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“Praise be to God, who made our enemies fools.”

-- Qassem Soleimani

News and Opinion

Excellent piece with lots of information, worth a full read:

TV Pundits Praising Suleimani Assassination Neglect to Disclose Ties to Arms Industry

Since Friday, a loud chorus of voices has appeared in the media to celebrate President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a move that has sparked renewed tension in the Middle East, a new deployment of U.S. forces, and predictions of increased military spending. Many of the pundits who appeared on national television or were quoted in major publications to praise the president’s actions have undisclosed ties to the defense industry — the only domestic industry that stands to gain from increased violence.

Jack Keane, a retired Army general, appeared on Fox News and NPR over the last three days to praise Trump for the strike on Suleimani. “The president acted responsibly,” Keane said during an appearance with Fox News host Lou Dobbs. “It should have happened a long time ago.” Keane has worked for military companies, including General Dynamics and Blackwater, and currently serves as a partner at SCP Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in defense contractors.

Van Hipp, chair of the lobbying firm American Defense International, which represents more than two dozen defense contractors — including Raytheon, Palantir, and General Atomics, the manufacturer of the MQ-9 Reaper drone used in the Suleimani slaying — published an opinion column on Fox News’s website praising Trump and suggesting increased pressure on the Iranian government.

David Petraeus, the retired general who once commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, was quoted by multiple outlets in support of the slaying. “This is a very significant effort to reestablish deterrence,” he told Foreign Policy. On Public Radio International, Petraeus declared that “this particular episode has been fairly impressively handled,” and praised the Trump administration for moving “to shore up our defenses and our offensive capabilities.” He also appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Petraeus, notably, works for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co., the investment firm with holdings in several major defense contractors that is reportedly moving to “build up its defense portfolio at a time when military budgets are skyrocketing.”

Propaganda Machine: The Military Roots of Cambridge Analytica’s Psychological Manipulation of Voters

Future of US military presence in Iraq in question amid confusion in Washington

The future of the US military presence in Iraq is in question amid scenes of confusion in Washington, as the Trump administration scrambled to respond to Iraqi demands for the troops to leave after last week’s assassination in Baghdad of Iran’s top general, Qassem Suleimani.

The US-led coalition taskforce fighting Isis in Iraq delivered a letter to the Iraqi defence ministry on Monday saying preparations would begin right away “to ensure that movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner”.

But soon afterwards, the defence secretary, Mark Esper, told journalists in the Pentagon: “That letter is inconsistent with where we are right now” and insisted that no decision had been taken to evacuate Iraq. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, said the letter had been sent in error.

“That letter is a draft, it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released,” Milley said, adding that it was “poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what’s happening”. ...

The evident confusion in Washington added to an impression among US allies and enemies alike that the decision to assassinate Suleimani without a clear plan of what to do next had weakened the US in the region.

US military has no plans to leave Iraq, Pentagon says after letter 'mistake'

US to Withdraw Hundreds of Troops From Baghdad

While the Pentagon was quick to disavow a letter which suggested that the US was preparing to withdraw troops from Iraq, NBC News is quoting military officials as saying that there is a “repositioning” of some US troops being carried out.

A “few hundred troops” will be involved in this move, and will be removed from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad to “safer areas.” Some will move elsewhere in Iraq, but many will be leaving outright, going to Kuwait.

US Actions in Iraq Could Plunge the Country Into Crisis Once Again

The assassination of Qassem Soleimani has capsized Iraqi politics in the most dangerous of ways, making it possible that the country will be plunged once again into a state of permanent crisis and war from which it has escaped in the last two years. ... Some commentators draw comfort from the fact that any official move by the Iraqi government to kick out US troops is far down the road and so, consequently, are any counter-measures by Mr Trump.

In reality, the crisis over the presence of US troops on the ground in Iraq is already with us and will get worse. The US troops returned to Iraq in 2014 to combat Isis after it captured Mosul and was advancing on Baghdad. The US forces provided logistic, intelligence and, crucially, helped orchestrate US air support for Iraqi soldiers and paramilitaries fighting Isis. These anti-Isis forces consist of the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces, the Shia paramilitary umbrella group, whose fighters are paid by the Iraqi government and headed by a senior Iraqi government official. Many of these paramilitary groups have Iranian links or are under Iranian control. ...

