Muckraker Farm

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 16 February 2018, Day 393:

13 Russians Indicted as Mueller Reveals Effort to Aid Trump Campaign, The New York Times, Matt Apuzzo and Sharon LaFraniere, Friday, 16 February 2018: “The Justice Department charged 13 Russians and three companies on Friday in a sprawling indictment that unveiled a sophisticated network designed to subvert the 2016 election and to support the Trump campaign. It stretched from an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, into the social feeds of Americans and ultimately reached the streets of election battleground states. The Russians stole the identities of American citizens, posed as political activists and used the flash points of immigration, religion and race to manipulate a campaign in which those issues were already particularly divisive, prosecutors said. Some of the Russians were also in contact with ‘unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign,’ according to court papers. Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel leading the investigation, made no accusation that President Trump or his associates were knowingly part of the conspiracy. ‘The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy,’ Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the inquiry, said in a brief news conference. ‘We must not allow them to succeed.’ The 37-page indictment — handed up by a federal grand jury in Washington — amounted to a detailed rebuttal of Mr. Trump, who has sowed doubts that Russia interfered in the election and dismissed questions about its meddling as ‘fake news.’ The Justice Department said Mr. Mueller’s work was not complete. The indictment does not address the hacking of Democratic email systems or whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the F.B.I. investigation into Russian interference. Mr. Mueller is negotiating with the president’s lawyers over the terms of a possible interview.” See also, As part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announces the indictment of 13 Russians linked to a troll farm, The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, Sari Horwitz, and Rosalind S Helderman, Friday, 16 February 2018. See also, Timeline: How Russian trolls allegedly tried to throw the 2016 election to Trump, The Washington Post, Philip Bump, Friday, 16 February 2018: “In a 37-page indictment issued by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team on Friday, we got our first detailed look at how Russian trolls working for an organization called the Internet Research Agency allegedly tried to throw the 2016 election to Donald Trump….  While the document is one of the first full articulations of that effort, it isn’t comprehensive. It’s an indictment focused on a specific set of charges targeting a specific group of people — 13 in total. It doesn’t include, for example, any discussion of how Russia might have hacked the Democratic National Committee or the Hillary Clinton campaign. It doesn’t include evidence that senior Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia deliberately to affect the outcome of the race. It doesn’t show Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand directly in the meddling. What it does include, though, is significant. It shows a concerted years-long effort by a group dedicated to undermining the American political system. It shows the scale of that effort, eventually involving 80 staff in St. Petersburg, a budget of more than a million dollars a month, hundreds of social media accounts, stolen identities of American citizens — and even visits into the United States by Russians traveling under visas obtained through misrepresentation. [This article includes] a timeline of what the indictment lays out. [It includes] other noteworthy events, as well; they’re shaded in gray.” See also, The Indictment of 13 Russians for Orchestrating a Vast, Well-Funded Operation to Tip the Electoral Scales Toward Trump in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Makes Trump’s Hoax Claim Harder to Sell, The New York Times, Mark Landler and Michael D. Shear, Friday, 16 February 2018: “He brushed it off as a hoax. He mused that it might be China, or a guy from New Jersey, or ‘somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds.’ He said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had assured him it wasn’t true. And, he added, ‘I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.’ President Trump has never stopped belittling the charge that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. But on Friday, with the indictment of 13 Russians for orchestrating a vast, well-funded operation to interfere in the election, those denials collided with a mountain of evidence arrayed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. For Mr. Trump, who has tried to discredit Mr. Mueller’s investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt, it was a direct assault on the version of reality that he has sought tirelessly to create. By laying out a meticulous case for how Russia tried to tip the electoral scales toward Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Mueller has made it much harder for the president to dismiss the investigation as mere politics. He may also have made it harder for Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller himself, since, as some Democratic lawmakers argued, that would look like an attempt to help Russia further undermine American democracy. Before the charges were announced, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, briefed Mr. Trump and Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, and handed over a copy of the indictment, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Mueller was not present at the briefing.” See also, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Indictment Ends Trump’s Myth of the Russia ‘Hoax,’ The New Yorker, David Remnick, Friday, 16 February 2018. See also, The White House’s extremely dishonest statement on the Russia indictments, The Washington Post, Aaron Blake, Friday, 16 February 2018. See also, The Propaganda Tools Used by Russians to Influence the 2016 Election, The New York Times, Alicia Parlapiano and Jasmine C. Lee, Friday, 16 February 2018. See also, Reading the Mueller Indictment: A Russia-American Fraud, The New Yorker, Evan Osnos, Friday, 16 February 2018: “In its particulars, the indictment, which charged thirteen Russian nationals and three organizations with multiple conspiracies and frauds, fills in the details of an ‘active measures’ campaign that had been described in general terms by analysts and journalists over the past year. It offers a playbook for manipulating American democracy using a mix of classic espionage, private-sector social-media tools, and partisan ideology. The operation, centered on the now infamous troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, extended to scores of undercover staff and associates in multiple countries, including the United States, and deployed a range of political gambits. Among the details in the document, I was struck, in particular, by three themes—political weapons, in effect—that pose questions for technology companies, the intelligence community, and voters: The power of anonymity…. The power of voter suppression…. The power of news illiteracy.” See also, What Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Indictment Reveals About Russia’s Internet Research Agency, The New Yorker, Adrian Chen, Friday, 16 February 2018. See also, The Internet Research Agency, The New York Times Magazine, Adrian Chen, Tuesday, 2 June 2015. “From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid ‘trolls’ has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet–and in real-life American communities.” See also, Inside a 3-Year Russian Campaign to Influence U.S. Voters, The New York Times, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, Friday, 16 February 2018.

