"It doesn't make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment," rages D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) after Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration, has been ordered removed from command effective Jan. 20, 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.

As The Washington Post reports, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz's departure will come in the midst of the presidential ceremony, classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation's capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has accepted a $13 million penalty to settle charges that it overcharged more than 149,000 clients during a 14-year period ending in 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced in a press release on Friday.

"Investors must be able to trust that their investment advisers have put appropriate safeguards in place to ensure accurate billing," SEC New York Regional Office Director Andrew Calamari said.

As Donald Trump and congressional Republicans prepare to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, possibly without a replacement program, Americans, especially the poor, can expect health care in the US to remain "an international scandal," Noam Chomsky says.

Access to health care is a leading example of the gap that exists in America between public opinion and establishment power, philosopher and social critic Chomsky told Truthout in a new interview centered around efforts among the political class in the US to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the signature policy of President Barack Obama's outgoing administration.

"The US health care system has long been an international scandal, with about twice the per capita expenses of other wealthy countries and relatively poor outcomes," Chomsky said. "The ACA did, however, bring improvements, including insurance for tens of millions of people who lacked it, banning of refusal of insurance for people with prior disabilities, and other gains."

On Thursday, just more than a week before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, the US Senate took the first step to repeal the ACA, even as there is no clear plan to replace the law.

"It's conceivable that [congressional Republicans] might patch together some kind of plan, or that the ultra-right and quite passionate 'Freedom Caucus' may insist on instant repeal without a plan, damn the consequence for the budget, or, of course, for people," Chomsky said.

If there were an award for double standards, a Golden Globe for double standards perhaps, the Trump-fearing, Brexit-loathing chattering class would win it hands down. For months now, these people have been fretting over 'fake news', warning we live in a 'post-truth' era, sneering at the little people for buying into the lies of any demagogue that promises them a simpler, more immigrant-free life. And yet now these same people are publishing and sharing and snarking over a document that is utterly unverified, its source unknown, its claims unproven, and its tales about as tall as you can get. The dodgiest of dossiers. But it's okay to push this fantastical 'news', these rumours, because their target is Trump, and we all hate Trump, right?

Buzzfeed, being the youthful, somewhat hip mouthpiece of every middle-of-the-road liberal platitude, has for months been tut-tutting over Western society's descent into 'post-truth'. In December it castigated US Congress for failing to stand up to 'fake news', to do something about 'the rampant conspiracies that were shared widely during the presidential election' and all the 'disinformation and propaganda' about Hillary. And yet yesterday, it published conspiracies of its own, which have now been widely shared, and which could very easily be given the name 'disinformation' or 'propaganda', or certainly 'utterly unsubstantiated claims': the intelligence document that says Trump is up to his neck in Russian contacts and once hired prostitutes to piss on a bed the Obamas had slept in.

Yes, this is the dossier, allegedly compiled by a former British intelligence worker - and British intelligence people never lie, yeah? - which says Trump has 'deep ties' with Russia. It runs through, or rather alleges, various points of contact. One story in particular has caught Twitter's and the media's attention: the claim that Trump hates the Obamas so much that he travelled to a Moscow hotel they once stayed in and hired Muscovite prostitutes to urinate on their actual bed. All while being filmed by Russian intelligence, who had put cameras in the room, and who then blackmailed Trump and basically said to him: 'Do as we say and wreck America for us or your anti-Obama piss party with hookers will be revealed.' If you believe this, you'll believe anything.

If you hadn't heard of RT before 2017, you probably have by now. Since the US Intelligence report fingering RT as one of the main tools of an "evil Kremlin conspiracy" to hack US elections, word about the channel is spreading and the American mainstream media is literally losing its mind.

A number of outlets are on a (Quixotic) quest to prove that no one watches RT on air, no one views it online and that basically it doesn't exist. "RT is a myth." "Fake media that has no following." "Propaganda channel that lies about everything." But it seems that in their haste to accuse RT of fake news, fake numbers and whatnot, reporters forget to do one simple but quite important thing - fact check and verify their claims. As if "fact check" is "so last century" and "fake news" is "the new black."


Well, if that's the reality of modern American journalism, RT will have to step in and do the job for our colleagues. Here's the latest Washington Post "investigative" story which digs up an ancient groundless report about RT and tries to sell it as news. Below, we will examine reporter's article and help him fill in the gaps.

1) WaPo: "RT is credited with... denigrat[ing] Secretary Clinton" with segments like "Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money"; and casting doubt on the outcome of the US election with clips like "Trump Will Not be Permitted to Win."

FACT CHECK: What is clearly missing here are the hyperlinks to the mentioned "segments" and "clips". Here is this segment and here is this clip. Now, we see that what is being presented as RT's editorial materials, are in fact extracts from Julian Assange's interview with John Pilger, which RT licensed from Dartmouth films last November. Another important note: This interview became one of the most viral news interviews of the year with the full 25-minute version almost hitting 2 million views.

The "fog of war" erupts in the confusion caused by the chaos of war. And in the media, it's an intentional phenomenon that makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction.

