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"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."

-- Gerald R. Ford

News and Opinion

THE GREATEST SCAM IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2019

'Talk Is Cheap': Progressives Demand Pelosi Cancel Recess and Vote on Trump Impeachment as Soon as Possible

Demanding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi back up her announcement of an official impeachment inquiry with decisive action, progressives Tuesday night called on the Democratic leader to cancel the chamber's two-week October recess and move forward with the proceedings against President Donald Trump as quickly as possible.

"We're glad Speaker Pelosi finally said out loud what a majority of the Democratic Caucus and constituents have been saying for months: Donald Trump has betrayed his oath of office, betrayed our national security, and betrayed the integrity of our elections," Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said in a statement.

"Now, we need to see her words backed up with action: cancel recess, and get to a vote on articles of impeachment as soon as humanly possible," the group added. "Every day that Trump is president is another day our democracy is broken and our national security is at risk. The activists who built the blue wave and put Democrats in charge expect them to do the right thing, and lead." ...

While Pelosi's public support for an impeachment inquiry marked a significant shift, progressives warned the Speaker could attempt to kill the momentum behind impeachment by allowing a drawn-out process that doesn't produce anything of substance.

Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, outlined what Pelosi will do if she "wants to squash impeachment":

1. Issue a statement that *sounds* strong;
2. Create a special committee to take away authority from Judiciary;
3. Allow the House to go into recess;
4. Hope the news cycle moves on.

"Talk is cheap," said Levin. "Pay attention to her actions."

If Congress doesn't impeach Trump, his behavior will become "the new normal"

Trump-Ukraine Call Puts Attorney General William Barr in the Hot Seat

The summary of a call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released on Wednesday not only confirmed reports that Trump repeatedly pressured the foreign leader to uncover damaging information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, but also thrust Attorney General William Barr into the center of a rapidly unfolding scandal. In the July call, Trump urged Zelensky to follow up with Barr, as well as with the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. ...

On four separate occasions, according to the document, Trump said that his “Attorney General” or “Attorney General Barr” would call Zelensky about the matter. ... It’s unclear what role, if any, Barr played in Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt about Biden, who is now a Democratic presidential candidate, but any involvement by the attorney general would represent an extraordinary political intervention by the nation’s top law enforcement official. It also raises questions about whether the Justice Department’s suppression of a whistleblower complaint may have had the effect of shielding Barr.

Although the call summary appears to show that Trump believes Barr would personally involve himself in the attempt to pressure Zelensky, Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec quickly issued a statement on Wednesday denying that Barr had ever spoken to Trump about it. “The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son,” Kupec said. “The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine — on this, or any other subject. Nor has the Attorney General discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani.” ...

On Wednesday, the Office of Legal Counsel released a memo explaining its decision, which argues that the complaint does not relate directly to misconduct within the intelligence community or by an intelligence agency. Rather, it says, the complaint “arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.” The opinion concludes that it therefore does not involve an “urgent concern,” and so the law, as written, does not require it to be sent to Congress.

Rep. Gabbard: Transcript does not show "compelling case" for impeachment

White House tried to cover up Trump's Ukraine conversation, whistleblower alleges

Donald Trump’s actions on Ukraine “pose risks to US national security”, according to a whistleblower’s complaint released on Thursday which also appeared to reveal an attempt by the White House to cover up conversations with a foreign leader. The whistleblower alleges in the explosive complaint that Trump used a phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to “solicit interference” in the 2020 election, and that the White House then intervened to “lock down” the transcript of the call. ...

The complaint details how the Trump administration sought to block access to the transcript of the call with Zelenskiy – in which Trump asked the Ukraine president to “do us a favor” and offered help in investigating Joe Biden, a potential 2020 presidential rival. According to the whistleblower, in the days following the call, “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced as is customary by the White House Situation Room”.

The White House released a memo of the call, but not a verbatim transcript, on Wednesday. Officials were directed by White House lawyers to remove the transcript from the computer system where “such transcripts are typically stored”, the whistleblower wrote. The transcript was instead stored in a separate system “that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature”.

“One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective,” the whistleblower wrote. “This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.” ...

