Posts Tagged ‘UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 13, 2024 at 12:17 am
There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”
Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.
Example 1: Republicans organized a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.
Yet Democrats didn’t make a similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor did the Biden Justice Department indict those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 147 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
With the end of the Biden administration little more than two months away, not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason had been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would have been far more advanced than it is. Republicans who were raising funds for re-election campaigns would have been forced to raise them to pay huge legal bills.
They would have had far less time to plot to overthrow democracy. Instead, their attention would have been increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.
Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.
Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.
A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
There can be no doubt that after Trump’s win in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.
Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And Smith allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial.
Meanwhile, Trump won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol. His victory on November 5 guarantees he will not be prosecuted for any of his crimes.
To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.
To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.
For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.
America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The United States—and especially Democrats—has allowed itself to make that same fatal mistake.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 12, 2024 at 12:05 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Reason #3: Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
Lee Atwater
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Reason #4: Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Reason #5: Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
Reason #6: Republicans know that if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they feel even less comfortable with foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance is wasted. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
Democrats believe that voters are creatures of rationality.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that what counts with most voters is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 11, 2024 at 12:16 am
If you’re wondering why Donald J. Trump once again won the election of 2024—you can stop wondering.
The Democrats lost the Senate while Republicans closed in on the House on November 5. The Democrats also lost the White House.
Why?
Reason #1: Because Republicans understand the darker sides of human nature far better than Democrats—and don’t hesitate to take full advantage of them.
Democrats believe that people want to become altruistically better than they are. They don’t.
Reason #2: Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
They may claim concern for others, but if given a choice between their pocketbook and a higher goal, most will vote for their pocketbook.
A first-rate example of this appeared on The PBS Newshour on July 15, 2022, during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Brooks (left) and Jonathan Capehart (right) on the PBS Newshour
Host William Brangham led off the exchange:
“I want to switch, Jonathan, to this issue of the continued fallout of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And Democrats seem to believe that this could be one of the things that might give them at least some trace of a fighting chance in the midterms.
“And we saw we this week this sort of horrendous case of a young 10-year-old girl who had been raped. She got pregnant. She then had to leave her state [Ohio] and go to another state [Indiana] where abortion would still be allowed.
“And GOP officials tried to make hay of it. They doubted that that story really existed. The local [Attorney General] said, we’re going to go after the doctor that performed this.
“Do you think that—that issue and the extremity of the way that this is being handled will actually benefit Democrats?”
Capehart: “It should. The idea that we’re talking about violence against a child, and then being forced by the state to give birth to this child, going to another state so she can terminate that pregnancy, and then being persecuted and prosecuted by the state for doing that….
“We are in “Handmaid’s Tale” territory here. We are turning into Gilead. And if there are people out there who are upset by the Supreme Court decision, by what Republican legislators around the country in states and localities are doing to further restrictions and bans on abortion.
“I don’t know what else could push people to the polls more than not just being stripped of a constitutional right, but having your right to — right to freedom, right to privacy, right to liberty not just taken away, but local officials doing everything they can to ensure that you don’t have autonomy over your own body.
“If that doesn’t get people out to the polls, I don’t know what will.”
It didn’t.
Brangham then turned to Brooks:
“I mean, David, this was an incredibly extreme case, in some ways crystallized the sharpness and the horribleness of this division in this country.
“Do you think it will redound to the Democrats’ benefit?”
Brooks: “A little, but, frankly, not much.
“Now, abortion rights defenders, they should pursue their cause with the passion that they’re bringing to it….
“But there’s just a giant gap between what a lot of Democrats want to talk about and what the whole rest of the country wants to talk about. And if you ask people, what’s the most important issues, progressives want to talk about abortion and guns.
“The entire rest of the country, independents, conservatives, unaffiliated people, they want to talk about the economy. And, for them, the economy is way up here. Jobs are number one. Inflation is number two.
“And so why is Joe Biden at 33 percent approval in the latest Times poll? It’s the economy. Why in the same poll do half of Hispanics support the Republicans now? The economy. These are earthquake numbers for Democrats…..
