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

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn's Lie Committed Serious and Wholly Justified Felonies

Glenn Greenwald
February 14 2017, 7:31 p.m.


President Trump's national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Monday night as a result of getting caught lying about whether he discussed sanctions in a December telephone call with a Russian diplomat. The only reason the public learned about Flynn's lie is because someone inside the U.S. government violated the criminal law by leaking the contents of Flynn's intercepted communications.
In the spectrum of crimes involving the leaking of classified information, publicly revealing the contents of SIGINT signals intelligence is one of the most serious felonies. Journalists (and all other nongovernmental citizens) can be prosecuted under federal law for disclosing classified information only under the narrowest circumstances; reflecting how serious SIGINT is considered to be, one of those circumstances includes leaking the contents of intercepted communications, as defined this way by 18 § 798 of the U.S. Code:

Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates … or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes … any classified information … obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

That Flynn lied about what he said to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was first revealed by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has built his career on repeating what his CIA sources tell him. In his January 12 column, Ignatius wrote: "According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking."
That "senior U.S. government official" committed a serious felony by leaking to Ignatius the communication activities of Flynn. Similar and even more extreme crimes were committed by what the Washington Post called "nine current and former officials, who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls," who told the paper for its February 9 article that "Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country's ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials." The New York Times, also citing anonymous U.S. officials, provided even more details about the contents of Flynn's telephone calls.
That all of these officials committed major crimes can hardly be disputed. In January, CNN reported that Flynn's calls with the Russians "were captured by routine U.S. eavesdropping targeting the Russian diplomats." That means that the contents of those calls were "obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of [a] foreign government," which in turn means that anyone who discloses them or reports them to the public is guilty of a felony under the statute.
Yet very few people are calling for a criminal investigation or the prosecution of these leakers, nor demanding the leakers step forward and "face the music" for very good reason: The officials leaking this information acted justifiably, despite the fact that they violated the law. That's because the leaks revealed that a high government official, Gen. Flynn, blatantly lied to the public about a material matter his conversations with Russian diplomats and the public has the absolute right to know this.
This episode underscores a critical point: The mere fact that an act is illegal does not mean it is unjust or even deserving of punishment. Oftentimes, the most just acts are precisely the ones that the law prohibits.
That's particularly true of whistleblowers i.e., those who reveal information the law makes it a crime to reveal, when doing so is the only way to demonstrate to the public that powerful officials are acting wrongfully or deceitfully. In those cases, we should cheer those who do it even though they are undertaking exactly those actions that the criminal law prohibits.
This Flynn episode underscores another critical point: The motives of leakers are irrelevant. It's very possible indeed, likely that the leakers here were not acting with benevolent motives. Nobody with a straight face can claim that lying to the public is regarded in official Washington as some sort of mortal sin; if anything, the contrary is true: It's seen as a job requirement.
Moreover, Gen. Flynn has many enemies throughout the intelligence and defense community. The same is true, of course, of Donald Trump; recall that just a few weeks ago, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer warned Trump that he was being "really dumb" to criticize the intelligence community because "they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."
It's very possible I'd say likely that the motive here was vindictive rather than noble. Whatever else is true, this is a case where the intelligence community, through strategic (and illegal) leaks, destroyed one of its primary adversaries in the Trump White House.
But no matter. What matters is not the motive of the leaker but the effects of the leak. Any leak that results in the exposure of high-level wrongdoing as this one did should be praised, not scorned and punished.

It is, of course, bizarre to watch this principle now so widely celebrated. Over the last eight years, President Obama implemented the most vindictive and aggressive war on whistleblowers in all of U.S. history. As Leonard Downie, one of the editors at the Washington Post during the Watergate investigation, put it in a special report: "The [Obama] administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration."

It's hard to put into words how strange it is to watch the very same people from both parties, across the ideological spectrum who called for the heads of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, and so many other Obama-era leakers today heap praise on those who leaked the highly sensitive, classified SIGINT information that brought down Gen. Flynn.
It's even more surreal to watch Democrats act as though lying to the public is some grave firing offense when President Obama's top national security official, James Clapper, got caught red-handed not only lying to the public but also to Congress about a domestic surveillance program that courts ruled was illegal. And despite the fact that lying to Congress is a felony, he kept his job until the very last day of the Obama presidency.

But this is how political power and the addled partisan brain in D.C. functions. Those in power always regard leaks as a heinous crime, while those out of power regard them as a noble act. They seamlessly shift sides as their position in D.C. changes.
Indeed, while Democrats have suddenly re-discovered the virtues of illegal leaking, Trump-supporting Republicans are insisting that the only thing that matters is rooting out the criminal leakers. Fox News host Steve Doocey and right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham today both demanded to know why the leakers weren't being hunted, while congressional Republicans are vowing investigations to find the leakers. And Trump himself today echoing Obama-era Democrats said that "the real story" isn't the lies told by his national security adviser but rather the fact that someone leaked information exposing them:


But this is just the tawdry, craven game of Washington. People with no actual beliefs shamelessly take diametrically opposite views on fundamental political questions based exclusively on whether it helps or hurts their leaders. Thus, the very same Democrats who just three months ago viewed illegal leaking as a grave sin today view it as an act of heroic #Resistance.
What matters far more than this lowly and empty game-playing is the principle that is so vividly apparent here. Given the extreme secrecy powers that have arisen under the war on terror, one of the very few ways that the public has left for learning about what its government officials do is illegal leaking. As Trevor Timm notes, numerous leaks have already achieved great good in the three short weeks that Trump has been president.
Leaks are illegal and hated by those in power (and their followers) precisely because political officials want to hide evidence of their own wrongdoing, and want to be able to lie to the public with impunity and without detection. That's the same reason the rest of us should celebrate such illegal leaks and protect those who undertake them, often at great risk to their own interests, so that we can be informed about the real actions of those who wield the greatest power. That principle does not change based upon which political party controls the White House.
* * * * *

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to look at the growing scandal over the Trump administration's alleged dealings with Russia before and after the November election. There have been a number of developments in the past 24 hours. The Wall Street Journal is reporting U.S. intelligence officials are withholding sensitive intelligence from President Trump because they're concerned it could be leaked or compromised. The New York Times is reporting Trump is considering ordering a review of the nation's intelligence agencies led by Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire private equity executive who is close to Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner.
Meanwhile, Trump has publicly defended Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday as national security adviser after admitting he gave Vice President Mike Pence and others incomplete information about his calls with the Russian ambassador in December. Trump spoke about Flynn during his press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Michael Flynn, General Flynn, is a wonderful man. I think he's been treated very, very unfairly by the mediaas I call it, the fake media, in many cases. And I think it's really a sad thing that he was treated so badly. I think, in addition to that, from intelligence, papers are being leaked. Things are being leaked. It's criminal action. Criminal act. And it's been going on for a long time, before me. But now it's really going on. And people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton. I think it's very, very unfair what's happened to General Flynn, the way he was treated and the documents and papers that were illegallyI stress thatillegally leaked. Very, very unfair.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump's comments came just a day after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had lost faith in General Flynn.