The US bases in Iraq are in fact more usually compounds within Iraqi military facilities. This means that from day one the US troops there are close to being hostages surrounded by potentially hostile Iraqis. Iraqi security units made no effort to protect the US embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad last week. Even if the compounds are not directly assaulted or subjected to rocket fire self-protection will be their priority. ...

A great danger in the present crisis is that Mr Trump and his advisers know even less about Iraq than did George W Bush and Tony Blair in 2003. For instance, a problem about attacking the pro-Iranian Shia paramilitary groups is that they are part of the Iraqi state. The Iraqi Interior Minister always belongs to the Badr Organisation, a pro-Iranian grouping. The military muscle of the Iraqi security forces, which the US is in Iraq to support, comes in part from such groups with whom the US has just gone to war.

It is not a war that the US is likely to win, but it will inevitably reduce Iraq to chaos. Thanks to such confusion, with its enemies at each other’s throats, Isis may again take root and flourish. In the Islamic world, the killing of General Soleimani will be seen as not only anti-Iran, but anti-Shia. Everywhere conflicts are being stirred to life of which Mr Trump knows nothing, but is about to find out.

Soleimani killing has brought the Iranian people around the world together - Galloway

Trump Administration Blocks Iran’s Top Diplomat From Addressing the U.N. Security Council

The Trump administration is barring Iran’s top diplomat from entering the United States this week to address the United Nations Security Council about the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top military official in Baghdad, violating the terms of a 1947 headquarters agreement requiring Washington to permit foreign officials into the country to conduct U.N. business, according to three diplomatic sources.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif requested a visa a “few weeks ago” to enter the United States to attend a Jan. 9 Security Council meeting on the importance of upholding the U.N. Charter, according to a diplomatic source familiar with the matter. The Thursday meeting was to provide Tehran’s top diplomat with his first opportunity to directly address the world community since U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, a top Iraqi militia leader, among others.

The Iranian government was awaiting word on the visa Monday when a Trump administration official phoned U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to inform him that the United States would not allow Zarif into the country, according to the Washington-based diplomatic source.

Lawrence Wilkerson on Trump's Iran aggression: same neocon lies, new target

Nato chief holds back from endorsing US killing of Suleimani

The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, had said it is imperative that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, but held back from endorsing the US assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad, stressing it was a decision made by the US, and not by either Nato or the coalition against Islamic State.

His intervention came as the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, also warned Iran that “it is imperative that it return to the nuclear deal”, remarks that could presage a European decision to abandon the deal if Iran does not recommit itself to its terms.

Stoltenberg was speaking after he said Nato diplomats in Brussels had been briefed by video conference by US state department and Pentagon officials on their rationale for killing Suleimani. He did not specify whether the US gave any intelligence assessments to back claims made by officials in America that Suleimani was masterminding attacks on US diplomats likely to take place in the weeks or months ahead.

Stoltenberg confirmed that Nato training operations in Iraq were being suspended due to fallout from the US strike on Suleimani, but he said he wanted them to restart as soon as possible. The Iraqi parliament has called for the removal of US troops from Iraq, but there is less clarity whether coalition forces will be allowed to continue to train the Iraqi army to fight Islamic State.

It’s no laughing matter pic.twitter.com/HNDmm2Q627

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 6, 2020

Omar and Lee Announce War Powers Resolution to Stop Trump

In a move underscoring that the U.S. Congress has the sole constitutional power to declare war, Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee and Ilhan Omar announced a War Powers Resolution in the House on Sunday as a companion version to that introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine in the Senate on Friday. ...

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna also introduced a separate bill on Friday that would bar any Pentagon funding for "military force in or against Iran" without congressional approval.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that a vote on a War Powers Resolution would come as early as this week, though it was not clear if leadership has decided on the complete language for its version. In a letter to colleagues, Pelosi said the effort on the resolution in the House would be a spearheaded by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA and Department of Defense analyst specializing in Shia militias.