“But if Democrats, if they’re not talking about economic policy every day, then they’re just not talking about the policy that is clearly ranking number one with a vast majority of voters.”
No Republican has appealed more directly to greed as a motivator than Donald Trump.
On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 23, 2024 at 12:07 am
There’s a popular misconception about why Donald Trump wants to build an illegal alien-proof Border Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The misconception is that he simply doesn’t understand that it won’t work.
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Ranchers who refuse to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
Another problem: The United States is surrounded by water on three sides—East, West and South. So anyone with a boat can smuggle illegal aliens into the country at any point along its 12,383 miles of coastline.
For those who get seasick, there’s a land route available—not across burning Mexican deserts but under them.
Over the years, officials have found nearly 200 drug-smugglers’ tunnels along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, mostly in Arizona and California. They range from rudimentary crawlspaces to “super tunnels” that cost more than a million dollars and are equipped with elevators, ventilation shafts electric lights, and disguised exits and entrances.
Many of those who want to infiltrate the United States can simply fly in.
Wealthy and pregnant Chinese women often fly to the United States to “anchor” themselves via a baby born on American soil. The same is true for many Russian women.
And the Number One cause of illegal immigration: Foreigners’ overstaying their visas. In 2022, more than 98,000 foreigners who legally entered the United States under the Visa Waver Program which allows visa-free travel for short-term visitors from low-risk countries, overstayed in 2022.
A far cheaper and more effective way to combat illegal immigration is readily available through the United States Department of Justice: Simply indict the CEOs of those companies that systematically engage in violating America’s immigration laws by knowingly hiring illegals.
And slap convicted CEOs with a mandatory prison term of 20 years.
Other CEOs will notice—and take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.![]()
So: if The Wall won’t keep out illegal aliens, why is Trump so determined to build it?
Simple: The real purpose of The Wall is not to keep illegal aliens out. It’s to put Donald Trump back in—the White House.
Trump knows he can’t win over those millions of Democrats who detest him—and especially those who salivate at his possible loss a second time. He has never reached beyond his base of Fascistic voters—and he has no intention of doing so in 2024.
So it’s only the views of his Rightist followers that he cares about. And especially those views as expressed on the Fox News Network.
Case in point: Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office on December 11, 2018 with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Its purpose: To discuss Trump’s demand that Democrats provide $5 billion to fund his border wall—or face his shutdown of the Federal Government.
While the three agreed that “we need border security,” Pelosi and Schumer disagreed that “the wall is a part of border security.”
Trump then bragged: “If we don’t get what we want, one way or the other…I will shut down the government. Absolutely.”
But Republican leaders in Congress didn’t want to be blamed for shutting down the government, seemed to persuade him to back away from his threat. The Senate passed a short-term funding measure without his wall money.
Vice President Mike Pence told lawmakers that Trump was open to approving it.
Then the Fox News Network stepped in.![]()
“I think a lot of people who voted for President Trump counted on him on this particular issue,” Fox & Friends host Jedediah Bila said.
“I think their feet were to the fire. And you see a lot of people around the country saying: ‘Hold on a second. You told us that you weren’t afraid to shut down the government, that’s why we like you. What happened? You just gave in right away?’”
And Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter said: “Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.
“Trump will very likely not finish his term and definitely not be elected to a second term.”
For a man who has “joked” that having a “President-for-Life” would be “great,” Coulter’s words proved a nightmare.
On December 22, 2018, Trump shut down the government.
In his classic book, Language in Thought and Action, semantics professor S.I. Hayakawa noted: “The symbol is not the thing.”
Yet for Trump’s fanatical base, the symbol is the thing. So if Trump builds a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border, they believe that, alone, will stop all illegal immigration.
Even if hard, objective evidence overwhelmingly proves it won’t.
Trump may know that it won’t. But if he does, he doesn’t care.
He knows that his base believes it will. And he knows they won’t re-elect him if he doesn’t “build the wall.”
