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“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely.”

-- Hunter S. Thompson

News and Opinion

Russia, Iran, and Turkey are shutting the U.S. out of the Syrian peace process

Russia, Turkey, and Iran’s announcement on Tuesday of their intention to broker a solution to Syria’s war without American involvement has underlined Washington’s increasingly marginalized role in the crisis. But analysts say that while the new alignment reflects a renewed determination from key power brokers to resolve the conflict, it’s unclear if they will get any closer to ending Syria’s suffering.

The recently formed troika issued a declaration on Tuesday setting out the principles of a potential peace agreement. Meetings between their foreign and defense ministers took place despite the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey in Ankara a day earlier, and come after the three countries recently worked together to broker a cease-fire in Aleppo. ...

The agreement positions the three countries as critical power brokers in Syria’s future — and all but assures Syrian President Bashar Assad will factor into the fractured country’s future, despite earlier statements by the U.S. and Turkey that he had to go, said analysts of the conflict.

“It reflects some quite fundamental changes that are going on, and shows how the balance has shifted,” David Butter, an associate fellow at Britain’s Chatham House think tank, told VICE News.

“They’re commanding the Syrian agenda – there’s no meaningful input from the United States or Europe.”

Russia is fed up with long and pointless talks with the Obama administration over Syria

[Iran, Russia and Turkey's] move underlines the growing strength of Moscow's links with Tehran and Ankara, despite the murder on Monday of Russia's envoy to Turkey, and reflects Putin's desire to cement his country's growing influence in the Middle East and more widely.

It also shows how fed up Russia is with what it sees as long and pointless talks with the Obama administration over Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week dismissed those talks as "fruitless sitting around." ...

[Russian Defence Minister Sergei] Shoigu said only Russia, which has backed President Bashar al-Assad with air strikes, special forces and military advisers, and Iran and Turkey were able to make a real difference.

"All previous attempts by the United States and its partners to agree on coordinated actions were doomed to failure," Shoigu said. "None of them wielded real influence over the situation on the ground."

Russia and Iran both back Assad, but Turkey, a NATO member, has long made clear it would prefer him to step down. Ankara has however moderated its rhetoric on Assad in recent months, and Lavrov said all three countries agreed the priority was to fight terrorism rather than to remove the Syrian leader.

The Future of Syria: As Aleppo Falls, What Comes Next in a Country Shattered by War?

Russia Says Nearly All Communication With US Frozen

Kremlin officials today warned that Russo-American relations are not just bad but practically non-existent, saying that virtually all channels of communication between the two nations are frozen, and that communication that is done is “minimal.” ...

The State Department dismissed the Russian comments, insisting they had no idea what Peskov was talking about, and that the US and Russia have ongoing diplomatic engagement “across a wide range of issues.”

The US imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia this week, nominally related to the accession of Crimea into the Russian Federation. Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) also accused Russia of a plot to “destroy democracy” worldwide, causing an “unraveling of the world order.”

Gülenists behind ambassador assassination? No one's buying it.

Evacuations out of Aleppo resume following intermittent delays

Convoys of fighters and civilians have resumed their slow journeys out of besieged Aleppo in snow and sub-zero temperatures, after government and rebel forces patched up a shaky ceasefire deal allowing residents to leave ahead of the city’s final surrender.

There are only a few thousand people left in the last remaining sliver of opposition Aleppo after more than 25,000 were bussed out to the relative safety of rebel-held countryside in recent days.

But after the latest breakdown in a complex evacuation agreement, they endured nearly 24 hours stranded at checkpoints in freezing temperatures, without food or warmth, according to people on the vehicles and a UK monitor.

There had already been several deaths reported from the cold in recent days, including four babies, as thousands waited in the extreme temperatures for a chance to get out of the city amid slow, intermittent departures.

A UN official said on Thursday that about 300 private vehicles had left east Aleppo overnight and this morning.

The Impossible Revolution: A Syrian Dissident on How a Fight Against a Dictator Became a Proxy War

Donald Trump isn’t even president yet and he's already making waves at the U.N.

A United Nations draft resolution calling for an immediate end to Israeli settlement construction is on life support, if not dead entirely, following aggressive diplomatic pressure from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who introduced the resolution, has asked to postpone a Thursday vote on the measure, reportedly under pressure from the Israeli government. It is unclear whether the resolution will be resuscitated, although it seems unlikely.

Although the United States probably would have vetoed the resolution anyway, it comes as a surprise that the measure was killed even before a vote could take place.

