Author Archives: Paul Woodward

Art of the deal: Flynn lied about talking to Russians about sanctions before Trump took office

The Washington Post reports: National security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.

Flynn on Wednesday denied that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Asked in an interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said, “No.” [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the topics of conversation included sanctions.

The call is the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s advisers have come under scrutiny from American counterintelligence officials. The F.B.I. is also investigating Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative. [Continue reading…]

It would seem that the primary skill Trump requires in those around him is that, like him, they be well-practiced liars.

And note the timing of these revelations about Flynn based on information the FBI has possessed for weeks — the story comes out right after Jeff Sessions has been confirmed as Attorney General and the Justice Department can therefore be expected to let Flynn off the hook.

Trump’s philosophy in life and the guidance he offers in one way or another to those around him is this: stand by me and I’ll show you how you can get away with anything.

In the case of Flynn what we are now witnessing might be described as a cover-up disguised as a revelation. The FBI wants to be seen as doing its job while at the same time it waves onlookers to pass on by.

“Several officials emphasized that while sanctions were discussed, they did not see evidence that Flynn had an intent to convey an explicit promise to take action after the inauguration,” the Washington Post reported.

That’s what I would call an intentionally misleading statement and I’ll ascribe the intention to the officials rather than the reporters who allow themselves to be shepherded in this way.

If Flynn had made an explicit promise there would be no need to analyze his intentions — the recorded contents of the conversations would convey all we need to know. Moreover, unless he suffers from some kind of speech impediment, there’s no reason to imagine that he could have the intention to make an explicit promise short of actually making such a promise.

Instead, what is key here is whether Flynn’s statements, based on their content and timing, would be interpreted by the Russian ambassador as an implicit promise. In other words, was Flynn telegraphing a nod and a wink from Trump to Putin that Russia had no reason to be concerned about Obama’s last-minute sanctions.

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During the presidential campaign, Trump proposed as a kind of working theory that he would be able to get away with murder.

In office, I surmise, he now wants to demonstrate through a series of incremental steps that he and his administration can get away with anything. Along the way, officials may be required to engage in ritual admonishments (like Kellyanne Conway getting “counseled” for ethics violations) whose purpose is not to serve as correctives but instead to highlight the Trumpsters’ collective sense of impunity.

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Trump’s attacks on judges are an ‘attack on the rule of law’ in the U.S., says former top U.S. Marshals Service official

CNN reports: Threats against more than one judge involved in legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration have prompted federal and local law enforcement agencies to temporarily increase security protection for some of them, according to law enforcement officials.

CNN did not learn how specific the threats were, but law enforcement agencies treated them seriously and out of an abundance of caution, the US Marshals Service and local police increased patrols and protective officers to provide security for some of the judges, the officials said.

A spokesperson from the US Marshals Service declined to comment directly on the threats but said that while “we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the security measures in place for all federal judges and take appropriate steps to provide additional protection when it is warranted.”

The threats come as Trump continues his verbal criticisms of judges — something that has drawn concern from former law enforcement officials and others who fear that public officials should not target a specific judge, and instead base their criticism more broadly on a court’s ruling.

Security experts say that while Trump’s comments were clearly not meant to put the judges’ safety at risk, in general, public officials should avoid comments against a specific judge so as not to spur an unhappy litigant.

“Federal judges are constantly under some kind of threat around the country, and the US Marshals investigate hundreds of threats every year on the federal judiciary,” said Arthur D. Roderick, who is a retired assistant director for investigations for the US Marshals.

“Anybody that has looked at what the US Marshals do has got to realize that an attack on any judge is an attack on the rule of law of the United States,” he said, noting that the President’s sister is a federal judge and the President should be familiar with threats against judges. [Continue reading…]

While testifying in Congress a few days ago, the new Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly expressed a conceit commonplace among military and intelligence officials who promote the myth that liberty in a democracy is a luxury provided by the strongmen who guard the borders.

NPR reported:

Kelly seemed to suggest judges might be too isolated to rule properly on the issue [of the Muslim ban]. He said he “had nothing but respect for judges,” but “in their world it’s a very academic, very almost in a vacuum discussion.”

And Kelly added, “Of course, in their court rooms, they’re protected by people like me.”

It is Kelly himself who seems to have a grossly naive view of the judicial system.

We live in a time when threats against judges and acts of violence in courthouses and courtrooms are occurring throughout the country with greater frequency than ever before. By their very nature, courthouse operations entail a heightened degree of risk. Every working day courthouses are visited by a large number of citizens, many of whom may be disgruntled and angry to the point of becoming lawbreakers. Individuals and groups have committed acts of violence in courthouses, often attempts to murder judicial officials, escape from custody, and disrupt or delay proceedings. Moreover, courthouses, which represent the ideals of democracy in American society, have become symbolic targets for antigovernment extremists and terrorists (domestic and international).

One only has to spend a little time immersed in social media to see how prevalent courthouse violence has become. Within a matter of minutes we can view videos of a considerable number of violent incidents that have taken place in courtrooms and courthouses across the country. Most of what we see in these videos involves, to one extent or another, unruly prisoners, disgruntled litigants, and upset family members. In addition to shootings, bombings, and arson attacks, there have been knifings, assaults, failed bombing attempts, suicides, bomb plots, murder-for-hire conspiracies, and much more.

That’s a recent assessment from the National Center for State Courts — not a piece of alarmist tabloid reporting.