Maintaining himself in power, wealth and publicity is all that he has ever cared about—and all that he truly cares about now.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALEXANDER SHUSTOROVICH, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW INTRATER, AP, ARCHIBALD COX, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BENNY JOHNSON, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLINTON WATTS, CNN, CRAIG UNGER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVE RUBIN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEVIN NUNES, DIANNE FEINSTEIN, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., DOUG COLLINS, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FBI’S COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT (FARA), FOX NEWS, GREG MILLER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF TRUMP HOUSE OF PUTIN (BOOK), ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE, JAMES COMEY, JARED KUSHNER, JEFF SESSIONS, JERROLD NADLER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE, KAYLEIGH MCENANY, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LAUREN SUTHERN, LEN BLAVATNIK, LESTER HOLT, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MAIN INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE, MALCOM NANCE, MALCOM W. NANCE, MARCO RUBIO, MATT CHRISTIANSEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MICHAEL ISIKOFF, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MONEY-LAUNDERING, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, PAUL MANAFORT, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD M. NIXON, RINAT AKHMETSHIN, ROBERT S. MUELLER 111, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RT, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN ROULETTE (BOOK), SALON, SEAL TEAM SIX, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SUPREME COURT, TALIBAN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAYLOR HANSEN, TENET MEDIA, THE APPRENTICE (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PLOT TO DESDTROY DEMOCRACY (BOOK), THE PLOT TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIM POOL, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP INAUGURAL COMMITTEE, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NAVY SEALS, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS, WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
Would you believe in a love at first sight?
(Yes, it happens with a mirror all the time.)
What do you see when you turn out the light?
(It stays on so that my face can shine.)
Oh, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna die with a little help from my Vlad.
The appointment of Robert S. Mueller as Special Counsel aroused unprecedented hopes and fears.
Yet even before the release of the long-awaited Mueller report, several deeply-researched and well-written books outlined Russia’s efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential race. And they cast devastating light on Trump’s loyalty to the United States.
Among these:
- The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of Democracy, by Greg Miller
- House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, by Craig Unger
- Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, by Michael Isikoff
- The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West, by Malcom W. Nance
According to its blurb on Amazon.com, The Apprentice is “based on interviews with hundreds of people in Trump’s inner circle, current and former government officials, individuals with close ties to the White House, members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, foreign officials, and confidential documents.”
Among the subjects it covers:
- The Trump Tower meeting, where the Trump campaign sought “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian Intelligence agents;
- The penetration by Russian Intelligence of computer systems used by Democrats;
- How Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow via Russian diplomatic facilities;
- Trump’s giving Russian officials highly classified secrets supplied by Israeli Intelligence;
- Trump’s clashes with the FBI and CIA.
Miller is a veteran investigative journalist and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Among his stories: National security adviser Michael Flynn’s discussing U.S. sanctions with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration. The story contributed to Flynn’s ouster.
Then there’s House of Trump, House of Putin, whose jacket blurb describes Trump’s inauguration as “the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City.
“…Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world….
“Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president.”
As an appendix to the book, Unger writes: “Donald Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Russia. Below are fifty-nine Trump connections to Russia.”
Russian Roulette, according to its dust jacket, “is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry.
“After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on U.S. political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election.
“The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no ‘third-rate burglary.’ It was far more sophisticated and sinister—a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won….
“This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump’s strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle—including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn—and Russia.”
Malcom Nance, the author of The Plot to Destroy Democracy, is an Intelligence and foreign policy analyst and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency and torture.
In his book, he outlines how “Donald Trump was made President of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power.
“[It is] the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 U.S. election—and attempted to bring about the fall of NATO, the European Union, and western democracy….
“Nance has utilized top secret Russian-sourced political and hybrid warfare strategy documents to demonstrate the master plan to undermine American institutions that has been in effect from the Cold War to the present day.
“Based on original research and countless interviews with espionage experts, Nance examines how Putin’s recent hacking accomplished a crucial first step for destabilizing the West for Russia, and why Putin is just the man to do it.”
