Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features The father of the Texas blues Blind Lemon Jefferson. Enjoy!

“The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.”

-- Otto von Bismarck

News and Opinion

Break out the guns! There's a Rooskie conspiracy to steal Santa Claus' workshop!

Magnetic north pole moving 'pretty fast' towards Russia

Earth’s north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in recent decades that scientists say that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation. On Monday, they released an update of where magnetic north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic north pole is moving about 34 miles (55 kilometres) a year. It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia. ...

Since 1831 when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic it has moved about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometres) toward Siberia. Since 2000, its speed jumped from about 9mph (15km/h) to 34mph (55km/h).

Goodbye to the Dollar

The inept and corrupt presidency of Donald Trump has unwittingly triggered the fatal blow to the American empire—the abandonment of the dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency. Nations around the globe, especially in Europe, have lost confidence in the United States to act rationally, much less lead, in issues of international finance, trade, diplomacy and war. These nations are quietly dismantling the seven-decade-old alliance with the United States and building alternative systems of bilateral trade. This reconfiguring of the world’s financial system will be fatal to the American empire, as the historian Alfred McCoy and the economist Michael Hudson have long pointed out. It will trigger an economic death spiral, including high inflation, which will necessitate a massive military contraction overseas and plunge the United States into a prolonged depression. Trump, rather than make America great again, has turned out, unwittingly, to be the empire’s most aggressive gravedigger. ...

When George W. Bush unilaterally invaded Iraq, defying with his doctrine of preemptive war international law and dismissing protests from traditional allies, he began the rupture. But Trump has deepened the fissures. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, although Iran had abided by the agreement, and demand that European nations also withdraw or endure U.S. sanctions saw European nations defect and establish an alternative monetary exchange system that excludes the United States. Iran no longer accepts the dollar for oil on international markets and has replaced it with the euro, not a small factor in Washington’s deep animus to Teheran. Turkey is also abandoning the dollar. The U.S. demand that Germany and other European states halt the importation of Russian gas likewise saw the Europeans ignore Washington. China and Russia, traditionally antagonistic, are now working in tandem to free themselves from the dollar. Moscow has transferred $100 billion of its reserves into Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and euros. And, as ominously, foreign governments since 2014 are no longer storing their gold reserves in the United States or, as with Germany, removing them from the Federal Reserve. Germany has repatriated its 300 tons of gold ingots. The Netherlands repatriated its 100 tons.

The U.S. intervention in Venezuela, the potential trade war with China, the withdrawal from international climate accords, leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the paralysis in Washington and disruptive government shutdown and increased hostilities with Iran bode ill for America. American foreign and financial policy is hostage to the bizarre whims of stunted ideologues such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. This ensures more global chaos as well as increased efforts by nations around the globe to free themselves from the economic stranglehold the United States effectively set in place following World War II. It is only a question of when not if the dollar will be sidelined. That it was Trump, along with his fellow ideologues of the extreme right, who destroyed the international structures put in place by global capitalists, rather than socialists these capitalists invested tremendous resources to crush, is grimly ironic. ...

It is impossible to predict when this flight from the dollar will take place. By the second half of the 19^th century, the U.S. economy had overtaken Britain, but it was not until the middle of the 20^th century that the dollar replaced the pound sterling to become the dominant currency in international trade. The pound sterling’s share of currency reserves among international central banks fell from around 60 percent in the early 1950s to less than 5 percent by the 1970s. Its value declined from more than 4 dollars per pound at the end of WWII to near-parity with the dollar. The British economy went into a tailspin. And that economic jolt marked for the British, as it will for us, the end of an empire.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Saudi's Giving U.S. Weaponry To Al-Qaeda

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America's sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN. By handing off this military equipment to third parties, the Saudi-led coalition is breaking the terms of its arms sales with the US, according to the Department of Defense. After CNN presented its findings, a US defense official confirmed there was an ongoing investigation into the issue.