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Gorsuch unwilling to show he has enough backbone to publicly criticize Trump

The Hill reports: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday warned that the country is heading toward a “constitutional crisis,” moments after President Trump attacked him for sharing Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s concerns with the president’s attacks on judges.

“I said to Judge Gorsuch and I believe that ordinarily a Supreme Court nominee would not be expected to comment on issues or political matters or cases that come before court, but we’re in a very unusual situation,” Blumenthal said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“We’re careening, literally, toward a constitutional crisis. And he’s been nominated by a president who has repeatedly and relentlessly attacked the American judiciary on three separate occasions, their credibility and trust is in question.”

Blumenthal said the president has also established a litmus test for his nominee to be “pro-life, to be pro-Second Amendment, to be conservative.”

Blumenthal told reporters Wednesday that Gorsuch called Trump’s tweets attacking federal judges “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

A spokesman for Gorsuch later confirmed to CNN that the judge used the terms when describing Trump’s tweets during his meeting with Blumenthal.

Despite the confirmation by Gorsuch’s spokesman, Trump tweeted Thursday morning that those weren’t the judge’s true feelings.

“Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” the president tweeted.

Blumenthal on Thursday urged Gorsuch to make his concerns public.

“Behind closed doors, Judge Gorsuch expressed disappointment with President Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, but a Supreme Court Justice must prove that he has the courage and independence to stand up to a President in public,” Blumenthal said.

“I asked Judge Gorsuch to make that statement publicly, and he declined.” [Continue reading…]

When Trump announced his nomination of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, he made a public display of his ability to push the judge around.

 

Gorsuch is now showing both a lack of courage and lack of integrity. He is the only person who can confirm, without the possibility of contradiction, his own words and by so doing also that Trump is now, completely without justification, maligning Blumenthal.

Instead, Gorsuch is presenting himself as so desirous of a seat on the Supreme Court and so fearful of the man who offered him the job, that he dare not cross swords with Trump. And yet if he plucked up enough courage to merely confirm what he already said, what’s Trump going to do? Withdraw the nomination? I doubt it. More likely, he’ll brush it off and declare (while gritting his teeth) that it just goes to show how wonderfully independently minded is his pick.

The truth is, when Gorsuch described Trump’s attacks on judges as “disheartening” and “demoralizing,” these were not fighting words, but on the contrary, a rather mealy-mouthed challenge to a president who has very little respect for the U.S. Constitution.

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Trump wants more media coverage of terrorism

USA Today:

“You’ve seen what happened in Paris and Nice. All over Europe it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,” Trump told military leaders and troops during his first visit as president to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

“And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that.”

The White House then followed up with “evidence” to prove Trump’s point — a list of terrorist attacks that the media deliberately failed to adequately report.

The list includes Amedy Coulibaly’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris (Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, Huffington Post, New York Daily News, New York Times, Fox News etc).

In fairness to Trump, media coverage of the supermarket attack was indeed overshadowed by coverage of the Charlie Hebdo shooting (with which it was connected) that happened two days earlier.

It’s possible Trump feels like that attack, in which three times as many people were killed, got too much coverage since the victims were mostly journalists. Does Trump mourn the deaths of people who he despises and denigrates every day? Surely not.

Moving down the list we come to another attack in Paris — this one occurred in November 2015 resulting in 129 deaths and 400 wounded.

When Trump says “you’ve seen what happened in Paris,” this is the attack he’s referring to… the one we’ve “seen”… on media reports… lots of them — but apparently not enough for Trump.

It’s hard not to wonder whether, more than two weeks into his presidency, Trump is disappointed that there has yet to be a major act of terrorism in the United States.

The only attack that has taken place is one that has indeed received inadequate attention both from the U.S. media and Trump himself: the Quebec City mosque massacre carried out by Trump/Le Pen supporter, Alexandre Bissonnette.

In spite of the criticism Trump has faced as a result of the chaotic nature of his first days in office, he and those around him have remained resolute and focused on promoting terrorism.

It is surely just a matter of time before Trump declares to those gathered in excitement around him: “this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

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How Donald Trump is undermining the rule of law

In an editorial, the New York Times says: When President Trump doesn’t get what he wants, he tends to look for someone to blame — crooked pollsters, fraudulent voters, lying journalists. Anyone who questions him or his actions becomes his foe.

Over the past few days, he’s added an entire branch of the federal government to his enemies list.

On Friday, a federal judge in Seattle, James Robart, blocked Mr. Trump’s executive order barring entry to refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The next day the president mocked Judge Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, in a statement on Twitter as a “so-called judge” who had made a “ridiculous” ruling.

That was bad enough, but on Sunday, Mr. Trump’s taunts became more chilling. “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril,” he tweeted. “If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

Where to begin? In the same week that he announced his nominee for the Supreme Court, the president of the United States pre-emptively accused not only a judge, but the whole judicial branch — the most dependable check on his power — of abetting the murder of Americans by terrorists. It’s reasonable to wonder whether Mr. Trump is anticipating a way to blame meddling courts for any future attack.

There was, in fact, a terrorist attack shortly after Mr. Trump issued his immigration order: a white supremacist, officials say, armed himself with an assault rifle and stormed a mosque in Quebec City, slaughtering six Muslims during their prayers. Mr. Trump has not said a word about that massacre — although he was quick to tell America on Twitter to “get smart” when, a few days later, an Egyptian man wielding a knife attacked a military patrol in Paris, injuring one soldier.

