Before losing his security access, Kushner was particularly interested about information on the Middle East, the Intercept reported, citing several former White House and U.S. government officials.
When Salman became the new heir to the throne in June last year, the daily brief reportedly began to focus on shifting political allegiances in Saudi Arabia, and named several Saudi royals who were opposed to the crown prince’s position.
Kushner then made a surprise trip to Riyadh in October, reportedly staying up until 4 a.m. with Salman to discuss strategy.
Several sources told the Intercept that following the meeting, Salman told close confidants that Kushner had spilled the names of the Saudi royals “disloyal” to the prince, although Kushner’s camp strongly denies the claim.
Salman reportedly told the United Arab Emirates’ Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed about the meeting with Kushner, bragging that he had Kushner “in his pocket,” sources told the Intercept.
Just a week after the meeting Salman began his large-scale corruption crackdown, which saw 200 officials arrested. According to the report, Saudi officials mentioned in the daily briefs were among those detained.
–From the Business Insider via Microsoft News digest, credited to Rosie Perper.
In other words, Jared used his access to the “Presidential Daily Brief” to obtain the names of Saudi rivals “disloyal” to Prince Salman, then passed that information on to the Prince. This was apparently with the approval of Mr. Trump, who is a great fan of Mohammed bin Salman (an autocrat after his own heart.) Whether this activity was “legal” is beside the point. The point is that it is disingenuous. The Prince claims to be suppressing corruption, when in fact he is merely substituting another form of corruption. The Prince used the information passed on by Jared to imprison and shake down at least 200 immensely wealthy Saudis, who were forced to give away control of their assets (worth billions of dollars) in order to regain their freedom. Some of these wealthy Saudis were reputedly tortured to enhance their compliance.
Thus, the intelligence obtained by our national security agencies on Saudi persons was passed through the President’s senior advisor (who has since lost his top-secret security clearance and access to the daily briefing) back to those in power in the kingdom to help them control their own people. The Prince is said to have bragged that he had Jared in his pocket.
The President has gone on to promise to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia this week during a visit by the Prince. He seems to think that he will shore up his approval ratings by supporting jobs for armaments-industry workers. This seems unlikely, as he already has relatively high ratings among this group and there is little he can do to disguise his personality from those who are repelled by it.
We hope for an end to the war in Yemen, but that does not appear to be on the President’s agenda. With no personal experience of war, he seems to think that it is somehow a good thing to send Saudi warplanes into Yemen with American targeting data (apparently error-ridden from the casualty figures) to blow up Yemeni infrastructure. The Houthis are unlikely to be effectively deterred by the devastation and suffering visited on their country, and Mr. Trump does not appear to realize this. Perhaps he should have “War is Hell” stamped on the back of his hand.
(photo of mountains in Yemen courtesy of pixabay.com and feinibookcosmo)
“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”
Twitter post by John O. Brennan on March 17, 2018 responding to Mr. Trump’s tweet about “a great day for democracy” when Andrew McCabe was fired for supposedly lacking “candor” following a recommendation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General… but this was all based on an invalid premise: that McCabe wasn’t authorized to release statements to reporters. The firing was rushed to get McCabe out before his birthday so he couldn’t get his full retirement benefits or, more importantly, his health insurance. This appears to be a petty act of vindictiveness by Mr. Trump, who directed Mr. Sessions to do the dirty deed even though the IG’s investigation wasn’t finished. He’s making a mistake by provoking an enemy who is a witness to his obstruction of justice.
Meanwhile, McCabe tweeted about his children:
“Things that have caused tears from our children this evening.
Being served Milk in a Green Cup
Coloring was taking too long
The Mail hasn’t come yet
The News was on
The TV was turned off
A toy wasn’t allowed to be brought downstairs
Life in General
I’d say he’s taking it pretty well.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and geralt)
” Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. ”
“I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.
“In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.”
This is a quote from Buzzfeed, which obtained the contents of an email retired Lt Col Peters sent to his colleagues explaining why he has quit after ten years as a news reader and “contributor.”
(photo taken in Moscow courtesy of pixabay.com and 3dman_eu)
Lyudmila Putina once called President Vladimir Putin a vampire, while he in turn has suggested that anyone who could put up with her for three weeks was heroic and deserved a monument.
––from the Moscow Times June 7, 2013
(photo of graffiti courtesy of pixabay.com and MabelAmber)
Quote of the Day: Representative Trey Gowdy Says Interference With Mueller Would Cause a “Bad 2018”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned Trump that any interference in the Mueller probe would result in “a very, very long, bad 2018.”
This quote comes from the Washington Post via Microsoft’s news feed, which relieves me of the cost of a subscription to the paper. I already subscribe to the New York Times and at $15 a month, it is more than I can afford. At least I can excuse a subscription to the New Yorker at $10 a month because of the beautiful artwork on the cover. Unfortunately, subscribing to a news feed of any kind is growing more and more futile as the Orange-Haired Demon fills up every possible news opening.
