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This evening's music features sax player Noble "Thin Man" Watts and his wife June Bateman. Enjoy!

“In America, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different order from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. I am using this world almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information--misplace, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information--information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?”

-- Neil Postman

News and Opinion

Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

The Washington Post late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret. ...

Needless to say, Democrats — still eager to make sense of their election loss and to find causes for it other than themselves — immediately declared these anonymous claims about what the CIA believes to be true, and, with a somewhat sweet, religious-type faith, treated these anonymous assertions as proof of what they wanted to believe all along: that Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose and used nefarious means to ensure that outcome. That Democrats are now venerating unverified, anonymous CIA leaks as sacred is par for the course for them this year, but it’s also a good indication of how confused and lost U.S. political culture has become in the wake of Trump’s victory. ...

The reasons no rational person should blindly believe anonymous claims of this sort — even if it is pleasing to believe such claims — should be obvious by now.

To begin with, CIA officials are professional, systematic liars; they lie constantly, by design, and with great skill, and have for many decades, as have intelligence officials in other agencies.

The CIA’s Absence of Conviction

I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. ...

The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt. ...

I had a call from a Guardian journalist on Sunday. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:

The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”

But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB. ...

Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.

Obama orders review of Russian hacking

President Obama is ordering a “full review” of Russia’s alleged efforts to undermine the 2016 presidential election through hacking and disinformation, according to remarks by a White House advisor Friday morning.

Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser Lisa Monaco said the result of the review will be shared with some members of Congress, though she wasn’t clear about whether they will be made public, according to Politico. It’s expected to be completed before Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. ...

Over the past few months, intelligence officials — including NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and CIA chief John Brennan — have all accused Russia of attempting to interfere with U.S. elections. Evidence they point to includes the leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee in July, and the trove of emails released by WikiLeaks over the summer.

Oh my, this fluffed up scandal is getting to be the gift that keeps on giving. Double down on your popcorn investments!

'Absolutely Insane': John Bolton Suggests DNC Hack Was Obama 'False Flag'

John Bolton, the hawkish former Bush administration official now reportedly under serious consideration for deputy secretary of state, suggested during a Fox News interview on Sunday that the reports of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election might be a "false flag" by the Obama administration, an accusation characterized as "insane" by observers.

"It’s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation," the former UN ambassador said. "The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary’s server but their dumb intelligence services against the election?"

"False flag, that's a very serious charge," Shawn responded, apparently stunned by the accusation. "False flag by whom?"

"We just don't know," Bolton said. "But I believe intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree."

Trump attacks the CIA

Late Friday night, after a Washington Post report revealed a CIA finding that Russian-backed hackers actively worked to influence the course of the 2016 election in favor of Trump, the president-elect’s transition team sent out a scathing statement.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement read. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” ...

Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden said the initial public intelligence assessment of Russian involvement in the hacking, which included other agencies along with the CIA, was based on “high confidence” from U.S. intelligence officials. ...

The debate over the recently uncovered CIA assessment is just beginning. Republicans have been skeptical of the CIA claim that Russians wanted Trump to win, and on Saturday RNC spokesperson Sean Spicer told CNN there are more questions than answers in the CIA finding.

Who’s Afraid of a Little Russian Propaganda?

American anxiety about foreign propaganda goes back to at least the World War I era. As media historian David Greenberg writes in The Republic of Spin, Berlin fed “bulletins and capsules” supportive of the German war effort to U.S. publications. ... This fear of foreign propaganda persisted into the late Cold War era, too, with President Ronald Reagan claiming in a 1987 interview — without citing any specifics — that the Rooskies were sullying America with untruths. ...

Somehow the Republic withstood the propaganda onslaughts that were backed up by U-boats and nuclear weapons; although some Soviet efforts, such as the ones that capitalized on the civil rights struggle, made a mark, in general the truth prevailed in the free marketplace of ideas. So how distressed need we be today during peacetime about direct but discreet doses of Russian propaganda from venues like RT and Sputnik, myriad Russian disinformation and trolling operations going into the media stream, and the Russian-inspired fake-news adulteration of other sites? ...

