Christmas Eve Open Thread

Good Afternoon!!

The best I can do today is post some interesting links. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

I’ll start with some introductory excerpts and add more links when I run out of space.

Quartz: How Russia surpassed Germany to become the racist ideal for Trump-loving white supremacists.

For America’s white nationalists, there is only one nation—and one leader—worth emulating. And it has nothing to do with lederhosen or Wagner.

Richard Spencer, the current face (and haircut) of US’s alt-right, believes Russia is the “sole white power in the world.” David Duke, meanwhile, believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.” And as Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”

For those Americans who are just now familiarizing themselves with Russia’s current political proclivities—due to the recent, high-profile Russian hacking allegations, say, or the brutal military campaign in Aleppo—Moscow’s transformation into a lodestar for America’s white supremacists is enough to cause whiplash. After all, just a few decades ago Moscow was a beacon for the far-left, and its influential Communist International provided material and organizational heft for those pushing Soviet-style autocracy around the world. Over the past few years, however, the Kremlin has cultivated those on the far-right end of the West’s political spectrum in the pursuit, as Heimbach told me, of reifying something approaching a “Traditionalist International.”

Moscow’s appeal to the American far-right is, in a sense, understandable, if no less worrying. The links between Russia and America’s white nationalists and domestic secessionists have both expanded and deepened over the past few years. And the Kremlin, as with its invasion and occupation of swaths of Ukraine, has gone to only minimal lengths to obscure such ties.

Sarah Kendzior: Trump and Putin: The worst case scenario.

On Dec. 22, president-elect Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin both announced that they intend to increase their respective countries’ nuclear arsenals. Their use of language eerily paralleled each other. “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes,” Trump tweeted. “Russia should fortify its military nuclear potential and develop missiles that can penetrate any missile-defense system,” Putin said at a defense ministry meeting.

The joint statements set off speculation that the United States and Russia are planning an increase in nuclear capacity that is in stark contrast to standard anti-proliferation policy.

This is an erroneous interpretation. Trump and Putin aren’t heading to war with each other—they’re heading to war together. Trump is a vociferous defender and admirer of Putin and is suspected by multiple intelligence experts of being assisted and even co-opted by the Kremlin. Russian interference in the US election has been affirmed by multiple US intelligence agencies and has led to calls for a congressional investigation. Rather than engaging in an arms race against each other, Trump and Putin are possibly teaming up as nuclear partners against shared targets.

Sound fantastical? It’s not: Trump has been obsessed with nuclear weapons for several decades, and has expressed his desire to coordinate with Russia on nuclear policy since the 1980s. In 1984 Trump, backed by Roy Cohn, the political operative who advised Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, proclaimed his goal of negotiating nuclear deals with the Soviets: “It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump said. “I think I know most of it anyway. You’re talking about just getting updated on a situation… You know who really wants me to do this? Roy… I’d do it in a second.”

This rhetoric mirrors Trump’s current rejection of expert advice and conviction that his instinct is enough to guide policy. (“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” he said in March 2016 when asked whom he consults on foreign affairs.) During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Trump refused to look at intelligence briefings or collaborate with anyone outside his inner circle. This advisory team is comprised of corporate raiders, warmongers, and white supremacists, some of whom—like his nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, or national security advisor, Michael Flynn—are personally tied to Putin as well.

The American Interest: The Curious World of Donald Trump’s Private Russian Connections.

Even before the November 8 election, many leading Democrats were vociferously demanding that the FBI disclose the fruits of its investigations into Putin-backed Russian hackers. Instead FBI Director Comey decided to temporarily revive his zombie-like investigation of Hillary’s emails. That decision may well have had an important impact on the election, but it did nothing to resolve the allegations about Putin. Even now, after the CIA has disclosed an abstract of its own still-secret investigation, it is fair to say that we still lack the cyberspace equivalent of a smoking gun.

Fortunately, however, for those of us who are curious about Trump’s Russian connections, there is another readily accessible body of material that has so far received surprisingly little attention. This suggests that whatever the nature of President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship with President Putin, he has certainly managed to accumulate direct and indirect connections with a far-flung private Russian/FSU network of outright mobsters, oligarchs, fraudsters, and kleptocrats.

