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This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Clarence Green. Enjoy!

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

-- Chuckie Schumer

News and Opinion

U.S. Intelligence Officials Reportedly Warn Israeli Counterparts Against Sharing Info With Trump Administration

Israeli intelligence officials are concerned that the exposure of classified information to their American counterparts under a Trump administration could lead to their being leaked to Russia and onward to Iran, investigative journalist Ronen Bergman reported by Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Thursday. ...

American intelligence officials expressed despair at the election of Trump during a recent meeting with their Israeli counterparts, Bergman reported. They said that they believed that Putin had “leverages of pressure” over Trump, though they did not elaborate. The American media reported on Wednesday that Russia has embarrassing intelligence about the president-elect.

According to Bergman, the American intelligence officials implied that Israel should “be careful” when transferring intelligence information to the White House and the National Security Council (NSC) following Trump's inauguration – at least until it is clear that Trump does not have inappropriate connections with Russia.

BBC claims a second source backs up Trump dossier

BBC correspondent Paul Wood came forward Wednesday to reveal that there are multiple intelligence sources alleging Russia is in possession of potentially embarrassing or compromising material regarding President-elect Donald Trump. Formerly, only a single source was known to have been aware of the alleged material. ...

A member of the U.S. intelligence community also told Wood that "at least one East European intelligence service was aware 'that the Russians had kompromat or compromising material on Mr. Trump,'" Raw Story reports. Wood said that he "got a message back" from the U.S. intelligence community member and that there is reportedly "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg."

Wood did add, however, that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it."

Trump and spy chief differ on what was said in call on Russia dossier

U.S. spy chief James Clapper and President-elect Donald Trump gave different accounts of a phone conversation they had about a dossier of unverified, salacious claims linking Russia to Trump, who is locked in a war of words with the intelligence agencies he will command in eight days. ...

In a Wednesday night statement Clapper, director of national intelligence, said that in a call with Trump he expressed his dismay over media leaks. Clapper added that he did not believe the leaks came from U.S. intelligence agencies.

Clapper said he emphasized to Trump that the report was not produced by U.S. intelligence agencies and that they had not judged whether the information was reliable. He did not say the document was false.

By contrast, Trump suggested in a tweet on Thursday that Clapper agreed that the report was untrue.

"James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!" Trump wrote.

Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, an opponent of the Republican Trump, was asked by CNN on Thursday morning about Trump's characterization of Clapper's statement that the document was false.

"Sadly, you cannot rely on the president-elect’s tweets or statements about what he's receiving in intelligence briefings. And that’s a real problem," said Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

“A tendency towards chaos” with barely a week till Trump’s inauguration

No questions, please...

Christopher Steele, Ex-Spy Who Compiled Trump Dossier, Goes to Ground

Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent who prepared the dossier on Donald J. Trump’s supposed activities in Russia, has gone underground.

The strange story of the dossier, which United States intelligence agencies, the F.B.I., Senator John McCain and many journalists have had for weeks, if not months, and which Mr. Trump presumably must have known about, appears to have had personal consequences for Mr. Steele.

According to neighbors and news reports, Mr. Steele hurriedly left his home in Surrey, a county southwest of London, on Wednesday to avoid attention or possible retribution once his identity as the author of the dossier was revealed, first by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that Mr. Steele had declined its interview requests because the subject was “too hot.” ...

According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, a friend of Mr. Steele’s said that after his name and nationality were revealed, he had become “terrified for his and his family’s safety.”

Mr. Steele’s wife and children also were not at home.

The dodgy Donald Trump dossier reminds me of the row over Saddam Hussein and his fictitious weapons of mass destruction

I read the text of the dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged dirty dealings with a scepticism that soon turned into complete disbelief. The memo has all the hallmarks of such fabrications, which is too much detail – and that detail largely uncheckable – and too many names of important people placed there to impress the reader with the sheer quantity and quality of information.

I was correspondent in Moscow in the 1980s and again during the first years in power of Vladimir Putin. Every so often, people would tell me intriguing facts about the dark doings of the Kremlin and its complicity in various crimes, such as the infamous apartment block bombings in 1999. But my heart used to sink when the informant claimed to know too much and did not see that what they were saying contained a fatal contradiction: Putin and his people were pictured as unscrupulous and violent people, but at the same time they were childishly incapable of keeping a secret damaging to themselves.