Another Mass Shooting. Another Case in Which Signs of White Violence Didn’t Raise Alarms. The Intercept, Shaun King, Friday, 16 February 2018: “It was true for Dylann Roof in Charleston. It was true about for any number of violent white men in Charlottesville. And it was true for Nikolas Cruz in Parkland, Florida. Like these other young men who turned violent, lots of people who interacted with Cruz saw the day coming when he would do something drastic, maybe even one day shoot up a school. He had long since been expelled from his high school. One student who had served with him in the Junior ROTC called him ‘a psycho.’ Another student said he was a weapons enthusiast who tried to sell weapons at school. Yet another student said he had been banned from bringing a backpack to school as a student after bullet casings were found in it. Classmates reported that he stalked someone in the school. Another student said he was physically abusive to his ex-girlfriend. His social media profiles were full of guns, ammo, bigotry, and threats. A teacher said he was a known threat. Neighbors knew something was up; Cruz talked constantly about killing animals. Local law enforcement say they have not verified alleged ties to a white supremacist group, but it seems Cruz displayed a white supremacist ideology: A classmate said he talked about how white people were better than black and Latino people. Last year, he had been reported to the FBI for making violent threats online, and it happened again this year. Someone warned the FBI about Cruz on January 5, 2018, according to the bureau, but the feds never investigated it. Local police reportedly came to his house 39 times over a period of seven years, although it’s not yet clear if the incidents all involved Cruz. Yet none of this prevented Cruz from building what he openly admitted was an ‘arsenal’ of weapons that he repeatedly said online that he hoped to use – even at a school. Imagine if Nikolas Cruz was a young Muslim. Imagine he had, however fleetingly, been tied to a group of radical Muslims operating elsewhere in Florida — whether it was true or not, that just the suggestion had been made. I can tell you this much: If Cruz was a young Muslim, this would’ve never been allowed to go this far. Do you really think the FBI would have failed to investigate a young Muslim with this history?” See also, F.B.I. Was Warned of Florida Suspect’s Desire to Kill but Did Not Act, The New York Times, Katie Benner, Patricia Mazzei, and Adam Goldman, Friday, 16 February 2018: “The F.B.I. received a tip last month from someone close to Nikolas Cruz that he owned a gun and had talked of committing a school shooting, the bureau revealed Friday, but it acknowledged that it had failed to investigate. The tipster, who called an F.B.I. hotline on Jan. 5, told the bureau that Mr. Cruz had a ‘desire to kill people, erratic behavior and disturbing social media posts,’ the F.B.I. said. The information should have been assessed and forwarded to the Miami F.B.I. field office, the bureau said. But that never happened. On Wednesday, Mr. Cruz, 19, killed 17 students and teachers at his former high school in Parkland, Fla., law enforcement officials said. The tip about Mr. Cruz appeared to be the second in four months, after another person told the bureau about online comments from Mr. Cruz that he wanted to become ‘a professional school shooter.'”

