Deep Politics Forum

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

AMY GOODMAN: Craig Holman, you wrote an op-ed where you said, "No administration in history has been as fraught with financial conflicts of interest as the incoming Trump administration, from the president-elect on down. If steps are not taken to manage these conflicts, the Trump administration is likely to become one of the most scandal-ridden in memory." Now, last week, we spoke to Richard Painter, who is professor of corporate law at University of Minnesota. He was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. He described a key conflict of interest under President-elect Trump.

RICHARD PAINTER: Well, there are several laws. I think the most important, for purposes of President-elect Trump, is the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which is one of the most critical conflict of interest provisions for all U.S. government officials. Nobody holding a position of trust with the United States government can receive payments from foreign governments, whether gifts or a salary or profits. And that's what emoluments are, profits or benefits. It comes from the Latin root emolumentum, which refers to profits and benefits.

And so, if you have somebody who's making profits from dealing with foreign governments or companies controlled by foreign governments, that person must dispense with those profits, cannot receive that money, while holding any position of trust with the United States government. That applies to every U.S. government employee, including the president. And so, what this means is that, for Donald Trump, if he's going to hold onto these business enterprises, which present a whole range of other conflict of interest problems, to satisfy the Constitution, at a bare minimum, what he's going to have to do is get the foreign government money and money from foreign government-controlled corporations out of his business enterprise. And this includes foreign diplomats staying at the hotels at government expense, foreign governments having big parties in his hotels and canceling reservations at the Four Seasons, going over to the Trump Hotel, to curry favor. All of that is unconstitutional. Also, he has bank loans outstanding, I believe, from the Bank of China, which is controlled by the government of China. And some foreign government-owned banks are leasing space in Trump office buildings. All that has to be dealt with before January 20, or we could have a violation of the Constitution.

AMY GOODMAN: So that is Richard Painter, professor of law at University of Minnesota who was President George W. Bush's ethics lawyer. And so, if, Craig Holman, you can talk, put this move, this midnight hour move toby the House Republican Conference to gut the House ethics office, into this larger context of what Donald Trump brings to the presidency on January 20th.
CRAIG HOLMAN: Donald Trump is setting the tone on this. You know, when I wrote about the Trump administration is likely to be the most scandal-ridden administration in history from top down, I was talking just about the executive branch. Now it looks like it's spreading into Congress, as well. Donald Trump has shirked his ethics responsibilities. He has decided not to disclose his taxes. He is waffling on whether or not he's going to set up a genuine blind trust and divest himself of the conflicts of interest that Richard Painter was just talking about. He is basically shunning his responsibility of complying with the ethics rules. And that tone has now reached into Congress.
You know, part of the reason why I'm so surprised that the Republican Conference in the House of Representatives repealed or have neutered the OCE is because they are going to receive a great deal of negative publicity on this. But clearly, they are looking at Donald Trump shirking his ethics responsibility, and thinking, if he can get away with it, they can get away with it. So, yes, we are likely to see the most scandal-ridden federal government, not just Trump administration, that we've seen, you knowthe most scandal-ridden we've seen in history. This does not bode well for the next few years.
AMY GOODMAN: Craig Holman, in our headlines at the top of the show, we talked about the Trump Organization's ongoing business in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and other countries continuing to raise concerns about conflicts of interest. Last month, Trump pledged his businesses would make no new deals during his time in office. However, a series of high-profile business deals are currently underway, including the construction of two luxury golf courses in Dubai. The first, the Trump International Golf Course there, is slated to open in February, only weeks after the inauguration. Trump is developing the golf courses with Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani, who attended Trump's New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump called Sajwani and his family "the most beautiful people" during his speech, his toast at the party. Can you talk about the significance of this?
CRAIG HOLMAN: Sure. Pledging to have no new deals is meaningless. The conflicts of interest exist now, and they're widespread. You know, as far as we can determine, even though Trump won't be honest and reveal his actual, you know, tax filings so we can confirm where the conflicts spread, so far we've been able to track conflicts of interest from the Trump Organization spanning 23 different countries. These business enterprises exist. They're operating. And the foreign governments and foreign special interests and foreign business interests understand this, and they are doing everything they can to find ways to throw money at the feet of Donald Trump in order to buy access and, in their minds, influence over the Trump administration. We've just seen two foreign governments had set up their national celebration days that were scheduled at the Four Seasons Hotel, for instance, and once Trump became president, they canceled that and moved it to the Trump Hotel. Clearly, the whole purpose of this is to make use of Trump's business organization for buying influence over President-elect Donald Trump. That's the conflict of interest.
You know, every president for the last 40 years has understood the danger of those types of conflicts of interest and have placed their wealth and their business enterprises into a blind trust or divested them entirely. Donald Trump is the first president we're seeing in recent history who is just ignoring the problems that his vast empire is going to bring to this administration. This is going to be the most scandal-ridden administration we've seen in history.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, many are expecting Donald Trump to give his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, official positions within the White House, a move that may violate anti-nepotism laws. Or does it?
CRAIG HOLMAN: It would if they're being paid. That would be a violation of the anti-nepotism law. It's rather easy to get around the anti-nepotism law by bringing them in as, say, informal consultants. You know, these arethese are people who don't need to be paid. They are, you know, wealthy as is. It isn't as if they need a $100,000 salary to be a consultant to the president. So, as long as they're not paid, it gets around the anti-nepotism law.
But it certainly bodes poorly for conflicts of interest. You know, Trump is talking about turning his empire over to his kids to run. Well, that is the same thing as the Trump family. You know, Trump was very critical of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation because foreign governments were throwing money into the Clinton Foundation, even though Hillary was not directly running that foundation. The purpose of those types of investments by foreign governments and foreign interests clearly was they understood that by supporting the Clinton family, they were going to get an inside track to Hillary Clinton. That's what Donald Trump was so critical about Hillary Clinton of. And this is exactly what Donald Trump is now going ahead and doing as president of the United States. He's keeping his family in control of his vast empire, and it provides a huge window of opportunity for wealthy special interests who want to buy favors from Donald Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: And choosing his company's top lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, to fill the newly created position of special representative for international negotiations? Greenblatt is an expert in real estate law?
CRAIG HOLMAN: Yes, exactly. I mean, he is appointing people into his administration who are going to try to finesse ways around the laws, around the restrictions, and try to minimize the bad publicity that's going to come with the conflicts of interest. He is not appointing people who are going to be attentive to the conflicts of interest and abiding by the laws. These are people who specialize in getting around the laws.
You know, I want to add, too, I mean, his White House counsel, Don McGahn, is someone who's been a dead-set opponent against any sort of restrictions on money in politics. And he is now going to become Donald Trump's key lawyer when it comes to domestic as well as international affairs. These are people who specialize in making sure that Donald Trump can evade the laws.

