News

The shortest answer is very few new things at first glance. Second answer, there is at least one gem – which is there is still a domestic spying effort. Third answer, all of Uncle Sam's children share their toys with one another, work together, operate domestically and invited their British friends. The mainstream press, lead by the government owned NPR, was quick to say “The NSA collected American data; no evidence the CIA is doing so.” when discussing how the leak wast less revealing then being “Snowden 2.0.”

Since the public outing of Neo-Nazi leader Andrew Anglin's mail drop on the 15th of last month, a great deal has been going on behind the scenes and in the back alleys of Columbus's white supremacist underground. Despite assurances from the FBI to people who have been threatened by Anglin and members of his neo-nazi website the Daily Stormer that he is overseas, likely in Germany, he has surfaced in Columbus Ohio on unknown business.

On January 29th over 1000 people descended on the Columbus International Airport to protest Donald Trump's ban on immigration and travel from seven countries. The brief protest was organized on a few hours notice and mirrored similar actions in New York, DC, LA, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Detroit and other cities. It set the stage for the largest protest in recent Columbus history.

Airports in Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Denver, Columbus, Seattle-Tacoma, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Dallas saw protests against Trump's recent executive order on the immigration status of Muslims from seven countries. The protests ranged in size from a reported 700 in Los Angeles to over 5000 at New York's JFK.

When an enemy comes from multiple directions, the target is where their lines of attack intersect. In the case of current round of executive orders causing grant freezes and gag orders the attacks from multiple directions take multiple lines and thus have multiple intersections. One intersection makes a cross-hair on the forehead of government sponsored science in the public interest. Another targets non-profit profit science in the public service sector and directly threatens the lhealth of low income communities and the livelihood of the people who work to improve that health.

In the beginning of the Obama Administration, there was a retreat from what Sarah Palin called “that hopey-changing thing” into a continuation and expansion of Bush era policies and norms. Bush's extraordinary rendition became Obama's normal drone strike, a weekly chore done on “Terror Tuesday.” As the revolving door spins at the entrance to the Oval office, Obama's tenure set the cornerstone of Trump's energy and economic policy.

The first press briefing by the new White House spokes person was bizarre and devoid of facts as the least popular administration in history lurched through it's first full day in office.

Despite calls from the lame duck Obama administration for “review” and “discussion” the construction of the oil pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners continues at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. The brutality against protestor including rubber bullets, fire hoses in sub freezing weather and torture of prisoners also continues.

Given a few decades even Neo-Nazis can learn branding. Just as Trump has re-branded himself from Howard Stern's whipping boy to Twit-in-chief (tweeter-in-chief?) of the United States, the Neo-Nazi movement has re-branded itself as the “Alt-Right.” This makes their younger followers feel more hip than having to affect a 1920s clothing line or dancing around in their mother's curtains. Fascism in all countries has always sloppily combined an imagined mythic past with visions of an imagined mythic future while parroting endless lies about the present.

The Washington Post announced it. The wire services ran with it. The Intercept failed the Washington Post on journalism 101. Newsweek tried to salvage the story. The fine details also give another drop of proof that a major news allegation that has been hyped for months is completely without merit. In short, the the claim that Russians had nefarious plan to hack the power grid of Vermont is false. The Mockingbird has checked under both Ben and Jerry's beds, and we found no bears, fancy, cozy or otherwise.