USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

Don't Think Twice, It's Alt-Right ::

"'Darkness is good,' Bannon said. 'Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they...get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing.' . . . "

Charles Blow voiced what we feel is an accurate sentiment: " . . . This may well be the beginning of the end: the early moments of a historical pivot point, when the slide of the republic into something untoward and unrecognizable still feels like a small collection of poor judgments and reversible decisions, rather than the forward edge of an enormous menace inching its way forward and grinding up that which we held dear and foolishly thought, as lovers do, would ever endure. . . ."

Blow's underscoring of Trump National Security Advisor General (ret.) Michael Flynn's affinity for "Alt-Right"/white supremacist Mike Cernovich: ". . . . In October, Flynn tweeted: 'Follow Mike @Cernovich He has a terrific book, Gorilla Mindset. Well worth the read. @realDonaldTrump will win on 8 NOV!!!' The New Yorker dubbed Mike Cernovich 'the meme mastermind of the alt-right' in a lengthy profile. The magazine pointed out: 'On his blog, Cernovich developed a theory of white-male identity politics: men were oppressed by feminism, and political correctness prevented the discussion of obvious truths, such as the criminal proclivities of certain ethnic groups.' . . . . "

Much of the program focuses on the media and communication and the corruption of the very concept of truth and the profession of journalism. The growing, dominant phenomenon of fake news was a major factor in the campaign. The growth of social media, the role of WikiLeaks and the proclivity of Donald Trump and those around him for tweeting disinformation are heralding the transformation of journalism into propaganda.

In addition to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, his son and advisor Michael Flynn, Jr. is a major advocate of "fake news," saying that a story should assumed to be true until proven false. We note that Flynn, Sr. disseminated a fake news story about the Clintons alleged involvement with a child-molestation ring. That story tracks back to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, has been nominated Education Secretary by Trump. Another of Trump's advisors, Joseph E. Schmitz, succeeded Prince as the head of Blackwater. With powerful, militarily capable outfits like Blackwater (since renamed) in the Trumpenkampfverbande, the capabilities for violent suppression of dissenting journalism are enormous.

Trump has been extremely vocal in his criticism of dissenting media, lambasting broadcast journalists at a recent meeting and moving to "loosen libel laws." With Trump poised to appoint several Supreme Court justices and other federal judges, the capabilities for the Trumpenkampfverbande to eliminate free speech will be profound. Trump has also been one of a number of billionaires who have made a point of suing media voices they dislike. This comes at a time when the growth of the internet has made media outlets more financially vulnerable to that sort of pressure.

The creation of a "Professor Watchlist" by a right-wing youth group; rumination about how "open-carry laws" (such as one in Texas permitting college students to take handguns to class) might affect the well being of professors on that watch list; the suspension of Frank Navarro, a Mountain View (California) high school teacher and Holocaust expert, for comparing (rightly) Trump's rise to the rise of Adolf Hitler; The U.S. vote against U.N. resolution condemning the celebration of Nazism and neo-Nazism on the grounds that it would restrict free speech

[Albert Doyle]

I'm surprised that Putin's betraying Snowden doesn't even get a response...

[Peter Lemkin]

I'm surprised that Putin's betraying Snowden doesn't even get a response...

At this point I don't take it seriously. If it was really said it is just to see the reaction and play 'lets make a deal' on something more substantial. Putin would have such a blackened name all over the World if he did....he's too smart for that. I hope.

The closest I can find after an internet search for authenticity is this:

Russia is considering sending Edward Snowden back to the United States as a 'gift' to President Donald Trump, according to an unnamed and unseen US Intelligence report.

Fake Newz!

[Albert Doyle]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russ...al-n718921

[Peter Lemkin]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russ...al-n718921

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

Anonymous intelligence sources say; Anonymous intelligence sources say; Anonymous intelligence sources say; Anonymous senior US officials say = FAKE NEWZ! [99.99% sure!]