The conclusions reached in the Trump dossier similarly claim to be based on multiple sources of information where, in the nature of things, they are unlikely to exist. The dossier cites at least seven of them. “Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, [said that] the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP, for at least five years.”

I obviously failed as a correspondent when I was in Russia because it turns out that Moscow is choc-a-bloc with fellows in senior positions willing to blow the gaff on the Kremlin’s deep laid plans. A and B, despite achieving high rank, apparently remain touchingly naive and more than willing to make revelations that, if known, would get them imprisoned or shot in short order.

Russia dossier: what happens next – and could Donald Trump be impeached?

The most sensational details contained in the dossier concern the allegation that Russian spies gathered compromising material, or “kompromat”, on Trump by secretly recording audio and video tape of his sexual activities in the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow. Such content is virtually impossible to prove, or disprove, other than in the unlikely circumstance that tapes were to emerge. A potentially more potent line of inquiry contained in the dossier that could yet cause Trump trouble relates to allegations that members of his team were in close contact with Russian officials in the course of last year’s presidential election over Russian hacking of Democratic emails that were later published by WikiLeaks. Independent reports suggest that US intelligence agencies were already investigating alleged links, such as those between businessman Carter Page and senior Russian officials. The president-elect’s spokesman Sean Spicer this week said that the president-elect “does not know” Page, even though Trump himself last March described Page as a member of his foreign policy team.

As ever, the question of whether the Russia dossier has legs is a matter not of science but of politics. The degree to which it might continue to snap at the heels of the 45th president depends on whether there is the appetite to pursue the claims. News outlets can be expected to stick with the theme, though all efforts so far on their part have failed to throw up anything solid. Congress has formidable powers to subpoena witnesses that have the potential to uncover secrets that others cannot reach. Two Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of them Trump skeptics, have been pushing for a no-holds-barred investigation into Russian hacking by a special select committee of the ilk of the Watergate panel. But so far the leadership of the Republican party, who control both chambers of Congress and thus have the final say on any such exercise, have shown no appetite for rocking the boat with their new president. That leaves the intelligence agencies. The danger for Trump here is that he has so alienated senior officials, not least by likening them to Nazis, that he has hardly earned their loyalty.

Pompeo Goes Dark in CIA Nomination Hearing

The darkness that fell over a roomful of senators, reporters, and onlookers on Thursday thanks to an unexpected power outage was fitting for a discussion of the future of the Central Intelligence Agency under Rep. Mike Pompeo, a nominee few career intelligence veterans know much about. ...

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., demanded to know where Pompeo stood on the controversial issue of domestic surveillance, pointing to a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where the nominee proposed amassing “all metadata” publicly available, including financial information and “lifestyle” details, in order to sniff out possible terrorists and criminals. “Are there any boundaries?” Wyden asked.

While Pompeo reassured Wyden there are in fact “legal boundaries” to prohibit him from creating such a massive dossier of information, particularly on Americans, he argued the intelligence community would be “grossly negligent” if it didn’t take advantage of “publicly available information … to make Americans safe.”

Pompeo gave conflicting answers when Wyden demanded to know if he would outsource intelligence collection to foreign partners; he denied its legality during the hearing, but suggested in written testimony he’d be happy to accept nearly any information other nations offered him, including bulk surveillance. “It is appropriate for the CIA to receive such information from foreign partners without the same requirements that would apply if the CIA itself were to collect the information, or to request that the foreign partner collect the information,” he wrote, except in “limited circumstances.”

Donald Trump’s alleged ties with Russia overshadow confirmation hearings

Mike Pompeo’s comments to the Senate intelligence committee came amid an increasingly bitter row between Trump and the American spying agencies, which he has accused of leaking a dossier of salacious allegations against him. ...

At confirmation hearings on Thursday, Pompeo and Trump’s nominee to head the Pentagon both sounded warnings over Russia’s growing global ambitions.

Pompeo stated unequivocally that he accepted the intelligence community’s conclusions that Moscow had sought to influence the election.

“It’s pretty clear about what took place here about Russia involvement in efforts to hack information and to have an impact on American democracy,” Pompeo said. “This was an aggressive action taken by the senior leaders inside Russia.”

