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“If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics.”

-- Will Rogers

News and Opinion

"Post-truth" - The 2016 word of the year seems pretty apt

It’s official. We are living in a world where facts matter less than what people choose to believe. Or at least that’s what the people at Oxford Dictionaries seem to think, having declared that “post-truth” is the international word of the year for 2016.

Defined by the dictionary as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” the use of the word has shot up by more than 2000 percent compared to last year, partly as a result of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the White House. ...

“It’s not surprising that our choice reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse,” he said. “Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time,” according to Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries.

Here's a perfect illustration of our new and improved, post-truth era:

How the US justifies drone strikes: targeted killing, secrecy and the law

Over just a short period in early 2016 [...] the United States deployed remotely piloted aircraft to carry out deadly attacks in six countries across central and south Asia, north Africa, and the Middle East, and it announced that it had expanded its capacity to carry out attacks in a seventh. And yet with the possible exception of the strike in Somalia, which garnered news coverage because of the extraordinary death toll, the drone attacks did not seem to spark controversy or reflection. As the 2016 presidential primaries were getting under way, sporadic and sketchy reports of strikes in remote regions of the world provided a kind of background noise – a drone in a different sense of the word – to which Americans had become inured.

Senior officials in the administration of President Barack Obama variously described drone strikes as “precise,” “closely supervised,” “effective,” “indispensable,” and even the “only game in town” – but what they emphasized most of all is that the drone strikes they authorized were lawful.

In this context, though, “lawful” had a specialized meaning. Except at the highest level of abstraction, the law of the drone campaign had not been enacted by Congress or published in the US Code. No federal agency had issued regulations relating to drone strikes, and no federal court had adjudicated their legality. Obama administration officials insisted that drone strikes were lawful, but the “law” they invoked was their own. It was written by executive branch lawyers behind closed doors, withheld from the public and even from Congress, and shielded from judicial review.

Secret law is unsettling in any context, but it was especially so in this one. For decades the US government had condemned targeted killings, characterizing them as assassinations or extrajudicial executions. On its face, the drone campaign signified a dramatic departure from that position – a departure that demanded explanation, at the very least. It was far from obvious what distinguished American drone strikes from the targeted killings the United States had historically rejected as unlawful. Nor was it clear how these targeted killings could be reconciled with international human rights law, with a decades-old executive order that bans assassinations, with the constitutional guarantee of due process, or, for that matter, with domestic laws that criminalize murder.

Facebook won't block fake news posts because it has no incentive, experts say

The challenge of fake and misleading news has come to the fore in the wake of the US presidential election. Facebook has bore the brunt of the criticism that it allowed misinformation to spread unfettered on its network, skewing people’s perceptions and possibly the outcome of the election – something CEO Mark Zuckerberg vehemently denies.

As pressure on Zuckerberg and Facebook intensifies, the social network has promised to do more to eliminate hoaxes and, like Google, has blocked fake news sites from its ad network. The latter should strangle websites that deliberately publish misleading content by cutting off their advertising revenue.

Yet despite these gestures, Facebook is unlikely to explore the many options available to it because it simply has very little motivation to do so, experts believe. ...

Preventing any of that sharing interferes with core user behavior. “People share stuff because their mom might like it. My mom likes the pope, she likes Trump so she’ll be pleased that the pope supports Trump,” he said, in reference to a widely shared piece of “news” that falsely claimed the head of the Catholic church endorsed Donald Trump.

It doesn’t make sense for Facebook to apply traditional news publishing values such as verification to the network where a Pepe the Frog meme can carry as much currency as a New York Times op-ed. Facebook is only motivated to censor content when it makes users unhappy, which is why it efficiently polices content it deems to contain nudity, violence and harassment.

Judge orders FBI, CIA, NSA to disclose Occupy spying

A US judge has ordered the FBI, CIA, and NSA to turn over any potential evidence they spied on Occupy Philadelphia protesters.

