Author Archives: News Sources

Flynn holds call with Pence amid calls for national security adviser’s resignation

The Washington Post reports: National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that country’s ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny that he had done so, an administration official said.

The conversations took place as senior Democrats in Congress called for existing investigations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to expand in scope to scrutinize Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak weeks before the Trump administration took office.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that if the allegations are proved, Flynn should step down. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier

CNN reports: For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump’s inauguration.

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.

But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Jeff Sessions’s fear of Muslim immigrants

Adam Serwer writes: One of the first things Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions promised the Senate Judiciary Committee was independence.

Donald Trump ran on a vision of “law and order” that included violence against protesters at his rallies, the promised incarceration of his political opponent, and a pledge to ban adherents of an entire religious faith from the country. At his confirmation hearing, Sessions sought to reassure his colleagues that, despite the then-president-elect’s bluster, the Alabama senator would preserve the rule of law and the traditional independence of the Justice Department from the man who nominated him, if need be.

“You simply have to help the president do things that he might desire in a lawful way and have to be able to say no, both for the country, for the legal system and for the president, to avoid situations that are not acceptable,” Sessions told the committee on January 10. “I understand that duty.”

On January 30, the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, concluded that she faced such a situation, telling Department of Justice attorneys not to defend a controversial executive order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Trump dismissed her from her post.

That order, however, appears consistent with Sessions’s long record of public statements on Muslim immigration and his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions was among the first to defend Trump’s proposals to ban Muslims from the country, and has long portrayed Muslim immigrants to the United States as posing a particular threat. He has, moreover, issued a series of releases and public statements implying that the overall level of Muslim immigration to the United States, and not just the views of particular immigrants, should be a matter of public concern. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russia considers returning Snowden to U.S. to ‘curry favor’ with Trump

NBC News reports: U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a “gift” to President Donald Trump — who has called the NSA leaker a “spy” and a “traitor” who deserves to be executed.

That’s according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to “curry favor” with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration.

Snowden’s ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Trump vexed by challenges, scale of government

Politico reports: Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.

In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks.

The administration’s rocky opening days have been a setback for a president who, as a billionaire businessman, sold himself to voters as being uniquely qualified to fix what ailed the nation. Yet it has become apparent, say those close to the president, most of whom requested anonymity to describe the inner workings of the White House, that the transition from overseeing a family business to running the country has been tough on him. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Trump, changing course on Taiwan, gives China an upper hand

The New York Times reports: By backing down in a telephone call with China’s president on his promise to review the status of Taiwan, President Trump may have averted a confrontation with America’s most powerful rival.

But in doing so, he handed China a victory and sullied his reputation with its leader, Xi Jinping, as a tough negotiator who ought to be feared, analysts said.

“Trump lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, and an adviser to China’s State Council. “This will be interpreted in China as a great success, achieved by Xi’s approach of dealing with him.”

Mr. Trump’s reversal on Taiwan is likely to reinforce the views of those in China who see him as merely the latest American president to come into office talking tough on China, only to bend eventually to economic reality and adopt more cooperative policies. That could mean more difficult negotiations with Beijing on trade, North Korea and other issues.

At the same time, the Chinese leadership will view statements by Mr. Trump with even greater skepticism. “Even though Trump has said he will support the ‘One China’ policy, China cannot fully trust him,” said Yan Xuetong, dean of the school of international relations at Tsinghua University, in Beijing. “Even his own people don’t trust him.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Turkey’s Erdoğan paves way for April vote on consolidation of power

The Guardian reports: Turkey’s president has approved a bill granting him broad new powers under an executive presidential system, paving the way for a referendum in mid-April on the proposed changes.

The 18-article bill was passed by parliament last month without garnering the two-thirds majority needed to become law. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval allows the proposed constitutional changes to go to a public vote.

Senior Turkish officials have said the referendum is likely to take place on 16 April.

The constitutional overhaul would allow Erdoğan to run for two more terms in office, potentially governing as a powerful executive until 2029. It is backed by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) and its nationalist allies in parliament.[Continue reading…]

ThinkProgress reports: President Donald Trump’s disdain for liberal democratic norms is something he shares with authoritarian Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Turkish opposition leader told ThinkProgress.

“During the election process [Trump] was polarizing and scandalizing, but he convinced people to vote for him,” said Turkish MP Hişyar Özsoy, vice co-chair the left-leaning Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). “Erdogan also.”

Özsoy said Trump has sent a message that human rights, democracy, and the rule of law aren’t among his top priorities. Erdogan has taken a similar stance over the course of his 12 years in power, as he consolidated his rule over Turkey by dismantling the democratic process and disregarding human rights. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

In call with Putin, Trump denounced Obama-era nuclear arms treaty

Reuters reports: In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.

Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: The White House is probing ongoing leaks of President Trump’s private conversations with foreign leaders, including a report Thursday that he criticized a 2011 U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty during last month’s call with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“We’re looking into the situation, and it’s very concerning,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, deploring “the idea that you can’t have a conversation without that information getting out. . . . We’re trying to conduct serious business on behalf of the country.”

On the same day as the Putin call, Jan. 28, The Washington Post reported that Trump told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that their conversation was “the worst call by far” and blasted him over a pending refu­gee deal negotiated by the Obama administration. Tensions were also reported during a call the day before with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How Trump is helping ISIS

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump has set out to crush Islamic State when it is already at a low ebb, but Islamists and some analysts say his actions could strengthen the ultra-hardline group by creating new recruits and inspiring attacks on U.S. soil.

IS has been weakened in recent months by battlefield defeats, the loss of territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya, and a decline in its finances and the size of its fighting forces.

Trump’s pledge to eradicate “Islamic extremism” looks at first sight to be yet another blow to Islamic State’s chances of success.

But Middle East experts and IS supporters say his election triumph could help revive the group’s fortunes. They also believe his move late last month to temporarily ban refugees and bar nationals from seven mainly Muslim countries could work in the group’s favor.

The executive order, on which IS has been silent, is in limbo after being overturned by a judge. But whether or not it is reinstated, it has angered Muslims across the world who, despite Trump’s denials, see it as evidence that he and his administration are Islamophobic. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Why Sweden is so worried about the Trump administration

Anne Applebaum writes: A winter evening in Stockholm, lights glinting in the harbor, snow falling outside. “And what about us,” I am asked, “up here in the North? What happens to us?” My Swedish companions are journalists, analysts and civil servants, people who care about their country’s national security. Though neither elite nor wealthy, they do share a worldview. They think their country’s prosperity depends on the European Union and its open markets. They also think their safety depends on the United States’ commitment to Europe. And since President Trump took office, they suddenly find themselves staring into an unfathomable abyss.

It’s not party politics that bother them: These are conservatives, by Swedish standards, and Republican presidents have suited them in the past. Trump’s tweeting and bragging don’t bother them that much either, though they find these unseemly. The real problem is deeper: Sweden’s economic and political model depends on Pax Americana, the set of American-written and American-backed rules that have governed transatlantic commerce and politics for 70 years — and they fear Trump will bring Pax Americana crashing down. Nor are they alone: Variations of this conversation are taking place in every European capital and many Asian capitals too.

The Swedes do have specific, parochial concerns, and one of them is Russia. For the past several years, Russia has played games with their air force and navy, buzzing Swedish air space and sending submarines along the coast. Jittery Swedes have brought back civil defense drills, and until November, it looked as though other changes were coming. Once, Swedish neutrality was a useful fiction, both for them and for the United States, because it gave Sweden a role as a negotiator. Now, Swedish support for joining NATO is at an all-time high. But they seem to be late to the party. If the U.S. president feels lukewarm about NATO, then what is the point? [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Fukuyama describes how democracy is unraveling

Ishaan Tharoor writes: Francis Fukuyama, an acclaimed American political philosopher, entered the global imagination at the end of the Cold War when he prophesied the “end of history” — a belief that, after the fall of communism, free-market liberal democracy had won out and would become the world’s “final form of human government.” Now, at a moment when liberal democracy seems to be in crisis across the West, Fukuyama, too, wonders about its future.

“Twenty five years ago, I didn’t have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward,” said Fukuyama in a phone interview. “And I think they clearly can.”

Fukuyama’s initial argument (which I’ve greatly over-simplified) framed the international zeitgeist for the past two decades. Globalization was the vehicle by which liberalism would spread across the globe. The rule of law and institutions would supplant power politics and tribal divisions. Supranational bodies like the European Union seemed to embody those ideals.

But if the havoc of the Great Recession and the growing clout of authoritarian states like China and Russia hadn’t already upset the story, Brexit and the election of President Trump last year certainly did.

Now the backlash of right-wing nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic is in full swing. This week, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced her candidacy for president with a scathing attack on the liberal status quo. “Our leaders chose globalization, which they wanted to be a happy thing. It turned out to be a horrible thing,” Le Pen thundered.

