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"My guess is that most of the world is just collapsing in laughter [about unsubstantiated American claims that Russia hacked the election]. Suppose all the charges are true, I mean every single one, it is so amateurish by US standards that you can hardly even laugh. What the US does is the kind of thing I described in Italy in 1948. Case after case like that, not hacking or spreading rumors in the media; but saying look, we’re going to starve you to death or kill you or destroy you unless you vote the way we want. I mean that’s what we do."

-- Noam Chomsky

News and Opinion

Democratic Senator Confirms That Establishment Dems Are Trying To Start A War With Russia

During Thursday morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, New Hampshire Democratic US Senator Jeanne Shaheen told her peers that the US government should begin considering the possibility that the alleged (and still completely unproven) Russian hacking campaign during the 2016 presidential election cycle was “an act of war.” The Hill reports that Shaheen “asked the panel of experts and former officials testifying before the committee ‘what kind of message’ it sends to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the rest of the world — including America's allies — if the U.S. does not respond to the election hacks.”

To be clear, the last time officials in the US government claimed that America had been on the receiving end of an act of war was after the 9/11 attacks, which led to the invasion of two sovereign nations and the regime-toppling, drone-bombing policies of the so-called war on terror. When they use the phrase "act of war", they are saying that war has been waged. The "responses" Senator Shaheen is advocating are military responses. As a reminder, Shaheen belongs to the same political establishment that just ran a presidential candidate who campaigned on the promise to set up a no-fly zone in Syria, knowing (as testified by top military officials) that this would necessarily entail shooting down Russian military planes and starting a war with Russia. She also openly pledged “military responses” to the alleged Russian "cyber attacks".

These monsters are so adept at pacing the US public into insane acts of military aggression. ... They’ve been gradually turning up the heat on the anti-Russia rhetoric from a few unexpected comments here and there to the perpetual, glass-shattering shriek it has reached today, with many Democratic partisans so fiendishly addicted to the manic McCarthyist witch hunt that they’ll gulp down a 13,000-word New Yorker article by the latest red-baiting presstitute with feverish gusto and still be hungry for more. ... So after months and months of psychologically brutalizing the American people with lie after lie after alarmist, fearmongering lie, the establishment power structure and its political allies in the Democratic party are ready to start easing people into the next level where they’re able to openly speak about a Russian war.

Dem senator: Russian hacking may have been 'act of war'

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on Thursday said Congress needs to consider whether Russia's cyber campaign during the U.S. presidential election was an act of war.

Shaheen made the statement during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday morning exploring the Pentagon's strategy to deter and respond to malicious acts in cyberspace.

The intelligence community released an unclassified report in January concluding that the Russian government engaged in a cyber and disinformation campaign during the election to undermine American democracy and damage Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and had established a preference for President Trump.

"We should think about whether it is an act of war or not," Shaheen said Thursday, referring to the election hacking.

As Sessions Recuses Himself From Campaign Investigation, Questions Remain Over Trump-Russia Ties

Who is Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador rattling Trump's presidency?

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Vladimir Putin’s man in Washington, is usually far from view inside an imposing white marbled embassy on the third highest hill in the city – a location that prompted fears the Soviets would be able to intercept communications – but now finds himself in the spotlight. ...

“Kislyak was acting strategically to engage individuals the Russian government thought could be key allies in the incoming US administration,” said Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center in Washington. “What is surprising is how successful they’ve been: Sessions is the second person after Flynn revealed to have had meetings they tried to cover up, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come.”

Kislyak, 66, trained as an engineer in Moscow, attended the Soviet Union’s Academy of Foreign Trade and joined the foreign ministry in 1977. His first spell as an envoy to the US was between 1985 and 1989, just as Mikhail Gorbachev was pursuing perestroika and glasnost. His focus was arms control.

Steven Pifer, a former US state department official who is now director of the arms control and non-proliferation initiative at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, recalled: “He was working to enhance US-Soviet relations and trying to make progress on arms control. I did not detect, as I did with some Soviet diplomats, a visceral dislike of the US. “He’s intelligent. He speaks very good English. He can show a sense of humour. At the same time he can also represent his country even when he has a bad brief to represent, for example over the military intervention in Ukraine. He’s loyal to Russia. I imagine he’s had some interaction with Putin but didn’t come from his inner circle of intelligence and St Petersburg.”

Kislyak was ambassador to Nato from 1998, then a deputy foreign minister from 2003. In 2008 he was appointed ambassador to the US, not long before the election of Barack Obama. Last December Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 of Kislyak’s colleagues.

