Tuesday Reads

Posted: July 3, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | 34 Comments

Good Morning!!

When I first started looking at the news this morning, this story from The Baltimore Sun was all over Twitter: Trump declines request to lower flags in memory of Capital Gazette shooting victims.

Victims of the Capital Gazette Shooting: Gerald Fischman, Robert Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters.

President Donald Trump has declined a request from Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley to lower American flags in honor of the fatal shooting of five employees of The Capital newspaper last week.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed, you know? … Is there a cutoff for tragedy?” Buckley said Monday afternoon. “This was an attack on the press. It was an attack on freedom of speech. It’s just as important as any other tragedy.”

Gov. Larry Hogan ordered Maryland state flags to be lowered to half-staff from Friday through sunset on Monday.

Through Maryland’s congressional delegation, Buckley put in a request to the White House over the weekend to lower the American flags.

Buckley had said he hoped having the American flags lowered, too, would help keep national attention on the attack.

Trump has ordered flags lowered for previous mass shootings, including in May after the deaths of 10 people at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, and the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February that left 17 dead.

Apparently, public outrage sometimes works with the Trumpers because now the story includes this update at the top:

The White House has reversed its decision and will allow American flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of five victims of the shooting at The Capital newspaper last week. 

Maybe some White House staffer managed to get it through Trump’s thick head that the public his anti-press temper tantrums would not look so good in the context of actual reporters being murdered. In any case, good to know that public shaming is working on someone in the White House. Let’s redouble our efforts to shame them unmercifully!

Another judge has interfered with Trump’s cruel immigration policies. Politico: Judge’s order could undercut Trump’s immigrant detention plan.

Judge James Boasberg

An order a federal judge issued Monday requiring individualized decisions on whether some asylum-seekers can be released into the U.S. poses a new legal threat to President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on migrants crossing the border from Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg said there is strong evidence that five offices of the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement were ignoring a 2009 agency directive requiring case-by-case determinations on whether asylum seekers who passed the initial “credible fear” screening could be released pending an immigration judge’s decision on their claim.

Boasberg said lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union justified the injunction by showing that releases of such immigrants by some offices dropped dramatically after Trump took office last year. Between February and September of last year, 100 percent of parole applications at three ICE offices were denied, the judge said, while two other offices released eight percent or fewer of those requesting release.

“The record indicates that, instead, they are subject to a de facto ‘no-parole’ reality, under which detention has become the default option,” wrote Boasberg, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Future determinations “shall not be based on categorical criteria,” the judge added in an order. He suggested a policy targeting those who made “recent entry” to the U.S. would be deemed categorical and contrary to the state policy.

The ruling applies only to people who come through an official port of entry and immediately request asylum and it only applies to five ICE field offices: Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Newark and Philadelphia. Still, it seems the courts are our best hope to have an effect on Trump’s awful immigration policies.

If you watched Rachel Maddow last night, you heard that the Trump administration is so far making zero effort to reunite families as ordered by a California judge last week. You can watch the interview with immigration lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch at this link if you missed it.

As Paul Krugman suggests, Trump is “governing” by temper tantrum. Whoever or whatever he doesn’t like becomes the target of his wrath, and the policies are unencumbered by any reality testing. He just wants what he wants when he wants it, and he’ll just lie about whether the policies accomplish his goals. Here’s Krugman on Trump’s trade wars: Temper Tantrum to Trade War.

In one way, Donald Trump’s attack on our foreign trade partners resembles his attack on immigrants: in each case, the attack is framed as a response to evildoing that exists only in his imagination. No, there isn’t a wave of violent crime by immigrants, and MS-13 isn’t taking over American towns; no, the European Union doesn’t have “horrific” tariffs on U.S. products (the average tariff is only 3 percent).

In another way, however, the trade crisis is quite different from the humanitarian crisis at the border. Children ripped from their parents and put in cages can’t retaliate. Furious foreign governments, many of them U.S. allies that feel betrayed, can and will.

But all indications are that Trump and his advisers still don’t get it. They remain blithely ignorant about what they’re getting into.

Back in March, as the U.S. was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports — and yes, justifying its actions against Canada (!) on the grounds of national security — Peter Navarro, the White House trade czar, was asked about possible retaliation. “I don’t believe any country will retaliate,” he declared, basing his claim on the supposed upper hand America has because we import more than we export.

Krugman points out that both our allies and enemies are retaliating and the situation could very easily get out of hand.

…both the scale and the motivation behind the Trump tariffs — their obviously fraudulent national security rationale — are something new. They amount to rejecting the rules of the game we created; the E.U., in its warning, bluntly calls U.S. actions “disregard for international law.” Sure enough, Axios reports that the Trump administration has drafted legislation that would effectively take us out of the W.T.O.