[Peter Lemkin]

While we all seem to be rushing out to buy copies of 1984, It Can't Happen Here and Hannah Arendt's classic Origins of Totalitarianism, we should bear in mind that what we have to fear today is very different from what was going on during the interwar period that gave rise to Nazisim. The situation today is not analogous to that period, according to political scientist Jeffrey Isaac in this week's WhoWhatWhy Podcast.
Isaac tells Jeff Schechtman that while our constitutional system may help protect us, we have to fight back through traditional political institutions, and through resistance and civil disobedience, of which the country has a long history.
What's different this time, he argues, is the post 9/11 surveillance state which is being exploited and extended by Trump and which could tip the scales. As for the political battles ahead, he feels strongly that while the Republican Party may not be a partner in Trump's authoritarian agenda, they are his greatest enablers.
Jeffrey Isaac is the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, and Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives in Politics.

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Full Text Transcript:
(As a service to our readers, we provide transcripts with our podcasts. We try to ensure that these transcripts do not include errors. However, due to a constraint of resources, we are not always able to proofread them as closely as we would like and hope that you will excuse any errors that slipped through.)
Jeff Schechtman: Welcome to Radio WhoWhatWhy, I'm Jeff Schechtman.
It seems we're all rushing out to buy copies of 1984, it can't happen here, and [Hannah Arendt's] classic origins of totalitarianism last week. In fact 1984 top the sales charts on Amazon. But did these classic mid-century works really give us insight and context into what's happening in Washington? Are we facing a true existential totalitarian threat or just the blustering incompetence of a would-be tyrant? Perhaps to the extent we truly understand the history and [?] of fascism, populism, and real totalitarian dictatorships, we might have an answer to some of these key questions. To help us in that effort I'm joined by our guest Jeffrey Isaac. Jeffrey Isaac is the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and the editor-in-chief of Perspectives on Politics a Journal of the American Political Science Association. Jeffrey Isaac, welcome to the program.
Jeffrey Isaac: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Schechtman: It's great to have you here. Does it matter the degree to which the threat we're facing is a true totalitarian threat, or whether it is kind of the blustering incompetence of a would-be totalitarian dictator? Does it matter in terms of the danger and how we respond?
Isaac: Well, everything matters. Everything matters in terms of the danger and how we respond. Getting it right is important. So you distinguished between a true totalitarian threat and a kind of blustering, maybe inept would-be totalitarian dictator, I would say that there are some other possibilities and it's that spectrum of the possibilities that really is worth talking about. First of all, there's the possibility of forms of authoritarianism that don't represent what we might call true totalitarianism, and I think in fact the situation that we confront is not a situation analogous to the inter-war period that gave rise to the idea of totalitarianism and to the totalitarian regimes, in particular Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. But there's still authoritarian dangers. On the other side, I'm not sure that Trump himself or other leaders of the right-wing populist leaders in Europe, who are similar to Trump, that they aspire to be totalitarian dictators, but they certainly do aspire to institute policies that are frightening and dangerous to constitutional democracy. One other thing, just by way of kind of prefatory clarification, and that is among the things that is very frightening about Donald Trump is not only his unique combination of authoritarianism and ineptitude, and I do think there's a combination of the fact that. He has as among his chief advisors in Steve Bannon, someone who literally takes his bearings from some of the most far right extremist fascist writers of the 1930s and 20s, and the closeness with which this government is linked to so-called alt-right publications that are also very closely linked to much more conventional white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. So the danger in Trump is the danger of what I would describe as authoritarianism that is accentuated by his closeness the people who actually are very close ideologically to fascists of the 1930s
Schechtman: The fact that we had that blueprint with respect to fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, to what extent can that be helpful in the way we respond, in the way we anticipate what's next?
