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Bill Pennell, former Director of the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, summed up the threat in recent discussions about climate and national security: “The environmental consequences of climate change are a significant threat multiplier, which by itself, can be a cause for future conflicts. Global warming will affect military operations as well as its theaters of operations. And it poses significant risks and costs to military and civilian infrastructure, especially those facilities located on the coastline.” “The countries and regions posing the greatest security threats to the United States are among those most susceptible to the adverse and destabilizing effects of climate change. Many of these countries are already unstable and have little economic or social capital for coping with additional disruptions.” “Whether in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, or North Korea, we are already seeing how extreme weather events – such as droughts and flooding and the food shortages and population dislocations that accompany them – can destabilize governments and lead to conflict. For example, one trigger of the chaos in Syria has been the multi-year drought the country has experienced since 2006 and the Assad Regime’s ineptitude in dealing with it.”

So why is the country as a whole, and those who normally support our military, so loathe to prepare for possible threats from this direction? In 1990, Eugene Skolnikoff summarized the national policy issues surrounding global warming and why it has been so difficult to rationally develop policy to address it. “The central problem is that outside the security sector, policy processes confronting issues with substantial uncertainty do not normally yield policy that has high economic or political costs. This is especially true when the uncertainty extends not only to the issues themselves, but also to the measures to avert them or deal with their consequences.” “The climate change issue illustrates – in fact exaggerates – all the elements of this central problem. Indeed, no major action is likely to be taken until those uncertainties are substantially reduced, and probably not before evidence of warming and its effects are actually visible. Unfortunately, any increase in temperature will be irreversible by the time the danger becomes obvious enough to permit political action.” And this was in 1990!

As Arctic ice diminishes, the region will see new shipping routes, new energy zones, new fisheries, new tourism and new sources of conflict not covered by existing maritime treaties. Since the United States is not party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) treaty, we will not have maximum operating flexibility in the Arctic. Even seemingly small administrative issues may become important in the new era, e.g., the Unified Command Plan presently splits Arctic responsibility between two Combatant Commands: U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and U.S. European Command (EUCOM). This type of things needs to be resolved with the coming global changes in mind. Source: Center for Naval Analysis

The public is split on whether Edward Snowden’s leaks served the public interest, with 45% saying they did and 43% saying the leaks harmed public interest. But by 56% to 32%, most think that the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden. These opinions are largely unchanged from last June, when Snowden first disclosed classified information to news organizations. There is a large age gap when it comes to views of the NSA revelations and the public interest. More adults ages 50 and older believe that the leaks harmed the public interest (49%) than served the public interest (37%). Among adults 18-29, sentiment is reversed, with 57% saying Snowden served the public interest and 35% saying he harmed it. There are no significant differences on this issue by party, as both Republicans and Democrats are divided.

Obama’s proposed changes to the NSA’s data collection program did not register widely with the public. Just 49% say they heard about the proposed changes, with little difference across partisan groups. Among those that did hear about the proposals, large majorities of Republicans (86%) and independents (78%) say these changes will not make much difference when it comes to protecting people’s privacy. Among Democrats who have heard of the changes, 56% say they won’t make much difference. There is little concern that the changes to the NSA’s surveillance activities will hurt the government’s ability to fight terrorism. Overall, 79% of those who have heard about the proposals say they won’t make much difference in the government’s ability to fight terrorism; this view is shared by 85% of independents, 77% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans.

Democrats remain more supportive of the NSA surveillance program than Republicans, though support is down across party lines. Today, Democrats are divided (46% approve, 48% disapprove) in their view of the program. Last June, they approved by a 20-point margin (58% vs. 38%). Republicans now disapprove of the program by a 56% to 37% margin. Approval is down eight points among Republicans from 45% last June. There continues to be a substantial divide within the Republican base: Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party are overwhelmingly opposed to the NSA program, while those who do not identify with the Tea Party are more divided. The decline in approval of the NSA surveillance program spans most demographic groups, though the drop in support is particularly evident among minority groups. Last June, 60% of both blacks and Hispanics approved of the government’s surveillance program. That has fallen to 43% among blacks and 40% among Hispanics today. Among whites, 39% approve of the program today, little changed from 44% in June.

