Monday Reads: The United States of Thugs (Russian installed and otherwise)

bonne année!!

Well, it’s 2017 and I can tell you that you’re best getting your research and journalism from Twitter these days by following the right people. People responsible for actual research are taking to Twitter like it’s their only hope. It’s one of the few places where you can really see the in-depth dig into Trump’s Russian mob connections which should make the Thug Elect impeachable from the moment he takes the oath of office.

So Adam Khan’s feed is a must read and follow.

https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/816005216298377216

The other is Selim Sazak.

https://twitter.com/scsazak/status/815034945714397184

Sazik did op research for three “clients” last year on Trump and his Russian Thug connections.  He’s a PhD candidate and you have to work around the Tweets in Turkish although I had a friend translate a bunch of them last night for me while we we’re catching up over drinks at J&J’s.  My friend’s also a professor in Middle Eastern Studies from here but teaching in Maryland.  They’re kind of interesting and I’m assuming Google can translate them for me too.

A lot of what he’s found has been out there but not in what we’d call mainstream media.  BB has covered some of this before, but it’s worth looking at these two researchers Twitter Story Boards as well as some of the original research from places like Foreign Policy.  This is a 2014 article introducing us to the Corleones of the Caspian who are business associates of Trump as outlined by Sazak, Khan, and Financial Times (be sure to follow this link https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/ or google Trumps Russian connections.) among other reputable sources.  If you really want some fascinating reads, start with those two folks and read their links and go straight down the Rabbit hole to the Russian Mafia that will soon hold the lease on the White House.

Here’s a good long thread to help you get a start:

https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/813850552467476480

It includes links to magazines–this one is MOJO–and some side notes.  The MOJO article that always intrigued me most is still where they write about a “veteran spy” who insists that the Russians have been grooming Trumpf for a long time.

Meanwhile, as the Russian version of the Sopranos awaits us on January 20th, Paul Krugman says we’re on our way to becoming Trumpistan and I think he’s right.

Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented — or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, “unpresidented” — conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will — in fact, he’s already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.

This means that Mr. Trump will be in violation of the spirit, and arguably the letter, of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars gifts or profits from foreign leaders, the instant he recites the oath of office. But who’s going to hold him accountable? Some prominent Republicans are already suggesting that, rather than enforcing the ethics laws, Congress should simply change them to accommodate the great man.

And the corruption won’t be limited to the very top: The new administration seems set to bring blatant self-dealing into the center of our political system. Abraham Lincoln may have led a team of rivals; Donald Trump seems to be assembling a team of cronies, choosing billionaires with obvious, deep conflicts of interest for many key positions in his administration.

In short, America is rapidly turning into a stan.

Is it possible Teen Vogue could be the most useful source of news in the country right now?  Check out this headline: ” Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Made over $420,000 Selling Access to the President-elect on New Year’s Eve; “The transition is not concerned about the appearance of a conflict,” a spokesperson said,.”

To be clear, simply saying “the president cannot and does not have a conflict” in no way eliminates the obvious potential conflict of interest. Previous issues include but are not limited to Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. and its pay-for-play potential, Trump’s attempt to prevent development on British wind farm because it would block the view from his golf course, and hisdiplomacy-disrupting call to Taiwan after scoping out the possibility of building Trump property in the region. There are a lot of other examples.

While Trump has said his sons will take over his business, many have suggested that the only way for Trump to truly avoid conflicts of interest is by divesting his assets entirely. As ethics expert Norman Eisen put it in an interview with Chuck Todd, “There is no way that Donald Trump can serve as the president of the United States and hang onto this enormous web of domestic and international businesses and keep an interest in them. He’s going to be conflicted, there’s going to be a cloud, a question every time he makes a decision. … He’s going to stumble over the Constitution.”

Or Vanity Fare  be thanked for commiting random acts of journalism?

Only in America could a serial bankrupt pass himself off as a successful businessman. (And almost none of those he bankrupted were even regular businesses. They were casinos—where people essentially come to lose their money.)

Only in America could a man who offended Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, and African-Americans, as well as women, babies, and the handicapped, become the Republican nominee for president.

Only in America could a man for whom truth is an inconvenient concept feel comfortable referring to his opponent as “lying” and “crooked.”

There are more …

Der Spiegal compares Trump To Mussolini to check out exactly the extent of his loyalty to fascism and white nationalism or his own very grandiose need for ego assurance.  Can he pass the Fascism test?

If it is fascism, then it would be a disaster on a global scale. See above. But if it isn’t fascism, it would be a defamation of Trump’s voters to call it that, akin to accusing them of helping to bring a fascist to power and potentially driving them away from democracy forever. That’s why we must exercise great care when using the term. What is fascism and how does it relate to Trump? Or to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party, the Freedom Party of Austria, France’s Front National or Viktor Orbán in Hungary?