The whistleblower said they were “not a direct witness to most of the events described”. However, they wrote: “I found my colleagues’ accounts of these events to be credible because, in almost all cases, multiple officials recounted fact patterns that were consistent with one another.”

In new stmt, @SenSchumer is calling for the whistleblower complaint to be made public immediately: pic.twitter.com/ChRn0YyKzy

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) September 25, 2019

I do not support impeachment of President Trump. I have just read the whistleblower complaint made available to House Intelligence Committee Members. I believe strongly in transparency and it should be immediately declassified and made public for the American people to read.

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) September 25, 2019

House affirms calls for Trump whistleblower complaint

The House overwhelming passed a measure Wednesday urging the Trump administration to release the whistleblower complaint that has sparked scrutiny of President Trump's interactions with a foreign power. The chamber passed the non-binding resolution in a 421-0 vote, with Republicans joining Democrats to request the administration hand over the document filed by a member of the U.S. intelligence community. Two lawmakers voted present.

The House measure had been amended to mirror the resolution that passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday. The vote Wednesday evening came as lawmakers began to receive information about the complaint. ...

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the lower chamber, questioned why lawmakers were voting on the measure when documents were being sent to the Intelligence Committee ahead of the vote. “Madam Speaker, this complaint has given rise to fevered speculation and frenzied media reporting, much of which is based on the transcript of the president's phone call released today. It appears to be exaggerated, misleading, or outright false," he asserted. ...

"It's also serving as a linchpin of a long-standing attempt by the Democrats to impeach President Trump and finally, achieve their goal of overturning the results of the 2016 election,” he said during debate ahead of the vote. "So, therefore, we have to ask ourselves, why are we voting on a resolution that is asking for the very documents that are being sent over that are probably on their way right now, if they are not already here?"

Krystal Ball: Dems/Warren stumble on Biden corruption

Donald Trump wants to fire the dipshit that's standing between him and the Democrat pitchforks? The moron that is trying to get the Democrat Party to ignore all of Trump's crimes and misdemeanors that are not related to Trump's attempt to stir up controversy about Joe Biden and his influence-peddling son? That would be incredibly stupid.

Did Trump Just Try to Fire... Nancy Pelosi?

President Trump said Wednesday that “Nancy Pelosi, as far as I’m concerned, she’s no longer the Speaker of the House” at a press conference with the president of Ukraine. The comment brought a surreal scene to an abrupt halt: the U.S. president, standing alongside a foreign leader that he's accused of pressing to investigate his political rival, while slamming the politician who just opened an impeachment inquiry into him. ...

Zelensky denied feeling pressure from Trump to probe the Bidens, and said he wanted nothing to do with the 2020 election in the U.S. “I think you read everything,” Zelensky said when a reporter asked him whether he felt pressured by Trump to open a new investigation into Hunter Biden, who previously served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

“I think you read text. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved to democratic open elections. Elections of USA,” Zelensky continued with a pained expression. “You heard, we had I think good phone call. It was normal, we spoke about many things. So I think, and you read, that nobody pushed me.” ...

Trump then launched into a lengthy tirade against Hunter Biden, calling the $50,000 per month he reportedly earned from his board seat suspicious, referring to it as “a horrible thing.”

“Now, when Biden’s son walks away with millions of dollars from Ukraine, he knows nothing, and they’re paying him millions of dollars, that’s corruption,” Trump said. “When Biden’s son walks out of China with $1.5 million in a fund, and the biggest funds in the world can’t get money out of China, and he’s there for one quick meeting, and he flies in on Air Force 2, uh, I think that’s a horrible thing.”

Edward Snowden Responds to Trump Impeachment Inquiry & Justice Dept. Lawsuit Against Him

Worth a full read, here's a taste:

More U.S. Commandos Are Fighting Invisible Wars in the Middle East

The percentage of commandos deployed to the Middle East is on the rise, according to new statistics provided to The Intercept by U.S. Special Operations Command. On average, more than 4,000 Special Operations forces — Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and Marine Corps Raiders among them — are deployed to the region each week, more than anywhere else in the world.