Political ads often distort reality much in the same way propaganda does, expressing emotional half-truths and obfuscations to persuade voters. But the recent campaign, in which Trump spent about a third of what Clinton did on TV ads yet prevailed, proves that the masses are not susceptible to all the advertisements that money can buy. The volume of Clinton ads clearly dwarfs the combined output of Russian propaganda and disinformation but still did not change enough minds to win the prize.

In this sense, the shrillness of the propaganda debate reveals a deep distrust of citizens by the elites. What the elites dread is propaganda’s effect on the non-elites, whom they paternalistically imagine believe everything they read or view. But they don’t. The idea that naïve and vulnerable audiences can be easily influenced by the injection of tiny but potent messages into their media feedbag was dismissed as bunk by social scientists as early as the 1930s and 1940s. According to what academics call the hypodermic needle theory (aka magic bullet theory, aka transmission-belt model), there is little evidence that the public was the defenseless prey of mini-doses of propagandists. Larger doses don’t seem to be very effective, either.

“We know from the entire history of communication research that attitude change is hard, and behavior change is even harder,” says Nikki Usher, a media scholar at George Washington University.

Could Massive Russian Oil Deal with Exxon Explain Why Putin Appears to Have Meddled in US Election?

Intelligence figures fear Trump reprisals over assessment of Russia election role

Legislators overseeing the CIA and other intelligence agencies have told the Guardian they will be vigilant about reprisals from Donald Trump over an internal assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to ensure Trump’s victory.

Fears of retaliation rose within US intelligence agencies over a tense weekend that saw Trump publicly dismiss not only the assessment but the basic competence of the intelligence apparatus.

“When the president-elect’s transition team is attempting to discredit the entire intelligence community [IC], it has never been more important for the IC and Congress to guard against possible political pressure or retaliation against intelligence analysts,” Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, told the Guardian.

Like his Democratic colleagues on the panel, Wyden is pressing Barack Obama for additional public disclosures revealing Russian electoral interference. Such pressure has placed the CIA and other intelligence agencies between the incoming president to whom they will soon answer and a chorus of legislators, mostly but not exclusively Democrats, who consider the Russia hack a national emergency.

It is not possible to gauge precisely how deep fears of retaliation run within the intelligence world. Two currently serving intelligence officers told the Guardian this weekend they had not heard their colleagues express such concerns.

An amusing article, here's a taste:

The Democrats “Russia Hacking” Campaign is Political Suicide

The Democratic Party is doing incalculable damage to itself by shapeshifting into the party of baseless conspiracy theories, groundless accusations, and sour grapes. Hillary Clinton was already the most distrusted presidential candidate in party history. Now she’s become the de facto flag-bearer for the nutso-clique of aspiring propagandists at the CIA, the New York Times and Bezo’s Military Digest. How is that going to improve the party’s prospects for the long term?

It won’t, because the vast majority of Americans do not want to align themselves with a party of buck-passing juveniles that have no vision for the future but want to devote all their energy to kooky witch-hunts that further prove they are unfit for high office.

The reason Hillary Clinton lost the election is because she is a polarizing, untrustworthy warmonger. Period. Putin had nothing to do with it.

And the same rule applies to the major media that has attached itself leech-like to this pathetic fairytale.

Trump Attacks Lockheed’s F-35 Jet

Defense stocks plunged as President-elect Donald Trump took aim at another high-profile military program: Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 fighter jet, the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons system.

“The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump posted Monday on Twitter. “Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th,” inauguration day.

Trump’s criticism of defense program costs has tempered a post-election rally driven by his call on the stump for a larger armed force and greater fleets of combat ships and fighter jets. He made similar complaints on the “Fox News Sunday” television program and on Saturday posted a link to a Washington Post article about a Pentagon report on $125 billion in administrative waste.

The latest broadside reinforced Trump’s willingness to attack big U.S. companies. He assailed Boeing Co. last week over the development budget for the new Air Force One and had badgered United Technologies Corp. over a plan to move some U.S. jobs to Mexico in its Carrier air-conditioning unit.

Syria: rebel troops have lost nearly 90% of their territory in Eastern Aleppo

Assad forces close to capturing east Aleppo after 'doomsday' bombardment

Forces loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria have drawn closer to their goal of reclaiming all of the city of Aleppo, seizing more territory in a relentless advance that has displaced thousands of civilians.

