Friday Reads: What Kind of Country do We Really want to Be?

Posted: May 25, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: | 39 Comments

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

What kind of country are we? What kind of moron parent leaves guns around so a 13 year old can grab them to shoot his teacher and a girl in his class? Both are in critical condition and the shooter is in custody. Let’s make bets on this girl and teacher trying to stop him from toxic male behavior which is now being mislabeled ‘bullying’ because some dads teach their sons to be predators?

Two people are in critical condition and a shooter is in custody after a shooting inside of Noblesville West Middle School.

The Noblesville Police Department said the call first came in at 9:06 a.m. Two people were shot, a 13-year-old girl and a teacher. They are in critical condition.

A male student was detained and taken into custody.

The teacher that was shot while taking down the shooter and was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital. The teen was taken to Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health. Families have been notified.

Additionally, another student is being treated at Riverview Health with a fractured ankle.

“There a male student at Noblesville West Middle School who has been detained,” said Kevin Jowitt, Noblesville Chief of Police. “We believe he is the involved suspect. We have no reason to believe that there is any kind of a threat connected to this anywhere else.”

After the shooting, a SWAT team swept the building.

News 8 spoke with one parent, Chad, who had just learned that his daughter was safe.

“Well, my ex-wife called me and she was hysterical and couldn’t even talk,” he said. “And I had to calm her down and what’s going on. All she said there was shooting at my kid’s school. My daughter called her while it was happening from underneath the desk and it sounded like it was coming from another hallway.”

One victim is a 13-year-old girl. One victim is a teacher that was shot while taking down the shooter. The adult was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital. The teen was taken to Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health. Families have been notified.

It’s impossible to wonder how far the depths of Republican Party immorality can go.  ” The teacher was shot while taking down the shooter.”  Is that the new central job duty for teachers now?  Police classrooms for kids of parents who are ammosexuals?

The teachers of Indiana have released a statement that says they want no thoughts and prayers.  They want action!

The Indiana State Teachers Association released a statement following the shooting:

“Our hearts go out to the students, educators, families and community members of Noblesville who this morning faced a senseless act of gun violence at Noblesville West Middle School. We understand at least one student and an adult may be injured, and we are praying for the best.

This national crisis has landed in our backyard. We all have a responsibility to keep our kids safe from violence, and it’s unconscionable that they live in fear that one day their school may be next. When is enough, enough?

Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough to keep our students and educators safe. We need to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people. We now know that it is up to communities, families, activists, educators and the students themselves to stand up and demand that those who are trusted with protecting them do their jobs.”

Exactly, enough should be enough. But, hey, the party of “family values” values indentured servitude too.  Tax dollars are being used to turn aides into virtual servants.

Freshman Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) and his wife turned the congressman’s staff into personal servants, multiple former aides told POLITICO — assigning them tasks from grocery shopping to fetching the congressman’s clothes to caring for their pet dog, all during work hours.

POLITICO has spoken with four former staffers who detailed a deeply dysfunctional office, where the congressman and his wife, Flanna, often demanded that staff run personal errands outside their typical congressional duties. The couple called on staff to pick up groceries, chauffeur Garrett’s daughters to and from his Virginia district, and fetch clothes that the congressman forgot at his Washington apartment. They were even expected to watch and clean up after Sophie, their Jack Russell-Pomeranian mix, the aides said.

The staffers said feared that if they refused Garrett or his wife’s orders — both were known for explosive tempers — they would struggle to advance in their careers. It wasn’t just full-time staff: many of the allegedly inappropriate requests were made of interns, the former aides said.

“I didn’t know who I was working for: was I working for him? Was I working for her?” said one of those staffers who, like others interviewed for this story, asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “We became their gofers.”

It all comes from the top of the rotting head of the fish. This WAPO Op-Ed is from former Republican Jennifer Ruben.  The hypocrisy, greed, and love of power sends a stench smelled round the world.

Speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) pronounced that “there is a deeply serious problem we see right now within our society.” What might that be? “We see moral relativism becoming more and more pervasive in our culture,” he declared. “Identity politics and tribalism have grown on top of this. All of it has been made more prevalent by 21st-century technology. And there is plenty of money to be made on making it worse.”

One doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream. Ryan’s lecturing about truth and tribalism comes the day after the president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, literally said “truth is relative“; during an episode in which the president has made up a fake scandal about the FBI “spying on his campaign”; and in an administration in which the president has lied more than 3,000 timessince taking office. Ryan denounces tribalism but supports the efforts of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to smear the FBI and interfere with a legitimate investigation of the president and his cronies. Ryan denounces money in politics as we learn the president’s lawyer Michael Cohen had a lucrative business hitting up corporations and foreign governments for money. Ryan grouses about moral relativism but did not support a resolution condemning the president’s comparison of neo-Nazis to anti-Nazi protesters, because doing so would have just devolved into partisanship or something.

Speaking of money in politics, has Ryan called for a single hearing on the president’s foreign emoluments? On the Trump family’s conflicts of interest? On Jared Kushner’s receipt of two jumbo loans shortly after he met with principals of the lenders?

What would you expect from a man who considers ‘The Virtue of Selfishness” to be his personal moral guide?  There is, of course, no doubt our President and all around him are corrupt as hell.

Eleven days before the presidential inauguration last year, a billionaire Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin visited Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet with Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, according to video footage and another person who attended the meeting.

In Mr. Cohen’s office on the 26th floor, he and the oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, discussed a mutual desire to strengthen Russia’s relations with the United States under President Trump, according to Andrew Intrater, an American businessman who attended the meeting and invests money for Mr. Vekselberg. The men also arranged to see one another at the inauguration, the second of their three meetings, Mr. Intrater said.

Days after the inauguration, Mr. Intrater’s private equity firm, Columbus Nova, awarded Mr. Cohen a $1 million consulting contract, a deal that has drawn the attention of federal authorities investigating Mr. Cohen, according to people briefed on the inquiry

Why would any one vote for a candidate that requires a ‘fixer’ and who has so many mob ties? How can any one defend this let alone any one sworn to uphold the US Constitution?  How can any person who has to work for a living support this kind of policy?

Or any parent support this kind of policy?

And why are these children still missing?

The Trump administration recently announced a new, get-tough policy that will separate parents from their children if the family is caught crossing the border illegally.

It was a big news story. So big it overshadowed the fact that the federal government has lost — yes, lost — 1,475 migrant children in its custody.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress that within 48 hours of being taken into custody the children are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which finds places for them to stay.

