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This evening's music features blues singer, songwriter and harmonica player Little Junior Parker. Enjoy!

"The system the deep state primarily serves is not the United States of America, i.e., the country most Americans believe they live in; the system it serves is globalized Capitalism. The United States, the nation state itself, while obviously a crucial element of the system, is not the deep state’s primary concern. If it were, Americans would all have healthcare, affordable education, and a right to basic housing, like more or less every other developed nation."

-- CJ Hopkins

News and Opinion

US has provided $315m in financing to supplier of mines accused of slave labor

An obscure US government agency has provided $315m in taxpayer-supported financing over the past decade to a company that has supplied equipment to African mines accused of slave labor, human rights violations and environmental destruction.

Between 2007 and 2015, the US Export-Import Bank provided 48 insurance policies to the New Jersey-headquartered Connell Company to pursue deals with at least 17 mining companies in seven sub-Saharan countries. These included a $20,000 policy to supply equipment to the Bisha copper mine in Eritrea, which is being investigated by a Canadian court amid accusations of slavery, according to an investigation of the bank by the Guardian and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Energy and Environment Reporting Project. ...

Nevsun Resources, the Canadian mining company that controls Bisha, faces a lawsuit in which 30 plaintiffs allege that the mine engaged two Eritrean state-run contractors and the army to force hundreds of military conscripts to work there under abhorrent conditions.

“The financing that Connell is getting is quite significant,” said Doug Norlen, director of economic policy for Friends of the Earth US. “Whether it’s loans or insurance, the same obligations exist to carry out human rights due diligence. Some of these projects are associated with some pretty serious human rights abuses.”

Portugal to extradite ex-CIA agent to Italian jail

A former CIA agent will be handed over to Italy in the coming days to serve a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of involvement in a U.S. program that kidnapped suspects for interrogation, a lawyer said Tuesday.

Sabrina de Sousa spent the night in a women's prison near Lisbon after a Portuguese court ordered police to extradite her, her Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Magalhaes e Silva, told the Associated Press in an interview.

He said she was detained Monday after a two-year fight against extradition and would be put on a plane once formalities between Portuguese and Italian police were concluded.

De Sousa, 61, was among 26 Americans convicted of kidnapping suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nas, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003. She denied involvement in the abduction.

Oh my, what is this, are our sensors picking up signs of life in some Democrats, maybe even something that might loosely be called a pulse?

Lawmakers to Trump: End unchecked war powers

Twelve House Democrats and one Republican are calling on President Donald Trump to formally declare war against the Islamic State and submit a resolution to Congress that limits his war powers — a request that is not likely to be heeded.

The letter, led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and obtained by POLITICO, comes as the Pentagon is considering options for ramping up its nearly three-year campaign against ISIL and follows a request by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan for thousands more troops in a war against the Taliban now entering its 16th year. ...

Lawmakers are urging Trump to submit a draft war resolution that provides “specific information on the geographic, combatant and tactical scope” of the war against ISIL. They are also asking for it to include a sunset provision and repeal the 2001 AUMF that authorized force against those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The 2001 resolution, they write, “has served as a blank check for war.”

A humanitarian crisis in Yemen

Syria peace talks: is there any hope for an end to six years of war?

When the UN’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, reconvenes the Syrian peace talks in the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Thursday, he will be facing a recast geopolitical landscape since he brought the warring sides together in the same city last year.

Back in February 2016 there was a degree of quiet optimism in western diplomatic circles that Russia felt it had secured its chief strategic goal. By intervening militarily in September 2015 to save Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin had made himself indisputably the key player in Syria and, as a result, might be ready to deliver a conciliatory Syrian government delegation to the talks. ...

Since then, little has happened on the ground, or among the circling constellation of national actors, to suggest the Syrian government delegation, led by the austere Bashar Jaafari, has reached Geneva believing it needs to be any more flexible than it was in 2016. ... When Assad now talks of regaining every inch of Syrian territory from the terrorists, he no longer sounds totally deluded, even if he is heavily dependent on Iranian-backed militia to achieve this.

