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This evening's music features soul singer Ruby Johnson. Enjoy!

“You may plainly perceive the traitor through his mask; he is well known every-where in his true colors; his rolling eyes and his honeyed tones impose only on those who do not know him. People are aware that this low-bred fellow, who deserves to be pilloried, has, by the dirtiest jobs, made his way in the world; and that the splendid position he has acquired makes merit repine and virtue blush. Yet whatever dishonourable epithets may be launched against him everywhere, nobody defends his wretched honour. Call him a rogue, an infamous wretch, a confounded scoundrel if you like, all the world will say “yea, ” and no one contradicts you. But for all that, his bowing and scraping are welcome everywhere; he is received, smiled upon, and wriggles himself into all kinds of society; and, if any appointment is to be secured by intriguing, he will carry the day over a man of the greatest worth.”

-- Molière

News and Opinion

It Wasn’t Just Republicans — Democrats Also Voted to Shut Down Debate on Trump Administration’s Surveillance Powers

A critical mass of Senate Democrats voted with Republicans on Tuesday to shut down any further debate on a bill that strengthens the government’s spying powers. The bill would renew a key surveillance authority for the National Security Agency until 2023 and consolidate the FBI’s power to search Americans’ digital communications without a warrant.

The motion, which passed 60-38, virtually guarantees that the final bill will pass likely later this week and quashes any opportunity to debate whether protections should be added. Eighteen Democrats — including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had previously proposed an amendment to restrict the FBI’s surveillance authority — voted in support of the motion. They were joined by 41 Republicans and one independent, Angus King, giving the pro-surveillance bloc the supermajority needed to push the bill forward. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dan Sullivan, R-Ala., did not vote.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, lobbied for the bill’s passage on the Senate floor alongside his Republican counterpart from North Carolina, Richard Burr, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stood outside the Senate chamber; he had come in person to convince any skeptics of the bill’s merits, Burr said.

Just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill cast the decisive vote in favor of the motion. Thirty Democrats opposed it, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, along with eight Republicans, led by libertarian Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee R-Utah.

A truly remarkable historical moment. If Dems had held firm, they could have blocked a bill to give the Trump administration unprecedented powers to spy on Americans. But they didn't. So now, this president -- and future ones -- will almost certainly be handed that power.

— Elizabeth Goitein (@LizaGoitein) January 17, 2018

Dems Hand Warrantless Spying Powers To Trump

CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens

A year after he was released from captivity in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed received a letter from Christina Cowger, an agricultural researcher from North Carolina. Enclosed was a petition of apology signed by nearly 800 visitors to the North Carolina State Fair. It was “a small gesture”, Cowger acknowledged, but her 2010 letter came with a commitment. North Carolina Stop Torture Now, an organization she co-founded, had been conducting protests, petition drives and legislative campaigns seeking an official investigation into an obscure firm operating flights out of her local airport.

The firm, Aero Contractors, was the CIA front company that operated the Gulfstream business jet that delivered Mohamed to a secret prison in Morocco to be tortured. Though few government officials supported such an investigation, she wrote, the group pledged “to work toward true transparency and accountability in the United States for the crimes against you and other survivors”.

Seven years later, Cowger sat in the front row of a makeshift hearing room in the Raleigh Convention Center as 11 volunteer commissioners of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture “upped the ante”, as she put it, on that pledge. Over the course of two days, this “citizen-led truth seeking commission” called 20 witnesses to testify on the damage done by Aero’s rendition operations. One of those witnesses was Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose Guantánamo Diary opens as he is stripped, made to wear a diaper, and shackled aboard Aero’s Gulfstream in Amman, Jordan, in July 2002. ...

North Carolina Stop Torture Now has had an impact over the last 10 years. Recently released minutes of a closed 2007 meeting of the airport authority in Kinston, where Aero housed its larger 737 rendition jet, confirmed that Aero sold its hangar at the facility that year. When a member of the airport’s board asked its executive director why the company was leaving, the director “explained that Aero Contractors had not had the aircraft in the hangar for several months due to the negative publicity they were getting from Stop Torture Now”.