PRESS SECRETARY SEAN SPICER: This was an act of trust. Whether or not he actually misled the vice president was the issue. And that was ultimately what led to the president asking for and accepting the resignation of General Flynn. That's it, pure and simple. It was a matter of trust.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: While congressional Democrats and some Republicans are pushing for probes into Trump's ties to Russia, Trump has focused largely on going after those who have leaked information to the press. In a tweet this morning, Trump wrote, quote, "The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!" On Wednesday, Trump indirectly accused the NSA and FBI of being behind the leaks. He wrote":https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/stat...6161123328, quote, "Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia."
AMY GOODMAN: Some supporters of Trump, including Breitbart News, have accused the intelligence agencies of attempting to wage a "deep state coup" against the president. Meanwhile, some critics of Trump are openly embracing such activity. Bill Kristol, the prominent Republican analyst who founded The Weekly Standard, wrote on Twitter, "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state," unquote.
To help make sense of what's happening, we're joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept. His most recent piece is headlined "The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn's Lie Committed Seriousand Wholly JustifiedFelonies."
Glenn, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what you mean.
GLENN GREENWALD: There's no question that whoever leaked the contents of General Flynn's telephone calls with the Russian ambassador and other Russian diplomats committed what the law regards as extremely serious crimes. As we all know from the last eight years under President Obama, theythe U.S. government treats it as a criminal act, a felony, to leak information that is deemed classified. In the scheme of what is regarded as criminal in terms of leaks, the most serious or one of the most serious bits of information that can be leaked is what's called signals intelligence, or information gathered by the NSA or the CIA or other intelligence agencies in terms of eavesdropping on foreign governments. And that's exactly what got leaked, was information that the NSA and the CIA say that they gathered as a result of targeting Russian officials with eavesdropping. And along the course of that eavesdropping, they happened hear General Flynn's conversations with those Russian officials. That's what they claim. It's possible they actually targeted General Flynn. We don't know. That's the claim. And if that is true, what they're claiming, it means that the leaking of this information is considered a very serious felony. In fact, the law says that it's not just whoever leaks signals intelligence is guilty of a felony, but anyone who publishes it, too. So, theoretically, it makes the journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, all of whom have leaked signals intelligence, guilty of felonies. My view is that the First Amendment's freedom of the press clause would bar any such prosecutions, but at least under the statute it is a crime.
So then the question becomes: Well, if it's criminal, is it justified? And my view is the same view that I had for the eight years under President Obama and for the years before that under President Bush, which is that people inside the government who leak classified information that the public has a right to know, even if they're breaking the law, are acting commendably and justifiably and heroically, and that those people ought to be celebrated and treated as people defending democracy and transparency, and not be treated as criminals. Unfortunately, over the last eight years, Democrats have had a completely different view of people who leak classified information. And the tweet that you just read from President Trump, saying whoever leaked this information are low-life leakers who deserve to be punished, that sounds very, very, very similar to everything I've heard from most Democrats over the last eight years as they called for the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning and Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden and the long list of other whistleblowers and leakers that President Obama so aggressively and vindictively prosecuted. But, for me, my view has not changed, which is, when an official as senior as General Flynn lies to the public, which is what he didhe denied publicly that he discussed the issue of sanctions with the Russian ambassador in his December phone callinformation that shows that he lied is information that the public has the right to know. And even though I think there are very grave dangers and grave concerns, that I hope we'll discuss, in terms of what the deep state is doing in trying to destroy the Trump administration, that was duly elected, in this particular case, whoever leaked this information helped the public to understand and to learn exactly how General Flynn lied, and therefore, despite being illegal, highly illegal, I actually think it's also wholly justified, as I wrote in that piece.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We're looking at the growing scandal over the Trump administration's alleged dealings with Russia before and after the November election. In early January, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show and suggested the intelligence community may try to get back at Donald Trump.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly, hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in January.
Some supporters of Trump, including Breitbart News, are now accusing the intelligence agencies of attempting to wage a "deep state coup" against the president. Meanwhile, some critics of Trump are openly embracing such activity, like Bill Kristol, the prominent Republican analyst who founded The Weekly Standard. He wrote on Twitter, "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state."
So, still with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, speaking to us from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glenn, explain what the deep state is, and respond.
GLENN GREENWALD: The deep state, although there's no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they're barely subject to democratic accountability, if they're subject to it at all. It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads. This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart fromin fact, in opposition tothe political officials to whom they're supposed to be subordinate.
And you gothis is not just about Russia. You go all the way back to the campaign, and what you saw was that leading members of the intelligence community, including Mike Morell, who was the acting CIA chief under President Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and the NSA under George W. Bush, were very outspoken supporters of Hillary Clinton. In fact, Michael Morell went to The New York Times, and Michael Hayden went to The Washington Post, during the campaign to praise Hillary Clinton and to say that Donald Trump had become a recruit of Russia. The CIA and the intelligence community were vehemently in support of Clinton and vehemently opposed to Trump, from the beginning. And the reason was, was because they liked Hillary Clinton's policies better than they liked Donald Trump's. One of the main priorities of the CIA for the last five years has been a proxy war in Syria, designed to achieve regime change with the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton was not only for that, she was critical of Obama for not allowing it to go further, and wanted to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and confront the Russians. Donald Trump took exactly the opposite view. He said we shouldn't care who rules Syria; we should allow the Russians, and even help the Russians, kill ISIS and al-Qaeda and other people in Syria. So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted. Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him. There's claims that they're withholding information from him, on the grounds that they don't think he should have it and can be trusted with it. They are empowering themselves to enact policy.
Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous. You just listed off in your newsin your newscast that led the show, many reasons. They want to dismantle the environment. They want to eliminate the safety net. They want to empower billionaires. They want to enact bigoted policies against Muslims and immigrants and so many others. And it is important to resist them. And there are lots of really great ways to resist them, such as getting courts to restrain them, citizen activism and, most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn't what this resistance is now doing. What they're doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that. Even if you're somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there's a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that's what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons' allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it's incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.
AMY GOODMAN: And The Wall Street Journal's report that says now intelligence officials are not giving President Trump all the information because they're concerned about what he'll do with it, not to mention intelligence agencies of other countries deeply concerned about what Trump will do with it, and particularly concerned about what he might share with Russia?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, so, first of all, there's a media issue here, which is that if you look at The Wall Street Journal report, it's pretty much exactly the same as every other significant report about Russia over the last six months, many of which have proven to be completely false. It's based on anonymous officials making extremely vague claims. Even The Wall Street Journal says, "We don't know who's doing this, withholding information. We don't know how much information is being withheld."
Secondly, the idea that Donald Trump is some kind of an agent or a spy of Russia, or that he is being blackmailed by Russia and is going to pass secret information to the Kremlin and endanger American agents on purpose, is an incredibly crazy claim that has been nowhere proven to be true. It reminds me of the kind of things Glenn Beck used to say about Obama while he stood at his chalkboard and drew thosethose unstable charts that he drew, these wild conspiracy theories that are without evidence.
We ought to have a serious, sober, structured investigation of the claims that Russia hacked the DNC and John Podesta's emails and that there were improper ties between Donald Trump and the Russians, and that ought to be made public so that we can see the information. But this constant media obsession of leaking whatever someone whispers to them about Donald Trump and Russia, because they know it will get their reporters huge numbers of retweets on Twitter and tons of traffic by people who are being fed what they want to hear, is really feeding into the worst kind of hysteria and even fake news that the media says they're trying to combat. These are really serious claims that merit serious investigation, and that's exactly what we're not getting.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, in a recent piece in The Intercept by one of your colleagues, they write, "If in fact all of this is 'non-sense,' Trump has the power as president to make that clear immediatelyby declassifying all government intercepts of communications between Russian nationals and anyone in his orbit." So, do you think, Glenn, that Trump ought to be doing that?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, it's an interesting point, because, for example, there have been lots of claims made about the communications that General Flynn had with Russian diplomats and what these transcripts supposedly reflect, and yet nobody has seen the transcripts. We've seen little bits and pieces of them. We haven't seen the whole transcript. We ought to see that whole transcript. And my colleague, Jon Schwarz, who wrote that piece, is absolutely right that it's within President Trump's power to order it instantly declassified. There's no review of that decision, and then it could be made public.
On the other hand, it is really bizarre, just as a reporter who has been in the middle of a controversy for the last four years about the leaking of classified information, to hear people suggest that the president now ought to take the most sensitive intercepts that the government is capable of obtaining, which is how they eavesdrop on Russian officials inside the Kremlin, and just toss them to the public like there's no problem at all with doing that. I think that what you're seeing here is this really disturbing double standard, that all we've heard since the war on terror is that classified information is sacred and anybody who leaks it is treasonous and satanic and belongs in jail for a really long time, and now classified information seems to be something that's just a plaything, like something that we just toss around for fun if it serves a certain agenda. And I think that that's one of the issues that's bothering me about the way this discourse is unfolding.

