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This evening's music features Texas cajun guitarist and singer Clarence 'Bon-Ton' Garlow. Enjoy!

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

-- Harry Truman

News and Opinion

Republican Lawmakers in Five States Propose Bills to Criminalize Peaceful Protest

In some states, non-violent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks — including punishing fines and significant prison terms — for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience. Over the past few weeks, Republican legislators across the country have quietly introduced a number of proposals to criminalize and discourage peaceful protest. ...

In North Dakota, for instance, Republicans introduced a bill last week that would allow motorists to run over and kill any protester obstructing a highway as long as a driver does so accidentally. In Minnesota, a bill introduced by Republicans last week seeks to dramatically stiffen fines for freeway protests and would allow prosecutors to seek a full year of jail time for protesters blocking a highway. Republicans in Washington state have proposed a plan to reclassify as a felony civil disobedience protests that are deemed “economic terrorism.” Republicans in Michigan introduced and then last month shelved an anti-picketing law that would increase penalties against protestors and would make it easier for businesses to sue individual protestors for their actions. And in Iowa a Republican lawmaker has pledged to introduce legislation to crack down on highway protests. ...

The anti-protesting bills have alarmed civil liberties watchdogs.

“This trend of anti-protest legislation dressed up as “obstruction” bills is deeply troubling,” said Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who views such bills as violations of the First Amendment. “A law that would allow the state to charge a protester $10,000 for stepping in the wrong place, or encourage a driver to get away with manslaughter because the victim was protesting, is about one thing: chilling protest.”

Indiana bill would allow police to shut down protests 'by any means necessary'

A bill that would require public officials in Indiana to dispatch law enforcement swiftly to remove any protesters blocking traffic by “any means necessary” prompted uproar on Wednesday.

Opponents of the bill, introduced by a Republican state senator, rushed to the general assembly in Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon to attend a hearing for the legislation, arguing that it could give a green light to the police to shut down protests harshly “even to the point of costing lives”.

It's Indiana SB285. Block Traffic and You Die bill. Hearing at 1:30. #INlegis #BLM #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/u3K1s2efvk

— S.E.B. MD (@ircrc) January 18, 2017

The legislation was introduced by Republican senator Jim Tomes, who is known for his conservative agenda. His efforts have included making it easier for drunk drivers to get a gun license and a proposal to jail transgender people for up to a year if they are caught using public bathrooms matching their gender identity instead of the gender on their birth certificate.

On Final Day of Obama Presidency, a Look at His Mixed Legacy & the Rise of Neo-Fascism in Washington

The number of bombs our Nobel laureate president dropped in 2016 is stunning

When President Barack Obama was running for office, he promised to scale back American military involvement around the world. Though fewer Americans have died in combat during his administration than under his predecessor George W. Bush, he didn’t keep his promise. ... Now, the Council on Foreign Relations has calculated an estimate of the number of bombs that were dropped by the United States in 2016. They put the number at 26,171 bombs, which were dropped in ... seven countries. ...

In fact, more than 24,500 bombs were dropped in countries that Congress did not give the Obama administration permission to wage war against, including Syria, Iraq, and Libya. ...

Simply put, the Obama administration’s war against ISIS is illegal under the Constitution. It is also illegal under the War Powers Resolution that only allows a president to commit military forces to combat for 60 days unless specifically authorized by Congress. Yet the bombs continue to fly.

Obama Finally Commutes Manning’s Sentence After Torturing And Nearly Killing Her

I am happy that Chelsea Manning’s inhuman treatment is scheduled to end on May 17th. I am grateful that her brilliant, caring mind will no longer be brutalized at the hands of cruel oppressors seeking to make an example out of whistleblowers to deter people from letting Americans see the truth about their government. But I am not grateful to Barack Obama for commuting her sentence. Gratitude is not something one receives for ceasing to torture someone. Criminals don’t get praised for the crimes they choose not to commit; you don’t shower a serial rapist with thanks and praise for not raping more.