In February, fascism expert Robert Paxton told the online magazine Slate that Trump “even looks like Mussolini in the way he sticks his lower jaw out.” There are also parallels when it comes to his treatment of women: Mussolini was accused of being addicted to sex (a charge, it must be said, that was never levelled at Hitler). At the political level, though, comparison is difficult because there are so many different ideas about what truly constitutes fascism.

Action française, which formed at the end of the 19th century, is considered Europe’s first fascist organization. Mussolini’s Italy became the first fascist country, followed by Hitler’s National Socialist Germany. Hungary, Croatia, Spain and Portugal also developed regimes during the 1930s and 1940s that had fascist elements. But the differences between Nazi Germany and Francisco Franco’s Spain were so great that it’s difficult to mention them in the same breath. Franco was a dictator, but didn’t seek control of his subjects’ thoughts and private lives. He wasn’t an imperialist and he didn’t seek to eradicate Judaism.

One early definition comes from German historian Ernst Nolte, who wrote a fair amount of nonsense in his career but who was an undisputed expert on fascism. He described it as such: “Fascism is anti-Marxism which seeks to destroy the enemy by the evolvement of a radically opposed and yet related ideology and by the use of almost identical and yet typically modified methods, always, however within the unyielding framework of national self-assertion and autonomy.” It’s a long-winded sentence and it provides little by way of orientation today, given that the Soviet Union no longer exists and Marxism is no longer considered be a real political adversary.

It’s a long an interesting read.

Robert Kutner prepares us for Impeachment. He’s definitely got a call to action out there on HuffPo.

Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be president, and he will demonstrate that in ways that break the law and violate the Constitution. Since the election, there have been three wishful efforts to keep Trump from the presidency: a recount doomed by a lack of evidence; a futile campaign to flip Trump electors; and an even more improbable drive to get the Supreme Court to annul the 2016 election.

These moves, indicative of magical thinking, make Trump’s opposition look a lot weaker than it is―at a time when the stakes for the Republic could not be higher. There will also be marches and demonstrations, but they will also look weak unless they have a strategic focus.

There is only one constitutional way to remove a president, and that is via impeachment.

What’s needed is a citizens’ impeachment inquiry, to begin on Trump’s first day in office.

The inquiry should keep a running dossier, and forward updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee. There will be no lack of evidence.

The materials should be made public via a website. The inquiry should be conducted by a distinguished panel whose high-mindedness and credentials are, well, unimpeachable.

There needs to be a parallel public campaign, pressing for an official investigation. For those appalled by Trump, who wonder where to focus their efforts, here is something concrete―and more realistic than it may seem.

Trump has already committed grave misdeeds of the kind that the Constitutional founders described as high crimes and misdemeanors. With his commingling of his official duties and his personal enrichment, Trump will be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which unambiguously prohibits any person holding public office from profiting from gifts or financial benefits from “any king, prince or Foreign state.”

Trump, who has entangled his business interests with his political connections at home and abroad, has already declared his contempt for these Constitutional protections. He declared, “The law is totally on my side, meaning the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Oh, yes he can, and this president will.

In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and former Washington legal director of the ACLU has pointed to the constitutional definition of treason: a crime committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who… adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy.

The New Yorker sings the praises of The Return of Civil Disobedience.  We shall resist.

Movements are born in the moments when abstract principles become concrete concerns. MoveOn arose in response to what was perceived as the Republican congressional overreach that resulted in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The Occupy movement was a backlash to the financial crisis. The message of Black Lives Matter was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. Occupy’s version of anti-corporate populism helped to create the climate in which Senator Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign could not only exist but essentially shape the Democratic Party platform. Black Lives Matter brought national attention to local instances of police brutality, prompting the Obama Administration to launch the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and helping defeat prosecutors in Chicago and Cleveland, who had sought reëlection after initially failing to bring charges against police officers accused of using excessive force.

President Obama will take to the stage in Chicago to tell us that our Democracy will survive.  I wish I had that kind of faith and hope.

On the evening of Jan. 10, at Chicago’s McCormick Place, president Barack Obama will give his final address to the American people, a tradition that dates all the way back to George Washington. In 1796, after 45 years of public service, Washington penned a lengthy address about his decision not to run for a third term as president.

Just over 220 years later, that same speech is inspiring Obama, whowrote in an email to supporters that he was taking a cue from the original founding father for his own farewell. “In 1796, as George Washington set the precedent for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, he also set a precedent by penning a farewell address to the American people,” Obama wrote. “And over the 220 years since, many American presidents have followed his lead.

“Since 2009, we’ve faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger. That’s because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding—our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.”

Washington’s final address was handwritten over 32 pages, and touched on everything from geographical ideology to international alliances. Here are some choice excerpts (emphases mine); you can read the full text here or the original handwritten document here (pdf).

We’ll certainly be hanging together here and not alone.

Love you all!  And my best to every one and their loved one’s during this very challenging time.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Monday Reads: 2016 has been like a year long Red Wedding

Well, it’s the last week of 2016 and the only thing I can think is that it’s a prelude to 2017 which is lining up to be an even worse year although we don’t know which of the icons that wrote the soundtrack to our lives will die at this time. I’m actually more concerned about the death of more important things like civil liberties and civil rights.