Puigdemont wants to run Catalonia via Skype

First Hawaii, now Japan sends a false alarm about incoming North Korean missile

Japanese public broadcaster NHK mistakenly sent an alert Tuesday warning that North Korea had fired a missile, just days after a similar mistake caused panic in Hawaii. Unlike in the Hawaii case, however, this error took only five minutes to correct.

"NHK news alert. North Korea appears to have launched a missile," NHK said in a notification sent through its app to mobile phone users at 6:55 p.m. Tokyo time. "The government J-alert urges people to take shelter inside buildings or underground." Japan has an advanced warning system, known as J-alerts, that has traditionally been used for earthquakes but has, over the past year, increasingly been used to warn about North Korean missile activity.

North Korea fired two missiles over the Japanese island of Hokkaido last year, triggering the expansion of the system. The government began an education campaign on what to do in the case of an incoming missile, and local authorities held emergency drills in areas on Japan's west coast.

Five minutes later, NHK sent another notification: "The news alert about a North Korean missile sent earlier was a mistake. No government J alert was issued." The broadcaster apologized for the mistake on the air, and said that a "switching error" was to blame.

The Pentagon Death Cult is ready for action. Apparently they don't get to kill people in large numbers as often as they'd like.

Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms

A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.

For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons.

The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by HuffPost.

It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran. ...

The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.

Abby Martin Meets Ahed Tamimi—Message From A Freedom Fighter

U.S. Freezes More Than Half of Aid Funds to UN Palestinian Refugee Agency

The United States will withhold $65 million from a payment it was scheduled to transfer this month to the UN agency responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees and their descendents in the Middle East, a U.S. official said Tuesday. The U.S. will provide $60 million in aid, amounting to roughly half the planned sum of $125 million. ...

The $65 million held by the United States awaits "future consideration" by the administration, the official added. "There is a need to undertake a fundamental reexamination of UNRWA, both in the way it operates and the way it is funded," he explained.

The Palestinians responded to the American decision, saying that it proves the U.S. administration's "complicity with the Israeli occupation by attempting to remove another permanent status issue off the table."

A statement given by Hanan Ashrawi on behalf of the PLO Executive Committee accused the U.S. administration of "following Netanyahu's instructions to gradually dismantle the one agency that was established by the international community to protect the rights of the Palestinian refugees and provide them with essential services."

She said that the aid cuts will target "the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people" and will only serve to deprive Palestinian refugees "of the right to education, health, shelter and a dignified life."

Trump Administration Skews Terror Data to Justify Anti-Muslim Travel Ban

A new report from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security found that three of every four defendants convicted of international terrorism charges from September 11, 2001 to December 31, 2016 were born outside the United States. President Donald Trump mandated the creation of the report as part of the same executive order that instituted the second iteration of the so-called Muslim ban.

The data in the report, released today, would appear to support Trump’s policies of limiting immigration from Muslim-majority nations out of national security concerns. ... The report found that of 549 defendants prosecuted for international terrorism from September 11, 2001, to December 31, 2016, 402 were born outside the United States — suggesting the threat of international terrorism is disproportionately greater among those born outside the country. The report said the 549 defendants come from “a list maintained by DOJ’s National Security Division.”

But there’s a curious problem with the number of defendants — 549 — on whom the report’s conclusions are based. The DOJ list that is referenced in the new report is well-known among national security journalists and researchers because it has been released periodically over the years. In March 2010, then-Attorney General Eric Holder presented it to Congress as part of testimony. The list then included 403 defendants. A second version, updated through December 31, 2014, had 580 defendants. A third list ending in 2015 included 627 international terrorism defendants.

Yet somehow a list of defendants ending December 31, 2016, cited in this new report, has just 549 defendants. The report does not provide the raw data or any further description of the data used; it does not explain how a list that contained 627 names in 2015 and 580 names in 2014 now includes far fewer, 549. Devin O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesperson assigned to answer questions about the report, declined to comment about the mysteriously shrinking defendant list.

