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This evening's music features r&b singer and piano player Floyd Dixon. Enjoy!

"For many years, the U.S. — like the U.K. and other Western nations — has embarked on a course that virtually guaranteed a collapse of elite authority and internal implosion. From the invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis to the all-consuming framework of prisons and endless wars, societal benefits have been directed almost exclusively to the very elite institutions most responsible for failure at the expense of everyone else.

It was only a matter of time before instability, backlash, and disruption resulted. Both Brexit and Trump unmistakably signal its arrival. The only question is whether those two cataclysmic events will be the peak of this process, or just the beginning. And that, in turn, will be determined by whether their crucial lessons are learned — truly internalized — or ignored in favor of self-exonerating campaigns to blame everyone else."

-- Glenn Greenwald

News and Opinion

It was the Democrats' embrace of neoliberalism that won it for Trump

They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry.

But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?

Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.

At the same time, they have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cosy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous. Success is a party to which they were not invited, and they know in their hearts that this rising wealth and power is somehow directly connected to their growing debts and powerlessness.

Donald Trump speaks directly to that pain. ... Neo-fascist responses to rampant insecurity and inequality are not going to go away. But what we know from the 1930s is that what it takes to do battle with fascism is a real left. ... The Democratic party needs to be either decisively wrested from pro-corporate neoliberals, or it needs to be abandoned. ... So let’s get out of shock as fast as we can and build the kind of radical movement that has a genuine answer to the hate and fear represented by the Trumps of this world.

Glenn Greenwald: Why Did Trump Win? Blame the Failed Policies of the Democratic Party

White Women Pushed Trump to Victory

For months, the image of the Donald Trump’s supporter has been the face of an angry white man. But it was white women who pushed Trump to victory.

Rejecting the candidate who had aimed to be America’s first female president, 53% of white women voted for Trump, according to CNN exit polls.

White women without a college degree supported Trump over Hillary Clinton by nearly a two to one margin. White women with a college degree were more evenly divided, with 45% supporting Trump, compared with 51% supporting Clinton.

Women of color, in contrast, voted overwhelmingly for Clinton: 94% of black women supported her, and 68% of Latino women. While exit polling data has flaws, the early responses underline a stark racial divide among American women: the majority of white women embraced Trump and his platform, while women of color rejected him.

Planned Parenthood receives “outpouring of support” after Trump’s win

In the hours after Donald Trump’s election, anecdotal evidence pointed toward a loud chorus of support for an organization that will likely find itself the target of a Trump administration: Planned Parenthood.

And sure enough, the nonprofit organization has seen an “outpouring of support” from both longtime and first-time donors since Hillary Clinton conceded the election, a spokesperson for the organization told VICE News. In addition to cash donations, that has come in the form of volunteer sign ups and phone calls of support. ...

Women who donated to Planned Parenthood in the wake of Trump’s election said they needed to do something to address a sense of panic or hopelessness. ...

Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards responded to Trump’s victory by reassuring people that the organization would continue its mission.

Silicon Valley investors call for California to secede from the US after Trump win

As Donald Trump’s shock election victory reverberated around Silicon Valley late on Tuesday night, some high-profile technologists were already calling for California to secede from the United States.

The broader west coast is a stronghold for the Democrats, and significantly more politically progressive and racially diverse than large swathes of central US. California is also the biggest economy in the US and the sixth largest in the world with a gross state product of $2.496tn for 2015, according to the IMF.

The campaign for independence – variously dubbed Calexit, Califrexit and Caleavefornia – has been regarded as a fringe movement. But support was revitalized by influential Uber investor and Hyperloop co-founder Shervin Pishevar, in a series of tweets announcing his plans to fund a “legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation” – posted even before the full results were in.

Pishevar was supported by others in Silicon Valley. Angel investor Jason Calacanis said that California succession would be simple in the wake of both Brexit and a Trump win. Evan Low, a Democrat serving in the California state assembly, said that he’d support the introduction of a bill to start the independence process. Pishevar’s comments add weight to the Yes California campaign, which launched in late 2015 calling to create a free, independent California Republic. Led by political activist Louis Marinelli, Yes California proposes a 2019 referendum, following the model adopted by Catalonia to gain independence from Spain.

Bernie Sanders: Donald Trump harnessed anti-establishment anger

Bernie Sanders has acknowledged that Donald Trump managed to become US president by tapping into the anti-establishment anger of “a declining middle class” but said he will continue to challenge him.