The American agencies have 60 days to comply with the order from Senior US District Judge Berle Schiller. The order follows another right-to-know case that revealed the FBI was monitoring Occupy Wall Street activities in New York and spin-off efforts from Florida to Alaska.

Civil rights lawyer Paul Hetznecker hopes to learn if the agencies spied on demonstrators who camped outside Philadelphia City Hall for seven weeks in 2011 to protest against income inequality.

"The government should not be investigating its citizens simply because they've raised their voices in dissent, whether it's against government or corporate policy," Hetznecker said on Tuesday.

Top Trump Adviser Pushing for 'Muslim Registry,' Fast-Tracked Border Wall

A top immigration adviser on President-elect Donald Trump's new team is reportedly drafting plans for a "Muslim registry" and said the administration could push to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall quickly without congressional approval.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped create the notorious "show me your papers" anti-immigration laws in Arizona and is reportedly a key member of Trump's transition team, told Reuters that advisers had discussed drafting executive orders "so that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running."

Reuters reports:

To implement Trump's call for "extreme vetting" of some Muslim immigrants, Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organizations are active.

Kobach's plan reportedly includes resurrecting the now-defunct National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), launched in 2002, that required immigrants from "higher risk" countries to undergo interrogation and fingerprinting. Some male immigrants over 16 years old were also required to register in person and periodically check in with the government.

NSEERS—which Kobach helped design—was gutted in 2003 after civil rights outcry. In 2011, the Obama administration removed all the countries on the "high risk" list, effectively ending the program, but as New York Magazine's Margaret Hartmann points out, the regulation is still technically on the books.

Afghanistan Fires 7 From Cabinet in Intensifying Political Crisis

Afghanistan’s Parliament has dismissed seven government ministers over the past four days, adding to the woes of a fragile coalition that for months had bickered over filling the cabinet positions in the first place.

The suddenly vacated cabinet positions, adding to two ministries already vacant because of resignations, will further bog down the work of a government that has struggled to get its house in order while also facing emboldened Taliban offensives and decreasing support across the country.

The Afghan Parliament began hearings last week over what lawmakers said was the ministers’ inability to spend the national development budget. The dismissal of one minister on Tuesday brought the total to seven ministers dismissed out of 12 who had been called for hearings, including the ministers of foreign affairs, public works, information technology, labor and social work, education, higher education and transportation.

Publicly, President Ashraf Ghani has challenged the legality of the hearings and asked the dismissed ministers to continue with their jobs until the country’s Supreme Court makes a final ruling. He also told ministers not to show up for the hearings, more of which are scheduled in the coming days.

Parliament, which itself has been in a legal limbo since its term officially expired more than a year ago with no date set for elections, has refused the government’s pleas to stop the hearings. And Hajji Zahir Qadir, the deputy speaker of the Parliament, said on Tuesday that despite President Ghani’s claims, the ministers’ dismissal could not be reversed by the Supreme Court.

Russia Strikes Syria’s Idlib Province, Denies Targeting Aleppo

Russia’s Defense Ministry has confirmed the resumption of missiles strikes against Nusra Front targets in the Idlib Province. ... There were also reports of airstrikes against Nusra Front-held districts in Aleppo, though the locals described those as “barrel bombs” and Russia has since confirmed that they did not participate in the bombing of Aleppo, nor have they done so for the past 28 days.

Despite Russia not being involved in the Aleppo strikes, the US State Department angrily condemned Russia for the strikes, saying they were “a violation of international law.”

Both Sides in Mosul Battle Accused of War Crimes

The Iraqi invasion of Mosul continues to slowly trudge alone, with officials openly saying they believe the fight is going to take months. In the mean time, there is growing disquiet about the mounting evidence of war crimes committed by both sides.

ISIS has reportedly continued its executions of civilians it suspects are disloyal to them, with another 21 reported killed in the past 24 hours, the latest in a series of reported executions. In previous cases, ISIS was publicly displaying the bodies, but now are said to be dumping them into a mass grave to deny them religious burial.