[Peter Lemkin]

Donald Trump dismissed reports of chaos and conspiracy in his administration and claimed his team is running like "a fine-tuned machine" ::face.palm:: during an extraordinary press conference at which he tried to reset his beleaguered presidency.
In a boisterous and often bizarre session, he fired off numerous broadsides at the media as he skipped from topic to topic in what critics saw as an attempt to deflect attention from his alleged ties to Russia.
"I turn on the TV, open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos, chaos," Trump scalded reporters. "Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can't get my cabinet approved."

The president's first solo media briefing since taking office was held ostensibly to announce Alexander Acosta as his new pick for labour secretary after his first choice, Andrew Puzder, withdrew from consideration.

But the event at the White House rapidly turned into a sprawling, freewheeling and pugnacious defence of his first four weeks as president and a bitter denunciation of the press.
In a remarkable press conference spanning 77 minutes in which he took questions from 17 reporters Trump:

• Denied any connections to Russia or any knowledge of his election campaign team having contacts with Moscow, dismissing stories as a "ruse"
  
• Slammed the "dishonest" media for putting out what he called fake news and doing a "disservice" to the American people
  
• Claimed he has achieved more in his first four weeks in office than any previous US president, adding: "We're just getting started"
  
• Denied that his ban on travellers from Muslim-majority countries had been poorly executed, insisting: "We had a bad court"
  
• Argued that he "inherited a mess", both domestically and abroad
  
• Was told he was wrong to claim he had the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. He replied: "I was given that information"
  
• Asked black journalist April Ryan if she would set up a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss his inner-city agenda: "Are they friends of yours?"
  

He argued that there has been "incredible progress" over the past four weeks: "I don't think there's ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we have done."

The measures taken so far include withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, eliminating regulations that "undermine manufacturing", plans to smash international drugs cartels and strengthening the country's borders. Trump contrasted himself with past politicians who made promises only to break them.
In a swipe at Barack Obama's administration, Trump said: "To be honest, I inherited a mess. It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess.
"Jobs are pouring out of the country you see what's going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The Middle East is a disaster. North Korea we'll take care of it folks; we're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess."
But as so often during the election campaign, it was the media that became his primary punchbag. He claimed it is serving not the people but special interests profiting from a broken system. "The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk to find out what's going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control."
Trump claimed he was talking about an entrenched "power structure" that needed attention. "We're not going to let it happen because I'm here again to take my message straight to the people."
He singled out broadcasters and individual reporters for particular criticism, insisting that they had lost the trust of the public. "I just see many, many untruthful things. It's about tone. The tone is such hatred. I'm really not a bad person. I do get good ratings, you have to admit that."
The coverage of the press conference itself would be skewed, he added. "I love this. I'm having a good time doing it. Tomorrow, the headlines are going to be, Donald Trump rants and raves.' I'm not ranting and raving."
Allegations over Trump's connections with Russia hovered over the entire news conference. Apparently trying to square a circle, Trump claimed: "The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake."
He argued: "You know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all fake news, fabricated deal, to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats and the press plays right into it."
The president was asked repeatedly about whether his advisers had contact with Russia during the US presidential election campaign. He eventually conceded: "Nobody that I know of. How many times do I have to answer this question? Russia is a ruse."

Trump even claimed that media reports about his administration's relationship with Russia may make it difficult for him to strike a deal with Vladimir Putin. "Putin probably assumes that he can't make a deal with me any more because politically it would be unpopular for a politician to make a deal."