Syrian soldiers and Iranian-backed militias now hold 90% of east Aleppo after wresting control of two more neighbourhoods that were once part of the rebel-held and besieged east of the city, as it emerged that opposition fighters were contemplating a deal to evacuate Aleppo.

The advance was preceded by some of the most intense bombardment of the war, described as a kind of “doomsday” by one resident, Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, with non-stop artillery shelling through the night and Monday morning and numerous airstrikes.

Islamic State retakes historic city of Palmyra

Islamic State fighters appear to have reconquered the historic city of Palmyra after days of intense fighting on its outskirts prompted a withdrawal by the Syrian military.

“The catastrophe has happened, I am in absolute shock,” said Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director of antiquities, in a phone interview. “I am losing hope, it looks like we have lost the city.”

An Isis-affiliated news channel claimed victory in the battle on Sunday, saying its soldiers had reclaimed control of the entirety of Palmyra, once a Silk Road oasis that boasted some of the best-preserved ruins of antiquity.

It was the second time Isis has seized Palmyra. In May last year, jihadi militants stormed the city after a week-long siege that ended with the mass retreat of the Syrian military. Militants rampaged through the city’s museums and ruins, blowing up the 2,000-year-old towering Temple of Bel and the Arch of Victory, along with other priceless artefacts, and killed Khaled al-Asaad, Palmyra’s long-serving leading archaeologist.

US Sees New Troops in Syria at Risk of Attack From Turkey

On Saturday, the Pentagon announced another escalation of the war in Syria, saying they are sending another 200 ground troops into the country to take part in the Kurdish invasion of Raqqa. The deployment brings the number of US troops in Syria to around 500.

Unnamed US officials say they’re not too worried about the troops getting attacked by ISIS in the course of invading their capital city, but rather that they see a bigger risk of suffering a military attack by a US ally, Turkey. ...

Turkey is a NATO member nation, and even if they are comfortable thumbing their nose at the US and picking fights with the Kurds it would be seemingly unthinkable that they would deliberately attack targets with embedded US troops. That the matter is being discussed at all, even by anonymous officials, underscores a worsening US-Turkey relationship.

It’s 2016. Do You Know Where Your Bombs Are Falling?

Along with a deeply divided country, the worst income inequality since at least the 1920s, and a crumbling infrastructure, Trump will inherit a 15-year-old, apparently never-ending worldwide war. While the named enemy may be a mere emotion ("terror") or an incendiary strategy ("terrorism"), the victims couldn’t be more real, and as in all modern wars, the majority of them are civilians.

On how many countries is U.S. ordnance falling at the moment? Some put the total at six; others, seven. For the record, those seven would be Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and, oh yes, Yemen. ...

I vividly recall a political cartoon of the 1980s that appeared at a moment when Congress was once again voting to send U.S. aid to the Contra forces fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Having witnessed firsthand the effects of the Contra war there, with its intentional military strategy of attacking civilians and public services as well as its use of torture, kidnapping, and mutilation, I found those Congressional debates on sending money, weapons, and CIA trainers to the Contras frustrating. The cartoon’s single panel caught my mood exactly. It was set in the cloakroom of the House of Representatives. Suspended from each hanger was a backbone. A blob-like creature in a suit could just be seen slithering out of the frame. The point was clear: Congress had checked its spine at the door.

In fact, in every war the United States has fought since World War II, Congress has effectively abdicated its constitutional right to declare war, repeatedly rolling over and playing dead for the executive branch. During the last 50 years, from the Reagan administration’s illegal Contra war to the "war on terror," this version of a presidential power grab has only accelerated. By now, we’ve become so used to all of this that the term "commander-in-chief" has become synonymous with "president" – even in domestic contexts. With a Trump administration on the horizon, it should be easier to see just what an irresponsible folly it’s been to allow the power of the presidency and the national security state to balloon in such an uncontrolled, unchecked way.

I wish I had the slightest hope that our newly elected Republican Congress would find its long-lost spine in the age of Donald Trump and reassert its right and duty to decide whether to commit the country to war, starting in Yemen. Today, more than ever, the world needs our system of checks and balances to work again. The alternative, unthinkable as it might be, is looming.