The U.S. is now behaving in ways that could all too easily lead to a breakdown of the whole trading system and a drastic, disruptive reduction in world trade.

There are some new Russia investigation stories in the news this morning. This one from Emptywheel is particularly interesting and scary too: Putting a Face (Mine) to the Risks Posed by GOP Games on Mueller Investigation. Marcy describes how she came to report a person to the FBI.

I never in my life imagined I would share information with the FBI, especially not on someone I had a journalistic relationship with. I did so for many reasons. Some, but not all, of the reasons are:

  • I believed he was doing serious harm to innocent people
  • I believed (others agreed) that reporting the story at that time would risk doing far more harm than good
  • I had concrete evidence he was lying to me and others, including but not limited to other journalists
  • I had reason to believe he was testing ways to tamper with my website
  • I believed that if the FBI otherwise came to understand what kind of information I had, their likely investigative steps would pose a risk to the privacy of my readers

To protect the investigation, I will not disclose this person’s true identity or the identity and/or role I believe he played in the attack. Nor will I disclose when I went to the FBI. I did so on my own, without subpoena; I did that in an effort to protect people who have spoken to me in confidence and other journalists. Largely because this effort involved a number of last minute trips to other cities, I spent around $6K of my own money traveling to meet with lawyers and for the meeting with the FBI.

John Darkow / Columbia Daily Tribune

You’ll need to read the entire post, but the gist is that Marcy was contacted by someone who had information about a meeting between Michael Flynn and and someone associated with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. This seemed to link up with reports that Jared Kushner wanted to open a back channel for communication with Russia about Syria policy. She also links to a new article by David Ignatius at The Washington Post, which I’ll get to in a minute. But the gist of her post is that House Republicans are putting people like Marcy who gave information to the FBI in danger.

The other reason I’m disclosing this now is to put a human face to the danger in which the House Republicans are putting other people who, like me, provided information about the Russian attack on the US to the government.

Several times since I first considered sharing information with the FBI, I’ve asked my attorney to contact the FBI to tell them of what I perceived to be a real threat that arose from sharing that information. One of those times, I let law enforcement officers enter my house without a warrant, without me being present.

My risk isn’t going to go away — indeed, going public like this will surely exacerbate it. That’s to be expected, given the players involved.

But I’m a public figure. If something happens to me — if someone releases stolen information about me or knocks me off tomorrow — everyone will now know why and who likely did it. That affords me a small bit of protection. There are undoubtedly numerous other witnesses who have taken similar risks to share information with the government who aren’t public figures. The Republicans’ ceaseless effort to find out more details about people who’ve shared information with the government puts those people in serious jeopardy.

I’m speaking out because they can’t — and shouldn’t have to.

Please do go read the rest at Emptywheel.

Now for the story by David Ignatius: Is Trump handing Putin a victory in Syria?

The catastrophic war in Syria is nearing what could be a diplomatic endgame, as the United States , Russia and Israel shape a deal that would preserve power for Syrian President Bashar al -Assad in exchange for Russian pledges to restrain Iranian influence.

Checking Iranian power has become the only major Trump administration goal in Syria, now that the Islamic State is nearly vanquished. President Trump appears ready to embrace a policy that will validate Assad, an authoritarian leader who has gassed his own people, and abandon a Syrian opposition that was partly trained and supplied by the United States….

The diplomatic discussions about Syria come as Trump prepares for a July 16 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Foreign diplomats and administration officials are unsure just what will be on the agenda, but the Syria package will probably be in play.

An intriguing aspect of the possible Syria deal is that it’s driven by close cooperation between Russia and Israel. The Israeli agenda, like Trump’s, is narrowly focused on blocking Iran — and Israelis seem to have concluded that Putin is a reliable regional partner.

Read the details of the prospective deal at the WaPo link above.

More Russia stories to check out, links only:

AP: Russian charged with Trump’s ex-campaign chief is key figure.

Buzzfeed News: The Senate Intel Committee Is In Regular Contact With The Trump–Russia Dossier Author.

Adam Davidson at The New Yorker: Is Michael Cohen Turning on Donald Trump?

Emily Jane Fox at Vanity Fair: “He Was Trying to Get Ahead of Things”: Michael Cohen, Former Trump Shield and Current Regency Prisoner, Got Sick of Being a Whipping Boy.

That’s it for me. What stories are you following today?

Monday Reads: Keep on walking … keep on talking … marching up to Freedomland

Posted: July 2, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 39 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

Each day brings new surprises and new horrors.  I’m never quite sure which to read first.  I didn’t watch the news at all yesterday but some things happened. So, let’s start with the Michael Cohen’s interview with George Stephanopolous.  It’s looking more and more like he’ll be biting the hand instead of kissing the ring of KKKremlin Caligula.  Aaron Blake of The Fix at WAPO had this analysis.