Netanyahu seemed to take a page out of Trump’s book in the lead-up to the morning of the vote. In the dim hours of the night, he used Twitter to implore the U.S. to veto the draft resolution being considered by the U.N. Security Council.

Trump, who since the election has voiced strong support for the Israeli right wing, responded with his own strong criticism of the resolution. In a Thursday morning Facebook post, Trump said that the measure should be vetoed when it came up for a vote, as it “puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”

Berlin Attack Suspect Was Under Surveillance for Months

Having arrested and ultimately released an innocent Pakistani refugee over the Berlin Christmas market truck attack earlier this week, German officials are now scrambling to find Anis Amri, the new suspect, a 24-year-old Tunisian who unsuccessfully sought asylum in the country.

Investigators now say they discovered Amri’s wallet in the truck, and they are confident he was responsible. Amri was also said to have been under surveillance by the German government for several months, though they ended that surveillance back in September. ...

Berlin prosecutors suggested that they didn’t find any evidence of ISIS ties during his previous surveillance, and considered him only a “small-time drug dealer.”

Berlin: Torn between anger and fear after Christmas market attack

Does the Berlin attack make the case for increased surveillance?

The German parliament passed without much fuss legislation in October that vastly expanded the surveillance powers of the country’s intelligence agencies.

That it went through the Bundestag so easily was surprising given the still raw history of surveillance in Germany; first by the Nazis and then the near-blanket coverage of East Germany by its then intelligence agency, the Stasi. Nowhere else in western Europe is the issue of protection of privacy felt as strongly as in Germany.

But the intelligence agencies managed to override privacy concerns, citing the string of terrorist attacks in France, Belgium and Germany itself. The cabinet, in response to the Berlin attack, agreed on Wednesday to a bill that would extend the use of CCTV to shopping centres, sports arenas, car parks and other public areas.

Does the Berlin attack make the case for increased surveillance? The attack at one level fails to make the case for mass surveillance. Privacy campaigners are not opposed to intelligence agencies and the police targeting suspects: that is what they are supposed to do and what they have always done. What privacy campaigners oppose is blanket surveillance of everyone, and argue that the Berlin attack did not require it: the suspect, Anis Amri, was already known to the security services through traditional forms of intelligence.

In almost every terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks, those responsible were already on the radar of the intelligence agencies: the Boston bombers, the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby in London, the attackers in Paris and Brussels. And now, Amri, the Tunisian being hunted by intelligence agencies across Europe as the prime suspect for the Berlin attack.

Europe's far right is already using the Berlin attack to exploit fears

In the early 2000s, intellectuals such as Jurgen Habermas were suggesting the creation of a postnational, cosmopolitan union of Europeans as a response to a globalised, deregulated, and markets-driven world. Today a very different argument is taking hold – one which seeks a return to nation-states and closed borders. After the latest terrorist action in Germany, where 12 people died at a Christmas market, this cry is going to become even louder.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming refugees has been attracting criticism for a long time now – including from some within her own centre-right party. Frauke Petry, the leader of the far-right and anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD), has called for an immediate end to “political correctness” and for the promotion of Christian values. Comments like this show how these extreme hardliners are challenging Europe’s core values and the stability of the very framework of the European Union.

Almost no corner of Europe can presently escape this trend. After the attack in Berlin, Marine Le Pen, leader of the most powerful European far-right movement, the Front National, demanded the re-establishment of national borders and called for “the immediate ending of relocation of migrants in [France’s] towns and villages.” Matteo Salvini – the leader of Italy’s right-wing Lega Nord – criticized Merkel’s intention to keep Germany’s open-border policy, saying that “she would be on trial for high treason if we were in times of war.”

These type of “anti” stances are rapidly growing, while rightist nationalist and anti-immigrant movements are also on the rise because of the peculiar political and economic era we are living in. In such fluid times it is, however, hard to predict what may happen next. There are fears that the AfD may threaten Angela Merkel at a national level, or that Marine Le Pen could become the next French president. After the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president there is a feeling that others with similar ideals could also win unexpectedly in the west. But the defeat of right-wing parties in European countries such as Austria show that this is by no means certain.

US congressman calls for scrutiny of Le Pen’s Russian financial links

In Historic Decision, Canada Declares Internet Access a Fundamental Right for All

In what is being described as a "historic" decision that will have a significant impact, particularly on the lives of those living in rural and First Nations communities, Canada's telecom agency on Wednesday issued a new rule declaring high-speed internet a basic service "necessary to the quality of life" of all Canadians.

