A mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque last night left six people dead and eight wounded. The targeted mosque, the Cultural Islamic Center of Quebec, was the same one at which a severed pig's head was left during Ramadan last June. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the episode a "terrorist attack on Muslims."

Almost immediately, various news outlets and political figures depicted the shooter as Muslim. Right-wing nationalist tabloids in the U.K. instantly linked it to Islamic violence. Fox News claimed that "witnesses said at least one gunman shouted 'Allahu akbar!'" and then added this about the shooter's national origin:

Police in the US have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Ohio as demonstrations against Donald Trump's immigration ban continue across the country.

Russia's top diplomat noted that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump named combating the outlawed terrorist group as "top priority" during their talks on Saturday.

Moscow sees nearly boundless possibilities in anti-Daesh cooperation with the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

"As regards possible forms of cooperation with the US on fighting Daesh... I see almost unlimited possibilities, with the political will and readiness of our militaries, to implement this political will into concrete agreements, concrete action," Lavrov told reporters.

One of the major challenges facing Syria — assuming that the ceasefire holds, and some kind of political settlement can be reached, which is quite an assumption — is the fact that it shares an enormous, porous border with a country that has its own very serious problem with gun-totting weirdos zooming around in Toyotas. We are of course speaking of Iraq.

No long-term peace in Syria is possible without some level of regional security. Russia understands this. While Moscow's immediate military objectives in Syria have been met, it now sees ISIS in Iraq as a potential pain in the ass. But it's possible that Russia might take a more active role in helping to curb stomp scum in Iraq. As Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted on Monday:

"In broader terms, we should not forget that the Islamic State (IS, outlawed in Russia) is operating not only in Syria, but also in Iraq," the minister said. "The US-led coalition is working In Iraq with Baghdad's consent."

"I do not rule out that, if the Iraqi authorities show interest, we will be able to provide additional support to them, at least in terms of intelligence data, but in other forms as well," Lavrov emphasized.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has spoken out about President Donald Trump's executive order on banning people from seven countries from entering the US for 90 days. He promised it was "not a Muslim ban" and that it would protect the country. Kevin McAleenan, the acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), also discussed how his agency had enforced the order.

Kelly promised that the writing and implementation of the executive order was not as piecemeal as had been reported, and that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had not, in fact, been blindsided by its enactment. "This whole approach was part of what then-candidate Trump talked about for a year or two," Kelly said. "So we knew it was coming. It wasn't a surprise it was coming. And then we implemented it."

Staff at DHS "were generally involved" with writing the order, and Kelly said he looked at two drafts before the wording was finalized, but he "didn't get involved in correcting grammar or reformatting the thing."

The 109 number also did not include those people with approved visas or legal permanent residents (meaning people holding green cards) who were prevented from even boarding planes from coming to the US.

About 90,000 people from the seven countries received non-immigrant or immigrant visas in 2015, according to State Department statistics. If those visa holders are in the US, they will not be able to leave for 90 days under the Trump ban, while those outside of the US will not be able to return.

The executive order will allow DHS and other agencies to analyze the visa process and is "strongly supported by the department's career intelligence officials," Kelly said. It will allow the country to be proactive, rather than reactive.

A 12-year-old girl, whose parents are US citizens, has filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump as his 'travel ban' executive order blocked her from reuniting with her family after she was granted a visa to enter the US.

Both of Eman Ali's parents are US citizens and, even though Eman was born in Yemen and spent most of her time there, the family incorrectly assumed that their daughter was automatically a US citizen too.

The girl has been living with her grandparents in Yemen, away from parents and siblings, as her visa application made its way through the system. After a five-year process, the child was finally granted her visa on Thursday. She was preparing to travel from Djibouti to the US with her father as Trump signed his executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, from entering the America for 90 days.

Had Eman been allowed to enter the US she would immediately have become eligible for citizenship. "As soon as she entered the United States, she would be a lawful permanent resident," the family's lawyer, Katherine Lewis, said to ProPublica. The situation has left Eman's parents facing the prospect of sending their daughter back to war-torn Yemen.

Senate Democrats refused to attend Finance Committee sessions to vote on the nominations of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The move means the committees cannot vote on the nominations and advance them to the full Senate for final approval. Under Senate rules, at least one member of the minority party needs to be present for the committee votes to be valid.

"I'm very disappointed in this kind of crap. ... Some of this is because they just don't like the president," said Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "I don't want to hear from any of them again about doing our jobs. We're here, they're not. It really is stupid, amazingly stupid" of the Democrats not to show up, Hatch said, adding that he fully intends the vote to occur.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee was unable to vote on Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) to serve as attorney general, as lengthy speeches and absence of a quorum ran out the clock. The committee will reconvene on Wednesday.