The increase comes at a time when the United States is apparently planning a troop drawdown in Afghanistan, despite a peace agreement with the Taliban having fallen apart. It also coincides with President Donald Trump’s announcements that the Islamic State has been defeated and that the U.S. is “rapidly pulling out of Syria.” Gone are the military surges that brought tens of thousands of conventional U.S. forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gone, too, is the faddish fixation with counterinsurgency, rehabilitated from the Vietnam War dustbin (only to be deep-sixed again) and the military’s “government in a box” pipe dreams.

Today, American warfare is increasingly typified by a reliance on Special Operations Forces, private contractors, local proxies working with and for the military and CIA, and air power. These low-visibility forces make greater secrecy and less accountability more likely for U.S. military actions in the Middle East, said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, who views the growing reliance on commandos as both predictable and troubling.

“Already we’re not getting answers to basic questions, like who the U.S. has killed and why it hasn’t better protected civilians, and the more the U.S. role is turned over to Special Operations Forces, the CIA, or contractors, the less information the government is going to provide,” Eviatar told The Intercept. “One has to wonder if that isn’t the reason they’re apparently shifting these roles to secret agents whose actions and their consequences the government isn’t required to disclose.”

U.S. Drones 30 Pine Nut Farmers In Afghanistan

Iran accuses US of 'economic terrorism' and 'international piracy' in counter-attack at UN

In a scorching counter-attack to US president Donald Trump’s UN speech, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has slammed the president for “economic terrorism” and the "silent killing" of Iranian citizens.

In his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, President Rouhani said his country had suffered “merciless economic terrorism” under the sanctions placed on the country by the US, and refused to renegotiate any nuclear deals until they were lifted.

“We have never surrendered to foreign aggression and inquisition,” he said.

“How someone can believe that the silent killing of a great nation and pressure on the life of 83 million Iranians, particularly women and children, are welcome by the American government officials who pride themselves on such pressures and exploit sanctions in an addictive manner."

In the bleak speech on Wednesday, Mr Rouhani warned that with tensions high and conflicts flaring, the Middle East region was "on the edge of collapse" and warned the west to pull back its troops from the region.

He asserted: “The Iranian nation will never forget or forgive those crimes and these criminals.”

Israel's president chooses Netanyahu to form government

Israel’s president has tasked Benjamin Netanyahu with forming a coalition government, throwing a lifeline to the incumbent prime minister after an inconclusive election threatened to end his political career.

Reuven Rivlin’s offer does not guarantee Netanyahu will lead Israel’s next administration. Before that can happen, Netanyahu has up to six weeks to forge a majority coalition in Israel’s parliament. ...

With a divided Knesset, the 69-year-old leader now faces an uphill battle to secure support from at least 61 of 120 lawmakers. If his attempts fail, Rivlin could assign the task to someone else, most likely Benny Gantz, the leader of the opposition.

That scenario almost played out in May after Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition following a similar election result. But rather than give the opposition a chance to forge a government, he instead pushed to dissolve the Knesset, triggering repeat elections and giving himself another chance.

Many fear a third election will be called if the stalemate holds.

No apologies: MPs' fury as Boris Johnson goes on the attack

An unrepentant Boris Johnson has sparked a furious backlash after he repeated his criticism of the supreme court judgment, and rejected MPs’ pleas to moderate his “inflammatory” language as “humbug”. Addressing a rowdy and adversarial House of Commons, just hours after flying back early from New York, Johnson went on the attack, accusing Jeremy Corbyn of trying to thwart Brexit and running scared of an election.

Johnson infuriated opposition MPs by dismissing fears that his use of language such as “surrender” and “betrayal” was dangerous in a heightened political climate. To gasps, he claimed the best way to honour the memory of the murdered MP Jo Cox was to “get Brexit done”.

And he continued to deploy the “people versus parliament” rhetoric that has become a signature of his premiership, claiming: “The people outside this house understand what is happening … The leader of the opposition and his party don’t trust the people.” And he added: “Instead of facing the voters the opposition turned tail and fled from an election. Instead of deciding to let the voters decide, they ran for the courts … it is absolutely no disrespect to the judiciary to say I think the court was wrong.”

Responding to the prime minister, Corbyn accused him of failing to take the supreme court defeat seriously, calling his statement, “10 minutes of bluster from a dangerous prime minister who thinks he is above the law but in truth is not fit for the office he holds”.

