organization:trump administration

What Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” says about Trump’s collusion with Israel
▻https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-michael-wolffs-fire-and-fury-says-about-trumps-collusion-is

However, the special counsel probe by Robert Mueller has indeed uncovered some collusion between the Trump team and a foreign power: Israel.

In a plea agreement last month for making false statements to the FBI, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn admitted that he had contacted foreign governments during the final weeks of the Obama administration to try to derail a UN vote condemning Israeli settlements.

This possibly illegal effort to undermine the policy of the sitting administration was done at the direction of Kushner and at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet mainstream pundits have shown little concern, just as they have shown little interest in any further revelations about what we might well call Israelgate coming out of the Wolff book.

As the book’s publication was brought forward amid the media frenzy, I decided to take a look.

It turns out that Fire and Fury contains evidence that Trump’s policy is not so much America First as it is Israel First.

Wolff recounts an early January 2017 dinner in New York where Bannon and disgraced former Fox News boss Roger Ailes discussed cabinet picks.

Bannon observed that they did not have a “deep bench,” but both men agreed the extremely pro-Israel neocon John Bolton would be a good pick for national security adviser. “He’s a bomb thrower,” Ailes said of Bolton, “and a strange little fucker. But you need him. Who else is good on Israel?”

“Day one we’re moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s all in,” Bannon said, adding that anti-Palestinian casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson was on board too.

“Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying,” Bannon proposed. “The Saudis are on the brink, Egyptians are on brink, all scared to death of Persia.”

Asked by Ailes, “Does Donald know” the plan, Bannon reportedly just smiled.

Bannon’s idea reflected “the new Trump thinking” about the Middle East: “There are basically four players,” writes Wolff, “Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The first three can be united against the fourth.” Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be “given what they want” in respect to Iran, and in return would “pressure the Palestinians to make a deal.”

Another key foreign policy relationship for the Trump administration has been with Mohammad bin Salman, the reckless crown prince and real power in Saudi Arabia, who has been willing to go along with the plan, especially by cozying up to Israel.

According to Wolff, the lack of education of both Trump and MBS – as the Saudi prince is commonly known – put them on an “equal footing” and made them “oddly comfortable with each other.”

Trump, ignorant and constantly flattered by regional leaders, appeared to naively believe he could pull off what he called “the biggest breakthrough in Israel-Palestine negotiations ever.”

Nikki Haley: U.S. to withhold funding for UN agency for Palestinian refugees until they join peace process - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.832685

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Tuesday that Trump administration wants to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees, until they “return to the negotiating table” with Israel.

Misreading Qazvin in Washington: On the Protests in Iran

By : Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

Jadaliyya
▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34931/Misreading-Qazvin-in-Washington

Iran has featured protests throughout several provincial cities (e.g., Mashhad, Kermanshah, Rasht, and Isfahan) since they first started on Thursday 28 December 2017. Some reports indicate that conservative opponents of the Rouhani government in the north-eastern city of Mashhad initiated the protests. However, they have since spread and escaped their oversight. In the early stages, protestors’ demands largely revolved around spiraling prices of basic foodstuffs and bore the classic signs of frustration with the country’s ongoing economic torpor. Today, they reached Tehran and have been taken up in limited numbers by students around the university. As of yet, it is not clear whether we can speak of one protest movement or several protest movements, as there are different (and sometimes conflicting) grievances and solutions being articulated.

Appropriating “The People”

Commentators and self-styled experts have been quick to jump to hasty conclusions and decree what is driving the present bout of discontent. The giddy enthusiasm of the Trump administration, rightwing DC thinktanks, and many others is palpable. Predictably, the same voices who have consistently demanded Iran’s international isolation, along with the imposition of sanctions, military intervention, and regime change, have rapidly sought to bandwagon the recent expressions of discontent and appropriate them for their own imperial agendas. Such rampant and frankly malevolent opportunism is frustrating to say the least. Within the space of some twenty-four hours, and with only a small number of exceptions, nearly every mainstream Western media outlet has inclined to assimilate legitimate expressions of socioeconomic distress and demands for greater governmental accountability into a question of “regime change.”