As thousands of people crowded into streets in major cities to protest against Trump’s victory, Sanders, who defied expectations by running a close race against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said he was prepared to work with the president-elect to help working families.

But the self-styled “democratic socialist” said he would “vigorously oppose” the “sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies” that featured prominently in Trump’s campaign. ...

Sanders’s reaction to Trump’s victory echoes many on the left who have been alarmed by Trump’s extremist statements, but share the apparent rage of his supporters against the elite.

In Britain, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “Trump’s election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people. It is one that has delivered escalating inequality and stagnating or falling living standards for the majority, both in the US and Britain.”

Greenwald on "Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit"

An excellent article worth a full read:

Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit

The parallels between the U.K.’s shocking approval of the Brexit referendum in June and the U.S.’ even more shocking election of Donald Trump as president last night are overwhelming. Elites (outside of populist right-wing circles) aggressively unified across ideological lines in opposition to both. ... Afterward, the elites whose entitlement to prevail was crushed devoted their energies to blaming everyone they could find except for themselves, while doubling down on their unbridled contempt for those who defied them, steadfastly refusing to examine what drove their insubordination. ...

The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population — all while compiling their own long record of failure and corruption and destruction — are now shocked that their dictates and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They’re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Their instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched on a mission of destruction: aimed at a system and culture they regard — not without reason — as rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare.

After the Brexit vote, I wrote an article comprehensively detailing these dynamics, which I won’t repeat here but hope those interested will read. The title conveys the crux: “Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions.” That analysis was inspired by a short, incredibly insightful, and now more relevant than ever post-Brexit Facebook note by the Los Angeles Times’s Vincent Bevins, who wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years.” Bevins went on: “Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”

Low-income rural white voters in Pa. voted for Obama in 2008 and then Trump in 2016, and your explanation is white supremacy? Interesting.

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) November 9, 2016

Nigel Farage claims to be catalyst for Trump’s presidential election victory

Nigel Farage, the interim Ukip leader, was increasingly open in his backing for Trump after he spoke at at a rally for the Republican candidate in Mississippi. Trump himself referred to the shock vote for Brexit in the UK as an inspiration for his campaign.

During the occasionally raucous late-evening phone interview with presenter James Whale on Wednesday, Farage was asked if he had “a lot to answer for” over Trump’s victory.

“I’m the catalyst for the downfall of the Blairites, the Clintonites, the Bushites, and all these dreadful people who work hand in glove with Goldman Sachs and everybody else, have made themselves rich, and ruined our countries,” Farage replied. “I couldn’t be happier.” ...

Farage appeared to welcome the prospect of more surprise electoral successes across Europe, where some pundits have raised the idea of a National Front victory in France’s presidential vote in 2017.

“Brexit, and now Trump, and now the wagons roll on to the rest of Europe for all the elections next year,” Farage said. “This is a really exciting time. As someone who has now become a demolitions expert I’m thoroughly enjoying what’s going on.”

Mackey goes way over the top here. Obama bombed at least seven countries, assassinated a bunch of (brown) people and murdered a 16 year old kid (because he made a poor choice of parent) but by by golly he never grabbed anybody's pussy. It's funny that these awful characteristics are only a problem when exhibited by modern Republicans. After all, many Democrats revere horn-dogs like Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt - all of whom had trouble keeping it in their pants. There's a long history of Presidential philandering going back to the founding fathers, among whom we have significant evidence that Thomas Jefferson enslaved a black woman and had sex with her, fathering a bunch of children whom he also enslaved.

So, yeah, if you ignore all of the bad things that Obama has done, the contrast between Obama and Trump is pretty amazing.

Liberals Wonder What to Tell Their Children. The Truth: America Is Not a Fairy Tale.

It was in Spain, Albert Camus wrote of a civil war war lost to fascists, that his generation learned “that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, and that there are times when courage is not rewarded.”

In more or less functioning democracies, election nights like the one we’ve just lived through can provide a version of the same lesson, at infinitely less cost. Many American liberals, for instance, still recall the feeling of shock that struck them on November 2, 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected with surprising ease, after it had become obvious, even to Donald Trump, that the war in Iraq was a disaster.

But as many of those dismayed by Trump’s victory struggled to come to terms with it, another question entered the discussion of the results: how could parents explain to their children that a bigoted, sexist bully with no impulse control and no qualifications to do the job had been elected president of the United States?

Breaking it to children that such a man would soon replace Barack Obama, who has been held up as a role model and a paradigm of personal decency even by many of his political opponents, seemed daunting even to observers as far away as Ireland.