Sessions’s Recusal Gives Senators Powerful Leverage to Demand Russia Special Prosecutor

Now that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from any involvement in investigations by the Justice Department involving potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the authority to make decisions on the issue — including whether the appointment of a special prosecutor is necessary — falls to the deputy attorney general. ...

There is currently no permanent deputy attorney general, just Acting Attorney General Dana Boente, a former U.S. Attorney who stepped in after Sally Yates, an Obama appointee, was fired. However, Donald Trump’s nominee, U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein, will undergo confirmation hearings with the Senate Judiciary Committee this month.

And those Judiciary Committee members can now ask Rosenstein to commit to naming a special prosecutor before voting whether to send his nomination to the full Senate.

At least seven of the nine Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including ranking member Dianne Feinstein of California, have publicly called for a special prosecutor to investigate potential criminal actions by Russian officials and any of Trump’s associates. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of the 11 Republicans on the committee, has said that “if there is something there that the FBI believes is criminal in nature, then for sure you need a special prosecutor.” If the nine Democrats and Graham acted as a block, they would have the power to prevent Rosenstein’s nomination from being voted out of committee.

Chris Hedges & Abby Martin - Trump, Fascism & the Christian Right

To counter Turkey, Damascus sidles up to Kurds

President Bashar al-Assad’s government has repeatedly criticised Turkey’s operation in Syria, which saw Ankara in late August send troops across the border where they are working with local rebels.

Turkey’s invasion has also been fiercely opposed by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is dominated by Kurdish fighters.

“For the government, just as for the Syrian Kurds, the enemy is (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan. They want to counter his project of invading the border territory,” said Waddah Abed Rabbo, editor-in-chief of Syria’s Al-Watan daily.

“It’s completely normal that the forces present on the ground would ally with each other to block any Turkish advance in Syrian territory. Now, Turkish forces are totally encircled,” said Abed Rabbo, whose paper is close to the government.

Hosni Mubarak acquitted over 2011 protester killings

Six years after the uprising that ended his rule, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been acquitted over his alleged involvement in the killings of hundreds of protesters in 2011.

The Court of Cassation's final ruling on Thursday could see Mubarak walk free. ... The Cairo-based court rejected demands by lawyers of the victims to reopen civil suits, leaving no remaining option for appeal or retrial.

Mubarak was accused of inciting the deaths of nearly 900 protesters in an 18-day uprising that ended when he stepped down on February 11, 2011. He had been sentenced to life in 2012 but an appeals court ordered a retrial, which dismissed the charges two years later.

Mubarak, 88, has spent most of his time in a military hospital since his arrest in 2011.

White House is considering direct military action to counter North Korea

In a dramatic shift from traditional policy, an internal White House review on North Korean strategy revealed that the option to use military force or a regime change to curb the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons was on the table, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

This review comes at the heels of a report claiming President Donald Trump believes the "greatest immediate threat" to the US was North Korea's nuclear program.

Recent provocations from the Hermit Kingdom, including the ballistic missile launch in the Sea of Japan and the assassination of Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother in Malaysia, may have provoked this shift in the policy that have many officials and US allies worried.

White House supports renewal of spy law without reforms

The Trump administration does not want to reform an internet surveillance law to address privacy concerns, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday, saying it is needed to protect national security. The announcement could put President Donald Trump on a collision course with Congress, where some Republicans and Democrats have advocated curtailing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, parts of which are due to expire at the end of the year.

"We support the clean reauthorization and the administration believes it's necessary to protect the security of the nation," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The FISA law has been criticized by privacy and civil liberties advocates as allowing broad, intrusive spying. It gained renewed attention following the 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the agency carried out widespread monitoring of emails and other electronic communications.

Portions of the law, including a provision known as Section 702, will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes them. Section 702 enables two internet surveillance programs called Prism and Upstream, classified details of which were revealed by Snowden.

Mike Pence used a private AOL account for state business while governor of Indiana

Vice President Mike Pence used a personal email account for official business while governor of Indiana, according to a new report out Thursday. An investigation by the Indianapolis Star also showed that his personal account was hacked, revealing — among other information — sensitive security information related to terror suspects.

Pence, a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state, claims he’s done nothing wrong, stating that there is no law against a governor using a personal email account.

However, the fact that certain emails were not released due to their confidential and sensitive nature suggests that Pence’s use of a personal email account could have potentially led to leaks of compromising information.  

Palantir Provides the Engine for Donald Trump’s Deportation Machine

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deploying a new intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM), created by Palantir Technologies, that will assist in President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants from the United States.