"The future of our economy, our prosperity, and our society—indeed, the future of every citizen—requires us to set ambitious goals, and to get on with connecting all Canadians for the 21st century," said Jean-Pierre Blais, chair of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), at a news conference. "These goals are ambitious. They will not be easy to achieve and they will cost money. But we have no choice."

Under the new broadband strategy, the CRTC aims to provide 100 percent of Canadians access to reliable, world-class mobile and fixed Internet services, which will be available with an unlimited data option.

The agency has set the network speed target at 50 Mbps download speed and 10 Mbps upload speed. As of 2015, 82 percent of Canadians had access to that caliber of broadband.

In comparison, the United States' Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines "broadband" as 25 Mbps download and just 3 Mbps upload.

Further, the CRTC has set up a fund to support projects in areas that do not meet those targets, which will provide an additional $750 million above current government spending over five years.

US Surveillance of Yahoo Email Seeks to Weaken Concept of ‘Privacy’

Officials familiar with the NSA surveillance program targeting Yahoo’s email service say that the program reflects an ongoing effort to dramatically weaken the concept of “privacy” online, resting heavily on nebulous definitions of “search” and “reasonable” to argue for such a broad program.

Back in October, it was revealed that Yahoo has been scanning every single email of every single account belonging to every single user, likely covering in excess of a billion separate accounts. As with virtually all major surveillance programs unveiled, the NSA denied it was happening, saying they’d never have permission to search through every email.

Officials familiar with the FISA order from 2015 which spawned the program, however, say that it was done by arguing that having computers conduct the preliminary searches didn’t count as “searching” the email, arguing that private companies do so many digital searches it was only reasonable to let them do so as well.

Google is profiting from Holocaust denial, says Jewish museum

A Jewish heritage museum has accused Google of profiting from Holocaust denial because it is paying to prevent a neo-Nazi website from appearing as the top result for “did the Holocaust happen”.

The marketing director of the Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, said it was “nauseating” that Google directed users to the white supremacist site, and added that it was paying Google up to $2 a click to direct searchers to its own site via AdWords, Google’s pay-per-click advertising service.

David Schendowich said it was nonsense for Google to claim that it was not profiting from Holocaust denial. “They may not take money from people denying the Holocaust, but the point is that museums and other organisations are paying to combat this stuff. They plainly are. We are. We’re paying them up to $2 a click.”

He declined to say how much the museum paid to Google but said search engine optimisation (SEO) and AdWords were a key part – and cost – of its marketing strategy.

The director of the Breman Museum, Aaron Berger, said that according to the Southern Law Poverty Center, Atlanta was the fourth worst state in the US for active hate groups and using AdWords was an “incredibly important part of our approach in getting our site up the search results”.

A Google spokesman said last week: “We never want to make money from searches for Holocaust denial and we don’t allow regular advertising on those terms.”

Mark Zuckerberg appears to finally admit Facebook is a media company

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, appears to have finally conceded that the social network is a media company, just not a “traditional media company”.

In a video chat with Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg said: “Facebook is a new kind of platform. It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used.

“We don’t write the news that people read on the platform. But at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute news, and we’re an important part of the public discourse.”

While commentators have long suggested Facebook is a media company, disseminating news and exercising editorial judgement, Zuckerberg has previously steadfastly stuck to a line calling Facebook a technology company.

Concerns over Facebook’s influence have come into focus recently due to fake news appearing on the site and the suggestion that this had an impact on the US presidential election. Other incidents, such as the removal of a famous Vietnam war image have seen its decisions questioned.

House Intel Report Is 'Accidentally Exonerating,' Says Snowden

The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released a heavily redacted, declassified version of its report on National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, and Snowden charges that the "parade of falsity" contained in the report is "accidentally exonerating."

At the time, Snowden slammed the summary of the report—and he wasn't alone. "The report is not only one-sided, not only incurious, not only contemptuous of fact," wrote journalist and author Barton Gellman after it was it published. "It is trifling."

In the full report (pdf), the intelligence committee neglects to mention Snowden's well-documented critique of the Russian government at the same time that it charges—with no evidence—that the whistleblower is in contact with Russian spy agencies.

The committee also seems to characterize Snowden as a bad employee for his repeated efforts to report concerns to higher-ups, but then goes on to argue that Snowden should have reported the NSA's mass surveillance practices to the NSA inspector general (despite documented retaliation against whistleblowers at multiple government agencies, including the NSA).

