Thursday, November 30, 2017
Oh Lord, Now the Gun Thing’s Back - The New York Times
"The House Judiciary Committee just voted to make it impossible for a state to always keep people convicted of violent offenses from carrying concealed weapons.
That was just a detail in a very long day and really dreadful debate about the right to bear arms. In a normal world it might be the talk of the dinner table, but really, this week hardly anyone noticed.
On the one hand you had Garrison Keillor and Matt Lauer getting canned for sexual harassment. On the other there’s the president of the United States circulating a picture of a Muslim beating up a statue of the Blessed Virgin. About which, the presidential spokeswoman said, “Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real.”
And I haven’t even gotten to the tax bill. Or North Korea. Good grief.
But still, guns. Attention must be paid. If you count every gun crime that involves four or more victims as a mass shooting, we’ve had 397 so far this year, including the ungodly tragedies in Las Vegas and the small Texas church. You’d think the National Rifle Association would go away and be quiet for a month or two. But no, its minions in the House of Representatives were busy on Wednesday getting committee approval for a bill that would make it impossible for states to impose their rules about carrying concealed weapons on people who are visiting from someplace else.
Instead, we’re supposed to respect the judgment of the state whence they came. People, do you have this kind of confidence? We are having this conversation two weeks after Wisconsin eliminated the age limit for hunting licenses. So far there are 1,800 happy Wisconsinites under the age of 10 with the right to put their little fingers on the trigger, several less than a year old.
The bill’s opponents, all Democrats, lost every argument, but you had to give them credit for spunk. They dragged the fight on for more than six hours, dividing their time between pointing out that the gun murder rate in America is 297 times higher than in Japan, and offering amendments that attempted to make it clear how crazy the whole bill is.
All of which, including ones on violent offenses and domestic abuse, were defeated. Another would have allowed states to at least enforce their own laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people convicted of assaulting a police officer.
No dice. “Once the exceptions start they will have no end,” said Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas.
As you know, there is absolutely no national consensus when it comes to the right to carry a concealed weapon in public places. You have Missouri, where you can just buy a gun and put it in your pocket. You have places like California, where people are carefully screened, trained and tested before they can get a gun and permit.
The N.R.A. yearns for a federal law that would allow Missourians to tote their guns around California, no questions asked. And here it is! The bill, known to its friends as “concealed carry,” could almost certainly pass the House. Even in this miserable year it probably couldn’t make the 60-vote mark in the Senate. (Good old Senate 60-vote rule. Remember that the next time people you like better are running the place.)
However, it could mess up an actual piece of gun reform that is so simple and sensible that even this Congress might be capable of approving it. A bipartisan group of senators, including Republican John Cornyn of Texas and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut, are working on a bill that would make the current deeply flawed background check system a little more efficient.
“My worry is the House tries to get cute and combines the two,” said Murphy.
The Judiciary Committee debate was long and depressing in the extreme — at one point Representative Steven King of Iowa claimed a proposal to tighten a background check loophole on gun show sales would ruin “Christmas at the Kings’.”
The Republicans argued that people need to be able to carry guns — even in states where it’s against the law — because it just makes you safer. There’s an extremely popular vision of the average citizen drawing his concealed weapon and shooting a crazed gunman. This almost never happens in the real world.
But the myth lives on. Gun fans in Congress still talk about the shooting at a baseball practice that seriously wounded one of their colleagues as if it could have been avoided, if only all the lawmakers had gone to the game armed. During the committee meeting, Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and his followers suggested giving members of Congress the automatic right to carry concealed weapons, even if their home state wouldn’t permit it. Just to be safe. “I remember where I was the day I got the news that Gabby Giffords had been shot,” mused King.
It was indeed terrible. And Giffords responded by starting a national campaign for stricter gun regulation. Some people fix problems. Some just impose them on everybody else. Depends on the year.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
Supreme court cellphone case puts free speech – not just privacy – at risk
"Carpenter v United States has rightly prompted concerns over surveillance. But it could also have drastic implications for personal freedom in the digital age
On Wednesday, the supreme court will consider whether the government must obtain a warrant before accessing the rich trove of data that cellphone providers collect about cellphone users’ movements. Among scholars and campaigners, there is broad agreement that the case could yield the most consequential privacy ruling in a generation."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/27/supreme-court-cellphone-data-carpenter-first-amendment?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Bloggeroid
On Wednesday, the supreme court will consider whether the government must obtain a warrant before accessing the rich trove of data that cellphone providers collect about cellphone users’ movements. Among scholars and campaigners, there is broad agreement that the case could yield the most consequential privacy ruling in a generation."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/27/supreme-court-cellphone-data-carpenter-first-amendment?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Bloggeroid
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Thankfully Recommitting to Resistance - The New York Times
By Charles Blow
"Last Thanksgiving I wrote a column titled, “No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along,” in which I committed myself to resisting this travesty of a man, proclaiming, “I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.”
I made this promise: “As long as there are ink and pixels, you will be the focus of my withering gaze.”
I have kept that promise, not because it was a personal challenge, but because this is a national crisis.
Donald Trump, I thought that your presidency would be a disaster. It’s worse than a disaster. I wasn’t sure that resistance to your weakening of the republic, your coarsening of the culture, your assault on truth and honesty, your erosion of our protocols, would feel as urgent today as it felt last year. But if anything, that resistance now feels more urgent.
Nothing about you has changed for the better. You are still a sexist, bigoted, bullying, self-important simpleton. But now all of the worst of you has the force of the American presidency.
The degree to which Russia aided your ascendance, and the degree to which people connected to your campaign were willing and eager to entertain entreaties from Russia, are coming into clearer focus everyday.
The legitimacy of your presidency is in question. The corruption of your administration is not. You are a national stain and an international embarrassment. You are anti-intellectual and pro-impulse. The same fingers with which you compulsively tweet are dangerously close to the nuclear codes. You are historically unpopular and history will not be kind to you. It is all so dizzyingly distressing.
But what irks me most is your targeted attacks on historically marginalized populations as a political ploy to secure the support of the racists, misogynists and homophobes.
During your campaign, you pathologized black people and generalized about their daily lives, ultimately making this pitch: “What the hell do you have to lose?”
You hovered over a taco bowl and insisted, “I love Hispanics!”
You told CNN, “I love the Muslims. I think they’re great people.”
All of these were lies, demonstrated by your actions in office. Your hostility toward minorities and your courting and coddling of the people who hate them has become a standard practice of your presidency.
We see that in your continued attempts to institute a Muslim ban and your continued insistence on building your wall of hate.