Donald Trump, Karen McDougal (a Playboy Model), and a System for Concealing Infidelity, The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow, Friday, 16 February 2018: “In June, 2006, Donald Trump taped an episode of his reality-television show, ‘The Apprentice,’ at the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s publisher, threw a pool party for the show’s contestants with dozens of current and former Playmates, including Karen McDougal, a slim brunette who had been named Playmate of the Year, eight years earlier. In 2001, the magazine’s readers voted her runner-up for ‘Playmate of the ’90s,’ behind Pamela Anderson. At the time of the party, Trump had been married to the Slovenian model Melania Knauss for less than two years; their son, Barron, was a few months old. Trump seemed uninhibited by his new family obligations. McDougal later wrote that Trump ‘immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me – telling me how beautiful I was, etc…. Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own. The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press.” See also, Karen McDougal Describes Alleged Affair With Trump in New Yorker Article, The New York Times, Niraj Chokshi, Friday, 16 February 2018: “A woman who says that she and President Trump had an affair over a decade ago offered new details about the alleged relationship and an effort to buy her public silence. A Friday report published by The New Yorker describes how a tabloid publisher may have moved to ‘catch and kill’ the story and pay off the woman, Karen McDougal, as Mr. Trump’s candidacy gained momentum. Ms. McDougal, a former Playboy model, wrote an eight-page note, obtained by The New Yorker, describing the relationship, which allegedly began in 2006, while Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, and lasted about nine months. Ms. McDougal said she regretted signing a contract with American Media Inc., the publisher of The National Enquirer, for the rights to her story. ‘I feel let down,’ Ms. McDougal told The New Yorker. ‘I’m the one who took it, so it’s my fault, too. But I didn’t understand the full parameters of it.’ The publisher’s $150,000 payment to Ms. McDougal was reported by The Wall Street Journal just days before the 2016 election, but the Friday report sheds new light on the deal-making process, which Ms. McDougal and those close to her described as exploitative. Former American Media employees told The New Yorker that the company’s chairman and chief executive, David Pecker, who is close with Mr. Trump, routinely bought stories with no intention of running them, sometimes using the pieces as leverage.”

Continue reading Week 57, Friday, 16 February – Thursday, 22 February 2018 (Days 393-399)

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 2 February 2018, Day 379:

House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias, The New York Times, Nicholas Fandos, Adam Goldman, and Charlie Savage, Friday, 2 February 2018: “House Republicans released a politically charged memo on Friday that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia. The memo alarmed national security officials and outraged Democrats, who accused the Republicans of misrepresenting sensitive government information through omissions and inaccuracies. President Trump declassified it over the objections of the F.B.I., which had expressed ‘grave concerns’ over its accuracy in a rare public break from the White House. The three-and-a-half-page memo, written by Republican congressional aides, criticized information used by law enforcement officials in their application for a warrant to wiretap the former campaign adviser, Carter Page, and named the senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who approved the highly classified application. But it fell well short of making the case promised by some Republicans: that the evidence it contained would cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation and possibly undermine the inquiry, which has been taken over by a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The Page warrant is just one aspect of the broader investigation. Instead, the document confirmed that contacts between a former Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, and Russian intermediaries were a primary factor in the opening of the investigation in July 2016…. [A] 10-page Democratic memo written to rebut the Republican document says that the F.B.I. was more forthcoming with the surveillance court than the Republicans say. The F.B.I. told the court that the information it received from Mr. Steele was politically motivated, though the agency did not say it was financed by Democrats, according to two people familiar with the Democratic memo. Notably, the Republican memo does not assert that Mr. Steele’s information was the fountainhead of the broader Russia investigation as many Republicans and conservative media commentators have insinuated.” See also, Read the Nunes Memo, Annotated, The New York Times, Annotations by Charlie Savage, Friday, 2 February 2018. See also, Release of disputed Republican memo on FBI surveillance unleashes waves of recrimination, The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, Karoun Demirjian, and Philip Rucker, Friday, 2 February 2018. See also, Justice Department told court of source’s political motivation in request to wiretap ex-Trump campaign aide, officials say, The Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima, Friday, 2 February 2018: “The court that approved surveillance of a former campaign adviser to President Trump was aware that some of the information underpinning the warrant request was paid for by a political entity, although the application did not specifically name the Democratic National Committee or the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. A now-declassified Republican memo alleged that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was duped into approving the wiretap request by a politicized FBI and Justice Department. The memo was written by House Intelligence Committee Republicans and alleged a ‘troubling breakdown of legal processes’ flowing from the government’s wiretapping of former Trump aide Carter Page. But its central allegation — that the government failed to disclose a source’s political bias — is baseless, the officials said. The Justice Department made ‘ample disclosure of relevant, material facts’ to the court that revealed ‘the research was being paid for by a political entity,’ said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.” See also, Republican Memo Escalates Clash Over Russia Probe. Release comes after the FBI expressed ‘grave concerns’ over the accuracy of the document. The Wall Street Journal, Byron Tau and Rebecca Ballhaus, Friday, 2 February 2018: “[T]he document’s claims are difficult to evaluate without access to the underlying, highly classified law-enforcement material that it was based on. It also doesn’t address or dispute the research collected by Mr. Steele that was included in the warrant application, and it recommends no changes to U.S. intelligence programs…. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, disputed the memo’s contention that the FBI didn’t disclose the political motive behind Mr. Steele’s research, saying that the memo is a political document full of omissions and cherry-picked facts designed to muddy the waters of the Russia investigation, which has already ensnared several top Trump advisers…. Democrats on the committee have compiled their own memo on the matter, which addresses the information that prosecutors used beyond Mr. Steele’s research, but the GOP-controlled committee has so far blocked its release.” See also, A complete timeline of the events behind the memo that threatens to rip D.C. in two, The Washington Post, Philip Bump, Friday, 2 February 2018. See also, The Nunes Memo Undermines the Right’s Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory, The New Yorker, John Cassidy, Friday, 2 February 2018.

‘Never any hesitation’: Trump was quickly persuaded to support the release of the classified Republican memo, The Washington Post, Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, and Josh Dawsey, Friday, 2 February 2018: “President Trump was only vaguely aware of a controversial, classified memo about the FBI’s Russia investigation when two House conservatives brought it to his attention in a Jan. 18 phone call. The conversation piqued Trump’s interest. Over the next two weeks, according to interviews with eight senior administration officials and other advisers to the president, he tuned in to cable television segments about the memo. He talked to friends and advisers about it. And, before he had even read it, Trump became absolutely convinced of one thing: The memo needed to come out…. The president did not actually see the memo — written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Nunes’s staff — until Wednesday afternoon, following the committee’s Monday vote to initiate its release, officials said…. Trump told aides and confidants he believed the memo would vindicate his claim early last year that the expansive Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was a ‘witch hunt.’ He had long expressed frustration, both publicly and privately, with his Department of Justice and, specifically, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who is supervising Mueller’s work. The president said he thought the release of the memo would help build a public argument against Rosenstein’s handling of the case, according to people familiar with the discussions. Trump suggested to aides and confidants that the memo might give him the justification to fire Rosenstein — something about which Trump has privately mused — or make other changes at the Justice Department, which he had complained was not sufficiently loyal to him. Inside the narrow corridors and cramped offices of the West Wing, aides knew that trying to persuade their boss to keep the memo private would likely be a fruitless endeavor.” See also, Did Trump just reveal the real reason the Republican memo was written? The Washington Post, Amber Phillips, Friday, 2 February 2018.