According to the Speaker, the resolution the House will vote will be similar to the resolution introduced by Kaine in the Senate. "It reasserts Congress's long-established oversight responsibilities," she said, "by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration's military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days."

Joe Kennedy presses for AUMFs repeal vote following Soleimani strike

Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) on Monday pressed for an immediate House vote to repeal aging presidential war powers following President Trump’s decision to forgo congressional input and launch a drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander.

In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Kennedy asked that the House take up legislation to repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs). The 2001 AUMF authorized U.S. military force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and any “associated forces,” while the 2002 authorization was meant to go after Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq.

Democrats have argued that the AUMFs have been used beyond their scope to justify military operations around the globe — including the Reaper drone strike ordered by Trump that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last week — and that they must be repealed and replaced with more tailored legislation.

US Secretary of State contradicts Trump's threat to bomb Iranian cultural heritage sites

Trump’s Threat to Commit War Crimes Is Totally Cool with Twitter

President Trump used his favorite media platform to say he’ll let Congress know by tweet if more strikes on Iran are coming. And his tweeted threat to destroy Iranian cultural sites might be a war crime if carried out.

But Twitter is cool with all that.

The company tries to promote “healthy conversation” with rules against violent threats and other illegal activities. But its policies give wide leeway to world leaders in the interest of letting users see newsworthy information. It’s basically a license for Trump to ratchet up tensions with Tehran in 280-character tantrums.

On Saturday, two days after ordering the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the president threatened to bomb areas important to the country’s heritage. The United Nations Security Council condemned the tactic as a possible war crime in 2017 in response to the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda similarly targeting cultural sites. ...

“Presently, direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on economic or military issues are generally not in violation of the Twitter Rules,” the company added in an update last October. “However, if a Tweet from a world leader does violate the Twitter Rules but there is a clear public interest value to keeping the Tweet on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides context about the violation and allows people to click through should they wish to see the content.” Trump hasn’t hit that bar — yet.

Libyan general Khalifa Haftar’s forces seize key city of Sirte

Libyan forces loyal to the eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar said they had taken control of the strategic coastal city of Sirte in a rapid advance preceded by airstrikes.

Holding Sirte would be an important gain for Haftar, who since April has been waging a military offensive on the capital, Tripoli, home to Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

Sirte lies in the centre of Libya’s Mediterranean coast and has been controlled by GNA-aligned forces since they ejected Islamic State from the city with the help of US airstrikes in late 2016.

Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) said on Monday it had taken areas surrounding Sirte including al-Qardabiya airbase, before moving towards the city centre. ...

The city is just to the west of Libya’s oil crescent, a strip of coastline along which several key oil export terminals are located. Haftar’s forces seized the oil ports in 2016.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wins parliamentary vote to form coalition government

Rebecca Long Bailey launches Labour leadership bid

Rebecca Long Bailey has announced that she is standing to become leader of the Labour party with a stout defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s political programme in the general election. Widely seen as the favoured candidate of the left of the party, the MP for Salford and Eccles announced her candidacy on Monday night with a piece criticising the party’s election strategy and lack of narrative. She promised to defend policies within the party’s current socialist programme with “unwavering determination” in the article for Tribune magazine.

In the article, she says: “It is true that one reason we lost the election was that Labour’s campaign lacked a coherent narrative. But this was a failure of campaign strategy, not of our socialist programme.

“I don’t just agree with the policies, I’ve spent the last four years writing them. Labour’s green new deal, our plans to radically democratise the economy, and to renew the high streets of towns across the country, are the foundations for an economic transformation that will combat the climate crisis and hand back wealth and power to ordinary people.” ...

Long Bailey is regarded as the leadership candidate whose politics are closest to that of Corbyn and is widely expected to attract support from many of his inner circle, including the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. She is also expected to pick up the endorsements of Unite and Momentum.

In her comment piece, Long Bailey reassured party members that she was “totally committed to the policies” and could “be trusted with our socialist agenda” with a “political backbone”. She criticised the agenda promoted by Labour before Corbyn became leader, describing the platform as consisting of “triangulation and Tory-lite policies that held our party back”.