How do you explain to your kids that Trump was elected? Feels like Voldemort won

— Lorna Sixsmith (@IrishFarmerette) November 9, 2016

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, video of a CNN commentator, Van Jones, grappling with the question struck such a chord that it was shared, in various forms, hundreds of thousands of times on social networks.

“It’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us,” Jones said. “You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot.’ You tell your kids, ‘Do your homework and be prepared.’ And then you have this outcome."

"Not My President": Tens of Thousands Take to Streets, Block Freeways & Rally Against Trump

Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more

Wealth, power and crony capitalism fit together. Americans know a takeover has occurred, and they blame the establishment for it. The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.

Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes. Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22% of all workers when Bill Clinton was elected president to less than 12% today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

Bill Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated. The unsurprising result of this combination – more trade, declining unionization and more industry concentration – has been to shift political and economic power to big corporations and the wealthy, and to shaft the working class. This created an opening for Donald Trump’s authoritarian demagoguery, and his presidency. ...

The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.

'Wall Street Plus Identity Politics' Formula is Over for the Democrats

THOMAS FERGUSON: I think we really are at the end of the classical democratic formula of the Clinton period which was Wall Street plus identity politics. I think this is it. You're never going to be able to put that humpty dumpty back together again. They are going to actually ask if the democrats want to win they're going to actually have to make a strong appeal to working class Americans. Now you know the problem this is going to create. There's a ton of money in the democratic party. It is not going to sit there and tolerate candidates like Sanders. You know they just really despised and hated. And overall they don't like Elizabeth Warren either. So we're now going to have a very interesting situation where you've got a top heavy party with cash at the top. Then you have no mass base at all basically or very little.

Heh, profiles in cowardice:

Speaker Paul Ryan pivots and heaps praise on President-elect Trump

House Speaker Paul Ryan repeatedly heaped praise on President-elect Donald Trump in a press conference in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, the morning after the real estate mogul’s stunning win. Ryan had abandoned the Republican nominee a month ago to focus on congressional races after a 2005 tape leaked of Trump bragging about groping women without their consent.

But after Trump rocked the political establishment by winning the presidency Tuesday evening and winning Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin — the first Republican presidential candidate to carry it since 1984 — Ryan described Trump as a man who “heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard.”

Trump had accomplished an “enormous feat” and “turned politics on its head,” Ryan reiterated several times in what appeared to be pre-scripted talking points. He gave Trump credit for “coattails” that helped Republicans win their congressional seats.

Judge accused by Trump of bias to hold university case pre-trial hearing

A US judge accused of bias by Donald Trump because of his Mexican heritage is to hold a pre-trial hearing on Thursday in a class-action lawsuit over the president-elect’s now-defunct Trump University.

US district judge Gonzalo Curiel is holding the hearing to instruct the jury and examine what evidence to allow at trial, which begins on 28 November. Trump could be called to testifying before his inauguration as the 45th US president.

Among the flurry of requests from both sides is a highly unusual petition by Trump’s legal team to exclude any statements made by or about their client during the presidential campaign.

The request would apply to Trump’s tweets, a video of him making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and public criticisms about Curiel. ...

The lawsuit, filed in 2010 on behalf of former customers, alleges that Trump University, which was not accredited, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, pressuring people to spend up to $35,000 for mentorships and, in the end, failing on its promise to teach success in real estate.

Trump has 'every intention' of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital

Israeli government ministers and political figures are pushing the US president-elect, Donald Trump, to quickly fulfill his campaign promise to overturn decades of US foreign policy and recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv.

Their calls came as one of Trump’s advisers on Israel and the Middle East, David Friedman, told the Jerusalem Post that Trump would follow through on his promise.

‘It was a campaign promise and there is every intention to keep it,” Friedman said. ‘We are going to see a very different relationship between America and Israel in a positive way.”

Other political figures – including Israel’s controversial far-right education minister, Naftali Bennett – went further, suggesting that Trump’s election should signal the end of the two-state solution and aspirations for a Palestinian state.

The US election campaign has been closely watched in Israel, not least Trump’s promise to scrap the Iran nuclear deal drawn up by Barack Obama and fiercely opposed by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump Likely to Back Off Pledge to Derail Iran Nuclear Deal

While a lot of people were reacting hastily in expecting dramatic shifts in US policy based on President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign speeches, the talk from some analysts of the Iran deal being effectively dead because of the reaction results seems particularly premature.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was particularly quick to downplay the risks to the deal, noting that as a multilateral deal between the entire P5+1 and Iran, no single government can practically overturn the deal. This has been a common misunderstanding by US Republicans seeking to derail the already signed deal with Congressional resolutions, and appears to have spread into the presidential primary.