In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir, the $20 billion data-mining firm founded by billionaire Trump advisor Peter Thiel, a $41 million contract to build and maintain ICM, according to government funding records. The system is scheduled to arrive at “final operating capacity” by September of this year. The documents identify Palantir’s ICM as “mission critical” to ICE, meaning that the agency will not be able to properly function without the program.

ICM funding documents analyzed by The Intercept make clear that the system is far from a passive administrator of ICE’s case flow. ICM allows ICE agents to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them. The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.

“What we have here is a growing network of interconnected databases that together are drawing in more and more information,” said Jay Stanley, a privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. “If President Trump’s rhetoric on mass deportations is going to be turned into reality, then we’re going to see these tools turned in that direction, and these documents show that there are very powerful and intrusive tools that can be used toward that end.”

Dreamer in process of Daca renewal to be deported without court hearing

A 22-year-old who was detained as she was leaving a press conference on immigrants’ rights Wednesday will not get a court hearing before she is deported, her lawyers said.

Daniela Vargas was in the process of renewing her application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), the Obama administration program that temporarily protects from deportation undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Vargas was an aspiring math teacher who went to college while under the program. And Bill Chandler, an immigrants’ advocate who knew Vargas well, said she had a receipt showing that her application was being processed.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said in a statement on Wednesday that the action was part of “targeted immigration enforcement”. On Thursday, the lawyer Nathan Elmore said Ice had indicated it would pursue immediate deportation against Vargas without allowing her to first have a court hearing. Vargas’s lawyers have filed a petition challenging Ice’s decision.

“Ice is supposed to target undocumented immigrants who commit crimes,” said Elmore. “Convicted criminals. Daniela doesn’t fit into any of these categories. Is this where you want your tax dollars directed?”

'Visa War': EU Votes to Bar Visa-Free Travel for American Citizens

United States citizens traveling to Europe will soon have to pay for a visa to enter the continental bloc, thanks to an escalating "visa war," as the Telegraph puts it, between the U.S. and the European Union.

The European Parliament, "by a show of hands, [on Wednesday] urged the Commission to adopt restrictive measures against U.S. citizens 'within two months,'" reports Reuters.

The U.S. has long forced citizens of some E.U. countries—namely Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland, and Romania—to purchase visas in order to enter the country, denying the E.U. complete reciprocity when it comes to visa-free travel. The E.U. gave U.S. officials notice in 2014 that the country need to enact reciprocity or the visa-free travel for U.S. citizens would come to an end, but the U.S. did nothing. While E.U. officials told Reuters that talks are ongoing, under the hostile right-wing Trump administration visa reciprocity seems extremely unlikely to happen.

And so the European Parliament voted to end visa-free travel for Americans, marking a "serious negative step in the E.U.-U.S.A. visa war," an unnamed European Parliament source told the Telegraph. The European Commission has until the summer to enforce the measure.

Why are French farmers ditching conservatives to rally to Le Pen?

Arkansas Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Ban Howard Zinn From Classrooms

A Republican Arkansas lawmaker has introduced legislation to ban the works of the late historian, activist, and writer Howard Zinn from publicly funded schools.

The bill from Rep. Kim Hendren, just noted by the Arkansas Times, was introduced on Thursday and referred to the House Committee on Education.

It states (pdf) that any "public school district or an open-enrollment public charter school shall not include in its curriculum or course materials for a class or program of study any book or other material" authored by Zinn from 1959 until 2010, the year in which he died. 

The Zinn Education Project, which aims to "to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula," noted Thursday that educators in the state may have a very different take from Hendren: "To date, there are more than 250 teachers in Arkansas who have signed up to access people's history lessons from the Zinn Education Project website."

Your political system in action. God, how proud the founding generation must be.

There's apparently a “secret” GOP bill to repeal Obamacare — and Rand Paul is determined to find it

Sen. Rand Paul was joined by House Democrats in a literal treasure hunt through the Capitol Thursday in search of House Republicans’ Obamacare replacement bill. They didn’t find it.

It was a rare bipartisan stunt, inspired by the unusual secrecy surrounding the GOP’s bill. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported the bill was being kept in a reading room in the Capitol and only available for members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and their staff to read, in an attempt to avoid leaks to the press.

Paul announced on Twitter that he was heading to the “secure location” where the bill was being held, and soon drew a sizable gaggle of reporters and cameras.

When Paul finally entered the room, it was empty — the bill had, reportedly, been moved.