Cohen agreed to this interview knowing that this would be a prominent question. And it can’t have been a coincidence that a trio of stories emerged a couple weeks back, all pointing toward possibly flipping on Trump. There was a Wall Street Journal story indicating that he was unhappy with Trump for not helping with his legal bills. CNN quoted an anonymous source close to him saying, “If they want information on Trump, he’s willing to give it.” Then Cohen resigned as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee by citing not just the investigation he faces, but his disagreement with the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border. That latter justification seemed conspicuous, given Cohen has pledged complete loyalty to Trump and rarely spoken publicly about policy.

And Cohen’s interview came with another big signal: the reported end of a joint agreement between Cohen and Trump’s legal team to share information. Such things often presage a more antagonistic relationship or even cutting a deal to inform on someone else. Michael Flynn’s lawyers stopped sharing info with Trump’s lawyers, for example, shortly before he flipped.

https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1013758532569763840

So, there appears to be a break in the thug fealty oath. TPM’s Kate Riga elucidates what’s at stake.

When confronted with the reality that Trump and his legal team would put a target on Cohen’s back if they perceive him to be a threat, Cohen “stiffened his spine.” “I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defense strategy, I am not a villain in any story and won’t allow others to try to depict me in that way,” he told Stephanopoulos.

He even went so far as to candidly break with the President’s position on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, saying “I don’t like the term ‘witch-hunt.’ As an American, I repudiate any foreign government’s attempt to interfere in our democratic process and I would call on all Americans to do the same.”

“Simply accepting Putin’s denial is unsustainable,” he continued. “I choose to believe our intelligence agencies.”

Tantalizingly, Cohen then hinted heavily that he has information to share on two hot-button and possibly damning episodes for the President: the infamous Trump tower meeting when “dirt” on Hillary Clinton was promised, and the $130,000 hush money payout made to Stormy Daniels during the election.

On both questions, whether Trump knew of the meeting and if he had requested or promised to reimburse the payment, Cohen cryptically refused to answer—for now.

“I want to answer,” he said. “One day I will answer. But for now I can’t comment further on advice of my counsel.”

Others are more cynical.

There was a tremendous response for the June 30th rally to keep families together. I’ve included the pictures I took.  I was riding the street car home and sat by a couple in town for Essence Fest.  The husband was talking to a local woman across the way saying something like “That’s what I say but not my wife”. His wife simply eyed him and said “Well, they don’t show up for us so why should we care?”

I looked at her and decided to speak up.   My feet were hurting. I was hot and sweaty and I’m old and getting tired. I have a habit of lecturfying and I really didn’t want to do that. I told her that’s where I just was. I then added I was there for Black Lives Matters. I was there for the Women’s March and all of the End Gun Violence rallies. But more than that, I work on campaigns. I call. I leaflet. I send money if my budget allows.  Right now my priority is getting more black women into elected office.  It’s time for all of us to stand up together or we’re going to go down one a time.  Her husband agreed. I don’t think anything about what I said impressed her which is fine. I just ended with believe me, I’ll be there no matter what.

And that’s true. I’m not even afraid of getting arrested at this point.  Trump’s AmeriKKKa is ugly and getting uglier by the minute.

Which brings me to White Women; a special subclass of Wipipo (sigh). I’m reminded of the tale of the man who gets beat on at work by some prick then comes home to kick the dog and take it out on the wife and kids. What causes white women to vote for Trump then make phone calls to police about black people just living their lives which in this day and age can lead to being  shot by the police? I cannot imagine how incensed Black Americans must be by this. I’m mad at them myself and if I ever witness one she will hear mad lecturfying on my part.

Late Night with Seth Meyers delivered a topical parody of the ’80s pop song, “Somebody’s Watching Me” and the artist behind it, Rockwell, with Amber Ruffin dressing up as Rockwell and performing “White Women Watching Me”.

The Tuesday night sketch was tied to two recent viral news stories of white women calling the police in response to black people engaging in seemingly harmless acts or, as Meyers put it, people who were “just going about their business.”

Parodying Rockwell’s 1984 hit, complete with frightened glances, Ruffin sang, “All I want is to be left alone, then I see one on the phone, then it makes me feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. I always feel like white women watching me, and I’ve got no privacy.”

On Saturday, a video was posted to Twitter in which a white woman confronted an 8-year-old black girl selling water near AT&T Park in San Francisco and threatened to call the police. The money being raised from sales was for a trip to Disneyland.

