Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by slomo » Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:01 pm
by seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:37 pm
Jeff Sessions, Alabama's Neo-Confederate, Racist, Misogynist, Anti-Immigrant, Obstructionist U.S. Senator Is Named Attorney General
If the past is prologue, civil rights, voting rights and women's rights are all under threat.
Starting last August, Donald Trump taunted black and Latino voters at his mostly white rallies by trashing inner cities and telling them to vote for him. "What do you have to lose?" Trump kept saying.
Now the answer is clear—the gains of the mid-20th-century’s civil rights movement; the reproductive rights movement and the right to legal abortion; this century’s LGBT equality movement; and the hopes of millions of migrants facing forcible deportation are just some of the things people have to lose. And those nightmare scenarios are just the beginning with Trump’s appointment of Republican Alabama Sen. Bill Sessions as Attorney General.
Since America is now divided into red and blue states, the classification that began in 2000 and is now seemingly permanent, it is appropriate to use Civil War references when considering the next Attorney General, the ultimate neo-Confederate. The namesake of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the ex-Alabama attorney general, is P.G.T. Beauregard, the general who ordered the attack on Fort Sumter that started the War of the Southern Rebellion. Former Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy said Jeff Sessions demonstrated a "clear and convincing case to gross insensitivity to the questions of race." Sessions once told Gerald Hebert, who today runs the Campaign Legal Center, one of Washington’s best public interest firms, that a white voting rights lawyer was a “disgrace to his race.”
As Sarah Wildman wrote in the Guardian in 2009, highlighting Sessions’ enlarged role on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he first emerged on the national political stage in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan appointed him as a federal judge and the same committee, including Republican senators, rejected him for being too racist. She continued:
“The young lawyer became only the second man in 50 years to be rejected by the Senate judiciary committee,” Wildman wrote. “The reasons for his rejection… had to do with a soupy mix of dubious and arguably racist moves, comments and motivations on the part of the Alabama native that led Senator Ted Kennedy to announce it was 'inconceivable … that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a U.S. Attorney, let alone a United States federal judge.' Later Kennedy would say the hearings created a 'clear and convincing case to gross insensitivity to the questions of race' on the part of Sessions. His Democratic colleague, Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, called Sessions a man of ''marginal qualifications who lacks judicial temperament. … A nominee who is hostile, hostile to civil rights organizations and their causes."
Back then Sessions' problems began with a 1984 case known as the Marion 3, in which he prosecuted three civil rights workers over what he perceived as voting fraud. As Harvard Law School’s Lani Guinier noted in her book Lift Every Voice, before 1965 there were "virtually no blacks registered to vote in the 10 western Black Belt counties of Alabama." Sessions didn’t like what was changing with voting rights drives. This was the 1980s, not the 1960s. “Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ‘un-American’ and ‘communist-inspired,’ Hebert testified at those hearings. Hebert said that Sessions argued the groups 'forced civil rights down the throats of people.'"
Fast-forward to the 2016 presidential campaign, where Sessions was one of Trump's early Senate supporters and was eerily in sync with Trump’s repeated claims that unnamed Democrats—people of color living in cities like Philadelphia—were preparing to steal the election from him and GOP vigilante voting posses were needed. Sessions fit right in with Trump’s deliberate rekindling of American white supremacists.
But Sessions isn’t just a neo-Confederate on matters of race, he is also vehemently anti-choice. In a statement reacting to the appointment, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, “The last person women and families need in this job is someone who has repeatedly given a pass to individuals who commit acts of violence against abortion clinics, doesn't take sexual assault seriously, and was determined to be too racist by a GOP-led Senate to become a federal judge. But that's who Jeff Sessions is. His record of misogyny and racism makes him unfit to be the country's top lawyer. The American people deserve far better, but with Donald Trump at the helm, we know we won't get it.”
NARAL’s statement noted Sessions' long anti-choice record. “In the Senate, he repeatedly voted to allow violent, convicted anti-abortion offenders to escape their court-levied fines in bankruptcy, voted against a resolution in support of Roe v. Wade, and voted for the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban. He has also voted against protections against clinic violence, as well as to defund Planned Parenthood. When President-elect Donald Trump said that he could grab a woman by the p**sy, Jeff Sessions claimed that it was not sexual assault.”
Sessions' first big test is likely to come with Trump’s pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which is in sync with Sessions’ own fervent opposition to any immigration reform. He has been vehemently opposed to any proposal that could be seen as a “path to citizenship” while in the Senate, even though, as the Huffington Post noted, the man who attended “all-white segregated schools” has belatedly said he regrets not getting involved in the Civil Rights Movement as a younger man.
“As a child and a teenager, I saw evidence of discrimination virtually every day,” he said. “Certainly I feel like I should have stepped forward more and been a leader and a more positive force in the great events that were occurring.”