These books—combined with the findings of the Mueller report—clearly establish the damning conclusion: The man now sitting in the Oval Office is an illegitimate usurper, installed by an unholy alliance of American Fascists and Russian Communists.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALEXANDER SHUSTOROVICH, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW INTRATER, AP, ARCHIBALD COX, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BENNY JOHNSON, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLINTON WATTS, CNN, CRAIG UNGER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVE RUBIN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEVIN NUNES, DIANNE FEINSTEIN, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., DOUG COLLINS, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FBI’S COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT (FARA), FOX NEWS, GREG MILLER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF TRUMP HOUSE OF PUTIN (BOOK), ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE, JAMES COMEY, JARED KUSHNER, JEFF SESSIONS, JERROLD NADLER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE, KAYLEIGH MCENANY, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LAUREN SUTHERN, LEN BLAVATNIK, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MAIN INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE, MALCOM NANCE, MALCOM W. NANCE, MARCO RUBIO, MATT CHRISTIANSEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MICHAEL ISIKOFF, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MONEY-LAUNDERING, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, PAUL MANAFORT, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD M. NIXON, RINAT AKHMETSHIN, ROBERT S. MUELLER 111, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RT, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN ROULETTE (BOOK), SALON, SEAL TEAM SIX, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SUPREME COURT, TALIBAN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAYLOR HANSEN, TENET MEDIA, THE APPRENTICE (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PLOT TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIM POOL, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP INAUGURAL COMMITTEE, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NAVY SEALS, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS, WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 19, 2024 at 12:16 am
Do you need anybody?
(I need a Gestapo that kills.)
Could it be anybody?
(As long as it kills I get thrills.)
Yes, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
On January 20, 2017—the day Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States—Michael Flynn became the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Flynn was a former United States Army lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
TREASON EXAMPLE #5 On February 8, Flynn denied having spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, 2016, about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
The sanctions had been placed in retaliation for Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election.
On February 13, The Washington Post reported that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had warned Trump in late January that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Kislyak—and that he could be blackmailed by Russian Intelligence.
Sally Yates
Flynn was forced to resign that same day—after only 24 days as National Security Adviser.
Officially, the reason given was that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence. But Flynn’s deception had already been known—via the warning to Trump by Yates.
Only after Yates’ warning became known to the media was Flynn forced to resign.
The same Washington Post story reported that, in December, 2015, he had appeared on Russia Today, the news network that American Intelligence agencies consider “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
He had also received more than $45,000 as a “speaking fee” from the network for a talk on world affairs. At the gala where Flynn received the fee, he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for dinner.
Flynn did not file the required paperwork for the trip. Nor did he report the “fee” to the Pentagon.
On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared in federal court to formalize a deal with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He plead guilty to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI.
TREASON EXAMPLE #6 On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential race.
There were four reasons for this:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Comey had rejected Trump’s attempt to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
James Comey
TREASON EXAMPLE #7 On May 10, Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office—and gave them highly classified Israeli Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, then Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
TREASON EXAMPLE #8 On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—as partners in a conspiracy: “You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?
“I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
TREASON EXAMPLE #9 On June 9, 2018, Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the G7.
“I think it would be an asset to have Russia back in,” he said during an impromptu press conference at the summit.
“I think it would be good for the world. I think it would be good for Russia. I think it would be good for the United States. I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7. I think the G8 would be better.”
Russia was ousted from the group in 2014 after Putin annexed Crimea—the first violation of a European country’s borders since World War II.
“Today crystallizes precisely why Putin was so eager to see Trump elected,” said former Obama National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.