But House Democrats couldn’t let a good messaging opportunity go to waste. A number of them joined what quickly became a hunt through the Capitol for the bill, with lawmakers trailing reporters as they poked their heads into random offices to see if they could find the bill.

Republican Senator Sends Cease-and-Desist Letter to Constituent for Calling Too Much

Wisconsin GOP senator Ron Johnson has been avoiding his constituents lately. Last week, a group of constituents even held a town hall about health care without him, after he declined to attend. (He held a telephone town hall instead).

Now one of Johnson’s constituents has received a cease-and-desist letter from the senator’s office, demanding that he stop calling the senator and stop trying to meet with his staff. The letter to Earl Good of Milwaukee instructs him to only contact the office in writing from now on.

Good is a Vietnam veteran and attentive constituent who, in an interview with his local CBS station, acknowledged that he has been very persistent in his attempts to get through to the office and talk to the senator’s staff about issues that concern him, including the possible privatization of the Veterans Administration. ...

Daniel Schumann, a former congressional staffer who works on federal government transparency at Demand Progress, said he has never heard of such an action being taken by a congressional office.

“It’s extroardinarily unusual to say the least,” he told The Intercept. “I mean if they were doing things that were illegal or otherwise really inappropriate, then maybe there could be grounds for doing something like that — if they were threatening him or his office staff. But while the member office is under no obligation to listen to any communications, they can’t tell people that they can’t communicate with their elected official.”

The Supreme Court won’t decide if Virginia’s gerrymandering was racist

A district court will have to re-examine whether the Republican-led legislature in Virginia illegally sought to dilute black voters’ influence when it drew legislative districts, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. Democrats may now have another chance to win more of the state’s legislative districts.

Following the 2010 census, GOP lawmakers rewrote the boundaries of 12 Virginia legislative districts in order to create a black population of at least 55 percent within each. The Legislature and the Department of Justice then approved the maps of the districts. Yet in 2014, a voter in each of those 12 districts filed a joint lawsuit arguing the gerrymandering illegally weakened black voters’ impact in other districts, as African-Americans traditionally vote for Democrats.

In order to make sure that minorities have a fair voice at the ballot box, Supreme Court precedent holds that race can be used as a factor when drawing legislative districts — but it can’t be the primary factor.

A district court initially found that race was not the main factor behind the drawing of 11 of these 12 districts. (In the 12th court, it found that race was in fact used to gerrymander illegally.) The Supreme Court didn’t go so far as to say it was. Instead, the justices ruled in a 7-1 opinion that the standard the district court used to make its decision was not constitutional, and that it needed to take another look at the case.

Permafrost collapse

The climate-driven collapse of Canada’s Arctic permafrost is much more widespread than previously thought, according to new research that presents a dire picture of the changing northern landscape. The study maps an unprecedented area of permafrost that is poised to thaw, threatening local communities and infrastructure, and may speed up global warming.

From Siberia to Canada, giant craters and canyons are opening in the Arctic permafrost, the result of climate change in the north. Now for the first time, scientists have mapped the permafrost thaw across a huge swath of the Canadian north — a 1.27 million square kilometre region from the Yukon to Nunavut.

“The intensity of the changes that we’re starting to see haven’t been seen for thousands of years,” the paper’s lead author Steve Kokelj told VICE News over the phone from Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. “It’s the first time that disturbance over this large of a landmass has been mapped, and that a scientific rationale was provided for why the hotspots are where they are.”

Scientists fear this process will also release stored methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Permafrost thaw could trigger what some have dubbed “catastrophic climate change,” a cyclical process in which the earth’s warming releases stored greenhouse gases, further warming the earth.

New research shows that #permafrost landscapes are poised for massive #climate-driven change. #arctic @geosociety https://t.co/j3nYcLMZVl pic.twitter.com/LCg90y45Rh

— Arctic Ecology Lab (@ale_uvic) February 9, 2017

'Just racist': EPA cuts will hit black and Hispanic communities the hardest

Planned cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency are set to fall heaviest upon communities of color across the US that already suffer disproportionately from toxic pollution, green groups have warned.

Donald Trump’s administration is proposing a 25% reduction in the EPA’s $8.1bn budget, eliminating nearly 3,000 jobs and several programs including the agency’s environmental justice office. Funding for the cleanup of lead, marine pollution, tribal lands and the Great Lakes region faces severe cuts, while climate initiatives are earmarked for a 70% budget reduction.