We’ll soon see what great events Sessions will unleash. Don’t be surprised if the past is prologue to the future.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/j ... ructionist
MinM » Fri Nov 18, 2016 9:26 am wrote:Koch puppet Pompeo to be the new CIA Director...AlicetheKurious » Sat Nov 12, 2011 7:42 am wrote:Links in original:11 November 11
Koch Brothers Behind Push To Dismantle EPA
During last week’s Americans For Prosperity (AFP) event, a common theme kept creeping into the speakers’ presentations: Dismantle the EPA. And as the major funders of AFP, Charles and David Koch are the ones pulling the strings of the American elected officials who keep clamoring for an end to all environmental protections.
Since the new Republican-controlled Congress took over earlier this year, calls for the EPA to be disbanded and general attacks on the agency have been constant. In the last 11 months, we have covered those stories here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Those in favor of saying goodbye to the EPA include presidential candidates like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, elected officials like Republican Representatives Mike Rogers and David McKinley, and even media figures like Fox News’s John Stossel. The attacks include false claims that the agency is destroying jobs, or just general claims that the agency’s usefulness has run its course.
But when you look past those claims, the money from the Koch brothers and their organizations is all that you can see.
In addition to GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain pledging his loyalty to the Kochs at last week’s event, we were also privy to a rousing anti-EPA speech by Republican representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas. As Think Progress reports, Pompeo told the crowd the following about his efforts to completely strip the EPA of their funding:“We’re trying. Indeed, I personally tried. … We’ve got a Senate that has a deeply different worldview, and there my bill sits. We won’t be able to slow down the growth of the EPA dramatically until we change the view of folks in Congress, and I speak mostly of the Senate here, and we get a new leader in the White House.”
Lee Fang from Think Progress has detailed Rep. Pompeo’s connections to the Kochs, who have personally been involved with helping Pompeo climb his way into the top 1% of income earners:Pompeo developed much of his wealth from a firm he founded, Thayer Aerospace, which he ran with investment funds from Koch Industries. According to a December 11, 1998 article in the Wichita Business Journal, “[Pompeo's] company’s capital base is drawn in part from Wichita’s Koch Venture Capital, a division of Koch Industries.” Pompeo sold Thayer in 2006.
Pompeo still relies on Koch for his private wealth. After the sale of Thayer, Pompeo became the President of Sentry International, a business specializing in the manufacture and sale of equipment used in oilfields. Sentry International is a partner to Koch Industries through its Brazilian distributor, GTF Representacoes & Consultoria.
Pompeo won his Republican primary largely with the support of Koch Industries’ PAC, which gave him one of his largest endorsements in March. Despite the fact that Koch Industries is the recipient of tens of millions in federal contracts, Pompeo boasted about the endorsement: “The employees of the Koch Companies have jobs here in the Wichita because of their own hard work and creativity, not because a federal agency deemed it to be so.”
With $31,400 in contributions from KOCHPAC, Koch Industries is by far the greatest contributor to Pompeo’s campaign.
So to be clear, Congressman Pompeo owes not only his election but his personal fortune to the Koch brothers, and now that he is in a position of power, he is doing his best to push their agenda within the chambers of Congress.
The money in politics database organization Open Secrets has a lengthy list of specific legislation that Koch Industries has lobbied for and against. On the "against" list, you’ll find legislation such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a bill that would have put Americans to work building a green energy infrastructure; the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act – again, a bill that would have created green energy jobs and infrastructure; and the Clean Air Protection Act – a bill that would limit the amount of acceptable emissions into our atmosphere.
The Koch brothers, through their PACs and other organizations, have funded numerous efforts to defeat legislation aimed at reducing pollution or protecting the environment. After all, their companies don't pay the real cost for the pollution they release.
That’s why it is important to follow the money on these stories, especially when dealing with Congress members who are attempting to dismantle the few environmental protections that are currently in place, like Mike Pompeo. Because more often than not, these efforts are supported by fat cat checks from a member of the Koch family. Link
viewtopic.php?p=558194#p558194
Congressional phones jammed by calls for Trump conflict-of-interest investigation
By Elise Viebeck November 18 at 3:42 PM
President-elect Donald Trump. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
If you’re trying to call the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, you might find yourself on hold for . . . the afternoon.
The committee’s phones became jammed most of Friday after several Facebook posts calling for an investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s finances started to go viral. The messages urged readers to call the panel to “support the call for a bipartisan review of Trump’s financials and apparent conflicts of interest.”
[Why Donald Trump’s family being in the White House is problematic, explained]
Some mentioned the ethical questions surrounding Trump’s daughter and son-in-law’s choice to join his private meeting Thursday night at Trump Tower with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“This is a state meeting and they had no security clearance . . . and she is supposed to be running his businesses during his presidential term,” stated one post, referring to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. “Can you spell yyyuuuge conflict of interest?”