Trump Calls Justice Department and F.B.I. Conduct ‘a Disgrace,’ The New York Times, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Friday, 2 February 2018: “President Trump on Friday intensified his attacks on his own Justice Department and F.B.I. for their handling of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, hinting that senior leaders there should face consequences for conduct he called ‘a disgrace.’ Mr. Trump, who has become increasingly outspoken in his suggestions of wrongdoing by law enforcement officials as the inquiry has reached deeper inside the White House, made his comments as he announced that he had declassified a secret memo prepared by House Republicans that insinuates that the Russia investigation has been tainted by Democratic bias…. The release of the memo raised fresh questions about whether Mr. Trump — who last year fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director overseeing the Russia inquiry, and then sought to remove Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel named to take it over — might seek next to oust Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who named Mr. Mueller. The president, who first considered getting rid of Mr. Rosenstein last summer, pointedly refused to say on Friday whether he was more likely to do so now, cocking his head and telling reporters who pressed him on the matter: ‘You figure that out.’ But the release of the memo underscored how Mr. Trump has transformed his own suspicions and unsubstantiated theories about an inquiry he has repeatedly called a ‘hoax’ and a ‘witch hunt’ into a set of official accusations of corruption against the very people investigating him. The president has called for months for the compilation of such evidence, often taking to Twitter to demand that the Justice Department and the F.B.I. release information that could show political bias on the part of those investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia.” See also, Trump escalates his attacks on FBI leadership. This time he claims the agency favored Democrats over Republicans. The Washington Post, John Wagner, Friday, 2 February 2018.

Continue reading Week 55, Friday, 2 February – Thursday, 8 February 2018 (Days 379-385)

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 19 January 2018, Day 365:

Government Shutdown Begins as Budget Talks Falter in the Senate, The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Thomas Kaplan, Friday, 19 January 2018: “Much of the federal government officially shut down early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats, showing remarkable solidarity in the face of a clear political danger, blocked consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating. The shutdown, coming one year to the day after President Trump took office, set off a new round of partisan recriminations and posed risks for both parties. It came after a fruitless last-minute negotiating session at the White House between Mr. Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. With just 50 senators voting in favor, Senate Republican leaders fell well short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed on the spending measure, which had passed the House on Thursday. Five conservative state Democrats voted for the spending measure. Five Republicans voted against it, although one of those, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, did so for procedural reasons.” See also, How Washington Reached the Brink of a Shutdown, The New York Times, Michael D. Shear, Friday, 19 January 2018: “Here’s a look back, over the course of one year, at the events that led to the brink of a government shutdown, with immigration and spending as the main drivers.” See also, How Every Senator Voted on the Government Shutdown, The New York Times, Jasmine C. Lee and Sara Simon, Friday, 19 January 2018.

Supreme Court to Consider Challenge to Trump’s Latest Travel Ban, The New York Times, Adam Liptak, Friday, 19 January 2018: “The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would consider a challenge to President Trump’s latest effort to limit travel from countries said to pose a threat to the nation’s security, adding a major test of presidential power to a docket already crowded with blockbusters. The case concerns Mr. Trump’s third and most considered bid to make good on a campaign promise to secure the nation’s borders. But challengers to the latest ban, issued as a presidential proclamation in September, said it was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns. The decision to hear the case, Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-965, came almost a year after the first travel ban, issued a week after Mr. Trump took office, caused chaos at the nation’s airports and was promptly blocked by courts around the nation. A second version of the ban, issued in March, fared little better, though the Supreme Court allowed part of it go into effect in June when it agreed to hear the Trump administration’s appeals in two cases. But the Supreme Court dismissed those appeals in October after the second ban expired. There is no reason to think the latest appeal will fizzle out, as the September order, unlike the earlier ones, is meant to last indefinitely. The justices are likely to hear arguments in the latest case in the spring and to issue a decision in late June. The ban restricts travel from eight nations, six of them predominantly Muslim. For now, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be barred from entering the United States, along with some groups of people from Venezuela. The restrictions vary in their details, but for the most part, citizens of the countries are forbidden from emigrating to the United States and many of them are barred from working, studying or vacationing here. In December, in a sign that the Supreme Court may be more receptive to upholding the September order, the court allowed it to go into effect as the case moved forward. The move effectively overturned a compromise in place since June, when the court said travelers with connections to the United States could continue to travel here notwithstanding restrictions in an earlier version of the ban. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the December ruling.”