While the US could conceivably renege on its obligations under the deal, and indeed that has been what some Congressional resolutions suggested doing, it wouldn’t overturn the entire deal so much as render the US the sole violator of it. If anything, such a move risks an international backlash from the other P5+1 nations, particularly those in Europe.

As Trump Transitions to Power, 'Cabinet of Horrors' Takes Shape

As President-elect Donald Trump began his transition to power on Thursday, early reporting has opened a window into what the nation can expect as his "cabinet of horrors," as AFP put it, takes shape.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin are among the more high-profile individuals named on a shortlist of potential appointees leaked to several news outlets.

On Wednesday, BuzzFeed News published a list of 41 names suggested for 13 positions, including attorney general, secretary of state, White House chief of staff, and White House counsel.

And while some, like Christie, were unsurprising, as Salon's Brendan Gauthier wrote, "The people whose names you don't recognize are as bad or worse as those whose names you're sick of hearing."

For example, Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is being considered to head the Department of Defense, "was fired from his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, which he attributed to his hawkishness," Gauthier reports.

Oil executive Forrest Lucas is favored to take over the Department of the Interior, multiple outlets have reported. "That's a position that oversees land management, national parks and wildlife reserves, and Lucas at the helm would represent a nightmare scenario for environmentalists," AFP reported.

Also being considered for that position is Palin, the former vice presidential candidate made famous for her love of hunting and frequent chants of "drill, baby, drill."

It has previously been revealed that top climate skeptic Myron Ebell, who serves as director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, is spearheading transition plans for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—a department Trump repeatedly vowed to dismantle during his run-up to the election.

"In some cases," BuzzFeed reports, "it appears the transition team is looking to find a home for a particularly loyal ally—Ben Carson, for instance, is listed as a potential candidate to be the secretary of education and secretary of health and human services, while Sen. Jeff Sessions is listed as a possible attorney general, head of the Office of Management and Budget, or secretary of defense."

As for the heavy-hitters, former Republican House speaker Gingrich is being floated for the position of secretary of state, which AFP notes, "would have major implications for U.S. foreign policy and Washington’s role in the international community."

Gingrich, who has lauded Trump's approach to foreign policy, has had his own international views described as "unpredictable," "hawkish," and "shameless."

Meanwhile, Christie and Giuliani—each with their own questionable interpretations of the law—are reportedly in competition for the role of attorney general. This particular appointment, Maurice Chammah wrote at the criminal justice-focused Marshall Project on Wednesday, is "poised to upend...[o]ne of the Obama administration's most aggressive civil rights tactics—the investigation and forced reform of local police departments."

Isis forces 1,500 Iraqi families to march to Mosul

Islamic State militants have forced 1,500 Iraqi families to march to Mosul from the village of Hammam al-Alil, where advancing soldiers have found a mass grave feared to contain dozens of bodies.

As Isis loses control of areas, summary executions and forced marches of civilians have become a grim feature of the military campaign to oust the militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq, now stretching into its fourth week.

Nearly 300 former members of the security forces and 30 sheikhs, or local leaders, had reportedly disappeared from other villages around Mosul, a senior United Nations official said. ...

The families were expected to be used as human shields by the group, which has repeatedly used civilians to try to protect its fighters, while some had been shot for trying to escape. Most of those killed were former members of the security forces, apparently targeted by Isis over fears they could form the core of an uprising against its rule as other enemies close in.

Pentagon releases details of casualties in Iraq and Syria

Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight injured in 24 US airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria between 20 November 2015 and 10 September 2016, the US military said in a statement on Wednesday. ...

Including the latest disclosure, the Pentagon has assessed that 119 civilians have been killed in US airstrikes since 2014, while 37 have been injured, Major Josh Jacques, another spokesman for US Central Command, said.

Last month a report from Amnesty International said that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition attacks in the past two years.

Jacques said the latest release did not include an investigation into a coalition air strike in mid-July near Manbij, Syria, which groups say killed dozens of civilians, but that it was near completion.

