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This evening's music features Chicago blues piano player Little Johnny Jones. Enjoy!

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

News and Opinion

House Intel Committee votes to release controversial memo

The House Intelligence Committee voted on party lines Monday to release a controversial and classified memo that Republican members of Congress have said contains evidence of surveillance abuses surrounding the Russia investigation.

The committee’s decision to release the memo, which was written by Republican staffers, shows House Intel Republicans using an obscure rule for what appears to be the first time, in defiance of warnings from the Department of Justice and the FBI to not release the document for national security reasons. The Republicans on the committee appear to be siding with the President, who has previously accused both of the agencies of being “deep state.”

The committee simultaneously blocked the House Intel Democrats’ attempt at publishing a counter memo, which they say provides necessary context to ensure the public has all the facts, according to the committee’s top Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff also said that Republicans on the committee have decided to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI. ...

The President has five days to accept or decline the committee's vote to make the memo public.

Will Congress Face Down the Deep State?

With the House Intelligence Committee vote yesterday to release its four-page memorandum reportedly based on documentary evidence of possible crimes by top Justice Department and FBI leaders, the die is cast. Russia-gate and FBI-gate are now joined at the hip. The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the “Deep State”) will be able to prevent its leaders from being held to account. Past precedent suggests that the cabal that conjured up Russia-gate will not have to pick up a “go-to-jail” card. This, despite the widespread guilt suggested by the abrupt way that several senior-echelon DOJ and FBI rats have already jumped ship. Not to mention the manner in which FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was unceremoniously pushed overboard yesterday, after Director Christopher Wray was given a look at the extra-legal capers described in the House Intelligence Committee memorandum. ...

There seems to be an outside chance, this time, that the culprits who did actually interfere in the 2016 presidential election in an effort to make sure Trump could not win, and then did all in their power to sabotage him after he his electoral victory, will be held to account by unusually feisty members of the House. It is abundantly clear that members of the House Intelligence and House Judiciary Committees are now in possession of the kind of unambiguous, first-hand documentary evidence needed to get a grand jury convened and, eventually, indictments obtained.

Threads Of Establishment Russia Narrative Trace Back To Neocon Think Tanks

A new article from Disobedient Media titled “Meet The Cabal That Are Framing Domestic American Activism As ‘Russian Influence’ And ‘Fake News’” shines a much-needed spotlight on the neocon think tank Alliance For Securing Democracy, which has been cited over and over and over again by mainstream news outlets recently as a reliable source of authority on all matters pertaining to Russia’s alleged interference in US democracy. Their assertions about Russia get advanced as unquestionable facts by these outlets, and before you know it everyday Americans are surrounded by screens chiming in unison that there is a hostile foreign power aggressively working to control their minds.

The problem, of course, is that this extremely influential think tank is chock full of neocons, war hawks and deep state cronies. The article details the toxic talent lineup behind this operation including Kristol, Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, and Michael Morell. These men have all been consistently on the wrong side of history regarding foreign policy issues and have built punditry careers advocating horrific things; Morell for example advocated the covert slaughter of Iranians and Russians in Syria not long ago on national television. As the article’s pseudonymous author Adam Carter notes, the process by which this organization reaches its findings is fundamentally secretive and could easily be manipulated to conclude whatever these psychopaths want. ...

Another new article originally published by Washington’s Blog and now republished by Consortiumnews takes things even further with a screen shot the author claims comes from a “passive scan” of the site propornot.com, the extremely secretive outlet which, with the help of the oligarch-owned Washington Post, helped inflame the moral panic about Russian propaganda. The article’s author George Eliason’s claims link PropOrNot to the Atlantic Council, which is, you guessed it, a neocon think tank. Eliason explains how the Atlantic Council is tied intimately to Ukrainian intelligence, which wouldn’t be the first time PropOrNot was linked to Ukraine. This article from AlterNet by Mark Ames shows using publicly available information that prior to being thrust into the national spotlight by WaPo, PropOrNot was displaying loyalties to Ukrainian fascist groups. ...

Trace the threads of the establishment Russia narrative to their source, and you’ll always run smack dab into the middle of a neocon think tank. You’ll also run into a lot of hawkish Ukrainians, since they share the same anti-Russian agendas as the neocons have, thus making them the same kind of allies of convenience as McCain’s “moderate rebels” in Syria. Neocons form alliances with extremist groups, oligarchs, intelligence agencies, and anyone else who will help them advance their bloodthirsty agendas of chaos and destabilization.