This is a bombshell from CNN: Saudi Arabia and the UAE have given US military equipment, including armored vehicles, to Al Qaeda-linked militias to buy their loyalty in the Yemen war https://t.co/gAamzlCiEd

— Evan Hill (@evanchill) February 5, 2019

The revelations raise fresh questions about whether the US has lost control over a key ally presiding over one of the most horrific wars of the past decade, and whether Saudi Arabia is responsible enough to be allowed to continue buying the sophisticated arms and fighting hardware.  Previous CNN investigations established that US-made weapons were used in a series of deadly Saudi coalition attacks that killed dozens of civilians, many of them children.

What’s Next for Venezuela as U.S. & Opposition Reject Negotiations Aimed to End Crisis Peacefully?

US issues new threats of war for oil against Venezuela

President Trump, Vice President Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton escalated threats to launch a war against Venezuela, as large pro- and anti-government demonstrations filled Venezuela’s streets on Saturday. In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that aired before the Super Bowl yesterday, Trump reiterated that military intervention “is an option.” Pence assured a crowd of far-right Venezuelan exiles in Miami on Friday that “this is no time for dialogue, it is the moment for action, and the time has come to end the Maduro dictatorship once and for all… Those looking on should know this: all options are on the table.” ...

Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, the US and their allies in South America and Europe are preparing a new provocation aimed at forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro, with Guaidó announcing that the US will deliver aid at three locations along the Venezuelan border in the coming days. While Maduro and the Venezuelan military leadership have said they will refuse the aid, the US hopes that images of crowds gathering to receive food and medication will either provoke the military to defect to the opposition and help distribute the aid or provide valuable propaganda footage justifying the need for a “humanitarian” intervention.

Over the weekend, hundreds of armed Colombian soldiers dressed in battle fatigues deployed to one of the three “aid distribution” centers, Cúcuta, on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombia’s far-right President Iván Duque issued a statement proclaiming, “Few hours remain to the Venezuelan dictatorship.” ... Guaidó also announced that one of the “aid” locations would be on the border with Brazil, which deployed troops to the border last year, while the third would be on an island in the Caribbean.

The stepped-up pressure produced an initial crack in the Venezuelan military, which remains the backbone of the Maduro government. Over the weekend, one Air Force general and a small group of mid-level Air Force officials defected and issued public statements calling on their colleagues to join them. Germ án Ferrer, a sitting Venezuelan legislator and United Socialist Party member who opposes Maduro, told the CBC that Maduro has disabled combat aircraft for fear the Air Force will turn on the government. ...

The Brookings Institution explained that the present stage of the coup operation is aimed at “building an off-ramp for the Maduro regime.” In the parlance of US imperialism, countries whose leaders do not take the “off-ramp” are, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, subject to a hailstorm of bombs and missiles from the air and US troops or proxy armies on the ground. Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations told a conference call of bankers, government officials and oil executives last week, “If it [sanctions] doesn’t work in dislodging this regime, then there’s not a lot left in the toolkit besides things like military intervention."

Ousting Maduro from Venezuela without violence appears unlikely, experts say

President Donald Trump and congressional leaders say all options are on the table. And recently announced U.S. oil sanctions will begin to take effect in the coming weeks as the international community attempts to send humanitarian aid to Venezuelans without Maduro’s assistance. But Maduro’s past attempts to consolidate power, combined with an unprecedented international response to recognize a leader who does not control the country’s military, institutions or a portion of territory, does not have a direct correlation with other U.S.-backed efforts in Latin America and elsewhere. Experts who are both skeptical and supportive of the decision to recognize Guaidó’s government and a warp-speed time frame to hold elections in a matter of weeks say violence beyond the sporadic street clashes over the past few weeks is likely, whether or not foreign troops enter the country. ...

Shannon O’Neil, a senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the decision to recognize Guaidó is a “huge break from precedent” where governments continue to recognize de facto leaders who control institutions. “If you look back historically the U.S. was not pleased with the Soviet Union for 50 plus years but they still recognized them,” O’Neil said. “I think [former Obama foreign policy adviser] Ben Rhodes and [Democratic Sen.] Chris Murphy were right, it’s a risky move. Not only are you condemning Maduro, you’re taking it one step further by saying we don’t recognize his right to rule because he wasn’t elected.” O’Neil said the move by the U.S. and dozens of other countries is unprecedented.