Fukuyama recognizes the crisis. “Globalization really does seem to produce these internal tensions within democracies that these institutions have some trouble reconciling,” he said. Combined with grievances over immigration and multiculturalism, it created room for the “demagogic populism” that catapulted Trump into the White House. That has Fukuyama deeply concerned. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Court refuses to reinstate Muslim ban, dealing Trump another legal loss

The New York Times reports: A three-judge federal appeals panel on Thursday unanimously refused to reinstate President Trump’s targeted travel ban, delivering the latest and most stinging judicial rebuke to his effort to make good on a campaign promise and tighten the standards for entry into the United States.

The ruling was the first from an appeals court on the travel ban, and it was focused on the narrow question of whether it should be blocked while courts consider its lawfulness. The decision is likely to be quickly appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

That court remains short-handed and could deadlock. A 4-to-4 tie in the Supreme Court would leave the appeals court’s ruling in place.

Within minutes of the judges’ decision, the president angrily tweeted his intent to appeal.


[Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Trump’s pipeline and America’s shame

Bill McKibben writes: The Trump Administration is breaking with tradition on so many fronts — renting out the family hotel to foreign diplomats, say, or imposing travel restrictions on the adherents of disfavored religions — that it seems noteworthy when it exhibits some continuity with American custom. And so let us focus for a moment, before the President’s next disorienting tweet, on yesterday’s news that construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline will be restarted, a development that fits in perfectly with one of this country’s oldest cultural practices, going back to the days of Plymouth Rock: repressing Native Americans.

Just to rehash the story briefly, this pipeline had originally been set to carry its freight of crude oil under the Missouri River, north of Bismarck. But the predominantly white citizens of that town objected, pointing out that a spill could foul their drinking water. So the pipeline’s parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, remapped the crossing for just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. This piece of blatant environmental racism elicited a remarkable reaction, eventually drawing representatives of more than two hundred Indian nations from around the continent to a great encampment at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, near where the pipeline was set to go. They were joined, last summer and into the fall, by clergy groups, veterans groups, environmental groups — including 350.org, the climate-advocacy organization I co-founded — and private citizens, who felt that this was a chance to begin reversing four centuries of literally and figuratively dumping on Native Americans. And the protesters succeeded. Despite the German shepherds and pepper spray let loose by E.T.P.’s security guards, despite the fire hoses and rubber bullets employed by the various paramilitary police forces that assembled, they kept a nonviolent discipline that eventually persuaded the Obama Administration to agree to further study of the plan. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Kellyanne Conway promotes Ivanka Trump brand, raising ethics concerns

The New York Times reports: Kellyanne Conway, one of President Trump’s top advisers, may have violated federal ethics rules on Thursday by urging people to buy fashion products marketed by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, legal experts said.

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would say,” Ms. Conway, whose title is counselor to the president, said in an interview with Fox News. “I’m going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today everybody, you can find it online.”

Federal ethics rules state that an employee of the government’s executive branch “shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.” Legal experts said Ms. Conway appeared to have violated those rules.

“You couldn’t think of a clearer example of violating the ban of using your government position as kind of a walking billboard for products or services offered by a private individual,” said Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “She is attempting quite crudely to enrich Ivanka and therefore the president’s family.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Hackers get burned in deal with Russian spy agency

The Associated Press reports: For several years a group of hackers have been posting letters and documents stolen from senior Russian officials with impunity. And then the nation’s spy agency tracked them down and offered them a deal.

A member of the Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty) group said in an interview broadcast Thursday that the hackers accepted the offer from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the top KGB successor agency: show their spoils before publishing in exchange for protection.

But somehow the things went wrong for the group, and its leader and two other men have ended up behind bars.

Alexander Glazastikov, who spoke to the independent Dozhd TV from Tallinn, Estonia, where he’s seeking political asylum, said his group had no connection to the hacking of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 U.S. election campaign. Former President Barack Obama’s administration had accused Russia of launching the hacking campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win, accusations that the Kremlin has denied.

“Our group has never attacked targets outside Russia,” Glazastikov told Dozhd. “We weren’t interested in the Democrats or the Republicans.”

He didn’t say if the FSB officers who approached the group were those who were arrested in December on charges of spying for the United States. The arrests reported by Russian media outlets fueled speculation that the officers could have been connected to hacking the Democrats. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russia sends Syria its largest missile delivery to date, U.S. officials say

Fox News reports: Russia has just sent Syria the largest shipment of missiles between the two countries to date, the latest delivery between the two allies that could further change the stakes in the Middle East, U.S. officials told Fox News on Wednesday.

The shipment of 50 SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus along the Mediterranean Sea in the past two days, the officials said.

“For someone winding down a war, that’s a big missile shipment,” one official said. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

ISIS celebrates its success in scaring Americans — calls Trump’s travel ban ‘The Blessed Ban’

Business Insider reports: The terrorist group ISIS has reportedly branded President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration “the Blessed Ban” as it seemingly proves that the West is at war with Islam.