“For Putin, this is return on his investment, and it’s safe to say that his investment has paid off beyond even his wildest dreams,” he said in a statement to CNN.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALEXANDER SHUSTOROVICH, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW INTRATER, AP, ARCHIBALD COX, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BENNY JOHNSON, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLINTON WATTS, CNN, CRAIG UNGER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVE RUBIN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEVIN NUNES, DIANNE FEINSTEIN, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., DOUG COLLINS, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FBI’S COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT (FARA), FOX NEWS, GREG MILLER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF TRUMP HOUSE OF PUTIN (BOOK), ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE, JAMES COMEY, JARED KUSHNER, JEFF SESSIONS, JERROLD NADLER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE, KAYLEIGH MCENANY, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LAUREN SUTHERN, LEN BLAVATNIK, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MAIN INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE, MALCOM NANCE, MALCOM W. NANCE, MARCO RUBIO, MATT CHRISTIANSEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MICHAEL ISIKOFF, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MONEY-LAUNDERING, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, PAUL MANAFORT, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD M. NIXON, RINAT AKHMETSHIN, ROBERT S. MUELLER 111, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RT, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN ROULETTE (BOOK), SALON, SEAL TEAM SIX, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SUPREME COURT, TALIBAN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAYLOR HANSEN, TENET MEDIA, THE APPRENTICE (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PLOT TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIM POOL, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP INAUGURAL COMMITTEE, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NAVY SEALS, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS, WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2024 at 12:14 am
What do I do when the bank calls me in?
(Does it worry you to be in debt?)
How do I feel when I need rubles fast?
(Do you worry Vlad might say “Nyet”?)
No, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
Donald Trump—as the Republican nominee for President—steadfastly refused to acknowledge his decades-long relationship with Russia. On October 24, 2016, he stated: “I have nothing to do with Russia, folks, I’ll give you a written statement.”
In fact, Trump had a highly profitable relationship with Russia—as his two sons, Donald, Jr., and Eric, unintentionally revealed:
In 2008, Donald Trump, Jr. said at a New York real estate conference: “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets….We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
And Trump’s son, Eric, said in 2014: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
Trump quickly appointed men with ties to Russian officials to high positions.
Among these: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the 2016 campaign, Sessions—then serving as a surrogate for Trump’s campaign—twice spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But during his Senate confirmation hearings, Sessions denied that he had had “communications with the Russians” during the campaign.
The discovery of numerous contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian Intelligence agents led the FBI to investigate Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.
TREASON EXAMPLE #4: Trump has repeatedly praised and defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement blaming the Russian government for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Its motive: “To interfere with the US election process.”
Two days later, Trump publicly stated: “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are—Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia.”
On December 16, 2016, FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Clinton Watts, a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division, is an expert on cyberwarfare.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on March 30, 2017, Watts outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign.
This pattern of Russian falsehoods and social media manipulation of the American electorate continued through Election Day and persists today.
Many of the accounts we watched push the false Incirlik story in July now focus their efforts on shaping the upcoming European elections, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality.
They’ve not forgotten about the United States either. This past week, we observed social media campaigns targeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions, their leaders and their constituents.
As we noted two days before the Presidential election in our article describing Russian influence operations, Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives.
But winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
From these objectives, the Kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out creating political divisions resulting in two key milestones:
- The dissolution of the European Union and
- The break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
TREASON EXAMPLE #5 On January 20, 2017—the day Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States—Michael Flynn took office as the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Two days later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents for his secret communications with Russian officials.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALEXANDER SHUSTOROVICH, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW INTRATER, AP, ARCHIBALD COX, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BENNY JOHNSON, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLINTON WATTS, CNN, CRAIG UNGER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVE RUBIN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEVIN NUNES, DIANNE FEINSTEIN, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., DOUG COLLINS, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FBI’S COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT (FARA), FOX NEWS, GREG MILLER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF TRUMP HOUSE OF PUTIN (BOOK), ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE, JAMES COMEY, JARED KUSHNER, JEFF SESSIONS, JERROLD NADLER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE, KAYLEIGH MCENANY, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LAUREN SUTHERN, LEN BLAVATNIK, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MAIN INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE, MALCOM NANCE, MALCOM W. NANCE, MARCO RUBIO, MATT CHRISTIANSEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MICHAEL ISIKOFF, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MONEY-LAUNDERING, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, PAUL MANAFORT, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, REX TILLERSON, RICHARD M. NIXON, RINAT AKHMETSHIN, ROBERT S. MUELLER 111, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RT, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN ROULETTE (BOOK), SALON, SEAL TEAM SIX, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SUPREME COURT, TALIBAN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAYLOR HANSEN, TENET MEDIA, THE APPRENTICE (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PLOT TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIM POOL, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP INAUGURAL COMMITTEE, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NAVY SEALS, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS, WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2024 at 12:10 am
What would you think if I ripped off some kids?