“One thing I’m missing at the moment ... is a clear US strategy,” De Mistura told the Munich security conference at the weekend. “Where are the United States [on a political solution]? I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.” He is not alone. The Syria question cannot be solved in a tweet. A policy may take weeks to emerge.

CIA-backed aid for Syrian rebels frozen after Islamist attack

CIA-coordinated military aid for rebels in northwest Syria has been frozen since they came under major Islamist attack last month, rebel sources said, raising doubts about foreign support key to their war against President Bashar al-Assad.

Rebel officials said that no official explanation had been given for the move this month following the jihadist assault, though several said they believed the main objective was to prevent arms and cash falling into Islamist militant hands. But they said they expected the aid freeze to be temporary.

The halt in assistance, which has included salaries, training, ammunition and in some cases guided anti-tank missiles, is a response to jihadist attacks and has nothing to do with U.S. President Donald Trump replacing Barack Obama in January, two U.S. officials familiar with the CIA-led program said.

The freeze reflects the troubles facing Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels in the almost six-year-old revolt against Assad, who now appears militarily unassailable in his core western region largely thanks to direct intervention on his side by Russia and Iran.

China close to finishing buildings on South China Sea islands that could house missiles, US says

China, in an early test of US President Donald Trump, is nearly finished building almost two dozen structures on artificial islands in the South China Sea that appear designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles, two US officials told Reuters.

The development is likely to raise questions about whether and how the United States will respond, given its vows to take a tough line on China in the South China Sea. ...

Building the concrete structures with retractable roofs on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs, part of the Spratly Islands chain where China already has built military-length airstrips, could be considered a military escalation, the US officials said in recent days, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It is not like the Chinese to build anything in the South China Sea just to build it, and these structures resemble others that house SAM batteries, so the logical conclusion is that’s what they are for,” said a US intelligence official.

South African judge blocks attempt to withdraw from ICC

A South African judge has blocked the country’s planned withdrawal from the international criminal court (ICC), saying the move is unconstitutional without prior parliamentary approval. ...

Pretoria said last year it planned to leave the ICC after receiving criticism for ignoring the court’s order to arrest the visiting Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide and war crimes, in June 2015.

Under the Rome statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, countries have a legal obligation to arrest anyone sought by the tribunal. Ministers had argued that the ICC’s obligations were inconsistent with domestic laws giving sitting leaders diplomatic immunity.

The clash over Bashir was the latest in a series of disputes rooted in deep suspicion of the institution among many leaders in Africa.

Opened in July 2002, the court has repeatedly faced criticism by some on the continent who regard it as racist or imperialist. Nine out of the 10 cases being investigated by the ICC involve alleged crimes in Africa.

Last month, African leaders adopted a strategy calling for a collective withdrawal from the court. The non-binding decision came behind closed doors near the end of an African Union summit.

The Sane Progressive interviews Caitlin Johnstone

Obama torpedoed regional peace bid by trying to impose terms, Israeli official says

The administration of former US president Barack Obama ruined the chance for a regional peace deal to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last year by trying to impose its terms for the accord, a senior Israeli official reportedly said late Tuesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly confirmed on Sunday that he attended a secret US-led summit with Arab leaders in early 2016 meant to jumpstart efforts toward a regional peace push, but told Likud ministers that he, and not then-US secretary of state John Kerry, was the initiator of the meeting.
The February 21, 2016 meeting in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba was attended by the prime minister, Kerry, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah.

The first report about the summit, published in Haaretz Sunday, said Kerry had started the ball rolling with a US-crafted two-state proposal for ending the conflict, which would include broad Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state, a key demand Netanyahu has sought in peace talks with Palestinian Authority leaders. ...

