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The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature ... the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war."

-- James Madison

News and Opinion

Congress Moves to Restrict Trump’s War Powers, Repeal 17-Year Iraq War Authorization

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed two measures aimed at restricting President Donald Trump’s war powers. The first, sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., would prohibit the administration from spending any money to attack Iran without congressional preapproval, except in self defense. The second, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., would repeal Congress’s 17-year-old Iraq War authorization, which the Trump administration cited as a legal basis for assassinating Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani earlier this month.

Republican leadership in the Senate is likely to block a vote, though some Senate Republicans have supported similar legislation in the aftermath of the United States’ killing of Suleimani. Even so, the measures — both amendments attached to an uncontroversial commemorative bill — are further censure for Trump’s confrontational Iran policy. ...

Last year, Congress has previously passed the Khanna-Gaetz measure last year, as an amendment to a major annual policy bill last year, and it drew 27 Republican votes. A companion amendment got 50 votes in the Senate, but due to procedural maneuvering from Republican leadership, it needed 60 votes. Democrats were ultimately unable to secure the amendment in the final compromise version of the bill. It, as well as other amendments, were traded for other Democratic priorities, like securing paid family leave for federal employees.

Khanna told reporters on Wednesday that he thought if Congress had passed the amendment last year, it would have prevented the Suleimani strike from taking place. “It was a horrible deal, I said that at the time,” Khanna said. “In retrospect, we should never have given the Pentagon that blank check. … It’s a wake-up call with this Congress that we have to be far more vigilant in restricting military intervention overseas.”

Here are the lawmakers who defected on Iran legislation

A handful of House lawmakers crossed party lines Thursday on legislation designed to rein in President Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran. ... Four Republicans — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Trey Hollingsworth (Ind.) — crossed the aisle to support the bill authored by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would block funding for military force in Iran without congressional approval.

The measure passed in a 228-175 vote, with GOP proponents of the measure arguing Congress needs to reclaim its constitutional powers.

Meanwhile, three Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Conor Lamb (Pa.), Ben McAdams (Utah) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) — voted against Khanna's measure. ...

The House passed a second Iran-related measure, one that would repeal the 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF). The bill, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), garnered support from 11 Republicans: Gaetz, Davidson and Massie, as well as Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Mike Gallagher (Wis.), Alex Mooney (W.Va.), Jamie Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Chip Roy (Texas), David Schweikert (Ariz.) and Fred Upton (Mich.). ...

Just two Democrats voted against Lee's measure: Lamb and Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.).

Trump to reportedly allow use of landmines, reversing Obama-era policy

The US will end its moratorium on the production and deployment of landmines, in another reversal of Obama-era policies and a further breach with western allies, it has been reported.

The defence secretary, Mark Esper, confirmed that a policy change was imminent but refused to describe it. Vox published a leaked state department cable rescinding Barack Obama’s 2014 ban on production or acquisition of anti-personnel landmines (APLs).

The 2014 directive brought US policy more in line with the 1997 mine ban treaty outlawing the weapons because of their disproportionate harm to civilians. Obama did not join the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, reserving the right for the US to use landmines on the Korean peninsula. The treaty has been signed by 164 countries, including all of America’s Nato allies.

“Mr Trump’s policy rollback is a step toward the past, like many of his other decisions, and sends exactly the wrong message to those working to rid the world of the scourge of landmines,” said Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel peace prize for her work campaigning against the weapons.

“Mr Trump’s landmine move would be in line with all of his other moves to undercut arms control and disarmament in a world much in need of them.”

Business booms at Iran factory making US, Israeli and British flags for burning

Business is booming at Iran’s largest flag factory which makes US, British and Israeli flags for Iranian protesters to burn. At the factory in the town of Khomein, south-west of the capital Tehran, young men and women print the flags by hand then hang them up to dry. The factory produces about 2,000 US and Israeli flags a month in its busiest periods, and more than 1.5m sq ft of flags a year. ...