The Kansas Republican congressman and former army officer was asked by Senator Angus King to comment on Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.

“I share your view that these are unsubstantiated media reports,” Pompeo said, but he pledged to investigate the allegations and “pursue the facts where ever they take us”.

In his Senate hearing, James Mattis, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, told the Senate armed services committee that Russia has “chosen to be a strategic competitor, an adversary in key areas”. While Mattis said he was “all for engagement” with the Russians, he warned of “increasing number of areas in which we will have to confront Russia”.

US watched ISIS rise in Syria and hoped to ‘manage’ it — Kerry on leaked tape

Last fall Secretary of State Kerry met privately with anti-Assad Syrian activists at the U.N. The meeting was secretly taped, and you can listen to the tape here:

The thrust of the conversation was the mutual frustration of Kerry and the Syrians that Bashar al-Assad was still in power and able to commit atrocities with the support of the Russians, who don’t adhere to international law the way we Americans do. ...

The rise of extremists had led to Russia’s intervention. Kerry said (at minute 26) that when Daesh, or ISIS, started to grow, the US watched and thought we could “manage” the ISIS situation, because it might push Assad to negotiate, but instead Putin came in. Kerry:

“The reason Russia came in is because ISIL was getting stronger, Daesh was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus and so forth. And that’s why Russia went in. Because they didn’t want a Daesh government and they supported Assad.

“And we know that this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage, that Assad would then negotiate. Instead of negotiating, he got Putin to support him.”

Iran's Syria project: pushing population shifts to increase influence

In the valleys between Damascus and Lebanon, where whole communities had abandoned their lives to war, a change is taking place. For the first time since the conflict broke out, people are starting to return.

But the people settling in are not the same as those who fled during the past six years.

The new arrivals have a different allegiance and faith to the predominantly Sunni Muslim families who once lived there. They are, according to those who have sent them, the vanguard of a move to repopulate the area with Shia Muslims not just from elsewhere in Syria, but also from Lebanon and Iraq.

The population swaps are central to a plan to make demographic changes to parts of Syria, realigning the country into zones of influence that backers of Bashar al-Assad, led by Iran, can directly control and use to advance broader interests. Iran is stepping up its efforts as the heat of the conflict starts to dissipate and is pursuing a very different vision to Russia, Assad’s other main backer.

Russia, in an alliance with Turkey, is using a nominal ceasefire to push for a political consensus between the Assad regime and the exiled opposition. Iran, meanwhile, has begun to move on a project that will fundamentally alter the social landscape of Syria, as well as reinforcing the Hezbollah stronghold of north-eastern Lebanon, and consolidating its influence from Tehran to Israel’s northern border.

An excellent essay. Recommended:

The President Who Wasn’t There: Barack Obama’s Legacy of Impotence

Barack Obama was in Brasilia on March 19, 2011, when he announced with limited fanfare the latest regime change war of his presidency. The bombing of Libya had begun with a hail of cruise missile attacks and air strikes. It was something of an impromptu intervention, orchestrated largely by Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and the diva of vengeance Samantha Power, always hot for a saturation bombing in the name of human rights.

Obama soon upped the ante by suggesting that it was time for Qaddafi to go. The Empire had run out of patience with the mercurial colonel. The vague aims of the Libyan war had moved ominously from enforcing “a no-fly zone” to seeking regime change. ... Absent mass protests against the impending destruction of Tripoli, it fell to Congress to take some tentative steps to challenge the latest unauthorized and unprovoked war. At an earlier time in the history of the Republic, Obama’s arrogant defiance of Congress and the War Powers Act of 1973 might have provoked a constitutional crisis. But these are duller and more attenuated days, where such vital matters have been rendered down into a kind of hollow political theater. ...

That old softy John Boehner, the teary-eyed barkeep’s son, sculpted a resolution demanding that Obama explain his intentions in Libya. It passed the House overwhelmingly. A competing resolution crafted by the impish gadfly Dennis Kucinich called for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from operations in Libya. This radically sane measure garnered a robust 148 votes. Obama dismissed both attempts to downsize his unilateralist approach to military operations, saying with a chill touch of the surreal that the 14,000-and-counting sorties flown over Libya didn’t amount to a “war.”