The new comment by a senior official close to Netanyahu was reported late on Tuesday by Israel Radio. According to this source, the regional peace effort failed because the Obama administration sought to impose the terms of an agreement, and “Netanyahu could not agree to this,” the radio report said.

Israel interferes in US politics all the time, and it’s never a scandal

Before you get too upset about Russia winking at the sanctions, the scandal that brought down Michael Flynn, please recall that in 2012, President Obama sent secret signals to Iran to ignore congressional sanctions, we’ll be talking to you once I’m reelected. Obama got reelected; and his deal with Iran is one of the greatest achievements of a very good presidency. Again, this is how the world works.

Which brings up the second exception. Israel tried to interfere in that 2012 election, as Chris Matthews sensibly reminded his audience recently: Benjamin Netanyahu tried to help Mitt Romney beat Obama. Sheldon Adelson held a fundraiser in Jerusalem for Romney.

Netanyahu didn’t stop there. After Romney lost, Netanyahu came to Congress to tell the Congress to reject President Obama’s nuclear deal. That was an unprecedented interference of a foreign leader in our policy-making, enabled by the Israel lobby; but there were never any investigations about that. Subsequently Chuck Schumer said he was torn between a Jewish interest and the American interest, before voting against the president, and he paid no political/reputational price for it; while President Obama said that it would be an “abrogation” of his constitutional duty if he considered Israel’s interest ahead of the U.S.; for which Obama was called an anti-semite.

Throughout those negotiations, Obama could never address the fact that Israel has nukes. This lie is honored by the press, in a way that it would never honor Trump’s lies. And the manner in which Israel got nukes, including thefts from an American company with the complicity of the White House, is only investigated by peripheral figures.

Picture of Democrats' favorite tweeters explaining all the ways the Kremlin has infiltrated & controls US politics pic.twitter.com/xqz8wcJfyo

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 20, 2017

Neo-McCarthyite furor around Russia is counterproductive

The sacking of Michael Flynn as national security adviser has intensified the frenzy over possible Russian interference in the election. The New York Times published an editorial comparing the Flynn imbroglio to Watergate, expressing “shock and incredulity” that Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russian intelligence officials, demanding a congressional investigation of “whether people at the highest levels of the United States government have aided and abetted the interests of a nation that has tried to thwart American foreign policy since the Cold War.” President Trump, of course, scorns the charges as “a ruse” and “ridiculous.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called an emergency meeting of Democrats to plan how to spotlight the issue. ...

The Times editorial board and others suggest that mere contact with Russian officials is somehow nefarious, if not criminal — and that to suggest better relations are in the offing with a new president is virtual treason.

This is simply bizarre. Trump spoke positively of Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout the campaign, stating he would seek to enlist Russia in the fight against the Islamic State. If Flynn was reassuring the Russian ambassador that Obama’s sanctions wouldn’t dissuade Trump, he was doing what any national security adviser might do for a president-elect.

Flynn is — as anyone reading his writings would discover — unfit to head the National Security Council. But talking to the Russian ambassador or to purported “Russian intelligence officials” about the intentions of the incoming president is hardly subversive.

What should be of concern is the leaking of officially classified and intercepted telephone conversations — in what was clearly a successful effort to target and take out Flynn. That Trump has railed against the intelligence leaks should not discredit this concern. The intelligence community’s use of leaks of secret information to undermine a president constitutionally elected by the American people — no matter how unfit we consider him to be — is an ominous precedent.

"People in Russia are brainwashed by their state TV"
"How do you know?"
"I heard it on the BBC"

— George Parkinson (@FeorgeParkinson) January 21, 2016

H.R. McMaster Isn’t a Bigot, Making Him an Outlier on Trump’s National Security Team

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, has no history of openly associating with bigotry. In fact, McMaster has throughout his career emphasized the need to work constructively with foreign Muslim populations. But his presence only calls even more attention to the dramatic divide among Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. On one side are career military personnel who understand that antagonizing Muslims is both offensive to American values and damaging to the country’s security. On the other side are inexperienced radical ethno-nationalists who shrug off international norms and believe that peaceful coexistence with the world’s Muslims is unlikely and undesirable. ...