Needless to say, these very same individuals and venues have time and again completely ignored the fact that countless strikes and protests from Khuzestan to Tehran, ranging from teachers to retirees, have become a regular occurrence in Iran since President Hassan Rouhani’s 2013 election. The latter’s administration and those sympathetic toward its agenda have sought on many an occasion to scale down levels of securitization and similarly distinguish between those citizens who express legitimate civic grievances and others who seek the system’s overthrow. These may seem like fine distinctions which fail to assuage the liberal conscience, but they are nevertheless immensely important for the institutionalization of legal and mutually recognized channels of civic contestation. These achievements and many others besides (e.g., indications of relaxed policing of “bad hijab” and the commuting of the death penalty for drug smugglers under two kilograms) are not inconsequential or to be belittled. They harbor implications for the lives of thousands if not millions of Iranians.

U.S. to Roll Back Safety Rules Created After Deepwater Horizon Spill - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/trump-offshore-drilling.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/04/15/us/15drilling-web/15drilling-web-facebookJumbo.jpg

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history.

A proposal by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which was established after the spill and regulates offshore oil and gas drilling, calls for reversing the Obama-era regulations as part of President Trump’s efforts to ease restrictions on fossil fuel companies and generate more domestic energy production.

Doing so, the agency asserted, will reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the energy industry and save the industry $228 million over 10 years.

Il faudra boire la coupe jusqu’à la lie.

Environmental groups warned that reversing the safety measures would make the United States vulnerable to another such disaster.

“Rolling back drilling safety standards while expanding offshore leasing is a recipe for disaster,” Miyoko Sakashita, director of the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “By tossing aside the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Trump is putting our coasts and wildlife at risk of more deadly oil spills. Reversing offshore safety rules isn’t just deregulation, it’s willful ignorance.”

#Forage #Pétrole #Régulation #Environnement

U.S. to Roll Back Safety Rules Created After #Deepwater_Horizon Spill - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/trump-offshore-drilling.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/04/15/us/15drilling-web/15drilling-web-facebookJumbo.jpg

The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history.

A proposal by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which was established after the spill and regulates offshore oil and gas drilling, calls for reversing the Obama-era regulations as part of President Trump’s efforts to ease restrictions on fossil fuel companies and generate more domestic energy production.

Doing so, the agency asserted, will reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the energy industry and save the industry $228 million over 10 years.

“This proposed rule would fortify the Administration’s objective of facilitating energy dominance” by encouraging increased domestic oil and gas production, even as it strengthens safety and environmental protection, the proposal says.

In April Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to “reconsider” several oil rig safety regulations. Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, at the time did not specify which specific equipment regulations would be reviewed, saying only the review would apply “from bow to stern.”

C’est vrai quoi #l'environnement_ça_commence_à_bien_faire …

As 2017 nears its end, we look back at our most popular social media and website posts. They reflect this moment of intensifying suppression by Israel advocacy groups aligned with the Trump administration’s anti-civil rights and anti-civil liberties agenda. They highlight some of the more egregious cases we’ve confronted this year – from Israeli soldiers harassing UCI students on campus, to Fordham students being denied the chance to form an SJP, to a bogus lawsuit against SFSU. And they remind us of the challenges we’re sure to face next year, if the U.S. Senate votes to confirm anti-Palestinian crusader Kenneth Marcus to a top civil rights post at the U.S. Department of Education.

We look forward to another year of exposing Israel groups’ suppression agenda, and protecting your rights to advocate for Palestinian freedom! ▻https://palestinelegal.org/news/2017/12/14/2017-social-media-highlights

Palestinians welcome the resounding Trump & Israel failure at the UN today. The overwhelming majority of the world stands with us.

“To defend the UN against this thuggery by Israel and the Trump administration, the BDS movement calls for meaningful sanctions, especially a military embargo and intensified boycott and divestment measures against Israel’s regime of oppression. BDS today is not only crucial for realizing Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. It is also critical to stopping Trump, Netanyahu and other leaders of the international far-right who are threatening world peace and global justice like never before.”
▻https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinians-welcome-resounding-trump-israel-failure-un

Five Covert Techniques Used by Trump to Cut Government Oversight - Pacific Standard
▻https://psmag.com/news/how-trump-is-covertly-deregulating-the-country

https://psmag.com/.image/t_share/MTUyMjE0MTcwMzI0OTY4OTQ0/gettyimages-628833102.jpg

How the Trump administration skirts the obstacles that make it hard for federal agencies to deregulate industries.

Here are five techniques being used by the Trump administration.

The Data Dump

An agency can’t regulate blind. Deprive a regulator of information, and it can’t do much.