Ghasem Ghanjani, who owns the Diba Parcham flag factory, said: “We have no problem with the American and British people. We have [a] problem with their governors. We have [a] problem with their presidents, with the wrong policy they have.

“The people of America and Israel know that we have no problem with them. If people burn the flags of these countries at different rallies, it is only to show their protest.”

Rezaei, a quality control manager, who declined to give her first name, said: “Compared to the cowardly actions of the United States, such as Gen Suleimani’s assassination, this [burning an American flag] is a minimal thing against them. This is the least that can be done.”

Secretary Wilbur Ross says coronavirus will be good for [checks notes] American jobs: "I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America." pic.twitter.com/Y4SbDIcTi4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2020

Greece plans to build sea barrier off Lesbos to deter migrants

The Greek government has been criticised after announcing it will build a floating barrier to deter thousands of people from making often perilous sea journeys from Turkey to Aegean islands on Europe’s periphery.

The centre-right administration unveiled the measure on Thursday, following its pledge to take a tougher stance on undocumented migrants accessing the country.

The 2.7km-long netted barrier will be erected off Lesbos, the island that shot to prominence at the height of the Syrian civil war when close to a million Europe-bound refugees landed on its beaches. The bulwark will rise from pylons 50 metres above water and will be equipped with flashing lights to demarcate Greece’s sea borders.

Greece’s defence minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told Skai radio: “In Evros, natural barriers had relative [good] results in containing flows,” referring to the barbed-wire topped fence that Greece built along its northern land border with Turkey in 2012 to deter asylum seekers. “We believe a similar result can be had with these floating barriers. We are trying to find solutions to reduce flows.”

Newly installed panels on the border wall between California and Mexico blew over

On Wednesday, high winds resulted in several concrete panels on the border wall, which had recently been installed and hadn't fully dried, falling over from the California side into the Mexican side, according to CNN.

Police in Mexicali said that the portion of the wall, which is 130 feet long, fell over the border and onto some trees shortly before noon PT Wednesday, according to KYMA. Winds in the area hit as high as 37 mph that day, according to the National Weather Service. ...

Building a border wall was one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign promises back in 2016, but over the past few years, the issue has been nothing but a headache for the administration. Smugglers have reportedly been using $100 saws to cut through sections of it, while others have figured out how to climb around the wall’s “anti-climb panels,” Trump administration officials and agents told the Washington Post last November.

John Bolton and the “national security” impeachment

The emergence of John Bolton, a leading architect of the Iraq war, as the central figure in the Democrats’ impeachment drive has made clear, once again, that the conflict within the state centers on divisions over foreign policy between two right-wing factions of the US ruling class. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that a forthcoming book authored by Bolton alleges that Trump demanded that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, as a condition of receiving military aid. The central focus of the House impeachment managers since then has been to press the demand that the Senate agree to hear new witnesses, beginning with Bolton.

John Bolton is a war criminal. He was a leading architect of the Iraq war who shamelessly made false claims about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” to start a war that killed over one million people. He has both participated in, and publicly advocated, the launching of countless wars, with disastrous human consequences. ... The fact that Bolton is being held up as the leading figure in the Democrats’ opposition to Trump makes clear that their opposition to Trump is based not on the president’s real crimes—his human rights abuses on the border, his assertion of dictatorial powers, and his appeals to fascistic forces—but on allegations that he is insufficiently aggressive in confronting Russia.

On Wednesday, Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, revealed that Bolton had called him on September 23, 2019, urging that his committee look into the firing of Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine, and suggesting that it was improper. The timing is key: Bolton called the influential Democrat less than two weeks after his acrimonious departure from the White House, and the same day that seven House Democrats with military-intelligence backgrounds published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for an investigation of Trump for withholding of military aid to Ukraine. The next day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the start of the impeachment inquiry. And there are suggestions in the press, as yet unsubstantiated, that Bolton began his anti-Trump operations even before he left the White House, in response to disagreements over Iran, Ukraine, and other areas where he advocated a more bellicose policy than the president. ...

