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“Certainly, I think there is a lot to be gained from people gathering together to show solidarity. But in a world where the institutions that we’re protesting in front of are losing their legitimacy and their power, I’m not sure that this has the impact that it once did. If we think of evil as this one person, this one big event, then we tend to want to match that with one big display of resistance. But actually, if evil is banal – a set of ordinary, mundane decisions day by day – then maybe we have to start living differently day by day.”

-- Mark Davis

News and Opinion

Questions mount over botched Yemen raid approved by Trump

[Surprise!] US military officials say Trump approved counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence or ground support

The US military has launched an investigation into the scale of civilian casualties in a botched special forces raid against a suspected al-Qaida base in Yemen, the first such mission to be approved by Donald Trump, as questions mount over the operation.

After initially denying there had been any civilian casualties in Sunday’s raid, US Central Command (Centcom), which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East and central Asia, acknowledged some of the dead may have included women and children, though claimed some of the women were armed. ...

Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed. Three US special forces were wounded.

The mission was approved over dinner five days after the presidential inauguration by Trump and his closest advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special adviser and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, as well as defence secretary General Jim Mattis.

Both the New York Times and Reuters carried quotes from unnamed military officials that seemed to shift blame for the mission to Trump and his inner team.

The briefings suggested that one thing after another went wrong from the start of the mission, with the Yemen villagers seemingly alerted to the impending raid by drones flying lower than usual.

The special forces, apparently lacking full intelligence, were confronted by heavily-fortified positions, including landmines, and faced heavy gunfire from buildings all around during the 50-minute firefight. One of the US planes sent in to help had to be left behind and was deliberately destroyed.

US military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.

Raid in Yemen: Risky From the Start and Costly in the End

President Barack Obama’s national security aides had reviewed the plans for a risky attack on a small, heavily guarded brick home of a senior Qaeda collaborator in a mountainous village in a remote part of central Yemen. But Mr. Obama did not act because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on a moonless night and the next one would come after his term had ended.

With two of his closest advisers, Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, joining the dinner at the White House along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., Mr. Trump approved sending in the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, hoping the raid early last Sunday would scoop up cellphones and laptop computers that could yield valuable clues about one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups. Vice President Mike Pence and Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, also attended the dinner.

As it turned out, almost everything that could go wrong did. ...

The death of Chief Petty Officer William Owens came after a chain of mishaps and misjudgments that plunged the elite commandos into a ferocious 50-minute firefight that also left three others wounded and a $75 million aircraft deliberately destroyed. There are allegations — which the Pentagon acknowledged on Wednesday night are most likely correct — that the mission also killed several civilians, including some children. The dead include, by the account of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011. ...

The raid, some details of which were first reported by The Washington Post, also destroyed much of the village of Yakla, and left senior Yemeni government officials seething. Yemen’s foreign minister, Abdul Malik Al Mekhlafi, condemned the raid on Monday in a post on his official Twitter account as “extrajudicial killings.”

Ukraine Sabotages Trump’s Russia Detente

Less than two weeks into office, President Trump faces one of the first big tests of his non-confrontational policy toward Russia. As new fighting erupts in Eastern Ukraine, the Kiev regime and its U.S. supporters are predictably demanding a showdown with Vladimir Putin.

Initial evidence suggests, however, that the latest flare-up in this nearly three-year-old conflict was precipitated by Kiev, possibly in the hope of forcing just such a confrontation between Washington and Moscow. It’s looking more and more like a rerun of a disastrous stunt pulled by the government of Georgia in 2008, which triggered a clash with Russia with the expectation that the George W. Bush administration would come to its rescue and bring Georgia into the NATO alliance.

After months of relative quiet, the fighting in Ukraine erupted on Jan. 28 around the city of Avdiivka, a now-decrepit industrial center. Eight pro-government fighters and five separatists apparently died in the first two days of hostilities. Meanwhile, residents of the city are struggling to survive heavy shelling and sub-zero weather with no heating. ...

Poroshenko was quick to take advantage of the clash by asking, rhetorically, “Who would dare talk about lifting the sanctions in such circumstances?” Just last month, Austria’s foreign minister called for an easing of sanctions on Russia in return for “any positive development” in Ukraine. President Trump has been noncommittal about sanctions in the face of full-throated demands by congressional hawks in both parties to keep them in place. ...