“They will be separated from their parent,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

“Just like we do in the United States every day,” Nielsen replie

Except that the states, unlike the federal government, have systems in place to better screen the people who become guardians of the children and much better ways to keep track of those children.

And not lose them.

That is what happened to 1,475 minors swept up at the border and taken into custody by the federal government.

Is this how a great nation treats its chidren?  Is this the kind of life we want children to have in this country?

We have a law enforcement crisis.  But, it’s not related to the FBI is investigating the Treason curious President.  It’s how law enforcement treats racial and ethnic minorities in this country.

Republicans, touting themselves as the party of law and order, have long aligned themselves with the law-enforcement and intelligence communities. Just before the presidential election, Trump’s newest lawyer and spokesman Rudy Giuliani defended the FBI against criticism about the agency’s handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. FBI agents “don’t look at it politically,” he said at the time. He frequently touted his ties to the bureau, and claimed to have insider knowledge. In an interview with CNN, in August 2016, Giuliani said FBI agents “talk to me all the time.” In another interview with Fox, days before the election, Giuliani said the FBI agents were “outraged” with Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe. In a radio interview unearthed by The Daily Beast, Giuliani described “a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI” among agents who he claimed disagreed with the decision to clear Clinton of criminal charges. The intelligence community frequently tries to position itself as apolitical, but public opinion of intelligence agencies has in recent decades been clearly divided on partisan lines. Those views have clearly shifted.

Gallup polling late last year found that about half of Republicans said the FBI does an excellent or good job, down 13 percentage points since 2014. At the same time, the polling for Democrats who said the FBI does a good or excellent job was up nine points to 69 percent, compared with 60 percent in 2014. “The partisan shift in views suggests Trump’s and other Republicans’ efforts to cast doubt on the FBI’s professionalism and portray it as a partisan agency have been somewhat successful among their supporters,” Gallup’s RJ Reinhart wrote.

In the 22 months since the FBI launched its counterintelligence investigation into potential coordination between members of Trump’s campaign and Russia, Trump has attacked his own intelligence and law-enforcement communities far more often than he has condemned Moscow for its election interference. The president has chided the FBI, former FBI Director James Comey, Mueller, the Russia “witch hunt,” and the “deep state” in more than four dozen tweets since April alone. He used Twitter to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first and only time on April 8. On March 21, Trump tweeted: “Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing.” On April 2, he called the FBI and Justice Department’s desire to withhold sensitive information related to the ongoing investigation “an embarrassment to our country

This is what runs for office in Trump and Ryan’s party of “family values”:   ‘GOP House candidate in Illinois is a 9/11 truther, said Beyonce had ties to the Illuminati.’  They are the country’s unhinged and the country’s most extreme religionists.

The Republican nominee for a US House seat in Illinois has said the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job and that singer Beyonce Knowles has ties to the Illuminati.

Bill Fawell is running against incumbent Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos in Illinois’ 17th District, where she won by 20 points in 2016 even though the district also voted narrowly for Donald Trump. Fawell won his uncontested primary in March. He has not reported any fundraising to the Federal Election Commission, per publicly available records.

A KFile review reveals Fawell, a real estate broker, pushed conspiracy theories in blogs and his 2012 book, “New American Revolution.”

In his book, Fawell pushed a conspiracy theory that 7 World Trade Center collapsed as part of a controlled demolition and the attacks were a plot to destroy documents.

“Go to YouTube and punch in ‘Building #7’ It’s the third building that went down with the twin towers on 9/11,” Fawell wrote. “Nothing hit this building, not a thing, and it fell entirely upon its own. If it looks like a standard commercial implosion demolition, it’s because that is exactly what it is.”

“It’s interesting to note that the clandestine branch of the CIA was housed on the top floor,” he added. “No personnel were lost, but any and all documents were destroyed, just like a giant shredder. The Pentagon was hit in a wing being remodeled (but few people), that held a mountain of paperwork regarding 1 trillion dollars which the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was having trouble accounting for. That mountain of paperwork became a pile of ash.”

In a February 2013 post on the blog of a political action committee he established in 2012 called Elect a New Congress, Fawell said that Beyonce’s husband, rapper Jay-Z, “has a long history of serving up the godless Illuminati” and shared a YouTube video that speculated that Beyonce’s upcoming halftime performance at the Super Bowl would have Illuminati symbolism.

The Illuminati is a secret society that serves as the basis for a popular conspiracy theory that alleges that many of the world’s leaders and celebrities are masterminding world events.

In the same blog post, Fawell said that the previous Super Bowl’s halftime show, performed by Madonna, was satanic and influenced by the Illuminati. He also called Madonna a “narcissist skank with the crooked teeth.”

In an interview with CNN, Fawell stood by his blog posts and the theories he espoused on them. He said that Jay-Z and Beyonce expressed their support for the Illuminati in their videos, and that singer Taylor Swift had as well.

But, such is the life of any one that only listens to Trump and Fox News. “Fox’s favorite new pro-gun pundit is a birther who hates gay people” and just happens to be a black man.  This is from Oliver Willis at share blue.

Fox News and the NRA are promoting a pro-gun birther pundit who says gay people are “devil-worshipping child molesters,” black Democrats are “slaves,” the student survivors of the Parkland shooting are “silly little immature media prosti-tots,” and Michelle Obama is a man.

Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt is so impressed by him, she suggested he run for office.

Video of Mark Keith Robinson’s angry rant to his city council in North Carolina has gone viral over the last few days, assisted by the right-wing media, the NRA, and even a Republican member of Congress.

But Robinson has a slew of social media posts that quickly reveal him to be an extremist with bizarre theories and a burning hatred for the survivors of the Parkland school shooting.

A quick visit to Robinson’s Facebook account, where he shows off his NRA hat and touts his membership in the organization, would have exposed his strange rantings. They were not hard to find.

He believes a “big push to Marxist Socialism” is underway in America, and that “hammering of the NRA” and how stories about mass shooters are reported are evidence of this conspiracy.

Robinson wrote that “since the end of World War Two this nation has been slowly poisoned” with “the poison of the Marxist” in “school, in the news, in the movies and television, in music, and even in church.”

He described the teenage activists who organized the March for Our Lives after the Parkland shooting as “silly little immature media prosti-tots” who “need to grab a passy (sic), have seat in time out, and shut up.” The students are “simply making irritating noise” when they call for reforms to reduce gun violence, he claimed.