In the dark world that Mr. Trump and his top adviser, Stephen Bannon, inhabit, getting “smart” means shutting down immigration from countries that have not been responsible for a single attack in the United States in more than two decades. As multiple national security experts have said, the order would, if anything, increase the terrorism threat to Americans. And contrary to Mr. Trump’s claim, no one is “pouring in” to America. Refugees and other immigrants already undergo a thorough, multilayered vetting process that can take up to two years.

But Mr. Trump’s threats are based on fear, not rationality, which is the realm of the courts.

Judge Robart is not the first judge Mr. Trump has smeared. During the presidential campaign last year, he pursued bigoted attacks on a federal judge presiding over a class-action fraud lawsuit against his so-called Trump University. The judge, Gonzalo Curiel, could not be impartial, Mr. Trump claimed, because he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican,” and Mr. Trump had promised to build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented Mexican immigrants. (Judge Curiel was born in Indiana, and Mr. Trump settled the lawsuit in November for $25 million.)

Coming from a candidate, this was merely outrageous; coming from the president, it is a threat to the rule of law. Judges can now assume that if they disagree with him, they will face his wrath — and perhaps that of his millions of Twitter followers.

Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks on the judiciary are all the more ominous given his efforts to intimidate and undermine the news media and Congress’s willingness to neutralize itself, rather than hold him to account.

Today, at least, the new administration is following the rules and appealing Judge Robart’s decision to the federal appeals court. But tomorrow Mr. Trump may decide — out of anger at a ruling or sheer spite at a judge — that he doesn’t need to obey a court order. Who will stop him then?

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Bashar al-Assad are all kindred spirits in this sense: each has a ruthlessly pragmatic approach to expanding and consolidating his power. None of them is constrained by their allegiance to any principle.

Assad and Putin have each spent the last few years testing the limits of American power and to their satisfaction finding that it has no hard boundaries.

Trump is now engaged in a similar exercise.

Trump does not however, as yet, control a regime. He is surrounded by a tight but very small circle of loyalists. Moreover, he’s simply too old and too feeble-minded to remain in power for long enough to solidify his strength.

Sooner or later the Republicans will have no choice but to heed the rising chorus for them to “dump Trump.”

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Sharpie-sniffing Trump discovers he can change White House décor without getting personally billed

The New York Times reports: Trump remains intensely focused on his brand, but the demands of the job mean he spends less time monitoring the news media — although he recently upgraded the flat-screen TV in his private dining room so he can watch the news while eating lunch.

He often has to wait until the end of the workday before grinding through news clips with Mr. Spicer, marking the ones he does not like with a big arrow in black Sharpie — though he almost always makes time to monitor Mr. Spicer’s performance at the daily briefings, summoning him to offer praise or criticism, a West Wing aide said.

Visitors to the Oval Office say Mr. Trump is obsessed with the décor — it is both a totem of a victory that validates him as a serious person and an image-burnishing backdrop — so he has told his staff to schedule as many televised events in the room as possible.

To pass the time between meetings, Mr. Trump gives quick tours to visitors, highlighting little tweaks he has made after initially expecting he would have to pay for them himself. [Continue reading…]

Donald Trump, a man of “fixed habits,” is famous for his preference for Sharpies. Sharpies contain industrial solvents and even if his pen of preference isn’t chosen on the basis of the effects on his brain, decades of toxic exposure could in part account for the glazed expression in Trump’s eyes. “Chronic inhalant abuse may result in serious and sometimes irreversible damage to the user’s heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, and brain. Brain damage may result in personality changes, diminished cognitive functioning, memory impairment, and slurred speech.”

Sharpies aside, Trump is clearly indifferent or ignorant about the elements of behavior that contribute to good health.

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Donald Trump defends murder

How can the so-called president best be characterized?

Demented?


A slayer of liberty?


Destroyer of global order?


Or as Trump chose to portray himself at the defining moment of his inauguration, with raised fist?

The fist is a multipurpose symbol — a favorite of revolutionary leaders. But Trump’s calls out for comparison with that of another thug who until recently was very adept at grabbing headlines (until he got overshadowed by America’s chief thug): the fist of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.

When Hillary Clinton and many other leaders of the political establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, pronounced that Trump was “unfit for office,” many critics of the establishment viewed this charge with cynicism. It was dismissed as an expression of the establishment’s sense of entitlement — a way of saying that Trump could not be allowed to become president simply because he wasn’t an accepted member of the ruling class. It was as though Trump was being damned on the basis of nothing more than his lack of refinement.

What should be clear now, however, is that most of those who spoke out and declared Trump unfit — irrespective of whether those claims came from inside or outside the establishment — really meant what they were saying. This wasn’t just campaign rhetoric.

And yet even now, there are Trump loyalists, sympathizers, and reactionaries of a variety of political complexions who say: give Trump a chance. There are those who downplay the resistance to Trump as shrill.

But I would say this: Anyone at this juncture who remains unwilling to judge Trump as unfit for office is already placing him above the possibility of criticism; they are in effect offering him license to do anything.

When Bill O’Reilly invited Trump to condemn Vladimir Putin by saying, “he’s a killer,” Trump brushed off the charge by effectively saying, so what? — “We’ve got a lot of killers.”