Pentagon revealed only 5-10% of coalition airstrikes’ civilian casualties – Amnesty researcher

Pentagon Again Dramatically Under-Reports Civilians Killed in Airstrikes

Central Command has issued a new report on civilian deaths in US airstrikes against Iraq and Syria, this time covering 10 months of strikes from November of 2015 into mid-September of this year. They claimed 64 civilians killed and eight wounded in 24 strikes over that span.

Previous reports from Centcom were a dramatic under-count, and that trend continued with this new report, which carefully omitted some of the biggest and most well-documented incidents, which apparently fell into the category of strikes that the Pentagon decided not to investigate at all.

The most conspicuously absent figures are from mid-July, when a flurry of US airstrikes against the city of Manbij and the surrounding area killed an estimated 200 civilians. At least 56 civilians were killed in one single incident, which at the time the US claimed they “mistook for ISIS.”

US Airstrike Kills 20 Civilians North of Raqqa

The first reported civilian casualties of the US-backed invasion of the ISIS capital of Raqqa occurred overnight in the nearby village of al-Heisha, just 40 km north of the city, where a US airstrike hit a large number of civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 20 civilians killed in the attack and 32 others wounded, again all civilians. The Pentagon has confirmed that it conducted the strikes that were reported in the area to have caused the casualties.

NATO to Trump: Here’s Your Marching Orders

The election of President-elect Donald Trump in the United States has sent a shockwave through NATO, and fearful of losing US support for their latest costly attempt to return to a Cold War-era has set the alliance’s leadership on a new campaign of hyping the need for an anti-Russia campaign, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg publishing a new article playing up the idea of NATO needing to be ready to mobilize against Russia in Eastern Europe, above and beyond the 300,000 troops already there.

Stoltenberg also addressed a news conference during which he pointedly warned against Trump’s talk of making US military force in Europe conditional on European funding, insisting that all NATO members have to provide “absolute and unconditional” security support for one another. ...

During the campaign, Trump expressed major doubts about the relevance of NATO in a post-Cold War world, comments which fueled considerable anger from officials deeply invested in the recent military buildups in Eastern Europe in recent years, and a major backlash which saw the rest of NATO crossing their fingers for a Clinton victory that ultimately did not come.

Trump continued to emphasize the need for European nations to pay more of the cost for their defense, saying the United States could no longer do so. This was not well-received in Europe and is likely to continue to be a source of tension between NATO and the incoming Trump Administration, with NATO determined to maintain the status quo.

Moscow accuses Dutch sub of monitoring Med fleet

Russia on Wednesday accused a Dutch submarine of trying to monitor its aircraft carrier and escort vessels in the Mediterranean, denouncing such manoeuvres as "dangerous".

According to the Russian defence ministry, the Severomorsk and the Vice-Admiral Kulakov, two of its anti-submarine ships, had "spotted a submarine from the Dutch navy... which tried to approach the Northern Fleet's aircraft carrier group in the eastern Mediterranean." ...

"The vessels followed its manoeuvres for more than an hour and forced it to leave the deployment area of the aircraft carrier's group," a ministry statement said.

"These clumsy attempts to carry out dangerous manoeuvres in the immediate proximity of a group of Russian vessels could have had grave navigational consequences," it said.

Russian warships "regularly" detect NATO submarines on their way to the Mediterranean, the ministry said.

Report: Trump Backtracks on Pulling US Troops Out of South Korea

New reports from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency suggest President-elect Donald Trump is already reneging on one of his key campaign promises, to make nations like South Korea pay more of the cost for their own defense or face the loss of US troops.

Sources quoted by the news agency say that Trump called South Korean President Park Guen-hye today and promised her that he will not withdraw US troops and will continue the US security commitment to South Korea exactly as it currently exists.

Trump had made the US spending too much money defending other nations a centerpiece of his campaign, complaining that rich nations like Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia have more than enough money to pay for their own defense, and that the US should be willing to withdraw its support if financial compensation wasn’t forthcoming.

Obama’s Final Arms-Export Tally More than Doubles Bush’s

The Obama administration has approved more than $278 billion in foreign arms sales in its eight years, more than double the total of the previous administration, according to figures released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.

Many of the approved deals — most but hardly all of which have become actual sales — have been to Mideast nations, including key allies in the campaign against Islamic State militants and countries that have been building up their defenses in fear of a nuclear Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been the largest recipient, reaping prospective deals worth more than $115 billion, according to notices announcing the deals that were sent to Congress for approval. ...

Obama has brokered more arms deals than any administration since World War II. For immediate comparison, the George W. Bush administration approved $128.6 billion in arms export between 2001 and 2008.