Chelsea Manning's clemency petition reaches 100,000 signatures forcing White House response

A White House petition calling for President Obama to commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence has reached 100,000 signatures. Forcing the current or next administration to respond within 60 days.

"We did it! Thank you so much for your love and support. =)," Manning wrote on her Twitter account Saturday.

“I don't know what to say,” she admitted in another post. “I am just grateful that I am not forgotten. You've given me hope.”

Intelligence Chief Publishes New Training Guide to Teach Whistleblower Rights

Intelligence Chief James Clapper this week published a new training curriculum on whistleblower rights for all federal employees and contractors with access to classified information, even as critics point out that effective recourse for reporting problems remains limited. ...

“The guidance is not bad, but falls victim to the typical problem institutions have protecting whistleblowers: agencies like whistleblowers in theory, but when a specific instance of fraud, waste, mismanagement, abuse of power or dangerous behavior is challenged, the IC has proven time and again that it is unable and unwilling to police itself,” Jesselyn Radack, the national security and human rights director at whistleblower protection nonprofit ExposeFacts, wrote in an email to The Intercept. ...

“The problem is not training,” former NSA official Thomas Drake wrote in an email to The Intercept. “Blowing the whistle too often threatens one’s ability to hold a clearance (a condition of continuing employment in the national security arena), raises trust issues, jeopardizes one’s job and pension, or far worse.”

He described Clapper’s initiative as “lots of nice sounding boilerplate” language with little formal weight, leaving “it up to the individual agencies to implement.”

For years, intelligence community whistleblowers have been hobbled by ineffective, weak protections. When they attempt to raise complaints, whether about the behavior of coworkers, fraud, or illegal conduct, they’ve faced years in court trying to get their security clearances back, or have their names cleared. “Nothing in the guidance changes that dynamic,” Raddack wrote.

Rand Paul Vows to Block John Bolton as Deputy Secretary of State

President-elect Donald Trump is facing criticism for other nominations, but none may be so impactful as Sen. Rand Paul’s (R – KY) promise to oppose John Bolton’s nomination as Deputy Secretary of State, saying the ultrahawkish Bolton is “an automatic no.”

“John Bolton doesn’t get it. He still believes in regime change. He’s still a big cheerleader for the Iraq War,” Paul noted. Indeed, Bolton appears far afield of the foreign policy Trump has advocated, and Bolton’s open aversion to diplomacy makes him an odd choice in the State Department.

Since Sen. Paul serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he might be in a position to actually do something about this nomination.

Obama and the Decline of the Left in Latin America

Brazilians Revolt as Post-Coup Govt. Pushes 'Deliberately Retrogressive' Austerity Package

Brazil's new neoliberal government is set to push through the most socially retrogressive austerity package in the world, a United Nations official warned on Friday, calling the proposed 20-year freeze on social spending a "radical measure, lacking in all nuance and compassion."

Under President Michel Temer, who seized power after a coup ousted the democratically elected Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, the spending freeze would be locked into the country's constitution. ...

Brazil is Latin America's largest economy and is currently undergoing its deepest recession in decades. Its unemployment rate has doubled since 2015. Nonetheless, Temer has targeted social welfare programs since coming into office. In November, TeleSUR described the bulk of PEC55's policies:

The reform, previously known as PEC 241, freezes public spending rates for the next 20 years by tying any increase to social assistance programs to the previous year's inflation rate rather than GDP rates. This effectively limits what all future governments can spend on health, education and social welfare. Critics argued that the poor and marginalized in Brazilian society will disproportionately bear the burden of the cuts that will significantly undermine rights enshrined in the constitution.

The austerity package comes amid massive protests on the streets of Brazil. Jorge Darze, the president of the Doctor’s Union of Rio de Janeiro, told the Guardian, "The situation is very serious. It is very difficult to discuss, because the legislative militarizes its entrance and the public prosecutors office has turned its back. This austerity package is far from solving the economic crisis, and I think it will worsen the social crisis."

Golly, look at that; negative campaigns and politics-as-usual doesn't appear to be the way to defeat rising fascism.