While this writer ignores, and is likely ignorant of, the Deep Political Establishment / Secret Government, much of what he says still has some merit, IMHO.

Quote:Snapchat Presidency of Donald Trump

David Brooks JAN. 3, 2017

Normal leaders come up with policy proposals in a certain conventional way. They gather their advisers around them and they debate alternatives with briefing papers, intelligence briefings and implementation strategies.
Donald Trump doesn't do that. He's tweeted out policy gestures in recent weeks, say about the future of America's nuclear arsenal. But these gestures aren't attached to anything. They emerged from no analytic process and point to no implemental effects. Trump's statements seem to spring spontaneously from his middle-of-night feelings. They are astoundingly ambiguous and defy interpretation.
Normal leaders serve an office. They understand that the president isn't a lone monarch. He is the temporary occupant of a powerful public post. He's the top piece of a big system, and his ability to create change depends on his ability to leverage and mobilize the system. His statements are carefully parsed around the world because presidential shifts in verbal emphasis are not personal shifts; they are national shifts that signal changes in a superpower's actual behavior.
Donald Trump doesn't think in that way, either. He is anti-system. As my "PBS NewsHour" colleague Mark Shields points out, he has no experience being accountable to anybody, to a board of directors or an owner. As president-elect, he has not begun attaching himself to the system of governance he'll soon oversee.

If anything, Trump is detaching himself. In a very public way, he's detached himself from the intelligence community that normally serves as the president's eyes and ears. He's talked about not really moving to the White House, the nerve center of the executive branch. He's sided with a foreign leader, Vladimir Putin, against his own governmental structures.
Finally, normal leaders promulgate policies. They measure their days by how they propose and champion actions and legislation.
Trump doesn't think in this way, either. He is a creature of the parts of TV and media where display is an end in itself. He is not really interested in power; his entire life has been about winning attention and status to build the Trump image for low-class prestige. The posture is the product.
When Trump issues a statement, it may look superficially like a policy statement, but it's usually just a symbolic assault in some dominance-submission male rivalry game. It's trash-talking against a rival, Barack Obama, or a media critic like CNN. Trump may be bashing Obama on Russia or the Mideast, but it's not because he has implementable policies in those realms. The primary thing is bashing enemies.
Over the past weeks, we've treated the president-elect's comments as normal policy statements uttered by a normal president-elect. Each time Trump says or tweets something, squads of experts leap into action, trying to interpret what he could have meant, or how his intention could lead to changes in American policy.