This is Barack Obama, the political moralist? The change agent? The constitutional scholar? Listen to that voice. It is petulant and dismissive. Some might say peevish, like the whine of a talented student caught cheating on a final exam. ...

You begin to see why Obama sparks such a virulent reaction among the more histrionic precincts of the libertarian right. He has a majestic sense of his own certitude. The president often seems captivated by the nobility of his intentions, offering himself up as a kind of savior of the eroding American Imperium.

James Mattis Calls for U.S. Military to Be More Lethal at Defense Sec. Confirmation Hearing

Trump risks 'war' with Beijing if US blocks access to South China Sea, state media warns

The US risks a “large-scale war” with China if it attempts to blockade islands in the South China Sea, Chinese state media has said, adding that if recent statements become policy when Donald Trump takes over as president “the two sides had better prepare for a military clash”.

China has controversially built fortifications and artificial islands across the South China Sea. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, said China’s “access to those islands … is not going to be allowed”.

China claims nearly the entire area, with rival claims by five south-east Asian neighbours and Taiwan.

Tillerson did not specify how the US would block access but experts agreed it could only be done by a significant show of military force. Tillerson likened China’s island building to “Russia’s taking of Crimea”.

“Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a Communist-party controlled newspaper.

U.S.-China War: a Danger Hidden from the American People

There is a growing danger that U.S. government policies may lead to war between the U.S. and China, two nuclear-armed powers But this danger is being systematically concealed by leading U.S. political figures from the American people who, like the Chinese people, do not want to go to war. ...

For some time Trump, and political figures who support him, have exuded hostility to China. They have sought to poison public perception of China by blaming it for U.S. economic problems, by setting the stage for a trade war and labeling China , a ‘currency manipulator’, a ‘job stealer’, and have suggested a punitive 45% import duty. But far more serious are the unprecedented appointments of former military generals to key ministerial positions in Trump’s cabinet, along with the promises of greatly expanded U.S. military presence and more aggressive actions in the South China sea.

The latest – and one of the most ominous – indications that U.S. policy may lead to war is from Trumps nominee for Secretary of State, the ministerial position in charge of U.S. foreign affairs. In Rex Tillerson’s testimony before the U.S. Congress a few days ago he declared: “We are going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

These are statements which prepare the ground for war. U.S. political figures and mass media have long promoted the false claim that China wishes to block ‘freedom of navigation’ in the South China Sea. Now the proposed official in charge of all U.S. foreign policy proposes that the U.S. navy block freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, by preventing Chinese ships form reaching Chinese islands and islets.

Rex Tillerson Wants to Provide Saudi Arabia With More Help to Bomb Yemen

For 21 months, a coalition of nations led by Saudi Arabia has been relentlessly bombing Yemen, using U.S.- and U.K.-produced weapons and intelligence in a war that has devastated Yemen and killed well over 10,000 civilians. ...

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., asked Tillerson during his confirmation hearing: “Saudi Arabia has been utilizing cluster munitions in Yemen. Much of the world has said these are terrible weapons to use, because they have a range of fuses and they can often go off months or years after they’ve been laid down. These are the cluster bombs, you’re familiar with them. They’ve also been targeting civilians. How should the U.S. respond to those actions?”

Tillerson replied: “Well I would hope that we could work with Saudi Arabia perhaps by providing them better targeting intelligence, better targeting capability to avoid mistakenly identifying targets where civilians are hit, impacted, so that’s an area where I would hope that cooperation with them could minimize this type of collateral damage.” ...

Tillerson’s response went beyond deferring to the Saudis — it showed either a callous disregard for civilian lives lost or striking ignorance about what is going on in the region. And the latter is less likely, considering that before becoming CEO, Tillerson oversaw Exxon’s operations in Yemen and negotiated extensively with the Yemeni government for natural gas concessions.

The United States already provides targeting intelligence — and that has not stopped Saudi Arabia from bombing civilian targets. In fact, there are indications that the Saudi Arabia may be using U.S. intelligence to intentionally target civilians. Obama administration officials told the New York Times in August that the U.S. provides Saudi Arabia with a “no-strike” list of critical infrastructure, and that Saudi Arabia has violated it. ... The Obama administration has actually reduced intelligence sharing in response to Saudi Arabia’s apparent disregard for civilian life.