At the same time, Human Rights Watch issued a statement reporting that Iraqi troops had summarily executed at least one surrendered ISIS fighter, and had repeatedly mutilated the bodies of enemies they’ve killed. The statement cautioned the Iraqi government that it risks losing the “moral upper hand” in the ISIS fight by not getting control over its forces.

Russia: Moscow pulls out of ICC, withdraws signature from founding statute

Russia withdraws signature from international criminal court statute

Russia has said it is formally withdrawing its signature from the founding statute of the international criminal court, a day after the court published a report classifying the Russian annexation of Crimea as an occupation.

The repudiation of the tribunal, though symbolic, is a fresh blow to efforts to establish a global legal order for pursuing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In recent months, three African countries who were all full members of the ICC – South Africa, Burundi and Gambia – have signalled their intention to pull out, following complaints that ICC prosecutions focused excessively on the African continent.

The Russian foreign ministry made the announcement on Wednesday on the orders of the president, Vladimir Putin, saying the tribunal had failed to live up to hopes of the international community and denouncing its work as “one-sided and inefficient”.

Russia signed the Rome statute in 2000 and cooperated with the court, but had not ratified the treaty and thus remained outside the ICC’s jurisdiction. This means that the latest move, though highly symbolic, will not change much in practice.

Ex-Nato leaders call for extraordinary meeting with Donald Trump

Two former Nato chiefs have called for an extraordinary summit soon after Donald Trump’s inauguration to reassure traditional allies that the US will still come to their defence.

Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his predecessor Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also warned the US president-elect against making a hasty deal with Vladimir Putin that would cede Crimea and eastern Ukraine as a Russian sphere of influence. ...

During the election campaign, Trump said the people of Crimea appeared to want to live under Russian rule and said he would look at whether the US would recognise Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the peninsular. He also told the New York Times that allies would have to reimburse Washington for their protection or be told: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.” ...

On his farewell tour of Europe, Barack Obama has offered reassurance to nervous allies that Trump is committed to Nato despite disparaging remarks about the pact. ...

However, the former Nato chiefs said that such reassurances would be more effective if they came from Trump himself.

Trial under way over alleged use of Syrian humanitarian convoys to smuggle cash

Assange questioned for second day at Ecuador's UK embassy over rape allegation

Prosecutors questioned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for a second day at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been holed up for four years, in an investigation into allegations that he committed rape in Sweden in 2010. ...

Swedish Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren spent several hours at the embassy on Tuesday where she posed questions through an Ecuadorian prosecutor, before leaving without making comment.

"The interview with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has ended," the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement. "As the investigation is ongoing, it is subject to confidentiality."

FBI signs Twitter surveillance contract

The FBI has signed a contract with Dataminr, a company that sifts through the Twitter newsfeed to identify issues and trends in real time. Dataminr will provide the bureau with an advanced alerting tool with licenses for over 200 users at the agency that will give the FBI the capability to search the complete Twitter firehose in real time, using customized filters.

Dataminr also agreed to provide 24-hour support in creating searches and filters, and helping the agency to troubleshoot issues.

Only an estimated 1 percent of tweets are made available to the public through Twitter’s API. Using Dataminr, the FBI will now have access to all messages written on Twitter, and will be able to search through the messages for key words and phrases, providing a level of social media monitoring that had been unavailable until now. They will be able to use Dataminr’s proprietary algorithms and geolocation tools to sift through the entirety of messages posted by Twitter’s 317 million average monthly users worldwide. ...

In May of this year, Twitter blocked Dataminr from entering into a similar agreement with the CIA. Dataminr, which is 5% owned by Twitter, had also accepted investment from In-Q-Tel, the non-profit investment arm of the CIA, and were conducting an unpaid system test for the agency. However, Dataminr ended the contract with the CIA due to a long-standing policy at Twitter barring the government from using the social media platform as a surveillance tool.

Uncertainty Grows Over Trump’s State Department Pick

Speculation continues to grow on several positions in President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, but nowhere is the attention more intense than on the future Secretary of State, with the early “front-runners” losing favor rapidly.