It’s hard to see what Putin gains from new fighting, at a time when Trump faces an army of skeptics at home for his go-easy-on-Russia strategy. Poroshenko has everything to gain, on the other hand, by pressing Americans and West Europeans to reaffirm their support for his government, which took power after a 2014 coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, who was strongly supported in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Report: Intelligence on fight against ISIS wasn't falsified - it was "distorted"

An independent Pentagon probe concluded Wednesday that U.S. military leaders didn't falsify intelligence about progress in the fight against the Islamic State group. Still, it found many analysts strongly believed their reports were distorted to paint a more positive picture of the campaign.

The Defense Department's inspector general spent 16 months investigating complaints from intelligence analysts who alleged that senior officials at the U.S. Central Command were reworking reports to offer a more upbeat view of U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria between mid-2014 and the fall of 2015. ...

The allegations by two senior intelligence analysts alleged that leaders were changing reports prompted one of the largest investigations in the Defense Department inspector general's 34-year history. It involved more than 30 personnel, 150 interviews and 17 million documents and files. Approximately 2 million emails were reviewed. ...

"We did not substantiate the most serious allegation, which was that intelligence was falsified," said the document, which totaled 542 pages in its classified form. The publicly released, unclassified version, which was 190 pages, repeatedly stated that witnesses who were interviewed didn't provide any documents to support the falsification claim. ...

It reported a strong perception among analysts that senior leaders attempted to "distort the intelligence products, either through excessive editing, imposition of a narrative, requiring a higher burden of proof for 'bad news,' or demanding additional sourcing requirements if the intelligence indicated that" IS militants were doing well or that the Iraqi security forces were struggling.

Syrian army dash to al-Bab risks Turkey clash

A rapid advance by the Syrian army towards the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab risks sparking a confrontation with Turkey as Damascus seeks to stop its neighbor penetrating deeper into a strategically important area of northern Syria.

Northern Syria is one of the most complicated battlefields of the multi-sided Syrian war, with Islamic State now being fought there by the Syrian army, Turkey and its rebel allies, and an alliance of U.S.-backed Syrian militias.

In less than two weeks, Syrian army units have moved to within 6 km (4 miles) of al-Bab, a city that is also being targeted in a campaign waged by the Turkish military and its allies, groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner.

A source in the military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters on Wednesday the Syrian army aimed to reach al-Bab and was ready "to clash with the FSA fighting" alongside the Turkish army if necessary.

However, the source, a non-Syrian, said the main aim was to frustrate Turkey's ambitions and "to acquire a strong hand in the game unfolding on that front", rather than to provoke an all-out confrontation.

Germany: Erdogan's informants

Steve Bannon: 'We're going to war in the South China Sea ... no doubt'

The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East.

Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.

In the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, Bannon has emerged as a central figure. He was appointed to the “principals committee” of the National Security Council in a highly unusual move and was influential in the recent travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, overruling Department of Homeland Security officials who felt the order did not apply to green card holders. ...

Bannon’s sentiments and his position in Trump’s inner circle add to fears of a military confrontation with China, after secretary of state Rex Tillerson said that the US would deny China access to the seven artificial islands. Experts warned any blockade would lead to war. ...

“You have an expansionist Islam and you have an expansionist China. Right? They are motivated. They’re arrogant. They’re on the march. And they think the Judeo-Christian west is on the retreat,” Bannon said during a February 2016 radio show.

In Response to Steve Bannon Appointment, Bill Aims to Get Politics Out of National Security Council

The top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence introduced new legislation on Wednesday in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to give political strategist Steve Bannon a seat on the White House’s most critical national-security committee. ...

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., announced a bill titled the Strengthening Oversight of National Security Act that would codify the permanent members and structure of the National Security Council, and require a joint congressional resolution to add any member or attendee who has not been confirmed by the Senate – other than a handful of non-political White House staff members.

It would also limit the principals committee to members of the National Security Council. And if someone who is not Senate-confirmed needs to attend for a “one-time decisionmaking action” it would require their name to be shared with Congress within 24 hours.

While the bill doesn’t mention Bannon, it clearly addresses the widespread outrage his appointment to the NSC principals committee triggered. Bannon’s job, like most White House jobs, did not require Senate confirmation. ...