[...] exemple : ne plus collecter les données mettant en relation sexe et salaire

The Enforcement Strike

Sometimes, just doing less adds up to deregulation, in a form that’s difficult to identify and even harder to challenge in court.

[...]exemple : La SEC poursuit moins de monde

The Budget Squeeze

The White House’s decision to impose a so-called “regulatory budget” on government agencies is one of its more innovative moves to shrink the footprint of the federal bureaucracy. Each agency’s allotment creates a sort of deregulatory cap-and-trade system designed to force the agency to make it cheaper for the private sector to comply with rules.

[...] exemples : toutes les agences

The Slowdown

The rush toward the end of the Obama administration to finalize lingering rules left many of them to go into effect after January 20th, when Trump took office. That left open a possibility the White House has embraced: delay.

[...] exemple : les régulations sur les mines

The Expanding Exemptions

Many agency rules include exceptions to their requirements—when or where the rule applies, to whom it applies. Interpreting exceptions expansively or using them more aggressively are ways to cut back on a rule’s practical effect without revising it or taking it off the books.

[...] exemple : l’EPA

Bref, comment mener une politique via des règles administratives sans passer par la loi et le débat public. Il serait intéressant de voir comment ce modèle se déploie un peu partout dans le monde.

#Dérégulation #Politique #Administration

Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/18/trad-d18.html

Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting
By Nick Beams
18 December 2017

A three-day meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, barely received any media coverage. Nonetheless, it was very significant for it revealed the deepening divisions wracking the global trading system.

The eleventh ministerial meeting of the 164-member international trade organisation concluded without any final statement because of US intransigence over its wording. In fact, attempts to draft such a statement were abandoned last month when the US insisted on removing longstanding references to the role of the multilateral system in the world economy.

Under its “America First” agenda, the Trump administration has criticised the operations of the WTO for acting in ways inimical to the US and accused its disputes-settling procedures of creatively interpreting trade rules rather than applying them. In the lead-up to the meeting, US officials reportedly wanted language to be included in the final statement to prevent the WTO’s appellate body, which decides on trade disputes, from violating the “sovereignty” of its members.

#commerce #omc #commerce_international

Ce soir j’ai décidé d’être 7 fois en contravention avec la loi (américaine)

« In a country like United-States, where medecine is mainly a science-based practice, where the ethnic diversity is definitly an evidence-based reality for the nation, it is clear that any vulnerable people such as elderly, transgender, pregnant women (including fetus) and generaly speaking the poorest part of the population have entitlement to medical aid. »

–—

CDC banned words: How the CDC used “vulnerable,” "transgender" and other newly banned words in past documents — Quartz
▻https://qz.com/1158898/cdc-banned-words-how-the-cdc-used-vulnerable-transgender-and-other-newly-banned-
▻https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/trump-cutting-red-tape-e1513433376973.jpg?quality=80&strip=a

The Centers for Disease Control is the main public health institute in the United States. It is committed to helping Americans in a way that is science-based—er, oops, I can’t say that now.

That’s because the Trump administration has barred the CDC from using a list of words it apparently doesn’t want “in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget,” according to reporting from the Washington Post. Here is the list of words that are now banned:

vulnerable
entitlement
diversity
transgender
fetus
evidence-based
science-based

–----

CDC banned from using 7 words, including “science-based” - Vox
▻https://www.vox.com/2017/12/16/16784498/cdc-seven-words-science-transgender-fetus

The Trump administration has reportedly banned officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using these seven words in budget documents — a move that some are calling downright Orwellian:

–---

CDC gets list of forbidden words: Fetus, transgender, diversity - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/12/16/Interactivity/Images/Antibiotic_Overuse-06223.jpg?t=20170517

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden terms at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden terms are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

#trump #états-unis #cdc #mots #terminologie #vocabulaire

Private War: #Erik_Prince Has His Eye On Afghanistan’s Rare Metals
▻https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/private-war-erik-prince-has-his-eye-on-afghanistans-rare

Prince briefed top Trump administration officials directly, talked up his plan publicly on the DC circuit, and published op-eds about it. He patterned the strategy he’s pitching on the historical model of the old British East India Company, which had its own army and colonized much of Britain’s empire in India. “An East India Company approach,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “would use cheaper private solutions to fill the gaps that plague the Afghan security forces, including reliable logistics and aviation support.”

But the details have never been made public. Here is the never-before-published slide presentation for his pitch, which a source familiar with the matter said was prepared for the Trump administration.