But after scrambling to return early from the UN general assembly’s meeting in the US, Johnson offered little indication of how the government now intends to proceed, instead challenging Labour or any other opposition party to table a motion of no confidence, and promising to set aside parliamentary time on Thursday for MPs to vote on it. Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats have all insisted they will not seek to bring down the government and trigger a general election until a delay to Brexit is secured. But Downing Street suggested that if Labour fails to table a vote of no confidence it will effectively indicate support for Johnson’s strategy.

Johnson’s plan is to turn his supreme court humiliation into rocket fuel at the polls

An angry and disturbingly pumped-up Boris Johnson’s response to the court in the recalled House of Commons tonight was an act of total contempt – for the courts, for parliament and ultimately for public and political decency. For the time being, Johnson still retains much of the formal power of the prime minister. But the role’s inner power, its moral authority, the holder’s ability to govern and his meaningful capacity to represent the country are practically shot. There is nothing tragic about this for Johnson personally. There is everything tragic for the country that never asked for him to become its leader. He can’t blame the judges, because he does not dare. He likes to blame MPs, because they are an easy target. But the real blame lies with himself and the Tory hard leavers. ...

Perhaps, after sleeping on the matter, and with the prospect of a resumed parliamentary session in front of them, there was a possibility that the Johnson government would adopt a humbler and more contrite tone in the light of day today. Not a bit of it. First, with Johnson still in the air over the Atlantic, Michael Gove went on a media round and announced that the government had done nothing wrong in suspending parliament in the way that the court had ruled against. Then the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, told the reassembled MPs that the government had acted in good faith, refused to rule out a further prorogation, and then lost it altogether, dismissing parliament as “dead”, “a disgrace” and possessing “no moral right to sit”.

These were merely the warm-up acts for Johnson’s own eventual appearance in the Commons this evening. But they had already pointed unerringly to the strategy that the prime minister was to adopt and which, it was now clear, he had intended to adopt from the very start when he spoke in New York. That strategy was that this is now a naked political fight to the death with the opposition and with the unbelievers. He is not interested in any of the issues on which the judges ruled. All that matters to him is to wade through chaos to Brexit. The twin objectives of the Johnson government when it took office after the ousting of Theresa May – Brexit by the end of October and a general election fought on a “people versus the elites” platform – remain utterly unchanged by the supreme court ruling. ...

Sooner or later, all this will be put to a general election. When that happens, it is clear that Johnson intends to focus his campaign against the pro-European establishment of liberal Britain. That was his aim in July, and it is still his aim now. He is calculating, in other words, that this week’s defeat in the courts can be leveraged into a much bigger victory at the polls. To be savaged by the judges is indeed humiliating. But if it helps to fire up enough leave voters in enough places to give Johnson some sort of electoral victory under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, and with the anti-Tory opposition deeply split, it will all be deemed to have been thoroughly worth it.

Keiser Report: Cheap Money & Other Bad Ideas

Wall Street Bank Stocks Closed in a Sea of Red Yesterday as Fed Pumps in Another $105 Billion of Liquidity

It was only a matter of time until the public perception of the Federal Reserve having to funnel billions of dollars a day to Wall Street banks as an emergency source of liquidity started to impact the share prices of those same banks. It all caught up with the mega banks yesterday as every single one of their stocks closed in the red. Notably, the German bank, Deutsche Bank, that is heavily interconnected to the behemoths of Wall Street through derivatives, lost the most ground yesterday, closing down 2.70 percent at $7.58 – just $1.14 above its all-time low of $6.44 that it set on August 15.

The U.S. banks that were named as being heavily interconnected to Deutsche Bank via derivatives in a 2016 report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) closed as follows yesterday: Goldman Sachs lost 2.67 percent; Citigroup was down 2.37 percent; Morgan Stanley was off 2.34 percent; Bank of America fell 1.96 percent; while JPMorgan Chase gave up 1.30 percent by the closing bell. ... It is also quite notable that Wells Fargo, which is the third largest bank in the U.S. by deposits, fared far better than its peer banks yesterday, losing only 0.63 percent. That further suggests that the selloff was all about derivatives and shaky counterparties since Wells Fargo has the smallest exposure to derivatives among the largest Wall Street banks according to data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

There is further proof that something is amiss with the largest banks on Wall Street. When the Fed offered its 14-day repo loans yesterday, there was twice as much demand as money offered by the Fed. The banks bid for $62 billion while the Fed was offering only $30 billion.