How have we gotten to the point where on group of people actually do nothing all day but listen to a  “news” channel that pushes nothing but conspiracy theories?  What happens to a country when the press has to daily cover a president who lies and creates his own conspiracy theories like the current “the deep state and Obama planted spies in my campaign?”

This is how conservative media transformed a small news item into a full-blown conspiracy theory that the president (apparently) believes to be true.
The plot goes like this: During the summer of 2016, on the clandestine orders of then-president Barack Obama, the FBI and CIA hatched an ambitious plan to topple the Trump campaign from the inside. In a scandal of unprecedented scope, Democratic politicians commandeered American counterintelligence resources to spy on their primary political opponent and boost Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the election. The Russia investigation that has dominated headlines for nearly two years is, in fact, a desperate smokescreen conjured up by terrified Deep State actors to conceal evidence of their own wrongdoing, and to frame the president for heinous crimes he didn’t commit.
On May 8, The Washington Post reported on the White House’s decision to back the Justice Department’s withholding of information from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, on the grounds that disclosure would expose the identity of “a U.S. citizen who has provided information to the FBI and CIA.” The authors added, though, that the individual had been a source of information used by the special counsel’s office—and that it was unclear whether Trump knew this “key fact” when his administration chose to side with law enforcement.
It didn’t take long for him to find out. Almost immediately, the right-wing-media ecosystem began laundering and repackaging this news item, weaving its constituent elements together with Trumpian talking points until a full-blown conspiracy theory worthy of the president’s tweets emerged on the other side. This metamorphosis is what would happen if a word cloud sourced from a Trump rally were used in a giant game of telephone—but one in which the gibberish end result were then broadcast as news to hundreds of millions of recipients.
How did this happen?

Go read the article at GQ.  It’s a tick tock of how Fox and the Russian Potted Plant blew up the story into a full blow pack of lies. At Vox, we have this: “Spygate,” the false allegation that the FBI had a spy in the Trump campaign, explained Stefan Halper, a professor and FBI informant, didn’t “spy” on Trump. Here’s what actually happened.”  Read it and arrive at this scary conclusion:

On this, Trump has a point: A ginned-up controversy is about as politically useful to him as a real scandal would be.

Turning public schools into armed authoritarian institutions that enforce things like saying pledges, praying, and memorizing false history is exactly what DeVos is planning to do. If she can’t, then she’ll take the money from schools that won’t and send it to private schools that do.

Today, we face more challenges than ever before. To me, the essential question is still is this what I want the youngest, most vulnerable among us to face as they grow up?

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Thursday Reads: Stupidity, Insane Conspiracy Theories . . . And Baby Animals

Posted: May 24, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, Surreality, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 51 Comments

Baby penguins

Good Afternoon!!

It’s hard to believe things could get any crazier, but I think maybe Trump is going to find ways to make it happen. It’s so exhausting, that I spent some time this morning looking at photos of baby animals. As always, it calmed me down somewhat. I hope these pictures will do the same for you.

The big news last night was the latest Devin Nunes insanity, but this morning that has been eclipsed by threats exchanged between Pence and North Korea. So for now, the planned summit between Trump and Kim John Un is cancelled. Politico reports:

President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that was scheduled for next month, saying Kim’s “tremendous anger and open hostility” made the historic meeting untenable.

“Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote to Kim in a letter released by the White House.

Baby Camel

In the letter, the U.S. leader thanked Kim for the “wonderful dialogue” that had developed in recent weeks between the two nations while leaving the door open to a rescheduled summit in the future.

“If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write,” the president said. “The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth.”

I still do a double take every time I see the words “President Donald Trump.” This can’t be happening, but it is. You can read the letter at the Politico link.

North Korea had threatened to cancel the meeting because of remarks made by Mike Pence on Fox News. CNN:

US Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea that it could end up like Libya if it fails to make a nuclear deal with Washington.

“There was some talk about the Libyan model last week, and you know, as the President made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal,” Pence said Monday.

Baby DonkeyWhen it was noted that the comparison could be interpreted as a threat, Pence told Fox News: “Well, I think it’s more of a fact.”

Previous comments, by President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, that the administration was looking at Libya as a potential example for North Korea to follow, provoked alarm in Pyongyang.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to abandon his nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief in the early 2000s. Within years, Gadhafi was overthrown and killed by rebels backed by Washington.

A North Korean official responded by calling Pence “stupid” and a “political dummy.”

A North Korean official has lashed out at US Vice President Mike Pence and said Pyongyang is ready for a nuclear showdown if dialogue with the United States fails.

Choe Son Hui, a vice-minister in the North Korean Foreign Ministry, said if the US continued on its current path, she would suggest to North Korea‘s leadership that they reconsider the planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Baby Skunk

“Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States,” Choe said in comments carried by North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency Thursday.Choe was responding to comments by Pence made Monday during a Fox News interview that she deemed “unbridled and impudent.

So, as Trump says repeatedly, “we’ll see what happens.”

Some Twitter reactions:

The art of deal folks! Trump just gave a little speech about the cancellation with Pence looking on adoringly.

So we’re still not sure what’s going on with Devin Nunes’ phony meeting to supposedly get classified information about an FBI informant who was asked to look into concerning contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign. First it was going to be a meeting with just Intel officials, Nunes, and Trey Gowdy, no Democrats allowed. Then after Democrats and some Republicans objected, the White House agreed to have two meetings–the Nunes/Gowdy meeting followed by a briefing the Gang of Eight. Now apparently Adam Schiff will be included in the first meeting.

MSNBC is reporting that Schiff was seen going into the DOJ for the 12PM meeting. Vox is reporting that Paul Ryan will also be in the noon meeting, but I haven’t seen reports of him entering the DOJ.

We don’t yet know if John Kelly was included in the meeting, which would be completely inappropriate. Still Kelly doesn’t need to be there, because Nunes will report everything to Trump anyway. I haven’t heard anything about who will be in 2PM meeting yet. Paul Ryan has said he won’t be there.

Baby Flamingo

If you didn’t see Rachel Maddow’s show on Tuesday, I’m sure you’ve heard about her interview with James Clapper, in which the former Intel chief said that Russian interference in the 2016 election clearly swung the result to Trump. PBS News Hour also interview Clapper: Here’s their report: Russia ‘turned’ election for Trump, Clapper believes.