He mocked former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, his defeated election opponent, for an attempt to "reset" relations with Russia, which included a mocked-up plastic button that he said "made us all look like a bunch of jerks". And he challenged the room, asking whether anyone seriously thought Clinton would be tougher on Russia than him.
The Trump administration was thrown into turmoil by Monday's resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn over his secret discussion of sanctions easement with Russian ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak.
The president confirmed he asked Flynn to resign but insisted he was a "fine person" who did nothing wrong by speaking to Russia's ambassador about sanctions.
"Mike was doing his job," he said. "He was calling countries and his counterparts. So, it certainly would have been OK with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn't doing it. I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job."
Instead Flynn's mistake was to mislead officials including the vice-president, Mike Pence. "He didn't tell the vice-president of the United States the facts," Trump said. "And then he didn't remember. And that just wasn't acceptable to me."
He added: "I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence: very simple ... I don't think he did anything wrong. If anything, he did something right."
The billionaire property tycoon insisted the "real story" was that the intelligence community leaking information about Flynn's conversations and details of the investigation into his campaign advisers.
"I've actually called the justice department to look into the leaks," he said. "Those are criminal leaks."
Trump also railed against embarrassing leaks of his phone calls with world leaders including Australia and Mexico, suggesting that people within the White House could potentially put the US at risk by leaking confidential future conversations about how to handle North Korea.
Trump has been accused of stoking division and hiring a white nationalist, Steve Bannon, as his chief strategist. He angrily turned on a reporter who asked him if his administration has incited acts of antisemitism. "Sit down!" he barked. "Number one, I am the least antisemitic person you've ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person."
When the journalist tried to interject, Trump shouted over him: "Quiet, quiet, quiet. See, he lied that he was going to get up and ask a straight, simple question, so, you know, welcome to the world of the media."
Trump was also caught in a lie about his electoral college victory being the biggest since Ronald Reagan but brushed it off. Zigzagging through various topics, he again insisted: "There's zero chaos. This is a fine-tuned machine."

But his grandstanding is unlikely to go down well on Capitol Hill. On Thursday, Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, demanded investigations by both Congress and the justice department into ties between theTrump administration and Russia.
"We do not know all of the facts, and in the coming days and weeks, more information may well surface about these disturbing revelations," Schumer said on the Senate floor. "But we already know that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
"I have been in Congress for a long time, and I've never, ever seen anything like this. The institutions of government are being tested in a way they have not been tested in some time ... I believe the stakes to be very high. This is not a drill. Nothing less than our system of checks and balances, the rule of law, and our national security is at stake."
Democratic House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is pushing the interim director of national intelligence for a "comprehensive" briefing over the next two weeks. Pelosi will seek transcripts of the intercepted conversations Flynn had with Kislyak.
Trump's original pick for labour secretary, Andrew Puzder, abruptly withdrew from consideration on Wednesday.
Trump said Acosta, who did not appear with the president, "has had a tremendous career". He noted that unlike Puzder, Acosta had been confirmed by the Senate three times and "did very, very well".
If confirmed anew by the Senate, Acosta would become the first Hispanic member of Trump's cabinet. He is now dean of the Florida International University law school.
Acosta has served on the National Labor Relations Board and as a federal prosecutor in Florida. He was named assistant attorney general for civil rights by George W Bush.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Elites Won't Save Us

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_..._20170212/

77

Posted on Feb 12, 2017

By Chris Hedges

Mr. Fish / Truthdig

The four-decade-long assault on our democratic institutions by corporations has left them weak and largely dysfunctional. These institutions, which surrendered their efficacy and credibility to serve corporate interests, should have been our firewall. Instead, they are tottering under the onslaught.
Labor unions are a spent force. The press is corporatized and distrusted. Universities have been purged of dissidents and independent scholars who criticize neoliberalismand decry the decay of democratic institutions and political parties. Public broadcasting and the arts have been defunded and left on life support. The courts have been stacked with judges whose legal careers were spent serving corporate power, a trend in appointments that continued under Barack Obama. Money has replaced the vote, which is how someone as unqualified as Betsy DeVos can buy herself a Cabinet seat. And the Democratic Party, rather than sever its ties to Wall Street and corporations, is naively waiting in the wings to profit from a Trump debacle.
"The biggest asset Trump has is the decadent, clueless, narcissistic, corporate-indentured, war-mongering Democratic Party," Ralph Nadersaid when I reached him by phone in Washington. "If the Democratic strategy is waiting for Godot, waiting for Trump to implode, we are in trouble. And just about everything you say about the Democrats you can say about the AFL-CIO. They don't control the train."
The loss of credibility by democratic institutions has thrust the country into an existential as well as economic crisis. The courts, universities and press are no longer trusted by tens of millions of Americans who correctly see them as organs of the corporate elites. These institutions are traditionally the mechanisms by which a society is able to unmask the lies of the powerful, critique ruling ideologies and promote justice. Because Americans have been bitterly betrayed by their institutions, the Trump regime can attack the press as the "opposition party," threaten to cut off university funding, taunt a federal jurist as a "so-called judge" and denounce a court orderas "outrageous."
The decay of democratic institutions is the prerequisite for the rise of authoritarian or fascist regimes. This decay has given credibility to a pathological liar. The Trump administration, according to an Emerson College poll, is considered by 49 percent of registered voters to be truthful while the media are considered truthful by only 39 percent of registered voters. Once American democratic institutions no longer function, reality becomes whatever absurdity the White House issues.
Most of the rules of democracy are unwritten. These rules determine public comportment and ensure respect for democratic norms, procedures and institutions. President Trump has, to the delight of his supporters, rejected this political and cultural etiquette.
Hannah Arendtin "The Origins of Totalitarianism" noted that when democratic institutions collapse it is "easier to accept patently absurd propositions than the old truths which have become pious banalities." The chatter of the liberal ruling elites about our democracy is itself an absurdity. "Vulgarity with its cynical dismissal of respected standards and accepted theories," she wrote, infects political discourse. This vulgarity is "mistaken for courage and a new style of life."
"He is destroying one code of behavior after another," Nader said of Trump. "He is so far getting away with it and not paying a price. He is breaking standards of behaviorwhat he says about women, commercializing the White House, I am the law."
Nader said he does not think the Republican Party will turn against Trump or consider impeachment unless his presidency appears to threaten its chances of retaining power in the 2018 elections. Nader sees the Democratic Party as too "decadent and incompetent" to mount a serious challenge to Trump. Hope, he said, comes from the numerous protests that have been mounted in the streets, at town hallsheld by members of Congress and at flash points such as Standing Rock. It may also come from the 2.5 million civil servants within the federal government if a significant number refuse to cooperate with Trump's authoritarianism.
"The new president is clearly aware of the power wielded by civil servants, who swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not to any president or administration," Maria J. Stephan, the co-author of "Why Civil Resistance Works," writes in The Washington Post. "One of Trump's first acts as president was a sweeping federal hiring freeze affecting all new and existing positions except those related to the military, national security and public safety. Even before Trump's inauguration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives reinstated an obscure 1876 rule that would allow Congress to slash the salaries of individual federal workers. This was a clear warning to those serving in government to keep their heads down. Trump's high-profile firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates, who refused to follow the president's immigration ban, sent shock waves through the bureaucracy."
A sustained, nationwide popular uprising of nonviolent obstruction and noncooperation is the only weapon left to save the republic. The elites will respond once they become afraid. If we do not make them afraid we will fail.
"The resiliency of democratic institutions has been encouragingthe courts, the protests," Nader said. "Trump boomerangs himself. He personally outrages people around the country based on race, gender, class, geography, his lies, his false statements, his narcissism, his lack of knowledge, his flippancy and his morbid desire to respond to slurs with tweets. He is not a smart autocrat. He weakens himself daily. He allows the opposition to have more effect than it ordinarily would."
"Most dictatorial heads of state deal with abstract ideologiesthe fatherland and so forth," Nader went on. "He doesn't do much of that. He attacks personally, low on the sensuality ladder. You are a fake. You are a loser. You are a crook. You are a liar. This arouses people more, especially when he does this based on gender, race and religion. The best thing going for the democratic awakening is Donald Trump."
Nader said that Trump will, however, be able to consolidate power if we suffer another catastrophic terrorist attack or there is a financial meltdown. Dictatorial regimes need a crisis, either real or manufactured, to justify total suspension of civil liberties and assuming uncontested control.
"If there is a stateless terrorist attack on the U.S. he is capable of concentrating a lot of power in the White House against the courts and against Congress," Nader warned. "He will scapegoat the people opposed to him. … This will weaken any resistance and opposition."
The tension between the Trump White House and segments of the establishment, including the courts, the intelligence community and the State Department, has been misconstrued as evidence that the elites will remove Trump from power. If the elites can work out a relationship with the Trump regime to maximize profits and protect their personal and class interests they will gladly endure the embarrassment of having a demagogue in the Oval Office.
The corporate state, or deep state, also has no commitment to democracy. Its forces hollowed out democratic institutions to render them impotent. The difference between corporate power and the Trump regime is that corporate power sought to maintain the fiction of democracy, including the polite, public deference paid to bankrupt democratic institutions. Trump has obliterated this deference. He has plunged political discourse into the gutter. Trump is not destroying democratic institutions. They were destroyed before he took office.
Even the most virulent fascist regimes built shaky alliances with traditional conservative and business elites, who often considered the fascists gauche and crude.
"We have never known an ideologically pure fascist regime," writes Robert O. Paxton in "The Anatomy of Fascism." "Indeed, the thing hardly seems possible. Each generation of scholars of fascism has noted that the regimes rested upon some kind of pact or alliance between the fascist party and powerful conservative forces. In the early 1940s the social democratic refugee Franz Neumann argued in his classic Behemoth that a cartel' of party, industry, army, and bureaucracy ruled Nazi Germany, held together only by profit, power, prestige, and especially fear.' "
Fascist and authoritarian regimes are ruled by multiple centers of power that are often in competition with each other and openly antagonistic. These regimes, as Paxton writes, replicate the "leadership principle" so that it "cascades down through the social and political pyramid, creating a host of petty Führers and Duces in a state of Hobbesianwar of all against all."
The little führers and duces are always buffoonish. Such strutting demagogues appalled liberal elites in the 1930s. The German novelist Thomas Mann wrote in his diary two months after the Nazis came to power that he had witnessed a revolution "without underlying ideas, against ideas, against everything nobler, better, decent, against freedom, truth and justice." He lamented that the "common scum" had taken power "accompanied by vast rejoicing on the part of the masses." The business elites in Germany may not have liked this "scum," but they were willing to work with them. And our business elites will do likewise now.
Trump, a product of the billionaire class, will accommodate these corporate interests, along with the war machine, to build a mutually acceptable alliance. The lackeys in Congress and the courts, puppets of corporations, will, I expect, mostly be submissive. And if Trump is impeached, the reactionary forces that are cementing into place authoritarianism will find a champion in Vice President Mike Pence, who is feverishly placing members of the Christian right throughout the federal government.
"Pence is the perfect president for the Republican leaders who control Congress," Nader said. "He is right out of central casting. He looks the part. He talks the part. He acts the part. He has experienced the part. They would not mind if Trump in a fit quit, or had to resign. …"
We are in the twilight stages of the rolling corporate coup d'état begun four decades ago. We do not have much left to work with. We cannot trust our elites. We cannot trust our institutions. We must mobilize to carry out repeated and sustained mass actions. Waiting for the establishment to decapitate Trump and restore democracy would be collective suicide.