Activists Call on Senators to End Catastrophic US-Saudi War in Yemen

US General to Turkey: We’re Not Pulling Back

Gen. Joseph Votel said the United States has no intention of withdrawing coalition forces from the northern Syrian town of Manbij, as Turkish leaders had demanded this weekend. As Turkish forces continued the assault on Afrin, the lead of U.S. Central Command on Monday urged Turkey and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, to recognize each other’s legitimate security concerns but focus on the common enemy of ISIS.

Senior U.S. leaders across the government have been in constant talks with Turkish counterparts during the Afrin assault, saying that the U.S. recognizes Turkey’s problems with the Kurdish terrorist group known as PKK, but refusing to give up any territory liberated by the SDF, which include Kurds.

“It’s not our intention right now” to pull back from Manbij, Votel said in Jordan on Monday. ... With Turkish leaders threatening to push into territory protected in part by the U.S. military, Votel has walked the line between both sides but repeatedly has said the U.S. would stand by the SDF counterterrorism force of Syrian Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen that has routed ISIS on the world’s behalf.

Russia says Su-27 fighter jet intercepted U.S. spy plane; U.S. protests

A Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted a U.S. surveillance plane over the Black Sea on Monday, prompting the U.S. State Department to protest the maneuver as “an unsafe interaction.” ...

In a statement, the State Department said the Russian jet “engaged in an unsafe interaction with a U.S. EP-3 in international airspace, closing to within 5 feet (1.5 meters) and crossing directly in front of the EP-3’s flight path.” ...

“After the surveillance plane of the U.S. Navy had changed its course to move away from the border, the Su-27 returned to its base,” RIA quoted the Russian defense ministry as saying.

Poland wants to ban people from saying it participated in the Holocaust

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded furiously Sunday to a draft Polish law that would make it illegal to suggest that Poles played any part in the Holocaust, accusing Warsaw of trying to rewrite history.

The law, currently before Poland’s parliament, would make it illegal to claim the Polish people or state bore any responsibility for the Nazis’ crimes, and make the use of phrases such as “Polish death camps” punishable by up to three years in jail.

The role of Poles in Nazi atrocities on Polish soil during World War II has long been a sensitive subject for Warsaw. Poland was the first country invaded by Nazi Germany and its population – ethnic Poles and Jews alike — suffered immensely. About 90 percent of Poland’s Jewish population of 3.2 million, pre-war Europe’s largest, were exterminated during the Holocaust, and some 3 million non-Jewish Poles were killed.

The Auschwitz and Treblinka concentration camps were built on Polish soil, and while most Jews living in Poland were killed by the Nazis, many were also killed with the complicity of the Poles. Israeli politicians say the proposed law will amount to attempt to whitewash history, and stifle further scholarship on the Holocaust.

Montana Implements Net Neutrality - Cable Companies Are Scared

Only 9 Percent of Fortune 500 Companies Have Shared GOP Tax Cut Windfall With Workers: Analysis

Less than ten percent of the nation's wealthiest and most-profitable companies have shared any of the financial benefits they received from a massive corporate tax cut provided by President Donald Trump and Republicans, a new analysis released Tuesday shows.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of organizations which advocates for progressive tax reform, the numbers in their new analysis reveal that the GOP public relations campaign touting the idea that corporations would be sharing "a big slice of their huge Trump tax cuts with their workers through bonuses and wage hikes is mostly hype."

The ATF analysis, in fact, draws from financial data and public statements compiled by a similarly named (though ideologically opposite) group, the Americans for Tax Reform. The right-leaning ATR has been maintaining a database of how Fortune 500 companies have implemented or altered fiscal policies since passage of the GOP tax cuts at the end of 2017.

"Not only are few big corporations sharing any portion of their tax-cut bounty," the group stated, "but the amounts going to workers pale when compared to how much the companies are getting in tax cuts and to how much they’re returning to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends (where those figures are available).

More than a month after the so-called "GOP Tax Scam" bill was signed into law by Trump, ATF has found, only 46 of the Fortune 500—just 9 percent overall—have announced any plans to share their tax-cut wealth with workers.