Aaron Glantz: Behind the new housing crisis in America

ICE Detention Center Captain Was on a Neo-Nazi Website and Wanted to Start a White Nationalist Group

A senior employee at a for-profit immigrant detention center in Nevada was active on the neo-Nazi site Iron March and aspired to establish a white nationalist chapter in his area. Travis Frey, 31, is currently employed as a captain at the Nevada Southern Detention Center, which is run by private prison behemoth CoreCivic and contracted with ICE.

Frey joined Iron March in 2013, and posted at least a dozen times between 2016 and 2017 while he was working as head of security at a CoreCivic jail in Indianapolis, which was also authorized to house detainees on behalf of ICE.

The archives of the now-defunct website were leaked online in November, offering a glimpse into the early organizational efforts driving the modern, international white nationalist movement. The foundations of violent neo-Nazi groups such as Atomwaffen were established in Iron March chats, and white nationalist leaders like Matthew Heimbach have said they were radicalized by the time they spent on the site. ...

Frey’s participation on Iron March and self-identification as a “fascist” in his profile raises questions about his tenure while holding a position of authority over the lives of vulnerable populations, including migrants, who are often people of color.

At Boston Immigration Court, ICE Must Now Justify Detaining Noncitizens — Reversing Decades of Precedent

For the first time in at least two decades, lawyers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are required to justify the detainment of noncitizens who are awaiting court proceedings in New England. In immigration proceedings, unlike in criminal courts, immigrants bear the burden of proving to the satisfaction of a judge that that they do not pose a danger or a flight risk — or else they are denied bond and locked up. But a November decision by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts reversed the burden of proof, instead calling on ICE to establish why someone ought to be detained.

The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts last June and went into effect on December 13.

The significance of the ruling, said ACLU of Massachusetts attorney Dan McFadden, is reversing a system that’s been in place since 1999 whereby the government did not have to prove anything to keep noncitizens in jail while their cases were decided — a process that sometimes takes several years. “I think that if our Constitution means anything,” McFadden said, “it has to mean that the government can’t put people in jail without showing that there’s a strong justification for taking away their liberty.”

The ruling applies only to the Boston immigration court, which covers all of New England except Connecticut (which has its own immigration court). Local immigration attorneys say the difference is palpable already. ... ACLU Massachusetts has been monitoring the implementation of the new policy over the last three weeks. McFadden said they have noticed differences in the judges’ adjudication of bond hearings. “The evidence at this point is early and anecdotal, but it appears that greater numbers of people are getting bond rather than being detained, and it appears that in many cases, the bond numbers have been lower,” he said.

Bernie Senior Advisor David Sirota calls out 'Biden's pathological lies' in Iraq

Progressive Challenger Jessica Cisneros Denounces Democratic Incumbent Henry Cuellar for Backing Trump's Assassination of Iran General

Progressive Democrat Jessica Cisneros on Monday took aim at her primary opponent Rep. Henry Cuellar for statements the incumbent and his campaign made over the weekend on President Donald Trump's push for war with Iran, charging Cuellar is putting the interests of his corporate donors over those of his constituents.

"It’s not that surprising if you look closely: Rep. Cuellar is bought and paid for by the military industrial complex," said Cisneros. "He has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the defense industry, including contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and BAE Systems."

Cuellar, a conservative Democrat, said Friday he supported the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by Trump on January 3. 

The Cuellar comments were decried by Cisneros, who accused Cuellar of taking a position indistinguishable from that of the president. After the pushback, Cuellar's spokesperson Colin Strother accused Cisneros of terrorist sympathies.

Krystal Ball: AOC didn't come to DC to make friends

Media leaders agonize over amplifying Trump lies as 2020 election year begins

The US media is facing daunting decisions as it enters the 2020 presidential election year including whether to amplify or muffle Donald Trump’s “digital bully pulpit” and his relentless stream of untruths as it seeks to avoid the calamitous mistakes of 2016, leading figures from the industry say. The Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review talked to 30 top editors, reporters, TV executives and commentators across the US. With the first poll of the Democratic nomination contest in Iowa just four weeks away, the issue of Trump’s domination of the 24-hour news cycle continues to disturb many media figures.