A seemingly incongruous partner for Trump, who has repeatedly advocated for torture and other harsh measures to fight terrorism, McMaster has been a vocal proponent of protecting civilians in warzones and avoiding the “clash of civilizations” approach favored by Trump and his top advisers. ...

In a speech at the Carnegie Council in 2014, McMaster said that the United States must partner with people in Muslim-majority countries to defeat groups like Islamic State, describing them as “the people who are suffering the most” from terrorism. McMaster added that to win such conflicts,U.S. forces must understand the history and social dynamics of the countries it is fighting in, as well as have “empathy for the people among whom these wars are fought.”

McMaster has also criticized agenda-driven D.C. think tanks and foreign policy seemingly driven by the weapons industry. In a 2015 speech at the University of South Florida, McMaster said that “the military-industrial complex may represent a greater threat to us than at any time in history.”

Infowars’ Alex Jones says he and Trump talk on the phone

Alex Jones, infamous conspiracy theorist and founder of the equally infamous website Infowars, sometimes talks to Donald Trump on the phone, he told the New York Times over the weekend. While the White House wouldn’t comment on the nature of their relationship, advisorial chats with Jones certainly seem plausible.  

As a private citizen, Trump appeared on Jones’ talk show on Dec. 2, 2015, the morning of the San Bernardino shooting. Trump has also cited and shared information from Gregg Phillips, founder of the app VoteStand, whose unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in the election grew to prominence in an Infowars article from November.

Donald Trump is goin' down. He has pissed off librarians.

US libraries join struggle to resist the Trump administration

US president Donald Trump could have saved himself some embarrassment this week if he had consulted his local library rather than Fox News before mentioning terror attacks in Sweden. For across the country, librarians have stepped in to verify facts and authenticate web content in a bid to counter fake news reports.

Not that he would have felt welcome, because the profession has placed itself in the vanguard of resistance to his policies on refugees and immigration, according to Elizabeth Flock of PBS Newshour. The intervention follows the president’s executive orders banning immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries and threatening to pull federal funding from cities that defy the ban. ...

“Our nation’s 120,000 public, academic, school and special libraries serve all community members, including people of colour, immigrants, people with disabilities and the most vulnerable in our communities, offering services and educational resources that transform communities, open minds, and promote inclusion and diversity,” the American Library Association (ALA) said in a statement that encouraged its 57,000 members to speak out against the administration.

School librarians were first off the mark against the new president and his followers, countering so-called “fake news” though information tools that promote researcher-vetted content on websites and by hosting community discussions and talks about critical thinking. Reports that the new administration had limited the flow of information from some departments was also condemned as censorship by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Amnesty report: Human rights on the wane

Amnesty warns that rising “poisonous rhetoric” endangers human rights around the world

A new report from Amnesty International says that “poisonous rhetoric” from leaders like Donald Trump is symbolic of a global trend towards an “angrier and more divisive politics.” This kind of language is inspiring populist movements in Europe, which are threatening to “unleash the dark side of human nature.”

The charity’s annual State of the World’s Human Rights report calls on people across the globe to stand up against “the rhetoric of fear, blame and hate,” which it claims is eroding the vision for an open society.

The report points to Trump’s unexpected victory as the most important of a number of seismic events during 2016 when so-called anti-establishment politicians altered the geopolitical landscape. Amnesty says Trump’s election victory “followed a campaign during which he frequently made deeply divisive statements marked by misogyny and xenophobia, and pledged to roll back established civil liberties and introduce policies which would be profoundly inimical to human rights.”

Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama left a legacy of “grievous failures to uphold human rights,” says the report, but warns that the current administration’s early comments “suggest a foreign policy that will significantly undermine multilateral co-operation and usher in a new era of greater instability and mutual suspicion.”