Trump denounced Bolton in a series of tweets, claiming, “[I]f I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now.” This was a cynical attempt to use Bolton’s warmongering record to strike a false pose of opposition to war, despite Trump’s embrace of militarism and a foreign policy of bullying threats of violence. In reality, all factions of the US ruling elite support pouring trillions of dollars into the military in preparation for global war. Their differences are tactical: which country to strike first, and when, and on what pretext, with the Democrats targeting Syria and Russia and Trump focused more on Iran and China.

Inappropriate, Not Impeachable: Key GOP Senator’s “Astonishing” Statement Clears Way for Acquittal

McConnell appears confident in bid to avoid witnesses as House managers launch last-ditch effort

The Senate Republican majority on Thursday raced toward an early end to what would be the fastest presidential impeachment trial in US history by half, fighting to block witnesses as Democrats sounded dire warnings about the imminent advent of a lawless presidency remade in the image of Donald Trump.

The disposition of a crucial vote expected on Friday on whether to call witnesses was unclear as the senators broke for dinner on Thursday. As many as three Republican senators appeared to be ready to vote in favor of witnesses, but the support of that trio was far from certain, and all three votes would only be enough to create a tie vote on the question, if Democrats hold ranks.

John Roberts, who is presiding at the trial in his capacity as chief justice of the United States, might break such a tie vote – or he might allow the vote to stand and declare the motion to be unsuccessful, meaning that the push for witnesses would fail. ...

In a late-stage gambit for witnesses, Schiff offered to restrict witness depositions to a time window of one week, after the model of the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, when three witnesses were deposed on video outside the Senate chamber. ...

If Republicans successfully block witnesses, that could effectively trigger the beginning of the end of the impeachment trial, with the time for senators’ questions and final debate wrapping up soon and a final vote on whether to remove Trump from office or acquit him coming as early as Friday.

Bolton’s Lawyer Says Trump’s Claim of Classified Info in Book Is a Bunch of BS

The lawyer for former National Security Advisor John Bolton is pushing back on White House claims that his forthcoming book has a bunch of top-secret, classified material in it, and wants the White House’s review expedited as President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial churns on.

Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, sent an email to NSC officials on Jan. 24 in response to a letter sent by National Security Council officials a day earlier about the contents of the book, according to the Washington Post. “We do not believe that any of that information could reasonably be considered classified,” Cooper wrote.

Cooper also added that it was “imperative that we have the results of your review of that chapter as soon as possible,” given the possibility Bolton could be called to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial, according to the Post. Cooper has yet to receive a response, he told the Post in a statement.

Michael Hudson on the History of Debt Cancellation, Austerity in Europe & Rental Costs

California lawmakers fail to pass bill to combat housing crisis

California lawmakers have failed to pass the most ambitious proposal yet to combat a growing housing crisis, voting down legislation on Wednesday that would have eliminated zoning restrictions near transportation and job centers to enable the construction of more high-density housing.

California faces a crippling housing crisis that has driven up rents and led to a surge in homelessness. Senate Bill 50 (SB50) was meant to address an estimated shortage of 3.5m homes, overriding local zoning laws in order to let developers build small apartment buildings in neighborhoods reserved for single-family homes.

The bill failed to pass on Wednesday by three votes. However, the California state senate voted to give it “reconsideration”, meaning lawmakers could vote on it again on Thursday. The deadline for the bill to pass is Friday, but the state senate is not scheduled to meet that day. ...

Less than a quarter of the developable land in much of California is zoned for multifamily housing. That lack of space for new affordable housing combined with the sprawl of single-family homes has led to high housing costs, community displacement and a growing number of super commuters – people who commute upwards of hundreds of miles to work a day because they can’t afford to live near their jobs.

Seattle Hospital Giant Threatens to Lock Out Thousands of Striking Nurses and Caregivers

On Tuesday morning, nearly 8,000 nurses, nursing assistants, lab workers, environmental service technicians, dietary workers, clerks, and other hospital staff launched their first-ever strike — in a health care labor stoppage their union is hailing as the largest of its kind in the nation in at least five years. The workers, members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, have been protesting their region’s largest medical center, Swedish-Providence, which has resisted their demands for increased staffing levels and higher wages over nine months at the bargaining table.