We see it in the way that you attack Antifa but make excuses for white supremacists.
We see it in the way that you attack N.F.L. players protesting police violence, while you encourage police officers to be more violent. We see this in the way that your Justice Department is moving to return to rigid, racially skewed drug policies that helped to fuel our unconscionable level of mass incarceration, a phenomenon Michelle Alexander calls “the new Jim Crow,” while also returning to a reliance on private prisons.
We see this in the devastating contrast between the ways you have talked about and treated hurricane victims in Texas versus in Puerto Rico.
We see it just this week in your “ending a humanitarian program that has allowed some 59,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States since an earthquake ravaged their country in 2010,” as The New York Times put it.
Trump is clearly, blatantly, virulently hostile to people who are not white and non-Christian. That is not a statement of opinion, but a statement of demonstrated fact.
During the campaign, Trump tweeted: “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”
And yet, it is Trump who is proving to be a threat to the L.G.B.T. community, particularly to transgender Americans, with his ban on trans people in the military, his rescinding of federal protections for trans students, and his Justice Department’s reversal of a policy protecting trans workers.
Trump repeatedly said — or tweeted — during the campaign that he respected women. Anyone who had been at all aware of Trump or had access to a search engine knew that was a lie. But then, as real-time proof, the “Access Hollywood” tape was released on which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. And women came out in droves to personally accuse him of sexually inappropriate behavior, the kinds of accusations that people are now losing jobs over.
To add insult to injury, Trump the Groper has just thrown the weight and word of the presidency behind Roy Moore the Alleged Pedophile, choosing the claim of a single horrible man, even aside from the allegations, over nine women who seem to have nothing to gain by coming forward.
Trump not only doesn’t respect women, he doesn’t even hear women.
This man is a pathological liar. He commends and conforms to anyone who pretends to love him, whether they are Russians or racists. He is inherently a patriarchal white supremacist and it seeps out in all sorts of ways, but it is most pronounced in the way that he attacks people who are not white and male.
When you accept those truths, everything else makes sense.
But accepting the truth is not the same as accepting the liar. Trump is unacceptable in every possible way, and must continue to be met at every turn with the strong arm of defiance.
That is why today I recommit myself to resistance, and so should you."
Thankfully Recommitting to Resistance - The New York Times
When a Tax Cut Costs Millions Their Medical Coverage - The New York Times
"... The Senate could vote as soon as next week on a bill that, according to one government estimate, would increase the number of people who don’t have health insurance by 13 million and cause insurance companies to raise premiums substantially. The House passed a tax-cut bill last week that would eliminate the medical expense deduction, which is used by nearly nine million people with medical problems so severe they spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care. Further, because of the amount of revenue both bills would vaporize, they would also prompt automatic spending cuts to Medicare and other government programs that low-income and middle-class Americans rely on...."
When a Tax Cut Costs Millions Their Medical Coverage - The New York Times
Friday, November 24, 2017
Baltimore police detective fatally shot in head with own gun, died clutching radio - Washington Post
"A Baltimore police detective was shot in the head with his own gun at close range while struggling with a man and died with his radio still clutched in his left hand, the city’s top law enforcement official said Wednesday.
Detective Sean Suiter’s death came a day before he was set to testify before a grand jury in an ongoing federal investigation of police corruption and drug shakedowns by an elite gun recovery unit.
Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said he was assured by prosecutors and the FBI that Suiter, an 18-year veteran of the force, was not a target of the investigation that has led to the indictments of eight current officers. Four have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.
Davis said Suiter’s testimony was to have been about an incident several years ago involving some of the indicted officers. The commissioner sought to dispel notions Suiter was targeted the afternoon of Nov. 15 and said evidence gathered so far refutes the notion of a conspiracy.
“The encounter with a man was a spontaneous observation of a man behaving suspiciously and a spontaneous decision to investigate his conduct,” Davis said. But, he said, “I understand the speculation that exists.”
Suiter and his partner were in the Harlem Park neighborhood canvassing about a December 2016 triple killing when they happened to twice notice a man acting suspiciously within a span of about 20 minutes, Davis said.
The department’s chief spokesman said Suiter, 43 and a married father of five, was not lured to Bennett Place, where he was shot, and that he had no appointment set there. Davis said Suiter confronted the man in an empty lot between two rowhouses but did not say what made him stand out."
Baltimore police detective fatally shot in head with own gun, died clutching radio
If Trump doesn’t deal on DACA, some Democrats threaten a government shutdown - The Washington Post
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), seen here in a file photo, said President Trump’s immigration proposals are “a complete non-starter.” (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
#UnitedWeStand "...Some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus signaled they would consider withholding support for must-pass spending bills in December unless the DACA recipients are granted legal status with a path to citizenship. In recent years, near-unanimous support from Democrats has been needed to pass government spending bills and legislation to raise the government’s borrowing limit amid opposition from dozens of fiscal conservatives who are against increased spending without subsequent budget cuts..."
"... Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called the spending bill debate a defining moment for Democrats.
“I’m not saying we should shut down the government, but if you want a budget with Democratic votes, then it’s got to have some Democratic priorities,” he said.
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), who chairs the Hispanic Caucus, said withholding votes for spending legislation “is definitely on the table,” but she added that Democrats will continue to try to build consensus with moderate Republicans on an immigration plan.
Immediately threatening to vote against spending legislation “doesn’t open the door for moderate Republicans” who support immigration reform bills, she told reporters."
If Trump doesn’t deal on DACA, some Democrats threaten a government shutdown - The Washington Post
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Fighting Gay Rights and Abortion With the First Amendment - The New York Times - The right's strategy to limit LBGT rights.
"Only after an outcry over such secrecy — and the anti-gay rights positions of its sponsor — did a transcript of Mr. Sessions’s remarks emerge on a conservative website. “Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack,” he told the gathering in Orange County, Calif. “The challenges our nation faces today concerning our historic First Amendment right to the ‘free exercise’ of our faith have become acute.”
Mr. Sessions’s focus was not an accident. The First Amendment has become the most powerful weapon of social conservatives fighting to limit the separation of church and state and to roll back laws on same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Few groups have done more to advance this body of legal thinking than the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has more than 3,000 lawyers working on behalf of its causes around the world and brought in $51.5 million in revenue for the 2015-16 tax year, more than the American Civil Liberties Union.
Among the alliance’s successes has been bringing cases involving relatively minor disputes to the Supreme Court — a law limiting the size of church signs, a church seeking funding for a playground — and winning rulings that establish major constitutional precedents.