Amazon and Warren Buffett to create 'reasonable cost' healthcare company

Amazon is diving into healthcare, teaming up with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the New York bank JP Morgan to create a company that helps their US employees find quality care “at a reasonable cost” and tackle the “hungry tapeworm on the American economy”.

The business giants offered few details on Tuesday and said the project is in the early planning stage. But the move from Amazon, which has long eyed the US’s enormous health market, sent shares in health insurance companies and pharmacy chains into a tailspin.

“The ballooning costs of [healthcare] act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” Buffett said in a statement. “Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable. Rather, we share the belief that putting our collective resources behind the country’s best talent can, in time, check the rise in health costs while concurrently enhancing patient satisfaction and outcomes.”

The three companies have more than a million employees between them, and if the scheme is successful it could offer a model for a new entrant in a market that has rapidly consolidated in recent years.

Shares in United Health, the largest US health insurer, fell 5%. Rival Aetna fell 3% despite announcing a 75% hike in quarterly profits.

Ravi Ragbir of The New Sanctuary Coalition: I Was Detained Because of Our Immigration Activism

The Republican War on Women Continues With Yet Another Bill to Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks

With the possibility of a second government shutdown looming, the U.S. Senate on Monday afternoon focused its attention not on immigration or any other practical budgetary matter, but instead channeled its energy into an effort to curtail the reproductive rights of millions of women. Specifically, the Senate convened on January 29 to consider S.2311, which would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exception, and would threaten prison time for physicians who fail to comply with the law’s myriad requirements.

There is “no federal law protecting these young lives from abortion,” Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, a vocal and strident abortion foe, told her colleagues from the floor. As a result, she said, thousands of lives every year are ended in pain. “This is unacceptable.”

The measure, known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, rests on the idea that beginning at 20 weeks gestation, a fetus can experience pain and thus, is tortured by abortion — a heavily disputed notion that rests on weak medical foundation. Although the enumerated legislative findings preceding the bill’s text suggest that a fetus can feel pain in the same way that a child or adult experiences pain, this claim is not medically accepted. The bill’s author is Sen. Lindsey Graham, and 43 of the 45 co-sponsors are men.

[Heh, if Lindsey Graham is suddenly concerned about torture, there are some current and former government officials that need to hear from him and his 45 co-sponsors. - js]

Union-Backed Democratic Congressman Rejects $15 Minimum Wage

Longtime incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski and his primary rival, Marie Newman, revealed gaping ideological differences over key issues during an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board over the weekend. The gap could prove pivotal in an Illinois district that went for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary by 8 points.

In major areas, Lipinski and Newman were far apart. Newman has the backing of both women’s groups and those fighting for LGBT rights, as well as national progressive groups that argue Lipinski is out of step with his district. Lipinski, backed by the state machine, has significant labor backing — which makes his rejection during the interview of one of labor’s key priorities noteworthy. Audio of the exchange was provided to The Intercept by the Newman campaign.

An editorial board member during the interview noted that Lipinski had not endorsed a $15 per hour minimum wage on his questionnaire and asked why. “We definitely have to raise the minimum wage,” Lipinski said. “If you look at the history of the minimum wage, the highest that it was in current dollars was in 1968, which would be the equivalent of about $11.60. I think we should move up to now — probably go to a $12 federal minimum wage and index it for inflation.”

Newman pressed him. “May I ask the congressman something? So how would you propose a family of — let’s just say — even two kids, when both of the parents make — let’s call it your $12 an hour — how would you propose that they live on that?” she asked. ... Newman, in the editorial board meeting, reaffirmed her support for the higher wage. In a subsequent interview with The Intercept, she said that it would not have the negative impact on the economy Lipinski worried about. “It actually helps the economy,” she said. “When people have disposable income it goes back into the economy. It’s economics 101.”

A Native American Activist Followed Her Mother’s Footsteps to Standing Rock. Now She Faces Years in Prison.

After spending a year in jail awaiting trial, Oglala Lakota Sioux activist Red Fawn Fallis pleaded guilty last week to two federal felonies related to her arrest while protesting the Dakota Access pipeline. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the most serious charge against her, which would have carried a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence with the possibility of life imprisonment.