Isaac: You know I do think it's always important to be mindful of, you know, specificities of the moment, and it's not the 1920s and 30s. You know, we're not between two World Wars. There are genuine crises in the world. They don't rise to the level, the crises of that time. At the same time there are certain features of that historical moment that are worth paying attention to now, and one of them clearly is the effort of certain kinds of leaders to mobilize political power on the basis of resentment and a fear of the other. This idea, particularly with Trump, of making America great again goes directly back to the America First movement of the 1930s, which was a neofascist movement. And understanding how it is that nationalism can be deployed in this way, I think is very important. Being able to understand, I think, the sources of appeal, being able to counter them. We are watching certain things unfold that are not completely unlike things that unfolded in the world in the 30s and 40s. That's a fact. People who are talking about reading Orwell or reading [Arendt] are also talking about reading [? Pavel] and [Adam Michnik]. They're also talking about, well, my colleague and student, [Raphael ?] and I published a piece in Descent magazine, I think this week, on the writer [Gene Sharp], who is a very important theorist of civil resistance and nonviolent resistance to authoritarianism. So there are a wide range of kind of historical examples and examples of forms of resistance that aren't limited to the 30s and 40s. But I do think that what they share common is an attentiveness to the danger of authoritarianism, the possible rise of dictatorial leaders, and the way that these leaders mobilize the masses behind them.
Schechtman: To what extent does our particular constitutional system protect us in some ways from some of these dangers?
Isaac: Obviously there are features of a constitutional system that I would say are sources of protection. There are interesting debates going on even now about how protective these things are. It's very clear that the courts, and the legal system more generally, can be accessed and can play a role in obstructing some of the efforts for example with Trump's executive order. That's very clear. The legal mobilization, very important. The fact that it involved state governments as parties to lawsuits is also important. So federalism is a constitutional means of resistance. Ben Barber has written a number of things about the way in which city governments which actually tend to be more liberal for variety of reasons, can be means of resistance. It's possible… we don't live yet in an authoritarian dictatorship and these constitutional features of the American system are means of defending liberal democracy. At the same time they don't guarantee a successful defense, and there has to be constant citizen pressure, and they have to be used, and the rights that we possess we must exercise. And there's no guarantee that we'll win. It's also true that there are other aspects of the political system that I think either were not envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, or that certainly represent what we might call perversions of constitutional democracy. The whole system of surveillance. In fact, it is true that after 9/11 a great many measures were put into effect to fight "terrorism," to prosecute the war on terror, and in many ways it's true that Trump is drawing upon some of these very measures and extending them. But in many ways the system enables someone like Trump. Those emergency measures we might say, the way in which the mass media has developed. There are things about the system that make it a) alienate many people and breed kind of resentment that someone, that authoritarian leaders, whether Trump, or Le Pen in France, or [Ormonde] in Hungary, that they can tap into. And also there are things about the system that really, let's say, weaken ordinary sources of political participation that people can draw upon. This system affords opportunities, it also presents obstacles.
Schechtman: Talk a little bit about the contemporary aspect of the pressure that comes from the citizen pressure that comes from the other side, as you say, those large numbers of people that feel resentful but feel dispossessed, and disenfranchised, and disconnected from the social institutions.