Here's AOC's Massive Plan to Address Poverty in America

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just unveiled another ambitious policy package — this one geared toward lifting more Americans out of poverty — at a time when other buzzy proposals like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal are becoming something of a litmus test for progressive 2020 Democrats. ...

AOC’s new six-bill proposal, dubbed “A Just Society,” would first update the way in which the U.S. calculates poverty and determines eligibility for welfare — an equation that currently shuts out many struggling Americans. Right now, a single person is considered poor in the U.S. if they make less than $12,500 a year. In some instances, making more than that amount means losing out on programs like Medicaid.

Did you know our Fed poverty line is based on 1955 spending, & the way we calculate it hasn’t changed since 1964?

It assumes 1 earner & a mother home full-time.

It doesn’t include cost of childcare, geographic cost of living, or healthcare.

Some predict it should be *$38k/yr.* https://t.co/EmyV1TLIk6

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal would take that old equation and factor in things like a person’s geographic cost of living, what portion of their income they spend on health insurance or child care, and spending toward utilities like internet access those inclusions would raise the federal poverty level and widen Americans’ eligibility to welfare programs.

Exclusive: @AOC is rolling out her most ambitious legislative package since the Green New Deal pic.twitter.com/NS63UhhFQi

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 25, 2019

Do Biden and his family have a squeaky clean track record?

The Trump Campaign Is Bragging It's Already Raising Millions From Impeachment

Trump Campaign Digital Director Gary Coby is already bragging that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s launch of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump is netting a surge in donations to the GOP.

We crossed $1M raised online for the Impeachment Defense Task Force at 8pm, only 3hrs after Nancy made her announcement to go after POTUS.

We will raise ~$3M online in the first 24hrs.

V strong EOQ kickoff. BIG NUMBERS coming for Q3.

THANKS NANCY! https://t.co/CKVIQg1TP5

— Gary Coby (@GaryCoby) September 25, 2019

Coby and other party officials claim that a digital media onslaught netted $1 million for the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee’s joint fundraising arm within just three hours of Pelosi’s announcement. While there’s no way to verify the numbers in real time, the totals would be in line with the Trump campaign’s previous fundraising hauls.

“All $ will be used to hold vulnerable Dems in Trump districts accountable for ignoring the work of their constituents as they continue to resist and obstruct [Trump],” RNC Chief of Staff Richard Walters added on Twitter.

Stiglitz: Democrats have 'more than 50/50 chance' of winning next election

'Look at his record': Buttigieg faces new criticism from his city's black leaders

Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor and Democratic presidential candidate, is once again under fire from some of his city’s black leaders over several new policing-related controversies.

The fresh criticism stems from the city’s attorneys refusing to defend a former black South Bend city council member in what some view as a frivolous libel lawsuit brought by four white police officers. The council member, Henry Davis Jr, has sued the Buttigieg administration and city for not representing him. The two sides recently settled, and Davis charged that Buttigieg tried to sweep the case under the rug by including a gag order in that agreement.

Separately, community leaders and the family of Eric Logan, a black man killed by white officers in South Bend in March, are questioning why the city’s police and fire departments aren’t conducting a criminal investigation into two separate incidents in which cars belonging to Logan’s mother caught fire. The fire department determined both were caused by engine fires, but the family’s supporters say both cars were turned off, and they suspect foul play.

“You’d expect this kind of stuff to happen in the 50s, 60s,” said Mario Sims, a South Bend activist and pastor. “This is racism at best and corruption at worst. How do you have a police department that does not investigate crimes?”

The new round of questions come after the Logan tragedy and the Buttigieg administration’s handling of it put a national spotlight on the 37-year-old mayor’s strained relationship with South Bend’s black residents. It exposed frustration over racial and economic inequality, and was only the latest in a long succession of flashpoints between the city’s minorities and its police department.

Extreme sea level events ‘will hit once a year by 2050’

Extreme sea level events that used to occur once a century will strike every year on many coasts by 2050, no matter whether climate heating emissions are curbed or not, according to a landmark report by the world’s scientists. The stark assessment of the climate crisis in the world’s oceans and ice caps concludes that many serious impacts are already inevitable, from more intense storms to melting permafrost and dwindling marine life.