“You give a rallying focus and hopefully momentum builds behind this person,” O’Neil said. “The risk is that if that doesn’t happen, then you’re stuck in this limbo with fewer alternatives than if you held your cards a little bit closer.”

French lawmakers approve controversial anti-riot bill

Emmanuel Macron admits failures as he battles gilets jaunes

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has conceded there has been a “clear breakdown in equality” in high-rise suburbs and housing estates on the edge of major cities as he tours France to try to stem the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) anti-government protests.

Macron said the state must “guarantee social justice” and stop people in deprived suburban areas becoming trapped “under a form of social house arrest” as he appeared at a town hall building south of Paris to debate for several hours with mayors and community activists on Monday. But he hinted that further public spending cuts could be made. “We can do better while spending less, if we spend in the right places,” he argued.

Macron’s pro-business presidency has in effect been put on hold for more than two months and his programme to overhaul labour and the welfare state has stalled as he instead grapples to contain gilets jaunes street protests against him. He is now trying to kickstart his promised “transformation” of France with a two-month national “great debate” involving town-hall meetings across France where citizens can present their views on taxation, democracy, environment and the way France is run. ...

Macron met more than 300 elected officials and leaders of community groups from deprived communities. Many expressed their exasperation to the president, warning of the “segregation” and “ghettoisation” of communities. Philippe Rio, the Communist mayor of Grigny, won applause when he said deprived communities on the outskirts of cities “don’t want charity but justice”. He said social and “territorial apartheid” existed in France and had not been fixed by the state. He said people on housing estates felt that in the eyes of the government they didn’t exist, that the French promise of “liberty, equality, fraternity” was “reserved for those of a certain caste”. ...

In the run-up to European elections in May, Macron’s party, La République En Marche, is polling neck and neck with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

Brexit could put 1.7 million people around globe into extreme poverty – study

It’s a long way from Whitehall and Brussels, but a study has found that the developing country that will be hardest hit by Brexit is the south-east Asian nation of Cambodia. With the deadline to reach a Brexit agreement looming in March, much attention has been given to the effects it would have on the European and British economies. But simulations run by the German Development Institute, published this month, show that the impact could be disastrous also outside Europe, pushing millions of people in developing countries into extreme poverty.

“Brexit could increase the population living in extreme poverty in EBA countries by nearly 1.7 million,” the authors wrote. “These are conservative estimates of Brexit’s negative impacts; they do not take into account the additional implications of uncertainty, depreciation of the pound sterling, reduced aid spending, remittances and investments.” Under the Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement, 49 least-developed countries can export to the European Union tariff-free. With an impending Brexit, these vulnerable states will no longer have access to the UK market through EBA.

If a “hard Brexit” – the return to World Trade Organisation’s rules of trade – was to take place, the authors found Cambodia would be affected the most of all least-developed countries. It has the highest dependence on the UK market with 7.7% of its exports going to the UK.

El Salvador just elected a 37-year-old populist as its next president

Nayib Bukele, [a] 37-year-old populist candidate [...] won a decisive victory to become El Salvador’s new president Sunday night, landing a blow to the country’s two dominant political parties that have held power since the end of the country’s brutal civil war.

Bukele’s victory represents a major political transformation in this tiny Central American country — an end to the country’s two-party system and a new hope that El Salvador can stem the tide of violence and poverty that has sent nearly 20 percent of its citizens fleeing toward to the U.S. But his victory also comes with serious concern that his promise of change is superficial at best and will usher in a new era of corruption under a different guise.

At the heart of Bukele’s appeal is also what could leave him vulnerable to failure: that he alone can save the country. Despite being on the political scene for several years, Bukele, the former mayor of San Salvador, is something of a political enigma. His started his career with the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), but was expelled in 2017 after repeatedly criticizing it. Last year, he switched allegiances, running or president under the far-right GANA party.