"Bottom line: this report's core claims are made without evidence, and are often contrary to both common sense and the public record," Snowden tweeted.

Read the whistleblower's full takedown of the report on Twitter here.

Minority lawmakers vow to push back against Trump: 'We're not a racist nation'

“I did not think that America could possibly vote in a person who was a bully, who ran on a platform of xenophobia and who made excuses for white supremacists,” said Representative Judy Chu, a Democrat from California.

Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, ranks among the growing but still small coalition of lawmakers of color in Washington. Her job now entails ensuring that Trump’s hardline proposals on immigration and profiling of Muslims do not become a reality, with the president-elect refusing still to explicitly rule out mass deportations, banning Muslims from entering the US and a Muslim registry. ...

The 115th Congress, upon assuming office in January, will historically be the most diverse. But despite a record number of minorities poised to walk the halls of the US Senate and House of Representatives – 48 African Americans, 39 Hispanics, and 15 Asian Americans – the legislative branch will remain overwhelmingly white.

Caucuses formed at different periods have focused their efforts on advancing legislation and raising issues affecting the black, Hispanic and Asian populations in the US. Although their influence has been questioned at times, Chu said she anticipates the three groups will have a “strong role to play” under a Trump administration, where debates are likely to emerge over the civil rights of minorities.

Obama shuts down Muslim registry

The Obama administration has moved to shut down the Department of Homeland Security’s Muslim national registry program, a vestige of post-9/11 policy that’s been sitting on the books since 2002 but unused in the past five years. It’s the same program that President-elect Donald Trump and his team have indicated they’d like to revive.

The action, taken Thursday, follows Trump’s comments in response to the Monday attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, which the Islamic State group claimed to have inspired. Asked whether he still planned to impose a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants entering the United States and establish a registry for Muslims (as he said on the campaign trail), Trump replied, “You know my plans.” ...

The New York Times described the move by the Obama administration as “largely symbolic” and an apparent attempt to distance “the departing administration from any effort by the new president to revive the program.”

'Brutal, amoral, ruthless, cheating': how Trump's new trade tsar sees China

The Chinese government is a despicable, parasitic, brutal, brass-knuckled, crass, callous, amoral, ruthless and totally totalitarian imperialist power that reigns over the world’s leading cancer factory, its most prolific propaganda mill and the biggest police state and prison on the face of the earth.

That is the view of Peter Navarro, the man chosen by Donald Trump to lead a new presidential office for US trade and industrial policy, a move likely to add to Beijing’s anxieties over the billionaire’s plans for US-China relations. ...

In The Coming China Wars – a 2006 book that Trump has called one of his favourite on China – Navarro portrays the Asian country as a nightmarish realm where “the raw stench of a gut-wrenching, sweat-stained fear” hangs in the air and myopic, venal and incompetent Communist party officials rule the roost.

The Harvard-educated hardliner accuses “cheating China” of destroying both American factories and lives by flooding the US with illegally subsidised and “contaminated, defective and cancerous” exports.

American politicians must “aggressively and comprehensively address the China problem” before it leads to full-blown conflict, Navarro writes.

In a 2012 Netflix documentary based on Death by China, which Trump has described as “right on”, Navarro blames Beijing for the loss of 57,000 American factories and 25m jobs.

Trump Brings on Billionaire Bruiser Carl Icahn to Gut Government Regulations

President-elect Donald Trump has selected yet another billionaire for his cabinet: infamous corporate raider Carl Icahn will advise Trump on his sweeping plans to dismantle government regulations, it was announced late Wednesday.

"According to Forbes he is worth $16.5 billion, making him the 50th richest man in the world," notes CNN Money. "That would make him the richest member of the Trump administration, including the President-elect himself, who Forbes estimates is worth is worth $4.5 billion."

"Donald Trump has selected a man who epitomizes predatory corporate capitalism to lead his deregulatory charge," observed Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, in a statement.

"In accepting the designation," Weissman continued, "Icahn cites fanciful and false claims about the cost of regulation, while failing to acknowledge regulatory benefits, which include preventing consumer rip-offs, protecting the air and water, making our food and water safer, and much more."

"It's precious to hear talk about protecting jobs from the corporate raider famous for actions that cost thousands of workers their jobs," Weissman added.