After Scoring Huge Tax Cuts, Billionaire Charles Koch Floods House Speaker Paul Ryan With Cash, International Business Times, Alex Kotch, Friday, 19 January 2018: “In the months leading up to the passage of the Republican Party’s long-awaited tax bill last year, the powerful political operation run by the billionaire Koch brothers was one of the strongest forces pressuring lawmakers to pass massive tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations. ‘Republicans never hid the fact that this tax bill was about pleasing their big donors,’ Adam Smith, communications director at campaign finance reform nonprofit Every Voice, told International Business Times. ‘And it looks like House Speaker [Paul] Ryan is quickly being rewarded for passing this legislation that overwhelmingly benefits the Kochs and billionaires like them.’ Thirteen days after the U.S. House passed its version of the tax legislation, Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, combined to donate nearly $500,000 to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s joint fundraising committee, according to a new campaign finance report released Thursday. These two donations were by far the largest sums added to Ryan’s coffers in the fourth quarter of 2017, but they were by no means the only major contributions: Marlene Ricketts, the wife of billionaire TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, donated $100,000, as did five other individuals.”

Continue reading Week 53, Friday, 19 January – Thursday, 25 January 2018 (Days 365-371)

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 12 January 2018 (Day 358)

A Racist in the Oval Office, The New Yorker, John Cassidy, Friday, 12 January 2018: “During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump described Mexican immigrants as ‘in many cases criminals, rapists, drug dealers, etc.’; questioned the fitness of a U.S.-born federal judge by referring to him as ‘Mexican’; mocked the mother of a Pakistani-American war hero; and, for a time, refused to condemn David Duke, the former Klansman. Since taking office, Trump hasn’t changed much, if at all. He has embarked on a public crusade against black football players who kneel during the national anthem, suggested that some of the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, were ‘good people,’ and boasted about calling Don Lemon, the African-American CNN host, ‘the dumbest man on television.’ While some might try (lamely) to argue that Trump took some of these steps to rile up his disaffected white voting base, no such reasoning can be applied to his statements in internal meetings, where, according to a report in the Times, he has said that recent immigrants from Haiti ‘all have AIDS’ and that immigrants from Nigeria, once they had seen the United States, would never ‘go back to their huts.’… His latest awful utterance—the ‘shithole’ comment [it was reported on Thursday that he referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and certain nations in Africa as ‘shithole countries’ during a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office]—came during a meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers who are trying to reach a deal to extend legal protections for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children…. Rather than denying that Trump had made these remarks, the White House press office dispatched Raj Shah, the principal deputy press secretary, who is Indian-American, to try to rationalize them. ‘The president will only accept an immigration deal that adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration—two programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country,’ Shah’s statement said. ‘Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.’ In appearing to suggest that immigrants from places like El Salvador, Haiti, Liberia, and Sierra Leone couldn’t become productive and assimilated American citizens, the press-office statement demonstrated that deep racial prejudices extend beyond the Oval Office to other parts of the White House…. [On Friday morning], Senator Durbin told reporters that Trump said ‘things which were hate-filled, vile, and racist . . . You’ve seen the comments in the press; I’ve not read one of them that’s inaccurate.’ For the past year, Republicans, senior Democrats, and many media commentators have held back from applying the R-word to Trump… After this latest outburst, however, the arguments for being reticent seem absurd. The obvious truth can no longer be avoided or sugarcoated: we have a racist in the Oval Office.” See also, The ‘Shithole Countries’–and the Rest of the World–Respond to Trump, The New Yorker, Robin Wright, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Trump’s credibility as a world leader has been, to borrow his vulgarity, shot to shit. With one word—just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples—he has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. ‘There is no other word one can use but racist,’ the spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. ‘You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as “shitholes,” whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.’