Officers in southern Iceland say that twice last week they had to pull over cars driving erratically, initially on suspicion that the drivers had been drinking. But on both occasions the entirely sober visitors were simply mesmerised by the appearance of the Aurora Borealis in the sky above them, Iceland Magazine reports. The site has dubbed it "driving under the influence of the Aurora".
Opponents of the rule repeals are sounding the alarm that Congress is conforming too closely to the oil industry's demands.
"This campaign to destroy the Obama administration's rational environmental protections only benefits the modern-day pirates who raid public lands for short-term profit and leave wastelands for the community to clean up. It's incredible to me that after all this time, the Republican playbook is still limited to corporate cronyism, trickle-down economics and empty promises," Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in an emailed statement.
Closing the EPA’s independent enforcement arm would curtail the agency’s ability to independently enforce anti-pollution laws that aim to prevent companies from dumping toxic waste in rivers, for example, or release airborne chemicals near homes and schools.
“The EPA enforcement office is absolutely essential in ensuring that we are not breathing dirty air, drinking contaminated water and being exposed to high levels of pesticides,” said Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator and visiting scholar at Haub Law School at Pace University. “That office is the environmental cop on the beat and should be given more resources, not less.”
Space archaeologists don’t actually work in space. Instead, they use satellite imagery, taken by spacecraft whizzing 400 miles above Earth’s surface, to find things buried within the planet’s crust. [Sarah] Parcak is among a small but growing number of researchers using this technology to find potential excavation sites. The field has been around since the early 1980s, when NASA hired its first archaeologist, Tom Sever, to exploit new satellite technology. But in the last decade, higher-resolution imagery has triggered a boom in archaeological discoveries. According to TED, Parcak has helped find 17 potential pyramids, upwards of 3,000 settlements, and 1,000 lost tombs—and that’s just in Egypt. She has, in her own words, “beat Indy.”
It's probably a little late for us to be surprised at the contents of a White House press briefing, but it needs to be re-emphasized: Sean Spicer's explanation of Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn's resignation doesn't make any sense. And that's a problem.
Spicer's narrative of events is quite specific. First, that Michael Flynn did absolutely nothing "wrong or inappropriate" in discussing Russian sanctions with "his Russian counterpart," which according to Spicer would have been within Flynn's "duties." Most specifically, Spicer repeated, there was no "legal issue" with the conversations.
The second part of Spicer's version of events: Even though Michael Flynn did absolutely nothing wrong during those conversations, his resignation stems from losing the White House's "trust" after repeatedly lying about those appropriate, legal conversations to other members of the White House, including Vice President Mike Pence.
That doesn't make any sense. Michael Flynn, one of the top advisers on Trump's security team, repeatedly went out of his way to mislead other members of the administration about perfectly normal, run-of-the-mill conversations with a Russian diplomat? He would eagerly risk scandal (and, in fact, his entire career) to give Mike Pence the run-around on a diplomatic conversation that, according to Spicer, was fully within the scope of Flynn's transition duties?
For what reason? Why was misleading Mike Pence important, here? Did he just do it for fun? As an act of contempt? Spicer could have gone with Flynn's own half-justification, suggesting that Flynn simply didn't remember the conversation very well and so misspoke to the rest of the staff, but Spicer very pointedly didn't do that, instead over and over framing the Flynn statements as cause for a presidential "loss of trust."
That doesn't fly. Michael Flynn would have to be monumentally destructive to set fire to his own top-level career in order to mislead Mike Pence for, apparently, giggles. The White House version of events doesn't add up.
"Do you hear the silence?" queried Rep. Elijah Cummings at a Tuesday press conference. "This is the sound of House Republicans conducting no oversight of President Trump. Zero. That is what it sounds like when they abdicate their duty under the Constitution.”
Cummings and Democrats are zeroing in on the fact that GOP House Oversight chair Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who launched an endless string of fruitless inquiries into Hillary Clinton, has completely refused to question anything about the endless flow of ethics and security breaches pouring out of Trump’s White House.
Cummings laid out an airtight case for exactly why that oversight is a glaring abdication of responsibility by Republicans and should have begun weeks, if not months, ago.
"We need some answers to a lot of questions. But the obvious questions are, What did the president know, and when did he know it? Was the president aware of Flynn's efforts. Did he support them? Last night we learn the Justice Department warned the White House counsel three weeks ago that Flynn secretly talked with the Russians about sanctions and may have lied about it to the vice president. The department warned that the national security advisor was at risk of being blackmailed by the Russian government. That was three weeks ago. Three long weeks ago. 21 days ago.
So why did the president say on Friday he did not know anything about Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador? Did the White House counsel really never tell the president? Because if that's true, if that is true, I cannot say the white house counsel could stay in his position. That would be a major national security breach not to inform the president at such a serious charge. Another question, why did Flynn continue to sit in on the most sensitive classified meetings until just two days ago? Ladies and gentlemen, something is wrong with that picture. [...]