While questions have been raised about whether Bannon’s elevation was actually legal, he won’t be a formal member of the NSC, which would require that his position be confirmed by the Senate. But to include Bannon, with his reputation for toxic and controversial views on race, gender, and religion, invites a heavy dose of politicking unusual for the principals committee. “Every national security decision reached in that room will immediately be subjected to how it can be spun and what’s the political advantage the president can get out of this,” Ted Johnson, the former intelligence community advisor, said during an interview.

'Bad hombres': reports claim Trump spoke of sending troops to Mexico

Donald Trump spoke of sending troops south of the border to take care of “bad hombres” while on the telephone with his Mexican counterpart, according to a transcript cited by the Associated Press.

Trump was said to have made either an offer – or a veiled threat – of the US military weighing in to fight Mexican gangs in a conversation on Friday that Enrique Peña Nieto’s office later described as “constructive”.

According to reports that were apparently based on a leaked White House document, the US president told Peña Nieto: “You have a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

The overall tone of the conversation is unknown and who the “hombres” are is unclear but in a separate report Mexican journalist Dolía Estévez said it referred to drug cartels.

Trump "hangs up" on the Australian prime minister after tense talks

President Donald Trump reportedly berated the Australian prime minister during a phone call Saturday that ended abruptly less than halfway through its scheduled duration. Trump was said to be angry about a deal put in place by former President Obama that guaranteed the U.S. would take 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center — a promise the new president called “the worst deal ever.” ...

According to the Washington Post sources, Trump told Turnbull that if he agreed to take the refugees, he “was going to be killed” politically and went on to suggest that Australia was trying to export the “next Boston bombers.”

When asked about the call, Turnbull refused to give any detail about what was said. “These conversations are conducted candidly, frankly, privately,” Turnbull said on Thursday. “If you see reports of them, I’m not going to add to them.”

However, government sources speaking to Sky News in Australia confirmed that the call was cut short mid-conversation, with Trump being said to have “yelled” at Turnbull. The prime minister reportedly later told his aides: “Trump is a bully.”

Romanian anti-government protests swell as clashes break out in Bucharest

Clashes broke out in Bucharest overnight after a second day of protests saw hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate across Romania against a government decree that many say will blunt anti-corruption efforts and give politicians free rein to commit crimes.

In the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism in 1989, as many as 300,000 people braved sub-zero temperatures to participate in protests across 50 towns and cities, including 150,000 in the capital. There were shouts of “Thieves!” and calls for politicians to be locked up. ...

On Tuesday night the Romanian government passed an emergency ordinance that would, among other things, decriminalise cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage is less than 200,000 lei (£38,000). The decree is due to take effect in a little over one week.

On Wednesday opposition parties filed a no-confidence motion against the government, which is led by the Social Democrats (PSD) and has only been in office a few weeks. The PSD bounced back in elections on 11 December, barely a year since mass protests forced it from office.

Resist or Resign: Facing Grassroots Pressure, Democratic Lawmakers Intensify Fight Against Trump

Heh, DLC rising star Adam Schiff has his undies in a bunch about grassroots uprisings. If corpadem jackasses like Adam Schiff didn't want the base "radicalized" by Trump, then Dems shouldn't have put so much energy into winding up the base by telling them that Trump was a stooge of Putin and a fascist-wannabe dictator.

Trump administration is radicalizing Democratic voters, creating a challenge for the party, Rep. Adam Schiff says

As protests spread over policy announcements from the Trump administration, Democrats must work to encourage participation in politics, but face a danger of the party becoming too radicalized, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said Tuesday.

“The radical nature of this government is radicalizing Democrats, and that’s going to pose a real challenge to the Democratic Party, which is to draw on the energy and the activism and the passion that is out there, but not let it turn us into what we despised about the tea party," Schiff said. ...

Democratic leaders have to channel public reaction to Trump's actions into progress, rather than deadlock, Schiff said.

“We have two of the most capable strategists as the head of our House and Senate Democrats," Schiff added, referring to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Senate Democratic leader Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York.

"If anybody can grapple with this, they can, but it’s going to be a challenging and moving target day to day."

Trump Isn’t Causing Extremism; Neoliberal Extremism Caused Trump

Capitol Hill’s village idiot recently escaped from his adult day care center to do an interview with the LA Times in an article titled “Trump administration is radicalizing Democratic voters, creating a challenge for the party, Rep. Adam Schiff says.” [See excerpt above - js]

What Schiff and his fellow Democratic establishment leaders appear to be missing (apart from cogency, facts, and everything), isn’t just that a desire for a basic social safety net is far from a “radical” idea, it’s that Trump isn’t causing this aggressive rejection of the status quo. He is a product of that rejection, and what's being rejected is far more radical and extremist than anything on either side of it.