Viktor Orbán sets his sights on building a populist radical right from within Europe

For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seemed content just to transform his country into an illiberal democracy and showed little interest in challenging the European status quo. But that all changed in 2015, with the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the refugee crisis that overwhelmed Europe. Since then, Orbán has become the most prominent populist radical right-wing voice in Europe, taking on the so-called “Willkommenskultur” (welcome culture) of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and openly calling for “Hungary for the Hungarians, Europe for the Europeans.” 

For Orbán, 2016 was the year that proved him right and got the world turning to follow in his ideological and political footsteps. Or, in his own, more colorful language:

“Yes, leaders in opposition and government alike — citizens of the world who until now have been urbane, nuanced, and cultured — are today talking about their homelands’ survival, the horrors of globalism, the wave of fundamentalist migrants assaulting their national identities, and an endless digestive tract of financial capital that has swollen to global proportions.” ...

With many critical elections throughout Western Europe fast approaching, Orbán will soon gauge the strength of his worldview.

Trump's Deportations are Possible Because Obama & Congress Failed to Protect Immigrants

Donald Trump's envoys head to Mexico as cracks emerge in border wall plan

Mexico will host its first high-profile Donald Trump envoys this week with at least one consolation: the proposed border wall is itself walled in, for now, by Washington bureaucracy. Federal agencies are reportedly resisting the idea and Congress is hesitant to fund it, leaving the president fighting a lonely battle to keep his campaign promise. Instead of a 2,000-mile “big, beautiful wall”, Trump may emerge from Washington’s policy labyrinth with a fence covering a few hundred miles.

“He hasn’t made any progress other than to say ‘we’re going to do it’,” said Seth Stodder, a former senior homeland security official who focused on border security under the Obama and Bush administrations. “They’re pretty far away. I don’t think they’ve made much progress.”

The apparent crack in the promise of a wall will be about the only bright spot, from Mexico’s viewpoint, when President Enrique Peña Nieto and other officials meet Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, and John Kelly, the head of homeland security, for talks in Mexico City on Wednesday and Thursday. They face a fraught, urgent agenda spanning border security, immigration and trade.

Supreme Court seems split in case of boy's murder by US border guard near border

Examining a tragic shooting death on the U.S. border with Mexico, a divided Supreme Court on Tuesday puzzled over the rights of foreigners to sue in American courts.

The case involving a Mexican teen slain by a U.S. Border Patrol agent's gunshot, which traveled across the border, elicited questions about how a ruling could affect victims of American drone strikes. The court battle over President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven majority Muslim nations also lurked in the background: While the legal issues are different, both issues have courts weighing the rights of foreigners. ...

Tuesday's case arose from a June 2010 shooting in the wide, concrete-lined ditch — actually the dry bed of the Rio Grande river — that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The agent was on the U.S. side of the border when he fired his gun, striking Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexican side.

U.S. officials chose not to prosecute Agent Jesus Mesa Jr. in the killing of the Mexican teenager, and the Obama administration refused a request to extradite him so he could face criminal charges in Mexico.

Lower courts dismissed the parents' lawsuit. The Supreme Court is considering whether noncitizens who are injured or killed outside the United States can have their day in American courts.

The parents argued that the lawsuit is their only chance for some measure of justice in their son's death, and some justices appeared to agree. In past cases, courts that have limited the right to sue have "been able to point to some alternative remedy," Justice Elena Kagan said. "And here, there really is nothing."

FDR Rejected Anne Frank Twice as a Refugee, Advocate Urges Trump Not To Close U.S. Borders Again

Europeans watched Jews being deported. America must not repeat that mistake

Among the most iconic and unforgettable images of the Holocaust are photos of Jews being marched at gunpoint through the streets of Amsterdam, Paris and Warsaw, of grim-faced adults holding the hands of terrified children, on their way to the labor and death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sachsenhausen. Under the Nazi regime, these deportations were entirely legal. The Jews had not only been stripped of their citizenship but criminalized, portrayed as a cancer on society that had to be removed.