The Abe meeting was Trump’s first in-person conversation with a foreign leader since he won the election last week. “It was a pleasure to have Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stop by my home and begin a great friendship,” Trump posted on Instagram with a photo.
The presence of Kushner and Ivanka Trump was not the only controversy to spring from the sit-down. The president-elect did not give reporters — including photo journalists — access to the meeting, a break with protocol. That’s why you’re not seeing many videos or images from Abe’s visit at major news outlets.
Over on Capitol Hill, an Oversight Committee aide said the staff is answering calls as fast as they can, but that the system is “backed up.” That’s true — we tested it ourselves. As of 3:30 p.m., calls were going through to voice mail after a message stating the line is “not available.”
Thanks to the concerned Post readers who called and emailed with the tip.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... stigation/
Donald Trump’s Top Adviser Has A Potential $2.7 Billion Obamacare Conflict Of Interest
The fate of Josh Kushner’s healthcare startup Oscar could be swayed by an Obamacare overhaul.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tru ... 997bbeda96
by seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 20, 2016 9:07 am
Donald Trump Deletes Follow Up Attack on Hamilton
As the evening progressed on Saturday, Donald Trump couldn't let his attacks on the cast of Hamilton cease. Then, inexplicably, he deleted his latest salvo.
Olivia Nuzzi
11.19.16 8:01 PM ET
Among Donald Trump’s qualities that have become newly unsettling with his election as president of the United States is his lack of impulse control, exhibited once again Saturday evening on the medium which most enables it: Twitter.
Trump had started his day on the social network—where, let’s not forget, his handle begins with the word “real”—spouting off about his Trump University settlement before launching into a factually barren attack on the cast of the broadway musical, Hamilton, where vice president-elect Mike Pence was booed by the audience on Friday when he came to see the show.
Trump demanded that the cast of the play “Apologize!” to Pence, a characteristic move for a former reality TV star, but a strange order from a man who will be sworn in as Commander in Chief in sixty-two days. He said “The Theater must always be a safe and special place” (tell that to Lincoln) and the cast “was very rude” to Pence, never mind that the star of the show told the audience there was no reason to boo, and had himself made a polite and eloquent appeal to Pence for mutual respect and civility.
The rest of the president-elect’s Saturday was spent somewhat more traditionally.
At his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, he met with 2012 Republican nominee and current secretary of state prospect, Mitt Romney, for an hour and twenty minutes around 1 p.m.
But Trump is notoriously short attention spanned, and his presidential duties still couldn’t shake his aggravation with the Broadway actors. By 7:32 p.m., he was back online with more to say.
“Very rude and insulting of Hamilton cast member to treat our great future V.P. Mike Pence to a theater lecture,” Trump Tweeted, “Couldn’t even memorize lines!”
And then, within half an hour, the Tweet was gone.
Tweet deleted by Donald Trump
A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond when asked why he deleted it, but the episode—silly as it seems amid this Trump fatigue we’re all suffering from—is a troubling development in the nascent Trump transition to the White House, which has thus far been a series of events confirming the president-elect hasn’t been humbled by the enormity of his new position in the world, but in fact may see his election as proof that his personality, including or most importantly its least savory facets, is winning.
It goes without saying that the United States is now the only first world country whose incoming president moonlights as a cultural critic online. It’s too early to guess what this will ultimately mean for our status in the world, but the future looks bleak.
One thing we can say for certain as of Saturday night: Trump definitely wrestled his phone back from Kellyanne Conway.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ilton.html
Trump's $1 trillion plan hits D.C. speed bumps
The president-elect's pitch for an upgrade of the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports is already running into Washington reality.
By LAUREN GARDNER 11/20/16 07:07 AM EST
It was supposed to be a big, beautiful infrastructure bill. But President-elect Donald Trump’s pitch for a $1 trillion upgrade of the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports is already running into potholes as it meets reality in Washington.
The overwhelming sticking point, as always, is how to pay for it.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/t ... ity-231649
White Nationalists Celebrate ‘an Awakening’ After Donald Trump’s Victory
By ALAN RAPPEPORT and NOAH WEILANDNOV. 19, 2016
Richard B. Spencer, a leader of the far right, addressing a conference on Saturday in Washington. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — For years, they have lurked in the web’s dark corners, masking themselves with cartoon images and writing screeds about the demise of white culture under ominous pseudonyms. But on Saturday, in the wake of Donald J. Trump’s surprising election victory, hundreds of his extremist supporters converged on the capital to herald a moment of political ascendance that many had thought to be far away.
In the bowels of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, three blocks from the White House, members of the so-called alt-right movement gathered for what they had supposed would be an autopsy to plot their grim future under a Clinton administration. Instead, they celebrated the unexpected march of their white nationalist ideas toward the mainstream, portraying Mr. Trump’s win as validation that the tide had turned in their fight to preserve white culture.