Would you walk out and not vote for me?
Lend me your ears and I’ll feed you a line
And I’ll try not to laugh cynically.
Oh, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
On September 4, the Department of Justice indicted two Russian nationals—Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27—for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Both were employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute hidden Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences.
RT did so through its ownership of Tenet Media, an American Right-wing company. Among its employees were six right-wing influencers: Matt Christiansen, Tayler Hansen, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern.
Numerous Republicans have profited through Russian bribes (officially described as “campaign contributions”). Among these:
- Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky);
- Former House Speaker Paul Ryan;
- Senator Marco Rubio (Florida);
- Former House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California);
- Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina).
But no Republican has benefited more from Russian monies and assistance than former President Donald Trump, who received:
- $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch Len Blavatnik;
- $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch Alexander Shustorovich;
- $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch, Andrew Intrater
Trump has repeatedly claimed “no collusion” between himself and Russia. But the evidence overwhelmingly speaks otherwise.
TREASON EXAMPLE #1 On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The participants included:
- Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
- His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
- His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
- Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
- Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.
The purpose of that meeting: To gain access to any “dirt” Russian Intelligence could supply on Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump originally claimed that the meeting was “about the adoption of Russian children.” Eventually he admitted that it had been “a meeting to get information on an opponent.”
Donald Trump
TREASON EXAMPLE #2 On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
On July 27, 2016, during his campaign for President, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow targeted Clinton’s personal office and hit more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts.
Clinton Watts is a consultant and researcher on cyberwarfare. He has served as
- An FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF);
- The Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC); and
- A consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB).
In a statement he prepared for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Watts outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign.
He delivered this on March 30. 2017. Part of this reads as follows:
Through the end of 2015 and start of 2016, the Russian influence system….began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin. The final months leading up to the election have been the predominate focus of Russian influence discussions to date.
Clinton Watts
However, Russian Active Measures were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed.
The final piece of Russia’s modern Active Measures surfaced in the summer of 2016 as hacked materials from previous months were strategically leaked.
On 22 July 2016, Wikileaks released troves of stolen communications from the Democratic National Committee and later batches of campaign emails. Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks revealed hacked information from a host of former U.S. government officials throughout July and August 2016.
For the remainder of the campaign season, this compromising material powered the influence system Russia successfully constructed in the previous two years.
TREASON EXAMPLE #3 Throughout 2016, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) found numerous ties between officials of the Trump Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
And many of those Trump appointed to office had strong ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rex Tillerson
One of these was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In 2013, as the chief executive of ExxonMobil, he was presented with Russia’s Order of Friendship award. He had just signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. Its chief, Igor Sechin, is a loyal Putin lieutenant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 5, 2024 at 12:11 am
To create safe and affordable housing for their citizens, city agencies need to see landlords for what they truly are—as, at best, potential predators, if not actual ones. And to act aggressively on that knowledge.
As Niccolo Machiavelli warned:
“All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
“If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
The vast majority of this nation’s cities and states make no effort to control the insatiable greed of landlords. Nor to require them to provide even minimal habitability for their tenants.
Many tenants have lived with rotting floors, bedbugs, nonworking toilets, mice/rats, chipping lead-based paint and other outrages for not simply months but years.
This holds true even in San Francisco—the so-called “renters’ paradise” where the District Attorney’s Office hasn’t prosecuted a slumlord in decades.