While a lot of media reports included several potential figures, John Bolton was seen as the main candidate for awhile. He’d clearly be a problematic choice, as an outspoken hawk with little patience for diplomacy, as America’s top diplomat.

Reports then suggested former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani was the front-runner, but there are growing concern about the money he took from the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK) when the group was still listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY), who holds the potential deciding vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been quick to say he doesn’t consider either of them a suitable candidate.

Jeremy Scahill details with great precision the many similarities of Mike Pence and a fruitcake.

Mike Pence Will Be the Most Powerful Christian Supremacist in U.S. History

The election of Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the souls of compassionate, humane people across the country and the world. ... The incoming vice president, Mike Pence, has not elicited the same reaction, instead often painted as the reasonable adult on the ticket, a “counterbalance” to Trump and a “bridge to the establishment.” However, there is every reason to regard him as, if anything, even more terrifying than the president-elect.

Pence’s ascent to the second most powerful position in the U.S. government is a tremendous coup for the radical religious right. Pence — and his fellow Christian supremacist militants — would not have been able to win the White House on their own. ...

Trump is a Trojan horse for a cabal of vicious zealots who have long craved an extremist Christian theocracy, and Pence is one of its most prized warriors. With Republican control of the House and Senate and the prospect of dramatically and decisively tilting the balance of the Supreme Court to the far right, the incoming administration will have a real shot at bringing the fire and brimstone of the second coming to Washington. ...

Pence combines the most horrid aspects of Dick Cheney’s worldview with a belief that Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” novels are not fiction, but an omniscient crystal ball. ... Pence has been a reliable stalwart throughout his public life in the cause of Christian jihad — never wavering in his commitment to America-First militarism, the criminalizing of abortion, and utter hatred for gay people (unless they go into conversion therapy “to change their sexual behavior,” which Pence has suggested the government pay for). He supported making the Patriot Act permanent and wants to ban the burning of the U.S. flag. Pence does not believe federal law enforcement agencies should have to get a FISA warrant to conduct domestic surveillance and voted against requiring any warrant for domestic wiretapping. ... Both in rhetoric and policy, Pence has compared “radical Islam” to the “evil empire of the Soviet Union” and said that he and Trump will “name the enemy” and “marshal the resources of our nation and our allies to hunt them down and destroy them before they threaten us.”

A host of Jewish leaders have condemned controversial Trump advisor Steve Bannon

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of his campaign adviser Steve Bannon to White House chief strategist is stirring trouble among American Jews.

Bannon’s ex-wife swore under oath (in a domestic violence proceeding) that he said he didn’t want his kids attending school with “whiny brat” Jews. And the man himself has described his website Breitbart.com as a “platform for the alt-right,” an amalgam of nationalist philosophies that he conceded may be attractive to anti-Semites.

So it makes sense that some Jewish leaders have a big problem with Bannon’s appointment. But leading American Jewish organizations are split between forcefully condemning it and staying quiet.

Further right-wing Jewish organizations, like the Republican Jewish Coalition, have decided to defend Bannon as a Zionist and friend of Israel. ... When reached for comment over email, AIPAC representative Marshall Wittmann declined to offer any, citing the organization’s “long-standing policy” of not commenting on presidential appointments. As for the American Jewish Committee, in a statement attributed to the Assistant Executive Director for Policy Jason Isaacson, the organization said that “Presidents get to choose their teams and we do not expect to comment on the appointment of every key advisor.”

Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team

Google is among the many major corporations whose surrogates are getting key roles on Donald Trump’s transition team.

Joshua Wright has been put in charge of transition efforts at the influential Federal Trade Commission after pulling off the rare revolving-door quadruple-play, moving from Google-supported academic work to government – as an FTC commissioner – back to the Google gravy train and now back to the government. ...

Wright’s leadership position in the Trump FTC transition flips him back into government work. The FTC has two open seats on its five-member panel, and Chair Edith Ramirez’s term ends in April 2017. So Trump will be able to remake the agency, which has responsibilities over consumer protection and policing anti-competitive business practices, like the employing of monopoly power. Outside of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, no government agency is more responsible for competition policy than the FTC.