Those who attended college are more likely than those who didn’t to see the leaks as serving the public interest. About half of college graduates (49%) and those with some college experience (51%) say this, compared with 38% of those with no more than a high school degree.

While most of the public wants the government to pursue a criminal case against Snowden, young people offer the least support for his prosecution. Those younger than 30 are divided, with 42% wanting a criminal case against Snowden and 42% saying the government should not pursue one. Support for prosecution is much higher among those 50 and older, who think the government should pursue a case by more than two-to-one. Both Democrats (62%-27%) and Republicans (54%-28%) think the government should pursue a criminal case. About half of independents (51%) want a criminal case against Snowden, while four-in-ten (39%) say the government should not pursue one. Fully 70% of those who approve of the government’s surveillance program favor Snowden’s prosecution. Those who disapprove of the program are divided: 45% say the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden while 43% are opposed.

Barack Obama’s job approval rating has shown little change from last month. In the current survey, 49% disapprove of how he is handling his job and 43% approve. Obama’s ratings had steadily declined from May to November of last year, before he regained some ground in December. In the last month, there have been no significant changes in partisan approval. About three-quarters of Democrats (77%) approve and 17% disapprove; among Republicans, 12% approve and 84% disapprove. Independents, on balance, continue to view his job performance negatively — 37% approve and 53% disapprove.

We didn’t expect ExxonMobil to admit that it had been at fault. It is one of the largest companies in the world—indeed, if its revenues are compared to the gross domestic products of nations, it has one of the world’s larger economies, bigger than Austria’s, for example, or Thailand’s8—and it has a reputation for unusual determination in promoting its self-interest.9 One way or another, we expected it to fight back—most likely, we thought, by proxy, through its surrogates in the right-wing press and in Congress.Sure enough, various bloggers have been calling for “the Rockefellers”10 to be prosecuted by the government for “conspiracy” against Exxon under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.11 (Such lines of attack are being tested and refined, and we expect they will soon be repeated in journals with broader readership.) And in May, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, sent a letter to the RFF and seven other NGOs (including the RBF, 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Union of Concerned Scientists),12 as well as all seventeen AGs who said they might investigate ExxonMobil. He accused us of engaging in “a coordinated effort to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, and scientists of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution,” and demanded that we turn over to him all private correspondence between any of the recipients of his letter relating to any potential climate change investigation. When we all refused, twice, to surrender any such correspondence, Smith subpoenaed Schneiderman, Healey, and all eight NGOs for the same documents.We will answer Smith’s accusations against us presently. In order to explain ourselves, however, we first have to explain what Exxon knew about climate change, and when—and what, despite that knowledge, Exxon did: the morally reprehensible conduct that prompted our actions in the first place.

As the Center on Democracy and Technology has noted, there are approximately 500 million computers that fall under this rule. The public doesn’t know nearly enough about how law enforcement executes these hacks, and what risks these types of searches will pose. By compromising the computer’s system, the search might leave it open to other attackers or damage the computer they are searching.Don’t take it from me that this will impact your security, read more from security researchers Steven Bellovin, Matt Blaze and Susan Landau.Finally, these changes to Rule 41 would also give some types of electronic searches different, weaker notification requirements than physical searches. Under this new Rule, they are only required to make “reasonable efforts” to notify people that their computers were searched. This raises the possibility of the FBI hacking into a cyber attack victim’s computer and not telling them about it until afterward, if at all.

Civil liberties and privacy groups are particularly alarmed that the FBI is seeking such a huge step up in its capabilities through such an apparently backdoor route. Soghoian said of next week’s meeting: “This should not be the first public forum for discussion of an issue of this magnitude.” Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford center for internet and society, said that “this is an investigative technique that we haven’t seen before and we haven’t thrashed out the implications. It absolutely should not be done through a rule change – it has to be fully debated publicly, and Congress must be involved.” Ghappour has also highlighted the potential fall-out internationally were the amendment to be approved. Under current rules, there are no fourth amendment restrictions to US government surveillance activities in other countries as the US constitution only applies to domestic territory.