In terms of what’s left of his legacy, all that Obama gets from me is one less thing to hate him for. When I’m going to bed at night, there will be one less thing on my extremely long list of evil things that he has done for me to rage about. He’s still the guy who got Chelsea Manning tortured and nearly killed. He’s still the guy who chose to let her rot in isolation long after the United Nations special rapporteur on torture Juan E. Mendez stated unequivocally that Manning’s treatment was “cruel, inhuman and degrading” and after 295 legal scholars signed a letter declaring that she was being “detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.” He’s still the guy who left her in that hell hole after not one but two suicide attempts. He’s still the guy who promised to protect whistleblowers and have the most transparent administration in history, then went on to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. The man is evil, and his ceasing to inflict more evil in this one particular area does not change that.

I hate Barack Obama. I hate him even more than I hated Bush, because at least Bush was straightforward about being a warmongering neocon. Obama exploited all progressives’ best attributes to spend eight years continuing and expanding all of Bush’s worst policies, exploited our hope, our sympathy, our trusting nature, all to continue spreading murder and chaos abroad and leeching the life out of the 99 percent to benefit the oligarchy at home. I hate him, and I’m not going to stop just because he decided to finally stop torturing an American hero.

It’s important for progressives to get super clear as soon as possible that this man has never been one of us. He campaigned on lies for the benefit of everything we oppose, and unless we put our foot down we’ll (at best) be stuck with another fauxgressive like Elizabeth Warren running against Trump in 2020, who will do all the same things Obama did. We need to start insisting on real human beings who care about real human beings leading us, our country and our world.

US must release Abu Ghraib photos, judge says

The U.S. Department of Defense must release a cache of photos showing how Army personnel treated detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison and other sites in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan said the release was proper because departing Defense Secretary Ash Carter failed to show why publishing the photos would endanger Americans deployed outside the United States.

Hellerstein’s decision is a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil and veterans rights groups whose lawsuit seeking the photos under the federal Freedom of Information Act began in 2004.

Photos depicting abuse at Abu Ghraib began to emerge in 2004, with some detainees claiming to have endured physical and sexual abuse, electric shocks and mock executions.

The number of photos sought in the lawsuit has not been disclosed but has been estimated at roughly 2,000, according to the Congressional Record and court papers.

Obama’s Pardon of Gen. James Cartwright Is a New Twist in the War on Leaks

Late last year, Marine General James Cartwright pled guilty to lying to the FBI about disclosing classified information on the Stuxnet computer virus to reporters from The New York Times and Newsweek. The former general, a vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was known as Obama’s “favorite general,” was due to be sentenced this month on felony charges. Prosecutors were seeking a two-year prison term. ...

The Cartwright pardon constitutes a new precedent in which a well-connected leaker of classified information who lied to the FBI has been spared jail time. In 2015, former general David Petraeus admitted to sharing top secret information with his biographer and girlfriend, Paula Broadwell, and lying to the FBI about it. Petraeus, who resigned from his job as CIA director when the scandal broke, negotiated a deal to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count, accepted 18 months of probation, and avoided a prison sentence.

At the time of the Petraeus plea deal, lawyers for several convicted leakers expressed outrage that Petraeus was permitted to avoid incarceration for crimes that were arguably far worse than their clients were incarcerated for. .... The Petraeus deal was cited in pleadings that Abbe Lowell and lawyers for another convicted leaker, Jeffrey Sterling, made to their respective judges, arguing that justice had to be meted out equally, and that their clients had received far harsher treatment (the appeals were unsuccessful, though). The Cartwright case adds another data point for future leak cases. There is not just the Petraeus plea deal that can be cited, but the Cartwright pardon, too.

“The clemency and pardons today underscore the uneven enforcement and completely unequal treatment of people accused of leaking classified information,” Lowell told The Intercept after the Cartwright and Manning decisions were announced.