Any one of these connections might have occurred at random. But the overall pattern is a veritable Star Wars bar scene of unsavory characters, with Donald Trump seated right in the middle. The analytical challenge is to map this network—a task that most journalists and law enforcement agencies, focused on individual cases, have failed to do.

Of course, to label this network “private” may be a stretch, given that in Putin’s Russia, even the toughest mobsters learn the hard way to maintain a respectful relationship with the “New Tsar.” But here the central question pertains to our new Tsar. Did the American people really know they were putting such a “well-connected” guy in the White House?

This is an important article, IMHO.

Chicago Sun-Times: Gene Lyons: Trump apes Putin, but U.S. is not Russia.

If Vladimir Putin gave a damn about American public opinion, he’d encourage Donald Trump to make at least a symbolic gesture to prove he’s not the Russian strongman’s vassal. So far, there’s no sign either party to their oddly one-sided alliance feels the need.

Trump’s every significant appointment and foreign policy pronouncement has been exactly as the Russians would have it. “The man has very strong control over his country,” Trump has said. “He’s been a leader far more than our president has been a leader.” So what if Putin’s leadership skills include having political rivals and troublesome journalists jailed or killed?

More telling are Trump’s cabinet picks: first, national security adviser Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, a flaky conspiracy-theorist who not only gave credence to the delusional “Pizzagate” tale, but has also dined publicly with Putin and done paid gigs on the Kremlin-sponsored “Russia Today” TV network.

Then there’s Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil CEO who has done billions in business deals with state-dominated Russian oil companies and accepted that country’s highest civilian medal from Putin himself….

Also, did you know that Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign director forced to resign last summer after reportedly taking millions from the Russian puppet government in Ukraine, actually lives in Trump Tower? Did he ever really quit stage-managing the campaign? It’s worth wondering if, like the omnipresent Trump children, he remains on the president-elect’s private payroll.

Add the skeptical noises that Trump has made about NATO, his seeming indifference to Russian military interventions in Ukraine and its role in the ongoing Syrian slaughter, and it becomes hard to imagine anything Putin might want that Trump’s unwilling to give him. It’s a good bet President Trump will withdraw U.S. support for NATO economic sanctions imposed after Russia’s seizure of Crimea — a blow to our European allies and a boost to the faltering Russian economy.

Politico: Trump writing his own White House rules.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he might do away with regular press briefings and daily intelligence reports. He wants to retain private security while receiving secret service protection, even after the inauguration. He is encouraging members of his family to take on formal roles in his administration, testing the limits of anti-nepotism statutes. And he is pushing the limits of ethics laws in trying to keep a stake in his business.

In a series of decisions and comments since his election last month — from small and stylistic preferences to large and looming conflicts — Trump has signaled that he intends to run his White House much like he ran his campaign: with little regard for tradition. And in the process of writing his own rules, he is shining a light on how much of the American political system is encoded in custom, and how little is based in the law.

On Jan. 20, Trump will take the oath of office having never released his tax returns, the first incoming president not to do so in four decades, and he has not given a press conference since he was elected, flouting another custom for presidents-elect. It remains to be seen whether he will file a personal financial disclosure during his first year in office. Presidents are not legally required to do so, but all have since 1978.

“If it’s not written down, you can get away with it. That’s the new premise. And that’s pretty staggering,” said Trump biographer Gwenda Blair, author of “The Trumps: Three Generations that Built an Empire.”

More Links

Share Blue: Trump-Putin alliance grows, asThe  Putin pens flattering letter to “His Excellency Donald Trump.”

Share Blue: A Black descendant of American slaves and slaveholders, I am the realest of Real Americans.

The Atlantic: Trump Is Making Little Attempt to Reconcile the Country.

Politico: Trump’s unpopularity threatens to hobble his presidency.

The American Prospect: Donald Trump’s Epistemological Netherworld.

What stories are you following today?

Lazy Saturday Reads: Random Reads

Good Afternoon!!