Another insight into the expansive thrust of US government thinking in terms of its cyber ambitions was gleaned recently in the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the billion-dollar drug site the Silk Road. Experts suspect that the FBI hacked into the Silk Road server, that was located in Reykjavik, Iceland, though the agency denies that. In recent legal argument, US prosecutors claimed that even if they had hacked into the server without a warrant, it would have been justified as “a search of foreign property known to contain criminal evidence, for which a warrant was not necessary”.

But since Obama’s nomination, the “nuclear option” has reared its head three times in less than a year — each time getting closer to the edge. Many in the Senate privately expected that this go-round would be yet another example of saber rattling, but Reid said pressure was increasing within his own party to change the rules. The blockade of three consecutive nominees to a powerful appellate court was too much for Democrats to handle — and Reid felt compelled to pull the trigger, explaining that “this is the way it has to be.”

Senate Democrats were quick to use their newfound powers, voting in the early afternoon to end the filibuster on Patricia Millett’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 55-43, with two senators voting present. Before the change earlier Thursday, Millett would have needed 60 votes to clear the procedural hurdle and move on to a confirmation vote. But now, she needed just 51 to advance.

The usual protocol for the U.S. military – when operating in territory without a government’s permission – is to destroy the air defenses prior to conducting airstrikes so as to protect American pilots and aircraft, as was done with Libya in 2011. However, in other cases, U.S. intelligence agencies have arranged for secret permission from governments for such attacks, creating a public ambiguity usually for the benefit of the foreign leaders while gaining the necessary U.S. military assurances.

Just last month, Obama himself termed the strategy of arming supposedly “moderate” Syrian rebels “a fantasy.” He told the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman: “This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.” Obama’s point would seem to apply at least as much to having the “moderate” rebels face down the ruthless Islamic State jihadists who engage in suicide bombings and slaughter their captives without mercy. But this “fantasy” of the “moderate” rebels has a big following in Congress and on the major U.S. op-ed pages, so Obama has included the $500 million in his war plan despite the risk it poses to Assad’s acquiescence to American air attacks.

In a national address last week, Obama vowed to order U.S. air attacks across Syria’s border without any coordination with the Syrian government, a proposition that Damascus denounced as a violation of its sovereignty. So, in this case, Syria’s behind-the-scenes acquiescence also might provide some politically useful ambiguity for Obama as well as Assad. Yet, this secret collaboration may go even further and include Syrian government assistance in the targeting of the U.S. attacks, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. That is another feature of U.S. military protocol in conducting air strikes – to have some on-the-ground help in pinpointing the attacks. As part of its public pronouncements about the future Syrian attacks, the Obama administration sought $500 million to train “vetted” Syrian rebels to handle the targeting tasks inside Syria as well as to carry out military ground attacks. But that approach – while popular on Capitol Hill – could delay any U.S. airstrikes into Syria for months and could possibly negate Assad’s quiet acceptance of the U.S. attacks, since the U.S.-backed rebels share one key goal of the Islamic State, the overthrow of Assad’s relatively secular regime.

Without Assad’s consent, the U.S. airstrikes might require a much wider U.S. bombing campaign to first target Syrian government defenses, a development long sought by Official Washington’s influential neoconservatives who have kept “regime change” in Syria near the top of their international wish list. For the past several years, the Israeli government also has sought the overthrow of Assad, even at the risk of Islamic extremists gaining power. The Israeli thinking had been that Assad, as an ally of Iran, represented a greater threat to Israel because his government was at the center of the so-called Shiite crescent reaching from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut and southern Lebanon, the base for Hezbollah.

The thinking was that if Assad’s government could be pulled down, Iran and Hezbollah – two of Israel’s principal “enemies” – would be badly damaged. A year ago, then-Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren articulated this geopolitical position in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. “The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc,” Oren said. “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” He said this was the case even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda. More recently, however, with the al-Qaeda-connected Nusra Front having seized Syrian territory adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – forcing the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers – the balance of Israeli interests may be tipping in favor of preferring Assad to having Islamic extremists possibly penetrating directly into Israeli territory.