One surprising element is the commercial promise Prince envisions: that the US will get access to Afghanistan’s rich deposits of minerals such as lithium, used in batteries; uranium; magnesite; and “rare earth elements,” critical metals used in high technology from defense to electronics. One slide estimates the value of mineral deposits in Helmand province alone at $1 trillion.

#états-unis #milice_privée

Trump administration permits ENI to drill for oil off Alaska
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-oil-eni/trump-administration-permits-eni-to-drill-for-oil-off-alaska-idUSKBN1DS33B

Eni US could begin work on oil exploration in federal waters off Alaska as soon as next month after the Trump administration on Tuesday approved permits for leases the company has held for a decade, the Interior Department said.

The department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, issued Eni US, a unit of Italy’s Eni, a permit to explore for oil from an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea. Eni is the first company allowed to explore for oil in federal waters off Alaska since 2015.

The bizarre alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia is finally fraying
▻https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2017/11/bizarre-alliance-between-us-and-saudi-arabia-finally-fraying

(British governments haven’t been any better: the Saudis have been close allies and major buyers of UK arms since the 1960s and, this summer, Theresa May buried an official report on the foreign funding of extremism which is believed to have highlighted the significant role played by Saudi Arabia.)

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That’s been the shameless position of Western governments when it comes to the Gulf kingdom. Successive US administrations, Democrat and Republican, have even stayed silent on the supposedly all-important issue of terrorism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens? No problem. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” according to a leaked State Department memo? Don’t worry about it. Islamic State is printing copies of Saudi textbooks to use in their schools? Ssshhhh.

These days, the conventional wisdom is that the Trump administration has revitalised the US-Saudi special relationship. The president – who once suggested the Saudi government was behind 9/11! – made the kingdom the first stop on his inaugural foreign trip in May and then threw his full support behind Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s controversial purge of his royal rivals on 4 November.

Net neutrality repeal was decided after ’enormous numbers’ of fake people sent messages of support for Trump administration
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/net-neutrality-arjit-pai-fcc-donald-trump-internet-repeal-obama-eric-

Moon of Alabama à propos de la démission de Saad Hariri (en gros : grosse destabilisation du Liban, qui échouera et finira par renforcer intérêts russes et iraniens) :
▻http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/11/lebanon-hariris-resignation-the-opening-shot-of-the-saudi-war-on-hizb

The resignation of Hariri is intended to provoke a constitutional crisis in Lebanon and to prevent new parliament elections. The further Saudi plan is likely to evolve around these elements:

– The Trump administration will announce new sanctions against Hizbullah and against Lebanon in general.
– The Saudi government will slip some of its al-Qaeda/ISIS proxy fighters from Syria and Iraq into Lebanon (possibly via Turkey by sea). It will finance local Lebanese terror operations.
– There will be new assassination attempts, terror attacks and general rioting by Sunni extremist elements against Christians and Shia in Lebanon.
– The U.S. will try to press the Lebanese army into a war against Hizbullah.
– Israel will try to provoke and divert Hizbullah’s attention by new shenanigans at the Lebanese and Syrian border. It will NOT start a war.

The plan is unlikely to succeed:

– The Lebanese people as a whole have no interest in a new civil war.
– The Lebanese army will not get involved on any specific side but will try to keep everyone calm.
– Sanctions against Hizbullah will hit all of Lebanon, including Sunni interests.
– A new Sunni prime minister will be found and installed, replacing the resigned Saudi puppet.
– Russian and Iranian economic interests will find a new market in Lebanon. Russian companies will engage in Lebanese gas and oil extraction in the Mediterranean and replace U.S. involvement.

The miscalculated Saudi/U.S./Israeli plan against Hizbullah can be understood as a helpless tantrum after their defeat in Syria and Iraq.

Je vois qu’il y a déjà une traduction en français :
▻http://arretsurinfo.ch/liban-demission-dhariri-premiere-salve-de-la-guerre-saoudienne-contre-l

U.S. Report Says Humans Cause Climate Change, Contradicting Top Trump Officials - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/climate/us-climate-report.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/06/29/briefing/04CLI-REPORT2/04CLI-REPORT2-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg

On connaissait les actes qui contredisent les paroles, on découvre depuis un certain temps les paroles qui contredisent les paroles.

Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has created the warmest period in the history of civilization.