But it hopes to carve out an even wider sphere of protected religious expression this term when the justices are to hear two more of its cases, one a challenge to a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are run by abortion opponents, to provide women with information on how to obtain an abortion, and another in which it represents a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.
While the abortion case is the latest legal volley in a generation-long battle by social conservatives to limit the effect of Roe v. Wade, the Colorado baker’s case, which the court will hear next month, will test whether groups like the alliance can persuade the court to similarly blunt the sweep of Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that enshrined same-sex marriage into law, as well as the anti-discrimination laws protecting gay men and lesbians.
If there is a battle somewhere to restrict protections for gay men, lesbians or transgender people, chances are the alliance is there fighting it. The alliance has defended the owners of a wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who did not want to perform same-sex ceremonies. It has tried to stop a Charlotte, N.C., law that gave transgender people the right to use the bathroom of their choice. It backed the failed attempt by the Arizona legislature in 2014 to allow businesses to cite religious freedom in turning away same-sex couples.
But civil liberties groups and gay rights advocates say that Alliance Defending Freedom’s arguments about religious liberty and free expression mask another motivation: a deep-seated belief that gay people are immoral and that no one should be forced to recognize them as ordinary members of society.
“They are a very powerful part of this broader movement, which is trying to bring a very particular biblical worldview into dominance at all levels of government and society,” said Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group.
“They’ve got some very big, very clear goals,” said Mr. Montgomery, who has studied Alliance Defending Freedom since the group’s founding in 1994.
One of those goals was to defend laws that criminalized gay and lesbian sexual conduct.
In a brief the alliance filed urging the Supreme Court not to overturn a Texas law that made homosexual activity illegal, its lawyers described gay men as diseased and as public health risks. The court decided 6 to 3 that the law was unconstitutional.
The United States is not the only place the group has been active. Before Belize’s highest court struck down a law last year that banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” the group sent activists there to work with local lawyers who were trying to keep the prohibition in place. In India, an Alliance Defending Freedom-affiliated lawyer was part of the legal team that has defended a similar law in the country’s Supreme Court. That law remains in place, though the Indian court recently signaled that it may revisit the issue.
And when Russia approved a law in 2013 that imposed a fine for what it called propagandizing “nontraditional” sexual relationships among minors — a move that led for calls to boycott the 2014 Olympics there — Alliance Defending Freedom produced a nine-page memo in support of the law, saying its aim was to safeguard “the psychological or physical well-being of minors.”
Mr. Tedesco said the group had never supported the criminalization of homosexual activity. In Belize and India, he noted, the laws the group supported applied to heterosexual sodomy as well. He described the alliance’s involvement in both countries as “a small group of attorneys” who wanted “to resist the foreign activists that were trying to challenge their public health law.”
Asked if he and other alliance lawyers believed gay men and lesbians were immoral, Mr. Tedesco said, “I’m not going to get into what the Bible says or teaches about homosexuality.”
Fighting Gay Rights and Abortion With the First Amendment - The New York Times
Mr. Sessions’s focus was not an accident. The First Amendment has become the most powerful weapon of social conservatives fighting to limit the separation of church and state and to roll back laws on same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Few groups have done more to advance this body of legal thinking than the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has more than 3,000 lawyers working on behalf of its causes around the world and brought in $51.5 million in revenue for the 2015-16 tax year, more than the American Civil Liberties Union.
Among the alliance’s successes has been bringing cases involving relatively minor disputes to the Supreme Court — a law limiting the size of church signs, a church seeking funding for a playground — and winning rulings that establish major constitutional precedents.
But it hopes to carve out an even wider sphere of protected religious expression this term when the justices are to hear two more of its cases, one a challenge to a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are run by abortion opponents, to provide women with information on how to obtain an abortion, and another in which it represents a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.
While the abortion case is the latest legal volley in a generation-long battle by social conservatives to limit the effect of Roe v. Wade, the Colorado baker’s case, which the court will hear next month, will test whether groups like the alliance can persuade the court to similarly blunt the sweep of Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that enshrined same-sex marriage into law, as well as the anti-discrimination laws protecting gay men and lesbians.
If there is a battle somewhere to restrict protections for gay men, lesbians or transgender people, chances are the alliance is there fighting it. The alliance has defended the owners of a wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who did not want to perform same-sex ceremonies. It has tried to stop a Charlotte, N.C., law that gave transgender people the right to use the bathroom of their choice. It backed the failed attempt by the Arizona legislature in 2014 to allow businesses to cite religious freedom in turning away same-sex couples.
But civil liberties groups and gay rights advocates say that Alliance Defending Freedom’s arguments about religious liberty and free expression mask another motivation: a deep-seated belief that gay people are immoral and that no one should be forced to recognize them as ordinary members of society.
“They are a very powerful part of this broader movement, which is trying to bring a very particular biblical worldview into dominance at all levels of government and society,” said Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group.
“They’ve got some very big, very clear goals,” said Mr. Montgomery, who has studied Alliance Defending Freedom since the group’s founding in 1994.
One of those goals was to defend laws that criminalized gay and lesbian sexual conduct.
In a brief the alliance filed urging the Supreme Court not to overturn a Texas law that made homosexual activity illegal, its lawyers described gay men as diseased and as public health risks. The court decided 6 to 3 that the law was unconstitutional.
The United States is not the only place the group has been active. Before Belize’s highest court struck down a law last year that banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” the group sent activists there to work with local lawyers who were trying to keep the prohibition in place. In India, an Alliance Defending Freedom-affiliated lawyer was part of the legal team that has defended a similar law in the country’s Supreme Court. That law remains in place, though the Indian court recently signaled that it may revisit the issue.
And when Russia approved a law in 2013 that imposed a fine for what it called propagandizing “nontraditional” sexual relationships among minors — a move that led for calls to boycott the 2014 Olympics there — Alliance Defending Freedom produced a nine-page memo in support of the law, saying its aim was to safeguard “the psychological or physical well-being of minors.”
Mr. Tedesco said the group had never supported the criminalization of homosexual activity. In Belize and India, he noted, the laws the group supported applied to heterosexual sodomy as well. He described the alliance’s involvement in both countries as “a small group of attorneys” who wanted “to resist the foreign activists that were trying to challenge their public health law.”
Asked if he and other alliance lawyers believed gay men and lesbians were immoral, Mr. Tedesco said, “I’m not going to get into what the Bible says or teaches about homosexuality.”
Fighting Gay Rights and Abortion With the First Amendment - The New York Times
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Former ethics director: Kellyanne Conway violated Hatch Act - CNNPolitics
"Walter Shaub, who served as ethics director under the Obama administration, said Conway likely violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits White House officials from advocating for or against candidates, even in media interviews.