“It’s been an awakening,” Richard B. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right, said at the gathering on Saturday. “This is what a successful movement looks like.”
The movement has been critical of politicians of all stripes for promoting diversity, immigration and perceived political correctness. Its critics call it a rebranded version of the Ku Klux Klan, promoting anti-Semitism, violence and suppression of minorities.
Intellectual leaders of the movement argue that they are merely trying to realize their desire for a white “ethno-state” where they can be left alone. Mr. Trump, with his divisive language about immigrants and Muslims, has given them hope that these dreams can come true.
“I never thought we would get to this point, any point close to mainstream acceptance or political influence,” said Matt Forney, 28, of Chicago. “The culture is moving more in my direction.”
Emboldened by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, Mr. Forney said he expected people openly associated with the white nationalist movement to run as candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. The rise of populism and the decline of political correctness, he said, present a rare opportunity.
Robert Taylor, 29, described the conference as a “victory party.” Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said, working for Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns and even moving to New Hampshire for a project organized by the like-minded. If Hillary Clinton had won the election, he said, he would have advocated secession.
“I thought I had all the right answers and had read all the right books,” he said. “I heard about the alt-right movement, and it just lit a fire in me.”
Mr. Taylor said that with Mr. Trump, “we have breathing room; we have a little time.”
Mr. Trump has shrugged off any suggestions that he has connections to the alt-right. But his hard-line views on immigration and his “America First” foreign policy have captivated members of the movement. His appointment as chief strategist of Stephen K. Bannon, who has called Breitbart News, the website he long ran, a platform for the alt-right, has reinforced the notion that the incoming president is on their side.
The white nationalist embrace of Mr. Trump was on display Saturday at the gathering, which was the annual conference of a group called the National Policy Institute. Guests nibbled on chicken piccata while discussing ways to reorient America’s demographics. Many of the attendees, who were mostly white men, wore red “Make America Great Again” hats. T-shirts emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s face sold quickly.
While the enthusiasm inside the conference was evident, the resistance to the alt-right remains powerful. A recent surge in hate crimes and reports of verbal and physical assaults on minorities are putting new pressure on groups that promote racism.
Many sites will not host their events, and some of their members have had their social media accounts suspended in response to vicious trolling of Jewish journalists and critics of Mr. Trump. A large group of protesters marched around the Ronald Reagan Building, which, as a federal property, could not decline to host the conference.
“These people have their right to freedom of speech, but the values they represent don’t represent America,” said Jon Pattee, 48. “I characterize them as the shirt-and-tie arm of the white supremacist-nationalist movement.”
Republicans who are more mainstream are also unlikely to accept the movement’s more provocative ideas.
“They have to grow up and start shedding some of their more controversial elements,” said Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger and commentator who has been critical of Mr. Trump. “I don’t think they will ever be accepted wholeheartedly in the Republican Party.”
Nonetheless, alt-right leaders said they planned to use their newfound influence to pressure Mr. Trump to take more “heretical” policy positions, such as a moratorium on net immigration for the next 50 years. White Europeans, Mr. Spencer said, would be given preference.
“In the long run, people like Bannon and Trump will be open to the clarity of our ideas,” said Jared Taylor, the founder of the white nationalist publication American Renaissance.
Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Spencer, who has become the face of the alt-right, derided NATO as “clumsy and ineffective.” He called for friendlier relations with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, and for the deportation of undocumented immigrants, drawing chants of “build that wall.”
“I think moving forward the alt-right as an intellectual vanguard can complete Trump,” Mr. Spencer said. “We can be the ones who are out front, who are thinking about things that he hasn’t grasped yet.”
Although alt-right leaders say they want to become more politically active, it remains unclear how they will react to being more closely aligned to the establishment or what they will do if Mr. Trump starts to moderate his views. His outreach to African-Americans during the final months of the campaign angered some of his white nationalist followers, raising concerns among them that Mr. Trump might not be so different after all.
“It’s a fleeting moment of optimism,” said Al Stankard, 29, of Baltimore, who goes by the pseudonym Haarlen Venison online and was handing out his novel, “Death to the World.”
Mr. Stankard said he thought it was unlikely that Mr. Trump would be able to do things like end affirmative action, even though he believes that the president-elect sympathizes with the plight of “white racists.” He predicted that Mr. Trump might disappoint white nationalists in the same way that President Obama disappointed some of his supporters by failing to bring postracial unity to the nation.
“These are semi-delusional fantasies,” Mr. Stankard said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/po ... .html?_r=0
Published on
Sunday, November 20, 2016
by Consortium News
Installing a Torture Fan at CIA
byRay McGovern
President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, an open aficionado of torture practices used in the “war on terror,” to be CIA director shows that Trump was serious when he said he would support “waterboarding and much worse.”