New York City Councilmember Jumaane Williams: Civil Disobedience Is Needed to Protect Immigrants

US border patrol routinely sabotages water left for migrants, report says

United States border patrol agents routinely vandalise containers of water and other supplies left in the Arizona desert for migrants, condemning people to die of thirst in baking temperatures, according to two humanitarian groups.

In a report published Wednesday, the Tucson-based groups said the agents committed the alleged sabotage with impunity in an attempt to deter and punish people who illegally cross from Mexico.

Volunteers found water gallons vandalised 415 times, on average twice a week, in an 800 sq mile patch of Sonoran desert south-west of Tucson, from March 2012 to December 2015, the report said. The damage affected 3,586 gallons.

The report also accused border patrol agents of vandalising food and blankets and harassing volunteers in the field.

“Through statistical analysis, video evidence, and personal experience, our team has uncovered a disturbing reality. In the majority of cases, US border patrol agents are responsible for the widespread interference with essential humanitarian efforts.”

22 States File Suit to 'Stop the FCC's Illegal Rollback of Net Neutrality'

A coalition of 22 state attorneys general came together on Tuesday to keep their promise to file a lawsuit challenging the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) recent move to roll back net neutrality consumer protections.

Last month, the FCC—led by industry insider Ajit Pai—voted along party lines to repeal rules that banned internet service providers from charging more for or blocking access to particular content.

Leading this latest effort "to stop the FCC's illegal rollback of net neutrality" is New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who said in a statement, "An open internet—and the free exchange of ideas it allows—is critical to our democratic process."

"The repeal of net neutrality would turn internet service providers into gatekeepers—allowing them to put profits over consumers while controlling what we see, what we do, and what we say online," Schneiderman added. "This would be a disaster for New York consumers and businesses, and for everyone who cares about a free and open internet."

The other attorneys general who joined Schneiderman in filing the suit represent California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Their petition (pdf) claims the FCC order rolling back net neutrality protections "is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion" under the Administrative Procedure Act; violates the U.S. Constitution and the Communications Act of 1934; and "conflicts with the notice-and-rulemaking requirements" established by federal law.

Goldman Sachs profits hit by Trump tax overhaul – but banks set to win in long run

Goldman Sachs announced its first quarterly loss in six years on Wednesday as a one-off hit from the Trump administration’s tax overhaul wiped out profits.

Financial institutions are expected to be the biggest winners of the Republicans’ recently passed tax plan – but adjusting to the new regime is expensive. Goldman took a $4.4bn charge in the quarter and posted a loss of $1.93bn as a result.

Goldman is the latest bank to announce a one-time hit from the tax readjustment. On Tuesday, Citigroup said the change, largely related to the treatment of its foreign assets, would cost $22bn.

But banks expect to win in the long run. JP Morgan said last week that it expects its tax rate to fall to 19% from 32%. Banks will also benefit from the new 20% tax rate for income from so-called pass-through companies, and analysts are expecting a big boost to profits from the change in the long run.

GOP conservatives say Paul Ryan does not have the votes to avert shutdown

Divisions among Republicans in Congress are making a government shutdown Friday a real possibility. House Republicans do not have enough votes to avoid a government shutdown before money to keep the government functioning runs out on Friday at midnight, Congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina, leader of the Freedom Caucus, said on Fox News Wednesday.

Late Tuesday night, House Republican leaders rallied behind a temporary fix, a continuing resolution that would punt the budget problem to February and keep the government running for now. But the fix leaves much to be desired for the party’s hardline minority, and they’re not getting on board — yet. Republicans need 216 votes in the House and 60 in the Senate. There are 235 Republicans in the House, at least 20 of whom are part of the Meadows’ Freedom Caucus. ...

The plan includes six-years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and delays taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act. It does not include protections for people with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration status, a program Trump nixed that expires in March. It’s unclear how many House Democrats are willing to block the Republican plan because it doesn’t include a DACA fix. Meadows is pushing for an entire year of defense spending as part of any stop gap fix, a sure fire way to alienate Democrats.

Steve Bannon to meet with Mueller’s investigators instead of testifying

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon will meet with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Bannon is expected to be interviewed by prosecutors instead of testifying before a grand jury. He is expected to cooperate with the special counsel, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. It is unclear when the interview will occur.

