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“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

-- Edward Abbey

News and Opinion

Jurors to Decide What Constitutes Journalism in Trial of J20 Inauguration Protests

The "Fake news media” has been prosecuted throughout 2017 in the kangaroo court that is President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., the definition of journalism itself is on trial. The answer to the question will decide the fate of one of six people currently on trial for their proximity to the protests that took place around Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Independent photographer and videographer Alexei Wood was arrested with hundreds of protesters, medics, and journalists in response to the violent actions of a few protesters on that day.

On Thursday, Wood’s attorney, Brett Cohen, tried to get jurors at the D.C. Superior Court to understand the distinction between his client’s coverage of the violent acts at the protest and the commission of the violent acts themselves.

In an interview with The Intercept, Wood said that part of the government’s case against him revolves around defining who is — and, in his case, isn’t — a journalist. That’s not a determination the state can make, he said. “They can take issue with my professionalism and my style, but they can’t decide what is or isn’t journalism,” Wood said. “They don’t get to have that.”

Wood is an independent photojournalist from San Antonio, Texas, whose work focuses on resistance movements. He arrived in D.C. last January planning to document protests around the inauguration — both on January 20 and the Women’s March the following day. But Wood’s coverage of the weekend ended abruptly when he, along with over 200 others, were penned into an area at the intersection of L and 12th streets and arrested en masse. ...

If the prosecution has its way, Cohen argued, journalists will not be protected if their actions can in any way be construed as sympathetic to the movements they’re covering — up to and including such dubious ground as simply walking with a group of protesters who happen to engage in violent activities.

Motion Alleges Lead Detective in J20 Case Gave False Testimony to Grand Jury

A motion filed in D.C. Superior Court last week claims that the lead detective in the case against 193 people arrested during protests of President Trump’s inauguration gave false testimony before a grand jury to secure charges against two of those people.

The motion claims that Greggory Pemberton, a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department and the treasurer of the Fraternal Order of Police union in D.C., told the grand jury that everyone who was “kettled” and arrested en masse on Jan. 20 “participated in the entire march,” including Jada Young and Sasha Hill, both of whom are scheduled to stand trial next month on three misdemeanor charges. But, the motion argues, this isn’t true—and so any charges brought by the grand jury on the basis of this testimony should be dismissed.

It really undercuts the government’s whole theory of what people were doing there and caught up in the kettle,” said Scott Michelman, of the ACLU, which is pursuing a civil case against MPD based on the actions of individual officers and command that day.

More than 200 people were arrested by MPD officers during protests surrounding Trump’s inauguration in January. The government claims that, under the federal Riot Act, all of those people are responsible for several broken windows because by wearing black and being in the area they were part of a conspiracy to riot. Michelman says that the motion shows that police and prosecutors “are guilty of overreach in terms of their willingness to ignore or not learn about the presence of individuals who showed up at the end. And the fact that people were coming and going throughout the march. All of which suggests they just wanted to round up a group of people and they didn't care who they were or what they had done."

US could broaden its use of nuclear weapons, Trump administration signals

The Trump administration signaled that it could broaden the use of nuclear weapons as part of a new security strategy, unveiled by the president on Monday.

The wider role for nuclear weapons against “non-nuclear strategic attacks” was one of several ways in which Trump’s approach differed from his predecessor. The threat of climate change went unmentioned. The word “climate” was used only four times in the National Security Strategy (NSS), and three of those mentions referred to the business environment. Americans were instead urged to “embrace energy dominance”.

Announcing the NSS, Donald Trump depicted his election victory and his presidency as an unprecedented turning point in US history. “America is coming back, and America is coming back strong,” the president said. “We are rebuilding our nation, our confidence, and our standing in the world … [W]e will stand up for ourselves, and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before.” ...

Under the slogan of “peace through strength”, Trump emphasised the military buildup he had ordered, involving what the president described (wrongly) as a record in defence spending, $700bn for 2018. “We recognise that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unrivaled power is the most certain means of defence,” he said. The NSS policy document criticises the downgrading of the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy by previous administrations since the cold war, and suggested it had not prevented nuclear-armed adversaries expanding their arsenals and delivery systems.

US - President Donald Trump unveils national security plan, drops climate change

U.S. “Confronting” Iran inside Syria: Spoiling for an Unlawful Fight?