… As I’ve found (to an embarrassing degree) over the past two years, many senior officials in foreign capitals and in embassies across Washington believe that he is simply articulating his intolerant and prejudiced world view. The White House signalled as much in its damage-control statement, on Thursday, explaining that the President wants to ‘make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.'” See also, Donald Trump Flushes Away the Reputation of the United States, The New York Times, The Editorial Board, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Where to begin? How about with a simple observation: The president of the United States is a racist. And another: The United States has a long and ugly history of excluding immigrants based on race or national origin. Mr. Trump seems determined to undo efforts taken by presidents of both parties in recent decades to overcome that history.”  See also, ‘Don’t Feed the Troll’: Much of the World Reacts in Anger at Trump’s Comment About ‘Shithole Countries,’ The New York Times, Jina Moore and Catherine Porter, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Governments and citizens across the world recoiled on Friday with disgust, outrage and sadness at reports that President Trump had described Haiti and unspecified African nations as ‘shithole countries’ during a meeting with members of Congress on Thursday about immigration, asking why the American government would want to admit their citizens as immigrants. The Haitian government called the remarks racist. The president of Senegal tweeted that he was shocked. South Africa’s governing party said the comments were ‘extremely offensive.’ The African Union said it was ‘frankly alarmed.’ In Haiti, particularly, the words were greeted with pain, as the country marked the eighth anniversary of the deadly 2010 earthquake — known as the worst natural disaster of modern history, killing between 230,000 and 316,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless…. ‘The Haitian government condemns in the strongest terms these abhorrent and obnoxious remarks which, if proven, reflect a totally erroneous and racist view of the Haitian community and its contribution to the United States,’ the government said, while summoning the top American diplomat in the country for clarification, and possibly an apology. The fury was not limited to those countries directly mentioned, however.” See also, Trump’s Fixation on Haiti, and the Abiding Fear of Black Self-Determination, The New Yorker, Doreen St. Félix, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Haiti declared its independence from France on January 1, 1804. The American government refused to recognize the country until 1862. Thomas Jefferson, in 1799, referred to the leaders of Haiti’s violent overthrow of French colonial order as ‘cannibals of the terrible republic.’ Haitian sovereignty, and the nationalist insurrections it inspired in the global South, was seen as an aberration from the Enlightenment’s racial ideal, a framing that has persisted for two centuries. The peculiar nineteenth-century physician Samuel Adolphus Cartwright, in his description of ‘drapetomania’—which he defined as ‘the disease causing Negroes to flee’—used the ‘insensibility’ of Haitian free black society as an example of why America’s enslaved population had to be psychologically broken down. Haiti’s sin was black self-determination, and its people the sinners. A day after the 2010 earthquake, the evangelist Pat Robertson said on his TV show, ‘The 700 Club,’ that the natural catastrophe was the result of Haiti’s ‘pact to the devil’: “You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But, ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.’ Considering his incuriosity and general historical illiteracy, one doubts that Trump is consciously aware of this grotesque propaganda. But he has nevertheless absorbed this bigotry whole—has become one with it.” See also, From conspiracy theories to ‘shithole’ countries: Trump’s thoroughly absurd Thursday, The Washington Post, Aaron Blake, Friday, 12 January 2018: “President Trump is no stranger to controversy. But even by his standards, Thursday was without precedent. Trump started the day by tweeting against his administration’s policy on surveillance. By the afternoon, he went further than he has ever gone when it comes to accusing federal law enforcement of a conspiracy against him. And then it was reported that he had tossed a blanket over one-sixth of the world’s population and labeled it full of ‘shithole countries.’ Any of the three would have constituted a crazy day for the Trump White House; the combination of the three of them struggles to find an equal during Trump’s nearly one year in office. The mix of internal chaos, conspiracy-mongering and offensive comments provided a veritable Trump trifecta.”