Bannon has received a subpoena from Mueller, an AP source said.

Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, appeared before the House intelligence committee on Tuesday but refused to answer questions about his time on the Trump presidential transition team and in the White House.

It also emerged on Wednesday that Bannon’s attorney relayed questions, in real time, to the White House during the committee’s interview with the former Trump chief strategist.

24-Hour Solar Energy: Molten Salt Makes It Possible, and Prices Are Falling Fast

The first thing you see of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Facility, and you can be miles away, is a light so bright you can't look directly at it. This sits atop a 640-foot cement tower, rising from the flat, empty Nevada desert around the halfway point on the highway from Reno to Las Vegas. The tower's surrounded by a nearly two-mile-wide field of mirrors that send shimmering beams of light into the sky. ... What people are actually seeing is a 110-megawatt concentrated solar power (CSP) plant, built and operated by SolarReserve of Santa Monica, California. It's not from outer space, but there's not yet anything quite like it of this size anywhere else on the planet.

SolarReserve is trying to prove that the technology that drives Crescent Dunes can make solar power an affordable, carbon-free, day-and-night energy source, dispatched on the electric grid like any fossil fuel plant. Here, concentrated sunlight heats molten salt to 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit in that shimmering tower; then the salt gets stored in a giant insulated tank and can be tapped to make steam to run a turbine.

If this plant and several similar facilities under construction, or soon to be, prove reliable, the technology is poised to take off. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels can displace fossil fuels during the day, and wind turbines can do the same as long as it's windy. But molten salt towers may be able to meet the challenge of electricity on demand, and push more older, dirtier fossil-fuel plants into retirement.

"We're going to see many more CSP molten salt towers," said Mark Mehos, program manager for CSP research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Mehos bases his belief on prices that SolarReserve and other project developers are quoting for electricity from new plants, and the knowledge that a CSP tower with eight or 10 hours of molten salt storage is currently much cheaper than a solar PV farm with an equivalent amount of lithium-ion batteries.

The price of the power generated at SolarReserve's second plant, to be built near Port Augusta, Australia, will be less than half that of the electricity produced by Crescent Dunes—about 7.8 cents (Australian) per kilowatt-hour, or just over 6 U.S. cents. When the South Australia government signed the contract to buy the plant's output in August, the state's treasurer, Tom Koutsantonis, tweeted that a "shiver has just gone up the coal generation industry's spine," because a new coal plant can't match that price.

New York Rejects a Natural Gas Pipeline, and Federal Regulators Say That's OK

In a setback for the fossil fuel industry, federal energy regulators rejected a petition from the Constitution Pipeline Company to overturn New York State's denial of a water permit for a proposed natural gas pipeline. Without the permit, the pipeline can't be built.

In a decision on Jan. 11, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied the request from the company to revive the proposed 125-mile Constitution Pipeline from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania to Upstate New York.

The decision comes during one of the largest expansions of natural gas infrastructure in U.S. history, a buildout that critics say is driven more by the financial interests of gas and electric companies than market demand.

Officials with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) rejected the water quality permit for the pipeline in April 2016 stating, in part, that it failed to meet the state's water quality standards. Constitution challenged the decision on the grounds that the state agency did not act within a reasonable time.

The federal commission, in rejecting the company's challenge, wrote: "The record does not show that New York DEC in any instance failed to act on an application that was before it for more than the outer time limit of one year."

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: White Mirror

The Left Improves Control of Britain’s Labour Party

The Case Against a Basic Income

The #Resistance Just Gave Darth Vader’s NSA Broad Spy Powers

A Little Night Music

Ruby Johnson - Calling All Boys

Ruby Johnson - Keep on Keeping On

Ruby Johnson - Stop Wasting Your Tears

Ruby Johnson - I'm Hooked

Ruby Johnson - Why You Want To Leave Me

Ruby Johnson - When My Love Comes Down

Ruby Johnson - Don't Start Nothing

Ruby Johnson - Let Me Apologize

Ruby Johnson and the Millionaires - I Received Your Message

Ruby Johnson - What Goes Up Must Come Down