Speaking to Fox News Monday, Conway addressed the heated Alabama race and Moore's Democratic competitor, saying, "Doug Jones in Alabama, folks, don't be fooled. He will be a vote against tax cuts. He is weak on crime. Weak on borders. He is strong on raising your taxes. He is terrible for property owners."
Kellyanne Conway on Roy Moore: 'We want the votes' for tax bill
Conway added: "I just want everybody to know, Doug Jones, nobody ever says his name, and pretends he is some kind of conservative Democrat in Alabama. And he's not."
Shaub tweeted following news of the interview Tuesday, "I found the video. She's standing In front of the White House. It seems pretty clear she was appearing in her official capacity when she advocated against a candidate. This is at least as clear a violation of 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1) as OSC identified with regard to Castro."
Former ethics director: Kellyanne Conway violated Hatch Act - CNNPolitics
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
How Trump is building a border wall that no one can see - The Washington Post
"President Trump’s vision of a “big, beautiful” wall along the Mexican border may never be realized, and almost certainly not as a 2,000-mile physical structure spanning sea to sea.
But in a systematic and less visible way, his administration is following a blueprint to reduce the number of foreigners living in the United States — those who are undocumented and those here legally — and overhaul the U.S. immigration system for generations to come.
Across agencies and programs, federal officials are wielding executive authority to assemble a bureaucratic wall that could be more effective than any concrete and metal one. While some actions have drawn widespread attention, others have been put in place more quietly.
The administration has moved to slash the number of refugees, accelerate deportations and terminate the provisional residency of more than a million people, among other measures. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said nearly 60,000 Haitians allowed to stay in the United States after a devastating 2010 earthquake have until July 2019 to leave or obtain another form of legal status...
How Trump is building a border wall that no one can see - The Washington Post
A civil rights 'emergency': justice, clean air and water in the age of Trump | US news | The Guardian
"The Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations has intensified a growing civil rights battle over the deadly burden of pollution on minorities and low-income people.
Black, Latino and disadvantaged people have long been disproportionately afflicted by toxins from industrial plants, cars, hazardous housing conditions and other sources.
Environmental Justice
But political leaders, academics and activists spoke of a growing urgency around the struggle for environmental justice as the Trump administration peels away rules designed to protect clean air and water.
“What we are seeing is the institutionalization of discrimination again, the thing we’ve fought for 40 years,” said Robert Bullard, an academic widely considered the father of the environmental justice movement.
“There are people in fence-line communities who are now very worried. If the federal government doesn’t monitor and regulate, and gives the states a green light to do what they want, we are going to get more pollution, more people will get sick. There will be more deaths."
A civil rights 'emergency': justice, clean air and water in the age of Trump | US news | The Guardian
A civil rights 'emergency': justice, clean air and water in the age of Trump | US news | The Guardian
"The Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations has intensified a growing civil rights battle over the deadly burden of pollution on minorities and low-income people.
Black, Latino and disadvantaged people have long been disproportionately afflicted by toxins from industrial plants, cars, hazardous housing conditions and other sources.
Environmental Justice
But political leaders, academics and activists spoke of a growing urgency around the struggle for environmental justice as the Trump administration peels away rules designed to protect clean air and water.
“What we are seeing is the institutionalization of discrimination again, the thing we’ve fought for 40 years,” said Robert Bullard, an academic widely considered the father of the environmental justice movement.
“There are people in fence-line communities who are now very worried. If the federal government doesn’t monitor and regulate, and gives the states a green light to do what they want, we are going to get more pollution, more people will get sick. There will be more deaths."
A civil rights 'emergency': justice, clean air and water in the age of Trump | US news | The Guardian
DHS inspector general: Travel-ban confusion led agents to violate court order
"The Trump administration’s botched rollout of its first travel ban led federal agents to violate court orders by telling airlines not to let certain passengers board U.S.-bound flights, according to an internal watchdog.
In a letter Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, John Roth, notified lawmakers of the violations. He also alerted them that his findings have become bogged down in a battle with the department over redactions that he said would obscure the true failures of the administration’s handling of the first travel ban..."
Pocket: DHS inspector general: Travel-ban confusion led agents to violate court order
Monday, November 20, 2017
This Is a Man Problem - The New York Times
By Charles M. Blow Nov. 19, 2017, www.nytimes.comView OriginalNovember 20th, 2017
"It is impossible to say too often or loudly how important a moment this is, when many women feel brave and empowered enough to speak up about being sexually assaulted or harassed by powerful men.
It feels like a watershed, like something is fundamentally shifting.
But the greatest measure of fundamental change will be when everyday offenses by everyday people are also named and shamed, the trickle down of speaking up.
For most women, the perpetrator is not a Hollywood executive, or a sitting senator or an esteemed journalist. For most, there will be no press conferences if they come forward. There will be no celebrity attorney to sit at their sides and stroke their hands. There will be no morning news shows to praise their courage.
For most, the decision to speak up will still feel fraught and without sufficient benefit to outweigh the possibility of negative repercussions.
That is where the majority of this battle must be waged, among the ordinary, the powerless, the invisible. These women (and some men as well, it must always be noted) are the true Silent Majority of victims.
Speaking up, and even pressing charges when the law allows, will send a powerful message and will definitely have a chilling effect on this kind of behavior. Loss of livelihood and liberty after bad behavior is a strong deterrent.
But I believe that something far more fundamental has to take place. We have to re-examine our toxic, privileged, encroaching masculinity itself. And yes, that also means on some level reimagining the rules of attraction.
First, let’s state the obvious.
I’m a big believer in sexual liberty. Consenting adults should feel free to express their attractions as they please without shame or guilt. Just play safe.
But, there is no “sex” without consent. To believe that is a twisting of terminology.
Rape is not sex; it’s rape. Unwanted touching is not sexy; it’s assault. Sexual advances in a professional environment, particularly from a position of power, are highly inappropriate and could be illegal.
Also in business environments, rubbing your penis against people — known as Frotteurism, in case you’re wondering — masturbating in front of them, or even showing your penis is wrong and humiliating and possibly illegal. In fact, doing these things in almost all environments is wrong and possibly illegal.
Also, if you make sexual advances on, or become involved sexually with, a minor, that is not a relationship. That is not dating. That is not even sex if it progresses to intimacy. That is a morally despicable sexual exploitation of a minor at least, and statutory rape at worst.
Now that we have established that, we can move to the finer points.