There is no force in American politics that is more extremist than the neoliberal establishment. Imagine if we were living in a sane society where everyone was thriving and resources weren’t squandered on stupid things. I think it’s fair to say that that’s the ideal bullseye we’re all shooting for. Then imagine someone came into that society saying, “Hey guys! I’ve got a great idea: let’s take most of your money and resources and give them to a few extremely wealthy owners of multinational corporations and banks! We’ll spend decades funneling all new income to them instead of to you while driving up the cost of healthcare, food, shelter, goods and services for the benefit of those few really rich guys, and we’ll sign a bunch of trade agreements and treaties to help them do this to other countries too. We’ll tax you to create the most powerful military the planet has ever seen, then we’ll use it to leverage other countries into obeying the wishes of those few really rich guys to make them even richer. If they don’t, we’ll send your kids to go kill them and be killed, watching their friends die and becoming exposed to such horrors they’ll be traumatized for life if they don’t commit suicide instead. We’ll keep squeezing you tighter and tighter, taking more and more and more, so that pretty soon eight plutocrats will control more wealth than half the world! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

What bizarre kind of bubble does a politician have to be living in where wanting that is “mainstream” but wanting to be able to pay rent and go to the doctor’s when you’re sick is considered “radical”?

Keiser Report: Post-Obama Era

Homeland Security Inspector General Opens Investigation of Muslim Ban, Orders Document Preservation

Following a request from Congress, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has directed personnel to preserve all documents related to the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order barring travelers from seven Muslim majority countries last weekend as part of an internal investigation into the order’s chaotic roll-out, according to an internal document obtained by The Intercept. ...

The launch of the probe, headed by DHS Inspector General John Roth, follows calls from Illinois senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin earlier this week for a “comprehensive investigation” into the “chaotic execution” of the administration’s order, which separated families around the world and led to mass protests at multiple U.S. airports.

In a letter sent to Roth on Sunday, the lawmakers asked the IG’s office to investigate a number of issues related to the rollout of the order, including what guidance DHS and CBP personnel provided to the White House in developing the order and what directions were provided to CBP officers in implementing it.

The lawmakers also asked the IG to investigate whether CBP officers complied with subsequent court orders, and whether DHS and CBP officers kept a list of individuals that they detained at ports of entry.

Democrats face a choice: resist Trump or face the rage of “The Resistance”

As Donald Trump nominated the conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Tuesday night, the Republican Party presented a unified front praising the choice. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, descended into an increasingly familiar muddle of conflicting messages about how they will oppose the Trump administration.

A loud, active, and growing segment of the Democratic Party’s grassroots want all-out warfare against any nominee who isn’t Judge Merrick Garland — President Barack Obama’s nominee for the seat — while most Democrats in Congress have been far more reserved in their rhetoric. ...

The Democratic base is not so open-minded. Hours before Trump announced his pick, thousands gathered outside Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home demanding the Minority Leader filibuster the choice. “Welcome to the resistance,” one union organizer announced on a megaphone to cheers. The organizers behind the “What the f***, Chuck!?” demonstration also delivered Schumer protein bars so the most powerful Democrat in the country “can regain his strength,” as they put it in their Facebook invite.

The disconnect between some Democratic representatives and many of their voters may be emblematic of the more fundamental disconnect between Washington and the country that became a central theme of the 2016 presidential race, both in Trump’s rise and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Many activists have already said they will follow Sanders’ lead and take on the Democratic Party establishment in the next election. That could mean lawmakers receive primary challenges in 2018 if they decide not to distinguish themselves sufficiently from Trump. If Democrats accede to their base’s wishes for resistance, congressional dysfunction could escalate to levels not seen in generations. ...

But some Democrats argue that being combative and uncompromising could alienate moderate voters that the party will need in the 2018 midterms when they defend 10 Senate seats in states that Trump won. Democratic lawmakers should privately obstruct while being publicly magnanimous, the strategy goes.

Jeff Sessions will be Trump's attorney general — and Democrats are powerless to stop him

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately voted along party lines around noon Wednesday: The 11 Republicans on the committee voted for Sessions, and all nine Democrats voted against. The vote now goes to the full Senate, controlled by Republicans. For Democrats to block his nomination, they’d have to flip three Senate Republicans. Right now, that doesn’t look likely. ...