Syrian Army Accuses Israel of Attacking Strategic Military Airport Near Damascus

Syrian army command said on Friday that Israel struck a major military airport west of Damascus, the capital, and warned of repercussions of what it called a "flagrant" attack.

Syrian state television quoted the army as saying several rockets were fired from an area near Lake Kinneret in northern Israel just after midnight which landed in the compound of the airport, a major facility for elite Republican Guards. ...

Video footage downloaded on social media showed large volleys of fire engulfing several areas in the military airport's compound with a huge plume of smoke from the airport area seen from a distance in several neighbourhoods of the capital.

Emergence of populist leaders threatens democracy, says Human Rights Watch

The rise of populist leaders such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin poses a “dangerous threat” to human rights that could encourage global abuses around the world, Human Rights Watch has warned in its annual report.

Accusing the US president-elect of a campaign for office that fomented hatred and intolerance, the group also singled out “strongman” leaders in Russia, Turkey the Philippines and China, accusing them of substituting their own authority in place of rule of law and accountable government.

“These converging trends, bolstered by propaganda operations that denigrate legal standards and disdain factual analysis, directly challenge the laws and institutions that promote dignity, tolerance, and equality,” Human Rights Watch said.

The organisation’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, argued a “new generation” of authoritarian populists was seeking to overturn the concept of human rights protections.

“Donald Trump’s successful campaign for the US presidency was a vivid illustration of this politics of intolerance,” Roth wrote in an introduction to the Human Rights Watch world report 2017.

'Despite clear unconstitutionality': Assange ready for extradition if Obama pardons Manning

Assange agrees to extradition if US releases whistleblower

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will agree to be extradited to the United States if President Barack Obama grants clemency to the former US soldier Chelsea Manning, jailed for leaking documents, the company said on Thursday.

"If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ (US Department of Justice) case," WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations.

The Australian former computer hacker said he fears Stockholm will in turn extradite him to the US, where he angered Washington over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents leaked by former US soldier Manning.

Gauck visits Stasi Records Agency

Rudy Giuliani is an absurd choice to defend the US from hackers

At Donald Trump’s now-notorious press conference on Tuesday, lost amidst his threats to news organizations and denunciations of his enemies, the president-elect claimed he would soon assemble “some of the greatest computer minds anywhere in the world” to tackle the US government’s cybersecurity problem. On Thursday, he went the opposite route instead and hired Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani, Trump election surrogate and the disgraced former mayor of New York, is apparently going to head up Trump’s efforts to coordinate “cybersecurity” issues between the federal government and the private sector, the transition team announced Tuesday. But what does Giuliani, last seen on the campaign trail claiming the president can break whatever law he likes in a time of war, know about cybersecurity? From the look and sound of it, not much. ...

Just after the Trump team’s announcement, security experts took a look at Giuliani Partner’s website and started mercilessly mocking it on Twitter for glaring vulnerabilities and its own lax cybersecurity practices that makes it looks more like a website built in the mid 1990s than a supposedly respected cybersecurity firm would present the public today.

Oh, people are already poking it. pic.twitter.com/pxoi2M7HFU

— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) January 13, 2017

In fact, searching Giuliani’s past public comments (for example, “I’d love to become the person that comes up with a solution to cybersecurity”) it’s hard to find an intelligent sentence he’s strung together on the subject at all.

WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages

A security backdoor that can be used to allow Facebook and others to intercept and read encrypted messages has been found within its WhatsApp messaging service.

Facebook claims that no one can intercept WhatsApp messages, not even the company and its staff, ensuring privacy for its billion-plus users. But new research shows that the company could in fact read messages due to the way WhatsApp has implemented its end-to-end encryption protocol.

Privacy campaigners said the vulnerability is a “huge threat to freedom of speech” and warned it can be used by government agencies to snoop on users who believe their messages to be secure. WhatsApp has made privacy and security a primary selling point, and has become a go to communications tool of activists, dissidents and diplomats.

WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption relies on the generation of unique security keys, using the acclaimed Signal protocol, developed by Open Whisper Systems, that are traded and verified between users to guarantee communications are secure and cannot be intercepted by a middleman. However, WhatsApp has the ability to force the generation of new encryption keys for offline users, unbeknown to the sender and recipient of the messages, and to make the sender re-encrypt messages with new keys and send them again for any messages that have not been marked as delivered.