Conviction for Racist Speech Could Help Make Geert Wilders Dutch Prime Minister

Hours after a court in the Netherlands found the far-right politician Geert Wilders guilty of breaching anti-discrimination laws by railing against Moroccan immigrants at a rally, a poll found that 53 percent of the country opposed the ruling.

Wilders, an extreme nationalist obsessed with the supposed threat to Dutch identity from Islam, promises to shut the nation’s borders to Muslim immigrants, ban the Quran, close all mosques and hold a referendum on leaving the European Union if he becomes prime minister.

He denounced the decision by a three-judge panel, but Wilders appears to have benefitted from the trial. His Party for Freedom, known by the Dutch acronym PVV, currently leads in polls ahead of a general election in March, thanks in part to a surge in support during his trial.

Quarter of inmates could have been spared prison without risk, study says

A quarter of the US prison population, about 364,000 inmates, could have been spared imprisonment without meaningfully threatening public safety or increasing crime, according to a new study.

Analyzing offender data on roughly 1.5 million US prisoners, researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that for one in four, drug treatment, community service, probation or a fine would have been a more effective sentence than incarceration.

“The current sentencing regime was largely a knee-jerk reaction to crime, not grounded in any scientific rationale,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program. “While it may have seemed like a reasonable approach to protect the public, a comprehensive examination of the data proves it is ineffective at that task.”

The study also concluded that another 14% of incarcerated individuals had already served an appropriate sentence. These people could be released within the next year “with little risk to public safety”, the researchers said. Combined, these two populations represent 39% of the current incarcerated public.

Nobel Peace Prize: Santos calls for 'rethink' of war on drugs

The President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, has used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to call for the world to "rethink" the war on drugs.

Mr Santos said it was "time to change our strategy" on drugs, and that Colombia had "paid the highest cost in deaths and sacrifices" in the so-called war on drugs.

The term, coined by US President Richard Nixon more than four decades ago, refers to US-led efforts to stop drug production at its source. In Latin America this has included on-the-ground policing, and fumigation of coca fields from the air.

"We have moral authority to state that, after decades of fighting against drug trafficking, the world has still been unable to control this scourge that fuels violence and corruption throughout our global community," he said.

"It makes no sense to imprison a peasant who grows marijuana, when nowadays, for example, its cultivation and use are legal in eight states of the United States.

"The manner in which this war against drugs is being waged is equally or perhaps even more harmful than all the wars the world is fighting today, combined."

Trump Makes America Goldman’s Again! #MAGA

It's now time for us, as a nation, to come together and congratulate the winner of the 2016 presidential election: Goldman Sachs.

Many Donald Trump voters likely believed his victory would be a loss for Goldman. At the Republican convention, a man who seemed to take Trump’s twitter attacks on Goldman seriously screamed “Goldman Sachs!” at Ted Cruz’s banker wife as she fled the convention floor. Trump’s own final campaign video declared that he would do battle against the “global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations” — as personified on screen by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

But that was then. As Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager and top adviser to Trump, as well as a former Goldman Sachs banker himself, put it Thursday: “I think the cabal against the bankers is over.”

The headlines on Friday were that the director of Trump’s National Economic Council will be Gary Cohn, the president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary is Steven Mnuchin, a one-time Goldman Sachs partner whose father was also a Goldman partner. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, also once worked for Goldman. ...

Goldman Sachs stock has gone up 33 percent in value since the 2016 election, and Blankfein himself is purring like a kitten. Trump, he says, is not “dangerous” and “I am not pessimistic at all because he won. … Mr. Trump may turn out to be a much better president than anyone else might have been in that place.”

Trump's Labor Pick, Fast-Food CEO Andrew Puzder, Opposes Minimum Wage Increase & Paid Sick Leave

Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary Pick Wants More Cheap Immigrants in American Jobs

As the CEO of the corporation that operates Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, President-elect Donald Trump’s labor secretary pick Andy Puzder has frequently criticized efforts to raise the minimum wage, claiming that higher wages are inadequate for entry-level employees and overly burdensome to businesses like his fast food empire.

That aligns with Trump’s position.

But Puzder’s devotion to cheap labor extends to being an outspoken proponent of offering legal status to undocumented workers and pushing for immigration reform — something that is discordant with Trump’s obsession with blocking and deporting undocumented immigrants.