The caller in the video, Alison Ettel, has since been dubbed “Permit Patty.” The 15-second video of her calling the police went viral on social media and has received more than 9 million views.

I would just like to offer up this both in terms of good for these kids but do you suppose they had the proper permit and did white women call the police on them?

She set a goal of $1,000, but quickly surpassed that. Ultimately, her family raised a little more than $13,000.

According to Time, Gaggero ended the fundraiser after reaching $13,000, so she could quickly get the money to the organization, as “Facebook fundraisers pay out donations every two weeks once the minimum payout amount of $100 is met.”

Gaggero told Time her son was extremely happy with the outcome.

In a conversation over online messaging with All the Moms, Gaggero said she encourages people to donate to border-state organizations like RAICES, but to also do research into their own local community organizations helping immigrants.

We all need to work to correct wrongs on what ever level we can.  But back to asking WTF is wrong with the 52% of white woman that voted for the Pussy Grabber?  And, what is wrong with these white women raging mostly against children of color?

IMG_20180630_131527_040.jpgSo here’s a white rage muffin screaming rapist at a Mexican American Man simply doing yardwork.

As Estebán Guzman recalled it, his mother had just finished cleaning the inside of a client’s house and strapped on a leaf blower when the woman across the street started screaming.

It’s very likely that his mother had blown some pine needles into the next-door yard, Guzman told The Post. That can happen on big jobs like this one — where her clients wanted the entire property spick-and-span so they could rent it on Airbnb.

But the lady wasn’t screaming about pine needles.

In fact, Guzman said, she didn’t even live next door.

“She came out of the house on the other side of the street,” he said. “She came out of her home to yell at my mom . . . ‘Go back to Mexico!’ ”

Guzman stopped loading pine needles into the family dump truck and listened to the woman’s ranting over the drone of his mother’s leaf blower.

There’s this:

and this:

https://twitter.com/TheAlanvargas/status/1012544315506098176

Okay, White Rage Muffins!  WTF is wrong with you? What kind of a miserable life created this behavior? The Root’s been calling y’all out since BBQ Becky!  Who among  us can tell you that you’re way out of line and you’re going to get people killed?

Well, today there is this: “Woman Assaulted Black Boy After Telling Him He ‘Did Not Belong’ at Pool,” Officials Say”. What the fuck year do you think this is?  Are you partying like it’s 1959?

Now, a South Carolina woman has been nicknamed Pool Patrol Paula after a widely shared video showed her accosting a black boy and his friends at a neighborhood pool, telling them to “get out” or she would call the police.

“There’s three numbers I could dial: 911. O.K.?” the woman said in the video, which was posted on Facebook on June 24 and was viewed more than a million times in a week. “Get out! Little punks.”

The authorities identified the woman as Stephanie Sebby-Strempel, 38, of Summerville, S.C., according to The News & Observer. The newspaper reported that she told the boy, 15, and his friends that “they did not belong” at the pool, instructed them to leave and hit the teenager in his face and chest.

The teenager had been invited to the private community pool by a friend who lived in the neighborhood, his lawyer, Marvin Pendarvis, said.

This White Rage Muffin landed her fat ass and big mouth in jail!!!  Look! Stephanie Sebby-Strempel living the Jim Crow Dream behind bars!

And, I would like to know how stupid you have to be for Mashable to feel the need to put up a fucking list of what WiPiPo should do before they call the police on Black People.

This behavior has deep historical roots and should be condemned by law enforcement as a nuisance. In the meantime, it’s clear that white people inclined to call authorities to report mundane or so-called suspicious behavior need an intervention. Here’s just one handy checklist for them to consult before they dial 911:

You really think something like this belongs in The Onion, but hell no, some WiPiPo so racist …

Google this “white woman calling the police on black people” and go straight into the dank minds and actions of White Rage Muffins.

Okay, with that I leave you a picture of what life was once like and we had hope and we work working on change that moved us forward!

Just breathe deeply. Say this Mantra: “We the People, in order to create a more perfect union”. Then sally forth vote, register people to vote, make phone calls for a good candidate, write a check and love your neighbor! Yes!  Even the creepy one hiding behind those hurricane shutters!  It just might be Boo Radley or better.

Some inspiration:  That’s us registering voters on Saturday. First up was a black man nearly blind from diabetes. A brand new citizen filled out his form while I provided the instructions.  She had just become a citizen the Saturday before. She was from Transylvania.   And then, we sang the songs and chants from all the great movements from abolition forward …

Citizenship is a shared venture. Being a good neighbor is a sacred vocation.  Stopping White Rage Muffins before they kill should be a calling.

I’m done lecturfying for the day.  I will stand with everyone standing for freedom and justice.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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