Russians not only affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election — they decided it, says James Clapper, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, and during the 2016 vote.

“To me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that they didn’t affect the election, and it’s my belief they actually turned it,” he told the PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff on Wednesday.

Clapper, who chronicles his life and career in his new book, “Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence,” said Russians are “are bent on undermining our fundamental system here. And when a foreign nation, particularly an adversary nation, gets involved as much as they did in our political process, that’s a real danger to this country.”

Clapper also responded to Trump’s idiotic conspiracy theory about “spies” in his campaign.

Clapper called those accusations “distorted.” He said there is a “a big gulf between a spy in the traditional sense — employing spycraft or tradecraft — and an informant who is open about … who he was and what the questions he was asking.”

Baby Porcupine

“The important thing was not to spy on the campaign but rather to determine what the Russians were up to. Were they trying to penetrate to campaign, gain access, gain leverage, gain influence, and that was the concern that the FBI had? … I think they were just doing their job and trying to protect our political system.”

Even Carter Page says he didn’t have any problems with the FBI source who spoke with him. CNN: Carter Page: I ‘never found anything unusual’ in conversations with FBI source.

Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page on Tuesday discussed his encounters with an FBI confidential source during the 2016 campaign, saying he “never found anything unusual.”

Page said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that he first met the individual while attending an academic conference at Cambridge University in July 2016, a week after his visit to Russia.

“I never found anything unusual, whatsoever,” Page told Cooper about their conversations. Page said he and the source stayed in contact for more than a year, including meeting up back in the United States.

Baby Llama

“We would talk about various things that are happening. And, you know, he’s someone who is, you know, long term, someone who had been in, part of the establishment in Republican politics. So typically around the convention time and halfway through a presidential year you keep bringing on more people in terms of potential supporters from the party, etc., and it just seemed like something like that,” he said.

In other news, the NFL released a new rule to prevent players from exercising their their free speech rights. The Daily Beast: The NFL’s New Anthem Policy Is Madness—But the Players Can Stop It.

In its own, typically blinkered and inimitable fashion, the NFL decided to dig in its heels on Wednesday, wrapping itself in the flag, and requiring players who are on the field to stand during the national anthem or face a series of penalties.

It’s a course of action that will fail, and spectacularly so. Ever since Colin Kaepernick—who has since been banished and is currently suing the NFL for collusion—began taking a knee, the league has wrung its hands, hemming and hawing as they tried to devise a means to stanch the tide of largely bad-faith criticism. In the end, they chose to silence its labor force….

Here’s the NFL’s newest solution to the grave and pressing matter of NFL players speaking out against systemic racism and the state-sanctioned violence perpetrated by law enforcement: Previously, all personnel were required to be on the field while someone belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with no further specifications regarding their behavior. That is, if someone wanted to take a knee, the NFL couldn’t do squat.

Baby Gray Parrots

Now the game operations manual has been adjusted, after two days of meetings between NFL owners and the league in Atlanta. Anyone who prefers not to place a hand on his heart during the anthem can remain in the locker room, but if they step on the field, they are required to “stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.”

Read the rest at the link.

Trump was thrilled with the NFL’s stupid decision, and yesterday he suggested that any players who didn’t want to stand and salute the flag should be kicked out of the country. The Washington Post: Trump: NFL players unwilling to stand for anthem maybe ‘shouldn’t be in the country’

NFL players unwilling to stand for the national anthem should be barred from playing and maybe “shouldn’t be in the country,” President Trump said in a television interview that aired Thursday.

The president was reacting to the adoption Wednesday of a new NFL policy that could bring disciplinary action for players who kneel or make other protests during the national anthem.

Trump said he objected to a provision in the new policy that will allow players to stay in the locker room while the song is played, but added: “Still, I think it’s good.”

“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe they shouldn’t be in the country,” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday morning on “Fox & Friends” on Fox News.

I can’t wait until this fascist numbskull is impeached, forced to resign, or preferably sent to prison.

What stories are you following today?

Monday Reads: The Escalating threat to the Constitution and Rule of Law

Posted: May 21, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: | 50 Comments

This from my buddy John Buss @repeat1968 who is the official cartoonist of the MadDog PAC! @maddogpac

Good Afternoon!

Trump is acting like a despot gone wild!  We’re getting decrees via twitter now!

We’re finding out how far KKKremlin Caligula will go to enrich his crime syndicate family and protect his fat orange ass from justice.  My guess is we will never reach the out of bounds boundary unless we vote for accountability in November. Benjamin Wittes–writing for The Atlantic–examines why “The president’s alarming Sunday tweet could genuinely produce a crisis between the White House, on the one hand, and the Justice Department and the FBI, on the other.”

Sunday afternoon, President Trump tweeted an extraordinary threat—extraordinary even by the standards of Donald Trump’s norm-busting use of Twitter and abusive conduct toward the Justice Department and federal investigations: “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes—and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

I normally try to ignore presidential tweets. This one, however, those concerned about the integrity of law enforcement can’t ignore. It requires attention, because it could genuinely produce a crisis between the White House, on the one hand, and the Justice Department and the FBI, on the other.

I don’t want to overstate the matter. It’s possible that it won’t produce this crisis, both because Trump might (as he has done numerous times before) wimp out, and also because—as I’ll explain—he might issue the order in a fashion vague enough to be susceptible to relatively benign interpretation by the Justice Department and the FBI.

That said, the tweet on its own terms is alarming. It’s a statement of intent to issue a specific investigative demand of the Justice Department for entirely self-interested and overtly political reasons. And Trump published it in the absence of a shred of evidence that might support the demanded action. If we take his tweet at face value, the president is announcing that he will on Monday “officially” “demand” the Justice Department launch a specific investigation of activity that would be criminal were it true—about whether the DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign for an improper purpose and whether the Obama administration demanded such action of them.

This is a nakedly corrupt attempt on the part of the president to discredit and derail an investigation of himself at the expense of a human intelligence source to whose protection the FBI and DOJ are committed. My colleague at Lawfare, Quinta Jurecic, and I fleshed out the history of this saga and warned, “Don’t underestimate this episode. It will have a long tail and big consequences—all of them terrible.”

Trump keeps raising the stakes in his attack on his on Justice Department and the Special Counsel assigned to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 election debacle.  His paranoia about the Obama administration is reaching Nixonian levels.

