton. I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this Legislature to help move the state forward.”

Gattine is the House chair of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, which has opposed some of LePage’s welfare, drug enforcement and other reforms. He said the governor’s phone message was uncalled for. 

LOL@Granny Goodness Trying Negroe-Whispering On The Broken Chessboard...,

thehill |  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Breitbart embraces “ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right.  Racist ideas. 

Race-baiting ideas.  Anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant ideas –– all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’”

Alt-Right is short for “Alternative Right.” 

The Wall Street Journal describes it as a loosely organized movement, mostly online, that “rejects mainstream conservatism, promotes nationalism and views immigration and multiculturalism as threats to white identity.”

The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for the “Alt-Right.”  A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.   

This is part of a broader story -- the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world. 

Just yesterday, one of Britain’s most prominent right-wing leaders, Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the referendum on leaving the European Union, campaigned with Donald Trump in Mississippi. 

Farage has called for a ban on the children of legal immigrants from public schools and health services, has said women are quote “worth less” than men, and supports scrapping laws that prevent employers from discriminating based on race -- that’s who Trump wants by his side.

The godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In fact, Farage has appeared regularly on Russian propaganda programs. 

Now he’s standing on the same stage as the Republican nominee.  

Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embrace pro-Russian policies.

He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and of giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe more generally. 

American presidents from Truman to Reagan have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia. 

We should, too. 

All of this adds up to something we’ve never seen before.

Of course there’s always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, steeped in racial resentment.  But it’s never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it, and giving it a national megaphone.  Until now.  

On David Duke’s radio show the other day, the mood was jubilant. 

“We appear to have taken over the Republican Party,” one white supremacist said. 

Duke laughed.  There’s still more work to do, he said.

No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here.  The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves “racialists.”  White supremacists now call themselves “white nationalists.”  The paranoid fringe now calls itself “alt-right.”  But the hate burns just as bright. 

And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well.  Don’t be fooled. 

There’s an old Mexican proverb that says “Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.”

We know who Trump is.  A few words on a teleprompter won’t change that.

He says he wants to “make America great again,” but his real message remains “Make America hate again.”

Granny Goodness and the Broken Chessboard...,

counterpunch |  The main architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world has abandoned the scheme and called for the forging of ties with Russia and China. While Zbigniew Brzezinski’s article in The American Interest titled “Towards a Global Realignment” has largely been ignored by the media, it shows that powerful members of the policymaking establishment no longer believe that Washington will prevail in its quest to extent US hegemony across the Middle East and Asia. Brzezinski, who was the main proponent of this idea and who drew up the blueprint for imperial expansion in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, has done an about-face and called for a dramatic revising of the strategy. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the AI:

“As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.

Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment.

The first of these verities is that the United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.” (Toward a Global Realignment, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American Interest)

Repeat: The US is “no longer the globally imperial power.”

We have not yet reached the tipping point for US primacy, but that day is fast approaching and Brzezinski knows it.

In contrast, Clinton is still fully-committed to expanding US hegemony across Asia. She doesn’t understand the risks this poses for the country or the world. She’s going to persist with the interventions until the US war-making juggernaut is stopped dead-in-its-tracks which, judging by her hyperbolic rhetoric, will probably happen some time in her first term.

Brzezinski presents a rational but self-serving plan to climb-down, minimize future conflicts, avoid a nuclear conflagration and preserve the global order. (aka–The “dollar system”) But will bloodthirsty Hillary follow his advice?

Not a chance.