In the longer term, by working together to create political solutions to various Mideast crises, the Obama-Putin cooperation threatened to destroy the neocons’ preferred strategy of escalating U.S. military involvement in the region. There was the prospect, too, that the U.S.-Russian tag team might strong-arm Israel into a peace agreement with the Palestinians. So, starting last September – almost immediately after Putin helped avert a U.S. air war against Syria – key neocons began taking aim at Ukraine as a potential sore point for Putin. A leading neocon, Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took to the op-ed pages of the neocon Washington Post to identify Ukraine as “the biggest prize” and explaining how its targeting could undermine Putin’s political standing inside Russia. “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” At the time, Gershman’s NED was funding scores of political and media projects inside Ukraine.

The Russian Hand Besides the tactical significance of U.S. intelligence agencies arranging Assad’s tacit acceptance of U.S. airstrikes over Syrian territory, the reported arrangement is also significant because of the role of Russian intelligence serving as the intermediary. That suggests that despite the U.S.-Russian estrangement over the Ukraine crisis, the cooperation between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been extinguished; it has instead just gone further underground. Last year, this growing behind-the-scenes collaboration between Obama and Putin represented a potential tectonic geopolitical shift in the Middle East. In the short term, their teamwork produced agreements that averted a U.S. military strike against Syria last September (by getting Assad to surrender his chemical weapons arsenal) and struck a tentative deal with Iran to constrain but not eliminate its nuclear program.

Direct attacks on Israel would be a temptation to al-Nusra Front, which is competing for the allegiance of young jihadists with the Islamic State. While the Islamic State, known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, has captured the imaginations of many youthful extremists by declaring the creation of a “caliphate” with the goal of driving Western interests from the Middle East, al-Nusra could trump that appeal by actually going on the offensive against one of the jihadists’ principal targets, Israel. Yet, despite Israel’s apparent rethinking of its priorities, America’s neocons appear focused still on their long-held strategy of using violent “regime change” in the Middle East to eliminate governments that have been major supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, i.e. Syria and Iran. One reason why Obama may have opted for a secretive overture to the Assad regime, using intelligence channels with the Russians as the middlemen, is that otherwise the U.S. neocons and their “liberal interventionist” allies would have howled in protest.

By early 2014, American neocons and their “liberal interventionist” pals were conspiring “to midwife” a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych, according to a phrase used by U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in an intercepted phone conversation with Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who was busy handpicking leaders to replace Yanukovych. A neocon holdover from George W. Bush’s administration, Nuland had been a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and is married to prominent neocon Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century which prepared the blueprint for the neocon strategy of “regime change” starting with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The U.S.-backed coup ousted Yanukovych on Feb. 22 and sparked a bloody civil war, leaving thousands dead, mostly ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. But the Gershman-Nuland strategy also drove a deep wedge between Obama and Putin, seeming to destroy the possibility that their peace-seeking collaboration would continue in the Middle East. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons’ Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit.”] New Hope for ‘Regime Change’ The surprise success of Islamic State terrorists in striking deep inside Iraq during the summer revived neocon hopes that their “regime change” strategy in Syria might also be resurrected. By baiting Obama to react with military force not only in Iraq but across the border in Syria, neocons like Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham put the ouster of Assad back in play.

In a New York Times op-ed on Aug. 29, McCain and Graham used vague language about resolving the Syrian civil war, but clearly implied that Assad must go. They wrote that thwarting ISIS “requires an end to the [civil] conflict in Syria, and a political transition there, because the regime of President Bashar al-Assad will never be a reliable partner against ISIS; in fact, it has abetted the rise of ISIS, just as it facilitated the terrorism of ISIS’ predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Though the McCain-Graham depiction of Assad’s relationship to ISIS and al-Qaeda was a distortion at best – in fact, Assad’s army has been the most effective force in pushing back against the Sunni terrorist groups that have come to dominate the Western-backed rebel movement – the op-ed’s underlying point is obvious: a necessary step in the U.S. military operation against ISIS must be “regime change” in Damascus.

That would get the neocons back on their original track of forcing “regime change” in countries seen as hostile to Israel. The first target was Iraq with Syria and Iran always meant to follow. The idea was to deprive Israel’s close-in enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial support. But the neocon vision got knocked off track when Bush’s Iraq War derailed and the American people balked at extending the conflict to Syria and Iran. Still, the neocons retained their vision even after Bush and Cheney departed. They also remained influential by holding onto key positions inside Official Washington – at think tanks, within major news outlets and even inside the Obama administration. They also built a crucial alliance with “liberal interventionists” who had Obama’s ear. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Dangerous Neocon-R2P Alliance.”]