Whether Wright recommends himself to an FTC commissioner slot or not, it’s clear that he would favor those who see only upside from market consolidation. Indeed, in a New York Times op-ed on Monday, Wright explained his view that “a high level of concentration in an industry simply does not mean the industry lacks competition.” He argued that mergers are often good for consumers because they lower prices and improve product quality.

This flies in the face of a raft not just of common sense, but also of new research from the Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve, and academics, showing that excessive mergers lead to price hikes, lower productivity, and weakened economic vitality.

Trump transition team in disarray after top adviser 'purged'

Donald Trump’s transition to the White House appeared to be in disarray on Tuesday after the abrupt departure of a top national security adviser and amid continuing questions over the role of his three children and son-in-law.

Former Republican congressman Mike Rogers stepped down from the president-elect’s transition team without explanation, but one report attributed it to a “Stalinesque purge”.

Late on Tuesday, Trump attempted to paint a less chaotic picture, tweeting that the transition process was “very organized”. He also wrote that only he knew who “the finalists” were – seemingly an attempt to liken the process to his reality TV show The Apprentice. ...

The departure offered the latest clue that the transition is going to be every bit as bumpy as feared. Last week the president-elect ditched the head of the team, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is mired in political scandal, and replaced him with Pence.

NBC News quoted a source as saying Rogers was the victim of a “Stalinesque purge” of people close to Christie. “Two sources close to the situation described an atmosphere of sniping and backbiting as Trump loyalists position themselves for key jobs,” the network reported.

Mr. Trump promised to #DrainTheSwamp, not fill it up. Now do it. pic.twitter.com/gXfcrlp5hC

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 15, 2016

Donald Trump’s presidential transition is barely moving due to paperwork

Donald Trump’s presidential transition has virtually stopped while the president-elect’s team haggles with the White House over the paperwork required to officially begin the transfer of power.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had already negotiated and signed this paperwork while leading Trump’s transition, but after his abrupt replacement Friday, the Trump team has refused to sign the paperwork again. As reported by the New York Times, the President-elect’s advisors are attempting to alter and update the agreement that Christie signed.

The paperwork, known as a memorandum of understanding (MOU), guarantees that the incoming and outgoing administrations will not divulge information about each other. The original agreement with Christie, according to an administration official, was “very similar” to the agreement the Obama administration signed with George W. Bush. The sudden desire to renegotiate it surprised many in the federal government. ...

The potential problem? According to the terms of the 2008 MOU, transition team members are required to sign a statement that “he or she has no financial interest or imputed financial interest that would be directly and predictably affected by a particular matter to which the information is pertinent.” And the federal government has a lot of information that could be “pertinent” to Trump’s business empire.

While Trump and his lawyers try to figure it out, the clock is ticking toward January 20.

Schumer to head Senate Democrats, as Sanders gets key budget panel spot

Charles Schumer of New York will take over as Senate Democratic leader in the next Congress, while Vermont’s Bernie Sanders is getting a key role on the Senate Budget Committee. ...

Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, will take the top role for the minority on the budget committee. It will give the outspoken liberal a highly visible platform from which to challenge Republicans’ agenda.

Big Labor’s Strategy to Defeat the Far-Right Resulted in the Far-Right Taking Over

Hmmm... the Tea Party was created by the Kochs and other corporate sponsors, I wonder who is funding the "Tea Party of the Left?"

'Tea Party of the left': Bernie Sanders' ethos endures in impending Trump era

Bernie Sanders swept into New York City on Monday evening and urged his supporters to continue mobilising against Donald Trump, at a book signing just 10 blocks south of the president-elect’s home.

Sanders’ appearance, after days of protests against Trump in several cities, came as the Vermont senator’s supporters outlined plans for a “Tea Party of the left”, aimed at combating Trump’s presidency and sweeping progressive Democrats to power in the 2018 midterm elections.