We have to focus on recognizing an imbalance of power during sexual dynamics so that men better understand the implicit “no” even when women don’t feel empowered to articulate a “no.”
We have to focus on that space after attraction is sparked but before we are sure that it is mutual and reciprocal: the unrequited advance, the unwanted touch, the stolen kiss.
We have to focus on the fact that jokes that objectify women are not funny.
And we have to focus on the fact that society itself has incubated and nourished a dangerous idea that almost unbridled male aggression is not only a component of male sexuality, it is the most prized part of it.
We say to boys, be aggressive. We say to our girls, be cautious. Boys will be boys and girls will be victims.
We say, almost without saying it at all, that women are the guardians of virtue because an aroused man is simply an unthinking mass of hormones, raging and dangerous. We say that men in that condition are not really responsible for their actions, so it is up to women to do nothing to put them in that position.
Dress more modestly. Don’t smile or laugh to the degree that it could be taken as flirtation. Avoid “this one” or “that one.” Don’t walk home alone. Don’t go out to drinks or dinner with the co-worker or classmate. Don’t meet in rooms with closed doors.
This is the list of oppressions that women are read with religious rigor. These are the rules of the road. This is the outrage.
Women are not responsible for men’s bad behavior. The idea that horny men can’t control themselves is a lie!
Men have been so conditioned against emotional intelligence — that’s for women, we are told — that they are blithering idiots at reading the subtleties of allure or aversion.
Guys become gamblers. They simply play the numbers. What nine women may find revolting the tenth may reward.
They don’t even recognize what offense the nine may have experienced. They are blind to it. In the male mind, any peccadillo is excusable in the pursuit of compatibility.
This kind of bulldozer, pelvis-first mentality is the foundation of the more aggressive, more intrusive behavior, and until we recognize that, we will count on the courts to correct something that our culture should correct."
This Is a Man Problem - The New York Times
Listening to What Trump’s Accusers Have Told Us
"... The public narrative of Trump’s sexually predatory behavior begins in 1993, with Harry Hurt’s book “The Lost Tycoon,” which included details from a 1990 divorce deposition in which Ivana Trump described her husband violently raping her in Trump Tower, in a fit of anger over a botched scalp surgery. In a statement provided to Hurt, Ivana walked back her claim without denying it; she didn’t mean that Trump raped her in a “literal or criminal” sense, she said. The story reappeared in May, 2016, when the Times published accounts from two women describing nonconsensual encounters with Trump, and then it flared fully back to life in October of that year, with the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording of a 2005 conversation in which Trump bragged about habitually committing sexual assault. By the end of October, twenty women had gone on the record to describe Trump’s sexual misconduct. Twelve of them recounted being physically violated, corroborating Trump’s own description of his behavior—he grabbed women by the pussy, he said to Billy Bush, because he could."
This Is a Man Problem - The New York Times
"By Charles M. Blow Nov. 19, 2017,
Participants in the #MeToo March against sexual harassment and assault, held in Los Angeles on Nov. 12. Credit Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
Photo by: Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
It is impossible to say too often or loudly how important a moment this is, when many women feel brave and empowered enough to speak up about being sexually assaulted or harassed by powerful men.
It feels like a watershed, like something is fundamentally shifting.
But the greatest measure of fundamental change will be when everyday offenses by everyday people are also named and shamed, the trickle down of speaking up.
For most women, the perpetrator is not a Hollywood executive, or a sitting senator or an esteemed journalist. For most, there will be no press conferences if they come forward. There will be no celebrity attorney to sit at their sides and stroke their hands. There will be no morning news shows to praise their courage.
For most, the decision to speak up will still feel fraught and without sufficient benefit to outweigh the possibility of negative repercussions.
That is where the majority of this battle must be waged, among the ordinary, the powerless, the invisible. These women (and some men as well, it must always be noted) are the true Silent Majority of victims.
Speaking up, and even pressing charges when the law allows, will send a powerful message and will definitely have a chilling effect on this kind of behavior. Loss of livelihood and liberty after bad behavior is a strong deterrent.
But I believe that something far more fundamental has to take place. We have to re-examine our toxic, privileged, encroaching masculinity itself. And yes, that also means on some level reimagining the rules of attraction.
First, let’s state the obvious.
I’m a big believer in sexual liberty. Consenting adults should feel free to express their attractions as they please without shame or guilt. Just play safe.
But, there is no “sex” without consent. To believe that is a twisting of terminology.
Rape is not sex; it’s rape. Unwanted touching is not sexy; it’s assault. Sexual advances in a professional environment, particularly from a position of power, are highly inappropriate and could be illegal.
Also in business environments, rubbing your penis against people — known as Frotteurism, in case you’re wondering — masturbating in front of them, or even showing your penis is wrong and humiliating and possibly illegal. In fact, doing these things in almost all environments is wrong and possibly illegal.
Also, if you make sexual advances on, or become involved sexually with, a minor, that is not a relationship. That is not dating. That is not even sex if it progresses to intimacy. That is a morally despicable sexual exploitation of a minor at least, and statutory rape at worst.
Now that we have established that, we can move to the finer points.
We have to focus on recognizing an imbalance of power during sexual dynamics so that men better understand the implicit “no” even when women don’t feel empowered to articulate a “no.”
We have to focus on that space after attraction is sparked but before we are sure that it is mutual and reciprocal: the unrequited advance, the unwanted touch, the stolen kiss.
We have to focus on the fact that jokes that objectify women are not funny.
And we have to focus on the fact that society itself has incubated and nourished a dangerous idea that almost unbridled male aggression is not only a component of male sexuality, it is the most prized part of it.
We say to boys, be aggressive. We say to our girls, be cautious. Boys will be boys and girls will be victims.
We say, almost without saying it at all, that women are the guardians of virtue because an aroused man is simply an unthinking mass of hormones, raging and dangerous. We say that men in that condition are not really responsible for their actions, so it is up to women to do nothing to put them in that position.
Dress more modestly. Don’t smile or laugh to the degree that it could be taken as flirtation. Avoid “this one” or “that one.” Don’t walk home alone. Don’t go out to drinks or dinner with the co-worker or classmate. Don’t meet in rooms with closed doors.
This is the list of oppressions that women are read with religious rigor. These are the rules of the road. This is the outrage.
Women are not responsible for men’s bad behavior. The idea that horny men can’t control themselves is a lie!
Men have been so conditioned against emotional intelligence — that’s for women, we are told — that they are blithering idiots at reading the subtleties of allure or aversion.
Guys become gamblers. They simply play the numbers. What nine women may find revolting the tenth may reward.