[David Guyatt]

Hedges always says it like it is and generally hits the nail on the head:

We are in the twilight stages of the rolling corporate coup d'état begun four decades ago. We do not have much left to work with. We cannot trust our elites. We cannot trust our institutions.

Nor can we trust our media...

[David Guyatt]

I think Glenn Greenwald in the below sets exactly the right tone. Hooraying for the deep state to undermine Trump is incredibly dangerous.

Greenwald: Empowering the "Deep State" to Undermine Trump is Prescription for Destroying Democracy

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

[video]https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to[/video]


Glenn Greenwald


Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of The Intercept. His recent piece for The Intercept is headlined "The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn's Lie Committed Seriousand Wholly JustifiedFelonies."


Some supporters of Trump, including Breitbart News, have accused the intelligence agencies of attempting to wage a deep state coup against the president. Meanwhile, some critics of Trump are openly embracing such activity. Bill Kristol, the prominent Republican analyst who founded The Weekly Standard, wrote on Twitter, "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state." We talk about the deep state with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept.


TRANSCRIPT


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We're looking at the growing scandal over the Trump administration's alleged dealings with Russia before and after the November election. In early January, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show and suggested the intelligence community may try to get back at Donald Trump.


SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly, hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in January.


Some supporters of Trump, including Breitbart News, are now accusing the intelligence agencies of attempting to wage a "deep state coup" against the president. Meanwhile, some critics of Trump are openly embracing such activity, like Bill Kristol, the prominent Republican analyst who founded The Weekly Standard. He wrote on Twitter, "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state."


So, still with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, speaking to us from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glenn, explain what the deep state is, and respond.


GLENN GREENWALD: The deep state, although there's no precise or scientific definition, generally refers to the agencies in Washington that are permanent power factions. They stay and exercise power even as presidents who are elected come and go. They typically exercise their power in secret, in the dark, and so they're barely subject to democratic accountability, if they're subject to it at all. It's agencies like the CIA, the NSA and the other intelligence agencies, that are essentially designed to disseminate disinformation and deceit and propaganda, and have a long history of doing not only that, but also have a long history of the world's worst war crimes, atrocities and death squads. This is who not just people like Bill Kristol, but lots of Democrats are placing their faith in, are trying to empower, are cheering for as they exert power separate and apart fromin fact, in opposition tothe political officials to whom they're supposed to be subordinate.