In September, the Justice Department said it had no evidence to support another of Trump’s unsubstantiated assertions: that Obama had ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was unclear what kind of response Trump was seeking from the Justice Department this time, since investigations are kept secret and designed to be insulated from political influence and White House meddling.

A spokeswoman said the Justice Department had asked the Inspector General to expand a review of the process for requesting surveillance warrants to include determining whether there was impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its investigation.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, called Trump’s suspicion of an embedded spy “nonsense.” “His ‘demand’ DOJ investigate something they know to be untrue is an abuse of power, and an effort to distract from his growing legal problems,” Schiff said on Twitter.

In his earlier tweets on Sunday, Trump reprised his attacks on Hillary Clinton, his Democratic challenger in 2016, and maintained that Democrats were not submitted to the same FBI scrutiny.

Trump also implied that the special counsel investigation of whether foreign governments tried to influence the presidential campaign was designed to hurt Republicans in the November congressional elections.

“Now that the Witch Hunt has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the World, they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party,” he wrote.

Trump, who has long complained the Russia probe has overstepped its bounds, referred to reports that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., met in August 2016 with an envoy representing the crown princes of United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

One can only assume that there is such much evidence of illegal activity by Donnie Jerko Junior that the Feds have a cell ready for his skinny ass and jawless face.  The RNC is already picking up the lawyer tab for Hope Hicks and others.

The Republican National Committee paid nearly half a million dollars to a law firm that represents former White House communications director Hope Hicks and others in the Russia investigations, according to a new federal filing.

The RNC’s $451,780 payment to Trout Cacheris & Janis adds to the mounting legal fees associated with the investigations by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and several congressional committees of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Hicks hired Robert Trout, founder of the law firm, as her personal attorney in September, according to news reports. The report of the payments for legal and compliance services, contained in the Federal Election Commission report filed Sunday, is the first public disclosure of RNC payments to the law firm since Hicks hired Trout.

Three lawyers at the firm represent people in addition to Hicks in the investigations by Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence committees, according to the firm’s website. Hicks, who was one of President Trump’s most trusted and loyal aides, was interviewed by Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence panels in early 2018.

…

Among the six-figure donors to the Senate Majority PAC, which supports Senate Democrats, were actor and producer Seth MacFarlane, who gave $2 million; Cynthia Simon-Skjodt, a philanthropist and daughter of the Simon Property Group founder, who gave $1 million; and Bay Area real estate developer George Marcus, who gave $1 million.

Rod Rosenstein has responded in a low key manner in an obvious attempt to appease the President to not do anything more stupid than royal decree by twitter.  AAron Blake–writing for WAPO–wonders if this approach is too weak?

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Rosenstein said in a statement.

The announcement was rather remarkable. Some saw it as deft maneuvering from Rosenstein. It’s certainly a compromise, and it doesn’t give Trump exactly what he wanted. It could effectively run out the clock by burying the matter in a lengthy inspector general’s probe. And it could also avert a potential constitutional crisis that could arise out of Trump ordering DOJ to do something and DOJ declining.

But the concession does risk further politicization of Justice Department business and also unavoidably lends credence to Trump’s allegations. Trump can now credibly say the Justice Department is looking into political bias in the Russia investigation, which risks furthering his goal of undermining the entire investigation. And Rosenstein basically handed him that PR win without much actual evidence.

Many blame the rainy weekend, lack of golf, and boredom for Sunday’s Tweet storm of insanity.  Let’s just say that both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama live in Trumps empty mind rent free. But perhaps these headlines set him off!

Via CNN: “Roger Stone says he is ‘prepared’ for possibility of special counsel indictment”.

From Bloomberg: “Trump Jr. Draws New Mueller Scrutiny Over Foreign Campaign Links”.

Futerfas said George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, was at the meeting with Trump Jr. The Times reported that Nader told Trump Jr. “that the crown princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president.”

The other attendees were Joel Zamel, an Israeli and social media specialist, who presented “a multi-million dollar proposal,” for an effort to help Trump, and GOP donor Erik Prince –a former Navy SEAL, brother of current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater — who arranged the meeting, according to the Times.

Mueller is looking into the interactions and questioning people about that Trump Tower meeting, the newspaper said.

Then, there’s ongoing discussion of how foreign policy seems to align itself with new cash flowing into to Trump and Kushner Private Deals.  Trump’s new China deals appeared after a China investment near a Trump property.  The deals look like complete cave in.

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the administration put its trade war with China “on hold” after two days of talks in Washington that he said had produced an agreement on increased Chinese purchases of American products and measures to make it easier for U.S. companies to operate in China.

Even though the agreement lacked the specific $200 billion reduction in the U.S. trade deficit with China that was Trump’s signature demand on trade, the president halted tariffs he had threatened to impose on $150 billion in Chinese products.

In an earlier sign of softening,Trump directed administration officials to consider easing harsh penalties on a prominent Chinese telecom company that had violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

“It’s a huge disappointment given the expectations,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership between steelworkers and their employers. “It plays right into Beijing’s hands . . . and is more of the same old failed policies we saw under the Bush and Obama administrations.”

Administration officials on Sunday scrambled to cast the Chinese talks as a victory, while some staunch Trump supporters questioned whether Trump had blinked in the first major confrontation with China.

“Not good enough. Time to take the gloves off,” Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steelmaker Nucor, tweeted Saturday.

Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., warned in a tweet Sunday that by continuing to talk while putting the tariffs on hold “#China has outnegotiated the U.S. again.”

Settling for Chinese promises of increased purchases of American goods and improvements in intellectual property laws marked a shift for the administration, which disparaged earlier U.S. diplomatic dialogues with China as fruitless.

He really can’t make deal but he’s the King of the Grift.  Pay to play!  Quid pro Quo! Abuse of Power! Emollients Clause violations!  Campaign Law Violations!  Obstruction of Justice!  Get you Mueller Bingo card set up now!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Lazy Saturday Reads: A Brief Respite From Bad News

Posted: May 19, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 49 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

I slept too late to see any of the royal wedding live, but it sounds like it was wonderful. I don’t follow the royals, but it’s difficult not to be inspired by this wedding of a prince and a mixed-race American woman. Maybe Sam Cooke was right:

There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

And it’s so satisfying to me that so many A-list Americans were invited to the ceremony, and the Trumps were excluded. The royal couple decided not to include any political leaders on the guest list, but I wonder if that decision was mostly about keeping Trump away.

This morning the BBC trolled Trump with a comparison photo.