Part Two of this series presented a series of badly-needed, long-overdue reforms for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI). This is the agency charged with ensuring safe housing conditions for San Francisco residents.
Renters in cities and states across the country should demand similar protections.
This concluding part will cover the remainder of those needed reforms.
- Landlords should be required to bring all the units in a building up to existing building codes, and not just those in need of immediate repair.
- Landlords should be legally required to hire a certified-expert contractor to perform building repairs. To save money—that they can well afford to spend—-many landlords insist on making such repairs despite their not being trained or experienced in doing so. They thereby risk the health and/or safety of their tenants.
- DBI should not view itself as a “mediation” agency between landlords and tenants. Most landlords hate DBI and will always do so. They believe they should be allowed to treat their tenants like serfs, if not slaves, raise extortionate rents anytime they desire, and maintain their buildings in whatever state they wish.
- Above all, DBI must stop viewing itself as a regulatory agency and start seeing itself as a law enforcement one. The FBI doesn’t ask criminals to comply with the law. It applies whatever amount of pressure is needed to force their compliance. William Tecumseh Sherman, speaking of the rebellious Southern states, said it best: “They cannot be made to love us, but they may be made to fear us.”
- The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office should create a special unit to investigate and prosecute slumlords. Prosecutors should offer rewards to citizens who provide tips on major outrages by the city’s slumlords.
- Install Rent Control protections for tenants on fixed incomes. San Francisco is notorious for having the highest rents in the nation. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment runs $3,000 a month. Even those in the vaunted high-tech industry spend most of their income on rent.
- For tenants on fixed incomes—seniors, disabled, students—the predatory greed of landlords amounts to a staged-in eviction notice. Social Security recipients often don’t get a cost-of-living increase if there hasn’t been a rise in gasoline prices. But many of them don’t own cars—while the price of everything else—such as groceries—has sharply risen.
- Allowing landlords to jack up rents to the fullest extent possible every year will eventually drive out all tenants who are not multimillionaires. In fact, an unknown portion of this City’s homeless population doubtless stems from the ability of landlords to gradually raise rents above tenants’ ability to afford them.
- In 1979, San Franciscans passed a Rent Control law to protect tenants against predatory rent hikes and unfair evictions. As a result, a landlord can only raise a tenant’s rent a certain percentage every year. This is set by the set by the Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board, more popularly known as the “Rent Board.”
- But there is a gaping hole in the law: Once a tenant moves out, the landlord can jack up the rent as high as he wants. This is why the average rent in San Francisco is priced beyond most middle-class wage-earners.
- In addition, landlords are allowed to charge tenants yearly fees to maintain the existence of the Rent Board. This is both unfair and insulting, since the Board was created to protect tenants from predatory landlords. Most tenants have far less money to pay such fees than do landlords, who are free to raise rents every year. And landlords—unlike tenants—can and do write off Rent Board fees on their taxes every year.
As Robert F. Kennedy wrote: “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 4, 2024 at 12:51 pm
“We investigate complaints of building code violations and compel building owners to fix the violations.”
So boasts the website for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI).
Yet DBI has long been outmaneuvered by predatory, law-breaking landlords.
And San Francisco renters—many of them elderly, poor and/or disabled—have been the victims of landlord greed, neglect and/or harassment.
Among the reforms that DBI should immediately enact:
- Hit slumlord violators with a fine—payable immediately—for at least $2,000 to $5,000 for each health/safety-code violation. The slumlord would be told he could reclaim 75-80% of the money only if he fully corrected the violation within 30 days. The remaining portion of the levied fine would go into the City coffers, to be shared among DBI and other City agencies.
- This would put the onus on the slumlord, not DBI. Appealing to his greed would ensure his willingness to comply with the ordered actions. As matters now stand, it is DBI who must repeatedly check with the slumlord to find out if its orders have been complied with.
- If the landlord failed to comply with the actions ordered within 30 days, the entire fine would go into the City’s coffers—to be divided among DBI and other agencies charged with protecting San Francisco residents.