The Trump administration is considering “whether to make confronting Iran an explicit new goal for the more than 2,000 American forces currently in Syria,” according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.  If a policy of military confrontation with Iran in Syria is actually on the table, this is troubling on several levels.

As I’ve argued here, there are many reasons to avoid an escalation of fighting in the devastating conflicts in Syria.  Moreover, a policy of purposeful military confrontation against Iran begs for a broader regional conflagration that could be exceedingly difficult to contain.  The risks of accidental confrontation are already high, and the consequences of a hot conflict could be dire for civilians caught in the middle and for U.S. national security interests – the very real possibility of retaliation against U.S. troops in Iraq is but one of them.

Beyond these potential policy and humanitarian consequences, there are fundamental legal ones:  it is hard to see how seeking out a military confrontation with Iran in Syria for the purpose of preventing Iran “from cementing its military presence in Syria or establishing a secure route across the country,” as the WSJ article suggests, would be lawful.  To be sure, if the United States or another state (such as Israel) is subject to an armed attack by Iranian forces or there is an imminent threat of armed attack, necessary and proportionate force may be used to achieve legitimate self-defense aims.  But we should also be clear that the pre-emptive use of military force in an effort to curb Iranian influence would not be a valid exercise of self-defense – international law does not permit states to spoil for a fight.

As a domestic law matter, such action would not be congressionally authorized by either the 2001 or 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs).  Nor, I suspect, would anyone seriously argue that seeking out a military confrontation with Iran in Syria would be a valid exercise of the President’s authority in Article II of the Constitution.  In sum, proactively shifting the mission of U.S. troops in Syria to countering Iran – absent an armed attack or imminent threat thereof – would mean shifting from the thin ice the United States is already on in Syria and plunging into sending troops into harm’s way without a valid legal basis for doing so.

Yemen: "A war that has claimed thousands of lives, mainly civilians, is going to intensify"

Saudi Arabia shoots down Houthi missile aimed at Riyadh palace

The 1,000th day of the Yemen civil war was marked by escalating violence including an audacious but unsuccessful ballistic missile attack by Houthi rebels aimed at the Saudi king’s official residence in Riyadh.

It is the third such missile attack mounted by Houthis inside a month and was intercepted by the Saudi air force south of the capital.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, claims the missiles are being supplied by Iran and has used the alleged leakage of sophisticated weaponry into Houthi hands to justify a blockade on humanitarian and commercial aid going through the port of Hodeida, the key artery for the delivery of aid and fuel for tens of thousands of Yemenis.

The missile attack may have been a response to Saudi air raids that the UN human rights commission said had led to 136 civilians being killed and another 87 injured in strikes on Sana’a, Saada, Hodeida, Marib and Taez governorates between 6 and 16 December.

Kurdish authorities say Iraq forces preparing fresh attack; Iraq denies

Iraqi forces are preparing a fresh attack on Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq said on Monday. A military spokesman in Baghdad denied that Iraqi forces were planning to resume an attack they began mid-October in retaliation for a September referendum on Kurdish independence.

A statement from the KRG Security Council expressed “alarm” at the buildup of Iraqi forces in Makhmour, southwest of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region.

US outnumbered 14 to 1 as it vetoes UN vote on status of Jerusalem

A UN security council resolution calling for the withdrawal of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has been backed by every council member except the US, which used its veto. The unanimity of the rest of the council was a stark rebuke to the Trump administration over its unilateral move earlier this month, which upended decades of international consensus.

The Egyptian-drafted resolution did not specifically mention the US or Trump but expressed “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem”. A spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, responded to the veto by saying it was “unacceptable and threatens the stability of the international community because it disrespects it”.

The UK and France had indicated in advance that they would would back the text, which demanded that all countries comply with pre-existing UN security council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including requirements that the city’s final status be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The resolution was denounced in furious language by the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who described it as “an insult” that would not be forgotten. “The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy,” she said. “It’s scandalous to say we are putting back peace efforts,” she added. “The fact that this veto is being done in defence of American sovereignty and in defence of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the security council.”

Violent protests in Honduras after president declared election winner

Police in Honduras fired teargas Monday at demonstrators who set up flaming roadblocks and looted stores after the incumbent president was declared the winner of a heavily-disputed election.