While the workers have made clear since the start of their strike that they will return to work on Friday morning — in part because they could only afford to forego pay for three days — their employer has shelled out at least $11 million to fly replacement workers in from across the country, and suggested that many employees will be kept out of their jobs for an additional two days. During the strike, Swedish-Providence has closed two of its seven emergency departments, and one of its labor and delivery units.

The strike is unfolding with the backdrop of a national political battle over health care, soaring health insurance costs, and a growing shortage of nurses and other hospital workers across the country. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have tweeted in support of the strikers, and members of both the Warren and Sanders campaigns mobilized their Washington state supporters to join the picket line. ...

Tiffany Moss, a spokesperson for Swedish Medical Center, denied in an emailed statement to The Intercept that the health care conglomerate was considering a lockout, but noted their contracts with “replacement agencies call for a five-day replacement period” and said when the three-day strike ends on Friday morning, “We will call back caregivers who choose to strike as work becomes available.”

Labor advocates say that “becomes available” is the key phrase, since Swedish-Providence could say they won’t have work available until their contracts with the replacement workers end. Moss did not answer a follow-up question about whether all workers will be allowed to return to their regularly scheduled jobs on Friday.

“Progressive” Dems Ought to Divorce the Duopoly, Not Badger Greens

The recent open letter urging the Green Party to bow out of the 2020 race in every state that matters in deference to whoever the corporate Democrats nominate, shows that the “progressive” signers value the Party over the human species and the planet. It is essentially an “anybody blue will do” appeal – an arrogant and insulting demand that all politics be limited to that which is harmless to the two-corporate-party rich man’s arrangement.

In their haste to demobilize the Greens, or anybody that might be considering going Green, the signers reveal themselves to be as fearful for the fate of the duopoly as the corporate shills they claim to oppose. The general election is still nine months away and not a single primary vote has been cast. We have not yet witnessed the full fury of corporate capital, which will deploy every dirty device that money can buy -- and that its henchmen in the national security state can provide -- to maintain the Democratic Party as the main firewall blocking popular mobilization against austerity (the Global Race to the Bottom) and endless war. Yet the letter-writers are already pointing demonizing fingers to their left, blaming Jill Stein’s Greens for Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and George Bush’s win in 2000. They haven’t yet won a single victory over the all-but-hegemonic corporate forces in the Democratic Party, but are already scapegoating Greens as dupes of Trump.

The folks that claim to be the progressive opposition to corporate dominance of the Democratic Party are sounding just like corporate hacks, kissing cousins of the Clintons. Indeed, their argument against the Greens as objective agents of Trump, is essentially the same as Hillary Clinton’s indictment of Sanders. Clinton wrote this whole script back in 2016, with Donald Trump as the starring character. As revealed by Wikileaks, the Clinton-run Democratic National Committee was urging its operatives and friendly media to encourage and abet Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination and leadership of the GOP. Not only was Clinton convinced that Trump was the easiest Republican to beat, she thought they could defeat him without promising voters anything that might upset the austerity regime or Obama’s military offensives around the world. She was eager to run against Trump as the personification of the old, bad, racist America, allowing the Democrats to (falsely) position themselves as the new, diverse, forward-looking America, while resisting every substantive proposal to lift the 40-year austerity regime and end the forever wars, to which the Lords of Capital are unalterably committed. ...

Clinton’s corporate comrades are still wedded to the same strategy, and super-plutocrat Michael Bloomberg has committed a billion dollars to ensuring that the Party does not deviate from the corporate, warmongering “center.” Bloomberg’s dollar-drenched entrance signals that the oligarchs will not allow the other half of the ruling duopoly to be captured by non-corporate forces. If they can’t salvage the Party as an instrument of the Lords of Capital, they are preparing to engineer and finance a split, rather than allow the Democratic Party to become an incubator of popular, anti-corporate power. ...