The sermon at the wedding was an African American minister Michael Curry. The Guardian:

The US minister chosen by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who told royals and celebrities that “love is the way” at their wedding on Saturday has previously spoken out on racial justice, LGBT equality and sexual harassment and exploitation.

In a powerful and entertaining address that left some members of the royal family looking bemused even as others laughed and nodded, Bishop Michael Curry told the service: “There’s power in love. Love can help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will.”

Curry, the most senior figure in the American Episcopal church, part of the global Anglican communion, was one of three clergyman at the wedding. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, took the couple through their marriage vows and the dean of Windsor, David Conner, conducted the service.

Curry is the first African-American to serve as presiding bishop of the predominantly white US Episcopal church, and has recounted his family history as slaves and sharecroppers in North Carolina and Alabama in his autobiography Songs My Grandma Sang.

He told the New York Times in 2016 that when he was training for the priesthood, “the expectation at the time was that if you were a black priest or seminarian, you were going to be serving in black churches. There was a black church world and a white church world. That was the given-ness of racism, not that anybody said anything.”

A gospel choir performed Ben E. King’s iconic tune “Stand By Me.”

ABC News:

Performed by Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir, 20 singers stood Saturday at the west end of Windsor Castle, wearing different shades of pale pink….

The lyrics to “Stand by Me” read:

“When the night has come/And the land is dark/And the moon is the only light we see/No, I won’t be afraid,” the song begins. “Oh, I won’t be afraid/Just as long as you stand, stand by me/So darling, darling, stand by me/Oh, stand by me/Oh stand, stand by me. Stand by me.”

It’s not the first time The Kingdom Choir has performed for British royalty. In fact, they were tapped to perform at the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, celebrating her 50 years on the throne, in 2002.

The multi-denominational choir originates from the South East area of England, according to the group’s Facebook page.

Previously, they’ve performed for other notables, including former President Bill Clinton, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the late Nelson Mandela. They’ve also performed alongside American Gospel artists such as Fred Hammond and Donnie McClurkin along with British acts, including Elton John and The Spice Girls.

The spectacle of the royal wedding was for many Americans a welcome respite from the horrors happening here at home.

The New York Times: In Texas School Shooting, 10 Dead, 10 Hurt and Many Unsurprised.

SANTA FE, Tex. — A nation plagued by a wrenching loop of mass school shootings watched the latest horror play out in this small Southeast Texas town Friday morning, as a young man armed with a shotgun and a .38 revolver smuggled under his coat opened fire on his high school campus, killing 10 people, many of them his fellow students, and wounding 10 more, the authorities said….

It was the worst school shooting since the February assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a young man with an AR-15 rifle left 17 people dead and prompted a wave of nationwide, student-led protests calling on lawmakers to tighten gun laws.

It was barely after 7:30 a.m. at Santa Fe High School, about 35 miles southeast of Houston, when gunfire first resounded through the halls, the opening volley of yet another massacre at an American high school that would leave students, teachers and staff members shocked, and in some cases bloodied. But they were not necessarily surprised.

A video interview with one student, Paige Curry, spread across social media, an artifact of a moment when children have come to expect violence in their schools.

“Was there a part of you that was like, ‘This isn’t real, this is — this would not happen in my school?’” the reporter asked.

The young girl shook her head: “No, there wasn’t.”

“Why so?” the reporter asked.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt — I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

Buried way down in the story was something that should have been in the lead:

Kole Dixon, 16, a sophomore, said he was standing outside history class when the fire alarm suddenly went off. He sprinted out a side door, and heard gunshots in rapid succession over the sound of the fire alarm.

When the shooting stopped, Mr. Dixon said that friends told him that the gunman first entered an art classroom, said “Surprise!” and started shooting. The suspect’s ex-girlfriend was among the people shot in that classroom, he said.

Dakinikat predicted this, and she was right.

The Washington Post: 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service members.

The school shooting near Houston on Friday bolstered a stunning statistic: More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military.

Initial estimates put the number killed at Santa Fe High School at eight. (The death toll has since risen to 10.) We can compare that to figures for the military compiled from Defense Department news releases, including both combat and noncombat deaths. Even excluding non-students who died in school shootings (for example, teachers) the total still exceeds military casualties.

The article notes that the military statistics are complex.

The figures for 2018 do not suggest schools are more dangerous than combat zones. After all, there are more than 50 million students in public elementary and high schools and only about 1.3 million members of the armed forces. So far in 2018, a member of the military has been about 40 times as likely to be killed as someone is to die in a school shooting, including Keller’s revised figures.

That said, it is still the case that 2018 is shaping up to be unusually deadly at schools. Comparing the number of deaths and the number of shooting incidents this year directly with those through May 18 of 2017, that difference is stark.

The number of deaths and school shooting incidents through May 18 are each higher this year than at any point since 2000. There have been three times as many deaths in school shootings so far this year than in the second-most deadly year through May 18, 2005.

Read the rest at the WaPo.

Republicans can never again claim to be patriots after they outed a confidential intelligence source in an effort to protect Trump from the Russia investigation.

The Washington Post Editorial Board: The GOP’s campaign against the FBI makes the nation less safe.

IN THEIR paranoid partisan war on the Justice Department’s Russia probe, President Trump’s allies have been pushing for the dangerous disclosure of national security information, including information about a top-secret FBI and CIA informant. If Mr. Trump took his responsibility to protect the nation seriously, he would tell his allies to be quiet. Instead, he joined them Thursday. “Word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI ‘SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT,’ ” Mr. Trump tweeted, in an apparent reference to the confidential source. “If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”

Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and a former Justice Department official who should know better than to spread such slander, told The Post that the president thinks that there is a law-enforcement conspiracy against him. “The prior government did it, but the present government, for some reason I can’t figure out, is covering it up,” he said. He also said: “I don’t know why the current attorney general and the current director of the FBI want to protect a bunch of renegades that might amount to 20 people at most within the FBI.” Yet Mr. Giuliani admitted Friday that the president does not really know whether the FBI planted anyone in his campaign. CNN also reportedFriday that U.S. officials insist that no informant was embedded.

The GOP’s escalating campaign against the FBI is extremely dangerous. Protecting the country is not just about having the biggest weapons. Trust is a key national security asset. Vast networks of informants relay information to the U.S. government daily. Sometimes their tips prove faulty. Sometimes they prevent terrorist attacks or provide the key piece of information necessary to bring down major criminals. If confidential informants conclude that they cannot rely on the assurances of the U.S. government, they will think twice about sending in tips, wearing wires or approaching malicious actors. That is why intelligence and law enforcement agencies spend vast amounts of time and money protecting the identity of sources and informants.