Defying Obama Request, Dakota Access Co. Mobilizes to Drill Beneath River

In defiance of both the Obama administration and ongoing Indigenous protests, the company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline announced Tuesday that it would soon begin drilling under the Missouri River.

The pipeline operator, Energy Transfer Partners, made the announcement late in the afternoon on Election Day, when most media outlets were preoccupied with the presidential election.

The Guardian reports:

Energy Transfer Partners, the company overseeing the North Dakota oil pipeline, has already completed construction up to the river that provides water to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and announced on Tuesday it would soon begin drilling at the site.

The company said it would not halt construction, despite requests by federal agencies to delay the project as the US government reassesses permits and considers possible reroutes.

In a statement, Energy Transfer Partners said it was "mobilizing horizontal drilling equipment" in preparation for tunneling under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri river by the protest camps and Native American reservation. The corporation said it would be ready to start crossing the water in two weeks.

"I'm in shock. I'm speechless," Cheryl Angel, a Sicangu Lakota tribe member who has been at the Standing Rock camps since the spring, told the Guardian. "It's unconscionable and devastating. It's almost as though they have no soul."

Meanwhile, industry experts are saying that the election of Donald Trump all but guarantees the construction of the pipeline that would transport fracked oil from North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois, crossing the Missouri River upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation. ...

"Trump's support of U.S. oil and gas development and his close ties to Harold Hamm, CEO of key Bakken producer Continental Resources that stands to gain from improved netbacks from Dakota Access, make it highly likely he will greenlight the project," Bellamy said, according to Platts.

'Game Over' for Climate? Report Warns Warming Is Still Underestimated

Greenhouse gases are rising so fast that it could soon be "game over" for the climate, a leading scientist warned in response to a new study published Wednesday that finds the planet could be heading for more than 7°C warming within a lifetime.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, reported that the United Nations' most accurate estimates on the "business as usual" rate of global warming may actually be vastly underestimated.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently estimated that continuing to use fossil fuels at current rates would put the Earth on track for an average temperature rise of 2.6°C to 4.8°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

But the authors, a team of climate researchers and scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Washington, the University of Albany, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, say the range for that same time period is actually  4.78°C to 7.36°C. That's because the climate has "substantially higher sensitivity" to greenhouse gases during warm phases, they write—which ultimately means that "within the 21st century, global mean temperatures will very likely exceed maximum levels reconstructed for the last 784,000 years."

Bill McKibben: Trump's Presidency Comes When the Warming World Can Least Afford It

Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change

It is now virtually certain the world will not meet any of its climate targets. If Trump (and the Republican-controlled Congress) stand by their pledges, we will see a major rollback of the tremendous progress that has been made on reducing emissions. A Trump presidency will likely set us back at least a decade, perhaps longer. And that is a decade we can’t afford.

The world will blow past the 2C (3.6F) target set in Paris. This means it will be difficult to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

The election also affects how we should talk about climate change. In the US, and in many other countries, opposing steps to cut carbon pollution has become a litmus test for conservative politicians. So, in this sense, conservatives now own climate change. I can just imagine the slogans, “Climate change, brought to you by your neighborhood conservatives.” ...

Now, we can look forward to the US going backwards. Becoming the world’s laggard on climate change (again). Once again, America’s leaders will describe climate change as a hoax or as a non-threat.

So, I’d like to rename climate change to “Climate Change, brought to you by Conservatives”

Also of Interest

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

Be calm: Trump is not the worst and won’t go unchallenged

Many Middle East countries will welcome Trump’s victory

Ha ha, it was Podesta's fault:

New WikiLeaks Email: Podesta May Have Cost Democrats the Election With Push for Obama Legacy

The Big Split

Dumbass Democrats

Trump’s Data Team Saw a Different America—and They Were Right

Will Trump Be Rolled by the Republican Establishment?

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A Little Night Music

Floyd Dixon - When I Get Lucky

Floyd Dixon - Let's Go Smitty

Floyd Dixon - Houston Jump

Floyd Dixon - OOH EEE! OOH EEE!

Floyd Dixon - Ooh Little Girl

Floyd Dixon - Sad Journey Blues

Floyd Dixon and Johnny Moore - Real Lovin' Mama

Floyd Dixon and Johnny Moore - Lovin'

Floyd Dixon - Let´s Dance

Floyd Dixon - Wake Up And Live

Floyd Dixon W/Port Barlow and Full House, 1994 Chicago Blues Festival