The recipient is not made aware of this change in encryption, while the sender is only notified if they have opted-in to encryption warnings in settings, and only after the messages have been re-sent. This re-encryption and rebroadcasting effectively allows WhatsApp to intercept and read users’ messages.

Obama gives US intelligence greater access to warrantless data on foreigners

Barack Obama, in one of his final acts on national security, has permitted US intelligence and law enforcement agencies far greater access to raw communications data warrantlessly collected on foreign targets, a move that has alarmed privacy advocates.

Under an executive order, the CIA, FBI and other security agencies will be able to access unfiltered surveillance aimed at foreigners abroad, before information identifying or revealing Americans they may be in contact with gets censored out.

A copy of the 23-page unclassified rulebook was obtained and published on Thursday by the New York Times. The document stated that the changes were being made to enable US intelligence agencies “to conduct their national security missions more effectively”.

The rules do not change the scope of the NSA’s foreign-oriented surveillance dragnets, but they now permit greater unfiltered access to the massive communications databases.

Trump's Pick for Defense Sec. Made Millions in Defense Industry After His 2013 Retirement

European countries mistreating refugees in cold weather, says UN

Refugees and migrants at risk of dying in the severe cold weather sweeping across Europe are being moved back over borders and subjected to violence and confiscations, the UN’s refugee agency has said, as it calls on governments to do more to help.

The UNHCR said at least five refugees had died from the cold weather since the start of the year, as temperatures dropped as low as -14C in parts of Greece, and several countries saw some of the heaviest snowfall in years. ...

The UNHCR has transferred hundreds of people on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chio to warmer accommodation, but there are still more than 2,500 people living in Lesbos’ Moira camp – described on Friday as denying its inhabitants the most basic human dignity. ...

In Serbia, more than 82% of the 7,300 refugees, asylum seekers and migrants were living in heated government shelters, but the UNHCR expressed concern about the situation of 1,200 males, including up to 300 unaccompanied or separated boys, who were sleeping rough in inadequate informal sites in Belgrade city centre. ...

Unicef released data showing that 25,800 unaccompanied and separated children arrived in Italy by sea in 2016, more than double the number who arrived the previous year, leading the charity to call on the British Home Office to take urgent action.

“Just three unaccompanied children were transferred from Italy to the UK last year.

Obama ends 'wet foot, dry foot' policy for Cuban immigrants

President Barack Obama is ending a longstanding immigration policy that allows any Cuban who makes it to US soil to stay and become a legal resident, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy is effective immediately, according the official. The decision follows months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to agree to take back people who had arrived in the US.

The US and Cuba planned to issue a joint statement later Thursday. The official insisted on anonymity in order to detail the change ahead of the announcement.

The official said the Cubans gave no assurances about treatment of those sent back to the country, but said political asylum remains an option for those concerned about persecution if they return.

Obama is using an administrative rule change to end the policy. Donald Trump could undo that rule after becoming president next week. He has criticized Obama’s moves to improve relations with Cuba. But ending a policy that has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to come to the US without a visa also aligns with Trump’s commitment to tough immigration policies.

The DOJ is looking into James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation

The Department of Justice’s internal watchdog is reviewing actions taken at the department and at the FBI during the election, including those regarding the bureau’s investigations of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

The internal review will examine whether FBI Director James Comey broke protocol when he publicly announced just 11 days before Election Day that the agency found more emails that “appear to be pertinent” to the server investigation, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a statement Thursday. ...

The DOJ review will also look at whether the DOJ and the FBI improperly released information to the public shortly before Election Day — specifically, documents responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Bizarre Far-Right Billionaire Behind Trump's Presidency

Rex Tillerson Doesn’t Sound Like a Climate Denier, But He Acts Like One

Climate denial takes on many forms these days, some considerably more subtle than others, and at Wednesday’s hearing Tillerson displayed a mastery of obfuscation that only a son of Exxon Mobil, a chief benefactor of climate denial, could have achieved — ostensibly acknowledging climate change while still denying the need to actually do anything about it that might significantly slow the burning of fossil fuels.