But this is probably the wrong way to read Trump. He is more postmodern. He does not operate by an if-then logic. His mode is not decision, implementation, consequence.
His statements should probably be treated less like policy declarations and more like Snapchat. They exist to win attention at the moment, but then they disappear.
To read Trump correctly, it's probably best to dig up old French deconstructionists like Jean Baudrillard, who treated words not as things that have meanings in themselves but as displays in an oppositional power struggle. Trump is not a national leader; he is a national show.
If this is all true, it could be that the governing Trump will be a White House holograph. When it comes to the substance of actual governance, it could be that President Trump is the man who isn't there.
The crucial question of the Trump administration could be: Who will fill the void left by a leader who is all facade?
It could be the senior staff. Trump will spew out a stream of ambiguous tweets, then the hypermacho tough guys Trump has selected will battle viciously with one another to determine which way the administration will really go.
It could be congressional Republicans. They have an off-the-shelf agenda they are hoping that figurehead Trump will sign, though it has nothing to do with the issues that drove the presidential campaign.
It could be the permanent bureaucracy, which has an impressive passive-aggressive ability to let the politicians have their press conference fun and then ignore everything that's "decided."
I'll be curious to see if Trump's public rhetoric becomes operationalized in any way. For example, I bet his bromance with Putin will end badly. The two men are both such blustery, insecure, aggressive public posturers, sooner or later they will get in a schoolyard fight.
It will be interesting to see if that brawl is just an escalating but ultimately harmless volley of verbiage, or whether it affects the substance of government policy and leads to nuclear war.
Happy New Year!

The new leader of Democrats in the Senate says Donald Trump is being "really dumb" for picking a fight with intelligence officials, suggesting they have ways to strike back, after the president-elect speculated Tuesday that his "so-called" briefing about Russian cyberattacks had been delayed in order to build a case.
"Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed.

Tracy Riddle Wrote:The new leader of Democrats in the Senate says Donald Trump is being "really dumb" for picking a fight with intelligence officials, suggesting they have ways to strike back, after the president-elect speculated Tuesday that his "so-called" briefing about Russian cyberattacks had been delayed in order to build a case.
"Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed.

Don't the submissive and yielding pro-zionist democrats like Schumer realize they are only making Trump look better by saying that?

Schumer is only going to give undeserved Kennedy-like attributes to the clown Trump by doing that and represents a prime example of the failures of the false left that got Trump elected in the first place. This only shows how convoluted and warped American politics have become that a Republican becomes the alleged savior of the people from Republican-caused corruption. With a democrat warning the people not to piss off the CIA violators or else.

Defying Donald Trump's Kleptocracy

Posted on Jan 1, 2017

By Chris Hedges
[Image: Donald_Trump_and_Betsy_DeVos_590.jpg]

The family of Betsy DeVos, right, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, has a net worth of more than $5 billion. (Andrew Harnik / AP)