SEAL Team 6 Responds to The Intercept’s Investigation of Its War Crimes

The commander of SEAL Team 6 has circulated a memo, obtained by The Intercept, to members of the command in response to The Intercept’s two-year investigation into the unit’s war crimes and subsequent cover-ups. In the memo, the commander claimed the article was “full of grievous, accusatory claims” and allegations that had been “previously investigated and determined to be not substantiated.” ...

The commander’s letter does not dispute any facts or details in our January 10 report, which describes, in detail, accounts provided by former SEAL Team 6 leaders of what they believed were war crimes committed by members of the unit in Afghanistan and Iraq that were largely ignored or covered up by senior officers.

The memo obtained by The Intercept advised military personnel to avoid commenting on or acknowledging “The Crimes of SEAL Team 6,” even “among yourselves or with others via personal electronic devices,” in order to “maintain the highest OPSEC posture and limit the spread of the article.” ...

The Intercept’s investigation was the result of interviews with 18 former and current members of SEAL Team 6, as well as other military and intelligence officials who served with or investigated the unit.

FBI, 5 other agencies probe possible covert Kremlin aid to Trump

The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said.

Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.

The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. ...

The BBC reported that the FBI had obtained a warrant on Oct. 15 from the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing investigators access to bank records and other documents about potential payments and money transfers related to Russia. One of McClatchy’s sources confirmed the report.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard makes unannounced trip to Syria

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who has charged the Obama administration with funneling money to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria, visited Damascus this week on what her office called a “fact-finding trip . . . to promote and work for peace.”

Gabbard’s office, which did not announce the trip, said that for security reasons it would release no details on the trip until her return, including whether she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ...

A member of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, Gabbard has called for the administration to abandon all assistance to armed groups and stop seeking Assad’s overthrow, saying that the effort undermines the fight against the Islamic State there.

The views coincide with those of President-elect Donald Trump, who has said the fight against the militants should take priority and has called for cooperation with Russia, Assad’s principal foreign backer.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, visited Trump in New York after the election. They had a “frank and positive conversation in which we discussed a variety of foreign policy issues in depth,” she told CNN.

She said Trump had requested the meeting to talk about Syria and counter­terrorism.

US planes strike Isis training camps in Libya after declaring end to bombing

US warplanes have again struck Islamic State targets in Libya, a month after Washington declared a successful conclusion to its air campaign there.

B-2 bombers and drones attacked and destroyed two Isis training camps 45km south-west of Sirte, the Pentagon said on Thursday. Also targeted were unnamed fighters who the outgoing press secretary, Peter Cook, said “fled to the remote desert camps from Sirte in order to reorganize”. ...

The airstrikes did not appear to signal the resumption of a sustained air campaign, but Cook said that the US “remains prepared to further support Libyan efforts to counter terrorist threats and to defeat Isil in Libya”, using an alternative acronym for the group also known as Daesh and Isis.

It is likely to be the last wave of military strikes under the presidency of Barack Obama, who committed US airpower to toppling dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Gaddafi’s death left a vacuum that Libyan politicians have struggled to fill. Into the void has stepped Isis, which overran swaths of territory including the port city of Sirte.

Iraq's military has retaken half of Mosul from ISIS

Iraq’s military says it has retaken the eastern side of Mosul from the Islamic State group, a critical milestone in its battle to drive the terror organization from the country’s second-largest city.

Lt.-Gen. Talib Shaghati, head of Iraq’s elite counterterrorism service, told journalists Wednesday that his forces had seized control of the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which divides the ancient city from north to south, Reuters reported.

Regular army soldiers are still fighting pockets of ISIS militants holed up in the northeast of the city, according to a military statement.

Once home to more than 2 million people, Mosul has been one of biggest jewels in the terror group’s crown, both symbolically and strategically. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of his so-called “caliphate” in the city’s Great Mosque in June 2014.