In the wake of Trump’s victory in November 2016, many commentators pointed to disproportionate and exhaustive coverage of his extreme comments and tweets as an important factor that skewed both the Republican primaries and the general election against Hillary Clinton. If anything, that pattern has intensified since then.

As Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, remarked last month, “I’ve said to many of my friends in the press, ‘You’re accomplices, whether you want to be or not’.”

Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist who has written extensively on the dilemmas facing the media in 2020, told the Guardian/CJR project: “We’ve learned that if you write a story about the ridiculousness of Trump’s latest tweet it gets a lot more traffic than an analysis of Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-all plan. I’m concerned that we are going to end up giving Trump more than the lion’s share of media time all the way up to election night.”

“The Great Hack”: Big Data Firms Helped Sway the 2016 Election. Could It Happen Again in 2020?

The Anarchist Daughter of the GOP's Gerrymandering Mastermind Just Dumped His Maps and Files on Google Drive

The daughter of late GOP gerrymandering mastermind just put all of his files online in a Google Drive for anyone to read. Thomas Hofeller, who died in 2018, was crucial to the Republican Party’s redistricting efforts across the country: He drew up tons of maps that the party used to make districts easier for them to win — sometimes at the expense of minorities’ voting rights. In an effort to defend their state’s political map in a lawsuit, Republicans had tried to keep Hofeller’s files secret.

But on Sunday, his daughter, Stephanie, who identifies as an anarchist, tweeted them out. She’d announced her plans to release the files last month and has now made them public on a website: thehofellerfiles.com, which links to a Google Drive full of his emails and documents related to his gerrymandering work.

“These are matters that concern the people and their franchise and their access to resources. This is, therefore, the property of the people,” Stephanie told NPR. “I won't be satisfied that we the people have found everything until we the people have had a look at it in its entirety.”

Link to my drive is on, https://t.co/IlH9zmepNq
"Stephanie's Copy" is hypertext.

Check it out, download it, put it on the wall, stomp on it, sacrifice it to the god of your choice, make art, make noise, have fun!

— Stephanie Hofeller (@SHofeller) January 5, 2020

Why young people have lost faith in the establishment Democratic party

Urgent new ‘roadmap to recovery’ could reverse insect apocalypse

The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts. The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.

Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers used in industrial farming and aggressive greenhouse gas emission reductions are among a series of urgent “no-regret” solutions to reverse what conservationists have called the “unnoticed insect apocalypse”.

Alongside these measures, scientists must urgently establish which herbivores, detritivores, parasitoids, predators and pollinators are priority species for conservation, according to a new paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The animals are crucial to the healthy functioning of ecosystems by recycling nutrients, serving as pollinators and acting as food for other wildlife.

The paper comes amid repeated warnings about the threat of human-driven insect extinction causing a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, with more than 40% of insect species declining and a third endangered, according to the first worldwide scientific review, published in February 2019.

Shutdown of US coal power facilities saved over 26,000 lives, study finds

The human toll from coal-fired pollution in America has been laid bare by a study that has found more than 26,000 lives were saved in the US in just a decade due to the shift from coal to gas for electricity generation. The shutdown of scores of coal power facilities across the US has reduced the toxic brew of pollutants suffered by nearby communities, cutting deaths from associated health problems such as heart disease and respiratory issues, the research found.

An estimated 26,610 lives were saved in the US by the shift away from coal between 2005 and 2016, according to the University of California study published in Nature Sustainability.

The coal sector has struggled in recent years, with 334 generating units taken offline during the period analyzed in the study. A cheap glut of natural gas has displaced coal, with 612 gas-fired units coming online during this time. As a result, more than 300m tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide has been saved, while levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, emitted by coal plants and linked to irritations of the nose and throat, dropped by 60% and 80%, respectively. ...