The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx predicted, would be marked by global capital being unable to expand and generate profits at former levels. Capitalists would begin to consume the government along with the physical and social structures that sustained them. Democracy, social welfare, electoral participation, the common good and investment in public transportation, roads, bridges, utilities, industry, education, ecosystem protection and health care would be sacrificed to feed the mania for short-term profit. These assaults would destroy the host. This is the stage of late capitalism that Donald Trump represents.
READ: What We Expect to See in 2017
Trump plans to oversee the last great campaign of corporate pillaging of America. It will be as crass and brazen as the fleecing of the desperate people, hoping for a miracle in the face of dead-end jobs and ruinous personal debt, who visited his casinos or shelled out thousands of dollars for the sham of Trump University. He will attempt to unleash a kleptocracythe word comes from the GreekklÃ©pto, meaning thieves, and kratos, meaning rule, so it is literally "rule by thieves"one that will rival the kleptocracies carried out by Suharto in Indonesia and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. It is not that Trump and his family will use the influence of government to increase their wealth, although this will certainly take place on a massive scale; it is that hundreds of billions of federal dollars will be diverted into the hands of cronies, sleazy bankers, unethical financial firms and scabrous hedge fund managers. The pillars of the liberal state will be obliterated.
The only possibility for halting the destruction being designed by the Trump transition team is sustained resistance and civil disobedience that will create popular pressure for impeachment. This is why I will be at the march in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21 and speak that evening at a rally with Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein.
Trump is impulsive, ignorant and inept. His corruption and greed are so unfettered he may become a burden and embarrassment to his party and the nation, as well as a danger to himself. The longer he stumbles in the unfamiliar corridors of governmental power the more vulnerable he becomes. But if we are not in the streets to hold the system accountable he may be able to cling to power and inflict significant damage.
Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, has argued that Trump could be impeached under the Constitution's emoluments clause. This clause prohibits a federal officeholder from receiving from a foreign power anything of value that could compromise the exclusive loyalty owed to the Constitution. Trump's global businesses make him vulnerable, Tribe argues, to foreign pressure from countries where he has assets. "Trump's continued interest in the Trump Organization and his steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers put him on a collision course with the emoluments clause," Tribewrote in The Guardian.
If, however, we suffer another catastrophic domestic terrorist attack or launch a new war, the political space to examine and prosecute Trump and remove him from office will disappear. The rhetoric from the Oval Office will become bloodcurdling. The security and surveillance state will go into hyperdrive. Any dissent, including mere criticism of the president, will be attacked as helping our enemies. Trump and his kleptocrats, under the familiar cover of national security and war, will transform huge sums of government money into personal assets.
The Trump transition team is busy anointing its coterie of kleptocrats. The appointment of Betsy DeVos (from a family with a net worth in excess of $5 billion) to become secretary of education means she will oversee the more than $70 billion spent annually on the Department of Education. DeVosthe sister of Eric Prince, who founded the notorious private security firm Blackwater Worldwidehas no direct experience as an educator. She promoted a series of for-profit charter schools in Michigan that make money but have had dismal academic results. She sees vouchers as an effective tool to funnel government money into schools run by the Christian right. Her goal is to indoctrinate, not educate. She calls education reform a way to "advance God's kingdom." Trump has already proposed using $20 billion of the department's budget for vouchers. The American system of public education, already crippled by funding cuts, will be destroyed if Trump and DeVos succeed.
The Department of Veterans Affairs spends $152.7 billion a year on veterans' benefits that include general health care and treatment in VA hospitals. Last week Trump publicly weighed allowing veterans to use the for-profit health care system. Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove (annual salary $2.3 million) is one of the front-runners to head the VA.
"I've been saying we have to take care of our vets," Trump told reporters Wednesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. "We are working on something to make it great for our veterans because they are treated very, very unfairly."
"We think we have to have kind of a public-private option, because some vets love the VA," he added. "Definitely an option on the table to have a system where potentially vets can choose either/or or all private."
Rep. Tom Price, a Georgia Republican (net worth $13 million), has been selected by Trump to be secretary of health and human services. He plans to abolish Obamacare. He said he expects the House to push for Medicare privatization "within the first six to eight months" of the Trump administration.
Steve Mnuchin (net worth $40 million), a former partner at Goldman Sachs and the president-elect's choice to lead the Department of the Treasury, told Fox Business that "getting Fannie and Freddie out of government ownership" is one of the Trump administration's top 10 priorities. This is also the stated goal of Trump's choice for budget director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (net worth $3 million), a Republican from South Carolina.
The privatization of the government-backed mortgages would see financial institutions authorized to issue mortgage-backed securities that carry a government guarantee. If the mortgages failed under the privatization scheme, the taxpayer would foot the bill. If the mortgages succeeded, the banks would get the profit. The privatization plan amounts to the institutionalization of the 2008 government bailout for big banks. It could cost the taxpayer billions.