The letter-writers could at least have waited to see if the Democratic Party’s corporate overlords would tolerate a Bernie Sanders capture of the presidential nomination before demanding that the Greens commit institutional suicide. Their haste in blaming the Greens for the corporate Democrats’ sins is quite revelatory: they have made defeat of Trump, by anybody with a Democratic imprimatur, the all-encompassing priority. Drop everything, abandon the movement for social justice and planetary survival, but save the Democrats, no matter how corporate-bought. These guys don’t want a Green New Deal, they want to suck the Greens into their deal with the corporate Democrats. They can’t live without the duopoly; they just want to occupy a little corner of the corporate edifice.

CrossTalk: Trump VS Bernie

Corporate Media Are the Real ‘Sanders Attack Machine’

As the Iowa caucuses approach, corporate media are beginning to panic. “Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity,” insisted  Jonathan Chait in New York magazine (1/28/20). The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman (1/20/20)—among many others (FAIR.org, 1/24/20)—revived the 2016 media trend of tarring Sanders as “Trumpian.” The Never Trumper holdouts—an increasingly endangered species—are as scared as the establishment Democrats. “Bernie Can’t Win,” David “Axis of Evil” Frum wrote pleadingly in the Atlantic (1/27/20). “Bernie Sanders’s Trump-Like Campaign Is a Disaster for Democrats,” cried the Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin (1/27/20). “Anyone But Trump? Not So Fast,” counseled the New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (1/24/20).

The Wall Street–funded Democratic think tank Third Way has also pulled out all the stops against Sanders’ rise—with media’s help. The group put out “A Warning” to Iowa Democrats (1/28/20), advising them that,

because of media negligence and the strategic calculation of his rivals, you have not seen much real exploration of the politically toxic background and ideas of the current polling leader in Iowa and a national co-frontrunner.

The memo proceeded to offer a lengthy list of ways Trump would attack Sanders—an easy list for them to compose, since some of them, such as that he’ll be called a socialist and that Medicare for All is unpopular, are ones the Third Way itself has used to attack Sanders.

The media have been happy to offer a platform for this message. The Washington Post recently gave Third Way an op-ed column (1/15/20) to make its case that “Bernie Sanders’s agenda makes him the definition of unelectable.” USA Today (1/29/20) likewise gave Third Way leaders space to charge, “Democrats Court Doom by Backing Bernie Sanders. His Ideas Are Toxic Outside Blue America.” And the group has been popping up in the latest round of centrist-source articles (among other usual suspects, like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville), in which establishment sources make unsubstantiated claims that reporters pass on without comment.

One of these ideas is that Sanders has flown under the radar, evading attacks or scrutiny from both his opponents and the media. “It’s past time for other Democrats to come off the sidelines and for the media to start doing its job to vet a serious contender for the nomination,” Third Way’s Matt Bennett told NBCNews.com (1/25/20) in an article headlined, “‘Oh My God, Sanders Can Win’: Democrats Grapple With Bernie Surge in Iowa.” In Politico (1/27/20), he ratcheted up the rhetoric: “[The media] let him get away with murder. They let him bluster past hard questions.” ...

Another line of attack is the revival of the “Bernie Bro” as a means to discredit the Sanders campaign. A central trope of the 2016 campaign, based on anecdotal evidence and repeated endlessly by Clinton supporters and journalists, the idea that Sanders supporters are predominantly white, male and viciously offensive on social media lingers on—despite its utter lack of basis in reality. As all journalists and most of the rest of the world know, the internet is awash in vile rhetoric coming from all directions, not just from a small subset of Sanders supporters. As Glenn Greenwald put it (Intercept, 1/31/16):

There are literally no polarizing views one can advocate online — including criticizing Democratic Party leaders such as Clinton or Barack Obama — that will not subject one to a torrent of intense anger and vile abuse…. Pretending that abusive or misogynistic behavior is unique to Sanders supporters is a blatant, manipulative scam.