Issac: Very, very important. So in fact the first thing I was going to say when you pointed out that people are turning to Orwell and [Arendt], is that it's true that a lot of people are turning to Orwell, Arendt. It's also true that the 60+ million people who voted for Donald Trump are not. They're not because a) they're not troubled by this, what's happening, and b) because they're not necessarily inclined to read, to read, certainly to read the history of political thought. It's is fairly well-established, my friend and colleague [Sandy ?] published some stuff on this, that kind of low information voters play a very important role in Trump support. And there is a deep, deep reservoir of support. It was never a majority of the voters. I don't think in electoral terms it ever represented the kind of mandate that Trump has claimed. But there's no question that there's huge support and that those of us who oppose Trump, and who are very troubled by the dangers that he poses, and his agenda poses to liberal democracy, we need to reckon with the fact that Trump is the president, that there's a lot of support for him, and some of the issues that underlie that support must be addressed by opponents of Trump. I think a serious of voices within the Democratic Party acknowledge this. They acknowledge that, well; it's not just a question of economic grievance. I think economic grievance is very important. The Sanders campaign clearly tapped into that. That's clearly going to be an important dimension of the revitalization of the Democratic Party if it will revitalize to address economic grievance and economic inequality in a more serious way. But it's not just that. There's a whole set of other issues related to political alienation and also related to concerns about security that need to be addressed. At the same time, speaking as someone who is a writer, a college professor, and editor, I think it's important to speak out on behalf of the moral issues of our time with a mindfulness that sometimes we're swimming against the tide or that the tide clearly doesn't go in our favor, but we need to do it anyway whether it's GLBT rights. Look, the huge women's march in Washington was such an important event. It was not just for or by women, but it was centered on the theme of women's empowerment, appropriately so. Many of the speeches that I think took place there, and many of the sentiments that animated, are precisely the kind of sentiments that people like Trump play on, they call it PC. And whether or not people in the heartland of Indiana, you know, are going to join me in celebrating Planned Parenthood, it's important to celebrate Planned Parenthood, it's important to celebrate the rights of those groups that played such an important role in that march. That march was a hugely important symbolic statement. At the same time, in states like Indiana, it's going to be important to win over some of those voters who don't like Planned Parenthood, who weren't enthused about that march necessarily, who don't see themselves represented in the discourse of that march. So I say two things. I say first of all I completely, unreservedly, enthusiastically support efforts like that when they are represent the concerns of majorities, but even when they don't. At the same time it's important to have a kind of long game approach to building a new majority.
Schechtman: Historically what do we understand about those supporters of authoritarianism, those disenfranchised that we talked about before, that consistently make decisions that are against their own economic self-interest?
Isaac: I would say two things. I'm not so sure these constitute a direct answer to your question. The first is that it is never the case, all politics is identity politics, and it is never the case that economic identity or class identity is the only identity, or even the identity that trumps others. So one of the things we know, we know this from so many things about recent history or 20th-century history, is that people are often mobilized on the basis of other identities, whether it be ethnic or national, or racial, or gender. And these identities played absolutely crucial role in the rise of Trump, and these identities also played a crucial role in the rise of white right-wing populism throughout Europe for example. So non-economic issues are very important and sometimes much more important than some of us might wish they were. The other thing is that to the extent that there are genuine economic grievances that also play an important role, it can only be said that people are voting against their economic interests when there is an alternative, a clearly articulated alternative that expresses their economic interest.
Schechtman: In reaction to Trump, and you talked a little bit about the work of [Gene Sharp] and others, the fact that there is this long history of civil disobedience in America, to what extent is that historical framework helpful in what we might see over the next several years?
Isaac: I think it's extraordinarily helpful but… what may well transpire in the coming weeks with regard to the Dakota Access Pipeline or what is likely to transpire if the Trump administration moves forward in any way with some of its anti-immigration aspirations with regard to sanctuary movement, sanctuary cities, sanctuary universities, there are going to be groups that legitimately practice civil disobedience and resist the enforcement of certain laws or rules that they consider to be unjust. I think it's very, very important that these groups exist. Civil disobedience is an important strategy in the repertoire of democratic citizenship. On the other hand, practices of disobedience and even practices of, is a public protest more generally, will not be sufficient I think, well