Senate Democrats plan to run their Trump playbook against Tillerson

Congress is preparing to do major battle next month over President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary-of-state nominee, Rex Tillerson, in a brewing proxy fight over Trump’s potential financial conflicts of interest and his unconventional foreign policy.

The official sparring is expected to take place on Jan. 11, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to hold a two-part hearing to grill Tillerson over his tenure as ExxonMobil’s chief executive and what many lawmakers see as unseemly links to Russia. ...

Democrats do not think they stand much chance of stopping Tillerson from being confirmed. But they plan to press the top diplomat-designate to commit to full divestiture from Exxon and detail how he would pursue a different approach to the world as secretary of state, in what one Senate Democratic aide who requested anonymity to candidly discuss strategy called a “very thorough, tough vetting.” As they have with Trump, Democrats plan to focus sharply on potential conflicts of interest deriving from Tillerson’s finances, as well as his views on critical foreign-policy matters.

It’s a grilling they would happily give Trump, if only they had reason to drag him before a congressional committee.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Met With Trump to “Engage” on Gigantic Corporate Tax Cut

Why did executives from 11 of America’s biggest technology companies obediently show up when they were summoned by the president-elect to meet at Trump Tower?

Some might suspect it has something to do with the $560 billion in profits those companies have stashed overseas — and refuse to bring back until the U.S. government gives them an enormous tax break.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has now confirmed that that was indeed part of his motivation to attend the tech summit with Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, TechCrunch obtained Cook’s response on Apple’s internal network to a question from an employee about the Trump meeting.

Cook first described how it was critical for Apple to “engage” with governments on what he called “our key areas of focus.” According to Cook, these include “privacy and security, education,” “advocating for human rights for everyone,” “the environment and really combating climate change” and “creating jobs” — i.e., nothing as mundane as money.

But in the third paragraph, Cook acknowledged, “We have other things that are more business-centric — like tax reform.”

Here’s what Cook’s vague description meant: Apple wants a huge tax cut, and Trump has promised to deliver one that would save the company about $40 billion to $50 billion.

Paul Jay and Abby Martin Say Goodbye to 2016

Obama's environmental legacy:

Little Miss Flint says water crisis is far from over: 'Nothing's changed'

In the seven months since Barack Obama visited Flint, Michigan, to examine the impact of the city’s lead-tainted water system, Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny has been busy.

From organizing toy drives and meet-and-greets with the president’s successor, to raising awareness on social media about Flint, Copeny - who is known by her nickname, “Little Miss Flint” – has become a face of the water crisis in the city of 100,000.

It was Copeny, nine, whose words spurred Obama’s visit to Flint, months after officials urged residents not to drink the water – and two years after residents first began pleading with the same officials to address the contaminated liquid flowing from their faucets. ... The visit was welcomed, but it did little to alter the new normal in Flint: despite moves to repair the water system and reassurances from officials that the water is safe, many residents including Copeny still won’t drink the water.

“Nothing’s changed,” she said by phone with a faint voice, “because the water’s been making my skin itchy. You can’t drink it, too.”

Trudeau Touts Trump's Support for KXL, Sparking Fears of Pipeline Resurrection

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's support for the Keystone XL pipeline to an audience of business leaders and oil company executives in Calgary, Alberta—the heart of Canada's oil industry—on Wednesday.

"He actually brought up Keystone XL and indicated that he was very supportive of it," Trudeau told members of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce of his conversation with Trump after the election, according to Reuters. "I will work with the new administration when it gets sworn in [...] I'm confident that the right decisions will be taken."

Trump has repeatedly and vocally expressed support for Keystone XL, among many other fossil fuel projects.

Also of Interest

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

The Fortifying Commons

Trump’s narrow path to greatness

Resisting the Mind Games of Donald Trump and the One Percent

Trump’s Economic Plan is a Betrayal of the People Who Voted for Him

A new art exhibit asks, “If no country wants them, why don’t we settle the world’s refugees on Mars?”

Black Snake Bleeding Out: How DAPL Is Duping Investors

Murmansk's silver lining: Arctic city banks on ice melt for its renaissance

After El Niño: a trail of scorched earth and arid land – in pictures

A Little Night Music

John Primer - 40 Days 40 Nights, Close To You

John Primer - Pay The Price

John Primer - Keep On Lovin' The Blues

John Primer - When I Met The Blues

John Primer - Come Back Baby

John Primer - Down In The Bottom

John Primer-- Just Like I Treat You

John Primer — Before You Accuse Me

John Primer & The Real Deal Blues Band, Rotterdam 2016