The leftist opposition has claimed fraud in the election three weeks ago that finally led to the pronouncement Sunday of conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez as the winner after an oft-interrupted vote count. International observers also cited irregularities, and the defeated opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla arrived in Washington Monday to present what he said was evidence of electoral fraud to the Organization of American States (OAS).

"We are presenting multiple pieces of evidence, as the theft had various facets," said Nasralla, a 64-year-old former TV presenter. Nasralla said that among those items were what he described as recordings of Hernandez ordering the head of the electoral commission, David Matamoros, not to release the election results until they had been doctored in his favor. ...

Protests broke out Sunday night in Honduras and continued into Monday morning as police cleared the streets of barricades. In the northern city of San Pedro Sula, police said protesters looted stores and burned a bank branch and a bus.

Charlottesville police chief retires after criticism of response to violent rally

Charlottesville’s police chief, who oversaw the department’s widely criticized response to a violent white nationalist rally this summer, retired on Monday, effective immediately.

In a brief statement, the city did not give a reason for Chief Al Thomas’s departure.

Earlier this month, a former federal prosecutor released a report that was sharply critical of Thomas’s “slow-footed response” as the violence began to escalate on 12 August, the day of the “Unite the Right” rally that drew hundreds of white nationalists from across the county. ...

The report also said Thomas deleted relevant text messages and made officers fearful of retaliation for speaking with investigators. Kevin Martingayle, an attorney for Thomas, has said the chief disputes that he deleted text messages.

Travel guides to segregated US for black Americans reissued

A series of travel books written for African Americans travelling in the segregated US of the last century, which listed the places in which they were allowed to stay, shop and eat, is being republished in facsimile editions. Recent sales have topped 10,000 copies.

Harlem postal worker Victor Hugo Green published the first guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book, in 1936. It listed the hotels, shops and restaurants that accepted custom from black people: “Carry your Green Book with you … you may need it.” Further editions would follow through the 1940s, 50s and 60s, until civil rights laws brought an end to legal segregation.

The Green Book became a necessity for the rising African American middle classes, who had the financial means to travel, but were barred from staying in certain hotels or eating in particular restaurants.

Nat Gertler, publisher at About Comics in California, has just republished the 1947 edition of the guide, having previously released facsimiles of the 1940, 1954 and 1963 books. According to Gertler, in just over a year, the Green Book facsimiles have sold 10,000 copies, through online sales and in gift shops in institutions including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and the National Civil Rights Museum Memphis, Tennessee.

“The heart of the book is a fairly short list of places where black people could have stayed. You look up your home town, and maybe there’s no places listed, or maybe there’s three … and two of them are ‘tourist homes’, basically the Airbnb of the day, private residences that would rent you one of their rooms to crash for the night. There’s this certain expectation that the book might be filled with angry polemics about how unfair this all is, or explaining why this guide was needed, but there’s little of that. The person buying this understood very well what the situation was, they were living it every day. So there were things like Victor Green writing about how he expected that some day this guide would no longer be needed – he didn’t live to see that day, alas – but for the bulk of the book it is just practical information, listings and ads.”

Scholars find $21 trillion in unauthorized government spending; Defense Department to conduct first-ever audit

Earlier this year, a Michigan State University economist, working with graduate students and a former government official, found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015.

The work of Mark Skidmore and his team, which included digging into government websites and repeated queries to U.S. agencies that went unanswered, coincided with the Office of Inspector General, at one point, disabling the links to all key documents showing the unsupported spending. (Luckily, the researchers downloaded and stored the documents.)

Now, the Department of Defense has announced it will conduct the first department-wide, independent financial audit in its history (read the Dec. 7 announcement here).

The Defense Department did not say specifically what led to the audit. But the announcement came four days after Skidmore discussed his team’s findings on USAWatchdog, a news outlet run by former CNN and ABC News correspondent Greg Hunter.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Says Tax Bill Will Make the U.S. “World Champion of Extreme Inequality”

When will we see the world's first trillionaire?

Every so often Forbes, the magazine closely associated with America’s corporate elite, compiles its Fictional Fifteen – a chart of the wealthiest characters in film and literature, to complement its well-known annual list of the world’s wealthiest individuals. After carefully assessing the assets of the likes of Bruce Wayne and Montgomery Burns, its most recent analysis concluded that Scrooge McDuck – mining magnate and uncle of Donald Duck – was top, with an estimated net worth of $65bn, narrowly beating the dragon Smaug.