Who at the White House decided to do nothing for three weeks as Flynn sat in on meeting after meeting after meeting. Did the president decide to wait? Did counsel decide to wait? Something is wrong here.”
With retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s 25-day tenure as Trump’s national security advisor exploding in an extraordinary ball of fire on Monday night—a Valentine’s Eve Massacre, if you will—what are Republicans planning to do about Flynn’s ties to the Putin regime?
Absolutely nothing, of course. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the head of the House Oversight Committee who was frothing like a deranged chimp to probe every lie ever told about Hillary Clinton, has once again refused to take even a glimpse at the latest Trump scandal, even though our country’s safety has been compromised at the highest levels by a mole working for the Russians. “It’s taking care of itself,” blathered Chaffetz, a delusional hack praying for it all to go away until the GOP can get the tax cuts it’s been praying for.
Well, nuts to that. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that congressional Democrats can do at the moment except scream bloody murder (which they ought to and are), but if we can win back the 24 seats we’d need to retake the House in 2018, then we’ll gain the ability to conduct our own investigations, complete with subpoena power—and no matter what Satanic magic Republicans try to use to make him disappear, we aren’t going to forget about Flynn.
We’ve got to get there first, though, but we don’t have to wait until next year to get started. On April 18, voters in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District in suburban Atlanta will head to the polls in a special election to replace Tom Price, who’s now Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary. This traditionally conservative district only gave Trump a 48-47 margin, which means that it’s winnable for Democrats if we can effectively put President Agent Orange on the ballot—and with the way things are going in Washington, we definitely can.
That’s why Daily Kos has endorsed investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who served as an aide to Reps. John Lewis and Hank Johnson (and has their backing as well). Ossoff is running a vigorous campaign, and the Daily Kos community has—and this is a technical term—gone just bonkers in supporting him.
Seriously, he just said that it’s a problem that there was two weeks between when the transition was talking about this and then the Obama Justice Department didn’t say anything until Jan. 26. Trying to deflect this to the Obama administration. So why didn’t they dismiss Flynn on Jan. 27? No due process, but then Trump took immediate and decisive action. Three weeks later, he was immediately decisive. That he didn’t trust Flynn any more. He’s having a hard time with trust and decisiveness.
It's question time again in the White House briefing room, and on a pretty darned newsy day. Which means Melissa McCarthy is going to get an awful lot more material for this weekend's SNL parody of Sean Spicer. Or maybe not, since the White House is now giving all the questions to friendly pretend news outlets.
The chair of the House Select Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) just yesterday assured reporters that there was "a lot of nothing" in the reports of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador weeks before the Trump administration was a thing. There was so much nothing there, Nunes said, Flynn was sure to keep his job.
What's he saying now that Flynn has resigned? He's following popular vote loser Trump's lead. It's not about Flynn and how Russia has compromised the administration. It's about the leaks that Flynn and his Russia connections have compromised the White House.
That's bad. This is worse.
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Rep. Devin Nunes says the Intelligence Committee won't look into discussions between Trump and Flynn, citing executive privilege
That's not how it works. "Executive privilege" is what the White House claims in order to stiff-arm congressional investigations. Congress doesn't get to pre-empt itself by declaring that privilege for a would-be adversary.
Okay, this is maybe even worse than all that. “The big problem I see here,” says Nunes, “is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.” Flynn’s phone calls were recorded because he was fucking talking to the Russian ambassador! Can the chair of the House Intelligence Committee really not know that the Russian ambassador’s phone calls are being recorded?
Here's a point worth remembering, though: Nunes was on the Trump transition team. He was simultaneously chair of the intelligence committee and on Trump's team when Flynn was having phone conversations with the Russian ambassador.
That's a massive conflict of interest for Nunes. A big enough one that he should recuse himself from this issue, drop the "leaks" investigation, and let the committee do its work without him.
Donald Trump with Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway
Donald Trump with Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway
When Donald Trump slithered down that escalator in 2015 to announce he was running for president, he brought with him two decades of connections to Russia. By the time the primaries were winding down, he’d acquired a collection of staff and advisers who were not just Russophiles, but fans of autocrat Vladimir Putin. Chief among them were Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Michael Flynn.
Manafort was brought on as campaign chair in March 2016. At the time, his most recent political experience was working to put a Russian puppet regime at the head of Ukraine. Manafort arranged fake rallies against NATO (giving Russia an excuse to seize Crimea), and rushed through a treaty on oil and gas access before his puppet leader had to run for Moscow ahead of a real uprising. As it became clear that Manafort might still be on the Russian payroll, and it became clear that Manafort had violated rules against unregistered foreign lobbyists, Trump’s campaign began to take hits. On August 17, Trump said that Manafort was there to stay. Two days later, he accepted Manafort’s resignation.