But, before I move on to my tribute to people who resisted Fascism in the past as inspiration for what faces us in 2017, let me just say goodbye to George Michael whose life, loves and music was unapologetically, in your face sexuality after being outted by Tabloids. George Michael was fierce.

I can barely get through a week without listening to his outstanding tribute with Queen to Freddie Mercury. He considered it his proudest but saddest moment. I’ve linked to a video of Queen and George in rehearsal for that performance where you can see David Bowie watching with Seal.  It feels like George RR Martin wrote the script for 2016 where all the good guys get killed and the bad guys take over the kingdom.  Seriously, it feels that way to me.

Here’s some inspiration from the past to help us buckle up as we careen towards 2017 and the take over of our government by Fascists.  A flamboyant sportscaster led a secret mission to get his family out of Germany during those famous 1936 Berlin Olympic games.  His story is now coming to light.

But here’s where we can start. Stanley Wertheim was a little more than 2 years old when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. He doesn’t remember much from his childhood in Warburg, about 400 kilometers southwest of Berlin.

“I have some memories, but they’re vague. And only memories of certain incidents,” he says.

In one of those incidents, Stanley wandered out of his family’s backyard.

“And saw everyone saying ‘Heil Hitler’ and raising their arms, and so I did the same thing,” Stanley recalls. “Until, finally, some man caught me by the back of the neck and dragged me back to my house. ‘Cause that could have resulted in serious consequences.”

Stanley Wertheim is Jewish. Everything he did — or didn’t do — could have resulted in serious consequences.

The Olympics came to Berlin when Stanley was 6. The world was becoming concerned about German militarization and discrimination against Jews. And the regime hoped to send the message that there was nothing to fear.

So, the Games were important for Hitler and the Third Reich, but they weren’t of much consequence to 6-year-old Stanley Wertheim and his family.

“Well, that meant nothing to us except that Ted would be here,” Stanley says.

Also worth reading is the obituary of 96 year old Marion Pritchard who saved the lives of around 150 Jewish people and children in acts of bravery that should be told and retold. She was a true hero.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

We take time now to remember Marion van Binsbergen Pritchard who died this month at the age of 96. During the second world war in her native Holland, she helped more than 150 Jews evade the Nazis. Her son Ivor Pritchard told us how she became a rescuer.

IVOR PRITCHARD: She was riding her bicycle down the street and came upon a scene where the Germans were collecting Jewish children, just picking them up by the arm and the leg and the hair and throwing them into a truck. And there were two women who saw this. And they went up to the Germans and protested, whereupon they took the two women and put them in the truck, too, and drove off. And my mother witnessed this.

CHANG: From that moment forward, she committed herself to protecting Jews. She shuttled young children from one hiding place to another. Little ones couldn’t be moved in the dark after curfew because they might cry out, so she transported them in broad daylight.

PRITCHARD: She would put a child on her bicycle and pedal down the street. And the German soldiers would see the young woman with her child and wave at her, and she would wave at them. And she would go right by to wherever she needed to go.

CHANG: For almost three years, Marion helped hide a Jewish man and his three children in a home outside Amsterdam. One day, several Germans and a local Dutch collaborator came to the door looking for Jews. They left without finding the hidden family. But then…

PRITCHARD: The Dutch collaborator came back by himself. And she had a revolver that had been given to her by the friend in the resistance. And she didn’t know what else to do, so she shot him. So now she’s got a Dutch collaborator dead on the floor. What’s she going to do?

CHANG: Marion had a friend who found a delivery man to pick up the body and a mortician to dispose of it. This is the lesson that Marion Pritchard took from that story.

PRITCHARD: The world, at that time, did not neatly divide up into perpetrators, victims, bystanders and rescuers. The delivery man wasn’t actively involved in the resistance. The mortician wasn’t actively involved in the resistance. And yet, when asked, they cooperated.

In two truly bizarre acts of weirdness, the Trump administration seems to have declared itself the beacon for radical christianity in an act of unconstitutional unrepentant reptilian ickiness. Then T-Rump himself sends out a weirdish christmas greeting that looks like a raised white power fist. It was such a tiny fist with such tiny fingers.

Sean Spicer is going to be T-Rump’s press secretary and he’s already caused quite the controversy with a badly worded tweet which appears to be the way of things right now. One badly worded tweet after another on things that are blatantly not constitutional, legal or American.  Who tweets out about freaking Kings these days anyway? George RR Martin are you writing this script?  Please, let us know.

President-elect Donald Trump’s team yesterday accused media critics of politicizing Christmas after a holiday message from the Republican Party sparked a Twitter war over whether the GOP was comparing Trump to Jesus Christ.

The message released yesterday by the Republican National Committee read in part, “Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind.

“Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King,” the statement continued.

That last clause caused social media users of both parties to question whether the “new King” referred to on “this Christmas” was Trump.

For a lift, check out our Seventh Ward Santa who made the NPR news.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?