Rashid Khalidi: Obama's Condemnation of Israeli Occupation Doesn't Match His Last 8 Years in Office

North Korean ICBM test looking more likely, says South

North Korea may be preparing to test-launch an upgraded prototype of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), South Korea has warned.

In his new year’s speech the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, boasted a test launch would happen soon and state media has said a launch could come at any time. Experts on the regime’s missile programme believe the claims to be credible.

That test launch could coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump as president on Friday, South Korean media said.

US allies, adversaries unnerved in pondering Trump foreign policy

Germany says boosting defense spending, demands clear U.S. agenda

Germany, under fire from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for not meeting NATO's defense spending goal, is boosting military budgets, but also wants Trump to map out a consistent foreign policy agenda, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said.

Trump sparked concern among NATO and EU foreign ministers on Monday when he said NATO was obsolete and criticized NATO members that failed to meet the alliance's target of spending two percent of national output on defense. ...

Von der Leyen said Germany was boosting military spending by nearly 2 billion euros in 2017 to 37 billion euros, or 1.22 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). It is due to reach 39.2 billion euros by 2020.

"We're moving in the right direction, but we can't do it in one year," she told NTV.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in November she did not expect Germany to meet its NATO defense spending target in the near future.

Hundreds of thousands of retired Britons in EU 'may be forced to return'

Hundreds of thousands of elderly Britons living in Europe may be forced to return to the UK unless the government guarantees that their healthcare will continue to be reimbursed by the NHS, campaigners for British people settled in Spain and France have warned.

The House of Commons Brexit select committee was told on Wednesday that an unintended consequence of Brexit could be a surge in immigration of British migrants both working and retired.

Groups campaigning for the rights of Britons settled in Europe told the committee that many pensioners in countries such as Spain and France would not be able to afford private health insurance if the current system was jettisoned post-Brexit.

“They may have no alternative but to come back,” said Sue Wilson, one of the founders of the Remain in Spain group.

The committee was also told there could be an exodus of professionals whose right to practise law, medicine or other disciplines would no longer be recognised if a deal was not done. They heard that in Italy alone 383 professions were legally recognised.

Trump’s transition looks an awful lot like crony capitalism

From the apparent backroom deals with individual companies, to pushing the limits of anti-nepotism laws, to installing superrich and inexperienced political allies in his Cabinet, Trump’s transition has set the stage for a sharp turn away from the rules and norms that have long defined how the U.S. economy — and, in turn, the U.S. itself — has been run for a half-century or more. And in its place, something else appears to be emerging, a system based on, well, cronies.

“Trump is consciously or unconsciously creating the conditions in which crony capitalism or outright corruption could thrive,” says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The danger, economists say, is that the emerging Trump system not only risks corruption but also could damage the basic mechanics of the American economy, creating stronger incentives for companies to focus their efforts on gaining favor with the government rather than winning customers through efficiency and innovation.

Economists call such behavior “rent-seeking.” (A rent, in classic economics, is an unearned financial benefit that’s higher than would have been gained in a competitive market.) A certain amount of rent-seeking is a feature of most economies — in the U.S., we call it lobbying. But if unchecked, rent-seeking can grow to a point where it warps a healthy market economy into a system of crony capitalism. ...

Such a market involves a small set of people receiving an unfair advantage because of personal relationships “based on trust, loyalty, family, and long-standing social networks,” according to one academic primer on the subject. In that 2014 paper, authors Paul Dragos Aligica and Vlad Tarko also note that crony capitalism’s “key distinguishing feature is that the prevailing rent-seeking structure is legitimized by means of a populist ideology.”

It’s not hard to see the hallmarks of crony capitalism potentially taking form in the nascent Trump administration.

Senate panel approves Mattis for Defense secretary

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved the selection of retired Gen. James Mattis to be Defense secretary, setting him up to be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated and officially nominates him.

The committee voted 26-1 to recommend Mattis to the full chamber, meaning the nomination will be sent straight to the Senate without referral to the committee, according a committee statement. The lone “no” vote came from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). ...