The environmental justice office is tasked with bridging the yawning disparity in pollution experienced by black, Hispanic and low-income communities and wealthier white neighborhoods. It provides grants to communities to mop up toxins and rehabilitate abandoned industrial facilities that are invariably found in poorer areas.

In the final months of Barack Obama’s administration, the EPA unveiled a new effort to tackle lead poisoning, air pollution and other problems suffered by communities of color situated next to waste treatment plants, smelters and other sources of toxins. But this plan will be cut down in its infancy should the environmental justice office be dismantled.

[Gosh, I wonder what took the Obama administration so long? You don't suppose that perhaps like the DAPL decision, they might have done it with the expectation that Trump would reverse it, creating negative publicity? - js]

EPA Chief and "Polluter's Tool" Pruitt Lied to Senate About Private Email Use

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings when he said he had never used his private email account for official business while serving as attorney general of Oklahoma. ...

The court-ordered release of tens of thousands of Pruitt's emails, published as part of a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), expose not just the former Oklahoma lawmaker's cozy relationship with the fossil fuel industry—they also show that many of his official emails were copied to his personal account, contradicting his testimony to the Senate Public Works Committee, whom he told, "I use only my official OAG [office of the attorney general] email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business." ...

The emails copied to his personal account include correspondence with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-funded conservative lobbying group; the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM); and members of his then-staff.

One email from Sarah K. Magruder Lyle, then vice president of AFPM's strategic initiatives, refers to renewable fuel standards (RFS), an environmental rule that requires mixing renewable fuel into gasoline. Lyle writes, "AFPM remains very interested in the prospect of your state filing a similar waiver request highlighting the environmental harm caused by the RFS mandate which we discussed previously."

Another few emails revolve around setting up a speaking engagement for Pruitt at an ALEC convention.

Revealed: Environmental Activist Berta Cáceres' Suspected Killers Received U.S. Military Training

Standing Rock: arson accusation renews fear of police targeting military veterans

North Dakota police have accused a US veteran of arson at Standing Rock, renewing concerns that law enforcement is targeting former service members for prosecution. Police on Thursday said that Sean Sullivan was a “possible arson suspect” and sent out a photo taken from his Facebook page of him standing near a burning structure at the main encampment at Standing Rock, which officers evicted last week.

Sullivan, a 35-year-old navy veteran from San Diego, who returned home from Standing Rock on Monday, had not heard he was a suspect until a Guardian reporter called him on Thursday afternoon.

“It’s just completely unfounded,” said Sullivan, who was part of a group called VeteransRespond that recently traveled to North Dakota to assist the remaining Native American activists demonstrating against the Dakota Access pipeline. “It’s intimidating. They’re just trying to bully me around. Everyone knows I didn’t start that.”

The arson accusation, which police said could lead to prosecution, is the latest in a series of arrests and charges filed against veterans aiding indigenous groups fighting the pipeline, which could soon be in operation. Last month, police filed charges against two veterans supporting Standing Rock, holding one in jail for several days. The prosecutions raised concerns that police were trying to prevent them from going to the camps.

Also of Interest

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

Trump May Choose “Alternative Intelligence” to Support His “Alternative Facts,” Former Agents Warn

Has Van Jones Lost His Mind, Or Are Sane People Missing the Point?

Homeland Security Sees Anger At Trump as a Driver of “Domestic Terrorist Violence”

An Interview with Noam Chomsky

A Confession on Meeting a Russian

Why We Shouldn’t Feel Too Optimistic If ISIS is Driven From Mosul

From ObamaCare to TrumpCare: The “Fresh Hell” Of Health Savings Accounts

The Democratic Party Is Facing A Demographic Crisis

Banksy opens hotel on Bethlehem barrier wall

Stunning imagery from the Smithsonian’s 14th annual photo competition

A Little Night Music

Warren Smith - Ubangi Stomp

Eddie Zack And Cousin Ritchie - I'm Gonna Roll And Rock

The Hi-Tombs - Sweet Rockin' Mama

Sonny Burgess - We Wanna Boogie

Jimmy Evans - The Joint's Really Jumpin'

Lucky Lee - Mistreaded Blues

Ronnie Self - Pretty Bad Blues

Hayden Thompson - Fairlane Rock

Charlie Feathers - One Hand Loose

Narvel Felts - My Babe

Tillman Franks - Hot Rod-Shotgun Boogie

Junior Thompson - Mama´s Little Baby

Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' Bones

Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones - Black Slacks

Dale Hawkins - Little Pig

Wanda Jackson - Hard Headed Woman

Warren Earl & His Atomic Rockers - Hillbilly Boogie