Bukele adds to the uncertainty by professing to have no political ideology, which helped him win voters from both the left and the right. Critics say he has articulated no overarching vision for how he plans to tackle the country’s major problems: violence, inequality and migration. The latter is almost certainly going to present him immediate challenges as another migrant caravan is planning to leave El Salvador on Thursday.

Still, Bukele’s victory does represent a new era for Salvadoran politics, namely the rejection of the political establishment. Since the end of the country’s 12-year civil war in 1992, two parties have held the presidency: The ruling FMLN, which was the party of the guerilla fighters during the war; and the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which fought them. Despite their ideological differences, both were beset by corruption scandals that tarnished voters’ faith in them.

Well, now here's a surprise...

Top Nancy Pelosi Aide Privately Tells Insurance Executives Not to Worry About Democrats Pushing “Medicare for All”

Less than a month after Democrats — many of them running on “Medicare for All” — won back control of the House of Representatives in November, the top health policy aide to then-prospective House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Blue Cross Blue Shield executives and assured them that party leadership had strong reservations about single-payer health care and was more focused on lowering drug prices, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus detailed five objections to Medicare for All and said that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care.

Democrats, Primus said, are united around the concept of universal coverage, but see strengthening the Affordable Care Act as the means to that end. He made his presentation to the Blue Cross executives on December 4. “We don’t discuss private meetings, if there was such a meeting,” said a BCBS spokesperson. Primus said that he did not discuss any kind of deal with the insurers. Henry Connelly, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said that the assessment of single payer was not related to any dealmaking with the industry. “We’re not going to barter lower prescription drug costs for inaction in the rest of the health care industry. The presentation was a broad look at the health care environment and some of House Democrats’ legislative priorities over the next two years in a period of GOP control of the Senate and White House,” Connelly said.

The debate over Medicare for All is playing out on a number of different levels, with no clear consensus over how the government-run, single-payer health plan ought to take shape. Presidential candidates are arguing over whose plan is stronger and gets to full Medicare for All faster, with a debate raging over whether private insurance should be banned outright or operate in addition to universal Medicare coverage. In the House, even as the idea has picked up momentum with voters and members of the Democratic caucus, Democratic leadership has remained deeply skeptical. Pelosi’s consistent messaging, instead, has been around protecting the Affordable Care Act and lowering prescription drug prices.

Debunking Industry Lies, Analysis Shows Medicare for All Would Cut Costs, Boost Efficiency, and Save Lives

In an effort to address and debunk the "disinformation, fearmongering, and straight-up lies about single-payer" spread by its deep-pocketed opponents, Public Citizen on Monday published a comprehensive analysis detailing how Medicare for All would significantly cut healthcare costs, increase systemic efficiency, and improve coverage—while expanding it to everyone. ...

Titled "The Case for Medicare for All" (pdf), Public Citizen's report presents a section-by-section breakdown of many of the key questions facing Medicare for All proponents, such as how much the policy would cost and how it would stack up to employer-provided private plans that currently insure millions of Americans.

By every measure, Public Citizen finds, Medicare for All would be a dramatic improvement over America's immensely wasteful and deadly for-profit system, which is projected to cost $50 trillion over the next decade.

Report Warns Trump Giving Wall Street 'Green Light to Ramp Up Risk' as Penalties Against Big Banks Plummet

In a warning sign that another devastating economic crash could be just around the corner, Public Citizen found in a report published Monday that penalties against some of the same Wall Street giants that sparked the 2008 financial crisis have plummeted under President Donald Trump. "How can Trump call himself 'tough on crime' while he lets the industry that crashed our economy 10 years ago get away with slap-on-the-wrist penalties?" Rick Claypool, a Public Citizen research director and author of the new report, said in a statement. "Weak enforcement gives Wall Street wrongdoers a green light to ramp up risk and recklessness. We know how that ended last time."