His less noble and more opportunistic reasoning was apparent during an event at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute in June of 2013 — as Congress was engaged in debate about immigration reform —  where Puzder offered his candid view on the value of an immigrant workforce.

“Our Hardee’s restaurant operators in the Midwest and Southeast often use the labor force in California as an example of what they would like their labor force to be,” he explained. “They’re very hardworking, dedicated, creative people that really appreciate the fact they have a job. Whereas in other parts of the country you often get people that are saying, ‘I can’t believe I have to work this job.’ With the immigrant population you always have the ‘Thank God I have this job’ kind of attitude. So you end up with a real different feeling.”

Judge rejects Jill Stein's request for Pennsylvania election recount

A US judge in Pennsylvania on Monday rejected Green party candidate Jill Stein’s request for a recount of the state’s ballots in last month’s presidential election and an examination of voting machines for evidence of hacking.

The decision came on the same day that Wisconsin election officials expect to complete that state’s recount, although the results will not change the outcome.

Stein, who finished fourth in the election behind President-elect Donald Trump, had challenged the results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. All of those traditionally Democratic strongholds supported Trump, a Republican, on 8 November.

The Michigan supreme court on Friday denied Stein’s last-ditch appeal to secure a recount there.

He Waged Intimidation Campaigns Against Climate Scientists; Now He’s Helping Trump Remake the EPA

Many of the leading scientists working on climate change research around the country have found themselves targeted by David Schnare, an attorney working for a coal-industry-backed nonprofit. In recent years, Schnare has hounded academics with lawsuits and voluminous record requests as part of a campaign the Union of Concerned Scientists has called “harassment” designed to “chill their speech, and discourage them from tackling contentious topics.”

Now, Schnare is working for Donald Trump.

On Monday, the Trump transition team named Schnare to the team revamping the Environmental Protection Agency, the agency that oversees climate change and pollution-related research and science. Schnare is one of many operatives with fossil-fuel ties to join Trump’s EPA team, but his name stands out as someone who has gone beyond mere advocacy by actively working to intimidate individual scientists.

Schnare, the general counsel for the Environment & Energy Legal Institute, a group formerly known as the American Tradition Institute, has gone after climate scientists for the last five years. ... Gretchen Goldman, the research director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that Schnare’s “E&E Legal does the dirty work that fossil fuel companies don’t want to associate themselves with, including harassing and attacking scientists.”

Rapid rise in methane emissions in 10 years surprises scientists

Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change.

Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb.

This is a cause for alarm among global warming scientists because emissions of the gas warm the planet by more than 20 times as much as similar volumes of carbon dioxide.

In the meantime, emissions of carbon dioxide – the main component of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – have been levelling off. The new research, published in the peer-review journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the world’s attempts to control greenhouse gases have failed to take account of the startling rises in methane. ...

The scientists speculate that agriculture may be the main source of the additional methane that has been recorded. However, they cannot be sure of all the sources, owing to a lack of monitoring.

At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful.

Trump's War on Science: Exxon CEO Expected to Head State, While "Enemies List" Worries Energy Dept.

Trump’s Picks for EPA and Interior Threaten the Future of Clean Water

Environmentalists have been rightly focused on the fact that climate deniers Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, whom he is expected to nominate for the Department of the Interior, could devastate the Clean Power Plan, the Paris Accord and, through them, national and even global progress on climate change. But Trump’s picks could permanently damage the country’s waters, too.

Both have a record of wide-ranging hostility toward the environment. As Attorney General of Oklahoma, Pruitt repeatedly (and often unsuccessfully) sued the EPA to stop the agency from doing its job. McMorris Rodgers, a conservative member of the House from Washington who has received almost a half-million dollars in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies, earned a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Both have already made the dismantling of water protections a particular priority.

If appointed, these two foes of the earth will likely usher in dark days for our nation’s lakes, streams, and rivers. Our waterways are already in serious peril, according to an EPA evaluation of U.S. lakes released Friday. ...

Now environmental groups are turning their energies to fighting the appointments. Some have noted that only a few Republicans would need to break ranks to block Pruitt’s path in the Senate. And the opposition to McMorris Rodgers has already begun. Just hours after Trump’s choice was reported, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, called on any senator “with a concern for future generations of Americans” to oppose her: “Rep. McMorris Rodgers poses a clear and present danger to our treasured public lands.”