How Republican Lawmakers Responded to Trump’s Vulgar Comments About ‘Shithole Countries,’ The New York Times, Thomas Kaplan, Emily Baumgaertner, and Alicia Parlapiano, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Reports that President Trump referred to African nations as ‘shithole countries’ and disparaged Haitians during an immigration meeting on Thursday prompted outcry from some lawmakers, but his comments were followed by notable silence from others. [This article addresses] how Republicans in the House leadership, the Senate and other lawmakers who attended the meeting have responded.” See also, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina Admonishes Trump: ‘America Is an Idea, Not a Race,’ The New York Times, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Friday, 12 January 2018: “It was just after President Trump had finished railing in the Oval Office against African immigrants he said came from ‘shithole countries’ when a senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was there to negotiate a deal on immigration, spoke up. ‘America is an idea, not a race,’ Mr. Graham said, according to three people familiar with the exchange on Thursday. Diversity was a strength, he said, not a weakness. And by the way, the senator added, he himself was a descendant of immigrants who came to the United States from ‘shithole countries with no skills.’ Mr. Trump’s racially charged comments in front of more than half a dozen lawmakers, which also extended to immigrants from Haiti — followed by a day in which members of Congress denounced the president, defended him or stayed silent — now threaten what had been an emerging agreement to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Several people with knowledge of the conversation said the president had also demanded to know whether Haitian immigrants could be left out of any deal. The White House has not disputed the account of the exchange…. To try to steer the political narrative, the president took to Twitter on Friday with a vague account of the meeting, saying his remarks at the meeting were ‘tough, but this was not the language used.'”

What did the men with Donald Trump do when he spoke of ‘shithole countries’? The Washington Post, Philip Kennicott, Friday, 12 January 2018: “Over the past year, as our political culture has grown more coarse and corrupt, I’ve felt different things: sometimes, anger; often, bitter resignation; and occasionally, a bemused sense of pure absurdity. But the past two nights I have actually wept. Why now? Why in response to these particular prompts? A confused and ailing woman in a thin medical gown was tossed to the roadside in freezing weather by security guards from the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus in Baltimore. Who orders such a thing, and why would anyone carry out that order? Then, the president of the United States calls Haiti, El Salvador and African nations ‘shithole’ countries. Who says that kind of thing? Who thinks it? Who listens to it without reflexive outrage?… His defenders seemed to say that if the president says things that we would be ashamed even to think, he is somehow speaking a kind of truth. But while there may be countries that are poor and suffer from civil discord, there are no ‘shithole’ countries, not one, anywhere on Earth. The very idea of ‘shithole’ countries is designed to short-circuit our capacity for empathy on a global scale…. When Trump called disfavored countries ‘shitholes,’ he was indulging the most lethal and persistent tribalism of all: pure, unabashed racism. After a candidacy and now a presidency marked by implications of racism, the president has grown more comfortable with speaking in overtly racist terms, condemning whole countries and their people for not being more like ‘Norway,’ one of the whitest countries on Earth…. What I want to know is how the men in the room with him reacted.” See also, Trump’s Immigration Remarks Outrage Many but Others Quietly Agree, The New York Times, Patrick Kingsley, Friday, 12 January 2018: “The Czech president has called Muslim immigrants criminals. The head of Poland’s governing party has said refugees are riddled with disease. The leader of Hungary has described migrants as a poison. This week, Austria’s new far-right interior minister suggested ‘concentrating’ migrants in asylum centers — with all its obvious and odious echoes of World War II. So when President Trump said he did not want immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries, there was ringing silence across broad parts of the European Union, especially in the east, and certainly no chorus of condemnation. In fact, some analysts saw the remarks as fitting a pattern of crude, dehumanizing and racist language to describe migrants and asylum seekers that has steadily edged its way into the mainstream. Coming from the White House, such words may be taken by some as a broader signal that racism is now an acceptable part of political discourse.” See also, How racism shaped centuries of U.S. immigration policy, The Washington Post, William S. Cossen, Friday, 12 January 2018.

Continue reading Week 52, Friday, 12 January – Thursday, 18 January 2018 (Days 358-364)