They don’t even recognize what offense the nine may have experienced. They are blind to it. In the male mind, any peccadillo is excusable in the pursuit of compatibility.
This kind of bulldozer, pelvis-first mentality is the foundation of the more aggressive, more intrusive behavior, and until we recognize that, we will count on the courts to correct something that our culture should correct."
This Is a Man Problem - The New York Times
Behind Mugabe’s Rapid Fall: A Firing, a Feud and a First Lady - The New York Times - Mugabe was the biggest disappointment of the African Liberation movement that so many of us worked and marched for. I will never forget the joy of his visit and speech in Harlem in front of the State Office building before he addressed the UN after the successful negotiations at the Lancaster House conference which led to majority rule Zimbabwe. He turned into a ruthless dictator.
"HARARE, Zimbabwe — The rapid fall of Zimbabwe’s president, whose legendary guile and ruthlessness helped him outmaneuver countless adversaries over nearly four decades, probably has surprised no one more than Robert Mugabe himself.
For years, he was so confident of his safety — and his potency — that he took monthlong vacations away from Zimbabwe after Christmas, never facing any threat during his long, predictable absences. Even at 93, his tight grip on the country’s ruling party and his control over the military made his power seem impervious to question.
But in just a matter of days, Mr. Mugabe, who ruled his nation since independence in 1980, was largely stripped of his authority, even as he still clung to the presidency."
Behind Mugabe’s Rapid Fall: A Firing, a Feud and a First Lady - The New York Times
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Friday, November 17, 2017
Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota - CNN
"Nebraska officials will announce decision on Keystone XL Pipeline
TransCanada says it is investigating the cause of the leak
(CNN)A total of 210,000 gallons of oil leaked Thursday from the Keystone pipeline in South Dakota, the pipeline's operator, TransCanada, said.
Crews shut down the pipeline Thursday morning and officials are investigating the cause of the leak, which occurred about 3 miles southeast of the town of Amherst, said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
This is the largest Keystone oil spill to date in South Dakota, Walsh said. The leak comes just days before Nebraska officials announce a decision on whether the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, a sister project, can move forward.
In April 2016, there was a 400-barrel release -- or 16,800 gallons -- with the majority of the oil cleanup completed in two months, Walsh said.
About 5,000 barrels of oil spilled Thursday."
Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota - CNN
Thursday, November 16, 2017
The Republican tax plan’s five worst dangers - The Washington Post
"Robert E. Rubin, a co-chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, was U.S. treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999.
The deficit-funded tax cuts advancing through Congress are a fiscal tragedy for which our country will pay a huge price over time. While the details of the tax plan remain in flux, its fundamental contours will not change. Nor will its $1.5 trillion of deficit funding, the amount stipulated in the recently passed budget resolution.
Perhaps it’s hopeless to expect those in Congress who have long bemoaned deficits and the debt to oppose the plan. If, however, as a matter of conscience or renewed reflection they decide to take heed, here are the fiscal dangers posed by the plan.
To start, the tax cuts will not increase growth and, given their fiscal effects, would likely have a significant and increasingly negative impact. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center’s latest report estimated that, over 10 years, the average increase in our growth rate would be roughly zero, counting the crowding out of private investment by increasing deficits but not counting other adverse effects of worsening our fiscal outlook. The Penn Wharton Budget Model, using the same approach, estimates virtually no increase in long-term growth. Goldman Sachs projects an increase of 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent in the first couple of years and an average increase over 10 years of just 0.05 percent per year, not counting any of the adverse fiscal effects."
(Via.). The Republican tax plan’s five worst dangers - The Washington Post:
The new Museum of the Bible confronts the challenge of presenting slavery and the Confederacy - The Washington Post
"Across the country, debates are raging about what to do with images of the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate leaders, most of them erected many decades ago.
In Washington, a museum will open this week — with new depictions of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate flag on the walls, and proslavery texts in its display cases.
The leaders of the Museum of the Bible asked many scholars for input about how to depict the Bible’s role in slavery and the Civil War, and ultimately chose to include the Confederate imagery. ‘We have to acknowledge the proslavery argument was often drawn from the Bible,’ said Seth Pollinger, the museum’s director of content.
It was a fraught choice. Jonathan Alger stood last week in the nearly completed exhibit on the impact of the Bible in the world that his firm, C&G Partners, designed for the museum. He looked at the case showing proslavery arguments based on the Bible, including a 19th-century book titled, ‘A Brief Examination of Scriptural Testimony on the Institution of Slavery.’"
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Monday, November 13, 2017
The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks - The Atlantic
"The transparency organization asked the president’s son for his cooperation—in sharing its work, in contesting the results of the election, and in arranging for Julian Assange to be Australia’s ambassador to the United States."
(Via.) The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks - The Atlantic:
Sessions considering second special counsel to investigate Republican concerns, letter shows - The Washington Post. American traitors who colluded with Russia. All they know is diversion and mud slinging as the walls of justice close in on them.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.
The revelation came in a response from the Justice Department to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), who in July and again in September called for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate concerns he had related to the 2016 election and its aftermath.
The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging, but included the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia’s nuclear energy agency. Goodlatte took particular aim at former FBI director James B. Comey, asking for a second special counsel to evaluate the leaks he directed about his conversations with President Trump, among other things."
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Can My Children Be Friends With White People?
"My oldest son, wrestling with a 4-year-old’s happy struggles, is trying to clarify how many people can be his best friend. “My best friends are you and Mama and my brother and …” But even a child’s joy is not immune to this ominous political period. This summer’s images of violence in Charlottesville, Va., prompted an array of questions. “Some people hate others because they are different,” I offer, lamely. A childish but distinct panic enters his voice. “But I’m not different.”
It is impossible to convey the mixture of heartbreak and fear I feel for him. Donald Trump’s election has made it clear that I will teach my boys the lesson generations old, one that I for the most part nearly escaped. I will teach them to be cautious, I will teach them suspicion, and I will teach them distrust. Much sooner than I thought I would, I will have to discuss with my boys whether they can truly be friends with white people.
Meaningful friendship is not just a feeling. It is not simply being able to share a beer. Real friendship is impossible without the ability to trust others, without knowing that your well-being is important to them. The desire to create, maintain or wield power over others destroys the possibility of friendship. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous dream of black and white children holding hands was a dream precisely because he realized that in Alabama, conditions of dominance made real friendship between white and black people impossible.