And you gothis is not just about Russia. You go all the way back to the campaign, and what you saw was that leading members of the intelligence community, including Mike Morell, who was the acting CIA chief under President Obama, and Michael Hayden, who ran both the CIA and the NSA under George W. Bush, were very outspoken supporters of Hillary Clinton. In fact, Michael Morell went to The New York Times, and Michael Hayden went to The Washington Post, during the campaign to praise Hillary Clinton and to say that Donald Trump had become a recruit of Russia. The CIA and the intelligence community were vehemently in support of Clinton and vehemently opposed to Trump, from the beginning. And the reason was, was because they liked Hillary Clinton's policies better than they liked Donald Trump's. One of the main priorities of the CIA for the last five years has been a proxy war in Syria, designed to achieve regime change with the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton was not only for that, she was critical of Obama for not allowing it to go further, and wanted to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and confront the Russians. Donald Trump took exactly the opposite view. He said we shouldn't care who rules Syria; we should allow the Russians, and even help the Russians, kill ISIS and al-Qaeda and other people in Syria. So, Trump's agenda that he ran on was completely antithetical to what the CIA wanted. Clinton's was exactly what the CIA wanted, and so they were behind her. And so, they've been trying to undermine Trump for many months throughout the election. And now that he won, they are not just undermining him with leaks, but actively subverting him. There's claims that they're withholding information from him, on the grounds that they don't think he should have it and can be trusted with it. They are empowering themselves to enact policy.


Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous. You just listed off in your newsin your newscast that led the show, many reasons. They want to dismantle the environment. They want to eliminate the safety net. They want to empower billionaires. They want to enact bigoted policies against Muslims and immigrants and so many others. And it is important to resist them. And there are lots of really great ways to resist them, such as getting courts to restrain them, citizen activism and, most important of all, having the Democratic Party engage in self-critique to ask itself how it can be a more effective political force in the United States after it has collapsed on all levels. That isn't what this resistance is now doing. What they're doing instead is trying to take maybe the only faction worse than Donald Trump, which is the deep state, the CIA, with its histories of atrocities, and say they ought to almost engage in like a soft coup, where they take the elected president and prevent him from enacting his policies. And I think it is extremely dangerous to do that. Even if you're somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there's a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They're barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it. And yet that's what so many, not just neocons, but the neocons' allies in the Democratic Party, are now urging and cheering. And it's incredibly warped and dangerous to watch them do that.


AMY GOODMAN: And The Wall Street Journal's report that says now intelligence officials are not giving President Trump all the information because they're concerned about what he'll do with it, not to mention intelligence agencies of other countries deeply concerned about what Trump will do with it, and particularly concerned about what he might share with Russia?


GLENN GREENWALD: Well, so, first of all, there's a media issue here, which is that if you look at The Wall Street Journal report, it's pretty much exactly the same as every other significant report about Russia over the last six months, many of which have proven to be completely false. It's based on anonymous officials making extremely vague claims. Even The Wall Street Journal says, "We don't know who's doing this, withholding information. We don't know how much information is being withheld."


Secondly, the idea that Donald Trump is some kind of an agent or a spy of Russia, or that he is being blackmailed by Russia and is going to pass secret information to the Kremlin and endanger American agents on purpose, is an incredibly crazy claim that has been nowhere proven to be true. It reminds me of the kind of things Glenn Beck used to say about Obama while he stood at his chalkboard and drew thosethose unstable charts that he drew, these wild conspiracy theories that are without evidence.


We ought to have a serious, sober, structured investigation of the claims that Russia hacked the DNC and John Podesta's emails and that there were improper ties between Donald Trump and the Russians, and that ought to be made public so that we can see the information. But this constant media obsession of leaking whatever someone whispers to them about Donald Trump and Russia, because they know it will get their reporters huge numbers of retweets on Twitter and tons of traffic by people who are being fed what they want to hear, is really feeding into the worst kind of hysteria and even fake news that the media says they're trying to combat. These are really serious claims that merit serious investigation, and that's exactly what we're not getting.


NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, in a recent piece in The Intercept by one of your colleagues, they write, "If in fact all of this is 'non-sense,' Trump has the power as president to make that clear immediatelyby declassifying all government intercepts of communications between Russian nationals and anyone in his orbit." So, do you think, Glenn, that Trump ought to be doing that?


GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, it's an interesting point, because, for example, there have been lots of claims made about the communications that General Flynn had with Russian diplomats and what these transcripts supposedly reflect, and yet nobody has seen the transcripts. We've seen little bits and pieces of them. We haven't seen the whole transcript. We ought to see that whole transcript. And my colleague, Jon Schwarz, who wrote that piece, is absolutely right that it's within President Trump's power to order it instantly declassified. There's no review of that decision, and then it could be made public.


On the other hand, it is really bizarre, just as a reporter who has been in the middle of a controversy for the last four years about the leaking of classified information, to hear people suggest that the president now ought to take the most sensitive intercepts that the government is capable of obtaining, which is how they eavesdrop on Russian officials inside the Kremlin, and just toss them to the public like there's no problem at all with doing that. I think that what you're seeing here is this really disturbing double standard, that all we've heard since the war on terror is that classified information is sacred and anybody who leaks it is treasonous and satanic and belongs in jail for a really long time, and now classified information seems to be something that's just a plaything, like something that we just toss around for fun if it serves a certain agenda. And I think that that's one of the issues that's bothering me about the way this discourse is unfolding.


AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, we're going to break, then come back and ask you about the Trump-Netanyahu news conference yesterday. We're also going to want to talk about Yemen and the news that the Pentagon is considering U.S. ground troops in Syria. This is Democracy Now! We're talking to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald. Stay with us.

Source

[Peter Lemkin]

I think ..... for the deep state to undermine Trump is incredibly dangerous.

:: It starts to feel like the beginning of the end of the World as we knew it......That part of the Deep State that seems to be doing a good job of undermining Trump and attempting a 'soft-coup' as Greenwald labelled it - and Trump and his wrecking crew, to me, are almost equally dangerous, if in different ways. I'm really sick at heart at the state of the US Ship of State....it is sinking and I worry if it can be saved. If it can, it will be by neither of the above, but by massive protests in the street by the People demanding a complete change of both, and not cosmetic changes. This sick system has been running for a very long time - but technology and darkening clouds of fascism and consolidation of power/money has made it all worse and now like a tumor that must be removed for the patient not to die. I really don't know what the future will bring. I think we can all agree that news in the last months has been moving at a much faster [and stranger] pace than most times I can remember other than moments like the Cuban Missile Crisis, various assassinations, starts to wars, etc. We seem to be on the precipice, with no safe place on any direction. Anyway, it is not dull. I wonder what will happen next. Some VERY BIG demonstrations are planed in early March and 'on demand' as situations demand. We live in 'interesting times' - in the Chinese sense of the term. ::bluebaron:: Of course, the 'better way' to get rid of Trump would be via impeachment or blocking his every move by all new Senate in 2018 [if we can make it that far...and I begin to wonder about that]......but I could almost see massive demonstrations demanding he resign along with Pence - to me that would be the best of the bad outcomes. I don't see U.S. Politics coming to normal [sic] anytime soon...anyway 'normal' was horrible - though not as bad as this, IMHO.

[David Guyatt]

I think ..... for the deep state to undermine Trump is incredibly dangerous.