The biggest pot of gold is the $2.79 trillion contained in or owed to the Social Security fund. The kleptocrats will work hard under Trump to divert this money into the hands of hucksters and crooks on Wall Street. Tom Leppert (net worth $12 million), the former mayor of Dallas, whom Trump is expected to name to head the Social Security Administration, not surprisingly advocates the privatization of Social Security and Medicare. The infusion of this kind of liquidity into an overheated stock market would probably bring on a crash that would evaporate perhaps as much as 40 percent of the Social Security fund, rendering it insolvent.
"I will never shy away from any issue, even the so-called third rail' of entitlement reform," Leppert wrote about privatizing Social Security as he campaigned for the Texas Senate in 2012. "Talk to any young person today, and they will tell you Social Security and Medicare won't be there for their generation. To preserve these vital programs, we first and foremost must not change anything for those ages 55 and older. These folks rely on their benefits and we've made a promise to them. But for younger workers, we need to provide Medicare subsidies for the purchase of certified private plans, raise the retirement age, encourage greater retirement savings, and launch an initiative of Personal Retirement Accounts to allow every American, not just the wealthy, to save and invest toward their retirement. Make no mistakeif we don't act now, these programs will go bankrupt. The simple fact in this debate is that people who oppose reform are the ones who want to destroy our entitlement system."
He went on to call for abolishing Medicare. "This would be gradually phased-in over time and would not affect anyone currently over the age of 55," he wrote. "For younger individuals, when they reach retirement, they will receive a subsidy from the federal government that will allow them to purchase certified coverage plans. Those with the lowest incomes would receive more funds from vouchers and would be eligible for additional Medicaid coverage."
Social services and government programs under Trump will be continually degraded. Profits for those who oversee privatized educational, health and Social Security funds will skyrocket. This orgy of predationthe dream of the 1 percentwill be accompanied by further austerity among the citizenry, along with soaring personal costs for health care, utilities and basic services and a crippling debt peonage.
We will not have a champion in the Democratic Party's Senate minority leadership, headed by the party's slicked-up version of Trump, Sen. Chuck Schumer (net worth $700,000). Schumer sits on the Senate Finance Committee, whose members are loyal and well-compensated allies of the 1 percent, and he is a member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. His chief role in the party has been to raise millions of dollars from Wall Street for the party, himself and party candidates including his friend and protÃ©gÃ©, the now disgraced Anthony Weiner, a former member of the House.
Schumer's donors and allies include hedge fund moguls Steven Cohen (net worth $13 billion), John Paulson (net worth $8.6 billion), Stanley Druckenmiller (net worth $4.4 billion), Paul Tudor Jones (net worth $4.3 billion), Paul Singer (net worth $2.2 billion) and James Chanos (net worth $1.5 billion) and Donald Trump (net worth $3.7 billion).
Schumer is the senator-of-choice for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, before they collapsed in 2008, lavishly funded his campaigns. Schumer joined with Republicans in 1999 to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which had created walls between investment and commercial banks. This repeal set the stage for the 2008 global financial crisis. Schumer voted to bail out Wall Street in 2008. He sponsored an amendment that barred the Securities and Exchange Commission from overseeing credit rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service.
Schumer, like Trump, is addicted to his own celebrity. He, like Trump, believes that politics is fundamentally about public relations. This is why he trots out Bernie Sanders, his new "chair of outreach" for Senate Democrats, to stand behind him like a store mannequin at press conferences.
America has only one genuine political party. It is the corporate party. Schumer and Trump are charter members. They will work togetheras Trump has predictedas a well-oiled wrecking crew.
Trump's illiteracy, lack of self-discipline and insatiable greed are profound faults. He does not listen to others. He is cursed with a self-destructive ego and unbridled narcissism. He cares nothing for the law. And he usually acts on impulse. But Trump will not be toppled unless we rise up in sustained protests to defy his racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and wanton plunder. If he is impeached and convicted, it will slow, although not halt, the corporate state's disemboweling of America. And that, for now, is probably our best hope for the new year.

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein rang in the New Year announcing her support for the Occupy Inauguration protests organized for Jan. 20 and Jan. 21. The initiative, which has garnered support from a range of groups and movements, including Occupy Wall Street and Veterans For Peace, urges Americans to stand united "against the oligarch and demand representation for the people."
In a statement on Stein's campaign website published Monday, the Green Party wrote: "On January 20th, we will join thousands of people and organizations from around the country in Washington D.C. to Occupy Inauguration sending a message to Trump that we reject his illegitimate presidency from the very start."
"On January 21st - day one of the Trump administration - we'll be on Facebook Live with an all-day online forum featuring Greens, social movements, and progressives, sharing resources and inspiration to support resistance and transformation," the statement read.

[Image: jill-stein.jpg]

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a campaign rally in Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 8, 2016. Photo: REUTERS/JIM YOUNG The Occupy Inauguration movement, a mass rally and protest scheduled to take place in Washington, said on its website its members opposed Wall Street's dominance and a "rigged political and economic system."
"We stand against both the danger [President-elect Donald] Trump represents and the corruption that backed [former presidential nominee Hillary] Clinton. Neither party represents the interests of the 99%," the group said in a statement.
"The goal of this action is to build a new independent coalition movement for the 99% that stands outside the stranglehold duopoly of the GOP [Republican Party] and DNC [Democratic National Committee]," the group said. "We recognize the establishments of the Republican and Democratic parties to be part of the problem, so we will not be inviting leadership from, or endorsement by them."
Related Stories

Trump's Inauguration Day is likely to be met with several protests with multiple groups having planned for peaceful demonstrations across the country. African-American lawmakers announced Tuesday they too have planned for protests ahead of the Jan. 20 event, adding that the real estate mogul was "not a normal incoming president."
"The stakes are incredibly high and our community is counting on us as the last line of defense between Donald Trump and the worst of what America could offer," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, told Politico.
The DC Counter-Inaugural Welcoming Committee, also called DisruptJ20, has also planned for "a series of massive direct actions that will shut down the Inauguration ceremonies and any related celebrations" on Jan. 20.
"We fully support the massive and spontaneous eruption of resistance across the United States that's happened since the election. We're hoping that #DisruptJ20 can help people find each other, connect issues, and be a part of building a movement for a better world. Beyond that, the DC Welcoming Committee doesn't feel the need to speak on anyone's behalf. The anger on the streets speaks loudly enough," the group said in a statement.

