Swalwell: Impeaching Trump Over Roger Stone Is Not ‘Off the Table’

Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) Wednesday on CNN revealed that the Justice Department’s reversal on Roger Stone’s sentence after President Donald Trump’s tweet could be an impeachable offense.

Host Jake Tapper asked, “Might you impeachment him over this, over Roger Stone and the sentencing?”

Swalwell said, “You know, we’re not going to take our options off the table. We don’t wake up in the morning wanting to impeach him.”

He added, “We want to work with him on prescription drugs, background checks, and infrastructure, but we’re not going to let him just torch this democracy because he thinks that he’s been let off once and we’re not going to do something about it.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/02/12/swalwell-impeaching-trump-over-roger-stone-is-not-off-the-table/

The Marine Corps Is Moving All of Its Raiders to the East Coast

Nearly 15 years after the Marine Corps created its own special operations command, the service is now consolidating the command by moving all its operators to North Carolina.

About 900 Marines, sailors and civilians with the California-based 1st Marine Raider Battalion and its support unit will relocate to Camp Lejeune by the end of 2022. The move, which was announced on Wednesday, will help Marine Corps Special Operations Command become more efficient, officials said in a statement.

The consolidation "will allow MARSOC to gain back almost 2,000 man-days per year," according to the statement. Those days are otherwise spent on permanent change of station moves and temporary assignment duty requirements.

The move will also allow MARSOC to reform as it shifts its efforts and funding toward preparation for fighting a great-power competition, as laid out in the National Defense Strategy and commandant's planning guidance, Maj. Gen. Daniel Yoo, MARSOC's commander, said on Wednesday.

"MARSOC has been pursuing numerous lines of effort to increase performance, efficiencies, and capabilities … to build a more lethal force and reform the department for greater performance and affordability," he said in a statement. "One line of effort is the consolidation of all Marine Special Operations Forces to the East Coast."

Marine Corps Times reported on Wednesday that Marine officials estimate the move will save the command $55 million over a five-year period.

Officials said having all its Raiders on one coast will also improve readiness and deployment-to-dwell time.

"MARSOC will be better positioned to [provide] greater stability and increased quality of life to Marine Raiders and their families," the statement says.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/12/marine-corps-moving-all-its-raiders-east-coast.html

EPA Fails to Follow Landmark Law to Protect Children from Pesticides in Food

The landmark Food Quality Protection Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to protect children’s health by applying an extra margin of safety to legal limits for pesticides in food. But an investigation by EWG, published this week in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, found that the EPA has failed to add the mandated children’s health safety factor to the allowable limits for almost 90 percent of the most common pesticides.

The study in Environmental Health examined the EPA’s risk assessments for 47 non-organophosphate pesticides since 2011, including those most commonly found on fresh fruits and vegetables, and found that the required additional tenfold safety factor was applied in only five cases.

“Given the potential health hazards of pesticides in our food, it is disturbing that the EPA has largely ignored the law’s requirement to ensure adequate protection for children,” said the study’s author, Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., vice president for science investigations at EWG. “The added safety factor is essential to protect children from pesticides that can cause harm to the nervous system, hormonal disruption and cancer.”

The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, or FQPA, requires the EPA to set allowable levels for pesticides in a way that would “ensure that there is a reasonable certainty that no harm will result to infants and children from aggregate exposure to the pesticide chemical residue.” It was hailed as a revolutionary recognition of the fact that children are more vulnerable to the effects of chemical pesticides than adults.

“Based on the strong consensus of the pediatric and the public health communities, the FQPA stated unequivocally that regulation of toxic pesticides must focus, first and foremost, on protecting infants and children,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who is director of the Program in Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. “When the EPA fails to apply this principle, children may be exposed to levels of chemical pesticides that can profoundly harm their health.”

Landrigan chaired the committee that authored “Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children,” a 1993 report from the National Academy of Sciences. The groundbreaking study led to the FQPA’s passage with bipartisan support and the backing of both industry and environmentalists.

“The FQPA was a revolution in how we think about pesticides’ effects on children, but it does no good if the EPA doesn’t use it,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “It’s not only necessary to protect kids’ health, it’s the law, and the EPA’s failure to follow the law is an egregious betrayal of its responsibility.”

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/02/epa-fails-to-follow-landmark-law-to-protect-children-from-pesticides-in-food.html

Russian Drone Footage Shows Turkish Military Convoy Moving In Idlib De-escalation Zone

On February 12, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video of a large Turkish military convoy deploying in Syria’s Idlib.

The video, which was filmed by a Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), shows dozens of Turkish military vehicles moving in Idlib’s de-escalation zone.

The Russian MoD held Turkey responsible for the current crisis in Idlib. In an official statement, the ministry said that Ankara didn’t fulfil its commitments within the 2018 Sochi agreement. The ministry added that deployment of more weapons and personnel in Idlib could only escalate the situation.

Hundreds of battle tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers and artillery pieces of the Turkish Armed Forces were deployed in Greater Idlib over the last few weeks. The Turkish military also established several new positions in the Syrian region, apparently without coordination with Russia or Damascus.

Turkey had committed to stabilize the situation in Greater Idlib, reopen strategic highways and expel terrorist elements from the region. However, the exact opposite happened. Turkish President even threatened the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) with military action if it doesn’t withdraw from recently-liberated areas in the region.

If Ankara moves to implement its military threats against Syria, a direct confrontation between the Turkish military and the Syrian Army could take place in Greater Idlib in the coming weeks.

https://southfront.org/russian-drone-footage-shows-turkish-military-convoy-moving-in-idlib-de-escalation-zone/

US Bombers Fly Near Taiwan After Chinese 'Aggression'; Beijing Warned To "Focus On Fighting Coronavirus."

Though all eyes are on the deadly coronavirus pandemic, another dangerous military close encounter just played out off Taiwan's coast on Wednesday.

"Three U.S. Air Force planes, including two B-52 bombers, flew near Taiwan on Wednesday, the island’s defense ministry said, after Taiwan’s air force scrambled earlier in the week to intercept Chinese jets," Reuters reports.

The prior Sunday and Monday incidents involved Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) bombers and fighters approaching the self-declared Republic of China (Taiwan), before Taiwan scrambled its own US-supplied F-16 fighters to shadow the 'invading' aircraft.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-bombers-fly-near-taiwan-after-chinese-aggression-beijing-warned-focus-fighting