Intrepid Report: Week of January 30, 2017

Intrepid Report Newsletter

We cannot keep publishing without your help. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate Monday Green card holders not safe from Trump’s immigration ban By Stephen Lendman Trump’s anti-Muslim order caused a firestorm of outrage nationwide, from relatives of affected individuals, activists, human rights groups, as well as state and local officials. Trump isn’t lying, he’s bullshitting—and it’s far more dangerous By Lauren Griffin If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the past week or so, you know that over the weekend America was introduced to the concept of “alternative facts.” After Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer rebuked the media for accurately reporting the relatively small crowds at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Spicer wasn’t lying; he was simply using “alternative facts.” ‘Unprecedented’: Trump adds Bannon to National Security Council, kicks out intelligence officials 'To reiterate, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been removed from the National Security Council and replaced with a white nationalist. Worry.' By Nadia Prupis President Donald Trump signed memorandums on Saturday that kicked the nation’s top military and intelligence advisers off the National Security Council’s (NSC) Principals Committee and elevated his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, in their place. Freedom Rider: Democrats attack Trump from the right By Margaret Kimberley There are many indications of the deep systemic crisis now confronting America and the world. The fact that Donald Trump was elected president when neither his party nor any of the elites wanted him is just one piece of evidence. The bizarre passivity from Democrats after their party’s colossal failure is another. These people who are loath to point out the extent of the Democrats’ disintegration do little else but repeat the many reasons they don’t like Trump. Increasingly they use Russophobia and what was once the language of the right wing to do it. The Paris Peace Conference: Signaling an end to a Western-dominated era? By Ramzy Baroud No, it was not just ‘another Middle East peace conference,’ as a columnist in Israeli ‘Jerusalem Post’ attempted to depict the Paris Peace Conference held on January 15, with top official representations from 70 countries attending. If it was, indeed, just ‘another peace conference,’ representatives from the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority (PA) would have attended as well. Tuesday The CIA, Trump, and his ‘war on terrorism’ By Larry Chin Donald Trump’s first act as president was a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he addressed a gathering of CIA employees. His journey directly in “the swamp” took place almost immediately after his inauguration, and was clearly an urgent first priority. Donald Trump’s demolition derby In just a few days, Donald Trump seems to have set out to wreck government and turn over the remains to his plutocrat friends. By Bill Moyers We’re a week into the Trump administration and it’s pretty obvious what he’s up to. First, Donald Trump is running a demolition derby: He wants to demolish everything he doesn’t like, and he doesn’t like a lot, especially when it comes to government. Trump’s disturbing first week in office By Stephen Lendman After responsibly pulling America out of the TPP, it’s been all downhill. His top priority should be do no harm, not America first. They aren’t all safe: Pharma is willing to look ‘unscientific’ to sell vaccines By Martha Rosenberg Why do progressive news sites that expose government and corporate disinformation in other areas accept disinformation when it comes to vaccines—actually calling activists “unscientific”? The party’s over By Missy Comley Beattie In 2003, I was living in NYC. The George W. Bush administration was manipulating intelligence, stating a case for the invasion of Iraq—a war in which 4500 U.S. troops died, including my nephew who was killed in 2005. No one knows the number of Iraqi casualties, but it’s estimated that this could be as high as one million. Wednesday How to cut infrastructure costs in half Americans could save $1 trillion over 10 years by financing infrastructure through publicly-owned banks like the one that has long been operating in North Dakota. By Ellen Brown President Donald Trump has promised to rebuild America’s airports, bridges, tunnels, roads and other infrastructure, something both Democrats and Republicans agree should be done. The country needs a full $3 trillion in infrastructure over the next decade. A week in office, Trump brings on constitutional crisis By Wayne Madsen The much anticipated constitutional crisis many feared would come about under President Trump’s bombastic style of leadership took only one week into his administration to be realized. Trump’s Executive Order banning visitors, including U.S. permanent resident “green card” holders and those with valid U.S. visas, was one of the most poorly planned and implemented White House regulation in recent memory. Trump and Bannon’s ‘America First’ Trump and Bannon putting world at risk of nuclear war By Robert Reich Donald Trump has reorganized the National Security Council—elevating his chief political strategist Steve Bannon, and demoting the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump and Bannon’s ‘America First’ Trump and Bannon putting world at risk of nuclear war By Robert Reich Donald Trump has reorganized the National Security Council—elevating his chief political strategist Steve Bannon, and demoting the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Two-state, one-state or rogue state—it’s all Israel’s choice By Linda S. Heard Looking at the overall picture from the start of Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure to the present, it’s clear that Israel’s prime minister has never had any intention of seriously negotiating a two-state solution. He said no to Palestinian statehood in the run-up to the March 2015 election to attract voters from the religious right, only to walk back that controversial statement following his triumph. From his perspective, the two-state principle is nothing more than a useful carrot to hang over the heads of the Palestinian National Authority and to appease critical global voices. Thursday Are we going to keep whining or do we want a movement? Stop asking, ‘Where were they when . . . ?’ By Dave Alpert It is time for us to do some soul searching. Never before in my lifetime have I seen this large and this passionate international, as well as national, response to US policies. Yet, we who call ourselves progressives are not united. Instead, there is constant bickering and denunciation. Trump picks Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court By Stephen Lendman On Tuesday, Trump nominated US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant after Antonin Scalia’s mid-February 2016 death, saying, “When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the American people: If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the country for the Supreme Court.” A mostly-right message from a totally-wrong messenger By Ben Tanosborn We have seen Donald J. Trump in many settings, performing many roles . . . some of us for as long as 4 decades that he’s been in the public eye; and all of us during these last 19 months that he has been wearing the new sartorial duds of a politician: first as unlikely candidate for the GOP nomination to the presidency in June 2015; then as sure-to-fail candidate to the presidency; later surprisingly becoming president-elect last November; and now as full-fledged president of these United States of America, informally sporting the US’s ostentatious, self-imposed title of “leader of the free world.” A prisoner of Israel’s petty vindictiveness By Linda S. Heard The life of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician employed at Israel’s Dimona facility, is being deliberately and cruelly left in limbo. He has paid a heavy price for exposing his country’s once best-kept secret, complete with photographic evidence, to the Sunday Times in 1986, and is still being made to pay. Rule by brute force: The true nature of government By John W. Whitehead The torch has been passed to a new president. Friday Trump leads the religious right to the Promised Land Evangelicals' alignment with Trump shows their affinity for power over morality. By Adele Stan It’s been a heady two weeks for right-wing Christian evangelicals. Never before has a president of the United States—not Reagan or either of the Bushes—delivered so much of their agenda in such short order as Donald Trump has just done. He capped off his string of early valentines to the religious right with the announcement of a Supreme Court nominee who is poised to revoke the rights of women, further tear down the “wall” between church and state and open wider the doors for big monied interests to buy the political system they want. Donald Trump’s mission creep just took a giant leap forward By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship The smell of a coup hung over the White House this past weekend, like the odor of gunpowder after fireworks on the Fourth of July. Trump seeks to take wrecking ball to division between church and state Draft executive order 'reads like the administration was challenged to see how many violations of the Bill of Rights can be contained in one policy change' By Deirdre Fulton President Donald Trump appears intent on demolishing the wall between church and state, telling an audience on Thursday that he will “totally destroy” an amendment that bars religious tax-exempt organizations from engaging in political activity—while his administration reportedly circulates a far-reaching draft executive order on “religious freedom” that effectively legalizes discrimination. Clamoring for Israeli approval: Trump’s election promises will haunt him By Ramzy Baroud US President Donald Trump promises to be pro-Israel in every aspect. This American: Mordechai Vanunu to the USS Liberty By Eileen Fleming The events of 11 September 2001, was the catalyst that impelled This American to journey to both sides of Israel’s Wall in 2005.