Trump is saying that if Putin helps him kill members of ISIS, he doesn’t care if the Russian president has a habit of killing his own critics, political opponents, journalists, or anyone who threatens his grip on power. And Trump respects Putin not in spite of the measures he’s willing to take to secure his power, but on the contrary because of his success in consolidating his position of domination.

In other words, Trump respects Putin because he respects ruthlessness.

But Trump’s new on the job, he’s still learning, he needs time to polish his rough edges.

Really? Trump at 70 is still maturing? I don’t think so.

On the contrary, after two weeks we have every reason to expect more of the same and much worse.

Already, millions of people have had their lives disrupted, families have been broken apart, and murders have taken place directly or indirectly as a result of Trump moving into the White House.

Those who spent the last six months warning that a Trump presidency would be disastrous, were neither being alarmist nor particularly prescient. They were, on the contrary, simply judging Trump on the basis of the evidence he presents every single day of being a man whose recklessness, belligerence, ignorance, volatility, reactivity, immaturity, incompetence, and fundamental lack of respect for democracy and the rule of law, render him unfit for office.

When the American people speak loudly enough and when the Republicans in Congress conclude that Trump poses an existential threat to their own narrow interests, he will be impeached.

We don’t have to endure this spectacle for a full four years.

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Trump’s power grabbing handshake yank

What defines Donald Trump?

If you were to ask Mike Pence or Neil Gorsuch I suspect that each would remember a defining moment in their relationships with Trump — the moment when a handshake veered towards a shoulder dislocation.

 

When I first saw this I wondered whether Trump had some kind of involuntary muscular spasm as he yanked on Gorsuch’s arm. But then I saw this:

 

On both occasions, it’s as though Trump thought he was leash-training his new puppy with a yank to show who’s the boss.

Yet to be on the receiving end of that yank must have been at least unnerving and perhaps even haunting.

A mafia boss knows that loyalty can only be sustained with fear — that the possibility of disobedience needs to be seen as posing an existential threat to anyone who steps out line.

I assume Trump’s never threatened to kill anyone, but if he has, that would hardly seem surprising.

And even if no one in Trump’s orbit fears getting their feet set in concrete and then getting thrown into the Potomac, Trump seems to go out of his way to make himself appear menacing in a variety of ways.

Trump’s handshake/yank could signify many things — “I’ve got you now,” “don’t stray from me,” “I’m in control.”

What it certainly fails to convey is a shred of respect for the person on the receiving end.

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Despite Trump’s hissy fit during conversation with Australian PM, U.S. will still honor refugee agreement

The Washington Post reports: It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that “this was the worst call by far.”

Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.

“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center.

Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admission of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.” [Continue reading…]

In an interview on Australia’s ABC 7.30, former foreign minister Bob Carr said that none of America’s allies should remain under any illusions about having a “special relationship” with the U.S. while it is led by a president whose only interest is to put “America first.”

 

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Did Trump just appoint John Miller as his new White House spokesman?

Donald Trump has a history of posing as a fictitious spokesman for the Trump Organization who would variously call himself “John Miller,” John Barron,” and “John Baron,” while showering “his” boss with praise.

Since Trump has never explained why he has posed as his own publicist, his motives remain a matter of speculation. In a court hearing he did admit to using the name John Miller, so this suggests he may not have been driven by a need to later cover his tracks by disowning his own statements.

On the contrary, a more plausible explanation might be that Trump trusts no one to speak on his behalf and thus sometimes on occasions where he feels obliged to create the appearance of a some distance between himself and what is supposedly being said about him, he resolves his own fear of misrepresentation by playing the role of his own spokesman.

The problem Trump has consistently had in pulling off this stunt is that he’s a lousy actor. Trump playing the role of John Miller sounds indistinguishable from Trump. Trump is always Trump.

Last night the “Office of the Press Secretary” at the White House released a statement explaining why Trump had just fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. It refers to Trump in the third person: “Tonight, President Trump relieved Ms. Yates of her duties…” and yet the language and tone of the statement is from beginning to end, pure Trump — from his histrionic declaration that he has been “betrayed” to his signature put down, “weak” on this and “very weak” on that. In Trump’s impoverished lexicon his critics invariably get cast down as “weak” the purpose being, presumably, that they can then be seen in contrast to Mighty Trump — the undefeated heavy champion of the world.

Does it really matter whether the words come directly from Trump or from the office of his press secretary? One way or another this is the voice of the president.

Well actually, it really does matter that we know without doubt whether these are Trump’s words.

Why?

Because deciphering the political machinations going on inside the White House has increasingly become a question of trying to determine the extent to which the guiding hand behind what are ostensibly presidential actions belongs not to Trump but to Steve Bannon.

Knowing when Trump is or is not speaking may be critical when assessing how much power is now being wielded by the man who was dubbed as “the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America” long before he entered the White House and swiftly claimed a permanent seat on the National Security Council.

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Donald Trump’s role in the Quebec City massacre

Donald Trump has consistently identified Muslims as perpetrators of terrorism rather than victims of terrorism — despite the fact that by vast numbers the victims of terrorism are indeed overwhelmingly Muslims.

Trump has relentlessly fueled Islamophobia and insisted that the key to combating terrorism is to label it Islamic.

Trump chose as his closest national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who has described Islam as a cancer.

Trump just signed an executive order that singles out 200,000 Muslims as a potential threat to America.