While the battles over war narratives evolve, they all have a common goal: to distort reality on the ground.

Such is the case on the crisis in Syria, the new cold war with Russia, and even the buildup for President Bush's support for Kuwait's "humanitarian" war against Iraq.

Barack Obama campaigned for the U.S. presidency on a platform of change. As he prepares to leave office, the country he led for eight years is undeniably different. Profound social, demographic and technological changes have swept across the United States during Obama's tenure, as have important shifts in government policy and public opinion.

Apple released its first iPhone during Obama's 2007 campaign, and he announced his vice presidential pick - Joe Biden - on a two-year-old platform called Twitter. Today, use of smartphones and social media has become the norm in U.S. society, not the exception.

The election of the nation's first black president raised hopes that race relations in the U.S. would improve, especially among black voters. But by 2016, following a spate of high-profile deaths of black Americans during encounters with police and protests by the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups, many Americans - especially blacks - described race relations as generally bad.

The salience of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday on Donald Trump's nominee for the cabinet post of state secretary Rex Tillerson suggests that the next US administration will have a tough time pushing Russia policies, as it ploughs a lone furrow. But on balance Moscow ought to be quietly pleased.

Tillerson displayed a rare diplomatic acumen by keeping cool, even a subdued tone, even acquiescing with the hawkish senators who were braying for Russian President Vladimir Putin's blood. Perhaps, he disarmed them by concurring that:

• Russia militarily intervened in Ukraine;
• Crimea was a 'taking of territory' by Russia;
• Russia violated international law in Ukraine, Crimea and Georgia;
• NATO's response to Russia's resurgence is appropriate;
• US is firmly committed to Article 5 of NATO Charter;
• He wouldn't quarrel with so-called Magnitsky Law (which imposes US sanctions against Russians implicated in human rights violations); and,
• Most important, it's a 'fair assumption' that recent Russian hacking could have happened with President Vladimir Putin's knowledge.

Prima facie, Kremlin might feel taken back that a holder of Russia's 'Order of Friendship' would have such heretical views. But the likelihood is that Russia will be inclined to see the above as a 'tactical adjustment' on Tillerson's part, to push back at the hawkish senators on The Hill. (Of course, Bob Corker who heads the senate foreign relations committee was noticeably supportive - as also former Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the redoubtable former senator Sam Nunn, both 'Russia hands', who spoke as special guests.)

Denmark's Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen has launched a series of wide-ranging and grave accusations against Moscow, saying that it presents a "direct, very frightening and serious threat" against his homeland.

"We need to make clear to ourselves in Denmark that we are in danger, and we need to act upon this," the center-right politician told the Danish Berlingske newspaper.

Frederiksen was asked to expound on his brief in the first extensive interview since the 69-year-old was appointed to his post in November last year. Instead, the politician, who previously served as minister of finance during two stints, spoke almost exclusively about Russia.

"State-supported Russian hacker groups are ready to attack hospitals, infrastructure and the electrical supply by breaking into computer systems and creating a mess of notices and treatments within the health system," said Frederiksen, referring to a report published by the country's intelligence agency last month, as well as conversations with other Western politicians and security officials.

I am distressed at the shocking lack of faith shown by so many people in the exposé of Donald Trump's Russian connections recently published on BuzzFeed. Judging by the sceptics' attitudes, you'd think that the report was written by some vacuum cleaner salesman trying to earn a little bit of money to pay for his daughter's pony club membership. As if!! Human intelligence compiled from anonymous sources is known to be the most reliable basis on which to form judgements about important events. Nothing else provides such detailed insider information from the very heart of enemy institutions.

It is time people knew the truth. I have decided that it is necessary to reveal my own notes from underground (scribbled on a table napkin in invisible ink this morning and just now squirted with lemon juice). I cannot, of course, identify my sources, but I might suggest that you look up Richard Meinertzhagen's 'dirty paper method' (see footnote). I can also claim that I have access to the highest echelons of the Russian government through somebody who knows somebody, who is related to somebody, who went to school with somebody, whose neighbour sharpens Vladimir Putin's hockey skates.

These sources of mine tell me that the plot to place Donald Trump in the White House was hatched not five years ago as claimed in the BuzzFeed report, but 13 years ago at an exclusive banya in Sokolniki.

According to Source BS, the concept for what became known as Operatsiia Tuz emerged during a sweaty discussion over a dozen bottles of vodka, when oligarch Viktor Bogatyi announced that he had an idea for a new television show. Aspiring kleptocrats would audition for a job as Bogatyi's assistant and the losers would be eliminated one by one with his famous catchphrase 'You're shot!' Hearing this, a senior GRU agent, Max Otto von Stierlitz, after a pause of seventeen moments, suggested an alternative. Why not, said Stierlitz, pass the idea for the TV show on to Donald Trump to use as a vehicle for making himself popular among the American people? It would be the perfect mechanism to gradually push the Donald into a position from which he could become President of the United States of America. The rest, as they say, is history.