#chaos #états-unis #climat

Inside X, Google’s Moonshot Factory |The Atlantic (novembre 2017)
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/x-google-moonshot-factory/540648

(…) The decline in U.S. productivity growth since the 1970s puzzles economists; potential explanations range from an aging workforce to the rise of new monopolies. But John Fernald, an economist at the Federal Reserve, says we can’t rule out a drought of breakthrough inventions. He points out that the notable exception to the post-1970 decline in productivity occurred from 1995 to 2004, when businesses throughout the economy finally figured out information technology and the internet. “It’s possible that productivity took off, and then slowed down, because we picked all the low-hanging fruit from the information-technology wave,” Fernald told me.

The U.S. economy continues to reap the benefits of IT breakthroughs, some of which are now almost 50 years old. But where will the next brilliant technology shock come from? As total federal R&D spending has declined—from nearly 12 percent of the budget in the 1960s to 4 percent today—some analysts have argued that corporate America has picked up the slack. But public companies don’t really invest in experimental research; their R&D is much more D than R. A 2015 study from Duke University found that since 1980, there has been a “shift away from scientific research by large corporations”—the triumph of short-term innovation over long-term invention.

The decline of scientific research in America has serious implications. In 2015, MIT published a devastating report on the landmark scientific achievements of the previous year, including the first spacecraft landing on a comet, the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, and the creation of the world’s fastest supercomputer. None of these was an American-led accomplishment. The first two were the products of a 10-year European-led consortium. The supercomputer was built in China.

As the MIT researchers pointed out, many of the commercial breakthroughs of the past few years have depended on inventions that occurred decades ago, and most of those were the results of government investment. From 2012 to 2016, the U.S. was the world’s leading oil producer. This was largely thanks to hydraulic fracturing experiments, or fracking, which emerged from federally funded research into drilling technology after the 1970s oil crisis. The recent surge in new cancer drugs and therapies can be traced back to the War on Cancer announced in 1971. But the report pointed to more than a dozen research areas where the United States is falling behind, including robotics, batteries, and synthetic biology. “As competitive pressures have increased, basic research has essentially disappeared from U.S. companies,” the authors wrote.

It is in danger of disappearing from the federal government as well. The White House budget this year proposed cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health, the crown jewel of U.S. biomedical research, by $5.8 billion, or 18 percent. It proposed slashing funding for disease research, wiping out federal climate-change science, and eliminating the Energy Department’s celebrated research division, arpa-e.

The Trump administration’s thesis seems to be that the private sector is better positioned to finance disruptive technology. But this view is ahistorical. Almost every ingredient of the internet age came from government-funded scientists or research labs purposefully detached from the vagaries of the free market. The transistor, the fundamental unit of electronics hardware, was invented at Bell Labs, inside a government-sanctioned monopoly. The first model of the internet was developed at the government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, now called darpa. In the 1970s, several of the agency’s scientists took their vision of computers connected through a worldwide network to Xerox parc.

“There is still a huge misconception today that big leaps in technology come from companies racing to make money, but they do not,” says Jon Gertner, the author of The Idea Factory, a history of Bell Labs. “Companies are really good at combining existing breakthroughs in ways that consumers like. But the breakthroughs come from patient and curious scientists, not the rush to market.” In this regard, X’s methodical approach to invention, while it might invite sneering from judgmental critics and profit-hungry investors, is one of its most admirable qualities. Its pace and its patience are of another era.

#innovation #États-Unis #Google_X #Internet #histoire

Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals ? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/us/trump-epa-chemicals-regulations.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/10/22/us/22reg-toxics-pruitt/22reg-toxics-pruitt-facebookJumbo.jpg

Un lng papier très intéressant sur les changements a sein de l’Environmental Protection Agency. Le poids du lobby de l’industrie chimique et surtout la manière de poser les problèmes pour dénaturer les alertes de santé repérés par les chercheurs. Des « éléments de langage » qu’on retrouve dans toutes les tentatives de diminuer la régulation sur les produits chimiques. Une méthode qui « mise en doute » qui est devenu un cas d’école sur les formes modernes de la domination politique sur la science.

So scientists and administrators in the E.P.A.’s Office of Water were alarmed in late May when a top Trump administration appointee insisted upon the rewriting of a rule to make it harder to track the health consequences of the chemical, and therefore regulate it.

The revision was among more than a dozen demanded by the appointee, Nancy B. Beck, after she joined the E.P.A.’s toxic chemical unit in May as a top deputy. For the previous five years, she had been an executive at the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s main trade association.