This is what the lunatic was Tweeting about today:

[FONT=&amp]If you're preparing to become the most powerful person on the planet, you should probably have better things to do than obsessing over the ratings of a reality TV show.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]However, President-elect Donald Trump just couldn't resist boasting on Friday morning about the high ratings that he received during his first season hosting The Apprentice, while also taking shots at his successor on the show, Arnold Schwarzenegger.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]

[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]"Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got swamped' (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT," boasted the man who will gain control of America's nuclear arsenal in just 14 days. "So much for being a movie star and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary."[/FONT]

[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"] [Image: DJT_Headshot_V2_normal.jpg]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got "swamped" (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for....
4:34 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817348644647108609"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817348644647108609"]
4,4644,464 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817348644647108609"]
16,15316,153 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"] [Image: DJT_Headshot_V2_normal.jpg]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary
4:42 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817350726800306177"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817350726800306177"]
4,2764,276 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817350726800306177"]
17,25817,258 likes[/URL]

[FONT=&amp]

Report Advertisement

[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]The reaction on the internet was quick and it was not happy. After all, a man who is going to become president in just two weeks should probably be thinking about something other than how his successor is faring on his old reality TV show.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]A sample of choice reactions follows below.[/FONT]

[URL="https://twitter.com/djrothkopf"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/djrothkopf"] [Image: DJR_TWITTER_5_normal.jpg]

David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf[/URL]

So unpresidential that the term presidential may never be presidential again. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/817348644647108609 â€¦
4:39 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817349857270702080"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817349857270702080"]
460460 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817349857270702080"]
1,0061,006 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw"]
Follow[/URL]
[Image: s4jbWhqz_normal.jpg]

southpaw @nycsouthpaw

Trump can't accomplish a peaceful transfer of power on Celebrity Apprentice.
5:46 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817366804758724608"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817366804758724608"]
1,1391,139 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817366804758724608"]
2,1332,133 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/Beer__Wolf"]
Follow[/URL]
[Image: GoK-oVjp_normal.jpg]

Kilgore Trout @Beer__Wolf

I'm gonna murder myself with a Bic pen https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/817348644647108609 â€¦
4:35 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817348951187869696"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817348951187869696"]
1717 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817348951187869696"]
5757 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch"] [Image: bwlwJ5P2_normal.jpeg]

Sonny Bunch
@SonnyBunch[/URL]

Trump: Aren't I still the executive producer of this show?
Dark Trump: Shit on it anyway.
4:40 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817350197412065281"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817350197412065281"]
423423 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817350197412065281"]
806806 likes[/URL]

View image on Twitter

[URL="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1"] [Image: YUk99vQB_normal.jpg]

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1[/URL]

Today, Trump is receiving an important intel briefing on Russia's interference in the US electionand he's tweeting about The Apprentice.
4:44 AM - 6 Jan 2017 Â· Brooklyn, NY

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817351250610110464"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817351250610110464"]
1,2451,245 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817351250610110464"]
1,3511,351 likes[/URL]

3h
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"] [Image: DJT_Headshot_V2_normal.jpg]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got "swamped" (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for....

[URL="https://twitter.com/Impeach_D_Trump"]
Follow[/URL]
[Image: HNcIuKRX_normal.jpg]

Impeach Donald Trump @Impeach_D_Trump

@realDonaldTrump Maybe you should go back to the Apprentice then and give this job to someone else...
4:39 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817349900933414912"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817349900933414912"]
1313 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817349900933414912"]
6161 likes[/URL]

3h
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"] [Image: DJT_Headshot_V2_normal.jpg]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary

[URL="https://twitter.com/politicalsculpt"]
Follow[/URL]
[Image: Y6W0z0ej_normal.jpg]

Political Sculptor @politicalsculpt

@realDonaldTrump no one is watching the apprentice cause people are boycotting everything trump including ivanka Chinese clothing #fucktrump
4:44 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817351091654422530"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817351091654422530"]
1818 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817351091654422530"]
2121 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/zlipp"]
Follow[/URL]
[Image: m_xKVe8t_normal.jpg]

Zach Lipp @zlipp

Trump still produces Celebrity Apprentice, but bashes it

Generally, he isn't manipulating coverage with his Twitter, he's just an egomaniac https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/817348644647108609 â€¦
4:43 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817350775932407809"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817350775932407809"]
44 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817350775932407809"]
1212 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/JGreenDC"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/JGreenDC"] [Image: m1dpHRMk_normal.jpg]

