President Trump is heading to Capitol Hill tonight and is expected to outline part of his budget plan before a joint session of Congress. On Monday, Trump proposed increasing the military budget to just over $600 billion—a 10 percent increase—while deeply slashing the budgets of other agencies, likely including the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department. Trump said he wanted a historic increase in military spending. Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee of California responded on Twitter by writing, “[President] Trump’s morally bankrupt budget will funnel more money to the Pentagon at the expense of the poor [and] our planet. This is an awful idea.” We speak to Neta Crawford, co-director of the Costs of War Project and a professor of political science at Boston University. In September, she released a report that found the United States has spent nearly $5 trillion since the September 11, 2001, attacks on homeland security and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan.
Democracy Now
4: Senior US Officials Say They’re Unaware of Any Intelligence Benefit from the Yemen Raid
Last month’s terror raid resulted in the death of one Navy SEAL, multiple civilians, and destroyed a $70 million aircraft.
Senior government officials said they were “unaware” of any significant intelligence results from the military raid in Yemen that left Navy SEAL Ryan Owens dead, NBC reports. The officials’ statements contradict the Pentagon and Sean Spicer who have said that the terror raid brought in “actionable intelligence” that could “prevent the potential deaths or attacks on American soil.”
At the beginning of February, the Pentagon released a video it claimed was recovered from the raid—which also killed Yemeni civilians and children and wounded three other SEALs—only to pull it offline after BuzzFeed News pointed out that the video has been available since 2007.
Vice News
3: Palestinian diaspora creates new political entity
Istanbul, Turkey – After two days of meetings here, the organisers of the Palestinians Abroad Conference have established a new political entity to represent Palestinian diaspora communities and strive for greater Palestinian rights.
Conference leaders said on Sunday that they aspired to play a bigger role in the struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, alongside the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
They insisted that their new organisation does not aim to replace the PLO – the organisation that has been representing the Palestinian people since 1964.
“We are trying here to create a supporting structure to be an asset to the PLO, not against it,” said Ribhi Halloum, a former PLO ambassador.
Aljazeera
2: Vancouver up in arms as Trump family launches high-rise tower
Vancouver is bracing for protests as the Trump family prepares to launch its latest venture in Canada amid a growing backlash from local residents.
The US president’s sons, Donald Jr and Eric, will attend the launch on Tuesday of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, a C$360m ($273m) development where one-bedroom apartments start at around C$1m and hotel rooms go for at least C$300 a night.
But the addition of the Trump name to the skyline of a city where nearly half the population is foreign born has prompted widespread anger. For many, the name conjures up the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, vows to temporarily ban Muslims from the country and reversal on transgender rights.
“We want to push back against this emboldening of hatred and misogyny and xenophobia and racism,” said Mathew Kagis, one of the organisers behind the Trump Welcome Party, a day-long protest being planned outside the gleaming, twisting tower on Tuesday. “Those aren’t values that we have and we want it to be made really clear.”
The Guardian
1: Trump Surrogate Suggests Democrats Could Be Behind Bomb Threats Against Jews
JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTERS across the United States are operating in a climate of fear after a fifth wave of bomb threats aimed at Jews on Monday that targeted at least 13 community centers and eight schools in a dozen states.
A top Trump surrogate — hedge funder Anthony Scaramucci, who fundraised for the Trump campaign, joined his transition team, and was in the running for a senior role in the White House — took to Twitter on Tuesday to imply that these threats could be coming from Democrats, rather than from a radical far-right wing that has been emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric and staff choices.
The Intercept