:: It starts to feel like the beginning of the end of the World as we knew it......That part of the Deep State that seems to be doing a good job of undermining Trump and attempting a 'soft-coup' as Greenwald labelled it - and Trump and his wrecking crew, to me, are almost equally dangerous, if in different ways. I'm really sick at heart at the state of the US Ship of State....it is sinking and I worry if it can be saved. If it can, it will be by neither of the above, but by massive protests in the street by the People demanding a complete change of both, and not cosmetic changes. This sick system has been running for a very long time - but technology and darkening clouds of fascism and consolidation of power/money has made it all worse and now like a tumor that must be removed for the patient not to die. I really don't know what the future will bring. I think we can all agree that news in the last months has been moving at a much faster [and stranger] pace than most times I can remember other than moments like the Cuban Missile Crisis, various assassinations, starts to wars, etc. We seem to be on the precipice, with no safe place on any direction. Anyway, it is not dull. I wonder what will happen next. Some VERY BIG demonstrations are planed in early March and 'on demand' as situations demand. We live in 'interesting times' - in the Chinese sense of the term. ::bluebaron::

I think you're right, Pete. If the people don't take control back now, they never will.

The future looks: ::

[Peter Lemkin]

Trump's Ties to the Past and the Resurrection of the Left

DR JAMES PETRAS | FEBRUARY 16, 20172 COMMENTS
President Trump is deeply embedded in the politics of the deep state structure of American imperialism. Contrary to occasional references to non-intervention in overseas wars, Trump has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors.
While neoconservatives and liberals have raised a hue and cry about Trump's ties to Russia, his heresies' over NATO and his overtures to peace in the Middle East, in practice, he has discarded his market humanitarian' imperialism and engaged in the same bellicose policies of his Democratic Party presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.
Because he lacks the slick demagogy' of former-President Obama, and does not slather his actions with cheap appeals to identity' politics, Trump's crude, abrasive pronouncements drive young demonstrators into the streets in mass actions. These demonstrations are not-so-discretely supported by Trump's major opponents among the Wall Street bankers, speculators and mass media moguls. In other words, President Trump is an icon-embracer and follower, not a revolutionary' or even change agent'.
We will proceed by discussing the historical trajectory, which gave birth to the Trump regime. We will identify ongoing policies and commitments determining the present and future direction of his administration.
We will conclude by identifying how current reaction can produce future transformations. We will challenge the current catastrophic' and apocalyptic delirium and offer reasons for an optimistic perspective for the future. In brief: This essay will point out how current negatives can become realistic positives.
Historical Sequences
Over the past two decades US presidents have squandered the financial and military resources of the country in multiple unending, losing wars, as well as in trillion dollar trade debts and fiscal imbalances. US leaders have run amok provoking major global financial crises, bankrupting the largest banks, destroying small mortgage holders, devastating manufacturers and creating massive unemployment followed by low-paid unstable jobs leading to collapse in living standards for the working and lower middle classes.
Imperial wars, trillion dollar bail-outs for the billionaires and unopposed flight of multinational Ccorporations abroad, have vastly deepened class inequalities and given rise to trade agreements favoring China, Germany and Mexico. Within the US, the major beneficiaries of these crises have been the bankers, high-tech billionaires, commercial importers and agro-business exporters.
Faced with systemic crises, the ruling regimes have responded by deepening and expanding US Presidential powers in the form of presidential decrees. To cover-up the decades-long series of debacles, patriotic whistle-blowers' have been jailed and police-state style surveillance has infiltrated every sector of the citizenry.
Presidents Bush, Clinton and Obama defined the trajectory of imperial wars and Wall Street plunder. State police, military and financial institutions are firmly embedded in the matrix of power. Financial centers, like Goldman Sachs, have repeatedly set the agenda and controlled the US Department of Treasury and the agencies regulating trade and banking. The permanent institutions' of the state have remained, while Presidents, regardless of party, have been shuffled in and out of the Oval Office'.
The First Black' President Barack Obama pledged peace and pursued seven wars. His successor, Donald Trump was elected on promises of non-intervention' and promptly picked up Obama's bombing baton': tiny Yemen was attacked by US forces, Russia's allies in the Donbas Region of Ukraine were savaged by Washington's allies in Kiev and Trump's more realist' representative, Nikki Haley, put on a bellicose performance at the UN in the style of Madame Humanitarian Intervention' Samantha Power, braying invectives at Russia.
Where is the change? Trump followed Obama by increasing sanctions against Russia, while threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation in the wake of Obama's major military build-up in the Korean peninsula. Obama launched a surrogate war against Syria and Trump escalated the air war over Raqqa. Obama encircled China with military bases, warships and warplanes and Trump goose-stepped right in with warmongering rhetoric. Obama expelled a record two million Mexican workers over eight years; Trump followed by promising to deport even more.
In other words, President Trump has dutifully picked up the march along his predecessors' trajectory, bombing the same targeted countries while plagiarizing their maniacal speeches at the United Nations.
Obama increased the annual tribute (aid) to Tel Aviv to a whooping $3.8 billions while bleating a few pro-forma criticisms of expanding Israeli land-grabs in Palestine; Trump proposed to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem while blubbering a few of his own mini-criticisms of illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
What is overwhelmingly striking is the similarity of Obama and Trump,'s policies and strategies in foreign policy, their means and allies. What is different is their style and rhetoric. Both Change Agent' Presidents immediately break the same phony pre-election promises and function well within the boundaries of the permanent state institutions.
Whatever differences they have are a result of contrasting historic contexts. Obama took over the collapse of the financial system and sought to regulate banks in order to stabilize operations. Trump took over after Obama's trillion-dollar 'stabilization' and sought to eliminate regulations - in the footsteps of President Clinton! So much ado' about Trump's historic deregulation'!
The winter of discontent' in the form of mass protests against Trump's ban against immigrants and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries follows directly from Obama's 'seven deadly wars'. The immigrants and refugees are direct products of Obama's invasions and attacks on these countries leading to murder, injury, forced displacement and misery for million of predominantly' (but not exclusively) Muslims. Obama's wars have created tens of thousands of rebels', insurgents and terrorists. The refugees, fleeing for their lives, have been largely excluded from the US under Obama and most have sought safe havens in the squalid camps and chaos of the EU.
As terrible and illegal as Trump's border closure to Muslims and as promising as the mass public protests seem, they are all the result of the near decade long policy of murder and mayhem under President Obama.
Following the policy trajectory - Obama shed the blood and Trump, in his vulgar racist style is left to clean up the mess'. While Obama has been made into a Nobel Peace Prize' peace maker, grumpy Trump is soundly attacked for picking up the bloody mop!
Trump has chosen to tread the path of obloquy and faces the wrath of purgatory. Meanwhile, Obama is off playing golf, wind surfing and flashing his devil may care' smile to his adoring scribblers in the mass media.