Earlier, there had been a sliver of hope that that, while on the campaign trail, Trump was simply playing to the basest instincts of many Americans who have been brainwashed – by media, politicians, and the CIA itself – into believing that torture “works.” The hope was that the person whom Trump would appoint to head the agency would disabuse him regarding both the efficacy and the legality of torture.
But such advice is not likely from Pompeo, who has spoken out against the closing of CIA’s “black sites” used for torture and has criticized the requirement that interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws. He has also opposed closing the prison at Guantanamo, which has become infamous for torture and even murder.
After visiting Guantanamo three years ago, where many prisoners were on a hunger strike, Pompeo commented, “It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight.”
There is little doubt that the champagne was flowing on Friday at CIA headquarters, from the seventh-floor executive offices down to the bowels of that building where torture practitioners have been shielded from accountability for 15 years in what amounts to the CIA’s internal “witness protection” program.
Indeed, relief over the Pompeo appointment came in the nick of time. For one fleeting moment earlier in the week, there was some panic at the hint that the International Criminal Court might show more courage than President Barack Obama in bringing torture perpetrators to justice.
That suggestion caused a moment of angst up and down the CIA’s ladder of authority, from supervisory felons, such as Director John Brennan and agency lawyers, down to the thugs hired to implement the amateurish but gruesome regime of torture depicted in gory detail in the Senate Intelligence Committee investigative report,
Published in December 2014 and based on original CIA documents, the report’s Executive Summary revealed a range of gruesome practices from the near-drowning sensation of water-boarding to the forcible rectal feeding of detainees.
Pompeo’s Defense
Pompeo responded to the findings by personally attacking Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein. He claimed she had “put American lives at risk” and he called CIA participants in the torture program “heroes, not pawns in some liberal game being played by the ACLU and Senator Feinstein.”
Pompeo seemed to be taking his cue from former chair of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, who, right after the Senate report was released, boasted to me on live TV that he had been briefed on “90 to 95 percent” of the cruel practices laid bare in the Senate investigation. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Clashing Face to Face on Torture.”
Torture also has its supporters in the Senate, which will be called on to confirm Pompeo as CIA director. At a Senate hearing on May 13, 2009, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, gave a tip of the cap to the Spanish Inquisition, which he cited as proof that torture could elicit some useful confessions (as it was used in the Fifteenth Century to detect “crypto Jews” and to burn several thousand heretics at the stake).
During a hearing on detainee interrogations, Sen. Graham said: “Let’s have both sides of the story here,” pointing out that there could be evidence that torture produced “good information.” Graham added, “I mean, one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work.
On Wednesday, I was given nine minutes on radio to comment on the ICC’s tentative move to seek accountability for American torture practices. But Pompeo’s nomination on Friday is sure to dispel the brief moment of anxiety among the CIA’s torturers.
Congressman Pompeo is living proof that you can get all A’s at West Point, graduate first in your class, and still flunk the Constitution with its quaint Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Not knowing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights apparently makes you a good pick to head the CIA.
As member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Pompeo also was protective of the National Security Agency’s systematic abuse of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against illegal searches and seizures.
The selection of Pompeo came a few days after Vice President-elect Mike Pence told ABC that he would model his handling of the job after former Vice President Dick Cheney under President George W. Bush.
Though Pence may have meant Cheney’s assertive role and interaction with Congress, there was also Cheney’s advocacy for “regime change” wars and what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which earned Cheney the label from The Washington Post, “Vice President for Torture.”
Cheney has never been repentant about his aggressiveness in the “war on terror.” “I’d do it again in a minute,” he has declared.
Real Expert on Torture
Yet, even as Bush-Cheney apologists found excuses and euphemisms for torture, Gen. John Kimmons, head of Army Intelligence, told a Pentagon press conference on Sept. 6, 2006 – the same day he knew that President Bush planned to advertise the efficacy of his “alternate set of procedures” – that torture did not result in sound information.
Conceding past “transgressions and mistakes,” Kimmons insisted: “No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.” (Emphasis added)
That’s also what I learned as a young Army Intelligence officer 50 years ago. Cheney, Hoekstra, Graham, Trump, Pence and Pompeo can keep whistling on the dark side, but there is zero evidence to challenge what Gen. Kimmons had to guts to point out on that important day. The Senate Intelligence Committee report of December 2014 should have long since laid to rest the canard that torture “works.”
On a moral level, I also cannot quite fathom the attitude of Pence – who says, “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order” – tolerating torture and torture advocates. If memory serves, Jesus Christ was tortured to death.
Lest I seem to be coming down too hard on how so many fundamentalist Christians wink at (or applaud) torture, I must concede that – after 9/11 – the growing acceptance of practices like torture, previously widely condemned as totally unacceptable behavior, gained willing acceptance among many non-fundamentalist Christians, as well.