“Years of outright denial has lowered the bar to where someone says, as Tillerson does, ‘Yes I recognize greenhouse gases are causing a change in the atmosphere,’ and people are like, ‘Oh yay, he’s not a denier,’” said Stephen Kretzmann, head of the advocacy group Oil Change International. “I actually think Rex Tillerson is the worst case scenario for secretary of state on climate.”

Those listening to the hearing could be forgiven if they left believing Tillerson had committed to remaining a party to the Paris climate agreement, with its moderate goal of keeping the rise in earth temperature below 3.6 degrees. But his leaky language left plenty of space for promises to fall through. Tillerson said repeatedly that he would push for the U.S. to retain a “seat at the table.” Yet he noted President-elect Trump’s commitment to “America first,” and said that funding for international climate agreements would be reviewed from the “bottom-up.” ...

When Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., asked him to acknowledge the scientific finding that climate change increases the odds that certain types of extreme weather events will occur. Tillerson replied, “There’s some literature out there that suggests that; there’s other literature that says it’s inconclusive.”

Such obtuse answers are a hallmark of the contemporary denial movement and reveal a suspicious lack of enthusiasm about heeding what the most definitive studies say. Tillerson is right that we can’t predict exactly how deeply climate change will unravel us, but the range of possibilities laid out in innumerable studies warn against a wait-and-see attitude.

Jane Fonda: don't fall for 'good-looking liberals' like Trudeau on environment

Actor Jane Fonda has said that people should not be fooled by “good-looking liberals” such as the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who “disappointed” her by approving pipelines from the Alberta oil sands.

Fonda said after touring the oil sands area that environmentalists everywhere were impressed by Trudeau at the Paris climate conference in late 2015.

“We all thought, well, cool guy,” Fonda said. “What a disappointment.”

“He talked so beautifully of needing to meet the requirements of the climate treaty and to respect and hold to the treaties with indigenous people. Such a heroic stance he took there, and yet he has betrayed every one of the things he committed to in Paris.”

Fonda, on a trip organized by Greenpeace, is calling for a stop to pipelines and oil sands development.

“I guess the lesson is we shouldn’t be fooled by good-looking liberals no matter how well-spoken they are,” Fonda said.

All north Indian cities fail to meet air quality standards, report finds

Not a single city in northern India meets international air quality standards, according to a Greenpeace report that estimates air pollution kills more than 1 million Indians each year and takes 3% off the country’s GDP.

The report released this week also shows that levels of the most dangerous airborne pollutants grew by 13% in India between 2010 and 2015 but fell at least 15% over the same period in China, the US and Europe.

It adds to a growing body of research showing the problem of toxic air is not limited only to the Indian capital, Delhi, but afflicts almost all the country’s large cities, particularly in the north.

Air quality data gathered for 2015 from state pollution control boards and under freedom of information laws showed “there are virtually no places in India complying with World Health Organisation and national ambient air quality (NAAQ) standards, and most cities are critically polluted”, the report said.

Also of Interest

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

Meet the Deplorables

Mainstream Media’s Russian Bogeymen

Is Obama Behind the Hit on Trump?

Who’s the Real Manipulator of Elections?

America in Need of ‘Democracy Promotion’

Fed Chair Janet Yellen Channels Bernie Sanders in Speech to Teachers

Cory Booker Joins Senate Republicans to Kill Measure to Import Cheaper Medicine From Canada

EPA Pick Pruitt's "Radical Record" and Abundant Conflicts Probed by Senate Dems

EPA Acknowledges Neonics' Harm to Bees, Then 'Bows to Pesticide Industry'

'Bombshell Revelations' Point to Ongoing Poisoning of Grassy Narrows People

Poisoned, shot and beaten: why cyanide alone may have failed to kill Rasputin

A Little Night Music

Clarence Green And The Rhythmaires - I'm Wondering

Clarence Green - Doin´ It

Clarence Green - Tonk a Lonk

Clarence Green - The Giant Speaks

Clarence Green - The Night Time Is The Right Time

Clarence Green - Guitar Crying The Blues

Clarence Green & the Rhythmaires - Keep a Workin'

Clarence Green - Walking The Baby

Clarence Green & the Rhythmaires - Crazy Strings

Clarence Green & the Rythhmaires - What Happened To Us

Clarence Green - Ground Hog

Clarence Green - Red Light