For Sessions to be officially confirmed as the next attorney general, the full Senate will have to vote for him. That date is yet to be announced.

Democrats are one vote away from sinking Betsy DeVos

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education is in jeopardy. Two key Republican votes in the Senate — Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski — have said they plan to vote against DeVos when her confirmation goes to a vote on the Senate floor.

Because no Democrats have yet indicated that they will vote for DeVos, this means that Vice President Mike Pence would have to break a 50-50 tie in order to get DeVos through the Senate; the Democrats need only one more Republican to jump ship in order to kill DeVos’s nomination entirely. Should her nomination fail, she would be the first Trump Cabinet nominee to be rejected by the Senate. She’s an advocate of school choice who has never worked in education.

Though White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at a press briefing on Wednesday that he is “100 percent confident” that no other Republicans will join Collins and Murkowski, Capitol Hill chatter indicates otherwise. GOP senators said to be considering a “no” vote on Devos include battleground state Republicans like Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. Both have taken five-figure donations from the DeVos family.

Republicans Launch Federal Battle to Undermine Trade Unions

With all eyes on Trump, Republicans are planning to break unions for good

Alternative facts are nothing new; politicians have been making stuff up since they first crawled out of the primordial swamp. One of the most successful lies in modern US politics has been that of “right to work” laws, which break unions under the guise of protecting workers, one of which was introduced in Congress on Wednesday afternoon and will probably break unions in the country for good.

A national right to work law has been a pipe dream of corporate lobbyists, the chamber of commerce, the Koch brothers, and the politicians on their payroll for decades, and is about to become a reality. Right to work laws already exist in more than half the states in the country, where unions are weak or nonexistent, wages are correspondingly low, and workers are correspondingly disposable. In theory, these laws are about guaranteeing workers’ freedom of association. In practice, they’re about keeping workers from forming unions, by making unions financially unsustainable. ...

What right to work laws, including this bill, do is outlaw a specific type of voluntary, private employment contract that employers and employees may agree on. Under this agency shop contract, which must be voted on and approved by a majority of employees, workers agree to pay a fair share provision – a fraction of the dues amount that union members pay – to cover the costs of bargaining and enforcing the workplace contract.

The reason such contracts exist at all is because, under the same 1947 law that banned compulsory union membership, unions are bound by what are called “duties of fair representation”. Under DFRs, they are legally required to provide the same services to everyone in a workplace, such as filing grievances, providing legal counsel, or defending someone if they’re disciplined, whether they are union members or not.

This also assures that everyone gets the same benefits from a union contract: health insurance, vacations, rules that say your boss can’t just fire you if he wakes up one day and decides he doesn’t like your face. The idea is to prevent unions from discriminating against those who choose not to join. Obviously, if you’re going to receive a benefit automatically whether you join or not, the incentive is to free-ride. Agency shop contracts are set up to make sure everyone shares the costs so that those grievances get filed. Right to work laws encourage everyone to free-ride until the union is broke, can’t provide those benefits to anyone, and eventually ceases to exist.

US - Why do Orwell's '1984' sales surge after President Trump's first week in office?

In Show of Internal Dissent, Federal Workers Rising Up Against Trump

From the 1,000 State Department officials rushing to sign an official dissent cable, to the 180 federal workers signing up for a workshop on civil disobedience, to the dozens of "rogue" agency Twitter accounts that have sprouted up in the last week, internal resistance to the right-wing Trump agenda is rivaling the power of people on the streets—perhaps not in numbers, but in energy and creativity.

In fact, according to the Washington Post, which reported on various strains of internal opposition on Tuesday, this "resistance from within" may be "potentially more troublesome to the administration" than airport protests or call-in campaigns. 

"The resistance is so early, so widespread, and so deeply felt that it has officials worrying about paralysis and overt refusals by workers to do their jobs," wrote Post reporters Juliet Eilperin, Lisa Rein, and Marc Fisher.

And it is unique to this moment in history.

"I don't recall any kind of dissent like this happening either in a Democratic or Republican administration—this is clearly unusual," Chris Lu, the former deputy secretary of Labor in the Obama administration, told The Hill on Wednesday. "There is a very powerful dissent that is now coming to the forefront among career employees. It's unusual in my experience to have this, but we are dealing with an unusual president."