Mattis retired in 2013. The law requires Defense secretaries be out of uniform for at least seven years. But Congress passed a waiver last week that allows Mattis to bypass that law.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe on HHS Nominee Tom Price's "Cruel" Plans to Repeal the Affordable Care Act

Tom Price says people on Obamacare will be fine without it

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services insisted Wednesday that the millions of Americans who currently rely on Obamacare for their health insurance would be fine if the law gets repealed without a replacement.

“I think there has been a lot of talk about individuals losing health coverage, and that is not our goal nor our desire,” Georgia congressman Tom Price told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. It is “imperative” for those who have health coverage now to be able to keep it, Price added, but also for people to be able to choose their own health insurance on the individual market.

He did not provide details about how that arrangement would work. ...

Throughout the hearing, Democratic senators on the committee hammered Price about his desire to repeal the ACA in the absence of a proposed program to replace it. Price denied that a repeal would cause millions to lose their health insurance.

Price also voiced his support for slashing funding to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. These views are in apparent opposition to those of Trump, who repeatedly promised during his campaign that he would not cut those benefits.

Apparently, "potential grizzlies" must be much more dangerous than the real thing.

UPDATE: Teacher at Wyoming school Betsy DeVos said needed guns to shoot "grizzlies" says that's "absolutely" untruehttps://t.co/dWneudD0Tf pic.twitter.com/oVb8kEdAgL

— Tom McKay (@thetomzone) January 18, 2017

Betsy DeVos is confused by basic questions about education policy

Even after more than three hours of questioning before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Tuesday night, we didn’t learn much about Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education’s actual views on education.

In fact, at various points, Republican donor and activist Betsy DeVos seemed to have thin knowledge about key issues facing the department she would lead in Trump’s administration.

To start, when asked for her thoughts on using test scores as a measure of student proficiency or growth by Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken, DeVos didn’t seem to understand the difference, much less provide an informative response about which she would prioritize as head of the Department of Education.

Sen. Al Franken discovers Trump Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos doesn't know the difference between proficiency and growth. pic.twitter.com/QFQchwHhuc

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 18, 2017

Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine also pressed DeVos about whether schools, like charters, that don’t meet requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, a federal law, should still receive federal funding. Again, DeVos deflected the question with a response about states’ rights. When she returned to the subject later on, however, she admitted that she was “confused” earlier.

DNC Chair Candidate Tom Perez Refuses to Support Ban on Corporate Money and Lobbyists

Labor Secretary Tom Perez, one of the leading candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee, has stumbled in recent days when asked about his position on money in politics.

Asked at a DNC forum in Phoenix last Saturday whether he will “revive President Obama’s ban on corporate donations to the DNC” and a ban on appointing lobbyists as party leaders, Perez demurred.

“It’s actually not that simple a question,” Perez responded, adding that such a move might have “unintended consequences.” Perez argued that such a ban might impact “union members who are lobbyists,” though the question explicitly only addressed corporate lobbyists.

Speaking to the Huffington Post, Perez has refused to clarify his position on resurrecting President Obama’s ban on lobbyist donations to the DNC, which was overturned by former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., during Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

DNC leadership debate: candidates tout credentials as progressive Democrats

The seven candidates vying to become the de facto leader of the Democratic party took the stage in Washington DC on Wednesday night to debate how best to take the fight for Donald Trump, as the capital prepared for his inauguration as the 45th president of the United States on Friday. ...

Representative Keith Ellison, a grassroots organizer from Minnesota who endorsed Bernie Sanders during the primary, is considered one of the frontrunners in the race. Tom Perez, who was a surrogate for Clinton and an ally of labor, is viewed as his chief rival for the job.

But if there were lingering tensions between the competing factions, the candidates sought to mute them during the 90-minute debate, stressing that Democrats are unified in the fight against Trump and not locked in the epochal intra-party battle that erupted during the primary race between Sanders and Clinton.