Justin Green
@JGreenDC[/URL]

executive producer happy that his show got bad ratings https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/817348644647108609 â€¦
4:37 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817349289257144325"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817349289257144325"]
130130 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817349289257144325"]
243243 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/JasonStarrBooks"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/JasonStarrBooks"] [Image: nJkt0K2l_normal.jpg]

Jason Starr
@JasonStarrBooks[/URL]

Then here's an idea: go back to The Apprentice! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/817348644647108609 â€¦
5:13 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817358356155400192"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817358356155400192"]
5858 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817358356155400192"]
237237 likes[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce"] [Image: XrjaOfP__normal.jpg]

Charles P. Pierce
@CharlesPPierce[/URL]

His Twitter feed is remarkably bananas this morning. Something bad must be coming.
5:21 AM - 6 Jan 2017

[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=817360405517500417"]
[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=817360405517500417"]
252252 Retweets[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=817360405517500417"]
544544 likes[/URL]

Ha ha ha! : Point

Quote:@realDonaldTrump Maybe you should go back to the Apprentice then and give this job to someone else...

AMY GOODMAN: President-elect Donald Trump is slated to meet with U.S. intelligence chiefs today for a highly classified briefing on the alleged Russian cyber-attack of the 2017 electiona claim Trump disputes. Thursday night, Trump tweeted, quote, "The Democratic National Committee would not allow the FBI to study or see its computer info after it was supposedly hacked by Russia...... So how and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on?" Trump tweeted.
President Obama received the same briefing on Thursday, along with a 50-page classified intelligence document that reportedly says U.S. spy agencies intercepted Russian communications in which top Russian officials were congratulating each other on Donald Trump's presidential win. The New York Times wrote of Trump's meeting today with the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and others, quote, "In effect, they will be telling the president-elect that the spy agencies believe he won with an assist from [President] Vladimir V. Putin of Russia," unquote. An unclassified version of the report is expected to be released to the public next week.
This comes as Clapper appeared Thursday before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on foreign cyberthreats and said the intelligence community is resolute in its findings that Russians hacked the U.S. election. Arizona Republican Senator John McCain asked Clapper whether the alleged hacking would constitute an act of war.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Really, what we're talking about is, if they wereif they succeeded in changing the results of an election, which none of us believe they were, that that would have to constitute an attack on the United States of America because of the effects, if they had succeeded. Would you agree with that?

JAMES CLAPPER: First, we cannot saythey did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort. And we have no

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Yeah, I'm just talking aboutyeah.

JAMES CLAPPER: We have no way of gauging the impact thatcertainly, the intelligence community can't gauge the impact it had on choices the electorate made. There's no way for us to gauge that. Whether or not that constitutes an act of war, I think, is a very heavy policy call that I don't believe the intelligence community should make. But it certainly would carry, in my view, great gravity.

AMY GOODMAN: That's national intelligence head James Clapper being questioned by Senator John McCain.
Well, on Thursday, Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the founding editors of The Intercept. His latest piece is headlined "WashPost Is Richly Rewarded for False News About Russia Threat While Public Is Deceived." This is Part 2 of our conversation. I asked Glenn Greenwald about this article, the onslaught of criticism he's received for questioning the premise of Russian hacking of the election and how this compares to criticism he's received in the past. Greenwald recently wrote, quote, "n my 10-plus years of writing about politics on an endless number of polarizing issuesincluding the Snowden reportingnothing remotely compares to the smear campaign that has been launched as a result of the work I've done questioning and challenging claims about Russian hacking and the threat posed by that country generally." I asked him to talk further about this.

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, so I've done some, you know, pretty controversial and polarizing reporting in the past decade when I've been writing about politics. And when you do that, you obviously get attacked in lots of different ways. It's not just me; it's everybody who engages. It's just sort of the rough and tumble of politics and journalism. But I really haven't experienced anything even remotely like the smear campaign that has been launched by Democrats in this really coordinated way ever since I began just expressing skepticism about the prevailing narrative over Russia and its role that it allegedly played in the election and, in particular, in helping to defeat Hillary Clinton. I mean, not even the reporting I did based on the Edward Snowden archive, which was extremely controversial in multiple countries around the world, not even that compared to the attacks now.

And the reason is very, very obvious, which is that it has become exceptionally important to Democratic partisans to believe that the reason they lost this election is not because they chose a candidate who was corrupt and who was extremely disliked and who symbolized all of the worst failings of the Democratic Party. It's extremely important to them not to face what is really a systemic collapse on the part of the Democratic Party as a political force in the United States, in the House, in the Senate, in state houses and governorships all over the country. And so, in order not to face any of that and have to confront their own failings, they instead want to focus everything on Vladimir Putin and Russia and insist that the reason they lost was because this big, bad dictator interfered in the election. And anyone who challenges or anyone who questions that instantly becomes not just their enemy, but now, according to their framework, someone who's actually unpatriotic, that if you question the evidence, the sufficiency of the evidence to support this theory, that somehow your loyalties are suspect, that you're not just a critic of the Democratic Party, you're actually a stooge of or an agent of the Kremlin.