As Trump stomps down the path laid out by Obama, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators fill the streets to protest the fascist', with scores of major mass media networks, dozens of plutocrats and intellectuals' of all genders, races and creeds writhing in moral outrage! One is left confused at the deafening silence of these same activists and forces when Obama's aggressive wars and attacks led to the deaths and displacement of millions of civilians, mostly Muslim, and mostly women - as their homes, weddings, markets, schools and funerals were bombed.
So much for American muddle-headedness! One should try to understand the possibilities that arise from a massive sector finally breaking their silence as Obama's glib warmongering has been transformed into Trump's crude march to doomsday.
Optimistic Perspectives
There are many who despair but there are more who have become aware. We will identify the optimistic perspectives and realistic hopes rooted in current reality and trends. Realism means discussing contradictory, polarizing developments and therefore we accept no inevitable' outcomes. This means that outcomes are contested terrain' where subjective factors play a leading role. The interface of conflicting forces can result in an upward or downward spiral - toward more equality, sovereignty and liberation or greaterconcentration of wealth, power and privilege.
The most retrograde concentration of power and wealth is found in the oligarchic German-dominated European Union - a configuration which is under siege by popular forces. The United Kingdom voters chose to exit from the EU (Brexit). As a result, Britain faces a break-up with Scotland and Wales and an even greater separation from Ireland. Brexit will lead to a new polarization as London-based bankers depart to the EU and free market leaders confront workers, protectionists and the growing mass of the poor. Brexit fortifies nationalist-populists and leftist forces in France, Poland, Hungary and Serbia and shatters the neo-liberal hegemony in Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and elsewhere. The challenge to the EU oligarchs is that popular insurgency will intensify social polarization and can bring to the fore progressive class movements or authoritarian nationalist parties and movements.
Trumps ascent to power and his executive decrees have led to highly polarize electorates, increased politicization and direct action. The awakening of America deepens internal fissures between small d' democrats, progressive women, trade unionists, students and others against the big D' Democratic Party opportunists, speculators, life-long Democratic warmongers, bourgeois black D' Party hacks (the mis-leaders) and a small army of corporate-funded NGO's.
Trumps embrace of the Obama-Clinton military and Wall Street agenda will lead to a financial bubble, bloated military spending and more costly wars. These will divide the regime from its trade union and working class supporters now that Trump's cabinet is composed entirely of billionaires, ideologues, rabid zionists and militarists (as opposed to his promise to appoint hard-nosed' deal-making businessmen and realists). This could create a rich opportunity for movements to arise which reject the truly ugly face of Trump's reactionary regime.
Trump's animosity to NAFTA, and advocacy of protectionism and financial and resource exploitation will undermine the corrupt, murderous, narco-neoliberal regimes which have ruled Mexico for the past 30 years since the days of Salinas. Trump's anti-immigration policy will lead to Mexicans choosing to fight over flight' in confronting the social chaos created by the narco-gangs and gangster police. It will force the development of Mexico's domestic markets and industry. Mass domestic consumption and ownership will embrace national-popular movements. The drug cartel and their political sponsors will lose the US markets and face domestic opposition.
Trump's protectionism will limit the illegal flow of capital from Mexico, which amounted to $48.3 billion in 2016 or 55% of Mexico's debt. Mexico's transition from dependency and neo-colonialism will deeply polarize the state and society; the outcome will be determined by class forces.
Trump's economic and military threats against Iran will strengthen nationalist, populist and collectivist forces over the neo-liberal reformist' and pro-Western politicians. Iran's anti-imperialist alliance with Yemen, Syria and Lebanon will solidify against the US-led quartet of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Britain and the US.
Trump's support for Israel's massive seizure of Palestinian land and its Jews-only' ban against Muslims and Christians will lead to the 'shaking off' of the multi-millionaire Palestinian Authority quislings and the rise of many more uprisings and intifadas.
The defeat of ISIS will strengthen independent governmental forces in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, weaken US imperial leverage and open the door to popular democratic secular struggles.
China's President Xi Jinping's large-scale, long-term anti-corruption campaign has led to the arrest and removal of over a quarter-million officials and businesspeople, including billionaires and top Party leaders. The arrests, prosecution and jailing has reduced the abuse of privilege, but more important, it has improves the prospects for a movement to challenge vast social inequalities. What began from above' can provoke movements from below'. The resurrection of a movement toward socialist values can have a major impact on US vassal states in Asia.
Russia's support for democratic rights in Eastern Ukraine and the re-incorporation of Crimea via referendum can limit US puppet regimes on Russia's southern flank and reduce US intervention. Russia can develop peaceful ties with independent European states with the break-up of the EU and the Trump electoral victory over the Obama-Clinton regime's threat of nuclear war.
The world-wide movement against imperialist globalism isolates the US-backed right-wing power grab in South America. Brazil, Argentina and Chile's pursuit of neo-liberal trade pacts are on the defensive. Their economies, especially in Argentina and Brazil, have seen a three-fold increase in unemployment, four-fold rise in foreign debt, stagnant to negative growth and now face mass-supported general strikes. Neo-liberal toadyism' is provoking class struggle. This can overturn the post-Obama order in Latin America.
Conclusion
Across the world and within the most important countries, the ultra-neoliberal order of the past quarter century is disintegrating. There is a massive upsurge of movements from above and below, from democratic leftists to nationalists, from independent populists to the right-wing reactionary old guard': A new polarized, fragmented political universe has emerged. The beginning of the end of the current imperial-globalist order is creating opportunities for a new dynamic democratic collectivist order. The oligarchs and 'security' elites will not easily give way to popular demands or step down. Knives will be sharpened, executive decrees will issue forth, and electoral coups will be staged to attempt to seize power. The emerging popular democratic movements need to overcome identity fragmentation and establish unified, egalitarian leaders who can act decisively and independently away from the existing political leaders who make dramatic, but phony, progressive gestures while seeking a return to the stench and squalor of the recent past.

[Peter Lemkin]

Donald Trump wants you to pay more for your Internet, either in money for high-speed service or by forcing you into an Internet traffic jam where pages load with all the speed of a rush hour commute after a traffic accident.
That's what could happen under the new Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai.
Pai, a former attorney for telecom and Internet behemoth Verizon, has already undone recent FCC actions that helped consumers. The FCC recently blocked nine companies from providing cheap Internet to the poor. Pai called that "might regulation," evidently under the theory that outgoing presidents have only limited powers after each election, a position not found in our Constitution.
The agency also halted investigations into Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile favoring services affiliated with their companies.
But what Pai most wants is to eliminate net neutrality rules that prevent providers from blocking or slowing internet traffic. (For a great explanation of the issues, see John Oliver's acclaimed take on the subject.)
Pai has also opposed the Obama administration's decision to regulate broadband service as a utility. The Obama administration saw access to the Internet as service like electricity or the telephone that all Americans should have, not a luxury for the well-heeled.