Just the other week, 680 people were deported from the United States, but one searches in vain for similar images. What we mostly see are pictures of a young man, alone, his head nearly shaved, photographed from the back, handcuffed and pressed up against the car waiting to take him away. These images support the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) claims that nearly all of the deportees are men who have been convicted of felony charges. Bad dudes. But a very different story has begun to emerge – of women with children, of hard-working men – people who have committed some minor infraction, or none at all, and who have been ripped out of their lives and sent to countries they left as children. ...

Often, when one hears migrants defended, it’s because they make such a necessary contribution to our workforce, to our daily lives. But they are not merely workers who pick lettuce here, who wash the dishes in our restaurants, who clean the houses and mow the lawns of Americans. They are decent people who have come here not to sell drugs and join gangs, but to escape violence and poverty and to make better lives for their families. They are men and women who love their children, just as we do, who suffer the same sorrows and losses that we do, who cherish the same hopes and dreams.

There are numerous eyewitness accounts written by bystanders who witnessed the Nazi roundups of the Jews. Later, everyone would claim to have been sympathetic to the deportees, and all would insist that there was nothing they could do. They felt helpless, powerless; they were afraid.

It’s painful to think that we have become those bystanders. I, for one, refuse to believe that we are a nation of cruel and heartless people, lacking the basic sympathy, the courage and resourcefulness to protect the innocent and protest the violence and terror being visited – right here, right now – on our fellow human beings.

Draft of first Trump budget would cut legal aid for millions of poor Americans

Cuts in Donald Trump’s first draft budget to funding for legal aid for millions of Americans could strip much-needed protections from victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities, families facing foreclosure and veterans in need, justice equality advocates warned Tuesday.

A Trump draft budget circulated over the weekend called for the elimination of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which has a $375m annual budget and provides free legal assistance to low-income people and others in need of help, with cases involving disability benefits, disaster relief, elder abuse, fair pay, wheelchair access, low-income tax credits, unlawful eviction, child support, consumer scams, school lunch, predatory lending and much more. ...

The possible legal aid cuts would come at a time when potentially softer enforcement by the Trump administration of laws to punish domestic violence, protect Americans with disabilities and combat discriminatory housing practices could create a spike in demand, said Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, a fellow at the Center for American Progress who has written on the issue.

“We’ve already gotten an indication that they’re probably going to cut grants for domestic violence cases, VAWA-related grants, and that’s one of the biggest categories that legal aid grantees use,” Buckwalter-Poza said, referring to the Violence Against Women Act. “This is a huge blow to women in particular, and that’s devastating.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes blistering dissent related to lethal injection drug

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a death row inmate’s appeal challenging the constitutionality of Alabama’s lethal injection protocol.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a passionate dissent to the decision, arguing that the court should have weighed whether the state’s use of midazolam — the controversial drug used in several recent high-profile botched executions — constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and that inmates should have easier access to an alternative.

A nationwide shortage of traditional lethal injection drugs like sedatives pentobarbital and sodium thiopental was triggered in part by European manufacturers’ refusal to sell the chemicals to the U.S. for use in executions, and left states scrambling to come up with alternatives. Many states turned to midazolam as the sedative used in a three-drug protocol. Execution by lethal injection should take about seven minutes, but some executions using midazolam have taken much longer; in 2014, Arizona’s Joseph Wood snorted and gasped, seemingly in agony, for nearly two hours before finally dying after being given massive doses of drugs via repeated injections in an attempt to kill him.

“Execution absent an adequate sedative thus produces a nightmarish death,” Sotomayor wrote. “The condemned prisoner is conscious but entirely paralyzed, unable to move or scream his agony, as he suffers what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake.”