History has provided little reason for people of color to trust white people in this way, and these recent months have put in the starkest relief the contempt with which the country measures the value of racial minorities. America is transfixed on the opioid epidemic among white Americans (who often get hooked after being overprescribed painkillers — while studies show that doctors underprescribe pain medication for African-Americans). But when black lives were struck by addiction, we cordoned off minority communities with the police and threw away an entire generation of black and Hispanic men.
Likewise, despite centuries of exclusion and robust evidence of continuing racism, minority underemployment is often couched in the language of bad choices and personal responsibility. When systemic joblessness strikes swaths of white America, we get an entire presidential campaign centered on globalization’s impact on the white working class. Even the nerve of some rich or visible African-Americans to protest that America, in its laws and in its police, has rarely been just to all has been met with the howls of a president who cannot tolerate that the lucky and the uppity do not stay in their place.
As against our gauzy national hopes, I will teach my boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible. When they ask, I will teach my sons that their beautiful hue is a fault line. Spare me platitudes of how we are all the same on the inside. I first have to keep my boys safe, and so I will teach them before the world shows them this particular brand of rending, violent, often fatal betrayal.
Let me assure you that my heartbreak dwarfs my anger. I grew up in a classic Midwestern college town. With all its American faults, it was a diverse and happy-childhood kind of place, slightly dull in the way that parents wish for their children. If race showed in class lines, school cliques and being pulled over more often, our little Americana lacked the deep racial tension and mistrust that seem so hard to escape now.
What’s surprising is that I am heartbroken at all. It is only for African-Americans who grew up in such a place that watching Mr. Trump is so disorienting. For many weary minorities, the ridiculous thing was thinking friendship was possible in the first place. It hurts only if you believed friendship could bridge the racial gorge.
Of course, the rise of this president has broken bonds on all sides. But for people of color the stakes are different. Imagining we can now be friends across this political line is asking us to ignore our safety and that of our children, to abandon personal regard and self-worth. Only white people can cordon off Mr. Trump’s political meaning, ignore the “unpleasantness” from a position of safety. His election and the year that has followed have fixed the awful thought in my mind too familiar to black Americans: “You can’t trust these people.”
It is not Mr. Trump himself who has done this. Were it not for our reverence for money, Mr. Trump would be easily recognized as the simple-minded, vulgar, bigoted blowhard he is. It is certainly not the neo-Nazis marching on Charlottesville; we have seen their type before. Rather, what has truly broken my heart are the ranks of Mr. Trump’s many allies and apologists.
Mr. Trump’s supporters are practiced at purposeful blindness. That his political life started with denying, without evidence, that Barack Obama is American — that this black man could truly be the legitimate president — is simply ignored. So, too, is his history of housing discrimination, his casual conflation of Muslims with terrorists, his reducing Mexican-Americans to murderers and rapists. All along, his allies have watched racial pornography, describing black America as pathological. Yet they deny that there is any malice whatsoever in his words and actions. And they dismiss any attempt to recognize the danger of his wide-ranging animus as political correctness.
But the deepest rift is with the apologists, the “good” Trump voters, the white people who understand that Mr. Trump says “unfortunate” things but support him because they like what he says on jobs and taxes. They bristle at the accusation that they supported racism, insisting they had to ignore Mr. Trump’s ugliness. Relying on everyday decency as a shield, they are befuddled at the chill that now separates them from black people in their offices and social circles. They protest: Have they ever said anything racist? Don’t they shovel the sidewalk of the new black neighbors? Surely, they say, politics — a single vote — does not mean we can’t be friends.
I do not write this with liberal condescension or glee. My heart is unbearably heavy when I assure you we cannot be friends.
The same is true, unfortunately, of those who hold no quarter for Mr. Trump but insist that black people need to do the reaching out, the moderating, the accommodating. Imagine the white friend during the civil rights era who disliked blacks’ being beaten to death but wished the whole thing would just settle down. However likable, you could not properly describe her as a friend. Sometimes politics makes demands on the soul.
Don’t misunderstand: White Trump supporters and people of color can like one another. But real friendship? Mr. Trump’s bruised ego invents outrageous claims of voter fraud, not caring that this rhetoric was built upon dogs and water hoses set on black children and even today the relentless effort to silence black voices. His macho talk about “law and order” does not keep communities safe and threatens the very bodies of the little boys I love. No amount of shoveled snow makes it all right, and too many imagine they can have it both ways. It is this desperation to reap the rewards of white power without being so much as indicted that James Baldwin recognized as America’s criminal innocence.
For African-Americans, race has become a proxy not just for politics but also for decency. White faces are swept together, ominous anxiety behind every chance encounter at the airport or smiling white cashier. If they are not clearly allies, they will seem unsafe to me.
Barack Obama’s farewell address encouraged us to reach across partisan lines. But there is a difference between disagreeing over taxes and negotiating one’s place in America, the bodies of your children, your humanity. Our racial wound has undone love and families, and ignoring the depths of the gash will not cause it to heal.
We can still all pretend we are friends. If meaningful civic friendship is impossible, we can make do with mere civility — sharing drinks and watching the game. Indeed, even in Donald Trump’s America, I have not given up on being friends with all white people. My bi-ethnic wife, my most trusted friend, understands she is seen as a white woman, even though her brother and father are not. Among my dearest friends, the wedding party and children’s godparents variety, many are white. But these are the friends who have marched in protest, rushed to airports to protest the president’s travel ban, people who have shared the risks required by strength and decency.
There is hope, though. Implicitly, without meaning to, Mr. Trump asks us if this is the best we can do. It falls to us to do better. We cannot agree on our politics, but we can declare that we stand beside one another against cheap attack and devaluation; that we live together and not simply beside one another. In the coming years, when my boys ask again their questions about who can be their best friend, I pray for a more hopeful answer."
Can My Children Be Friends With White People?
Friday, November 10, 2017
White Woman Arrested for Torturing Black Student She Called ‘Jamaican Barbie’
"Police have arrested a white University of Hartford student after she boasted online about harassing her roommate she called “Jamaican Barbie” by “putting her toothbrush places the sun doesn’t shine.”
Brianna Rae Brochu, 18, was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal mischief and second-degree breach of peace on Saturday for bullying her university roommate, Chennel “Jazzy” Rowe. Rowe was not aware of the harassment until she discovered a post by Brochu on Instagram, where her roommate bragged about spitting in her coconut oil, putting moldy clam dip in her lotions and rubbing used tampons on her backpack for more than a month...."
“Finally did it yo girl got rid of her roommate!!” the post reads. “I can finally say goodbye Jamaican Barbie.”