Fallis was arrested on October 27, 2016, during a large-scale law enforcement operation to evict pipeline opponents from a camp alongside North Dakota Highway 1806. After officers tackled Fallis and pinned her on the ground facedown, they allege that she fired three shots from a revolver underneath her stomach, which did not result in any injuries. Last month, The Intercept revealed that the gun in question belonged to a paid FBI informant who was in a romantic relationship with Fallis. The informant, Heath Harmon, had infiltrated the protest camps starting in August 2016 and was near Fallis’s side for much of the day leading up to her arrest.

As a condition of the plea bargain, federal prosecutors dismissed the count of discharge of a firearm in relation to a felony crime of violence, and the state of North Dakota, which had previously charged Fallis with attempted murder, agreed not to reinstate or pursue any charges related to the incident. Prosecutors have recommended Fallis receive a seven-year sentence, although U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland can still impose up to 10 years in prison based on Fallis’s guilty plea to civil disorder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Fallis’s attorneys are recommending a sentence of 21 to 27 months, including one year of time served.

In a statement explaining Fallis’s decision to accept the plea deal, the Water Protector Legal Collective cited several negative pretrial rulings issued by Hovland, as well as the likelihood of jury bias based on a survey of potential jurors revealing strong antagonistic feelings toward anti-pipeline protesters. ... While law enforcement frequently cited Fallis’s case to advance a narrative of anti-pipeline protesters as violent extremists, her supporters see her legal plight as only the latest episode in the U.S. government’s long history of hostility toward indigenous people who push back against powerful government and corporate interests.

“As indigenous people, we’re simply not allowed to act in defense of our children, land, or traditions without incurring severe punishment,” said Eryn Wise, a member of the Jicarilla Apache and Laguna Pueblo nations who worked with Fallis at Standing Rock. “We’re horrified they took another person from us who we may not get back for a long time.”

How Trump's cuts to public lands threaten future dinosaur discoveries

he paleontologist Rob Gay wasn’t expecting to find anything significant that day. He and a few of his students were scouting in the southeast Utah badlands in summer 2016 when they came across a hillside littered with hundreds of bones. Scattered haphazardly and protruding from the earth, they were the remains of of prehistoric reptiles that lived 220m years ago, at the same time as the earliest dinosaurs.

Gay has since made at least one discovery at the site that appears to be new to science. But now this dig, and others, is imperiled by Donald Trump’s move to slash protections for public land.

The site is located on the territory of the Bears Ears national monument, which Barack Obama created not long after Gay’s discovery in 2016, meaning the dig would be safe from new uranium-mining claims in the area. A year later, however, Donald Trump decided to shrink the monument by 85% in a bid to encourage more industrial use. “There’s literally decades of work at this one site,” said Gay. “If the site was vandalized, disturbed, leased,” he said, it would be lost to the public. ...

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) and others recently filed suit against the administration for shrinking Bears Ears and another Utah national monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante. The SVP president, David Polly, estimates hundreds of scientists belonging to his organization have conducted research there, and in 2016 a large horned dinosaur that lived 77m years ago, the Machairoceratops cronusi, was found there. More than 40 scientists who belong to the SVP are working on sites that fall outside the new boundaries of the two Utah monuments.

Also of Interest

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

Resisting US Military Bases and Pentagon Strategies in Latin America

Fitness Tracker Data Highlights Sprawling U.S. Military Footprint in Africa

Russiagate Isn’t About Trump, And It Isn’t Even Ultimately About Russia

Under Trump’s SEC, Wall Street Secrecy Expands as Enforcement Shrinks

'One big pothole’: will Trump fix America’s decaying infrastructure?

A Little Night Music

Little Johnny Jones - Big town Playboy

Little Johnny Jones w/ Billy Boy Arnold - I Hear My Black Name Ringing

Little Johnny Jones w/ Elmore James - Chicago Blues

Little Johnny Jones - Dirty By The Dozen

Little Johnny Jones w/Muddy Waters - Shelby County Blues

Little Johnny Jones - Hoy Hoy

Little Johnny Jones w/ Billy Boy Arnold - She Wants To Sell My Monkey

Little Johnny Jones - Up The Line (Doin' the Best I Can)

Little Johnny Jones w/ Billy Boy Arnold - Sloppy Drunk Blues