certainly they won't be sufficient to have control over the government. Those activities are part of a broader set of strategies and tactics that also include electoral politics and the building of social movements that can actually contest for political power. So I don't think there's any alternative to that, although obviously different people disagree. You know, if you're a Native American activist at Standing Rock, it may well be that your primary preoccupation is resisting that pipeline and you know listening to people like me, or the Harvard political scientist [?], or whoever talk about the ways we need to rebuild the Democratic Party, well, that might not appeal to you if you're a Native American activist. Or if you're someone in the Southwest involved in, you know, sanctuary efforts to resist the deportation, a very concrete, you know, people in your community. At the same time I think those kinds of activities over the long-term are going to need the support of political power and hopefully one of the goals of even political resistance is to build the basis for a more just society. Certainly there needs to be a political party in a two-party system that is strong enough to counter.
Schechtman: Authoritarian regimes, particularly this one, are the product of coalitions. To what extent should the effort be made to pry apart those coalitions?
Isaac: Well, look, first of all, you know, people like me can hold forth. Even like real political leaders who have political supporters or organizations behind them can hold forth about the strategies that they think make most sense. That doesn't mean that lots of people are going to listen to them. So I mean, I'll offer you my sense of a proper answer, that question in my view, it is important to take advantage of and splits within the Republican Party when possible. It's important to keep open lines of communication with certain Republicans, on certain issues particularly, with regard to the more disturbing and authoritarian dimensions of where Trump seems to be headed. It would be important when there are splits within the Republican Party to be mindful of them. At the same time I think it's also important to pursue a longer-term agenda that is consistent with your values. So yeah, exploiting the divisions, I would even say in a less instrumental sense, keeping open lines of communication. But keeping open lines of communications does not mean like laying down to those guys.
Schechtman: Do we have to make a distinction, giving the nature of this battle, given the nature of the authoritarian danger? Do we have to make a distinction between policy and Trump himself? And do we have to look at it as opposition to the danger of authoritarianism from Trump, versus worrying about policy with regard to Republicans? Is that a distinction with a real difference?
Isaac: It is in the sense that we would be having a different conversation. In fact I wouldn't be on the air talking about the topic of this conversation if most of the others, if Jeb Bush were president. I would still oppose Jeb Bush. We could be talking about lots of things that were bad about, that I thought were bad about a Bush administration, but we would not be having this conversation about Hitler and Mussolini, and why people are reading George Orwell, okay. So there's a distinctive danger to the Trump administration that is kind of over and above whatever policy differences exist between, let's say, Democrats, or liberal Democrats and Republicans. That's true. At the same time I would make two clarify[ing] points. One is that the danger of Trump's authoritarianism is not just Trump, it's the Trump administration. It's the people he has around him, and he has a group around him, and it's some of those constituencies, the people that he listens too, who he's reading, okay. And so in the first instance, the danger of authoritarianism under Trump is not just about Trump as an individual, but about an entire administration. The administration as a whole is pretty far to the right, so that's one point, it's not just Trump. But the second point is the administration was elected in a context and has been enabled by a broader Republican Party. The Republican Party people like, let's say, Paul Ryan, I wouldn't describe them as neofascist, let's say, in the same way that I would describe Trump that way, or Bannon that way. But the fact is, conservatives are often the enablers of right-wing extremists when they're not themselves right-wing extremists, or fascists. So yes there's a policy difference between other, the Republican Party as a whole, and the authoritarian danger of Trump-ism, but they're closely, closely linked. It's hard to separate them out from each other, yet Trump is not simply an extension of the Republican Party, but the Republican Party is not in any sense a counter to him. It's an enabler of him.
Schechtman: Jeffrey Isaac, I think you so much for spending time with us on Radio WhoWhatWhy.
Isaac: Oh, thank you, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