The E.P.A.’s abrupt new direction on legacy chemicals is part of a broad initiative by the Trump administration to change the way the federal government evaluates health and environmental risks associated with hazardous chemicals, making it more aligned with the industry’s wishes.

It is a cause with far-reaching consequences for consumers and chemical companies, as the E.P.A. regulates some 80,000 different chemicals, many of them highly toxic and used in workplaces, homes and everyday products. If chemicals are deemed less risky, they are less likely to be subjected to heavy oversight and restrictions.

The E.P.A.’s new leadership also pressed agency scientists to re-evaluate a plan to ban certain uses of two dangerous chemicals that have caused dozens of deaths or severe health problems: methylene chloride, which is found in paint strippers, and trichloroethylene, which removes grease from metals and is used in dry cleaning.

“It was extremely disturbing to me,” Ms. Hamnett said of the order she received to reverse the proposed pesticide ban. “The industry met with E.P.A. political appointees. And then I was asked to change the agency’s stand.”

“No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in an email. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”

Before joining the E.P.A., Ms. Bowman was a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council.

Mr. Pruitt has selected a replacement for Ms. Hamnett: Michael L. Dourson, a toxicologist who has spent the last two decades as a consultant helping businesses fight E.P.A. restrictions on the use of potentially toxic compounds. He is already at work at the agency in a temporary post while he awaits Senate confirmation.

The American Chemistry Council, and its members, are among the top private-sector sponsors of Mr. Dourson’s research. Last year, he collaborated on a paper that was funded by the trade group. His fellow author was Dr. Beck.

#Environnement #Politique_USA #EPA #Lobbyisme

The FBI’s New U.S. Terrorist Threat : ‘Black Identity Extremists’ – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/the-fbi-has-identified-a-new-domestic-terrorist-threat-and-its-black-

As white supremacists prepared to descend on Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, the FBI warned about a new movement that was violent, growing, and racially motivated. Only it wasn’t white supremacists; it was “black identity extremists.”

Amid a rancorous debate over whether the Trump administration has downplayed the threat posed by white supremacist groups, the FBI’s counterterrorism division has declared that black identity extremists pose a growing threat of premeditated violence against law enforcement.

#Etats-Unis #sans_vergogne #terrorisme

Trump administration plans to delay methane controls on oil, gas
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-regulation-methane/trump-admin-plans-to-delay-methane-controls-from-oil-gas-idUSKBN1C92LI

The U.S. Interior Department this week will try again to delay parts of an Obama-era rule to limit methane emissions from oil and gas production on federal lands, a rule Congress upheld earlier in the year, a document showed on Wednesday.

The rule, finalized by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) two months before former President Barack Obama left office, requires oil and gas operators on public lands to prevent leaking, venting and flaring of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The administration of President Donald Trump views the rule as excessive environmental regulation, and the BLM issued a new proposal on Wednesday that would delay the rule’s implementation until Jan. 17, 2019, giving the agency time to review it.

California becomes ’sanctuary state’ in rebuke of Trump immigration policy - LA Times
▻http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-brown-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20171005-story.html
▻http://www.trbimg.com/img-59d6751c/turbine/la-pol-ca-brown-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20171005

ON a parfois des bonnes nouvelles venant des Etats-Unis

In a sharp rebuke to President Trump’s expanded deportation orders, Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark “sanctuary state” legislation Thursday, vastly limiting who state and local law enforcement agencies can hold, question and transfer at the request of federal immigration authorities.

Senate Bill 54, which takes effect in January, has been hailed as part of a broader effort by majority Democrats in the California Legislature to shield more than 2.3 million immigrants living illegally in the state. Weeks before Brown’s signature made it law, it was met with swift denunciations from Trump administration officials and became the focus of a national debate over how far states and cities can go to prevent their officers from enforcing federal immigration laws.

#Californie #Dreamers #Etat_refuge #Immigration

Here’s How Much of Your Taxes Have Gone To Wars - Defense One
▻http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2017/09/taxes-united-states-war-iraq-afghanistan-syria/141337

http://cdn.defenseone.com/media/img/upload/2017/09/27/33869115763_92978608f6_o/open-graph.jpg

As of Monday, the average American taxpayer will have paid nearly $7,500 to fund the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria since the 9/11 attacks, according to previously unreported Pentagon budget data sent to Congress this summer.