And obviously we've seen this rhetoric for decades during the Cold War, although back then it was the far right using it against Democrats for wanting to have better relations with Russia. We saw it in 2002, when people who questioned the sufficiency of the evidence about Saddam's WMDs were accused of being apologists for Saddam or agents of Iraq. We've seen it repeatedly through the war on terror. Whenever anyone questions the policies of the U.S. government, you get accused of being pro-terrorist or on the side of al-Qaeda. These are the kinds of bullying smear tactics that have become very common.

But because Democrats are so desperate to put the blame on everybody but themselves for the complete collapse of their party, they're particularly furious at anybody who vocally challenges this narrative. And since I've been one of the people most vocally doing so, the smear campaign has been like none that I have ever encountered. I have been accused of being a member of the alt-right, of being an admirer of Breitbart, of being supportive of Donald Trump, of helping him get elected and, of course, of being a Kremlin operative. And it's just this constant flow, not from fringe accounts online, but from the Democratic operatives and pundits with the greatest influence. In fact, Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, went on Twitter three weeks ago and said, "I think it would be really interesting to find out whether The Intercept is receiving money from Russia or Iran"something that he obviously has zero evidence or basis for suggesting, but this is what the Democratic Party has become.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, you mentioned Breitbart News, Glenn Greenwald. One of the pieces of evidence that people cite for your alleged sympathy with Breitbart is a part of an interview that you gave recently to Lee Stranahan last month in which you said, "Breitbart is actually a fascinating case. And I do think right-wing media has had a lot more success in pioneering ways to challenge establishment authority [than] left-wing media has." You went on to say that it's, quote, "very impressive in terms of the impact they've been able to have." That is, Breitbart media has been able to have. And now, of course, the head of Breitbart media has been named by Trump as his chief strategist. So, could you respond to that and explain what you meant?

GLENN GREENWALD: Sure. That Breitbart has had a huge impact on American politics is something that no honest person could possibly dispute. Their traffic alone has quadrupled, or even more, just in the past six to nine months. They became the go-to place for the part of the Republican Party that ended up dominant, that ended up electingnominating and then electing a candidate who the entire political establishment thought had no chance of ever winning. They gave voice to a huge part of the Republican Party that had been completely and systematically excluded from all of the Republican mainstream venues, like National Review and Weekly Standard. The impact that they have had is immense. And to deny that is just delusional.

But even worse is to suggest that acknowledging the impact that they have somehow makes you an admirer of them. In that very same interview, I told them directly to their face that the content that they're producing is repellent. That was the word I used. I said that I have all kinds of terrible things to say about Breitbart reporters and about Breitbart's content. All of the work I've done over the past decadethe sort of primary issue on which I've worked has been a defense of the civil liberties of Muslimsis completely antithetical to everything that Breitbart believes in. So, to take a comment that I made which is observably and undeniably true, which is that the impact that they've had on the political process is extraordinary and impressive, and convert that into me saying that I somehow like Breitbart or am a sympathizer with Breitbart or an admirer or supporter of Breitbart is just dishonesty in the extreme. And it's obvious for anybody minimally literate that that's the case.

[Image: attachment.php?attachmentid=8866&stc=1]

They are quite the pair. I'll give her a lot more leeway, as she holds no official position, and was just trying to survive as a single women in dog-eat-dog America at the time. However, hubby is tweeting about his reality TV show when there are important issues at hand. Even Reagan never spoke about Bedtime For Bonzo publicly. I think with Trumpf the National Enquirer will replace the New York Times as the newspaper of 'record'. We are about to enter the Twilight Zone and an Unreality TV/Internet Show called the U.S.A. Buckle your seat belts and check your life raft and bomb shelter. However, it hard to imagine a state dinner with conservative first ladies, not to mention heads of state from say Arab countries meeting with Mrs. Trump having been briefed [sic] with the above photo - and I hear there are more vivid ones extant!

[Image: attachment.php?attachmentid=8867&stc=1]

[Image: attachment.php?attachmentid=8867&stc=1]

Peter Lemkin

Peter Lemkin

Tracy Riddle

Albert Doyle

Peter Lemkin

Defying Donald Trump's Kleptocracy

Posted on Jan 1, 2017

Peter Lemkin

Tracy Riddle

Peter Lemkin

Peter Lemkin

Peter Lemkin