While a swift transition away from coal is seen by experts as imperative to limit global heating and the worst impacts of the climate crisis, there is a counterintuitive short-term local increase in warming once coal plants are shut down. This is because these plants emit aerosols that scatter sunlight, slightly cooling the surface. The natural gas that is replacing coal is “not entirely benign”, Burney’s research points out. Gas is, like coal, a fossil fuel and its production involves the release of vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

New Zealand bushfires flare amid fears country becoming more ‘flammable’

Bushfire season has begun in New Zealand with hundreds of hectares of forest going up in flames at half a dozen separate blazes on the east coast of the North Island. Seven helicopters and two planes are working to combat the largest blaze, in the Waipatiki forest outside of Napier, with about 70 firefighters on the ground, Fire and Emergency said. Strong winds are exacerbating risky conditions, with thousands around the country also losing power due to damaged lines. ...

Fire and Emergency said it was “confident” it had enough resources to battle the blazes, despite more than 150 New Zealand firefighters being stationed in Australia to face the unprecedented fire crisis there. ... Although New Zealand has a much lower fire risk than Australia, research has shown the fire season in New Zealand could become longer and more intense due to climate change, with the frequency of high fire-risk days potentially doubling or tripling. ...

George Perry, professor of environmental science at the University of Auckland, said that on average 4,000ha of land was burned in the country each year, with the average fire size being less than four hectares. The country’s vegetation was not highly flammable, as Australia’s eucalyptus trees were, but hotter and longer summers due to climate change were making the country more likely to ignite. “There’s a high risk that what we end up with is a more flammable landscape that is more vulnerable to fire,” said Perry, who added that Kiwis would need to adapt in order to protect themselves and their properties from future blazes.

Trump administration to overhaul environmental review regulations

The Trump administration is set to unveil new regulations which would limit the types of projects like highways and pipelines that require environmental review and no longer require federal agencies to weigh their climate impacts, sources familiar with the plan said.

The proposed overhaul will update how federal agencies implement the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa), a law meant to ensure the government protects the environment when reviewing or making decisions about major projects, from building roads and bridges, cutting forests, expanding broadband to approving interstate pipelines such as the Keystone XL.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is expected to announce that federal agencies will not be required to consider cumulative climate crisis impacts when considering federal projects, said two people familiar with the CEQ rule-making.

The CEQ oversees how nearly 80 government agencies meet their Nepa obligations. It is also expected to limit the scope of projects that would trigger stringent reviews called environmental impact studies, expand the number of project categories that can be excluded from Nepa reviews and allow companies or project developers to conduct their own environmental assessments, the sources said.

Also of Interest

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

Meet the Corporate War Profiteers Making a Killing on Trump's Attacks on Iran

The Assassination of Qassem Soleimani: What Would Crassus Say?

Pepe Escobar: The Economic Risks of Trump’s Reckless Assassination

To Stop Trump’s War with Iran, We Must Also Confront the Democrats Who Laid the Groundwork

‘Say No to Stealing Our Social Security Benefits’

Federal Reserve Admits It Pumped More than $6 Trillion to Wall Street in Recent Six Week Period

Former Gov. Lincoln Chafee files to run for president again as Libertarian

Climate Advocates Call for Fossil Fuel Companies to Foot Australia Fires Bill

Australia Wildfire Coverage Is Long on Koalas, Short on Causes

Keiser Report: Stock Markets Party Like It’s 1999

Grayzone: How neoliberal Democrats helped set the stage for Trump's war on Iran

Rising: Bernie's surprising strength in Super Tuesday, Biden admits no one understood Obamacare

Rising: Warren pleases nobody, How should Yang spend his ocean of cash?

Krystal and Saagar: Media's Iraq 2.0 coverage reveals their hypocrisy

Krystal & Saagar reveal new book: The Populist's Guide to 2020

A Little Night Music

Hammie Nixon - Trouble Trouble

Hammie Nixon - Brownsville Blues

Hammie Nixon - Viola Lee Blues

Sleepy John Estes with Hammie Nixon - Drop Down Mama

Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Corrine Corrine

Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Someday Baby Blues

Hammie Nixon - Bottle up and Go

Hammie Nixon - Nix's Boogie

Hammie Nixon - You're Gonna Look Like a Monkey When You Get Old