In an interview with Sputnik, Halit İsa, a representative of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in France, revealed the details of his Friday meeting in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "Mr. Lavrov familiarized us with the draft constitution for Syria prepared by Russia. He said that the text was not final and that we could feel free to make any amends we deemed fit," Halit Isa told Sputnik Arabic.

Describing the meeting as "positive," Isa said that Russia was inviting all Syrian opposition forces and representatives of "democratic autonomies" to the negotiating table. "The Russian-prepared draft proposes deleting the word 'Arab' from the country's official name, which reads as the 'Syrian Arab Republic,' because there are many ethnic groups living in Syria, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians and others."

Halit İsa also praised the Russian draft for underscoring Syria's status as a secular state as compared to the old constitution, which contained articles based on Sharia law. "We have representatives of various confessions living in Syria," he noted.

"During the meeting we presented our own draft to Russian officials and opposition representatives who said they were ready to study it. We also need to talk with opposition members who were not present in Moscow and then send a delegation to the Geneva talks." Halit İsa added that Russian representatives had agreed that without PYD representatives present at next month's meeting in Geneva the sides would fail to reach agreement because "Kurds are a leading force in this process and must be present in Geneva."

Moscow has warned it will take relevant reciprocal measures should the US MSM attempt to limit RT's broadcasting; emphasizing US media pressure on RT's partners will not be tolerated, the head of Russia's media watchdog, Roskomnadzor has said.

"The US mainstream [media] are trying to bring pressure on those, who cooperate with the Russian RT Channel," Aleksandr Zharov, told Russian journalists, stressing that "it is cynical and immoral" practice. Zharov's angry reaction was provoked by a series of articles that appeared in the US media in late January.

He particularly singled out the Wall Street Journal which "throws sand in the wheels" of RT in the US, where the Russian channel already regularly faces "immense pressure."

On January 25, the Wall Street Journal published a piece titled RT Channel's Unique Carriage Deals Make It Difficult to Drop in US, in which it claimed US "federal law prevents many [operators] from ceasing to carry the channel, even if they want to," implying this situation should be changed.

He also said The Atlantic came up with the idea of "suppressing the circulation of links to the news stories" provided by "state-sponsored outlets like RT." "If such pressure leads to the restriction of RT's broadcasting in the US, we will have to take tit-for-tat measures," Zharov told the RIA news agency.

The Atlantic went even further in its article, Kremlin-Sponsored News Does Really Well on Google, and suggested tech companies such as Google and Facebook should rank or even suppress the circulation of links to news stories provided by RT, as the Russian "state-sponsored outlet" allegedly belongs to a "category of often-misleading news sources that seems to have escaped the notice of tech companies."

The US media also complained that "RT stories regularly appear toward the top of Google search results" while "Google searches for ... political issues also turn up plenty of RT content." The US media also continue to claim that RT is something totally insignificant as they whip up hysteria about the Russian channel swallowing up significant chunks of the western news landscape.

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."—Ayn Rand

The torch has been passed to a new president.

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—have been inherited by Donald Trump.

Whatever kind of president Trump chooses to be, he now has the power to completely alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

He has this power because every successive occupant of the Oval Office has been allowed to expand the reach and power of the presidency through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements that can be activated by any sitting president.

Those of us who saw this eventuality coming have been warning for years about the growing danger of the Executive Branch with its presidential toolbox of terror that could be used—and abused—by future presidents.

The groundwork, we warned, was being laid for a new kind of government where it won't matter if you're innocent or guilty, whether you're a threat to the nation or even if you're a citizen. What will matter is what the president—or whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office at the time—thinks. And if he or she thinks you're a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you'll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides. In effect, you will disappear.

Our warnings went largely unheeded.

First, we sounded the alarm over George W. Bush's attempts to gut the Constitution, suspend habeas corpus, carry out warrantless surveillance on Americans, and generally undermine the Fourth Amendment, but the Republicans didn't want to listen because Bush was a Republican.

Then we sounded the alarm over Barack Obama's prosecution of whistleblowers, targeted drone killings, assassinations of American citizens, mass surveillance, and militarization of the police, but the Democrats didn't want to listen because Obama was a Democrat and he talked a really good game.

It well may be that by the time Americans­—Republicans and Democrats alike—stop playing partisan games and start putting some safeguards in place, it will be too late.

Already, Donald Trump has indicated that he will pick up where his predecessors left off: he will continue to wage war, he will continue to federalize the police, and he will operate as if the Constitution does not apply to him.

Still, as tempting as it may be, don't blame Donald Trump for what is to come.