Shortly after Trump signed this order, Alexandre Bissonnette, a vocal Trump supporter, known for his online attacks on refugees, went to a Quebec City mosque and carried out a mass shooting, killing six people and injuring 19 others.

As The Globe and Mail reports:

The suspect in the deadly attack on a Quebec City mosque was known in the city’s activist circles as an online troll who was inspired by extreme right-wing French nationalists, stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump and was against immigration to Quebec – especially by Muslims.

To fail to draw a connection between Trump’s campaign rhetoric, his choice of advisers, his executive order targeting Muslims and Bissonnette’s murderous rampage would be absurd.

In the hostile climate Trump has helped cultivate, there have been anti-mosque incidents in at least 41 states.

Within hours of Trump signing the executive order a mosque in Texas went up in flames.

The massacre in Canada could just as easily have happened in the United States. Indeed, the risk of a similar attack is so great that it seems less a case of if than when.

Donald Trump has promised to make America safe and yet through his words and actions has already done enough to suggest that the stable of Trump brands will sooner or later acquire one that he will vociferously disavow as a slur on his name: Trump terrorism.

That is not to suggest that Trump actually wants anyone to engage in acts of terrorism.

At the same time and for the same reasons as Alex Massie spelled out after Jo Cox’s murder in Britain last June, those who fuel anger cannot absolves themselves of responsibility for what follows:

When you encourage rage you cannot then feign surprise when people become enraged. You cannot turn around and say, ‘Mate, you weren’t supposed to take it so seriously. It’s just a game, just a ploy, a strategy for winning votes.’

When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks. When you present politics as a matter of life and death, as a question of national survival, don’t be surprised if someone takes you at your word. You didn’t make them do it, no, but you didn’t do much to stop it either.

Sometimes rhetoric has consequences. If you spend days, weeks, months, years telling people they are under threat, that their country has been stolen from them, that they have been betrayed and sold down the river, that their birthright has been pilfered, that their problem is they’re too slow to realise any of this is happening, that their problem is they’re not sufficiently mad as hell, then at some point, in some place, something or someone is going to snap. And then something terrible is going to happen.

Trump’s biggest lie is to promote the myth that the greatest threats to American lives reside outside this country’s borders.

Right now the very opposite is true as the most incendiary catalyst of violence sits in the Oval Office.

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Quebec City gunman ‘likes’ Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and the Israel Defense Forces

The gunman accused of killing six people and wounding eight others in what Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as a “terrorist attack on Muslims” at a Quebec City mosque on Sunday night, has been identified as Alexandre Bissonnette. He has been arrested and is being questioned by the Quebec Provincial Police.

Bissonnette’s motives for the attack remain unknown but there are clues about his political leanings from his Facebook page. This much appears indisputable: his hatred of Muslims.

Heavy reports: Bissonnette likes the Facebook pages of U.S. President Donald Trump and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, but he does not express support for them elsewhere on his page. Other likes include the Israel Defense Forces, United With Israel and Parti Québécois of Université Laval.

He also likes U.S. Senator John McCain, a moderate Republican who has opposed Trump on some issues, President George W. Bush, the Canadian New Democratic Party and late Canadian politician Jack Layton, who was a leader of the left-wing NDP, so the likes do not shed much light on Bissonnette’s beliefs. [Continue reading…]

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Mexico, unlike Britain, refuses to bow to America’s naked emperor

The New York Times reports: For decades, the United States and Mexico have expanded their cooperation and increasingly entwined their fortunes. Now the relationship between America and one of its most important allies and trading partners is being rewritten — on Twitter — culminating in a remarkable back-and-forth as the world looked on.

It began with Mr. Trump’s proclamation to build the wall. Next came a diplomatic response from Mr. Peña Nieto, urging unity, accompanied by suggestions from his aides that the meeting might be scrapped over the offense.

Mr. Trump followed on Thursday morning with a threat to cancel the meeting himself. Soon after, Mr. Peña Nieto officially announced that he would not attend, effectively beating Mr. Trump to the punch.

The exchange offered insight into the evolution of Mexico’s president, who began his term with great fanfare in 2012, only to be hounded by scandal, the violence engulfing his nation, a steady decline in the polls and, now, perhaps the worst period in Mexican-American relations since President Calvin Coolidge. [Continue reading…]

Jorge Guajardo writes: Trump now faces a southern neighbor largely united in its anti-U.S. sentiment. This sentiment is not primarily moved by his intention to renegotiate NAFTA; or his racist, anti-Mexican rhetoric; or even by the idea of the wall itself, which anyone who has actually been to the U.S.-Mexico border knows is patently absurd given the topography along the 2,000-odd mile length of the border — not to mention the large swathes of protected or privately owned land there. The sentiment, which led every single political leader in Mexico to demand that President Peña Nieto cancel his trip to Washington, comes from the indignity of the notion that Mexico will somehow pay for the wall. The Trump administration is basing its entire approach to the bilateral relationship with Mexico on a ludicrous and arrogant proposition: that it can make another sovereign nation foot the bill for its own xenophobic construction project.

Trump has recklessly and needlessly ushered in a dark era in U.S.-Mexico relations. Gratuitously bashing Mexico and Mexican immigrants plays well with Trump’s base, and in his ignorance, he seems to believe he can do it without consequences. With the possible exception of Canada, there is no other country with as many areas and levels of cooperation with the U.S. as Mexico. Issues of trade, transportation, national security, organized crime, water, the environment, health, and immigration that affect both countries rely on extensive bilateral cooperation and goodwill.