But perhaps the most remarkable feature of an altogether remarkable list is rarely noted: the degree to which fictional billionaires have lost ground to real-life ones. According to Forbes, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon with an estimated fortune of $98bn, has recently overtaken Bill Gates to become the world’s richest man. It seems we have reached the point where there are people in the world richer than we are capable of imagining. ...

Not so long ago, a trillionaire would have seemed almost as improbable as a mine-owning duck, and many were unconvinced when Oxfam speculated in January that it could happen within the next 25 years. But the last 12 months alone have seen the German, US and UK stock markets all hit record levels, along with robust economic growth and a resurgence in oil and commodities values. Already, on the basis of its market capitalisation, Apple is close to becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company, and all this is before Donald Trump’s fiscal reforms take effect, slashing tax rates for the very wealthiest.

According to the newly-published World Inequality Report, this increase in wealth accumulation by the most prosperous is part of a longer-term trend: since 1980, the richest 0.1% of the global population increased its combined wealth by as much as the bottom 50%. The pattern is far from consistent: inequality has increased moderately in Europe, but rapidly in China and Russia as the countries have abandoned communism. It has been particularly pronounced in the US, which 30 years ago was comparable to western Europe, but has returned to the same levels of inequality that existed before the second world war, and is now home to four of the five richest men on the planet.

For Gabriel Zucman, economist at University of California and part of the team that produced the report, it is government policy rather than the changing nature of economic production that is mainly responsible. “There has been a number of forces leading to an increase in income and wealth inequality, but the most important ones are changes in policies: reduction in progressive income and wealth taxation; reduction in the power of unions; a fall in the minimum wage and privatisation of public assets.”

Jill Stein Will Hand Over Russia-Related Communications to Senate Committee

In her first comments to the press, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said she will cooperate fully with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into “collusion with the Russians” during the 2016 campaign, and is currently searching for relevant documents. Stein denies holding any substantive communications with the Russian government or RT, its state-owned media property.

Stein says her involvement in the inquiry, first reported by BuzzFeed News, came as a surprise when her campaign was first contacted last month. After a subsequent dialogue between attorneys representing Stein and lawyers from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the former candidate received a formal request for cooperation. Although she says the possibility of testifying before Congress has not yet been broached, Stein says she would be “happy to do so” if asked. ...

It’s safe to assume the Intelligence Committee is interested in anything pertaining to Stein’s now-infamous attendance of an RT gala in Moscow, at which she was seated and photographed with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Stein told The Intercept that as she has routinely appeared on RT and expects to hand over communications related to booking those TV segments and other “administrative” messages between her campaign and the Russian network, as well as “logistical” messages about the Moscow event. Stein also noted that before her Moscow visit, she had “requested to speak with either Putin or [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, or someone in the Russian government, to be able to discuss our policies, because I was there to advance our agenda for peace and climate action and diplomacy and nuclear weapon abolition.”

Stein says this request was not granted. Stein also maintains that she declined to let RT pay for any portion of her trip to Moscow and further denies requesting or receiving any other assistance, monetary or otherwise, from RT, the Russian government, WikiLeaks, or the Trump campaign, adding that any dialogue or cooperation with Trump “would have been quite contrary to our values.”

Investigating Jill Stein for Russian Collusion Decried as 'Dangerous' and 'Absurd'

In what critics called a "dangerous precedent" and identified as an obvious move to deflect the still serious concerns about allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, multiple news outlets reported late Monday that the Senate Intelligence Committee is now investigating the campaign of Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Regardless of what people think of Jill Stein or the Green Party, this Senate investigation sets a dangerous precedent. As does the lionization of the FBI, Comey and Mueller. Very short-sighted. It will all come back around.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) December 19, 2017

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the committee chairman, told reporters Monday that in addition to the campaign of President Donald Trump, the committee has "two other campaigns that we're just starting on."  As the Washington Post noted, Burr has indicated previously the committee is looking into Hillary Clinton's campaign. 

Dennis Trainor Jr., Stein's former campaign communications director and acting manager, told BuzzFeed News, which first reported the story, that he was contacted Friday about the investigation into Stein's campaign. When Burr was asked by BuzzFeed what the committee was looking for in its probe of the Green Party candidate, he said, "collusion with the Russians."