Senate Finally Approves Flint Aid—At California's Expense

The U.S. Senate on Saturday passed a wide-ranging $10 billion deal to fund water and infrastructure projects around the country, including the removal of lead pipes in Flint, Michigan—but climate advocates say the long-awaited assistance comes at the cost of environmental protections in drought-stricken California.

If approved by President Barack Obama, the Water Resources Development Act would allot $170 million to address the ongoing lead poisoning crisis in Flint, a provision that Michigan lawmakers and activists say is long past due. However, it would also approve $558 million to send more water to California farmers, make it easier to build new dams in the state, and target certain fish species for elimination from waterways.

The California provision was tucked into the massive bill against the wishes of one of its primary authors, retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Despite having worked on it for years, Boxer found herself urging senators to vote against the massive bill, saying it puts the interests of big farmers over endangered species protections for salmon and other fish. ...

As McClatchy notes, the provision would "dramatically [shift] 25 years of federal policy," and its "rocky road to the White House also proved a costly master class in political persistence and adroit maneuvering."

Thousands of vets came to support Standing Rock, but tribal leaders say it was a disaster

The arrival of thousands of U.S. military veterans to North Dakota’s Standing Rock protest camp last week made headlines, but tribal leaders and even some vets themselves are saying the operation was a dismal failure.

Hundreds of military veterans have begun leaving the main camp at Standing Rock after a lack of coordination and preparation left many without food or adequate shelter in the snow and sub-zero temperatures. The vets’ subsequent scramble to build shelter then angered tribal leaders. ...

The Veterans Stand for Standing Rock effort, led by veterans Michael Wood Jr. and Wes Clark Jr. — the son of retired U.S. Army general and former presidential hopeful Wesley Clark — made waves after announcing thousands of veterans would voluntarily “take bullets” and protect protesters from police water cannons. But Munoz said that the group’s leaders seemed more interested in publicity. ...

In a video posted on Facebook, Clark admitted that “logistics have been atrocious and chaotic,” attributing the situation to the “nature of self-organizing” and the fact that more veterans showed up than were expected.

“In the camp, a lot of vets were unprepared,” said Gaz, who retreated to a gymnasium outside Oceti Sakowin Camp early this week. He said the facility successfully housed about 200 people, though it started running out of food and medical supplies. “When I left, the vets group was building a permanent barracks out of wood without permission from the Sioux.”

Also of Interest

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

The Syrian-Sarin ‘False Flag’ Lesson

Here’s Why Russia Wasn’t Behind the WikiLeaks Emails Leak

The Fake Campaign to Blame ‘the Russians’

Bill Black: After 30 Years of Throwing Working People Under the Bus, Democratic Party’s “Centrist” Leaders Remain Clueless About Voter Revenge

Historical & Structural Reasons for Skepticism of CIA Claims: Remaining Agnostic on Claims of Russian Hackers

Oxfam Names World's Worst Tax Havens Fueling 'Global Race to Bottom'

Top National Security Figures Want Trump to Cancel the Michael Flynn Clown Show

Local Police Worry Trump Will Punish Sanctuary Cities By Cutting Drug War Funding

Google is not ‘just’ a platform. It frames, shapes and distorts how we see the world

Standing Rock 'water protectors' use break to help other indigenous causes

National Geographic nature photographer of the year 2016 – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Noble Watts - Noble's Theme

Paul Hucklebuck Williams & Noble Watts - Give It Up

June Bateman With Noble Watts And His Band - Go Away Mr. Blues

Noble Watts - Jookin'

June Bateman/Noble Watts - Possum Belly Overalls

Noble Watts - The Frog Hop

Noble Watts - Teen scene

Nobel Watts & June Bateman - Georgia Mule

June Bateman - Come On Little Boy

Noble "Thin Man" Watts - The Beaver

June Bateman/Noble Watts - I Don't Wanta

Noble Watts - The Creep

June Bateman & Group - Yes I Will

Nobel Watts and June Bateman - Mama I Love Him So

Paul Hucklebuck Williams & Noble Watts - Pass The Buck

Noble Watts - Boogie Sax