The neocons’ new hope arrived with the public outrage over ISIS’s atrocities. Yet, while pushing to get this new war going, the neocons have downplayed their “regime change” agenda, getting Obama to agree only to extend his anti-ISIS bombing campaign from Iraq into Syria. But it was hard to envision expanding the war into Syria without ousting Assad. Now, however, if the source’s account is correct regarding Assad’s quiet assent to U.S. airstrikes, Obama may have devised a way around the need to bomb Assad’s military, an maneuver that might again frustrate the neocons’ beloved goal of “regime change.”

Environmentalists and Democratic politicians have accused ExxonMobil of engaging in a cover-up to mislead the public about the risks of human-caused climate change in order to sell more of its carbon-intensive product. Exxon has vehemently denied the accusation. Either way, Schneiderman’s two investigations are sparking serious legal discussion about how honest fossil fuel companies must be when it comes to the carbon emissions they create — especially if honesty might mean knowingly lowering profits. Should coal companies be forced to admit that their coal is creating a climate risk? If so, should they be allowed to fund politicians who advocate against climate action? Are these corporate activities protected free speech? Bloomberg View columnist Matt Levine offered a nuanced discussion of those questions on Friday. And ultimately, he said, it may just come down to whether these companies lied to their own investors — even if the lie was in their investors’ financial interest. “If you lie to the public about the risks that fossil fuel use poses to life on earth, you are just exercising your right as a citizen,” Levine wrote. “But if you lie to your investors about the risks that fossil fuel regulation poses to your stock price, you are committing fraud and will get in bad trouble.”

Though the document itself officially predates the current Syrian conflict by nearly 25 years, much of its analysis brings to mind recent events in Syria, particularly those that led to the outbreak of war in 2011. Chief among these is the rise of factionalism between Sunni Muslim elements against the ruling Alawi minority (a Shi’ite sect), as well as the potential to counter Russian influence in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. These similarities suggest that U.S. regime change efforts in Syria date back to well over 30 years ago – proof of the persistent imperialist elements that consistently guide U.S. foreign policy.

. According to The Washington Free Beacon, “a small coalition of prominent climate change activists and political operatives” met on Jan. 8 in a closed door meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund in Manhattan. Their agenda: taking down oil giant ExxonMobil through a coordinated campaign of legal action, divestment efforts, and political pressure.”

Some of them secretly briefed state attorneys general before their March press conference on arguments they could present to justify “climate change litigation” and the “imperative of taking action now.” The attorneys general and their staff tried to hide this discussion and coordination with the activists by “using a ‘Common Interest Agreement’… [that] sought to protect as privileged the discussions about defending President Obama’s controversial global warming rules, and going after political opponents using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.”

“[N]aturally, the language of these ideas should be acceptable for all the participants in this process – both the P5+1 group and Iran,” Lavrov said. The crucial details provided by Lavrov on the timing of the amended draft shed new light on Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim in a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday of unity among the six powers on the that draft. “We were unified on Saturday when we presented a proposal to the Iranians.” Kerry said, adding that “everybody agreed it was a fair proposal.” Kerry gave no indication of when on Saturday that proposal had been approved by the other five powers, nor did he acknowledge explicitly that it was a draft that departed from the earlier draft agreed upon with Iran. Lavrov’s remarks make it clear that the other members of the group had little or no time to study or discuss the changes before deciding whether to go along with it.

Although the nature of the changes in the amended draft remain a secret, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has charged that they were quite far-reaching and that they affected far more of the draft agreement that had been worked out between the United States and Iran than had been acknowledged by any of the participants. In tweets on Tuesday, Zarif, responding to Kerry’s remarks in Abu Dhabi, wrote, “Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night?” Zarif’s comments indicated that changes of wording had nullified the previous understanding that had been reached between the United States and Iran on multiple issues.