Many years ago when I studied ethics at Fordham, New York City’s Jesuit university, I was taught that there was one immutable category called “intrinsic evil,” which included slavery, rape and torture.
Somehow, torture slid out of that category when Fordham’s president, Rev. Joseph M. McShane, SJ, succumbed to the “celebrity virus,” and decided to ask alumnus (then-White House aide on counterterrorism and now CIA Director) John Brennan to give the Commencement address in 2012.
Brennan had publicly defended the practice of extraordinary rendition (aka kidnaping, most often for torture). Brennan was also on the routing for emails regarding CIA torture procedures. (It is important to note that, without a demonstrated “need to know,” no one is included as an addressee on such delicate matters.)
Adding insult to the injury of giving Brennan such an important invitation, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in “Humane Letters” (what might seem like a sick joke), as fellow honoree, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, applauded from the same platform.
When a number of graduating seniors objected to this profaning of their graduation, President McShane gave a glib gloss on torture and drone killings in these words: “We don’t live in a black and white world; we live in a gray world.”
(A group that I helped found, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, has written a number of Memoranda on torture and most recently on the CIA’s cover-up of torture, an issue completely neglected in the corporate media.)
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/ ... re-fan-cia
Trump's security adviser is reportedly planning to make tackling North Korea's nuclear program a high priority
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-trumps ... ap-2016-11
Trump poised to violate Constitution his first day in office, George W. Bush’s ethics lawyer says
The Constitution doesn’t allow presidents to seek gifts from foreign agents.
Friday evening, the Washington Post reported that about 100 foreign diplomats gathered at President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC to “to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.” The tour included a look at the hotel’s $20,000 a night “town house” suite. The Post also quoted some of the diplomats saying they intended to stay at the hotel in order to ingratiate themselves to the incoming president.
“Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’” said one diplomat from an Asian nation. “Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’”
The incoming president, in other words, is actively soliciting business from agents of foreign governments. Many of these agents, in turn, said that they will accept the president-elect’s offer to do business because they want to win favor with the new leader of the United States.
In an exclusive exchange with ThinkProgress, Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who previously served as chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, says that Trump’s efforts to do business with these diplomats is at odds with a provision of the Constitution intended to prevent foreign states from effectively buying influence with federal officials.
The Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause,” provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under” the United States “shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”
The diplomats’ efforts in seek Trump’s favor by staying in his hotel “looks like a gift,” Painter told ThinkProgress in an email, and thus is the very kind of favor the Constitution seeks to prevent.
Trump’s pledge to separate his business from the presidency lasted two days
With his kids running his company and transition team, there will be no wall between the Trump administration and Trump…
thinkprogress.org
To explain, the ordinary rule under the Emoluments Clause is that federal officials may do business with foreign governments so long as they do not receive special treatment. If the president owns a $200,000 Rolls Royce, Painter told ThinkProgress, they can sell that car to the Queen of England, so long as they only receive its fair market value. If Her Majesty The Queen pays $250,000 for the Rolls Royce, however, that would violate the Emoluments Clause.
There’s a catch, however, for someone like Trump who trades on the value of his own name. “Anything in excess of fair market value is a gift,” according to Painter, “and I don’t think you can take into account the value of the name Trump in calculating fair market value.” The diplomats are not staying in one of Trump’s expensive luxury hotels because Trump is charging their nation a reasonable market rate for a night’s stay. They are staying in the hotel because of the added value that comes from doing business with the President of the United States.
“It had better stop by January 20,” says Painter.
In a follow up exchange, ThinkProgress asked whether Trump really can cure this impending violation of the Emoluments Clause by acting differently once he is sworn in as president. After all, the message that diplomats can earn the favor of the new president by staying in his hotels has already been received, and it can’t exactly be unsaid.
Painter responded that “the only good answer,” for the president-elect “is to sell the hotel or give it to his kids (and pay the gift tax) by January 20.”
Assuming that Trump does not divest from his hotel, however, it may prove difficult to enforce the Constitution against him. There are few court cases dealing with the Emoluments Clause. Typically, the country has relied on internal safeguards within the executive branch and fear of political embarrassment to prevent violations by the president.
Moreover, while it is conceivable that a rival hotel may have standing to sue Trump for taking away its business with foreign diplomats in violation of the Constitution, it’s far from clear that any hotel business will want to risk a feud with the notoriously vindictive president-elect.
There is, however, at least one remedy under the Constitution for such a violation of the public trust by the president: impeachment.
UPDATE: On Twitter, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe agrees with Painter (the thread Tribe refers to links to this article).
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-poised- ... .rytftnvmo
by seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:54 pm
Here's Evidence Steve Bannon Joined a Facebook Group That Posts Racist Rants and Obama Death Threats
Another clue about his politics?
