5: How 2016 Became the Year Politicians Forgot How Politics Work
If you’ve been listening carefully this year, you might have heard a gentle, regular sound in the background of world events, the sound of rakes slapping people in the face. And not just anyone: The lauded and powerful—our liberal political elite, the very best among us—have spent the whole of 2016 vigorously pummeling themselves, striding blindly into rake after rake after rake.
The far-right victories of this year—Brexit, Trump, all those now-dull and familiar horrors—are mostly being treated as something that just happened, an inexplicable seepage of bile bubbling out from under the ground. A few people are still pointing out that the liberal order set the stage for this kind of response: Wherever the far-right wins, it’s because mainstream politics have failed; people voted for Trump and Brexit because decades of callous and indifferent centrist administration had made life so stupid and miserable that any change, even total destruction, would be preferable.
Vice News
4: Aleppo operation in final stages, Syrian general says
The Syrian military operation to recapture rebel-held east Aleppo is in its final stages after the army took Sheikh Saeed and other districts, according to Lieutenant-General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the Aleppo security committee.
The government’s recapture of the city would mark its greatest victory since the war began in 2011.
“The battle in east Aleppo should end quickly. They [rebels] don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” he told a group of reporters in Sheikh Saeed on Monday.
Aljazeera
Over the weekend, news reports began to circulate saying President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Tillerson has served as CEO and chair of Exxon since 2006. Environmental groups have widely condemned the potential nomination. Exxon is facing multiple lawsuits over its role in covering up the science behind climate change. Tillerson is also known to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Wall Street Journal reports Tillerson “has known Putin since he represented Exxon’s interests in Russia during the regime of Boris Yeltsin.” In 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the country’s Order of Friendship decoration. For more, we speak with Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth USA; Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law; and Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org.
Democracy Now
2: OBAMA MUST DECLASSIFY EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN HACKING
HERE ARE TWO of political history’s great constants: first, countries meddling in the internal affairs of others (both enemies and “friends”); and, second, bogus charges from a faction in one country that foreigners are meddling in its internal affairs to help another faction.
Both are poison for any country that wishes to rule itself.
So if we’re serious about being a self-governing republic, we have to demand that President Obama declassify as much intelligence as possible that Russia may have intervened in the 2016 presidential election.
Taking Donald Trump’s position — that we should just ignore the question of Russian hacking and “move on” — would be a disaster.
Relying on a hazy war of leaks from the CIA, FBI, various politicians, and their staff is an equally terrible idea.
A congressional investigation would be somewhat better, but that would take years — like the investigations of the intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction — and would be fatally compromised by the Democrats’ political timidity and GOP opposition.
The only path forward that makes sense is for Obama to order the release of as much evidence as possible underlying the reported “high confidence” of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia both intervened in the election and did so with the intention of aiding Trump’s candidacy.
The Intercept
1: Assad forces close to capturing east Aleppo after ‘doomsday’ bombardment
Residents of east Aleppo have sent out desperate messages imploring the international community to save civilians in besieged districts of the Syrian city, as forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad, bear down on the remaining enclaves still controlled by the opposition.
The rebellion of Aleppo appeared to be in its death throes as Assad’s troops and Iranian-backed militias took control of the vast majority of the territory once held by the opposition, coming within sight of a crucial victory in the war that has cost tens of thousands of lives over four and a half years.
The situation was described as a kind of “doomsday” by one resident, Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, a teacher living in the besieged districts who has been documenting the destruction of the city online for months.
The Guardian