According to Public Citizen's analysis (pdf), in the four cases Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) settled last year against major banks for "financial crisis-era allegations of toxic securities abuses," the penalties were 70 percent lower on average than those imposed by the Obama administration—which was widely criticized by progressives for letting Wall Street banks and executives off the hook for their role in the 2008 crash.

"These four 2018 settlements, which the [Trump] DOJ entered into with Royal Bank of Scotland, Wells Fargo, Barclays Capital, and HSBC, reveal the reduced enforcement that big banks that triggered the Great Recession now face," Public Citizen notes. The group goes on to point out that, "unlike the Obama-era cases, the banks were allowed to settle while disputing the DOJ's allegations, and none of the settlements provided consumer relief. Taken together, Obama's penalties average out to $8.1 billion per case while Trump's penalties average $2.4 billion."

Public Citizen's report comes nearly a year after Republicans and Democrats in Congress teamed up to pass Trump-backed legislation that loosened regulations on some of the nation's largest financial institutions, a move that analysts warned significantly heightens the risk of another financial crisis.

Gavin McInnes is latest far-right figure to sue anti-hate watchdog

Gavin McInnes’s lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is part of a wave of legal action by far-right figures against the Alabama-based anti-hate watchdog. McInnes filed a federal suit in Alabama on Monday over the SPLC’s designation of the Proud Boys as a hate group.

McInnes founded the self-confessed “western chauvinist” group, and promoted them from his media platforms, before publicly quitting the group late last year in the wake of prosecutions arising from a brawl in New York City, and revelations about the FBI’s advice on the group to local law enforcement agencies. These incidents followed sometimes riotous violence involving the Proud Boys in Portland, Oregon. McInnes also made a string of on-air remarks asserting that “fighting solves everything”, “I cannot recommend violence enough” and, of anti-fascist opponents, “let’s destroy them”. He has described the Proud Boys as a gang.

Despite his departure from the Proud Boys, McInnes subsequently lost the broadcasting slot he had enjoyed on CRTV, founded by the conservative media host Mark Levin, after its merger with Glenn Beck’s the Blaze. This followed McInnes’s and the Proud Boys’s removal from major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, a PayPal ban and the Australian government’s decision to refuse McInnes a visa to enter the country.

McInnes’s complaint against the SPLC – posted online by his lawyer G Baron Coleman – says that that McInnes was “successfully targeted for personal and professional destruction by a self-appointed enforcer of [political] orthodoxy”. Later, the complaint alleges that the SPLC is responsible for “the termination of Mr. McInnes’s employment, an almost complete deplatforming and defunding and subjecting him to employment discrimination based on his lawful non-employment recreational activities”.

In a statement Monday, the SPLC president, Richard Cohen, said: “To paraphrase FDR, judge us by the enemies we’ve made”, continuing: “The fact that he’s upset with SPLC tells us that we’re doing our job exposing hate and extremism. His case is meritless.”

Judge: Providing Water to Dying Immigrants in Desert is a Crime

'Crimes Against Humanity': Abuses Persist at Immigrant Detention Centers as DHS Hands Out 'Waivers' to Contractors

In another sign the Trump administration is violating the rights of immigrants, a poorly regulated system of handing out "waivers" to contractors which run immigrant detention facilities has allowed many abuses at the facilities to persist for years, according to a damning new report by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The report found that federal immigration authorities are failing to police both private and public contractors which run detention facilities currently holding more than 45,000 immigrants each day. Instead of revoking contracts, fining the businesses and public entities which are operating the centers, or taking other actions to ensure abuses don't continue once they're discovered, DHS is simply granting waivers to the contractors for violations including failure to report sexual assaults in their facilities.

The report highlighted one contractor that was given a waiver allowing staffers to use tear gas on immigrants in their custody, while another was permitted to house immigrants with violent criminal histories near people who had not committed violent crimes—a practice that the federal government prohibits "to protect detainees who may be at risk of victimization or assault." Under the waiver system, the report read, "ICE may be indefinitely allowing contract facilities to circumvent detention standards intended to assure the safety, security, and rights of detainees."