This fiscal year, each U.S. taxpayers will pay about $289 for both wars, according to the Defense Department data. Next year — fiscal 2018 — that number would drop to $281 per taxpayer, if Congress were to pass the White House’s spending request unchanged, which won’t happen. And there’s another reason that number is likely to change: the Trump administration’s plan to send more American troops to Afghanistan.

Americans paid the most for the wars in 2010, an average of $767 apiece. The annual amount declined through 2016 to $204 per taxpayer, before growing again as the U.S. ramped up its airstrike campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

http://www.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/wars_cost_(final).png

#dépenses_militaires #états-unis

Corporate Media Analysts’ Indifference to US Journalists Facing 70 Years in Prison | FAIR
▻http://fair.org/home/corporate-media-analysts-indifference-to-us-journalists-facing-70-years-in-pri

http://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Inauguration_Eve_Protests_Washington_32313814202.jpg

For over two years, many in corporate media have been trumpeting the looming threat to a free press posed by Donald Trump. “Would President Trump Kill Freedom of the Press?” Slate (3/14/16) wondered in the midst of the primaries; after the election, the New York Times (1/13/17) warned of “Donald Trump’s Dangerous Attacks on the Press,” and the Atlantic (2/20/17) declared it “ A Dangerous Time for the Press and the Presidency.”

It’s strange, then, that the attack on the press that kicked off the Trump administration—the arrest and subsequent threatening of two journalists with 70 years in prison—has been met with total silence from most of these same outlets. Aaron Cantú, Santa Fe Reporter staff writer and editor at the New Inquiry (and a contributor to FAIR.org), and professional photographer Alexei Wood are both facing decades in prison for the act of covering the January 20 unrest in DC—charged with felony rioting for little more than being in the proximity of window-breaking and brick-throwing. (Prosecutors initially brought and then dropped felony charges against six other reporters, though how their cases differ from Cantú and Wood’s is unclear.)

ACLU lawyer Scott Michelman insists that these arrests “punish journalists for being near the action” and will “inevitably chill freedom of the press and, with it, First Amendment rights not only of the journalists themselves, but of all of us.”

The three most influential media reporters in US media—CNN’s Brian Stelter, New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and Washington Post’s Erik Wemple—have completely ignored the felony rioting charges leveled against the two #J20 journalists altogether. In their dozens of columns, reports, and on-air segments since the arrests nine months ago, neither Stelter nor Rutenberg nor Wemple has made a single mention of the reporters facing jail time.

#MSM

Commentary: A win for Trump’s #gas_diplomacy
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grigas-lng/commentary-a-win-for-trumps-gas-diplomacy-idUSKCN1BB01K

Last week, American liquefied natural gas (LNG) made its way to the somewhat unlikely market of #Lithuania. The former Soviet republic traditionally bought its gas from Russian state company Gazprom; this was its first shipment from the United States. For President Donald Trump, that must have been a gratifying sign of the success of his administration’s nascent energy diplomacy.

The U.S. became the world’s largest producer of natural gas around 2011, overtaking its long-time competitor Russia and starting to rival Saudi Arabia in oil production. This was made possible by the shale revolution – the breakthrough of hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” that could split rock formations below ground and boost the extraction of oil and gas resources from shale rock formations. Environmentalists oppose LNG exports on the grounds that methane leakage from fracking can make natural gas as harmful to the climate as coal and that the LNG trade involves the energy-intensive measures of freezing gas, shipping it across oceans, and then regassifying – a process that further increases the carbon footprint.
[…]
Nonetheless, Cheniere launched its inaugural delivery of LNG to Poland in June. During his visit to Poland the following month, Trump reiterated the implications of this delivery: “We are committed to securing your access to alternate sources of energy, so Poland and its neighbors are never held hostage to a single supplier of energy,” he said.

While reducing Gazprom’s dominance is part of Washington’s long-standing agenda, the Trump administration is the first to explicitly link the trinity of diplomacy, LNG trade, and national economic interests in Europe, Asia, and beyond. However, U.S. officials should be wary of implying that Washington’s LNG diplomacy is centered on making America’s friends buy gas to prove their loyalty. It’s already in Washington’s economic interests to support its allies’ energy security. There is no need for the White House to belabor the point.

In ’Open Effort to Escalate Racial Tensions’ Trump to Fully Militarize Police
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/in-and039open-effort-to-escalate-racial-tensionsand039-trump-to-full

In what critics are characterizing as a “dangerous” move in the direction of a fully militarized police force, the Trump administration is reportedly gearing up to reverse