[Peter Lemkin]

The one big hurdle to rewriting Trump's refugee ban so it holds up in court

You get three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Updated by Dara Linddara@vox.com Feb 10, 2017, 3:00pm EST

Isaac Brekken/Getty Isaac Brekken/GettyThe Trump administration appears to be putting together a new and improved version of its executive order banning people from seven majority-Muslim countries (and nearly all refugees) from entering the United States.
The original order, signed January 27, was in effect for only a week before being put on hold by a federal judge in Washington. Despite personal appeals (or, rather, Twitter threats) from Trump himself, the administration wasn't able to get the Ninth Circuit to allow the ban to go back into effect and its prospects don't look terrific going forward, either. So at least some White House officials appear to be pivoting to plan B rewriting the ban so that it won't be as vulnerable to constitutional challenge.
Friday morning, NBC News learned that while the White House says it still believes the executive order will ultimately prevail in court, it's also considering revising the order so that it would, erm, prevail better. And Philip Rucker of the Washington Post confirmed that a rewrite is on the table.

The effort might help their cause. The chaotic and inconsistent implementation of the executive order during the week it was in effect likely shaped judges' assessment of it, and taking more care with a second go-round especially if it eliminates some of the most obvious weaknesses with the original executive order could be a show of good faith.
But there's no way the Trump administration could write a constitutionally watertight version of its refugee and visa ban. That's because they themselves have put the idea out there that it's just a dressed-up, constitutionally passable version of the "Muslim ban" Trump proposed during the campaign.
That doesn't automatically render the executive order unconstitutional in fact, there's a decent chance that a maximally cautious version of a visa ban could, ultimately, be upheld. But it certainly makes it hard for any judge who does believe the ban had its origins in animus to put those worries aside.

The Trump administration would be in better shape if they limited the ban to new arrivals

Some of the problems the administration is facing in court probably could be fixed by rewriting the executive order to be more careful which is to say, the issues could have been avoided had the executive order been drafted more carefully the first time.
The administration's reported haste and carelessness in crafting the executive order has made it harder to convince judges there was a legitimate national security reason for it. The courts have asked the federal government to provide evidence, in public or in private, for why these particular countries were chosen for the blacklist which is an extremely unusual move for the courts to make, and implies that they don't trust there was a reason.
Indeed, actually going to the trouble of asking other agencies for input and review, whichreportedly didn't happen the first time, might lead to a different list of banned countries or might supply some evidence that could be presented as a "rational basis" for banning the countries that are included in the blacklist.
The Ninth Circuit all but confirmed that it didn't trust the administration's drafting of the order. The court's Thursday ruling rejected the "memo" that White House counsel Don McGahn sent last week exempting green card holders from the ban and threw some shade at the "the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order" in the process.
In addition to simply demonstrating a certain level of good faith and thus, perhaps, inspiring more deference putting the order back together more carefully would allow the Trump administration to limit the scope of the order to make it harder to challenge in court.
For example: Different kinds of noncitizens have different levels of constitutional rights, but the courts have tended to agree that legal permanent residents have a good claim to due process rights, and that other immigrants and visa holders currently in the US have at leastsome right to due process. By making it risky for those people to leave and reenter the US, the Trump administration made the executive order easier to challenge.
If the executive order only applied to people who haven't yet entered the US, though, it would be much harder for critics to challenge because the US doesn't have any obligation to let someone enter just because he has a visa, and the executive branch has nearly unchecked power to deny visas. (Similarly, if the executive order made it easier for a US-based employer or relative to apply for a waiver, it would make it harder for US-based entities to block the order on the grounds that Americans' rights were being infringed.)
The Department of Justice has, in a way, already suggested revising the executive order along these lines. It asked the Ninth Circuit to limit the lower court's hold on the executive order so that the hold only applied to people who had already entered the US allowing the ban to go back into effect for new arrivals. The Ninth Circuit judges rejected that suggestion because they argued it wasn't their job to rewrite the executive order to make it constitutional.
That's correct. But the executive branch might take on that job.

They can't unring the "Muslim ban" bell

So, sure, the executive branch could do some things to make the ban harder to challenge. But it's not clear they could do enough.
The judiciary will all but certainly subject any ban to some level of scrutiny they are unlikely to be so skeptical of the first version of a ban and then roll over when another version is put forth just because the second version took more time. That means the question of anti-Muslim animus might well be constitutionally relevant.
In order to foolproof the executive order against that claim, the White House would, well, have to go back and change the past. Because the things that critics will use to allege anti-Muslim animus came, in most cases, straight from Trump himself.
They could point to December 2015, when then-candidate Donald Trump called for a "complete and total shutdown of all Muslims" entering the country.
Or the general election campaign in 2016, when Republican nominee Donald Trump was explicit in saying that his proposal to ban immigration from certain countries "compromised by terrorism" was developed because people told him he couldn't "say Muslim."
Or the interview President Donald Trump gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network right before signing the ban, when he promised that the ban's loophole for refugees who are "religious minorities" is a way to protect "Middle Eastern Christians."
Or the Fox News interview Rudy Giuliani did the night after the executive order was signed, when he told the hosts that Donald Trump came to him and other advisers and asked him how a "Muslim ban" could be done "legally."
It's genuinely not clear, from a constitutional standpoint, whether statements like these doom the ban. The Ninth Circuit carefully avoided saying anything about this question in its Thursday ruling, and at least one of the three judges on the panel appeared skeptical that something said on the campaign trail could count as evidence of animus when the order itself is neutral on religion.
But it appears that at least some of the judges who've heard the case so far see the existing order as a sloppy attempt to phrase a "Muslim ban" in facially neutral language. It's not clear what could get them to conclude that a second version wasn't just a less sloppy attempt to do the same thing.
And for those judges who do believe these comments are evidence of Islamophobic animus, no amount of care and input in drafting a second version of a visa ban will eliminate the ban's single greatest weakness: Donald Trump.

