Woos Obama's in the same place he's been while black people are being killed by police. Nowhere to be found.

For staying on top of this. Your dedication is invaluable!

to decide whether the case has merit to be heard in a federal court.

I want to say this has recently come up, during Baby Bush's tenure. Was it the PATRIOT Act which made (or tried to make) Posse Comitatus null and void, somehow?

two words? That's it??? I've got way more than that for Obama and his mealy-mouthed platitudes for this situation.

Bad Russian bullies are controlling the US elections. They took advantage of the fact that the US is too enfeebled to establish a modern and consistent Federal election system for the Presidential race. Besides, "informed officials" would say "no." They are familiar with how the people's frightened worship of their obsolete constitution so easily disempowers them, distorting their Human Rights from inalienable to conditional. What's not to love?

The US is far too impoverished to provide its people with such luxuries as a social safety net or national health care. Wall Street says such Human Rights would create a moral hazard in the minds of the people. Instead, armed with no personal security at all, Americans are forced to reduce their standard of living so that the corporations can secure their global rulership over all mankind and the Earth, as well. Poorer countries must be developed and acculturated so that they will consume the stuff that makes our corporations rich.

In the meanwhile, those awful terrorists who object to US intervention — designed to crush their governments and seize their resources — continue to act out. They refuse to accept US supremacy. So the vulnerable American leaders have no choice but to roam the world, spending all of America's public treasure, attacking and killing brown people everywhere. The US understands well that these populations must be put down completely if they refuse to accept the destruction of their culture. Americans only recently enacted the mightiest continental-wide genocide in human history, and they can see how beneficial that was for them. Americans know what must be done.

Somehow this year, a scary Fascist-Nazi, a direct descendent of Hitler, was elected President. He and is family will be living in the White House, which is filled with buttons and nuclear codes. His election — which the hopelessly insecure and confused Americans did not see coming at all — turns out to be a sneak attack by Russians. Russian technology is so superior and frightening in its power, that the US government cannot even defend itself from inside the country, absorbed in the very elections the Russians invisibly hacked and turned upside-down. We now know that the Russians arranged for President Scary to be elected and rule over the United States. The American people are so weakened by their fever dreams that they've convinced themselves He is going to put most of them into concentration camps. The entire country will then be controlled by Nazi Stormtroopers, and neither the Americans not their government can do anything to stop the chaos. The US government was paralyzed when the famous "checks and balances" of the Constitution suddenly lost all power and authority. Soon, very soon, Americans will be compelled to learn German and speak Nazi.

And, now, for godssake, the entire world wants the US to lead the way in cutting back on burning fossil fuels, which threaten human life on Earth!

Yes fight the pipelines, oil trains etc. but in a fundamental way we have to find a way to transition. These kinds of transitions usually take 40 years. If we started when President Carter suggested we would be almost there now. But alas. The carbon fiends have us in their grip. Practice resistance yes but support a transition as best you can, whereever you can and in any way you can.

But that would be a transition, and transitions are really, really hard and inconvenient, not to mention, unprofitable for our corporations. America is too big and too close to global domination to even consider changing their profitable policies. Let the Throwaway People of the World adapt to the storms of climate change. The US has an Empire to establish, ruled by Neoliberal Jesus, who looks exhausted and sounds a little bit crazy when he whispers instructions into Neocon ears.

If only Americans had remembered to build a modern infrastructure in the late 20th century. But the "welfare queens" used up most of the nation's wealth before Bill Clinton could stop them. Many believe that it is the poor people with their sub-prime loans, and not the bankers, who caused the global financial crisis. There's a feel-good narrative.

To make matters worse, China is flaunting its successes the face of frightened Americans ["USA!, USA!, USA!"] by getting things done in South America and Africa — continents that rightly belong inside the Corporate Zone of the United States. The Chinese are helping these emerging nations build fast and efficient 21st -century infrastructure so they can more easily trade with the world and prosper.

The US view is that "China stole our colonies, which sit atop resources that rightly belong to white people." That, along with China freeing the Throwaway People of the World from the tyranny of US Dollar hegemony. Undeveloped countries can now secure loans outside the deadly IMF and their World Bank hit-men. China is a clear and present danger to the vulnerable Americans. They are even more terrifying now that they are capitalists. The US can only Pivot to Asia and send the US Navy in to disrupt China's international trade routes. The US hopes to provoke a cold and devastating economic war that will force China to the back of the bus where it belongs. And kill that whole Eurasia thing, an idea that simply terrorizes the poor "unnamed government officials" who run the Federal government.

That's why we can't have nice things.

The government is not interested in leading the way to the type of changes that makes life more fulfilled and complete for all humans. When it comes those sweeping moral actions that benefit humanity, the US is terribly reluctant. Unless there are privatized profits involved, it can only happen in the most incremental way, progressing very slowly, if at all. The nation's corporate Overlords require the government ignore the needs of humanity and focus solely on removing limits and restrictions that hold the corporations back from robust predatory capitalism and interfere with entropy profiteering

Meanwhile, in other news:

November 2016 — China’s Cabinet issued a new climate plan targeting an 18 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 compared with 2015 levels, on the same day that the Paris Agreement involving nearly 200 countries took effect. Under the new State Council plan announced Friday, coal consumption must be capped at about 4.2 billion tons in 2020….

China has taken a leading role in climate change talks…. China will guarantee that emissions peak no later than 2030 under the Paris pact. There are also plans to officially launch a national carbon trading market next year.

Central economic planners earlier this year declared a halt on new approvals for coal plants. Energy officials went a step further last month when they declared a construction freeze on scores of partially built plants across more than a dozen provinces, garnering praise from environmental groups like Greenpeace.

We have got ourselves in quite a fix. Even our green energy has substantial carbon footprint. ( it's diesel tractors and ships that dig and move that lithium ) and it's all carefully controlled. I put up solar panels but was strictly proscribed in the number so there was no way to make extra energy, or sell into the grid. Corporations wrote those rules and bought the politicians. I'll tell you a secret. I think our civilization is going insane on complexity and corruption. I no longer know what to do about it except try to keep myself safe and work hard as I can.