A president who, among his first orders of business, put a freeze on federal hiring. "Now," Politico reported at the time, "the president is about to find out how much power these maligned workers have to slow or even short-circuit his agenda."

SCOTUS Nominee Gorsuch Started 'Fascism Forever' Club at Elite Prep School

Conservative judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, started a "Fascism Forever" club while attending his elite all-male prep school, according to news reports.

Michael O'Loughlin, a reporter for America: The Jesuit Review, tweeted a photo of Gorsuch's yearbook entry from his Jesuit-run prep school:

Known to be fiercely conservative at Georgetown Prep School, #Gorsuch joked in yearbook he founded and led "Fascism Forever Club" pic.twitter.com/zrZZ53iP4I

— Michael J O'Loughlin (@MikeOLoughlin) February 1, 2017

According to the U.K. Daily Mail:

The yearbook described the "Fascism Forever Club" as an anti-faculty student group that battled against the "liberal" views of the school administration.

"In political circles, our tireless President Gorsuch's 'Fascism Forever Club' happily jerked its knees against the increasingly 'left-wing' tendencies of the faculty," said the yearbook.

This is not the only aspect of Gorsuch's past to come under scrutiny—along with his judicial record—since Trump announced his nomination in a prime-time address Tuesday night.

His yearbook photos from both Georgetown Prep and Columbia University show him quoting Henry Kissinger:

Gorsuch cites Kissinger in his Columbia yearbook: "The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer." (oy) pic.twitter.com/Kb5NIELfFR

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 1, 2017

Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch Is a Donald Trump-Style Authoritarian

... Trump campaigned as the “law and order candidate,” and was extremely reluctant to hold police accountable for violence. Gorsuch, from his first year on the federal bench, expressed a similar devotion to police impunity.

In a 2006 case, police had caught 22-year-old Ryan Wilson growing marijuana in Lafayette, Colorado. Wilson tried to flee, but an officer tased him in the back of the head and he died of cardiac arrhythmia. ... Wilson’s parents sued for damages, claiming that police had used excessive force. When the case found its way to the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch ruled in favor of the police. “Mr. Wilson was resisting arrest by fleeing from officers after they identified themselves — even if the crime of which he was suspected was not itself a violent one,” Gorsuch wrote for the majority. ...

Gorsuch also ruled that the police were protected by the doctrine of “qualified immunity” – which shields government officials from lawsuits if there is any reasonable uncertainty about whether their actions are legal.

Commentators have pointed to the breadth of “qualified immunity” as a major obstacle to police reform. It has been invoked to protect law enforcement in several recent high-profile cases, like the lawsuits brought by the families of Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice. ...

Gorsuch’s beliefs about qualified immunity for government officials will take on a greater significance at the national level. In addition to insulating police brutality from civil suits, qualified immunity has shielded officials in the Bush administration from lawsuits over the torture program, and has been invoked by the Obama administration to protect the drone program from legal scrutiny.

'One Way or Another': Trump, GOP Threaten 'Nuclear Option' over Gorsuch

President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged Senate Republicans to "go nuclear" and take away Democrats' ability to block his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, as members of his party suggest that is the very path they're willing to take.

That rule change, as The Hill explains, "would allow [Gorsuch's] nomination to move forward with a 51-vote majority, rather than the 60 needed if Gorsuch is filibustered." Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate. CNN notes that "Republicans and Democrats have long resisted [invoking the rule change] as it would change the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees in the future as well."

Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch Is a Down Payment on Trump’s Promise to Overturn Roe v. Wade

In naming Colorado-based appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch as his candidate to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that he’d promised to nominate “the very best judge in the country,” someone who “respects laws” and “loves our Constitution.” Yet Trump has also said he would appoint someone to the high court who would be willing to overturn the court’s 44-year-old landmark ruling that legalized abortion, saying during a debate that “will happen automatically in my opinion because I’m putting pro-life justices on the Court.” ...

Gorsuch, who serves on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is seen as a reliably conservative jurist, and he has had occasion to weigh in on issues involving women’s reproductive rights — notably siding with religious groups who opposed the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. “All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others,” Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. The “ACA’s mandate requires [the plaintiffs] to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong. No one before us disputes that the mandate compels [them] to underwrite payments for drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg.”