In fact, a March 2016 study found that, among voters, Sanders supporters were perceived as much less “aggressive and/or threatening online” (16%) than were Clinton supporters (30%), who in turn were perceived as much less so than Trump supporters (57%). And yet the media persist with the trope. ...

The real Sanders attack machine isn’t the mythical machine run by Sanders to take down his opponents; it’s run by the establishment Democrats and their media counterparts to take down Sanders.

Bernie Leads Biden By 9%! New Emerson Poll

Pete Buttigieg backtracks on pledge to leverage aid to Israel

US Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has backtracked on comments that he would leverage aid to Israel - just days before the Democratic Party's Iowa Caucus. Speaking at a town hall meeting on Wednesday, a member of IfNotNow, an American-Jewish progressive activist group, asked Buttigieg if he was committed to withdrawing aid from Israel if it annexed illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"If you're asking me whether in light of the president's proposal I would withdraw aid to Israel, the answer is no," said the South Bend, Indiana mayor.

The question came a day after the Trump administration released its plan aimed at solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The long-awaited "deal of the century" document contained conceptual maps showing how Israel and a future Palestinian state would appear, if the Palestinians agreed to sign up to the plan.

The Palestinians unanimously rejected the plan, with thousands taking to the streets in towns and villages in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Emily Mayer, a co-founder of IfNotNow, said it seems that Buttigieg is out of touch with what is morally right, and also with the wants of the Democratic Party. "Unfortunately, his answer yesterday makes it seem as if the closer we get to the election, and the closer he gets to Democratic establishment donors, the more out of touch his approach becomes both with what Democrats want and what is morally right," Mayer said in a statement sent to Middle East Eye.

Krystal Ball: Bernie vs Biden's closing pitch before Iowa

200,000-Strong Postal Workers Union Endorses Sanders for President

Sen. Bernie Sanders received the stamp of approval from the 200,000-strong American Postal Workers Union for his quest for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, receiving the organization's endorsement Thursday after the group's National Executive Board voted to back the Vermont lawmaker's bid for the White House.

The union also endorsed Sanders during his ultimately unsuccessful 2016 run for the nomination.

"As with 2016, once again the Sanders campaign is boldly uplifting the goals and aspirations of workers," APWU president Mark Dimondstein said in a statement. "Simply put, we believe it is in the best interests of all postal workers, our job security, and our union to support and elect Bernie Sanders for president."

The union delivered its endorsement to Sanders because the senator has been a longstanding supporter of the Postal Service and a consistent opponent of schemes to privatize the service. In a video annnouncing the endorsement, APWU showed clips of Sanders defending the service and its workers and calling for strengthening the government-run mail system.

.@BernieSanders is on the side of postal workers and the APWU National Executive Board is proud to endorse him. #NotMeUS #APWUnited https://t.co/h5zP6psqmY pic.twitter.com/kb756xoeMC

— APWU National (@APWUnational) January 30, 2020

Trump EPA's Formal Assertion Glyphosate Poses No Risk to Human Health Indication of 'Troubling Allegiance' With Bayer/Monsanto

President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday wrapped up a regulatory review of the safety of the weedkiller glyphosate and found the chemical poses no risk to human healh—a decision that was immediately decried by advocates as another indication of the closeness between the administration and private sector interests. 

"The Trump EPA's assertion that glyphosate poses no risks to human health disregards independent science findings in favor of confidential industry research and industry profits," said Lori Ann Burd, the Center for Biological Diversity's director of environmental health. "This administration's troubling allegiance to Bayer/Monsanto and the pesticide industry doesn't change the trove of peer-reviewed research by leading scientists finding troubling links between glyphosate and cancer."

The EPA came to the conclusion after reviewing the chemical's effects on humans, but the determination is unlikely to change views on either side of the conflict over the chemical's safety.

"A whole lot of people will disagree" with the EPA, tweeted Civil Eats founder and editor Naomi Starkman.