Mr. Trump seems to be getting more and more frustrated with the investigation into his campaign and now, his personal finances. He has already warned prosecutors not to cross a “red line” between the Russia connection and his personal finances in general. He already failed to release his income tax returns, as every prospective President has done for the last sixty years. He has received large loans from Deutsche Bank since the Great Recession, when many fortunes were wiped out. Deutsche Bank, by the way, has recently paid $600 million in fines to the EU and the US for laundering money from Russia. Mr. Trump has accumulated an unblemished record of sycophancy to Mr. Putin for the last ten years. He just has “guilty” written all over his face. There is only one thing holding him up: his ultra-Republican policy choices.
Our Constitutional system makes it impossible to impeach Mr. Trump until January 2019 because the Republicans hold a majority in the House and they agree with most of the policy that he lays out. That’s not to say that they don’t wince at some of the more offensive things he says or does, but they think that “his heart is in the right place”– meaning that they, too, are anti-immigrant, pro-protectionism, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, and so on. Mr. Trump has made the obvious conclusion that the more regressive his policies, the more rabid his followers. This makes the 35% or so of people who support him more active than the majority that opposes him.
This means for the opposition that they must pump up their energy as much as possible. It’s as simple as that. You’ve got to really, really, really hate Trump to really get rid of him.
FDA Opens Comment Period on New Proposal to Lower Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes– Officially
According to Medpage Today and Stat News (yesterday), as well as an official announcement from the FDA today, the FDA has opened a public comment period for a new rule which would lower the nicotine levels in cigarettes to “non-addicting” levels– 0.3-0.5 mg/gram of tobacco.
Cigarette fiends will find this proposal shocking if not actually heartbreaking.
While this idea is in line with the new administration’s starkly regressive anti-drug policy (illustrated by the comments of Attorney General Sessions about the KKK), it may find resistance from personal-liberty advocates like libertarians.
On the other hand, public-health activists are sure to celebrate the prospect of a new Prohibition. Theoretically, removing nicotine from cigarettes could save millions of lives over the next ten years. Statistics published in the Stat News article claim that the present number of smokers (about 15% of adults in the US) could be reduced to 1.4%. This is a great idea, but it ignores the lessons of Prohibition. Mandating emasculated cigarettes would instantly stimulate a black market in high-potency smokes. Just ask anyone who has tried to quit smoking. The lack of availability of sufficient nicotine to relieve withdrawal symptoms would result in cravings, with mood and personality disturbances like intense irritability, periods of obsessive rumination about obtaining a supply of nicotine-laced smoking materials, and aggressive attempts to obtain those materials.
The only way this could work is for all tobacco companies to gradually reduce nicotine content simultaneously, so that orderly withdrawal could take place. Experience with other substances like opioids suggests that an addicted person could tolerate a five percent reduction in nicotine ingestion per week… but due to the nature of the source, victims are likely to try to smoke more and develop unnatural hoarding behaviors. Past experience with low-nicotine cigarettes (such as those that have holes in them to dilute the smoke) shows that users will smoke more, inhale deeper, and retain the smoke in their lungs longer in an attempt to compensate for the lack.
All in all, I rate this as A Bad Idea. There are few Good Ideas available in relation to the use of poisonous, addictive substances by the general public– particularly widely-available substances.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and comfreak)
“Russia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests,” Tillerson told senators. “We need an open and frank dialogue with Russia regarding its ambitions, so that we know how to chart our own course.”
This comes from an article in Bloomberg View from March 13, 2018, entitled, “Tillerson Refused to do Another Russia Deal” which explains that, although Tillerson did do a deal with Russia before the rupture in US-Russia relations over Ukraine (a business deal worth $500 billion between Exxon and Rosneft, the Russian state oil company) he gave a “clear condemnation” of Russia’s actions in the Crimea and their support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad when he was under consideration for the Secretary of State post. He also blamed Russia for the chemical attacks in Syria, hardly a friendly position. Tillerson knew how to negotiate with Putin to advance his business position, but he was not planning on being ensnared in the Trump-Russia collusion scandal by appearing to be weak on Russian issues. His last act as Secretary of State was to blame Russia for the poisoning of a Russian refugee in Britain; Trump’s statement on the incident was supportive of Britain but otherwise wishy-washy. It’s not likely that Pompeo will be any more accommodating to Putin, but he will be a Trump loyalist in every other respect– unlikely to put the brakes on when Trump’s policies take a sudden turn for the bizarre. What’s more, as a former military man, he has completed Trump’s encirclement with military advisors and secretaries. There is no question that Trump will be closely advised by men with military mind-sets, and we already know how easily influenced he is by his sycophants.