White Woman Arrested for Torturing Black Student She Called ‘Jamaican Barbie’
Japan anger over South Korea's shrimp surprise for Donald Trump | World news | The Guardian
Tokyo complains after menu served to US president includes shellfish from disputed island and wartime sex slave is invited to dinner
Japan get over it. Japan, like the US lies about and hides it's history. Japan engaged in massive sex slavery using Korean women.
"The menu at South Korea’s state banquet for Donald Trump has left a nasty taste in Japan, after the president was served seafood caught off islands at the centre of a long-running territorial dispute between Seoul and Tokyo.
Japanese officials have also complained about the decision to invite a former wartime sex slave to the event, held earlier this week during the second leg of Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia.
Conservative media in Japan labeled the banquet “anti-Japanese” for featuring shrimp from near Dokdo – a rocky outcrop known in Japan as Takeshima. Both countries claim sovereignty over the islands, which are administered by Seoul.
The menu also included grilled sole and beef ribs accompanied by a gravy made with 360-year-old soy sauce.
In another apparent jab at Japan, the guest list included Lee Yong-soo, who was forced to work in Japanese military brothels before and during the second world war.
Photographs from the dinner, held at the presidential Blue House, show Trump embracing the 88-year-old Lee after her name was announced at the banquet, according to South Korean media.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, wondered if it had been wise to make such diplomatically sensitive gestures at a time when Japan, the US and South Korea were attempting to pressure North Korea into giving up its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
“At a time when stronger coordination … is required to deal with the North Korea issue, and when President Trump has chosen Japan and South Korea as the first stops on his trip, there is a need to avoid making moves that could negatively affect that close coordination,” Suga said.
The Korea Herald quoted a South Korean presidential spokesman as saying: “Lee’s invitation was designed to deliver a message to Trump and ask him to have a balanced view of the comfort woman issue and historical dispute between South Korea and Japan.”
Donald Trump embraces Lee Yong-soo, a former “comfort woman” who was forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military during World War II."
Japan anger over South Korea's shrimp surprise for Donald Trump | World news | The Guardian
Thursday, November 09, 2017
Bigoted White House chief of staff and retired general John Kelly tried to pressure acting DHS secretary to expel thousands of Hondurans, officials say
"Bigoted Trump act-a-like John Kelly is at it again. "On Monday, as the Department of Homeland Security prepared to extend the residency permits of tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants living in the United States, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called Acting Secretary Elaine Duke to pressure her to expel them, according to current and former administration officials.
Duke refused to reverse her decision and was angered by what she felt was a politically driven intrusion by Kelly and Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, who also called her about the matter, according to officials with knowledge of Monday’s events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
“As with many issues, there were a variety of views inside the administration on a policy. The Acting Secretary took those views and advice [on] the path forward for TPS and made her decision based on the law,” said Jonathan Hoffman, the DHS spokesman, referring to a form of provisional residency called Temporary Protected Status. He added that it was also “perfectly normal for them to discuss the issue before she had reached a decision.”
White House chief of staff tried to pressure acting DHS secretary to expel thousands of Hondurans, officials say
Wednesday, November 08, 2017
De Blasio Coasts to Re-election, as Second-Term Challenges Await - The New York Times
"Now comes the hard part.
Gliding to his second landslide victory, Bill de Blasio was re-elected on Tuesday as the mayor of New York City, overwhelming his Republican challenger, Nicole Malliotakis, and a handful of independent candidates in what he declared a persuasive affirmation of his progressive agenda.
Mr. de Blasio, the first Democratic mayor to be re-elected in a generation, since Edward I. Koch captured his third term in 1985, now has four years to further his goal of reshaping the city in his progressive mold.
“It’s a good night for progressives,” Mr. de Blasio said at a victory party at the Brooklyn Museum, with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and his son, Dante, at his side. “For the first time in 32 years, a Democratic mayor was re-elected in New York City. But let’s promise each other: This is the beginning of a new era of progressive Democratic leadership in New York City for years and years to come.”
Yet Mr. de Blasio’s ability to deliver on his agenda may have far more to do with the winds blowing out of Washington and Albany than with circumstances in the five boroughs.
Federal budget cuts — threatened by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress, especially to social programs, health care and public housing — could cause serious problems and exacerbate social ills, forcing Mr. de Blasio to do financial triage. That could potentially drain money from signature programs, like his promise to accelerate and expand a push to build and preserve affordable housing.
And Mr. de Blasio, 56, remains hampered by his inability to forge a working relationship with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat; many of the mayor’s plans require Albany’s approval, and the mayor has had few willing partners in the Capitol.
He has said that he would crusade in Albany to make the city’s arcane property tax system fairer across neighborhoods. He said that he would appeal to Albany to improve the state’s voting system to increase participation by making it easier to register to vote and to vote early..."
De Blasio Coasts to Re-election, as Second-Term Challenges Await - The New York Times
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
Trump Jr. Hinted at Review of Anti-Russia Law, Moscow Lawyer Says - Bloomberg - This is collusion.
"A Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump’s oldest son last year says he indicated that a law targeting Russia could be re-examined if his father won the election and asked her for written evidence that illegal proceeds went to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, said in a two-and-a-half-hour interview in Moscow that she would tell these and other things to the Senate Judiciary Committee on condition that her answers be made public, something it hasn’t agreed to. She has received scores of questions from the committee, which is investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Veselnitskaya said she’s also ready -- if asked -- to testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller."
(Via.). Trump Jr. Hinted at Review of Anti-Russia Law, Moscow Lawyer Says - Bloomberg:
The full story - Trump said 'samurai' Japan should have shot down overflying North Korean missiles | The Japan Times
"WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.
The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.
Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.
The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said.
In defiance of international sanctions imposed to compel Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons and missile development programs, North Korea test-launched ballistic missiles on Aug. 29 and Sept. 15 that flew over Hokkaido before falling into the Pacific Ocean.
However, the Self-Defense Forces did not try to intercept the missiles, with the government saying the SDF had monitored the rockets from launch and judged they would not land on Japanese territory.
But the altitude and speed of the missiles would have made it very difficult to destroy them in flight, while failure would have been embarrassing for Japan and encouraging to North Korea.
Defense Ministry officials confirmed this view and said there were also legal issues to clear.
On Sept. 3, the North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test by detonating what it said was a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.
While the United States and its allies and partners have been pressing North Korea to denuclearize, the Trump administration says it is keeping all options — including military action — on the table in dealing with the situation."
Trump said 'samurai' Japan should have shot down overflying North Korean missiles | The Japan Times
Monday, November 06, 2017
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