The inspector general examined conditions and abuses that had taken place at 106 detention facilities between October 2015 and June 2018, learning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued only two fines to contractors for mismanagement—despite recording more than 14,000 "deficiencies" during that time.

The inspector general's office also reviewed 68 waiver requests and 65 approved waivers. The office noted that only 62 of the approved requests had expiration dates, suggesting that those tasked with housing tens of thousands of immigrants had been given approval to operate below the federal government's standards indefinitely. Despite the high approval rating, the inspector general wrote, ICE did not provide details during the probe into how or why waivers are approved. In fact, "key officials admitted there are no policies, procedures, guidance documents, or instructions to explain how to review waiver requests," the report read.

Crisis at Frigid, Dark NYC Prison: “A Choice Was Made Not to Treat People Like Human Beings”

Federal Court Calls for Hearing Into Inhumane Power Outage at Brooklyn Prison, After DOJ Statement Contradicts Warden's Denials

A U.S. District judge called for a hearing Monday into a power outage at federal prison in Brooklyn which left 1,600 inmates without heat and hot water for more than a week amid temperatures that dropped to 2°, after the prison warden's denial of the outage was contradicted by a Department of Justice (DOJ) statement Monday.

Judge Analisa Torres ordered an evidentiary hearing for Tuesday regarding last week's reports out of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. Several federal public defenders told the New York Times that their offices had been inundated with calls from about three dozen inmates, reporting little to no heating and hot water throughout the prison while temperatures dropped as low as two degrees in New York, no extra blankets, and no access to the prison commissary where they would have been able to buy sweatshirts and extra layers, due to a partial lockdown.

Heat and hot water were finally restored Sunday at about 6:30pm, and the DOJ acknowledged that the outage had taken place—contradicting earlier claims from the prison warden, who told the Times that an electrical outage had not affected the heating system. ...

When the Justice Department finally said Monday that it would investigate what had taken place at MDC, it was only after outraged calls from officials and family members of inmates.

NYTimes Journo Melts Down On Joe Rogan's Show

Israel is becoming a wedge issue for Democrats

On her first day in Congress last month, Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib wore a Palestinian thobe, an embroidered hand-stitched dress that often signifies a person’s native Palestinian village. Her appearance inspired a viral #TweetyourThobe hashtag, inviting Palestinians around the world to share photos of their own thobes. But it was more than a fashion statement for Tlaib.

She was sending a message: The first Palestinian-American woman to enter Congress is not afraid to speak her mind about her heritage — and about Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians. In fact, she’d been making waves for months, announcing in December 2018 that she wouldn’t be joining an annual summer junket to Israel organized by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Instead, she is organizing her own congressional delegation to the occupied West Bank, rejecting a free trip that has become a rite of passage for new members of Congress looking to make their names on foreign policy. ...

Tlaib joined Ilhan Omar, the newly elected Democrat from Minnesota, in becoming the first two members of Congress to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement — or BDS — a Palestinian-led initiative calling for boycotts of Israeli goods, divestment from companies doing business with Israel, and government sanctions over Israeli human-rights abuses. Their endorsements of BDS are a major achievement for a Palestinian rights movement that has largely been confined to college campuses and has been branded anti-Semitic by leading members of both parties, including Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. ...

Tlaib and Omar are part of a small and influential group of freshman Democrats who aren’t afraid of criticizing Israel and challenging the nature of America’s decades-long relationship with it. First-term New Mexico Democrat Deb Haaland and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star representing parts of Queens and the Bronx, have both remained silent on BDS but haven’t shied away from voicing sharp criticism of Israel. While Democratic leaders like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland defended Israel’s deadly crackdown on Palestinian protesters in May, Haaland called Israel’s actions “murder,” and Ocasio-Cortez called it a “massacre.”

They’re driving a change in conversation about Israel in Washington and forcing Democratic leadership to choose between listening to an activist base increasingly critical of Israel or sticking with the status quo. ... “The Democratic Party is caught between a base ready to move forward on Palestinian rights and an establishment weary of what that means for donors who are more conservative,” said Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Keiser Report: Approved Candidates Only, Please!