House Democrats Divided on Judiciary Committee Replacement for John Conyers

Democrats are set to vote this week on who will replace Rep. John Conyers Jr., the powerful top-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee who resigned earlier this month due to accusations of sexual misconduct from former aides.

The decision will shape the trajectory of the Judiciary Committee if Democrats retake control of the House and, in 2020, the White House. The contest pits the next two senior-most Democrats on the committee against each other: New York City Rep. Jerry Nadler and Silicon Valley Rep. Zoe Lofgren. Both are among the most progressive members of Congress, with strong records on civil liberties. Nadler is considered a friend of the creative community, while Lofgren is close to big tech firms. ...

The chair of the committee, should Democrats take control, would have considerable influence to set the agenda on antitrust policy, law enforcement oversight, immigration reform, gun control, and surveillance. And while Donald Trump is still president, the chair would face pressure from activists and other Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings.

Trump’s EPA Starts Process for Replacing Clean Power Plan

The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it will ask the public for input on how to replace the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration's key regulation aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The main effect may be to leave the Obama rule in limbo. The Clean Power Plan was put on hold by the Supreme Court pending litigation that was under way before Donald Trump took office on a promise to undo it.

In an "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking"—a first step in the long process of crafting regulation—the EPA said it is "soliciting information on the proper and respective roles of the state and federal governments" in setting emissions limits on greenhouse gases.

In October, the agency took the first step toward repealing the rule altogether, but that has raised the prospect of yet more legal challenges and prompted debate within the administration over how, exactly, to fulfill its obligation to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the agency is required to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in some fashion because of the "endangerment finding," a 2009 ruling that called carbon dioxide a threat to public health and forms the basis of the Clean Power Plan and other greenhouse gas regulations.

Keiser Report: China’s ban on ‘foreign garbage’

Fracking Study Finds Low Birth Weights Near Natural Gas Drilling Sites

Babies born near hydraulic fracturing sites are 25 percent more likely to have a low birth weight than those born only a few kilometers away, a new study of more than 1 million births in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region concludes. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, provides some of the most compelling data to date linking the process of hydraulic fracturing to negative health effects. It found that babies born within 3 kilometers of fracking sites were less healthy than those born farther away, and that babies born within 1 kilometer saw the largest effects.

"We have pretty good evidence of a causal effect of health outcomes and fracking—not just a correlation," said lead author Janet Currie, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University.

Hydraulic fracturing—known as fracking—has transformed energy production in the United States, resulting in a boom in unconventional natural gas production and lowering the cost of energy. But as it has spread, those living close to production sites have raised concerns about the potential for water and air pollution. Some people living close to fracking operations have said that they believe it has made them sick, but those links have been hard to conclusively prove. ...

Currie's study took a novel approach—it analyzed the vital statistics records for more than 1.1 million births in Pennsylvania between 2004 and 2013. It was during that period that fracking took hold across the Marcellus Shale, bringing an economic boom to some communities, while also bringing fears about how the process could impact health. The authors looked at health measurements including low birth weight (less than 2500 grams), prematurity, congenital abnormalities and other abnormalities for babies born to women living within 15 kilometers of a fracking site—both before and after fracking began—and then compared those living close, at 1, 2 and 3 kilometer intervals, with those living farther away. Being able to compare babies born in the same community but living at different distances from fracking wells was key, Currie said.

Also of Interest

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

Trump’s Jerusalem Announcement Sparked Deadly Violence — From Israel

Do Americans Really Want Troops in Syria Indefinitely?

Zora Neale Hurston study of last survivor of US slave trade to be published

UN rapporteur “shocked” by deep poverty in US

In America and beyond, the spirit behind public lands is at risk

A Little Night Music

Guitar Crusher - Itch With Me

Guitar Crusher - I've Got To Know

Guitar Crusher - I Can't Help It

Guitar Crusher - Hambone Blues

Guitar Crusher - Cuddle Up

Guitar Crusher - Weak For Your Love

Guitar Crusher - The Monkey

Guitar Crusher - Since My Baby Hit The Numbers

Guitar Crusher - You Know How To Hurt A Man

Guitar Crusher - I'm The Great Googa Mooga

Guitar Crusher - Heartfixing Man