I’m getting nowhere with this post today, so I’m just going to find best long distance moving companies. Now I’m completely stressed out about how I will manage to move, what I’ll take with me, and how to get rid of the rest of my stuff.

First, a quick update on my living situation. I have a possibility of an apartment in senior housing. I’m going to see it on Monday morning if I can dig myself out of the snow by then.

I’m also worried about the parking situation. I’ll find out on Monday if I can get a parking sticker or will have to pay to park in a municipal lot that is pretty far away. I’ll keep you posted.

Now for those random reads.

WBUR’s Radio Boston: Former CIA Officer On Trump’s Battle With Intelligence Community. This is an interview with Glenn Carle, “intelligence officer for 23 years in the CIA, where he served on four continents.” An excerpt:

On if Trump’s actions are unprecedented territory

“Absolutely. My personal experience goes back to President Reagan. But that means I overlapped with colleagues whose direct experiences go back to the Eisenhower administration, frankly. And there’s never been a circumstance like this.

“President [George W.] Bush did not accept many of the conclusions, or like the conclusions, or the views of the intelligence community with respect to Iraq or weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism. But an argument is one thing.

“President Clinton had hostile relations in his first administration with Director [James] Woolsey. That’s OK actually to have substantive differences. But when you deny even to consider the facts and if any statement is made on any subject at any time with which you think somehow challenges what you view as your own self-wealth or position then you’re dealing in someone who is almost clinically incapable of dealing with the world that we all live in. It’s absolutely stunning. There’s never been anything like this.”

“It’s horrifying moment. Others have said that the U.S. is facing — and I completely agree and I myself have said separately — that the U.S. is facing the greatest crisis to its institution since 1861. Not since the Vietnam War, not since World War II, since 1861 when the country broke in two. That is because our institutions, our procedures, the checks and balances, separation of powers, and the social compact as well as social reality and facts on which we all have to decide what positions we take and agree to disagree, all are placed in question for the glory of one person’s sense of self.”

Read the rest at the link. It’s good stuff.

Brookings Institution Report: The Emoluments Clause: Its text, meaning, and application to Donald J. Trump, by Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Laurence H. Tribe.

Foreign interference in the American political system was among the gravest dangers feared by the Founders of our nation and the framers of our Constitution.  The United States was a new government, and one that was vulnerable to manipulation by the great and wealthy world powers (which then, as now, included Russia).  One common tactic that foreign sovereigns, and their agents, used to influence our officials was to give them gifts, money, and other things of value.  In response to this practice, and the self-evident threat it represents, the framers included in the Constitution the Emoluments Clause of Article I, Section 9.  It prohibits any “Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]” from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”  Only explicit congressional consent validates such exchanges.

While much has changed since 1789, certain premises of politics and human nature have held steady.  One of those truths is that private financial interests can subtly sway even the most virtuous leaders.  As careful students of history, the Framers were painfully aware that entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious risk to the Republic.  The Emoluments Clause was forged of their hard-won wisdom.  It is no relic of a bygone era, but rather an expression of insight into the nature of the human condition and the preconditions of self-governance.

Now in 2016, when there is overwhelming evidence that a foreign power has indeed meddled in our political system, adherence to the strict prohibition on foreign government presents and emoluments “of any kind whatever” is even more important for our national security and independence.

Never in American history has a president-elect presented more conflict of interest questions and foreign entanglements than Donald Trump. Given the vast and global scope of Trump’s business interests, many of which remain shrouded in secrecy, we cannot predict the full gamut of legal and constitutional challenges that lie ahead.  But one violation, of constitutional magnitude, will run from the instant that Mr. Trump swears he will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” While holding office, Mr. Trump will receive—by virtue of his continued interest in the Trump Organization and his stake in hundreds of other entities—a steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers and their agents.

Read the entire report in pdf form.

Newsweek: CLINTON AIDE HUMA ABEDIN SEEKS TO REVIEW EMAILS SEARCH WARRANT.

Huma Abedin, the longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, asked a U.S. judge on Wednesday to allow her to review a search warrant the FBI used to gain access to emails related to Clinton’s private server shortly before the Nov. 8 presidential election.