Ellison praised Perez’s achievements as labor secretary, and said that if he was elected he would “absolutely” push Sanders, who ran as a Democrat but sits in Congress as an independent, to share his vast donor base with the party. ...

In perhaps a telling sign of where the party sees its future, every hand shot up when the candidates were asked which of them considered themselves a “progressive”. ...

During the wide-ranging debate, the candidates largely agreed with one another on the right path forward for the party, arguing for a return to the 50-state model, an effort to build the party’s infrastructure at every level of government in every state as opposed to just focusing on the ones they are most likely to win. They also endorsed changes to the primary process that would help make it more transparent to members. ...

The next leader will be chosen by the 447 members of the DNC at a meeting in Atlanta at the end of February.

Holy shit! Missile launchers. Really? Oh, it's ok, they say it's to "maintain public safety."

Christ on a rubber crutch, who the fuck is in charge of making decisions about public safety? It's time to fire the bastard.

DAPL Tensions Heat Up as National Guard Deploys 'Observational' Missile Launchers

The National Guard has deployed missile launchers to a "critical" Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) site, while the pipeline's parent company seeks to quash an environmental review of the project—two developments that hint at the possibility of renewed tensions between DAPL's opponents and state authorities.

Reports emerged Tuesday that the National Guard had sent two surface-to-air missile launchers to a "critical work site" for the controversial pipeline, which water protectors said appeared to be guarding a drill pad. National Guard spokesman William Prokopyk told the Daily Beast the missiles were not armed and had no authorization to be, with the Morton County Sheriff's Department adding in a Facebook statement that they were "strictly for observation of ungoverned encampments to help protect private property and maintain public safety."

Still, the presence of military weapons is likely to increase tensions between authorities and the Standing Rock Sioux, who have camped out at the North Dakota construction sites for months to prevent the pipeline from being completed. At least three people were arrested and tear-gassed earlier this week during a prayer walk at the proposed Missouri River drill site near Cannon Ball.

Law enforcement and private security teams have been lambasted for their violent crackdowns on the peaceful protesters, including using attack dogs and impact munitions.

Congress moves to give away national lands, discounting billions in revenue

In the midst of highly publicized steps to dismantle insurance coverage for 32 million people and defund women’s healthcare facilities, Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans’ birthright: 640m acres of national land. In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens.

At stake are areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forests and Federal Wildlife Refuges, which contribute to an estimated $646bn in economic stimulus from recreation on federal lands and 6.1m jobs. Transferring these lands to the states, critics fear, could decimate those numbers by eliminating mixed-use requirements, limiting public access and turning over large portions for energy or property development.

According to the Outdoor Alliance, US public land is the government’s second largest source of income after taxes. In addition to economic stimulus in outdoor activities, federal land also creates revenue through oil and gas production, logging and other industrial uses. According to the BLM, in 2016, it made $2bn in royalty revenue from federal leases.

Ignoring those figures, the new language for the House budget, authored by Utah Republican representative Rob Bishop, who has a history of fighting to transfer public land to the states, says that federal land is effectively worthless. ... Essentially, the revised budget rules deny that federal land has any value at all, allowing the new Congress to sidestep requirements that a bill giving away a piece of federal land does not decrease federal revenue or contribute to the federal debt. ...

This latest effort comes on the heels of a bill adopted in 2016 that directs the Department of Agriculture to transfer 2m acres of eligible Forest Service lands to each state.

China builds world's biggest solar farm in bid to become green superpower

High on the Tibetan plateau, a giant poster of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, guards the entrance to one of the greatest monuments to Beijing’s quest to become a clean energy colossus. To Xi’s right, on the road leading to what is reputedly the biggest solar farm on earth, a billboard greets visitors with the slogan: “Promote green development! Develop clean energy!”

