PBC News & Comment: Senate Dems Unite, But Fail to Block DeVos

After 24 hours of speeches, VP Pence breaks tie to confirm Amway billionaire with charter school agenda as Education secretary….--Dems focused heavily on blocking DeVos, but Pruitt at EPA and Sessions at Justice or more important, will likely be confirmed
--former AL governor Don Siegleman is expected to be released from federal prison
--Israel’s Knesset passes bill to legalize illegal settlements, creating a false reality that can’t be sustained
--Israel overreacts to single rocket fired from Gaza with no impact, pounds Hamas targets from land and air, as extremist Bennet predicts new war soon
--Amnesty International reveals Syrian extermination program that has killed as many as 13,000
--in San Francisco, appeals court will hear arguments on Trump travel ban via teleconference, we summarize the arguments
--in op-ed, American U. professor notes that ordinary Americans followed orders to mistreat travelers, like good soldiers in a dictatorship
--Trump’s latest lies about media failing to report terrorist events is quickly disproven by web searches
--in our new, in-depth interview with journalist Trevor Aaronson, he details how the FBI uses—and discards—paid informants in domestic terrorism cases
--FBI agents posing as journalists may have compromised the Bundy prosecution
--Peter Dale Scott, who coined “Deep State”, notes Trump is an insider who posed as an outsider to get elected
--in NY Times op-ed, Naomi Klein exposes the new, growing bond between Trump and some union leaders
--David Sirota bails on David Brock’s planned “Breitbart of the left”
--blogger Webster Tarpley settles defamation suit brought by Melania Trump over his report she had been an escort
--Snopes says report that Fukushima reactor is about to fall into the ocean is false