Trump selects former oil lobbyist to oversee interior department

David Bernhardt, a former oil and gas and water lobbyist, will be nominated to run the interior department, Donald Trump tweeted. Bernhardt was deputy secretary and has been running the department since Ryan Zinke stepped down at the end of the year. Environmental groups have accused him of making regulatory decisions on the country’s natural resources to benefit industries, and he has led plans to weaken endangered species protections.

He is expected to continue the Trump administration’s priorities to advance oil and gas drilling and mining on or near public land. ...

As acting secretary, Bernhardt drew criticism in recent weeks from environmental groups, tribes and others for continuing to process paperwork for oil and gas projects while other agencies were closed for routine work during this winter’s partial government shutdown. The interior department called its effort important to bolstering US energy independence.

“Bernhardt got this nomination as a reward for months of work cramming America’s natural heritage into a wood chipper,” said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group, one of many environmental organizations condemning Trump’s intended nomination. “Confirming him as interior secretary would be a boon to polluters and a colossal disaster for our public lands and endangered species.”

The Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House natural resources committee, said lawmakers would be watching to see whether Bernhardt’s former industry ties were influencing his policy decisions. “David Bernhardt spent much of his career lobbying for fossil fuel and agricultural interests, and the president putting him in charge of regulating his former clients is a perfect example of everything wrong with this administration,” Grijalva said in a statement.

Let’s Say I Wanted to Escape Climate Change. Where Should I Go?

... I called Jesse Keenan, climate-adaptation specialist and a faculty member at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, to get a more informed perspective on where one could limit their exposure to climate change. His suggestion: places that aren’t dependent on snowpack, ground-level aquifers, or reservoirs for their water. More specifically, that tends to be rural, wooded, northern areas with lots of clean water wells — so the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), and maybe parts of Montana.

But if everyone moves to rural areas, altering the wooded landscape and taxing all those pristine wells, they won’t last long as climate strongholds. “Well, exactly,” Keenan said. “There’s nowhere you can hide. I think you need to come to terms with what you think you’re running from. Are you trying to beat people to something? Are you trying to run because there’s a hazard and you’re at risk? Are you running because of your health or welfare? Then you need to come to terms with the fact that you’re trying to make an economic investment decision of where you’re trying to put your limited resources.” ...

Keenan said he gets versions of your question almost daily — usually from “people at big institutional real estate funds, rich people who want to buy land or already own land, or survivalist types.” And acquiring the ability to answer the question “what land will survive climate change?” is already a lucrative endeavor. Not to wealth-shame you, but the fact that the unholy trifecta of insurance companies, real estate investors, and Silicon Valley is mobilizing on these concerns should give you a bit of pause.

If you recognize that climate change is a huge, terrifying problem, and you have the means to at least try to escape it — why wouldn’t you devote those means to trying to fix it instead, especially if you know it’s impossible to escape? By “fix it,” I mean try to make the place you live, where you’ve made your home, where you have some sense of ownership and responsibility — and oh, let’s call it investment — more resilient to climate change. Maybe agitate for more storm-resistant infrastructure, mass transit, green spaces. Because the future isn’t for sure, but running away from the problem ensures that it will be.

Also of Interest

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

‘Palestinian Rights Has Become an Incredibly Mainstream Issue’

Syria Sitrep - Trump Says U.S. Will Leave But Pentagon Keeps Adding Forces

MAGA Misses the Eurasia Train

McCarthyite Accusations Benefit No One And Harm Everyone

The Conflicted Boeing Executive Running Trump’s Pentagon

Venezuela’s US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó plans to privatize state assets and give foreign corporations access to oil

'Take John Bolton to The Hague!': Peace Activists Protest Outside National Security Advisor's Home

A Little Night Music

Blind Lemon Jefferson - One Dime Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Gone Dead On You Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Broke and Hungry

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Deceitful Brownskin Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Jack O' Diamonds

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Shuckin' Sugar Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Easy Rider Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Crawlin' Baby Blues

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Black Snake Moan