Hundreds of Sanders’ supporters – some of whom had spent the night out on the streets – had lined up along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to meet the Vermont senator. Trump Tower, where Trump has been holed up selecting his cabinet, was almost visible in the distance. When Sanders arrived, he urged his supporters to continue to oppose the incoming president’s plans.

“I think what they have to understand is that more than ever it is imperative for the American people to be involved in the political process. Many of the positions that Trump advocated during the campaign are positions not shared by the majority of American people,” Sanders said.

The struggle for control of the Democratic Party ratchets up a notch:

Race for Next DNC Chair Is Between America’s First Muslim Congressman and Two Corporate Lobbyists

The Democratic trouncing last week has set off a contest for control of the party. So far, three individuals have stepped up to announce their bids for chair of the Democratic National Committee, vying to replace interim chair Donna Brazile. It’s a race that pits a left-wing member of Congress against two corporate lobbyists.

... Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to Congress. Ellison has long been an advocate for his party’s left faction, and is currently a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Two other individuals have thrown their hats into the ring, and both have deep ties to Washington’s lobbying industry.

First, there’s Vermont’s former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean, who said that the party needs to re-focus on “the young” and rebuild its 50-state strategy, which he emphasized during his own tenure as DNC chair between 2005 and 2009. ... Dean has in the past angrily denied that he lobbies, and it is true that he is not a registered federal lobbyist. But we know, for example, that he was retained by the drug industry — and began writing in favor of its policy agenda. ...

Last, we have South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison. Harrison appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday to announce his bid. ... Harrison is a registered lobbyist at the Podesta Group, a powerful D.C.-based lobbying firm. In the past, he’s lobbied for clients including Wal-Mart and Lockheed Martin.

The Revenge of Class and the Death of the Democratic Party

The Democratic Party of my lifetime – the coalition of Wall St finance capital and identity-politics voters that arose during the 1980s and 90s – is dead. It has been killed, quite ironically, by the revenge of class politics – the kind once championed by the Democrats. Decades of economic misery and the hollowing-out of vast segments of the American economy, which the Democratic Party participated in gleefully, has led to the inchoate rage which found expression in the fun house mirror version of class struggle politics: Donald Trump. ...

Hemmed in by campaign donors from moving left and by the ideology of its party functionaries, there will be little room for the Democratic Party to maneuver in Trump’s America. The capitalism of the early 21st century also prohibits a return to the classic social-democratic bargain of mid-century. While social-democratic programs like a massive public works plan for full employment, income redistribution and social programs are still possible within capitalism, the old alliance of labor and a section of big capital will not materialize because capital no longer needs or wants to use those programs to create and sustain profits by developing a mass of well-paid workers in production industries. Thus any group implementing reforms on the left will be immediately challenged and forced to either radicalize towards socialism or acquiesce to the demands of capital. The Democrats cannot do this and will remain boxed into their strongholds; within Congress a Sanders (or Warren) will be allowed to posture while in the minority but will not be allowed to build a platform to take the party in a more leftward direction. Trump, because he is bourgeois, will conversely be permitted to throw sops to workers in exchange for their electoral support. It is a cruel return of working class politics that cannot be won without building a radical left party capable of challenging the system at the ballot box and in the streets.

Happpy days are here again for Wall Street:

Morgan Stanley bosses made $10m in surge after Trump election win

Bosses at Morgan Stanley made more than $10m (£8m) selling shares in the investment bank as its stock surged on the back of Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

James Gorman, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, made a $2.9m profit on Friday by exercising share options granted to him at $22.98 and then selling the shares at $37.70. A slew of other executives followed suit.

Morgan Stanley shares surged by nearly a fifth – to their highest in more than a year – following Trump’s victory last week. Overall US bank shares are enjoying their sharpest recovery rally since the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis as investors buy up bank stocks hoping that Trump’s promise of tearing up regulation will help banks make bigger profits. Traders also expect Trump’s plans for huge infrastructure investment to raise inflation and the Federal Reserve to lift interest rates, which would also help banks make more money.