As Mexico prepares for a presidential election in 2018, every candidate worth his or her salt will try to outdo the competitors in anti-U.S. posturing. They will promise to expel armed U.S. law-enforcement personnel from Mexico, to legalize drugs, to allow Central American migrants to reach the U.S. border, to stop sharing water with drought-ravaged border states. Some of them, if elected, may even want to emulate Trump and follow through on their most ridiculous campaign promises. The voters, for sure, will be egging them on to stick it to the United States.

From an early age, every Mexican is taught that Mexico lost half its territory to its imperialist northern neighbor. Ask any Mexican child and they will name all six “Niños Heroes,” young cadets who died defending Chapultepec castle from the invading U.S. forces in 1847. One of them is said to have wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped to his death rather than be captured by the Americans. His story might be as apocryphal as George Washington’s cherry tree, but it nonetheless remains a powerful symbol of Mexican nationalism: We will just as soon suffer hardship, or even death, than be submitted to humiliation from the U.S. [Continue reading…]

Meanwhile, as the Washington Post reports, British Prime Minister Theresa May appears to have few reservations about ingratiating herself through obsequious overtures she is now making to Trump: May’s loyalty is being rewarded this week with a plum designation: On Friday, she will be the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the Oval Office. The meeting will give her a prime chance to pitch Trump on a U.S.-Britain free-trade deal, an agreement that May has signaled will be a top priority of her premiership as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

But as she was winging across the Atlantic on Thursday, she also faced a wicked backlash in London from lawmakers who say her courting of the new U.S. president has gone too far.

The criticism came after Downing Street released excerpts from a speech May intends to deliver Thursday at a retreat for Republican congressmen in Philadelphia. Trump is also due to address the gathering.

In her speech, May seems to endorse Trump’s view of himself as a turnaround artist who can restore America to lost greatness. Both the United States and Britain, she is due to tell the Republicans, are “rediscover[ing] our confidence.”

“As you renew your nation just as we renew ours — we have the opportunity — indeed the responsibility — to renew the Special Relationship for this new age,” May will say, according to the excerpts. “We have the opportunity to lead, together, again.”

May’s office also said she would be bearing gifts when she meets the Trumps: “a hamper full of produce” from the prime minister’s country retreat, Chequers, for first lady Melania Trump; and for the president, “an engraved Quaich” — a two-handled cup that is an ancient Scottish symbol of friendship.

But back in London, May’s friendship mission was falling flat, as lawmakers wondered how their leader could seemingly ignore Trump’s more extreme positions and actions, include his advocacy of torture, his promotion of protectionism and his proposed ban on Syrian refugees. [Continue reading…]

The White House accuses the press of being part of a campaign to delegitimize Trump. In truth, Trump delegitimizes himself on a daily basis.

The only question anyone — foreign leader, cabinet secretary, federal official, or journalist — should be asking themselves is whether through their words an actions they are lending legitimacy to a man who would otherwise have none.

The United States now has at its helm an imbecile, a naked emperor, a national embarrassment.

This charade is only being sustained by those who are willing to afford Trump respect which he has done nothing to earn.

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Donald Trump’s demoralizing message to the children of America

This is a dark day for parents, teachers, and children across America.

As one president and his family, worthy of emulation, exit the White House, a man enters office about whom the best we can hope is that through his example he exerts as little influence as possible.

Of this much we can be reasonably sure: anyone who cites Donald Trump as the justification for their behavior most likely just did something that common decency could not otherwise justify.

In a recent interview Trump was asked whether he had any heroes and he responded by saying, “I don’t like the concept of heroes, the concept of heroes is never great,” and it makes sense that this would be the view of a man who never tires of telling everyone about his own greatness.

How could Trump express admiration for another person without implicitly calling into question his own capacities? How could he admit he looked up to anyone without placing himself in a position of inferiority?

Although on the question of heroes, Trump initially directs a nod of respect towards his father — “I’ve learnt a lot from my father … I learnt a lot about negotiation” — he immediately goes on to cast doubt on the foundation of learning.

What makes someone a great negotiator, or great salesman, or great politician is their “natural ability.” This, according to Trump, is “much more important” than experience.

No doubt this explains why Trump claims he advises himself and has little patience for intelligence briefings.

Now apply this philosophy to an education system. Schools would less be places of learning than warehouses for scouting talent. Pick out the few with natural ability and discard the rest.

Apply this to a country and the job of government becomes to brush away all unnecessary obstacles to success (regulations) so that those with natural ability are given free rein to shape our world as they see fit.

And in order to disguise the worst form of elitism as somehow serving the common good, repeatedly and loudly declare that all is done in the service of the nation.

The fact that Donald Trump is being sworn in as a president with lower approval ratings than any other in modern history might seem to indicate that even though he can now claim that title, “most powerful man in the world,” he does not in fact represent America — that he has arrived in Washington as an impostor. Indeed, the roles played by Russia and the FBI make it clear that Trump didn’t win the election by virtue of his natural ability.

Yet Trump’s candidacy was not a fabrication — it was a product of his own ambition and unrestrained grandiosity. And much as many Americans may now wish to disavow this president, he does in fact represent America by representing this country and its culture of confused values at its worst — through its celebration of celebrity; through its admiration of wealth; through its devaluation of decency; and through its lack of appreciation for the virtue of learning and the cultivation of wisdom.