More recently, Gorsuch disagreed with his colleagues’ decision to block Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. Herbert’s actions were prompted by the release of video collected surreptitiously by anti-abortion activists that they claimed revealed Planned Parenthood officials engaging in the sale of aborted fetal tissue. (Similar attempts by officials in other states have also been blocked by the courts.) ...

Gorsuch’s record leaves open an important question for women: Would he uphold more than four-decades of precedent or would he vote to overturn Roe? And even if he would, does that mean he’ll have the chance to do so?

Cops arrest 76 at "rogue" Standing Rock camp with help of tribe

Police arrested 76 people Wednesday night near Standing Rock, North Dakota, after pipeline protesters set up a new camp across the highway from the main camp that has been opposing the Dakota Access project.

Police say they moved in on the “rogue” group because they were on private land.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe “coordinated with law enforcement” to remove the camp, the Morton County Sheriff’s office said in a statement. The arrests Tuesday bring the total number to nearly 700 since August 10.

In a statement, Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II said the new camp, the Last Child Camp, “undermines” the tribe’s fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which he said is no longer being waged on the ground, but instead in federal court. In mid-January, the Standing Rock tribe voted to ask the protesters to leave the main camp, Oceti Sakowin, which was established in April.

Donald Trump 'taking steps to abolish Environmental Protection Agency'

Donald Trump will work towards the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency – and any employees cleaving to the Obama era should be “very worried” by the prospect of Scott Pruitt taking over the agency, a key aide of the president has told the Guardian.

In an exclusive interview, Myron Ebell – who headed up Trump’s EPA transition team, said that agency’s environmental research, reports and data would not be removed from its website, but climate education material might be changed or “withdrawn”.

Ebell also signalled that a review of fuel efficiency standards for cars, rushed through by the departing Obama administration, is likely to be reopened despite its contribution to the US’s pledged emissions cuts in the Paris agreement.

A campaign stump pledge by Trump to scrap the EPA in its entirety was “an aspirational goal” that would be best achieved by incremental demolition rather than an executive order, according to Ebell.

“To abolish an agency requires not only thought but time because you have to decide what to do with certain functions that Congress has assigned to that agency,” he said.

“President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA or ‘leave a little bit’. It is a goal he has and sometimes it takes a long time to achieve goals. You can’t abolish the EPA by waving a magic wand.”

'A Vote for Climate Disaster': Senate Confirms Tillerson as Secretary of State

The U.S. Senate has confirmed former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, revealing "just how much fossil fuel industry money has corrupted Congress," as climate group 350.org put it.

The 56-43 vote went largely along party lines, but got some Democratic support, including from Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), and Mark Warner (Va.), as well as Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine)—the same non-Republican quartet who allowed Tillerson to advance on Tuesday.

"A vote for Rex Tillerson is a vote for climate disaster," said May Boeve, 350 executive director. "Negotiating oil deals with human-rights abusing heads of state does not qualify you to lead international diplomacy. The fight against Tillerson's nomination revealed just how much fossil fuel industry money has corrupted Congress."

"In the face of this corruption, we all must come together to fight for the renewable energy revolution and an economy that works for all of us," she said.

Despite the marginally bipartisan support, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out that Tillerson also received the highest "no" vote of any secretary of state candidate since at least World War II.

Also of Interest

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

American institutions won't keep us safe from Donald Trump's excesses

Totalitarianism in the age of Trump: lessons from Hannah Arendt

Should Progressives Let Corporate Democrats Lead and Be the Face Of the Resistance?

The next national crisis: Trump versus veterans at Standing Rock

How We the People Were Screwed by Obama’s Bogus “Recovery”

Trump Executive Order Threatens Foreign Students. How Will Their Universities Respond?

Billionaire Trump Adviser Peter Thiel Bought His New Zealand Citizenship, Documents Show

Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul in a Steel Cage Death Match

Another Right-Wing Power Player Emerges From the Shadows

Trump doctor reveals secret to US president's hair

A Little Night Music

Sam Lay - Sloppy Drunk

Sam Lay w/Siegell Schwall Band - Poison Ivy

Sam Lay Blues Band - Asked Her For Water

Sam Lay - Maggie's Farm

Sam Lay Blues Band - Blues With A Feelin'

Sam Lay Blues Band - Reelin' And Rockin'

Sam Lay with Siegel Schwall - It Was My Fault

Sam Lay Blues Band - Blow Wind Blow

Sam Lay with Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues - Worried Life Blues