The S&P 500 banks index, which tracks the biggest US banks, rose by 10.2% in the three days after Trump’s victory – the best three-day performance since August 2009. In those three days, Wells Fargo shares rose 13.6%, JPMorgan Chase shares rose 9.5% and Bank of America shares climbed 11.9%.

Jeffrey Sachs: We Need a Democratic Party Speaking the Truth Like Bernie Sanders & Keith Ellison

Thomas Piketty: We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail

Rising inequality is largely to blame for this electoral upset. Continuing with business as usual is not an option

Let it be said at once: Trump’s victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this.

Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ...

The tragedy is that Trump’s program will only strengthen the trend towards inequality. He intends to abolish the health insurance laboriously granted to low-paid workers under Obama and to set the country on a headlong course into fiscal dumping, with a reduction from 35% to 15% in the rate of federal tax on corporation profits, whereas to date the United States had resisted this trend, already witnessed in Europe. ...

The main lesson for Europe and the world is clear: as a matter of urgency, globalization must be fundamentally re-oriented. The main challenges of our times are the rise in inequality and global warming. We must therefore implement international treaties enabling us to respond to these challenges and to promote a model for fair and sustainable development. ...

There should be no more signing of international agreements that reduce customs duties and other commercial barriers without including quantified and binding measures to combat fiscal and climate dumping in those same treaties. For example, there could be common minimum rates of corporation tax and targets for carbon emissions which can be verified and sanctioned. It is no longer possible to negotiate trade treaties for free trade with nothing in exchange. ...

It is time to change the political discourse on globalization: trade is a good thing, but fair and sustainable development also demands public services, infrastructure, health and education systems. In turn, these themselves demand fair taxation systems. If we fail to deliver these, Trumpism will prevail.

Democratic Party Sabotaged Sanders, Best Chance to Beat Trump

I am a Democrat in rural, red-state America. My party abandoned us

I come from rural Texas. I am one of the handful of people here who votes blue – and I put up with all kinds of ridicule and rejection because of that. Many of the people who voted for Trump are my friends and family. Yes, some of them are racist but not all of them are. The reason they support Trump is simple: their needs have been thrown aside for years.

Donald Trump is a horrible person. I am glad people are protesting him. But many people here do not see an alternative. The Democratic party does not care about our issues, our culture or our people. There are hundreds of towns in this country just like ours. Well, Donald Trump came and said he cared. That’s why he won: it is not rocket science. We need to look at the truth so we can bring about change.

People here are losing everything that generations of families have worked to build. They depend on their churches for help. They believe people should work hard. Most of us work six to seven days a week, every week. It is no good to judge us instead of understanding us.

We have two private prisons in this town that sustain us in this crunch. Do I agree with private prisons? No. At the same time, if our prisons close it will wipe us out. Not one blue politician has offered a plan to deal with what happens to us then.

It’s the same with climate change. My hometown flourished for years because of oil. Now that the price of oil is down, this town lives on one-third of the budget they had. Nobody in Washington DC cares about that either. No wonder so many people in coal country voted for Trump: they were worried about their jobs and income, and they felt that he was the only one listening.

Texas Wants to Force Women to Bury Their Miscarriages and Abortions

Just hours after the presidential election was called for Donald J. Trump — and as Hillary Clinton was delivering her emotional Wednesday morning concession speech — officials with the Texas Department of State Health Services were for the second time this year hearing public comments on a proposed new rule that would require women who seek abortions, or who miscarry their pregnancies, to cremate or bury their fetal tissue.

The rule is necessary, anti-abortion activists have variously claimed, because it provides dignity to fetuses, which have historically been disposed of in accordance with regulations for medical waste. At least one prominent Texas anti-abortion advocate, Carol Everett, said the rule was necessary to prevent AIDS from spreading through the state’s water system.

Dakota pipeline operator goes to court after government delays construction

The operator of the Dakota Access pipeline has asked a federal judge to approve immediate construction under the Missouri river just one day after the US government delayed the oil project that has faced international opposition from indigenous groups and environmental activists.

Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the $3.7bn pipeline, accused President Barack Obama’s administration of being “motivated purely by politics” and said it would “vigorously pursue its legal rights” to build under the river that provides the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s water supply.

“Dakota Access Pipeline has waited long enough to complete this pipeline,” CEO Kelcy Warren said in a statement. “It is time for the Courts to end this political interference and remove whatever legal cloud that may exist over the right-of-way beneath federal land at Lake Oahe.”

The company said in court filings that the army’s “intransigence in completing its review has already cost Dakota Access hundreds of millions of dollars” and that additional delays will result in further costs. ...

The company had been emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, who is invested in Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the pipeline once it is completed. Trump has indicated that he will favor fossil fuels over clean energy and has a history of conflict with Native American tribes, motivated by competition over casinos.

Bernie Sanders' Surprise Speech Outside the White House on Rejecting Dakota Pipeline & Trump

#NoDAPL Protests Loudly Declare: 'We Are Not Going Silently Into the Night'

Both sides in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) fight dug in on Tuesday, with the pipeline company's legal maneuvering matched by vibrant displays of resistance in cities nationwide.

In the wake of the Army Corps of Engineers delaying yet again the construction of the 1,100-mile crude oil conduit, Energy Transfer Partners filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a judge to let it circumnavigate the Corps' decision and finish the pipeline anyway. ...

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chair Dave Archambault II called the move an act of "desperation," noting:

Dakota Access previously told the Court that if they were not delivering oil on Jan. 1, 2017, their shipper contracts would expire and the project would be in jeopardy.

So they are rushing to get the pipeline in the ground hastily to meet that deadline. The only urgency here was created by their own reckless choice to build the pipeline before it had all the permits to do so. They chose to reroute this pipeline away from Bismarck and put it at our doorstep and through our treaty lands and sacred places, even after we told them that it could not pass here. They made bad decisions and are now facing the consequences. The tide is turning against this project. We thank all of our water protectors who have raised their voices against it. You are being heard.

Indeed, as Energy Transfer Partners was going to court, hundreds of rallies, marches, and acts of civil disobedience were taking place across the country and around the world, with sizeable demonstrations in San Francisco; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Oregon; and New York City.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who has been outspoken in his opposition to the project—addressed a huge crowd outside the White House Tuesday evening, demanding "sovereign rights of the Native American people be honored and respected" and declaring: "We are not going to allow a pipeline to endanger the clean water that millions of people depend upon."

Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Spread to 300 Cities as Pipeline Owner Sues to Continue Construction

Canadians fight pipeline that threatens killer whales on the brink

On one shore there are snow-capped mountains. On the other side loom towering skyscrapers. These churning waters off the coast of Vancouver are marked by a constant flow of ferries and containers ships – but they are also home to 80 or so orcas.

Known as the southern resident killer whales the group has long had a fraught relationship with the urban sprawl they live alongside, leaving them on the knife’s edge of extinction.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, dozens were captured and sold to aquariums and theme parks around the world. Those who remained were exposed to runoff chemicals used in local industry, making them some of the world’s most contaminated marine mammals.

But now the orcas of the Salish sea face what conservationists say is their biggest threat to date: an expansion proposal for a pipeline that would snake from Alberta to the Pacific coast. ...

The proposal – which still needs the approval of the federal government, led by Justin Trudeau – would expand an existing pipeline to lay nearly 1,000km of new pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver’s coastline. Oil tanker and barge traffic in the region would soar nearly sevenfold, to as many as 408 tankers a year.

The anticipated increase in tanker traffic will heighten the physical and acoustic disturbances in the water, said Misty MacDuffee of Raincoast Conservation Foundation. “The noise of the propeller and the engine emits at a frequency that can mask the communication of the whales,” she said. “And the overall traffic combines to create sort of a din … so it reduces the actual space over which the whale can hear and be heard by other whales.”

The result could hamper the whales’ ability to catch food, she said. “They’ve got a unique diet, they’ve got a unique language in terms of their dialect and they’ve got a unique culture. And it’s that package that’s in jeopardy.”

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