 

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Russia is the only country in the world where Donald Trump is popular

A WIN/Gallup poll conducted last August and September in 45 countries covering nearly 75% of the world’s population found only one country where Donald Trump was more popular than Hillary Clinton: Russia.

Anna Nemtsova reports: Preparations for the Donald Trump inauguration party are well under way at the newly opened restaurant and nightclub Arbat 13 in the very heart of Moscow.

For what must be the first time in history, Russians are treating the day an American president swears to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” as their own significant event.

Igor Khaletsky, whose club is frequented by businessmen, government officials, and wealthy lovers of what’s known as gangster-jazz, is following a new Russian trend. “The Trump cult is growing because the new U.S. president seems loyal to Russia,” Khaletsky told The Daily Beast. “So we decided that The Trump Band [a newly named ensemble] and its gangster-jazz music would be relevant to the night of the inauguration.”

At the top of Russia’s establishment many say of Trump, “He is a deal maker — he is one of us!” And the most famous fan of President-elect Trump is Russia’s number one decision maker, President Vladimir Putin.

On Tuesday, commenting on the “golden showers” or “pee-pee tape scandal,” President Putin said that he could not imagine Trump hiring prostitutes (“our girls of lowered social responsibility”) for the Miss Universe beauty contest that the U.S. billionaire organized in Moscow in 2013.

“He’s a grown-up for a start and, secondly, a man who spent his whole life organizing beauty contests and meeting the most beautiful women in the world,” said Putin. “I doubt Trump fell for that, although they [Russian hookers] are of course the best in the world.” Putin was joking as if he and Trump were best buddies.

Meanwhile Moscow’s official media have kicked into high gear condemning “the black time” of Barack Obama’s presidency. Some reports refer to him ironically not as the white dove but “the black bird of peace.” [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: After a tumultuous campaign and transition, President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office Friday as the least-popular incoming president in at least four decades, but a majority of Americans nevertheless express optimism that he will be able to fulfill campaign pledges to boost the economy and deal with threats of terrorism, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Amid controversy and calls for additional investigations into possible Russian interference in the election, most Americans disapprove of Trump’s response to the hacking and other activities. But they are divided on the question of whether the president-elect has been too friendly toward Russia or taken the right approach in his public comments and posture.

On ethical matters, a bare majority say the steps Trump and his attorney outlined last week to turn over control of his sprawling business enterprise to his children create adequate separation while he serves as president. But the public is split almost evenly on whether he and his family are fully complying with federal ethics laws, and an overwhelming majority say he should release his federal tax returns, which he has long declined to do. [Continue reading…]

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Why hundreds of thousands are joining the Women’s March on Saturday


As the Trump inauguration boycott escalates, it’s interesting that Trump would highlight the imminent arrival in Washington of Bikers for Trump — his reason, no doubt, that he hopes to scare away protesters. Somehow I doubt that a few old farts on Harleys will have that effect.

Rolling Stone reports: A few weeks before the Women’s March on Washington, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez, two of the four national co-chairs of this weekend’s planned demonstration, appeared on CNN Newsroom. “There are signs that [Donald Trump] is listening, right? He has nominated four women out of 23 positions to serve in his administration,” said host Carol Costello. “Ivanka Trump supposedly is going to have this big role in the Trump administration, as far as promoting women’s issues like child care. So does that give you hope that he is listening?”

This premise – that women, who represent 51 percent of the population, should be grateful for 17 percent representation in Trump’s cabinet – gets to the heart of why hundreds of thousands of women and men are poised to descend on Washington, D.C., and cities around the world, in protest Saturday.

Those who plan to march are not grateful; they are not satisfied. They’re rightfully insulted by the election of an unrepentant misogynist who’s filling his administration with more of the same – and, to Costello’s point, they’re insulted that in August, when Trump was asked which women he’d invite to help him run the country, the single name he could come up with was his daughter’s. Leaving aside the anti-nepotism laws Ivanka would violate by joining her father’s administration (laws her husband may already be in violation of), many women also recognize that she’s no hero to them, as evidenced by her woefully inadequate child care plan, which does particularly little to address the needs of low-income mothers.

What the organizers of the Women’s March will tell you is that the upcoming action is not about Trump; it is about addressing the systemic inequities he highlights with every decision he makes.

The march, the organizers declared via an ambitious platform released last week, is for gender equality, racial equality, LGBTQIA equality, economic justice and reproductive freedom; for equal pay, paid family leave, labor protections, clean water and air and access to public lands; and for an end to violence against women, police brutality and racial profiling. If that seems like a lot, well, that’s the point.

Sarsour, who serves as executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, tells Rolling Stone that the message the marchers want to send is that “from climate justice to racial justice to immigrant rights, reproductive rights, Native rights, we are united. We are committing to work together.

“We think that that hasn’t happened in a very clear way in a long time – bringing all the movements together and … saying, ‘We are watching you. We are ready. We are fired up. And we’re ready to fight back and protect our communities,'” she says. [Continue reading…]

More details on the Women’s March on Washington here and on the 616 “sister marches” here.

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Did the Trump transition team conspire with Russia to undermine U.S. sanctions?