New York Times terrorism correspondent Rukmini Callimachi reported from Iraq that ISIS has been talking about Trump’s travel ban, which bars refugees and citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries — identified as hot spots for terrorism — from entering the US.

“I reported here in Nov/Dec of last year,” Callimachi tweeted on Wednesday. “Guess what’s different on this trip? Everywhere I go, Iraqis want to ask about the visa ban.”

Callimachi is in Mosul, ISIS’ stronghold in Iraq that is slowly being liberated from the terrorist group.

She said a resident of western Mosul, which is still under ISIS control, told her translator in a phone call that ISIS is also discussing the ban.

“The resident said ISIS has been openly celebrating the ban,” Callimachi tweeted. “They’ve even coined a phrase for it: الحظر المبارك — or ‘The Blessed Ban.'”

Callimachi explained why: “ISIS sees this as *their* doing. They succeeded in scaring the daylight out of America.”

“ISIS, according to this resident of Western Mosul, thinks their terror tactic worked. They frightened the most powerful man in the world,” Callimachi said, referring to Trump. [Continue reading…]

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump’s executive order barring refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US is one of his most popular so far, according to a new poll from Morning Consult and Politico.

The order has a 55% approval rating among voters polled, with 35% saying they “strongly approve.” Thirty-eight percent of voters said they disapprove.

Opinions about the order fall along party lines — 82% of Republicans support the ban, and 65% of Democrats oppose it. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Trump’s war on immigrants

The New York Times reports: For eight years, Guadalupe García de Rayos had checked in at the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office here, a requirement since she was caught using a fake Social Security number during a raid in 2008 at a water park where she worked.

Every year since then, she has walked in and out of the meetings after a brief review of her case and some questions.

But not this year.

On Wednesday, immigration agents arrested Ms. Rayos, 35, and began procedures to send her back to Mexico, a country she has not seen since she left it 21 years ago.

As a van carrying Ms. Rayos left the ICE building, protesters were waiting. They surrounded it, chanting, “Liberation, not deportation.” Her daughter, Jacqueline, joined in, holding a sign that read, “Not one more deportation.” One man, Manuel Saldana, tied himself to one of the van’s front wheels and said, “I’m going to stay here as long as it takes.”

Soon, police officers in helmets had surrounded Mr. Saldana. They cut off the ties holding him to the tire and rounded up at least six others who were blocking the front and back of the van, arresting them all. The driver quickly put the van in reverse and rolled back into the building.

Ms. Rayos was one of several detainees inside the van. It was unclear whether officials planned to take them to Mexico or to detention.

By midnight on Thursday, her husband said he was not sure where she was. A vehicle had just left the building under police escort, and he said he suspected she may have been inside.

Ms. Rayos was arrested just days after the Trump administration broadened the definition of “criminal alien,” a move that immigrants’ rights advocates say could easily apply to a majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

“We’re living in a new era now, an era of war on immigrants,” Ms. Rayos’s lawyer, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, said Wednesday after leaving the building here that houses the federal immigration agency, known by its acronym, ICE.

The Obama administration made a priority of deporting people who were deemed a threat to public or national safety, had ties to criminal gangs, or had committed serious felony offenses or a series of misdemeanor crimes. Ms. Rayos did not fit any of these criteria, which is why she was allowed to stay in the United States even after a judge issued a deportation order against her in 2013.

That all changed under Mr. Trump. [Continue reading…]

In his recent phone conversation with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump is reported to have said: “I don’t need Mexicans.”

Last summer, Trump said: “I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent.”

Clearly, Trump was lying both times: he is no friend of Mexicans but he does need them.

Trump’s xenophobic denigration of immigrants is shared by millions of Americans whose deeply ingrained sense of racial superiority makes them deny the extent to which this country operates in profound dependence on the service of its immigrant population.

In the growing movement of opposition to Trump, there have been calls for a general strike but I am skeptical about the tactical wisdom of this proposition. If such a strike was called but it didn’t gain sufficient support it could easily end up looking like a vindication for Trump’s claim of broad-based national support.

On the other hand, the time may be approaching when through collective action the voices of immigrants can make themselves more widely heard — for instance through a strike of hospitality workers targeting Trump International, or even a nationwide strike calling on immigrants across all service, agricultural, and manufacturing sectors.

It’s time to demonstrate to those who otherwise stubbornly refuse to acknowledge this, that America cannot function without the labor of the millions of people who currently suffer the indignities of being labeled as insufficiently “American.”

Facebooktwittermail