DAVID CORN AND AJ VICENS
NOV. 18, 2016 12:02 PM
Stephen Bannon, whom Donald Trump tapped as his chief strategist in the White House, has come under fire for his self-admitted promotion of the alt-right, a haven of white nationalists, when he was head of far-right Breitbart News. His defenders have insisted Bannon is no racist or anti-Semite. But Mother Jones has uncovered another clue about Bannon's political personality: Bannon joined a conservative Facebook group that has featured racist and extreme material. This material includes posts urging a military coup against President Barack Obama, featuring an image of the president dressed as an SS officer, celebrating the Confederate flag, highlighting a photoshopped picture of Obama with watermelons, praising a police officer who called Obama a "F*cking Nigger," and calling for Obama to be "executed as a traitor."
This Facebook group is for an outfit called Vigilant Patriots, which claims its goals are defending and upholding the Constitution and preserving "our history and culture." As of Friday morning, it listed nearly 3,600 members, including Stephen Bannon, who apparently joined the group seven years ago.
Vigilant Patriots is a collection of right-wing Facebookers, including members who hail militias and decry Muslims, immigration, progressives, sellout Republicans, and the president with hateful, violent, and racist rhetoric. It has an active Twitter feed that is virulently anti-Islam. Its website does not seem to be functioning currently.
Bannon has not engaged in much public activity on Facebook. He is listed as a member of 31 groups, most of them conservative, with several comprising supporters of Sarah Palin. (Bannon once made a gushy documentary about the tea party star.) A search of Facebook turned up only a handful of posts attributed to Bannon, none on the Vigilant Patriots page.
With Facebook, there is always the chance an account could be a spoof or phony. But the Facebook account attributed to Bannon—the one that joined the Vigilant Patriots group—does appear to be legitimate. The Facebook page for the Breitbart radio show that Bannon once hosted contains a post from Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor, that linked to Bannon using this particular Facebook account. The Facebook page for Bannon's Palin documentary also linked to this Facebook account for Bannon. And a private and official Facebook group for media professionals lists Bannon as a member using this Facebook account. Bannon had to be added to this group by a Facebook staffer. (Facebook would not confirm whether this account belongs to Bannon.)
This Bannon Facebook page joined a group that has provided a platform for extremism and racism. The Vigilant Patriots page on Facebook pushes a vicious mix of agitprop and conspiracy theory. It has published calls to arrest, impeach, and execute Obama. A 2012 post declared that Obama must be arrested as a "terrorist" for "Treason, Espionage, Sedition and Fraud" and derided him as "an Illegal Commander-in-Chief." A long anti-Obama rant from a member in 2011 called for hanging the "traitor." A different member referred to Obama as "the muzzie usurping lying POS traitor." ("Muzzie" is a derogatory term for a Muslim.) A group member in 2013 said Obama "must be tried, convicted, and executed as a traitor." One member railed, Obama "still occupies the office because white members of Congress are too afraid of being branded racist to file Articles of Impeachment against him. It's time to stop the charade. He is destroying America. Black, White, Green, Brown, or Purple, the man is a traitor. IMPEACHMENT NOW!"
One Vigilant Patriot offered this critique of Obama:
America is in danger of a complete take-over by the Muslim Brotherhood. Our military and governmental resources have been subverted to benefit the cause of Islamic Jihad…As RADICAL as that sounds, an Islamic take-over is the ONLY fact that snaps all of the puzzle pieces together and makes sense of the last 25 years of American History. Barrack Obama is a Muslim Brotherhood TRAITOR to America. He stands convicted in the eyes of all true American Patriots.
A group participant claimed that Obama wants to "enforce Marshall [sic] law" to stay in the White House." And one post contended that US troops were purposefully bringing back Ebola from Africa.
There's a lot of hate among the Vigilant Patriots. A participant assailed Obamacare as "totalitarian socialist" and claimed that Rahm Emanuel, an Obama aide who became mayor of Chicago, had "justified mistrust of Jews by the KKK." Another proposed putting the "criminal news media into prison" (with Obama and Hillary Clinton). One post suggested adopting the Confederate flag as a symbol of resistance. Another declared that the Koran is a "declaration of war on you, your family, your friends, all you hold dear."
Mother Jones sent a Trump spokeswoman and Trump's presidential transition team a request for comment and a series of questions. The questions included the following: Did Bannon create this Facebook account? Does he personally control the account? Why did he apparently join the Vigilant Patriots group? Does he agree with the views expressed on this Facebook page? Does Donald Trump believe it would be appropriate for his senior staff to associate with a group that promotes racist material and death threats directed against Obama? The Trump spokeswoman and the transition team did not respond.
Bannon appears to have been rubbing Facebook elbows with racists and haters. On Thursday morning, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, said Bannon "treats everyone kindly" and "has the ear and trust" of Trump. For those claiming Bannon is getting a bum rap on the white nationalist issue, this Facebook connection between Bannon and the Vigilant Patriots will not make their work any easier.