Behind him, a sea of nearly 4m deep blue panels flows towards a spectacular horizon of snow-capped mountains – mile after mile of silicon cells tilting skywards from what was once a barren, wind-swept cattle ranch. ... The remote, 27-square-kilometre solar farm tops an ever-expanding roll call of supersized symbols that underline China’s determination to transform itself from climate villain to green superpower.

Built at a cost of about 6bn yuan (£721.3m) and in almost constant expansion since construction began in 2013, Longyangxia now has the capacity to produce a massive 850MW of power each year – enough to power up to 200,000 households – and stands on the front line of a global photovoltaic revolution being spearheaded by a country that is also the world’s greatest polluter.

Costs have since plummeted and by 2020 China – which is now the world’s top clean energy investor – hopes to be producing 110GW of solar power and 210GW of wind power each year as part of an ambitious plan to slash pollution and emissions. By 2030, China has pledged to increase the amount of energy coming from non-fossil fuels to 20% of the total.

Activists now hope Beijing will up the ante once again following Trump’s shock election. Amid fears the billionaire US president will water down attempts by his predecessor, Barack Obama, to fight global warming, campaigners are calling on China’s rulers to seize the mantle and position their country as the world’s number one climate leader. ... That campaigners are now looking to China for green leadership underlines the once unimaginable changes that have taken place in recent years.

Donald Trump’s mission? To keep the US in the fossil age

Make America Wait Again. That is what Donald Trump’s energy policy amounts to. Stop all the clocks, put the technological revolution on hold, ensure that the transition from fossil fuels to clean power is delayed for as long as possible.

Trump is the president that corporate luddites have dreamed of: the man who will let them squeeze every last cent from their oil and coal reserves before they become worthless. They need him because science, technology and people’s demands for a safe and stable world have left them stranded. There is no fair fight that they can win, so their last hope lies with a government that will rig the competition.

To this end, Trump has appointed to his cabinet some of those responsible for a universal crime: inflicted not on particular nations or groups, but on everyone. ...

In their careers so far, members of Trump’s proposed cabinet have championed the fossil fuel industry while contesting the measures intended to prevent climate breakdown. They appear to have considered the need of a few exceedingly rich people to protect their foolish investments for a few more years, weighed it against the benign climatic conditions that have allowed humanity to flourish, and decided that the foolish investments are more important. ...

Trump’s appointments reflect what I call the Pollution Paradox. The more polluting a company is, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it is not regulated out of existence. Campaign finance therefore comes to be dominated by dirty companies, ensuring that they wield the greatest influence, crowding out their cleaner rivals. Trump’s cabinet is stuffed with people who owe their political careers to filth.

Also of Interest

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

Bacevich and Mearsheimer on Obama’s Legacy

Chinese Billionaire Says US Wasted Trillions on Wars and Wall Street

How statistics lost their power – and why we should fear what comes next

WikiLeaks Founder’s Fate Uncertain Following Chelsea Manning Commutation

Will Judith Miller Ever Live It Down?

CIA unveils new rules for collecting information on Americans

Trump Education Nominee Betsy DeVos Lied to the Senate

Democrats Can Unite When Centrists Stop Being Crazy Idiots

How liberal leaders in cities and states across US are planning to thwart Trump

Democrats need to stop throwing everything they can at Trump

Liberal coders are competing to take out the technology that helped elect Trump

John Kerry’s Big Lie and the US’s Opposition to the Two-State Solution

A Little Night Music

Clarence Garlow - Bon Ton Roula

Clarence Garlow - She's So Fine

Clarence Garlow - Blues As You Like It

Clarence Garlow - I'm In A Boogie Mood

Clarence Garlow - Sound The Bell

Clarence 'Bon-Ton' Garlow - I'm Hurt

Clarence Garlow - Jolie Tee Catin

Clarence Garlow - Carry On

Clarence Garlow - Jumpin' For Joy

Clarence Garlow - Route 90

Clarence Garlow - No No Baby

Clarence 'Bon-Ton' Garlow - New Bon Ton Roulay