We also know that Pompeo will be good for the morale of the remaining State Department employees, as he is likely to do more effective at working with the department (see the article in the New Yorker we previously cited about Pompeo being a super-hawk at State.) Unfortunately, State’s problems have more to do with a lack of policy rather than personality issues. Former UN ambassador John Bolton (an extreme conservative) may be under consideration to replace McMasters as National Security Advisor; in this case, even military doesn’t satisfy Trump (supposedly he is tired of the general’s long-winded lectures.) This administration is likely to lurch, unpredictably, further and further to the right.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
There is a hidden and disturbing aspect to the national obsession with owning guns. Three percent of the people own half of the guns, which means that a few people have a large number of firearms each. These unusual people are overwhelmingly white, mostly male, and usually rural. The most disturbing part is the connection between the character of these gun owners and their obsession with stockpiling arms. The possession of a firearm makes a white male feel more powerful and assuages his fear of being robbed of what is “rightfully” his… even though his net worth is rather small. He feels that brown invaders are going to come and steal his precious possessions, although he owns little other than ammunition.
They’ll probably rape his wife too, and then kill them all. The movie “In Cold Blood” had a powerful effect on elderly rural whites, but long before that, during the Civil War, there were many episodes of that kind involving soldiers and civilians alike in pillage and rapine, sometimes simply because of starvation. “Racial memory” of atrocities haunts those who dwell in rural houses far from their neighbors.
Modern insecurity is different: poorly educated white males often lose their livelihoods and have nothing but time to brood over their ill fate. This has occurred more and more over the last forty or fifty years, in waves with factory and retail closures and the disappearance of entire industries. Employment in the US steel industry collapsed between 1975 and 1999, from 521,000 to 153,000. The coal mining industry employed roughly 175,000 men in 1986 and 52,000 in 2016 (this compares to an all-time high of 883,000 in 1923.) (Wikipedia)
The problem is that the system in this country has both created the insecure white man and provided him with a means to relieve his anxiety: the immediate presence of a loaded firearm. The insecure white man is motivated by racism and poverty: he doesn’t have enough stuff and he is afraid that brown people are coming to take it from him.
This is the situation that obtains and there is nothing that can be done to change it, unless we relieve the victims of perceived persecution: the white male. Nonwhite, mostly nonmale, nongunowners will congregate in cities where the police will be forced to protect them from the depredations of gun owning thugs (including some of the policemen themselves.) Of course, the gun collectors will probably stay in their compounds out in the country and avoid venturing into the city where they might meet their imagined enemy.
The key to real relief of this situation is to provide real security for the people: jobs, money, and protection from thieves and assault. A nationwide jobs program that gives everyone who can work (especially poor white men without educations) a job with a living wage– coupled with a welfare program that gives everyone who cannot work basic security: food, housing, medical care. The cost of this program will be large, but if successful will be rewarded with dramatic growth in gross domestic product, median household income, and lifespan– sufficient to support dramatic improvement in the economy. Unfortunately, this program will not increase the incomes of those who are already wealthy– it will cost them money, in taxes. But it will be worth it to reduce the death rate from firearms and to reduce the number of mass shootings (besides making many people happy by easing their poverty.)
A comprehensive program includes mental health evaluation and treatment, starting in grade school with emphasis on identifying those who might become isolated enough and vengeful enough to precipitate violence. All this costs money, and money means taxes. It won’t be good enough to protect our country from military invasion with a huge army and modern nuclear missiles if society is falling apart from the inside.
(By the way, I oppose a national gun-confiscation campaign because it will play directly to the fears of the alt-right. It is inefficient to attack this problem with weapons that simply provoke more paranoia.)
Therefore, the national obsession with low taxes will have to be changed. I suggest an intensive propaganda campaign that emphasizes the duty of the wealthy to protect civil society and prevent internecine violence. Yes, it’s a liberal idea that is anathema to the conservatives who control the national conversation. This means the propaganda of the extreme right wing will have to be drowned out. Intensive propaganda efforts are needed to speak louder than the NRA and the National Enterprise Institute, among others. Propaganda costs money: Tom Steyer, are you listening?
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and jabbacake)
“Trump is methodically destroying the moderate camp in his Administration and moving steadily crazy-hard right,” Joseph Cirincione, the president of Ploughshares Fund, an N.G.O. dedicated to containing the spread of nuclear weapons, told me. “Today’s firing and the crude, insulting way that he did it weakens the traditional conservative camp, the State Department, and American credibility. It’s almost as if someone is paying Trump to do it.”
From an article in the New Yorker about Trump’s selection of Mike Pompeo to be his new Secretary of State. Just keep repeating that in your mind: “It’s almost as if someone is paying Trump to do it.” What does that imply to you?
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and hansbenn)
Stephen Hawking: ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’
Stephen Hawking died last night at the age of 76.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 