(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
A bizarre piece ran in “The Hill” yesterday that described the testimony of three anonymous witnesses who reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly gave high-level Republican politicians oral permission to criticize President Trump’s statements at his press conference with Vladimir Putin. In fact, some Republicans like the leaders of the House and Senate obliquely rebuked the statements as being a mistake, pointedly saying, “Russia is not our friend.” McCain, who is homebound with brain cancer, gave the most negative remarks about the president’s behavior; other retiring Republican Senators and Congressmen were also highly critical. Only the former head of the CIA, John Brennan, went so far as to describe Trump’s behavior as “treasonous.”
The remarkable thing is that John Kelly would give permission to leading Republicans to make critical remarks– it seems that Trump has disregarded Mr. Kelly’s instructions on how to behave at the meeting with Putin, and Kelly was angry about this. What is worse, Kelly reasons that Trump’s behavior might worsen the situation with the investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller going on right now. In other words, embracing Russia might seem like a quid-pro-quo for whatever Putin has on Trump– whether it is kompromat, details of money-laundering schemes, secret financing, or you name it.
This suggests that John Kelly is likely to resign his post soon, probably because he can’t stand it anymore. He probably feels that Trump doesn’t take his advice anyway so there is no way to influence him. Trump doesn’t respect Kelly because he’s not rich– he only listens to people who are at least multi-millionaires.
Mr. Trump’s 24-hour turnaround, from “would” to “wouldn’t” at a news conference that unfolded with an eerie blackout just after he had spoken his words of contrition makes sense if we presume that he got an earful from Mr. Kelly when he returned to the White House. Mr. Trump’s advisors would have forcefully reminded him that all the intelligence agencies are certain that Russia is the culprit in the hacking cases and that Russia is our enemy, not the European Union.
Thus unreels the destruction of American federal government by the election of a man fundamentally unfit to be president. Once this is over there must be a law enacted to prevent it ever happening again.
(photo of upside-down car in Helsinki courtesy of pixabay.com and leebest90)
Among the revelations after Michael Cohen (Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer”) had his residence and office raided recently was the news that Mr. Cohen had several contracts with American corporations in 2017 for unclear reasons. Among those companies was Novartis, maker of Clozaril (clozapine, an aytpical antipsychotic), Voltaren (diclofenac, an ibuprofen-like anti-arthritic pain drug), Tegretol (carbamazepine), Diovan (valsartan, a blood pressure drug) Gleevec ( imatinib, a new anti-cancer drug) , Neoral (an immune suppressant), Ritalin (methylphenidate, a stimulant often used in attention deficit disorder), Lamisil (terbinafine, an antifungal), and many others; Novartis is one of the biggest drug makers in the world and was third-largest Swiss-headquartered corporation of any kind for some years.
Novartis contracted for Michael Cohen’s services for $100,000 a month for a year starting in January 2017; their CEO at the time, Joe Jimenez, has said that it became apparent at their first meeting that Cohen was unsuitable for his task of providing “access to key policymakers.” Nonetheless, they did not cancel the contract despite a clause requiring “satisfactory performance”. Mr. Jimenez apparently claimed that there was only one meeting, but Senate Democrats, in a report released Friday, revealed that there were several further contacts, including at least two emails from Cohen and scheduled calls from Jimenez to Cohen.
Mr. Jimenez stated that, at their first meeting, it was apparent that “Mr. Cohen had made no effort to learn anything about Novartis, or the policy issues that were of concern to Novartis specifically, or the pharmaceutical industry generally.” Why this single meeting displaying Cohen’s ignorance and lack of interest did not prompt cancellation of the contract is a mystery to me.
One email chain of some significance included Jimenez’ wish list of government initiatives that supposedly were aimed at reducing drug prices. Parts of this wish list appeared later, in a document released by the Trump administration that they called their “drug price blueprint”.
Another email chain from Cohen touted a small drug company as an investment for Novartis. Jimenez responded to the initial email within an hour. Novartis never invested in the drug company, although they did look into the possibility.