[Magda Hassan]

Trilateral Commission Member Appointed To National Security Council

Youtube
Written By: Patrick Wood February 6, 2017
According to a White House press release, the first member of the Trilateral Commission has entered the Trump administration as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs, where he will sit on the National Security Council:
Kenneth I. Juster will serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. He will coordinate the Administration's international economic policy and integrate it with national security and foreign policy. He will also be the President's representative and lead U.S. negotiator ("Sherpa") for the annual G-7, G-20, and APEC Summits. Juster has previously served in the U.S. Government as Under Secretary of Commerce (2001-2005), Counselor (Acting) of the Department of State (1992-1993), Deputy and Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger (1989-1992), and Law Clerk to Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1980-1981). In the private sector, Juster has been a Partner and Managing Director at the global investment firm Warburg Pincus (2010-2017), Executive Vice President of salesforce.com (2005-2010), and Senior Partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter (1981-1989, 1993-2001). Juster has also served as Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Vice Chairman of the Board of the Asia Foundation, and a member of the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. Among his honors, Juster is the recipient of the Secretary of Commerce's William C. Redfield Award and the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award. Juster holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard College, a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School, and a J.D. from the Harvard Law School. [emphasis added]
Juster was appointed by National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn, formerly a U.S. Army lieutenant general and Director of the Defense intelligence Agency.
Flynn has had a close working relationship with the Center for a New American Security, where three members of the Board of Directors are also members of the Trilateral Commission, including its founder and CEO, Michele Flourney. Other CNAS directors include Kurt Campbell and Lewis Kaden. Trilateral Paula Dobriansky is listed on the Board of Advisors.
Flynn's other senior staff appointments to the National Security Council include David Cattler, John Eisenberg and Kevin Harrington.
"I'm incredibly excited about working with this talented group," Flynn said. "With their diverse backgrounds in in business, law, technology, government, the military and the Intelligence community, they bring a wealth of experience and fresh ideas to the table."

In his position as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs, Juster will continue the Trilateral Commission's 44 year hegemony over economic affairs with its stated intent to create a "New International Economic Order." Juster's elitist resume indicates that he is a key Trilateral operative within globalist circles.

Juster's first exposure to the Trilateral Commission occurred early in his career, during Jimmy Carter's presidency, when he worked one summer on the staff of the National Security Council under Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder and principal strategist for the Commission.
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2...y-council/

[Peter Lemkin]

They really 'drained the SWAMP' didn't they....! They drained it so as to be able select the worst creepy-crawler monsters in the Swamp and give them Cabinet and other appointments. I mean the administrations of many Presidents were horrible, but this one needs some new wording - as 'horrible' doesn't even begin to describe it. I certainly expected something horrible, but it has by far surpassed my worst fears - and that in just three weeks. They have a lot more weeks to do damage, and are certainly intent on maximum damage to 99% of the Planet's population of humans and 100% of all other living things. Sure to go down in history as the most hated Presidency ever [though many who voted for him are too dense to catch on yet...but they will..he is NOT going to do them any favors!]. Along with the novel 1984, Hannah Arendt's seminal book on The Origins of Totalitarianism is near the top of the sales list at Amazon!

[Albert Doyle]

Swamp draining has generally been seen as environmentally backwards and destructive of precious wetlands.



The present politics represented by Trump are probably primitive oil-based politics that allow for a union between Trump and Putin in order to drill the Arctic against all Global Warning threats...