In National First, Richmond, Cal. City Council Unanimously Passes Trump Impeachment Resolution

The Richmond, Calif. city council on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution in support of a congressional investigation into whether President Donald Trump's business holdings warrant impeachment. ...

It says that Trump is in violation of the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and calls upon the House of Representatives to direct its Judiciary Committee to investigate.

That "previously little-known constitutional provision," the Mercury News wrote, "says that U.S. presidents may not accept gifts or make a profit from any foreign state. The clause has never been tested in court. But activists say the president's many business holdings continue to benefit him directly, even as he has handed over the day-to-day operations of his businesses to his children."

California Dreaming: Calls for state secession from USA grows

DNC Chair Candidate Tom Perez’s Bank-Friendly Record Could Kneecap the Democratic Party

There are many reasons why Hillary Clinton lost the election last November, but one significant factor was that Clinton suffered from a perceived closeness with Wall Street — a closeness that consistently worried the campaign.

Clinton Democrats were, of course, not in charge during the aftermath of the financial crisis; the Obama administration was. And what happened to Clinton was not isolated to her, or even to 2016. The reluctance to take on Wall Street has been a hallmark of the modern Democratic Party — and has served as an electoral headwind up and down the ticket.

Democrats are currently debating how to structure themselves as an opposition party. And Tom Perez, a leading candidate for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship, has an established record of not taking on the banks; both at the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor.

[See article for discussion of Perez' obsequious service to the banksters. - js]

Inside the final days of the Standing Rock protest

The resistance at Standing Rock is on its last legs — the legal challenges have gone unheeded. Tribal leadership has gone silent. The activist journalists that were sending out livestreams from the front lines have gone off with the rest of the media to cover the Trump presidency. At the Grammy Awards, Paris Jackson said to a cheering crowd, “We could use this kind of excitement at a pipeline protest, guys.” And then, awkwardly pumping her first, she said, “Hashtag no DAPL.” She was talking about a ghost — there is no more protest at Standing Rock, and the people left at camp are split between those who have already resigned themselves to the inevitability that the pipeline will be built and those who talk to one another about some miracle they hope will still come down the line.

In early February, the Army Corps told everyone to clear out of Oceti Sakowin by Feb. 22. Back in December, that kind of of ultimatum would have been absurd — a sizable militia would have been needed to clear ten thousand people off the banks of the Missouri River. Now, with only a few hundred left, the infrastructure gone, and roadblocks set up that have deterred people from bringing supplies into camp, twenty committed police officers and a paddy wagon could uproot six months of continued protest and prayer.

If the camp is, indeed, raided, the police will have to pick through dozens of empty tipis and tents to find and arrest the remaining water protectors. On Monday night, celebrities helped distribute a video on Facebook and Twitter that showed some of the remaining women and ended with this message: “Protectors. Media. Get here by Feb. 21. The police have surrounded Oceti Sakowin camp.” But there is no emergency deployment of activists heading to North Dakota today, no rush of young civil liberties lawyers, no critical mass of festival-goers or eco-warriors who will stand in front of the pipeline. ...

Long-shot lawsuits still making their way through the court system will decide the future of the pipeline.

Indigenous women of Standing Rock are issuing a plea for help ahead of evacuation. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/C0sWrAPALq

— Feminist Culture (@feministculture) February 21, 2017

"In the history of colonization, they've always given us two options. Give up our land or go to jail, give up our rights or go to jail. And now, give up our water, or go to jail. We are not criminals."

this photo speaks volumes. raids are happening today. it is still not over. #NoDAPL #NoKXL #StandingRock pic.twitter.com/WjSeZJVso6

— aubrey☽ (@aubeezy_) February 22, 2017

Email Dump Reveals EPA Chief Pruitt's Cozy Ties With Fossil Fuels Industry

Thousands of pages of emails between newly confirmed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and fossil fuel companies during his time as Oklahoma attorney general—released per court order on Tuesday night—confirm "a close and friendly relationship" between the man now charged with protecting the U.S. environment and entities seeking to hamper those efforts.