Zarif’s tweet, combined with remarks by President Hassan Rouhani to the national assembly Sunday warning that Iran’s rights to enrichment are “red lines” that could not be crossed, suggests further that the language of the original draft agreement dealing with the “end game” of the negotiating process was also changed on Saturday. Kerry himself alluded to the issue in his remarks in Abu Dhabi, using the curious formulation that no nation has an “existing right to enrich.” One of the language changes in the agreement evidently related to that issue, and it was aimed at satisfying a demand of Israeli origin at the expense of Iran’s support for the draft. Now the Obama administration will face a decision whether to press Iran to go along with those changes or to go back to the original compromise when political directors of the six powers and Iran reconvene Nov. 20. That choice will provide the key indicator of how strongly committed Obama is to reaching an agreement with Iran.

Following this ruling, based on the assumptions that federal law enforcement fundamentally act in good faith and that there may be a legitimate need for remote exploitation of computer data, the Justice Department sought to introduce changes to the rules that would overcome Smith’s objections. The proposed change to Rule 41(b) would allow magistrate judges “… to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize electronically stored information located within or outside that district.” The Justice Department has indicated that it wants warrants permitting multiple computers to be searched at the same time, as well as permission to search all of the email and social media accounts accessible from a single computer. Such access would constitute a violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as the government, under the act, must make demonstrate probable cause to each targeted service provider and obtain and serve a warrant for each service provider. A warrant to search every account active on a computer would be actively bypassing the act’s numerous safeguards.

Privacy advocates fear that this rule change would allow prosecutors and the Justice Department to seek out magistrates likely to give them their requested warrants, creating a situation in which the federal government could have a “warrant shop” with just one judge for the whole of the nation. In light of allegations of federal government over-policing — including revelations of aggressive domestic and international electronic spying by the FBI and the National Security Agency — many advocates argue that an examination of the federal government’s commitment to the Fourth Amendment is needed. “The proposed amendment would significantly expand the government’s authority to conduct remote searches of electronic storage media,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a memorandum early last month. “It would also expand the government’s power to engage in computer hacking in the course of criminal investigations, including through the use of malware and other techniques that pose a risk to internet security and that raise Fourth Amendment and policy concerns. “In light of these concerns, the ACLU recommends that the Advisory Committee exercise extreme caution before granting the government new authority to remotely search individuals’ electronic data.” The rules are scheduled to be discussed at the meeting of the Judiciary’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure later this month.

But the fact is, Putin is not going to allow Assad to be removed by force. It’s that simple. Obama and his advisors suspect this, but they are not 100 percent certain so they keep looking for confirmation one way or the other. But Putin is not going to provide a clear answer because he doesn’t want to tip his hand or appear confrontational. But that doesn’t mean he’s not resolute. He is, and Washington knows it. In effect, Putin has drawn a line in the sand and told the US that if they cross that line, there’s going to trouble. So it’s up to Obama really. He can either seek a peaceful solution along the lines that Moscow has recommended or push for regime change and risk a confrontation with Russia. Those are the two choices. Unfortunately, Washington doesn’t have an “off” switch anymore, so changing policy is really not in the cards. Instead, the US war machine will continue to lumber ahead erratically until it hits an impasse and sputters to a halt. Once again, the immovable object will prevail over the unstoppable force (as it did in Ukraine), albeit at great cost to the battered people of Syria, their nation and the entire region.

It’s clear that Obama is emboldened by the Incirlik deal and believes that, with Turkey’s help, he can achieve US imperial ambitions in Syria. But it’s not going to happen.  Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are prepared to defend their ally Assad and stop Washington dead-in-its-tracks.  Obama will have succeeded in destroying another sovereign nation and scattering its people across the Middle East and Europe. But the US mission will fall short of its original objectives. There will be no regime change in Syria. Putin, Nasrallah and Khamenei will make sure of it.

NUMBER FOUR: "The Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are hereby repealed.   All Federal agencies, programs, laws, rules, regulations, and/or orders created, passed, or handed down as a direct or indirect result of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and/or Seventeenth Amendments are hereby stricken from Law, declared null and void, and have no force of effect."

NUMBER SEVEN:   "Section One:   The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be interpreted to mean the FUNDAMENTAL right of individual citizens and/or groups of citizens to keep and bear arms; in their homes and/or other properties, in public and private, and on their persons. Section Two:    Non-citizens and persons convicted of a violent felony by a jury of their peers do not have this right."