This is how federal government works these days: corporations invest in people with access to the levers of power, personal relationships to the president and his staff. Suggestions and advice travel back and forth in this personal chain of influence, and the people with access are enriched– in this case, $1.2 million over 12 months, deposited to the same account used to pay off “Stormy Daniels” (Stephanie Clifford) for her silence prior to the election (also known as blackmail.) That the people in power are also enriched goes without saying, although their payoffs come in different forms. Naturally, this is un-Constitutional, under the so-called “Emoluments Clause”, although this clause has never yet been enforced.
Mr. Trump was plainly in violation of the emoluments clause from the day of his inauguration, through his control of an hotel in Washington DC; all the foreign dignitaries and many American VIPs stay there, especially when they have business with the government. No-one has stepped forward to enforce the Constitution against Mr. Trump, although private parties have filed civil lawsuits. With impunity, the other steps towards fascism come so much more easily. Remember that fascism is an alliance of private businesses with government which perverts democracy and leads to its destruction– the only other step needed is government violence against parties who exercise their free-speech rights to object to government misbehavior.
By these definitions, fascism is a feature of the largest national governments in the world: China, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and possibly even India. We are not yet under a fascist government, but it will not be long at this rate.
(details of the Novartis–Michael Cohen story are from a report in today’s Los Angeles Times; information about Novartis’ drugs come from Wikipedia. Other details are common knowledge already.)
(image courtesy of pixabay.com and mamuki0, of a WWII-era Spanish peseta showing a pair of fasces– a bundle of sticks and an axe bound together– from which the term fascism is derived– on the sides of the coat of arms)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and rhulk)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
This diagram was posted as a comment on the Kos website, to an article about something else... the commenter was Angela Marx, and the date was June 30, 2018. The diagram shows a simple way to gerrymander districts so that red wins even though it is in the minority.
From the Washington Post, July 29, 2018:
The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to people familiar with the work.
The effort follows Trump’s expression of interest in removing the troops, made during a meeting earlier this year with White House and military aides, U.S. officials said. Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the U.S. presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.
Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling to determine whether Trump actually intends to reposition U.S. forces or whether it is merely a negotiating tactic ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump is again likely to criticize U.S. allies for what he deems insufficient defense spending.
…
European officials are hoping to emphasize Western unity at the NATO summit July 11 and 12. But Trump remains displeased that many NATO countries fail to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, a target alliance members agreed to reach by 2024. The United States spends about 3.58 percent of its GDP on defense.
Although several U.S. administrations have called on Europe to spend more, Trump is particularly focused on the balance sheet. He has been especially critical of Merkel, on defense and a range of other issues.
…
Last week, White House frustration was on display in a contentious meeting in Washington between Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Von der Leyen said German budget projections called for increasing defense spending to 1.5 percent of the country’s GDP by 2024. The White House was disappointed with Germany’s efforts, according to officials.
…
The U.S. military had been drawing down its presence in Europe for years before Russia’s annexation of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine in early 2014 prompted a change in posture, with Washington seeking to deter Moscow from further encroachments. U.S. and allied forces began rotating brigades through the eastern members, and the U.S. started returning equipment such as tanks and helicopters to the theater.
…
From “the Hill”:
The Department of Defense is reportedly analyzing the ongoing costs of keeping thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Germany as President Trump considers reducing forces in the region.
The Washington Post reports that Pentagon officials stressed that the audit is limited to internal research so far and does not involve any members of the military’s top brass.
The analysis comes after Trump reportedly was taken aback during a White House meeting earlier this year upon learning of the size – 35,000 troops – of the U.S. deployment in the country.
The president has frequently complained that NATO countries, including Germany, do not contribute their fair share of defense spending to the alliance.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
From the Reuters piece about the House testimony of Rod Rosenstein, deputy head of the FBI, on June 28, 2018:
Republican Trey Gowdy angrily demanded Rosenstein wrap up the investigation.
“If you have evidence of any wrongdoing by any member of the Trump campaign, present it to the damn grand jury,” he said. “If you have evidence that this president acted inappropriately, present it to the American people … Whatever you got, finish it the hell up.”
Oh, the profanity– “damn” and “hell” in the same breath.
This is the same Trey Gowdy who dragged the Benghazi investigation out for, uh, how many years? Let’s face it, Trey doesn’t care about justice or Don’s malfeasance. He’s worried about how this will look in the midterm elections coming up…
Conrad Theodore Seitz 