As the primary beneficiary of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, it stands to reason that Donald Trump would not want to punish his benefactor, Vladimir Putin. For that reason, we might expect that when President Obama imposed the most recent round of sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the attack on American democracy, Trump would want to reassure his patron that sanctions relief is close at hand. Moreover, for this reassurance to have the greatest value it would need to be conveyed before Russia gave the standard tit-for-tat response to having dozens of diplomats expelled.

That’s probably why David Ignatius raised these questions on Thursday:

According to a senior U.S. government official, [Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T.] Flynn [Trump’s choice for national security adviser] phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated?

The Associated Press now reports: President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. have been in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for election-related hacking, a senior U.S. official says.

After initially denying that Michael Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak spoke Dec. 29, a Trump official said late Friday that the transition team was aware of one call on the day President Barack Obama imposed sanctions.

It’s not unusual for incoming administrations to have discussions with foreign governments before taking office. But repeated contacts just as Obama imposed sanctions would raise questions about whether Trump’s team discussed — or even helped shape — Russia’s response.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly did not retaliate against the U.S. for the move, a decision Trump quickly praised.

More broadly, Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador suggests the incoming administration has already begun to lay the groundwork for its promised closer relationship with Moscow. That effort appears to be moving ahead, even as many in Washington, including Republicans, have expressed outrage over intelligence officials’ assessment that Putin launched a hacking operation aimed at meddling in the U.S. election to benefit Trump.

In an interview published Friday evening by The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he might do away with Obama’s sanctions if Russia works with the U.S. on battling terrorists and achieving other goals.

“If Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions?” he asked. [Continue reading…]

Putin helps Trump and Trump helps Putin — but no one should be in any doubt about who is the dominant partner in this bromance: it’s the one who’s rather proud of showing off his body; not the one who lives in fear of the day he might show up naked on the nightly news.

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Frank Rich on BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the Trump dossier

In an interview with Alex Carp, Frank Rich said: Next to the staggering list of press failures that have marked Trump’s rise to the presidency, this seems small potatoes. BuzzFeed did frame what it published as being both unconfirmed and redolent with errors. The “dossier” may well prove to be utter trash (if entertaining trash), and the only slender justification for publishing it is that it fleshes out a true news break by CNN, that both Obama and Trump had been told of this salacious report’s existence by American intelligence agencies, who also have not verified it. But is BuzzFeed’s sin worse than CNN having put Trump henchman Corey Lewandowski on its election-year payroll? Or than the Times repeatedly giving major home-page play to data suggesting that Hillary Clinton had a close to 100 percent chance of victory right up to Election Day? You could argue that that latter stunt actually suppressed Democratic turnout in the presidential race; the BuzzFeed stunt changed nothing unless you count the impressive number of jokes it has prompted, on Twitter and beyond, around the phenomenon of #GoldenShower. It is not a bright spot in BuzzFeed’s history, but the ruckus it has generated seems disproportionate, a reflection of how much Trump has put the press on the defensive over a bruising 18 months.

What most seems to upset press critics about BuzzFeed’s action — understandably — is that Trump seized on it to paint the entire press Establishment, including CNN, as purveyors of “fake news.” That is an outrage, but if Trump hadn’t found this pretext, he would have found another opening soon enough. There is, of course, no bigger purveyor of fake news than Trump himself, unless it’s his comrade in alt-right propaganda, Stephen Bannon. Trump’s entire campaign was spawned by trafficking in conspiracy theories, whether about President Obama or Mexican immigrants or imaginary Muslims cheering 9/11 in New Jersey. His effort to play the virtuous defender of journalistic ethics is as ludicrous as his presenting himself as the greatest, most respectful champion of America’s women. He is determined to bully, destabilize, and discredit the press. But those who buy his preposterous self-righteous pose are so imprisoned by the alternative reality of Trump anyway that they might as well be Scientologists — nothing short of an intervention will return them to the real world. These are the same people who think that Trump’s display of piles of manila envelopes at his press conference actually told us something about his business ethics. If I may briefly embrace Trumpism by being both vulgar and politically incorrect, let me say that people who fall for his bullshit are idiots. Even if the dossier BuzzFeed published is found to be mostly true, they’ll still believe it’s fake news because it doesn’t match the fake news they are imbibing every day. [Continue reading…]

The strange thing about all this soul searching on whether BuzzFeed stepped over some sacred line is the demonstrable fact that the press is and never has confined itself to publishing verified facts. It is wholly legitimate to publish information which might turn out to be untrue or inaccurate if the reporting is done in good faith. Journalists repeatedly lean on “analysts” as sources of conjecture and opinion and they do so — hopefully — on the basis that facts so often call out for interpretation and the interpretations provided are credible.

The decision to publish the Trump dossier seems — at least to me — to be no different from the intelligence community’s decision to summarize its contents for briefings given to Obama and Trump: it merits attention, both presidential and public, because of its credibility.

If the strongest arguments that Donald Trump can make to challenge the dossier’s credibility are his claims to be a man who exercises great caution when out in the world and who is also a self-described germophobe, I’d say we have even more reason to wonder what kinds of recordings the Kremlin might have with which it can blackmail the next president.

“You better be careful, or you’ll be watching yourself on nightly television,” Trump warned on Wednesday — to which he should have added, “or listening to yourself bragging about grabbing pussy.”

We know what Trump says and we also know some of what he’s done. As yet, we don’t know what he did in Russia — but it’s way too soon to dismiss stories of golden showers and videotapes as fake news.

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