But far worse impacts will hit without urgent action to cut fossil fuel emissions, including eventual sea level rise of more than 4 metres in the worst case, an outcome that would redraw the map of the world and harm billions of people.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and approved by its 193 member nations, says that “all people on Earth depend directly or indirectly on the ocean” and ice caps and glaciers to regulate the climate and provide water and oxygen. But it finds unprecedented and dangerous changes being driven by global heating. ...

Half the world’s megacities, and almost 2 billion people, live on coasts. Even if heating is restricted to just 2C, scientists expect the impact of sea level rise to cause several trillion dollars of damage a year, and result in many millions of migrants.

Corporate Media Ignores Connection Between Militarism and Climate Change

Trump’s Wildlife Service pick has ties to anti-animal protection groups

Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US Fish and Wildlife Service has links to powerful agricultural interests opposed to protections for endangered species she would oversee, the Guardian has learned. Aurelia Skipwith, who is already a top official at the interior department, formerly worked at the agrochemical giant Monsanto.

New revelations show she also has ties to the Westlands Water District, a political powerhouse with a history of chafing against Endangered Species Act regulations that can interfere with farmers’ demands for water in California. Yet a Senate committee approved Skipwith’s nomination Wednesday in a party-line vote of 11-10.

Jayson O’Neill, the deputy director of Western Values Project, a public lands watchdog group based in Montana, claimed that Skipwith’s resumé – she is a lawyer with a master’s degree in genetics – shows she is unqualified. He said David Bernhardt, Trump’s interior secretary, is hiring her for her “deep ties to the swamp and special interests”.

Skipwith’s fiance, Leo Giacometto, is a former lobbyist who worked on behalf of Westlands from 2005 to 2010 in his role as the founder of Gage International. Skipwith has said she was an “unpaid adviser” for Gage starting in 2013.

Bernhardt, who would be Skipwith’s new boss if she is to be confirmed, also lobbied for Westlands. Bernhardt once sued the US government on behalf of Westlands, aiming to roll back protections for winter-run Chinook salmon in California.

Mont Blanc glacier in danger of collapse, experts warn

Italian authorities have closed off roads and evacuated homes after experts warned that a portion of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapse.

Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of the town of Courmayeur, said “public safety is a priority” after experts from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) in the Aosta Valley said up to 250,000 cubic metres of ice was in danger of sliding off the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses peak.

“This phenomenon once again testifies that the mountain is in a phase of strong change due to climatic factors, therefore it is particularly vulnerable,” Miserocchi said in a statement.

Experts have been monitoring the glacier closely since 2013 to detect the speed at which the ice is melting, and Miserocchi said the rate had “significantly increased” recently. But they are unable to predict when the ice would break away. “There are currently no empirical models or methods that can enable quantitative predictions in the case of glaciers with sliding dynamics such as Planpincieux,” Miserocchi added.

Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast - We Were Warned: The Climate Emergency and the Surveillance State

The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake

Pentagon Chief Claims He Will Reduce Rising Civilian Casualties

Global recession a serious danger in 2020, says UN

The Disaster of Negative Interest Rates

Italy’s Confused, Radicalized Response to Migrants

Spanish elections: popular leftwing politician forms new party

Public Retirement Funds and Universities Are Financing Empower Texans, a Far-Right Lobbying Group, New Report Reveals

Holtzman leans far too much on Russiagate to make her case, but she does include other charges:

The Watergate Blueprint for Impeaching Donald Trump

Cream drummer Ginger Baker critically ill in hospital

A Little Night Music

Lloyd Glenn - The Vamp

Lloyd Glenn - Nite-Flite

Lloyd Glenn w/Geraldine Carter - Stranger

Lloyd Glenn - Chica Boo

Lloyd Glenn - Old Time Shuffle

Lloyd Glenn w/Geraldine Carter - Texas Man

Lloyd Glenn - The Shakedown

Lloyd Glenn + Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Slow Train No 1

Lloyd Glenn - Blue Ivories, Southbound Special

Lloyd Glenn - Honky Tonk Train Blues