The Oklahoma Attorney General's office on Tuesday released a batch of more than 7,500 pages of emails and other records, after a judge last week found Pruitt in violation of the state's Open Records Act for improperly withholding public records requested by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). The group made the documents public on Wednesday. 

They show that Pruitt—who sued the EPA more than a dozen times as attorney general—"closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities, and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch to roll back environmental regulations," according to the New York Times.

EU set to ban raw ivory exports from July

The EU is set to ban raw ivory exports from 1 July as it struggles to deal with what was almost certainly another record year of ivory seizures across the continent in 2016. Europe sells more raw and carved ivory to the world than anywhere else, feeding a seemingly insatiable appetite for elephant tusks in China and east Asia.

Although the international ivory trade has been largely banned since 1990, European vendors are legally allowed to export ivory “harvested” before that date, whether raw – whole tusks, ivory chunks or scraps – or worked by carving, polishing or engraving.

Traffickers can infiltrate this legal market by, for example, using falsified or forged internal EU trade certificates to pass their poached ivory off as lawful produce. These papers may serve as the basis for re-export certificate applications from Europe to east Asian countries, particularly China and Hong Kong.

For conservationists, this holds out the possibility of a comprehensive and watertight EU trade prohibition, as the 29 countries of the African Elephants Coalition urged earlier this month.

Big Sur ravaged by floods, mudslides and storms

Major retreats and resorts around Big Sur have ... been shut down as portions of California Highway 1 have been ravaged by winter storms, flooded by waterfalls and cluttered with rocks, boulders and mudslides. A bridge, adjacent to one of the most visited tourist spots on the highway, appears to be damaged beyond repair. When rocks stop falling, state workers can begin cleanup of the coastal highway – but authorities said many miles of this major highway could be closed for up to a year while the damaged bridge is restored or replaced.

Since the beginning of California’s rainy season, Big Sur has had 60.25in of rain, “making it historically the wettest season to date”, said Duane Dykema, National Weather Service meteorologist. Records date back 102 years.

These are trying times in paradise for businesses, residents and workers in the tourism industry. The financial losses for county and state government could be significant. Many of the housekeepers, waitstaff and others in the lowest rung of the vacation economy are out of work.

Last week, a homeless man living under Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge reported a mudslide and multiple fractures in one of the bridge’s columns. Authorities acted quickly, blocking the road north of the bridge. Guests at nearby hotels in the heart of Big Sur, 150 miles south of San Francisco, fled in cars and on foot before the bridge was permanently closed.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: The Undisciplined Authoritarian

Killer, kleptocrat, genius, spy: the many myths of Vladimir Putin

How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped the NSA Spy on the Whole World

Mystery Surrounds Guantánamo Detainee's "Suicide"

Eight Common Sense Questions That Show We’re Being Lied To About Syria And Russia

SEC Nominee Has Represented 8 of the 10 Largest Wall Street Banks in Past Three Years

Liberals Beware: Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With Fleas

In Trump’s America, Mother of Four Fears Being Deported and Leaving Children with Abusive Husband

Michael Hudson: Why Failing to Solve Personal Debt and Polarization Will Usher in a New Dark Age

A Little Night Music

Little Junior Parker's Blue Flames - Feelin' Good

Junior Parker w/Bill Johnson's Blue Flames - Can't Understand

Little Junior's Blue Flames - Love My Baby

Little Junior Parker - Dirty friend blues

Little Junior Parker - I Wanna Ramble

Little Junior Parker - I'm Holding On

Little Junior Parker - Pretty Baby

Little Junior Parker - Sometimes

Little Junior Parker - Sittin' at the bar

Junior Parker - In The Dark

Junior Parker - Way Back Home