Click on the link to read the rest.

Politico: Warner: Identifying FBI source to undermine Russia probe could be a crime.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warned Friday that his colleagues could be committing a crime if they obtain the identity of a secret FBI source and use it to undermine the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) raised the alarm in a Friday evening statement, as Republican allies of President Donald Trump have pressed the Justice Department for details about a source believed to have aided the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump campaign contacts with Russians.

“It would be at best irresponsible, and at worst potentially illegal, for members of Congress to use their positions to learn the identity of an FBI source for the purpose of undermining the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in our election,” Warner said. “Anyone who is entrusted with our nation’s highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness of purpose that knowledge deserves.”

Actually, the source was outed by right-wing media sources several days ago, as I learned by Googling his name.

Asha Rangappa at The Washington Post: The FBI didn’t use an informant to go after Trump. They used one to protect him.

President Trump and his allies are outraged at reports that the FBI used an “informant” to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “Really bad stuff!” the president tweeted early Friday. Supporters of the White House claim the FBI’s reported tactics were illegal. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has even subpoenaed the Justice Department for information on who the informant might have been; department and FBI officials say public disclosures of this kind could put sources in danger.

But Trump and his backers are wrong about what it means that the FBI reportedly was using a confidential source to gather information early in its investigation of possible campaign ties to Russia. The investigation started out as a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal one. And relying on a covert source rather than a more intrusive method of gathering information suggests that the FBI may have been acting cautiously — perhaps too cautiously — to protect the campaign, not undermine it.

As a former FBI counterintelligence agent, I know what Trump apparently does not: Counterintelligence investigations have a different purpose than their criminal counterparts. Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI’s counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States. In short, this entails identifying foreign intelligence officers and their network of agents; uncovering their motives and methods; and ultimately rendering their operations ineffective — either by clandestinely thwarting them (say, by feeding back misinformation or “flipping” their sources into double agents) or by exposing them.

The Intelligence community didn’t understand at first that Trump himself was a Russian asset who welcomed interference from a hostile foreign government.

That’s where we are today, and we can only hope that somehow our constitutional form of government will survive.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the news. What stories are you following today?

Tuesday Reads: Trump Has Put American Foreign Policy Up For Sale.

Posted: May 15, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 33 Comments

Good Morning!!

The corruption is right out in the open now. American foreign policy is for sale to highest bidder. On Sunday Trump posted a startling tweet:

EuroNews: Trump tells Commerce Department to help Chinese telecom ZTE.

President Donald Trump said Sunday he has instructed his Commerce Department to help get a Chinese telecommunications company “back into business” after the U.S. government cut off access to its American suppliers.

At issue is that department’s move last month to block the ZTE Corp., a major supplier of telecoms networks and smartphones based in southern China, from importing American components for seven years. The U.S. accused ZTE of misleading American regulators after it settled charges of violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran….

ZTE has asked the department to suspend the seven-year ban on doing business with U.S. technology exporters. By cutting off access to U.S. suppliers of essential components such as microchips, the ban threatens ZTE’s existence, the company has said.

Trump with Chinese president Xi Jinping during China trip

During recent trade meetings in Beijing, Chinese officials said they raised their objections to ZTE’s punishment with the American delegation, which they said agreed to report them to Trump.

The U.S. imposed the penalty after discovering that Shenzhen-based ZTE, which had paid a $1.2 billion fine in the case, had failed to discipline employees involved and paid them bonuses instead.

Why is Trump suddenly so concerned about Chinese jobs? It’s not about U.S. national security; it’s about Trump’s business. HuffPost: Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project.

A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker….

…on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels.

Trump and family with Indonesian business partners

Trump, despite his promises to do so during the campaign, has not divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them.

“You do a good deal for him, he does a good deal for you. Quid pro quo,” said Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush and now a Democratic candidate for Senate in Minnesota.

It sure does look like a quid pro quo, doesn’t it? Or is it just that Trump is a bad deal-maker? We can’t be sure because Trump chose to maintain control of his businesses and refuses to release his tax returns. Read more about Trump’s Indonesia project at the South China Morning Post: Trump Indonesia project is latest stop on China’s Belt and Road.

Gordon Chang at the Daily Beast: Trump Cuts a Great Deal—For China.

The White House looks like it is prepared to give relief to ZTE Corp., the embattled Chinese telecom-equipment maker, in exchange for Beijing lifting tariffs on, and easing non-tariff barriers against, U.S. agricultural products. Moreover, China’s Commerce Department will restart its long-stalled review of Qualcomm’s proposed acquisition of NXP Semiconductors, the Dutch firm.

In addition, The Daily Beast has learned there will be either no penalties or only light ones imposed on China for stealing U.S. intellectual property.

This is a great deal—for China. China gets relief for ZTE for doing nothing more than what it should have been doing all along. And its massive theft of U.S. technology and intellectual property—undoubtedly in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year—goes mostly unpunished.

If the reports of the outlines of the impending agreement are correct, the Trump administration, which prides itself on deal-making, will have accepted one of the worst trade arrangements this century.

Josh Rogin at The Washington Post: China gave Trump a list of crazy demands, and he caved to one of them.

After top Trump officials went to Beijing last month, the Chinese government wrote up a document with a list of economic and trade demands that ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous. On Sunday, President Trump caved to one of those demands before the next round of negotiations even starts, undermining his own objectives for no visible gain.

The Chinese proposal is entitled, “Framework Arrangement on Promoting Balanced Development on Bilateral Trade,” and I obtained an English version of the document, which is the Chinese government’s negotiating position heading into the next round of talks. That round begins this week when Xi Jinping’s special economic envoy Liu He returns to town.

Bullet point 5 is entitled, “Appropriately handing the ZTE case to secure global supply chain.”

So Trump agreed to reverse US policy, but was it really about rewarding China for funding the Trump project in Indonesia? I’d say that’s pretty likely, wouldn’t you?

Trump took a big step in that direction Sunday when he tweeted that he had instructed the Commerce Department to help get ZTE “back into business, fast,” only weeks after the Commerce Department cut off its supply of American components because it violated U.S. sanctions on sales to North Korea and Iran. Trump’s tweet set off a panic both inside and outside the administration among those who worry that Trump is backing down from his key campaign promise to stand up to China’s unfair trade practices and economic aggression.

As Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointed out Monday, the problems with ZTE go well beyond sanctions-busting. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed cutting ZTE and other Chinese “national champion” companies off from U.S. infrastructure development funds because the U.S. intelligence community views their technology as a national security risk.

Guess what folks? Trump doesn’t give a shit about U.S. national security. He cares about money for himself. Period.

Michael Avenatti has had a busy past few days, and I’ve been following the revelations pretty closely. On Sunday Avenatti posted some stills from a C-Span video of Trump Tower during the transition.

Later, he revealed that a Quatari official apparently met with Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn on Dec. 12, 2016.

Mother Jones: Qatari Investor Accused in Bribery Plot Appears With Michael Cohen in Picture Posted by Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer.

Members of the Trump transition team appear to have met on December 12, 2016, with a group from Qatar that included Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, the former Qatari diplomat and current head of a division of Qatar’s massive sovereign wealth fund, who is accused in a recent lawsuit of scheming to bribe Trump administration officials.

Ahmed Al-Rumaihi

On the lawsuit:

Ice Cube, the rapper and actor, and his business partner, Jeff Kwatinetz, recently filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit that includes an allegation that Al-Rumaihi and other Qatari officials who invested in the men’s BIG3 basketball league indicated interest in gaining access to people connected to Trump. “Mr Al-Rumaihi requested I set up a meeting between him, the Qatari government, and Stephen Bannon, and to tell Steve Bannon that Qatar would underwrite all of his political efforts in return for his support,” Kwatinetz said in the court filing. Kwatinetz says he rejected the offer, which he viewed as a bribe.

In response, Kwatinetz claims, “Al-Rumaihi laughed and then stated to me Buthat I shouldn’t be naive, that so many Washington politicians take our money, and stated ‘do you think Flynn turned down our money?’” That’s a reference to Michael Flynn, who was fired as Trump’s national security adviser after lying about his contacts with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

But it appears that other Quatari officials were also in the Dec. 12, 2016 meeting, according to knowledgeable people on Twitter.

Here’s the Wikipedia article on Quatari the foreign minister.

And a third person from Quatar who is also involved in the lawsuit filed by Ice Cube and Kwatinetz was also present.

https://twitter.com/ACoupleOkooks/status/995864743918391296

What the hell is going on? A couple of useful reads:

Slate: Michael Cohen’s Meetings With Michael Flynn and a Qatari Diplomat Might Be the Key to Unlocking the Steele Dossier.

The founder of a three-on-three basketball league who claims he was offered a bribe by a one-time Qatari diplomat to arrange access to Steve Bannon said on Monday that the former diplomat is the same person photographed with Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in December 2016.

Big 3 basketball league co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz told Slate that he recognized Ahmed Al-Rumaihi in photos with Cohen that were tweeted Sunday by attorney Michael Avenatti.

“Yes, 100 percent,” Kwatinetz said when asked if he thought the videos and photos were of Ahmed Al-Rumaihi. Last week, Kwatinetz, who is a co-founder of Big 3 with Ice Cube, accused Al-Rumaihi in a sworn court declaration of making an attempted bribe and of suggestively boasting that Flynn had not refused “our money.” [….]

[Michael] Avenatti tweeted the images that appeared to show Al-Rumaihi entering an elevator in Trump Tower on Dec. 12, 2016, five days after news broke of the multibillion-dollar sale of 19.5 percent of the Russian fossil fuel giant Rosneft to Swiss trading firm Glencore and Qatar’s sovereign investment fund. (Glencore and Qatar sold off a major stake of Rosneft to China last year, but earlier this month Qatar bought back in to the Russian company for a total stake of 19 percent.)

The Rosneft deal features prominently in an investigative dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. A central claim of the Steele dossier was that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, during an alleged meeting with Rosneft officials in summer 2016, promised that a Trump administration would undo sanctions against Russia, in part, in exchange for brokerage of the Rosneft deal. In May 2016, Al-Rumaihi reportedly took over as head of a major division of the wealth fund ultimately involved in the Rosneft deal.

The allegations in the Steele dossier, made in October 2016, suggested a future quid-pro-quo deal between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump has been conspicuously resistant to Russian sanctions despite widespread congressional support from both parties. As Jed Shugerman has noted in Slate, during congressional testimony Page acknowledged meeting with Andrey Baranov, the head of investor relations at Rosneft, during his July 2016 trip to Russia and acknowledged “briefly” discussing the sale of Rosneft as well as there being “some general reference” to sanctions. As Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand has reported, Page also acknowledged meeting with top Rosneft managers in Moscow on Dec. 8—four days before the apparent Cohen–Al-Rumaihi meeting and one day after the completion of the Rosneft deal.

Jed Shugarman has posted a detailed Russia/Qatar/Trump Timeline in a Google doc that will be updated with new information. On his blog, Shugarman posted this introduction to the timeline:

I have produced a Google Doc timeline, based on publicly available reports and documents, of the alleged bribery scheme between Russia and Trump associates, possibly through Qatar’s purchase of Rosneft….

Russia’s sale of Rosneft Gas is the key event in the Steele Dossier’s quid pro quo allegation. On June 2016, Russians allegedly offer Trump associates a massive payout derived from the commissions on Russia’s sale of 19.5% of state energy giant Rosneft ($11 billion), in return for lifting sanctions. Weeks after the election, Flynn and Kushner are in contact with Russian officials. Then Russia sells a 19.5% stake in Rosneft in a concealed deal, eventually revealed to be with Qatar. Immediately after the deal, a Qatari diplomat allegedly met with Cohen and Flynn at Trump Tower.

In January 2017, payments from Russian oligarch to Michael Cohen begin, and Flynn reportedly texts associates that Trump will lift Russian sanctions, opening up huge personal profits. But around this time, the Dossier is published. Kushner sought money directly from Qatar, because it is possible that Qatar was backing off of the deal, wary of its exposure. In April 2017, Kushner reportedly escalated a Gulf state crisis between Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar with a risk of regional war. A few months later, the Qatar-backed Apollo Group delivers $184 million to Kushner, who has been in financial crisis over a disastrous purchase of 666 5th Ave.

Remember, Robert Mueller and his investigators have likely known all this for a long time and they probably know many more details. Michael Flynn has been cooperating for months, and indictments involving Michael Cohen are very likely in the works.

What stories are you following today?

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