As Reuters reported:

The conclusion reaffirms the agency’s stance on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Bayer AG's Roundup, despite judgments by U.S. juries that have found that use of the weedkiller was responsible for plaintiffs' cancer in some trials.

...

In 2015, the World Health Organization's cancer arm classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."

There are reportedly tens of thousands of lawsuits against Bayer/Monsanto for the chemical's cancer links, and the company is considering settling the claims for between $10 and $12 billion. 

Thursday's decision is not expected to have an effect on those suits. But the message the EPA is sending, the Center for Biological Diversity's Burd said, is clear. 

"The EPA's pesticide office is clearly willing to bend over backwards, including disregarding its own guidelines for evaluating cancer risks, to give the industry what it wants," said Burd.

Ohio Hearing on Proposed Anti-Protest Law Draws... Loud Protest

Demonstrators filled the halls near a hearing room in the Ohio statehouse Wednesday to make their opposition to a bill criminalizing protest that ultimately passed through the state House Public Utilities Committee and is now headed to the floor.

The legislation, Senate Bill 33, institutes stiff penalties for demonstrations that cause damage to infrastructure—a standard that the bill's opponents say is aimed at stopping protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects.

"It's meant to intimidate us into not using our voice," Rev. Marian E. Stewart of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus told the Columbus Dispatch on Wednesday.

As the Dispatch reported, the legislation is part of a pattern in states looking to curtail the right to protest fossil fuel infrastructure:

Ten states so far have enacted similar laws, starting in the wake of 2016's protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota to which Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers were dispatched. It would make it a first-degree misdemeanor to "knowingly enter or remain on" pipeline rights of way even when they’re on public land or when protesters have property owners’ permission to be there.

It also would make it a third-degree felony to "knowingly destroy or improperly tamper with" a pipeline or other critical infrastructure. But its supporters in October wouldn’t define "tamper."

Further, the bill would subject groups to which people committing such felonies belong to fines of up to $100,000 — an amount that could devastate nonprofit environmental groups and churches, the bill’s critics say.

Protesters in the hearing room voiced their disapproval.

"You aren't the people's government," shouted one demonstrator. "You're the oil and gas industry's government!"

Change climate policy now to avert oil market crisis, warns thinktank

The oil industry is at risk of a global market shock that could halve the value of fossil fuel investments if governments delay setting policies to tackle the climate crisis, according to new analysis. A report by Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, warned that a “handbrake turn” in climate policy could have a “forceful, abrupt, and disorderly” impact on the global oil industry by derailing fossil fuel demand.

The report warned that the longer governments wait to set new regulations to drive climate action the tougher they will need to be to avert the risk of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and dangerous global heating.

The report modelled the impact of a swift government crackdown on fossil fuels from 2025. It predicted that the impact could cause global oil prices to collapse, wiping out billions of dollars worth of fossil fuel investments. Andrew Grant, a Carbon Tracker analyst and author of the report, said oil companies “risk being left with stranded assets” by assuming that governments will stop short of “forceful action to limit climate change”.

The thinktank urged policymakers to act soon to limit new investment in fossil fuel projects which risk being stranded, and warned oil companies to anticipate a steep change in climate action.

Most of 11m trees planted in Turkish project 'may be dead'

Up to 90% of the millions of saplings planted in Turkey as part of a record-breaking mass planting project may have died after just a few months, according to the country’s agriculture and forestry trade union.

On 11 November last year, which the government declared National Forestation Day, 11 million trees were planted by volunteers in more than 2,000 sites across the country, including by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the parliament Speaker, Mustafa Sentop.

The government-backed programme broke the world record for the most trees planted in one hour in a single location, with 303,150 saplings planted in the northern Anatolian city of Corum.

The head of the union Sukru Durmus claimed, however, that 90% of the saplings his teams have inspected so far have died because of insufficient water. ... The ministry of agriculture and forestry denied the claim and said that “as of today, 95% of the more than 11 million saplings planted are healthy and continuing to grow”.