Here is a sample of the content posted on the Vigilant Patriots Facebook page:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... th-threats
Trump Fans Are Urging Everyone to #BoycottHamilton—but There’s One Big Problem
It's like making fun of a party you weren't invited to.
Tariq Nasheed ✔@tariqnasheed
Let's be honest..Was the average Trump supporter REALLY going to a Broadway play, anyway? #BoycottHamilton
9:19 AM - 19 Nov 2016
2,602 2,602 Retweets 5,030 5,030 likesJohn Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz
For all those wanting to #BoycottHamilton: Please forward your tickets to me. I need a brief escape from the country I'm living in.
10:02 AM - 19 Nov 2016 · Wake Forest, NCBobby Zupkofska @Bobby_Zupkofska
#BoycottHamilton Sponsored by people who do not go to the theatre at all.
8:40 AM - 19 Nov 2016Michael BuckleyVerified account
@buckhollywood
To all the white people tweeting #BoycottHamilton, it's sold out. You can't get tickets. But you do you boos.Amusicjunkie @kassieopia7
Clinton supporters are protesting for their rights TRUMP supporters are protesting musicals and starbucks LOL #BoycottHamilton #starbucks
11:38 AM - 19 Nov 2016
339 339 Retweets 548 548 likesNUFF$AID @nuffsaidNY
Me trying to figure out how #BoycottHamilton is going to work when the show is already sold out for the next two years.
11:32 AM - 19 Nov 2016Fredric Wertham @fredric_wertham
#BoycottHamilton??? Good luck with that. Those tickets have become the most valuable currency on Planet Earth. Well played @HamiltonMusical
8:53 AM - 19 Nov 2016i miss the yankees @redrag0n_
If we wanna discuss what is rude Mr. President, I'm pretty sure grabbing a woman by her genitalia ranks higher than booing. #BoycottHamilton
10:12 AM - 19 Nov 2016Theresa Donaghy @TheresaDonaghy
Ok but am I supposed to believe that the people who want to #BoycottHamilton were going to see a racially-diverse rap musical to begin with?
10:40 AM - 19 Nov 2016Jeffrey Wright ✔@jfreewright
#BoycottHamilton? Good luck with that. Tickets are already sold-out past President-elect Troll's impeachment.
10:52 AM - 19 Nov 2016
by Iamwhomiam » Sun Nov 20, 2016 11:06 pm
by Belligerent Savant » Sun Nov 20, 2016 11:41 pm
by Iamwhomiam » Mon Nov 21, 2016 3:06 am
by 8bitagent » Mon Nov 21, 2016 3:56 am
by Nordic » Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:05 am
8bitagent » Mon Nov 21, 2016 2:56 am wrote:I know it makes me a bad liberal, but I *cannot stand* John Oliver, Colbert, Samantha Bee, Amy Schumer, etc. Even my boys Patton Oswalt and Louie CK are wearing thin on me.
Im sad all the truly edgy comics like Bill Hicks and George Carlin are dead.
Across social media I'm seeing more acceptance amongst the people over Trump winning. Indeed we're in a post meta surreal era, whose effects won't be known for awhile.
My advice to the good meaning little liberals on Facebook, Twitter, et al posting outrage over Hamilton-gate, Trump U-gate, Japan-Ivanka gate...just wait.
I predict we will bear witness to wtf shit under just the first few months of President Trump's regime that even as of thanksigiving 2016 we wouldn't be able to wrap our heads around.
And I don't necessarily mean terrorism, war, stripping civil liberties...but the complete satirical deconstruction of protocols, polite-ism and business-politics.
by Jerky » Mon Nov 21, 2016 5:42 am
by Sounder » Mon Nov 21, 2016 6:04 am
Republicans spent EIGHT YEARS denying Obama won the White House fair and square. Democrats should do what... roll over now?
Fuck that noise.
by Joe Hillshoist » Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:34 am
Sounder » 21 Nov 2016 20:04 wrote:Republicans spent EIGHT YEARS denying Obama won the White House fair and square. Democrats should do what... roll over now?
Fuck that noise.
I know, remember all those protests and riots, oh right, neither do I.
by Sounder » Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:49 am
by Belligerent Savant » Mon Nov 21, 2016 10:32 am
Iam:
By the way, I couldn't afford HBO and I watched it on you tube, so I imagine your illusion of Trump supporters not being able to pay for HBO laughable, considering their average income's around $90k.
Iam:
If you've got a system handy that we can replace this one with, I'd love to know more about it.
Iam:
Pretty much, I really don't care about the world's issues these days as I'm concentrating on end of life planning, consolidating, shedding and shredding & selling, as callously selfish as that might seem to you.
Iam:
Trump is the revolution and it's raw and it is being televised.
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