Carter Page was one of five foreign policy advisers named by Trump in March 2016—the same month Manafort came on board. Page was a frequent guest on Russian state media, a harsh critic of U.S. policy, and had a personal stake in Russian oil and gas interests worth millions if sanctions could be lifted. Page’s multiple appearances in Moscow and his effusive praise of Putin brought public scrutiny, and in September word leaked that the CIA was investigating his Russian connections. Soon after, Page decided to “take leave” of his position in the Trump campaign.
Michael Flynn was forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency after his overbearing, chaotic management style brought him into conflict with … everyone. He then formed a consulting firm that worked for Turkish autocrat Recep Erdoğan. He began to make regular appearances on Russia’s state-controlled RT and in 2015 went to Moscow and was seated next to Putin at an RT gala. Like Page, Flynn gave a paid talk critical of U.S. policy. In February 2016, two weeks before Manafort took the helm, Flynn joined the Trump campaign as an adviser (and was considered as a running mate). Flynn frequently railed against President Obama and not only led the “lock her up” chant against Hillary Clinton, but tweeted links to fake news stories about Clinton generated by Russian sources. He was named Trump’s nominee for National Security Adviser on Nov. 18, 2016, after which he not only had his now infamous series of discussions with the Russian ambassador, but also met with Austrian neo-nazi leader Heinz-Christian Strache, whose party has signed a cooperative agreement with Putin. In January, acting Attorney General Sally Yates notified Trump that Flynn may have been acting under pressure from Moscow. Trump kept Flynn, and fired Yates. On February 13, Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser.
Manafort is gone. Page is gone. Flynn is gone.
That leaves one major figure in the Trump regime who has multiple connections to Russia, who has made multiple statements praising Vladimir Putin, who has made multiple visits to Moscow, who has appeared on Russian media, who has strong financial ties to Russia, who has talked repeatedly of lowering the sanctions that would give Russia a windfall of oil and gas profit.
That feeling when you know the House Speaker will say anything for you, as long as he gets his tax cuts.
That feeling when you know the House Speaker will say anything for you, as long as he gets his tax cuts.
House Speaker Paul Ryan faced the cameras Tuesday morning for the first time after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's resignation, and did his best to minimize the damage done to the Republican Party and the Trump regime by the ballooning scandal. As usual, Ryan's best was lies. The first one is this: Trump asked for Flynn's resignation.
That isn't how it happened, if you listen to anyone in the White House. It was Flynn's decision, according to the dogged statements from Kellyanne Conway, which so far are the official word from the Trump regime. "The president is very loyal," she told Matt Lauer on the Today show Tuesday morning. "He's a very loyal person and by night's end Mike Flynn thought was best to resign. He knew he'd become a lightning rod and he made that decision." He—Flynn—made that decision.
Popular vote loser Donald Trump has taken to Twitter, of course, and wants to get to the bottom of why his buddy Michael Flynn had to resign from his role as national security adviser. No, he doesn’t want to figure out what Flynn told the Russian ambassador back in December—but who told the world that Flynn had that conversation.
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The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?
Yeah, that. Is it still a leak when it’s coming from the president, who is conducting national security business in an open-air dining room full of people with smart phones and Facebook accounts?
Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy in the eleventy-billionth Hillary Clinton email hearing
Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy in the eleventy-billionth Hillary Clinton email hearing
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee wants you to know that everything is hunky-dory now that Mike Flynn has resigned. Crisis over. Moving on. He's not going to spend any of his committee's time figuring out what’s going on with the Russian mole in the Trump regime.
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Rep Jason Chaffetz R-UT tells reporters there's no need to further probe Flynn. "ItâÂÂs taking care of itself"
After all, he's got more Clinton investigating to do, fulfilling his promise from last month.
"Just because there was a political election doesn't mean it goes away," he said of the investigation last week, saying that classified emails that surfaced on Clinton's server were "the largest breach of security in the history of the State Department."
Kellyanne Conway struggles to defend Flynn and Trump
Kellyanne Conway struggles to defend Flynn and Trump
Speaking with Matt Lauer on “The Today Show,” White House deflector Kellyanne Conway struggled to get through an interview about why Donald Trump didn’t fire Michael Flynn the moment the Justice Department informed him that Michael Flynn had not been truthful about his comments to the Russian ambassador in December and was “potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.” In fact, that Flynn had been actively undermining President Obama as he levied new sanctions against Russia for their role in the U.S. elections.
You know things are bad when Kellyanne Conway struggles to come up with a coherent defense of Trump’s actions. Watch as Conway gets backed into a corner and can’t seem to muster the energy to punch her way out. Video and full transcript are below.