- In addition. he would be hit again with a fine at least twice the amount of the first one.
- Inspectors for DBI should be allowed to cite landlords for violations that fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Health (DPH). They could then pass the information to DPH for its own investigation.
- If the DBI inspector later discovered that the landlord had not corrected the DPH violation within a designated time-period, DBI should be allowed to levy its own fine for his failure to do so.
- If DPH objects to this, DBI should propose that DPH’s own inspectors be armed with similar cross-jurisdictional authority. Each agency would thus have increased motivation for spotting and correcting health/safety violations that threaten the lives of San Francisco residents.
- This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors. And it would mean that whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting the necessary assistance. As matters now stand, many residents are confused by the conflicting jurisdictions of both agencies.
- DBI should insist that its Inspectors Division be greatly expanded. DBI can attain this by arguing that reducing the number of Inspectors cuts (1) protection for San Francisco renters–and (2) monies that could go to the general City welfare.
- The Inspection Division should operate independently of DBI. Currently, too many high-ranking DBI officials tilt toward landlords because they are landlords themselves.
- DBI should create a Special Research Unit to compile records on the worst slumlord offenders. Thus, a slumlord with a repeat history of defying DBI Notices of Violation could be treated more harshly than a landlord who was a first-time offender.
- Turning DBI into a revenue-producing agency would enable the City to raise desperately-needed revenues—in a highly popular way. Fining delinquent slumlords would be as popular as raising taxes on tobacco companies. Only slumlords and their hired lackey allies would object.
- DBI should legally require landlords to rehabilitate a unit every time a new tenant moves in, or have it examined by a DBI inspector every two years. A tenant can occupy a unit for ten or more years, then die or move out, and the landlord immediately rents the unit to the first person who comes along, without making any repairs or upgrades whatsoever.
- Slumlords, unlike drug-dealers, can’t move their buildings from one street or city to another. If they want to make money in San Francisco, they will have to submit to the jurisdiction of landlord-regulating agencies.
- DBI should require landlords to post their Notices of Violation in public areas of their buildings—and levy severe fines for failing to do so. When DBI orders a slumlord to take corrective action, s/he is the only one who is notified. If that slumlord refuses to comply with that directive, s/he is the only one who knows it. Given the pressing demands on DBI, weeks or months will pass before the agency learns about this violation of its orders. Tenants have a right to know if their landlord is complying with the law—so they can promptly notify DBI if a violation is occurring.
- Landlords should be legally required to give each tenant a list of the major city agencies (such as DBI, the Rent Board and the Department of Public Health) that exist to help tenants solve problems with their housing.
- DBI should launch—and maintain—a citywide advertising campaign to alert residents about its services. Everyone knows the FBI pursues bank robbers. But too many San Franciscans don’t even know that DBI exists, let alone what laws it enforces. This should be an in-your-face campaign: “Do you have bedbugs in your apartment? Has your stove stopped working? Are you afraid to ride in your building elevator because it’s always malfunctioning? Have you complained to your landlord and gotten the runaround? Then call DBI at—- Or drop us an email at_____.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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WHY REPUBLICANS WON IN 2024: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 13, 2024 at 12:17 amThere are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”
Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.
Example 1: Republicans organized a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.
Yet Democrats didn’t make a similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor did the Biden Justice Department indict those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 147 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
With the end of the Biden administration little more than two months away, not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason had been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would have been far more advanced than it is. Republicans who were raising funds for re-election campaigns would have been forced to raise them to pay huge legal bills.
They would have had far less time to plot to overthrow democracy. Instead, their attention would have been increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.
Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.
Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.
A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
There can be no doubt that after Trump’s win in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.
Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And Smith allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial.
Meanwhile, Trump won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol. His victory on November 5 guarantees he will not be prosecuted for any of his crimes.
To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.
To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.
For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.
America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The United States—and especially Democrats—has allowed itself to make that same fatal mistake.
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