The union cast doubt on the government’s claims. “Even with normal time and preparation, the success rate is between 65 and 70%,” said Durmus. “The 95% rate given by the ministry is never true.”

Mexico: defender of monarch butterflies found dead two weeks after he vanished

A Mexican environmental activist who fought to protect the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly has been found dead in the western state of Michoacán, two weeks after he disappeared. Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January. His body was found floating in a well on Wednesday, reportedly showing signs of torture.

The motive for his murder remains unknown, but some activists speculated that it could have been related to disputes over illegal logging. ...

Gómez González’s death comes as the murder rate continues to surge in a country where environmental defenders, human rights workers and community activists are routinely targeted for their work. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to halt attacks on environmental defenders, but the killings continue. ...

Millions of the butterflies make a 2,000-mile (3,220km) journey each year from Canada to pass the winter in central Mexico’s warmer weather. But the forests and the monarchs are threatened by climate change and the incursion of illegal loggers and avocado farmers.

En el Santuario El Rosario Ocampo Michoacan “ El más grande del mundo “ pic.twitter.com/WlCJuOcG4Q

— Homero gomez g. (@Homerogomez_g) January 12, 2020

In one of his last videos, shared on Twitter a day before his disappearance, Homero Gómez González stood amid a cloud of butterflies. “Come and and see this marvel of nature! [The butterflies] are lovers of the sun, the souls of the dead,” he said, referring to indigenous legends about the migratory butterflies.

Illegal logging is one of the most lucrative environmental crimes. It's also one of the biggest drivers of killings of #environmentdefenders. Homero Gomez Gonzalez's death must be independently investigated. https://t.co/7RsrEKREdb

— Ali Hines (@shoemyth) January 30, 2020

Also of Interest

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

Does Bernie Sanders Know What He’s Doing?

Safe-States Strategy from Hell: Greens Respond to Progressive Left Dems

Trump's 'peace plan' is beyond insulting. That's deliberate

Anti-Trump-themed ‘Immigrant Food’ restaurant owned by lobbyists for right-wing Latin American coup leaders who fueled migration crisis

Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens.

Peru: why a fundamentalist sect became an unexpected winner in elections

John Hickenlooper, Establishment Pick for Colorado Senate Seat, Has an Increasingly Stale Record

'People, Poor Disabled People in Particular, Are Going to Die': Trump Takes Axe to Medicaid

As Fed’s Powell Spoke at His Press Conference, the Market Gave Him a Taste of a Taper Tantrum

The US government claims I'm a 'domestic terrorist'. Am I?

How Iowa Chooses National Convention Delegates and What That Means For Us

The New York Times Endorsement Has Often Been a Boost for the Unendorsed

Sanders Team Weighing Executive Orders to Legalize Marijuana, Stop Trump Border Wall, Declare Climate Emergency, and More

New Poll Shows Sanders Is Trump's Most Formidable Foe in "So-Called Red State" of Texas

John Kiriakou: How Do You Trust a Politician?

John Delaney drops out of presidential race, Krystal and Saagar react

DFA Chair encouraged by Yang, Tulsi, Bernie solidarity in Iowa

Krystal and Saagar debate Bernie's immigration policy

New Republic Editor: Can the establishment stop Bernie?

Daniel Marans: Are Latinos the key to Bernie's win in Iowa?

Rising: Bernie takes the lead nationally

Rising: Is Bloomberg buying mayoral endorsements?

Neanderthal genes found for first time in African populations

A Little Night Music

Paul deLay Band - Harpoon Man

Paul deLay Band - Fourteen dollars in the bank

The Paul deLay Band - Mine All Mine

Paul deLay Band - So Near

Paul deLay - Ain't That Right

Paul deLay - Keep On Drinkin

Paul deLay - Tiger In Your Tank

The Paul deLay Band - What Went Wrong

Paul Delay Band - Bess And Ernie's Rib Joint

Paul deLay - Bottom Line

Paul deLay - All My Money Gone