In a letter filed in Manhattan federal court, Abedin said she was never provided a copy of the warrant, nor was her estranged husband, former Democratic U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, whose computer contained the emails in question.

The letter was filed as a federal judge considers whether to unseal the application for the search warrant, which was obtained after FBI Director James Comey informed Congress of newly discovered emails on Oct. 28….

U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel had invited affected parties to weigh in on the potential release of the search warrant application, which is being sought by Los Angeles-based lawyer Randol Schoenberg.

In their letter, Abedin’s lawyers said she was unable to evaluate the issue as neither she nor Weiner was provided the warrant itself, despite federal rules requiring authorities to provide a warrant to a person whose property was taken.

Read the rest at Newsweek.

Important piece at Slate by Jamelle Bouie: North Carolina’s GOP Is Closing Ranks.

After the Supreme Court struck down key portions of the Voting Rights Act, an almost uncontested North Carolina GOP—with firm control of the governor’s office and legislature following the 2010 and 2012 elections—clamped down on voting rights in the state. It targeted black Americans with strict ID requirements, it used county election boards to shutter polling places in precincts where blacks and students voted, it purged eligible Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls, it ended same-day registration and slashed early voting, it gutted public financing for judicial elections and worked to protect incumbent GOP judges from voter accountability, and it gerrymandered Democratic-leaning counties to create almost impregnable majorities.

Except that North Carolina Republicans may not agree. On Wednesday, using an emergency session for disaster relief, the GOP-led state legislature pushed measures that would severely curtail and limit the power of the office of the governor, just a few years after voting to expand its authority. One bill would eliminate some executive appointments, subject Cabinet appointments to state Senate approval, and remove the governor’s power to appoint trustees to the university system and state board of education, both vectors for Republican influence under McCrory. Another bill would add another seat to state election boards and require partisan balance, a “neutral” measure that uses gridlock to keep Democrats from reversing GOP actions on voting and ballot access.

 To call this a coup evokes violence and disorder, but in a certain sense, that is what voters in the state face: an attempt to overturn the election through legislative means. A new nullification crisis.

The New York Times: Now, America, You Know How Chileans Felt, by Ariel Dorfman.

It is familiar, the outrage and alarm that many Americans are feeling at reports that Russia, according to a secret intelligence assessment, interfered in the United States election to help Donald J. Trump become president.

I have been through this before, overwhelmed by a similar outrage and alarm.

To be specific: On the morning of Oct. 22, 1970, in what was then my home in Santiago de Chile, my wife, Angélica, and I listened to a news flash on the radio. Gen. René Schneider, the head of Chile’s armed forces, had been shot by a commando on a street of the capital. He was not expected to survive.

Angélica and I had the same automatic reaction: It’s the C.I.A., we said, almost in unison. We had no proof at the time — though evidence that we were right would eventually, and abundantly, surface — but we did not doubt that this was one more American attempt to subvert the will of the Chilean people.

Six weeks earlier, Salvador Allende, a democratic Socialist, had won the presidency in a free and fair election, in spite of the United States’ spending millions of dollars on psychological warfare and misinformation to prevent his victory (we’d call it “fake news” today). Allende had campaigned on a program of social and economic justice, and we knew that the government of President Richard M. Nixon, allied with Chile’s oligarchs, would do everything it could to stop Allende’s nonviolent revolution from gaining power.

Read the rest at the NYT.

Jeremy Diamond at CNN on tRump’s even-more-insane-than usual speech last night: Trump says his supporters were ‘violent.’

Trump made the admission Friday night during a rally here on the Florida leg of his “Thank You” tour. During the campaign, he repeatedly downplayed violent outbursts his supporters displayed at times toward protesters and insisted that paid activists were instead responsible for inciting violence at his rallies.

“You people were vicious, violent, screaming, ‘Where’s the wall? We want the wall!’ Screaming, ‘Prison! Prison! Lock her up!’ I mean you are going crazy. I mean, you were nasty and mean and vicious and you wanted to win, right?” Trump said Friday. “But now, you’re mellow and you’re cool and you’re not nearly as vicious or violent, right? Because we won, right?” ….